Racing games have been a staple part of gaming since the arcade and the DOS era, and have continued to play a strong role in the world of gaming. From cars to 18-wheelers, racing has been everything from good to bad and even quite ugly sometimes. There have been two racing series that have blossomed to become the biggest series in the racing genre, Need For Speed and Forza Motorsports. At E3, both have introduced a new edition to come out in 2012. So the question is, which of these two games will come out on top?

Need For Speed (NFS) is one of the longest running racing games of the modern generation. The one thing the Need for Speed series was known for was the introduction of police, where not only was the objective to complete the race, but escaping the police too. Or if players wanted to spice things up, they had the option of being the cop and were able to bust racers.

Starting back in 1994, NFS has had a plethora of sequels and spinoffs, one of their most popular being the Hot Pursuit series back with NFS 3 in 1998. The unique aspect of NFS Hot Pursuit was the revamped police pursuit system and the ability to play with up to one other player in split-screen mode (The original NFS game offered a multiplayer mode on PC; however, required a modem connection and could be played in DosBox). NFS Hot Pursuit eventually got a sequel in 2002 and a remake in 2010.

The NFS series had other spinoffs that included Underground, Most Wanted, Carbon, Shift, The Run, and other franchises. Many of these series ranged from hits and misses, in which Shift and The Run were considered the worst in the series. Another thing about the NFS series are the various developers attached to the series: EA Canada, EA Black Box, EA Montreal, EA Singapore, Slightly Mad Studios, and Criterion Games (known for the Burnout Series). With these different developers who have been making various NFS games through the years, it is clear why each NFS game has been different.

The new NFS game for 2012 is a remake to the Most Wanted series. Most Wanted, developed by Criterion games (who also developed the Hot Pursuit remake) looks to be a city version of what Hot Pursuit was to the country side. Features that continue to be a part of the series are police escapes, an open world environment, and autolog. As with the more recent Need for Speed games, the open world environment has begun to be a regular, as seen in NFS Underground, which lets the player freely roam around the world as they leisurely drive or practice the tracks finding the best routs and shortcuts to take.

Most Wanted looks to be a promising installment to the NFS series, it doesn’t look to be anything special or offer anything unique to the NFS series, but it still looks to be a solid game and a fun experience. Most Wanted is scheduled to be released October 30th 2012.

Another game announced at E3 was Forza Horizon. The Forza series started back in 2005 with the release of Forza Motorsport for the Xbox. The Forza series is distributed by Microsoft Game Studios and is an Xbox exclusive. The main selling point for Forza is the realistic driving mechanics. The game strives to be more like a true driving simulator and does a great job. The Forza series is highly acclaimed and rated highly among various gaming sites.

Going along with the driving realism, the Forza series also introduced Autovista. Autovista is a feature that gives the player detailed images and facts about the select 24 cars available in the game. These facts range from general details of the car to the minute facts from the brake pads to interior details. The game series strives to be the most detailed racing game to date and succeeds.

The newest installment to the series is Forza Horizon. The biggest feature that Horizon is pushing for is the open world. With various roads to travel through and fluid day to night transitions, the Forza series strives to give players a detailed driving experience in the open world as they have with their cars.

Though the new Forza game looks to be another great installment of the highly acclaimed series, the introduction of an open world seems to be drawing life away from the series. With the gameplay trailer from E3, the life on the road seemed to be sucked out, as what happens with most open world games, which usually means that with the introduction of something massive, details are usually cut short to be able to fit in the wider space. Forza is all about the little details, so with the introduction of a massive open world, the famous Forza details might be lost due to the mass open road. Still highly acclaimed and greatly anticipated, Forza Horizon is expected to be released October 23^rd 2012, a week before NFS Most Wanted.

Image Courtesy of  Need for Speed

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With an eye on the future, Microsoft unveiled quite a bit of interesting content for the upcoming gaming year at E3 2012. Connectivity is the name of the game that Microsoft seems to be playing. In many ways, the core of what the Xbox console really stands for with Microsoft has come to fruition. Originally designed to compete with the Playstation, the Xbox console has grown past competing with Playstation in terms of integrating itself into the lifestyle of gamers.

The xbox360, with XboxLive, already connected people to music, movies, TV and of course, games. What that meant for gamers was that all of their content was consistently available at their fingertips 24 hours, 7 days a week, with nearly no connectivity hiccups. This is evident now more than ever with the inclusion of Xbox Kinect and Xbox voice commands, features that have Nintendo and Sony playing a big game of catch-up even during last year’s E3.

This year however, it becomes obvious that Microsoft and its Xbox team are targeting not just dedicated gamers, but casual gamers as well. Gone are the days where only gamers own an Xbox360; it seems that Microsoft is creating new gamers out of just everybody that they can get their hands on. With plenty of projected life left for the Xbox360, Microsoft is continuing their strong focus for E3 on the 360 console even going so far as to tweak XboxLive for increased responsiveness and ease of use.

Now, music fans, movie buffs, TV addicts and hardcore gamers all converge on one console, the Xbox360. With E3, though no new gaming franchises have been introduced, the ones that do come out give new leases on life to fan favorite games. What Microsoft has done however, is taking another step to linking all of society onto the Xbox brand and franchise. Microsoft is not content to have just cornered the market on TV’s and PC’s with XboxLive and the Xbox360, their new SmartGlass is designed to go after the Tablets and Smartphones market as well. 

To further enhance the user experience with Xbox360, Microsoft and the Xbox team have created Xbox SmartGlass. SmartGlass is an application that links several multimedia devices together. Watch a movie on the commute home via your smartphone or tablet and pick up immediately, seamlessly when you walk into your house by sending the movie to your TV with the SmartGlass software. Other projected features include the ability for SmartGlass to send you information through your mobile devices about a show that you’re watching on TV. SmartGlass also turns touch screen tablets and phones into gaming controllers as well, providing added versatility by connecting devices together  be used in conjunction with one another.

Combining an online platform like XboxLive with connectivity software like Xbox SmartGlass provides multi-screen connectivity across multiple mediums to form a great market strategy. Working on PC’s and Tablets, Smartphones and Laptops, Consoles and TV’s, the SmartGlass service has huge potential for syncing up all the devices in your home with this one singular application. Designed to immerse users even further into the content that they already enjoy, SmartGlass gives users a further glimpse into content that they may not otherwise have access to without this new Microsoft application.

It could be a success, with a few caveats. If the process for installing this software doesn’t immediately confuse the average user, destroy the built-in software of any device that SmartGlass would be overlaying or cost an arm and a leg to purchase, the chances for success are much higher. There will likely be a learning curve but if Microsoft is smart, they’ll tailor the software with both general user and advanced settings. Whether users will want to use it as a gaming controller remains to be seen, perhaps certain games will have a greater attraction with the SmartGlass service but it remains to be seen.

A slick move on their part including not only Windows devices and PC’s, but Apple and Android products as well, Microsoft’s move to connect everyone’s screen is likely going to be a huge success. Still, while targeting iPhone’s, iPad’s and android devices is a great strategy, using a Windows Phone will likely have a few perks of its own on top of what you might get with an Apple or Android product. Likely, WindowsLive emails, already linked to XboxLive and Microsoft, will play a huge part in the ease of use department.

With Xbox bringing Internet Explorer to the 360, a likely rolling upgrade to Windows Mobile devices and Windows 8 on the horizon, SmartGlass will likely be bundled together as an overall improved user interface experience. With options and multiple retail launches likely, there could be different versions of the SmartGlass service depending on your mobile device, your cellular provider or any other number of factors.

The bottom line is that Xbox and Microsoft wants you, the end consumer, to remember that just because the Xbox360 has been around for a while, doesn’t mean that it’s the end of the road. Perhaps next year or later this year news of a new console will amaze and tantalize gamers but for now, Microsoft is making the statement that it’s here, it’s still innovating and thumbing their noses to Sony and Nintendo at the same time.

Image Courtesey of  iterby

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According to British news magazine MCV (The Market for Computer and Video Games), inside sources from Microsoft have given them information that the successor console to the Xbox 360 will not include an optical disc drive, and will be on sale in 2013. Microsoft refused to confirm the rumors, but issued a statement on March 9 that they are always trying to “defy the lifecycle convention.”

If this information proves to be true, it would be a significant change to the gaming world. While record collections are now mostly digitalized and people prefer their music digital, the infrastructure for gaming is not quite as prepared for an all-digital economy.

The Xbox 360 is arguably the most popular gaming console this generation, with the widest selection of games, a huge online-experience user base, and a serious gamer clientele.

Many of the games that came out this generation were mold-breaking, history-making landmarks for the industry. This is generation in which gaming overtook the movie industry in terms of gross revenue. For the next Xbox to feature no optical disc drive means gamers’ collections will be rendered unplayable, and hauling out the old 360 to play the old classics will be unappealing to the next generation of gamers.

A lack of backwards compatibility for already-existing games is not the only issue of concern for an all-digital platform. The collector’s edition also rose to prominence in the past seven years, a package that allows devoted fans to pay a bit more for some extra nice packaging, an art book, some exclusive behind-the-scenes info, and other perks.

Without a physical distribution, collector’s editions will either be a thing of the past, or rendered digital as well. Human beings, as proved by the continuing sales of physical books despite the growing popularity of ebooks, are tactile creatures, and unwilling to entirely abandon the feel of holding something they bought in their hands, for bits of data on their harddrives.

Another potential issue for digital distribution is an increased vulnerability to piracy. Digital media, such as music or movies, is significantly easier to copy and share than disc or cartridge-based media. Even on the Xbox 360, if you have installed a game on your harddrive, you still need the physical game disc in the disc drive for confirmation. Microsoft acknowledges the risk of relying only on digital media.

All-digital will also be a blow to the retail sector. If everything goes through a centralized Microsoft download hub, that means even Amazon will be affected by reduced game sales, let alone the more traditional brick-and-mortar stores. This could have a significant impact on the money-generating power of the gaming industry.

If Microsoft decides to go ahead without any optical disc drive, they will have to be prepared either for a huge success with crippling effects in other sectors, or a massive failure that will significantly affect their profits. Some of these concerns, such as collector’s editions and retail distributors, could be ameliorated by using small solid state drives loaded with games instead of purely online distribution, but backwards compatibility and piracy will remain considerable factors.

Image Courtesy of   Barone Firenze / Shutterstock.com

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Microsoft Xbox 360 was named TV Innovator of the Year at the prestigious 2012 TV Innovation Awards ceremony on 9 January,presided over by IMS Research. Microsoft won the On Demand Category for upgrades to its Xbox 360 console including partnerships with over 40 new TV and entertainment providers, as well as delivering entertainment voice search functionality with Bing on Xbox.

Microsoft beat 13 other category winners to take the ultimate ‘winner of winners’ accolade in the third annual ceremony, at the Monte Carlo Resort and Casino in Las Vegas.The award was presented to Jose Pinero, Xbox LIVE senior director of PR for Microsoft IEBby IMS Research president Ian Weightman.

The 2012 TV Innovation Awards are one of the premier endorsements of innovation in television and recognize the most forward- thinking companies creating products and services that are changing the way people watch television. This year, thereare 14 TV Innovation Awards presented, and each award category was judged by a completely independent expert panel, and the winners of each category are then judged against each other to decide the overall TV Innovator of the Year.

Category winners are:

- 3DTV. Samsung Electronics America -Plasma D8000 Series Smart TV

- Advanced User Interface.NDS -Snowflake

- Audio Experience.THAT Corporation/dbx-tv – Total Sonics + Total Cal

- Content Protection.Verimatrix – Verimatrix MultiRights

- Home Networking.Quantenna Communications, Inc. – Quantenna QHS710 802.11n 4×4

Four-Stream MIMO Chipset

- Immersive TV.LG Electronics -LG Electronics BH9420PW CINEMA 3D Sound Blu-ray

Home Theater

- Interactive TV.Hillcrest Labs – Scoop Pointer

- Mobile TV.MobiTV – Television at your fingertips: TV on-the-go

- On Demand.Microsoft – Xbox 360 Teams Up With Entertainment Leaders to

Transform TV

- Semiconductors.Quantenna, Inc. – Quantenna QHS710 802.11n 4×4 Four-Stream MIMO

Chipset

- Set Top Box.Ocean Blue Software – Talk@TV

- TV Design.Samsung Electronics America – LED D8000 Series Smart TV

- TV Performance.Samsung Electronics America – Plasma D8000 Series Smart TV

- Content Storage. thePlatform – mpx

“This year’s Award entrants really showed us that the pace of innovation and change in the TV industry has never been greater,” says Ian Weightman, president IMS Research. “The quality and depth of submissions was extremely evident, with a lot of truly game-changing solutions being presented. Congratulations to Microsoft in winning the TV Innovator of the Year against some very strong competition”.

Barone Firenze / Shutterstock.com

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