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This Is The New Kinect For The Xbox One [UPDATE]

Today during the reveal of the Xbox One, Microsoft unveiled the new Kinect. This is what it looks like, and how it improves on the original, as well as how it registers your body. It can even track your heartbeat. These improvements are done with the purpose of putting the user at the center of…

EA Sports and Xbox One to Have ‘A Very Special Relationship’

FIFA, Madden, NBA Live and UFC will all launch for Xbox One in the next year, Andrew Wilson, EA Sports’ head, just said at the Xbox One event. They will be powered by the new EA Sports Ignite engine. Ignite is “new technology that allows players to make decisions with four times more calculations per…

Under The Hood Of The Xbox One

Microsoft’s Marc Whitten just lifted the hood on the Xbox One’s technical specifications. In short: 8 gigs of RAM, USB 3.0, Wi-Fi Direct, a Blu-Ray disc drive, 64-bit architecture and “practically silent operation.” Kinect 2.0 also gets a substantial upgrade. Whitten promised the integrated camera will have a wider field of view, and the sensor…

Snap Mode is the Xbox One’s Impressive New Interface

At today’s Xbox reveal event, Microsoft showed how their new console will change how you’ll interact with your TV. Snap Mode lets users run multiple functions simultaneously and switch between them with voice commands without having to shut them down individually. A demo showed live TV being shown on the TV and when a Microsoft…

Watch Live TV with the Xbox One

As was anticipated, the new Xbox One will function as a set-top cable box, allowing users to switch between TV and gaming video by voice command. In today’s Xbox One reveal, the console was shown swapping between DVD/streaming video playback, the cable input, a video game, and its Internet functionalities. A voice-activated television guide will…

We’re Liveblogging the Next Xbox Reveal Right Here

Microsoft is about to reveal their next generation Xbox console, and our own Stephen Totilo is at the conference in Washington state to report to you live. Watch him liveblog the festivities right here. The conference officially starts at 1pm EST, but should be seeing Stephen sooner than that while he settles in his seat.…

Here’s The View From The Xbox Reveal Event

In T-minus, oh, 45 minutes, Microsoft pops the top on its next console. You may have heard reports of buses, badges and big tents over social media. Our editor-in-chief, Stephen Totilo sends back this look at where the big news is going down today. The big meeting hall tent Microsoft erected for this event. Another…

Watch The Next Xbox Reveal Right Now, Live

Today is the big day for Microsoft, folks. It’s the next generation. The company behind that big box of X will finally be revealing the next piece of hardware in their line of gaming consoles, and you can watch the entire thing right here. The GameTrailers livestream, hosted by Kotaku friend Geoff Keighley, starts now—noon…

Now that they’ve got regular content updates in the bag, ArenaNet hopes to bring more players to its subscription-free MMO Guild Wars 2 by lowering the cost of entry to $49.99 for the regular edition and $69.99 for the digital deluxe. Hooray, $10 off.

With both the new UFC game and now NBA Live saying to expect news today, and FIFA already confirmed, signs point to EA Sports having some kind of ensemble appearance at the next Xbox event this afternoon.

Here’s what’s going on Talk Among Yourselves, our reader-written blog: Zarynx has a post discussing favorite in-game purchases, where she fondly cites the action figures of enemies in Brave Fencer Musashi. And GiantBoyDetective reveals the nerd-media-sourced names he’d give to his children. And you can always go join the voices talking about video games and…

Good Morning. We’re Ready To Xbox. [UPDATE]

Greetings from Washington State, Kotaku. I’ve parachuted in to check out the new Xbox, which will be revealed today. (Probably because Microsoft got tired of all the leaks, right?) We’ll have lots of coverage, including a livestream of the day’s big 1pm ET/10am PT Xbox Reveal conference. You know the drill. A trickle of coverage…

Sony Is Already Taking Shots At Microsoft On Twitter

While I happen to think the “console war” is one of the dumbest things ever conceived by humankind, there are few things as entertaining as watching corporations snipe at one another. So this got me giddy. Perhaps a bit jealous of today’s big Xbox Reveal, Sony’s PlayStation Europe account took a nice little jab at…

A Mutant Crop Of Plants Vs. Zombies Blooms On Facebook

While fans of the war between plant life and human undeath wait anxiously for July’s Plants Vs. Zombies 2, the eternal battle has spilled over into Plants Vs. Zombies Adventures, a Facebook game where planting virtual crops could save your life. Rather than the corridor-based battles of its big brother, Plants Vs. Zombies Adventures reverts…

Silas Greaves of Gunslinger Really Loves Shooting Guys in the Face

Case in point: a four-minute (!) launch trailer, consisting of Mr. Greaves shooting people in the face with a wide variety of weapons. While Techland’s latest entry into the Call of Juarez brand of shooters is looking better by the minute, I can’t help but be wary after The Cartel. We’ll see. Call of Juarez:…

For One Dollar, This Man Would Grovel at Your Feet

In Japan, there are different types of bows. Some of them are fairly casual. Others are more formal. But one type of bowing still brings a feeling of shame. And it’s sometimes used when people totally screw up. This style of bowing is called “dogeza” (土下座) and it’s often translated as “kneeling down on the…

Before He Killed Zombies, Leon Kennedy Was A Badass Cop

This short claymation clip by Lee Hardcastle is a Resident Evil prequel/alternate history. Of sorts. Leon Kennedy, a rookie cop, gets a little too eager on a drug bust, and it costs him. Well. At first. For a one-man job, this is mighty impressive. DRUG BUST DOODY [YouTube]

A Video Game That Doesn’t Actually Have Any Video

Video Game Sans Video is a project that satisfies just about all the criteria you need to call something a video game. Except, well, for the actual video. Michael Newman’s game instead plays like a live-action version of LittleBigPlanet, using a giant scrolling sheet of paper as the background while players control a motorised spaceship…

Why Be The Ruler In Civilization, When You Can Be One Of The Peasants

Yes, this is Minecraft. But it’s not a recreation of a pop culture icon/giant penis. It’s using the game for something really interesting. This modification to the game is called CivCraft, and to be crudely simplistic, casts you in the role of one of the poor little peons from a game of Civilization, as you…

Happy Birthday, Love, Oh, The Guys Who Made Journey

This isn’t a big deal. Let’s be clear on that. But it is a nice touch, the kind of nice touch that reminds you there are sometimes real, actual humans involved in the video game supply chain. Reader Kelsey bought a copy of the Journey artbook for his girlfriend’s birthday, and figured he’d try his…