Microsoft is preparing to update its Xbox 360 with another dashboard update. Sources familiar with Microsoft’s Xbox plans have revealed to The Verge that the dashboard update will enter into a public beta in late June or early July, with changes and updates in preparation for the next-generation Xbox. We’re told that the user interface will be refreshed alongside smaller Live Tiles, similar to what Microsoft is preparing for Windows 8.1. Microsoft is also said to be tweaking the look of the Xbox dashboard, with the possibility of darker or lighter themes.
We understand Microsoft is aiming to ensure Xbox 360 users can transition over to the next-generation console and interact with existing Xbox 360 users using messaging, beacons, and…
The Ouya is making its way out to backers even now (though my shipping notification still hasn’t arrived. Grrr.) and judging by early impressions, it’s no silver bullet to take down behemoths like Sony and Microsoft. The $ 99, Android powered console still isn’t fully formed exactly, but it’s doubtful that between now and June 25 it’ll take on giant-killer proportions. Likewise the recently-announced BlueStacks Android gaming console, which features a subscription-based pricing model, probably won’t alone topple the giants.
But combined, these and a slew of other devices including the GameStick, smart TVs from manufacturers, Steam Boxes, and even Google and Apple hardware are eating away at what was once a fairly exclusive field. It seems a lot of people are waiting for a watershed moment to signal a significant shift away from traditional console gaming to a new paradigm, but increasingly, it looks likely that what we’ll see instead is an erosion that more closely resembles glacial shift, but on a less geological time scale.
There’s evidence to suggest that console gaming is already losing significant ground, like quarterly results from Nintendo that show a dramatic decline in consumer interest in the recently-launched Wii U console. And while Sony saw its first full-year profit in half a decade, most of the good news was on the smartphone side, and PlayStation sales fell for the year. Microsoft is still doing fairly well with the Xbox 360, but growth of key accessories like the Kinect have slowed with time.
Slower Kinect sales are a good bellwether for the industry’s overall health, if only because it and devices like it are where console makers are turning to try to inject some fresh life into a market that had recently started to look fairly stale. To some extent, Kinect, Move and other gimmicks like the screen of the 3DS are an answer to incursions by mobile gaming and other alternatives. Just like point-and-shoot cameras needed differentiating features like long zooms to prove themselves relative to smartphone cameras, video games needed something new to reel in new buyers.
The new crop of challengers to the console gaming market, including Ouya and the new BlueStacks GamePop console, risks getting discounted by critics as just another round of devices like the GP2X Wiz or the Gizmondo, which had limited appeal and then faded into the background of video games history as little more than a minor footnote. But that’s taking too short-term and dismissive a view on what’s currently happening in the video game space. It’s true that, as ardent console gamers continually remind me, there will always be a demand for that type of content.
Increasingly, however, there’s a growing contingent of players that are fine saying, “if I can get it on my phone, why do I need it anywhere else?” and that’s a market that’s ripe for a living room transition like the ones being attempted by Ouya and BlueStack. It’s easy to discount these ahead of their full consumer launch, and I don’t expect them to have an immediate impact on console sales, but they are signs of a sure shift, and one that won’t go away, even if doesn’t provide the sort of bomb shock disruption that we’re so fond of identifying and championing.
A number of solid reports, including a new domain name, XboxEvent.com registered to Microsoft, are pointing to an Xbox event in April. While most console reveals happen at E3, as evidenced by Sony’s mystery-filled conference, Microsoft will probably announce specs and some launch titles and leave the money shot for Los Angeles in June.
Computer & Video Games reported the rumor today and VG247 corroborated it. Considering the timing of Sony’s PS4 announcement, it makes perfect sense for Microsoft to join in the hoopla surrounding next-gen consoles.
The next Xbox, code-named Durango, will require an improved, included Kinect sensor to play and will support game “sections” that allow you to play one portion of the game while the rest loads or downloads. It will support 1080p 3D video and run on 8GB of RAM.
Personally I prefer the Neo Geo X the most I love old arcade games and It is a lot of fun to play these games on a TV. Now Collecting for a Neo Geo AES or MVS (which is what the Neo Geo X is based off of) Will cost between – 0 for games and the colsols for each can cost over 0. So the Neo Geo X is a relatively inexpensive way to get into Neo Geo gaming with a base price of 0 and it comes pre loaded with 20 games as well is a great deal. The Vita is truly an amazing machine. The games are between -50 dollars and many of them are on sale for as low as . The games available for the Vita are all shown beautifully on the 5 inch OLED display. The PSN store is also leaps and bounds above the 3DS eshop too. Being able to get full PS1, PSP, and Vita games easily works very well. Most of the PS1 games are all worth getting and fortunately they are at decent prices between -. Unfortunatly the memory cards are necessary to play games because the Vita is designed to download a portion of the game to the memory card in order to load a game. This is a cheap tactic that Sony is using to squeeze more money from people by forcing them to buy a proprietary memory card. and the Prices are ridiculous a 16Gig memory card for the Vita Costs and a 32Gig costs 0. But the Vita does offer high quality games at great prices and in my own opinion the Vita has many more games worth having than the 3DS. Now the tried and true Nintendo 3DS. The games available for it are … Video Rating: 3 / 5
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The Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Nintendo Wii are nearing their end. As powerful as they have been in the living room, gamers want more. They want better graphics, new user experiences, and more mobility, as much as those things can be at odds with one another. A new wave of game consoles is rising to meet some of those challenges, but perhaps not all: the Nintendo Wii U doesn’t seem to be that much more powerful than an Xbox 360, and the next Xbox and PlayStation are rumored to use what amounts to mid-range PC hardware in order to save costs.
Meanwhile, PCs haven’t stood still. There’s never been a better time to build a gaming PC, thanks to cheaper components and the amazing catalog of inexpensive games you can find on digital…
When first-person shooters made the transition to consoles from PCs over a decade ago, they weren’t very good. Or even just good. Despite being today’s go-to genre for blockbuster console game franchises (Call of Duty or Halo ring any bells?), the first-person shooter got a rough start on consoles. Game developers — used to the precision allowed by a mouse/keyboard setup — had no idea how to design shooters with console gamers in mind. Early approximations like Nintendo 64′s GoldenEye and Perfect Dark from Rare were held up as the gold standard for years, while PC gamers snickered and stuck with their superior control mechanics.
Bungie’s sci-fi shooter Halo: Combat Evolved heralded the launch of Microsoft’s Xbox in 2001, and it marked the end of Nintendo’s short-lived console FPS dominance. The first Halo game and its developer Bungie Studios are to thank for the modern console FPS — a streamlined, slower version of its PC progenitor that stands on its own. In the decade since Halo: Combat Evolved launched, Bungie and many, many other game development studios have honed and perfected FPS gameplay on consoles, to the point where it’s the leading sales genre in the US (for the past five years, with the exception of 2008, according to NPD). Nintendo, however, has taken a back seat in this genre — starting with the GameCube and even more so with the Wii, Nintendo eschewed first-person shooters for the better part of the last decade. Beyond the company itself not publishing or developing within the genre (the lone exception being its Metroid series), third-parties mostly offered watered down ports for the last two Nintendo consoles.
Gallery: Nintendo Wii U GamePad / Pro Controller vs. Xbox 360 / PlayStation 3 controllers
Filed under: Gaming, Handhelds, Peripherals, Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo
Editorial: Why America’s most popular gaming genre likely won’t work on Nintendo’s new console originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 15 Nov 2012 10:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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This is allegedly a leaked shot of a black Wii U console in the wild sent to Ubisoft’s gamer girl squad ‘The Frag Dolls’ for debugging purposes. It looks like a black box! It has a red button on the front! It says SYNC beneath it but will it really make the unit self-destruct?! I hope so. I dunno, does anybody care about this? I know people masturbate to leaked iPhone 5 photos, but what about Wii U’s — anybody sporting a boner besides me? “Why do you have one?” Haha, I’m watching Jurassic Park on Blu-Ray.
Thanks to luis, who agrees the best leaked photos are nudey ones.
The folks behind the stylish, Android-based OUYA game console have been on a hot streak lately. Not only has the project raked in over $ 6 million in Kickstarter pledges, but cloud gaming service OnLive and legendary game developer Square-Enix have thrown their collective weight behind the $ 99 gadget.
Now there’s another hefty name to add to that list. Music video provider VEVO has announced that it has entered into a partnership with OUYA that will allow gamers access to its sizable catalog of music videos between long stretches of random encounters in Final Fantasy III.
Sadly, unlike the OnLive announcement made a few days back, there’s still quite a bit left to the imagination here. Neither party has come forward with images of the service in action, so exactly how simple the process of poring over and searching for videos is unknown. Still, this could be the beginning of even bigger things for the OUYA. Company founder Julie Ehrmann said that the partnership means players will have access to “entertainment beyond gaming,” which could add plenty of reasons to buy the stylized cube if the company could negotiate the right content deals.
Hell, even if OUYA doesn’t manage to ink agreements with companies like Hulu or Netflix, the fact that it’s running a highly-tweakable operating system means motivated geeks could easily extend its functionality beyond what the creators originally had in mind. Perhaps Google could even learn a thing or two from team OUYA — the search giant recently delayed the launch of its curious Nexus Q media streamer in an attempt to make it “better” after receiving plenty of hit-or-miss feedback.
There’s no question about it — as fun as mobile gaming can be, sometimes furiously pecking at a touchscreen just doesn’t cut it. For those of you who long for the halcyon days of gripping hard, uncomfortable controllers while a conceptually-simple game runs on your television, the GameDock may be just what the doctor ordered.
This nifty hardware project comes courtesy of the Oregon-based team at Cascadia Games, who not long ago put their pet project on Kickstarter for retro-minded gamers to ogle. The GameDock has a delightfully Nintendo-y vibe going — users dock their favored iDevice (no blowing required), while a pair of NES-esque controllers run into a pair of USB ports up front and an HDMI cable provides the all-important television connection.
Of course, hardware is only ever part of the equation with projects like this — one of the major issues for a product like this is tracking down games that are actually compatible with it. Creators Chris Jorgensen and Andi Greise; noted on their Kickstarter page that iCade apps with no more than two action and menu buttons should work nicely, but the pair have also been working on a dashboard app that they plan to fill with curated apps that are known to fully compatible. Sadly, not every game that would benefit from some physical buttons (I’m looking at you, Mega Man X) will play nice with the GameDock, but that’s an iCade-related rant for another time.
Thankfully, the project just recently tiptoed over its funding $ 50,000 funding goal, so (barring any unfortunate missteps) this thing should be hitting backers’ doorsteps by December. Speaking of which, you’ve still got until August 16 to throw your hard-earned money at this thing — a bare-bones GameDock can be yours for $ 100, while an additional $ 25 will nab you a pair of USB controllers and an HDMI adapter for your troubles.
Question by kuhl_blitz: does Kinect bought in US compatible with xbox console of UK version? I bought a Xbox 360 in Qatar which is an European/ UK format. And my wife bought Kinect in USA. So, my question is will Kinect work with Xbox or should i ask her to return it? I think, since it is like a controller, it will be independent of the format of Xbox 360. Moreover, I bought the Xbox 360 a year and half ago, so, it is not the new Xbox 360 S.
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