When Microsoft made Forza Horizon official earlier this year, all we got was a trailer of people and cars — not in game cars mind you. But now hey — look an in game screen shot — and there’s a car!

We’re expecting to hear more about Forza Horizon at this year’s E3 convention in L.A., which is less than three weeks away.

Also, I’d just like to point out, the screen looks awfully familiar to a certain automobile themed Disney movie…I’m just going to leave this right here…

Brace yourselves, Halo fans. Microsoft today revealed the contents of Halo 4‘s robust, sleek-looking Limited Edition.

Available for pre-order now, the $99 game package grants players access to nine future DLC multiplayer maps, early access to six Specializations for their Spartan career character, and a UNSC Infinity Briefing pack, which includes some collectible documents and a neat blueprint of the game’s ship.

Players will also gain extra content through Xbox Live including,

• Unique in-game Spartan-IV armor skin
• Unique in-game weapon skin for the Assault Rifle
• An exclusive in-game emblem
• Xbox LIVE Avatar prop
• Xbox LIVE Avatar Spartan-IV armor set

Finally, the Limited Edition will also include lots of exclusive videos and featurettes including an extended 90-minute version of the live-action digital series Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn. Even the box for the Limited Edition looks like it means business.

Hey look, it’s Halo 4′s box art.  Appreciate it, because a ton of gamers had to work damn hard to get it.

Being the fun loving company that they are, Microsoft sent out a ton of emails to select users titled “Your piece of the Halo Puzzle”, each with a piece of the above image. NEOGAF user spawn031 collected them all and supplied the above image.

Now everyone say thank you.

Do you want to be able to surf the web by simply gesturing to your Kinect? Sure you do. Sources tell The Verge that Microsoft is currently testing Internet Explorer 9 to run on Xbox 360.

While the Kinect peripheral will not be needed to use the internet browser on Microsoft’s console, but the browser is being “tuned” for full Kinect voice and gesture integration letting users fully surf the web in a whole new way.

Xbox 360 users currently can search on Bing using voice commands, but full console-based internet surfing that already exists on both Sony’s PlayStation 3 and Nintendo’s Wii will be a first for Microsoft if these rumors hold true. It’s safe to assume Microsoft will be unveiling this and other announcements at E3 next month.

With Kinect gestures in play, it looks like Microsoft is being fashionably late to the web-surfing party.

Source: The Verge

Remember that initial ruling Motorola Mobility won against Microsoft hoping to ban imports of Xbox consoles and other products? While that ruling is still waiting on a six-member commission for approval, Motorola has recently won a similar injunction in Germany.

The injunction prevents Microsoft from selling Xbox 360 consoles, Windows 7 system software, Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player in Germany, following a ruling that Microsoft’s products violate two patents regarding H.264 video coding held by Motorola.

However, because Motorola is waiting for a judgement hearing to be held in Seattle on May 7, the company can’t do anything at the moment. The judge may also hold this ruling at a later date. If Motorola were to win the injunction, however, Microsoft would have to pay $4 billion a year in royalties to the mobile giant.

At the moment, Microsoft is also planning to appeal against the German ruling and states that Motorola’s claims abuse Frand-commitments, “a promise to licence innovations deemed critical to widely-used technologies under reasonable terms.”

Source: BBC

Microsoft  today announced that it is ending its programming of first-party content under the Inside Xbox brand. Shows like Major’s Minute, Featured Videos, and Insider Moves will cease production in the US and subsequently be unavailable in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Mexico and Japan will still continue their own first-party content “via other media outside of the Inside Xbox brand.”

“We will be leveraging third-party news and video content available through a variety of existing and future partners,” commented Xbox Live’s Larry “Major Nelson” Hryb, “and supplementing this content with select first-party offerings.”

Inside Xbox may be gone, but not the Major. “Everything else I do is unaffected,” he told Joystiq.

Source: Microsoft
Source: Joystiq

Greenpeace wants companies like Apple, Amazon and Microsoft to make smarter, cleaner energy choices now that "cloud computing" services have ratcheted up power consumption considerably. (Media credit/Wichary via Flickr)

Leading tech companies like Google, Apple and Microsoft are now offering unprecedented amounts of data storage and access to “apps” on huge Internet-connected servers, saving consumers and businesses the hassle of installing and running programs and storing information on their own local computers.

This emerging trend, dubbed “cloud computing,” means that these providers have had to scale up their power consumption considerably, as they are increasingly responsible for providing more and more of the computing horsepower required by the world’s two billion Internet users. No doubt, sharing such resources on centralized servers is more efficient than every individual and business running their own versions separately. In fact, the research firm Verdantix estimates that companies off-loading data and services to cloud servers could save $12 billion off their energy bills and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 85 million metric tons within the next decade. But for the greenhouse gas savings to be realized, the companies offering cloud computing services need to make the right energy choices.

Greenpeace has been tracking sustainability among tech companies for over a decade, and recently released a report, “How Green is Your Cloud?” assessing the green footprint of the move to cloud computing. According to the analysis, some of the major players (Google, Facebook and Yahoo) have gone to great lengths to ensure that significant amounts of the power they need come from clean, green sources like wind and solar. But Greenpeace chastises others (Apple, Amazon and Microsoft) for relying on so-called “dirtier” sources of power, such as coal and nuclear, to run their huge data centers.

“When people around the world share their music or photos on the cloud, they want to know that the cloud is powered by clean, safe energy,” says Gary Cook, a Senior Policy Analyst with Greenpeace. “Yet highly innovative and profitable companies like Apple, Amazon and Microsoft are building data centers powered by coal and acting like their customers won’t know or won’t care. They’re wrong.”

Greenpeace’s report evaluates 14 major tech firms and the electricity supply chains in use across more than 80 different data centers that power cloud-based services. Some of the largest data centers are in buildings so big they are visible from space and use as much power as 250,000 European homes. If the cloud were its own country, says Greenpeace, it would rank 5th in the world in electricity consumption.

“Companies like Google, Yahoo and Facebook are beginning to lead the sector down a clean energy pathway through innovations in energy efficiency, prioritizing renewable energy access when siting their data centers, and demanding better energy options from utilities and government decision-makers,” reports Greenpeace. But unfortunately the majority of the industry is not marching in step. As such, Greenpeace is calling on all tech companies with cloud services to develop siting policies based on access to clean energy sources, invest in or directly purchase renewable energy, be transparent about their energy usage, share innovative solutions so the sector as a whole can improve, and demand that governments and utilities increase the percentage of clean, green power available on the grid.

CONTACTS: Verdantix, www.verdantix.com; Greenpeace, www.greenpeace.org.

A new report from the Verge  claims that Microsoft will show off a brand new browser based music service aimed to rival the uber-hot music streaming service Spotify at this year’s E3.

Citing unnamed sources, the browser based project, code named Woodstock will allow users across multiple platforms including Xbox, iOS, Andorid and windows phone to share tracks and create group playlists. It will also reportedly also feature a system similar to Match on the iTunes.

Blast will be at this year’s E3 to bring you all of the up to date gaming — and music streaming goodness.

Bloomberg reported today that Motorola Mobility won a U.S. International Trade Commission Judge’s initial ruling to block imports of Microsoft’s Xbox systems.

ITC Judge David Shaw stated that Microsoft was violating four of five Motorola patents: two patents that cover aspects of an industry standard for video decoding, two for Wi-Fi technology, and a patent on the way to establish communication between the Xbox and accessories. According to Shaw, “the second Wi-Fi patent wasn’t infriged, and one aspect of one of the video-coding patents was invalid.”

Motorola has demanded that Microsoft pay a 2.25 percent royalty on products that use its inventions. If Motorola’s demand are met,  Microsoft would have to pay $4 billion a year in royalties.

“We are pleased that the ALJ’s initial determination finds Microsoft to be in violation of Motorola Mobility’s intellectual property,” Motorola said in a statement. “Microsoft continues to infringe Motorola Mobility’s patent portfolio, and we remain confident in our position. This case was filed in response to Microsoft’s litigate-first patent attack strategy, and we look forward to the full commission’s ruling in August.”

Microsoft also released a statement saying: “Today’s recommendation by the Administrative Law Judge is the first step in the process leading to the Commission’s final ruling. We remain confident the Commission will ultimately rule in Microsoft’s favor in this case and that Motorola will be held to its promise to make its standard essential patents available on fair and reasonable terms.”

This ruling still needs to go through a six-member commission, and its final ruling will be issued in August, Reuters reports.

Get ready to charge up that plasma pistol and get shot up by 12-year-olds online, bro. Halo 4 will be landing on your Xbox 360 on November 6th of this year.

The game was originally announced at last year’s E3 as the big unveiling at the end of Microsoft’s press conference. 343 Studios, who have taken over developing duties from Bungie, have stated that this is the first of a new trilogy for Master Chief and Cortana.

Xbox Live Arcade is filled with ridiculous puzzle games trying to garner your hard earned dollars. It can be difficult to sift through the hundreds of games available to try and find one that will suit you. Luckily, The Splatters is quirky and imaginative enough that anyone who picks it up is likely to enjoy their time with it.

The premise is simple. You control these little blobs of jelly that are used to explode bombs placed across a single screen level. The challenge comes from the fact that you can only launch the blobs once (almost like Angry Birds) and they will not destroy the bombs unless they are “popped” by running into something sharp or hitting a surface with enough force that they explode. Once popped they turn into uncontrollable liquid, so you need to be careful where you are aiming. The liquid physics are really impressive and the game has a quirky art style that gives every aspect of it an undeniable character.

The real fun comes from trying to link together combos by breaking the different bombs in style. Dozens of combos are at your disposal, anything from a slide to make your goo travel faster and further to a special move called the flip that changes the direction of every object in the world. As you progress through the game, you unlock more moves such as the air bomb that allows you to change the direction of the blob in mid-air. Mastering all of the different combinations and trying to link them together can be addicting, and the online leaderboards do not help with trying to put this game down.

Unfortunately there are only about 30 levels in the game, each taking less than 5 minutes to finish, so if you pick up on the controls and ability to link combos together quickly, you can earn every star in a couple of hours. Separate scoring modes such as combo multipliers and a unique one where you have to use specified combos to beat the level are available, but it does not make the game too much longer.

Nonetheless, for only ten dollars this is a really fun downloadable title that is sure to impress anyone with a penchant for stylish physics based puzzle games.

Admit it, there’s tons of stuff on Xbox Live that you want to buy, but you just don’t have enough Microsoft points. Maybe you want Fez, we hear it’s pretty good. Maybe you’re looking to get the newest DLC for Modern Warfare 3. Who knows, maybe you’re even looking to get those long lost Viva Pinata DLC pieces you’ve missed. Whatever — we don’t judge.

Blast is giving away 1600 Microsoft points. Want ‘em? All you’ve got to do is follow us on twitter @BlastMagazine and tweet us with what you’d do with the points. It’s that easy. We’ll randomly choose a winner Monday afternoon sometime. Also, be sure to check back tomorrow for our next Free Game Friday giveaway!

By now you’ve probably heard all about Kinect Star Wars. You’ve heard about the delays, the Rancor..the dancing. You’ve probably also heard about how nearly everyone who’s played it has been worried that it’s going to disappoint anyone with a love for one of the world’s most beloved franchises. It can’t be that bad can it?

Yes. Yes it can

The sad news is that Kinect Star Wars is just as unimpressive as you feared it would be; in fact, it’s pretty bad. There are some wonderfully entertaining moments here, but they’re far outnumbered by frustrating control issues, terrible gameplay choices and uninspiring campaign moments. Star Wars and Kinect seem made for each other, but sadly it just plain doesn’t work.

I’ll admit that when I first popped in Kinect Star Wars, I was hopeful, Terminal Reality and Lucas Arts appeared to have found a comfortable place to tell a new story, while still fitting in with the franchise’s cannon. The game opens with C-3PO and R2D2 telling the player that Luke Skywalker has charged them with reorganizing the Jedi Library, and they find the lost story of a young Jedi master and her padawan trainees. For what it’s worth, the game does a fairly decent job leading you through the tutorial levels and into the main story.

The problem though is that the game does little to create an identity of its own and relies on new versions of your favorite (and not so favorite) Star Wars moments to fill its content and presents them as its own. Like the speeder bike chase from Return of the Jedi? It’s here…sort of. Same thing goes for the second death star attack and a few other key Star Wars moments.With all of this, you’d think Star Wars Kinect was aimed at Star Wars fans who grew up with the original trilogy, but the game is clearly made for the Clone Wars generation; awkward sounding CGI looking Yoda and all.

None of this matters though if Kinect Star Wars did what we all hoped it would, make us feel like a Jedi. You know, let us swing a lightsaber or two, force choke a few guys and perform a Jedi mind trick along the way. Instead, we get the frustration of feeling like Star Wars kid.  The vehicle sections perform well enough, but it’s the on foot sections that cause the majority of the problems. Your lightsaber is mapped to your right hand, while force powers are mapped to your right. Sounds simple enough right? Somehow Kinect Star Wars still manages to screw up your inputs all too often. Want to jump? Be prepared to dodge — right into that ditch. You may have wanted to swing your lightsaber at your opponent’s head, but the game knows that you really wanted to swing low…right where they’re blocking. Worse yet, none of the force powers feel even close to as rewarding as they should be.

What you’ll likely find most annoying about Kinect Star Wars is just how much it takes control away from the player. We’ve seen Kinect games like the Gunstringer handle on rails sections brilliantly, but Lucas Arts and Terminal Reality are insistent on not just showing the players how the game works — but taking their hand and almost walking them through it at every step. You’ll clear one section..then go through a mini movie..repeat ad nauseum and you have what the majority of the game feels like.

From a presentation standpoint, Kinect Star Wars feels incredibly unfinished more often than not. There are times when the game looks great…but there’s even more times when the characters animate funky, the frame rate drops and pieces of art just plain old disappear. We know that Kinect Star Wars was delayed more than once for polish..why didn’t they finish it?

So, let’s talk about those dancing scenes, shall we? For those who aren’t aware, the game not only features several dancing scenes, but also allows you to control some of your favorite characters, like Han Solo and Boba Fett to dance as well. Now I was ready to start out this review by completely going off about it — but you know what, they’re some of the game’s most fun moments. Yes, it’s weird to see these badass characters that I love dancing, but if you can get past that and let things go..it’s not all that bad.

The Blast Factor: It’s gotten to the point in recent years that it’s tough to take Star Wars seriously, and that actually helps Kinect Star Wars, as it’s similarly hard to take the game seriously. Yes, there are some enjoyable moments here — but they’re far outnumbered by the under-performing mechanics, shoddy presentation and missed opportunities. For all of you who have been waiting to feel like a Jedi — keep dreaming.

If you have yet to register for Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) East or are having second thoughts about going to the biggest gaming expo on the east coast, you better make up your mind fast as Friday and Sunday passes for this weekend’s event are quickly disappearing.

“Only a few hundred Friday passes left. Probably sell out in a 2-3 days at this rate,” announced the official Twitter account for PAX, the three-day event that had sold out its three day passes a couple of months ago.

PAX East and its west coast cousin PAX Prime are one of the only occasions fans can play some big-name games before they are released. Here’s a quick list of some of the games, demos, and previews the big developers and publishers will be showcasing this weekend.

Square Enix (Booth 850)

Sleeping Dogs, Theatrhythm Final Fantasy, Quantum Conundrum, Heroes of Ruin, Wafku, Risen 2: Dark Waters

Microsoft (Booth 524)

Crimson Dragon, Deadlight, Dust: An Elysian Tail, Trials Evolution, Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition, Fable: Heroes, Kinect Sports: Season  Two, Kinect Star Wars, Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor

Nintendo (Booth 412)

Mario Power Tennis Open, Spirit Camera: The Cursed Memoir, Kid Icarus: Uprising, Mario Kart 7, Resident Evil Revelations, Ketzal’s Corridors, Sakura Samurai: Art of the Sword, Pushmo, Dillon’s Rolling Western

2K Games (Booths 924, 936, 1036)

Borderlands 2, Spec Ops: The Line, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, Civilization V: Gods & Kings

Rockstar (Booth 912)

Max Payne 3

Sega (Booths 448, 548)

Hell Yeah, Sonic 4 Episode 2, Jet Set Radio, Virtua Fighter 5: Showdown, Virtua Tennis Challenge, Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing, House of the Dead 4, Aliens Colonial Marines

Ubisoft (Booth 824, 836)

Assassin’s Creed III (footage,) Far Cry 3, Mad Riders, Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Future Soldier, Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Online, I Am Alive, Babel Rising, Monster Burner, MotoHeroz, Prince of Persia Classic HD

Reverb Publishing (Booth 808)

Girl Fight, Wheels of Destruction, Black Knight Sword, Bang Bang Racing, JAM Live Music Arcade, Primal Carnage (booth 1167,) Deadliest Warrior: Ancient Combat, Shoot Many Robots (booth 612,) Dungeon Defenders, Jeremy McGrath’s Offroad, Country Dance All Stars,

Paradox Interactive (Booth 368)

War of the Roses, The Showdown Effect

Perfect World (Booth 736)

Neverwinter, Blacklight: Retribution, RaiderZ

Don’t forget too that aside from these studios, other, lesser known, developers will be there as well, so be sure to check them out. You never know what indie game will be the next Journey!

Perhaps it’s fitting that Alan Wake’s titular character is a writer because the original game often felt like it was lost in the exposition of the story. For the Xbox Live followup though, the folks at Remedy Games have gone a completely different route — and the result is Alan Wake’s American Nightmare, a slightly beefed up and better paced adventure title than what came before it. It may not convince those who weren’t fans of the first game, but Alan Wake’s American Nightmare is pulp adventure at it’s finest, and worth a night with the lights off.

First things first, American Nightmare is not a sequel. This is not the Alan Wake 2 you’ve all been waiting for. It’s merely a continuation of the original story — it makes sense if you don’t think about it too hard. The story picks up after the original game and after it’s two DLC chapters with Alan Wake in the middle of the Arizona dessert trying to chase his evil doppleganger Mr. Scratch, who has been causing trouble and growing even more powerful. What does that mean for you? Well, a lot of flashlights and bullets for one.

The whole thing is presented as an episode of Night Springs, a Twilight Zone esque show, complete with Rod Sterling like narrator. This new style gives American Nightmare a cool, pulp style reminiscent of shows like the Twilight Zone and Outer Limits. It becomes apparent through the narrations that the developers know that while their game is full of tension, it’s also a bit silly (early on in the game, you’re chased by a diner sign possessed by a poltergeist). Alan Wake’s American Nightmare strikes the right chord in between camp and thriller that keeps it interesting throughout most of it.

American Nightmare wastes almost no time getting you into the action, a definite change from the last go-round. It won’t be long after the intro movie that you’ll be taking part in the game’s trademark mechanic — weakening enemies with your flashlight and doing away with them with your weaponry. Mechanically speaking, American Nightmare is almost identical to its predecessor, but everything feels a lot tighter and more responsive this go-round. It feels a lot smoother to do everything from switching between weapons to running through open fields in fear of your life.

All of it comes together to form a surprisingly well paced tale. It may be silly at times, but Alan Wake’s American Nightmare is not to be taken lightly. It’s one of those games that’s at its best when played with the lights off, as there are times when you’re running for dear life through an open field as enemies form out of the darkness all around you. Wake gains health when staying in well light areas, and they’re few and far between during most of the game.

One of the new mechanics in American Nightmare is the ability to rewrite events so they’re different than the way Mr. Scratch originally planned them. In theory, it’s a cool idea, but in practice, it never fully reaches it’s potential. The mechanic gives you the illusion that you’ll have some sort of control over your destiny, but in reality, you’re just going to be following along with a scripted series of events that move the story on in the only direction it can.

There are other small nitpicks through the game, like a few continuity issues that pop up throughout certain sections of the game. Take one section for instance where you find an entire ring of keys to the diner, but apparently not all of them. So you’ll only be able to get into certain rooms. There are also smaller mechanical and visual issues, but they’re few and far between.

The Blast factor:Alan Wake’s second adventure is a much more focused and action driven experience than it’s predecessor, but that doesn’t mean everything has changed. American Nightmare is still chock full of what made the original so inventive to begin with. Alan Wake fans will love American Nightmare, but much like the first game, there will be plenty who just don’t get it.

Microsoft and Lucas Arts have announced that Star Wars Kinect, along with the special edition Star Wars Xbox 360 will release on April 3.

The console, along with the game were delayed late last year after the game received majorly negative critical reception. Here’s hoping it’s tuned up from our time with it at last year’s E3.

When Alan Wake’s American Nightmare hits Xbox Live Arcade later this month as part of Microsoft’s Xbox Live House Party, you won’t be visiting the same old woodsy locations. Rather, the folks at Remedy have taken everyone’s favorite darkness fighting author and put him into a haunted desert location. Check out these new screen shots to see check out some of the game’s new locations, weapons and enemies.

The often rumored but not yet confirmed next generation Xbox is being said to be more than six times more powerful than the Xbox 360 and reportedly will finally play Blurays — but that’s not the big news. According to a report on Kotaku, the new console could prohibit used games from being played on it.

Citing an unnamed source, the site doesn’t say how the proposed technology could be implemented, but does theorize that the most probable solution would be to link each copy of a specific game with a unique code (similar to the current online pass system), though that can easily be bypassed by keeping the console offline.  Taking such a strong stance on used game sales would make publishers, who see no revenue from second hand sales, but may not sit well with retailers like GameStop or consumers.

Another rumor suggests that the next Xbox console will ship with a brand new version of the Kinect peripheral, complete with an onboard processor.

There’s been no confirmation when we’ll see the new Xbox, but rumors suggest some sort of unveiling to happen during this year’s E3 in June.

A new report on Inside Mobile Apps reports that Microsoft may be looking to phase out its Microsoft Point system that it has used since the inception of the Xbox Live Marketplace in favor of real world money, a move that would effect not only Xbox Live, but the Zune Marketplace, and Windows Phone users as well.

Citing memos sent to company partners, the site claims that Microsoft has reportedly been warning said partners to get ready for the change by the end of 2012. Given the recent rash of Xbox Live Point thefts and phishing scams, one has to wonder whether security is a main reason for the possible change.

Bill Gates isn’t going to send you a large chunk of cash for forwarding you an e-mail, a Nigerian Prince doesn’t want to give you his inheritance and no, you’re not going to be one of the first to play a beta version of Halo 4. Sorry, those sign ups that are being e-mailed around are fake.

David Ellis of 343 Industries, the studio behind Halo 4 took to Twitter to warn that any site or e-mail offering access to a beta for game is not to be trusted.

Microsoft has yet to announce any Beta plans for Halo 4, but that’s not to say that there won’t be one. Both Halo 3 and Halo: Reach had betas,so the safe money is on an eventual beta, just don’t give your info to anyone just yet.

Microsoft is investigating reports that workers in a factory in China that manufactures Xbox 360 consoles have threatened mass suicide in the midst of a pay dispute. Reportedly, anywhere between 80-200 workers climbed to the top of a six story building and threatened to jump unless conditions were improved.

Though details have been scarce, FoxConn, the owner of the plant has confirmed that 150 workers were part of the protest, which started when the decision was made to transfer all employees to an alternate production line. Though talks have settled, 40 of those workers have resigned.

“Microsoft takes working conditions in the factories that manufacture its products very seriously,” read an official statement from Microsoft. “We are currently investigating the issue.”

After years of being in a public beta, Minecraft for PC is finally out, so what does MineCon turn its attention to? The Xbox Live arcade version of the game set to hit…soon..ish. Take a look at the trailer for the game, outlining some of the new features.

For the better part of five years, I worked as  Disney cast member. I spent day after day learning the biggest secrets of a company that protects that to no end and as a result, I lost what Disney and its fan know as “the magic.” The extraordinary became mundane,  and in a weird way, I began to step away. Who knew it would take a virtual trip back to reignite my love.

In that sense, Kinect Disneyland Adventures does its job, and it does it very well; you’re constantly reminded of just what’s right about the Disney company and its brands, especially if you play with those familiar with the park. As a game though, it’s more of a mixed bag. It’s really fun and a cool demonstration of the tech behind Kinect to interact with the characters, but basic mechanics like moving around feel incredibly complicated, and will make you practically hate the experience. Still, I can’t help but recommend Kinect Disneyland Adventures for all of its charm, especially if you’re big on the park itself.

The idea behind Disneyland Adventures is simple, guide your avatar through the Disneyland park and go on adventures and quests as given to you by Disney characters. Now, this is a very idealized version of the famous theme park, there are no lines, the cast members all speak English, it’s not crowded, and you’re able to walk directly up to any of the characters at anytime. Curiously enough — there’s always a crowd around the characters, but no one — but you, ever goes up to them.  To the game’s credit, the Disneyland in the game is pretty accurate compared to the real deal; I was able to run around, without looking at the map, and get where I needed to go just based on my memory of the parks. Of course, some changes have been made for the sake of gameplay, but those are few and far between. The permanent popcorn carts and stands are even in the right place, impressive for a game that basically serves as a commercial.

The characters are also impressive in their recreations. For instance, we found Captain Hook outside of Peter Pan’s Flight in Fantasyland, and one of the options is to extend your arms in a hug motion to interact in that way with the characters, and while everyone from Mickey and Donald to Cinderella and Buzz Lightyear was happy to give a squeeze, Captain Hook (along with the rest of the Villains for that matter) were unsure of what to do and seemed very confused when we tried. Of course, this is a Disney game and every villain has a heart of gold deep down inside, so we eventually got our hug. There’s a fair number of interactions with each character, like dancing and signing autographs. The autographs are one of the game’s coolest feature, as you’ll gain points for collecting different autograph books (there’s one for heroes, one for villains, one for Princesses and so on) and getting the right characters to sign them. I was at first a bit annoyed that I had to do so much backtracking, but it became incredibly fun to dash around the parks with different books.

Each character you find will give you a different quest to go on in the park, whether it be giving something to another character, tracking something down or going to one of the attractions. The attractions are where the Kinect capabilities really come in. The rides and shows take the form of motion themed mini games, where you’ll interact with the attraction and its story. Much like The Disneyland park itself, these are idealized versions inspired by the attractions, so instead of actually going on the Matterhorn itself, you’ll be bobsledding down a hill and trying to evade the Yeti. A lot of these worlds are pretty cool, like the Haunted Mansion inspired world, which finds you hunting ghosts with a flashlight while the famous Ghost Host narrates your adventure. The worlds are given a more cell shaded look than the rest of the game, which lends a classic animation feel to them. The best part of all of this again is just how right they got everything, with the Ghost Host in the Haunted Mansion, Captain Hook and Smee in the Peter Pan levels and even the corny jokes in the Jungle Cruise section.

Now, it can be pretty hard to walk in a Disney park because of the crowds, but even though they are pretty much non existent in the game, it’s an incredibly frustrating experience just to walk. Kudos to the developers for trying to not just making it an on-rails game like most Kinect developers, but there’s simply got to be a better way. You move around the game by holding your hand up; holding it straight causes you to move forward while moving to the left or right has you moving in that direction and putting your hands to your side to stop. When it works, it’s great, but unfortunately, it doesn’t work a lot. The slightest movement will cause your character to shoot off into another direction — just hope you don’t get into a corner, as it’s going to be hell to get out of it.

Things get worse when you start unlocking different items to use like a magic wand or a megaphone. You gain these items by lifting your hand up and selecting them from a pop up wheel. While it may sound simple, the game has a hard time registering whether you’re trying to pick an item, or run forward and it’s incredibly frustrating. At one point I had the wand equipped, and saw the same teacup animate probably 20 times because the game wouldn’t register that I was just trying to put it back. On that same note, the voice controls are pretty superb. While they weren’t perfect, the game was incredibly responsive a good portion of the time.

The Blast Factor:  It may be a pain to get around, but Kinect Disneyland Adventures does its job of reminding you just why you love the  Disney parks. You’ll interact with your favorite characters, go on your favorite rides (sort of) and even find some secrets hidden around the park. The game is at its best when its played by families and kids get excited when they see their favorite characters. At the very least, it serves as a running commercial for the Parks.

When it was released alongside the Kinect last November, Kinect Sports was one of those no question purchases for a good majority of the peripheral’s early adopters. It was easy to jump in, fun for the whole family and a good display of what the camera system could do. It was also filled with flaws and glitches that affected the game’s visuals and gameplay. Now, one year later, Rare and Microsoft return with Kinect Sports: Season 2. Filled with more sports, and fine tuned Kinect functionality, this year’s game goes miles ahead of last year’s, but unfortunately, it’s still packed with many of those same flaws that ruined the previous game.

Kinect Sports: Season 2 introduces players to five new sports, baseball, football, tennis golf and downhill skiing; along with darts (note: not a sport – just sayin’). Of these six, skiing is the easiest to jump in to; simply stand like you’re skiing and move your body from side-to-side to move between your markers. From time to time you’ll have to jump for style points, and while it’s quite fun, it can be irresponsive at times. The game does a great job of adjusting the difficulty so you never really feel like you’ve lost until the end of the race – even if you’re doing terrible.

The game’s football mode is disappointing, but comes with some impressive tech. Players control either the quarterback or one of the receivers. The quarterback crouches down to hike the ball and either yells “Hike!” or moves their arms as if retrieving the ball to start the play. Your receivers icons above their heads will turn green when they’re open and you can either throw the ball to the left, right or straight ahead.  Receivers catch the ball by stretching their arms out, and then run in place to get to the end zone. The quarterback can also call an audible at the line of scrimmage if he sees a weakness in the defense, though don’t expect a Madden-like level of strategy here, calling audibles is basically a game of chance more often than not.

As basic as the football controls are, it’s easy to envision next year’s Madden, which has been confirmed to feature Kinect functionality use something similar to the system here.  Imagine walking up to the line as Aaron Rodgers in the Superbowl, looking over the defense and calling an audible using the same system the actual team does.  The ideas in Kinect Sports: Season 2’s football mode feel an awful lot like a great starting point for other things – even if they’re not all that fleshed out here.

It should come as no surprise that golf is the game’s most fun and responsive mode. The majority of the golfing mechanic is easy and responsive, and the addition of voice controls for club selection makes things seem even more fluid. Admittedly, it was a bit weird being so used to having a Wii-mote in my hands to golf, and it threw me off a bit at first, but thanks to how intuitive the game the system is, that problem didn’t last long at all. It’s important to note that it took a while to get used to putting, as the game kept hitting the ball too hard regardless of my motion, though a quick trip to the Kinect tuner seemed to rectify this.

In a similar fashion, baseball is also a mixed bag. Pitchers can throw the ball with either their left or right hand, curving the ball by curving their arm. Sounds pretty simple right? Unfortunately, the game seems to fall apart once you step into the batter’s box. As you’d expect, batting is based pretty solely on timing, but sometimes even when you get a good hit, the game sends it directly to a spot in the outfield where an opposing player is, which triggers a mini game for the outfielder. It just seems like the baseball portion of the game is built mostly on luck rather than any kind of skill.

By far, the most disappointing aspect of the game is the darts section. Put quite simply, it’s almost unplayable due to limitations in the Kinect system itself. Darts is a game of accuracy, and the Kinect seems to have no way to judge where you’re trying to send the darts you’re throwing. Quite often I would aim one for an upper portion of the board, only to see it go to the very bottom. To see just how bad the game’s recognition for darts was, I closed my eyes and made a cartoonish throwing motion and to my surprise it went almost perfect straight. Hopefully this is something an update can fix.

One of the biggest problems with the original Kinect Sports was that you had to be playing a full game either online or against a local opponent to compete with friends, but Season 2 adds a challenge mode to each sport that adds a ton of replayability to the title. Baseball for instance has the home run derby and golf has a targeting mini game.  Season 2 also introduces a much more streamlined menu process that features a responsive voice system. Want to play football? Just say it. This year’s game is much easier to navigate through.

The Blast Factor: Though it’s not a drastic change from last year’s game, the teams at Rare and Microsoft have done a nice job addressing the majority of the issues to make Kinect Sports: Season 2 a much more enjoyable experience. Not all of the sports are as enjoyable as the next, and unless you’ve got a big group looking to play, you’re likely to get tired of the game rather quick, but Kinect Sports Season 2 is a fun if not flawed party experience.

As a kid I wanted nothing more than to be Hulk Hogan, in fact there are probably more pictures in the family album of me wearing a Hulkamania shirt than anything else –  and why not? He was the guy who made a room pop when he entered, he stood up against the bad guys for what was right, he showed no fear in the face of adversity. He trained, he prayed and he ate his vitamins.

Fast forward a few decades and much has changed. Hogan is arguably no longer the immortal icon he was before, he’s a failed reality star, slinging everything from energy drinks to grills and what’s worse – he seems to be clinging to fading glory. It wasn’t until this week that I felt his legend had hit rock bottom.

Enter Hulk Hogan’s Main Event, the Kinect based wrestling title (for lack of a better word) that makes you the protégé to the biggest name in the history of sport’s entertainment.  Long story short – it’s as bad as it sounds, in fact, it’s worse, much worse. Utterly broken and uninspired in every way, Main Event easily takes the championship as Kinect’s worst game, and that’s saying something.

The problems with Main Event start before you even pop the disc in. The game brands itself as a wrestling title, but it’s far from it. There’s no mat work, no ring psychology; no, this game is all about the entertainment aspect of the “sport.” You’ll create your superstar, who will oddly enough be noticed by the Hulkster at a backyard wrestling event, and from there you’ll work on showmanship, personality and eventually throw a few punches. This might be acceptable if you were allowed to show any spark of creativity when creating your wrestler – the entire creation suite is severely lacking; there’s no even an option for long hair. How the hell am I supposed to tease my hair ala Rick Rude to make the ladies in the crowd swoon?

The story mode in Main Event finds you attempting to climb up the ranks of a wrestling organization but being held down by an unfair booker, who is named….booker (no, really). This is told to you through a series of comic book panel like cut scenes, complete with speech bubbles. Why they didn’t just have Hogan record the lines is beyond me, but perhaps they realized how annoying the majority of the lines he did record can become. During any match, Hogan will randomly yell “inspirational” phrases your way like “You’ve got to believe in yourself” and “Nice finisher brother!” It’s important to note that Hogan seemed to yell that last one regardless of what move I was doing or what portion of the match I was in.  Remember that episode of The Simpsons where Homer is training to climb the giant mountain and his trainer just stands behind him and yells promotional slogans? To the Max! Push it! Yeah, it’s kind of like that, just not nearly as funny.

Yup, that's a winner.

So here’s how your typical match in Main Event goes; Your character is introduced and from there your goal is get the biggest reaction out of the crowd by posing how the Hulkster tells you to. Now don’t get too excited, this isn’t a free-for-all, you won’t be making your own poses, that’s what you have Hulk Hogan for, and you’ll be doing such thrilling maneuvers as raising your right arm (ohhh) and puffing out your chest (double ohhh!). From there, you’ll enter into a food dodging mini-game and yes, you read that right. The crowd seems insistent on pelting you with their nachos and beverages, which would make sense if you’re  a bad guy that’s getting over, but it happens every time. Every…single…time.

The game’s in-ring action finds you doing a lot of punching and kicking while throwing in a few actual wrestling maneuvers (if you count clothes lines and simple throws) for good measure. Your basic goal is to repeat your moves until your opponent is finally on the ground and ready for the pin, upon which you’ll have to do the strangest motion for a pin – moving side to side wildly. The most infuriating part of all of this is that your opponent’s health bar is constantly regenerating, so if one of your moves gets blocked, it’s back to square one.

It could be easy to forgive Hulk Hogan’s main event if the damn thing worked at all. The game is a perfect example of how not to make a motion game. Less than half of your moves are actually registered by the game, but it’s not like you really have to try, the game doesn’t really require you to do any certain moves. Oh, it tries to tell you that it does, but at certain parts I got so frustrated with the game that I began to wildly flail my arms around, and the game picked it up as whatever it wanted me to do. Air guitar? That’s a punch. Moving around like an airplane…that’s a punch too.

The Blast Factor: It’s tough to say just who Hulk Hogan’s main event is marketed to; it’s not really a wrestling game, nor is it a good Kinect game. Hell, it’s not even a good game at all. It’s broken, uninspired and cheap. They say you should never meet your heroes, apparently you should never play their games either.

There are a lot of ways you could describe Turn 10’s Forza Motorsport 4. It’s a racing game, it’s a driving simulator, but the easiest way – it’s simply pure unadulterated car porn.  Gorgeous and deep, the latest in the long running Xbox racing series feels like the genre perfected and while it may not change the way those who don’t like driving games feel about the genre, it’s impossible not to appreciate the level of detail and depth put on display.  Forza 4 is quite simply a car lover’s virtual dream.

The Forza series has always been a visual treat, but nothing that came before it compares to what Forza 4 is packing, and it’s all thanks to the game’s new image-based lighting model.  The locations you’ll be racing in come alive with picturesque scenic vistas and stunning backdrops, and they’re made all the better by the superb lighting model which causes shadows to stretch out to just the right points and interact in just the right ways.  You want a show piece for your new HDTV? Pop-in Forza 4 and show someone its visuals.

Of course, all of this works together to make the game’s main attraction; the cars look downright stunning.  Turn 10 has poured a ton of work into ensuring that each car is perfect down to the smallest detail.  Going through and inspecting the models, especially some of the more exotic and vintage car proves to be an impressive endeavor (especially if you’re able to do so with Kinect). The cars look great in motion as well, as they’re incredibly smooth and weighted just right as they roll down the game’s multitude of tracks.

For true car lovers though, Forza 4’s sweet spot has to be its audio presentation. The game features a wide variety of cars, from classics, to exotic models and each of them sounds incredibly authentic when punching the engine.  Want to get to the heart of a car junkie? Turn the volume up real loud and crank a few engines, it’s stellar, strangely rewarding and almost impossible to resist.

Of course, much like any good car, the true heart of Forza isn’t in its looks, but under its hood, and Turn 10 delivers here as well. Genetically speaking, Forza 4 shares a lot of its core with that of its predecessor Forza 3, but thanks to a generous amount of tweaks and new additions, this is now slight upgrade.  The most noticeable of these updates is how smooth the games monstrous suite of cars handle. Each of the cars handle remarkably true to their real life counterpart, now I may have never driven a Ferrari, but the ones in Forza 4 feel an awful lot like what I’ve always dreamed they would. One of the things I really found myself enjoying about Forza 4 is trying out different cars, how they feel, how they sound – and I’m not even a huge car guy.

One of the most notable features of Forza 4 is just how accessible it can be when compared to other hardcore driving simulators. Sure, the focus here is on sheer driving and skill, but Forza also features a slew of driving aids and tweaks that will allow even the worst driver to enjoy their time with the game. Perhaps that’s the mark of what makes Forza so enjoyable, it’s perfectly fine being one of the most deep racing sims on the market, but it’s also not afraid to turn things down a bit to encourage others to play.

Turn 10 has also made other changes to the Forza formula to better accommodate novice players, but they haven’t necessarily made the game easier, just easier to jump in to. At the easier settings, AI controlled drivers aren’t dumbed down so they’re worse drivers, they’re just not as confident as those found on the higher difficulties. These inexperienced drivers will brake more often and be cautious going in to turns, allowing newer users the ability to learn the finer points of the game, and not just scale by on the easier difficulties.

In previous Forza games, you would only be able to level up cars until they reach level 5, leading to a lot of replayability being lost. That’s fixed in Forza 4 as the game introduces manufacturer specific levels called affinity levels which can be attributed to any vehicle; as long as it’s in the same manufacturer family. In essence, what these levels do is allow players to continue using a car they really like no matter how fine tuned it is while still earning XP and credits you’re able to use throughout the game and adds a ton of replayability.

As robust as the single player experience is, Forza 4 also packs a rather impressive multiplayer suite. The best mode of this suite is easily the rivals mode, which allows you to play against your friends whether they’re online or not thanks to a ghost system. Perhaps most impressive about the multiplayer suite isn’t how robust it is, but how everything works together. Playing online will also give you XP and credits to use throughout the game. In short, that means ultimate bragging rights.

Forza 4 could also be the first game baring the “better with Kinect” branding that I actually believe, as Microsoft’s motion sensing camera actually adds to the experience quite a bit. Using Kinect will allow you to use the cool steering wheel controller as well as the ability to look to your left and right while driving, by simply doing so in real life.  The true allure of Kinect is when you use it to oogle the cars in the auto vista mode…hands off of course.

The Blast Factor: I may never own an Italian sports car or high performance muscle car (unless Guilfoil ups my salary), but thanks to Forza 4, I can know what it’s like. It’s the most detailed, fun and rewarding driving simulator I’ve ever played. Car junkies are going to love that Turn 10 gets it, and even those who don’t get hot under the collar at an engine will love the jaw dropping presentation values. Forza 4 is simply an accomplishment in every sense of the word.

At this point, it’s pretty much a forgone conclusion that the next Microsoft gaming console is already in development, but new LinkedIn postings, as spotted by Internet super-slueth supererogatory point us in the direction of just who may be working on the project.

Jeff Faulkner, Xbox’s User Experience Creative Director now lists himself as “Xbox Next Gen Creative Director” on his profile while senior creative director Jonathan Harris says that he’s “designing the next generation of entertainment” at Microsoft.

Visual designer Patrick Corrigan lists a former job (listed as ending in June of this year) at the publisher as “providing groundwork and integration for branding elements for next-gen XBOX on all forms of media. Ranging from print to UI across future releases of the XBOX platform.”

Microsoft hasn’t returned our emails looking for comments about the listing, and don’t expect them to, they’re keeping the new console, and any information regarding its development under wraps for now.

Video games normally take years to plan before they’re even pitched to a publisher — just don’t tell Twisted Pixel that. Twisted Pixel COO Josh Bear recently told Joystiq about how the idea for the Gunstringer, they’re Kinect title staring an undead puppet was thought up in three minutes.

According to Bear, the studio had an idea for a completely separate Kinect game in mind that incorporated precise finger movements, but after playing around with the tech pre-release, they realized that they couldn’t pitch the idea. The only problem? They already had a meeting with a Microsoft representative, and they had to come up with a new idea — and fast.

“Mike [Wilford, CEO]‘s kind of chatting with other Microsoft people, and I’m like, frantically looking around the restaurant just trying to think of ideas,” said Bear. “To my left, there was this painting of a skeleton cowboy and I looked at it and just — literally — I was like ‘OK: Skeleton cowboy that needs to get revenge on posse … marionette. F*** it.’”

For a game that started so uniquely, it sure turned into a great title. Read our full review here.

You can always count on Suda 51 for wierd and quirky games, and his latest is Diabolical Pitch; a horror baseball game for Kinect. Let that sink in for a bit.

Diabolical Pitch, expected to hit Xbox Live next year allows you and a friend to throw rocket baseballs and other powerups at weird mascotish creatures. Check out the first trailer below.

Ryan Payton, the creative director of 343′s Halo 4 has left the game’s development team and company. He’ll start his own company, Camoflaj, which already has two titles in development.

“I had a great run at Microsoft,” Payton told Kotaku. “I don’t regret one day of it. But after a few years, there came a point where I wasn’t creatively excited about the project anymore.” Payton tells the gaming website that he wanted to create a different Halo 4 than the team at 343 industries, but is still excited for the project. “The Halo I wanted to build was fundamentally different and I don’t think I had built enough credibility to see such a crazy endeavor through.”

Payton talked about his goals with his new company, and they’re lofty ones indeed.“Some people say I’m crazy, but I want to make a game that one billion people play at once, and it’s something that hits them harder than a great book or film,” said Payton.

With a name like Hole in the Wall, it’s easy to get the wrong idea. It’s probably not a phrase you’d want to Google at work, for instance. As it turns out, this downloadable Kinect title is a mostly innocent and goofy full-body motion game based off of a Japanese game show. So, expect weirdness to abound.

The basic premise is that a wall is coming toward you, with a shaped hole in it that you must fit through. Most of these shapes are poses—some standing, some sitting, kneeling, or even laying down—and a timer is running, so you have to be quick and flexible. If you don’t fill the hole within the time period, your avatar is shoved into a pool of water.

Hole in the Wall is pretty weird, but not entirely original even for American audiences. Nintendo released the far more bizarre Muscle March on the Wii’s online store a while ago, which was basically the same concept. Also, iPhone/iPad users might recognize all this wackiness from Tic Toc Body Pop, where you move a mannequin around to match the hole in the wall.

The first concern with any Kinect game is how accurately it uses the camera. From that perspective, Hole in the Wall is good with a few quirks. The game actually uses your avatar as the on-screen character, which mimics your body movements amazingly well. You’ll have to move all over the playing area to position your avatar in line with the hole, then adjust your limbs, head, and height accordingly.

There are occasions when you’d swear you were in the right place, but the game still doesn’t register success. There are more times when you’re barely in the spot and the score meter starts to rise. At first, it’s easy to assume the game only notices when you’re simply standing in the right spot, as that’s generally when the score meter starts moving. In reality, the game fills the score meter faster based on how much of the hole you’ve filled and if your various limbs are in basically the right spot.

When it all works right—which is most of the time—it’s bizarrely entertaining. This is especially true in the multiplayer mode, which dangerously supports two teams of two. While the teams do take turns, striking poses with your teammate at the same time will likely end up creating some hilarious, yet possibly tragic new Youtube videos. After all, isn’t that where all motion gameplay mishaps end up?

Packaged around a game-show theme, the main portion of Hole in the Wall contains ten different multi- stage rounds. Each round has a theme (sports, winter, etc…), but the gameplay seldom varies in the slightest. The final stage of each round throws in a quirk—the first, for instance, turns off the stage lights, while others just speed up the pace of the wall entirely. There’s also a survival mode, where the object is to pass through as many holes as possible without fail. Unfortunately, this mode rampantly reuses the same poses over and over.

The Blast Factor: Much like the show it’s based on, Hole in the Wall is entirely hinged on a single gimmick. In short doses, the game is entertaining for a cheap thrill and certain to elicit laughter from bystanders. Whether this limited amount of value is worth 800 points is a personal decision, but for what it is, Hole in the Wall is an odd, amusing diversion from the norm.

\Next year’s Halo 4 won’t be the next game in the colossal first person shooter series, it will also be the first chapter in the new “reclaimer trilogy”. The announcement was made over the weekend at PAX Prime’s Halo Fest.

Long running players will remember that Master Chief was referred to as The Reclaimer a few times in the original Halo.

343 Industries, the studio behind Halo 4 has also uploaded a video of new concept art for Halo 4.

Microsoft announced this morning that it has pushed the release of Star Wars Kinect back from this coming holiday season until 2012.  The Star Wars themed Xbox has also been pushed back to coincide with the new release date. No concrete date has been announced.

“Microsoft and LucasArts have elected to move the launch of Kinect Star Wars beyond holiday 2011 to ensure the full potential of this title is realized,” a spokesperson told Official Xbox Magazine.

It’s not incredibly surprising, when we went hands on…errr…off with the title at this year’s E3, the game showed potential, but was marred by technical issues and questionable design choices.  Here’s hoping that the issues are fixed by next year.

Microsoft has announced that its theme park exploring sim Kinect Disneyland Adventures will release exclusively for Xbox 360 and Kinect on November 15, just in time for the Holiday season. Check out the brand new screenshots for the game!

Google will buy Motorola’s former phone making division, Motorola Mobility, for $12.5 billion in cash, marking the search engine giant’s largest acquisition to date.

“Motorola Mobility’s total commitment to Android has created a natural fit for our two companies,” said Google CEO Larry Page in a statement. “Together, we will create amazing user experiences that supercharge the entire Android ecosystem for the benefit of consumers, partners and developers.”

Google Android competes directly with iPhone, Blackberry, and Microsoft Windows-based devices. Mobility makes smartphones for the Android, but sales have floundered, especially against the iPhone/iPad.

Motorola Mobility split from the rest of the company in January.

In the sale, Google will pay $40.00 per share, 63 percent over Motorola’s closing stock price on Friday.

The Associated Press reported that Google is likely interested in Motorola’s many, many patents on mobile phone technology, as a consortium of its competitors, which included Microsoft, Apple and Blackberry maker Research In Motion, recently won the chance to buy thousands of patents from bankrupt Canadian networking gear maker Novell.

You’ll soon be able to get your Game of Thrones fix right on your Xbox or PS3, thanks to HBO and Time Warner’s announcement that the on demand service HBO GO will soon be hitting consoles.

The announcement was made via a conference call with investors, and shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, as it was revealed earlier this week that over half of all Netflix instant stream users connect via a game console.

HBO GO is an on demand video service free for anyone with an HBO subscription.

Why an elephant? Because.

Probably not. But isn’t wild internet speculation fun?

The latest rumors come after the domain microsoft-sony.com was registered and traced back to Microsoft. It could be something, or it could be nothing as domain names are known to be wacky for ass covering reasons.  But hey, who knows.

Making the rumor even more interesting is the rumor that Kotaku reported that the two companies were in active discussion regarding their new consoles — to be released in 2014.

What does it mean? Probably nothing. But he stranger things have happened. Did you ever think Mario and Sonic would be in a game together?

Shane Kim, former VP of strategy and business development for Microsoft’s  Interactive Entertainment division, and one of the fathers of the Xbox 360 and some of it’s biggest franchises has joined the GameStop board of directors.

Though no concrete details are available on just what Kim will be doing for the Texas based company, executive chairman Dan DeMatteo said, “[Kim will] bring valuable insight in supporting the advancement of GameStop’s digital strategy.”

It’s a safe bet that Kim will lend his Xbox Live fueled knowledge to the company’s growing online presence. In recent months, the retailer has purchased both online gaming portal Kongregate as well as digital distribution service Impulse and streaming game company Spawn Labs.

Microsoft announced that as of Monday they have sold 400 million Windows 7 licenses worldwide since its release in October 2009.

While that is great news for the company, they also discussed their Windows 8 OS during a Worldwide Partner Conference, but only briefly, as more will be revealed later on in the year.

Why all the fanfare over Windows 7? Besides the growth, the company also wants people to ditch XP for 7, because Microsoft announced that customers now have 1,000 days until the company stops supporting Windows XP.

According to Erwin Visser, senior director for the Windows Commercial Product Marketing team “Windows XP served us well, but in the ten years since it launched, the world has changed. It’s time to retire Windows XP and move to Windows 7 to take advantage of the last decade of innovation in areas such as security, performance and more natural, intuitive interface.”

How will this work, since the two OS are not really compatible with each other? Microsoft lauded the cloud-based service Intune can help users manage and secure their computers from any location.

“Windows Intune has proven to be the comprehensive solution [partners and customers] need, giving them cloud services for PC management and security and upgrade rights to Windows 7 Enterprise (and future versions of Windows) from a single, simple subscription,” said Visser.

It sounds like Microsoft is trying to help the demise of XP by providing tools to help people make the transfer.

Many XP users stuck with the venerable operating system after downgrading from the failed Windows Vista a few years ago.

Sometimes even executives have a bad day at the office. Skype, the video chat service that allows you to talk to anyone around the world with a computer, a camera and a microphone, is closing in on a deal with Microsoft and fired several executives to make a sweeter deal with the company this past Monday.

Why? Well according to Bloomberg, firing them now, before the deal is final will actually reduce the actual value of their payouts. Ouch. Talk about company sincerity.

Skype even let go Allyson Campa who just started with the company when they acquired Qik to boost their already popular video chat service.

If the execs had stayed around until after the deal closed with Microsoft, then their stock options would be worth more, so Skype and Microsoft save money by firing them now, Bloomberg reported.

The acquisition was approved on Thursday, by the Department of Justice $8.5 billion.