Winextra » Gaming

Tech company Starcraft 2 competition has Microsoft in first place

Steven — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 21:33:12 +0000

What’s a little competition between rival tech companies to keep the blood rushing, Red Bull flowing, and keyboards humming.

No we’re not talking about competitors rushing to get their products to market before the other guy but rather a little bit of Starcraft 2 fun all in the name of charity.

You are probably wonder exactly what Starcraft 2, tech companies, and charities have to do with each other. Well it seems that some folks at Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Dropbox, Facebook, Twitter, Yelp, and Zynga got together and created the After Hours Gaming League to compete against either other to see who the best Starcraft 2 team is.

The Microsoft team is made up of ten employees including those who work on Windows, Internet Explorer, Bing and Windows Azure. So far they’ve competed against Google, Yelp, Zynga and Amazon with a flawless 4 wins to 0 losses to take the first place rank in the league. With just three matches to go, they are in pretty good shape to win their charity, Amnesty International, the $5,000 prize pool.
via Long Zheng – istartedsomething.com

As they say “all work and no play makes the Microsoft boys a dull bunch”, or something along those lines.

Keep up the good gaming Microsoft, and for those of you curious to see how this works here’s a video of the last game (courtesy of Long Zheng).

Tech company Starcraft 2 competition has Microsoft in first place is a post from: winextra
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Kinect brings a world of gaming for the first time to disabled kids

Steven — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 17:19:30 +0000

Matthew Rosen, a young child with autism, discovers gaming with the Kinect

Say what you will about Microsoft but without Bill Gates and his dream our current world of computers probably wouldn’t look the same, and now another Microsoft product is looking to forever change the world for a whole new group of people in our society.

Kinect has been a run away success from the moment it was released and with a nod from Microsoft hackers have taken it to places in our technological world, places I don’t even think Microsoft foresaw.

In that same vein the Kinect is bringing the world of gaming to a segment of our society that could never join in and play with their friends and family.

It is a story that Microsoft has been hearing with increasing frequency as more people start using Kinect and in some cases the results are not only incredibly heartwarming but dramatic as well when you take into account the types of disabilities these children are afflicted with.

Todd Rosen, an optimized desktop specialist in Microsoft’s New York City office, started hearing some of these stories just days after Kinect launched. When he read an article about a child with autism using Kinect, he knew he had to get one. Like the boy in the article, Rosen’s children had struggled to play games. His 12-year-old son, Matthew, has autism, and his 5-year-old daughter, Sarah, has cerebral palsy.
Over the years Rosen has purchased a PlayStation, an Xbox and a Wii. They’ve all been too hard for Mathew and Sarah, though, and they usually just sit back and watch as their friends play. “The controllers always had too many buttons on them,” he said. “Then we tried the Wii, which we thought would be simple. But it had two controllers, buttons and knobs, and you have to move your body. My daughter couldn’t do it, and Matthew was just lost.”
Within a few minutes of setting Kinect up, though, Matthew was playing. “It was the most amazing thing,” Rosen said. “I’ve never seen him smile in front of a video game. He always looked confused or puzzled. But he was playing. The other kids were watching him, not helping him.”
As Sarah watched her brother, she wanted to join in, too. So Rosen pushed her wheelchair in front of the TV. “All of a sudden Kinect picked her up, and it doesn’t recognize that she’s in a wheelchair but shows her as a shorter person,” he said. “Instantly she’s beyond excited, her hands and arms are flailing, and she’s doing stuff in the game.”
Rosen moved Sarah into a dining room chair so she could swing her legs. She wound up playing until she fell asleep. When she woke up the next day, the first thing she wanted to do was play Kinect.
via Microsoft

Like I said earlier, you can say all you want about Microsoft and how they are old, antiquated, and couldn’t innovate if their corporate life depended on it; but the fact is that every once in awhile Microsoft does something incredible.

It may not be the cool shiny flash-in-the-pan type of thing that we seem to think is so important but as we saw with how DOS and Windows forever changed our computing world we are seeing how Kinect is changing the lives of people, of children, and personally I’ll take that over some flashy gizmo or overbearing social network.

Kinect brings a world of gaming for the first time to disabled kids is a post from: winextra
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Windows Phone users spend 4.7 a month playing games says Nielsen

Steven — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 20:32:49 +0000

From the earliest days of the computer there is one thing that has always driven our technology forward and that is gaming and the number of hours we spend playing those games.

This is a fact that doesn’t look like it is slowing down as we move into a more mobile computing world; which according to a new Nielsen Research report shows that Windows Phone users are spending on average 4.7 hours a month on their smartphones playing games.

This time of course pales to Android and Apple iOS platforms where they spend 9.3 and a whopping 14.7 hours respectively playing games. I think that Windows Phone third place position here is more due to its current place in the market rather than the other two being better mobile gaming platforms; not to mention the difference in price for Windows Phone games in contrast to the other platforms.

Games - the mot popular app

Demographics

via Windows Phone Sauce

Windows Phone users spend 4.7 a month playing games says Nielsen is a post from: winextra
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Forget the rumors – no new Xbox coming any time soon says Microsoft

Steven — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 19:18:18 +0000

There has been a couple of rumors over the last few months that we could be seeing a next-gen Xbox console at some point soon but just as quickly the rumors have been dismissed and now Microsoft has come out and said that we might as well all hold our horses on that idea.

As far as Microsoft is concerned the current Xbox 360 is really only halfway through its lifecycle, probably with a big thanks to Kinect mind you.

In an interview; and quoted by CVG, Xbox’s EMEA VP Chris Lewis had this to say on the matter:

Asked if Xbox is still growing at this “late stage in a console lifecycle”, Lewis said:
“We see it as about halfway through. But yes you are right, Xbox is defying the normal curve you might expect. There’s no doubt that Kinect put a huge shot of adrenaline into the business.
“What we are now seeing is massive swathes of families and younger audiences flocking to it. As you saw at the press conference, we are now in line with what we projected at E3 2010.”

So regardless of what those Crytek and EA leaks might have said it looks like it will be a couple of years before we will see any solid news about a next-gen Xbox console.

Forget the rumors – no new Xbox coming any time soon says Microsoft is a post from: winextra
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RUMOR: Mass Effect 3 could have Kinect support

Steven — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 22:19:37 +0000

This is most definitely a rumor but I am sure it is one that any Mass Effect game fan would love to have come true; but it seems there just might be a surprise coming when Mass Effect 3 gets launched in 2012, after being delayed.

Apparently the delay was so that the company could add in “some new ways to play”; which combined with the box art discovered by the team at 1up.com on the EA site (it has now been pulled) suggests that there could be some kind of Kinect support coming in the game.

Word is we will be hearing more about these additional ways to play at the upcoming E3 event.

Here is the box are snagged by 1up.com

RUMOR: Mass Effect 3 could have Kinect support is a post from: winextra
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Stat: 40% of Xbox users don’t use it to play games

Steven — Tue, 31 May 2011 19:50:12 +0000

Netflix via Xbox

This is a very interesting statistic to come out of Microsoft, but it appears that not all of those 53 million sold consoles or 30 million Xbox Live members are using their Xbox to play games.

In fact it seems that 40% of those users are using their Xbox for other forms of entertainment, and according to Microsoft this is a number that is growing fast. At this point it seems that every Xbox is being used to play around 30 hours of video every month.

This is just fine with Microsoft because it shows that their attempt to position the Xbox as the entertainment hub of your living room is working out just fine. Alex Wilhelm makes this point in his post at The Next Web about the news:

According to the company, some 53 million Xbox 360 consoles have been sold, and there are now 30 million Xbox LIVE members. The rise of Xbox as more of a media platform, and less of a pure gaming machine, is no accident: “you’ll see Xbox marketed more as an entertainment brand this year,” Microsoft said.
The Xbox forms the crux of Microsoft’s living room strategy. While other companies that have content deals in place, such as Apple, are fighting to get devices into living rooms (Apple TV, Mac Mini, Boxee), Microsoft is already there, around the world.

Of course, as Alex points out as well, the real problem for Microsoft is getting the content to feed that entertainment hub because that requires so many different kinds of licensing from countries other than the U.S.

Stat: 40% of Xbox users don’t use it to play games is a post from: winextra
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