Gaming

Grand Theft Auto remains a popular game for both Playstation and Xbox platforms, but creator Dave Jones has since moved on, launching his own nWay Studio. Now the company, in conjunction with Android game console maker Ouya, announces a brand new franchise is launching.

ChronoBlade will debut later this year as a browser-based, free-to-play, RPG featuring up to 4-player gameplay. However, Ouya tells us that it will get an exclusive on the new game. "Ouya will be the very first platform to offer the Chronoblade demo which will be available this week via the DISCOVER storefront and playable at OUYA’s E3 location next week", the company says.

It has taken some time, but Windows Phone slowly gets the apps that users really want. The latest arrival is Temple Run Brave, which plays off of the Pixar Animation Studios movie that was released through Disney. It is the first of two themed Temple Run games, with Oz later making its way to the mobile gaming platform, though not yet to Microsoft's mobile OS.

Microsoft's Michael Stroh tells us "in Temple Run: Brave, you play Merida, heroine of the Disney/Pixar movie, as she races, slides, jumps, turns and shoots across Scotland’s backcountry wilds -- all in gorgeous visuals inspired by the film".

Halo, the popular gaming series released back in 2001 by Bungie, is a big success for Microsoft. So much so that the company wishes to expand on the platform and port it over to other devices, both mobile and PC-based. The franchise has become a mainstay of Xbox, but the new version promises a refresh.

Halo: Spartan Assualt comes with new gameplay spanning 25 missions, an original story set between the events of "Halo 3" and "Halo 4", touch controls (in addition to keyboard and mouse), new achievements, integration with Halo 4 and more.

Twenty-ninth in a series. The US Windows 8 apps store crossed the 50,000 apps mark for the first time today; a total of 50,156 apps are listed in the store, with the majority of them free to download and use.

That's an increase of 1,639 apps in the past seven days, a sharp drop over last week's increase of nearly 2400 apps.

I was weeding through my Steam friends list the other night, looking to remove some of the people that I never see online or playing games anymore. As I scrolled through, I noticed that there were several folks on my list that hadn't signed on for one-hundred days or more. By default, Steam starts itself upon boot, with the option to automatically log yourself in as well.

It made me wonder why these people that I had played with every day or two hadn't so much as even started up the program in such a long time. After all, I don't just send or accept friend requests on a whim. I've only ever add people that I've played with a multitude of times and have spoken to directly via voice-chat or text in-game on a regular basis.

Twenty-eighth in a series. Several popular apps received updates this week. A new version of the ESPN app was uploaded to the store adding tennis coverage to it and fixing a couple of bugs related to the live scoring tile feature and the display of select sports when they are snapped on to the side of the screen.

Toolbox, an app offering access to custom tools that you can display next to each other on the screen received its first commercial in-app upgrade. Users can add a Twitter client to the app for a one-time payment of $4.99.

Twenty-seventh in a series. Growth remained stable but below the 2,000 new apps mark this week. The overall app count is now at 46,143 in the U.S. Windows Store, an increase by 1,788 apps in total. The store features 36,164 free apps, an increase of 1,362 apps, and 9,979 paid applications, which increased by 426 apps this week.

Several core apps were updated this week. The OneNote application for Windows 8 received an update that adds finger drawing support to it. To use the new feature, tap on the screen and select draw from the radial menu that opens up when you do.

Piracy has long been a frustrating problem for software makers, musicians and movie and TV studios. The introduction of BitTorrent, while not designed to facilitate this theft, brought the problem to the forefront. Now one tiny game studio takes matters into its own hands with hilarious results.

Greenheart released Game Dev Tycoon simulation game, but the company also did something unique -- seeding a cracked version of that game on a Torrent site. The object of the play is to design games and build up your own successful studio.

Twenty-sixth in a series. Windows Store app growth has slowed down a bit in the past two weeks. The overall increase dropped below 2,000 new apps in both periods. The overall app count increased by 1,877 this week to 44,355 apps in the US Windows Store. Free apps increased by 1,372 to a total of 34,802, and paid & trial apps by 505 to 9553 apps.

The Windows 8 news app received an update this week that added support for RSS feeds to it. To add an RSS feed click on the Add a source link after you have opened the news app and add the RSS URL at the top of the source field on the page that opens up. You should not expect "Google Reader"-like controls but if you follow a couple of sites, you can add them here to do so using the news app.

The E3 game expo is just six weeks away and where Nintendo should have big visibility. Instead, today, the company president shares plans about greatly scaled-back presence, less than 24 hours after IDC warned that paying smartphone and tablet gamers will exceed their handheld counterparts this year.

For Microsoft and Sony, which have new consoles coming this year, E3 2013 will be big happenings. But not Nintendo. "We decided not to host a large-scale presentation targeted at everyone in the international audience where we announce new information as we did in the past", president Satoru Iwata says. "Instead, at the E3 show this year, we are planning to host a few smaller events that are specifically focused on our software lineup for the U.S. market".

I find that having children is an excellent excuse for watching movies like Ice Age, Up, Cars and more. After all, I would feel a bit silly watching those flicks on my own, as I do with scary movies like Paranormal Activity, thanks to a wife and kids who would not sleep for a week if they joined me in front of the screen.

Now Ice Age, and all of its classic characters, like Sid, Manny, Ellie, and Diego, are coming to your phone -- providing that you are using a Windows Phone 8 handset.

During the Consumer Electronics Show in January, Microsoft set up a countdown clock to the E3 game show in Los Angeles. Major Nelson (aka Larry Hryb) posted the timer, and, being Mr. Xbox, led to lots of speculation that's when the next-gen console would be announced. Apparently not.

Today, the software giant invites you, me and everyone else to a special shindig on May 21. Select press get invites (I'm not among them) for onsite, while the rest of us can watch online or, in the United States, Spike TV. "On that day, we’ll share our vision for Xbox, and give you a real taste of the future", Hryb says.

Twenty-fifth in a series. The increase of new apps slowed down a little bit, falling under the 2,000 apps per week mark that was passed in the last three weeks. A total of 1,928 new apps found their way into the store this week. The total number of apps in the U.S. store is now 42,478, made up of 33,430 free apps and 9,048 paid ones. Free apps increased by 1,447 this week and paid ones by 481.

The core Bing apps received updates a couple of days ago. I won't rehash all that we previously reporting, only this much: Bing News supports custom RSS feeds now that you can add to the app so that you can add your own news sources to it. News also supports keyword-based news that you can add easily to the application.

Xbox is due for a refresh this year and it's a good time to write my wishlist. I’ve been accused of being a Windows fanboy, which I’m not. I’ve also been accused of being a Windows Phone fanboy. No again. But I’ve never been accused of being an Xbox fanboy, which I absolutely am.

With the Xbox, Microsoft has a stellar platform on its hands. The console has gone from a third place alsoran to a major player in the console wars: a strategy Microsoft desperately needs to adapt to Windows Phone, but that’s a different article. As the world of computing shifts to mobile, so is gaming, allowing companies like Apple to get into the business. What do vendors that build consoles need to do to adjust their strategy? I can’t say much for Sony or Nintendo because I don’t use those platforms anymore. For Microsoft, here’s my wish list for the next Xbox platform update that I think will allow it to remain a major gaming industry player despite the shift to mobile computing.

Back on March 28th Ouya president Julie Uhram announced the tiny Android-based gaming console started shipping, but only to backers of the Kickstarter project. Additional details were added such as a software update which would be run upon first boot up and that the device would officially hit retail stores on June 4th.

As we have seen around the web, some have already received their boxes, but what if you did not get in on the Kickstarter ground floor, but instead placed a pre-order when those went live back in August of 2012? I happen to fall in that category and so I inquired about the timeframe and received a response from Ouya's Carmelo Martinez.