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The phrase “rapturous applause” is often misused when describing audience reactions to E3 Announcements, but today at E3, one announcement by Microsoft got the crowd so hyped that even describing the applause as “rapturous” could be an understatement.
That’s because Microsoft just announced a new feature to the XBox One console that long-term XBox fans have been asking for from pretty much day one of the console’s release. That’s right folks – backwards compatibility is here!
Microsoft has revealed during Day 0 of E3 today that the XBox One is receiving software to allow as many XBox 360 games as possible to be played on the XBox One. Initially only 200 games will be immediately compatible with the new hardware, but the company intends to increase this number over time.
The compatible XBox 360 games will get their own listing in the XBox Live Store, where fans will be able to download the games to their XBox One whenever they like. However, if you own the CD for an XBox 360 title, you can simply insert the disk to the XBox One and you will be offered to download the title immediately to the One once the compatibility is available. What’s more, Microsoft have promised that you will not need to pay again for any of your existing XBox 360 titles to bring them to XBox One – meaning that you’ll potentially be able to bring over your whole library of Xbox 360 games to the One at no cost to you.
The games will play exactly like they did on the 360; and games that include online features will be playable with players still on their 360s using XBox Live. However, you’ll also get to use the XBox One’s native features with the game, such as being able to take in-action screenshots or side-load an app to show alongside the game. Take a look at the video below for the full low-down; meanwhile, we’ll leave the final words to Microsoft:
“If you’ve been holding off from upgrading from your XBox 360, now is definitely the time!”
As of this year, once beloved British developers Rare Ltd celebrate their 30th Anniversary. For the first 16 years of its life, Rare gained a cult following for its creation of several original franchises that each managed to captivate audiences with their quirky characters, fun gameplay and often cheeky sense of humour, whether it would be fun for all ages like Banjo-Kazooie; or for adults only like Conker’s Bad Fur Day. So popular was this company that they became Nintendo’s official second-party developer from 1994 right up until 2002, when they were bought by Microsoft. Since the buyout, the company moved from mainly developing for Nintendo consoles to developing solely for the XBox; and it’s been safe to say the results have been mostly lacklustre.
Today at E3, Microsoft announced a special love-letter project to Rare’s long-term fans to celebrate the developer’s 30th year – and give modern gamers the opportunity to experience the golden era of Rare’s creative nous. Coming this August exclusive to XBox One, Rare and Microsoft will be releasing ‘Rare Replay’, a unique collection of 30 of Rare’s classic titles ported to XBox One. Both of the titles mentioned earlier feature, along with other classic hits such as Battletoads, Jet Force Gemini, Perfect Dark; and even some of the XBox-era hits such as Viva Piñata and Grabbed by the Ghoulies.
As well as being able to play all these classic games in one collection on your XBox, the games will feature Acheivements to demonstrate your progress through each title, with Rare proudly boasting that it is possible to earn “up to 10,000 Gamerscore” from the entire collection. Watch the video below for the Announcement Trailer and to see more of the games on offer:
To emphasis the 30-year Anniversary aspect, Rare announced that the compendium will contain “30 games for $30 – that’s $1 a game!” Sure enough, the game’s retail price has been pitched at $29.99, which for us in the UK translates to £19.99 – which is a pretty sweet deal. Rare Replay is set for release on 4 August 2015/
The next Legend for Revenants has been revealed and along with it, a new weapon!
A lot of us have been saying for awhile how cool it would be for a profession to get Staff as a melee weapon, and now we got our wish. The newest weapon for Revenants is the Staff and it is used as a melee weapon.
As Roy Cronacher explains in today’s blog post they wanted to turn the normal use of staff on its head the same way they changed up how Revenants use Hammer skills. Their Staff skills will use a mix of martial and magical abilities.
Additionally some of the specifics of how channeling Ventari will work for Revenants was also revealed. All of Ventari’s skills will be powered through his tablet, in fact when you first switch to Legendary Centaur stance you’ll only have the ability to summon the tablet available. After you do that the skill slots will fill out with the rest of the abilities.
The skill Protective Solace forms a barrier around the tablet which destroys enemy projectiles. In the same way as the Hammer skill which keeps two hammers spinning around the Revenant, Protective Solace is the upkeep skill for Staff. Additionally the tablet (and thus the barrier itself) can be moved while it is active.
The 15th Hearthstone Ranked Play Season has begun and it’s bringing a new savage Darnassus card back with it.
Players looking to pick up the Darnassus card back will need to hit Rank 20 in Ranked Play mode during the month of June. Blizzard also notes that even those who have already reached Rank 20 need to log in at least once during the month to get the new card back.
In addition to the card back, Blizzard revealed that the top 100 Legend players for the June Ranked PLay season will accrue points toward qualifying for the Hearthstone World Championship.
Original: It’s not an official announcement, but MSI is boasting that they’ll have Final Fantasy Type-0 running on their GS60 Red and GS70 Silver laptops at their Computex booth. Given that those are both PCs, it would suggest that Final Fantasy Type-0 is coming to PC.
Originally a PSP game, Type-0 is a mission-based RPG with occasional bits of RTSing. It was recently re-released in an HD version for the non-portable consoles, so a PC version would make sense. The trailer below confirms that, yes, Type-0 is pretty much as weird as any other Final Fantasy game, and I can’t wait to play it 😀
