Xbox

In addition to Spielberg’s live-action Halo series, Microsoft is supposedly making another sci-fi show for Xbox Live: a brand new remake of BBC TV show Blake 7. Screw regular network television, everyone wants to make their own original content now! [FT]

The Xbox One Can Tell When It’s Overheating, and Adjusts to Fix It

So here’s a cool thing the Xbox One can do: It automatically recognizes when it’s overheating—probably because you’re an idiot and left a pizza box on top of it—and can adjust on the fly. In fact, it’s designed with extra room to make those adjustments. In our chat with Xbox’s General Manager of Console Development…

How the Xbox One Console Was Designed to Be an Everything Machine

As the dust settled over the new Xbox One this summer, one point that kept coming up—maybe predictably—was size: The console is surprisingly chunky. Just chunky enough to make you wonder whether its wide berth isn’t a hint at what Microsoft’s engineers were hiding in there—and what it could reveal about their intentions for future…

The Xbox One Controller Will Work with Your PC…. in 2014

PC Gamers! You won’t have to spend more money to make your Xbox One controller work with your computer. Unlike the 360 which requires a wired controller or an extra dongle, the Xbox One’s controller will work fine with your PC games. Well, it’ll work fine with your PC after a software update in 2014.…

The Xbox One Is Worse For Everyone If Kinect’s Not Mandatory

Using Kinect with your Xbox One is no longer mandatory. Yay, right? No. Wrong. Again. This is another dumb subtraction from Microsoft, presented as choice. https://kotaku.com/xbox-one-wont-actually-need-kinect-plugged-in-microso-1113142909 It’s simple: As a standard-issue, always-on-and-enabled FEATURE of the Xbox One, Kinect was something that had a hugely better chance (not a guarantee, but a good chance) of being…

The next Xbox 360 update will finally officially kill Microsoft Points dead. All your points will be converted over to an amount of currency equal to or greater than your points. Any Microsoft Points Cards will still be valid too (and transferred to real dollars). [Microsoft]

Why the Hell Are the Xbox One’s Best New Features Behind a Paywall?

You don’t buy a Big Mac and pay extra for special sauce. You don’t buy an iPhone and pay extra for FaceTime. So why in the hell is Microsoft putting some of its most heavily promoted Xbox One features behind an idiotic Xbox Live Gold paywall? Because it can. But that doesn’t mean that it…

The Internet Was Almost Called the Catenet

In its early days, radio technology was often called wireless telephone. The Xbox was almost called the MEGA. But did you know that the internet nearly wound up with a different name too? Indeed, the internet was almost called the catenet. https://gizmodo.com/microsoft-actually-considered-these-idiotic-names-for-t-708779004 Just as the internet derived its name from the word internetworked, the term…

Microsoft Just Improved the Xbox One’s Graphics Powers

Well, Microsoft does seem to be listening to people. A sticking point for a lot of fans on the next-generation console has been that it’s less powerful than Sony’s PlayStation 4. In a podcast today, though, Major Nelson talked with Xbox’s Marc Whitten about some changes to the Xbox One that will let it crank…

How the Xbox One Is Designed To Be Left Switched on for 10 Years

There’s a reason Xbox One comes in that whopping great 1980s VCR style case, and it’s not because some one in authority at Microsoft went mad. It’s for cooling, to help keep it quiet and reliable—and so you can leave it switched on constantly for the next ten years. According to Digital Foundry, which spoke…

In Theory, This Is How Xbox One and PS4 Graphics Compare

There’s no doubt that on paper, the way Sony’s designed the PS4 and the AMD components it’s selected offer 50 per cent more power in the GPU department over the Xbox One. But does it really make any difference when you get down to playing a game? That’s the question Eurogamer and Digital Foundry set…

You Can Get a Free Year of Xbox Live Gold for Buying Office 360

Good news, Microsoft fans! For a limited time buying Microsoft products will get you more Microsoft products for free. To be more specific, you’ll get a yearlong subscription to Xbox Live Gold when you purchase the new(ish) Microsoft Office 365 which also happens to be a subscription based software suite. Advertised as a back-to-school deal,…

Microsoft Actually Considered These Idiotic Names for the Original Xbox

“Xbox” is a pretty good name for a console, right? Yeah, of course it is. You know what isn’t? Literally everything else Microsoft considered before landing on “Xbox”. In an interview with Edge, Xbox godfather Seamus Blackley explained that “xbox” (shortened from DirectX Box) was not legally sound as a product name, so they went…

“Game Consoles” Are the Final Key to Digital Domination

Google might be building a game console, rumors say. Apple too. Actually, everyone’s building game consoles. It’s just, they aren’t game consoles, exactly. They’re puzzle pieces. https://gizmodo.com/wsj-google-is-making-an-android-video-game-console-and-603197957 Game consoles have historically been their own little colony off to the side of technology. For a while that’s because they were seen mainly as an expensive kids’…

A Deal With Time Warner Just Gave Your Xbox 300 New Live TV Channels

Microsoft has just announced a major deal that means Time Warner Cable subscribers with an Xbox Live Gold membership will be able to watch more than 300 live TV channels direct from their Xbox 360 this summer. A Time Warner Cable app will roll out later this summer which let you log in with your…

The Hilarious Difference Between Google and Bing in One Picture

You use Google. Or maybe, just maybe you use Bing. Sometimes one is better. Sometimes the other is prettier. Sometimes it’s the other way around. Whatever. The most hilarious, ridiculous difference between the two though? How they auto-complete the Xbox One. Google Instant finds words like terrible, ugly, a joke and so forth. Bing? Just…

The Xbox One Just Got Way Worse, And It’s Our Fault

Microsoft just announced that its much-maligned DRM policies won’t look at all like they originally had originally been described. They’re going to more relaxed, sort of like the PS3’s. Good news, you say? No. Bad news. The Xbox One just got worse. https://gizmodo.com/microsoft-just-gave-up-on-its-xbox-one-drm-514393553 But what? Isn’t all DRM bad and anti-consumer? No. Often it is,…

Microsoft Just Gave Up On Its Xbox One DRM

Microsoft has caught a lot of heat for restricting the sale and trading of used games on Xbox One, and requiring the consoles to phone home every 24 hours for verification. Basically, for having hefty DRM. Well good news for whiners everywhere: Microsoft is giving up. Microsoft has just announced that the Xbox One will…

The Good News About Xbox One That Microsoft Brushed Right Over

E3 is over, but that doesn’t mean the fun has to stop. An internal, seemingly official Microsoft PR document about the Xbox One just leaked out, but it’s not full of horrible secrets, or general shadiness. Nope, it’s actually full of good news that Microsoft just didn’t bother to stress. With gamers up in arms…

Doing It Wrong: The Xbox One and PS4 Aren’t the Consoles We Need

As E3 closes up shop for the year, we finally have a moment to reflect on a week of gorging ourselves on news about the continuing console war between Microsoft and Sony (and, uh, Nintendo). It’s all very new and exciting news about the next half-decade of gaming, but in a lot of ways, it…