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Infinity Wards 'Call of Duty' series is so closely tied to the XBOX that when it was realized Microsoft's newest console could not support 1080p directly it was seen as a big discrepancy between the XBOX One and PS 4 consoles. Mark Rubin, executive producer at Infinity Ward explains the reasons to interviewer Wesley Yin-Poole of Eurogamer.net. Here is some insight from an earlier article. "If there is something about the Xbox One hardware that's to blame, it is the way it allocates memory resources", Rubin suggests. Microsoft's console reserves 10 per cent of GPU time for its operating system. As Digital Foundry's Richard Leadbetter describes it, features such as Kinect skeletal tracking account for "precious resources that are inaccessible to game developers". Rubin discusses this issue, and more, in the below interview. Xbox One Resolutiongate: Call of Duty: Ghosts dev Infinity Ward responds Original Article by: Wesley Yin-Poole Eurogamer.net Creating a next-gen launch title sounds like a nightmare. Can you explain exactly the challenges you faced? Mark Rubin: It is for our engineers, especially. Fortunately, both Xbox One and PS4 are very much like PC, more so than the last generation. That helped enormously. If the systems had their very peculiar architecture, like they did in current gen, this would have been a different conversation. But because of that the development this time around it was significantly easier. I have experienced the current-gen launch. I was at Infinity Ward for COD 2. When we launched it was just PC and Xbox 360, but that was our first console, period. There was a lot to learn leading up, but that was just one console, when all it was was PC and that new console. And that was an interesting challenge. So to do PC, current-gen two SKUs and next-gen two SKUs, was a massive challenge. Working with the theoretical hardware would have been a disaster if... honestly, the hardest thing to deal with is not the architecture. It's the OS (operating system) of the systems. That's the thing that comes on the latest. The Xbox One's OS on their box versus the Sony OS, becomes the hardest. All the SDKs and stuff you have to work with - that's the stuff that changes, not the hardware itself. What about the operating systems, exactly, is the problem? Mark Rubin: There's stuff in the console's OS that interacts with the game. So, for instance, voice chat is often supported by the hardware manufacturer rather than the software, and you're just using their channel. When that stuff is changing - because they're developing it on their side - and the resources they're using are changing - your, from a game design standpoint, challenge is with trying to make enough room for those resources to be used but at the same time use as much resources as possible. One of the greatest challenges the engineers have to deal with is memory management, or thread management. There are X number of threads in your CPUs. Where in those threads is the stuff that's Microsoft or Sony? Where does it fall? How does it work? We don't have the SDKs for those features yet, and then they come in and you go, okay, well it needs 3MB of RAM - oh, crap, we only allocated two! You can't just take a MB from anywhere. It's not like there's just tonnes of it just laying there. You have to pull it from something else. And now you have to balance that somewhere. It becomes a massive change internally for our entire engine, if they add a few MB to the amount of resources they need, or if they require all their processes to be on one thread. If it's not multi-threaded then we have to put it on one thread. Now we have to find space on one thread, where that can live, that it's not creating a traffic jam on that thread. Sometimes we have to be like, okay, we have to move all this stuff over to a different thread and then put that in to that thread, just to manage traffic. That's what engineers are often doing: managing the traffic of CPU threads and memory and where that's going, allocating memory, what kind of memory is it? Is it dynamic? Sometimes what has to happen is we have to allocate the 3MB straight off the bat and just say, these 3MB, specifically, these actual memory addresses, have to be used for this. They can't be used anywhere else. Whereas dynamic, it's like, okay, I need 3MB but it doesn't matter where those 3MB come from. So all that stuff can change on the fly. And you're trying to develop your system to match with that, and it's two systems, now, not just one: Sony and Xbox. That creates a massive engineering nightmare. Wow. It sounds harder than I realised. Is all that you've just described the reason the Xbox One version is native 720p and the PS4 version is native 1080p? Mark Rubin: In a way. I don't know if I can point to one particular cause. Early on, we didn't know where exactly the resolution of anything would fall because we didn't have hardware or the software to support it. We tried to focus in on 1080p, and if we felt like we were on borderline of performance somewhere... We tried to make the best decision for each platform that gives you the best-looking game we could get and maintains that 60 frames a second. There's no specific, oh, well, the VO chat on Xbox took up so much resources that we couldn't do 1080p native. There's no definitive one to one per se cause and effect. It's just an overall thing. We took each system individually and said, 'okay, let's make the best game for each system.' I think both look great. Some people might notice if they had them right next to each other. Some people might not. The Xbox One is 1080p output, it's just upscaled hardware wise. It was a late decision, too. That call wasn't made until a month ago. Put me in your shoes when you were told this was going to be the case. I assume your engineering team explains to you this is the way it has to be. How did you guys react internally? Could Microsoft engineers not have helped? Mark Rubin: It's not a thing, like pointing to the day he came and said... It wasn't like that. It's a long process. And we're always working with both platforms. There were Microsoft engineers there throughout development. They were always there. There wasn't an event, per se. There wasn't a meeting. It was just something that developed over time. Everybody was involved. Obviously the PR guys, when they found out, when they were told, that was more of an event than the devs sitting at work working on it. So you'd have to ask them. What everyone will ask is whether this is the result of the Xbox One simply not being as powerful as the PS4, and you're doing your best with the hardware you have, or whether for future versions you may be able to get the Xbox One version running natively at 1080p? Mark Rubin: It's very possible we can get it to native 1080p. I mean I've seen it working at 1080p native. It's just we couldn't get the frame rate in the neighbourhood we wanted it to be. And it wasn't a lack of effort. It wasn't that it was like last minute. We had the theoretical hardware for a long time. That's the thing you get pretty quickly and that doesn't change dramatically. It was more about resource allocation. The resource allocation is different on the consoles. That huge web of tangled resources, whether it's threads-based or if it's GPU threads or if it's memory - whatever it is - optimisation is something that could go theoretically on forever. I definitely see slash hope both platforms will look way better the next time we get a chance at it. As an obvious analogy - and if people are not sure about this it's pretty simple - look at Call of Duty 2 versus COD 4. It was a massive leap forward in graphics, and that's just because it takes time to get through this. First launch, first time at bat at a new console is a challenging one. That's just the way it is. For people fearful one system is more powerful than the other or vice versa, it's a long game. View full article

Microsoft has been sending out emails to selected customers giving away free digital copies of Killer Instinct for the Xbox One for when it launches on November 22nd. The emailed said "You're a fan of ours and we're a fan of yours.Thank you for your dedication to Xbox. We want to show you our appreciation, so we're giving you Killer Instinct." Some have been told that this offer is not legitimate but it has been confirmed that it is on the Xbox Support twitter account. It hasn't been clear what exactly Xbox gamers need to do or to have done to be awarded this freebie but Xbox Supported has stated, "We've selected a bunch of our Xbox fans for their support and as a celebration for the upcoming Xbox One," They also said, "We don't have any specifics on that other than that some users have received a gift." "We considered a variety of things like Gamerscore, Live tenure and other factors in markets where Xbox One is available." Source: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-11-06-microsoft-is-emailing-select-gamers-with-free-xbox-one-killer-instinct-offer View full article

quoted from https://blogs.halowaypoint.com/Headlines/post/2013/10/29/Spartan-Assault-is-coming-to-Xbox-One-and-Xbox-360.aspx "Grab your controller and prepare for the Flood; Halo: Spartan Assault is poised to storm living rooms around the world this holiday! Today, 343 Industries in conjunction with Vanguard Games announced that Halo: Spartan Assault will be available worldwide for digital download this December for both Xbox One and Xbox 360. " "Halo: Spartan Assault for Xbox One and Xbox 360 will pit gamers in a galactic-scale war against a persistent and overwhelming enemy from long ago – the Flood. With over 30 stimulating missions at your fingertips, play longer than ever with the all-new online Co-op mode and the Operation Hydra expansion that delivered an action-packed addition to the single player campaign."

Will anyone be getting the Xbox One specifically for Halo? Amazon has only sold out 25K units for the X1, sounds a little low to me.

So I found this online and figured I would share. If 343 does go this route, I will forever be a number one fan. The link to the article is below. I posted my favorite part from it below. http://www.idigitaltimes.com/articles/19745/20130903/halo-5-release-date-news-plot-details.htm At the moment 343i is in the prototype phase, but i will post the current state of Halo for Xbox One. Just a reminder that the game you will see probably wont feature everything you are reading here. Tech: 60 FPS has been confirmed at E3, now the team around Corinne is basically taking the Halo 4 Engine, "dumps" it on Xbox One Devkits and measures the perfomance and goes from there. The Xbox One hardware is really powerful, though as many have stated not as powerful as Sony's machine. Nevertheless the team does have the goal to create one of the best looking titles next year. People are seriously overstating the power difference and underestimate the potential of the eSRAM (yes, it was included for bandwidth reasons, but the low latency does increase efficiencs in real world perfomance, if the eSRAM is used in smart way. I basically got the same code, with some optimization with the eSRAM running only 20% worse on Xbox Oen than on a PS4-Devkit from January. Now what tech and graphical features will be implemented? Deferred Shading will finally be implemented, Halo 4 was really sparse on terms of dynamic lights, a drawback of havin to use a traditional forward renderer. G-Buffer will consist of 4 MRTs. The entire pipeline is HDR and linear space. Those Render Targets will probably be stored in the eSRAM or split between the two pools, depending on perfomance. Some form of SSAO will also be implemented, Halo 4 only had static and baked AO which looked great in pictures. PRTs will be used, current tests with eSRAM and the results are amazing. Thanks to 5GB of ram (soon 6GB ) the textures will look amazing and the models will have plenty detail. There are a few drawbacks with aiming for 60 FPS. First the game will not render in native 1080p. Current resoultion on display plane 2 is 1920x720 (1,3 Megapixel compared to 2 for 1080p), display plane 1 (HUD an weapon) will be native 1080p. You literally cant tell the difference. Cloud: Dedicated Server. First titel to showcase true power of cloud processing. Massive battles with 100s of AI (calculated by the cloud); massive worlds with dynamic weathher and global lighting (all done in cloud). And yes, this will need an alway online connection(you dont need a powerful connection, those data pakets are really small) Game: Campaign is planned to be 3-5 times longer than Halo 4. No more linear , going open world. Master Chief has gone rogue, has own ship and can visit different planets (6-8 planned). Each planet has several regions with main objectives and several side missions. ( Think of Wings of Liberty or Dawn of War 2 cmapaign) Core gameplay is still Halo (2 weapons, grenades, melee; "30 seconds of fun"; sevaral different enemies) but there are RPG elements added to it: character progression (mostly items like forerunner relicts you will find that make Master Chief stronger or will give him more ablities), not really loot, but you will have to acquire weapons first, before you can use them in more missions. Weapons are stored in the armory on the ship and chief can choose his loadout, which he will use on the mission start. He can still pickup and use the weapons he finds in the different missions.Loadout weapons are basically the same you have in Halo 4 Multiplayer (you cant start with a rocket launcher, but you can call in those "super weapons" on a mission like in Infinity Multiplayer; difference is this is a limited ability, at "low level" you can call one time, this can be upgraded over time) There will be more weapons in campaign than in Halo 4(and yes more "alien" weapons; not just human weapons with a different coat) Enemies: Elites (the same faction you fought in Halo 4), Grunts, Jackals, Hunter, Brutes, Drones Promethean (heavily redesigned, more types like Promethean Warlords) Humans (yep you will gith humans, but not UNSC, those are Insurrectionists) Vehicles: Biggest number of vehicles ever. Warthog (classic, rocket, gauss), Scorpion and yes the Grizzly will be in, Mammoth, upgraded Mantis, more Halo Wars vehicles like rhino, wolverine, cobra, hornets, falcons, vultures Chiefs ship can store a limited amount of vehicles (call in similar to weapons) Forerunner War Sphinx are in, very powerful enemy "vehicles" (and yep you will fight them) To put the gameplay in campaign into perspective: The team was running an encounter test in the Halo 4 engine with prototype models. This encounter featured several hundreds of Brutes with 2 Scarabs, 10 wraiths and several ghosts and banshees fightin against one Forerunner War Sphinx and some Prometheans. Now the player could engage in that battle or just simply watch them fight (Power of the Cloud: AI in short distance to chief is process on the box; rest in the cloud) and pick off the remaing forces. Well the current player chose to engange, took his Hornet and landed it on one of the Scarabs ( the AI is amazing, the Brutes had now to choose who to fight, most forces fought against the Prometheans, a few took on the fight with chief; it really looks and feels like every single AI makes smart and menaingfull decisions)) The Player killed of the crew on the Scarab and well, thise time he doenst destroy the Core, he gets behind the wheel of the Scarav All hell breaks loose, brute forces more and more engage the rogue Scarab, while the Prometheans dont really difference their enemies. And yep the Scarabs is destroyed withing seconds , thought the Player surived thanks to god-mode. Those are the kinds of encounter you will find in the final game. Multiplayer: Split between two categories. Halo Wararena ist basically Halo 2 reloaded. No loadouts, no armor abilites and perks. Player Count 8-16, game types are Slayer, CTF(yes classic Halo CTF ), King of the Hill, Assault, Oddball.... Static weapon spawns, more weapons on map which means more ammo, weapons wont respawn as quick as in Halo 4 The seconds multiplayer categorie is titles Halo Battlefield (not final name obviously). Those are basically really big teams battles like 32-64. Gameplay is more inline with Invasion from Halo Reach. Custom Loadouts, "armor abilites" (more like class abilites), Vehicles, Infinity like call ins Thats it for the moment. Just a small glimpse into what you will eventually play in November 2014.

Microsoft has announced plans for a worldwide Xbox One promotional tour. The Xbox One team is giving you a rare chance to get your hands on the goodies before everyone else can. This will begin on Oct 1, 2013 and go on until the end of the year. The tour will give consumers the chance to go hands-on with games including Forza 5, Ryse, Killer Instinct, Dead Rising 3, Kinect Sports Rivals, Crimson Dragon, Max: Curse of the Brotherhood, Zoo Tycoon and Minecraft. While attendance is free of charge, it's limited to those over 18 years of age and space will be limited. Xbox One will also be playable at Milan Games Week (Oct 25 - 27), Paris Games Week (Oct 30 - Nov 3), and Madrid Games Week (Nov 7 - 10). Additionally, custom Xbox One 'Test Drive' vehicles will offer hands-on time at festivals, university campuses, retail centres and other locations across the UK, Germany, France, US and Canada in the coming months. Area One Tour Dates: Philadelphia: 10.3–10.6 Paris: 10.10–10.13 Toronto: 10.10–10.13 Chicago: 10.17–10.20 Vienna: 10.17–10.20 Atlanta: 10.24–10.27 Dallas: 10.31–11.3 Berlin: 10.31–11.3 Phoenix: 11.7–11.10 San Francisco: 11.14–11.17 Dublin: 11.14–11.17 Los Angeles: 11.21 London: 11.21–11.24 What do you guys feel about these recent details on the "Area One" Tour? Are you in one of these lucky towns? Find More News at: CVG View full article

Mountain Dew and Doritos game fuel has launched an Xbox one promotional version. Mike Fahey from kotaku got hist sands on the snacks. "A new flavor of Mountain Dew Game Fuel, a shiny bag of Doritos and a card explaining what these things have to do with the Xbox One arrived on my doorstep bright and early this morning, so I made a video and drank some soda. For you. As mentioned in the vid, there's a party at PAX this weekend, where visitors can eats and drink this stuff until they get sick. It runs from 9PM to midnight, so I've no idea what they'll do with the other two hours and forty-five minutes. Maybe roll around in some hand sanitizer. Snacktaku is Kotaku's take on the wild and wonderful world of eating things, but not eating meals. Eating meals is for those with too much time on their hands. Past critiques can be found at the snackatu review archive." Video available here http://kotaku.com/is-mountain-dew-any-good-because-they-just-started-sel-1226726186 View full article

Ok, I'm trying to figure out if I should buy Destiny on my 360 or wait and get it on the Xbox One?(I say wait because I won't have Xbox one at launch)

Well originally I wanted to get this out on Saturday but this turned into a busy weekend and so we skipped a weekend but hopefully I didn't skip any beats. Enjoy: Primary Announcement: I decided to change the way I direct you to links. I tried to provide pictures and hyperlink them for each section and sub-section so I'm not always saying 'Click here! Click here! Find it here!.' It doesn't apply to all the sections however. ANNOUNCEMENT I haven't seen a time limit on this so I assume it's still going and I haven't noticed too much activity with it so hopefully this picture will help! Would you like to test Halo multiplayer for 343 Industries? Would you like to get paid to test Halo multiplayer for 343 Industries? Remember, click the picture above to find Absolute Dog's announcement. DESTINY New Bits of Gameplay Adamj, the king of the News Group, brought us a really cool video from Bungie and it's got some cool snippets of gameplay in it that might possibly tease at competitive multiplayer! YEAH! I already gave a video so I'll give you a link to adam's thread separately here. FEATURED INTERVIEWS The Director - I actually saw him online the other day. Although no longer a Moderator, The Director is defintely someone the newer members oughta get to know. He's a real legend around these forums. FORGE 343industries.org and The Halo Forge Epidemic present: As we all know, The Meet Your Maker Forge Contest is in full swing and it's for the Dominion gametype this time around. Absolute Dog and AbleSir Thomas are certainly part of the judging panel, the rest of whom are unbeknownst to me as of now. Forgers are encouraged to use Zan's Map Marker Pack when submitting a map for optimal display of callouts and weapon placements. Want to test your map for the Meet Your Maker contest? You can join the MYM Test Lobbies hosted every Thursday by AbleSir Thomas. Click here to join. For questions that need answers, report here for the Meet Your Maker Dominion Official Q&A Thread. 343 Industries Community Forge Project SikSlik7's tyrannical reign as MoM may be over but that doens't mean it's too late to support the Community Forge Project. The 343i Community Forge Project is a project that lets the members get together and make their own contributions to the maps made. SikSlik explains it all in his thread. Read and sign up for the CFP here. Ideas can be discussed in the CFP Idea Discussion thread so post yours here. SikSlik7 has created an account for members to friend in order to join the CFP sessions. Send CFP343i a Friend Request on Xbox Live! Participate and support the Community Forge Project! Halo 4 Free Roaming Flood Forge Off The Halo 4 Free Roaming Flood Forge Off is OVER. We had some submissions on 343i.org not sure about ForgeHub and other sites but here's a little preview of our submissions: Your judges: Absolute Dog Donut Elliot Sign up, submit maps, find out prizes, and judging criteria to the contest by clicking the banner above of course. And here's the Q&A Thread! GAMING NEWS Halo 4 Global Championship Final Match Sudden Death http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8l0mONFYdM&feature=player_embedded A totally intense battle in the Halo 4 Global Championship between Elamite Warrior's brother Ace and the all powerful iGotUrPistola. It brought back good memories to see competition like this in Halo. Watch to see the winner and here's a link to TrulyExclusive's thread. Xbox One: First TV Commercial Here's the Xbox One's first television commercial brought to us here by none other than the CooliestRap. Tell him what you think they could've done and what they should've done that could've made it better. Or tell him what you think in general about it in his thread. Xbox One Release Date Confirmed The Xbox One's release date has been confirmed by many across the net. I'm not going to tell you here if you don't know already because I actually want you to visit adamj's article. That's why he makes them. I hope you know what to click to find the article by this point in the Wrapup. PS4 Release Date Also Confirmed The PlayStation 4's release date has also been announced. I won't tell you here so you can read Absolute Dog's article. I'll give you a hint: it comes out before the Xbox One! For more Gaming News check out the latest on our Front Page here. HOT TOPIC Halo Command - Browser Based Halo Strategy/RPG/Text Based Game Started by a member by the name of Glitch100, Halo Command will be a browser based Halo game involving the aspects of Strategy/RPG/TBRPGs which is what makes it very interesting. I support Halo Command because it's just another step towards bringing back the love for the Halo Universe itself and not just the games and multiplayer which is what everyone's been focusing on since Halo 4 came out. This may not be an official 343 game but it is something to look into. Click the picture to get linked to the Halo Command thread. MEMBER OF THE MONTH September's Member of the Month is a very avid Forger. Coming from Forge Cafe, Zandril is a huge Forge enthusiast and it is his favorite thing about Halo. I'll remind you again that the link to his announcement thread can be found by using the picture now. And please, DO congratulate him. He's a great member and Forger. PS. Yes that is the picture that was used when announcing BZ as June's MoM. PLAY DATES I'm trying to make Play Dates come back NEXT SATURDAY. That is the Saturday after this one coming up. I'm going to try to make it a special event and not just some games on one of the Halos. Keep your eyes PEELED! We still want your Play Date ideas. Post them here. YOUTUBE Halo 4 Pan-Cam Feature! Quite a find by a member by the name of Brett on our site. I've used Brett's video's before in the Wrapup so his name might be familiar to some of you whether it's from seeing it here or watching his videos when he posts them himself. Anyway, the pan-cam feature is pretty awesome. It's only accessible through Theater mode. Just watch that video and leave it a like and maybe comment and tell Brett how much you liked it here. Wrapup concluded. Now scroll back up and read it all over again. This post has been promoted to an article

Well originally I wanted to get this out on Saturday but this turned into a busy weekend and so we skipped a weekend but hopefully I didn't skip any beats. Enjoy: Primary Announcement: I decided to change the way I direct you to links. I tried to provide pictures and hyperlink them for each section and sub-section so I'm not always saying 'Click here! Click here! Find it here!.' It doesn't apply to all the sections however. ANNOUNCEMENT I haven't seen a time limit on this so I assume it's still going and I haven't noticed too much activity with it so hopefully this picture will help! Would you like to test Halo multiplayer for 343 Industries? Would you like to get paid to test Halo multiplayer for 343 Industries? Remember, click the picture above to find Absolute Dog's announcement. DESTINY New Bits of Gameplay Adamj, the king of the News Group, brought us a really cool video from Bungie and it's got some cool snippets of gameplay in it that might possibly tease at competitive multiplayer! YEAH! I already gave a video so I'll give you a link to adam's thread separately here. FEATURED INTERVIEWS The Director - I actually saw him online the other day. Although no longer a Moderator, The Director is defintely someone the newer members oughta get to know. He's a real legend around these forums. FORGE 343industries.org and The Halo Forge Epidemic present: As we all know, The Meet Your Maker Forge Contest is in full swing and it's for the Dominion gametype this time around. Absolute Dog and AbleSir Thomas are certainly part of the judging panel, the rest of whom are unbeknownst to me as of now. Forgers are encouraged to use Zan's Map Marker Pack when submitting a map for optimal display of callouts and weapon placements. Want to test your map for the Meet Your Maker contest? You can join the MYM Test Lobbies hosted every Thursday by AbleSir Thomas. Click here to join. For questions that need answers, report here for the Meet Your Maker Dominion Official Q&A Thread. 343 Industries Community Forge Project SikSlik7's tyrannical reign as MoM may be over but that doens't mean it's too late to support the Community Forge Project. The 343i Community Forge Project is a project that lets the members get together and make their own contributions to the maps made. SikSlik explains it all in his thread. Read and sign up for the CFP here. Ideas can be discussed in the CFP Idea Discussion thread so post yours here. SikSlik7 has created an account for members to friend in order to join the CFP sessions. Send CFP343i a Friend Request on Xbox Live! Participate and support the Community Forge Project! Halo 4 Free Roaming Flood Forge Off The Halo 4 Free Roaming Flood Forge Off is OVER. We had some submissions on 343i.org not sure about ForgeHub and other sites but here's a little preview of our submissions: Your judges: Absolute Dog Donut Elliot Sign up, submit maps, find out prizes, and judging criteria to the contest by clicking the banner above of course. And here's the Q&A Thread! GAMING NEWS Halo 4 Global Championship Final Match Sudden Death http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8l0mONFYdM&feature=player_embedded A totally intense battle in the Halo 4 Global Championship between Elamite Warrior's brother Ace and the all powerful iGotUrPistola. It brought back good memories to see competition like this in Halo. Watch to see the winner and here's a link to TrulyExclusive's thread. Xbox One: First TV Commercial Here's the Xbox One's first television commercial brought to us here by none other than the CooliestRap. Tell him what you think they could've done and what they should've done that could've made it better. Or tell him what you think in general about it in his thread. Xbox One Release Date Confirmed The Xbox One's release date has been confirmed by many across the net. I'm not going to tell you here if you don't know already because I actually want you to visit adamj's article. That's why he makes them. I hope you know what to click to find the article by this point in the Wrapup. PS4 Release Date Also Confirmed The PlayStation 4's release date has also been announced. I won't tell you here so you can read Absolute Dog's article. I'll give you a hint: it comes out before the Xbox One! For more Gaming News check out the latest on our Front Page here. HOT TOPIC Halo Command - Browser Based Halo Strategy/RPG/Text Based Game Started by a member by the name of Glitch100, Halo Command will be a browser based Halo game involving the aspects of Strategy/RPG/TBRPGs which is what makes it very interesting. I support Halo Command because it's just another step towards bringing back the love for the Halo Universe itself and not just the games and multiplayer which is what everyone's been focusing on since Halo 4 came out. This may not be an official 343 game but it is something to look into. Click the picture to get linked to the Halo Command thread. MEMBER OF THE MONTH September's Member of the Month is a very avid Forger. Coming from Forge Cafe, Zandril is a huge Forge enthusiast and it is his favorite thing about Halo. I'll remind you again that the link to his announcement thread can be found by using the picture now. And please, DO congratulate him. He's a great member and Forger. PS. Yes that is the picture that was used when announcing BZ as June's MoM. PLAY DATES I'm trying to make Play Dates come back NEXT SATURDAY. That is the Saturday after this one coming up. I'm going to try to make it a special event and not just some games on one of the Halos. Keep your eyes PEELED! We still want your Play Date ideas. Post them here. YOUTUBE Halo 4 Pan-Cam Feature! Quite a find by a member by the name of Brett on our site. I've used Brett's video's before in the Wrapup so his name might be familiar to some of you whether it's from seeing it here or watching his videos when he posts them himself. Anyway, the pan-cam feature is pretty awesome. It's only accessible through Theater mode. Just watch that video and leave it a like and maybe comment and tell Brett how much you liked it here. Wrapup concluded. Now scroll back up and read it all over again. View full article

The Xbox One is set to release on November 22nd 2013 according to Xbox360achievements.org and IGN. It will launch for USA, Canada, UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Spain, Germany, France, Italy, Brazil, Austria and Mexico and for every where else will get a 2014 release. Read up on the two articles here http://www.xbox360achievements.org/news/news-16035-Xbox-One-Launch-Date-Finally-Revealed.html http://uk.ign.com/articles/2013/09/04/xbox-one-release-date-to-be-announced-today View full article

This is actually new to me as I have just stumbled upon some news about this Xbox One feature after it has been known for a couple of months, it's called Xbox One upload studio. Xbox One upload studio is a tool that allows users to edit, theme and share videos they have recorded from their video games and present them on their own channel for other gamers to see. Each users channel will most likely be attached to and accessible from that users own Xbox One profile. If you had an amazing, funny or weird moment while playing a game you could record it and upload it to your channel for the Xbox community to see. Quoted from news.xbox.com "At EVO 2013, one fan went undefeated for hours in “Killer Instinct” until at long last the best player on the “Killer Instinct” development team was able to defeat them. Using Game DVR, they were able to record the best parts of the highly competitive set of three matches. With Upload Studio, they were able to quickly turn it into a stylized video clip that could be shown off locally, like during a panel at Comic-Con, or broadcast through Xbox Live for the world to see." "If you want to share gameplay footage immediately without editing it, Xbox One also supports that. Simply say “Xbox record” at any time and the console will record what happens next for you to send to your friends or upload to the Internet." Here is a video from IGN with Xbox's Creative Director Matt White giving a brief walkthrough on how it works. View full article

Microsoft has opened the way for independent developers to use the ID@Xbox program to potentially become a registered XBOX One developer. This type of program is similar to Bugie's Aerospace project that launched back in 2011. The difference here is the ability to produce games directly for a console, given you have a proven record of shipping games for console, PC, phone or tablet use. Here is the story as it originally appeared in eurogamer.net. Microsoft unveils Xbox One indie developer self-publishing program By Wesley Yin-Poole Microsoft has unveiled its Xbox One indie developer self-publishing program. Microsoft said it met with more than 50 developers to learn what they wanted from a self-publishing program, and ID@Xbox, as it's known, is the result. Under the new rules, each registered developer will receive two development kits at no cost, and developers will have access to the full power of the console, cloud services, Kinect and the Xbox Live toolset, which includes Xbox SmartGlass, multiplayer, Achievements and Gamerscore, among other things. Applications to the ID@Xbox Program will be accepted from 20th August at www.xbox.com/id. If a developer is accepted, it will become a registered Xbox One developer. Microsoft said this status will be granted "with priority" to independent game developers "who have a proven track record of shipping games on console, PC, mobile or tablet", suggesting Microsoft has stopped short of creating a true open platform in the vein of the App Store. Crucially, there are no application fees, and as with Xbox 360, there are no fees for certification or title updates. Developers will also benefit from a global support team, headed up by ID@Xbox director Chris Charla. Charla's brief is to maintain personal communication with developers. Community managers will provide quick responses to submissions, and a number of events are planned to explain how the process will work. A chief concern among indie devs is how their games will be discovered by gamers who use the Xbox One. Microsoft said all games are located together on the Xbox One Store, and "rich search scenarios" using voice through Kinect will enable easy discoverability. Trending will showcase what friends and the community are playing, Recommendations will bring forward new games based on what you like to play, Spotlight showcases Editor Picks and, with the Xbox One's Game DVR and Upload feature, new games will be found as gamers capture and share videos. Developers will also be able to create special events out of Achievements and Challenges. The initial phase of the program will begin this autumn, but longer term Microsoft plans to enable any Xbox One console to be used as a development kit for self-publishing purposes. "This means that any hobbyist with a great game idea can make it come to life on Xbox One," Microsoft said. "We know Xbox fans will fall in love with the quality and diversity of games on our platform," Marc Whitten, Xbox Chief Product Officer, said. "We are committed to ID@Xbox and are fully invested in helping independent developers succeed on Xbox One." Microsoft EMEA boss Phil Harrison added: "I am really looking forward to the diversity and creativity of games that will come to Xbox One through the ID@Xbox program. We've worked with the community of developers to craft a platform that helps creators self-publish on Xbox One - irrespective of their size or location." One indie developer already convinced by Microsoft's new initiative is SpyParty creator Chris Hecker: "I'm really excited that Microsoft has listened to feedback from developers and created this program," he said. "As an independent developer, I want SpyParty to be available to as many players as possible, and it feels like Microsoft is interested in not only removing roadblocks for indies to get their games on Xbox One, but they're also genuinely interested in finding ways to bring new and innovative indie games to their platform to help games reach their potential as an art and entertainment form." View full article

When I first read this I kind of laughed, but then thought it is better than nothing. Having to buy a game you already own again just to play it on a the new XBOX One is, well, kind of a put off. I mean you want a game when it first hits the market, then realize you have to shell out another $60.00 for another copy plus the $500.00 for the new console. I guess my initial laugh was based on the thought, "Who is willing to pay $120.00 for a game when they can wait a month or two and get it for $60.00?" The DLC seems hardly any kind of an inducement to pay out that kind of money. I am not the one who could legitimately speak to the new console being backwards compatible for 360 games, but can figure the need for a dual purpose disk reader and supporting hardware/software may not be an easy task or financially viable. Hopefully someone who knows that field better than I can explain that matter. Here is the original story that caught my attention, plus the link to XBOX Wire for the statement in their own words. Microsoft's Xbox 360-One Season Pass Guarantee Most carry across. But there's a catch... By Robert Purchese Thursday, 15 August 2013 story found @ eurogamer.net "Good news*! Companies signing up to Microsoft's Season Pass Guarantee - and the big names apparently are - will give you automatic access to Season Passes for Xbox One games that you've bought on Xbox 360. *There's just one catch: you have to buy the game again on Xbox One. Activision, EA and Ubisoft were mentioned as participating, and Call of Duty: Ghosts and Battlefield 4 were name-dropped. It's better than nothing." story found @ eurogamer.net View full article

Present halo's game mechanics and emphasize the skill personality. I think this is a subtle, but signifigant thing. Halo developers have never really openly just explained certain game mechanics like the overcharge on the plasma pistol or the instant kill for hitting someone from behind. There were hints and tips at the matchmaking lobby for halo 3 and Reach I think, but they were taken out of halo 4. Halo only has so many gameplay dynamics like EMPs and beatdowns. Then there's things like crouch jumping, plasma grenade launching and etc. The main mechanics however are a big part and most new players or even casual veterens won't take the time to read weapon details or experiment, or read the manual. So basically what I'm saying is to really shove those things in our faces. Maybe have it so when you're holding a plasma pistol that there's notification on your HUD that says "Hold__________to charge". There could be an option in settings to turn off weapon hints too. And put in details for weapon descriptions that say things like "Rapidly depletes shields". There is a good bit of players out there, probably all noobs, that don't realize shield dynamics. Bring back hints at the matchmaking screen that say "Headshots for precision weapons only count when energy shields are down" or something. The other topic is emphasizing halo's skill set. Don't amp up auto-aim on snipers, or take things out of the game for the sake of new players. A lot of noobs and players out there already thought and still think halo takes no skill because they can choose to play sloppy and easily get 1 or 2 kills per life. Most of US don't do that though. Noobs don't really think about deep team-play skills when they play halo for some reason. They don't think about using power weapons like the railgun or rocket launcher to take out enemy vehicles and get multi-kills instead of being selfish and wasting them on minor targets. A lot of noobs don't figure out game mechanics either. So it's a seriously false judgement they make saying "Halo takes no skill" or assuming it has no deep dynamics. Really emphasize the skillset and bring back things like the grav-lift equipment, or those other unique weapons with a learning curve like the grenade launcher from Reach. The dominant atmosphere for all games should be having power weapons only on the map in most gametypes, and power-ups on maps more often. Ordanance should be rare, maybe only certain medals like kill-joys and killing sprees earn up to ordnance. By only power weapons on maps I mean rocket launcher, fuel rod, all snipers...things like that. Then weapons like the SAW and shotguns could be ordnances. Bring back active camo as a power-up too. There could be certain ordnance power ups like damage boost and speedboost for ordnance. Since ordnance is harder to get they might last longer or have more effect. Then overshield and active camo could be on the maps.

Microsoft's Xbox chief Marc Whitten posted on xbox.com that a digital sharing system will be coming to Xbox One called "Home Gold". Not long after E3 Microsoft reversed a lot of their policies after a high amount of negative feed back from their fan base one of the features they removed was family sharing, a feature that allowed an Xbox One user to access games from their friends library if they chose to share it with them. Well Microsoft seems to be bringing this feature or a similar feature to the Xbox One which will allow users to access a friends game library from their account. Slashgear article. Home Gold was hinted at earlier this year at E3, and now we have the full details. Although called Home Gold, the feature isn’t necessarily limited to one’s physical home, but instead is applicable to those who are using the Xbox One with the Live Gold subscriber. At the subscriber’s home, the Xbox One console can be setup to enable Live Gold features to other residents regardless of whether the subscriber is logged in to his or her account. Elsewhere, the subscriber can log into their account on a different console (such as at a friend’s house) and extend those same Live Gold features to the other users. Benefits of this include multi-player gaming and access to the entertainment apps. For the gamer’s primary (home) Xbox One, Home Gold is extended to an unlimited number of gamers. Elsewhere, those using the console will have access to the Gold features while the subscriber is logged in. Home Gold aside, Microsoft also detailed the sharing of digital games, which is available amongst the users in one’s home. A single library can harbor games purchased by multiple users, and those users can then log in and play one of those games, even if the original buyer isn’t logged into his or her account. Buying a game on a different Xbox One while signed in will result in the game being made available on the gamer’s own console, and a gamer’s digital downloads can be played on a friend’s console by signing in. The statement also specifies that most of the digital games don’t require the gamer to be connected to the Internet, but that the “experience” is better if one is. IGN video. View full article

Source-XBOX Our own Major Nelson has created a special surprise and we couldn’t be more pumped to share this video with you. It’s kind of like opening that Christmas gift you’ve been eyeing under the tree, or the birthday surprise you’ve been awaiting. That’s right – we present to you – the unboxing of Xbox One. While working on this video, we uncovered several cool facts about Xbox One and the components that ship in the box. Below are my top favorites…make sure you keep reading below for other insider details from Albert Penello, our director of product planning for Xbox One. In the video, we are unveiling the Xbox One Day One edition – which includes a special Day One package, specially branded DAY ONE 2013 controller with chrome D-pad, and a Day One digital achievement. This will be available in limited quantities. The Xbox One console, Kinect sensor – even the HDMI cable and the power supply - have a “liquid black” finish, with a focus on a consistent 16:9 design ratio across all components. This attention to detail was intentional and a great example of how every component in the box was especially designed for Xbox One. You can hear more about our attention to design details from our design team here. The Xbox One console is state of the art - a 500GB hard drive, slot load Blu-ray drive, IR blaster port, HDMI input and output connectors, a S/PDIF interface, new Kinect sensor port, three USB 3.0 Super Speed ports, Wired and Wireless network support and a Kensington Security Slot. Of course, what’s most important is what the console can do – if you haven’t checked out the latest product details on Xbox.com, you should. The all new Kinect has improved gesture and voice control, 1080p color HD camera for video with Skype and a greater field of view. On-board sensors improve fidelity of the depth-sensing and low-light visibility, along with a four microphone array and IR blasting capability. The Xbox One controller offers over 40 design improvements, including a redesigned D-pad for accuracy, redesigned thumb sticks for better grip and control, new menu and view buttons, redesigned triggers and bumpers for accuracy and comfort, as well as exclusive impulse triggers for haptic feedback. The new integrated battery compartment on the Xbox One controller blends seamlessly into the back, offering better comfort. You can play wirelessly with standard AA or rechargeable AA batteries, or via the standard micro USB port for wired gameplay. The micro USB cable will charge the batteries if you are using the Xbox One Play & Charge Kit (it will not charge generic rechargeable AA batteries). The chat on Xbox One offers 3x the sampling rate of the Xbox 360. The quality of the Xbox One Chat Headset speaker and microphone have been upgraded to take advantage of the much improved audio quality. It’s also super lightweight-only 44g-with a padded earpiece that can be worn on either your left or right ear, and a bendable, rotating mic boom. You can control mute and volume without taking your hands off the controller. Of course, a HDMI cable, a power supply and a Quick Start Guide are included as well. Here’s a few other insider details – straight from Albert Penello, our director of product planning for Xbox One: When we say 4K HDMI cable, we mean it. The HDMI cable we’re including is an actual Category 2 HDMI cable, rated for 1080P, 3D and 4K, according to the HDMI 1.4 spec. The built-in wireless on Xbox 360 just supported single-band A/B/G/N @ 2.4ghz. The Xbox One wireless radio is A/B/G/N, but supports dual-band 2.4ghz and 5ghz frequencies. The console shown in the video is one of the first production units – less than 20 exist in the world (and yes, this box has the 853mhz GPU). When you plug a micro-USB cable into the controller for wired gameplay, the internal radio is actually shut off, transmitting data through the wire. You can even use the controller without batteries in this mode. This post has been promoted to an article

Pretty much all of us were freaking out over the DRM. Now that it's gone it's A-OK right? We'll to have a policy that was worked on for YEARS to just be completely dropped in a couple hours... that's whats worrying me. Don't get me wrong I'm happy for the removal, but what does this mean to the Console? Could it be anything bad? Well for some of us it is... I'll just let some articles explain this I'm way too tired to type all this crap. quoted from: http://www.ibtimes.com/xbox-one-3-biggest-features-we-lost-result-microsofts-180-1316783 http://kotaku.com/xbox-one-drm-reversal-cuts-features-requires-one-time-514419715 Xbox One DRM Reversal Cuts Features, Requires One-Time Connection "Microsoft announced that it has reversed course on used games and DRM with the Xbox One. While one could interpret that as a win for consumers and journalists, Redmond, Wash.'s big 180 comes at a considerable price. Here are 3 features we're losing as a result of the switch. 1. Your games library can't be accessed from any Xbox One besides you're own: Prior to the reversal, you would have been able to play your entire games library from any Xbox One, not just yours. That will no longer be possible. Games you purchase digitally can be played from any Xbox One. 2. Disc-based games now need to be in the system to play them: Before Microsoft announced the Xbox One changes, the system was designed to allow you to play games sans disc. Not anymore. So you better take care of them, or else. 3. Downloaded games cannot be shared or resold: So much for letting someone else play your games while you're on vacation, at work or at school. While you can share your discs with anyone at will, anything you download will be bound to you. It's possible that Microsoft can choose to resurrect some of these features in different forms or add new ones between now and the Xbox One's release. At this point though, these are the losses we're incurring as a result of the Great 180. Microsoft clarifies that the planned day-one Xbox One update will "complete some of the software that won’t be there," is actually not a result of today's DRM policy change. Rather, it was always planned and will simply be required for playing off-line, among other things. Not a patch, they say. But, yes, your new Xbox console would have to connect online once in order to do the things Microsoft described today. And then you can keep it offline and play games without re-connecting to the Internet forever." Okay for at least the people wanting these features... how does removing them affect you?

Okay So, they have announced that Halo 5 is an exclusive to Xbox One, and will come out only for it just so people come over to the Xbox one, I can see why but, I plead of 343industries at least to make like a copy of Halo 5 maybe a bit of a while after the official release on 360? It would be so awesome!

I don't know about you guys but I saw some awesome things that I really liked about Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag at E3. I'm a big fan of Assassin's Creed since the first one and I just got back into AC3. I came across some multiplayer footage from IGN just today and I gotta say it looks great. New game modes, maps, graphics of course, theme. The whole pirate thing is pretty badass. Here's the video by IGN that shows off the Multiplayer. It's got some funky music but don't be repelled by that please just stick it through and watch the video haha. Check out these awesome trailers for Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag and tell me what you think of the game. By IGN By IGN By AssassinsCreed Display your love for the games below.