Today, were excited to release the preview of Catan Anytime – the entirely new social version of the beloved board game . Play is completely free and available on any device with a modern browser. We hope Catan fans will appreciate its simplicity – Catan Anytime is fast, fluid and designed for touch making it easy to play the game from mobile to your big screen with IE on XBOX and everything in between. Catan Anytime is a partnership with creators of Catan, Mayfair Games and Bontom Games. This...

Read More

Google has reached a deal to buy game livestreaming firm Twitch for $1 billion, according to sources familiar with the matter. Citing unnamed sources, Variety said back in May that Google had made an all cash offer and that the deal could be announced soon. If confirmed, the deal will underscore the value of live Internet streaming and the rise of competitive gaming as a spectator sport — something that draws millions of viewers, can offer prize pools that surpass pro golfs marquee events,...

Read More

Is Microsoft buiding a single version of Windows that will run on phones, tablets, PCs and gaming consoles? Nope. Here a refresher as to what really is happening. Follow @maryjofoley Thanks to a passing comment by CEO Satya Nadella during the July 22Microsoft Q4 fiscal 2014 earnings call, the struggle is continuing. We will streamline the next version of Windows from three operating systems into one single converged operating system for screens of all sizes, Nadella told press and...

Read More

isnt the first game to straddle two generations of gaming hardware, but its one of the few currently in play that was built from the ground up with that in mind. With its latest title, Bungie took on the Herculean task of building a game for four systems: PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One. With the foundations now laid and the all important beta just around the corner, we spoke with Bungie engineer Roger Wolfson to find out more about the challenges of building a game that...

Read More

and most people will think immediately of its hiccups—the sort of hysterical, impossible errors one finds collected on sites like Damn You Autocorrect. But despite the inadvertent hilarity, the real marvel of our mobile text correction systems is how astoundingly good they are. It not too much of an exaggeration to call autocorrect the overlooked underwriter of our era of mobile prolixity. Without it, we wouldnt be able to compose windy love letters from stadium bleachers, write novels on...

Read More

Theres no app version of Settlers of Catan — the island building board game beloved by geeks worldwide — for Windows Phone, although its iOS and Android versions are excellent. So Microsofts Internet Explorer team announced an HTML 5 version thats truly cross platform — in addition to running on devices with IE, like Windows Phone, it should work in any modern browser that supports HTML5. Catan Anytime is a multiplayer web app: Youll need to find at least two friends, because...

Read More

Satya Nadella has been CEO of Microsoft for five months, and he's made it clear he intends to change and re-focus the software behemoth as it navigates the next generation of technological change. To mark the closing of Microsoft's fiscal year, Nadella released a long, detailed memo laying out his grand vision for the future of Microsoft. He talked about the importance of mobile and the cloud, the end of Microsoft's focus on devices and services, and laid the foundation for big changes in... ...

Read More

Here are this week’s games and add-on deals on the Xbox Games Store.Discounts are valid now through 28 July 2014 […] The post This Week’s Deals with Gold appeared first on Xbox Live's Major Nelson.

Read More