Tag: Microsoft

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Crackdown Is Now Free For Xbox, Ahead of Crackdown 3 Release Date

Microsoft is now offering free digital copies of Crackdown. This special offer seems to prepare the fans of the series for the Crackdown 3 release date which is scheduled for in about eight days.

Crackdown Is Now Free For Xbox

Crackdown rolled out initially for Xbox 360, and it has been a very successful release since its first days on the market. Over time, with the rollout of Xbox One and backward compatibility, Crackdown became playable on Xbox One systems, too.

When it first came out on Xbox 360, in 2007, Crackdown was quick to become a successful title. The superhero-style power fantasy gameplay attracted many players who became hooked on the title. Now, those who want to play the game again or gamers who have never had the chance to play Crackdown have the opportunity to get the title for free.

The Crackdown version for Xbox One would be an optimized variant of the original game, with improved graphics, 4K resolution, and modern performance enhancements for the game to load faster than on Xbox 360.

Crackdown 3 Release Date

Crackdown 3 is the next installment in the Crackdown franchise. The game will launch on February 15th of this year after its launch has been postponed since 2017 when the game should’ve come out, initially. Last summer, in 2018, Microsoft Studios delayed the Crackdown 3 release date once again, and last fall, the publisher announced the final release date – February 15th, 2019.

In Crackdown 3, players would once again impersonate powerful Agents in an open-world environment. The upcoming release of the series would sport both single-player and co-op modes. However, to play Crackdown 3 online, you must have an Xbox Live Gold subscription.

In conclusion, Crackdown, the first release in the series, is now free on Xbox, ahead of Crackdown 3 release date. Crackdown 3 would come out on February 15th, 2019, exclusively on Xbox One and Microsoft Windows.

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Games News Tech

Xbox Live Cross-Platform Play On Nintendo Switch To Expand, Microsoft Wants

Microsoft plans to debate the expansion of the Xbox Live cross-platform play on Nintendo Switch during the upcoming Game Developers Conference, which would happen between the 18th and 22nd of March. According to a recently released schedule of the event, Microsoft wants to expand the cross-platform play on Nintendo Switch to other titles besides the popular Minecraft.

Microsoft would also allow devs to preview the SDK responsible for enabling the developers to connect players across multiple platforms, with Nintendo Switch included, in any game that is currently available via Microsoft Store for Windows computers and Xbox.

“Xbox Live is one of the largest, most engaged gaming communities on the planet with decades of experience providing managed game services to developers that save you time and unlock all of the social and engagement features that players love. Now Xbox Live is about to get MUCH bigger. Xbox Live is expanding from 400M gaming devices and a reach to over 68M active players to over 2B devices with the release of our new cross-platform XDK,” reads the report on the panel.

Microsoft Wants to Expand the Xbox Live Cross-Platform Play On Nintendo Switch

“Get a first look at the SDK to enable game developers to connect players between iOS, Android, and Switch in addition to Xbox and any game in the Microsoft Store on Windows PCs,” said Microsoft in the preview of the Game Developers Conference which would take place in March.

“Xbox Live players are highly engaged and active on Xbox and PC, but now they can take their gaming achievement history, their friends list, their clubs, and more with them to almost every screen. This will break down barriers for developers that want their communities to mingle more freely across platforms. Combined with PlayFab gaming services, this means less work for game developers and more time to focus on making games fun,” the tech giant added.

In short, Microsoft would like to expand the Xbox Live cross-platform play on Nintendo Switch, and it would even offer a preview to the SDK responsible for that during the Game Developers Conference which would happen between May 18th and 22n of this year.

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Xbox One “Deployment Error” Made The Console Inoperative For Some, But Microsoft Fixed The Issue

Yesterday, January 30th, 2019, Microsoft, the giant tech company, experienced some severe issues with its Xbox One console. More specifically, an Xbox One “deployment error” made the console inoperative for some owners. However, Microsoft fixed the glitches which, apparently, affected the Xbox One startup, sign-in process, and update.

The whole thing started yesterday, with some players being unable to connect to their accounts. Even more, some Xbox One owners also experienced difficulties when tried turn on their consoles. Others also suffered a black screen of death on Xbox One and freezing and crash bugs.

Also, some Xbox One players could not access their cloud-saved video games. Microsoft acknowledged these issues and reported that they’re working on a fix to solve out all these glitches and bugs, reportedly caused by an Xbox One “deployment error.”

Microsoft Fixed the Xbox One “Deployment Error” Which Made The Console Inoperative for Some Owners

“We are aware of reports of Xbox One console startup, title update, and sign-in errors. We will keep everyone informed once we have more information to share. Thank you all for your patience,” reported Microsoft yesterday, after many Xbox One users complained about some errors.

“Our teams have identified the cause for our earlier issues and are continuing to address these now. Thank you for your patience, we’ll update again when we know of any other changes,” the Xbox One team announced soon after the initial post on Twitter. Finally, “the issues surrounding Xbox One console startup, sign-in, title update errors, and our status page have now been resolved. Thank you for sticking with us while our teams addressed these issues, and we appreciate the reports. As always, we’re here, and we’re listening,” said Microsoft via the Xbox One official Twitter page.

Microsoft solved out the Xbox One “deployment error” that caused some consoles to freeze and crash, but some users have already avoided the issue by merely restarting the console.

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Microsoft Will Shut Down Windows 7 Support In Precisely One Year From Now

Despite the fact that Windows 10 is now the most prevalent operating system of Microsoft, Windows 7 is still popular among some users and in some regions of the world. However, if you’re now using Windows 7, you should consider upgrading to Windows 10 (would be useless to get Windows 8, obviously) because in precisely one year from now, on January 14th, 2020, Microsoft will shut down Windows 7 support.

That would mean that as of January 14th, 2020, Windows 7 users won’t get any new updates and security patches for their operating system. Thus, it would be smart to upgrade to Windows 10 before the before-mentioned date. Not only that Windows 10 is much better than Windows 7, but there are a whole bunch of programs, including games, that run smoother on Windows 10 or just don’t run on previous versions of the operating system.

Windows 7 rolled out in 2009, and it has been one of the most popular operating systems released by Microsoft since then.

Microsoft Will Shut Down Windows 7 Support In Precisely One Year From Now

At the end of 2018, according to some recent statistics, Windows 10 has begun to gain traction, surpassing Windows 7 in popularity. According to the data, Windows 10 is now holding a 39.2 percent of the desktop OS market, while Windows 7 comes second with 36.9 percent.

Nonetheless, Windows 7 is a very smooth operating system and less demanding than Windows 10. For that reason, among others, there are still many users out there using it. But that would soon change since they must upgrade to Windows 10 to be up-to-date with the latest security patches.

As we’ve already mentioned before, as of January 14th, 2020, in one year from now, precisely, Microsoft will shut down Windows 7 support. Therefore, you should upgrade your computer to Windows 10 before that date or, why not, get a new, more performant PC or laptop with Windows 10 pre-installed.

 

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Surface Book 3 Prototype Unveiled On Instagram By a Microsoft Executive

Ralf Groene, head of Industrial Design for Microsoft Devices, revealed the new Surface Book 3 prototype on Instagram. The unveiling of the device was well-received by the fans. In the image shared by Ralf Groene, we can see that the future Surface Book 3 boasts a detachable hinge, using a so-called “muscle-wire-based actuators” to detach the tablet from the base of the device by clicking a button.

“Early prototype of Surface Book muscle wire detach,” said Ralf Groene, the head of Industrial Design for Microsoft Devices, on Instagram.

“As you might expect, the device has a face only a creator could love; it has a 9-volt battery stuck into where the display should be located. That being said, this prototype was used to test the muscle wire detach mechanism for the Surface Book, according to Groene,” reported Thurrott, the tech news portal which was the first to talk about Surface Book 3 prototype unveiled by Ralf Groene.

Surface Book 3 Prototype Unveiled On Instagram By a Microsoft Executive

The fascinating design of the Surface Book devices helped Microsoft win a lot of praise from the fans who were not at all happy with the boring looks of Microsoft’s Surface Laptop gadgets.

We, therefore, hope that Microsoft would recover in 2019 with the upcoming Surface Book 3 device and other astonishing gadgets announced via a series of rumors, such as the so-called Surface Andromeda, Surface Januss, and Surface Centaurus.

Brad Sams from the Thurrott also added that, in his opinion, now, since Surface Book 2 is over a year old already, Microsoft would most likely announce the next Surface Book 3 somewhen in 2019, probably during the following few months, in the first half of the year. The most exciting thing to see would be the technical specs sheet of the future Surface Book, hoping that Microsoft will come out with a brand-new device, from A to Z, not with an update of the Surface Book 2.

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