Hasta La Gadget!

Microsoft has never been shy about its ambitions for Kinect’s depth sensing abilities. A pair of patent applications, however, show that its hopes and dreams are taking a more Hollywood turn. One patent has the depth camera going portable: a “mobile environment sensor” determines its trajectory through a room and generates a depth map as it goes, whether it’s using a Kinect-style infrared sensor or stereoscopic cameras. If the visual mapping isn’t enough, the would-be camera relies on a motion sensor like an accelerometer to better judge its position as it’s jostled around. Microsoft doesn’t want to suggest what kind of device (if any) might use the patent for its camera, but it’s not ruling out anything from smartphones through to traditional PCs.

The second patent filing uses the Kinect already in the house for that directorial debut you’ve always been putting off. Hand gestures control the movie editing, but the depth camera both generates a model of the environment and creates 3D props out of real objects. Motion capture, naturally, lets the humans in the scene pursue their own short-lived acting careers. We haven’t seen any immediate signs that Microsoft is planning to use this or the mobile sensor patent filing in the real world, although both are closer to reality than some of the flights of fancy that pass by the USPTO — the movie editor has all the hallmarks of a potential Dashboard update or Kinect Fun Labs project.

Filed under: Digital Cameras, Gaming

Microsoft patent applications take Kinect into mobile cameras, movie-making originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Aug 2012 18:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Army of Two franchise will soon be getting another installment, as Electronic Arts has announced Army of Two: The Devil’s Cartel. The third game in the franchise is getting a new developer too – EA Montreal is out, Visceral Games is in. The game will also be powered by DICE’s Frostbite 2.0 engine, which made it’s debut in Battlefield 3 last year.

There aren’t too many details at the moment, but it sounds like The Devil’s Cartel will be quite the departure from previous Army of Two games. The focus on co-op will remain, but The Devil’s Cartel won’t focus on Rios and Salem, the protagonists from the first two games. Instead, The Devil’s Cartel is centered around the exploits of Alpha and Bravo, two operatives who are dropped into the middle of a drug war in Mexico.

In its announcement, Electronic Arts says that The Devil’s Cartel “re-sets the series that pioneered the co-op experience with a more intense, mature and grittier tone.” That’s a little bit worrying, as the first two games in the series had an air of goofiness that you just don’t find in many modern shooters, and that’s what made them stand out from the crowd. There is reason to hope, however, as Visceral says in a trailer posted by Game Informer that it wants to not only bring back the “elements everybody loved” in the previous games, but improve upon them with this installment. Have a look:

Army of Two: The Devil’s Third will be Game Informer’s September cover story, so expect Electronic Arts and Visceral to keep silent on additional details until that issue hits stands. The game will be launching in March 2013 for Xbox 360 and PS3, shortly after Dead Space 3 arrives on the scene in February. Let’s keep our fingers crossed and hope that Visceral merely improves on the formula of the first two games instead of changing it completely. Stay tuned.

Electronic Arts announces Army of Two: The Devil’s Cartel is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Despite all of the whining we’ve been hearing about Battlefield Premium, the service is still proving to be quite popular with players. Electronic Arts announced today that Battlefield Premium has reached 1.3 million subscribers after only being available for about a month and a half. The service got an official reveal at E3 2012, with Electronic Arts launching it later that same month.

For those not in the know, Battlefield Premium allows players early and “free” access to all of Battlefield 3‘s DLC for an upfront payment of $50. Provided the user hasn’t purchased any Battlefield 3 DLC when they go to sign up for Premium, the service allows them to save $25 on the cost of all of the game’s currently available and planned DLC. This means that, for hardcore Battlefield fans at least, signing up for Premium isn’t a bad idea.

Of course, Battlefield Premium isn’t the first service to offer all of a game’s DLC for one bulk payment. Publishers have been doing that for quite some time with bundles dubbed “season passes,” and Activision offers a service similar to Premium called Call of Duty Elite, which launched (rather shakily) alongside November’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Both services offer more bonuses beyond early access to DLC, with Premium in particular offering extra cosmetic bonuses and double XP weekends that are exclusive to subscribers.

Battlefield Premium’s success has some implications for future EA games, as the publisher will likely pursue a subscription-based strategy with other games now that it knows the initiative worked with Battlefield 3. Depending on who you ask, this may or may not be a bad thing. If customers find that such offerings are a good value, then it can’t be all that bad, but EA may get a little bit too excited and overdo things, like it has done in the past (Mass Effect 3 DLC anyone?). Still, if nothing else, whatever EA is planning to do should be an interesting experiment in the realm of subscription-based gaming, so stay tuned for that.

Battlefield Premium hits 1.3 million subscribers is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Capcom is looking pretty good at the end of its first quarter for the year, thanks in no small part to the success of Dragon’s Dogma. We’ve known for a while that Dragon’s Dogma has passed 1 million units shipped, but today Capcom reiterated that figure – along with the intention of turning Dragon’s Dogma into a series – in its quarterly report. Total Dragon’s Dogma shipments currently sit at 1.05 million, with the game doing particularly well in Japan.

Overall, Capcom’s net sales increased 55.8% year-over-year, settling at ¥18.62 billion ($238 million). Operating income came in at ¥2.66 billion ($34.03 million) for the period ending June 30, climbing 244.4% year-over-year. Finally, net profits landed at ¥1.32 billion ($16.9 million), which is a whopping 290.2% increase over Q1 2011.

So Capcom is looking pretty good all around heading into its Q2, but strangely enough, some of thanks for the successful quarter belongs to Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City. Despite leaving some critics underwhelmed, the game has managed to ship 450,000 copies so far, so it seems that fans don’t care all that much about poor review scores in this instance. Dragon’s Dogma and Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City are the only titles listed as “major” releases for the 3-month period, so Capcom apparently made a significant portion of its revenue from just those two last quarter. Capcom also says its social efforts, such as The Smurfs’ Village and Snoopy’s Street Fair, brought in a steady stream of revenue throughout Q1.

We’re indifferent when it comes to Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City, but it’s good to see that Dragon’s Dogma is exceeding expectations (at least in Japan). It was a solid open-world RPG title that wasn’t without its flaws, but luckily it sold well enough to warrant a sequel, so Capcom will have a chance to fix those issues with upcoming titles in the series. It’ll be exciting to see where the franchise goes next, and it just goes to show that not all gamers are opposed to giving a new IP a go this late in the generation. Let’s hope that Capcom gives the franchise the attention it deserves and transforms it from something good into something excellent.

Capcom posts strong financial report for Q1 2012 is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Microsoft is ready to dole out its latest update to Xbox Live. And today, a bunch of lucky Xbox 360 users who have nothing better to do than check out the latest Xbox news had the chance to sign up to become a beta tester for the latest online Xbox features. But even for those who didn’t get their names entered in time, today’s news provided an insight into what we can expect next on the Xbox 360 Dashboard.

The 2012 Xbox Live Update Publi Beta contains the following features: Internet Explorer for Xbox, “Personalized dashboard recommendations” and “Enhanced category search for discovery features.” Beta testers are not allowed to disclose anything about the new firmware, but knowing that those three enhancements are part of the preview means they’re likely to be part of the public update, whenever that happens.

Within hours of posting about the beta sign-up, Xbox Live figurehead Larry Hryb wrote, “The amount of interest in Xbox LIVE’s first public Beta has been incredible. The Xbox LIVE public Beta is now closed. Later this year our entire Xbox LIVE community will be able to experience all of the great features we will be bringing to your Xbox…Stay tuned.”

[via Major Nelson]

Microsoft recruits Xbox Live update beta testers is written by Mark Raby & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.