Pursuits you, Sir.
If you're picking up an Xbox One at launch, you should note that Forza 5 isn't your only choice of racer. The latest Need for Speed game is set to come careering around the corner, presumably chased by a bevy of police cars.
Time saved creating online features has been spent on visuals and physics.
Forza Motorsport 5 owes its 1080p visuals and 60 frames a second performance to Microsoft's furnishing Turn 10 with easy access to scalable servers, creative director Dan Greenawalt has told OXM. The ability to tap into Xbox Live Compute has allowed the developer to lavish more time and resources on the game's visuals and complex physics systems; without this advantage, it would have "struggled" to achieve Forza 5's final resolution.
Plus Xbox Fitness, Xbox Video, IE, Skype, SkyDrive and Upload.
One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter, and one man's charming array of connected multimedia features is another man's heinous hijacking of system resources that might be used to run videogames. Scroll down, if you can bear it, for the first list of confirmed third-party Xbox One apps, all due between 22nd November and spring 2014
"When it comes down to it, every project has their own cross to bear".
"Resolutiongate" is the hot topic that just keeps on giving, but there's only so much you can tell from the cold, hard numbers, Ryse's game design director PJ Estevez told OXM at a preview event this week.
Yusuf Mehdi and Marc Whitten take it from the top.
Microsoft has just released a 12 minute video walkthrough of the Xbox One's interface, featuring the vocal talents and cheerful faces of Xbox honchos Yusuf Mehdi and Marc Whitten. It features a live demonstration of the console's features. Got some popcorn handy?
Features eight characters designed by that King of Fighters guy.
A new challenger approaches! Nicaris has announced that previously PS Vita-only fighting game Legend of Raven will also release on Xbox One coughandPS4cough, offering eight hand-drawn and animated characters designed by King of Fighters artist Kotani Tomoyuki.
Is this a microtransactable dagger I see before me?.
The second episode of Ryse: Son of Rome's live action TV spin-off is upon us, brethren. Please kindly cease any and all gainful business about which you may be employed, park your buttocks and re-enter the world of Marius, Roman warrior and wearer of over-the-top hats.
"Staying true to the core of what makes Peggle a classic series is our top priority.".
There's been precious little on these pages about Peggle 2, sequel to what's often touted as the most addictive game ever, so please accept these thoughts from Jared Neuss, lead producer, care of the Xbox NewsWire. Seemingly, Popcap may use Xbox One's robuster connectivity to update the game while people play it, responding near-immediately to balancing problems and the like.
"The next chapter of Mass Effect is upon us".
As part of their annual N7 day celebrations yesterday, a string of Bioware Montreal employees released a series of interlinking tweets thanking fans for their support, while sneaking in a first look a the next addition to the sci-fi franchise, Mass Effect 4.
But "we can have nice things! So to speak.".
Dead Rising 3 became notorious last night after it was revealed that - shock - Capcom Vancouver's latest is one of those dreadful, dreadful 720p resolution Xbox One games, the kind absolutely nobody can bear looking at without first scooping their own eyes out with bits of shattered Kinect sensor.
What you'll get at launch with Xbox One's free-to-play fighter.
Like a fair few people out there, I was pretty bummed to learn that Killer Instinct would launch without an Arcade mode. After a recent chat with Microsoft Studios game designer Daniel Fornace, however, it seems we won't have too long to wait until we're kicking serious CPU tushie.
"The team in Redmond did a great job getting everything to us ahead of time.".
Creating Kinect Sports Rivals during final development of the Xbox One was a reasonably smooth process, according to Rare's Danny Isaac. That's a testament to both Microsoft's developer support and Rare's ingenuity, seemingly.
Challenge Editor to be added as a free update.
Friends! Romans! Countrymen! Lend me your custom mission objectives, because I won't be able to access them in-game when Ryse: Son of Rome goes on sale a week or two from now. Associate producer Michael Smart has confirmed that the game's Challenge Editor "won't be available for launch", with more details to come.
"Please be patient if you do not see it appearing in your in-game bank account just yet.".
Rockstar has at last released the promised GTA Online Stimulus Package, an in-game $500,000 hand-out designed to recompense players affected by the service's notorious launch bugs. The complete sum (rather than a $250,000 instalment, as originally planned) should be on its way to your wallet, assuming you aren't filthy rich already.
And don't worry everyone, it features not one but two kinds of sloth.
Rest easy animal enthusiasts, there's not much longer to go before you can run and squeak and squawk with the best of them. Frontier Developments has released its full list of a whopping 101 animals soon to be featured in upcoming Xbox One launch title Zoo Tycoon, but we can't shake the feeling that including thirteen kinds of bear in that number counts a little bit as cheating.
"Obviously if we were doing that I couldn't really talk about it.".
Ryse: Son of Rome's status as a Kinect-only game might be a fading memory, but Crytek's game design director PJ Estevez would still like to revisit the idea on Xbox One - or at least, to do something "really awesome" with the new Kinect sensor.
The only questions are: who and why?.
Microsoft is handing out free copies of the complete "Combo Breaker" edition of Killer Instinct on Xbox One to selected "dedicated" fans. We're not entirely sure why.
But current generation development was "nightmarish".
Posting in the same Reddit AMA which gave us this morning's story about Assassin's Creed 5 and beyond, Assassin's Creed 4 game director Ashraf Ismail and lead multiplayer game designer Tim Browne have offered brief thoughts on what it's like to develop for next generation hardware.
Is Infinity Ward paying tribute, or just being over-economical?.
Here's a thing: a cutscene from Call of Duty: Ghosts appears to exactly replicate the motion capture and camera angles (though not the assets and textures) of part of the ending sequence from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.
Assassin's Creed 4 developers discuss the franchise's future.
Have you polished off Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag already? You may be interested in this Reddit AMA, conducted by lead writer Darby McDevitt, game director Ashraf Ismail and lead game designer for multiplayer Tim Browne. It's a long and straggly dissertation on the game, the series and Ubisoft at large, from which I pluck the following meditations on possible directions for Assassin's Creed 5 and beyond.
