All the games from Microsoft’s E3 event
Right before Microsoft kicked off its E3 event, Graeme Boyd told us to expect games, games and… more games. True to his word, Redmond spent the full presentation talking about the new generation’s latest games, including titles from the Call of Duty, Forza and Halo franchises. It was a massive list of announcements, and a huge day for any Xbox One owner. Did you miss all the fun? You can go back and read our liveblog right here, or simply read on for a full rundown of Microsoft’s big E3 announcements.
Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare
Is Titanfall’s world too far-flung into the future for you? Then pay attention to Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, the long-running franchise’s new future-looking series. Microsoft’s E3 briefing didn’t nail down a specific year for the title, but it has all the hallmarks of an imagined future war: holographic gun readouts, magic flying grenades, mech suits, future tanks and augmented soldier armor.
Forza Horizon 2
Been playing Forza 5? You’ve already got wheels on Forza Horizon 2′s tracks. This Xbox exclusive racer hits September 30th, and promises more cars, more tracks and a social experience that plays nice with your existing Forza 5 profile.
Evolve
Been looking forward to Evolve, the futuristic team-shooter from the minds that spawned the original Left 4 Dead? Looks like Xbox One owners will get first crack at the beta this fall, not to mention exclusive DLC. Not familiar with it? Read this and catch up, man!
Assassin’s Creed: Unity
Find playing the part of a deadly Assassin a little too solitary? This is the game for you. Staged during the French revolution, Assassin’s Creed: Unity lets you team up with three friends for co-op murder liberation activities.
Dragon Age: Inquisition
Giant reptiles, spiders and fantasy landscapes are coming in Dragon Age: Inquisition. Microsoft showed off a gorgeous trailer teasing plenty of environments, tons of detail and, of course, dragons. Oh, and its DLC is hitting the Xbox first, naturally.
Sunset Overdrive
Looking for an action packed cautionary tale about the contents of your favorite energy drink? That’s Sunset Overdrive: Insomniac’s brightly colored, free-running horde shooter with eight-player co-op support. This quirky action game is an attitude-heavy, completely silly, over-the-top monster romp, and we have to admit, it looks pretty fun. Oh, and it’s an Xbox One exclusive.
Super Ultra Dead Rising 3 Arcade Remix Hyper Edition EX Plus Alpha
And the award for the most excessive video game title of the decade goes to Super Ultra Dead Rising 3 Arcade Remix Hyper Edition EX Plus Alpha, an Xbox Live exclusive based on Capcom’s zombie apocalypse series. Dead Rising has always been a silly series, but this Arcade-style remix takes it to a new level, outfitting players with silly costumes sourced from all of Capcom’s franchises. Not enough? Don’t worry — the more humbly named Dead Rising 3 will be getting new DLC later this year, too.
Fantasia: Music Evolved and Dance Central:Spotlight
Pick up an Xbox One before Microsoft axed its Kinect requirement? Put on your dance shoes: Harmonix just announced Dance Central: Spotlight. Harmonix head-honcho Alex Rigopulos bounced back and forth between teasing the title’s downloadable return and reminding us that Disney’s Fantasia: Music Evolved is on the way, too. Plenty on the way for the rhythmically inclined.
Fable Legends
Miss the land of Albion? Don’t fret: it’s back. The franchise’s latest adventure features a multiplayer bent, highly stylized visuals and even the ability to play as the villain (in an isometric view, no less!) The game’s multiplayer beta launches this fall: check out FableLegends.com to sign up.
Project Spark
No, Project Spark isn’t a new game announcement but Microsoft found a reason to sneak it into its E3 presser anyway: Conker. For the unfamiliar, this quirky squirrel was the rude protagonist of Conker’s Bad Fur Day – a charming, if crude platformer from Rare’s N64 days. Now the alcoholic anti-hero has found an exclusive home on Project Spark. Super weird, we know.
Ori and the Blind Forest
Not interested in making your own 3D, free-roaming video game? That’s okay, Microsoft is showing off simpler games, too: Ori and the Blind Forest is a gorgeous, watercolored 2D platformer. It’s cute, dark and potentially creepy — everything we want out of the indie scene.
Halo: The Master Chief Collection
If you read Engadget, you knew this was coming — but Microsoft thought it’d be a good idea to make it official, too. Halo: The Master Chief Collection remasters the first four Halo games, but still keeps each game plugging along on their original engines. Meaning that you can get the exact same experience you had when each title was new, but with better graphics. It also has over 100 multiplayer maps and, wouldn’t you know, exclusive access to Halo 5′s multiplayer beta.
Inside
Dig the atmospheric wonderland of Playdead’s Limbo? Then pay attention to Inside, the company’s upcoming 2.5D puzzle platformer. The team didn’t reveal much about this game, but it’ll bring a creepy, dystopian prison experience to your Xbox One sometime next year.
Rise of the Tomb Raider
Apparently Lara Croft’s last adventure was pretty traumatizing, because the reboot’s sequel starts with the hero in a therapy session. Don’t worry though, she overcomes (or embraces?) her issues and charges right back into action: this game teases plenty of bow-slinging, tomb raiding action — but it won’t be in your livingroom until holiday 2015.
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The Witcher III: Wild Hunt
Geralt is back, and now he’s wandering through a huge, open-ish landscape. Oh, and taking down huge mythical creatures, of course. This demo was overloaded with action, but it did stutter a bit in the heat of battle. Hopefully that framerate drop will pick back up before it launches next spring.
Phantom Dust
Here’s a franchise revival we didn’t expect: Phantom Dust. This title was an action / strategy game for the original Xbox, and a bit of a cult classic. Unfortunately, Ken Lobb gave us few details to go on for the new game — just a piano-backed battle between two magically glowing mages.
Tom Clancy’s The Division
Looking for a tactics-laden realistic shooter? The Tom Clancy brand has always delivered on that front. The franchise’s latest game, The Division, teased us plenty last year, but it’s back again with a desolate looking train station, a holographic map overlay and a pretty well destroyed Times Square. We were never much for kitschy tourism anyway.
Scalebound
If Dragon Age doesn’t have quite enough mythical beasts for you, here’s another game shock-full of ‘em: Scalebound. Platinum Games’ latest action series features a dragon-slaying archer who sports scaled armor, swords and a pair of Beats-style headphones. Makes sense — the ancient craft of killing monsters had to come into the modern era eventually, right?
Crackdown
Fully destructible environments, cell-shaded weapons and lots and lots of explosions: Crackdown is back. There aren’t a lot of details just yet, but the series revival seems to have player-controlled aircraft, remote explosives and the ability to destroy entire skyscrapers. Neat.
ID@Xbox
Not every game during Microsoft’s presser got its own dedicated summery, but that doesn’t mean we didn’t get peek. The outfit’s ID@Xbox trailer (as seen above) teased a slew of indie titles, including Aztez, Forced, Knigh Squad, White Night, Spectra, Cuphead, Hyper Light Drifter, Divekick, Habitat, Hellraid and tons more. It’s a serious overload.
‘Halo: The Master Chief Collection’ coming to Xbox this fall, Halo 5 beta in December
The next installment of the Halo series isn’t coming out until next year, so there’s plenty of time to revisit the franchise and catch up on the timeline. Given today’s consoles, however, the four games featuring the Master Chief look like they could use a touch-up. As we reported two weeks ago, Microsoft confirmed Halo: The Master Chief Collection, which is a HD remastered collection of Halo: Combat Evolved, Halo 2, Halo 3 and Halo 4. The new setup comes courtesy of 343 Industries and will be coming to Xbox on November 11th (the 10th anniversary of Halo 2‘s release) with the multiplayer experience intact, including all DLC; in addition, you’ll be able to enjoy the multiplayer beta of Halo 5: Guardians this December.
Like a 4-tiered sandwich of #Halo goodness for $59.99. Halo: The Master Chief Collection. #OnlyOnXboxOne #XboxE3 pic.twitter.com/EoNXioIiPt
– Xbox (@Xbox) June 9, 2014
All four games will be practically unchanged, though they will come in 1080p and will run at 60fps; in Halo 2 you’ll have the option to switch back-and-forth from the original graphics to the Xbox One engine whenever you want, much like the anniversary edition of Combat Evolved. The soundtracks from the first two games will also be replaced with new music. Every difficulty level, map and mission from all four games will come unlocked, which means you’ll be able to play everything from the start, as well as curate playlists and mission types.
Those who purchase The Master Chief Collection will be able to access the multiplayer beta of Halo 5: Champions coming out this December, as well as a Steven Spielberg-backed live-action TV series called Halo: Nightfall, which will introduce a new character in the lead-up to Halo 5 next year.
Dance Central returns to Xbox as a download-only game
Kinect may no longer be a mandatory part of the Xbox One experience, but there could still be an incentive to pick one up: Harmonix has just used Microsoft’s E3 keynote to unveil Dance Central Spotlight, a revival of its long-serving rhythm game series. Apart from delivering the visual upgrades you’d expect with a new generation of hardware, the title promises more dance routines and a fitness mode that will give you a proper workout. While more details of the game mechanics have yet to come, Spotlight will be a download-only release when it arrives on the Xbox One in September.
What you need to know about the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3)
Spring rains are ending; the R train tunnel is nearly through with repairs (after being ravaged by Hurricane Sandy); and we’re nowhere near Engadget HQ in downtown Manhattan. Alas, it’s early summer: time for the Electronic Entertainment Expo once more. The annual game industry trade event, commonly referred to as “E3,” unofficially kicks off today in Los Angeles. A quartet of press conferences start at 9AM PT, with Microsoft and Sony bookending the day’s proceedings. But wait — what’s all the fuss about? “What’s the deal with E3?” you say in your best Jerry Seinfeld voice.
In short, E3 is a big marketing event for the game industry. In reality, E3 is much, much more than that.
WHAT IS IT?
E3 — the so-called Electronic Entertainment Expo — is a three-day game industry trade show in Los Angeles, California. It draws game makers, publishers, marketing and press all into the same venue, the Los Angeles Convention Center, for an annual marketing blitz aimed at showcasing the coming holiday’s big games. It’s where the CEOs, executives and game makers of Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo and many others make grandiose stage presentations announcing new hardware and software. It’s where game consoles are announced, interviews take place and deals are brokered. It’s where Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime originally said, “My body is ready,” and where former PlayStation head Kaz Hirai said, “Riiiiiiiidge Racerrrr!” It’s the place where many, many gaming memes originated.
To understand the event more clearly, you must first know that a tremendous portion of the game industry’s money is earned during holiday sales. What’s “tremendous” in this case? Try over one-third in 2013 alone. “But last year, right around the holidays, both the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 launched!” you protest. Fair point! In 2012, the number was even higher: Just shy of 40 percent of the game industry’s money was earned in the holiday season (Oct. 1st through Dec. 31st). That’s not an aberration; it’s the standard.
As such, the game industry cares an awful lot about making a big splash with holiday plans in… June. It might sound early, but there are just four months between June and October; for many game publishers, it’s the beginning of a final marketing push before a game’s big holiday release.
Of course, the world of video games is wide and varied; much of what you read above applies directly to the biggies: Call of Duty, Battlefield, Madden, Halo, etc. Though smaller games have a bigger presence than ever at E3, it’s still primarily a trade event aimed at showcasing blockbuster games that cost millions of dollars.
HOW DOES IT WORK?
Though the show “officially” runs from Tuesday through Thursday of whatever week it falls on (the second week of June in recent years), the show really begins on Monday. This year, Microsoft’s starting the show with a press briefing at 9AM PT, followed by Electronic Arts, then Ubisoft, then Sony in the evening. None of the briefings are in the same venue, and they occasionally overlap. If you were standing outside of downtown LA’s Orpheum Theater, for instance, around noon PT today, you might find an Engadget editor scurrying out ahead of the presentation ending. They’re not just going to get more coffee; they’re heading to the next event to hold a spot in line. Such is the first day of E3.
In the case of us, we liveblog; we interview; we run from place to place while sharing our favorite Luigi death stare GIFs along the way. Heck, last year we even did live broadcasts before and after the presentations.
E3 goes “official” on Tuesday at noon PT as the doors to West and South Hall inside the LACC open. Why noon? Well, you might be wondering why Nintendo’s press conference wasn’t mentioned yet. That’s because, as of last year, Nintendo no longer holds a dedicated press briefing event, instead opting for a direct-to-consumers video presentation ahead of the show floor’s noon opening (think: Nintendo Direct). But the long and short is this: Tuesday morning used to be Nintendo’s press conference, but not anymore. It’s as simple as that.
When the doors to each hall do open, swathes of attendees flood in: Approximately 50,000 people walk E3′s two enormous halls over the three days it exists each year.
WHY SHOULD I CARE?
Well, for starters, because video games are rad, but you probably already know that. The actual reasons you should care about E3 are far less esoteric. Want to know what the next major steps are from the megacorporations that make your favorite games? E3 is where to find out. How about never-before-seen games? E3 is also great for that. It’s also, occasionally, a venue for new hardware announcements. Both Project Natal (which became Kinect) and PlayStation Move were E3 announcements, as was Nintendo’s incredibly popular 3DS handheld.
In short, regardless of the marketing-driven angle, and the spectacle of two sprawling convention halls full of multi-million dollar booths erected for just three days per year, E3 is a hugely important event for both the game industry and the people who sustain it.
Also, it’s full of hilarious memes.
WANT EVEN MORE?
And who wouldn’t?! Last year, Sean Buckley wrote an incredibly thorough history of E3 — if you’re into learning more about E3, that is a must-read. For the Nate Silvers in the crowd, the body that runs E3 — the Entertainment Software Association — releases an annual statistical study of gaming, including E3 trends (PDF). And finally, Polygon’s Chris Plante made a pretty hilarious video walking through even more details about “America’s biggest video game event” (he means E3).
[Image credit: AP Photo/Jae C. Hong]
Filed under: Gaming, Software, HD, Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo
Watch the Xbox E3 2014 press conference right here!
It’s that time of year again, can you feel it? It’s E3! What will you be playing this fall on the Xbox One’s first birthday? We’ll find out today, and you can watch along as it happens. What should you expect? Probably more details on the Halo: Master Chief Collection, a heaping helping of the console’s colorful (and from the looks of it, pretty wacky) shooter Sunset Overdrive and some of Forza: Horizon 2‘s fancy rides. But wait, there’s likely more: you like Call of Duty, watching movies and TV shows on your Xbox and charming indie games too, right? Well, based on previous years we should see more news about those too. So be sure to check out our liveblog and follow along with the press conference that’s embedded just below. It’ll be fun!
[Image credit: Flickr user ‘Criisi’]
Filed under: Gaming, Home Entertainment, HD, Microsoft
Microsoft E3 2014 Xbox liveblog!
Microsoft’s annual E3 press briefing on its Xbox business is, if nothing else, never a dull affair. Heck, last year, a car rose out of the stage! And one year, some of The Beatles showed up. What’s gonna happen today? That’s the question! We get the feeling that our friend the Master Chief will make an appearance in at least one Halo game announcement, the couch-sized men of the Gears of War universe are likely to show up, and we’ve got our fingers crossed for a hovercraft or some madness rising out of the stage this morning. We’ll get started shortly after 9AM PT/12PM ET.
Microsoft now selling Kinectless Xbox One for $400
One way Microsoft can stimulate Xbox One sales is to drop the price to match its better-selling rival, the PlayStation 4. After it confirmed exactly that by announcing a Kinectless Xbox One last month, the company has now opened sales — hours before E3 2014 kicks off. You can pick one up for $399.99/£349.99 via Microsoft’s online store, which lets you concentrate on gaming instead of repeating that frustrating “Xbox on” command. If you decide later that you do want the sensor-packed accessory, a standalone version will be available this fall. Microsoft will also continue to sell the “premium” bundle with Kinect. Today’s launch is meant to be about gamers that “just like to play games with a controller in their hand,” because, you know, everyone else totally wanted a Kinect to begin with.
Filed under: Gaming, HD, Microsoft
Via: The Next Web
Source: Microsoft Store (US), (UK)
New Kinect for Windows is now available for pre-order, costs $199
If you’ve been jonesing to snag the new Kinect sensor for Windows, you can now get one — well, almost. Microsoft has just made its latest Kinect for Windows available for pre-order for only $199.99 with the promise of shipment by July 2014 if you do so while supplies last. The idea behind the early release is to give developers a head start on building applications for the latest v2 technology, though there’s nothing stopping regular consumers from getting in on the action as well. As a reminder, the new Kinect for Windows promises improved depth sensing, a wider field of view, 1080p resolution and more. So if you’re tired of the Xbox One getting all the Kinect love, feel free to see what the Windows version has to offer at the source link below.
Filed under: Gaming, Microsoft
Source: Microsoft
Xbox One controllers now work with your PC
The Xbox One controller is a wonderful piece of gear, so it’s natural that people would want to use it with PC games, too. Right on schedule, but perhaps a year too late, Microsoft is now offering the drivers that’ll let the hardware work on desktops, laptops and suitably-equipped tablets. Such compatibility will be baked into a forthcoming Windows update, but if you can’t wait that long, you can pull down the software from Major Nelson’s website right now. The Xbone controllers will work with any game that supports the Xbox 360′s handset, but if you’d prefer to test it for yourself, you can always call your boss and tell them that you’re ill… or something.
[Image credit: Major Nelson]
Filed under: Gaming, Microsoft
Source: Major Nelson
Tech CEOs push US Senate for stronger surveillance reform
The CEOs of AOL, Apple, Dropbox, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Twitter and Yahoo! all agree: more needs to be done to reform the government’s snooping capabilities. That’s the thrust of a letter that appeared online yesterday, anyway. Though the list of signatories contains a handful of rivals, all of them agree that the version of the USA Freedom Act that recently passed through the US House of Representatives still sucks and that the US Senate needs to fix it.
Why? Well, it was originally meant to stop the NSA’s bulk collection of metadata (like who emailed you or when you called someone) outright, but some (including the nine companies who issued the letter) believe the version of the act that passed was watered down to the point where it could easily be exploited. Naturally, there’s still a raging debate on just how valuable and safe that bulk collection actually is. The undersigned nine also call for greater transparency when it comes to user data requests it receives from the government, though that’s not a surprise considering how frequently they already bring up the issue. Just take a peek at, say, Facebook’s most recent transparency report — you’ll find that the social giant received between 0 and 999 national security requests for data. Painting in strokes that broad is unsatisfying at best and obscurantist at worse, which is why companies like Twitter are weighing legal options to push for more specificity.
Source: Reform Government Surveillance
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