Microsoft

Feds Say Microsoft Contractor Made $500K Trafficking Modded Xbox 360s

A Washington man made almost half a million dollars selling Xbox 360s modified to play pirated games, the FBI alleges, but here’s the kicker—he did so while he was a Microsoft contractor, and even after he was sued by Activision for pirating its games. Shawn Guse, 27, of Bothell, Wash., five years ago paid Activision…

Here’s An Xbox One The Size Of Fifty People

Why is there a giant Xbox One in Vancouver? Why is it in a parking lot? Is it functional? Can it play Titanfall? Does it require an Internet connection to use? Is it sold without Kinect? These are just some of the questions we have to ask here. Seems like it’s part of some marketing…

Assassin’s Creed IV‘s AI Is Sometimes Impossible To Sneak Up On

Apparently it’s not just time and history that evolves in the Assassin’s Creed games, but the NPCs’ artificial intelligence too, as YouTuber cchrist1000 sadly experienced during his ACIV session. It might actually be impossible to sneak up on those guards without being caught. A glitch like this is truly the nightmare of any stealth game…

No, China, Master Chief’s Battle Suit Is Not Real

The U.S. military is working on new “smart armour.” And state-controlled China Central Television recently covered the gear by passing off fan-made Halo battlewear as U.S. military concepts. This is not a joke. The program was New Defence Observations, a military show (read: propaganda), on Channel 7. On the October 19 episode, which is recently…

Forget About Titanfall Ever Coming to PlayStation [Update]

In a conference call to investors, Electronic Arts’ Blake Jorgensen just said that Titanfall is, “for the life of the title,” exclusive to Xbox One, Xbox 360 and PC. So the game is not a timed exclusive to Microsoft platforms. Titanfall’s Microsoft exclusivity has been well known since the title was announced at E3 but…

Halo: Spartan Assault is Coming to Xbox 360 and Xbox One

Halo: Spartan Assault—the top-down, twin-stick shooter released over the summer for Windows 8 PCs and mobile devices—is coming to the Xbox 360 and Xbox One by the holidays, Microsoft said this morning. The game on consoles will feature a new online co-op mode, and new missions showcasing the mode. The Flood will also be an…

Microsoft has announced they hired TV and radio host Jonathan Ross to work as an executive producer with developers in the UK, including Lionhead and Rare. “We wanted to bring in new talent that would challenge the way we build games and the way we think about what an audience is and what is entertainment.”…

Rumored Xbox One Launch Issues Lead To Lots Of Questions

As we inch closer and closer to the release of next-gen consoles, we’re starting to learn more and more about their features—and some of what we’re hearing might not be great news for anyone who expected a totally stable experience at launch. Over the past few days, the Internet has exploded with drama surrounding the…

See What An Xbox One Dashboard (Might) Look Like In Action

This video could have been great. It shows the kind of thing a prospective buyer of a brand new console wants to see: menus, commands, switching between programs. The nuts and bolts of your every day experience. It’s a shame, then, that Microsoft decided to take such a “real” premise and make a staged advertisement…

Today’s New Batman Games Tease A Very Cool Possible Sequel

We don’t want to ruin any of the surprises in the new Batman: Arkham Origins and Batman: Arkham Origins: Blackgate games today—not if you don’t want to be spoiled. But if you do want to know about the very exciting future of the franchise that both games are teasing, keep reading. That was a spoiler…

The Xbox One’s TV Commercial Is Full Of TV and Games

Hype season has begun. We are less than a month away from the debut Xbox One and the spot above is one part of how Microsoft will be trying to sell their next-gen console to TV-watching folks around the world. The fusion of television watching and high-end gaming sits at the center of the “Xbox…

You’re Not Ready for MGSV. You Need Ground Zeroes to Prepare

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain will be divided into 2 parts: The prologue, Ground Zeroes, which takes place in 1975, and the main game, which takes place in 1984. Sound confusing? It’s actually done that way to make it less so. In a one-on-one interview with Weekly Famitsu, Kojima talked about the reasons…

In Kingdom Hearts III, Keyblades Can Transform Into So Many Things

Check out them guns on Sora. The D23 Expo Japan 2013 was an event last week at the Tokyo Disney Resort that celebrated both the 90th anniversary of the Walt Disney Company and the 30th anniversary of the Tokyo Disney Resort itself. Nomura was there with Japanese cast members to show the latest Kingdom Hearts…

Something Else Cool About The Xbox One’s New Achievements

Remember, the Xbox One’s new achievement display does more than just look fresher. It also lets multiple people earn separate achievements from within the same game, even logged onto the same console, and display that as its own colour-coded pop-up. Here’s an example, taken from around the 11:15 mark in this video You’ll notice at…

Hey, Remember The Xbox 360’s HD-DVD Drive? It Was A Thing.

Oh Microsoft. What were you thinking? When people point to Microsoft’s biggest folly of the last hardware generation, they’ll normally suggest either the Red Ring Of Death pandemic or an unhealthy obsession with Kinect. Both of those have been problems for Microsoft, sure, and I’m sure we’ll get to covering both of them in our…

This Generation’s Best Final Fantasys Weren’t Named “Final Fantasy”

This console generation saw only a few Final Fantasy games during its time in the sun but luckily two of them were amazing. Of course, I am not talking about Final Fantasy XIV—decent as it is after its relaunch—or any of the Final Fantasy XIIIs. No, I’m talking about Lost Odyssey and The Last Story…

Xbox Live Survey: Three Percent of Users Don’t Approve of Free Games?

When it was announced back at E3, the free-games-for-paid-subscribers deal called Games With Gold was supposed to last only until the Xbox One’s launch. Well, now it is officially continued as an “ongoing benefit.” That’s not what caught my eye about the announcement, however. “According to recent surveys, 97 percent of participating members have given…

What An Xbox One Achievement Looks Like

We knew that the way achievements work has changed…but did you know that they’ve also changed in terms of how they look? Here’s what getting an achievement on the Xbox One looks like in motion; GIF courtesy of Gearnuke. Microsoft has confirmed to Kotaku that these are in fact the new achievements. Here’s some slightly-obscured…

Battlefield 4‘s Beta Ends, Glitchy GIFs Emerge

The Battlefield 4 beta is officially over, and DICE says the game is ready to launch on October 29. This limited period of time was more than enough for those who participated to capture hilarious moments and glitches and share them with us. Let’s take a look. 64 people can do a lot more than…

Xbox One: Everything We Know

The Xbox One is out on November 22, and we know almost everything there is to know about Microsoft’s new console. For your convenience, we’re rounding up all of that information and putting it right here. As we continue to learn more about the Xbox 360’s successor, we’ll keep updating this post, so check back…