Games with Gold for January:

D4: Dark Dreams Don’t Die (Xbox One)

MX vs. ATV Alive (Xbox 360)

The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings (Xbox 360)

Dark Dreams Don't Die is amazing. Got that Swery charm to it. Great characters and funny as hell at times

Scottie said ...

Microsoft will add the Halo 3: ODST campaign to Xbox One exclusive first-person shooter Halo: The Master Chief Collection.

It will be free to anyone who has played Halo: The Master Chief Collection since its launch on 11th November through to 19th December.

Players who meet the above criteria in bold will receive the following free:

> 1 month of Xbox Live Gold
> An exclusive in-game nameplate
> An exclusive in-game avatar
> "Relic" Halo 2: Anniversary multiplayer map
> Halo 3: ODST

anybody know when we will receive that?

be well into 2015, they just started on Halo ODST remaster ...

Hope this is extended to SA customers also. As there was another promotion that we did not get in SA. Was if you bought a x1 and had a 360 you get $50. Was in every country but SA

Xbox One December SDK Update brings better eSRAM performance.

“The new API allows you to do a lot more with the ESRAM, things devs have always wanted to do but were not easily accessible. This together with better tools (PIX) allowed us to really improve performance and tweak ESRAM usage,” he added.
For those who are unaware, PIX i.e. Performance Investigator for Xbox is a software tool for game developers that helps them analyze and debug their code to improve performance of Direct3D applications. It’s intriguing to see that Microsoft have been making further updates to their SDK which has already helped several AAA games like Destiny and Grand Theft Auto 5 to achieve full 1080p resolution. It seems that with continuous improvements to both consoles, the performance gap is indeed narrowing down.

DarkPrince said ...

Xbox One December SDK Update brings better eSRAM performance.

“The new API allows you to do a lot more with the ESRAM, things devs have always wanted to do but were not easily accessible. This together with better tools (PIX) allowed us to really improve performance and tweak ESRAM usage,” he added.
For those who are unaware, PIX i.e. Performance Investigator for Xbox is a software tool for game developers that helps them analyze and debug their code to improve performance of Direct3D applications. It’s intriguing to see that Microsoft have been making further updates to their SDK which has already helped several AAA games like Destiny and Grand Theft Auto 5 to achieve full 1080p resolution. It seems that with continuous improvements to both consoles, the performance gap is indeed narrowing down.

That's good news for MS in that technical reasons not to port games to the XB1 should start reducing.

MS have announced a "limited" time price ddrop back to $349 in the US, or $50. This is just three or so weeks after the Christmas price drop expired and the console was back at $399. They say that this is for a limited period, but some are wondering if this might be permanent given the timimg.

Magius said ...

That's good news for MS in that technical reasons not to port games to the XB1 should start reducing.

ah I think my comment was deleted but I am asking again (because what I am asking is an actual legit question to this comment), but exactly what games are suffering from tech reasons that are stopping them being ported to the X1?

Magius said ...

MS have announced a "limited" time price ddrop back to $349 in the US, or $50. This is just three or so weeks after the Christmas price drop expired and the console was back at $399. They say that this is for a limited period, but some are wondering if this might be permanent given the timimg.

I am sure its permanent. I do not think MS can afford to go back to $399. It was a stupid move doing that in the first place. $349 is how the console should be priced going forward. Far more attractive for buyers.

@Sinn I saw some articles in December from devs saying that the restrictions on using system resources made it difficult to achieve parity between the consoles especially in terms of frame rates. What I was commenting on are the frequent articles around how the PS4 hots 60FPS and the XB1 version would be limited to a lower framerate. My sentence wasn't properly constructed to get that across.

$349 proved to be the sweet spot and helped them outsell the PS4, not sure why they went back to #399 again but a good decision for them to go back to $349. No ways this isn't a permanent move, they cannot have a special for some many weeks and then up the price again, maybe if they did it for a few days sure but no one is going to pay an extra $50 when the console was on special for weeks.

Hopefully the X1 gains more ground now and we start seeing some good exclusives coming out.

My usage has swapped. Last Gen I played more on the PS3 than the XB1 and this generation, so far it is still a little early, I use my XB1 more than the PS4. I seem to be going to using the XB1 as my main console and the PS4 for exclusives, no real reason, it just seems that way.

I find my usage to be the opposite. I use my PS4 way more than the X1, and not because X1 is a bad console. But most of the people I play games with, I play with on the PS4.

If I have to choose between buying a game on the X1 or PS4, I choose PS4, as that is where my friends are.

The price on X1 does however make a huge difference, but I also believe the fact that we had to wait almost a year is SA for X1 is what makes it my nr2 console.

The only thing that would make me switch to X1 is their digital game prices, they are really great and MS is definitely doing the right thing with the prices of games on our store.

Magius said ...

@Sinn I saw some articles in December from devs saying that the restrictions on using system resources made it difficult to achieve parity between the consoles especially in terms of frame rates. What I was commenting on are the frequent articles around how the PS4 hots 60FPS and the XB1 version would be limited to a lower framerate. My sentence wasn't properly constructed to get that across.

Fully understand now. Sorry, I thought you meant games were not coming to the X1 because of this issue, which I thought was a little silly. But now that I know what you mean, I get it

So I used the headset that comes with the console last night for the first time only to discover that the thing doesn't work

So I just went through the hardware replacement stuff on Microsoft's website and what a dream, wish more places where like this, within 5 minutes my claim was logged and a new headset has been approved and will be shipped to my door, I then just have to give the courier my fault headset and that's it.

So new firmware is out which helps with a couple things:

Quick Connect – Previously, controller connections to Xbox One took approximately four-to-five seconds when powering on a controller. Now, it will only take about two seconds.

Chat connection status – New icons have been added to let you know the current status of a chat connection in your party. A Clock icon means the connection is being made. A Squawker Ring icon indicates the connection was successful, and actively shows who is speaking. An X icon means that networking limitations (such as a Strict NAT) are preventing the chat connection from completing for specific participants. Improved connectivity between multiple participants with Strict or Moderate NATs – We also made some connectivity improvements to party chat in partial mesh situations when multiple participants are behind moderate or strict NATs with their home gateways/routers.

Game and party invitations – To help you more quickly know who is inviting you to what, we made improvements to game and party invitations. Now, you can see which of your friends is inviting you and what party or game the invite is for, without having to wait for the text to scroll on the notification.

Performance improvements – We also decreased the time it takes to set up person-to-person (P2P) connectivity for party chat and streamlined the retry logic for setting up party chat sessions.

Custom backgrounds and tile transparency – We've added tile transparency to the Home tiles to make your background images more visible. As a reminder, to set a custom background, go to Settings > My Xbox > My background . Note: some items can’t be made transparent due to usage rights/restrictions for certain images.


Love the change to the backgrounds with making the tiles transparent and the NAT changes are very welcome, have had endless issues with NAT party chats that I never have on PS4.

March preview update is starting to roll out:

Screenshots – While playing a game, you can now take screenshots on your Xbox One console by simply double-tapping the Xbox button on your controller to capture a screenshot and pressing Y to save the screenshot. If your Xbox One is equipped with a Kinect, you can also say “Xbox Take a Screenshot” to take and save a screenshot.

Upload App – The Upload app is being updated so that you can manage your screenshots in addition to your game clips. You can use a screenshot as your background, by viewing the screenshot in full-screen mode from the Upload app, then, press the Menu button and select Set as background.

Suggested friends – With the suggested friends feature, the Friends area in home and your friends list will help you find and add friends. Suggested friends will include people you might know, so you add more friends to game with, and top community broadcasters and clip creators, so you can get more great content in your activity feed.

Sharing your name – We’re rolling out two new ways to share your real name; with all of your friends or to everyone in the Xbox Live community. You can also continue to share your real name with select friends, or with no one, if that’s what you prefer. Gamertags are still the primary method of identifying yourself on Xbox Live, but sharing your real name helps people recognize you who might not know you by your gamertag.

Tile transparency – We continue to listen to your feedback and are adding a setting to enable you to vary the level of transparency for your background images. Go to Settings -> My Xbox -> Tile transparency.

Privacy & online safety settings – We added a new setting for sharing voice search data to create an option for users to allow collection and analysis of voice data when they use Xbox – Bing to search.

Report spam – The Messages app has an added option to allow you to notify Xbox when you receive spam. You can now select a specific message, press the A button and then select Report -> Spam to report a specific message as spam.

I love my X1, but looking at the above...my X1 is pretty much downloading all my PS4's features from it