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E3 2014: Xbox Press Conference Trailer Roundup
Even I, with my limited knowledge of growing a community and increasing page views, know that you don’t tuck trailers from E3 into another post when you can make a separate post for extra page views. Granted, I’m not doing the standard one trailer per post to flood your various social media feeds and RSS readers with our posts.
Anyway, having just wrapped up our recap of the Xbox One press conference, it’s time to actually watch some of what Microsoft and friends had on offer at their big E3 keynote. We have the announcement trailer for Halo’s Master Chief Collection. Sunset Overdrive headlines the gameplay videos along with The Witcher III and Assassin’s Creed: Unity. As an added bonus, I’ve thrown in the Tomb Raider sequel teaser trailer.
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E3 2014: The Xbox One is Now a Games Console
When the Xbox One was unveiled last year and presented again at E3 last June, the focus wasn’t really on the games. Microsoft was more interested in pitching the Xbox One as an all-in-one entertainment unit for the living room by touting the entertainment apps and Kinect integration. Between not worrying about the games, the lingering DRM controversy and a price point $100 higher than the PlayStation 4, Microsoft has been in catch up mode for the last twelve months.
It’s amazing what a difference a year makes. With new Xbox division boss Phil Spencer at the helm, this year’s Microsoft E3 press conference was all about the games. The Kinect was hardly mentioned. Entertainment apps may as well not have existed.
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Critics Corner: Murdered: Soul Suspect
If you follow me on Twitter (@TheSteveMurray), you probably saw me mention that I wasn’t disappointed that I was turned down for a review copy of a recent release. The game came out to pretty poor reviews by big release standards so not spending 10 hours of my life playing and a couple more writing and editing a review was probably to my benefit. Instead, I’ll spend a couple of hours reading and condensing reviews of Murdered: Soul Suspect for a Critics Corner post.
Murdered: Soul Suspect sounds like a fairly intriguing concept at first but it sounds like the execution was a little lacking. Just about everyone found some aspect of the game a bit “meh” but most found more than one aspect to be lacking in polish.
So enough of my little preamble. What did the critics think of Murdered: Soul Suspect?
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Another Xbox One-80: Microsoft to Sell Console without Kinect
After launching at a price point $100 higher than the PlayStation 4 and insisting that the Kinect was an integral part of the Xbox One and had to be connected for the console to work, Microsoft has completely walked back on all claims about the Kinect 2.0.
Microsoft announced that they will begin selling the Xbox One without the Kinect starting in June for $100 less than the original $499 asking price.
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Phil Spencer Takes Over as Xbox Boss
How busy was I last week? I completely missed that Microsoft announced that long-time Microsoft Studios boss, Phil Spencer, got a promotion. The company announced that he would be taking on a newly created role as the head of the Xbox and gaming division of Microsoft.
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Who Wants a Project Spark Beta Key? UPDATE: ALL GONE!
You know what we haven’t done in our 15 or so months of operation? A giveaway! I think it’s time to correct that.
I recently got five Project Spark beta keys and since I don’t have (or know anyone else who has) Windows 8 or an Xbox One, I’m giving them all away.
All you have to do is drop your name, email and preferred platform in the form below and that’s it. It’s first come, first serve so claim yours quickly. Also, I should come up with a better way to do giveaways in the future.
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The New Xbox Boss is a Man Who Wanted to Sell It Off
When Microsoft was looking for a new CEO late last year and earlier this year, the name Stephen Elop, former CEO of Nokia, was one of the name that kept popping up as a favourite. Bloomberg reported that part of Elop’s pitch for the job was that he would sell off parts of the business that weren’t part of the company’s core strategy, including the Xbox division.
So guess who was just named the new boss of Microsoft’s Devices Division, the division that Xbox falls under in the Microsoft corporate umbrella? On Wednesday, Stephen Elop was announced as the Devices and Studios Division’s third boss in seven months, replacing current head Julie Larson-Green.
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Titanfall is Poised to Completely Change the FPS Genre
When I was at Fan Expo last August, someone in line for the State of Gaming panel asked the group of us waiting where we thought the industry was headed. Increasing the quantity and quality of free-to-play games was a popular answer. More mobile games for core gamers was another answer. Motion controlled games on Kinect, Wii U and PS Eye finally becoming proper gaming was a less popular suggestion but it was made.
After some pondering, I realized that those answers weren’t wrong but I had a better one. While all those ideas might be right, I think Titanfall might be a harbinger for where the industry is headed. It has nothing to do with mechs or pretty graphics or third-party triple-A games going exclusive. It has everything to do with dropping the single-player campaign and launching a game with only multiplayer.
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Xbox One Gets Its First Price Cut
Given that it’s lagging behind in the console war by an estimated 1.7 million units after three months of sales, it was only a matter of time before Microsoft tried something to close the gap. I don’t think, however, that anyone expected them to try a price cut so soon.
To gain competitive ground with the PlayStation Four, Microsoft UK announced a £30 price cut to £399 for the Xbox One and that Titanfall Xbox One console bundles would be available at no extra charge above the base price.
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Xbox One’s eSRAM Too Small for 1080p Games
The resolution, graphic quality and framerate differences between the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 games released on both platforms has been a big story since both consoles launched last November. It was expected that the PS4’s use of GDDR5 RAM would allow it to dance circles around the DDR3 RAM of the Xbox One.
However, one developer says that it isn’t that the PS4’s hardware is so much superior but that the Xbox One’s architecture is the issue. The small 32 MB of high-bandwidth eSRAM isn’t conducive to getting games to render at 1080p.
et geekera 