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Revisit 'Burnout: Paradise' for free on Xbox next month
Xbox's Games With Gold subscription service has come a long way. At the start of the generation, Games With Gold offered very few AAA titles, its game lineups paling in comparison to Sony's PlayStation Plus counterpart. Over the last couple of years however, Microsoft's service has seen a very noticeable rise in quality.
Microsoft built Twitch-like livestreaming into Windows 10
Broadcasting live gameplay to Twitch or Facebook isn't easy. It means setting up special capture software and navigating a mire of complicated bandwidth settings. Microsoft is trying to fix that: The next version of Windows 10 is going to integrate game broadcasting directly into the Xbox App. The streaming experience promises not only to be easy, but also to almost eliminate the communication lag between viewers and broadcasters -- but don't expect to use it on Twitch. Microsoft's game broadcasting tools seem to be designed specifically for Beam, the livestreaming service it acquired back in August.
Xbox One update preview shows off new social features
Clubs and Looking for Group features are being rolled out to Preview members on Xbox One today and then the Xbox app on Windows 10, iOS and Android devices in the near future. Both features were originally announced during E3 2016, but now there's a chance to actually try them out in the wild.
Now Xbox Live Gamertags will expire after five years
It's always frustrating when you can't get your preferred nickname for any online service, and after nearly 14 years many of the good ones on Xbox Live are already taken. Worse, they might be tied to accounts that are no longer active, and are just waiting to go back into circulation. Microsoft freed up a cache of 1 million stale Gamertags earlier this year and back in 2011, which could become a regular occurrence. As a part of an update to its Terms of Service, the company is adding a requirement to sign in at least once in a five year period to keep an Xbox Live Gamertag associated with your account.
Xbox Live now supports high-quality PC Twitch streaming
If you want to use the Xbox Live network to tell followers you're streaming Xbox One games on Twitch, there's just one way: Stream from the console's Twitch app. The problem is that the quality and options are very limited, since the Xbox One isn't exactly a TV production studio. However, Microsoft and Twitch have teamed up to make it possible to use Xbox Live when you're streaming from a PC using a capture card -- all you need to do is link your Xbox Live and Twitch accounts.
New Xbox Live features include clan support and friend-finding options
Microsoft is making it a good deal easier to find friends when you want to play a game online this fall. A new "clubs" feature is basically a system-wide clan feature that lets you group together all your friends you play with frequently. Another new feature, "looking for group," will let you put out an alert to your friends when you're trying to get a big Destiny game going. The last feature, "Arena," is aimed at competitive play and lets you find competitions going on around your favorite games.
Play a free, futuristic 'Cops and Robbers' on your Xbox One
Rumors are swirling that we could see more of the new Crackdown in just over a week's time at E3, but until Microsoft's media briefing you'll just have to make due with All Points Bulletin: Reloaded. The free-to-play online game of futuristic cops and robbers recently launched on Xbox One after a lengthy delay, and if you log in within the first month (or before its initial patch, whichever comes first), there are a few bonuses for you. In addition to weapon skins and a placard for your avatar if you play for 10 hours, there's a special weapon (the Fireworks Flare Launcher) and vehicle (Mikro JC14 "New-Cross") in store for everyone, regardless of play-time.
Microsoft will free up 1 million Xbox gamertags this week
Have you been coveting an Xbox Live gamertag that someone else happened to nab before you years ago? You may well be able to claim it yet as of May 18th, when Microsoft plans to release a million different gamertags from "abandoned" accounts.
'Rocket League' maker has 'figured out' PS4/Xbox One cross-play
When Microsoft announced that it was working with developers to expand Xbox Live to play nicely with other platforms, it was Rocket League developer Psyonix leading the charge. Gamers immediately asked whether that meant Xbox One owners could soon smash into PlayStation 4 buddies, but Sony has yet to confirm whether that's something it wants to enable. Sony Worldwide Studios' Shuhei Yoshida told Eurogamer at GDC 2016 that "policy and business issues" were likely the biggest obstacles, rather than technical demands -- a message that Psyonix vice president Jeremy Dunham has now mirrored. Turns out, the studio has already connected its Xbox One and PlayStation 4 games and is now waiting for all of the relevant parties to decide on how things should play out.
Xbox One drops to $299 in Microsoft's spring game sale
If you missed out on last fall's Xbox One sales, you're about to get a second chance. Microsoft is kicking off an Xbox Spring Sale on March 20th that will once again lop $50 off the Xbox One's price. And yes, that applies to any bundle -- the 500GB offerings start at as little as $299, and even that pricey The Division 1TB bundle will fall to a more reasonable $349. A handful of games (including Halo 5) will see a $20 price cut, too. The hardware deals will stick around "for a limited time," so you may want to act quickly if you're eager to play and don't want to wait until June to see what E3 will bring.
Microsoft makes a big bet on esports with Xbox Live tournaments
On top of offering networking compatibility with other gaming platforms, Microsoft had another treat for developers at GDC this week: An easy way to create their own game tournaments with Xbox Live. Think of it as an evolution of Xbox Live's multiplayer matchmaking. The aptly titled Xbox Live Tournament Platform, which will support both Xbox One and Windows 10, is clearly meant to make Microsoft an even bigger player in the burgeoning esports market. To that end, it's also teaming up with esports companies FaceIT and ESL, who will use the platform for upcoming tournaments. The first titles to support the tournament platform should arrive by the end of the year.
Skype hides IP addresses to protect users from online trolls
Let's be honest: it's pretty hard to find someone who will be genuinely happy for you when you win something. When it comes to online gaming, however, that probability falls to zero. Losing a multiplayer game leaves some people so angry that they'll go out of their way to force fellow players offline. In order to do this, gamers can use tools to locate a target's IP address from just their target's Skype username and then launch a DDoS attack to overload their internet connection. It's not the most common attack vector but Microsoft has changed the way its messaging app works so that gamers, and the wider Skype community, can rest a little easier knowing it's harder for them to be tracked.
One of Xbox Live's creators has left Microsoft
The man who helped transform Xbox Live from a network of desktop PCs running under its developers' desks to a service connecting some 39 million game-playing folk has left Microsoft. Eric Neustadter has worked at the company for 18-and-a-half years, 14-and-a-half of those dedicated to Xbox where he's most recently served as the platform's director of architecture. He recently returned from a sabbatical, and the co-host of the Major Nelson podcast hasn't yet made any indication of what's he's going to do next. If you'd like some more info on who the man who holds the first-created gamertag ("e") is, you should definitely read this two-part history on building Xbox Live which chronicles the birth of the service and its relaunch with the Xbox 360's 2005 release. They're worth your time -- I promise. [Image credit: Bloomberg via Getty Images]
Xbox Live gets 28 percent more monthly active users in the first quarter
It was a pretty good first quarter for Microsoft on the gaming front. The company revealed today that monthly active Xbox Live users increased by 28 percent over the last three months, a huge jump that now puts the active user base at 39 million. To be clear: These aren't the total amount of people on Xbox Live (which sits around 49 million), just those who are playing at least once a month. The summer break probably accounted for much of that growth, together with high-profile releases like Metal Gear Solid V and Destiny: The Taken King. Still, the gaming success wasn't enough to help Microsoft's More Personal Computing group -- which includes all of its devices -- still saw revenue fall 17 percent in Q1, mostly due to the 54 percent revenue drop in phones. And that figure isn't too surprising: Microsoft didn't really have many fresh phone offerings over the summer.
Here's how 'Halo 5: Guardians' multiplayer rankings work
Halo 5: Guardians is almost upon us, and once the campaign credits roll (or the game itself finishes installing on your Xbox One, depending on your style) you might be curious how multiplayer ranking works. Wonder no more because it's similar to League of Legends according to a post on Halo Waypoint. Your starting placement in matchmade Arena games is determined by how you fare in your first ten games. That "Competitive Skill Rating" breaks down into seven categories: Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, Onyx and Champion. The post stresses that the only way to increase your rank after those initial ten matches are set is by winning.
Xbox Live and ID@Xbox indie games coming to HoloLens
Microsoft's promise of unifying its disparate platforms with Windows 10 has even more going for it with some surprise announcements ahead of this week's Gamescom show in Germany. We knew that Xbox Live was coming to the desktop -- for free, even -- but that extends to HoloLens too. That's right: online multiplayer, friends lists and your achievements (anything tied to Redmond's gaming service, from the sounds of it) will be available on the augmented reality headset, according to VRFocus. The site also reports that HoloLens, Windows 10 and Xbox One will share a universal store for apps and the like "in time." Some purchases will also apparently be pay-once-play-anywhere affairs too. And similar to Microsoft's push to get Android and iOS developers to bring their apps to Windows 10, the ID@Xbox program will work to court indie game developers and extend across Redmond's latest operating system, HoloLens and Windows Phone.
Attacker who ruined your holiday gaming gets a slap on the wrist
If you were hoping that all of the Lizard Squad attackers who took down the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live last holiday would get their comeuppance... well, you'll be disappointed. A Finnish court has convicted Julius Kivimäki (aka "Ryan" and "Zeekill") of a whopping 50,700 charges related to various computer crimes, including data breaches, telecommunication-based harassment and swiping credit card data. It sounds good, but his penalty is limited to a suspended 2-year prison sentence and an order to help fight cybercrime -- a trivial penalty in light of his overall damage. Even if you limit Kivimäki's culpability to the gaming network outage, he was still partly responsible for days of downtime at Microsoft and Sony that frustrated millions of players. While he'll theoretically stay on the straight and narrow for at least a while, the verdict isn't exactly going to scare Lizard Squad's other members into becoming model citizens. [Image credit: Jean-Jacques Boujot, Flickr]
Microsoft ban for 'Gears of Wars' leakers only knocks them offline
Remember that Xbox One Gears of War remaster leak from a few weeks back? Well, the folks who gave word about it and then proceeded to upload video of the game in action have apparently had their Xbox Live accounts "permanently disabled" and supposedly "all of their Xbox One privileges" have been blocked according to an email from the game's testing agency that was obtained by Kotaku. As Microsoft tells us, that isn't quite the case; it's more of a soft ban that means the affected accounts can't go online: "To be clear, if a console is suspended from Xbox Live for a violation of the Terms of Use, it can still be used offline. Microsoft enforcement action does not result in a console becoming unusable. Suspensions for both consoles and accounts are determined by looking at a number of factors. To avoid enforcement action including suspension from the service, users should follow the Xbox Live Terms of Use and Code of Conduct."
Xbox Live members get the 'Game of Thrones' premiere for free
If you've resisted piracy's siren call, you now have another way to catch the season premiere of Game of Thrones. Xbox Live members with an Xbox One or 360 can now stream the Season 5 premiere gratis until April 16th, including extra content like trailers, on-set tours and blooper reels. The episode debuted on HBO -- available to many with cable or satellite thanks to a conveniently timed weekend preview event -- and its just-launched $15/month streaming HBO Now service, to largely solid reviews (spoilers at that link). It looks like the extra is only available in the US due to HBO's complex foreign syndication deals, but it's good news if you didn't want to sign up with HBO just for GoT.
Xbox One is finally getting voice messages
Among the many improvements of moving to a new console generation, the Xbox One left a few features from the Xbox 360 behind. Now, Microsoft is testing a preview for its April update that brings back one of the most requested features: voice messages. As annoying as voicemail can be on a phone, simply saying a quick message while trying to coordinate a raid in Destiny can often be faster than typing it with a controller or even the SmartGlass app. One more bonus? The voice messages will work across Xbox One and Xbox 360. The software update with the feature is already available to preview members, check after the break for more details and a demo video.
