Our good buddy Farhad Manjoo writes over at Slate that he believes Microsoft has already beaten Apple at the living room game. Why buy an Apple TV – either in its current form or in some sort of Siri-powered large-screen LCD form (which we’ll call ATV) – when your Xbox 360 does everything you want it to right now.
Sadly, he’s wrong. While Microsoft has improved their offering considerably and while voice commands are fun, there is still no compelling reason to buy an Xbox just for its streaming capabilities, nor is there any compelling reason to buy any one streaming system over any other. As they say, all set-top boxes make users unhappy in their own way.
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Japan’s video game industry is the world’s second biggest (after the US), but it’s on a downward streak for the fifth consecutive year. Based on sales, the country’s video game industry has contracted by as much as 8% year-on-year, Japan’s biggest gaming magazine Famitsu is reporting [JP].
Between December 27, 2010 and December 25, 2011, Japanese game companies generated US$5.9 billion in sales. The Famitsu says that sales from hardware makers actually went up 2.4% (thanks to the launch of the 3DS and PlayStation Vita) to reach US$2.3 billion. Software revenues in Japan dropped 13.7% to US$3.6 billion last year. → Read More
Microsoft has ported Kinectimals, the Xbox 360 game that involves the care and feeding of dangerous animals in the wild, to the iPhone, suggesting that (at least in the short term) even Microsoft sees the value of releasing on iOS.
The $2.99 game recreates the Xbox version fairly faithfully but without the Kinect motion controls. Interestingly, the app also allows you to “unlock” new cubs on the Xbox, proving that paid DLC can hide in multiple guises. → Read More
Microsoft’s wonderfully shiny new Xbox 360 dashboard is now available to most, and, while it’s a bit of a letdown in some ways (more on that later, probably), it has plenty of very, very cool new features. Cloud storage for game saves! New Netflix! HBOGO (Eventually!)
One of the niftier features, however, is being saved solely for those rockin’ Windows Phone 7 phones. Called Xbox Companion, it allows you some degree of control over your 360 from your handset (as opposed to a standard controller), and it just went live. → Read More
The upcoming Metro update to Microsoft’s Xbox, shipping tonight and arriving on your console some time this week, pushes Microsoft’s gaming product away from the traditional run-and-gun of gaming consoles and into a new realm: that of the home media center.
While the Xbox existed as a media center before, allowing you to download video and music content and stream content from your home computers, this new update makes it easier to find disparate pieces of content, whether its from Microsoft’s own video/music store or another source or directly from the Internet through YouTube and various partner services. The update also allows Windows Phone users to control the Xbox remotely, adding items to the queue and looking up content to send to the TV while other content is playing. In short, this update isn’t about the games, it’s about content.
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Microsoft just posted some impressive sales stats: this week they sold 980,000 Xbox 360 consoles and 750,000 Kinect sensors, both “standalone and bundled.” The sales week is probably due in part to the perfect storm of titles hitting the platform, including Skyrim, as well as Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales.
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Yesterday morning, we reported that Microsoft had acquired Israeli video startup, VideoSurf, for approximately $70 million. The deal indeed has been greenlighted, as Microsoft confirmed in its blog post yesterday. However, at the time, the price of the acquisition was unclear; several sources (who wished to remain anonymous) pegged the number at $70 million. But, today we’ve heard from a solid source that the actual price of the acquisition was actually just under $100 million — in cash.
Sure, it’s not quite the $8.5 billion Microsoft paid for popular voice and video-over-IP service, Skype, but for a relatively young startup, this is a big win. → Read More
You already know about Verizon bringing live TV to the Xbox 360, but it turns out that was just the tip of Microsoft’s great big television-related iceberg.
In an effort to transform the television experience, Microsoft has struck deals with nearly 40 entertainment providers to start injecting more media into their gaming platform. → Read More
Good news, FiOS fans! Verizon and Microsoft have announced today that they have struck an agreement to bring live HD television channels to your Xbox 360 without any additional hardware.
Now, don’t expect to get Verizon’s full channel lineup on your console just yet — according to their just-released statement, Verizon will only be bringing “a selection of popular live TV channels to the Xbox 360.” So far, Verizon has 26 channels on deck, including MTV, Spike, Food Network, Comedy Central, HBO, CNN and Nickelodeon. → Read More
Windows Phone Mango is already primed and ready to compete with iOS and Android, but that doesn’t mean Microsoft is resting on its laurels. Quite the opposite actually.
As anticipation builds, Microsoft continues to add features to make this platform even better than what was expected. Today, the company added a handful of new features to the Games Hub, along with the announcement of 14 new Xbox Live titles. → Read More
The Kinetic Space project uses almost any type of 3D spatial scanner – including the Xbox Kinect – to register and read gestures. How does it work? Well, first you register your body and then record a set of gestures. The system can read those gestures and trigger events based on the speed and repetition of the gestures. The best part is the granularity: you can even scan hand motions for an interesting form of man-machine sign language. → Read More
The old, white Xbox media remote was often a godsend. Instead of pressing odd buttons on the controller, the media remote let you control Netflix and DVD videos with ease and it was big and unique enough not to get lost. This new media remote, however, looks less like a bar of Dove soap and more like a traditional remote control.
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Last week, Microsoft filed for an interesting U.S. trademark for ‘NUADS’, describing it as:
Advertising services, namely, promoting and marketing the goods and services of others through online interactive video games by enabling consumers to interact with third-party advertising content through voice or body gestures via computer game console and sensor devices.
Alright, finally. Microsoft released the Kinect last year with games that turned out to be to nothing more than virtual parlor games. But today at the company’s E3 2011 presser, they took the wraps off the first round of games that finally seem to be meant for gamers — you know, gamers as in people that enjoy virtual killing and such. The headliner? Oh it must be Star Wars Kinect. → Read More
This one-of-a-kind Xbox “Slim Laptop” is ready to ship if you have $1,600 and a need to play 360 games on the road. Built by a blogger named [Ed], it’s basically a fully-functional Xbox 360 inside a laptop case with 17″ 720p HD screen, multiple outputs, four USB ports, and a built-in power brick. Essentially, except for the controller, this is a self-contained Xbox in a clever case. → Read More
You’ve waited for it. You’ve prayed for it. You’ve spilled the blood of countless sacrificial chickens for it. And now it’s here: Hulu Plus for Xbox 360. The service is launching tomorrow and you’re basically getting the Hulu interface with which you’re familiar plus a few Kinect add-ons including voice control and gestures. With sufficient bandwidth you also get high-quality streaming on what Microsoft is calling the “biggest screen in your house.” The service will be available for free from April 29 – May 6 and will thereafter cost $7.99 a month. Click through for more info on the service, including some words about Kintect interaction. → Read More
As a fairly regular player of XBox 360 media (called “video games” by those in the know) I have found that the console often becomes hot enough to melt a DVD placed on top of it resulting in, say, a copy of Mario Kart Wii (another “video game” for a game console called the Wii) that is rendered unusable by said heat. This causes, in turn, our toddlers to melt-down and the end result is something called “Dad has to go to Gamestop again.” In all, it is a sub-par situation all around.
What if there were a way to channel all that hot air from the top of the console into the atmosphere? You could, for example, use a piece of cardboard and toilet paper tube to vent the hot gasses away from the device or you could dip the entire console in an oil bath. Or you could buy a $20 fan that snaps to the side of your 360′s case and vents the hot air away from the surface of the console. It is USB powered so it takes up one of your XBox’s USB ports (not that you were using them) and almost silent when active. → Read More
Gamasutra had a good interview with Sony’s head of R&D, Dr. Richard Marks — it’s well worth the read. They talk about how he got his start in high school at a game shop his pop owned playing loads of old school games. He then moved on to study aerospace engineering in college where he found his love for robotics. Something he says is very similar to video gaming. → Read More
We haven’t heard about too many heat issues with the new slim Xbox 360, but for those who run the console 24/7 it may be worth looking into a cooling system. Nyko just recently announced their Intercooler STS system made exclusively for the slim Xbox. Thankfully, the system is smart and only runs when it needs to, keeping noise levels down. Power comes from USB and it looks like the unit blends nicely with the Xbox. → Read More
The first hints of a next-generation Xbox have appeared online, and it’s about darn time. A listing on the LinkedIn social network—for those unfamiliar of LinkedIn, it’s sorta like Facebook but primarily used to maintain professional contacts—shows that Microsoft is looking to fill several positions related to “next-generation console architectures from conception through implementation.” How about that? → Read More
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