Microsoft seems intent on sanding away the Xbox brand’s rough edges before launching the One this November. Following the recent switch from its arcane points system to local currency for digital purchases, Redmond has subtly changed up where you’ll spend that money. What we used to know as the Xbox Live Marketplace is now the Xbox Game Store. It’s clean, simple and we’re pretty sure Sean Parker would approve. Oddly, in the US the web storefront reads “Xbox Games,” but it says “Xbox Game Store” in the UK. Whatever — as long as we can buy real-world presidents for Saint’s Row 4, we’re not too worried about the name of the store.
Xbox One voice commands will only work fully in some launch countries, languages
Posted in: Today's ChiliEarlier 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.
Filed under: Gaming, Home Entertainment, HD, Microsoft
Source: NeoGAF
Daily Roundup: Peripheral Vision, GameStop’s digital strategy, Lab grown human brains, and more!
Posted in: Today's ChiliYou 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.
Nintendo’s Reggie Fils-Aime on the Xbox One and PS4’s launch lineups: ‘meh’
Posted in: Today's Chili
With the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 due to hit shelves across the world soon, it’s not exactly surprising to hear the competition openly sound off on the incoming consoles. Especially when it’s someone as outspoken as Nintendo of America’s COO Reggie Fils-Aime. “It’s all about the games. The competitive systems have announced their launch lineups. I’m allowed to say ‘meh,” Fils-Aime said in an interview with IGN. The Nintendo head added that he feels confident in the Wii U’s title lineup, noting, “We’ve got Zelda. We’ve got Mario. We’ve got Donkey Kong. In addition to great titles like Pikmin 3 and Wonderful 101, I feel very good about our lineup, and I feel very good about the value proposition we’re putting out there for the consumer.”
Both the Xbox One and PS4 will have more than 20 titles available at launch, which is on par with what the Wii U’s launch was back in November of last year. The only problem is Nintendo’s flagship has been seeing less and less support from third-party developers, making the console a harder sell for gamers worldwide. Perhaps, Nintendo’s hoping to turn the tide with its recent announcement that the Wii U’s going to be a little cheaper starting September 21st, though only time will tell how successful that strategy turns out to be.
Via: VG247
Source: IGN
Xbox One to bring higher quality voice chat through dedicated hardware and the power of Skype (updated)
Posted in: Today's ChiliIt’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.
Filed under: Gaming, HD, Microsoft
Source: Xbox Wire
GameStop’s next-gen digital strategy doesn’t exist, because it doesn’t need to… yet
Posted in: Today's Chili“You’re asking me to… predict the future. I’m supposed to plan for the future.” That’s the non-answer GameStop president Tony Bartel spit out when I prodded him about the company’s digital strategy here at its annual consumer-facing EXPO in Las Vegas. And it’s clearly a touchy subject. It’s not that Bartel refuses to acknowledge and embrace a download-only world — indeed, he believes “things are going to go [fully] digital” — but in his own estimation, that shift isn’t tied to the next-gen of consoles. For a retailer built upon the buy/sell/trade business model for videogames and hardware, GameStop doesn’t appear to have a well-laid digital strategy in the works, nor does it necessarily need to at the moment. With both Sony and Microsoft committing to a friendly used disc-based games policy for their respective black boxes, GameStop’s been given a temporary buffer from the inevitable, allowing it additional time to feel out the digital way forward with a serendipitous mobile crutch.
Filed under: Cellphones, Gaming, Tablets, Software, HD, Mobile, Sony, Microsoft
EA’s Peter Moore clarifies stance on online games, says not every title will require your console to be online
Posted in: Today's ChiliWhile discussing the finer points of EA’s plans for this year (and those new consoles), EA’s Peter Moore explained to Engadget that the games maker doesn’t ship a game that is offline. It seems some people took this and ran (and ran) with it. So much in fact, that Moore has decided to officially respond, detailing that while its games catalog connects through online multiplayer, stat sharing, achievements or can even be delivered to consoles and devices by the internet, the company will continue to include single-player and offline modes that can be played without any need for a data connection — not every EA game will require your console to be online. We’ve embedded the aforementioned interview from Gamescom after the break. If only Mr. Moore still had the chance to respond with a YouTube video of his own…
Filed under: Gaming
Source: EA
Daily Roundup: Accessories buyer’s guide, OLPC XO Tablet review, Employee-only white Xbox One, and more!
Posted in: Today's ChiliYou 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.
There are certainly benefits to working for Microsoft beyond a steady paycheck. We’ve seen the company gift employees with phones and tablets and, if the picture above proves legit, a lucky bunch will receive a free Xbox One on launch day — in an exclusive white and silver-grey hue, no less. In addition to a console etched with “I made this” and “launch team something,” they’ll get one year of Xbox Live and all first-party games (if we’re understanding “1P” correctly) gratis. According to the picture, which surfaced on NeoGAF’s forums and Reddit, this special edition Xbone will be given to full-timers (as of July 12th this year) in MS’s Interactive Entertainment Business who are still employed at launch. This is just a rumor, of course, but if some Photoshop trickster cooked this up, we’d think they’d go as far as making the Kinect white, if only for consistency. Or, maybe that’s what we’re supposed to think.
Filed under: Gaming, Microsoft
Source: NeoGAF forums, Reddit
Weekly Roundup: Gamescom 2013, Ballmer stepping down, Connecting Cape Town, and more!
Posted in: Today's ChiliYou might say the week is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workweek, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Weekly Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past seven days — all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.