1.
During the Microsoft Build conference in March, Microsoft told us that they had pretty hefty plans for the Xbox One this summer. Among these plans, the team has considered including the ability to play background music and running Cortana on the console.
Lead Engineer at Xbox Mike Ybarra states:
"Win10 Anniversary Update announced at //build will have key gaming features, so next Xbox system update goes to preview end May/early June."
The previous update to Xbox One brought the ability of backwards compatibility with specific 360 titles and the ability to track achievement progress (among other things). Cortana made an appearance on the Xbox One in a Preview Program update, but hasn't been put in the spotlight yet.
2.
Did you go see Star Wars: The Force Awakens and wonder why C3PO has a red arm? It comes across as if it's an easter egg that nobody actually understood, but it's actually a reference to a comic that takes place before the movie. The comic in question, C3PO #1 released last week on April 13.
As Captain Tatiana of the S.S. GameZone writes:
According to the comic, C3P0 is wearing the arm of OMRI an android that selfdestructed in order to save C3PO. While the comic is dense in detail and emotion, a brief look at what caused OMRI to selfdestruct and C3PO to lose his arm can be found below:
C3PO finds himself with four Resistance droids and one First Order droid on an unidentified planet after their ship crashed into it. The droids escape, only to be lead into a trap by OMRI the First Order droid who has information on where the First Order took Admiral Ackbar.
After a series of unfortunate events, only C3PO and OMRI survive. OMRI and C3PO take shelter under a cover from the planet's acid rain, after C3PO loses his arm to some kind of creature. While under the cover, C3PO and OMRI share a conversation that leads OMRI to doubt his First Order initiative.
Once the doubt settles, OMRI gives C3PO the data on where Ackbar is then self destructs out in the acid rain. The acid rain strips away OMRI's exterior shell, leaving behind one glistening red arm.
Then at the end of The Force Awakens, he gets a new gold arm… because… apparently droids aren't sentimental or something.
3.
This week, Nostalrius, one of the biggest unofficial World of Warcraft vanilla servers was taken down. Blizzard issued the owners of the server a cease and desist letter. Despite offering a free service no longer available through Blizzard, the cease and desist order went through and the server shut down on April 10.
Before this however, many players in this server decided to take the bad news in stride… even if a bit morbidly. Thousands of players decided to march from Orgrimmar to Thunderbluff to jump off of a cliff and die. That's rightm, an artificial suicide pact, with players taking their own digital lives before the almighty plug was pulled, rendering them effectively dead anyway.
Is this bittersweet? Or is it weird? I think it's a little of both.
4.
An anonymous PlayStation user was hacked, with the hacker making three payments of $25, adding up to a bill of $75. They also changed the email he was using to another, effectively locking the user out of his account.
When he realized he had been hacked, he notified Sony, who was willing to switch the emails back, but not willing to eat the loss of $75, despite already clearing the dispute with PayPal. The gamer was ultimately banned until the fraudulent charges were paid.
"After six years as a paying PlayStation customer, my account was now being held hostage, not by a hacker, but by Sony. I had to cover the cost of the metaphorical broken window, or my account was going to be locked. Basically, I had to apologize and pay for a thief."
The end result has yet to be revealed, but it certainly shows an issue in the way the company deals with fraudulent purchases and false accusations.
5.
Remember that little indie movie, Star Wars: A New Hope? Probably not, here's a recap.
Okay, so in A New Hope, Obi-Wan Kenobi… well, he didn't make it very far into the film Peter Mayhew, the tall scruffy guy who follows Han around that people call Chewbacca, posted the original script on Twitter.
In this script, Obi-Wan actually survives his duel with Vader and flees the scene. It's unclear why it was changed, but one would assume that it would have changed the story dramatically. Personally, I think it adds more to the drama with ObiWan being stricken down and prefer that over this new reveal, but then again, maybe I like Game of Thrones a little too much.
6.
Kingdom Hearts 3, when will you grace us with your presence?
According to Quinton Flynn, the voice of Axel, not any time soon. Being a relatively big character in the game, one would assume that if the game has a trailer out, that it must be decently far along in the development cycle, but Flynn has yet to be called in for any ounce of dialogue.
Well, that's the highlights for this week. If you want to see more, check out GameZone.com for all the upto-the-minute news in videos games. You can find us on these various social medias here, and you can always find me on twitter.
My name is Steve Knauer and this has been GameZone's News Recap.
Hey everyone, in case you were out of the loop, or just prefer a sultry voice to read you the news, I'm Steve Knauer and I'm here to bring you GameZone's News Recap for the week of April 11th.
You can watch or hear my sultry voice recap the news in the video above or you can flip on to the following page to get your fix (as well as all the links).
Last week, there were some informative bits of news, some weird bits of news, and some things that were down right lame – like Kingdom Hearts 3 being further away than we even imagined. It's great they are taking their time to bring us the game, but at the same time… It's taking so long!
