Microsoft wants to make sure you always have a friend online. The company announced through its official Xbox Support Twitter account that it will allow for up to 1,000 friends on Xbox Live.

Polygon spotted the confirmation from Xbox Support, shown below:

@clear_then_die 1000 friends is indeed confirmed ^JG—
Xbox Support (1-5) (@XboxSupport) May 21, 2013

Xbox Live currently restricts your friends list to 100. That’s a limit that many gamers have already met, meaning they have to turn down new friend requests. With the new 1,000 limit, it’s going to take much longer to fill that list. But we’re sure someone out there will manage to do it.

For more, check our Xbox One hub page or our roundup of all available Xbox One information.

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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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Just a day shy of it’s superimportant and highly publicized event to showcase the next-generation home video game console, Microsoft’s Xbox team has announced a new interactive TV show that’s definitely worth paying attention to.

The show itself, called The Music Room, is a two-part program hosted by Laura Jackson and Carl Barât, and will feature music from Everything Everything, Don Broco, and Swim Deep. Much like accessing other entertainment services on the console, you’ll need to be an Xbox Gold subscriber to watch the show, which premieres May 29 at 8:30 p.m. Eastern.

What’s interesting is that Xbox users will be able to vote on the outcome of the program as it airs, which could signal Microsoft’s future approach to original content through the Xbox Live platform. Of course right now its only a two-part music show you can interact with, and we really won’t know more about the company’s entertainment plans until after tomorrow’s big event.

For a closer look at the new show, check out a video preview embedded below.

Via Engadget

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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Gaming on Android devices isn’t quite on the same level as iOS. The Apple products still tend to get more games, and Apple provides deeper support with its Game Center software that manages friends and multiplayer gaming.

Google is finally catching up in that last respect, according to code buried in the MyGlass Android app that ties the company’s new Google Glass wearable computers to Android phones and tablets. The code, first discovered by Android Police, supports real-time/turn-based multiplayer, invitations, in-game chat, lobbies, leaderboards, and achievements.

That’s the type of functionality that a console like the Xbox 360 provides with its Xbox Live service. Gamers love to play against friends, but right now every Android developer is stuck building their own multiplayer network or licensing some software from a third-party vendor such as Gree. A standardized gaming environment could go a long way toward improving the lives — and games — of Android players.

Google hasn’t made any official announcements about this new service. It apparently goofed up and shipped the entire suite of Google Play service in the MyGlass app. That includes support for Google Wallet, panoramic pictures, and app search — Glass doesn’t support any of those common Android functions. Similarly, Glass doesn’t play games, so it’s weird that the MyGlass APK (which is the executable file type for the Android OS) includes a “games” folder.

Inside that folder, Android Police found code that can handle synchronous and asynchronous multiplayer, in-game chat, and all of the other features gamers desire in a connected network.

Google has never mentioned anything about a universal games service like this before, but its big Google IO event is coming up in about a month. The fact that the code is complete enough to get accidentally packed in with MyGlass suggests we’ll hear more about it at that San Francisco gathering on May 15.

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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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A number of “high profile” Xbox Live accounts belonging to Microsoft employees were hacked, according to a statement from Microsoft, who says the attackers used a number of social-engineering tactics to get access.

The statement from Microsoft reads:

We are aware that a group of attackers are using several stringed social engineering techniques to compromise the accounts of a handful of high-profile Xbox Live accounts held by current and former Microsoft employees. We are actively working with law enforcement and other affected companies to disable this current method of attack and prevent its further use. Security is of critical importance to us and we are working every day to bring new forms of protection to our members.

This is more than a surface-level social engineering attack on Microsoft, however. Brian Krebs, a security reporter who was recently “swatted,” or pranked when someone reported a fake incident that had police at Krebs’ door, found the prankers were actually a group of hackers. The group of four, according to Krebs, was seeking revenge after he reported on a website called ssndob.ru where people were selling social security numbers. This is reportedly one of the tactics used to gain access to the Xbox Live accounts.

As it turns out, Krebs also connected one of the hackers from this group called TeamHype to the hacker who took down Mat Honan’s digital life in 2012. This hacker, called Phobia, may have also been behind the “swatting” prank.

Microsoft responded saying that it does not use social security number in its Xbox Live accounts, but that the hackers were effectively “daisy-chaining” by social engineering one of Microsoft’s partners (see: “affiliated companies in the statement above) and gaining enough information to bypass  Microsoft’s “security proofs” or the information it collects to make sure you are who you say you are.

hat tip Ars Technica; Video game fail image via Shutterstock

Microsoft has debuted the first film to exclusively be released through its Xbox Live platform today, pushing the console further into the realm of entertainment.

The film itself is called Pulp, a British comedy that centers around a comic book publisher who ends up getting recruited by law enforcement to help bust a crime syndicate. The reason it’s not getting a theatrical release has to do with the lack of promotional budget. And with no “bankable” stars within the movie, it makes it difficult for film studios to justify those costs, too. But that’s what makes the Xbox a perfect platform for Pulp, according to its creators.

Right now the film is only being released in the U.K. on March 4 to those that have both an Xbox 360 as well as a subscription to Xbox Live. However, if sales do well, it could see a release in the U.S., according to BBC News.

The move to premiere exclusive content on Xbox is not very surprising, as Microsoft has been angling the console to become a full-fledged media center. It already has plans to boost the level of original/exclusive content on the platform, which is evident through many of its recent hires as well as a new Los Angeles studio.

Via Beta News

In October of last year, reader Edfire77 sent the above image to Kotaku. The photo shows Tommy Chong of comedy duo Cheech and Chong, and it was used to “celebrate” Hispanic culture. Not only was the choice to use a film about the misadventures of two stoners to observe Hispanic culture in poor taste, but the image did not even feature Cheech Marin, the only Hispanic member of the stoner duo (Tommy Chong is not Hispanic; he is of Chinese, Scottish-Irish, and French descent.)

The flub came and went without so much as an apology from Microsoft. Sure, chances are this was merely an oversight, but it was an insensitive move nonetheless. Hispanic gamers make up a large portion of Xbox owners. According to Microsoft, in an article posted on Viacom’s blog, Hispanic gamers contributed to 23 percent growth in sales while non-Hispanic gamers stood at 10 percent. The article also mentions that “Hispanics are 32 percent more likely to consider video games their main source of entertainment.” Considering these numbers, Microsoft should have been more careful about how it chose to portray this group. Rather than relegating Hispanic culture to a movie about potheads, the company could have used a positive film such as Stand and Deliver, the fantastic Pan’s Labyrinth, or the historically relevant Motorcycle Diaries.

Shifting paradigms in demographics plainly illustrate that Hispanics and other minorities are becoming a larger part of gaming culture. With such a significant number of minority gamers contributing to the growth of the market, one would think it would be a no-brainer to be sensitive to the nuances of these cultures. Unfortunately, as seen in the above image (and in many other instances I will discuss), this has not been the case.

Insensitivity towards minorities, as well as exaggerated and stereotypical depictions in video games, is nothing new. Anyone who has ever played Final Fantasy VII will remember the outspoken Barret Wallace. The only black character in Square’s epic role-playing game had the tongue of a sailor and spoke in an exaggerated Ebonics. No one else in the game was given this accent. Not the other denizens of the slums. Not Barret’s longtime friend Dyne. No one. Why would only one character speak in region-based slang? Because he’s black? It didn’t make sense to me in 1997, and doesn’t make sense now.

Localization standards have improved since then, and although Final Fantasy XIII’s black party member, Sazh Katzroy, has a few things in common Barrett (both single parents, both use guns, both begin as partner to an ex-soldier), he is not nearly the caricature Barret turned out to be. Whereas Barrett was loosely based on Mr. T, Sazh bears a closer resemblance to a different kind of television and movie stereotype: the funny black sidekick. Sazh’s “frocobo” didn’t help matters much either. Perhaps Square Enix should stop basing their black characters on problematic Hollywood tropes.

Another kind of stereotyping can be seen in fantasy titles where dark-skinned races are often depicted as being less intelligent, barbarous, prone to violence, and less civilized than their fair-skinned neighbors. The recently released Fire Emblem: Awakening’s Basilio and Flavia are two of the games few dark-skinned characters. They hail from the Kingdom of Regna Ferox, where brute strength is valued over all else. In one scene, Basilio tells another character to kiss his “big brown arse.” Another Japanese strategy RPG classic, Dragon Force (released on the Sega Saturn), featured a southern kingdom called the Bozack Nation, whose citizens were dark-skinned and beast-like and whose leader, Gongos, was considered less intelligent than the other rulers in the game.

Western RPGs haven’t fared much better in this regard. The Elder Scrolls series’ Redguard race, also dark of skin, has traditionally had lower intelligence stats and higher physical attributes than other races. This kind of depiction of dark-skinned races is not exclusive to games. The wildly popular Game of Thrones features the nomadic, barbaric Dothraki. Dark of hair, eyes, and skin, the Dothraki resemble Middle-Eastern peoples in both appearance and language. Compared to the “civilized” seven kingdoms of Westeros, the people across the Narrow Sea are seen as backward, exotic, brutish, and savage. Although these races are all fictional, their representation has a hint of real-world Orientalism that can inform notions about minorities and dark-skinned races and cultures.

The dearth of minorities as main characters is another issue worth noting. Many big-budget titles seem to feature a white male — an everyman — as their protagonist. While it may be argued that game developers who stick to this formulaic approach to character design are merely playing it safe and choosing not to use minority characters that may be construed as offensive or insensitive, it does not help the fact that the market is oversaturated with Nathan Drake lookalikes and sorely lacking in minorities as central figures.

But hope is not completely lost. Smaller developers such as Minority Media (which is comprised of a culturally diverse team and headed by lead designer Vander Caballero) may be the shot in the arm the medium needs. Minority’s first title, the PlayStation Network exclusive Papo & Yo, features Brazilian-inspired visuals and sounds as well as a dark-skinned young boy, Quico, as the protagonist.

Thatgamecompany’s highly praised Journey circumvented the problem of race altogether by making the main character completely nonspecific and ambiguous in not only race but gender and age as well. While these smaller, independent developers seem more inclined to deal with the problem of stereotyping in video games, Ubisoft — the creator of Assassin’s Creed — is also pushing for multicultural awareness in its titles. Its first PS Vita game, Assassin’s Creed: Liberation, featured a half-black female protagonist by the name of Aveline de Grandpré and proved it is not entirely impossible for developers to feature minorities in their titles without resorting to offensive cultural stereotypes.

Video games are becoming bigger than Hollywood. With yesterday’s announcement of the PlayStation 4 and the beginning of a new generation of games, developers — both independent and corporate — have a chance to start leaving behind the single-minded tropes and stereotypes that film and other mediums have held on to for so long. As creators and visionaries, they have an opportunity to challenge stereotypical notions, not reinforce them. With minorities becoming such a driving force behind the growth of video game culture, here’s hoping we begin to see more cultural diversity in in the medium.

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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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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.

At first glance, it may seem odd that Netflix chose to premiere its first huge original show House of Cards today, leading into Super Bowl weekend.

Not only is the Super Bowl championship game one of the most watched live events in the entire world, but it also gobbles up attention for most of the day with pre- and post-game analysis programming. Most of the major networks treat Super Bowl Sunday as if it were a holiday, delaying new episodes of their scripted and broadcast shows to avoid an audience ratings decline.

But clearly Netflix isn’t scared the big game will prevent people from watching House of Cards. And that’s despite reports from Sandvine showing a 40 percent drop in Netflix streaming usage compared to an average Sunday evening/night during last year’s Super Bowl. Part of its lack of fear might have to do with all the other TV networks playing reruns or deferring regular content until next week — meaning House of Cards might be the only great piece of TV worth watching on Sunday for those not watching the game.

Related stories:
Punt your TV: The Super Bowl is better online (guide)
Ahead of House of Cards premiere, Netflix asks investors to fund new original content

House of Cards has been getting glowing reviews from critics as well as tons of positive comments from Netflix subscribers via social media today. The show, which comes from the minds of director David Fincher and actor/producer Kevin Spacey, is a Washington D.C. political drama about corrupt congressman Francis Underwood (Spacey), who will stop at nothing to become President of the United States.

Netflix, which has promoted the show’s trailer on its streaming service for weeks, is releasing the full 13-episode season today. That’s a sharp difference in strategy from the cable networks, which make their audience wait 13 weeks to finish a story, one hour at a time.

And if the allure of a hot new show isn’t enough to bait people into checking out the new show between now and Sunday, the company is streaming the first episode for free on its website. Also, Netflix has partnered up with Microsoft to provide free access to its app on Xbox Live all weekend long (meaning access to all the episodes, son!). This is interesting because the “free weekend” is a promotional tactic commonly used by premium cable channels like HBO and Showtime to gain new customers.

It’s likely that Netflix subscribers (and those participating in the Xbox Live free weekend) won’t have time to finish the entire 13-episode run between now and Super Bowl kickoff. But, if House of Cards lives up to the buzz from critics (and it should), Netflix may end up seeing a nice usage boost beginning Monday — and a crop of new subscribers.

Theoretically, any boost in subscribers that can be attributed to House of Cards should play well with investors — especially since the company isn’t expecting the show’s debut to have an immediate impact on growth, Netflix chief exec Reed Hastings told analysts during last week’s Q4 earnings call.

We’ve reached out to Netflix for comment about the Super Bowl’s impact on streaming usage. And as always, we’ll updated this post with any new information when and if we hear back.

Will you be watching House of Cards this weekend? Let us know in the comments.

[Updated: 10:05 pm PST: The service is back up]

Microsoft’s Xbox Live online gaming service is having an outage this evening just as new downloadable content arrives for Call of Duty: Black Ops II.

Just 20 minutes ago, Microsoft posted the problem with signing into the service this evening. The company said, “You might have been kicked off of Xbox LIVE, and you might be having some problems logging back in. We are investigating this issue, and we’ll get this fixed ASAP so you can get back to your favorite games, apps, movies, and music. We will let you know how things are going in 30 minutes. We appreciate your patience.”

No telling how long this will last right now. But Call of Duty fans are likely to be frustrated as Activision Blizzard was set to launch its new Revolution map pack DLC. It’s not surprising to see an outage when a new Call of Duty map pack hits because the traffic can jam the service. But we don’t know the cause right now.

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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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Embattled developer Silicon Knights removed its Too Human action role-playing game from Microsoft’s Xbox Live Marketplace.

This action is due to a court decision that compels the studio to destroy all unsold copies of Too Human, X-Men Destiny, and a handful of unreleased titles. Where once the Xbox page for Too Human had the full game, a demo, some Gamer Pics, and some Themes, now only the manual remains.

In November, the years-long case between Silicon Knight and Gears of War developer Epic Games resulted in the Too Human studio having to pay more than $4.5 million to Epic. The judge in the case also ordered that Silicon Knights destroy all materials that used Epic’s Unreal Engine technology, which the company did not have a license to implement.

A court investigation discovered hundreds of lines of code in all of Silicon Knights’ recent games that they directly lifted from Epic’s graphics engine.

Silicon Knights was, at one point, a beloved developer. Fans consider Eternal Darkness, the studio’s survival thriller game for the Nintendo GameCube, as one of that system’s best titles for mature gamers.

Anticipation for Too Human was high prior to its 2008 release. The developer reportedly worked on the game for nearly 10 years. Silicon Knights originally revealed it as an game for the original PlayStation. It then canceled that project and attempted to move it to the GameCube before finally releasing it for the Xbox 360.

Critics and fans were lukewarm toward Too Human after its release. Many cited its repetitive gameplay and many technical issues in their disappointment.

The gameplay and story failed, in the opinion of many, to live up to the hype set by Silicon Knights’ outspoken president, Dennis Dyack. Who once told then Electronic Gaming Montly editor Mark MacDonald that he would regret calling the game terrible in a preview.

Source: Eurogamer

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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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Last week, we reported on Xbox Live’s cloud-storage troubles. Microsoft just updated its Xbox Live status page to confirm it is again suffering from those issues.

Users are reporting that they cannot access their game saves and user data that they have stored on Microsoft’s cloud storage. Known as “the cloud,” this is data saved remotely on an Internet server.

Additionally, Microsoft is also aware of issue users are having with redeeming, buying, and viewing Microsoft Points. We’ve contacted the publisher to determine if the two issues interrelate to one another.

Ironically, the aforementioned Xbox Live status page is also experiencing errors. When it is working, it states that Microsoft is working on the problems and will update the status of the issues with any new information every 30 minutes.

In the wake of the last cloud-storage outage, Microsoft gave everyone affected a free month of Xbox Live Gold.

We’ll update this story with any new information.

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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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Late last night, GamesBeat reported that the cloud-save feature on Xbox Live was not working. It’s functioning now, but the inconvenience still reverberates to this hour.

As a goodwill gesture, Microsoft is providing a free month of its Xbox Live Gold service to affected users.

“We will be automatically applying a one-month extension to the Xbox Live Gold memberships of everyone who was impacted,” Xbox Live general manager Alex Garden said in a statement. “We can assure you we’ll also be doing a thorough postmortem to help prevent this from happening again.”

The cloud-save functionality is exclusive to Xbox Live Gold members. It allows players to sync their saves and profiles online for quick access from any Xbox 360. The recent outage prevented gamers from retrieving any of their data from Microsoft’s remote servers.

Microsoft’s Xbox Live evangelist Major Nelson wrote on his blog that Microsoft knows exactly who was affected by the outage. That means if you experienced the issues with the cloud, you don’t need to call Xbox Live support — the free month of Gold will automatically appear on your account.

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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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Original Story: Some Xbox 360 owners are unable to access their saved games and data in cloud storage, according to Xbox Live’s server status page. Service outages aren’t uncommon, but they’re annoying to consumers during the busy holiday season, when many players can pay extra attention to games and want to log all of the entertainment time they can get.

“We heard that you are running into some problems when you try to use the Cloud Game Save feature,” Xbox Live writes. ”Thanks for all of your feedback. We are still hard at work, and we will get this fixed as quickly as possible.”

This is the second outage this week on the console. Netflix subscribers were unable to use the app on Christmas Eve for several hours. It’s not clear exactly how long the outage has lasted, but stories about the problem ran as early as Friday. A spokesman for Microsoft said Sunday that the site referenced had the most updated information.

Xbox Live will update the page with more information when it’s available.

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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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Even though I have a terrible track record for predicting the future, I find making predictions irresistible. It’s such an exciting time in the game industry that just about anything can happen. Things that I never thought would occur — such as Apple dominating in the sheer number of games on its platform — have now come to pass. The industry is full of disruption and change, from the smallest startups to the biggest companies, as the digital revolution sweeps through the industry. We are, after all, in the crossover era, when game companies invade new platforms. With so much change, the predictions become harder, but they’re also more fun to make.

We’re looking forward to announced games like Grand Theft Auto V and unannounced (but likely) titles such as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4. But many of these predictions below go beyond the impact of single launches. (Check out how I did with last year’s here). I have tapped some of our staff for help with them. And please vote for your favorites in our poll (in the web version of this story) and leave comments. Also, check out where we’ve been in the past in our predictions about the road ahead in gaming.

Mobile gets bigger

This trend isn’t a bubble. The growth of smartphone and tablet gaming is an inexorable trend. It’s a no-brainer that it will gather momentum in 2013. Mobile games account for 42 percent of all new game investments, according to investment bank Digi-Capital. Mobile devices are growing fast throughout the world, and we’ll soon have multiple billions of devices that are capable of playing games. Every company is adapting to this change by launching new versions of mobile titles, and many startups are focused on a “mobile first” or “mobile only” strategy. So far, nobody dominates this market.

Hardcore online games will match the quality of console games

Games like League of Legends and Hawken have shown that it’s possible to create great free-to-play hardcore online games as downloadable titles. Soon, you might be able to play these without downloads thanks to better browser technologies (such as WebGL or Chrome Native Client), which make use of 3D graphics hardware on a computer without the need for plug-ins. When the better rendering technology gains traction, then one of the last quality barriers will fall between online games and console titles. The ability to play high-end web games without delays will neutralize the advantage that console companies have had in the home. It will lower the cost of distribution and democratize gaming further. But once this new web publishing platform is more evenly distributed across the development community, the focus will have to be on making better games, not shoveling more out.

The battle royale for gaming will commence

To deal with the invasion of hardcore online titles, console makers will have to respond with something exciting and new. It’s going to be a world war of gaming in 2013 as big players duke it out. Traditional console makers Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft will go to war with the likes of Apple, Amazon, Samsung, and Google. Microsoft has already set up a broader entertainment network on Xbox Live, but it could lose that position if it maintains its current high subscription fees and a dearth of free-to-play titles.

Apple and Google in particular may not launch “consoles” per se. Rather, if they compete in gaming, it will be an accidental byproduct of a strategy to compete for the hearts and minds of consumers on whatever platform they use. Those companies haven’t designed specifically for gamers, but their platforms have been ideal for developers and publishers trying to reach larger audiences. An Apple television would naturally be a platform for games. The newcomers will use free or 99-cent titles — as well as technologies that transfer images from a smartphone or tablet to a TV — as their wedge into the console space. We’ll see a battle for the living room like never before. And this battle royale will happen on all platforms wherever they’re used.

Microsoft and Sony will both announce and launch their next-generation systems

Chasing the Nintendo Wii U, Microsoft and Sony will announce their new consoles at E3 2013 in June, and at least one of them will introduce the new machine in the fall of 2013. Microsoft may not launch in 2013 since it has a leadership position now. But it shouldn’t try to milk that position and should instead get out ahead of its new challengers such as Apple and Google. Sony has more motivation to get into the market sooner since it came in third place in units sold in the last generation. But developer activity suggests that Microsoft is moving ahead faster with a broader group of allies.

Introducing a new console isn’t just a matter of willpower. It’s the result of mobilizing a whole ecosystem of suppliers, partners, developers, and publishers to support the effort. So while it may be a no-brainer to introduce sooner, the console makers may be forced to wait until 2014. They will also have to build their consoles around a new innovation, such as much better gesture controls, to make the gameplay more magical than it is today.

And if Sony and Microsoft know what’s good for them, they’ll embrace cloud gaming to reduce the cost of their consoles and deal with backward compatibility. And they will give users plenty of options for free-to-play, platform-agnostic gaming. (GamesBeat writer Kat Bailey is a fan of this idea.) They will both embrace free-to-play and cloud gaming. Any new console will thus have to be a hybrid of tradition and the new digital platforms. (Dan “Shoe” Hsu, the editor-in-chief of GamesBeat, fed me a version of this prediction.)

Nintendo’s Wii U console will fail

So far, the Wii U is selling out, but not in astounding numbers. And while games such as ZombiU are fine, they’re getting weak reviews on Metacritic. In fact, the highest rated game on the Wii U this season is Mass Effect 3: Special Edition, a retread of a game that has already been available on the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3. This isn’t the right way to launch a brand new console. While initial supplies may sell out, what will happen three months or six months from now as the novelty wears off and gamers await better-looking titles on the upcoming consoles or the PC?

Nintendo embraced the consumer love for tablets with its tablet-like controller, but that hasn’t put a dent in demand for tablets. In the context of a more competitive industry with multiplying choices, I don’t see the Wii U as a survivor. The best thing Nintendo can do is cut the price, and that’s never been a winning formula for long-term success. I’m hoping Nintendo surprises us, but I am not counting on it.

Smart TV games will finally become a reality

This prediction crystallizes several of the trends already mentioned. Apple still hasn’t introduced its television. If and when it does, apps will come to the connected TV, nicknamed the Smart TV, in a very big way. But while Apple may eventually validate this trend, the market won’t wait for one company. In the meantime, Google will keep pushing on Google TV. Manufacturers like LG, Samsung, and Vizio are pushing hard on cloud gaming on the TV, where all you need to play is a web connection and a game controller. Ouya hopes to enter this market with a $99 box in the spring that will move Android games onto this same screen.

The business model enabled by apps on the TV is very attractive for consumers. Free-to-play or 99 cent apps may be good enough for a lot of players, particularly if there is a path to high-end hardcore games as well. Gesture or voice-recognition technologies will add novelty to the Smart TV gaming experience. Given the option to forgo the expense of $60 games and $300 consoles, many consumers are likely to prefer playing unified apps on TVs that can also be played on tablets and smartphones. That could ignite a huge wave of gaming consumption.

Gesture technologies will take off

Motion-sensing technologies like the Nintendo Wii remote, Microsoft’s Kinect for the Xbox 360, and the Sony PlayStation Move were just the start. Intel calls the new era of gestures “perceptual computing.” Controlling a game or computing device with your hands, body, or voice could become much more accurate in the next generation. Kinect’s accuracy trailed off if you got too close to the TV. But startups such as Softkinetic have demonstrated that gestures work well just inches away from a laptop’s webcam now. This helps make general computing easier just as touch screens do with Windows 8. But the possibilities for gaming become much more interesting with precise technologies that can detect small finger movements as well as the activity of everyone in a room. And these gestures don’t have to be limited to PCs or consoles. They could also be integrated over time into smartphones and tablets. Intel itself promises to launch perceptual computing in 2013.

First-person shooter games will grab market share on tablets

Based on what I’ve seen so far of The Drowning (pictured right), which is being developed by Scattered Entertainment and will be published in 2013 by DeNA’s Ngmoco, I’m convinced that first-person shooter games will finally take hold on tablets. The Drowning has a clever gesture-based user interface that works with touch screens — something that shooters haven’t done well so far. If you tap two fingers on the screen, your weapon will fire at the midpoint. Tap one on the screen, and your character will move to where you tap. And swipe the screen to turn your characters head. It’s simple, and it is just one example of how the multibillion-dollar shooter business could make its way onto tablets. And it means that mobile games will be playable without a game controller.

The game controller will become the king maker

Startups like PrimeA (maker of Moga controllers) and Green Throttle Games want to turn the humble game controller into something more important. They can do so if the above trend doesn’t work out so well and gamers prefer to play their mobile games with traditional handheld controllers.

Green Throttle is creating a cool user interface app that allows you to use its controller to play Android apps on a TV, connected to your smartphone or tablet via a HDMI cable. (If better Wi-Fi technology comes along, this will get easier to do.) With controllers used in this way, Android games can invade the realm of the $60 console game. The controller could blast a hole through the barrier between two segments of the game market.

The barriers will come down between real-money gambling and social casino games

Likewise, the barriers are coming down between real-money online gambling and social casino games, where the winnings are merely virtual casino chips.

Startups like Betable enable social casino games to be converted to real-money online gambling in territories where it’s legal. Zynga is counting on changes in U.S. laws to enter the real-money gambling market, but it will launch in the crowded United Kingdom market first. Facebook has also embraced real-money gambling by allowing Gamesys to launch such games in the U.K.

This will set up a clash. The social casino game operators have the biggest games like Zynga Poker but the lowest revenues per paying user. Online gambling firms make a lot of money from relatively few heavy gamblers.

But marrying the two businesses will make it much easier for the online gambling firms to recruit potential high rollers for low costs. Meanwhile, U.S. states and the federal government are loosening the restrictions on online gambling. This trend may take years to play out, but it will gather more momentum in 2013.

eSports will take off

Gaming has been a professional sport for a while, but with releases such as League of Legends from Riot Games, it is gathering momentum. Rising in parallel with this trend is the livestreaming of games enabled by Twitch, which has been integrated into the online shooter Planetside 2 (pictured right). Community has also become a much bigger deal in ensuring the success of a game, according to gamer social network Raptr. That’s because the improved engagement that comes with promoting the community around a game leads to higher awareness, revenues, and profits.

ESports have been growing in countries such as China and South Korea, but Major League Gaming, WCG, and other leagues are offering bigger prizes and more venues for gigantic tournaments. And it’s no surprise that Activision built livestreaming, shoutcasting (narrated games), spectating, and league play into Call of Duty: Black Ops II. Gamemakers should already know that you don’t just milk your users. Give them what they want, and they will pay you back many times over. Let’s hope that more companies are going to learn the lesson: It’s the community, stupid. (GamesBeat writer Rus McLaughlin suggested a version of this prediction.)

Gamification will continue to spread the influence of games

Gamification, or the use of game mechanics to increase engagement in nongame applications, is the path to spread game thinking far and wide. It has applications in everything from fitness devices that encourage you to exercise to enterprise applications that reward you for completing tutorials.

Badgeville, Big Door, and Bunchball are providing the services for all kinds of companies to embrace gamification, either by rewarding consumers and employees with achievements or leading them to compete with rivals through leaderboards. A lot of these efforts will fail as many games do. But the ones that are done right could lead to a big expansion in engagement and usage. Gamification is in its hype stage, but the reality will start setting in during 2013 as to what works and what doesn’t. And it will carry the flag for gaming into all circles of business.

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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 announced today that the Xbox 360 is receiving 40 new entertainment apps this week via the Xbox Live online entertainment service.

Microsoft recently launched 20 new apps on Xbox Live. But between now and the spring, the company will launch 40 more apps. Clearly, the apps show that the console isn’t just about video games anymore. It’s a gateway to all kinds of Internet entertainment.

The apps are listed below:

1. All3M (United Kingdom, United States)
2. Ameba TV (Canada, United States)
3. ARTE (Germany, France)
4. Azteca (Mexico)
5. Canalplay Infinity (France)
6. CBC’s Hockey Night (Canada)
7. CrunchyRoll (Majority of Xbox Live Regions)
8. Deezer (Majority of Xbox Live Regions)
9. Eredivisie Live (Netherlands)
10. Fightbox (Austria, Germany, Spain, France, Ireland, Italy, Sweden, United Kingdom)
11. Flixster (United States)
12. GameTrailers (Australia, Canada, Germany, Spain, France, Italy, Japan, Mexico, United Kingdom, United States)
13. Globosat Muu (Brazil)
14. Gulli Replay (France)
15. HBO Nordics (Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden)
16. IndieFlix (Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, United Kingdom, United States)
17. Livesport.tv (Austria, Belgium, Germany, Denmark, Spain, Finland, France, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, New Zealand, Sweden, United Kingdom)
18. Machinima (Majority of Xbox Live Regions)
19. Maxim (United States)
20. MTV (United States)
21. MyTF1 (France)
22. MyTF1VOD (France)
23. Napster (Germany, United Kingdom)
24. Pathe Thuis (Netherlands)
25. PBS (United States)
26. PopcornFlix (United States)
27. Rai TV (Italy)
28. Sainsbury (United Kingdom)
29. Saraiva (Brazil)
30. SBS (Netherlands)
31. SF Anytime (Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden)
32. Slacker Radio (Canada, United States)
33. SPORT1 (Austria, Germany)
34. The CW Network (United States)
35. Televisa (Mexico)
36. TV3 (Spain)
37. Viaplay (Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden)
38. Vidéo à la Demande d’Orange (France)
39. Vimeo (United States)
40. VIVO Play (Brazil)
41. Watchever (Austria, Germany)
42. Zattoo (Germany)
43. Ziggo (Netherlands)

Also, starting today, several new apps will roll out worldwide on Xbox Live including:

ARTE (Germany, France)
With the ARTE app on Xbox Live, you can watch an exciting mix of content from the Cultural TV station including documentaries, concerts, and movies.

CinemaNow (Expanding to Canada)
CinemaNow is an Authenticated Video on Demand (AVOD) application, providing customers with access to TV and movie content previously purchased on CinemaNow.com.

CNET (United States, Canada)
CNET offers all the product reviews, technology shows, and event coverage you love, now on Xbox Live. CNET helps you use technology to enhance and enrich your life. From specially curated content to advice, it’s everything you need to buy and get the most out of tech that’s right for you. Get the best in technology, right where you want it.

Karaoke (All Live regions, excluding Japan and United Arab Emirates)
Karaoke provides access to more than 8,000 songs from the latest hits to the oldies but goodies, available on Xbox Live. Your avatar will go on stage and sing with a full complement of stage props and back band. Use SmartGlass to play/stop/pause, browse the database and lyrics, or to add songs to the playlist. Songs don’t require any download and will playback immediately via streaming for a robust karaoke experience.

Maxim (United States)
Maxim delivers what guys want — beautiful women, cool gear, and funny videos — to Xbox 360! From behind-the-scenes of Maxim’s sexiest photo shoots to hilarious comedy originals to high-octane sports, it’s the No. 1 destination for couch-bound men looking for a good time.

Napster (Germany, United Kingdom)
With your Xbox and Napster Unlimited plus Mobile, you can play millions of songs instantly. Listen to millions of songs in various genres, play as much as you want, enjoy hours of expertly programmed music. Discover new releases, charts, and much more.

SkyDrive (All Live regions)
SkyDrive is the place to store your files so you can access them from virtually any device. With SkyDrive for Xbox, you can easily view your photos and videos on your TV. You can also play slideshows and view photos and videos shared with you. For more information, visit the Inside SkyDrive blog.

SPORT1 (Austria, Germany)
Enter the world of sports through your Xbox. The SPORT1 app provides Video-Sport-News, Livescores, livestreams of popular sport events, and access to Pay-TV Sports channel SPORT1+.

VEVO (Expanding to Spain, Italy, and France)
With over 45,000 videos by 11,000 artists, VEVO is the world’s leading all-premium music video and entertainment platform. Stream live concerts, watch exclusive programming, and queue up all your favorite videos. VEVO is available in the United States, Canada, and United Kingdom. The VEVO app for Xbox includes high-quality on-demand music videos free to the user and allows social interactions between fans, VEVO, and users.

Zattoo (Germany)
The Zattoo app gives you access to free Live TV across 55 channels and an Electronic Program Guide. HiQ accounts feature quick, ad-free channel switches and higher quality streams (including HD), starting at 3.75 EUR per month. Additional premium TV channels, including Sports, Documentary, Kids, Music channels, and international packages are also available.

You should be able to download these apps from the Xbox Live marketplace starting today. Give it some time though, we’re rolling out a lot of apps at once, and it may take a day or two for all the apps to arrive. We will keep you updated as more of the world’s leading entertainment providers come to Xbox.

We’re also continuing to expand our offering of live events on Xbox Live via our Live Events Player app. Join us tonight at 7:30 p.m. EST for a live airing of the Bruno Mars concert hosted by iHeartRadio taking place in New York City. We’ll unveil new interactive features like real-time pop-up information, polling, and trivia (U.S. only).

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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 reporting that its Xbox Live subscribers logged a record number of hours on the service last week.

“It’s been 10 years since the launch of Xbox Live, and the service is bigger and better than ever and booming with games and entertainment,” Microsoft said in a statement. “Xbox Live registered the most time spent on the service ever, with 442 million hours in a one week period,” from Nov. 6-13.

The record number of logged hours on the service is likely due to two very significant events that happened last week: the release of Halo 4 and Xbox Live’s live presidential election day coverage.

We already know that most subscribers use Xbox Live for entertainment and media consumption, which has undoubtedly increased — especially now that the service has support for Amazon Prime Instant Video, Hulu Plus, YouTube, Netflix, and Internet Explorer as well as its new Xbox Music streaming service.

Microsoft has updated its Xbox Live companion application for iOS devices, giving it a new SmartGlass rebranding.

The free new app is much more intuitive. You can now use the touch screen as it was meant to be used, with gesture-based controls that allow you to swipe the screen to navigate through menu options both on your TV screen and the app itself.

The interface for Xbox SmartGlass, Microsoft’s new second-screen initiative for the Xbox, also just makes more sense. There are five different screens you can swipe through, including a Bing search, home, social, recent, and discover. It’s also much easier to connect with your Xbox shortly after launching the app. Having used my Xbox almost exclusively for the past few months to stream video, I can say that the old app took up to 30 seconds before connecting. And this would happen every time my iPhone screen would sleep.

The biggest addition, and something that should have been in previous versions of the iOS app, is the ability to use the app’s keyboard to input text on the Xbox. Granted, I rarely have need of a full keyboard, but it should come in handy the next time I need to retype my email address, type in a wi-fi user name/password, or sign in to future Xbox Live third-party apps.

Creating and customizing one’s world in Minecraft can provide a great sense of pride. Now those accomplishments can be manifested into a physical model thanks to FigurePrints, the same company that makes 3D models of unique Xbox Live Avatars and World of Warcraft characters.

FigurePrints uses a 3D printer to bring a select portion of your Minecraft world to life via a special exporter program. According the company cost runs roughly one dollar per 500 blocks, so depending on how outrageously intricate your proposed selection is, a model could make for an excellent holiday gift for that special Minecrafter in your life.

More details can be found on the FigurePrints site, and if you’re interested in how the 3D printing process works, FigurePrints has a short video detailing how it makes custom World of Warcraft character models.

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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 announced that Xbox Live swing and undecided voters have decided for the third time in a row that President Barack Obama won the presidential debate against Republican challenger Mitt Romney.

More than 100,000 Xbox Live members watched the third debate on Election 2012 on Xbox Live. During interactive polling questions like the one pictured above, they gave nearly 3 million individual answers to 130 questions during the debate in real time.

About 30,000 to 35,000 respondents engaged with each question during the debate. Raw respondents to poll questions clearly favored Obama. But the voting data focused on those who said they were undecided or were swing voters.

Of 2,500 undecided voters, or 11.1 percent of the respondents, 56 percent said they favored Obama. 14 percent favored Romney, and 31 percent said the debate was a draw. Among swing voters, only 5 percent of Obama leaners declared Romney the winner while 27 percent of Romney leaners said Obama won.

About 39 percent of predebate undecided voters said they leaned toward Obama by the end of the debate. Only 18 percent leaned toward Romney. About 40 percent of undecided voters said Obama would be better in a crisis compared to 17 percent for Romney.

Undecided voters said they were closer to Obama on Afghanistan by a 60 percent to 14 percent margin. They also said he was more persuasive on Syria by a 71 to 30 percent margin and better on Israel with a 67 to 33 percent margin. 46 percent of predebate undecided voters thought Obama has done a good job as a commander-in-chief, while just 28 percent think Romney would do well as commander-in-chief.

Microsoft is “retiring” two social media applications on its Xbox Live platform.

Speaking to IGN, Microsoft said it removed both the Facebook and Twitter apps in the latest update to the Xbox Live dashboard to streamline the media center’s overall functionality. The company didn’t mention when or if the social apps would reappear in the future.

I can’t imagine many people used either of these applications because they didn’t exactly make sense in the first place. Why would I really need to check my Facebook account from my television when there are so many other options? Plus, who wants to communicate with friends and family from a game controller (or media remote)? My guess is Microsoft removed the apps because no one really used them.

If Twitter or Facebook do ever make it back to the Xbox Live platform, they probably won’t look anything like those original apps. Twitter in particular, which is increasing its focus on becoming a useful companion for media/entertainment companies, would be the more likely candidate.

However, you can still check Facebook and Twitter using your Xbox 360. The company has added an Internet Explorer web browser app.

More than 100,000 members of Microsoft’s Xbox Live online community tuned into the presidential debate via their Xbox 360 game consoles. And based on 2 million real-time responses to 70 polling questions, President Barack Obama won the second debate.

Based on a poll of undecided/swing voters among Xbox Live users, about 51 percent of undecideds said Obama was the winner, while 17 percent said GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney won. Thirty-two percent were unsure. Among those who leaned toward Romney prior to the debate, 19 percent thought Obama won.

About 28 percent of the undecided watchers leaned toward Obama after the debate, and 10 percent leaned toward Romney after the debate. About 52 percent of undecided voters declared Obama the most truthful, and 17 percent said Romney was the most truthful. Of those who leaned toward Romney prior to the debate, 22 percent thought he was most truthful. About 56 percent said Obama was specific enough with his plans, while 17 percent thought Romney was specific enough.

Microsoft said the level of participation made the event one of the largest single-screen interactive TV experiences in history.

Who won? Take our own poll below.

[Photo credit: USA Today]

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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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Last night’s vice-presidential debate between sitting Vice President Joe Biden and GOP hopeful Paul Ryan ran on Xbox Live, whose viewers took part in polls as they listened to the debate on the Xbox 360 video game console.

Xbox Live members answered 26 questions in real time about the candidates’ performances and their views on issues. More than 800,000 individual responses came in. The level of engagement was high, with more than 30,000 responses to each of the questions. The results? Looks like 44.1 percent thought that Joe Biden won the debate among Xbox Live swing voters. Only 22.9 percent chose Ryan.

Biden was overwhelmingly viewed by swing voters as being more truthful, garnering 72.2 percent of the favor of undecided respondents. About 70.1 percent of undecided voters said they did not consider a candidate’s religion when deciding whom to vote for. And 53.7 percent of undecided voters felt that Biden is better prepared to step in as president if needed, compared to 21 percent for Ryan. More data is available on spokeperson’s Major Nelson’s Xbox Live community site.

Microsoft plans to continue with election-related material — particularly from partners BBC and Comedy Central — in the coming week. Clips from The Daily Show and The Colbert Report will also appear.

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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 has officially moved off its nebulous Points system for purchasing movies and music in Windows 8.

The new operating system, which officially launches on Oct. 26, features a digital store. In previous versions, renting films or buying songs from this store required the use of Genuine Microsoft Points.

The payment system, which Microsoft began as part of Xbox Live on the Xbox 360, requires users to buy packs of points. Every 80 points equals $1. The online bundles of points (and retail cards) start at 400 points. This method can result in you leaving small amounts of unwanted and unused points in your naccount.

Sony’s PlayStation Network and Nintendo’s 3DS eShop both allow its customers to pay the exact dollar price for an item. Microsoft certainly realizes the benefits of providing this payment route to customers, since it made the switch for its new OS, but they aren’t abandoning it on Xbox 360 quite yet.

“Micrsoft points continue to be the currency for purchasing content for the Xbox 360 console,” a Microsoft spokesperson told The Verge.

And while Windows 8 now defaults to your local currency, you can still use your Microsoft Points if you have some on your account.

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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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Unlike the last election cycle, the 2012 presidential debates will largely be available online. It’s also perhaps the first set of debates where you should turn off your television and move over to your computer to get the full experience.

All the major broadcast stations have teamed up with reputable tech companies/services to offer a more interactive experience than the traditional boring TV channel coverage. A few websites are hosting a live stream of the debates while doing things like fact checking statements made by both Republican nominee Mitt Romney and incumbent Barack Obama. There’s even a slew of services that let U.S. viewers see the collective reactions from everyone else watching, create debate memes, and earn Halo 4 gear.

Below is a list of sites and services that either provide a live stream of the debates or enhance the experience with a second screen (or both).

YouTube Elections Hub

YouTube is teaming up with ABC News to offer a live stream of the debate via its Elections Hub, which offers users access to tons of election coverage from several different sources, including  ABC News, Al Jazeera English, BuzzFeed, Larry King, New York Times, and others. As the largest and most trafficked video site, it’s unlikely that YouTube will suffer from technical glitches during the live event either via the Web or through mobile devices.

Ustream Channels

Live video staple Ustream is hosting a stream of the presidential debate (as well as subsequent debates) through its channel partner, CBS News. The channel pages will sport their own debate-branded skin and provide access to Ustream’s social tools. And while Ustream isn’t erecting its own “hub” of election coverage, the startup is debuting a new front page site design, complete with a team of people curating the hottest videos of the moment. And for anyone who wants more than just the debate live stream, there will be plenty of commentary from other Ustream channel partners via debate watch parties. Also, no ads.

CNN

The 24-hour news cable network is once again providing viewers with a live stream of the debates via its website. In the 2008 debates, we were “treated” to a mood meter showing how the audience was reacting throughout the night. This time, CNN has some new tricks up its sleeve thanks to its partnership with Snappy.tv, such as allowing viewers to easily grab and share video clips from the debate on Facebook and Twitter. And while it wasn’t much of an issue in 2008, this year you’ll be able to watch the live stream on most web-connected mobile devices.

Sunlight Foundation

Want to watch the live stream, but don’t have the attention span to furiously Google search every time a candidate makes a bold statement? Well, you can either take notes for fact-checking purposes after the debate ends, or you can visit the Sunlight Foundation’s live stream. The nonprofit organization — which is dedicated to government openness and transparency through online tools and resources — is providing fact checking alongside the video stream.

Other news organizations

Plenty of other cable networks and news publications are offering a live stream of the debates on their websites, such as Fox News, PBS, the Wall Street Journal, Huffington Post (via HuffPost Live), Univision (translated into Spanish), and probably a few more I’m leaving out. You can bet that each of the aforementioned options will also provide additional analysis and coverage leading up to, and after, the debate. The most basic option for watching the debate, however, is through the C-SPAN 2 website.

Xbox Live Election Hub

Microsoft is providing debate coverage through its Xbox Live Election Hub channel, which launched back in August. You need an Xbox Live Gold account to access the Election Hub channel, which (in addition to a live stream of Romney v. Obama) gives you access to daily YouGov polls, election coverage from NBC News, and factoids about each candidate via Face the Facts USA. Probably the most interesting thing Microsoft is doing is offering a Halo 4 Warrior Armor avatar award to anyone who watches at least three out of the four scheduled debates. (I can’t decide if adding gamification elements to get U.S. citizens to pay attention to the election is a stroke of genius or just very sad. Still, it’s something new.)

Second screen apps & services

Regardless of how you’re watching the debate, you can enhance the viewing experience by grabbing your smartphone or tablet.

Twitter Political Index. If you plan on tweeting during the debate, know that Twitter has created its own Political Index, which translates all those politically charged tweets into raw data showing how users feel about the candidates.

Social check-in services. I fully expect sites like Foursquare, Miso, and (of course) GetGlue to offer their users a badge when checking in during the debate. GetGlue in particular could be a good place to get a quick scan of any friends also watching the debate as well as some of their comments or impressions.

IntoNow (Yahoo). One check-in service that is stepping up during the presidential debate is Yahoo’s IntoNow app. The company just released a new version of IntoNow for the iPad. The app lets you predict who will “win” the election, provides an electoral map, up-to-date political news from Yahoo, and a freaking presidential Meme generator. And while most of the features sadly paint the debates like semi-finals of American Idol, the overall app looks like it’ll improve your viewing experience. (Seriously, a meme generator. Awesome.)

Ponderoo. A few news organizations are attempting to track the audience’s “pulse” during the debate — showing how people feel about each candidate in real-time. Ponderoo, an iOS app released Monday, focuses entirely on this feature. The app lets you touch portions of the screen to indicate your positive and negative feelings during the debate, tracking your activity along the way. You can even see a line for how others across the country are reacting. The app is free and available via Apple’s App Store.

[If we missed a service you plan to use during the debates, please let us know in the comment section below.]

Photo via @gov/Twitter

It looks like Microsoft accidentally revealed pricing for its new Xbox Music streaming service today, weeks before full details are expected to be announced.

The leaked information came from an Xbox Live dashboard update that allows a handful of people to test a brand new Windows 8-style user interface, reports The Verge. The dashboard indicates that Xbox Music will offer customers an unlimited buffet of streaming music for a monthly subscription — mirroring the company’s current Zune Music Pass service. Screenshots of the dashboard show U.K. pricing of £8.99 per month or £89.99 annually, but it’s likely that U.S. prices will be identical to the Zune Pass ($9.99 monthly, or $100 annually). The service requires you to have an Xbox Gold membership as well, which of course gives you access to tons of third-party video and music apps like Netflix, Hulu Plus, and HBO Go.

The Zune Music service was initially created as a digital media store for Microsoft’s Zune player device and as a direct competitor to Apple’s iTunes store for the iPod. The company has since scrapped those plans in favor of a new digital media business strategy under the well-known Xbox brand. And as we’ve speculated before, most of the console handling of Zune Music will probably just get a simple rebranding to Xbox without any major changes happening.

In addition to the new Xbox Music “Pass” subscription service, leaked screenshots from the Xbox dashboard update hint at a free, ad-supported version of the streaming music service, which would also require an Xbox Gold membership. There’s also some indication that the service would let you build playlists from songs on your Xbox and have them sync up automatically across other Windows 8 devices (Windows 8 PCs, Windows Phone 8, Microsoft Surface tablet).

If true, the new Xbox Music offering would become a direct competitor with streaming music service Spotify, which has a very similar business model.

The dashboard interface didn’t mention an official launch date for Xbox Music, but it’s a good possibility that Microsoft will roll it out along with its other big product launches in late October.

As part of Microsoft’s plan to transform the Xbox into an entertainment platform, the company has hired former CBS TV executive Nancy Tellem to head up its original content efforts.

Tellem will be responsible for creating original video content as well as interactive video for the Xbox 360 game console, according to a New York Times report that cites unnamed people familiar with the matter. The official announcement should happen later today, the report indicates.

We’re reaching out to Microsoft for confirmation, and will update the post with any new information.

Microsoft is hardly the only company that’s trying to boost the level of original content on its service. Netflix was the first to make a big splash with original content, producing original TV shows like Lillyhammer, and resurrecting cult-comedy Arrested Development for a new season. Amazon is also forging ahead with original content, having set up its own lineup of TV programs that will exclusively be available through the company’s Prime streaming video service.

Microsoft seems keenly aware that consumers are willing to pay top dollar for quality original shows that can’t be see elsewhere. (For example, only being able to get HBO and Showtime through a cable provider.) The Xbox already has plenty of content partners, including YouTube, Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, SyFy, ESPN, and many others. So, adding its own batch of original shows to the mix might persuade more people to continue using the Xbox for their video watching rather than other set-top boxes (Apple TV, Roku, Boxee, Google TV, etc.).

Not only that, but original video content could take full advantage of Microsoft’s NU ads technology, which uses the Kinect motion sensing controls that allow viewers to interact with commercials.

Of course, it all comes down to how good the original content is. If it’s weak, it won’t do much of anything for Microsoft’s strategy of making the Xbox the top entertainment platform. Hiring Tellem, a seasoned TV exec, clearly means Microsoft wants to ensure its content is up to par with others.