Jul 15
Jul 15
Microsoft could restore the the Xbox One‘s Family Sharing feature, the company has teased, having removed it as part of its backtrack on 24-hour DRM check-ins for the next-gen console. The feature, which would have allowed up to ten people designated as “family” to play games registered to a single account, no matter where they were located, was a casualty of Microsoft’s concessions to angry gamers left furious by the Xbox One’s online demands. However, according to Xbox One CPO Marc Whitten, Family Sharing could make a reappearance if enough gamers want it.
The initial indication is that those gamers really do, too. Speaking to IGN, Whitten commented on a petition started by would-be Xbox One owners demanding that Microsoft restore the functionality originally outlined at E3, rather than conceding to “consumers uncertainty”, and conceded that the company had failed to communicate the system – and its advantages – fully.
“What it tells me is we need to do more work to talk about what we’re doing because I think that we did something different than maybe how people are perceiving it,” Whitten admitted. That led to the compromise on having the Xbox One connected at least once every 24 hours.
According to Whitten, “while Xbox One is built to be digital native, to have this amazing online experience, we realized people wanted some choice.” According to the chief product officer, gamers wanted a halfway-house of functionality, perhaps to ease them into Microsoft’s vision for the console. “They wanted what I like to call a bridge, sort of how they think about the world today using more digital stuff,” he explained. “What we did, we added to what the console can do by providing physical and offline modes in the console. It isn’t about moving away from what that digital vision is for the platform. It’s about adding that choice.”
As for Family Sharing, that could mean that the functionality might eventually appear on the Xbox One, only not as part of the original feature-set. “If it’s something that people are really excited about and want, we’re going to make sure that we find the right way to bring it back” Whitten promised, describing its absence as “more of an engineering reality time frame type-thing” than it being a functional impossibility.
For Whitten, even though the response was vitriolic from some quarters, it was still welcome for the Xbox team. The first Xbox One event – criticized at the time for being too TV-centric leaving little time to walk through the more advanced gaming features – did a poor job of explaining things, the Microsoft exec admits. “One of the things I think we learned was that we didn’t talk enough,” he says, “and we were incomplete in a lot of how using the system would work.”
VIA OXM
Xbox One Family Sharing could return despite online backtrack is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Jul 13
With the newest update to the game Street Fighter IV, you’re going to see five new characters, four of which have been revealed this afternoon. While the creators of Tekken aim to add a fighting salmon to the arena, four of the five new characters coming to Street Fighter IV have been revealed to be fan favorites. While we’re not expecting a handheld seafaring creature to be attacking our heroes in this season’s upgrade, the creators of this game have promised an addition “never seen in street fighter before.”
With the addition of Hugo, Poison, Elena, and Rolento to the mix, the folks at Capcom’s Evo 2013 panel have thrown a bit of a curve-ball the audience’s way. While each of these first four characters have appeared in previous editions of the game on multiple platforms, the fifth will be one never before played by a user in the wild. At the moment it’s not clear whether this means the character will be entirely new or a translation of a character from the Street Fighter universe to a real fighter as never executed before.
The update will also be bringing on more than just the five new characters. Also in store for users are all previously released costume packs – so good thing you hesitated! This update will also be adding on special costumes designed by Udon Entertainment for each of the five new characters – but only if you pre-order the update before it’s out on the market.
This update will be released through all standard channels and through the NESiCAxLive arcade network in Japan soon. Both Super Street Fighter IV and the still relatively new updated Arcade Edition will have the ability to add this DLC to their iterations of the game. Stay tuned for the rest of the details – including a release date – soon!
UPDATE: This update will be appearing for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC for a cool $15 USD, and you’ll be seeing it in early 2014.
UPDATE 2: Gameplay video released!
VIA: Shoryuken!
Street Fighter IV DLC brings five new characters to the fold [UPDATE] is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Jul 12
Jul 12
As expected, Amazon has announced that they have run out of their “initial allocations” for the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 consoles. This means that launch day pre-orders for both consoles have sold out, including the Xbox One Day One Edition. Amazon says they still have standard editions of both consoles available for pre-order, but they can’t guarantee that they’ll arrive on launch day.
Amazon posted about the sold out consoles on their Amazon Video Games Facebook page, saying that it’s been “a crazy and exciting month” for next-generation console pre-orders, but while they announced that they were sold out of launch day pre-orders, they mentioned that they could be receiving more allocations in the future for launch day.
Amazon opened the floodgates for pre-orders for the Xbox One on June 10, so it took just a little over a month for initial supply to run dry. Previously, GameStop was the first retailer to announce that PS4 pre-orders have been sold out, and they stopped taking pre-orders for the console for the time being.
As for the Xbox One, Best Buy was the first to announce the dreadful news that pre-orders have been exhausted and are no longer accepting new orders. We expected that trend to spread to other retailers eventually over the summer, and it seems Amazon is the next one to make the list.
No announcements in the UK have been made yet as far as sold out pre-orders, but we can only assume that as the launch dates keep creeping in, the harder it will be to pre-order a new console. This means that if you’re thinking about hopping on board, now is the best time to do so, since each day that passes poses a risk for more sold out stores to come forward.
Xbox One, PS4 launch day pre-orders sold out on Amazon is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Jul 12
Microsoft announced at E3 last month that they would be getting rid of its Microsoft Points currency system and using real money for transactions for now on. Today, Microsoft announced that Xbox Live Rewards will be doing the same thing, although it’s not yet determined how the new Rewards system will work now that it won’t be using Microsoft Points.
Starting on August 1, Xbox gamers will no longer be able to earn Microsoft Points through Xbox Live Rewards, but Microsoft says that “you’ll continue to be rewarded for doing the things you love on Xbox Live.” The company hasn’t yet announced what they’ll be using on Xbox Live Rewards, but they say that they’ll be revealing the new system on September 1.
Furthermore, Microsoft will deposit all of your pending Rewards points into your account on August 7. If you also happen to have Microsoft Points in your Xbox account when Points are retired, they’ll be transitioned to real-money currency, and you’ll be able to use them as normal, such as buying digital games and items.
Microsoft announced the demise of Microsoft Points during E3 last month ahead of the Xbox One’s launch later in November. We still have yet to hear an exact date for the switchover, but today’s Xbox Live Rewards announcement provides some hints as for when we might see the official switchover.
Microsoft Points have been the main form of currency in Xbox Live for ages, and gamers were able to buy them using a credit card, or purchasing them physically at retail stores. The ousting of Microsoft Points looks to eliminate a step in that process by switching to real money, making the process easier for gamers to buy stuff on Xbox Live.
SOURCE: Xbox Live Rewards
Xbox Live Rewards transitioning from Microsoft Points next month is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Jul 12
Jul 11
The Daily Roundup for 07.11.2013
Posted in: Today's Chili
You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours — all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
Jul 11
Microsoft has detailed its much-rumored reorganization plan, with Steve Ballmer describing the strategy as “One Microsoft” and forming four main areas: operating systems, devices & studios, applications & services, and cloud & enterprise. The new teams – which will be led, respectively, by Terry Myerson, Julie Larson-Green, Qi Lu, and Satya Nadella – will take a more over-arching approach to engineering Microsoft products, rather than seeing things like Xbox gaming, entertainment, and Windows all silo’d off into separate divisions. Ballmer says that the company will adopt a more direct communication strategy with him as CEO, following the five tenets of being nimble, communicative, collaborative, decisive, and motivated.
“Going forward, our strategy will focus on creating a family of devices and services for individuals and businesses that empower people around the globe at home, at work and on the go, for the activities they value most” Ballmer wrote in an email to all staff sent today. He also confirmed that Kurt DelBene will be leaving Microsoft, that Craig Mundie will be solely occupied in “a special project for me through the end of this calendar year”, and that Rick Rashid will shift away from Microsoft Research and instead take on “driving core OS innovation in our operating systems group.”
The reorganization basically means that Windows and Windows Phone have been merged into a single group, the Operating Systems Engineering Group, which will also handle the software that runs on Xbox, back-end systems, and core-cloud services for OSes. Hardware, meanwhile, will be tackled by Julie Larson-Green’s Devices and Studios Engineering Group, covering design, engineering, and supply chain.
Larson-Green’s team will also tackle the various studios experiences, such as games, music, and video.
“We are going to focus on completely reinventing experiences like creating or viewing a creative document and what it means to communicate socially at home or in meetings at work. We are going to immerse people in deep entertainment experiences that let them have serious fun in ways so intense and delightful that they will blur the line between reality and fantasy. And as we develop these new experiences, we will also support our developers with the simplest ways to develop apps or cloud services and integrate with our products” Steve Ballmer, CEO, Microsoft
According to Ballmer, working in divided ways is no longer a possibility. “Each major initiative will have a champion who will be a direct report to me or one of my direct reports” the Microsoft CEO writes. “The champion will organize to drive a cross-company team for success, but my whole staff will have commitment to the initiative’s success.”
The full organizational structures and the new divisions are detailed below, and you can find the updated titles and other information at Microsoft’s senior leaders page.
Operating Systems Engineering Group. Terry Myerson will lead this group, and it will span all our OS work for console, to mobile device, to PC, to back-end systems. The core cloud services for the operating system will be in this group.
Devices and Studios Engineering Group. Julie Larson-Green will lead this group and will have all hardware development and supply chain from the smallest to the largest devices we build. Julie will also take responsibility for our studios experiences including all games, music, video and other entertainment.
Applications and Services Engineering Group. Qi Lu will lead broad applications and services core technologies in productivity, communication, search and other information categories.
Cloud and Enterprise Engineering Group. Satya Nadella will lead development of our back-end technologies like datacenter, database and our specific technologies for enterprise IT scenarios and development tools. He will lead datacenter development, construction and operation.
Dynamics. Kirill Tatarinov will continue to run Dynamics as is, but his product leaders will dotted line report to Qi Lu, his marketing leader will dotted line report to Tami Reller and his sales leader will dotted line report to the COO group.
Advanced Strategy and Research Group. Eric Rudder will lead Research, Trustworthy Computing, teams focused on the intersection of technology and policy, and will drive our cross-company looks at key new technology trends.
Marketing Group. Tami Reller will lead all marketing with the field relationship as is today. Mark Penn will take a broad view of marketing strategy and will lead with Tami the newly centralized advertising and media functions.
COO. Kevin Turner will continue leading our worldwide sales, field marketing, services, support, and stores as well as IT, licensing and commercial operations.
Business Development and Evangelism Group. Tony Bates will focus on key partnerships especially our innovation partners (OEMs, silicon vendors, key developers, Yahoo, Nokia, etc.) and our broad work on evangelism and developer outreach. DPE, Corporate Strategy and the business development efforts formerly in the BGs will become part of this new group. OEM will remain in SMSG with Kevin Turner with a dotted line to Tony who will work closely with Nick Parker on key OEM relationships.
Finance Group. Amy Hood will centralize all product group finance organizations. SMSG finance, which is geographically diffuse, will report to Kevin Turner with a dotted line to Amy.
Legal Group. Brad Smith will continue as General Counsel with responsibility for law and corporate affairs and will map his team to the new organization.
HR Group. Lisa Brummel will lead Human Resources and map her team to the new organization.
Microsoft reorganization official: OS teams merge, Hardware unified is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Jul 11
Microsoft’s metamorphosis: Ballmer restructures Redmond, focuses on services and devices
Posted in: Today's Chili
Rumors of a massive reorg in Redmond have been floating around for awhile now. And the noise reached a fever pitch when Don Mattrick left Microsoft for Zygna’s (apparently) greener pastures — purportedly because he didn’t like the role he’d receive in the pending restructuring. Now, a mere ten days after the ex-Xbox chief’s departure, we know what the new Microsoft will look like.
As expected, the company has been bifurcated into services and devices divisions, with Julie Larson-Green getting the nod as hardware chief and Terry Myerson becoming the Grand Poobah of Windows. Of course, quite a few other execs have seen their roles shift as well, with Qi Lu managing productivity, communication and search apps and services, and Satya Nadella heading up the company’s cloud initiatives. Additionally, Skype president Tony Bates has been tapped to manage the Business Development and Evangelism group, where he’ll lead corporate strategy and developer outreach.
There are even more changes afoot. CTO Eric Rudder is now responsible for an Advanced Strategy and Research group and Tami Reller is the new US marketing chief. COO Kevin Turner, CFO Amy Hood, General Counsel Brad Smith and Chief People Officer Lisa Brummel will maintain their current positions. Finally, Office president Kurt DelBene will be retiring from Microsoft, according to the company-wide reorganization email published on the company’s site. So what this all this mean for MS? Hit up the source for a 2,700-word memo detailing Steve Ballmer’s vision.
Filed under: Cellphones, Gaming, Tablets, Software, Microsoft
Via: AllThingsD
Source: Microsoft
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