Microsoft recently announced that future Xbox One exclusives from Microsoft Studios would release on the same day for its Xbox Game Pass subscription service as other retail outlets. This means that titles like Crackdown 3, State of Decay 2 and the next Halo, Gears of War and Forza would be available to Game Pass subscribers on the same day of launch as opposed to months later.

However, with Microsoft stating beforehand that certain games could be removed from the library overtime, what’s the stance on these Microsoft Studios titles? Thankfully, Xbox Live director of programming Larry “Major Nelson” Hryb has clarified on Twitter that “Xbox One Exclusives will be a permanent part of game pass moving forward.” If it enters the library, then it remains there forever essentially (or until Microsoft shuts down Xbox Live. Whichever comes first).

For $9.99 per month, this is a pretty good deal for Xbox One players who want to enjoy an exclusive here and there without putting down $60. It doesn’t seem like this approach will affect Microsoft’s bottom line as Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter has indicated. However, you have to wonder if this will help hardware sales. Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

https://twitter.com/majornelson/status/956272492380737539

Director of programming for Xbox Live has Larry Hryb aka Major Nelson has hit a pretty significant milestone recently. He’s almost at one million followers on Xbox One, which is no small feat for any major figure but especially significant for him.

Responding to queries regarding the same on Reddit, Hryb stated that, “My job is to work on cool Xbox features with the incredible men and women on the teams but coming to reddit or tweeting are things that I do because I love what I do and the people and products that build them take that and do with it what you will
..,.,.. (all the periods/punctuation I should have used in this post)”

With regards to his “non-answers” regarding region locked languages and future of Kinect, Hryb said, “I share as much as I am able to share based on the current information. I don’t give specifics unless there are indeed specifics to share as giving out incomplete information it irresponsible.”

Hryb further stated with regards to his job, “I love working with the teams here at Microsoft – and it never feels like work which is kinda awesome.”

What are your thoughts on Major Nelson and his role in the community? Let us know in the comments.

Yacht Club Games’ Shovel Knight, it’s immensely entertaining action puzzle platformer, has passed certification for Xbox One and will be releasing next week.

Xbox division boss Phil Spencer initially revealed the news on Twitter. “Great news, I was just told that @ShovelKnight1 just passed cert. Really looking forward to playing.”

This was followed by Larry “Major Nelson” Hryb stating that, “Correction: Shovel Knight is coming to Xbox One next week.”

Will you be picking up Shovel Knight for the Xbox One? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below and stay tuned for more information in the coming week.

Like the PlayStation 4, the Xbox One has been playing catch up on features that a lot of people would have liked, or expected to have been present since launch. Well thankfully another nice little visual feature is set to be coming to the Xbox One that will finally allow you to see those pretty themes that  you’ve set up.

Sick of splashing up a new theme only to find it being obnoxiously blocked by those great big icon blocks? Well fret not as soon, Microsoft plan to introduce tile transparency giving some much needed opacity to those large and clunky Xbox One icon panels.

Microsoft’s own Major Nelson has seen to it that an image of what you can expect from the transparencies has been distributed so that you can see what’s coming. Given that people have been wanting something like this for a while, amongst other things, it’s always good to see that Microsoft are actively listening to the player base and tweaking systems to fit their wants and needs. So props to Microsoft on this one.

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Sony recently updated the PlayStation 4’s firmware to 1.70, introducing a host of changes along with SHAREfactory to customize and edit footage. One of the bigger changes was the ability to pre-load games that you’ve pre-ordered several days before launch, ensuring the game is ready to play on the day of release. According to Xbox Live director of programming Larry “Major Nelson” Hryb on Reddit, it’s a feature that Microsoft is at the very least interested in implementing for the Xbox One.

“All I can say right now is that yes, we want this feature as well.” As for a time frame on when this would actually happen, Nelson replied, “‘All I can say right now’ means exactly that.”

Microsoft has been fairly recent with its system updates though as it plans to introduce another for May. Will game pre-loading be available? We’ll find out as and when the company announces it. Let us know in the comments whether you’d be interested in seeing it.

Remember all the Cloud functionality that Respawn Entertainment hyped up for Titanfall? With the game having been released, there’ve been criticism that the Xbox Live Compute function is actually non-existent. Engineer Jon Shiring refuted those claims in a podcast session with Larry “Major Nelson” Hryb.

“There’s a lot of things we’re doing in [Titanfall] that’s really different from how any other game has done it before. In sort of the traditional model of dedicated servers is you go to your server and that is your home base and you love it.

“One of the key things that is interesting about the Xbox Live Compute that runs on Azure is that they’ve commodotised servers so much, that we just don’t care. I can ask for a server, use it for 10 seconds, and then go like, ‘ah we don’t need it anymore’ and throw it out.

“We bounce people around server to server, and so you’re hitting a lot of different servers and that let’s us do cool things. But it completely upends the old model of like, ‘I’m going to find my server and stay there forever’.

“And so there’s been a lot of interesting changes because of that idea that’s gone through everything from matchmaking and skill and how we do the training in the beginning of the game and all these things that are – no one’s really tried before and kind of left everyone scratching their heads for a while when we were figuring out how we were going to do it. But it was really interesting to me.

“And I know that the internet is very sceptical that this is real. Hopefully less so now that Titanfall is out and they realize that they really are playing on these servers out there.”

Shiring repeated the points that Respawn revealed about just what the Cloud functionality is capable of. It allows Titanfall to “go crazy and do things like throw AI in multiplayer and have these ships flying around the world and all these things that in a peer-to-peer hosted game – I know this is a little technical, but in a peer-to-peer hosted game, the bandwidth isn’t there.

“You’re not going to find all these home consoles that have the amount of CPU and bandwidth you need to be broadcasting that there’s 400 things moving this frame. It just melts down everything that is there. So once we can just tell the designers, ‘yeah don’t worry about it, just spawn that thing and make it move. It’s fine.’”

Thoughts? Let us know in the comments below.

The Xbox One March system update brought forth Twitch integration for the console at last and the official app is set to be released next week. In order to ease new users in, a walkthrough has been released which demonstrates how to broadcast using Twitch on the Xbox One. Check it out above.

Director of programming for Xbox Live Larry “Major Nelson” Hryb has also provided detailed instructions on how to use Twitch. You’ll need a Twitch account above all to use the app and you can enable settings to archive broadcasts, use the Kinect for chatting and even customize the picture-in-picture mode to showcase both yourself and your gameplay using Kinect.

Twitch will land up on the Xbox One next week. Are you excited to be streaming to the world? Let us know in the comments below. Conversely, let us know if you think it’s all a bunch of hooey instead.

While Eidos Montreal’s Thief reboot is hogging all the attention, a high profile Xbox exclusive will be hitting next week in the form of Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare. PopCap Interactive’s highly successful mobile franchise will now be in the form of a first person shooter/tower defense hybrid in Frostbite 3. A new video has surfaced for the game, which looks at the different classes and the Gardens & Graveyards mode.

Narrated by Larry “Major Nelson” Hryb, we get a look at how you can use unique abilities on both the Plants and Zombies side to defeat enemies. You’ll also find out how the in-game currency operates since it allows you to not only upgrade your abilities but bring on additional characters.

Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare releases on February 25th in North America and February 27th in Europe for Xbox One and Xbox 360, with a PC version still to be dated.

After delays and a certain lack of information, Microsoft’s Xbox One system update for February is now beginning to roll out today.

The February update will add a few new changes, including the ability to manage and view your storage space. You’ll also be able to control your install lineup and manage downloads, with My Games and My Apps now being segregated into two separate lists. USB keyboard support has been added, the battery power indicator for your controller is now back on the home screen and there’s an improved UI for accessing messages, Party Chat and Achievements.

You can also pick the content that you want to load first. Major Nelson stated that the new boot progress indicator would allow you “better track updates while they load”.

What are your thoughts on the overall changes? Let us know in the comments below. Another Xbox One system update is planned for March so stay tuned.

Xbox One will be receiving two major updates in the coming months to improve stability, enable Party Chat by default, and other new features. The first update will go live this month, while the second update arrives in March according to Microsoft chief product officer Marc Whitten.

“This is step one on our journey and commitment to deliver continuous innovation to Xbox One customers. Xbox One is a platform designed to offer the best games and entertainment experience and we are committed to delivering more and more features to our customers.

“While we’re thrilled to launch the February update this week, we’re already looking ahead to March. We’ve prided ourselves on having the best multiplayer service for Xbox 360 and we’ve listened to your feedback about the features you want to see on Xbox One and Xbox Live. We’ve heard your feedback and the team has been working overtime to deliver updates that will significantly improve the multiplayer and party experience on Xbox One.”

Some of the updates include reaching your friends list faster through either the Social Tile in the Home screen or by saying “Xbox, go to Friends”. You can also chat with friends across different games, invite friends over to your game within the game’s menu itself and “Recent Players” which showcases different Live members you’ve played with recently. Microsoft also promises in-depth videos explaining the newest features when the March update hits.

Though the February update was expected to release today, Major Nelson has reported that it will be out some time later this week due to more tweaking to be done.