Microsoft’s most recent Xbox Live update has led to washed-out colors and sub-1080p playback in certain videos. They have since stated that they plan to release a fix, but only for one of those problems. Xbox Live liaison Major Nelson has stated than an update is incoming for the color issues, but the restriction of non-Zune videos to 720p video output has yet to receive public acknowledgement.
The Xbox Live update in question was released in December and was faulty right from the start due to the new Terms of Use that prevents users from bringing class-action lawsuits against the company. It is the exact same update that turned out to produce some display problems and highly questionable restrictions on video content.
Users have found that colors at the Xbox Home, previously the Dashboard, and during video playback are now washed out and blacks are less black, though color during gameplay appears unaffected. Microsoft has also restricted the resolution of non-Zune videos to 720p resolution, as found in tests by Eurogamer, while Zune videos are still able to play at full 1080p resolution without any issue.
A fix is incoming for the colorspace issue, but Major Nelson provided no timeframe on the next update. If I hear anything on my Xbox Ambassador ventures, I will be sure to let you know. If you have any questions, feel free to send me a message on Xbox Live to TylerW507 and I will be glad to assist if I can.
In Google’s earnings call, CEO Larry Page announced that Google Plus now has 90 million users, and that the vast majority are active on Google either daily or weekly.
“There are over 90 million Google+ users, well over double what I announced just a quarter ago,” Page said. “Plus users are very engaged with our products. Over 60 percent of them engaged daily and 80 percent engaged weekly.” The important thing to understand is that these 60 and 80 percent figures refer to users accessing any Google service whiled logged in to their Google account. These numbers do not actually represent Google+ usage each day or week. The 90 million figure, however, is correct at representing how many users created an account.
The huge increase in overall numbers is more than likely due to Google making Plus links part of search results and integrating the social network into Google Apps, Gmail, Picasa, and everything else Google is part of. Google+ is growing fast, but still quite a bit behind Facebook’s 800 million active users and Twitter’s 100 million active users.
Page also took the time to share that Google is signing up many new enterprise customers for its Google Apps suite, including 110,000 employees at BBVA, Google’s largest business productivity deal that has been publicly disclosed. Advertising, as usual, remains Google’s biggest revenue, account for 96 percent of quarterly revenue. Google stated that mobile advertising is a growing part of total revenue, but wasn’t willing to specify how much it accounts for.
Max Payne 3‘s release has been delayed to May of this year, 2012, from its targeted release date of March, which Take Two Interactive has officially announced. According to a statement, the publisher is pushing the release date to ensure the game “delivers the highest quality, groundbreaking entertainment experience.”
The original announcement of Max Payne 3 came from Rockstar Games back in March 2009, and the company was targeting a Winter 2009 release. Multiple releases were eventually between the game’s announcement and its now upcoming release over three years later, including L.A. Noire and Red Dead Redemption.
In the third installment of Max Payne, Max Payne now works as security for a wealthy man, Rodrigo Branco, in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Branco’s wife is kidnapped, pulling Payne into “a conspiracy of shadowy, warring factions.”
Since the game’s release date has been pushed yet again, Take Two is now reporting a fiscal loss for the 2012 year, which ends in March, of $210 million to $230 million. With its release in fiscal year 2013, Max Payne 3 will be launched closer to other Take Two titles including XCOM, BioShock Infinite, and Borderlands 2.
The official release dates for Max Payne 3 in North America are May 15th for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, with a May 29th release date coming for the PC. Internationally, the game will launch May 18th for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 with a June 1st release for PC.
The popular file-sharing site Megaupload.com has been taken down by the FBI as the Justice Department unsealed an indictment charging seven people associated with the site. The indictment, which is 72 pages long, was handed down by a federal grand jury in Virginia on January 5th, 2012. This document charges the seven people, including Megaupload’s founders Kim Dotcom and Mathias Ortman, with conspiracy.
Four of the people named were are in custody and were arrested in New Zealand, according to the FBI. The FBI worked with authorities from New Zealand, Hong Kong, the Netherlands, Canada, Germany, the UK and the Philippines, with help from the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement on the entire case.
The indictment charges that the “Mega conspiracy” has operated websites that willfully distributed pirated movies, often before their release in theaters, and other illegal copies of copyrighted works. Megaupload took in a profit of over $175 million in illegal profits through advertising revenue in that time period. Megaupload was also charged with money laundering, as they paid uploaders through an “uploader reward program,” and paying other companies to host the pirated content.
UPDATE:
This is the image that you receive when you try to visit Megaupload.com. This image was not up as of January 19th, but is up now. Try for yourself.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 has been a very successful game. With the problems of Call of Duty: Elite aside, things have been running pretty smoothly and Robert Bowling is actively engaged with the community via Twitter.
It’s about that time to announce the first DLC (downloadable content) for the game, and that’s exactly what I’m doing. Here is the official trailer kicking off the content season, which will span each month from now until September.
When will this be available? The first DLC maps for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 will available for Call of Duty: Elite premium members on January 24th, with the PS3 content being available one month later, as usual. The content will be coming to non-premium members as well, but the dates are still to be released. The only information on that is that I read a tweet by Beachhead stating that the non-premium Xbox would come after the premium PS3, so it looks like Call of Duty: Elite really will pay off.
I’m looking forward to playing both Liberation and Piazza. They both look like great additions to the game and it’s fun seeing Liberation be a spot that all of us have seen either in person or on TV: Central Park in New York.
Exoplanets, or planets in star systems other than our own, have been found in orbit around single stars, with one exception. Kepler-16b is defined as circumbinary, having two host stars in close orbit. Researchers working with data from the Kepler space-based observatory have identified two more promising exoplanet candidates orbiting binary stars, known as Kepler-34b and Kepler-35b. These will be checked more closely to see if they are circumbinary. These findings indicate the possibility that giant exoplanets orbiting two stars may be fairly common, with estimates occuring in one percent of close binaries.
Finding circumbinary planets is very difficult. The gravitational pull by the exoplanet and the amount of light it blocks if it passes between us and its hosts are “tiny” when compared with the effect the two stars have on each other. But with the findings of circumbinary planets means that Star Wars actually figured out something way before any of us ever thought it possible. Now we just need to master the Force and build lightsabers. All kidding aside, this is really a massive find.
Kepler-34b orbits its host stars in 289 days, while Kepler-35b has a year 131 days long. Both Kepler-34b and Kepler-35b—and any planet in a binary system—will experience large variations in the light they receive as their host stars eclipse each other, resulting in fluctuations in temperature at the tops of their atmospheres. Neither world lies within the habitable zone (the region where liquid water can exist on a surface) of its star system; since two stars are involved, the habitable zone is much farther out than in our Solar System.
Finding planets with the mass of Earth is a difficult proposition even in single-star systems, much less binary systems. Nevertheless, by figuring out just how common circumbinary exoplanets are in our galaxy, researchers have come closer to finding Tatooine-like worlds. With three probable exoplanets in a sample of 750 close binary systems, there may be millions of circumbinary exoplanets in our galaxy alone. Don’t worry, Luke Skywalker, we’re on our way!
Mad Catz has always been a huge manufacturer of console controllers, but the $99.99 MLG controller that they have just released may be the best thing they have ever come up with. This may just be the best that a third-party peripheral controller can do. This controller allows the player to mod the controller. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t like those controllers where you can use rapid fire and reduced recoil. You can literally mod the actual controller.
Above is a picture of the controller without the d-pad or analog sticks. That’s right, you can swap them out in case you would rather have convex or concave, it’s up to you! You can switch the position of each of the analog of d-pads, if for some reason you prefer the side-by-side analog sticks like PS3. The controller seems heavy at first, but there’s a funny explanation for that. Mad Catz actually put weights that clip into the back of the controller, which can be removed if you want a lighter controller.
Each controller comes with a carrying case lined in foam to keep all your hardware and pieces safe and in one common location. The controller is wired, as are all third-party controllers in order to comply with Microsoft’s licensing and Major League Gaming’s rules.
What else can you customize on this controller? Well, you can even change the face plate between glossy or matte if you so desire. You can hit two buttons on the PS3 version of the controller to swap the functions of trigger buttons without changing anything in the options of the game. This works by the controlling just asking as if they are different buttons, even though they haven’t physically moved.
It may be a little more expensive than your average controller, but people will still be buying these I have a feeling. All of the kids will want them because they are MLG controllers, and the ability to mod the controller to your liking can be amazing. The Xbox 360 version of the controller even works on PC.
As stated above, you can now pick these controllers up for $99.99.
A version of Diablo 3 for consoles has been rumored pretty much since BlizzCon 2011, due in part to developer Blizzard admitting that it was experimenting with a console version of the game. Now, according to a tweet from a Blizzard community manager, it looks like Diablo 3 will in fact be happening.
In response to a tweet from a fan via Twitter, which asked “can you confirm or deny Diablo 3 coming to consoles?” community manager “Bashiok” replied “Yup. Josh Mosqueira is lead designer for the Diablo console project.” More specific details have yet to be announced.
According to his LinkedIn profile, Mosqueira has been working at Blizzard Entertainment as a lead game designed since last May, and prior to that worked on Far Cry 3 at Ubisoft and even served as lead designed on games such as Company of Heroes and Homeworld 2 at Relic. When Blizzard revealed that it was looking to bring the realm of role playing games to consoles, director Jay Wilson said that the game actually felt even better in some ways with a controller as opposed to a mouse and keyboard.
“One of the reasons why we’re exploring the idea of a console version of Diablo 3 is because we feel that the controls and the style of the game lend itself to a console,” he said. “With some of our early experiments in putting a direct control scheme into the game via a 360-like analogue controller, I’ve [thought] ‘Oh this feels even better, with direct control…’”
MMA, or mixed martial arts, is a sport with an increasingly wide audience. In fact, even Zak Bagans, a personal idol of mine and one of the many reasons I founded Arcane Paranormal, was once an MMA fighter. On the topic of MMA, though, was Microsoft, especially during UFC 141. Microsoft released a UFC app on the Xbox 360 at last year’s E3. The app allows viewers to purchase and watch pay-per-view events in standard or high definition, as well as choosing (guessing) the winners of each fight. Even more than this, you can compare your picks with friends and watch video of the weigh-in. Basically, it’s the great sport of UFC with a little fantasy UFC on the side.
Microsoft wanted to make UFC 141 a huge event, and the company gave away thousands of free codes to watch and participate on the Xbox 360 console. A lot of people go to Applebee’s or TGIF’s so that they can watch the fights, but Microsoft was going to allow people to simply watch it from their home for a little cheaper than a cable box, not to mention the participation factor of choosing who wins. If you’re a Call of Duty gamer, then you are familiar with how Call of Duty: Elite has been working since launch. Well, that same thing happened. Their UFC app and servers were not nearly ready enough to handle the traffic they received.
First, the app wouldn’t let people purchase the fight. Once they finally worked through that, it would crash and throw error messages when you try to access the fight. ”At this time technical issues for UFC on Xbox LIVE persist and are preventing the 25,000 fans who were granted free access from viewing UFC 141,” Microsoft stated in an e-mail after the fight began. “We’ll continue to work on resolving these issues throughout the evening, but are encouraging consumers to seek alternate means for viewing UFC 141.”
Now, UFC matches aren’t just your daily show of X Factor or Glee. These UFC fights are huge events to the fans, and many plan days in advance of where and how they will watch the fights. ”Apologies for the difficulties with UFC141 tonight. Those who registered and could not watch will get free access to an upcoming UFC event,” Microsoft later e-mailed. I really think they don’t understand, even though they’re trying. While over 25,000 people suddenly couldn’t watch via their Xbox 360, many panicked and it wasn’t an enjoyable experience. What happened was people started resorting to pirating live streams, which is kind of hilarious given the whole SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) talk lately. So, many people had to either use their cable box to order it (if they have cable) or pray that they had a friend who they were still in good terms with to save them a table at a sports bar.
Sure, Microsoft will give users who had problems a free voucher for the next fight. However, will those customers risk having the same night of panic, worry, and the feeling of being rushed all night to find a backup plan for all of your friends? Will your friends even trust your plans to try and watch via the Xbox 360 again? What will happen if the app crashes again? We understand what Microsoft is trying to do, and if they get the app as well as others (don’t even get me started on YouTube or NetFlix issues), perhaps the Xbox 360 will be the only thing people need. Until then, I will probably watch the fights at a local sports bar.
Modern Warfare 3 is a game that has earned $1 billion in sales in the first 16 days after the release, proving that the series has become very successful. It sold millions of copies in its first day of release, and the sales of content packs have only just begun. However, there has been some controversy. The Atlantic ran a story claiming that the game’s television commercial “sunk to new lows” and made war seem cheap and not as heroic. In opposition, it is my belief that the commercial accurately depicts the gameplay contained within Modern Warfare 3.
The commercial in question shows two characters dressed as soldiers, or players. Sam Worthington is the veteran, or experienced player, and Jonah Hill is the noob, or the new player. The ad seems to show a version of war that is fun and laughable, where combatants are more worried about strategy than losing their lives. In fact, mention of a respawn is joked about when Jonah yells “see you at the next level,” and then dies.
“The advertisement trivializes combat and sanitizes war. If this were September 10, 2001, maybe it wouldn’t be quite so bad…” the writer, a former paratrooper, wrote. “But after ten years of constant war, of thousands of amputees and flag-draped coffins, of hundreds of grief-stricken communities, did nobody involved in this commercial raise a hand and say, ‘You know, this is probably a little crass. Maybe we could just show footage from the game.’”
For actual gamers, more often than not these commercials are directly related to the game. This is due to the fact that this humor and ad is exactly how the game shows war. We are those characters messing around and having fun while in “war.” This would be different if it were a Navy or Army commercial, but people need to realize that it really is for a game, and that is what they are attempting to portray; nothing more.
“This is not an argument against so-called shooter video games or depictions of war in popular culture,” the author continues. “However, as Afghanistan intensifies and we assess the mental and physical damage to veterans of Iraq, is now really the time to sell the country on how much fun the whole enterprise is?”
Again, this has nothing to do with war. The commercials are trying to capture what Modern Warfare would look like if played in the real world. Think about it this way. Graphics are getting better and better with each video game and console that is released. In commercials, you want your game to be a highlight and selling point. What better way to capture amazing “graphics” and a remembrance factor than to use actual people, especially the hilarious Jonah Hill? If you’re not a gamer, you simply have to remember and realize that these commercials are for the gamers and not for war veterans or recruiting firms.
