Battlefield 4 Updates Coming to Xbox 360 and PC Soon, DICE Promises
Just because. Next week, when Microsoft releases the new the Xbox One, don’t look for gamer Josh Callender at work. “I pre-ordered the day one edition console,” he says, “and I’m planning on taking the day off to play it all day. … There’s just a great number of games that are Xbox exclusive that I don’t think that the PS4 has.” Among those that have him excited is Ryse: Son of Rome , which takes advantage of the Kinect the motion and voice sensor controller that comes with the Xbox. In Ryse you command a Roman army, and in another Kinect-powered game, Battlefield 4 , the sensors are sophisticated enough to let players look around the corner in the game by doing so in real life. With New Xbox, Microsoft Makes A Bigger Play For Living Room The Xbox Kinect also lets people turn features on and off using their voices. The new console also includes Skype, making it easier to communicate while playing games and while watching TV. The Xbox One also incorporates cable TV, and it creates a guide that lets you see what’s on cable channels and to search streaming services like Netflix. So, if you want to watch Homeland, you can see when it’s on cable and you can see which streaming services sell it. The Xbox One also lets you record moments of great game play. I tried the race car game Forza Motorsport 5 and managed to crash quickly. My crash was recorded for posterity. Over my protests, Yusuf Mehdi, chief marketing and business officer for Xbox, quickly uploaded the clip so that other gamers could see it. I can bust up a car and share it with my friends just as easily on the new Sony PlayStation 4.
Battlefield 4 came out for the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360 last month and, unfortunately for fans of the first-person shooter series, it didn’t deliver the most stable of experiences, as crashes, bugs, and other issues were quite frequent. After deploying patches on the PC and PS4, DICE has confirmed on Battlelog that fresh updates will be released for the Xbox 360 and the PC, so check out the full details below. Xbox 360 game update We have an upcoming game update for BF4 on X360 that is currently undergoing final testing. We are hoping to get this update live soon, and will let you know as soon as it has passed final stages of testing and is ready for deployment. PC game update We have a new game update in the works for BF4 on PC aimed at fixing a number of remaining issues in the game. We will have more details on the contents of this update and a rough timing estimate at a later date. Expect to see both updates in the near future. FILED UNDER:
Total mentions for the past three months are: 1,100,327 mentions for PS4 (62%) 669,850 for Xbox One (38%) PS4 garnered nearly twice as many mentions when it was introduced compared to the Xbox One During the E3 game trade show on June 11-13, PS4 dominated online conversation with over twice as many mentions as the Xbox One Timeline mentions for PS4 and Xbox One (click to view larger image) In terms of pure volume of conversation, PS4 is clearly winning; but what are people saying?By comparing positive mentions for both consoles, starting from the time they were announced (May 21), we see the following breakdown: What does this mean? For every one positive mention that Xbox One gets, PS4 gets two positive mentions, another encouraging sign for the PlayStation. (Coincidentally, this roughly mirrors the breakdown youll find on xboxonevspsfour.com ). It appears the PS4 only gets one out of four negative mentions, as opposed to about two out every five for the Xbox One, but this is only the average over the last three months. Lets take a look at how these trended over that period on a timeline: Timeline of mentions of PS4 (click to view larger image) Timeline mentions for Xbox One (click to view larger image) Its clear something (bad) happened for the Xbox One the week of September 9th when negative mentions slightly outweigh positive.After that, net sentiment never breaks 30% again. Turns out Edge published an article quoting anonymous industry sources stating that the PS4 is currently around 50% faster than its rival Xbox One. The story was picked up by IGN , widely shared and appears to have impacted the narrative.To show how, lets look at the top attributes people mentioned along with key terms of PS4 and Xbox One. Its plain to see that the PS4 is now considered more powerful and Xbox One weaker again reflected when we take a look at what people dont like. Thus far its been looking better for PlayStation 4, but lest you think I am partial to that console, it hasnt been rosy for Sony either. In the two comparisons above, one of the more positive attributes of the Xbox One is launch lineup and in second place for what people dont like about the PS4 is have no game. Here, Xbox One is the clear winner. But as industry pundits like to say, software sells hardwareso superior hardware specs may not matter much if compelling game titles are unavailable on your console. Net sentiment below clearly favors the launch game lineup of Xbox One, which is hovering comfortably at around 50%. Its been a little rockier for the PS4 on the other hand, with sentiment taking a nosedive the week of October 13. After taking a closer look at what happened, turns out a rumor was published on October 16 and confirmed by Sony on October 18 that Driveclub an upcoming racing game title was being delayed until 2014. This came after Ubisoft announced on October 15 it was delaying its highly anticipated title Watch Dog until 2014 (albeit for both platforms). Positive/Negative/Net Sentiment for each consoles lineup over the past 3 months(click to view larger images) By taking a cursory glance at some of the data and visualizations made available by SAP Social Media Analytics by NetBase , at the moment the PlayStation 4 is perceived to be more powerful with better hardware specs, and in general is being talked about more.The Xbox One has been trailing in the PR battle and picking up negative sentiment initially around its DRM policy (something I didnt go into here) and more recently around hardware comparisons.
Try this, Apple: Xbox greets PlayStation 4 with a nice tweet
NEW YORK ( TheStreet ) — Microsoft ( MSFT ) shares dipped 1.6% to $37.23 following a downgrade from Bank of America Merrill Lynch, as worries about the software giant’stransition to a new CEO persist. Some businesses, including the venerable Xbox, could be on the chopping block if an outsider is brought in. Analyst Kash Rangan downgraded shares to “underperform,” but kept the $36 price target, noting that the substantial run in the company’s share price, up 41.7% year-to-date, and concerns about a new CEO and who it might be, are reasons for the downgrade. “The real issue amidst downward revisions, flat FY12-14 EPS, and declining margins is that regardless of CEO, investors must grapple with risk of undoing the ‘devices & services’ strategy of an $80bn behemoth just when a major reorg has already been set in motion,” Rangan wrote in his note. “On the other hand, trying to move quickly with the status quo strategy could burden the new CEO (while integrating Nokia) and disappoint investors. We see two stock scenarios in the near term in which we equally divide probability of CEO selection among 5 candidates (1 external and 4 internal).” In the first scenario, Rangan believes that if Microsoft picks Ford ( F ) CEO Alan Mulally, there could be a big boost to the stock, perhaps as high as 10%. Mulally couldshutter certain businesses, such as the online search business (Bing). There’s also the possibility that Mulally, formerly of Boeing, could sell certain businesses, including Xbox. Microsoft’s new Xbox One is slated to launch later this week. Mulally could also cut operating expenses by around $6 billion to $7 billion, and then use the savings from all those initiatives to fund share buybacks, which would help the share price near-term, but could have some long-term risks that Microsoft employees, particularly company co-founder Bill Gates, may STRONGLY disagree with. “We question the easy conventional wisdom that Chairman Mr. Gates would allow MSFT to cede these businesses,” Rangan noted. “Incoming CEOs are less likely to set the bar high but would rather express measured optimism and temper the time/magnitude of delivering results.” Aside from Mulally, there’s been a ton of speculation surrounding the CEO spot, since Steve Ballmer surprisingly announced he’d be resigning from the top spot earlier this year. If Mulally or another outsider isn’t picked and the top spot goes to an internal candidate, then Rangan believes shares are likely to have the opposite reaction, with perhaps as much as 10% downside. The top internal candidates are Kevin Turner, Microsoft’s Chief Operating Officer, Stephen Elop, formerly of Nokia ( NOK ), and Tony Bates, who used to be the CEO of Skype, which Microsoft bought in 2011. If an internal candidate is chosen, it’s possible, and highly likely, that the aforementioned cost cuts and segment sales will go by the wayside. “In a status quo strategy, wielding the axe to cut $12bn of opex (40% of opex base; hypothetically -30% S&M, -50% R&D and -20% G&A) seems like a stretch in FY15. MSFT could trade -10%,” Rangan wrote. –Written by Chris Ciaccia in New York
PS4 vs. Xbox One: Winner Emerges Via Social Media Analysis
How unusually pleasant, then, for Xbox to offer simple congratulations to Sony on the launch of its PlayStation 4 . The Xbox Twitter account was adorned Friday with this message : “Congratulations on your launch, Sony.” All right, it wasn’t exactly lyrical. It may not have been entirely heartfelt, either. But most of the time we’re used to one tech company explaining why another’s products have feet of clay. Apple is constantly telling us that all other gadgets are heaps of scrap metal and recycled plastic, designed by teenage copiers in some dingy basement. More Technically Incorrect Equally, we’re used to Microsoft telling the world that the iPad is merely an overly designed, superficial, technologically dated fashion accessory. And sometimes it all ends up in court. It’s charming, then, that Microsoft’s Xbox team thought better than to besmirch. They didn’t offer any suggestion that PS4 was just a dullard’s paradise. Perhaps they’re confident that their own launch of Xbox One on November 22 will surpass anything Sony has to offer. There could, indeed, have been a touch of snide mixed in with this apparently cheery spirit. But don’t we all look forward to the day when a Samsung product launches and Apple offers a congratulatory tweet? Of course, Apple would have to open a Twitter account first.
Grand Theft Auto 5 Who Is The Character 