PC Gaming Helped Drive Xbox to Backwards Compatibility
In addition to discussing what's in store for Microsoft's VR plan and Scorpio design goals, Head of Xbox Phil Spencer talked about how his gaming background helped form the push for backwards compatibility on Xbox One.
"...I grew up as a PC gamer, and the thing I love about the PC ecosystem is I can still go boot up Age of Empires 2 and I can go play that game," Spencer said in an interview with Gamasutra. "It's funny, I was looking at the World Video Game Hall of Fame, there's like Solitaire and Donkey Kong....but...console has this construct that actually makes it hard to go back and play some of those old console games. Because the format is so tied to the hardware itself."
Syfy Renews The Magicians for Season 3
The Magicians has been renewed for a 13-episode third season, Syfy announced today. It will air in 2018.
The Magicians second season concludes on Wednesday, April 19 and will continue to follow Quentin Coldwater and his group of friends, many of whom were students at the magicians school Brakebills in season 1. The end of the first season and season 2 opened the series up to the magical world of Fillory, all adapting the trilogy of best-selling Magicians novels by author Lev Grossman.
Syfy has also revealed that the second season is up in several ratings demos over season 1, which is currently available to stream on Netflix. Following its run on Syfy, the network also made an uncensored version of the first season available to stream.
Damon Lindelof on Why it Was Time to End The Leftovers
IGN’s pick for the best television series of 2015, The Leftovers, finally returns this Sunday for the debut of its third and final season. I recently sat down with Damon Lindelof -- who created the series with Tom Perrotta, who wrote the book on which the series is based -- to discuss the approach to Season 3, which will partially take place Australia (a setting that’s been established in previous seasons as having notable importance) and the decision to wrap up the critically acclaimed, yet unfortunately not widely viewed, show in Season 3.
Lindelof also explains his resistance to binging TV shows and his preference that a TV episode feel like its telling its own clearly-defined story, rather than the more nebulous approach some shows take in the Netflix era of treating the entire season like a story meant to be seen in one sitting. Plus, the Lost co-creator discusses whether he'd return to broadcast TV again, now that he's wrapping up a show for HBO.
Ewan McGregor Is Unrecognizable at the Center of Fargo
I'm interviewing Ewan McGregor, and I can't stop my eyes from drifting up to the exposed bald spot on the top of his head.
We're on the set of Fargo in Calgary, and this is not the Ewan McGregor I have seen before. His stomach bulges out as he sits, he has a double chin and a thicker nose, and then, of course, there's his distracting receding hairline. This is McGregor at his least glamorous.
"In a couple of years, everyone will be rocking this look," he says with a chuckle.
Ewan McGregor as Ray Stussy
The All-New X-Men Find Surprising New Allies
X-Men Blue has reunited the original five X-Men, but the first issue had a few surprises in store for this familiar team.
Warning: this article contains spoilers for X-Men Blue #1!
X-Men Blue is the latest series to star the teenage original X-Men, who have been stuck in the present day ever since the beginning of All-New X-Men in 2012. This new series sees the team struggling to regroup and find its purpose after the recent revelation that they no longer have a home to return to.
The good news is that these young X-Men have a new mentor to help them find their place in the Marvel Universe. You may recognize him:
Phil Spencer on Why Scorpio Waited Until 2017
Microsoft's mid-gen upgrade to its Xbox One console could have released last year, but according to head Phil Spencer, the company wanted to make sure framerate wasn't sacrificed in the quest for 4K.
Spencer told Gamasutra maintaining a solid framerate "was our design goal, from the beginning. To say: same framerate, increased resolution."
"We didn't think we could make that promise to developers in 2016," he said.
Believing 4K TVs would reach market maturity somewhere in the middle of the current console generation, Spencer said the Xbox team "designed a console for 2016, and a console for 2017," and the Scorpio won out as the fruit of its 2017 labors.
Yakuza Kiwami Coming to the West
Yakuza Kiwami will come out August 29 in the Americas and Europe.
SEGA is only bringing the PlayStation 4 version of the HD remake to the west. Yakuza Kiwami will cost $30/£30/€35.
People who pre-order Yakuza Kiwami will get a steelbook version of the game (seen below). A limited amount of first-run copies will also sport the special packaging.
Yakuza Kiwami was confirmed for a western release back at PSX 2016. The HD remake of the original game was officially announced back at TGS 2015.
Young Dumbledore Cast in Fantastic Beasts Sequel
Two-time Academy Award nominee Jude Law will portray a young Albus Dumbledore in the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them sequel.
Spoilers for the original Fantastic Beasts follow.
Law has been officially announced to play the iconic wizard decades before he was the Headmaster at Hogwarts and was still serving as the wizarding school’s Transfiguration professor. Dumbledore was a contemporary of Grindelwald (Johnny Depp), the dark wizard who made a surprise appearance in the first Fantastic Beasts film.
Microsoft Taking a ‘More Open and Inclusive Approach to VR’
Head of Xbox Phil Spencer has come forward to shed light on Microsoft's plans for virtual reality, saying the company is opting for a "more open and inclusive approach."
"I'm going to try and be as open as we can, definitely across the platforms that we support," Spencer said in a Q&A with Gamasutra. "I think that right now if you're a developer, you're just looking for oxygen to go sell your game."
Spencer explained why Microsoft has currently held off from tying its gaming platform to a specific piece of VR hardware, noting that virtual reality is still very new. "I think we're on like a decade-long journey with VR, and we're still right at the beginning," he said.
Prey Demo Coming April 27
A free Prey demo will be available to download on April 27 on Xbox One and PlayStation 4, a week ahead of the game's May 5 release.
The demo features the game's opening hour in which players first board Prey's main setting, the Talos I space station, where protagonist Morgan Yu is working on a scientific breakthrough that'll change humanity forever.
The story follows Morgan as he tries to survive and battle against aliens who have overrun the station and are determined to him down. You can watch the new trailer for the demo below:
Along with PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, Prey will also be released on PC on May 5. Check out IGN's hands-on impressions of the game, the opening 11 minutes, as well as our complete guide to Prey's preorder bonuses.