Earlier this week, Microsoft put the curtains on one of the greatest consoles of all time, when they announced that they were formally discontinuing the Xbox 360. The Xbox 360 was the pioneer of modern console gaming- indeed, our modern ideas and expectations of what a console can and should be are all rooted in what the Xbox 360 was.

It was a monumental system that changed the game forever- and speaking on Twitter, Xbox head Phil Spencer reminisced about the machine, discussing his favorite memories from the system’s prolific lifetime, which include its in retrospect low key launch, the launches of Halo 3 and Gears of War, the growth of Turn 10, the rise of Xbox Live Arcade, and many more.

Spencer also took the opportunity to respond to a fan’s concerns about the Xbox One, when they raised a question about ReCore– a game that has been in the dark since its announcement a year ago. Spencer pointed out that this was a slow time of the year for game news, implicitly hinting that new news would be coming soon- maybe at E3 this year?

Hopefully, the news can set the Xbox One on a path of greatness similar to the one trodden by its venerable predecessor. All hail the Xbox 360- truly one of the greatest consoles of all time.

@DigitalBiscuit So many: Zero Hour, Halo 3 launch, Gears launch, Kameo at launch, Turn10 growth, Crackdown, XBL Arcade, back compact on XB1

— Phil Spencer (@XboxP3) April 20, 2016

@JeanLaMontarde @aarongreenberg @ReCoreGame Don't be afraid of not a lot of game news this time of year, it's normal..

— Phil Spencer (@XboxP3) April 21, 2016

The Xbox Live Arcade was the beginning of the modern indie movement, a sort of marketplace for smaller developers to be able to sell their games directly to customers without having to compete for eyeballs with bigger, obviously better marketed AAA releases.

Xbox Live Arcade was retired by Microsoft on the Xbox One, unlike on the Xbox 360 and the original Xbox, where it was a hub for all digital only games- but bringing the brand back could help the Xbox One gain an edge over the PS4, says former Microsoft executive Greg Canessa.

“[Microsoft] could make some very easy decisions and bring back a brand that gives a point of real differentiation versus their competitors in the console space,” Canessa said. “It would help balance out the advantage that Sony has right now.” Adding it back to the Xbox One would be extremely easy, he said.

Canessa is probably a bit biased here, since he was the creator of the Xbox Live Arcade to begin with- and while having a dedicated marketplace for indie and digital games will probably help Microsoft’s standing with indie game developers, with whom it took a bit of a beating thanks to Microsoft’s hostile policies towards them earlier this generation, it would hardly balance out all the advantages the PS4 has over the Xbox One.

Still, it is something to consider- and Microsoft would be well advised to look into this as a possible course of action.

Twisted Pixel are the guys who brought us the Splosion Man series of games on the Xbox Live Arcade on the Xbox 360. These games are charming and great fun (not to mention demanding), and now, Microsoft’s Phil Spencer has taken to teasing their new upcoming game, promising that it will be bigger than any of their other projects so far and implying that it might be very different.

Spencer wouldn’t tell us any more about the game, saying that “More work to do on it but great start,’ implying that they’re not far enough along development to really talk about it yet.

In any case, the game should be pretty awesome. The Splosion Man games were great fun, and probably provided some of the most fun and memorable experiences on the Xbox 360. Plus, with Spencer’s hints that the project will be bigger and more different than anything that they have tackled before, this game may just be a full retail release, instead of a smaller digital one.

Remember when game demos were a thing? Shockingly, they seem to have disappeared on the new consoles, with the PS4 and Xbox One both having a dire shortage of ways for gamers to actually check games out before they spend their hard earned money on them. Well, Microsoft, it seems, is trying to encourage developers to put more demos online on the Xbox Live store, by now suppoting a new kind of demo- trial and play.

Of course, this is nothing new for Microsoft, who supported this exact same functionality on the Xbox 360 with Xbox Live Arcade games. Mysteriously enough, this feature disappeared on the Xbox One, but now Microsoft seems to have brought it back.

“When Xbox One launched you could do game demos and you could do games. But we didn’t have the functionality that was on Xbox 360 – that ‘trial’ experience where you could download a demo and then convert it to a full version,” Microsoft’s ID@Xbox boss Chris Charla told Eurogamer.

“But now we do. In the same way that we update the Xbox One OS every month, they update the development system every month – or regularly, anyway. So that’s something that we recently turned on. I don’t think we’ve seen any ID@Xbox games yet that have shipped with trials, but we may well in the future. It’s something that’s open to everybody.”

Microsoft has been making incredible efforts recently to reach out to indie game developers after antagonizing them in the latter years of the Xbox 360 and the lead up to Xbox One. This is just another such (highly appreciated) move, and let’s hope it pays dividends for them.

4J Studios’s Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition has topped the Xbox Live Arcade charts for Xbox 360 for the seventh week in a row, as revealed by charts for the week ending March 25th.

Meanwhile, the Xbox 360 edition of Terraria managed to come in at second place, while Trials Evolution is in third place. Telltale’s The Walking Dead – Season Two also managed a pretty good spot at fourth place, with State of Decay coming in at fifth. Castle Crashers, Plants vs. Zombies, The Wolf Among Us and Worms Armageddon Decade and Hydrophobia make up the remaining top ten.

This comes after news of Minecraft creator Markus “Notch” Persson canceling the Oculus Rift version of Minecraft after the recent acquisition of Rift by Facebook. Of course, the Xbox One edition of Minecraft is also on the way and we’re seemingly getting closer and closer to a release. Hopefully the Tower of Pimps will have a more prominent role in the next gen version. Stay tuned for more.

(Source)

Guillaume Provost, creative director and founder, stated that, “Creating Contrast was a journey, and ultimately a celebration of our craft. It is a story that came together by the efforts and support of our team, our partners, our fans, and by the dedication of everyone who helped propel the game to such unexpected heights. We are deeply grateful and humbled by the community’s reactions, and the overwhelming enthusiasm that at long last, helped bring Contrast to light.”

The PS3 version will be available on November 19th in the US and November 20th in Europe, while it arrives for PS4 in Europe on November 29th.

Words fail to describe Final Exam, which is about fighting off monsters and traversing through enormous levels. You’ll have the option of choosing your own character, leveling them up and unlocking new weapons and skills to beat down the monsters, and can either play alone or with a friend in co-op mode. The latter is especially interesting, since you can split up to achieve objectives quicker. Of course, two is better than one when fending off monsters, especially when they become more powerful in co-op.

And if you’re savvy enough, you can try your hand at topping the official online rankings. What are your thoughts on the game? Let us know in the comments below.

Along with the hack and slash gameplay, Blood Knights has RPG elements which include different dialogue choices that will have a last effect on the world, 160 different weapons and 40 armour elements, different types of weapons for both close combat and ranged strikes and much more. You can also interact with the environment and swap between two characters, each with their own skill-set. Want a friend to take up the other character’s role and fight alongside them in co-op? That’s also an option.

Developed by Deck 13 Interactive, Blood Knights will see a vampire hunter and vampire bound together as they work to break the blood spell keeping them together. Hijinks of course ensure. Stay tuned for more information.

Microsoft’s Xbox Live Game Store has been updated, and it is getting a whole lot of DLC for Borderlands 2 and for Saints Row 4. In addition to this, Need for Speed: Most Wanted is the Deal of the Week, meaning you can get it for 50% off, as well as a discounted price on all of its DLC.

The full update is:

Xbox Live Arcade

How to Survive, 23-Oct, $14.99
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow – Mirror of Fate, 25-Oct, $14.99
Magrunner: Dark Pulse, 25-Oct, $9.99

Game Add-ons

Borderlands 2: Headhunter 1: TK Baha’s Bloody Harvest, 22-Oct, &2.99
Saints Row IV: Enter the Dominatrix Mission Pack, 22-Oct, $6.99
Batman Arkham Origins: Season Pass, 25-Oct, $19.99
Saints Row IV: Super Hero Pack, 29-Oct, $2.99
WWE 2K14: Season Pass, 29-Oct, $19.99
WWE 2K14: Online Pass, 29-Oct, $9.99

Deal of the Week: October 22-28

Need for Speed: Most Wanted, 50% off
NFSMW Complete DLC Bundle, 50% off
NFSMW Premium Timesavers Pack, 50% off
NFSMW Terminal Velocity Pack, 50% off
NFSMW Deluxe DLC Bundle, 50% off
NFSMW Heroes Pack, 50% off
NFSMW Movie Legends Pack, 50% off
NFSMW Time Saver Pack, 50% off
NFSMW Ultimate Speed Pack, 50% off
NFSMW Booster Pack, 50% off
NFSMW Premium MOD Unlock, 50% off
NFSMW MOD Unlock Pack 1, 50% off
NFSMW MOD Unlock Pack 2, 50% off
NFSMW MOD Unlock Pack 3, 50% off
Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, 50% off
Need for Speed: The RUN, 50% off
Need for Speed: ProStreet, 50% off

Deal of the Week: October 29 – November 4

Dead Island Riptide, 50% off
Dead Island Riptide Fashion Victim, 50% off
Dead Island Riptide Survivor Pack, 50% off
Dead Island, 50% off
Prey, 75% off
The Darkness, 75% off
The Darkness 2, 75% off

Sales and Specials: Shocktober, October 22 – November 4, 50% off

Games on Demand

Cabela’s African Adventures, Oct 25
Wipeout Create and Crash, Oct 25
Rocksmith 2014, Nov 1
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – Holiday 2013, Nov 1
Spongebob Squarepants: Plankton’s Robotic Revenge, Nov 1

Stay tuned to Gamingbolt for more Xbox gaming news.

[Major Nelson]

According to the Telltale forums we can expect a few day’s worth of delays on the Mac release of Fables: The Wolf Among Us. The official from a rep on the Telltale forum read:

“There was an unforeseen issue with the Mac version of Episode 1. Telltale is working on an update right now and expect to have the Mac build live on Steam and the Telltale website within the next few days.”

The Wolf Among Us is the next Telltale effort following The Walking Dead. Similarly to The Walking Dead, The Wolf Among Us is based on an acclaimed series of graphic novels, specifically the award-winning Fable series by Bill Willingham.

The total story arc will span five episodes, where players will take on the rols of Bigby Wolf, now residing in New York following his exile from the Fable homeland. Bigby is charged with keeping various characters from fairy tale lore from detection in the real world.

The first episode, Faith, was released on October 11th across PC and Xbox Live Arcade. A PlayStation version is set to debut on the PSN today.