XBox

Thanks To Microsoft We Have Gamer Nail Polish

by

Yes, this is a thing.

Xbox and the world’s leading nail polish brand OPI, are teaming up to launch a new gaming-inspired palette for Spring 2022, inviting everyone to play and express their creativity through nail art.

They have quite a selection of colours, with 99% of the names that could only be pulled from a wormhole of cringe, like “You had me at Halo” or “Can’t CTRL Me!”.  Another one in the collection is “Heart and Con-soul”… which should really be Red Ring of Death. If they had Blue Screen Of Death I’d buy that shit right the fuck up. I’d also be pretty chill with Clippy decals. I actually like the idea! But they could of at least hired me to name their products. :v

Tune in next time: When we review Valve’s lipstick with haptic feedback.

Microsoft Purchases Todd Howard’s Soul For $7.5 Billion Dollars (pinky to the lip)

by

In case you haven’t heard… this happened.

Microsoft’s priciest video game acquisition, a $7.5 billion purchase of Bethesda Softworks parent company ZeniMax Media, shocked the industry on Monday. The deal puts Bethesda, one of the industry’s biggest publishers and owners of some of the most successful gaming series, under the Xbox brand.

Does this mean that all future Bethesda titles like Elder Scrolls, DOOM, Wolfenstein are going to be exclusive to only Windows and XBox? There would be a lot of franchises that would become exclusive under one platform… if I were a Playstation gamer I would be a little worried right about now. I know the article makes light of Microsoft not being interested in exclusivity anymore as they used to be… but this is Microsoft, and while I may use their products when needed, it doesn’t mean that I trust them.

Zune is all I have to say.

Microsoft Wants To Improve Windows 10 Gaming Through “XBox Ideas”

by

Everything about this from wording to the execution is just wrong on so many levels…

Team Xbox would love to hear how you’d like to see gaming on Windows improved. How can Windows 10 enhance your gaming experience? What features would you like added or changed to make gaming on Windows 10 even better? Create suggestions, vote for suggestions, and leave comments below!

Right, because when I think PC Gaming I think of chatting in the XBox section… I’m guessing they’re doing it this way because of the way they want to tie XBox and Windows 10 gaming into each other to a certain degree while also trying to reclaim the gaming market they lost when they began neglecting it in the early or mid 2000’s when XBox became their main gaming priority. Right now there are 500 games that have been confirmed to work under Proton, something tells me that Linux is starting to catch up enough that Microsoft may want to start considering them a threat. Microsoft has always had Playstation to compete with, and Microsoft needs an OS equivalent on PC to do the same.

Of course, as someone who does still use Windows a couple times a week, my only request would be to turn off telemetry and automatic updates without the need to jump through several hoops, and stop including Candy Crush with your OS for fucks sake.

Everyone has their head in the ass shaped clouds

by

Microsoft is coming up with new and inventive ways to confuse the hell out of the consumer base. Plans for two different XBoxes are being drawn up under the codename Scarlet; One being the XBox One type that most of us think of, and a slightly cheaper model that does nothing but stream games, known as Scarlett Cloud.

The cloud console will have a limited amount of compute locally for specific tasks like controller input, image processing, and importantly, collision detection. The downside of this is that it since more hardware is needed locally, it will raise the price of the streaming box but it will still cost significantly less than what we are accustomed to paying for a new-generation console which should help expand the platform’s reach.

As someone who is cursed to sell consoles and has to explain differences between platforms on a daily basis for people I can see this being a tad problematic. We already have people that buy games and automatically assume they can all be played without an internet connection. People are going to see the cheaper console, buy it, and then be pissed to find out it’s only used for their game streaming service which will also require a fee. I’m sure there are quite a few people that would have no problem going that route, but rainy days and internet outages are probably not something one would want to dwell on.

I even hate saying this, but NVidia’s streaming cloud platform makes slightly more sense because you can use it on pretty much any barebones laptop, plug it into HDMI and have your own console. But this in console form? I’m not so sure, then again I’m not the target audience. I like playing all of my games locally and being able to mod when applicable. :happy:

I would hate for there to be a future where everything has to be done through cloud computing. I can imagine certain game developers making games “Cloud Exclusive” just to either drum up business or as a means of anti-piracy. :zorak:

XBox Fitness goes the way of the Zune dodo

by

It seems like the only real consistent thing about Microsoft is their ability to shut down games and programs that people use. This time XBox Fitness is the next target.

“Given the service relies on providing you with new and exciting content regularly, Microsoft has given much consideration to the reality of updating the service regularly in order to sustain it,” Microsoft’s Erica Bell wrote in the announcement. “Therefore, the decision has been made to scale back our support for Xbox Fitness over the next year… While our team is saddened by this news, we couldn’t be more proud of what we’ve accomplished in the past two and a half years.”

I don’t know why people continue to support a company that has this sort of a track record, other than blind fanboyism and people who don’t know shit from shinola about Microsoft’s history. But as long as they continue to support such a flake of a company it’ll keep happening and happening.

Gaben wants everyone to play nice… together on all platforms

by
pc gaming master race
Gabe reaching out to the other platforms

It doesn’t surprise me that Gabe Newell would want PC and Console to play with one another:

It’s a dream that Valve honcho Gabe Newell seems to share. A member of the PCMasterrace subreddit by the name of Eternifity sent the Gaben an email asking him to “open the gates for cross-play gaming.” The benefits of doing so, he said, would include increased community sizes, fewer platform-exclusive games, and increased freedom of choice when purchasing a gaming system. “Opening up multi-platform multiplayer gaming is the next step to a better gaming community,” he wrote.

This has been evident since Portal 2 where PC, Mac and PS3 users could play together. Still, it would be interesting to see how well that would play out.

Microsoft wants to make an Upgradable Console

by

I thought I’d be done talking about the latest Microsoft hooplah that’s been taking place, but the other day not long after talking about Microsoft’s attempt to get everyone to go over to their UWP platform I read an article that forced my head to hit my solid oak desk. Microsoft wants to make the XBox One an upgradable device.

“We see on other platforms whether it be mobile or PC that you get a continuous innovation that you rarely see on console,” he said. “Consoles lock the hardware and the software platforms together at the beginning of the generation. Then you ride the generation out for seven or so years, while other ecosystems are getting better, faster, stronger. And then you wait for the next big step function.”

I can only speculate at this point, but knowing Microsoft the XBox One’s upgrade path would probably consist of starting out the consumer with what one would consider bottom tier hardware, and give them the option of upgrading using Microsoft’s proprietary hardware. Basically the Mac of PC Gaming, only with a Mac at least you can still mod games far more openly than you can with Microsoft’s proposed walled gardened ecosystem.

Even other people, such as the CEO of Epic (makers of the Unreal Engine) has spoken out about how foolish this is.

“Unless Microsoft changes course,” Sweeney says, “all of the independent companies comprising the PC ecosystem have a decision to make: to oppose this, or cede control of their existing customer relationships and commerce to Microsoft’s exclusive control.”

Meanwhile on the Microsoft side:

“The Universal Windows Platform is a fully open ecosystem, available to every developer, that can be supported by any store. We continue to make improvements for developers; for example, in the Windows 10 November Update, we enabled people to easily side-load apps by default, with no UX (user experience) required.”

Really? Then how come there are two different versions of the new Tomb Raider floating around with Microsoft’s being the one with issues such as missing features from the Steam release? If you buy The Witcher 3 from GOG or Steam for example, you won’t notice a difference. Same with most Steam and Nonsteam games as they both use the same executable and get the same updates. Microsoft’s method fragments the PC Gaming ecosystem by making dev’s choose between UWP and the more traditional means of developing a game, and consumers go over to yet another application (and OS if they haven’t moved to 10 yet) to grab these titles.

This move isn’t Boneheaded, it’s XBoneheaded.

Oh, and on a funnier note I had to change the brackets around user experience. In the original article they used [] instead of (). If I left the quote in it’s original state it would have read as:

“The Universal Windows Platform is a fully open ecosystem, available to every developer, that can be supported by any store. We continue to make improvements for developers; for example, in the Windows 10 November Update, we enabled people to easily side-load apps by default, with no UX [user experience] required.”

Yeah, I’m happy with my current gaming experience thanks. 😛

Let the butthurt begin: XBox Live will be free for PC gamers on Windows 10

by

Yep, that’s not a typo. Microsoft is making XBox Live a free thing for Windows 10 users.

Now, it may seem unfair that the XBox users have to pay and PC gamers don’t. However they did make the mistake choice of buying the console all ready and willing. Whereas on PC you have to pick and choose the best hardware for your gaming experience instead of just getting it all in one box. Hell even choosing between GPU’s, processors, ram etc takes more thought than choosing between the XBox One or the PS4. Microsoft also has to apologize for the horror that was Windows 8 by luring people to Windows 10 with Direct X 12 and “Hey! We’re finally thinking about you PC Gamers! So here’s some free XBox Live!”

Of course I have no intention of using XBox Live let alone jumping to Windows 10 on launch day. I’ll do what I’ve always done and let the others beat the hell out of it until I find a reason to upgrade. In the meantime Win 7 and Linux are the way to go for what I do.

What’s the best thing Microsoft can do for PC Gaming?

by

NOTHING!!!!!!

“For us, E3 is a console show and an Xbox show, and for us as Microsoft, Xbox is our gaming brand, and it’s the thing we can fill an arena like this, we get millions of people to watch us on TV and we show our games and it’s a brand that people care about,” he said.

C’mon Microsoft we get the picture. You have a console to sell and PC gaming gets in the way of your little walled garden. They’re making Linux sound better and better everytime they pull this crap.