xbox

Gears of War: Judgment has turned at least one aspect of game creation on its head, according to a behind-the-scenes video about the upcoming game for Xbox 360.

The 7-minute video sheds light on how the shooting game's co-developers, Epic Games and People Can Fly, integrated the two lead writers early in the game's creation -- instead of adding dialog and conversation later in the process.

Rob Auten and Tom Bissell, the lead writers for the fourth iteration of the game, spent a year creating 20,000 spoken lines for Judgment, which they estimate clocking in somewhere near 100,000 words. There are only about 17 minutes of cinematic cut scenes, so a lot of the dialog occurs during gameplay. Players can also increase the difficulty of levels in Judgment, and these experiences contain different script material for enhanced replay value. … Read more

Indie movie makers Adam Hamdy and Shaun Magher are bringing a full-feature comedy film to the Xbox Live -- exclusively.

The film, "Pulp," premiered today on Xbox Live. The comedy follows Tony Leary, a "nice-guy owner of Junk Comics," who assists police to help them bring to justice a gang of "Geordie criminals" who want to use another comic company to launder money. Leary is joined "by his trusty geek sidekicks," Rick and Keith.

Although "Pulp" might be a good movie in its own right, the big story behind the film is that it is premiering on Xbox Live. Although a slew of movies are available on Microsoft's service, none has shown first there -- until now.… Read more

Want to toss YouTube videos from your phone to your TV? You got it. It's called "Send to TV," and it's a feature of Google's YouTube app that Android users have had for some time.

But now that Google has rolled the feature out to Apple's iOS devotees, and expanded support for more streaming devices, the feature is seeing a second wind.

But how do you do make it all work? Well, I gave it a shot with an iPhone 5 and the YouTube App for Xbox, but it could just as well have … Read more

Sony PlayStation 4 The current hot topic in console gaming, the just-announced PlayStation 4, is still largely an enigma. We don't know how much the PS4 will cost, when it's being released (beyond "holiday 2013"), or even what it looks like.

For now, it's still the next-gen hardware to beat, and what little we do know sounds impressive, with an entirely new system architecture based on an X86 AMD CPU/GPU that should make the PS4 easier to develop for and more flexible (and, frankly, more PC-like).

But 2013 will take the traditional three-way console … Read more

Minecraft is to my 25-year-old self as Legos were to my 5-year-old self: a time-sucking, mind-bending, and sleep-depriving experience in the simplest of activities. It hits the right tune on the subject of creation: it really does provide building blocks for your imagination.

Minecraft has no real direction, anchoring plot, or specific guidelines. Players are dropped into a world with only the ability to carve out resources from the surrounding land; you're a miner (duh!).

The game's graphics won't impress, but leaves you with one direction and focus: to build. Soon you'll find out that as … Read more

Editor's note: It's official. Microsoft has announced the future of Xbox (and the next console) will be revealed at an event in Redmond, Washington on May 21.

Press events are a tricky beast. No one ever said they were easy to pull off. But with Sony casting the first stone in the next-generation console gaming war, Microsoft can learn a lot from what worked and what didn't.

When the lights went up, Sony execs were shaking hands and congratulating each other. But the packed house at … Read more

Gamers have a lot to be excited about this year. The Sony PlayStation 4 just became official, and the announcement for the next-generation Microsoft Xbox can't be far behind.

But consoles alone aren't that interesting. What 2013 really needs are some great games.

A few weeks back, CNET's Senior Associate Games Editor Jeff Bakalar presented 25 of the most anticipated games of the year. To up the ante, I asked him to pick his favorite five from the list and rank them by degrees of anticipation.

So here you go. In this week's Top 5 I'… Read more

Microsoft has extended its streak of console sales leadership into its third year.

Research firm NPD yesterday released its game-market sales for January. Microsoft led U.S. console sales for the 25th consecutive month, tallying 281,000 units sold. At that sales level, Microsoft was able to grab 44 percent console market share. All told, consumers spent $338 million on Xbox 360 hardware, software, and accessories during the period.

Despite the Xbox 360's specific success, overall hardware sales for all devices were down 17 percent compared with January 2012, reaching $205 million during the period. Software sales hit $373.… Read more