Microsoft

Cop Fired For Making Racist Threats On Xbox Live

What’s dumber than a police officer saying “I get paid to beat up n*****s like you” out loud? Saying it into a microphone where someone else is recording it to put it on the internet. A Deputy from the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office has been fired after he was filmed making threats against an opponent…

Ori And The Blind Forest: The Kotaku Review

Pleasant. If I had to sum up Ori and the Blind Forest in one word, that would be it. The new Xbox One and PC platformer looks like a magnificently drawn kids’ fantasy book sprung to life. It has the lush, magical aesthetic and inoffensive charm that gamers have come to accept—and expect—from indie games.…

Now That’s A Disturbing Fighting Game Character

Do attractive female fighting game characters in skimpy outfits bother you? Then meet Killer Instinct‘s latest combatant, Hisako. You’ll like her. She’ll break your bones from the inside. Making her gameplay debut at PAX East this weekend, Hisako is one of the coolest fighting game character concepts I’ve seen in forever. Based on Japanese horror…

All The Indie Game News Out Of GDC

The Game Developer’s Conference is indie game central this year. There’s so much indie new that it’s difficult to keep track of it all. Here are the major announcements compiled into one great big list for your convenience. Release dates, as always, are vague and subject to change. Super Dungeon Bros. A four-player co-op brawler,…

Microsoft HoloLens Designer Killed In Hit-And-Run

Mike Ey, a 30-year-old software engineer for Microsoft’s HoloLens, was killed in a hit-and-run accident over the weekend, according to the local Seattle station Kiro TV. According to Kiro TV (via NeoGAF), local police said that Ey was rear-ended by another driver who was speeding “over 100 miles an hour” while driving on the highway…

Elite: Dangerous is coming to Xbox One this summer, Microsoft’s Phil Spencer announced today at GDC. Unexpected!

Screamride Is Great, But Players Are Making It Even Better

Is Frontier Development’s Xbox-exclusive amusement ride builder worth a play? That depends—how strong is your stomach? I played some Screamride live over the weekend, and I was impressed with two out of three of the game’s career tracks. I’m not much of a builder, so finishing up pre-built coasters in the Engineer mode wasn’t my…

Pneuma: Breath of Life: The Kotaku Review

The people who made Pneuma: Breath of Life are trying to convince players that their game is talking to them. Not, like, in terms of art direction, puzzle design or anything like that. It’s more in the vein of an actual conversation. Part of it is worth listening to, while the other part feels like…

Fast & Furious is coming to Forza Horizon 2 next month. According to the AP, a new standalone expansion called Forza Horizon 2 Presents Fast & Furious won’t require the main game. The $10 add-on will have a storyline that has players trying to acquire a bunch of new F&F-themed cars for the film franchise…

Xbox One Burgers Now Available in Hong Kong

Hungry? Why not have a tasty Xbox burger and a delicious beverage to wash it down? In Hong Kong, you can. Fast food chain Triple-O’s is teaming up with Microsoft for the Xbox One Burger. It’s available for a limited time only, and from the looks of it, the meals appear to be either the…

Halo: Master Chief Collection Has Been Broken For 100+ Days Now

It’s been four months since Halo: The Master Chief Collection came out for Xbox One, and unbelievably, the game is still broken. The matchmaking and lobby systems somehow still don’t work properly. For a complete, startling look at just how bad things have been, check out this full timeline (at Team Beyond) of problems, patches,…

I Just Took A Screenshot Directly From My Xbox One Dashboard

Members of Microsoft’s Xbox Dashboard Preview program are now enjoying the ability to tap a button twice or say “Xbox take a screenshot” and create a still image suitable for making your dashboard wallpaper—and not much else at the moment. The ability to actually share any of the screenshots taken via the Xbox One dashboard…

More Than a Third of 2014’s Big-Budget Games Got Day-One Patches

You may have had the feeling lately that the games you’ve been buying and playing didn’t quite get finished when they were shoved out onto store shelves. Well, a lot of them weren’t done baking. We’re a few years into a new console hardware cycle, one that promised to make games on the PS4, Wii…

Studio Behind Phantom Dust Reboot Shuts Down

Independent development studio Darkside Games, which was working on the planned reboot of the cult classic Phantom Dust, shut down this afternoon in the wake of news that Microsoft had cancelled their version of the game, Kotaku has learned. Around 50 people lost their jobs, according to sources at the studio. Microsoft, however, says they’re…

The Xbox One’s Upload Studio video editor just got a whole lot beefier. Videos can now be created with up to 15 segments with a maximum run-time of 30 minutes, and users now have access to transitions, title cards, green screen effects and other tools that separate a video hobbyist from a YouTube professional.

Kotaku ‘Shop Contest: Behind Microsoft’s Holographic Wall: Winners! 

After Microsoft showed us what Minecraft might look like enhanced by its futuristic Hololens technology, I asked our ‘shop-savvy readers to show us what would really be behind that shattered wall. They delivered. Big time. Wow, what a contest this was. So many entries. So many duplicate entries. Seems people enjoy The Shining, Attack on…

Finally, A GTA V Stunt Montage With Birds

All the jets are grounded. GTA V‘s birds are here to show how to pull tricks off properly. Stunt montages with bikes and jets have always been popular, so it was just a matter of time before someone made a parody focusing on a recently added feature: flying as birds. 8-Bit Bastard visits all the…

Kotaku ‘Shop Contest: Behind Microsoft’s Holographic Wall

This past week Microsoft debuted Hololens, a holographic Windows 10 interface that could hide a Minecraft-like game behind your walls. What else can the holographic Windows of the future help us hide? Strap on your ‘Shop Contest goggles, kids. Now before you get all excited, no porn. It’s not that it’s offensive so much as…

This Week In The Business: An (Over) Promising Future

QUOTE | “It did remind me of [Kinect]. You kind of want to scream ‘don’t over promise these things.'” – Designer Peter Molyneux of 22cans, talking about Microsoft HoloLens from his perspective as an early Kinect developer Elsewhere in the business of video games this past week … QUOTE | “There have been a lot…

If Microsoft is serious about PC games, Xbox One should be the real Steam Machine. Here’s some interesting reading fromVG247 on how Valve’s living room centric Steam Machine plot failed, and how Microsoft—fresh off a years-long stint of pretending PC gaming doesn’t exist—could partner with Steam and pick up where they left off. The gist:…