Microsoft

PERSPECTIVE At this morning’s Xbox One reveal in Redmond, Wash., the new “Call of Duty” game received an extended preview and a new game titled “Quantum Break” was given a giant promotional push. But the biggest star of Microsoft’s news conference to showcase  its Xbox 360 successor was a film director, one who spoke only via a pre-filmed video. Steven Spielberg, it was divulged this morning, will executive produce an original “Halo” television series based on the popular video game franchise that’s long been tied to the Xbox ecosystem. “For me, the ‘Halo’ universe is an amazing opportunity to be at the intersection where technology and storytelling meet,” Spielberg said, adding that he’s been interested in games since the era of “Pong” and that they have now evolved, technologically speaking, to a point where interactive storytelling is at its most […]

Microsoft on Tuesday is unveiling the successor to the Xbox 360 at a news event at its Redmond, Wash., campus, pulling back the curtain on its home console plans just weeks before the June Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles. Hero Complex will be live blogging the news right here on this starting at 10 a.m. Updates will be posted below. We’ll be working fast, so please forgive any typos. Microsoft is the last of the major home console makers to disclose its next generation system. Nintendo’s Wii U was released in late 2012 and Sony threw a lavish press event in February to announce its PS4, although Sony didn’t actually show the system in action. Rumors of new Xbox features have included some form of new embedded Kinect, always-on Web integration and the ability to act as a cable box. Both the new […]

Pick almost any year since 2005 in cinema, and it can pretty safely be labeled the year of the superhero. In much the same way, video games have been celebrating the year of the first-person shooter genre for at least half a decade. Despite the glut, not many of those gaming titles can make you cry, but “The Unfinished Swan” just might. The latter is from the perspective of a 9-year-old boy, one who just lost his mother and wants to make his father proud. His weapon? A magic paintbrush. It’s a moving narrative that is just one small part of a shifting conversation on the gaming landscape. Ever since Nintendo’s 2006 console the Wii and the explosion of the mobile and tablet gaming sector penetrated the market, the race has changed. Titles such as Telltale’s “The Walking Dead,” Thatgamecompany’s […]

Technology-enhanced super-soldier Master Chief has always been efficient, even by military standards. Drop the “Halo” protagonist on any alien-infested setting featured in the last three games and he can make it safe for human colonization. For “Halo 4 ” though, the first in the blockbuster Xbox series to be developed entirely by Microsoft, the game’s action hero is suddenly confronted with a problem that can’t be obliterated by human or alien weaponry: loneliness. Master Chief, who is essentially to the Xbox ecosystem what Mario is to the Nintendo universe, begins the game adrift, lost in space, with nary a response to his ship’s distress signal. It’s where “Halo 3″ left off, and Microsoft’s 343 Industries adds new facets to the narrative by infusing a sense of humanity to the line-’em-up, shoot-’em-down franchise instead of simply altering gameplay. Though “Halo” lore […]