Xbox One

[Newprimus]

Well, an era is to end soon, one fraught with good and bad.... but most likely to be remembered for the bad.

[Irenicus]

Originally Posted by Chaos2Frozen

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to retire within a year

The stock went up over 7% today, despite MSFT having no obvious succession plan in place. LOL, Ballmer.

[ScorchingFlames]

Perhaps Ballmer was an anchore to Microsoft.

[Chaos2Frozen]

Microsoft Investor Wants To Fire Ballmer And Sell Xbox Division

http://m.neogaf.com/showthread.php?t=659801

http://www.eteknix.com/microsoft-inv...xbox-division/

[Nightengale]

Originally Posted by Chaos2Frozen

Microsoft Investor Wants To Fire Ballmer And Sell Xbox Division

http://m.neogaf.com/showthread.php?t=659801

http://www.eteknix.com/microsoft-inv...xbox-division/

Meh, it probably won't work out.

There's always been a group of investors clamoring for the Xbox division to be spun-off, because it's a division of the company that has poor ROI, compared to the money-printing machine called Office & Windows.

It's basically an investor's game of trimming away some fat away so that the company's P/L ratio becomes nicer looking.

However, this type of pressure basically forces Microsoft to be conservative. They'll be forced to make sure the Xbox division is run efficiently, and not be a money-pit through excessive wastage of money.

[Chaos2Frozen]

Originally Posted by Nightengale

However, this type of pressure basically forces Microsoft to be conservative. They'll be forced to make sure the Xbox division is run efficiently, and not be a money-pit through excessive wastage of money.

Or maybe spend 100 million dollars on a new controller design that is 80% the same

[Dextro]

Originally Posted by Chaos2Frozen

Or maybe spend 100 million dollars on a new controller design that is 80% the same

If that money makes the d-pad not suck I'm ok with it

[blakstealth]

I remember hearing about that investor with that 1% stake in the company. I don't think anything serious is gonna happen from ValueAct.

[Duo Maxwell]

Originally Posted by blakstealth

I remember hearing about that investor with that 1% stake in the company. I don't think anything serious is gonna happen from ValueAct.

Didn't Gate have something like only 6%? Even 1% will be enough for MS to response.

[Jazzrat]

Selling Xbox division will be foolish in long term. The console itself have always been a trojan horse for MS to sell other products and get people into their ecosystem. Granted they manage to turn that trojan horse into a battering ram and trying to turn that back into a trojan horse again after consumer outcry but it's still a key factor for them to tap into the consumer market.

They already got the corporate market cornered, where else are they going to go to expand their company?

[Chaos2Frozen]

Ryse multiplayer demo

Titanfall gameplay trailer

[Newprimus]

I like the wallrunning and titanfall looks pretty fun overall but people are making it out to be the second coming which is silly. Games in the past have had vertical movement so it's nothing new. There was crysis series multiplayer, and if you want to go extreme on the vertical movement there was the descent series.

[Chaos2Frozen]

Too bad it's pure competitive multiplayer though.

[Westlo]

Originally Posted by Chaos2Frozen

Too bad it's pure competitive multiplayer though.

What do you think fuels COD Sales? The single player story?

[Chaos2Frozen]

Originally Posted by Westlo

What do you think fuels COD Sales? The single player story?

I was talking about my own preference.

[Firefly00]

Originally Posted by Chaos2Frozen

Too bad it's pure competitive multiplayer though.

True. At least, from what I've seen, they're trying to blend in some elements you'd expect from a proper SP campaign; further observation will be required to see how well it pans out.

It will be interesting to see how many of the 'episodes' have actual objectives aside from 'kill all OPFOR'... and how scoring will be weighted so as to encourage folks to actually play as a team and work towards said objectives as opposed to simply pursuing KDR (an obsession with which is alleged to infest the CoD playerbase). That aside, the simple fact of the battlespaces being presumably of an urban/industrial area should force teamwork: Titan operators might have effective force multipliers at their command, but venturing into these areas, with their plethora of means for infantry to take cover and find good angles on vulnerable points, without infantry support is foolish at best.

[Chaos2Frozen]

Only 5 countries will have Xbone voice commands at launch.

http://m.neogaf.com/showthread.php?t=664637

[ReaperxKingx]

Originally Posted by Chaos2Frozen

Only 5 countries will have Xbone voice commands at launch.

http://m.neogaf.com/showthread.php?t=664637

I am really astonished, I thought that Microsoft couldn't do anything anymore to diminished their profit returns.

[Vallen Chaos Valiant]

Originally Posted by Chaos2Frozen

Only 5 countries will have Xbone voice commands at launch.

http://m.neogaf.com/showthread.php?t=664637

This, above all else, is proof that MS was not prepared to launch their console this year. We are talking about their chief feature, not being available in so many places.

EDIT: An actual Microsoft employee in Neogaf said this is the first time he has heard of it, and is going to visit the engineers to find out what's going on. Guess the company is so big that they don't have time to tell him.

[Chaos2Frozen]

Originally Posted by Vallen Chaos Valiant

EDIT: An actual Microsoft employee in Neogaf said this is the first time he has heard of it, and is going to visit the engineers to find out what's going on. Guess the company is so big that they don't have time to tell him.

Found his reply:

First, people should understand – I don’t always know every detail happening with the program. Even though I run Product Planning (I'm not in PR!), that means we set the stage early for the features and HW, but a lot happens going through the development process. I stay very close as we approach launch, but I don’t always know the specifics when things change, so sometimes (frequently) I have to ask someone on the team. I also don’t run PR or Marketing, so I don’t see every piece of material that makes it to the public. In this case, there was an inconsistency between some small print on Xbox.com, and what I understood was happening – so I went to get more details.

Turns out the answer to this question is… complicated. It’s been an education for me as I’ve been looking into it.

There is no way that I could do justice to it in a post, so the marketing team is working on a chart that gives clarity on what locales, languages, and voice features are available in each country. Trying to write it down would be confusing. Stay tuned for a more detailed explanation, but just to give clarity:

In November
- We will launch in 13 geos
- 10 of those geos will support some voice features
- We support 8 languages

The 8 Languages at Launch are:
1) English – US
2) English – GB (WW)
3) French
4) Spanish – MX
5) Spanish – ES
6) Italian
7) German
8) Portuguese

NOW – the nuance to this is that some voice *features* won’t be available in all countries right away. “Xbox On”, for instance, is only available in 5 (hence the confusion on Xbox.com in the small print).

BigDug13 – the FAQ is correct, for launch. When you choose a language for your console, you will be offered the list of countries it is supported in. Using your example, if you choose Italy as your language, you only get Italian. We will continue to add more supported combinations over time. For example in Canada we will support English and French. The opportunity to “mix-and-match” languages and countries is something we’re looking to do post-launch.

Again, sorry for all the confusion on this. Look for a more detailed explanation coming. Will most likely come through Xbox Wire, or Xbox.com.