Microsoft

‘Flinch’ Is Going Away For Halo 5, Developers Say

“Flinch,” or the penalty of your aiming reticle getting moved up when shot, has long been a controversial feature in the Halo games. But that flinch animation that players have been noticing in Halo 5‘s beta will soon be removed, according to 343’s Josh Holmes. The flinch feature appeared most notoriously in Halo 4, which…

A friendly reminder: if you’re hoping to get an Xbox One for $350, you only have a few more days to do so. In a post on the Xbox Wire today, Microsoft said that the $50 discount expires this coming Saturday, January 3rd. You can almost afford a brand new game with those savings! via…

China Does Not Require Region Locked Consoles

Back when the Xbox One was announced for China, one thought came to mind: would it be region locked? When the console was released earlier this year, it was region locked and completely neutered. Now, it turns out, the region locking put into effect by Microsoft might have been self-imposed. Sina games reports that over…

Hackers Explain Why They Supposedly Took Down PSN and Xbox Live

On Christmas day, many gamers around the world found that they couldn’t play many of their favorite games anymore. The reason? The online services powering these games, such as PSN and Xbox Live, were down—and a group of alleged hackers claimed responsibility for it. Today, Xbox Live seems to mostly be up and running. PSN…

Xbox Live And PlayStation Network Knocked Offline For Much Of Christmas [Update 3]

We hope you weren’t planning to play many games online on Christmas. Xbox users in North America and Europe are having difficulties logging into Xbox Live today, and PlayStation owners are suffering similar problems. Some Internet troublemakers are claiming they knocked both offline. Bah humbug to this. While most of our team are away from…

Sunset Overdrive’s New Expansion Is Short But Sweet

Sunset Overdrive, the silly new shooter from the creators of Ratchet & Clank, got its first story-based expansion today, The Mystery Of The Mooil Rig. The DLC adds a lot of great stuff to the game, and also brings some welcome improvements. Because it’s so great, however, I wish there was more to it. As…

Microsoft Sorry For Broken Halo Games, Giving Away Free Stuff

In an effort to make good on the troubled launch of the Xbox One’s Halo: The Master Chief Collection, Microsoft announced today that they’re giving anyone who played the game some free stuff, including a copy of an upcoming remastered version of Halo 3: ODST. In a letter posted to the Xbox website, 343 Industries…

Flying Jetskis And Other New GTA V Myths

With the new gen versions of Grand Theft Auto V released and tons of new content added to the game, it was inevitable for the GTA Mythbusters series to return and confirm a bunch of new tricks and funny little exploits. This time it’s all about invulnerable monster trucks, pigeons avoiding wanted levels and military…

In China, The Xbox One Is Now $80 Cheaper

Microsoft’s Xbox One has had a pretty rough time in China. Despite good early sales, the system is having problems, and now with the looming PlayStation 4, Microsoft and its retail vendors have resorted to dropping the price of the console. According to Sina.com‘s gaming channel, Microsoft has dropped the price of the Xbox One…

The Xbox Dashboard Has Come A Long Way Since 2001

Oh for the days before Microsoft’s torrid love affair with stacked rectangles, back when curves were the order of the day, and orange seemed like a great idea. Inspired by a Reddit post from couchpotato9099 with images borrowed from Redditor eiketsujinketsu’s super-smooth “non-potato” version of theanimated GIF, this image is a monument to falling in…

Xbox One Finally Outsells The PS4 (In America)

The PS4’s reign as the best-selling next-gen console is over. At least for one month. Having ditched Kinect, cut the priceand aggressively bundled its console in the lead-up to the holiday season, Microsoft has announced that during November the Xbox One finally outsold the PS4 in the US. By how much we don’t know, but…

Sunset Overdrive is getting a story-based expansion this month that adds an offshore oil rig and two new water-based traversal abilities to the game. It’s called “The Mystery of Mooil Rig,” and it comes out December 23rd. Now might be a good time to take Stephen and Kirk’s advice and give the game another shot!

Flight Simulator Fans Are in for a Treat on PC

You might remember Microsoft Flight Simulator. Ten games were released in the series, the last one being Flight Simulator X in 2006. Later, in 2012, we got a free-to-play followup called Microsoft Flight, which has since been shut down. But now, it’s time to relive the glory days with Flight Simulator X: Steam Edition Dovetail…

Xbox Japan Boss Is Stepping Down, Going to the U.S.

Long-time Microsoft exec Takashi Sensui is resigning as head of Xbox Japan. He won’t be leaving Microsoft, however, and is going to work at the company’s Redmond HQ. Famitsu reports that Sensui, who took over Xbox Japan in 2006, will be working at the General Manager for the Interactive Entertainment Business at Microsoft’s main office.…

Dragon Age: Keep Has 300 Different Choices

If you include all of the race and gender choices for your protagonists as well as all the decisions you can have them make, then there are 300 different options. Most of them are pretty minor, but it leads to more than 1,427,247,692,705,959,881,058,285,969,449,495,136,382,746,624 different possible world states for Dragon Age: Inquisition. Damn. If you’re interested…

Someone Remade A Bunch Of Classic Custom Halo 3 Maps In The New Halo

The ability to create and tinker with custom maps in the Halo series was first introduced in Halo 3‘s Forge mode. Players went wild with it, creating all sorts of maps and introducing new gameplay rules to go along with it. Take, for instance, Duck Hunt, where the objective isn’t exactly a team versus team…

Xbox One Review Update: One Year Later

Stop waiting. If you can afford it, it’s time to get a new-gen console, and the Xbox One is a worthwhile one to get. It’s been a year since the console’s launch, and Microsoft’s third home console finds itself in an interesting spot. On the one hand, many of its initial promises—to unite the devices…

Never Alone: The Kotaku Review

When was the last time a video game told you about a whole other culture? Took you somewhere remote you’d only heard about in passing, and let the people who’ve lived there speak to you in a generations-old voice? Never Alone does that all-too-rare thing and does it very well. A small, independently-produced video game…

There’s Actually A Point To Halo‘s Dumbest Achievement

Halo: The Master Chief Collection has a so-called “mystery” achievement, whose description is simply “inscrutable, mysterious.” The way to unlock it might seem totally arbitrary (and kinda lame), but it actually ties into a story from Halo‘s distant past. As seen in videos like this one from OneTickShaka, unlocking the achievement is as simple as…

Microsoft’s Gamble Worked Xbox One Weekly Sales Triple, Exceed PS4

On November 2nd, Microsoft announced that the Xbox One console would see a temporary $50 price cut. The move was a clear attempt to bolster sales going into the holiday season… and it looks like it’s paid off “Sales have skyrocketed since the new price took effect.” Yusuf Mehdi, vice president of marketing for Xbox…