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Xbox Live Marketplace rebranded as Xbox Games Store
The Xbox Live Marketplace has a new name to go with its brand new console: the Xbox Games Store. As visible on the Xbox homepage, the Xbox 360's online marketplace was rebranded this week ahead of the Xbox One's launch in November. When approached to confirm the rebranding, a Microsoft spokesperson told Joystiq, "That's right, [Xbox Live Marketplace] is now called the Xbox Games Store, and will sit alongside the Xbox Music Store and Xbox Video Store. This is to make it easier for consumers to find content both on Xbox 360 today and Xbox One when it launches in November." Given all the pre-Xbox One streamlining going on, including the switch to real-world currency on Xbox Live, a new moniker for the Xbox 360's online marketplace (and soon to be the Xbox One's) is not a big surprise and maybe not the biggest news either. Still, it does mean after nearly eight years we have to say sayonara to Xbox Live Marketplace, a name that sort of rolled off the tongue in an after-eight-years-it-really-should way.
Pre-ordering Dying Light lets you Be the Zombie
Warner Bros. and developer Techland are looking to lock in pre-orders for Dying Light by offering an exclusive PVP mode called "Be the Zombie." In "Be the Zombie," players assume the role of a night hunter – a super fast zombie with a special tendril for navigating the environment – and battle each other for supremacy. Dying Light, an open-world action game with parkour elements (and zombies) was announced prior to E3 earlier this year. Due on Xbox One, Xbox 360, PS4, PS3 and PC in 2014, Dying Light is the second zombie-based property from Dead Island: Riptide developer Techland.
Magic 2014 summons its first expansion next month
Come September 18, Magic 2014 - Duels of the Planeswalkers will tap the necessary mana to call forth its first official expansion. The list of additions the expansion is said to deliver are pretty much exactly what you'd expect: More cards, new campaign levels and new challenges. Specifically, those who purchase the addition will find five new decks at their disposal for a total of 280 additional, unique cards. Six new campaign levels also join the extant Magic 2014 feature set, along with five new challenges designed to test players' abilities to survive in specific gameplay scenarios. Finally, the expansion also brings with it a host of new unlockable items for players skilled enough to find them. These include additional trophies, achievements and new portraits for your in-game avatar. Absent from today's announcement is an official price point for the expansion, though if the expansions released for earlier Magic titles are any indicator, this addition should be priced somewhere between $3 to $5.
Xbox One voice commands will only work fully in some launch countries, languages
Earlier this month Microsoft trimmed the list of countries where its Xbox One will launch to 13, and now it's revealed the new Kinect voice commands will only support all of its features in some of them. Pointed out by a thread on NeoGAF, a disclaimer on Xbox.com listed only a few countries with support for voice commands at launch. Since then, MS Director of Product Planning Albert Penello has responded with more details, explaining that, at launch the Xbox One will support eight languages / dialects: English (US), English (GB), French, Spanish (MX), Spanish (ES), Italian, German and Portuguese. That said, some voice features -- like the "Xbox On" command -- will not be available everywhere at the start, with only the US, UK, Canada, France, and Germany set to receive them out of the gate. As Penello explains it, users will select their language first, and then get a list of countries it's supported in. Confused? A more thorough explanation is coming to the Xbox website at some point, and Kinect's supported languages are expected to grow with updates after the system launches -- whenever that launch is.
Spawn crawls out of Hell and into Soul Calibur 2 HD Online
Soul Calibur 2 HD Online, a downloadable remix of the original PS2 fighter for Xbox Live Arcade and PSN due this fall, will include Spawn as a playable character. Soul Calibur 2 featured console-exclusive characters when it launched on PS2, Xbox and GameCube back in 2003. Heihachi was the PS2's character and confirmed for Soul Calibur 2 HD Online when the game was announced back at San Diego Comic-Con; Spawn was exclusive to the original Xbox version and the GameCube port got Link. And we already know what you're thinking: Will Link be in the game? All signs point to nope. A comparison video between the original game and the Online revamp shows much-improved character models and arenas on top of the addition of online play. Soul Calibur 2 HD Online will be available for download on PS3 and Xbox 360 sometime this fall.
BioShock Infinite lands, landed, will land on Mac today
BioShock Infinite hit the PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in March. Now, as if spurred on by the same Manifest Destiny it rails against, BioShock Infinite has come to conquer the Mac. Though BioShock Infinite was initially developed by Irrational Games, publisher 2K Games has tapped prominent Mac porting house Aspyr Media to handle the OS X incarnation. Apple devotees hoping to enjoy the adventure can now find BioShock Infinite on both Steam and in the OS X App Store with a price tag of $40. Alternately, Steam codes for BioShock Infinite are available at most Apple game retailers or through Aspyr's GameAgent website, the company says.
Metro: Last Light 'Tower Pack' DLC launches next week
4A Games is gearing up to launch the second batch of downloadable content for its subterranean first-person shooter, Metro: Last Light, next week. Metro's Tower Pack offers a series of single-player challenge levels that advance in difficulty as players scale a fortified guard tower in virtual reality. Each stage is packed with hordes of mutants and other enemies, and players will be ranked on a level-by-level basis in the mode's global leaderboards. Last Light's latest round of DLC will debut via Steam, Xbox Live, and the PlayStation Network on September 3 in North America. The Tower Pack is available as part of Metro: Last Light's Season Pass content, and is priced separately at $4.99.
Xbox One and Xbox 360 voice chat qualities in a sound showdown
Xbox One uses the Skype audio codec and has dedicated audio processing, two features that Microsoft spokesman Major Nelson says improves the new console's chat quality over the Xbox 360 – but that's for you to decide. Major Nelson provides two samples of audio, one from the Xbox 360 chat headset and one with the Xbox One's headset. Have a listen below:
Xbox One voice commands available in 5 markets at launch
The Xbox One's ability to listen to your sultry, sensuous voice and translate those mouth noises into a command to watch New Girl on Netflix will only function in five markets at launch. Specifically, those markets are the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, France and Germany. This means that Xbox Ones sold in Australia, Austria, Brazil, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, Spain and New Zealand will be without this functionality on launch. The news was mentioned at the very bottom of this lengthy Xbox One overview on Xbox.com. No further information was given beyond the fact that "Xbox voice commands will not be available in all markets on the product release date," so exactly when voice commands will make it to the remaining launch markets is anyone's guess. Earlier this month, Microsoft scaled the Xbox One's launch from 21 to 13 territories, with later reports citing Kinect localization as the main reason for this delay.
Bound by Flame makes demonic possession look pretty on PS4
Bound by Flame, the action RPG from Focus Home Interactive and Spiders (aah, run!), is coming to PS3, Xbox 360, PC and PS4 this year. The game was announced at Gamescom last week for current-gen consoles and PC. Bound by Flame inhabits a dark fantasy world where players embody a mercenary possessed by a flame demon, allowing them to either embrace the demon inside and gain evil powers, or reject it and earn heroic talents. As enemies grow more foul, the temptation to take on more demonic powers grows, and the heroes' bodies transform as they allow more evil into their souls. The world is infested with all kinds of grotesque enemies, including floating squid-like things and hulking beasts with hollow chest cavities and horns. Sounds fun.
Xbox One to bring higher quality voice chat through dedicated hardware and the power of Skype (updated)
It's anti-climactic when you destroy someone in Madden, yet your victory chants are muffled by substandard voice chat. Today, Major Nelson revealed that with the Xbox One and the Xbox One Chat Headset, your taunts and condolences will be heard loud and clear by all. How? Well, the console has dedicated audio processing and the new controller's expansion port provides a fatter data pipe that allows the headset to render voices at 24 KHz PCM. According to the Major, that's three times the sample rate for rendering and a 50 percent better capture rate than Xbox 360 headsets. Combine that with Skype's refined audio codec, and you've got yourself a new gold standard for in-game chat quality. And, you can hear the difference at the source link below. Only downside Best part is, Microsoft still gonna won't make you pay extra for the privilege. Update: Major Nelson was kind enough to remind us that the headset will, in fact, be included with Xbox One.
Grand Theft Auto 5 starts its engines with 'The Official Trailer'
It's surreal to think that, in all the madness of the next-gen consoles coming out in a few months time, a new GTA game is under three weeks away. Here's the so-dubbed "The Official Trailer" for Grand Theft Auto 5, due on PS3 and Xbox 360 on September 17.
Tiny Tina goes to her happy place in Borderlands short
Tiny Tina, stuck in a precarious position, doesn't sulk. She rides that reading rainbow and lets her imagination (and undiagnosed psychosis) get her out of a particularly prickly situation. Although not tied to any particular promotion, this Borderlands 2 short comes shortly after the game's GOTY announcement.
Forza Rewards program keeps your franchise career on track
That's right – we call playing multiple games in the same series a "career" now. It's a sensible term for Microsoft's Forza franchise, which now rewards players for their loyalty and unwavering quest to earn the glossiest models on the Nüburgring catwalk. The Forza Rewards program tracks your progress across multiple Forza Motorsport games, starting at Forza Motorsport 2 and extending to recent games like Forza 4 and Forza Horizon. In-game progress translates to a universal pool of points, which corresponds to several tiers of rewards that can take the form of in-game currency, tokens and cars (also in-game). You're welcome to compare your progress to other players as well, but we don't recommend obsessing over tier pressure in a game like this. If Forza's cross-game consistency sounds familiar, it's because of Microsoft's Halo Waypoint, a similar (though not as actively rewarding) program that spans the space-faring series. Just think of it as trading the lore for, umm, DeLoreans?
'Dragon Age Keep' sets up your story choices before Inquisition
BioWare announced Dragon Age Keep today, an online tool that enables players to experiment with story scenarios from Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age 2, setting up the ideal starting state heading into Inquisition. While choices made in Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age 2 are meant to carry over to Dragon Age: Inquisition, it hasn't been clear just how they would transfer from current-generation systems to PS4 and Xbox One. Dragon Age: Inquisition Executive Producer Mark Darrah noted in a BioWare blog that the online solution presented by Dragon Age Keep "allows players to take their unique world state into any platform (present or future) and even other media." Darrah added that by moving the system to the cloud, the opportunity to fix issues in the plot's logic has opened up. "Under the hood, the Keep has a logic validator which ensures you'll always have a valid world state free from errors and conflicts," he said. With regards to importing directly from previous games to Dragon Age Keep, Darrah said the team is "continuing to investigate ways in which save files from previous games could be used to populate the initial world state of the Dragon Age Keep." BioWare is now accepting applicants for Dragon Age Keep's beta program. The app will be available in 2014, months before the game launches on PC, PS4 and Xbox One.
Grand Theft Auto 5 soundtrack packs '20 movies worth of score'
Rolling Stone has published an extensive look at the soundtrack for Grand Theft Auto 5, with streaming samples of a few Los Santos stations available right now. Ivan Pavlovich, soundtrack supervisor, says it's the biggest soundtrack Rockstar has ever done, around "20 movies worth of score." "We approached the radio stations as the musical soundscape [you experience] as you fly into L.A. One of the things we've never done in a GTA game before is a pop station; exploring that made so much sense in the context of L.A." Some stations have big-name talent attached too: DJ Pooh hosts a rap station; Wavves' Stephen Pope and Nate Williams host a rock station; Pam Grier hosts a soul station. Grand Theft Auto 5's soundtrack is also unique in that it's the first game in the series to have its own score created by Rockstar. Many composers have created music specifically for Grand Theft Auto 5, including electronic band Tangerine Dream, LA-based producer The Alchemist and rapper Oh No. Woody Jackson, who worked on Red Dead Redemption and LA Noire, is the final piece of this composer ensemble.
Saints Row 4 'Presidential' and 'Grass Roots' DLC out today
Saints Row 4 gets two wildly different (and just plain wild) DLC packs this week, with the Presidential and Grass Roots packs running $3 each. Both bundles hit Steam and PSN today, and Xbox Live Marketplace tomorrow. The Presidential Pack includes masks of four influential US presidents – Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Barack Obama and George W. Bush – along with customizable outfits. This bundle was available as a pre-order bonus at Gamestop and EB games. The Grass Roots pack takes the saints to the country with farm-inspired costumes, a gun that shoots plungers and some sort of explosive that sounds like a juicy fart. Hooray.
Crytek's Warface coming to Xbox 360 in 2014
Crytek's online first-person shooter, Warface, will launch on Xbox 360 in early 2014. The game will retain its free-to-play model in the move to the Microsoft console, though the online play will require an Xbox Live Gold subscription. The PC version of Warface recently entered its final closed beta phase, which players can still apply for on the GFace site. The game will launch later this year in North America, Europe and Turkey. Crytek's free-to-play ambitions don't end with Warface, as CEO Cevat Yerli said in February that the company hopes to better support the free-to-play model within the next five years.
Saints Row 4 sells over one million copies in first week
Open-world power trip Saints Row 4 had a good launch week, selling over a million units through retail and digital distribution. Publisher Deep Silver also noted the latest installment's PC version had nearly triple the sales of Saints Row 3 during the same period after its retail release. "The development team at Volition is second-to-none as a driving creative force in the entertainment industry and we are very proud to have them as part of the Deep Silver family," said Deep Silver CEO Klemens Kundratitz. Our review called Saints Row 4 a "modern classic befitting the insane legacy" of the disorderly Saints.
Raptr revives RIFT rewards, Defiance discount
Back in March, Trion partnered with Raptr to introduce a four-tiered reward system to help revitalize RIFT. Three months later, another reward incentive gave folks in-game armor, an exclusive mount, and a special Raptr pet. And now, it's time for another bout of rewards! Raptr has revived those very June rewards for RIFT, offering once again the armor, mount, and pet to those who join the community. The rewards, however, don't end with RIFT. Raptr has also revived the Defiance rewards (30% off the game) and added exclusive limited access to the alpha version of End of Nations. [Source: Raptr press release] [Update: Trion has let us know that part or all of this morning's press release may have been in error. Stand by for clarification from the source!]
