News Snatch Special: Microsoft And Xbox One

News reaches my furry little ears all of which involves everyone’s favourite new console, the Xbox One.  We start with rumours of Microsoft staff actively monitoring Reddit and downvoting anything negative about the new console. The post has since been deleted along with many of the replies.

The orginal text explained how a chap from a marketing firm in Redmond had a guided tour of Microsoft:

“We had a semi-formal meeting in one of the larger meeting rooms, followed by lunch and some more touring. At one point we visited one of the Xbox offices, and our guide went off to find a particular manager for us to meet. He was gone for a while, se we were left hanging in the middle of a fairly hectic office for several minutes.

“Just nearby were two guys chatting at one of their PCs, and they caught my attention because they were on Reddit! I realized they were actually talking business.”

He then went on to say that the employees had discussed spending most of their time on /r/gaming, Reddit’s main gaming forum, and how they were to downvote negative Xbox stories and upvote positive ones.


Over the weekend the Telegraph broke the news of PRISM, a secret data harvesting project by the NSA, FBI and many tech companies including Apple and, yes, Microsoft.  Kotaku asked the creators of Xbox One how they were involved.

“We provide customer data only when we receive a legally binding order or subpoena to do so, and never on a voluntary basis. In addition we only ever comply with orders for requests about specific accounts or identifiers. If the government has a broader voluntary national security program to gather customer data we don’t participate in it.”

So that should put your mind at ease, that Kinect camera on your Xbox One is certainly not an easy way for the FBI to spy on everyone, Microsft said they absolutely won’t do anything like that unless someone from the FBI waves a bit of paper with strong legal terms on it.


locAnd now some good news, LocoCycle will be an Xbox One launch game. It is being developed by Twisted Pixel who have previously been responsible for The Maw and Splosion Man.

Slightly less good news for owners of the Xbox 360:

“For those desperate souls who want to play LocoCycle but won’t immediately have an Xbox One, fear not! An Xbox 360 version of the game is also under development, to be released on a future date not yet determined,” explains a press release.


Microsoft will show twenty games at E3, so tweeteth Geoff Keighley, “Just spoke to Phil Spencer (@XboxP3), he promises tomorrow is all games at Xbox. 20 titles on stage. More in the Spike preshow.”

One of these is expected to be The Witcher 3 which has already been announced for PS4 and has been leaked by a Polish newspaper.


IGN seem to confirm that Titanfall, the new shooter from the Ex Infinity Ward chaps, Respawn, is Xbox exclusive.


We also have news from an unconfirmed source of what to expect from the Microsoft E3 Event:

  1. Microsoft is buying out publishers to not mention the PS4 versions of multi-platform titles, so you can assume if the presenter does not say “EXCLUSIVE TO XBOX ONE”, that it will also be on PS4.
  2. More in depth DRM info at Gamescom. There is no rental strategy, they’re trying to just sweep it under the rug and hope people don’t remember.
  3. Cloud power was designed as DRM. It was Microsoft’s idea, and they approached other publishers. EA and Ubisoft support, Activision slightly less so.
  4. DRM plans are worse than what they have said.
  5. Mirror’s Edge 2 at MS conference.
  6. Prince of Persia (reboot?) at MS conference.
  7. Secret Phil Spencer game = World of Tanks. It is said that you still need Gold to play F2P games?
  8. Paywall for Xbox One (Xbox Gold?)
  9. Dead Rising 3 as Xbox One exclusive. Exclusive DLC for another Capcom game

Of course these are all just unconfirmed rumours but gossip I have heard indicates at least three of the above are true and the source has proven to be reputable in the past.


Stay tuned to TSA for E3 coverage all this week from our crack team LA, assuming they’ve finished drinking and eating skittles.

I won’t be around to cover the Microsoft conference, partly because it is at stupid o’clock but mostly because I don’t want to be online when the world finds out what they have done to… well, I’ll just leave this here.

27 Comments

  1. CBoat FTW. His info leading up to E3 has been awesome

    • #TRUTHFACT :P

    • Is he a reputable source or something? I may be late onto the CBoat hype.

  2. Personally I am very put out that the “Secret Phil Spencer game” is not a game of the Channel 4 show, “Phil Spencer: Secret Agent”.

    • Now that’s a game my wife would buy

  3. My fear is that … leads to Mirrors Edge 2 Kinect.

  4. If the ever-worsening DRM rumours about MS turn out to be true, alongside the accusations of extensive shilling and “buying” publishers to show games off using XOne over PS4 – I’ll completely despair if they manage to even hold parity with PS4 in terms of sales, due to such under-handed tactics and restrictive plans.

    Of course they are rumours, but I can completely see MS offsetting the negativity within the core gaming community with swathes of associative marketing aimed at the casual buyer.

    • Microsoft have always played dirty when up against PlayStation – they moved a Halo release date so it clashed with Killzone.

  5. If I’m honest I couldn’t care less about Titanfall now that it’s Xbox exclusive.

    • These sort of things either work really well (Timesplitters) or woefully (Haze).

    • same here. Not even fussed about watching the Microsoft stuff to be honest. PS4 is all I need.

      • I’ll watch it because it’s still a pretty big thing, but I’m only really watching it to see if anything suprises me or if they actually dig their hole deeper. I’m already going with PS4.

  6. Microsoft can try to pull whatever tricks they want, but they need to realise that journos and gamers that follow industry news will know about it. Your average joe doesn’t follow E3, so it won’t matter much if MS bribe publishers to only mention their console.
    It’s also going to be interesting to see how investors react, and whether their confidence in the console translates into share prices.

    • This exactly. Most with half a brain will research before buying and will find out what Microsoft are doing. People aren’t silly and if they still wish to purchase a console with ridiculous DRM/rental problems with a Paywall, then good luck to them. I feel very sorry for them at the same time though.

  7. World of Tanks would be awesome to have in consoles, then again, i play it on pc and will play it on ios, so if its an xbox exclusive its not the end of the world.

  8. I hate spam, but this looks good and raises some excellent points.
    http://www.xboxshun.com/

  9. Just realised the MS thing is in three hours.

    RUN! RUN FOR THE HILLS BEFORE THE RAGESTORM EXPLODES THE INTERNETS!

    • The media’s reaction will be interesting. It was almost masturbatory with its TV, TV, Sports, TV, TV, Sports take on things but this time around it’s all about the games.

      However, consumers have seen through Microsoft’s actions straight away and hopefully that’ll happen once more.

      • Heard a report on Newsbeat on Radio 1 earlier, talking about E3. They spent a good 5 minutes talking about it, even interviewing people in a gaming bar in London. The report only mentioned once about how many people are worried about the Xbox Ones used game policy, literally saying ‘gamers will also be watching Microsoft to see about their used game policy’. That was it. I know they aren’t games journalist but fuck me, this issue of used games and DRM needs to be made more aware of to the general consumers. If Microsoft (and Sony if they follow) get away with this, you guarantee other industries will look even deeper into how they can shaft their audience and get away with it.

  10. Breaking news:Reports coming in MS put up road blocks leading to the said hills and big signs saying No Running, you can still use the hills, go to them with a friend, we just need your I.D papers and credit card details…

    Sony said they never liked the hills anyway and have you guys seen the ocean this time of year? it’s lovely……

    • oh i do like to be beside the seaside. ^_^

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