Posts with tag: microsoft
 

COD:IW and the Windows Store
Posted at 20:35 on 4th November 2016

There’s recently been a little bit of a kerfuffle about Activision making the puzzling decision to release a separate (UWP) version of Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare on the Windows Store, in which the multiplayer mode only allows you to play with other UWP players (and not with players who have bought the game anywhere […]

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Xbox One
Posted at 22:16 on 9th August 2013

This bloody machine has become the Zeno’s tortoise of the sporadic games commentator over the last three months. Every time I’ve sat down to wrangle my thoughts into a coherent essay the narrative has again moved on, meaning I’ve had to junk another several hundred words of analysis. Still, things seem to have more or […]

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PlayStation 4: the important bits
Posted at 23:12 on 22nd February 2013

This week’s PlayStation 4 announcement has provoked a wide range of responses, from cautious optimism to proclamations of doom for Sony and consoles in general. Business as usual then. Among the legitimate journalism there have been some sensationalist interpretations that have omitted key details and twisted what’s left to fit one of several discredited, over-simplistic […]

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E3 2009: Motion control roundup
Posted at 22:38 on 3rd June 2009

The E3 press conferences have now passed and industry watchers are busy digesting the glut of information. There is now some form of motion-based control interface announced for each of the three home consoles. Each of these takes a different technological approach, and perhaps more importantly, each is perceived to address a different role by […]

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E3 2009: Project Natal
Posted at 23:03 on 1st June 2009

A few hours ago Microsoft held their E3 press conference. It was a low key affair as these things go. A slate of solid-looking third- and first-party games were trailed, with a couple of surprise announcements that were vague enough to be enthusiastically overstated. (The MGS reveal, for example – obviously not an exclusive, possibly […]

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E3 press conference reactions
Posted at 22:44 on 16th July 2008

The three console manufacturers have made their annual addresses to US retail laying out their wares and plans for the rest of the year. The general consensus seems to be that this was very much business as usual, with no earth-shattering announcements. Microsoft reeled off an impressive array of third party content, all of which […]

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Greenberg speaks, world facepalms
Posted at 19:34 on 7th July 2008

I don’t want to make a habit out of making fun of people on this site, but this week Microsoft’s Aaron Greenberg (who we saw defending the insane pricing of the Xbox 360 HDD a while back), is coming out with stuff that’s too good to ignore: “I think that there’s a difference in the […]

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Bach FUDs Wii Shock
Posted at 19:40 on 15th May 2007

And right on cue (erm, a month after my last post) here’s a great example of Microsoft’s games people sending the wrong message. At some fundamental level Microsoft really don’t seem to ‘get’ Nintendo. Every console manufacturer likes to claim that they don’t consider the competition a threat. But even now, with the stratospheric, global, […]

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DirectX, and other genuinely nice things about Microsoft
Posted at 21:56 on 4th April 2007

Shacknews have posted a very interesting interview with Alex St John, one of the key figures behind the DirectX initiative at Microsoft in the late 1990s and early 2000s. He explains how the reasoning behind DirectX was to build a gaming platform that could be anchored to the Windows PC and thereby avoid being upset […]

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Microsoft’s exit strategy
Posted at 21:49 on 14th June 2006

I have a vague theory about what Microsoft are planning to do in the gaming ‘space’ in the next few years. I’ve not seen a similar conjecture put forward anywhere, so I’m not ruling out the possibility that this is either so obvious that it’s not worth mentioning, or I’m missing something important in my […]

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