My Game Center

We are now approaching the final few days of double XP for GoW 3, so you need to get as much gameplay in as possible. While we are on the subject of the game, it seems that Epic Games has made a statement regarding the possibility of Gears of War 3 for the PC. It’s not good news, as this format release theory has been smashed.

Reading between the lines of the statement the developer made to Eurogamer, Gears of War will always be an Xbox 360 exclusive. so what made Epic come out to refute the rumor in the first place? well it’s all to do with a screenshot that appeared on the Xbox community blog.

The offending images shows that Gears of War 3 is a multiplatform title, which we have to say had a certain appeal to it. however, it was easy to see that we should always question what we see, as BW3 and Arkham City was only shown to be on Microsoft’s games console.

There seems to be mixed reactions about this news; yes PC gamers say that they did not want the game on the format in the first place, but then again they would say that after hearing the bad news. Maybe we have got that wrong, but there is no denying that GoW 3 would have been a welcome edition to the PC.

“I think if you come out and say, ‘This is the start of a trilogy,’ gamers get defensive, cross their arms and say, ‘We’ll see,’” said Blezenski. “You have to play it game by game. we had ideas of where each game could go in the series, but until we had confirmation, we never really started work on a sequel, except for coming up with pie-in-the-sky ideas.”

Churning out three “Gears of War” titles over the past five years paid off.

“Gears of War 3″ sold more than 3 million copies in its first week and was the second best-selling game in September behind “Madden NFL 12,” propelling the entire Xbox 360 series past the $1 billion mark, according to Microsoft Corp. and NPD Group, which tracks retail game sales. Microsoft also said more than 4.5 million gamers played it online since it debuted.

“For some reason, three is the magic number,” said Blezinksi of the omnipresence of trilogies in pop culture. “I can’t explain it. Narratively, they make sense because you’ve got that ‘Lord of the Rings’ vibe where there’s a definitive beginning, middle and ending. There’s something about that contained pack-of-three that’s just incredibly gratifying.”

Other game developers and publishers seem to agree, too.

Sequels have always been an important part of the gaming world, but with the release of “Gears of War 3″ last month and games like superhero brawler “Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds,” first-person shooter “Killzone 3,” horror shoot-’em-up “F.E.a.R. 3″ and alien blaster “Resistance 3″ earlier this year, it seems 2011 is the year of the threequel.

The trend continues this holiday season — or should that be holiday threeson? — with the arrival of such third installments as the epic action-adventure title “Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception,” bawdy open-world gang war saga “Saints Row: The Third” and explosive first-person military shooters “Battlefield 3″ and “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.”

For some of this year’s threequels, the third outing is less about the story moving forward and more about the technology leaping ahead. “Battlefield 3″ from developer Digital Illusions CE will be the first game to utilize the Frostbite 2 game engine, promising players more realistic graphics, fuller sound and amplified environmental destruction.

“‘Battlefield 3′ is the true next-generation successor to ‘Battlefield 2,’” said DICE producer Patrick Liu. “We’re utilizing the latest technology with our new Frostbite 2 engine. It’s by far the most ambitious game we’ve ever made. It’s a bigger game with a single-player campaign, co-op and multiplayer. It’s the most pressure we’ve ever felt making a game.”

Six years have passed since Electronic Arts inc. deployed “Battlefield 2″ for the PC, though there have been other entries in the 9-year-old series. This time, the publisher is positioning “Battlefield 3,” which will be available for the PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on Oct. 25, as a combatant to “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3″ from Activision inc.

The marketing campaign for “Battlefield 3″ cleverly suggests that the game goes “above and beyond the call.”

The original “Modern Warfare,” which was developed by Infinity Ward and released in 2007, transformed Activision’s aging “Call of Duty” series into the most successful gaming franchise. “Modern Warfare 3,” which is due out Nov. 8, is expected to top the previous two installments, as well as last year’s top-selling “Black Ops” edition from Treyarch.

“From a commercial standpoint, as far as ‘Modern Warfare 3′ is concerned, it’s a one-shot kill,” said Scott Steinberg, CEO of game consulting company TechSavvy Global. “The competition is not in a good position because millions and millions of players have been playing ‘Call of Duty’ online with their friends and are already hungry for the next installment.”

“Modern Warfare 3,” ”Gears of War 3,” ”Resistance 3,” ”Uncharted 3,” ”Saints Row: The Third” and “Mass Effect 3″ are among the threequels on the same platforms as their predecessors, a striking difference from past gaming franchises that spanned consoles. Steinberg blames a combination of the economy and “dumb luck” for the one-two-three punch.

“Traditionally, you don’t see three iterations of a series on the same console because previous sales cycles and technical evolutions have moved more quickly,” said Steinberg. “In the past, publishers used console launches as a reboot point for new installments. This longer cycle has given developers the chance to eek more horsepower out of the systems.”

Steinberg thinks the third time on the same platform will ultimately charm gamers because developers have honed both their technical talents and storytelling skills without the burden of figuring out how to create games for a completely new system, an issue developers tackled when transitioning from such consoles as the Xbox to Xbox 360 and the PS2 to PS3.

“When you’ve got a stable technology platform underneath you, it’s nice because you can focus on design elements and storytelling aspects,” said Aaryn Flynn, general manager at developer BioWare. “I think anyone who has developed multiple games on these platforms is doing what we’re doing — honing their craft and getting better and better each time.”

Flynn and his colleagues at BioWare are currently preparing for the launch of “Mass Effect 3″ next March. The third chapter of the intergalactic sci-fi saga centers on the ominous alien Reapers invading Earth. Flynn said the trilogy, which features a highly customizable protagonist named Commander Shepard, was always envisioned as a three-part series.

“Certainly, when we first imagined ‘Mass Effect’ as a story for Commander Shepard, we did think of it as a trilogy,” said Flynn. “That said, we’ve made tweaks and adjustments all the way along as we’ve heard from fans what they want to see, but certainly the story has been building to the Reaper invasion and to Shepard’s ultimate battle against them.”

In addition to “Mass Effect 3,” other threequels expected in 2012 include Ubisoft’s open-world shooter “Far cry 3,” Blizzard’s fantasy title “Diablo III” and Rockstar Games’ third-person shooter “Max Payne 3.” As long-running franchises like “Super Mario,” ”Final Fantasy” and “Resident Evil” have proven, the third time out doesn’t always mark the end.

“When it comes to video games, never say never,” said Steinberg. “Players aren’t dense. they realize that as long as there is interest left in a franchise, it will make an inevitable return. There’s usually so many holes left open in a plot, that it’s of no consequence when you reach the end of a trilogy. there are a thousand other stories that can be told.”

“Gears of War 3″: gearsofwar.xbox.com/

“Mass Effect 3″: masseffect.bioware.com/

“Saints Row: The Third”: saintsrow.com/

“Battlefield 3″: battlefield.com/battlefield3/

“Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3″: callofduty.com/mw3/

“Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception:” naughtydog.com/games/uncharted/

For decades, we controlled computers with a mouse and keyboard. the plastic mouse became a prosthetic for our hand, and the keyboard an extension of our fingers.

Microsoft researchers are searching for the next breakthrough that will bring the real and machine worlds even closer together.

Blurring the line between those worlds is a mission for Stevie Bathiche, a bioengineer who leads the Applied Sciences group at Microsoft. “A lot of what we do now is making the interface between man and machine seamless,” Bathiche said he wrote in a personal mission statement 10 years ago. More specifically, he wanted to make the machine feel less like a machine. “Be a part of the person’s life instead of the other way around.”

For the past few years, Bathiche has been building 3-D screens and cameras that make people on opposite sides of the globe seem as if they’re in the same room.

“I view him as one of the major people on a global basis” in 3-D displays and optics, said Jaron Lanier, a Microsoft researcher who pioneered virtual reality and recently wrote the book “You Are Not a Gadget.” “He’s the most creative and productive engineer in that particular field working in the world today.”

Bathiche has been working on blending worlds for a while. in college, he built a car driven by a cockroach, his first experiment connecting the machine to the living world. he came up with the idea while studying to become an electrical engineer. he didn’t know much about bugs, so he knocked on the door of an entomology professor who studied insect nervous systems.

The professor, Jeffrey Bloomquist, told him how much work it would take. Bathiche disappeared.

“I was like, ‘Whatever,’ ” Bloomquist said. “That’s often true for undergraduates, because they find out how much work it requires, and they have to stay sober for the weekend.”

Six weeks later, knock, knock.

It was Bathiche, with a prototype toy car in his hands. Bathiche and his professor then connected electrodes from a roach’s wing plates to the car, put the car on the floor, and blew on the roach. the car took off.

Getting his start

Bathiche came to Microsoft as a college intern in 1995 and built software that ended up in Word’s grammar check. his email address during the internship, t-steveb@microsoft.com, was easily mixed up with steveb@microsoft.com, the address for Steve Ballmer — then a vice president, now Microsoft’s chief executive. Bathiche decided to go with StevieB, a college nickname.

The next year, NASA offered him an internship working on the robotic arm of a satellite. Bathiche thought the assignment was too constricting. the week he had to give NASA his answer on the offer, he called Microsoft. he was told to come up with something he wanted to work on. he went back to Microsoft for the summer and designed a new kind of gaming joystick. It became the SideWinder Freestyle Pro, a controller that sensed when you tilted it and was the first commercial gaming device to use accelerometers.

After the second Microsoft internship, Bathiche went to the University of Washington to get a master’s degree in bioengineering. he took the roach coach a step further at the UW and built the Mothmobile. then he joined Microsoft full time.

Bathiche considers the Surface a breakthrough because of its interaction between the world above the table and the virtual world underneath. the Surface was Bathiche’s looking glass.

Key role

Bathiche, now 36, is a half man, half boy with a shaggy mane, goatee and perpetually untucked button-down shirt — the alt uniform of Seattle’s technorati. he directs 20 researchers in the Applied Sciences group, which helps other Microsoft teams unblock clogged arteries in product development.

“Success for us is when we give businesses something they want that they didn’t know they wanted,” Bathiche said. “We see the darkness in front of them.”

His team, working with various product groups around Microsoft, helps disseminate the results from the $9 billion Microsoft spends annually on research, most of which goes toward product development. the company has 850 employees whose full-time job is to research and publish papers in academic journals. the National Science Foundation, in comparison, had a budget of $6.9 billion in 2010.

Bathiche bridges the business product groups with research.

Bill Buxton, a Microsoft design guru, said Bathiche’s role is key at a company as large as Microsoft. It’s hard for the blue-sky thinkers in research to connect with the number-crunching executives on the business side, Buxton said, but that connection is exactly what Microsoft needs to make big leaps forward in technology.

“You need these key people that help provide the flex” in the organization, Buxton said. “He’s a critically important conduit.”

An overachiever

Born in Lebanon, Bathiche spent his childhood all over the world. his father, a manager at an airline shipping company, moved his family to Libya, Pakistan, Sweden, Saudi Arabia, Texas and, finally, Arlington, Va.

While in high school there, Bathiche built a robot that sought the brightest light source in the room. he wrote the code for the robot, which looked like a miniature Mars Rover. “That kind of technology was still in its infancy, even in the research labs, at the time,” said Deborah Roudebush, his high-school physics and computer-science teacher, who advised him on the project.

Bathiche was a bit of an overachiever. he was a drum major, a clarinet player and a track runner in high school. in college, he needed 120 credits for his degree and graduated with 180.

He’s the same way at Microsoft. Bathiche recently persuaded Microsoft to buy a British company, CamFPD, which made a Wedge optic, a kind of flat lens. What’s innovative about the Wedge image-capturing technology is its thinness. A camera lens, for instance, needs a certain distance to capture an image. the Wedge can capture the same image with the object virtually touching the lens.

At the Consumer Electronics Show in January, Steve Ballmer showed a prototype Surface 2.0 in his keynote speech. if you hold up a piece of paper to the Surface that says, “Look at me,” you will see the same piece of paper with the letters displayed on the screen.

What Ballmer showed represents an evolutionary step beyond what you can do even with an iPad, which can see only the two points where your fingers are touching the screen when you zoom in and out.

While the Surface technology is cool to see, it’s unclear why people would shell out the $8,300 (down from $12,500) it costs to buy it. “To me it seems to be really cool technology in search of a really good commercial application,” said Michael Cherry, an analyst at Directions on Microsoft.

In the nine months since the Consumer Electronics Show, Microsoft has not disclosed a date when Surface 2.0 would start selling.

3-D experimenting

Meanwhile, Bathiche continues experimenting with virtual reality. recently, he hashed together the Wedge optic, 3-D video and the Kinect motion sensor from Xbox to create a virtual window.

The prototypes are rough but intriguing. one screen can broadcast different 3-D videos to two people sitting side by side. one person sees a skull, the other sees a teapot. This is not a split screen divided in half; both people see the same full screen with a different 3-D image on it.

Also, unlike most 3-D televisions today, his prototype does not require special glasses; instead, it uses a Kinect motion sensor to track where your eyes are.

One could potentially use the technology to build a television that lets a dad and a kid sit side by side — but the dad would see a 3-D football game, and the child would see “Sesame Street.”

The display technology Bathiche has created may change how people watch television in the future, or it could remain a niche, intriguing research project.

Roudebush, his high-school teacher, believes Bathiche proved early on that he could think big and make it happen.

She said he told her in high school, ” ‘I want to go work at Microsoft.’ I said, ‘That’s a nice goal, Steve’ .”

Sharon Pian Chan: 206-464-2958 or schan@seattletimes.com

Information in this article, originally published Oct. 17, 2011, was corrected Oct. 17, 2011. A previous version of this story incorrectly said Wedge optic technology was built into Surface 2.0. in addition, the article said Microsoft had said nothing publicly about Surface 2.0 since the Consumer Electronics Show; it should have said the company had not disclosed a date when Surface 2.0 would start selling.

Can you have a second honeymoon, especially if the first one was great?

That’s the question facing Microsoft’s Kinect for the Xbox 360, which is ramping up for its crucial holiday season and first anniversary.

The Kinect was a phenomenal success after it launched last November. it set a world record for the fastest-selling consumer electronics product, with 8 million units sold in the first 60 days.

Yet now, as the first batch of its holiday games enters the market, Microsoft is expecting an even bigger year for Kinect and the Xbox platform.

This year, apps are expected to drive the sales: 75 Kinect games are being released, compared with 17 during the past holiday season, including new versions of hits such as “Dance Central” and “Kinectimals.”

Kinect also features heavily in new entertainment services coming to the Xbox this fall, including cable-TV and streaming-video services that will be controllable and searchable using voice commands and gestures.

“You look at all the lineup of games we have for the holidays, we think it’s going to be the biggest ever,” said David Dennis, group manager in Microsoft’s Interactive Entertainment Business.

Still, you’d think the novelty would have worn off and that everyone who wants an Xbox or other game console would already have one.

But one in five consumers is interested in buying a game console this holiday season. Specifically, 22 percent of adult consumers in the United States intend to buy a game system, down from 24 percent last year, according to research by the Consumer Electronics Association.

“If you look at consumers’ intentions to buy gaming [products], it’s only down very, very slightly from last year,” said Shawn DuBravac, the trade group’s chief economist and director of research.

The same survey found 21 percent intend to buy smartphones this holiday season, up from 17 percent the year before.

But while the Xbox business is still growing, the current game consoles are entering a low point in their life cycle, with sales and interest slowing until the next models appear over the next two to four years, according to IDC.

“We’re in the middle of a trough. I think it will pick back up by 2015,” said Lewis Ward, manager of IDC’s game research.

Nintendo is releasing its new Wii in mid-2012, following the traditional console schedule of a new model every five years.

Microsoft and Sony are pushing out the life cycles of the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 with hardware updates and the Kinect and Sony move motion controller, which also appeared last year. Ward expects the next Xbox will go on sale in 2014 with the PS4 to come in 2015.

There’s little urgency for Microsoft to introduce a new console, since it’s now leading the market and has momentum with Kinect, he said. with more than 55 million Xbox 360s sold, it also has plenty of opportunity to sell higher-margin software and services on the platform.

In the meantime, Kinect — like the Siri voice-control feature in Apple’s new iPhone 4S — is gradually introducing a new user interface to consumers, and giving Microsoft and developers a chance to improve its capabilities before it’s extended to more critical applications and mainstream computing.

Testing out a handful of the new Kinect titles last week, I was generally willing to accept the sensor’s occasional hiccups and misfires because the games are so fun. Here are my quick takes on a few notable releases (all except “Dance Central 2″ are already on the market).

“Dance Central 2,” $50: Kinect’s hit dance game, which goes on sale Oct. 25, gets two-player capability so you can dance side by side, trying to match the moves of the groovy characters on screen. Voice commands are added, in addition to the swipe gestures used in the original. the simultaneous multiplayer is a great addition to what’s truly a great social game, but the additional options and game modes made it feel more complicated and a little less breezy than the original.

“Sesame Street: once upon a Monster,” $50: A storybook-themed Kinect game for the preschool set, it has clever, kid-friendly controls such as swipes to turn pages and big tabs on the side of the “book” that you “pull” with gestures to launch a game, as if you’re pulling on the tabs of a pop-up book. the funny narration by Elmo and Cookie Monster keeps it from being scary, and progress requires physical activity such as jumping and mimicking the gestures of an on-screen monster. my 5-year-old game consultant and I tried the demo version, but instead of finishing she wanted to return to “Kinectimals.”

“Kinectimals now with Bears,” $50, or $15 as a bear upgrade to the original “Kinectimals.” I thought “Kinectimals” would be a breakout hit last year. the game lets you adopt and play with adorable, realistic wild cats, such as a baby tiger or lion. “Petting” them and making them purr with gestures are still one of the most striking demonstrations of the sensor, but the original game felt bogged down by a traditional game structure, which was too involved for very young players who just wanted to play with the animals. “With Bears” adds equally charming bear cubs and makes it easier to get playing, without hurdles such as the original’s challenging obstacle course.

“Forza Motorsport 4,” $60 to $80: Microsoft’s ultrarealistic racing game is bright and thrilling, with a few optional Kinect capabilities that feel like tech demos. you can let Kinect track your head and change your view while racing. There’s also a virtual showroom where you can move around, explore cars and call up brochure-type material about different features, but I couldn’t get the hang of the bobbing around needed to get in and out of cars. In short Kinect racing games, you steer by holding arms out and moving hands up and down, but the sensor repeatedly lost track of hands in my smallish, poorly lit room. Holding arms out that way also got tiring after a few laps. I couldn’t wait to stop testing its Kinect features, pick up the controller and get back into the full game.

Brier Dudley’s column appears Mondays. Reach him at 206-515-5687 or bdudley@seattletimes.com.

Now Brazilians can buy 360s, even if they don’t have a top hat, a monocle, or a swimming pool full of money.

Countries outside of Japan and North America are no strangers to shelling out a king’s ransom for games and consoles. That problem isn’t going to change overnight, but Microsoft will be making life a little easier for Brazilian gamers in October. Microsoft, in conjunction with Flextronics inc., plans to open a manufacturing plant in Manaus, Brazil that will drive Xbox prices down by about 40%. Microsoft Gold memberships, Microsoft Points, and many Microsoft-published games will see reductions as well.

In preparation for the new systems, 360s on Brazilian shelves right now will receive a slight discount and include copies of Forza Motorsport 3 and Alan Wake. new systems will hit stores starting on October 5, and come with asking prices of R$799 ($435 USD) for a basic model and R$1399 ($761 USD) for a system with a 250-gig hard drive and a Kinect peripheral. Compared to what these systems cost in the U.S., the new prices are still quite expensive, but should prove much more affordable than importing systems. Gold memberships, Microsoft points, and games will see reductions somewhere in the neighborhood of R$10-30, depending on the exact product.

While this price drop is good news for Brazilians who are looking to buy or upgrade their 360s, Microsoft might not be motivated entirely by consumer welfare. Over the summer, Sony made big strides in the Latin American market, including offering exclusive bundles and opening a Brazilian PSN Store. Making 360s more readily available in Brazil might just be part of the competition, but hey, when companies compete, everyone wins.

We’ve already had rumours this week that Microsoft is ramping up development for its successor to the Xbox 360 and the same sort of rumours for other companies are only likely to become more commonplace as we get into next year.

This news for Treyarch is particularly hard to decipher though as it could refer to just about anything. Curiously the job listing has now disappeared from their website, but when it was there it called for a senior software engineer to join a team ‘bringing our hugely successful game to a new console.’ call of Duty was not mentioned by name, but since Treyarch has worked on little else for years, and certainly not anything that could be described as ‘hugely successful’, we’ll take that aspect of the puzzle as read. the real question then is what the new console is. It could be the PSVita, but Activision has already formally announced a call of Duty game for Sony’s new portable (although they’ve never shown anything more than a logo) so there seems no reason to be secretive about it in the job ad. the Wii U is also a strong possibility, especially as Treyarch has handled all of the Wii versions of call of Duty so far, whether for their own games or versions of Infinity Ward’s titles. but if it is the Wii U which version of the game would it be? A port of Modern Warfare 3 or a brand new title?

Perhaps the most likely possibility is that the new console is in fact the mythical Xbox 720, Microsoft’s follow-up to the Xbox 360 that’s heavily rumoured to be unveiled at E3 next June. This would explain the secrecy, especially as next year is Treyarch’s turn to make a new call of Duty anyway. It could also potentially be for the PlayStation 4, but so far there’s been little to suggest that Sony’s new console will be announced as early as next year. There’s currently no clue as to what Treyarch’s call of Duty game for 2012 will be, although the most popular rumours suggest either a direct sequel to Black Ops or some sort of sci-fi game featuring space marines.

Thoughts? Email or leave a comment below

Tyler Lee 08/25/2011 06:25 PDT

Good news Canadians, it appears that an Xbox bundle which seems to be exclusively for Canada is expected to be released this week! In order to attract more customers and add to their already huge fanbase, Microsoft will be releasing an Xbox bundle for their Canadian customers that comes with several games pre-installed on the 250GB console.

“Starting this week Canadians looking for great value on an Xbox 360 can find a bundle that includes a 250GB Xbox 360 console plus download codes for 5 full games all for $299.99 CDN ERP. if you don’t already own an Xbox 360, this is a great way to jump in with an amazing collection of games to start your library.”

The games which Canadian players can expect to come pre-installed would be Alan Wake, Gears of War 2, Halo 3, Fable 3 and Halo Wars. Given that the games come at pretty much no additional cost to the consumer, for those looking to make the leap onto the Xbox platform, this appears to be a pretty good deal.

For those who were hoping for a better holiday deal, apparently this special Xbox bundle is not part of the traditional holiday bundle and there should be yet another special offer as the winter holidays approach.

by Josh Lowensohn,

According to reports, the latest game in the Halo series, which isn’t due for release until next month, has already been downloaded early–and from all places, Microsoft’s own Xbox Live Marketplace.

Joystiq reports that members of the game-modifying enthusiast site Game-Tuts.com were able to circumvent Microsoft’s download key system to download fully licensed copies of the game to their Xbox 360 hard drive. Microsoft had made the full game available to reviewers as a download earlier in the week, though had put in a security measure that would only allow it to be accessed with an authorized redemption code.

According to a post on Game-Tut’s forums, which has since been taken down (though is still archived on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 modding enthusiast site Se7ensins.com), the group that obtained the copy has no plans to leak or distribute it elsewhere. The Game-Tuts staff member who penned the post also insisted that the code they acquired is signed by Microsoft and will therefore play on unmodified Xbox 360 hardware.

Of course, this is not the first Halo title to make its way into the hands of gamers ahead of its public release. Nor is it the earliest such leak.

Halo 2 was famously leaked a full month ahead of its release by a European manufacturing plant back in 2004. Unlike this version of Reach, the game code was taken from a retail copy of the disc, then distributed through pirating channels. It also required that users have a modified version of the original Xbox to run the game code off a burned disc or hard drive install.

2007′s release of Halo 3 followed suit, with a nearly complete version of the game leaking out to the Web two months ahead of the game’s official release. like the leak of the previous Halo title, this required users to run a modified version of the Xbox 360′s system software, though this time around Microsoft was able to bite back, and banned those consoles from accessing its Xbox Live service for 7,992 years.

The most recent leak prior to Reach, was developer Bungie’s last Halo game titled ODST, which some lucky French gamers got a full month ahead of its release. though this time around it was not through manufacturing plants or unofficial leaks. Instead it was a handful of French retailers who broke the street date and sold the game early.

for more: techtechy.com

It’s only been a few weeks since Nyko offered up the price and ship date for the cool Zoom for Kinect accessory for the Microsoft Kinect. The Zoom for Kinect is a simple to use clip on accessory that greatly shortens the distance you need to stand back from the Kinect to play.

The Zoom cuts the distance you need to stand back by about 40%. we already know that August 23 is the day the Zoom will ship. we also know that the Zoom will sell for $29.99. we didn’t know for sure where you could get one of the Zoom accessories.

As of now, you can pre-order the Zoom for Kinect on Amazon for $29.99. The device will ship on August 23. The device needs no power or drivers to work and just clips onto the Kinect for use.

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Breaking: New horse armor will be first available on Xbox 360!

Microsoft just announced that DLC for what may be the most anticipated game of the year, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, will first show up exclusively on the Xbox 360 as a timed exclusive, further emphasizing company’s push towards gaining the competitive advantage in multi-platform triple-A games.

Just like we saw with the expansions for Grand Theft Auto IV and the overpriced DLC of Call of Duty, Microsoft is bringing their A-Game in getting a head start on additional content for the industry’s biggest multi-platform titles and we’re not surprised by this news of their partnership with Bethesda for Skyrim in the slightest.

A week ago, Microsoft’s Chris Lewis told Eurogamer of their goals with signing deals with major publishers to bring content to the Xbox 360 platform first, as a way to entice PS3 owners who also have an Xbox 360 to make a favorable purchasing decision.

“they are important. DLC windows of exclusivity are critical for us for differentiation. We’ll continue to bring those exclusives through our own studio work, Gears and Forza and other titles.

We’re also pretty confident the cross-platform experience is better on Xbox. We enjoy great success with Call of Duty. Live is the oxygen that runs through our business. The experience users have through Xbox Live is a fundamental differentiator for us versus other platforms. FIFA is another one. certainly here in Europe football is a religion. Our ongoing commitment to experiencing better and playing better on Xbox is partly a function of what we do with Xbox Live.”

Whether or not timed exclusives are good for the industry can be debated forever – Why should some gamers get access to something before others if they pay the same retail price on the same day? but it’s a business-minded reality that’s not going away. Lewis continues, explaining their expanding network of publishing partners:

“We have good, healthy partnerships with all the publishers around the globe, now,” Lewis said. “Over the last 10 years those have developed and they like the momentum we have. It’s hard to trivialise 55 million units out there. everyone loves the install base. We did grow 20 per cent last year in Europe. We want to grow even more this coming year. if you think where we are in the life cycle that’s a fairly unusual ambition at this time.

Our publishers, they see that, they see that ambition, they know how much money we’re going to spend. they know the depth of the partnerships. they love the technology. and they understand we want to differentiate ourselves through DLC or the beauty of the integration across the different device types that we have and are uniquely placed to be able to offer versus our very good quality competition.”

For a company so inclined to offer the best experience for multi-platform titles, it’s a wonder why they bring fail to the issue of cross-platform play, brought to light with Valve offering Portal 2 and the upcoming Counter-Strike: Global Offensive with the ability to join Steam and play against PC gamers from the PS3. In that instance, PS3 players are getting motion control support as well as support for keyboard and mouse place which Xbox 360 will not have.

As for the Skyrim DLC, there’s no word on what the DLC will entail, what form it will take or how much they will retail for, but we know the deal will cover the first two add-ons for the game and that each will be timed for 30 days. We never really enjoy hearing about DLC beforehand because it means they’re working on content that’s intentionally being left out of the main game, but Skyrim is a big province with plenty of quests to explore so there’s no reason to complain here… Unless of course, this DLC is overpriced cosmetic stuff like Oblivion’s infamous horse armor rip-off.

To see what we do know is in the game, check out our gallery of playable character screenshots, close-ups of preset faces from the Skyrim character creator and most recently, the inclusion of same-sex marriage in the game.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim releases November 11, 2011 for the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.

Follow me on Twitter @rob_keyes.

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