Xbox's party limited could go even higher.

So Xbox One owners recently got an update that makes the party limit even higher to 16. So now you maybe thinking that they are crazy but it’s made for games like Halo with 16 players for custom games and Warzone teams. Now Mike Ybarra wants to go even higher to help out games like Battlefield. “I’d love to get that to 64 because that’ll get Battlefield and games like that which do 64 vs. 64…have at it! Now, I don’t want to be in a party of 64, but that’s a different problem! [Laughs]” On why he’d want it so high: “I like raising that – especially on the PC where a lot of our gamers use the Xbox app with non-Xbox Live games because you get free party chat,” he says. “So if you’re in World of Warcraft and you have a 20-person raid, we’re seeing a lot of people loading the Xbox app, getting into big parties as their client for how they talk and they go in. I want to raise that number to make sure I’m satisfying the Windows side and their needs as well. I think it’s great that they use the Xbox app with all their games for free services, free parties, free chat, things like that.” Now that Xbox One will cross play with even more games like Rocket League, Killer Instinct, #IDARB and future games with PC this could benefit very well for the new coming gamers on PC. Source

Two new Xbox One controller colors due to launch soon.

  UPDATE: Both of the controllers are now available to pre-order on Microsoft’s store online. Microsoft will be launching two new Xbox One controllers, nothing new besides the colors. Welcome Copper and Dusk Shadow. Swedish arm of giant European retailer MediaMarkt is listing both products, suggesting that they are indeed legitimate. We do not have an official release date but we can expect it this year at around the same price as other special colored controllers. Copper Shadow: Dusk Shadow:

Xbox Team is actively looking into game sharing options.

Ever since the Xbox One was launched fans have been wanting the option to share games to other people. The backlash surrounding the DRM of the original Xbox One plan caused Microsoft to reverse many of the policies and features announced at that initial conference, including the ability to share digital games. According to Mike Ybarra (Partner Director of Program Management, Xbox and Windows Platform at Microsoft), the team is looking into it with regards to how it fits in with the Universal Windows Platform that touches both Xbox One and PC. “Steam has a great family plan right now,” he says. “We’re looking at both from a Windows standpoint – well, what’s our policy of the Windows Store? How many people can play concurrent? How do you share? We’re going to merge those two topologies soon so that a whole new model for how you share games across that will be in place.” The future looks good for Xbox One since now that Microsoft is willing to do cross-networking who knows what is to come next. This is something that I would expect them to announce at E3. What are your thoughts on all of this?

Here's new Information about Gears Of War 4 Multiplayer!

Game Informer’s April Issue is all about the new upcoming Xbox One exclusive – Gears Of War 4. Since 2006, with the launch of a near religion game called Gears Of War, fans have logged in more than 2.6 billion hours in Multiplayer. So for The Coalition, Multiplayer is a big part of the development process for their new game. Below, you have all the questions and answers provided by the good folks at Game Informer.   “1) Multiplayer is getting a bigger focus this time: “Historically, the campaign is the hardest thing to make out of any of these games,” says studio head Rod Fergusson. “So if you look at the development of Gears one, it was probably 90 percent single player, 10 percent multiplayer. Over the course of the franchise, that percentage shifted, but I don’t think it ever got above 70/30. Coming here, multiplayer has a much greater position at the table. On day one, as we were prototyping our first campaign experience, we were also building multiplayer maps. We really want to meet the needs of not just recreational players but eSports players, and it’s something we’ve been thinking about for the entire development cycle.” 2) Ryan Cleven is the Lead MP Designer: Cleven’s resume includes series like Need for Speed and SSX. 3) We’d be shocked if Horde mode didn’t return: The Coalition wouldn’t confirm the addition of any particular multiplayer mode, but the team is keenly aware of the mode’s popularity and seem focused on making the Gears community happy moving into the future. 4) The multiplayer beta will start this spring: During the beta, players will be able to play as five of the campaign’s protagonists. The first three are the three main playable heroes, JD, Kait, Del. The fourth is Kait’s mom and leader of the Outsiders, a woman named Reyna. The fifth is Kait’s uncle, Oscar, who is an ex-Gear soldier and expert survivalist. 5) Multiplayer is still humans vs monsters: To fit into the lore of the world, there will be at least three factions in multiplayer, but these will still be separated into humans vs. monsters, meaning one side will play as the new Swarm enemies, while the other side with play as either COG soldiers or human Outsiders. We’re not entirely sure if multiplayer is only limited to these three factions, however, so it’s possible that there is a second, unknown monster faction. 6) Each faction has their own knife and will likely have other unique attributes: 7) The team is making a big push for the eSports market this time around: The Coalition even has one staffer dedicated to work full time on the eSports initative. “Gears of War was one of the first games to be part of the eSports growth, and it came around during a time when things like Twitch were just starting to explode,” says director of community Adam Fletcher. “What were trying to do now is treat eSports as a brand. We started that with the Ultimate Edition where we partnered with the ESL, and worked to created different seasons in of a pro league as well as an open series that spans North America, Europe, New Zealand, and Australia. During our championships, we had over 130,000 unique viewers on Twitch, and we sold out of tickets for a live event down in Burbank.” 8) But casual fans are still welcome: “When I was at Epic, we didn’t really value pro players,” says studio head Rod Fergusson. “We were always focused on accessibility and how to get more recreational players. We let pro players do whatever they wanted and tried not to overdevelop for them. Now we’re trying to find that balance. We recognize that there’s this professional player, and have you sort of build a funnel toward them but also make sure your game is highly accessible.” 9) Don’t expect a lot of wind: Wind is a big part of the story campaign, but at this time, the team isn’t planning on incorporating wind flares into the game’s multipayer maps. 10) The Coalition is getting some help: The multiplayer team also includes London-based developer, Splash Damage, which has previously worked on games such as Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Brink, Batman: Arkham Origins, and even Gears of War: Ultimate Edition. “They’re helping with a lot of the level design stuff,” says Fergusson. “Especially with meshing of multiplayer maps, we’re tapping into the expertise they got from Gears of War: Ultimate Edition. They also have a lot of expertise with online systems, in terms of matchmaking from Ultimate Edition. They basically had to rewrite for Xbox One, between us and them, the whole matchmaking sub-system…when you get a strategic partner like Splash Damage, we talk about training up our own team on Gears, but when you have another team that’s trained up on Gears, we definitely want to work with them as much as possible.” 11) Multiplayer will run at 60 fps and will have its own dedicated servers: What else do you want? 12) Balance is important to The Coalition: The Studio has introduced a new takedown system that allows players to initiate a series of close-combat melee takedowns. In single player these might become fairly easy to pull off, but The Coalition has worked hard to ensure that, in multiplayer, players on the receiving end of these have several ways to counter the attacks and escape before a knife ends up in their brainpan.”  

Axiom Verge announced for Wii U and Xbox One.

Tom Happ announced today that he will be bringing his critically acclaimed game, Axiom Verge, to Xbox One and Nintendo eShop on Wii U later this year. Axiom Verge is a retro-style action-platform-exploration game done in a 16-bit style and was heavily influenced by games like Metroid, Contra, Blaster Master, and other classics, but with very modern design sensibilities. It also gives you power over glitches like those found in classic games, allowing you to scramble enemies, corrupt environments, and enter hidden areas as you explore this hostile alien world and uncover your role within it. The game is currently available on PlayStation and was created all by one person. Tom Happ himself created all of it and it received incredible reviews. It’s basically a retro Metroid like game setup and has over 1,000 room to explore. No other information yet on the game, but we’ll let you know soon as we hear more. [Official Site]

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan release date revealed.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles finally has a release date Activision has announced today. The game features all four of the turtles along with bosses like Beebop, Rocksteady and seen today for the first time – Super Shredder. The game uses cel shaded technology, similar to the last Transformers Devastation, where it appears as if you’re playing the cartoon itself. From what we’ve seen so far, the trailers are showing really fast paced gameplay, so we only have two more months to wait until release. Mutants in Manhattan releases this May 24th for both Xbox and PlayStation platforms. Check out the new trailer below, which is currently avialable via IGN only.

This weekend watch the Halo WC Finals and get your first look at Warzone Firefight in Halo 5.

If you’re a casual or competitive Halo fan you’re going to be please with this weekend because not only will we get to see the best of the best fight to be the Halo World Champions; we also get to see our first look of Warzone Firefight in Halo 5: Guardians. Here’s a look at the schedule: Friday, March 18: Halo World Championship Playoffs – Day One 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. PT via Twitch.tv/Halo Saturday, March 19: Halo World Championship Playoffs – Day Two 9 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. PT via Twitch.tv/Halo Sunday, March 20: Halo World Championship Finals 4 p.m. PT to 6 p.m. PT via XLEi app on Xbox One and Twitch.tv/Halo And for the complete match schedule visit Halo.gg. Check out the hyped trailer here: Ever since we got the tease for Warzone Firefight the community has been sitting tight waiting on more information about this mode. There will be a sneak peek on Sunday for this mode during the finals and you won’t want to miss out on it. Tune-in to Receive a Free Halo World Championship REQ Pack and HaloWC Gamerpic. Anyone who watches the Finals broadcast  starting on Sunday at 4 p.m. PT on their Xbox One via the Twitch app or Twitch.tv – can get the Halo World Championship REQ Pack for free. The HaloWC REQ Pack includes the all new Ultra Rare “Challenger” armor set and HaloWC 2016 emblem. This will only be available until 9 a.m. PT on Mar. 21. Also, Xbox is rolling out a Halo World Championship Xbox One Gamerpic throughout this week for the entire community. It’s going to be an action packed weekend and we are looking forward to it.

LEGO Marvel Avengers gets free Captain America pack today on PlayStation.

Based on the highly anticipated Marvel Studios film hitting theatres on May 6, 2016, this add-on content is currently available as a FREE download exclusively for PS3 and PS4 players. Super Heroes once united now find themselves divided! Marvel’s Captain America: Civil War Character Pack expands the game’s already impressive roster of Super Heroes, featuring nine playable characters from the highly anticipated blockbuster, including Agent 13, Black Panther, Captain America, Crossbones, Falcon, Iron Man (Mark 46), Scarlet Witch, War Machine, and Winter Soldier. The pack also debuts the Marvel Cinematic Universe character versions of Black Panther and Crossbones, with both variants appearing in a console videogame for the first time. This is not part of the season pass content, as it is free and only on PlayStation. There is no word yet on the first download pack for the season pass, which is odd as we are now over a month, nearly two, since launch. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRjQEDgmERY

Xbox One Cross-Network Play is going to happen.

In a recent letter from the head of the ID@Xbox Program, Chris Charla has talked about the upcoming conference and then talked about some games being able to be played cross-networked. Yes this can be done with any game not just ID@Xbox games. “Players on Xbox One and Windows 10 using Xbox Live will be able to play with players on different online multiplayer networks – including other console and PC networks.” One game we do know that will be making this happen will be Psyonix’s Rocket League. It’s up to game developers to support this feature, and Xbox Live players will always have the option of choosing to play only with other Xbox Live players. This is very good news not only for Xbox One fans but good for the PC gamers as well. It’s going to be interesting what Microsoft does with this feature in the future. Final Fantasy XIV is one game that comes into mind right away within the gaming community. What are your thoughts on this happening? Read more from that letter here

TV DVR for Xbox One is now in testing

It seems like Microsoft is internally testing TV DVR functionality for Xbox One meaning that customers will soon be able to record live TV shows from the console. If you are like me and was wondering about this feature well, the ability to record live TV was expected by late 2015. That obviously didn’t happen on schedule but it is still going to happen from what it looks like. The TV DVR functionality is coming but “Microsoft is now internally testing an update for Xbox One called “Xbox One Threshold Beta 1603 System Update,” or th2xboxrel_1603.160308-1900″ This update even works while you’re playing games, watching live TV, or when the console is sleeping. This is very good news for Xbox fans who use the awesome feature on Xbox One to watch live television and play games at the same time. Maybe we will hear more about this by June? I guess we’ll just have to find out.