Despite being a paid service, Microsoft's Xbox LIVE service is considerably more popular than the free alternative of the PlayStation Network. Whilst I have no personal preference, I always found the Xbox LIVE Dashboard to be a very polished experience, and it's a product Microsoft takes great pride in developing and maintaining. Each user is represented by a highly customizable avatar, and as well as various items of clothing available, there are also plenty of props. If you're a soccer fan, for example, you can exchange some of your Microsoft currency for a soccer ball to sit alongside your avatar, and if you're crazy about the Redmond company's Surface tablet, you can now grab the free prop just added to the Marketplace.
Some people just like taking things apart, but that's just half of the process. Once you're left with a big bag of bits, you need to put it all back together again and hope that it works when you press that big power button. Putting it all back together and making it better than the original takes things to a whole new level, and that's what Ben Heck has become so well known for.
With Sony recently announcing the highly anticipated fourth generation PlayStation, and Microsoft heavily rumored to be working on its own next generation Xbox, all the talk if the town right now is very much centered on what the new game consoles will be able to offer to not just games, but also game developers.
Jonathan Blow is something of a hot property in gaming circles these days. The man behind the wildly popular and critically acclaimed Braid is also one of the more outspoken developers in the industry, and in a recent interview with gaming publication EDGE, the man that thought up one of Xbox Arcade's sleeper hits was typically frank.
Sony may have beaten Microsoft to the punch with the well-documented announcement of the PlayStation 4 earlier this week, but it would seem as though the Redmond company won't be waiting around too long before detailing its own next-gen offering. According to a report over at CVG, the Windows maker is planning a special press event to be held at some point in April - a notion backed up by several sources, who've received reliable Intel to substantiate such claims.
The highly-anticipated launch of the PlayStation 4 is almost upon us, but it serves as just a mere chapter in what promises to be an explosive battle between the major next-gen consoles this year. Also purported for announcement at some point in 2013 is the successor to the Xbox 360, and although much of the rumor and speculation thus far has encircled the console itself, the changes made to the current Kinect peripheral will also be important in determining the overall success of the console, dubbed the 'Xbox 720'. VGleaks, a site which always seems to have the scoop on forthcoming console info, has delivered once more with a detailed list of what it purports to be the specs of the so-called Kinect 2.0.
We are only days away from the organized event that will introduce to the world Sony's next-generation gaming console, but while Sony may be keen to reveal what they have been working on with Orbis; Microsoft on the other hand are remaining tight lipped. The lack of public information from the Redmond company shouldn't come as any great surprise, but we do have a plethora of leaked information to wade through in the meantime, starting with a source who is already familiar to the community.
According to a report over at TheVerge, Microsoft may be planning to implement some kind of voice-recognition technology into its upcoming home entertainment system, dubbed unofficially the 'Xbox 720'. The current direction of the Xbox 360 implies the next-gen console will serve as more than a mere gaming portal, and with the 720 also said to be expanding on the current array of set-top box-like features, it looks as though the power of the voice will also be significantly entrenched into the next-generation offering.
Rockstar Games spent a great deal of last year plugging and promoting the release of Grand Theft Auto V, and although fans were bracing themselves for a Spring 2013 release, the publisher-developer has pushed the arrival date all the way back to September 17th. Those looking forward to a Summer immersed in the aesthetically-startling environments teased hitherto will be bitterly disappointed, and the momentum Rockstar has managed to generate may also take a severe hit.
Earlier this month, Activision announced that a 'Revolution' DLC pack would be arriving for those on Xbox 360, and, as promised, the pack is now available for 1200 Microsoft Points. Announced via the blog of Larry Hryb - better known as Microsoft's very own Major Nelson - Revolution offers four new multiplayer maps, a new weapon in the Peacekeeper hybrid SMG-Assault Rifle, and the eagerly-awaited Zombies Co-op Map - Die Rise - which puts the player in the role of Zombie rather than the traditional position as Zombie slayer.
