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Engadget Daily: Nexus 9, Google VP sets new space-jump record, and more!
It's Friday, ya'll. But before you checkout for the weekend, check out all our news highlights from the last 24 hours, including our hands-on with the Nexus 9, a new high-altitude jump record, the best gaming mice you can buy right now, and more.
Playdate: We're livestreaming 'Fantasia: Music Evolved' on Xbox One! (update: game over!)
The developers at Harmonix Music Systems know a thing or two about music. And we'd hope so, it is in the company name, after all. The studio's latest Kinect game, Fantasia: Music Evolved, is quite a bit different than anything they've done previously, though: it puts players under Mickey's wizard cap from the classic animated movie of the same name and has them remixing pop songs and classical tracks from the likes of Beethoven and Dvorak with rhythmic gesture controls. Sounds pretty neat on paper, right? But, it's natural to be skeptical of the title considering the general hit-or-miss nature of Microsoft's motion sensor. Well, you can come back here at 7 p.m. Eastern / 4 p.m. Pacific and see for yourself as we broadcast live gameplay from the Xbox One. We even have a download code to give away during the stream, too!
'Fantasia: Music Evolved' and its origins in the Kinect-hacking scene
The developers at Harmonix aren't afraid to hit the reset button if something isn't working correctly. Chances are, strumming a plastic Stratocaster changed quite a bit before you ever even started playing "Creep" by Radiohead in Rock Band. Same goes for stepping to the beat of Lady Gaga's "Poker Face" in Dance Central, too. That willingness to start from square one time and again? Well, it's carried through to the developer's latest Kinect title, Fantasia: Music Evolved, out now for Xbox 360 and Xbox One, as well. The team's aim, seemingly regardless of project, is for whatever you're doing in one of their titles to seem perfectly obvious and natural.
Totes download the Disney Fantasia demo on Xbox today
Fantasia: Music Evolved, the music experience game from the studio behind Rock Band and Dance Central, has a demo out today on both Xbox One and Xbox 360 platforms. You'll be able to conduct the full game on October 21. Unlike the film series' focus on classical pieces, Fantasia: Music Evolved features a mix of full orchestra pieces and those pop beats all the kids are boppin' and groovin' to these days. Music Evolved's modern songs include a selection featuring Bruno Mars, Drake and the ever wholesome Nicki Minaj.
Xbox One without Kinect is great for consumers, terrible for Kinect game developers
Sure, a $100 price drop on the Xbox One is great for us. First things first, it's less money to fork over for a new game console. Second, no Kinect, which means no all-seeing eye judging our tawdry lifestyle. But what if you're a Kinect game developer? What if you're, say, a member of the studio with the most successful third-party game franchise for Kinect, and you're in the middle of making an exclusive Disney game for it? Oh, great. Super great. - johntdrake (@johntdrake) May 13, 2014
Harmonix's 'Fantasia' gets a multiplayer mode, new songs
Harmonix is letting us in on a few more details about its upcoming game Disney Fantasia: Music Evolved. During a demo last week at GDC the company showed us a new discovery realm of the game called "The Hollow," a new multiplayer mode and took the wraps off of six new tracks coming to the colorful music-conducting game. Similar to the underwater world we saw at E3, The Hollow is a part of the game meant for exploration rather than structured gameplay -- and the forest scene has a ton to explore. Much like the other discovery realms in the game, parts of world start to come into color the more songs you play, with a little taste of your completed songs incorporating itself into the world. Areas of The Hollow we saw had magical mushrooms that you could play (not that kind of magical shrooms; these), as well as fairies you can interact with and an elk with playable bells in its antlers. It all looks pretty amazing, and is something we could definitely see ourselves spending hours exploring.
Disney reveals Fantasia / Fantasia 2000 Blu-ray pack, Beauty & the Beast special features
Before it gets to the next set of classics Disney still has to push out these two, and has chosen to reveal more information about Beauty & the Beast and Fantasia's upcoming Blu-ray releases. TheHDRoom points out all the special features on the just announced four-disc (two Blu-ray / two DVD) special edition bringing home Fantasia and Fantasia 2000 November 30, including BD-Live access to Disney's Virtual Vault and the debut of the animated short Destino. As for its other classic that hits Blu-ray October 5, Stitch Kingdom has linked to a few new videos revealing some of the special features included with the Diamond Edition release. We doubt any parent thought they'd get through the holidays without sliding more cash Disney's way, but just in case, the Fantasia trailer and Beauty & the Beast videos embedded after the break should be quite convincing.
Distributing iTunes LPs without iTunes
Within days of the iTunes 9 and iTunes LP announcement, people had already thoroughly hacked apart the iTunes LP format only to discover it was just a clever combination of images, HTML, CSS and Javascript. Because any web developer could create an iTunes LP, it seemed strange that indie labels were left out in the cold, with LPs having a high cost of entry and no distribution of their LPs on the iTunes Store. We do have a report this morning of Apple announcing that they'll be opening up the LP format, but a few inventive artists appear to have leapfrogged that step towards glasnost. It was only a matter of time before someone starting offering iTunes LPs in other ways, and iTunesLP.net is that someone. They're already offering up Disney's Fantasia in the iTunes LP format, but no music is included. Installing the LP is as easy and double-clicking the downloaded file, but for the music to play properly it must be correctly tagged and named, and of course you need a legitimate way to get the music in question. Even though the site only offers 1 LP currently, it has plenty of tutorials and directions on how to create and distribute your own. As long as no copyright laws are being broken, I think creating and distributing these LPs is a great idea. It offers users the chance to create visually stunning LPs for older music that the labels wouldn't bother with, and it offers indie labels the chance to get iTunes LPs out there, even if they're not yet available directly in the iTunes Store. With Apple's new policy towards opening up the LP format, this may be a brief opportunity for the workaround, but it's nice to see.
Disney releasing 14 classics on Blu-ray over the next 7 years
We've got good news and bad news. The good news is that our children won't have to suffer through SD versions of their favorite movies forever, the bad is that it's going to take another seven years. This might be really bad news for some of us, because we don't know about anyone else, but our kids like to watch the same movies over and over again and suffering through DVD versions of Disney classics is very painful on a 60-inch Kuro -- we swear the damage is permanent. This is especially true when the latest Disney titles are already available on Blu-ray so we know exactly what our poor kids are missing. Seven years isn't forever though and over the that time Disney will be releasing two of its 14 biggest classics each year. Pinochio and Sleeping Beauty were released already, and Beauty and the Beast and Fantasia come next. All of them will of course be fully restored and included Dolby TrueHD 7.1 surround sound. Beauty and the Beast Fantasia Fantasia 2000 The Lion King Bambi Cinderella Lady and the Tramp The Little Mermaid Peter Pan The Jungle Book 101 Dalmatians
Fantasia enters Korean closed beta ... on cell phone
This might just be the beginning of the end for MMO fanatics. Sure, it's possible to whip out a laptop to play your favorite online game on the move, but with the upcoming Korean MMO Fantasia, it will be as simple as pulling your cell phone out of your pocket. Imagine your most boring work meeting, school lecture, or family gathering, then think about how much better it would be to discreetly farm for items under the table or desk -- just don't include the resulting termination/expulsion/disowning in your little fantasy.Fantasia has just entered the closed beta phase of its testing in Korea, and developer Lemon Co. hopes to release it in the second half of 2009. Whether this will be limited to the Korean market or not is up in the air at this point. The game is said to feature detailed 2D graphics, a large world map, item trading, a mail system, and even an arena for PvP. On top of this, Lemon is working on cell phone specific features, like a system that sends a text message when an item you're looking for shows up, even if you're not logged in. The bar has been set -- now we wait and see if Lemon can deliver a quality product, and also, if other developers are keen to enter the mix.
