Gamer's Outpost Press (archived)

by Tamoor Hussain

Phil Spencer, the head of Xbox, has explained how Xbox 360 game emulation is being achieved on the Xbox One, as well as the ethos behind the company’s decision to support legacy content.

Speaking on Giant Bomb’s E3 Day One podcast, Spencer said the decision to support Xbox 360 games was made to “make 360 owners look at Xbox One as a safe place to play.”

“Millions of people made investments in 360 content,” he said. “We thought the right thing to do was to make that content go forward, but we didn’t know [how difficult it would be].”

“[Emulation] is hard,” admitted Spencer, explaining that the company was dealing with having to harmonise PowerPC architecture with x86.

“If you watch the game’s boot you’ll see the Xbox 360 boot animation come up. From a performance standpoint it allows [emulation] to work. We’re able to get frame by frame performance equivalents.”

“[Xbox Live] thinks you’re on a 360, so people have been asking ‘hey, why are you playing Mass Effect on the 360?,’ I was actually playing on the Xbox One.”

Spencer continued to explain that, since the Xbox One thinks it’s playing a normal game, features such as streaming and screenshots are supported.

“The 360 games think they’re running on the 360 OS, which they are. And the 360 OS thinks its running on the hardware, which it’s not, it’s running on an emulated VM. On the other side, the Xbox One thinks it’s a game. That’s why things like streaming, game DVR, and screenshots all work, because it thinks there’s just one big game called 360.”

Delving deeper, Spencer explained exactly how the emulator packages the Xbox 360 games, and how it compares to Xbox 360’s emulation of original Xbox games.

“You download a kind of manifest of wrapper for the 360 game, so we can say ‘hey, this is actually Banjo, or this is Mass Effect. The emulator runs exactly the same for all the games.

“I was around when we did the original Xbox [backwards compatibility] for Xbox 360 where we had an emulator for every game and it just didn’t scale very well. This is actually the same emulator running for all of the games. Different games do different things, as we’re rolling them out we’ll say ‘oh maybe we have to tweak the emulator.’ But in the end, the emulator is emulating the 360, so it’s for everybody.”

Asked about whether Microsoft would require permission from game publishers to adjust game code, Spencer clarified it would not be interfering with code.

“The bits are not touched,” he said. “There’s some caveats, and as always I like to be as transparent as I can be on this: Kinect games won’t work from the 360, because translating between the Kinect sensors is almost impossible.”

Finally, the subject of multi-disc games was also addressed. According to Spencer, it’s an issue engineers are looking into.

“We’re still working on multi-disc,” he said. “Lost Odyssey and Blue Dragon are some of my favorites from the 360. There’s actually work in packing a multi-disc into single that requires us to go back and look at the original package on the multiple discs and reconfigure that.”

Microsoft announced Xbox One backwards compatibility with Xbox 360 games at its E3 press conference. According to the platform holder digital Xbox 360 titles already purchased via XBLA, as well as retail discs of last-gen titles, will eventually be “natively” playable on Xbox One.

by Emanuel Maiberg

Last week, a Destiny clan named DoD Legion lost a member, Joshua R. Stokell, who passed away after a lifelong battle with cystic fibrosis. A fellow clan member who goes by the handle Ln_Wanderer on Reddit put out a call on the Destiny sub-Reddit, asking dellow Destiny players to send video clips the clan can put together as a kind of memorial montage.

“As expected, you the Destiny community, came through is an amazing way,” Ln_Wanderer wrote. “More than 250 people have stopped by here and the Bungie forum to offer your condolences and to submit video clips. From the bottom of our hearts- Thank You! We are proud to honor our friend with the following video:”

The 3-minute video shows Destiny players firing their guns in unison, saluting, and waving goodbye from all around the game’s universe in honor of Stokell, or TheSquashPhD, as he was known in the game.

In other Destiny news, Bungie was at E3 2015 to announce the newest expansion for the game, The Taken King, which launches on September 15.

by Marshall Honorof

LOS ANGELES — You’ve got to hand it to Nyko, it makes products that people want. The popular gaming accessory manufacturer rarely produces the flashiest gear or the biggest announcements, but their products have an amazing way of making you slap your forehead and asking, “Why didn’t I think of that?” For instance, why wouldn’t you want a tiny keyboard to plug into your controller? The company’s latest line of peripherals mostly targets the Xbox One to streamline your gaming experience.

I took a look at Nyko’s new lineup during E3 2015, and the new products all looked like potentially useful things to own. Just as the company announced upgrades and enhancements for the PS4 during CES 2015, this round of add-ons focused mostly on the Xbox One, looking to expand its storage space and helping gamers type faster on it.

The Nyko Type Pad for Xbox One will launch around October and retail for $30. You simply plug a small keyboard into the bottom of your Xbox One controller, then attach a USB dongle to your Xbox One. The Type Pad allows gamers to type in Web addresses, login details and messages to friends much faster than selecting words one painstaking letter at a time onscreen. There’s also a small scrolling nub to jump easily from text field to text field.

The Data Bank for Xbox One is another very simple idea that could solve a rather pernicious problem. If you’re running low on space on your console, you can install an external hard drive, but there’s no good place to put it. The Data Bank supports any 3.5-inch hard drive, connects it to the Xbox One via USB, and provides its own dedicated power cord. This way, players can buy large, cheap hard drives, and secure them in place with a handsome black enclosure that sits neatly on top of the system. The Data Bank costs $40 and will launch in October, along with the Type Pad.

Nyko also shared a few smaller non-Xbox announcements. The Cygnus is a controller for Android devices, and represents a stripped-down, no-frills alternative to the expensive, rechargeable models on the market. The Cygnus runs on AA batteries, has a full complement of buttons, and costs only $25, but don’t expect any fancy features beyond that.

Finally, Nyko’s PS4 modular charging station is getting a small upgrade. This add-on plugs into the PS4’s USB ports to provide an easier method of charging controllers. Fans wanted a way to recharge controllers without losing the USB ports, however, and Nyko has developed a new version of the modular charge kit with two USB passthroughs. This model will ship once the current model’s stock runs out, likely between August and October.

Amidst trailers for Tomb Raider, The Last Guardian, Star Fox and the like, a few gaming accessories may not seem like much. However, you can’t play games without a gaming system, and these peripherals could help some players get a little more out of theirs.

by Ben Gilbert and Corey Protin

In 2010, Microsoft launched its original “Kinect” camera peripheral for the Xbox 360 with a midnight event in Time Square. Hundreds lined up and chanted “You are the controller!” – Microsoft’s marketing message for Kinect; the camera/microphone peripheral tracks the human body and recognizes voice commands, thus putting players directly into games.

The first version of Kinect went on to sell some 24 million units, one third of which were sold in the first 60 days it was available. To say it was popular is a dramatic understatement.

When Microsoft launched the Xbox One in 2013, it came with a new version of Kinect. It also made the Xbox One cost $100 more than the competition: PlayStation 4. And that’s where Microsoft went wrong.

Despite a raucous consumer response to the first version of Kinect, the second iteration largely failed with consumers. It forced the cost of Xbox One to $500, whereas the first Kinect was an optional addition to the Xbox 360. The PlayStation 4 launched at the same time as the Xbox One, and it cost $100 less while offering much of the same content.

In short, Kinect has been a hindrance for Microsoft’s Xbox division across the past two years: A reminder of previous success and recent missteps all at once.

Despite unbundling the Kinect from Xbox One at retail – thusly cutting the price of Xbox One to match PlayStation 4 – Microsoft’s position on Kinect remains one of commitment. Xbox leader Phil Spencer echoed this sentiment in an interview with Business Insider on Monday in Los Angeles:

I see the engineering resources that we’re putting in, to build out what Kinect’s able to do, and I think that idea of voice response and motion response is critical to where gaming’s going.

Beyond just the Xbox One, Spencer pointed out that Microsoft’s “next big thing” – the HoloLens headset it unveiled in January 2015 – employs much of the same technology as Kinect to work its magic. For example, HoloLens needs to scan the world around you and understand surfaces in a three dimensional environment. It also accepts voice commands. That is exactly what Kinect’s latest iteration was built to do.

“The importance of Kinect and understanding where a player is and allowing them to interact using their voice and gesture in an experience spans beyond just what console is about. A lot of what’s in HoloLens is the same surface area that a Kinect developer would use,” Spencer told us.

He also sees its use as a voice command machine to be of crucial importance: Xbox One owners with Kinect are largely using it as a means to command their console via voice, not with gestures (i.e. waving around your arms).

Personally, my Kinect is in a box in the closet after weeks of failed attempts at using it easily in my living room. But if the impressive technology in Kinect helps make the insane “mixed reality” of HoloLens better, then consider me on board. Whether or not Kinect itself will be “critical” to the future of gaming is unclear, but the tech inside Kinect seems a no-brainer for driving the future of interaction in gaming.

by Eddie Makuch

The Xbox One may be trailing behind the PlayStation 4 in the current-generation sales race, but Microsoft has high hopes for its console this holiday. Speaking with GameSpot this week at E3 2015, Microsoft executive Aaron Greenberg said a string of blockbuster exclusive games and new backward compatibility functionality will lead to a “massive migration” of Xbox 360 owners moving to Xbox One.

“A lot of people have been waiting for the next Halo; a lot of people have been waiting for Gears; a lot of people have been waiting for backwards compatibility,” Greenberg said.

Halo 5: Guardians, Gears of War Ultimate Edition, and backward compatibility will all be available on Xbox One before the end of the year.

“And so we think having all of that coming this holiday; we expect we’re going to see a massive migration,” he added. “We expect millions of Xbox 360 owners to migrate and move to Xbox One. We see that the majority of people who buy an Xbox One today own an Xbox 360. So our fanbase has stayed very loyal. And frankly, they’re waiting for those new releases to come this year.”

Greenberg stressed that you should not underestimate how pivotal backwards compatibility will be in encouraging people to upgrade from an Xbox 360 to an Xbox One.

by Brian Crecente

To be perfectly clear: Nintendo president Satoru Iwata didn’t apologize.

“It was not an apology,” said Nintendo of American president Reggie Fils-Aime. “It was not a statement about the content we’re showing, essentially it was an ‘I hear you’ message.”

The not-apology, the message, was a tweet sent out by Iwata seemingly in reaction to a tidal wave of negative online reaction to the company’s E3 Nintendo Direct this week.

One translation, by NeoGaf user Cheesemeister has Iwata saying this:

“Thank you for watching. We take opinions of this year’s Digital Event seriously and will work to better meet your expectations.”

But Fils-Aime says that translation isn’t exactly right and misses some of the context.

“Mr. Iwata is in Japan and what he’s trying to do is help explain to consumers in Japan what’s going on at E3,” he said. “The correct translation of his message was: ‘Thank you for your feedback. We hear you and we are committed to continuing to meet your expectations,’ was essentially his message.

Apology or not, it was certainly spurred by the reaction to the games and news Nintendo pushed out at E3.

Many fans reacted with vitriol, either disappointed with what wasn’t said, or with what was. Nearly 12,000 fans signed a petition on Change.Org to try and convince Nintendo not to continue developing one of the newly announced games: Metroid Prime: Federation Force.

But Fils-Aime seems unfazed by the reaction.

“One of the things I find interesting is that if you look at E3 historically for Nintendo, typically what happens is a press briefing happens or our digital event happens,” Fils-Aime said, “and then over the course of the next couple of days people see the games get to play the games and the appreciation and understanding of what we’re doing increases over those three days and continues to build into the holidays.”

Take for example Splatoon, he said.

Splatoon, a new sort of shooter unveiled at last year’s E3 based on an entirely new IP, didn’t receive an entirely positive reaction at the show. At least not initially.

“Splatoon is a game that people are loving right now, but if you rewind to E3 last year, Splatoon was being viewed as, ‘Yes, it’s innovative and it’s different, but the controls are a little hard and I don’t understand the mechanic of turning into a squid and going through the ink.’ There were all of these complaints. But now you look at the finished product and the satisfaction is huge.”

The key to Nintendo’s success, Fils-Aime said, isn’t just to make good games, but to help people understand why they’re good.

“For us, our goal is to make sure we announce the content, help people understand the content, but most importantly get hands on with the games,” he said.

That’s why Nintendo has programs like the one that delivers demo versions of unreleased games at Best Buys around the country or allows people to download early version’s of games on their Wii U to try for themselves.

“I haven’t heard the feedback (for this year’s Best Buy demonstrations), but I think the feedback is going to be quite positive because what we do is make great games and they show well and they really lead to consumer excitement.”

by Brian Crecente

News during Microsoft’s E3 press conference this week that limited Xbox 360 backward compatibility was coming to the Xbox One was met with a roar of approval.

The surprise announcement, coming so long after the launch of the Xbox One, also caught the attention of Sony. But not enough to get the company to reconsider its take on PlayStation backward compatibility.

“The backward compatibility news was interesting,” said Shuhei Yoshida, Sony Computer Entertainment’s head of world wide studios. “The technology involved must be very challenging.

“I’m interested in seeing the list of titles.”

Earlier in the week, Xbox head of publishing Shannon Loftis said the Xbox One will essentially be running an Xbox 360 emulator and that the decision to create support on the Xbox One for a number of 360 titles — a hundred by this holiday — was driven by that company’s desire to offer more options to gamers.

“I still play some Xbox 360 titles,” she said. “I love them and I have a big investment in them, both emotionally and financially.”

While Yoshida seemed impressed with the news of Xbox backward compatibility, he was clear it wasn’t going to change anything about PlayStation’s decision not to support previously purchased PS3 games on the PS4.

“The announcement didn’t change,” he said, “I don’t think we will change our approach. The PlayStation 4 doesn’t have backward compatibility.”

Instead, he said, the company will continue to focus on creating new services and new features on the PS4.

That includes the recently announced new media player that people have been asking for, he said.

The closest thing the PlayStation 4 has to backward compatibility is PlayStation Now, an on-demand video game rental service that includes a select number of PlayStation 3 games.

“PlayStation Now works surprisingly well,” Yoshida said. “But the primary purpose of that project was to create a new network service that could be used to bring PlayStation games to multiple devices including non-PlayStation devices, like Sony and Samsung televisions.

“That is an example of our adding and creating new services and initiatives.”

But why doesn’t Sony want to do backward compatibility on the PS4? I asked.

“Backward compatibility is hard,” he said. “I won’t say we’ll never do it, but it’s not an easy thing to do.

“If it was easy we would have done that.”

by Samit Sarkar

At last, Doom will launch next spring on PlayStation 4, Windows PC and Xbox One, culminating a development history stretching back as far as 2007, Bethesda announced tonight at its pre-E3 news conference.

Originally called Doom 4, the game’s development has been long and troubled, even seeing id Software throw everything away and go back to the drawing board after being acquired by ZeniMax Media in June 2009. Reports spoke of a game trapped in the archetypal “development hell” as designers plotted out and threw away concepts and design changes.

The beta offer in Wolfenstein followed by a formal reveal last year at QuakeCon indicated the game was finally back on track.

Developing …

by GameSpot Staff

Microsoft’s E3 lineup has just gotten a little smaller.

According to a post on the Xbox website, Scalebound, Crackdown, and Quantum Break will not show up at the conference next week. Instead, Microsoft will hold off on showing these Xbox One exclusives until Gamescom, which takes place in Germany in early August.

Head of Xbox Phil Spencer explained, “Having a jam-packed lineup of games to show at E3 means that there simply isn’t enough time to give each of our upcoming titles its well-deserved time in the spotlight. We’ve decided to save some of our most eagerly-awaited future titles for Gamescom in August.”

Additionally, he stated that the company will have more Windows and Xbox games to reveal at Gamescom alongside news about announced games.

Microsoft still has a lot of games to show off at E3. Rise of the Tomb Raider, Halo 5: Guardians, and Forza Motorsport 6 are among the upcoming Xbox One exclusives that the company will bring to the conference.

E3 takes place this week, and Microsoft’s big press conference is on Monday.

by Owen S. Good

The trailer for Fallout 4, highly anticipated though it was, arched some eyebrows for the dull in-engine visuals it chose. That led to a ton of message-board speculation the rest of the week that maybe this game began its life with Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, or might be announced for those consoles later. The answer to that, per Bethesda itself, is no.

“It is not coming to 360 and PS3, the stuff we’re doing will never work there,” Matt Grandstaff, the global community manager for Bethesda Softworks, said in this thread on NeoGAF yesterday evening.

Case closed, apparently.

When it was formally announced on Wednesday, Bethesda Softworks said it will launch on PlayStation 4, Windows PC and Xbox One. The game will be set in Boston.