News Archive

7

Microsoft to remove DRM from Xbox One

By
Shawn Ryan
– Posted on June 19, 2013Posted in: News

Xbox One

It isn’t very often that our voices are heard, but it looks like Microsoft has been listening to consumer outcry, and has decided to remove most of the DRM features from the Xbox One. This info has been confirmed, and we’ll update this post as soon as the official details come from Microsoft.

Update: Xbox Wire has updated the Q&A confirming the reversal of the Xbox One’s DRM policies, originally reported by Giant Bomb. Here’s the official quote:

“Last week at E3, the excitement, creativity and future of our industry was on display for a global audience.

“For us, the future comes in the form of Xbox One, a system designed to be the best place to play games this year and for many years to come. As is our heritage with Xbox, we designed a system that could take full advantage of advances in technology in order to deliver a breakthrough in game play and entertainment. We imagined a new set of benefits such as easier roaming, family sharing, and new ways to try and buy games. We believe in the benefits of a connected, digital future.

“Since unveiling our plans for Xbox One, my team and I have heard directly from many of you, read your comments and listened to your feedback. I would like to take the opportunity today to thank you for your assistance in helping us to reshape the future of Xbox One.

Read the rest of this entry »

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Microsoft and Undead Labs continue negotiations for Class4, MMO follow-up to State of Decay

By
Jared Miller
– Posted on June 18, 2013Posted in: News

UndeadLabs_StateofDecay_HillHouse

Undead Labs’ State of Decay is the fastest-selling original XBLA game with over half a million purchases since its release. Naturally, the horde of ravenous fans want more, and Undead Labs would love to provide just that in the form of their MMO Class4. However, don’t expect it anytime soon.

Microsoft owns the IP rights to Class 4  after providing funding to Undead Labs to help in the development of State of Decay. Sanya Weathers, community manager for Undead, says until Microsoft and Undead Labs come to an agreement, Class 4 won’t get the go ahead.

Weathers explained the situation to Eurogamer: “We have to agree on where we think the technology is going to be in a few years (since the game will take a few years to develop); we have to agree that we have the same goals; and we have to agree on how we’ll collectively run and support the final game.” She adds, “Those discussions are still in progress.”

State of Decay—originally titled Class3—is Undead Labs’ precursor to Class4. During an interview with Joystiq, Jeff Strain, Undead’s founder, said Class3 was a stepping stone to Class4. “The only thing it won’t have is the massive player participation the sequel [Class4] will have.” As they work on getting their next game into development, Undead also must deal with their recent title update failing to make changes the developer promised. You can download the State of Decay demo here and read our review here.

Sources: Eurogamer and Joystiq

 

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0

PSA: Thunder Wolves, Storm, Fireburst out now; Dungeons & Dragons: Chronicles of Mystara tomorrow

By
Steve Melton
– Posted on June 18, 2013Posted in: Media, News, Screenshots, Videos

dnd Mystara

It’s been a busy week, what with E3 and several of the staff attending. As such, let’s play catch up on a few releases. Thunder Wolves, an action-arcadey chopper game in the vein of the classic Strike games released on June 8 for 800 MSP. The gameplay is quite decent, but while it tries to pull off a Blood Dragon style spoof of 80′s action it falls a little short. If you’re looking for a fun, arcade action game definitely check out the trial.

Fireburst and Storm both released last Wednesday for 800 MSP each. Fireburst is your typical offroad racer with an interesting boost gameplay mechanic. Fans of the FlatOut games should definitely take a look. Storm is a really slick puzzle game that puts players in control of the elements. It’s really difficult to describe, but if that sounds interesting you can view a gameplay trailer after the jump.

Classic DnD gamers will have something to cheer for tomorrow when Dungeons & Dragons: Chronicles of Mystara hits virtual shelves at 1200 MSP. It includes two classic Dungeons and Dragons games: Tower of Doom and Shadow over Mystara. Both are beat em’ ups with elements of role playing. For the uninitiated, think Streets of Rage with some Castle Crashers.

Read the rest of this entry »

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State of Decay’s Title Update in a state of emergency

By
Brandin Tyrrel
– Posted on June 16, 2013Posted in: Breaking News, News

StateofDecayTitleUpdate

Undead Labs’ zombie apocalypse survival simulator has run into a bad patch today, literally. State of Decay debuted earlier this month to record-breaking sales and critical acclaim, which we echoed in our official review. However, like most games of this scope and size, known issues and newly discovered bugs have crept up in the release version of the title. Undead Labs was quick to identify, describe and set about addressing these concerns while maintaining transparency with their players about the process at large and the in-coming patch.

Unfortunately, through some sort of publishing error, the update engineered to remedy these issues is not applying the fixes correctly. Title Update 1 released to the majority of players this past Friday evening, and soon after reports began to trickle in stating some elements were not addressed. As Undead Labs’ founder Jeff Strain explained on the studio’s forums, “Reports started coming in that other bugs we had verified internally as fixed were apparently not fixed on the live version of the game.”

Strain continues in a message to State of Decay‘s growing fan base, offering up more of the process transparency the development team has worked to foster with their community.

“First, I want to apologize. This is not acceptable, and you deserve better than this.

Second, we are on the phone with our publisher right now getting everyone mobilized. There is nothing we can do at UL to fix this problem. Once the update has been handed off, the process of getting it to you and active is something only the Xbox people can handle. So, we’re calling in the troops to come in and get going on solving this problem immediately.

Third, although we can’t directly fix the problem, you are OUR players, and we’d like you to know we’re exploring ways to express our appreciation for your patience.

In the meantime, see “first.”

Though Undead Labs don’t, and can’t, have an ETA for a resolution at this time, they’re prepared to roll the TU1 fixes into TU2 as a worst case scenario.

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Zombie Driver HD receives stability update, downloadable content

By
Brandin Tyrrel
– Posted on June 14, 2013Posted in: News

Zombie Driver HD, the vehicular option for those looking to give zombies the what for, recently received an update correcting problems some players may be experiencing. On the bug-squashing list are screen tearing issues and improvements to the overall frame rate, which we encountered last year, during our official review. In addition to the aforementioned, developer EXOR Studios stated the update “fixes a number of smaller issues.” This attention under the hood should help players splatter their way through the newly released downloadable content.

Dubbed the Apocalypse Pack, the DLC introduces two vehicles available in all game modes, along with a new Slaughter Mode map, the Military Base. The first of the new rides is Chaos 126p, a teacup monster truck with tight handling for fast and nimble maneuvers. Second, a custom-built monstrosity christened the Auroch, combining the bulk of a semitruck with the carrying capacity of a military-grade APC. The Apocalypse Pack can be purchased for 240 MSP, but be sure to check out both downloadable vehicles and the new map in the trailer above.

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6

XBLA hits 600 games

By
Nathan Bowring
– Posted on June 14, 2013Posted in: News

XBLA-600

Today XBLA hit an important milestone thanks to two special Friday releases, Fireburst and Storm. These new titles have boosted the XBLA library to a total of 600 games. The image above shows every game to release on the platform from the beginning. What’s more amazing is that only a year ago the 500 game milestone was hit, when Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown and Bang Bang Racing released June 6, 2012.

Big thanks to @Lifelower for telling us about this great milestone.

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4

Peter Molyneux says Sony and Microsoft acted like ‘two frat houses’

By
Scott Baker
– Posted on June 14, 2013Posted in: News

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After the nuclear fallout of this E3′s next-generation showdown, Fable creator Peter Molyneux voiced his personal disappointment with the demeanor of our console makers. Speaking with GamesIndustry.biz, he said, “It seemed to me like two frat houses. It’s like ‘oh you’ve done that, so we’ll do this.’ They are kind of defining each other’s strategy. I think Sony changed its strategy because of what Microsoft did and Microsoft changed its strategy due to what Sony did.”

After the smug presentation of Jack Tretton, CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment, it’s not hard to understand what Molyneux is addressing. But he was also dismayed by the mixed messaging of Microsoft leading up to this point. Read the rest of this entry »

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2

New reputation and matchmaking system to debut on Xbox One

By
Justin Mellor
– Posted on June 14, 2013Posted in: News

SmartMatch_Toast_Forza_APPROVED

After the Microsoft E3 Press Conference, Marc Whitten, Chief Product Officer for Xbox revealed more about the new additions to Xbox Live service. In a letter to members, the Chief Product Officer mentioned many new features coming to Xbox One and Xbox Live, including a new reputation system. The system will be unified across Xbox Live and all games, and will give the player more control over who they play with. “Your new Xbox Live Reputation plays a prominent and valuable role rewarding healthy participation while reducing troublemakers and cheaters,” wrote Whitten.

In addition, the Smart Match system will match players with more suitable opponents. Skill, language, and reputation will be a factor. In addition, waiting in lobbies will be eliminated with asynchronous matchmaking. This allows a player to play a game, watch TV, or other media on the console while the matchmaking works.

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2

Microsoft Points set to expire within one year of transition to local currency

By
Kevin Plumtree
– Posted on June 13, 2013Posted in: News

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Ever since the introduction of Microsoft Points, users have complained about its scaling seeming arbitrary and how the conversion rate is meant to make things look cheaper.  In the United States, for example, where 80 MSP equals 1 dollar, the conversion makes a 5 dollar game cost 400 MSP, which appears to cost less than it actually is.  So when Microsoft announced at their recent E3 press conference that all prices would be in local currency starting fall 2013, users understandably were pleased with the change in policy.  However, this transition comes with a catch: after the Microsoft Points currently in user accounts are converted to local currency, they becoming a ticking clock.

Users will have until fall 2014 to use the converted currency or else will lose it all due to expiration.  While future funds deposited into accounts will not expire, this set date for expiration of existing funds is problematic for users who do not use their points often or have stockpiled points over the years via sales.  Microsoft Points cards will still be sold until replaced by Xbox Gift Cards, and accepted well through 2014 and a limited time after.  Knowing this, though, it might be wise to hold off on purchasing more Microsoft Points than you intend to use in the near future.

Source: Xbox.com via Gametrailers

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0

Twitch streaming to be integrated with Xbox One

By
Justin Mellor
– Posted on June 13, 2013Posted in: News

Twitch_Logo_highres

Twitch, the video streaming service and community will be coming to Xbox One. The service will allow Xbox Live Gold members to stream games using the hardware integrated the console. The Twitch community, a sub-community to Justin.Tv, currently broadcasts gaming events and tournaments across multiple platforms.“Live broadcasting has continued to grow in popularity, but sharing your console experience has never been this easy,” said Twitch CEO Emmett Shear in a press release. “Xbox Live Gold is enabling the ability to both upload your gameplay directly to Twitch and to stream Twitch content on Xbox One. The impact of this level of console integration will be a true game changer.”

It is expected, but not confirmed, that Twitch will be integrated in to many, if not all of the Xbox One games.

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