An In-Depth Look At The Rockstar Energy Forza Horizon 2 Car Pack
On Tuesday, Playground Games and Turn 10 launched the ‘Rockstar Energy’ car pack for Forza Horizon 2 which included six new cars, one of which is free to everyone. You can read more details about the pack here. Our Forza Horizon 2 review can also be found here. However, Metro has taken the time to detail all six of the cars in short but concise videos which should help you decide whether you would like each of the cars in the pack or not. You can see all six videos below as well as a drift build for the Acura Integra TypeR Turbo Rally. 2014 Volkswagen Beetle GRC 2015 Subaru WRX STI 1996 BMW 850CSi 2015 Jaguar XFR-S 1970 Volkswagen #1107 Desert Dingo Racing Stock Bug 2001 Acura Integra Type-R (free to everyone) Drift Build for the 2001 Acura Integra Type-R:
Phil Harrison To Reportedly Depart From Microsoft
Phil Harrison is the VP of Interactive Entertainment Business (Xbox) and EMEA head of games at Microsoft and today, reports have surfaced saying he will be departing from the company. The reason goes back to July 2013 when previous president of Interactive Entertainment Business, Don Mattrick, departed from the company to become CEO of Zynga. In March 2014, Phil Spencer was promoted to Head of Xbox by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, getting the top job. Mattrick and Harrison have a long standing friendship and share great respect for each other. Phil Harrison has apparently grown frustrated over Mattrick’s exit and Spencer’s promotion without moving Harrison up the corporate ladder. It’s reported that Harrison has made the decision to move on with his career. Don Mattrick (pictured above) is good friends with Harrison and brought him into Microsoft. The new comes in conjunction with the reports that Microsoft are planning on merging its Lift London and Soho Productions studios. Several job cuts also took place with this change. Harrison founded Lift London and recently Microsoft also axed the idea of producing original ‘Upload’ content for Xbox One simply stating that the Xbox Live community is now what makes the content. Rectify Gaming was recently told that Microsoft is planning to re-focus Soho Productions (the studio behind Upload original content and Upload Studio) on another path. While this means there won’t be “Upload original content”, there will be updates added to Upload Studio along with other projects. Questions rose at GDC over the recent reports, with Spencer saying “I don’t, no. I’m sorry, I don’t think I can say anything about that,” Xbox boss Phil Spencer told Eurogamer when asked today at GDC. Chris Charla, director of ID@Xbox also refused to comment – with a Microsoft spokesperson stepping in to say Charla wasn’t the person to ask about staffing issues, and that the company does not comment on rumour or speculation. Spencer’s comment does show he’s very aware of the issue and may already know that Harrison is departing from Microsoft, if not already. Harrison previously worked at Sony up until 2008 , then taking the job at Microsoft in 2012 offered to him by Don Mattrick. We’ll keep you updated if Microsoft gives an official statement on the report. Phil Harrison speaking at Eurogamer 2013 pictured above.
Rock Band 4 is Coming
Rock Band is coming back! Rock Band 4 to be exact! Today, Harmonix made it official and announced Rock Band 4 for Xbox One and PlayStation 4 coming in 2015. “There was a period of fairly deep introspection, where we felt like the time was right, but we really wanted to make sure that we had a creative vision that we could rally around, that we felt would be sort of worth doing this again,” project manager Daniel Sussman told me in a pre-announcement interview. “From a creative standpoint, we didn’t just want to port Rock Band 3; that would not be the most interesting thing for us to do, as a bunch of creative developer people, but also just in terms of bringing this thing back. We felt like it needed to innovate in a couple of key ways that would change the conversation around what a music game could be.” So here are a few things that we know about Rock Band 4 Your songs are safe “We’re putting a lot of effort into rebuilding that DLC library on the current-gen consoles, and that’s a pretty big initiative in and of itself,” Sussman says. “It took us five-plus years to accumulate a library that has thousands of songs in it. It’s a time-consuming process for us and the first parties; lucky for us we have great relationships there and they understand the value of that library in the context of Rock Band. If you bought songs in Rock Band 3 or Rock Band 2 or Rock Band 1, songs that you bought will carry forward to Rock Band 4. There are a lot of folks out there who have spent some significant scratch on the DLC catalog and the last thing we want to do is come back to those players and say, ‘OK, you have to buy those songs again.’ We’ll support entitlements, we’ll have the full library out.” New Peripherals are coming They are currently trying to make sure you can use your old instruments from previous Rock Bands but Harmonix is working closely with Microsoft and Sony to make this possible. “The second big question players are likely to ask is whether they’ll have to buy new instruments, or if the ones from last-gen will work. “We’re working with Sony and Microsoft to make that possible, and I have to hedge a little bit because the keys to that kingdom really are held by the first parties” Keyboards are out. Keyboards were brought into Rock Band 3 but this time they are kicking the keyboard out as they (Harmonix) want to focus on the core band. Make sure to keep checking for more updates on Rock Band 4!
