Displaying items by tag: Xbox

Yesterday we talked about Microsoft’s plans to buy Activision Blizard as well as Sony’ plans to buy Bungie. We covered what these could mean in terms of content control and splitting console ownership into what titles people like. Although both Microsoft and Sony are committed to releasing content for both consoles, once the existing contracts run out, things could be very different. Because of this potential monopoly of content by the Activision Blizzard deal, the FTC is going to take look at it.

The war between Microsoft’s Xbox and Sony’s PlayStation has been going on for a while. As the two companies fight it out the consumer, for the most part, has been the winner. Each new generation of console has brought with it new technologies, better performance and really upped the game regardless of which camp you are in. It is true that prices have also gone through the roof, but that has not stopped eager fans from buying out inventory as soon as it hits the shelves.

When Microsoft and Sony announced the move to x86-64 based gaming consoles some (pronounce that many) in the gaming community were more than a little annoyed that they would not be able to play their older games. Both companies hoped that the move would drive gaming innovation and also get people to buy new games as well as leave the option for developers to create new versions of older games with improved graphics. We saw both of these start to happen during the first few months of the Xbox One and PS4’s life. Now that things are settling down we are finally getting to a time when companies are going to circle back around to those older games.

With the launch of Windows 8 the gaming world was a tad shaken up. It seems that Microsoft was abandoning the PC gamer in favor of their own console. Everything about Windows 8 seemed designed to push the Xbox as the center of the gaming world. It was a decision that made many development houses more than a little angry. It was bad enough that Valve made the choice to begin working on their own Linux based OS to support games. The gaming community responded favorably to this change which we are sure made Microsoft more than a little nervous. To add insult to injury the Xbox One did not do as well as expected at launch and in the first months of its life.

In the current round of console wars it is pretty clear who is winning and who is not. Ever since it was first introduced Microsoft’s Xbox One has had challenges with consumer acceptance. Almost all of the reasons for this lay with Microsoft and the message they were putting out about the gaming console. The alienated the gaming community with massive restrictions and a multi-media push that Sony was able to counter from day one.

Hey, remember all of those rumors that Microsoft was thinking about selling the Xbox division to someone? Well it seems that there might have been a tiny bit of truth to the basic rumor, it is just that the actual Xbox division named was a tab bit off. As we reported a couple of weeks ago, Microsoft is shuttering their Xbox Entertainment Studios, but it seems that they might not be going away.

Microsoft has announced that they will be closing the doors on their Xbox Entertainment Studio. This move is part of the recent job cuts that new CEO Satya Nadella announced. Nadella is slimming things down as part of a mobile first, cloud first initiative, but also with the intention of re-focusing Microsoft on things that area important to the product in question. If you remember gamers were not that happy with the “more than a gaming console” spin that Microsoft put on the Xbox One.

One of the big stories from this year’s E3 was the announcement of the open Beta of Destiny for the PS3 and 4. Destiny (if you did not already know) is a new first person shooter from the company that brought us the first three installments of the Xbox only Halo franchise. This is part of what made the news of the Sony oriented beta so interesting.

If you have never heard of the developer Bungie then you probably are not a Halo fan. Bungie is the company that was responsible for Halo 1-3. Now they are working on another project that is to be a little less exclusive, Destiny.  As Bungie is only known for their work on Halo the industry and consumers are sure to be keeping an eye on Destiny to see if Halo was a fluke or if Bungie can really write a game.

Microsoft has finally released a driver that allows you to use the Xbox One Controller on a PC. For some this is big news and they have been waiting for it since shortly after the release of Microsoft’s latest console. For others this might not be such a big deal as you can simply use the older Xbox 360 controllers or buy a PC game controller if you really need to get your PC gaming fix (many PC gamers still use a keyboard and mouse).