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Xtreme: GoPro sports app coming to Xbox 360, Xbox One
The folks behind GoPro will launch an extreme sports channel on Xbox 360 and Xbox One, our sister site Engadget has learned. The app will make its debut on Xbox 360 before Xbox One, a representative told Engadget at CES today, though there is no established timeframe for the app's launch on either platform. GoPro high-definition cameras are a favorite for adrenaline seekers. They are categorized as being lightweight and rugged, and are easily mounted to vehicles or worn by individuals. One of Engadget's reporters wore one for an entire day while at CES this week. The GoPro sports channel is currently available on Virgin America flights, so if you've flown with Virgin recently you may have some idea of what to expect in terms of content.
GoPro to launch extreme sports channel on Xbox One and 360
GoPro is about to unleash its unique brand of action sport videos on Xbox Live for both the Xbox One and 360. We asked GoPro if it had further details on when the channels would be available, but apparently that date hasn't been confirmed yet. All we do know is that the channel will come to 360 first, before making the hop over to its younger brother. If you fly Virgin America, you can actually get the channel right now, but that's perhaps a little less convenient than shouting "Xbox on" when you need an instant adrenaline fix. Missed our CES stage interview with GoPro creative director Brad Schmidt? You can catch it in full here.
Major Xbox One update with Live fixes in the works, says Whitten
Microsoft is working on a big Xbox One update to address user criticisms and complaints over Live, according to Marc Whitten. The Xbox Corporate VP told our Engadget chums that "the Live experience" - which isn't a Saturday night TV show - is something the company intends to "really push on." "The feedback we've gotten is pretty valid," Whitten told Engadget. "Some of the social stuff is hidden or harder to use than it was on the Xbox 360. So you're gonna see us come out with an update where, well, we're going to fix those things. "As a person who's been pretty involved in building Xbox Live for the last decade, I take it pretty seriously when people say it's harder to get into a party, and the defaults aren't right, and I don't like the model. So what I'm trying to do with the team is kind of theme some stuff up. Let's take an update and really go through a big list of what we're hearing from customers, what we know is broken with the architecture, areas that we want to improve or complete." So, when will see that update? Whitten didn't exactly say, although Engadget notes that based on its chat, "it sounds like those Live fixes are coming sooner [rather] than later." Another element's in the works is game stream broadcasting, which last we heard was targeted for "the first part of 2014." Don't expect that anytime too soon, though. Whitten's vagaries to Engadget suggest we'll see it before the next E3, while a more clear-cut Twitch tweet says, "There's no ETA from Microsoft. Expect a few more months."
Xbox Live 'Deal of the Week' offers up Far Cry getaways
Anxious to take a trip somewhere beautiful yet superbly dangerous? From now until January 14, Microsoft is discounting select Far Cry content on Xbox 360 as part of the Deal of the Week promotion. For $5, you can snag Far Cry Instincts Predator, Far Cry 2 or Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon. Dropping $15 will get you Far Cry 3, while an extra $5 will secure the "Deluxe Bundle" DLC full of additional single-player missions, unique wild game to hunt and a variety of weapon unlocks for the campaign and multiplayer. Far Cry 3 was very successful for Ubisoft and helped to steer the company toward focusing on more open-world games. Ubisoft has said Far Cry 4 will "clearly" happen and Drive composer Cliff Martinez mentioned last year that work had already begun on the sequel. Ubisoft has yet to officially announce the next game in the series.
Time Viking is the follow-up to I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES, out now on Xbox 360
Ska Studios' well-known Xbox Live Indie Games success, I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES 1NIT!!!1, has a new baby brother. TIME VIKING!!!!!ANDSPACERAPTOR is the spiritual successor to Z0MB1ES, and it's just as insane. The game revolves around a time-traveling viking with incredible mind powers and ... well ... a space raptor. The trailer speaks volumes, but we'd advise just trying the game whenever you can. The trial is free on Xbox Live right now, and the full game is a dollar.
January Games with Gold: Sleeping Dogs, Lara Croft guarding the light
Microsoft is kicking off the new year with two more free games for Xbox Live Gold members via the Games with Gold program. First up is the kung fu-heavy crime game, Sleeping Dogs, which will be available from January 1 through January 15. Closing out the month will be the excellent puzzle action game, Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light, which will be free from January 15 through January 31.
Xbox Live daily deal is morbid, weekly sale sets Wolf Among Us free
Xbox Live's daily deal is obsessed with death this fine morning, covering the following Games on Demand and DLC packs: Killer is Dead and Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate for $13.20, Left 4 Dead 2 for $10.20, Left 4 Dead 2 add-ons Cold Stream, The Sacrifice and The Passing for $1.75, and Red Dead Redemption's Undead Nightmare Pack for $5. These sales are lethal, y'all. Weekly specials happening right now include the first episode of Telltale's The Wolf Among Us for absolutely free, Grand Theft Auto 5 for $40.20, Bully Scholarship Edition for $3.75, Ska Studios' punk brawler Charlie Murder for $3.30, the touching tale of Brothers for $5, zombie sidescroller Deadlight for $3.75 and vaudevillian brawler Foul Play for $7.50. Check out the full list of sales here.
Xbox offers Countdown to 2014 daily deals on Fez, Spelunky, Terraria
There's another batch of daily deals for Xbox Live end-of-year sale, and today's batch supposedly comprise "2D modern classics," namely Terraria, Spelunky, and Fez. Putting aside if you can even call something a "modern classic," isn't that forgetting that whole other dimension of Fez? No, we didn't mean Phil Fish. Anyway, we're not here to talk semantics: For today only, Fez and Spelunky are cut by 75 percent to $2.49 and $3.74 respectively, while Terraria digs down to a third of its normal price at $4.94. Also, don't forget the Xbox 360 Store has a whole bunch of games staying discounted across the week, including FIFA 14, Bioshock Infinite, and Castle of Illusion.
Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3, MVC2 to leave XBLA/PSN, DLC on sale
If you were thinking about taking Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3's DLC for a ride, you might want to decide already - a Capcom Unity post announced a DLC sale and encouraged fans to snatch up content for the crossover fighter, which will be "leaving the PSN and XBLA stores." The post calls for players to pick up UMVC3 and Marvel vs Capcom 2 "before they go away," but the next sentence calls out MVC3 as the game which will depart with its younger, Ultimate brother. With the standard version of MVC3 unavailable on either store however, we're pretty sure that's a typo and that the announcement is related to MVC2. While the entry asks readers to "stay tuned" for sales info concerning XBLA, PSN users can perform a 50 percent off combo on the DLC of their choosing for UMVC3 content. December 17 will be the final day the DLC is available in the US, with the European PSN offering the sale until December 19. While sales for XBLA have yet to be specified, the post does list December 26 as a global final call for DLC for Xbox owners. The games themselves have remained at full price on Xbox Live - UMVC3 is $29.99, while MVC2 is $14.99. PSN users can currently purchase MVC2 at $7.49, or for $3.75 with PlayStation Plus.
World of Tanks: Xbox 360 Edition open beta this weekend
A worldwide open beta has been initiated for World of Tanks on Xbox 360. Anyone with an Xbox Live account can jump into the beta right now on through this weekend, up until the virtual tanks are directed back to the garage on December 15. If you don't have an Xbox Live Gold subscription, participating in the beta will net you a seven-day trial period. Those who have already claimed their free seven-day trial can re-up for another seven days as part of this weekend's beta test. Wargaming.net's World of Tanks: Xbox 360 Edition was announced back in June at E3. The free-to-play online multiplayer combat game pits players against each other in mid-20th century tanks. World of Tanks will not feature cross-platform play between Xbox 360 and PC, and players will have to register separate accounts in order to play on their platform of choice.
Xbox One does not require demos, devs to make that decision
The Xbox 360 featured a demo for every Xbox Live Arcade release. It had to, because Microsoft made that a mandate. For the Xbox One however, things have changed, and now developers decide whether or not they want to release a demo. "It is (and always has been) up to game developers to do demos for their own games," wrote Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb on his blog. "They'll [sic] be more demos for Xbox One as the platform goes forward." Hryb was later asked why Microsoft changed its demo policy, but offered no response to that question. Hryb's statement came in response to discussion of Peggle 2, a recent release that offers players a free demo. That's good, but problematically the Xbox One interface does nothing to separate what were previously considered Arcade games from their retail brethren. As a result, finding the demo is more difficult than it reasonably should be.
Xbox Live Black Friday deals on now through December 2
Microsoft is heavily discounting 52 Xbox 360 games and add-ons this week on Xbox Live. The games on sale separate out into three categories, a full list of which can be found after the break. The week-long deals, which run from today through December 2, include both Skyrim, Fallout 3 and Tomb Raider for half-off as well as Sleeping Dogs (38 percent off) and Mark of the Ninja (66 percent off). Xbox Live will feature two separate one-day sales as well, with games like WWE 2K14 and Diablo 3 being discounted by 33 percent as well as Rayman Legends and the Halo 4 Champions Bundle by 50 percent on November 29 only. Among the games on sale for Cyber Monday (December 2) only are Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon, Red Dead Redemption, Dark Souls and The Witcher 2 for 75 percent off each and Battleblock Theater for 67 percent off. We suggest you clear some space on your Xbox 360 hard drive, pronto.
State of Decay comes to the PC courtesy of Steam
PC gamers feeling left out while watching their Xbox comrades playing State of Decay can wipe those tears away; the zombie survival title has arrived on Steam. State of Decay is available through the digital distribution platform for a straight-up $19.99. If you're curious about Undead Labs' maiden game, then check out our hands-on coverage. The game was a huge hit on the Xbox and hopefully will be followed by an MMO set in the same world. Undead is also preparing the first DLC for State of Decay called Breakdown that will come to both the PC and Xbox. [Thanks to Soren for the tip!]
November adds Iron Brigade, World of Keflings to free Xbox Live Gold games
The next additions to Games With Gold promotion have been revealed as eclectic tower defense shooter Iron Brigade, and the whimsical city-building game World of Keflings. According to Xbox spokesman Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb, World of Keflings will make its Xbox Live debut on November 1. While normally the game features a $10 price tag, anyone with an Xbox Live Gold subscription will be able to download it for free until the end of November. Iron Brigade joins World of Keflings on November 16, and will likewise be a free download for the remainder of that month. As with all Games With Gold additions, once you've download either of these games, they're yours to keep - unless you delete them from your hard drive. If this occurs while the game is still a part of the Games With Gold promotion you can simple re-download the data, but if you wait until after the promo has expired your game is gone forever. These two additions mark the second to last month of Microsoft's promotion. As the Games With Gold FAQ notes, "two free game downloads will be available monthly, starting on the 1st and the 16th of every month from July through December 2013."
New Xbox Live terms of use wants your most current contact info - for safety
Microsoft announced it will roll out a new Xbox Live terms of use this week, which will require users to "commit to keeping their contact information up to date." For example, this means users must keep their linked email addresses and phone numbers updated on their Xbox Live accounts. Those that accept the new terms of use will also allow Microsoft to share personal information "such as your name, address, email address and date of birth" with services that users link accounts with on Xbox Live such as Netflix, Hulu and ESPN. The current terms of use uses similar language in describing how Microsoft already shares private information: "If you choose to link your Services account with the account of a Microsoft party on the Xbox LIVE service (for example, a game publisher or app provider), you agree that Microsoft may share limited account information with that Microsoft party. Such account information may include name, address, email and age but will not include any credit card or other payment information." Those "Microsoft parties" are the company's "affiliates, resellers, distributors, service providers, partners and suppliers," so the new terms of use appear to stretch beyond that to these third-party services. As it stands now, users can access their account settings on Xbox.com to opt-out of sharing contact information with Xbox partners.
Project Spark won't require Xbox Live Gold on any platform
Project Spark, Microsoft's game-creation app for Xbox One, Xbox 360 and PC will not require a Gold-level Xbox Live subscription to play. The news comes from community manager Mike Lescault, who said in a Reddit thread that players "will not need a gold subscription to play Project Spark for free on any platform." The game will enter its Xbox One beta phase in January, and the PC beta program is expected to start this month. Project Spark players will be able to use Kinect as a motion capture device, and may eventually implement gameplay control using Kinect as well.
Time-tinkering platformer Constant C to land on Xbox 360 next spring
5pb Games (aka Mages) is bringing puzzle platformer Constant C to Xbox 360 in Spring 2014, though there's no word on the recently Greenlighted Steam version. The game's Steam Community page also promises Mac and Linux versions "in the near future." Constant C, already out on Windows PC via Desura, is based in a space station where time suddenly freezes - anything goes in space. The puzzling comes from making objects move through time, as well as some gravity shifting that's a little reminiscent of And Yet it Moves. As for the Xbox Live version, 5pb promises some "console-specific enhancements" such as revamped localization. There's no word yet on price, but the PC version goes for $10.
Microsoft brings Xbox Live rewards to Android with Wordament game
Microsoft's plan to supercharge Xbox as an entertainment brand means that, no matter which ecosystem you live in, you'll have access to some of the company's first-party titles. In the same way that Kinectimals came to Android and iOS, today's free-to-play launch of Wordament sees another proprietary feature opening up: Xbox Live Achievements. Anyone with at least an Android 4.0 handset and a few friends should now be able to add up to 50G to their Gamerscore. Meanwhile, Windows Phone users should be happy to see that their version of the app has been re-written for WP8, banishing those odd letterboxing issues forever.
Carjackings overthrow duty as GTA5 takes top spot on Xbox Live
Grand Theft Auto 5 has beaten Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 for the title of most-played game on Xbox 360, according to a recent blog post by Xbox Live Director of Programming Larry Hryb, aka Major Nelson. Note that this doesn't necessarily mean more people are playing GTA Online, the multiplayer component of GTA 5, as Major Nelson's data tracks how many unique users are signed onto Xbox Live while playing a game, regardless of whether or not they're using online features. Not everyone has moved onto the newest of the new though, as the top ten list also includes GTA 4, as well as Modern Warfare 3 and the original Black Ops. Meanwhile, Minecraft is still holding onto third, surrounded by guns, criminals and sports.
Diablo III starts console digital downloads
Who needs boxes when you've got the convenience of digital downloads, am I right? I am always right; you need to learn that lesson right now. Well, console fans of Diablo III are not shackled to the box-and-chain any longer, as digital downloads for the game are available on both the Sony Entertainment Network and Xbox Live. The game is $59.99 on both sites and graciously allows you to purchase a few add-ons, such as an Infernal Helm or a Treasure Goblin.
