The other day, unable to take it anymore, we sucked it up and ordered HBO. We needed our fix immediately. When the order went through and we were ready to binge watch, it wasnt our cable box we turned on, but our Xbox. This news, I am sure, would be music to Microsofts ears. It may have launched the Xbox 360 in 2005 as a gaming machine filled with games for gamers, but somewhere in the middle of that long lifecycle it decided to focus what seemed to be the majority of its efforts on making Xbox...

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Microsoft on Wednesday confirmed that the next Xbox video game console, codenamed Durango, will be revealed to the public at a special event at its Redmond campus on May 21. That event will kick off a multi event unveiling which will continue through June, and then the release of the device, which is expected in early November. On March 28, I exclusively revealed via Twitter that Microsoft had changed the original reveal date for the next Xbox from April 24 to May 21. So yesterday’s...

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If you were hoping to play your vast collection of Xbox 360 games on Microsoft latest creation, weve got a spot of bad news. Microsoft Xbox Live VP Marc Whitten confirmed to that the new Xbox One console will have no backwards compatibility whatsoever. No, there not, said Whitten, when we posed the question. The system is based on a different core architecture, so back compat doesnt really work from that perspective. Technologically speaking, it not wholly a surprise that backwards compatibility...

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According to an internal Microsoft e mail sent to all full time employees working on the next Xbox, Durango [the codename for the next Xbox] is designed to deliver the future of entertainment while engineered to be tolerant of today Internet. It continues, There are a number of scenarios that our users expect to work without an Internet connection, and those should just work regardless of their current connection status. Those include, but are not limited to: playing a Blu ray disc, watching...

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We know there is some confusion around used games on Xbox One and wanted to provide a bit of clarification on exactly what weve confirmed today. While there have been many potential scenarios discussed, today we have only confirmed that we designed Xbox One to enable our customers to trade in and resell games at retail. Another piece of clarification around playing games at a friends house – should you choose to play your game at your friends house, there is no fee to play that game while you...

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My first thought, honestly, is how boxy it is. In 2010, Microsoft released a slim version of the Xbox 360 that was literally streamlined, with a curvilinear X shaped form that made its predecessor feel clumsy in comparison. The Xbox One is a bit bigger than the 360 and as rectangular as it gets. Its not without its flourishes, though. Its a deep, glossy black that the industrial design team calls liquid black. The top of the console is subdivided into two 16:9 rectangles, derived from the...

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Microsoft is updating its YouTube application for Windows Phone to comply with some, but not all, of Google terms of service. On May 7, Microsoft rolled out a YouTube app for Windows Phone 8that the company developed itself. On May 15, Google sent Microsoft a cease and desist letter about that app, noting it violated some of the YouTube terms of service, including not displaying ads and allowing users to download content from the app. Google requested that Microsoft either block or pull the...

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Microsoft Xbox One home entertainment console has three operating systems at its core, company officials said during the May 21 unveiling of the device. Why three? Marc Whitten,Microsoft chief production officer of its Interactive Entertainment Business,explained during the hour long reveal event in Redmond, that thered be an Xbox operating system, the kernel of Windows and a third operating system designed to handle switching, multitasking and control inside the Xbox One. The NT core is what...

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