MARIO

The most obvious choice there is. Mainline Mario games are, of course, platformers, but there’s just so much Nintendo has done with this series. From kart racing with Mario Kart to RPGs with Paper Mario and Mario and Luigi, to puzzle games with Dr. Mario, to part games with Mario Party, to sports titles with Mario Tennis, and so, so much more, Mario has tried its hand at an impossible number of things, and proved to be successful in most of its attempts.

Microsoft’s big problem with their first party is that they imbibe the worst of Sony and Nintendo- they stick with the same handful of franchises, but they are very safe with them, so you get the same few brands redone over and over, with the same style of gameplay. Which can… get tiring after a while.

But it seems like Microsoft wants to change that going forward. Speaking to MCVUK, Matt Booty, the new head of first party games for Microsoft and Xbox, has confirmed that the company is looking at branching out a bit with its core brands, but that they need to do it very carefully.

“We’re very lucky to have a number of established franchises,” Booty said. “When you think about Minecraft, Halo and Forza, each has over a decade or almost a decade of foundation underneath them. We need to use those franchises as a home base from which we can expand. That strength lets us branch out and take risks with them.

“With games being as large as they are, with the move to games as an ongoing service… It is difficult to pivot quickly and try to chase after trends that might happen even on the scale of a year. In business terms a year can be a long time, but development time being three to four years these days, that’s the span we need to think about. We’ve got to get our strategic long-term bets, our game development cycles and the things our players like to do in sync. And that will set us up for success.”

I appreciate the whole idea, of course- but the thing is, they need to try and look at making games beyond just those brands, and they need to try and make discrete games again. Booty says Microsoft won’t chase trends, but that is all they seem to have done in the last few years- meanwhile, Sony and Nintendo have moved from strength to strength, thanks to them making unique games that play up their strengths, and not necessarily giving in to larger market trends. That is, really, what Microsoft needs to do, too.

At E3 this year, Microsoft announced their Xbox Anywhere initiative, an ambitious cross play program that will put all Microsoft games on Xbox One and on Windows 10, allowing for cross compatibility between the two versions- to the extent that buying one version nets you the other, to the extent that your progress and Achievements across both versions are synched, to the extent that both versions will seamlessly interact with one another.

Now, Microsoft have confirmed that all games published by them going forward will be on PC, as well as on Xbox One- this means that Xbox will indeed have no true exclusives from now on (unless some third party developer decides to make a game only for Xbox in the future for some reason); it also means that highly vaunted Microsoft franchises like Halo shall be available on PC again at last.

So, when Halo 6 is eventually released? It will be on PC. Ditto with Forza 7. Ditto with any other Microsoft game you might care to think of. Now if only Microsoft would go back and release some older Xbox One games like Sunset Overdrive and Halo 5 on PC, too…

Of all the big Microsoft franchises for the Xbox, Forza is the only one that has truly been exclusive- Halo’s first two games and Spartan Assault all showed up on PC, as did the original Gears of War games, and Fable, Fable III, and Fable Legends are all going to be on PC too. But Forza has, so far, been available only on Xbox hardware and nowhere else.

Well, that may be about to change soon, as it appears that there are rumblings that Microsoft will announce Forza for PC at GDC this year. At least, Worlds Factory seems to believe so, and while the article is mostly speculation, it does manage to make a compelling case for itself.

Put simply, their reasoning is based on multiple factors: Turn 10’s Software Architect Chris Tector being the opening speaker for Microsoft’s DirectX 12 keynote last year, and hinting at console style games coming to PC thanks to DX12 some time soon; Tector being one of two speakers for a Microsoft panel session titled ‘Developing Games for Windows 10’ (and really, he has never developed a game for the PC so far, why would he be one of the speakers? Unless he did have some insight into Windows 10 development); and finally, because of something Microsoft themselves said about bringing more of their franchises over to PC once they announced Fable Legends for PC back at their Windows 10 event in January.

Put simply, it appears to be a lot of things pointing towards a PC debut for Microsoft’s racing sim series; will it actually happen, though, or is this all just flimsy, circumstantial evidence?

Today we have for you not one but two new videos of Forza Motorsport 5, the fifth entry in Microsoft and Turn 10’s flagship racing sim franchise that will be launching alongside the Xbox One. This new direct feed footage, which the videos are careful to remind us is ‘1080p and 60 FPS,’ shows us some pretty exciting driving going on at the Silverstone Racing Circuit, and then at the Indianapolis 500 track.

As always, the game looks like good fun, although the more footage I see, the more disappointed I get that it is not quite as ‘next gen’ graphically speaking as I would have expected a new Forza game to look. I understand that they were working against a very tight deadline considering the game is a launch title, and it is amazing what Turn 10 have been able to push out already, but still.

Stay tuned to GamingBolt for more coverage.

Turn 10 have announced the ‘Car Pass’ for Forza Motorsport 5, which will enable players to keep up with the various car packs that the developer plans on releasing for the game as DLC over the next few months.

“Each month, we’ll be bringing you a new car pack, featuring ten cars to collect, drive, and customize in Forza Motorsport 5,” the developer wrote on the official Forza website. “In addition, just like each car that comes on disc in Forza 5, every add-on car will feature a full Forzavista experience. Walk around the car, check out the interior, start up and rev the engine, learn about the car’s history and performance statistics; you can even add a new livery design, change the paint color, or tune your car all from the same Forzavista view. Every car has a story to tell in Forza Motorsport 5 and the story will continue to unfold even months after the November 22 launch.

“If you’re a Forza fan, you won’t want to miss out on any of this automotive awesomeness we’ve got planned, and the Forza Motorsport 5 Car Pass is a great way to keep up. The Car Pass will bring you the freshest add-on cars as they are released; Car Pass owners will get six add-on packs (10 cars each) for one discounted price.”

So it sounds like a DLC season pass, but for cars packs instead of full blown DLC.

I have to admit, I am not sure how I feel about this- whereas on the one hand, I am happy that this indicates support for the game past its release, I don’t like the idea that cars will be sold as added content later. Why were these cars not in the original package to begin with? And whereas I can understand that maybe Forza 5 had to see some cars cut due to the rush of meeting the Xbox launch, what if this becomes a trend going forward?

We’ll see. For now, stay tuned for more coverage.

• 1. Development
• 2. Tracks
• 3. Gameplay
• 3. Car List

Development

The developers have explained a bit about cloud technology in the game and how it’s processing ability can help players create agents, which will represent the player and will drive as well. Turn 10 studios’ Dan Greenawalt explained in an interview “Forza is always known for pushing AI and in the past we called it the Drivatar so in Forza Motorsport 1 and all the way through 2, 3 and 4, we used Drivatar technology and that’s a learning neural network. With Forza Motorsport 5 we are doing something all new.

We’ve moved the Drivatar system in the Cloud so that it can process incredibly heavily,it means basically super computer level of processing and that means you now have an Agent, something which drives for you.” He further elaborated: ‘Now while you are racing, while I am racing I  get to race against you, my friends, my family. I get to race against a version of them that can recreate their tendencies, their style, their way of driving, their speed and then when I log in, you have been playing against me, I get paid out the in game credits because of the work my Drivatar did. This fundamentally changes how you do single player” [reference]

The developers are also working on the Xbox one version of the game and explained that the game will be in 1080p resolution running at 60 frames per second. Director of Turn 10 Studios John Wendel stated in an interview “I believe we’re uniquely positioned to deliver on that challenge. We’re a huge epic game that’s going to be running at 1080p, 60fps on the next-gen console, so it’s an incredible opportunity on one hand, but you have to be incredibly flexible and agile and self-aware on the other hand.” [reference]

Tracks

The game features a number of racing tracks in which the player can compete against AI or other players. The tracks that are confirmed so far are:

• Prague
• Laguna Seca
• Indianapolis
• Spa Francorchamps

Gameplay

The game features 15 confirmed cars in the game and 4 tracks as one can see in the gameplay trailer featured many car models. A teaser video at E3 was released which featured in game footage featuring races with cars such as the Pagani Huayra and Ferrari F12 Berlinetta. The game will not feature day-night racing nor it will include a weather system.

In order to play the game, players will need to connect the Xbox One (with the game inside) to the internet and authenticate it. This will be a one time process, as Turn 10 Studios head Dan Greenawalt explained in an interview. “So when you first boot up the game, we’re going to ask you to log in. And when you log in you’re going to get the Drivatars and you’re also going to get a whole bunch of content: tracks and cars.

Our production schedule is such that we are putting them in as late as possible and that means making them free as downloadable content on Day One that is required content to play the game. We basically have designed the game to work with all that content no matter how late is coming in, in order to make the biggest game possible. The experience has been likened to a fridge, which “You have to fill it up with food the first time” but “from then on, you connect whenever you want when you want to update your food. The Drivatars are as fresh as they are. It’s not like they’re going to degrade, but when you’re looking for new stuff – fresh stuff…it’s going to keep evolving.

That’s the nature of this Drivatar system. You do have to connect the game in order to get the latest Drivatars, because we need as many people training them as possible. And so rather than having just a launch-day set that was created by us, every day that people race is going to make the Drivatar set that much more accurate, that much more diverse, that much more interesting. All of the cloud and online features make the game far, far better. In fact I’d even say revolutionary. The things we’re doing with opponents and Drivatar are not something that anyone can envision unless you’ve played it. But we’re trying to get as much of that into the unconnected, offline mode as well.” [reference]

The game will also feature the use pair controller’s triggers that will provide additional rumble. This specific feature will simulate the collision and vibration on the car’s chassis, and communicate and send information from the wheels.

Forza 5 will also have Kinect specific features like robust head tracking in the cockpit and voice recognition.

Car List

Below you will find the list of cars that have been confirmed for Forza Motorsport 5:

Aston Martin:

• 2008 DBS Link
• 2013 Vanquish Link

Audi:

• 2010 R8 V10 Link

BMW:

• 2013 M5 F10 Link

Chevrolet:

• 2013 #1 Andretti Autosport Dallara DW12 Link

Ferrari:

• 1976 312-2 Link
• 2013 F12 Berlinetta Link

Koenigsegg:

• 2011 Agera Link

Lamborghini:

• 2012 Aventador Link

McLaren:

• 1976 M23 Link
• 1993 McLaren F1 Link
• 2010 MP4-12c Link
• 2013 McLaren P1 Link

Pagani:

• 2012 Zonda Cinque Link
• 2012 Huayra Link

This wiki was last updated on 5th, January 2015. 

And if this conference was any indication, then it, along with the Wii U’s dismal performance, prove that it will be a bloodbath, a thoroughly one sided victory.

When Nintendo was having its disaster of a reveal for the Wii U at E3 last year, I kept thinking to myself, it will be very hard for someone else to ever botch a console reveal like this ever again. But damn, Microsoft did it. Contrasted with Sony’s excellent Playstation 4 reveal conference back in February, this was a complete disaster. Even on its own merits, this was a complete trainwreck. It was further proof, if any was needed after the last two years, that Microsoft has lost the plot completely. They are no longer in the business of making games consoles. They are now making entertainment hardware, iPads for the living room. Games just happen to be incidental.

Let’s start at the beginning, though. The one thing Microsoft actually did right that Sony did not, was that they showed us the hardware: they actually showed the physical console. It looks big and black, but it looks good. It kind of looks like an oversized DVR (more on that in a bit), but it definitely looks sleek, unlike, say, the original Xbox, or the new PS3 models.

What they also showed off was the new Kinect (which uses some pretty sophisticated gadgetry to achieve zero latency, an impressive feat regardless of whether it interests you personally or not), which has the same design language as the console itself; and they showed off the new controller, which is a gorgeous, sleek thing of beauty. It retains everything that was good about the 360 controller- the shape, ergonomics, layout, triggers (now improved via something called ‘impulse’ triggers), and improves upon it with an all new D-pad, one that looks absolutely excellent. Seriously, that controller looks beautiful. I want to get my hands on it ASAP; hopefully there is some sort of cross compatibility on it.

They aso showed off the new Xbox UI (looks extremely familiar to the current UI, but with a new, ‘Trending’ area for social media features), some impressive multitasking (switching from playing a game to a movie to TV to music in a second was some seriously impressive stuff; multi window multitasking was also great, and it should make looking up FAQs or Youtube videos to figure out how to progress in a game much easier now); they also announced the new console name: Xbox One.

That is a complete disaster right there. I understand why it’s called that: one box for all your entertainment. But we now have Xbox 1, Xbox 360, Xbox… One? Not to mention how bad it looks from a marketing perspective (One is less than 360, and One is less than 4). It’s a branding error, and Microsoft really should have learned something from Nintendo’s problems with Wii U, and, to a lesser extent, 3DS.

Right around here, however, is where the conference decided to go down the shitter. Microsoft then proceeded to spend a painfully, inordinately, long amount of time on the Live TV and sports features of the system… which, while great, are not what we care about. And we should have understod it right then and there- they don’t care what we care about. They’re not making this system for us. This is, like I said above, a living room iPad (down to the swiping and pinching gestures used to navigate… no, seriously). They gave us a painfully thorough examination of all these features with sports and Live TV, before we got a brief explanation on the system’s specs, which, admittedly, are impressive: 8GB of RAM (Microsoft didn’t specify what kind, so Sony fanboys still have the GDDR5 to crow about), an 8 core processor, an x86 architecture, a Blu Ray drive, 500 GB of hard drive space… they didn’t tell us what the GPU was like, or what this would mean for backwards compatibility. Unlike Sony, who spent probably more time on specs than was necessary, Microsoft spent less time than needed. Of the two evils, I would choose the former.

There was a brief moment of hope then when Microsoft moved on to games- which turned out to be EA Sports. So yes, Madden, FIFA, NBA, all are coming to the Xbox One. Like we already knew. Apparently, unlike most first generation EA Sports games of every hardware cycle, these are all being made for the Xbox One from the ground up. We got to see some brief glimpses of each game running, before EA announced that Xbox would be getting exclusive content for the Ultimate Team Mode in FIFA. Yes, not even an exclusive mode. Exclusive content in a mode in a multiplatform game. That’s what it’s come down to.

The next step was Microsoft’s own games, and here they showed us Forza 5, which looked predictably awesome (and might in fact be the highlight of their entire conference), and for a brief moment, actually got me excited. They also showed off Remedy’s new game, called Quantum Break, which was… what was it? It had a confusing, garbled live action trailer, and then that was it. We know nothing more. Microsoft announced that they had many more exclusives (15) planned for the first year (though we don’t know how many are Arcade or Kinect games), and many new IPs (8). All of this sounded good… but why did we not get to see any of this?

What we did get to see was more Halo. And no, not a new Halo game. No, what we got to see instead was a new Xbox exclusive live action Halo TV series by Steven Spielberg… which, yes, sounds great, and is honestly something I would want to check out. However, it is not something I would buy the Xbox One for at all, and while I appreciate some genuinely interesting new content, I can’t stress this enough: I want games.

So the last thing we got was a game to cap off the conference: Call of Duty: Ghosts. After the typical ‘this is what we wanted to do with this game, and this is how Xbox helped us achieve it,’ as well as the usual ‘all DLC timed exclusive for Xbox One), we got treated to the first footage of the game. It looks great, albeit a bit familiar (and isn’t exactly a graphical stunner; but then again, when has Call of Duty ever been a graphical stunner?), and is clearly something that could have sold the Xbox… had it been exclusive (which again, it is not). And that was that, that ended the conference.

Where were the games? Why was so much time spent on the multimedia crap? Yes, I understand that Microsoft promised a hardware reveal today, with games at E3, but they didn’t even focus on the hardware all that much (their specs presentation was brief and rushed), talking instead about TV and multimedia crap. The Wii U reveal conference had more games than this; the PS4 conference did everything better than this.

With the Xbox One reveal conference, we were supposed to get the final piece of the next gen puzzle, and a console that would actually give the PS4 a run for its money and prevent a PS2 like monopoly. Instead, we got a console that, while technically impressive, makes the Wii U look good simply because of its completely unfocused approach, horrible branding, and lack of any compelling games beyond Forza being announced. With the Xbox One, Microsof had the chance to utilize all that momentum from the Xbox 360 and to turn it into something good. Instead, we get a company that will almost certainly, judging by this conference, succumb to the fabled third console curse.

The Good:

They showed off the console, Kinect, and the controller (all three of which looked very impressive); the specs are great, and the multitasking looks incredible; Forza 5 was awesome looking, as always, and the Halo TV series genuinely intruiging.

The Bad:

Everything else: from the branding, to the lack of games, to the excessive focus on multimedia and TV, to the lack of any gameplay footage beyond Call of Duty, everything was wrong with this conference.

Conclusion:

When your reveal conference is worse than the legendarily bad Wii U and PS3 reveal conferences, you know you’ve screwed up. Microsoft screwed up.

Rating: 3.5/10

Ryse was originally unveiled at E3 2010 for Xbox 360 as ‘Codename: Kingdoms’. Then, a year later at E3 2011 the project was unveiled as a Kinect project under the name ‘Ryse”. Ryse was advertised as a game that was set in ancient Rome, the title strongly suggested strong violence and gore and was to be controlled by using Kinect tracking systems.

But then Crytek CEO Cevat Yerli said last year that it’s one of his “personal darlings so it’s going to be rock-solid and strong”.

Meanwhile, The Verge has been getting information from their sources, “Ryse is designed to be Microsoft’s new Gears of War / Halo mega launch title.”

Ryse will take full advantage of the Kinect’s body tracking system in the next-generation Kinect 2.0.

A zombie title title along with a family-friendly game that is set on an island with Pixar movie-like style graphics will also be a part of Microsoft’s next-generation Xbox 720 launch line up.

Also, The Verge was told that a brand new Forza game will feature “super life-like” graphics, and that the family pixar-like title will use Kinect to scan bodies and generate virtual characters in-game.

It has also been reported that third-party software will support the FPS genre strongly and that Microsoft will be getting away from Xbox Live’s Microsoft Points system to real money transactions instead.

We have previously reported that Microsoft might be unveiled the Next-Generation Xbox on May 21st 2013

Keep your eyes peeled on GamingBolt for more news regarding the Next-Generation Xbox. Stay tuned and post any comments you have done below.

Forza Motorsport 4, which was recently announced at the Spike Video Game Awards, will be the most realistic racer ever on any console. That is according to Microsoft. “Forza Motorsport 4 will be the most expansive and vividly realistic automotive experience across any console, bringing you closer to the edge than you’ve ever been before,” MS says.

If you play Forza Motorsport 4 using the Kinect controller, you will be able to “step through the TV screen and jump into the driver’s seat,” while playing with the default controller settings will have you take on “bone-jarring physics, unparalleled levels of customisation, and rosters of dream cars and tracks.”

Forza Motorsport 4 will be released next year exclusively for the Xbox 360, and will have Kinect support.