Microsoft made it known that they would hold some meaningful presence at the German-hosted Gamescom this year. On August 12, Microsoft will be hosting a major press conference to showcase what’s coming to Xbox One over the course of the next year or so. We should be getting more extensive looks at games like Fable Legends and Quantum Break, two titles that should help bolster and round out the Xbox One’s exclusive offerings. Sunset Overdrive could see some extra light as well, though we’ve seen a reasonable amount already. Xbox team members have hinted at a possible reveal or news break that would be very significant. New information leaking onto the internet suggest the return of a full-fledged backwards compatibility update that will allow Xbox 360 games to play on the Xbox One.
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EVOLVE, Battlefield: Hardline Delayed to 2015
In what was looking to be a jam-packed 2014 holiday seasons for games, the competing for consumer dollars will be at least a little less intense for game developers/publishers as two high profile releases have been confirmed to be delayed until early 2015. The first is the well-established Battlefield entry, dubbed Hardline, which pits cops against robbers and is supposed to be a big step up for story quality in the series. The second is what many billed as the most exciting cooperative game, titled EVOLVE. EVOLVE runs a 4v1 cooperative/competitive play setup where four players will assume specific classed hunters and try to take down a beast that is controlled by a different human player. Early demos at gaming conventions have lead EVOLVE to being talked about as much as other heavy hitters like Destiny and Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare.
With EVOLVE and Battlefield out of the 2014 picture the game-scape may be a little less crowded, but there’s still plenty to look forward to, such as:
- Call of Duty Advanced Warfare
- Halo: The Master Chief Collection
- Assassin’s Creed Unity
- Far Cry 4
- Sunset Overdrive
- Destiny
- Shadow of Mordor
- Forza Horizon 2
- Project Spark
- Madden 15
- The Witcher 3
- Dragon Age: Inquisition
Also included in the mix are current-gen console updates for games like Grand Theft Auto 5, Metro 2033/Last Light (named “Redux” together), A Wolf Among Us, Diablo 3 and more.
Game Demos To Rapidly Expand On Xbox One
A try before you buy feature was frequently requested by the Xbox community through Xbox’s forums and feedback surveys provided through Xbox Live. Microsoft has responded by unrolling an updated Xbox Live system that allows for demos to be widely adopted with games that have dedicated demos developed to drive interest in various titles. While we won’t immediately see the fruits of this move, very soon we’ll see a huge increase in titles in the Games section of Xbox Live that have playable demos. Games that are developed through the ID@Xbox program will likely benefit the greatest from this update, where promotional efforts and visibility in a crowded market are a premium. Having more demos also give gamers better visibility of games without having to take critical or other user views at their word. It’s a win-win for all!
The Time Has Come For All To Own An Xbox One
When consoles launch, there are a lot of things left up in the air for consumers, developers, publishers and the console manufacturers themselves. Will the new product be a hit? What kind of glitches will be present? Will there be any good games making the purchase worthwhile? These questions have to be answered by the non-hardcore gamers before they can justify $400-$500 on a new console, and that’s before games and other accessories are acquired. While millions have adopted the Xbox One, there’s still a 75 million console gap between it and its predecessor, the Xbox 360. There has been good reason to hold off, but that time is quickly coming to an end. Here’s why you should consider buying an Xbox One in the very near future.
The Kinks Are Pretty Much Ironed Out – At launch, the Xbox One had a sort-of-smooth-sailing venture, but there were some issues found in usability and a few party-related bugs that hindered the experience. Since launch, Microsoft has resolved nearly every issue that was present at launch and have drastically improved the usability of their UI. There still is a small learning curve to get through, but coming from an Xbox 360 will be beneficial since much of the look is the same on the One.
There Are Good Games Available Today, Tomorrow – On the Xbox One, you can play games like Forza 5, Titanfall, Dead Rising 3, Ryse: Son of Rome, and a growing library of indies (some exclusive) that cannot be found on the Xbox 360. These games impress in different ways, but the fact that you cannot get them on a 360 is a good reason for gamers to look at what can be had with a new generation of titles. More importantly, fall of 2014 is lined up to be a killer season for games. A new Assassin’s Creed, Destiny, Battlefield, Call of Duty are all lined up to take full advantage of the new power the Xbox One received with the June update, but there’s the growing buzz over Sunset Drive on its way and the sure-thing that is Halo: The Master Chief Collection that will take the greatest franchise exclusive on any platform and bundle its four core games together (along with their multiplayer modes) and offer some cool additions (Halo 5 beta invite, Halo: Nightfall digital series) to sweeten the pot. Sometime in 2015 there’s the likelihood of Gears of War, Quantum Break on top of others that are also being teed up for maybe a first-half launch, with Halo 5: Guardians dropping that fall. Plus, Minecraft for Xbox One will be out in August and the already-available Project Spark is quite incredible for creators and players alike.
The games scene is going to bust wide open on next gen consoles and the older 360 will no longer see consistent parity with releases (if any). The 360 will quickly become a reasonable console with a large back-catalog of games with streaming capabilities. Not a bad thing, but it’s not way to get in touch with what’s new.
One Console To Rule Them All – The Xbox One was named and touted for its capability to take over your living room in a way that no other console can. That still remains the case (mostly), but it’s the coming applications and the new application development path that Microsoft are taking between its Xbox, Windows and Windows Phone OS’ that will catapult it into the lead for set-top-boxes. There are already a ton of apps coming over this summer & fall to add to the Xbox One app library, but with the ability for app developers to port their apps to the Xbox One (assuming they are relevant to the system in some way) we will see a greater explosion of cool apps on our consoles, effectively making it a Windows 8-like PC that is dedicated to entertainment. Having a pretty robust Internet Explorer 11 on-board doesn’t hurt either.
Price Changes – The no-brainer is the recent decoupling of the Kinect and Xbox One, in terms of core bundling. You can buy an Xbox One for $399 without a Kinect, which will push way more of these units off of shelves and into living rooms across the world. Speaking of across the world…
Worldwide Expansion Coming September 2014 – Microsoft missed their worldwide launch intentions and scaled back from their initial 20+ launch markets to a slimmer 13. Since then there has been no action in terms of new territories available to purchase an Xbox One locally. The Xbox One isn’t as regionally-locked as previous consoles, so it’s easier to jump onto eBay and buy one even if it isn’t natively sold (yet). In September of 2014 we will see a huge jump in market availability. Countries like China, Japan and Russia will be able to buy the Xbox One, on top of dozens more, which will spur sales greatly and get the console closer to parity as far as availability in other countries with moderate-to-large populations. The Xbox One could quickly close the gap for sales between it and the rival PlayStation 4. With more console adoption comes more attention to the console. Developers won’t so easily pass on optimizing their software for the Xbox One hardware, meaning better support. It also means there will be more people to play with worldwide, so matchmaking could drastically improve if you’re outside one of the core countries currently supporting the Xbox One.
If you don’t have the money to buy one, start saving. Sunset Overdrive is looking great, a bundled Halo is guaranteed to bring a slew of gamers back to old school Halo for at least a little while, plus games like Quantum Break are truly ambitious and fresh looking, something that the Xbox platform as a whole hasn’t been so good about in the past. The console will challenge Sony for exclusive quality in the future as well. Halo 5: Guardians is getting so much quality attention and financial backing that it’s likely going to wompa-stomp Battlefield and Call of Duty. We don’t want to get our hopes up too high, but everything that we’ve heard so far has been very reassuring. So, what are you waiting for? Pick up an Xbox One and tell your friends to do the same, because the truly next generation of games are coming and your 360 won’t be the vessel of choice anymore.
New Xbox One Update With External HDD and Games With Gold Support LIVE
Microsoft just began rolling out the new Xbox One update for June. The new update includes a few small and a couple big updates that gamers will be excited to have. The biggest one is the external hard drive support being added in for game saves, game installs, on top of physical Xbox-to-Xbox data migration. So if you have that digital copy of Halo: Spartan Assault you can take it to your friend’s house and play it off the hard drive as long as you’re signed into your account to play. Not bad, eh?
Speaking of Spartan Assault, the Games With Gold program also goes live with the new update being installed. The first two games for Xbox One owners available for free are Halo: Spartan Assault and Max: The Curse of Brotherhood. As soon as you update your Xbox One you should be able to pick these titles up for free as long as you’re an Xbox Live Gold subscriber. If you don’t have this service yet and have online access, you owe it yourself to pick up the service and cash in on the free games and discounts available only to Gold members (no Austin Powers joke intended).
Xbox One June Update To Brings External HDD Support and Much More
Microsoft’s Xbox team has been hard at work bringing their new console up to speed with the features that were promised nearly a year ago at the LA-hosted E3 conference. It has been a bit of a bumpy road at the start but the Xbox One has seen smoother sailing over the last couple months, especially since the big push for firmware and OS updates that came along with the release of Titanfall in the middle of March. Still, features are missing that were said to be a core part of the Xbox One experience. Both this week and in the next few weeks a few of those big misses are going to be fulfilled.
First off, Microsoft’s Skype application has finally gotten a huge update that delivers on the demo experience from the early promotional ads where Skype is running as a snapped application. Now you can play Titanfall or Forza while having a video/voice call with a friend in real time without having to completely leave your game. Socialites rejoice, this is a big one for anyone that uses Skype or feels the need to make calls without having to juggle devices to make that happen.
Also getting teed up is a big June update to the Xbox One OS that is set to bring improvements and new programs to Xbox One owners and Xbox Live subscribers. The coveted external hard drive support is said to be a part of the update next month, which will allow users the ability to save content to the drive and use it as an extended media device or backup game save device. In the future, Microsoft claims the Xbox One will be able to support dual external hard drives. In addition, owners of Xbox Ones can copy their games to their external hard drives and bring the drives to a friend’s house and play them on their Xbox. Pretty cool, right? The forums at the official Xbox website have been constantly hit with questions as to when this feature would be released. It shouldn’t be much longer now.
Also slated for the new update is the new Xbox Live Gold subscribers game programs which includes the Games for Gold program originally launched on Xbox 360 last year as well as Deals for Gold. Games for Gold will offer a free game every two weeks (or unless otherwise detailed by Microsoft) so long as you’re a Gold subscriber. The same goes for Deals for Gold, which will offer discounts on games that otherwise wouldn’t be accessible. So while Xbox Live runs you $60/year (but realistically you can get it for 20-30% cheaper depending on the time of year and where you shop), you can make much of your money back in free games and deep discounts. The actual savings advantages are as-yet unknown, but the general idea is that Gold subscribers could save 50% on titles like Forza Motorsport 5 and Ryse: Son of Rome. This could put them at or under the $30 sale price, which is a great deal on higher profile games such as these. We’ll hear all about this at E3 at the latest, where Microsoft is scheduled to give a major press conference the morning of June 9.
Lastly, the June Xbox Live update is said to improve the Friends application and allow for your friends’ names to be displayed. If you’re like us, we have lists with 60-80 Gamertags that have been accumulated over the past several years and it can be hard to remember who is who, especially when people go through Gamertag changes. That’s all we know about the June update at this time. Around a month ago, Larry Hyrb and some other Xbox team members hinted at both June and July being big for new console updates, so we’re keeping our ears to the ground after E3 to hear more about what’s happening over the summer. One has to wonder when the digital sharing system will be implemented on the Xbox One, which was confirmed to be in resurrection mode after Microsoft had to back away from the service upon a handful of policy changes around the E3 time-frame last year when the Xbox One was initially unveiled.
The Next Xbox One Update To Come Late April
Microsoft has been busy troubleshooting and tweaking their hardware and software now that millions of Xbox One consoles have been sold and are being used regularly. Hiccups in the software still exist, something any moderate or heavy user has likely noticed, but Microsoft have been hard at work to correct the issues at hand. For the third month in a row an update will be rolled out to improve the software and hardware experience for the Xbox One. In April, here’s what you can expect to see in the final released update:
- Automatic update download and installation for always connected Xbox One consoles that opt to never fully shut down (but instead use low power settings)
- Blu-Ray application improvements, including proper support for movies that use 50 Hz refresh rates
- Controller firmware updates for even better headset performance and wireless connectivity
Further updates should also make the cut, but these few have been confirmed by Microsoft to make the April rollout and have been reported via Microsoft’s Xbox Wire. The ability to auto download and install software updates without the need to power on your Xbox and perform the multi-step process of updating the console will be a nice feature going forward. If updates roll out in the morning while you’re at work, you should have an updated box ready to go when you get home that afternoon/evening so no time is wasted playing catchup.
There will still be more planned updates coming from Microsoft. A monthly rotation of getting updates out could continue depending on the severity of any remaining bugs and performance issues. We anticipate a lot of the kinks to be worked out by the summer timeframe and more major UI advancements and features to be added around mid/late fall 2014.
Xbox One Titanfall Bundle + 1 Year of Xbox Live for $449 @ Target (UPDATED)
Recently Microsoft’s Xbox One went on sale in several retailers. No absolute reason has been given for the sale but it has boosted interest and gotten consoles moving faster as the $449 sale included your choice of the Titanfall or Forza bundles, making for a nice bundled package. Now, Target wants would-be buyers to choose their package over other as they’ve sweetened the deal with a year of Xbox Live for the same $449 price. This offer is likely limited to a short time so get in on it while you can!
UPDATE: Target just pushed the price back to $499 for the bundle but it still ends up being a reasonable deal with the added year of Xbox Live into the mix. Retailers like Microsoft Store are still offering just the Titanfall and Forza bundles for $449 but aren’t offering a year of XBL. So pick your savings. If you aren’t one for shopping around, the Target deal saves you $10 on the Live membership but it isn’t too difficult to find someone selling Xbox Live for $39-$49 so if you get lucky you could pinch a few extra dollars off. It will simply depend on how badly you want to save money.
The Digital Future For Xbox One Lives
When Microsoft pulled the veil off of their then yet-to-be-released Xbox One console, there was a lot of ambition and aggressive strategies behind it. One of them was the controversial “always on” aspect of the Xbox One. Your console would require an internet connection at all times and would probably boot you from games if you were offline for more than 24 hours. Plenty of rage ensued online – a policy of this type was very ambitious and perhaps a little too soon given the state of the world in terms of internet availability and consistency. The idea was meant to make things easier for gamers. Firmware updates, expansions, even social media apps could remain active at all times and your console would always be just a second or two away from being on and ready to use (instead of a 15 second bootup sequence).
As you may be well aware, Microsoft abandoned some of their restrictive policies and instead opted for more traditional routes that their own Xbox 360 had thrived on. But there were several gems in the midst of the chaos that was the Xbox One PR nightmare that had to get stripped back or delayed as a result of potential customers crying out about their disapproval. One of them was an exciting and forward-thinking sharing system, which Microsoft dubbed “Family Share”.
Think of it like T-Mobile’s “Fav 5” or whatever system they’re running now. You had a select number of friends or family members that you could have in a specialized network that would allow you to share unlimited calls and texts without experiencing overage charges. Microsoft drummed up something similar with Family Share, but instead of mobile communications it was games sharing. From what we can know about it prior to Microsoft backing the program out prior to the Xbox One’s launch, the program would allow you to network with as many as 10 other people on your Friends list via Xbox Live to which you could share digital licenses of a game with. It was like loaning a game disc to someone without having to physically hand them the disc. The two of you likely couldn’t play simultaneously, but it would certainly help you play certain games that you were on the fence about. The best part is, this was supposed to be free and included in Xbox Live. Sounds pretty legit, right? Still, it got pushed out of the limelight and traditional disc sharing was the only course for the launch of Xbox One, should you want to play a game that you borrowed from a friend. There’s good news though, Family Share could make a comeback in a big way.
Right now you buy your games either in a store or from Xbox Live. If you buy a disc copy, that’s simple enough as you own the hard copy and can have the game installed to your Xbox One’s hard drive for better loading times. The sharing plan that Microsoft had originally unveiled last summer is said to deploy on the Xbox One, perhaps before the end of 2014. The service would allow gamers who purchase their favorite titles digitally to share them digitally with other friends that they specify as “family/friends” to share content with. You can authorize these people to enjoy a game you bought at no charge to them, and vice versa. This kind of sharing is an extremely cool idea and one that can benefit gamers on a budget greatly. If you work with your closest Xbox Live friends, you can each buy specific games online and swap digital licenses temporarily to play the games that you didn’t buy. So far there hasn’t been any real pushback from publishers or development studios as it isn’t a widespread free-for-all for sharing as the number of friends to share with is limited. Plus, some games like Titanfall are online only and require you to own the game to play so for the titles that rely heavily on online multiplayer we’re all going to have to still buy our own copy of the game if we want to play it whenever we want without strings attached.
These kinds of services are what make Xbox Live’s “Gold” status worth the annual payment of $60, and that’s if you’re too lazy to go anywhere and shop for a better deal. For nearly six years, I have yet to pay more than $40 + tax for an Xbox Live 1 year membership as both Microsoft and third party retailers like Amazon and Best Buy will often sell them for $35-$45 during different points of the year (especially the holiday season). Xbox Live in its current state offers quite a bit more than Sony’s PlayStation Network, hence the reason it costs anything at all (and costs a bit more than Sony’s new $50 annual price model). Not every gamer is going to take advantage of every feature that Xbox Live has to offer, but without a doubt this new sharing system that will make its debut sometime in the future will add to that value. We’ll be running an article showcasing the benefits of Xbox Live and try our best to give a good comparison to the PSN, but we’re firm believers that nobody should be stingy about XBL and its paid premium tier since you get what you pay for. With a system of sharing games at no additional charge to the gamers who have Gold, XBL becomes a gigantic savings machine that could prevent you from spending hundreds or thousand of dollars depending on how purchase-happy you and your friends are with games on an annual basis.
Minecraft for Xbox One May Launch Summer 2014
The simple yet explosive online title Minecraft, which sold millions on Xbox 360, is nearing a launch on the Xbox One. Minecraft for Xbox One is supposed to bring a few new additions and capabilities that were previously only available via the PC version. The rumor mill currently points toward a release this year around summer time. We believe this is very possible since Microsoft seemed to discuss Minecraft at E3 last year as something that would see the light of day not too long after the Xbox One launched back in November. This will mean there will be two BYOG (build your own game) titles on Xbox One. The other, Project Spark, is already in open beta and aims to capture a lot of the magic that Minecraft has created but with deeper customization/creation and better graphics. Either way, Minecraft fans that jumped to Xbox One must be happy to hear the news that this popular game is not far off.
Xbox One Game Source 