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Many details were revealed at the Microsoft Xbox One reveal event today in Redmond, Washington. While many exciting features were revealed, it’s what the Xbox One will not do …
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Thanks to our friends at Kalypso Media and Reverb Publishing, we have another great console prize package to give away. As listed above, we are giving out the custom 250 GB Alien Spidy Xbox 360 and more! We were very excited to get a hold of this prize package, but we’re not keeping it for ourselves. One lucky site reader will be gaming on this console very soon! All you need to do to enter this contest is answer the following question in the comment section below:

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After years of waiting and speculating on the part of gamers and the press, Microsoft President of Interactive Entertainment Business Don Mattrick today unveiled the company’s next-generation console, the Xbox One, at an event broadcast live from Microsoft’s Redmond, WA campus. The new console, which will launch worldwide later this year, is the successor to Microsoft’s Xbox 360 console, which launched in November of 2005. The Xbox One is Microsoft’s third home video game console, with the original Xbox having been launched in November 2001.

In a stark contrast from competitor Sony’s PlayStation 4 unveiling, Microsoft showed the world what the Xbox One console (pictured above), controller and Kinect sensor looked like almost immediately at the start of the event. All three piees of hardware are primarily black, with the Xbox One and Kinect sensor having hard rectangular shapes. The new controller appears similar in shape to the old one, but has an improved d-pad, triggers and more. Microsoft promised that there are 40 design innovations in the new controller.

Though much of the show failed to focus on actual games, Phil Spencer, corporate vice president of Microsoft Studios, revealed that Microsoft is working on more than a dozen Xbox One games. “We have more titles in development now than in any other time in Xbox history,” said Spencer. “I’m proud to announce that Microsoft Studios plans to release 15 new games in the first year of Xbox One.” Spencer stated that eight of those titles are brand new franchises.

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Tomorrow at 10 am PDT, Microsoft will likely tell us all some things we already know. The Xbox creator will also tell us plenty that we don’t already know. Some rumors will probably be proven true, others false. New games and features will be discussed and, in some cases, shown. Ultimately, the curtain is going to fall on Microsoft’s event before the public hears everything it wants to hear. Microsoft is only going to tease us, with a more complete showing of all its console plans for the years ahead not coming until the console holder’s traditional pre-E3 media briefing on June 10.

But tomorrow we will know something we don’t know today. We’ll know something about what direction Microsoft plans to steer the Xbox brand in over the course of the next generation. Sitting here right now, I can honestly say that I know nothing more than any other gamer who’s followed the supposed leaks over the past few years knows about what we’re going to see tomorrow. Rather than make educated guesses about what might be shown tomorrow and at E3, XBLAFans is following up last week’s look at how developers feel about XBLA as it currently stands by having them speak about where they want to see it go in the next generation.

During PAX East this past March, we cornered six game developers and asked them one question: If you could change any one thing or add any one feature to the next-generation version of Xbox Live Arcade, what would it be?

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The long-rumored death of Microsoft Points is just around the corner, according to The Verge’s sources. Recently, Microsoft has been slowly transitioning away from points across its various stores. …
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Your Xbox dashboard may be getting another facelift soon! Anonymous sources whispered to The Verge that Microsoft is planning an update to prepare for the still-unknown 360 successor’s …
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Dead Space’s Isaac Clarke once had to drill into his own eyeball in order to survive a ship infested with mutated freaks. Altaïr Ibn-La’Ahad of Assassin’s Creed fame was made to part with a portion of one of his fingers in order to join the Levantine Brotherhood of Assassins. Tomb Raider’s Lara Croft once had the misfortune of falling onto a piece of sharpened rebar that pierced her midsection — and all she was trying to do was go for a nice little exploratory boat ride. And that’s not even mentioning the myriad scores of locust soldiers that have found themselves on the wrong end of Marcus Fenix’s trusty chainsaw or colossal boots over the years.

You don’t hear any of them complaining about having to endure those, shall we way, slightly disagreeable circumstances, though, do you? That’s because those mere flesh wounds were nothing when compared to the great tragedy of our time: working with a certain platform holder to release your independent studio’s game on Xbox Live Arcade. I shudder at the very thought.

If you’ve followed Xbox Live Arcade over the past several years here and on other sites, then you already know of what I speak. There lives in Redmond, Washington a great beast, massive in size with glowing red-ringed eyes of fury. It is a devious creature hellbent on tricking those smaller than it into believing they’re partners, only to turn on them in their hour of need, stomping down on their hopes and dreams harder than Fenix has brought down his boots on so many locust heads. Such disdain does this gluttonous monstrosity have for the smaller creatures roaming the forest of the game industry, that it is more than happy to sacrifice its own interests if it means snuffing out the light of those cowering under its great shadow.

So evil is this…Wait. Isn’t this getting just a little out of hand? Is Microsoft really that terrible of a company? Does it truly care nothing for the needs of independent game developers? Is its thirst for video game console dominance so insatiable that it doesn’t mind torpedoing its, um, pursuit of video game console dominance so long as it means making life miserable for independent game studios that, by developing games for its platform, are actively working to help it succeed with its, uh, video game console dominance? It is if you’ve listened to the little guys with big megaphones.

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• Fez had an outstanding soundtrack, and we were all spoiled last month with the release of the remix album. Well, it looks like we’ve been given another gift, …
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Fans of Monolith Studios’ Lord of the Rings: Guardians of Middle-earth have a vast array of characters to choose from. In addition to the characters included with the game a whopping 14 DLC characters have been released. The latest of these additions are the Elf lord Elrond of Rivendell, and the villainous Mouth of Sauron — once a member of the race of men, now corrupted both morally and physically from years of service to the dark lord.

Both characters are now available for 160 MSP each, and are not included as part of the season pass. Of the 14 released characters, only the first eight are part of that pass. Should you be new to Guardians, the season pass nets you those first eight characters plus a new survival mode for 1200 MSP. Purchasing these nine items separately is 1600 MSP, so you’re saving 25% if you want it all. The Mouth of Sauron character trailer can be viewed above. Hit the jump for Elrond’s.

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Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon, the 80’s inspired spin-off to the Far Cry franchise, took us all by surprise when it released earlier this month. The game that began as an April …
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