According to Thurrott's Brad Sams, Microsoft is still developing a low-cost, cloud-based Xbox console. "Sams suggests the low-power box will be just capable enough to allow a player to 'move around in a virtual environment,' but crucially, game elements like NPCs, interactables, text and even graphics won't be there," reports VG247. From the report: This is obviously not playable, but the idea is that having movement calculations run locally reduces input lag compared to a 100% streamed game. Though this might make technical sense, it's hard to imagine the company pushing this hard unless the difference is really perceptible. Of course, there's a lot we still don't know about the streaming market, and some segment of that audience may opt to pay $80 or so to get an experience better than running the game through a web browser.

President Donald Trump's plan to increase tariffs on goods produced in China would affect a wide range of consumer goods. One gadget that could see a price increase because of a trade war is the video game consoles, and the three biggest companies behind consoles have come together to ask Trump for a pass. From a report: Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony sent a letter dated June 17 to the Office of the United States Trade Representative requesting that video game consoles be removed from the list of products covered by tariffs. The companies say a tariff on consoles would stifle innovation and harm the larger gaming ecosystem -- threatening jobs and injuring consumers, video game developers and retailers. Microsoft makes the Xbox console, Nintendo makes the Switch, and Sony makes the PlayStation. "While we appreciate the administration's efforts to protect US intellectual property and preserve US high-tech leadership," the three companies said in the letter, "the disproportionate harm caused by these tariffs to US consumers and businesses will undermine -- not advance -- these goals."

At the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) on Wednesday, Netflix shared details of its plans to develop its original shows into video games. Hollywood Reporter reports: Among the program of upcoming games, Stranger Things 3: The Game was highlighted, described by Netflix as "an adventure game that blends a distinctively retro art style with modern gameplay mechanics to deliver nostalgic fun with a fresh new twist." Playing as a character from the show, the user will be tasked with solving puzzles and battling the Mind Flayer. Dave Pottinger, CEO and co-founder of BonusXP, shared that the game will feature old-school graphics.

Two characters from the game were revealed at the panel: Max, who will exhibit karate kicks and the ability to add fire damage to those kicks; and Eleven, described by Chris Lee, director of Interactive Games at Netflix, as "the most powerful character in the game" -- she will have psychic push power. The game will launch on July 4 and be available on Nintendo Switch, Playstation 4, Xbox One and other consoles. In addition, a special announcement was made at the panel about a Stranger Things mobile hybrid RPG/puzzle game that will launch in 2020. The game is a collaboration with Next Games, which is based out of Helsinki, Finland. Stranger Things isn't the only show that's planning to have its own game. "Netflix show The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance Tactics is also set to become a 'turn-based tactics' game challenging fans to recruit an army and act as their commander in a series of campaign battles," the report adds. "No specific date was mentioned, but the game will launch this year on various consoles."

Project Scarlett is the next Microsoft video game console. Phil Spencer, executive vice president of gaming at the company, announced the hardware during Microsoft's E3 2019 press briefing. From a report: "The console should be optimized for one thing and one thing only," said Spencer, "gaming." Spencer explained the console has been developed by the team responsible for the Xbox One X. A promotional video featuring various Xbox employees promised variable refresh rates, real-time ray tracing, 8K resolution and frame rates up to 120 frames per second, and a new SSD that has upwards of 40 times better performance over the current generation. The tech at the heart of the console -- which Microsoft said is four times as powerful as the Xbox One X -- will be a custom chip based on AMD's Zen 2 and Navi technology.

"So that Blair Witch reboot wasn't very good. But maybe a video game could change things up?" writes Engadget. Mashable has more details: Remember The Blair Witch Project, that viral horror sensation that made waves before social media was even a thing? Well, it's back. And it's an Xbox game.

Microsoft debuted a first look trailer for Blair Witch during its annual E3 press conference, and it's coming from Layers of Fear developer Bloober. We don't know much. It returns you to the Black Hills Forest, the site of the movie. There's a camcorder. Also, a dog.

I fear for that dog.
Kotaku writes that "According to the description the game will be a 'first-person, story-driven psychological horror game based on the cinematic lore of Blair Witch.'"

An anonymous reader quotes VentureBeat: CD Projekt Red showed off a new demo of Cyberpunk 2077 at Microsoft's Xbox press event at the Electronic Entertainment Expo, the big game trade show in Los Angeles. And actor Keanu Reeves surprised everyone by coming out on stage to say that he would be in it. The trailer reveals one of the key characters of Cyberpunk 2077, Johnny Silverhand. The legendary rockerboy is played by Reeves (The Matrix trilogy, John Wick series, Johnny Mnemonic). In addition to his appearance and voice, Reeves is also providing full-body motion capture for the character. The game debuts on April 16, 2020...

We all know that CD Projekt Red has a hell of a game in Cyberpunk 2077, which the company revealed in a 48-minute gameplay video last year. The video showed an amazingly detailed open world, as the narrator said the ambition was to create "the most believable city in any open world to date." I interpreted that as a shot across the bow of Rockstar Games and the Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption teams, as Cyberpunk 2077 was as incredibly hyper detailed as any Rockstar game I've ever seen. It's the only game I've seen with such density of interaction and the realism integrity of Grand Theft Auto V and Red Dead Redemption 2....

Last year's demo of the upcoming game promised deeper the details of the open world, with fascinating futuristic touches such as cranial chip implants, robotic body modifications, hyperfast video communications, and surveillance drones. The dystopic city seemed like a living thing, and the choices for getting things done seemed like they had no limits. You could be as peaceful or violent as you wished... It's a mature game, aimed at adults who can deal with subjects like nudity, drugs, and murder.

Apple CEO Tim Cook today announced that the company is expanding Apple TV controller support to include "two of the best and most popular game controllers available, Xbox One S and PlayStation DualShock 4" with the next tvOS update. Unfortunately, as Ars Technica notes, this "does not include original Xbox One control pads that shipped with the 2013 version of the system -- only the Bluetooth-enabled controller update that premiered alongside Microsoft's One S update in 2016 will work with Apple TV." From the report: The announcement, which drew large and sustained applause in the presentation hall, comes nearly four years after Apple's second-generation Apple TV became the company's first foray into TV-based gaming since the ill-fated Pippin. At launch, Apple TV games were required to support the hardware's touchpad-focused, tilt-sensitive remote, and those games could optionally support any number of MFi controllers already designed for mobile iOS hardware. While Apple reversed that decision in mid-2016 to allow for MFi-exclusive games, Apple TV game developers continue to complain about the fragmented control landscape on Apple's set-top box.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Microsoft has spent years pushing developers to create special apps for the company's Universal Windows Platform (UWP), and today, it's putting the final nail in the UWP coffin. Microsoft is finally allowing game developers to bring full native Win32 games to the Microsoft Store, meaning the many games that developers publish on popular stores like Steam don't have to be rebuilt for UWP.

This is a big shift for Microsoft's Windows app store, particularly because games are one of the most popular forms of apps that are downloaded from app stores. Previously, developers were forced to publish games for Windows 10 through the Universal Windows Platform, which simply doesn't have the same level of customization that game developers have come to expect from Windows over the years. The writing has been on the wall for UWP for months now. Microsoft recently revealed its effort to switch the company's Edge browser to Chromium and away from UWP to make it available on Windows 7, Windows 8, and macOS. Microsoft's Joe Belfiore admitted in an interview with The Verge earlier this month that UWP was a "headwind" for Edge. "It's not that UWP is bad, but UWP is not a 35-year-old mature platform that a ridiculously huge amount of apps have been written to," Belfiore said at the time. Microsoft even recently put its touch-friendly UWP versions of Office on hold, preferring to focus on the web, iOS, Android, and its desktop apps instead. Office was always the centerpiece for UWP and a good example of how to build a more demanding app on Microsoft's new platform. Microsoft is finally listening to app and game developers and not trying to force UWP on them anymore. "Ultimately, this is good news for both developers and Windows users," the report concludes. "We might now start to see more games in the Microsoft Store that work how PC gamers expect them to and hopefully more apps."

Microsoft says it's committed to supporting competing PC game stores and it's announcing today that it will distribute more Xbox Game Studios titles through Valve's Steam marketplace. From a report: Typically, Microsoft has distributed its games through only Xbox Live on its game console platform and through its own Windows storefront on PC. Now, Microsoft says it wants to better support player choice and let customers buy games in more than one destination on PC. "Our intent is to make our Xbox Game Studios PC games available in multiple stores, including our own Microsoft Store on Windows, at their launch. We believe you should have choice in where you buy your PC games," writes Xbox chief Phil Spencer in a blog post announcing the shift in strategy. The move follows Microsoft's decision earlier this year to publish its upcoming PC port of Halo: The Master Chief Collection on Steam.

Microsoft today shared more details about its Project xCloud game streaming service, revealing that developers won't have to make any modifications to their games for their titles to be supported by xCloud. From a report: That means that technically, Project xCloud supports the over 3,500 games that are playable on the Xbox One, even including the Backward Compatibility list. That means that Xbox and Xbox 360 games will work as well. Moreover, Microsoft said that there are over 1,900 games in development for the Xbox One, so that brings the total to well over 5,000 games. And when a game is updated on the Xbox Store, it's automatically updated for xCloud. Of course, the key words to pay attention to in the blog post are "technical capability." Just because a game is technically able to stream doesn't mean that it will. Presumably, this will be left up to the developer.

As Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and other social platforms come under fire for enabling hateful speech, Microsoft is stepping up to thwart toxic comments among its 63 million Xbox live users. From a report: Microsoft needs to make sure Xbox players don't hear or see content that might turn off users, or scare younger players away. Microsoft is making these moves after the ascent of the Gamergate controversy, which led to people harassing and making threats against women. The changes follow Microsoft's recent update to its Xbox "community standards" for gameplay, which pointed out several practices that aren't acceptable. Now it's taking that a step further with moderation tools.

"This summer, we are empowering our official Club community managers with proactive content moderation features that will help create safe spaces for fans to discuss their favorite games," Microsoft's executive vice president of gaming, Phil Spencer, said Monday. "We plan to roll out new content moderation experiences to everyone on Xbox Live by the end of 2019." Xbox Live has 63 million monthly active users, and the service includes groups where people can post content and submit comments, along with chat rooms. "Our industry must now answer the fierce urgency to play with our fierce urgency for safety," he added.

dryriver writes: For capitalism to work for consumers in a beneficial way, the big players have to compete hard against each other and innovate courageously. What appears to be happening instead, however, is that every year almost everybody is making roughly the same product at roughly the same price point. Most 4K TVs at the same price point have the same features -- there is little to distinguish manufacturer A from manufacturer B. Ditto for smartphones -- nobody suddenly puts a 3D scanning capable lightfield camera, shake-the-phone-to-charge-it or something similarly innovative into their next phone. Ditto for game consoles -- Xbox and Playstation are not very different from each other at all. Nintendo does "different," but underpowers its hardware. Ditto for laptops -- the only major difference I see in laptops is the quality of the screen panel used and of the cooling system. The last laptop with an auto stereoscopic 3D screen I have seen is the long-discontinued Toshiba Satellite 3D. Ditto for CPUs and GPUs -- it doesn't really matter whether you buy Intel, AMD, or Nvidia. There is nothing so "different" or "distinct" in any of the electronics they make that it makes you go "wow, that is truly groundbreaking." Ditto for sports action cameras, DSLRs, portable storage and just about everything else "tech." So where precisely -- besides pricing and build-quality differences -- is the competition in what these companies are doing? Shouldn't somebody be trying to "pull far ahead of the pack" or "ahead of the curve" with some crazy new feature that nobody else has? Or is true innovation in tech simply dead now?

EA Access -- Electronic Arts' unlimited game subscription service that lets players access a massive library of EA games -- is finally coming to the PlayStation 4 this July, almost five years after it launched on the Xbox One. From a report: Like the current Xbox offering, EA Access for the PS4 costs either $4.99 per month or $29.99 per year. In addition to unlimited access to EA's vault of games, Access also comes with other perks, including a 10 percent discount on full-priced EA game purchases as well as early trials of upcoming EA games. EA Access for PS4 will be a separate account from EA Access for Xbox One. So if you're already paying for Access on your Xbox, you will have to pay a second monthly fee to play those games on your PS4.

Microsoft Solitaire, bundled with the Windows operating system since 1990, has been inducted into the World Video Game Hall of Fame for its popularity and influence on other video games and society in general. It joins classic titles like Doom, Tetris, World of Warcraft, and Halo: Combat Evolved. The Verge reports: The World Video Game Hall of Fame is a relatively new institution, created in 2015 and overseen by educational institute The Strong. Its official home is in The National Museum of Play in Rochester, New York, and each year it selects a handful of new inductees. Solitaire may be a video game for the ages, but its inclusion in Windows had a higher purpose. The developers of the operating system felt that the familiar game was the perfect way to introduce users to relatively new computing concepts, like using a mouse and drag-and-drop. By playing Solitaire, users honed more than their card skills: a win-win for all.

Solitaire was first bundled with Windows 3.0 and appeared in every subsequent version of the software up until Windows 8.1. It was removed from the base level operating system, but was returned in Windows 10 after Microsoft admitted that Solitaire, along with Minesweeper and Hearts, still have "devoted followings." Because of its inclusion in the world's most popular PC operating system, lowly Solitaire has likely been installed on more than one billion devices, says the Strong Museum, making it one of the most popular video games of all time. "Microsoft Solitaire demonstrated that there existed a vast market for games that appeal to people of all types, paving the way for the growth of the casual game market," said the institute in a press statement. "We are humbly honored to have the opportunity to work on a game that has such broad appeal, is localized into 65 languages, and played in over 200 markets around the world, including Antarctica," said Microsoft's Paul Jensen, studio manager for Microsoft Casual Games.

"Looking for some new sick burns to throw out at other players on Xbox Live? Microsoft's got you covered," reports Motherboard: In its new community standards, published this week, the company's got some examples of acceptable trash talk, including gems like:

- Get destroyed. Can't believe you thought you were on my level.

- That was some serious potato aim. Get wrecked.

- Only reason you went positive was you spent all game camping. Try again, kid.

- Cheap win. Come at me when you can actually drive without running cars off the road.

- That sucked. Get good and then come back when your k/d's over 1....

"We get it -- gaming can be competitive and interactions with other players can get heated," the community standards state. "A little trash talk is an expected part of compe titive multiplayer action, and that's not a bad thing. But hate has no place here, and what's not okay is when that trash talk turns into harassment." Microsoft defines acceptable trash talk as "light-hearted banter or bragging" that's focused directly on the game and "encourages healthy competition." Harassment is "negative behavior that's personalized, disruptive, or likely to make someone feel unwelcome or unsafe..."

For breaking the rules, players can expect consequences, but Microsoft is hesitant to call it a punishment "We're not out to punish, but rather to protect everyone's experience," the standards note. For every "corrective action" -- which the standards state could be a suspension, or a restriction on the ability to send messages or stream live -- Microsoft wants its players to learn from their mistakes; players will be welcomed back to the community to prove they've changed their ways, the company says. But that doesn't mean every abusive gamer will be welcomed back into the fold. Repeat offenders or particularly severe abuse will garner a permanent suspension, the standards state, which requires the profile owner to "forfeit all licenses for games and other content, Gold membership time, and Microsoft account balances."

Microsoft is about to launch an even cheaper Xbox One S. In order to cut costs, the company is removing the Blu-ray disc drive altogether. According to leaked marketing images spotted by WinFuture, the console could launch on May 7th for $258 in Germany. From a report: Given that the launch is just a few weeks away and that those marketing images line up perfectly with previous rumors, chances are this is the real deal. As you can see on WinFuture's images, it looks exactly like an Xbox One S without the disc slot. The console is called Xbox One S All Digital and comes with a 1TB hard drive -- most standard Xbox One S consoles currently also feature a 1TB hard drive. Microsoft states clearly that this console is only for digital games. If you already have physical Xbox One games, you wonâ(TM)t be able to insert them in the console.

An anonymous reader quotes Variety: The United Kingdom's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is launching a consumer law investigation into video game companies Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo over some of their business practices, it announced on Friday.

The CMA is concerned about whether or not some of the companies' practices are legal, including their use of auto-renewals for subscription services like Xbox Live, PlayStation Plus, and Nintendo Switch Online. It's also looking into their cancellation and refund policies and their terms and conditions. It said it's written to Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft requesting information on their online gaming contracts and it's calling on people who use these services to tell the CMA about their experiences.

Microsoft is planning on launching a new Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription that combines Xbox Live Gold and Xbox Game Pass into a single monthly charge. From a report: Twitter user h0x0d first revealed the new Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription, and it claims the service will be priced at $14.99 per month. The Verge understands that Microsoft will likely unveil this service alongside the company's new disc-less Xbox One S All-Digital edition later this month. The combination of Xbox Game Pass and Xbox Live subscriptions into a single monthly charge means Xbox owners will save around $5 per month compared to the $19.98 monthly subscription price for an existing combination of the two. It's not a massive savings, but the new Xbox Game Pass Ultimate offering will make a lot of sense for Microsoft's new disc-less Xbox One S since this console won't include a Blu-ray drive and will rely heavily on digital downloads and Xbox subscription services.

Microsoft announced its Xcloud game-streaming service last August, with the ambition of streaming console-quality games to gamers wherever they are. Yesterday, Google made its foray into the space with the announcement of Stadia. Google promises that Stadia will be "coming [in] 2019," potentially stealing a march on Xcloud, which is due only to enter public trials this year. But in an internal email sent to rally the troops, Phil Spencer, Microsoft's gaming chief, seemed unsurprised and apparently unconcerned. He wrote: We just wrapped up watching the Google announcement of Stadia as team here at GDC. Their announcement is validation of the path we embarked on two years ago.. Today we saw a big tech competitor enter the gaming market, and frame the necessary ingredients for success as Content, Community and Cloud. There were no big surprises in their announcement although I was impressed by their leveraging of YouTube, the use of Google Assistant and the new WiFi controller.

But I want get back to us, there has been really good work to get us to the position where we are poised to compete for 2 billion gamers across the planet. Google went big today and we have a couple of months until E3 when we will go big. We have to stay agile and continue to build with our customer at the center. We have the content, community, cloud team and strategy, and as I've been saying for a while, it's all about execution. This is even more true today. Energizing times.

Earlier today, Google launched its long-awaited "Stadia" cloud gaming service at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. Unlike services from Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo, Stadia is powered by Google's worldwide data centers, allowing users to play games across a variety of platforms -- browsers, computers, TVs, and mobile devices -- all via the internet at a 4K resolution. One major problem with Stadia, which Google didn't mention in its presentation, is that it will require a ton of bandwidth, testing the limits of data caps that most U.S. internet service providers have.

"Most US ISPs cap their customers' bandwidth usage, usually somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 GB per month. And streaming 4K content eats up about 7GB an hour," Steve Bowling from YouTube gaming channel GameXplain tweeted. "And that's based on Netflix's publicly available guidelines for 4K video content, which is shot at 24 fps, a far cry from 60fps, meaning content at 4k60 could be more costly." He added: "Your average consumer likely isn't rocking a 100Mbps+ connection, and in some parts of America such options aren't even available, limiting Stadia's potential reach. And if you are, that cap can come at you fast, especially considering most folks are going to use their internet for more than just streaming games. Most ISPs offer additional data at a premium, but how many are going to want to pay that premium to stream 4K games?"

What's unknown is whether or not Google will work with ISPs to help alleviate this concern. PCWord also notes that there's no option to download and install a game if you want, which is an option available on Steam's streaming service. "You're always streaming it, and presumably copies sold through the Google Play store won't come with more traditional versions from other storefronts," reports PCWorld. "You're either all-in on Stadia and streaming or you're not."

UPDATE: A Google spokesperson told Kotaku they were able to deliver 1080p, 60 FPS gameplay for users with 25 Mbps connections. They also said that they expect Stadia to deliver 4K, 60 FPS for people with "approximately the same bandwidth requirements." How exactly they will achieve this is still unclear.