Stay on top of all our E3 2013 coverage here.

LOS ANGELES — I made mine Marvel for decades growing up, so I’m all about the crazy team-ups taking up on intergalactic world-ending threats. That said, it’s entirely possible I’m not the guy TT Games made Lego: Marvel Super Heroes for. The controls feel too loose to me, the action too haphazard, the puzzles too simple yet stringent.

But my kids’ll love it.

And it has to be said, I found enough moments in both my hands-off and hands-on demos to fire up the geek center of my brain. I didn’t get to wander Lego Marvel Super Heroes’ (releasing later this year on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii U, PC, Nintendo 3DS and DS, and PlayStation Vita) open-world re-creation of Marvel’s Manhattan Island (creatively fudged to include both the X-Mansion and the Raft’s high-security superprison), but a detour out to Asgard did whet my appetite.

“We had a huge list,” says game director Arthur Parsons. “What characters we wanted, what locations we wanted. That’s where we started working closely with Marvel to write an original story that could mix all those places and characters together.”

The hands-off mission hooked up four of the 100 playable heroes — Thor, the Human Torch, Wolverine, and Captain America — for an assault on Asgard to shut the Casket of Ancient Winters … and shut down Loki. That might sound like a random fanboy-fueled gathering, but each character filled a mission-critical role. Thor provided muscle and minion-clearing lightning strikes. Cap handled defense. The Torch melted the ice blocking their way. And when Loki’s illusions created dozens of fake Lokis, Wolverine’s enhanced senses sniffed out the real one so everyone could pound on the God of Lies.

The plot involves tracking down the shattered remains of the Silver Surfer’s board, but Parsons makes it sound like the real fun happens when you cut loose and roam around the open world on your own. “We’re doing some crazy stuff, like driving around on Deadpool’s Vespa,” he says.

The SHIELD Helicarrier serves as your hub. Getting down to the street-level action is easy; find an edge, and jump off. Characters that can’t fly may parachute in, so the player can drop into any part of Manhattan they want. Once there, you’ll have your hands full with all manner of superheroics and a heaping helping of optional tasks. “A side mission could be going by the Daily Bugle and completing some quests for the editor,” says Parsons. “You have to go to the Baxter Building and do a cleanup operation because, as part of the story, it gets absolutely trashed.”

That’s not tough to imagine. The hands-on mission pitted Spider-Man, Iron Man, and the Hulk against a powered-up Sandman who’d turned a natural history museum — and much of the surrounding city — into a desert.

No lie: Hulk-smashing a street jammed with cars goes pretty well, and transforming him back to puny Bruce Banner comes with a very amusing animation. Beating my way through waves of minions felt less satisfying thanks to iffy targeting and a general sense of anticlimax. The goons don’t really do anything but run at you and punch when they get there. They’re hurdles, not enemies.

As always in a Lego game, you can zip between different characters to take their abilities for a spin, something that becomes mandatory when you start taking on the puzzles. Flying around as Iron Man, I felt locked into a 2D field instead of doing whatever I wanted, and one puzzle forced me to transform into Banner in order to climb a chain up to a platform and flip a switch. The Hulk apparently wasn’t able to jump up there for reasons that stretch the very concept of physics (as they appear in most comic books, anyway).

Indeed, the entire end-boss fight with Sandy, swirling around in giant Lego-sandstorm mode, felt like it patiently waited around for me to figure out where on the stage it wanted me to go, with which character, to flip which switch. At one point, I just let go of the controls to see what might happen. Nothing much, as it turned out.

That’s all a bit too gentle for me. At least I know it’s not going to mash my sons into the pavement when they pick up the controls.

Lego: Marvel Super Heroes shows all the same clever touches others in the Lego series do, and it throws around plenty of age-appropriate gags that grown-up Marvelites like me will dig — Thor notes Loki’s fondness for hats with big horns at one point. The team mixes so far throw out a lot of options and fan service at the same time. But this small and entirely fixed segment of the Marvel Universe isn’t enough to really render judgment. I need to untether and spin around Manhattan on a Vespa, getting into any kind of trouble I can find. I can’t help but suspect that’s when the game truly comes alive.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Stay on top of all our E3 2013 coverage here.

LOS ANGELES — Ubisoft held its pre-Electronic Entertainment Expo media briefing today, and after showing two trailers for nearly all of its games, Ubisoft pulled a switcheroo and announced two new Trials games in a single trailer.

The side-scrolling motocross franchise is headed to next-gen systems as Trials Fusion, and it is sprinting to mobile devices as Trials Frontiers. The two will interact with each other — and both will bring back the beloved biking action that developer RedLynx nearly perfected in Trials Evolution.

Trials Fusion is due out for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC, and Xbox 360. This is unlike Trials Evolution, which was exclusive to Xbox 360 until its recent release on PC.

It’s no surprise that Ubisoft would want to expand the Trials franchise. Both Evolution and the original Trials sold incredibly well on Xbox Live Arcade. They are among the best-selling titles on the platform.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Stay on top of all our E3 2013 coverage here.

Here are the key points from the press briefing in case you missed our live coverage:

• Microsoft announced that the Xbox One will be coming in November for $500.
• A new Halo game is coming … but we don’t know when.
• Open-world zombie survival game Dead Rising 3 is an Xbox One exclusive.
• Want to broadcast your gameplay from Xbox One? You’re going to use Twitch for that.
• The Xbox One has lots of new features for SmartGlass — the second screen looks integral to the new console.
• Minecraft coming to the Xbox One.
• Xbox Live embraces a Sony’s PlayStation Plus subscription model — free games.
• Red Dead Snake: Metal Gear Solid embraces a Wild West feel.

Microsoft is kicking off the 2013 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) video game conference in Los Angeles today with a press briefing, which starts at 9:30 a.m. Microsoft’s You can also watch it live here.

E3 is where the video game industry reveals its big announcements, and the show should draw 45,000 to 50,000 professionals. Don Mattrick, head of Microsoft’s game business, will take the stage with others to tout the company’s upcoming Xbox One console that comes out this fall.

Look for Mattrick to reveal details such as the system’s launch date, but we’re not sure if he’ll also disclose the price. He’ll also talk about big titles under development.

Microsoft revealed the Xbox One on May 21. The machine is a technical wonder with its advanced Kinect room-sensing system. The upgraded Kinect can detect the movements of up to six people at the same time, and its sensor data is granular enough to detect facial expressions, body movements, and even your heart rate.

But Microsoft stirred the pot on consumer rights issues, creating concerns centered on privacy (the company says you can turn off Kinect), used-game sales (apparently, you can resell your games without paying a fee), and an always-on Internet connection (Microsoft says the console has to log in once a day to update content). Those issues created so much fuss that Microsoft made a special announcement on Thursday to try to clarify its position and defuse the issue.

We’ll be covering E3, including the Microsoft event, from start to finish. Check out our coverage at GamesBeat.com.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Memories define who we are. They shape our futures and influence our decisions. They can also be the source of tremendous pain. If we could wipe away the bad and keep only the good, who would we be?

That’s the kind of question the action-adventure game Remember Me (out tomorrow for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC) seeks to answer through the setting of Neo-Paris in the year 2084. The corporation Memorize has created a remarkable brain implant called Sensen, which enables people to share and store their memories in a network. In the first few minutes, players go from listening to people praise the technology to witnessing the devastation it has caused.

When the female protagonist Nilin wakes up in a cell, we watch as her captor strips away her memories in an agonizing process. He misses a few. That makes her dangerous. Nilin is a talented memory hunter who can steal or “remix” people’s memories through their Sensen, and as a member of the rebel group the Errorists, she’s a threat to Memorize. With her mind still intact, a mysterious contact named Edge guides her out of prison and onto the streets where she can lead a revolution.

What you’ll like

An immersive sci-fi world
Remember Me’s opening moments are a powerful way to start out the game. As a disoriented Nilin staggers around the confinement facility, the camera follows her every unsteady movement, creating a sense of dizziness. Everything is a little too bright, and she encounters horror after horror: white rooms that house delirious inmates, a machine that rips the memories out of people’s heads, and even a menacing “coercive” robot that hunts down escapees. She leaves in a coffin — one of many mass-produced containers for the dead and still alive.

The vividness of the environment persists. Neo-Paris is a gorgeous city, its infrastructure part historical and part new — the street level littered with androids, neon lights, and holo-televisions. From the skyscraper vistas to the grimy underground, Remember Me is an atmospheric wonder. It feels well thought-out down to the lingo, which the characters constantly bandy about. The game tops that off with weird, futuristic-sounding music that’s different from anything you’ve likely heard before.

The story drives much of the game and introduces you to eccentrically named characters such as Johnny Greenteeth, Headache Tommy, and Bad Request, among others. Nilin sets out to save the suffering city from Memorize. Only she can reach the people responsible and either enact revenge or “remix,” aka rewrite, their memories — altering their roles in events to better suit the Errorists’ agenda. Without her own complete memories, however, she’s unsure whether what she’s doing is right.

The uncertainty makes the experience that much more compelling and enjoyable.

A deep combat system
While Remember Me is big on story, developer Dontnod Entertainment carefully balanced it with strong combat mechanics. Basically, players assemble combos in the Combo Lab menu. You have only four increasingly long, predetermined combinations of the X and Y buttons to toy with the entire game — you unlock these slowly, one at a time — but the real depth emerges with the Pressens. Think of these as the individual Xs and Ys that you can assign to each entry in a combination.

Pressens come in different forms: Power, Regen, Cooldown, and the rarer Chain. While Power Pressens deal a lot of damage, Regen regains health for Nilin every time she uses one in a combo. Cooldowns reset your S-Pressens (special moves) faster, and Chains magnify the effects of the Pressen that came before it in a combo. Players can mix and match to engineer any devastating combo they please — maybe one string that inflicts maximum damage or another that helps recover more health. Some arrangements can even grant bonus Procedural Mastering Points (PMP), which unlock forgotten Pressens. Think of them as level-ups that offer you even more ways to kick butt.

The inputs are always the same — a series of Xs and Ys — but the results vary. Longer combos are more deadly, too, as later Pressens take on more power.

Remember Me constantly adds new layers to the combat, and it takes the entire 10-hour game to see them all. Nilin can use S-Pressens to more effectively terminate the enemies around her. For example, Sensen Fury is very similar to free-flow in Batman: Arkham City, in which players can rapidly trash a number of baddies without losing stride. And Sensen R.I.P. (Rust in Pieces) turns all robots into allies that eventually self-destruct.

On top of this, Nilin can shoot foes with the Spammer weapon she acquires. It has a number of applications, such as breaking shields or weak environmental structures with its Junk Bolt enhancement. She can also use it to interact with the environment by opening doors, moving objects from afar, and so forth.

Frequent new challenges
Remember Me flavors its gameplay with various activities. Some minor missions involve tapping into people’s memories and activating their “Remembranes” (ghosts of themselves in the environment) to watch scenes from their past. This helps you bypass security and learn vital information.

You can also locate and collect different items. SAT Patches and Focus Boosts increase health and Focus (which fuels your S-Pressens), respectively. Those are useful. And Scaramechs — little white “bugs” that crawl on walls and emit a ticking noise — are fun to search for and kill for PMP bonuses.

Sometimes bosses and minibosses, especially, act as the perfect break from regular combat, challenging you to think fast and use your S-Pressens and other abilities in creative ways. It’s fun to hear a lumbering death robot roar and then tell you “it’s just a flesh wound” when its arm falls off. This is a Zorn, and I love him.

These fights do end with a few quick-time events, but fortunately, the title allots you plenty of time to press buttons in sequence, and you quickly get a feel for when these moments will happen. They shouldn’t catch you off-guard.

For some encounters, though, a little surprise could do some good.

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Developer Ubisoft Montpellier is trying to perfect the 2D platformer genre with Rayman Legends. That might not be the company’s explicit goal, but considering the level of refinement it’s made to the formula built from 2011′s Rayman Origins, the team is certainly headed in that direction.

Since the delay imposed by publisher Ubisoft at the beginning of this year, the development team has taken time to add new levels, bosses, and features to Legends as it ports the onetime Wii U exclusive to the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PlayStation Vita. I spoke to lead game designer Emile Morel about what they’re working on leading up to the Sept. 3 launch and why Legends is shaping up to the be the biggest Rayman game yet.

Making the most out of the delay

Morel figures that when you add in the almost 30 levels they’ve added (bringing the total to over 100), it will take an impressive 20 hours to get through this sidescroller. The team also decided to flex some of the power of its special 3D-development software it uses to create this 2D game, something it hadn’t really done yet. This translated into epic boss battles like the one I saw titled A Madman’s Creation. Here, Rayman and friends battle a gigantic, serpent-style robo-dragon inside of an ornate glass mansion under the sea.

The dragon weaved in and out of background and foreground creating a nice sense of depth. It would then pop up in the players face to fire off a laser from the pink jewel in its mouth and then repeat the process.

“This is typically the kind of level that costs a lot, in terms of all the details you have to put in and the tweaking,” said Morel. Though the team still had to put in long hours to make sure these beefed-up boss battles were done right, creating those moments in Legends was something they were able to explore given the extra development time.

Ubisoft Montpellier also had to figure out a way to adapt the segments that feature the flying frog Murfy from the Wii U’s GamePad to the other consoles’ traditional control layouts. The Wii U version of Rayman Legends supports five-player co-op, where four players control the main heroes and a fifth guides Murfy with the touchscreen. The amphibian can attack enemies, move platforms, cut ropes, and provide other support. The Vita version is similar except it only supports two players (a main character and Murfy).

For the other versions of the game, however, one player can press a button to move and guide Murfy to areas of interest and the flying frog friend will know what to do based on the context. Morel assured me that this would not interrupt the flow of the levels too much, as players can keep moving during this time.

A proper sequel

These additions help distinguish Rayman Legends from Origins even more so than what the Ubisoft Montpellier had back in February. When I first heard of this new instalment, I assumed it was just going to be a collection of new levels and not much more. But I found that the little things like nonlinear paths through stages, beat-based rhythm levels, and 10 playable female characters make Legends seem more like a proper sequel.

The Mansion in the Deep level had me sneaking around like James Bond (or Ubisoft mascot Sam Fisher from Splinter Cell, I suppose), avoiding flying sentry robots with green and red light vision. I had to navigate different floors and rooms of the building in search of some switches to flip in order to progress. I appreciate these areas that break from the conventional “just go right” approach of the genre without delving too deeply into the elaborate labyrinths of the Metroid/Castlevania series.

That is not to say that Legends doesn’t have its share of heading to the right. Each world has a musical level (in place of Origins’ shoot-’em-up stages) that feel similar to rhythm-oriented platformers like Bit.Trip Runner and HarmoKnight. They’re essentially the treasure-chest-chasing challenges from Origins but set to music.

Playing as Rayman, I was sprinting atop oversized Mexican toy snakes, kicking down bright-colored Dia de los Muertos skeletons, and ziplining along strings laid out like a music staff. All of this was in time with a Spanish guitar and kazoo duet of Survivor’s Eye of the Tiger. It was a blast.

These fun musical stages came about almost by accident. Rayman creator Michel Ancel was demoing a level of Legends to some of the men in suits once, but the stage was a little too hard to play well by anyone except the guy who created it. Since that designer wasn’t able to make the meeting, Ancel showed footage of the guy playing the level, lightheartedly synched up to a heavy metal song. Everyone loved it, so Ubisoft Montpellier then decided to add stages like that to the game on purpose.

Gender balance

As far as the Rayman roster goes, the developer has added 10 new playable female characters (compared to zero in Origins). The women all based on the same template, but Morel explained that the area-themed costumes and names for each qualifies them as separate people. Barbara is the barbarian with wings on her helmet and an ax, for instance. While Ursula (an homage to the Bond Girl Ursula Andress from the film Dr. No) is suited up for deep sea espionage and wields a trident.

Though each of these female warriors still need to be initially rescued, they provide a refreshing break from the voluptuous, scantily clad nymphs from Origins (how was I supposed to explain them to my niece?!), whose only purpose was to bestow new powers upon the male heroes. They can kick ass and help bring some much-needed gender balance to the game.

“The key thing about this new character to us, is to make sure that when you play, you have four different silhouettes,” said Morel. “So you have Rayman, Globox, a Teensy and another character,” as opposed to the confusing setup in Origins’ co-op with two Teensy players at once.

For both experts and novices

All of these features round out a game that has been carefully balanced to cater to both expert and new players. While all the unlockable skills from Origins are available from the beginning Legends, each world will focus on one at a time. Novices can go through the stages at their own pace, while pros will appreciate the returning ingenious level design that allows each level to double as a race course with an optimal path.

“We wanted to keep the flow to the game,” said Morel. “That’s the core of Rayman gameplay that we know experienced players enjoy.”

Anyone who is a fan of old-school platformers should keep an eye on Rayman Legends. Ubisoft Montpellier looks to have improved tremendously on an already solid experience from Origins and the version of Legends they had at the beginning of the year.

“I was already happy with the game we were about to finish in January … proud of it,” said Morel. “But honestly, now that I see what we have right now, I feel like it would have been sad to release the game then because right now. It’s really in a sense that it’s the biggest, longest Rayman game we’ve ever had.”

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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For more on the Xbox One reveal, check out our complete coverage.

Click. Click. Click. Click. That was the sound we heard as we went inside the previously secret lab where Microsoft is testing game controllers for the Xbox One game console. It’s the sound of a robot pushing a controller four to five times a second, which is probably faster than you’ll be doing if you get your hands on these controllers. At the Xbox One revelation yesterday, Microsoft took the press through the labs to show how thorough its research was in devising a controller that was just right for you.

Game controllers are a critical accessory that can make or break a system, particularly for hardcore gamers, who develop passionate feelings about the devices that they hold for hours at a time. If there are problems with the controller, it could cascade into a general dislike for the console, which is anticipated to be a multibillion-dollar platform. Fortunately for Microsoft, the feedback yesterday from people who held the controller is positive. It isn’t dramatically different from the current Xbox 360 game controller, and that’s a good thing.

Those with long memories will remember what an embarrassment Microsoft faced when its first game controller for the original Xbox in 2001 was too large, partly because it required two slots for bulky flash storage cards. Anyone with small hands couldn’t even wield the bulky thing well. Microsoft quickly redesigned the controller to be smaller. Since that time, the company has learned a thing or two about industrial design.

With the Xbox 360, Microsoft created a widely acclaimed console controller with the help of outside industrial design companies such as Astro Gaming in San Francisco. But this time, Microsoft was able to do a lot more of the process inside its own walls, said Carl Ledbetter, the senior principal creative director and a leader of the Xbox One industrial design. During our tour, Ledbetter said the team in one building could create a design and walk it over to the Model Shop in another, where Vince Jesus, the lab director, could print out a 3D prototype. That enabled Microsoft to preserve secrecy on the whole project more easily.

“We could bring people in-house and watch them play games in Studio B,” Ledbetter said. “We watched them, with their permission. We videotaped them.”

One of the big changes is a new magnetic trigger that feels different when you pull it. The haptic triggers give you immediate touch feedback. The device also has much more accurate and nuanced force feedback. Older controllers would simply shake when you were shooting a gun or during an intense part of a game. But the force feedback on this sends you different signals depending on what is happening. If you are driving a car, you can feel the bump of the wheels on the road, and you get a different sensation when you hit the brakes.

You can also get precise feedback that feels like a beating heart. Together with the fact that the new Kinect can actually detect your heartbeat, this feature could make for some very interesting effects in future games. The device can simulate a different kind of feedback when you fire a gun. You can feel the rumble of helicopter rotors in another demo.

The device does not have a touchpad or “share button” like Sony’s does with its new PlayStation 4 controller. But Microsoft’s device includes an infrared LED on the front of controller to enable seamless player pairing and identification. Using Kinect, Microsoft can clearly identify a person who is using a controller. The results — players easily jump in and out of games.

Ledbetter said that gamers didn’t really complain about the Xbox 360 controller. But there were things that annoyed them. People with bigger hands felt the battery case on the bottom of the controller get in their way. The screw holes on the bottom of the grip and a plastic seam were also things the gamers could feel. This new controller removed those problems. The seam no longer runs across the bottom of the grip, Ledbetter said. You can still change the batteries. Everything felt nice in my hands.

“People were sensitive to the holes, but we took close-up photos in tests and could tell,” Ledbetter said. “These are things that make it a better product. We wanted it to be more comfortable and we wanted a wider range of hand sizes that could fit it.”

The new controller weighs almost the same as the current Xbox 360 controller. But it feels different because its center of gravity has changed. The battery pack used to be perpindicular to the controller’s front, and it jutted down from the bottom of the controller. Now it has been turned sideways and it is embedded in the body. That was enough to shift that center of gravity so that it feels different in your hands. The AA battery case is still removable. The new controller feels lighter.

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For more on the Xbox One reveal, check out our complete coverage.

Microsoft revealed its next-gen Xbox One today, and we are discovering new details about the powerful device.

After the event, Microsoft corporate vice president of Xbox Live Marc Whitten told The Verge that the Xbox One will not work with Xbox 360 games. It will support 450 original Xbox games through emulation.

We’ve contacted Microsoft to ask if it plans to sell Xbox 360 games through a digital store and what will happen to digital purchases including Xbox Live Arcade games. The company has not yet responded to our request, but we will update with any new information.

Sony’s PlayStation 4 has almost the identical problem. Like the Xbox One, it is using a new architecture compared to its predecessor that prevents PlayStation 3 games, including PlayStation Network titles, from working on the next-gen console.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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With the reveal of the next Microsoft console coming tomorrow, there’s probably a larger portion of people than Microsoft would want to acknowledge who still shudder at the mere mention of the name Kudo Tsunoda, creative director of the company’s Kinect add-on for the Xbox 360. While I wouldn’t call Kinect an abject failure, it certainly did not live up to the hype nor the potential of the accessory. I fear a forced feeding of Kinect 2 or more motion controls that aren’t necessarily wanted in the 360′s successor system. While there are problems that any new hardware faces, I earnestly hope that Microsoft has considered some lessons from its Kinect past.

Do not sell what you do not have

Perhaps one of the biggest barriers to full-on Kinect adoption was that we believed — or at least hoped — that Microsoft was offering a controller-less PlayStation Move/Nintendo Wii control scheme. “You are the controller,” we were told. Unfortunately, the delay between movement and onscreen action was a little too noticeable to be as fun or connected for what serious gaming requires. While anticipation could be negotiated in lighter fare like Kinect Adventures, the lag between a person’s actions and the resulting onscreen acknowledgement dooms any game needing immediate, precise movement.

In an ideal world, motion controls for Tiger Woods seem like it could or should be a golfer’s dream — an off-season way to stay sharp and hone and improve real wold skills. But Kinect is not a fine enough sensor to capture the subtleties of a golf swing. Heck, even using Kinect to navigate menus, the goals of ease and simplicity are clearly further away than just picking up a controller and using the analog sticks and buttons. That the Xbox controller feels so comfortable in the hands of the player makes it that much tougher a sell what appears to be an over-promised gimmick at best and a complete pander to the Wii family crowd at worst.

It’s the software, dummy

Games, game, games. As great as the technology may be, if there’s no appropriate software to take advantage of the beast under the hood, then what do we have? Not a big step from the current generation. Certainly, systems have had weak launches and still succeeded, but to have an “it” game can really get the ball rolling in the right direction. Halo — ’nuff said, right? Looking at the Wii U launch, I don’t know that I could tell you what came out on day one. I’m guessing a Super Mario Bros. of some type?

But really, what makes a person make the jump? I have pondered during this past year the thought that I feel perfectly satisfied with the current console generation. Unless I’m offered something I don’t know that I want or need right now, launch day becomes more about the experience of getting on board early and less about playing what I can’t currently play.

For Kinect, Dance Central did just that. It was the game I could depend on to show my family and friends my new Xbox peripheral. It worked within the Kinect’s limitations and provided a show piece — fun play where frustration was minimized with no fail conditions. But before I realized it, “poker face” was irritatingly and irreversibly etched in my subconscious.

Of course, part and parcel of the “killer app” is the all important next wave of games. And for Kinect, I don’t count Dance Central 2 or Dance Central 3 or Zumba Fitness or Zumba Fitness Rush or Zumba Fitness Core as worthy successors. Gunstringer, Child of Eden, and Fruit Ninja all showed promise, but most often, software support didn’t come in the form of innovation or originality. Instead, options were limited to fitness and dance titles and their sequels.

Just because you can doesn’t mean you should

The last thing I think Microsoft can learn from its Kinect experience is that just because all these bells and whistles are available does not necessarily mean you need to use them. Microsoft described a number of games that were Kinect compatible but not required as “better with Kinect,” and yet, I don’t know that many (any?) of these titles were actually better. Did anyone use Kinect with Mass Effect 3, Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, Forza Horizon, or Tiger Woods? No, no, no, and no.

Of course, as with any new toy, I can see why a company would want to tout all of its features. But there’s a point where it’s too much. Don’t let features be crammed into a game just because your system can support motion or voice controls. If it’s part of the game … fine, but when it’s an add-on, the forced gameplay detracts from the natural flow and progression.

I have no idea what to expect come tomorrow, but let’s hope Microsoft remembers the past and heads in the right direction.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Microsoft is expected to announce its next-generation Xbox, codenamed Durango, starting at 10 a.m. Pacific time Tuesday. The company’s first new home console in eight years will define its presence in video games and entertainment for years to come.

The new Xbox will reveal Microsoft’s bet on the future of entertainment and its strategy for using its strength in games to bring in other types of entertainment into the living room and to new kinds of devices such as its Surface tablets. Microsoft has kept a tight lid on the console, which players have nicknamed the Xbox 720. (We’ll be liveblogging the event here).

Microsoft sold an estimated 77 million Xbox 360 game consoles during the current generation of hardware. Sony sold about the same, while Nintendo has sold 99 million Wiis. But Microsoft has dominated the charts of consoles sold and game sales for the past couple of years, and companies like Electronic Arts are betting heavily that it will be a leader in the next generation alongside Sony’s PlayStation 4.

So far, we know that the successor will have an accelerated processing unit (APU) chip from Advanced Micro Devices. AMD, which also makes the APU for the PS4, is expected to make a semi-custom chip for Microsoft, using eight processing cores, or computing brains, based on Jaguar micro-architecture designs. The chip will combine graphics and processing on the same sliver of silicon, and it represents a shift away from IBM’s three-core Power chips that were used in the  previous Xbox 360 game console, which Microsoft launched in 2005.

Microsoft and Sony will likely distinguish itself based on the number of cores they will have in each chip. Sony has eight Jaguar cores in its chip, and it also has a special kind of graphics memory that will speed the transfer of data within the chip. Durango reportedly has an eight-core 64-bit APU running at 1.6GHz, with 8GBs of DDR3 main memory and a large hard disk. Microsoft’s machine is expected to have similar capabilities on the semiconductor level, but its games may not run as fast as Sony’s in part because Microsoft is expected to dedicate some of its performance to running Kinect 2.

Kinect 2 is expected to be a more accurate version of the Kinect motion-sensing system that Microsoft launched in 2010. That system enabled players to magically control their games with gestures, rather than controllers, using body movements. But it wasn’t particularly accurate, and you had to stand in a sweet spot about 10 feet away from the console. With more processing power dedicated to the motion-sensing tasks, Microsoft will be able to make Kinect 2 more accurate and cover a wider area. Kinect 2 is expected to ship as standard on the new box, with better accuracy, improved voice recognition, a better camera, and dedicated hardware processing. If the latter is true, it will make the box more expensive to make. But the tax on processing power may not be as big.

Microsoft is also expected to show a number of exclusive games running on the system. The company will likely have a new version of Halo this year, but it may hold mention of that until E3. Electronic Arts, meanwhile, is expected to show off a game from Respawn Entertainment. That game is being created by a team led by Vince Zampella, one of the founders of the Infinity Ward game studio (owned by Activision) that made first-person military shooter franchise Call of Duty into arguably the biggest franchise in video games. Activision has also signaled that it plans to show more of its Call of Duty: Ghosts game at the Microsoft event.

The questions we want answered

When is the launch date, and what is the price?

Microsoft may hold this back until the Electronic Entertainment Expo trade show press conference on June 10, as it may wait until Sony says something. We don’t know the price. The Xbox 360 console launched at $399 and $299, depending on the amount of hard drive storage. Folks are betting it will debut in November.

Just how good will the graphics be? High-definition graphics running at 1080p resolution are very good today, and it’s not clear how well the human eye will detect much better graphics, especially when the viewer is 10 feet away watching the images on a normal-sized (40-inch) flat-screen TV. Will the next Xbox be good enough to run 4K graphics? That’s twice as much resolution, but it will require a better TV that currently costs a lot of money.

What does the box look like? How big will it be? So far, no reliable images of the machine have leaked, but Xbox evangelist Larry Hryb, also known as Major Nelson, has tweeted that Microsoft will reveal the box tomorrow.

Will it require an always-on (persistent) Internet connection? Rumors persist that Microsoft will require an Internet connection for players to use their system and play games. Microsoft may or may not include this feature, which has prompted a strong negative reaction from consumers.

Will it disable used games? This is another controversial rumor. Electronic Arts said last week that it planned to discontinue its Online Pass program, where it charged $10 for people to activate features in used games (in which the original owner had already redeemed the online code). Rumor is that it did so because Microsoft and Sony will be able to disable used games at the platform level.

Will it have an optical disk drive? Blu-ray has won out over the DVD and HD-DVD formats, but it adds cost to the system. On top of that, digital downloads have become much more popular.

Does it replace your cable set-top box? Microsoft has been steadily improving the nongame entertainment features on Xbox Live, and it is expected to do more of the same with music, movies and other entertainment.

Be sure to follow our liveblog tomorrow at the live Xbox launch at Microsoft’s headquarters in Redmond, Wash. Microsoft will also livestream the event on Xbox.com.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

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If the promise of pizza without setting down your game controller isn’t enough, broadcast network the CW has now added an app for Xbox Live.

For the many cord cutters that rely on a high-speed Internet connection for their video entertainment needs rather than a cable or satellite TV subscription (or old-fashioned rabbit ears), this is possibly very good news. The CW app will offer viewers the option of watching new episodes of its programs the day after they air on television. And unlike on other services such as Hulu, you don’t have to authenticate with a cable or satellite TV subscription before gaining access to all those new shows, either. But you do need an annual Xbox Gold membership (a paid subscription).

The CW’s programming includes guilty pleasures like Supernatural, Vampire Diaries, Arrow, and Beauty and the Beast.

The move is also interesting given the recent fight many of the broadcast stations are currently in with TV anywhere startup Aereo, which wants to provide people with access to all freely broadcasted content within their local area across their mobile devices and PCs. The CW would be smart to continue making it easy for people to watch its programs for free before Aereo offers them a more attractive option.

I’ve always said that we need to keep Xbox Live on the gold standard — just as our founding father (Bill Gates) intended. Microsoft agrees and is giving Xbox 360 owners around the world a taste of its Au-some online service this weekend.

The company announced today that Xbox Live Gold is free to use in the U.S., Canada, Latin America, and Japan from now until 10 a.m. Pacific on Monday, according to company spokesperson Major Nelson. That means that the nonpaying Xbox Live Silver members can get all of the benefits of the subscription program for a few days.

Xbox Live is the Xbox 360′s online gaming infrastructure. It enables players to access their friends list and download games. The premium subscription-based Xbox Live Gold enables 360 gamers to play against one another in online multiplayer and use streaming-movie services like Netflix.

Xbox Live Gold costs $59.99 for 12 months of service, or $9.99 monthly.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Microsoft’s Entertainment and Devices Division, which includes the Xbox 360 console, made some major gains for the company — even as sales of traditional console games and hardware has stagnated over the past year.

In the company’s financial report for its fiscal third quarter 2013, Microsoft revealed that it generated $2.53 billion in revenue through the Xbox division. That’s an increase of 56 percent from the same period in 2012. The Entertainment and Device Division also includes Windows Phone and Skype.

Additionally, the global conglomerate revealed that Xbox Live now has 46 million members, but it didn’t specify how many of those are of the paid-subscriber variety. Either way, that number is up 18 percent from last year.

“Our diverse business continues to deliver solid financial results, even as we navigate the evolving device market,” Microsoft chief financial officer Peter Klein (who is leaving the company) said in a statement. “Looking ahead, we will continue to invest in long-term growth opportunities to drive our devices and services strategy forward and deliver ongoing value to shareholders.”

Microsoft is winding down the Xbox 360 as the next generation of consoles approaches. The Xbox 360 is the dominant platform right now, but as gamers move on to the next big thing, Sony and potential new threats from Apple, Valve, and others will try to take major chunks of the $15 billion gaming industry away from Microsoft.

Industry sources inform us that Microsoft will hold a major event in May to announce the next Xbox console.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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The Xbox 360 has been leading video game hardware sales here in the U.S., but in Japan, the console hasn’t been so fortunate. Microsoft is now determined to get more gamers interested in the machine before the next one launches.

The company is challenging Japanese gamers to set aside their other devices and play more Xbox 360 — for a million hours. In return, Microsoft is promising complimentary Microsoft Points to all Xbox Live members (both free and Gold subscribers), according to a report on Siliconera. The 1 Million Hours campaign will run between April 20 and June 19, or for roughly two months.

The event is largely skewed in Gold members’ favor. Once gamers clock 300,000 hours, Microsoft will reward paying subscribers with 100 MSP and free members with 10 MSP. If they reach 500,000 hours, they’ll receive twice as much — 200 MSP and 20 MSP, respectively.

At 1 million hours, Microsoft will dish out 400 MSP to Gold members and 30 to free Xbox Live users. Note that the value of MSP is different for the two countries; it’s not a simple yen-to-dollar conversion. Gamers in Japan have to pay more to obtain the same amount.

Microsoft is also only counting hours logged in 20 specific games (listed below). Players must also be online and enrolled in Xbox Live Rewards to participate.

Sales in Japan have dropped so low that many stores have stopped carrying the console and its games altogether. Some developers, like Keiji Inafune, the creator of the upcoming action-role-playing game Soul Sacrifice for PS Vita, attribute its lack of popularity to the competition: Sony’s PlayStation, which is a domestic brand, unlike the Xbox. American brands have traditionally struggled in other markets as well, like the automotive industry, as Japan tends to support domestic goods over foreign ones.

This is a big marketing push from Microsoft. Analyst Jesse Divnich of video game research firm EEDAR told GamesBeat, “Microsoft’s Japan promotion is quite unique, but without being able to drop price on its software or hardware, Microsoft has few options to correct their Japan performance. Microsoft could have simply increased its marketing and retail presence. Large media companies tend to throw money at their problems, so I admire Microsoft for at least speaking directly to gamers in Japan.

“The promotion is likely to increase Xbox 360 engagement in Japan, which should trickle down into sales, but given PlayStation 3’s five-times lead over the Xbox 360 in Japan, I doubt that this promotion will shift the tides anytime soon. But from Microsoft’s point of view, it is certainly worth the effort.”

Dvinch says the promotion is achievable. Each Xbox 360 owner in Japan would have to play 40 minutes to hit the overall goal.

We’ve reached out to Microsoft for more information and will update accordingly.

The 20 games under this program are:

Battlefield 3
Forza Motorsport 4
Forza Horizon
Halo 4
Dance Central 2
Skyrim
Gears of War: Judgment
Crysis 3
Far Cry 3
Call of Duty: Black Ops 2
Bioshock Infinite
Borderlands 2
Tomb Raider
Resident Evil: Revelations
Resident Evil 6
Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor’s Edge
Caladrius
Dodonpachi: Saidaioujou
Child of Eden
Monster Hunter Frontier G or Monster Hunter Frontier

Image source: MSN

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

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With its Xbox 360 successor, Microsoft may just one-up Google for once.

The new Xbox will reportedly be able to control your television and cable/satellite box, similar to what Google (unsuccessfully) attempted with Google TV, reports the Verge.

The console would reportedly connect to your cable box via an HDMI pass-through (just like Google TV), which means you’d be able to view both the next Xbox and your standard TV programming in the same video input. It would display an overlay on top of your existing TV content, enabling the next Xbox to offer features around what you’re watching without the need to process the video.

VentureBeat attempted to confirm this report. A Microsoft spokesperson said that the company doesn’t comment on rumors.

You could say we should have seen this coming. After selling its MediaRoom IPTV platform last week, Microsoft noted that it will focus on the Xbox as its core TV strategy. The Xbox 360 has proven to be an incredibly popular video consumption device, thanks to apps from Netflix, Hulu, and others, but it makes sense for Microsoft to aim much higher with its next console entry.

This isn’t the first time such rumors have cropped up, either. Video game industry insider — he calls himself a “fixer” — Kevin Dent says he’s been forecasting this since the summer.

Not surprisingly, the Verge is hearing that the console — which gamers have nicknamed the Xbox 720 — would also require an Internet connection to use the entertainment services. If these rumors hold true, you would have the next Xbox running practically the entire time you’re in front of your TV.

Gamers have been suspicious about rumors of “always-on” consoles  (so-named because they require a constant Internet connection) as we gear up for this next generation in gaming — especially since recent always-on games like SimCity and Diablo III had major issues at launch. For game publishers, being always-connected also adds another level of piracy protection. But gamers don’t appreciate the inflexibility of not being able to play their games offline.

The rumor follows some controversial comments from Microsoft Game Studios’ Adam Orth, who didn’t see much of a problem with always-on consoles (and didn’t have much sympathy for those living in the boonies). Microsoft ended up apologizing over his remarks, but it didn’t outright deny that the next Xbox would be always-on.

I’m a big fan of what Google tried to do with Google TV, but slow hardware and a lack of decent content kept it from being a success. It sounds like Microsoft wouldn’t make the same mistake, as the Verge notes that the company already has partnerships with content providers. (And unlike Google, it’s not trying to promote cord-cutting.)

Microsoft’s Kinect sensor is also said to be a big part of the next Xbox’x entertainment experience. The updated version of the motion controller would reportedly be able to detect multiple people within a room, and it could even pause what you’re watching when you turn your head.

If this particular rumor is true, Microsoft would also have a leg-up on Sony (once again) when it comes to entertainment. Microsoft wisely maneuvered to make Netflix exclusive to the Xbox 360 for more than a year before it was available to the PlayStation 3 or Wii. We haven’t seen much of Sony’s PS4 entertainment plans yet, other than the fact that it will support 4K video.

Microsoft will reportedly unveil its next Xbox on May 21, which should lead directly into this year’s E3 convention in June.

Raptr has begun releasing monthly figures for the most-played Xbox 360 and PC games, and in its first-ever report, Call of Duty: Black Ops II is at the top. Black Ops II came out in November, but the first-person modern combat shooter is still commanding about 7.61 percent of overall gamer time.

Raptr is a gamer social network with 17 million users who share information about their game playing on the Xbox 360 and PC. Since Sony doesn’t allow PlayStation Network members to share game play data, there are no PlayStation 3 games in the rankings. The chart below ranks titles by the percentage of the total time spent on the top 1,000 games played by Raptr users.

While Black Ops II has the lead, it is closely followed by League of Legends on the PC, with 5.9 percent; World of Warcraft for the PC with 3.4 percent, and Gears of War: Judgment for the Xbox 360 at 2.54 percent. Dota 2 (Valve’s battle arena sequel to the Defense of the Ancients mod for Warcraft III) is still in beta but it has climbed up the charts recently, with play time up 63 percent from February. Game time for Dota 2 is half the time of its rival battle arena game League of Legends, but in the last week of March, the gap in playtime was just 25 percent under League of Legends.

Battlefield 3 saw a surge from the release of End Game downloadable content (DLC) in the first half of March. Halo 4 on the Xbox 360, meanwhile, continues a slow decline, with game time down 28 percent compared to February. The largest percentage of those Halo 4 players returned to play Mass Effect 3, thanks to the release on March 5 of the Citadel DLC for that game. A smaller group went to play Gears of War: Judgment.

BioShock Infinite launched on March 26, and the Xbox 360 version was the second-most-played game for that week, with the PC version coming in seventh. Meanwhile, Candy Crush Saga is still the top browser game on Raptr, and Marvel: Avengers Alliance is a distant second, with 25 percent of Candy Crush’s play time.

SimCity had severe launch issues, and it came in 20th for the whole month. During the last week of the month, SimCity was the 34th most-played game.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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While previous rumors pointed to Microsoft unveiling its next Xbox this month, it looks like the company may now be aiming for a May event.

The Verge reports that Microsoft is targeting an event for May 21, a one-month delay from the previously reported April 24 date. That corroborates what tech reporter Paul Thurott said on a podcast last week.

You’d think that Microsoft would be rushing to show off its Xbox 360 successor following Sony’s February unveiling of the PlayStation 4. But given the mixed reaction to that event (and the fact the company didn’t show off actual console hardware), it certainly wouldn’t hurt Microsoft to wait until it had something more final to show off.

And as long as Microsoft manages to debut the next Xbox before June’s E3 convention, it shouldn’t see too much criticism from gamers. It makes more sense for Microsoft to wait a bit so that the Xbox 720, or whatever it’s called, will dominate the conversation at E3.

The rumor follows a recent apology Microsoft was forced to make over comments by Microsoft Game Studios director Scott Orth, who seemed mystified about why gamers were worried about always-on consoles. Some rumors have suggested Microsoft may force the new console to always be online, which could help with antipiracy efforts but would be a huge annoyance to gamers without decent Internet connections. Microsoft hasn’t divulged any details about the next Xbox yet, but you can expect it to match most of the Sony PlayStation 4′s specs.

Microsoft also announced this morning that it’s focusing its TV efforts entirely on Xbox, after selling its MediaRoom IPTV unit to Ericsson.

Photo: Scott Akerman/Flickr

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Microsoft confirmed today that it has agreed to sell its MediaRoom IPTV unit to Ericsson, following rumors about the deal a few weeks ago.

MediaRoom will help Ericsson expand its IPTV efforts — Microsoft noted that the software already powers 22 million set-top boxes in 11 million subscriber homes. At the same time, the deal will allow Microsoft to focus its TV strategy entirely on the Xbox. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed, and it’s expected to close in the second quarter.

“With the sale of Mediaroom, Microsoft is dedicating all TV resources to Xbox in a continued mission to make it the premium entertainment service that delivers all the games and entertainment consumers want – whether on a console, phone, PC or tablet,” wrote Microsoft’s Yusuf Mehdi, head of marketing for interactive entertainment, in a blog post this morning. “And with 76 million Xbox 360 consoles around the world with 46 million Xbox LIVE members, it is a mission that gets us out of bed in the morning.”

MediaRoom’s technology lets companies provide television service, in addition to broadband and voice. In the U.S., MediaRoom powers AT&T’s U-Verse TV service, which has 4.5 million subscribers. Once completed, the deal will make Ericsson the leading provider of IPTV and multi-screen entertainment with more than 25 percent of the market.

The deal isn’t entirely surprising. MediaRoom was technically successful for Microsoft, but slow growth and a lack of consumer awareness made it ripe for selling. It also makes much more sense for Microsoft to focus on the Xbox 360, which has become a media powerhouse thanks to apps from Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, and others.

The Xbox 360 has long been Microsoft’s Trojan Horse for dominating your living room. Now without MediaRoom distracting it, expect Microsoft’s next Xbox to make video content an even bigger priority. And maybe we’ll finally see more IPTV operators relying on the Xbox 360 as a set-top box (AT&T’s U-Verse service already lets you do this).

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

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Microsoft has pushed hard in recent years to become a fixture in the American living room — most notably via the XBox 360. A lesser-known part of its living-room play is its MediaRoom IPTV unit, which has been adopted by the likes of AT&T and Deutsche Telekom.

Now it appears Microsoft may be gearing up to sell its MediaRoom business to Ericsson, Bloomberg reports.

MediaRoom’s IPTV technology lets phone companies offer TV service together with voice and broadband, allowing them to compete with entrenched cable companies like Comcast. Microsoft describes MediaRoom as the “world’s #1 IPTV platform,” but even so, there may not be much room left for the company to grow the business, Exane BNP Paribas analyst Alexander Peterc tells Bloomberg.

Most consumers likely don’t even know that MediaRoom exists, which is another reason the company may want to let go of the unit. As a business-to-business play, it would be far more at home at Ericsson, which is primarily focused on providing enterprise telecommunication equipment.

AT&T uses the technology to power its U-Verse service, which has 4.5 million subscribers.

Microsoft would likely be better off figuring out more ways to make the Xbox 360 (and its successor, which is expected to debut this year) an integral part of the living room. MediaRoom actually allows the Xbox 360 to be used as a TV receiver, but that integration came after years of delays.

With the Wii U out on the market and Sony’s recent reveal of the PlayStation 4, there is no doubt that the next generation of consoles is already here. Along with that is all the talk about technology and specs that will (hopefully) open up new avenues of interactivity and gameplay. Early adopters pick up a console with the promise of fantastic games down the line, but most consumers have to be convinced to purchase a new system. With many gamers satisfied with their current consoles, the major players are going to have to convince them to break away from their outdated boxes.

Since all three systems (the Wii, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3) have a robust library of games, the only way these companies are going to attract new customers is with fresh offerings — not just the latest Call of Duty or the best-looking game in existence, but ones that present completely new experiences that people cannot get anywhere else.

It is uncertain what each of the new systems’ must-have games will be, but the titles below are what made me buy each of the current-generation consoles. Today, I look back on the three games that sold me on the Wii, Xbox 360, and PS3, in the order that I bought them.

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

I will admit that I was one of those people who cried when I saw the reveal of Twilight Princess (LoZ:TP) at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) 2004, weeping in happiness in front of a 20-inch television screen as Link strode across the Hyrulean landscape in what appeared to be the darkest Zelda game to date. It was slated to came out on both the Wii and GameCube, and while I owned the latter, I was blown away by the thought of playing a Zelda title with motion controls — swinging my arm like a sword to cut down enemies and shooting arrows just by pointing at the screen. Even the fishing minigame looked to fun with the Wiimote as a rod. There were also rumors that the Wii version would be the superior version not only control-wise but also graphically. (It’s true. The Twilight Realm in the Wii version looks significantly better.) I grew up a fan of Nintendo, so I knew I would get the Wii one day. Twilight Princess convinced me that I had to have it day one.

It’s the reason why I was outside Costco at 5:00 in the morning, waiting with my friends and other fans, playing Mario Kart DS, and chatting about what games we were all going to play first. My friends and I ended up playing Wii Sports and Excite Truck together the first couple days — so caught up in the excitement of beating each other up in boxing or crashing into each other’s cars. I was also scared to play LoZ:TP. What if, after the excruciating wait and all the hype, it was bad? I did not think I could bear having my spirits crushed.

When I popped in the disc on the third day, my worries were unfounded. Playing LoZ:TP with the Wiimote, swinging it around, and becoming engrossed with the characters and the dark tone of the story is still one of my favorite memories as a gamer. It showed me just what the Wii was capable of — an experience I couldn’t get on any other console. It is debatable whether or not the Wii was successful in that regard, but it still is a console I had immense fun with.  LoZ:TP ranks as one of my favorite Zelda games of all time as well as one of the best launch titles I have ever played.

Dead Rising

I was not sold on the Xbox 360 at first. In middle school, I was a part of a small club of podcasters for a while. We had a segment dedicated to video game discussion, and one day, the topic was about the recently released Xbox 360 and whether it was worth buying or not. I clearly remember saying, “Yeah, it’s good if you want to pay a lot of money to play the same games you can on the Xbox with shinier graphics.” At the time, it was a good observation. Most of the games that launched with it were just prettier versions of the same games you could get on current consoles, and the rest were not very good. Even when The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion came out, I could play it on my PC, so what use was a 360 to me?

My mind was changed a year after the 360’s launch with the release of Dead Rising. I have been a zombie fan since the day my father sat me down with him to watch Romero’s Dawn of the Dead, so when I played Dead Rising at my friend’s house, I was floored. It was exactly how I imagined a video game based off that movie would be like. You could fight hordes of zombies with anything you could find (everything was a weapon), explore an enormous mall, save survivors (or kill them), be a hero (or not), snap photos (sacrificing survivors was perfect for those achievements), and unravel a conspiracy.

I don’t remember how I convinced my parents to buy me a 360 — it must have had something to do with how good my grades were — but under the Christmas tree in 2007 was a box with a copy of Dead Rising in it. It still remains one of my favorite games to this day. Dead Rising 2: Off the Record for the PC is a go-to-game for me when I am feeling down, but if Microsoft were to rerelease the original for the PC, I would snatch it up again in a heartbeat.

Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots

I never owned a PlayStation 2, but I had played through the entire Metal Gear Solid series with a friend. Despite not owning the three main games, I adored the franchise. There were so many rumors that MGS4 would eventually come out on the Xbox 360 because of the slow sales of the PS3, but my heart sank when Konami squashed the possibility of that ever happening. If I wanted to play MGS4, I was going to have to buy a PS3 or else I would never get to experience the end of Solid Snake’s story.

Thankfully, I was working a job when Sony announced that it was discontinuing the 80GB model of the console. It was the one I wanted because it had backward compatibility for the PS2, something that the future models were not going to have. I did not have nearly enough to pay the $600 price tag of the MGS4 bundle at Fry’s, so I convinced my mom to pay for half because it was a Blu-ray player we could all enjoy.

We rarely used it for Blu-rays because they were so expensive, though. What it was used for was games. I was finally able to experience all the PS2 games I missed out on, like Kingdom Hearts, Shadow of the Colossus, and the Devil May Cry series. For a while, I had more PS2 games than PS3 games, but it all started with MGS4.

Arguments aside about the length of the cutscenes, the game is a technical marvel and, in my opinion, flawless. The gameplay was perfectly balanced between sneaking and gun fights, and you could play any way you wanted. The story tied up everything wonderfully. The presentation was beyond stellar, from the set pieces to the cutscenes and the boss battles. Very few games have satisfied my needs like MGS4 has, which is why I am afraid to play it again in fear of ruining all the amazing moments I had with it. But I know I have to again one day.

Was it worth it, and what’s next?

For one or two games, buying a whole system is never worth it. You always have to look at the complete package and think about what you are investing in. However, there will always be that one game that makes you need the console, and that will open up the door to a plethora of experiences you could not get anywhere else.

I have not regretted owning all three consoles. The Wii has provided me with excellent titles and unique games that took advantage of the hardware, like MadWorld and No More Heroes. The Xbox 360 introduced me to the world of online gaming with the Halo series. Although I no longer pay for Xbox Live, I have to thank Halo for showing me how much fun it is to play with friends and strangers online. I don’t use the PlayStation 3 for online play but rather its amazing single-player titles like Heavy Rain, Uncharted, and HD collections of games I missed in the last generation — not to mention the backward compatibility that I am grateful for every day.

I bought a Wii U on launch day and have already gotten a taste of what the future holds with ZombiU, which was what sold me on the console largely because of the GamePad. I have also had a load of fun with Ninja Gaiden: Razor’s Edge, which proves that traditional titles work wonderfully on the system. I am not fully sold on the PlayStation 4, nor do I think I will fall in love with the next Xbox at first sight. It will take a good game to do that — one that shows me that yes, the next generation of gaming is here. I look forward to it.

What have been some games that have made you want to buy a console and why? Leave comments, criticisms, and concerns down below. Thank you for reading.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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We all know that Nintendo’s Wii U is in trouble. It sold more than 3 million units during the holidays and was in short supply. But with a dearth of new titles after that launch, sales have slowed down. Nintendo shaved its sales target for the period ending March 31 to 4 million, down from its previous estimate of 5.5 million hardware units.

And now the Game Developers Conference has published a survey showing that U.S. developers are making few titles for the Wii U. The GDC’s survey of 2,500 attendees showed that only 4.6 percent of developers are creating a Wii U game, and 6.4 percent plan to make their next game on the console.

This is a critical problem because the developers are the canaries in the coal mine. When they start dropping, there’s a bigger problem.

The Wii U is a brand-new console, but its developer support is significantly below the level for the Xbox 360. About 13.2 percent of companies are making games for Microsoft’s current machine, and 14 percent plan to make their next title for the Xbox 360. About 13 percent are making current games for the Sony PlayStation 3, and 12.4 percent will do so again. Sony’s announcement of the PlayStation 4 could put a big dent in developer support just as Sony’s early announcement of the PlayStation 2 helped kill off support for the Sega Dreamcast.

By comparison, developers are moving en masse to mobile. About 55 percent are making games for smartphones and tablets, and 58 percent plan to do so for their next title. And 48 percent are making games on the Mac and PCs. The only weaker platforms than the Wii U are the Nintendo 3DS and the Sony PlayStation Vita. Despite the grim picture, Nintendo chief executive Satoru Iwata said that no price cut is coming for the Wii U, whose basic version is selling for $300 in the U.S.

It’s not a happy state of affairs for Nintendo, which launched the Wii console in 2006 and sold more than 100 million units worldwide. It has sold more consoles than Microsoft and Sony in this generation, but for the last couple of years, the Wii has been weak. That’s why Nintendo introduced the Wii U, which has a tablet controller, last fall. But the naysayers were out early, saying the Wii U’s processing power was feeble and that its support for only one tablet controller was a major problem.

Cevat Yerli, the chief executive of game studio Crytek, said that his company made a Wii U version of Crysis 3, its flagship game that just debuted. But Crytek didn’t have a license to publish games on Nintendo, and his publisher, Electronic Arts, hit its own impasse over deciding to publish on the Wii U. And with that, Yerli said in an interview with GamesBeat, “Crysis 3 on Wii U had to die.”

Now a lot of people are tossing rocks at Nintendo. EA has offered very little support for the system, and EA chief executive John Riccitiello said that the “true next generation” consoles will begin with the launch of machines from Sony and Microsoft. Cliff Bleszinski, the former design director at Epic Games, said that Nintendo may need to get out of hardware.

Michael Pachter, an analyst at Wedbush Securities, said that Nintendo “misfired on the Wii U.” Sales were weak in January, and Microsoft’s old Xbox 360 outsold the new Nintendo machine that month. Another marquee developer, who asked not to be identified, said, “The Wii U is already a non-event. I couldn’t be more disappointed with the launch titles.” Mario Wynands of gamemaker Sidhe said that he had multiple conversations with developers who are dialing back their support of the Wii U because of the weak sales.

“While I believe they need to build a very strong digital marketplace for both developers and consumers longterm, their current business model demands they continue to respond to the needs of retailers and hardcore consumer,” Wynands said. “Fundamentally, they just need to start selling a lot more hardware in order to create a viable marketplace and survive long enough in order to be able to transition their business.”

David Cole, a longtime analyst at DFC Intelligence, said, “The Wii U is in big trouble. Nintendo didn’t get out in front with [games on the Wii U], and that means third parties are cautious. We are lowering our Wii U forecasts quite a bit, and it can become an ugly cycle. It is really on Nintendo’s shoulders to turn it around. They can’t rely on third parties.”

Ben Sawyer, a leader of the games for health movement, said that Nintendo’s ecosystem isn’t open enough compared to smartphones and tablets.

Nintendo isn’t giving up yet. In a statement to GamesBeat, the company said, “[We are] proud of the relationships we have built with all our third-party partners, from the large publishers and their well-known franchises to our independent developer partners making incredible downloadable games for the Nintendo eShop.”

Indeed, while the Wii whiffed at coming up with a rival to Microsoft’s Xbox Live, some developers say they like the eShop, where gamers can download new titles.

Nintendo also said it “has robust third-party support on both Wii U and Nintendo 3DS. The biggest publishers in the world — Ubisoft, Activision, EA, 2K, SEGA, Disney, Warner Bros. and Namco Bandai, to name a few — have brought their best franchises to Wii U with games like Call of Duty: Black Ops II, ZombiU, Scribblenauts Unlimited, Batman: Arkham City Armored Edition, Assassin’s Creed III, Disney Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two, Just Dance 4, and Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed. On Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo has a great lineup of third-party games, including the upcoming Castlevania: Lords of Shadow — Mirror of Fate from Konami and Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate from Capcom.”

Nintendo has also done a good job of recruiting smaller developers. Nicalis, WayForward, Gaijin Games, Tomorrow Corporation, and Renegade Kid are all in the midst of working on downloadable titles for the Wii U.

Alex Neuse and Mike Roush, co-founders of Gaijin Games, said they enjoy developing on the Wii U and it is a step up from the Wii. They just released Bit.Trip Presents Runner 2: Future Legend of Rhythm Alien for the Wii U eShop.

“We see great business potential in the Wii U eShop. It’s a particularly indie-friendly distribution channel, and if you’re an independent developer and want to get your game on a console, the eShop looks like it might be the next big thing,” the Gaijin founders said in an email. “But above and beyond the eShop, the Miiverse has been an integral part of growing our community of fans. Being able to interact with fans in real time, on the console, while the game is running is an incredible feature that only Nintendo has. If Nintendo can manage to continue their efforts towards wooing indies, as they have been doing so far, they could probably corner the console indie market without much trouble.”

Of course, Nintendo has always been its own savior. First-party games on the Wii U are spread out and slow in coming. But if its own gamemakers create bigger hits, then console sales could pick up, the third-party developers could return, and the ecosystem will look better.

Even if this griping about the Wii U’s prospects continues, don’t expect Nintendo to waver. The company has been in tough spots before, and it has pulled off turnarounds. It can still point to Sega and say that getting out of hardware is not always a good solution. Nintendo is working on some big games. And it still has a hold on young audiences and families, which are different from the audiences for the other consoles, said Jon Peddie, an analyst at Jon Peddie Research.

Whatever happens with Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony shouldn’t gloat about the slow acceptance of the Wii U.

Alex St. John, the co-creator of Microsoft’s DirectX technology, who has been predicting the death of consoles for years, said, “I think Apple is the next-generation console and that all of the next-generation consoles will fade. If your next-generation ‘console’ isn’t a cell phone that can deliver a console experience to a TV, you’re already obsolete.”

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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The Electronic Entertainment Expo is approaching fast, but it’s starting to look like Microsoft may introduce the next Xbox home game console up to two months before that gaming trade show.

Rumors reported by several websites claim that Microsoft will hold an Xbox event in April. CVG and The Verge both have sources who claim the company will introduce the new console that month. GamesBeat spoke with a source in the wake of Sony’s PlayStation 4 event that made a similar claim.

Separately, a poster on the popular gaming message board NeoGAF uncovered a URL registration for XboxEvent.com. Eventcore, an event-management firm that has worked with Microsoft previously, filed for that URL as well as XboxE312.com (Xbox E3 2012).

Sony just demonstrated why it is so important to hold a separate event to announce a new console. The PlayStation 4 owned a majority share of the news coverage this week in the gaming media, and it attracted a great deal of attention from mainstream sources as well (including appearing on Jimmy Fallon’s late night talk show). If both companies waited until E3, most of the discussion would focus on which had the better presentation. Microsoft wants to avoid that, so don’t let it surprise you if Microsoft announces the event soon.

And unlike the PS4, expect the next Xbox to actually show up to the event based on this Tweet from Microsoft’s Major Nelson:

Announce a console without actually showing a console? That's one approach—
Larry Hryb (@majornelson) February 21, 2013

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Follow our PlayStation 4 coverage

Forums are igniting with discussions. Twitter is rife with speculation. And hardware rumors old and new are popping up across game blogs and news sites. This can only mean one thing.

Happy new console day, everybody!

At least, that’s what we think is going to happen. Sony Computer Entertainment is only a few hours away from its big announcement at 3 p.m. Pacific in New York City. Though it hasn’t said anything about it, the leaks and teasers of the last few weeks clearly point to the coming-out party of the PlayStation 4 (or whatever Sony is going to call it).

But console reveals are tricky. Lofty promises are often made and then broken by the time of the actual launch. Games depicted in promotional trailers may not represent the final product, and in some cases, may never see the light of day again. The company obviously wants to show its fancy new system in the best possible way, but if experience has taught us anything, it’s that we should view these momentous occasions with a healthy dose of skepticism.

That’s why we decided to dig through the past three PlayStation reveals — PlayStation, PlayStation 2, and PlayStation 3 — and remind you of Sony’s track record of preparing its new consoles for launch. Some things it did were funny, other decisions left us scratching our heads, and a few choices were just plain weird.

PlayStation

Announced: October 1993
Release date: 9/9/1995 (U.S.)
Launch price: $299
Number of launch games: Eight

A new challenger appears: 

In the early ’90s, Nintendo joined forces with Sony to create the Play Station (with the space), a console that featured the cartridge-based Super Nintendo Entertainment System combined with a CD-ROM drive. But that didn’t work out.

In short, Nintendo wasn’t satisfied with the business terms of its partnership, so during the 1991 Consumer Electronics Show, it announced that Philips, a Sony rival, would be the one developing a CD-ROM expansion to the SNES. This came a day after Sony publicly revealed its Play Station plans.

Sony executives were understandably furious. But at least two of them, a former Sony engineer named Ken Kutaragi — often called the “father” of PlayStation — and president Norio Ohga, didn’t want to scrap the project. After facing some internal strife, Kutaragi spearheaded the creation of a standalone 32-bit system to compete against both Sega and Nintendo. It re-branded the project simply as “PlayStation,” which made a big splash at the first Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in 1995. At the time, the PlayStation was the scrappy underdog in a market dominated by giants.

Fun facts and broken promises:

• During the U.S. rollout at E3 ’95, Sony said “20-Plus” launch games would coincide with the console’s release (at the 4:50 mark in this clip). It delivered less than half that amount.
  
• Early marketing in the U.S. labeled the PlayStation brand as a lifestyle, not just a product or toy. Its TV ads featured such cryptic messages like “U R Not E” (You are not ready) and “ENOS Lives” (Ready Ninth of September). In the U.K., advertisements proclaimed the console was “more powerful than God.”
• The disembodied head known as Polygon Man was the first PlayStation mascot. But disagreements about marketing led to the poor guy’s quick demise prior to launch. About 17 years later, developer Superbot Entertainment brought him back as the final boss in PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale.
• On 9/19/00, Sony released a new, petite PlayStation model called the PS One for $99. This set the precedent for a slimmer line of systems during the latter part of a console cycle, as we saw with the redesigned versions of the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3.

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Microsoft announced today that it is opening a new Xbox entertainment studio outside of Los Angeles to create “interactive content” for its Xbox game platform. While much of the traditional gaming world contracts, the move shows that Microsoft is prepared to invest in a new generation of games and entertainment to keep its Xbox platform strong.

The creation of the studio in Los Angeles also says a lot about the convergence of games and Hollywood as entertainment becomes more interactive in the digital age.

Yusuf Mehdi, the senior vice president of the game division at Microsoft, and Nancy Tellem, the entertainment and digital media president, made the announcement at the All Things D: Dive into Media industry event on Monday evening. They also shared new data on the momentum behind the Xbox 360 game console introduced in 2005. Rumors are rife that Microsoft will launch its code-named Durango console as a replacement.

The new studio headed by Tellem is called the Xbox Entertainment Studios, and it “will create visionary original interactive content.” It will also oversee live events, similar to last night’s live streaming of the Grammy Awards’ red carpet broadcast.

Mehdi said that Microsoft has sold 76 million Xbox 360 consoles around the world to date. It has been the top console in the U.S. for 24 consecutive months, and it has sold more than three times the number of original Xbox consoles. About 24 million Kinect motion sensors have been sold since 2010, and the Xbox Live community has grown to 46 million subscribers, up 15 percent year over year.

In 2012, the number of TV and entertainment offerings on Xbox almost tripled, with 100 voice-controlled Xbox Live apps. It was the biggest year for Xbox games and entertainment usage, with 18 billion hours of entertainment consumed, up 10 percent from a year ago.

The average user spends 87 hours of entertainment a month on Xbox, up 10 percent. Entertainment app usage is up 57 percent over a year ago, and online multiplayer gaming also grew in 2012.

According to third-party data from the Experian Simmons Spring 2012 Media survey, about 38 percent of the Xbox Live audience in the U.S. is female, and 54 percent of the Xbox Live community in the U.S. has at least one or more child in the household. Since July, Microsoft says the Xbox Live community has burned 200 million calories using Xbox and Kinect for workouts and activities such as Kinect Nike+ Fitness, other workout programs, and games.

And Microsoft said family content consumption on Xbox Video has grown 400 percent year over year; The Hunger Games film broke the record for biggest opening day in Xbox history when it launched on Xbox Live.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Redbox Instant will soon be available on Xbox Live, making it the first home video game console to receive support for the new streaming video rental service.

Redbox Instant is a joint venture between the Coinstar-owned Redbox and Verizon that the two companies announced last year. The service, which opened for beta testing last month, offer a library of streaming movies online as well as a limited number of DVDs rentals through Redbox kiosks.

Contrary to Xbox’s Major Nelson blog, Redbox Instant support isn’t exclusive to Xbox 360. Redbox tells VentureBeat that it plans to add support for other major consoles (Sony’s PlayStation 3 and Nintendo’s Wii U) in the near future. The service has already announced availability on a variety of devices/platforms, including  iOS, Android, Samsung, LG, and Google TV.

Right now we don’t know when the service will be available to all Xbox Live users, but Redbox Instant beta testers should get a code via email to gain access on the console.

Don’t call it a map pack. The Revolution downloadable content for Call of Duty: Black Ops II has more than just some new multiplayer arenas.

Activision unleashed the first add-on pack for its popular first-person modern-military shooter Call of Duty: Black Ops II today on Xbox 360 for 1,200 Genuine Microsoft Points ($14.99). Developer Treyarch titled the DLC “Revolution.” It includes four new multiplayer maps, a new Zombies mode, a new Zombies map, and a new multiplayer weapon.

If you have the $49.99 Black Ops II season pass, you can boot up the game and start downloading the content at no extra charge.

The new maps include a hydroelectric power plant in Pakistan, a skate park in California, a ski resort in the French Alps, and an oasis in the Gobi desert.

Turned, the new Zombies mode, allows players to chase after player-characters as a zombie. The expansion includes a new Zombies map called Die Rise, located in the “far east.”

Finally, Revolution adds a whole new weapon into the mix. The Peacekeeper small machine gun is a light and powerful weapon. It has a fully unlockable experience and add-on path just like any of the other guns.

Activision hasn’t said when this DLC will hit PlayStation 3 or PC, but most other add-on content in the Call of Duty series hits those platforms a month after Microsoft’s console. Expect the same with Revolution.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Since the launch of the Xbox 360, there has been a fairly prominent community of gamers dedicated to obtaining as many Achievement points as they can possibly get. While many of us have experienced our fair share of Achievement hunting, others have gone to the extremes.

Some have questioned the purpose of Achievement points. Internet forums and blogs have been littered with questions such as, “What is the point of Achievements?” and “Are Achievements a distraction to gaming?” since the feature was introduced with the Xbox 360 in 2005. While Achievement points may puzzle some, they have spawned a new way to play games. Many websites with large communities are dedicated to them, with users sharing tips and writing guides on how to unlock them.

For those who want the highest Achievement score possible, a common practice is to track down games from other regions than their own, which isn’t very easy to do. If you’re trying to get as many points as possible, you have to be creative by doing things out of the ordinary. Most gamers only have a single Xbox 360. Those looking for the most Achievement points have one for every region of the world so they can unlock them in Japanese and European games not available in their own country. Most people only own one version of any given game. Gamers looking to gain the maximum points possible will hunt down the U.S., Japanese, and European versions of a single game because of the separate Achievement sets for each region.

A typical game released in the United States has 1,000 Achievement points. But when the same game is released in another region, such as Japan or Europe, it sometimes carries a separate set of Achievements. That means if you unlock all 1,000 points in the U.S. version of the game, you can then play the same game again and get 1,000 more points in the Japanese version. A frequent tactic for Achievement hunters is to buy a U.S., PAL, and Japanese Xbox 360 console in order to play every game from every region. For example, the game Catherine has three sets: U.S., Japan, and Europe. Sometimes a specific country in Europe will get its own set. A title that has multiple sets is called a “stack-able” game.

In some instances, the Asian and Korean version of the game will be stack-able. In a unique case, the Russian PC version of BioShock 2 and Mafia 2 carry their own Achievement sets. The most stack-able game is Scene It? Bright Lights! Big Screen!, which has seven separate versions (North America, Europe, Germany, France, Canada, Spain, and Italy). Because players answer trivia questions, separate versions of the game were created with specific questions geared toward the respective countries it was released in. When interviewing a user of a popular Achievement tracking website, he informed me that he knew of several people who have owned multiple copies of Scene It?, and he knew of one individual who had owned down all seven versions of the game.

Tracking down versions from other regions can be tricky. It can mean navigating a foreign retailer’s website in a language you cannot understand. Or it can involve trying to fund an account from a different country. I saw one instance of a user calling up a store in China, asking the employee if he was certain the copy of the game the store carried was in fact the “Asian” version. Many Achievement hunters set up game exchanges. There are forum threads dedicated to trading games from player to player. One user informed me that his friend ordered games from the German version of Amazon, but because it didn’t ship to the U.S., he first had to ship them to New Zealand and then to the U.S.

I asked what the hardest game was to find — if there was one game that was the “holy grail.” He said, “I think the hardest game to find is the Chinese version of Every Party, which I do have. The AP version of Ninety-Nine Nights II has been one I have been having a lot of trouble locating. I knew of a place that had it, but they don’t carry it anymore.”

Unlocking Achievements in Xbox Live Arcade games is a different obstacle. Sure, if you live in the United States, you can easily purchase and download U.S. games. But what if you want to download an XBLA game that was released only in Korea or Japan? There are several barriers. Users on the website Xbox360acheivements.org have written guides on how to access foreign XBLA stores. These show you illustrations about how to navigate the official Xbox website to create Canadian, Europe, and Japanese accounts. Common phrases found in these instructions include “navigate here,” “select Japan as the country you live in,” “make sure you register this specific way or it won’t work,” and so on. It’s a very tricky process as Microsoft never intended or wanted people from the United States to make accounts in other regions. When an XBLA store blocks you from using its website because you have an American I.P. address, many gamers use a VPN to makes it appear as if they’re in another country.

Even when you use these elaborate techniques, you can still hit a roadblock. A top user from Xbox360acheivements.org informed that Korean downloadable games were impossible to get unless you actually lived in Korea. This is because in order to make a Korean Xbox Live account, you need to provide the Korean equivalent of a Social Security card. Microsoft has also been known to ban accounts.

Some people may not like or “get” Achievements, but it’s pretty clear that they’re here to stay. The experiment of requiring Achievements for every Xbox 360 game has been successful. Many wonder what will become of these points in the next generation of the Xbox. Whatever the future holds, it’s clear that people will continue to love Achievements.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Microsoft reported its second-quarter earnings for fiscal 2013 today. The game and entertainment division pulled in more than $3 billion in revenue.

A major chunk of that money came from the sale of 5.9 million Xbox 360 consoles. That’s down 28 percent from the same period in 2011 (8.2 million). To date, Microsoft has sold around 76 million of Xbox 360 systems.

That 5.9 million number is not only down from 2011, but it’s also down from 2010′s 6.3 million Xbox 360s sold. It’s clear that the current generation of consoles peaked last year. It’s all downhill from here.

The hardware Goliath also reported that it still has more than 40 million Xbox Live members, although it didn’t specify how many of those subscribe to the Gold tier, which comes with a fee.

On the software side, Microsoft noted that Halo 4 is the best-selling game in that franchise’s history. That isn’t surprising, considering how many people have Xbox 360s. Halo 4 was selling to more potential players than any of the other games did. Microsoft and developer 343 Industries has at least two more Halo games in the works. The success of Halo 4 will provide assurance to the Microsoft that the series is worth the money it puts into it.

Microsoft will hold a conference call with investors today at 2:30 p.m. Pacific. We will update with any new information at that time.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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I’m no Pavoratti, but I’ve been known to belt out a decent “New York, New York” without much hesitation. As a fan of video games, I’ve enjoyed watching karaoke games evolve. I got into Karaoke Revolution on PlayStation 2, did a duet alongside Katy in SingStar, and loved tambourine tapping while singing in Lips. Those games were fun, but I always got tired of singing the same handful of favorites and never delving into the unfamiliar songs. Downloadable tracks are nice, but they never seem to come out frequently enough to bother loading up the games again.

That’s one of the reasons I was excited to try out Microsoft’s latest stab at karaoke, the free app simply called Karaoke (released for Xbox 350 on Dec. 18). Developer iNiS has teamed up with the Karaoke Channel to offer a library of over 8,000 songs to sing with new additions and free tracks rotated in daily. There’s no marketplace to fumble through or downloads to queue up because it streams all the songs as you choose them. That leads to the other interesting aspect of Karaoke: how you pay.

Rather than charging per song or for “track packs” in Karaoke, you pay for hourly chunks of time like you would at an actual karaoke bar. The cheapest is a two-hour block that costs 240 Microsoft Points ($3.00) with stops at six ($5) and 24 hours ($10). This gives you immediate access to every song in the catalog, and even on my midrange consumer Internet, it never felt like I was wasting time waiting for things to load.

The search function works well with a snappy autocomplete that starts showing you songs and artists right away. The catalog is also pretty easy to browse through with categories for genres, latest additions, and the top 100 songs. Even better, all of this can be accessed onscreen while someone is singing, and all songs get plopped into a queue that you can jump into from almost anywhere. Using a controller works fine, but Karaoke is one place where Xbox SmartGlass really shines.

It’s a little clunky on my first-gen iPad (via the SmartGlass app), but you can navigate the whole catalog and songs in the queue with a couple of taps. You can also view the lyrics to brush up on songs like “It’s the End of the World as We Know It” before they start. There aren’t as many subcategories on the app as in the game, but being able to dig into the catalog while someone is singing maximizes your time and money.

The game does have its downsides. The time you buy is always counting down, so be ready to sing for at least two hours or lose some minutes. Also, you can’t slide in one more five-minute ballad if you don’t have five minutes of time left. Fortunately, the catalog contains several TV theme songs perfect to keep in your queue for those last few minutes.

Playing Karaoke is as easy as finding a song to sing. Any of the fancy voice analysis the game might be scoring you on has been hidden, leaving you to focus on the big, bold lyrics on screen. You won’t find pitch-matching cursors or fancy interface stuff here, nor are there HD music videos or peculiar karaoke stock footage, which may be a bummer to some. Instead, the background features a lively Avatar performance that grows as you continue performing. Keeping things simple has also ruled out multiuser support, so only the paying player’s Avatar will put on a show or earn progress.

That’s right, Karaoke has a leveling system (and Achievements and leaderboards) to keep you coming back. Each song you finish awards you with both fans and money, which unlocks random new items to spruce up your stage and boost your level progress. You’re never playing roadie and placing individual items on a stage — it’s just to keep things fresh as you continue playing. Karaoke also uses Kinect for midsong pose matching, but I didn’t try that.

Paying for playtime may seem odd, but consider that a modern, disc-based karaoke game costs around $20 and only packs a couple dozen songs. For a fraction of that, Karaoke offers hundreds of times the music with nothing to go out and buy unless you don’t already own a pile of Xbox headsets or mics. I wound up having a lot of fun combing through the catalog and singing myself hoarse. For $3, it’s probably the most value and instant satisfaction I’ve ever gotten from a music game.

Score: 4/5

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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No other company besides Disney could make Disney Infinity. Aside from the obvious, the amount of resources it can pull together for this upcoming platform is staggering.

Disney Infinity is essentially an open-ended Grand Theft Auto sandbox with a Minecraft/LittleBigPlanet creative component that you can use to make their own content. You can unlock new characters, items, worlds, and more by placing stylish collectible figures and chips onto a special base. And everything is wrapped in the family-friendly ethos of the Disney films and theme parks.

Infinity launches this June for PC, all major home consoles, and mobile platforms. Leading up to the summer, the House of Mouse is making a big push to establish this new brand (read: money machine). It officially unveiled Infinity this week at the classy, Disney-owned El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood, Calif. John Lasseter, the chief creative officer at Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios, was on hand to talk about Infinity’s emphasis on play and creativity.

I had a chance to preview the game and learn about all its different elements. I came away with one main conclusion: Regardless of how you feel about conspicuous consumption or one company owning so many different things, you must admit that something as ambitious as Disney Infinity is only possible because one conglomerate owns all this:

Walt Disney studios: It’s no coincidence that Infinity and the upcoming Monsters University film are both coming out in June — and that the game features characters and stages based on the movie. Expect this to become the norm whenever a new high-profile Disney flick comes out. Instead of having to spend two or three years making a standalone movie-game tie-in, developer Avalanche Software can just make a new set of levels and characters to expand Infinity.

Executive producer John Vignocchi explained to me that Disney hooks Avalanche up with unprecedented access to filmmakers like Jerry Bruckheimer (Pirates of the Caribbean), Tim Burton (The Nightmare Before Christmas), and their teams.

Talk about going to the source for authenticity.

The type of audiences that Disney commands from its motion pictures is tremendous, and now each of those viewers is a new potential customer to try an inspired interactive experience with Infinity. How many people are fans first of Spyro the Dragon and other characters from the rival Skylanders series and then get into the games second? Compared to all those for the beloved Disney franchises, not many.

Since Avalanche is able to draw from all the Disney-owned properties, what else might we see in the game? One of the add-on vehicles available at the event was the Electric Mayhem bus from The Muppets. Does this mean we might see some Marvel Avengers or Star Wars content when Disney releases those blockbusters in the following years?

“The possibilities are infinite,” Vignocchi said.

Parks and resorts: Picture the iconic Sleeping Beauty castle from Disneyland with a Finding Nemo underwater twist. Now, swap out the coral decorations for some neon-laced Tron trim. Add a constantly growing interactive world around it and you start to get the idea. These are the kind of images Disney showed us to promote some of the creative potential for players using the Minecraft-inspired level-editor Toy Box.

The theme park connection is also visible in the Play Sets. These are what Disney calls the different in-game worlds (each with mission-oriented gameplay) that players can unlock with Play Set figures. The Pirates of the Caribbean level we saw had a couple of visual references to the classic ride. As Captain Jack Sparrow rowed a boat under archways and between vessels exchanging cannon fire, I instantly thought of the Disneyland attraction. No one had to tell me. The park experience is that ingrained in me, and that can be a powerful way to connect with customers

Consumer products: “We’re all game developers,” Vignocchi said. “So while we hoped and dreamed, since the inception of Infinity back in 2010, that we’d have this line of collectible figures that went with it, none of us know how to make toys.” That’s where Disney’s massive Consumer Products division comes in. This is the group that manages the mountains of official Disney licensed stuff in stores.

They help us “identify factories that we we’re going to work with for manufacturing, make sure that we’re delivering the correct file formats to the various factories, quality assurance, working with the FCC. …” said Vignocchi.

Disney’s Imagineering and other research teams also served as consultants to the special figurine technology that Avalanche conceived of. Those teams are also helping to develop what future versions of the base reader (what you use to connect the toys up to the game) can do.

Club Penguin: With user-generated content, fans inevitably will try to make levels featuring swastikas, marijuana leafs, penises, four-letter words — you name it. Hell, some rogue Disney animators even inserted a picture of a topless woman into The Rescuers. That’s apparently the kind of thing some people will always do given creative freedom.

To keep the game environment family-friendly, Disney is bringing in some pros to vet the levels that players submit. The customer support staff from the popular online children’s game Club Penguin (which reportedly has over 30 million registered user accounts) will sort through submissions and weed out the inappropriate ones before players can download any of it for Toy Box mode.

Club Penguin is aimed at kids ages 6-14 and has been around since 2005. I cannot imagine a group of people who have more experience cleaning up online f-bombs and hate speech than the folk who work there.

Avalanche Software: A quick glance at this developer’s portfolio shows that the people there definitely know how to make solid licensed games. They’ve been crafting them since Disney acquired the studio in 2005. More intriguing is the Octane development engine that they’ve been adding to for the past 11 years.

“Right now, I know that we have well over 60 different mechanics in the game,” said Vignocchi. “Whether that’s melee combat to sword fighting to projectiles, driving … it is on par with some of the biggest games out there, like Grand Theft Auto, and it is a ‘family game.’”

This foundation is essential for Avalanche to make each Play Set feel different. The Incredibles level involves a lot of superhero fighting and robot smashing, while Monsters University is more focused on stealth to scare students from rival Fear Tech. The Pirates of the Caribbean world featured galleon customization and naval gun battles. These certainly aren’t cookie-cutter platformers. Considering how many developers treat the stable cash-in of licensed properties, it’s refreshing to see Avalanche go the distance. “As game developers,” Vignocchi said, “our mantra is, we kind of take a page out of Pixar’s book, we create games for ourselves but that are accessible to kids.”

That focus will ultimately benefit fans since the freedom in Toy Box mode turns them into game makers. In a demo video, we saw how quality assurance staff could change the camera angle to 2D for a working Donkey Kong arcade game level. Another person re-created the Bowser’s Castle race track from Mario Kart 64 that players can actually drive on. When you add in the programming logic items that enable aspiring level designers to add and chain together triggers, doors, moving platforms, and more, the potential is pretty promising. Disney plans to foster user creativity by holding themed contests.

It’s that emphasis on play and imagination that appears to ground Disney Infinity. So much of this corporate synergy is a bit mind-boggling. The business model is classic Disney (movie tie-ins, collectible trinkets and toys, and so on), but it’s the gameplay that will determine whether Infinity is just a massive cash-in or the title that could finally establish Disney Interactive as a formidable, traditional game maker.

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