Microsoft

Microsoft’s Caption A.I. Is Sometimes Right, Sometimes Stupid

Microsoft has launched a new CaptionBot, and the results range from impressively spot on to bwah. Simply by uploading a photo to CaptionBot, it will describe what it sees. Keep in mind, the A.I. is still learning, but damn, there’s so much it doesn’t know. It does know this guy. Good. He’s important. Amazing! It…

Fable Legends shut down today. People who bought items in the game via microtransactions should be be getting refunds sent to their linked Xbox or Windows Store accounts. The in-development, free-to-play multiplayer game was the last thing made by legendary British game studio Lionhead

This Is Windows Solitaire In 2016

Welcome to tonight’s instalment of “Game Ads For Dads”. Actually, Granddads might be closer to the mark here. Good on Microsoft for trying to explain all this shit in a uniquely (for video games) clear and concise way, but the fact this promo takes two minutes to explain what’s going on—or needs explaining at all—is…

Age of Empires II Buildings, In LEGO Form

Here are some nice LEGO versions of essential medieval buildings from Age of Empires II by a group of LEGO enthusiasts. An Archery Range by Mark of Falworth and Barracks by Andrew JN above, and a few more below. Great designs (with very good rooftops!) and with the old-school minifigs added, these builds reminds me…

Gears Of War 4: The First Trailer

It’s time for Gears of War: Son Of Marcus Fenix Sorry Mike, no more statues of Marcus in this debut trailer for the game. But we do get a continuation of the series’ penchant for covers (complete with bad timing), so there’s…that. To refresh, some gameplay was shown off at E3 last year Gears of…

Quantum Break’s PC Version Sure Sounds Broken

I started playing Quantum Break on Xbox One last night and was surprised by how much I liked it. If I’d been playing on PC, sounds like it would’ve been a different story. I raised an eyebrow last week when I heard the PC version’s main menu didn’t have a quit button—never the sign of…

Gears of War 4 Comes Out on October 11

The next chapter in the Xbox-exclusive shooter series will be hitting this fall, and players will have to opportunity to sample a multiplayer beta on April 18. First shown at last year’s E3, Gears of War 4 introduces a crop of new characters to the planet of Sera. Folks who’ve played the Gears of War:…

Killer Instinct’s Season Three Saves The Most Exciting Addition For Later

New fighters, balance changes and the launch of the Windows 10 version of Killer Instinct are nice and all, but its the single-player Shadow Lords game mode coming later in the year that excites me most about Killer Instinct season three. Battletoad Rash, barbarian Tusk, former teen fighter Kim Wu and Halo’s Arbiter headline the…

Meanwhile in Japan, Microsoft’s A.I. Chatbot Has Become an Otaku

This was bound to happen. So were the questions about Hitler. In the West, Microsoft launched Tay, an A.I. chatbot designed to appeal to the youth. Its rollout was, well, not good. In Japan, however, Microsoft had previously launched a schoolgirl chatbot called Rinna. Schoolgirl. Chatbot. Japan. Of course. For the past couple months, Rinna…

GTA V Player Completes Insane Parkour Map In Record Time

Nearly impossible, custom-made parkour maps are a popular part of GTA Online, with their very own community. They test the limits of the game’s engine, which sometimes results in some truly spectacular runs. This is Albert using an Enduro bike (which is great for wall rides) on a really evil map made by Retro maniA,…

Microsoft Releases AI Twitter Bot That Immediately Learns How To Be Racist

“Hellooooooo world!!!” wrote Microsoft’s new AI bot in its first tweet yesterday morning. By the end of the day, it had declared that Hitler did nothing wrong Tay, launched yesterday, is an artificially intelligent bot that’s designed to appeal to teens and younger 20-somethings. Its Twitter bio reads “Microsoft’s A.I. fam from the internet that’s…

Maki Roll, a professional cosplayer and dancer, has written a fascinating essay about Microsoft’s recent GDC party controversy She examines the event from a dancer’s perspective, and takes a closer look at what the backlash says about an industry grappling with the increased visibility of women’s issues.

Xbox Survey Wonders If You’d Trade In Your Digital Games For Store Credit

Refunds notwithstanding, digital video game purchases are normally a one-way street, but what if they weren’t? A question from a recent Xbox survey asks gamers if they’d part with their digital acquisitions for 10 percent store credit. The image belowpopped up on Reddit yesterday, and the hypothetical it presents is interesting. Trading in a $60…

Microsoft Says They Regret Holding GDC Party With School Girl Dancers [UPDATE]

Hours after hosting a “women in gaming” luncheon at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, Microsoft threw a party with scantily clad dancers in school girl outfits. It wasn’t a good look, and the company has since apologized. The photos surfaced after a series of tweets by Tin Man Games editor Kamina Vincent brought…

Xbox One Gets Another ‘Limited’ Price Drop

The Xbox One will drop to $300 for a “limited time” next week, Microsoft said today. In other words, don’t ever plan to spend more than that on the console. See, Microsoft has a habit of announcing “limited” hardware discounts that transform into permanent ones, which is bad news for anyone who buys at the…

Nice New Controllers, Microsoft

Microsoft has been on a roll lately with its special edition Xbox One controllers. The Elite is almost perfect, the Lunar White is gorgeous…and now there are these guys. They’re called Dusk Shadow (the blue one) and Copper Shadow (the…copper one). They’re regular controllers at a regular price, just with that nice gradient effect down…

Kinect Involved In Ancient Egypt Kerfuffle 

Last year, a pair of German artists claimed to have “stolen” scans of a priceless bust of Queen Nefertiti—housed in Berlin’s Neues Museum—using nothing but a Kinect. Now, experts are lining up to call bullshit. The artists, Nora al-Badri and Jan Nikolai Nelles, say they used “a modified version” of the Kinect to take the…

Last Monday, Microsoft closed Lionhead Studios; next Monday, Sony is holding a job fair for the former employees. Ex-Lionhead developers will be able to network with folks from various SCEE studios: Guerrilla, Evolution, Media Molecule, etc.

Bill Gates: ‘I Will Look Into’ A New Age Of Empires

Microsoft co-founder and billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates had an AMA on Reddit yesterday, so of course he was asked a question about…Age of Empires Never mind that the dude doesn’t really have much to do at Microsoft these days, when le-click saw an opening (via PC Gamer), he damn well took it, asking: Mr. Gates,…

Epic Games Founder Slams Microsoft For Trying To ‘Monopolize’ PC Gaming [UPDATE]

This week, Microsoft has touted a new initiative that they’ve said will unify platforms, making it easier to for developers to release games on both PC and Xbox One. But at least one major developer isn’t thrilled with Microsoft’s plans. In an opinion piece published in The Guardian this morning, Epic Games co-founder Tim Sweeney…