Microsoft confirmed Kinect’s voice recognition system will support only four languages at launch: US English, UK English, Mexican Spanish and Japanese.

Qu’est-ce que l’enfer?

Mainland Europe, Australia, Canada and all other Kinected countries will have to wait at least until Spring 2011 for their specific voice recognition region to be activated. Until then, regions will be locked out of the voice system entirely, meaning even if a main-lander knows how to speak one of the four supported languages, Kinect no podrá hacerlo.

Lidia Pitzalis of Microsoft España explained to Eurogamer.es the decision to block languages by region is to ensure users don’t have any “frustrating experiences” with foreign accents. As a West Coast resident, I think Louisianans have foreign accents, but Microsoft seems confident Kinect will have no trouble recognizing anything in the States or across the UK.

What do our foreign commenters think about the exclusion of so many languages at Kinect’s launch? Do you think this will this affect Kinect sales in the excluded regions? ¡Nos diga aquí!

Microsoft has permanently banned all the idiots people who downloaded and played the leaked copy of Halo: Reach online, less than a month before its official release September 14.

The guilty morons online pirates received an email from Microsoft stating their “Xbox LIVE account privileges have been permanently suspended due to illegitimate pre-release title play,” and not only had their boxes banned, but their online tags as well, MaxConsole reported.

Xbox LIVE director of policy tweeted about the permabans, writing, “as with all unauthorized play on Xbox LIVE, anyone playing any unauthorized title runs the risk of account permaban and console.”

Basically, if you are dumb enough to play a pirated game online before it is released, especially one as high-profile as Halo: Reach, you’ll never play another game online through that console again.

Duh.

Ready your weapons and prepare for attack its time for another skirmish of EpicBattleCry! This week, we check out the Sly Cooper Collection, ponder the recently announced charity contest for Gears of War 3, team-up for some co-op Shank details, and try to make sense of the Halo: Reach 360 bundle.

With the price of Microsoft Kinect officially unveiled, we discuss the motion-sensing controller’s fate and whether its been priced too high for gamers to take a chance on. The release of StarCraft II is looming and with it comes the inevitable onslaught of reviews. How much weight do reviews carry with gamers and what could be done to improve them?

The Battle Cry of the Week goes to Super Street Fighter IV, annoying gamers online, Rush being featured in Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock, and Final Fantasy classic titles on PSN.
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RedLynx announced today, in a press release, that they will be delivering a second DLC pack for their ludicrously fun XBLA game, Trials HD. The new DLC, titled Big Thrills, will contain 40 new tracks designed by RedLynx as well as 10 user-created tracks. That’s nearly as many tracks as the game has right now!

To select the user-created tracks for the upcoming expansion, RedLynx and Microsoft are having a little contest. The top 10 entries will get their tracks in the game and win some cashola in the bargain, including $5000 for first place.

Also included in Big Thrills will be more achievements, totaling 50 points. The DLC is scheduled to drop sometime in Q4 2010 and no price has yet been named (although the the original game was only 15 bucks).

We are thrilled that RedLynx is releasing more Trials HD content and have even included user created tracks this time! Now all we need is for them to allow us to share user-created tracks with each other whenever we want (not just with our friends)!

Anyone else but me revved up for more Trials HD?

Source

Major Nelson posted a preview of the new Xbox LIVE Arcade layout and visual browser, Destination Arcade, due out July 14 in the good ol’ US of A.

But don’t feel too abandoned, foreigners – the Major is obviously a traditional military man. I’m sure it’s nothing personal. This time.

Destination Arcade will activate under the Games Marketplace tab and will allow users to browse by price, community rating and other specialized terms. Major Nelson emphasized the streamlined, connective aspects of the new system, including a friend recommendation engine and news feed.

He also included some Destination Arcade screenshots, available  right here.

Check out the screens and let us know what you think of XBLA’s updated look and search engine!

Via Industry Gamers

Empowering the EBA Community with a voice to collaboratively review the industry’s hottest titles, the EpicBattleAxe.com uREVIEW (about) delivers real insight from real gamers about The GOOD, The BAD, and The UGLY pertaining to the biggest games in the world. This is the EpicBattleAxe.com uREVIEW for Crackdown 2. Let’s get started:
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During a spot of tea after the platform holder’s conference, Microsoft creative director Kudo Tsunoda assured Kinect critics that the system will cater to hardcore gamers just as well as Mario Bros. does.

Tsunoda did begin his defense with, “Maybe this is naïve on my part,” so please, let’s not be too hard on the poor boy. At least he knows.

His main argument for the Kinect’s core potential lies in the assumption that the games don’t “all necessarily come down to whether you’re shooting something. If you think about a game like Mario Bros., would you say Mario Bros. is a core or casual game? That’s exactly what we’re doing with the Kinect products.”

Tsunoda extended the metaphor with a cute scenario: “What are the standard definition of things? If you say core, it really doesn’t mean it’s an action game where you’re shooting people. And that’s what it is. If I came to you today and I was like, hey, we’re going unveil this new game: it’s a plumber, and you’re going to be going through pipes, and you’re going to be jumping on turtles, you’d be asking the exact same questions that you’re asking about the Kinect experiences.”

Basically Tsunoda doesn’t want us to compare Kinect with Wii, a Nintendo system, by telling us to compare it instead with Mario Bros., a Nintendo game. Perhaps it’s a strange form of reverse gaming psychology, though I’m not quite sure who Microsoft is trying to convince at this point.

What do you guys think about the comparison? Does Kinect stand a chance of supporting the next Mario Bros. or is that just a pipe dream? Give us your opinion below!

In a press release last week, Microsoft announced that they would be taking another step forward towards being a family-friendly console. The announcement detailed the new Xbox LIVE Gold Family Pack, which will provide an eager family with four Xbox LIVE Gold Memberships for the price of two ($99.99).

Also included with the Family Pack are some new capabilities, which include:

– The primary account member has the ability to purchase and dispense Microsoft Points to other Xbox LIVE Gold Family Pack members.
– Activity monitoring reports viewable on Xbox.com to help encourage discussions about safer more balanced gaming and entertainment habits.
– Simplified billing that applies all purchase charges to the primary account holder’s billing account and the ability to authorize purchases, helping to manage the family’s entertainment budget.
– Exclusive family content and discounts.

Additionally, Microsoft detailed in a recent interview with Kotaku, that you will be able to get a prorated discount on the Family Pack if you have an existing Gold account with time remaining on your membership.

All in all it sounds like a pretty sweet deal for a family – or a group of dudes livin’ off campus in a house (although one person will get to play BMOC with control of the master account). So what do you think – do you see a benefit to this for your situation? Do your kids get their own Gold account now?

Source

Microsoft’s release of Fable III for PC may signal a stronger push toward computer games in the company’s future, according to an internal Q&A discovered by Kotaku.

With Microsoft’s display of indecent obsession with Kinect and a more casual market at E3 this year, hitting the PC audience may be the company’s deus ex machina before it is requiescat in pace. The Q&A, prepared for Microsoft spokespeople, reads like a used car salesman trying to sell you a 1970 Ford Pinto (thus the above pic…), but it does affirm that Microsoft acknowledges its lack of presence in the PC world.

Q: Does “Fable III” on Windows signal a larger reinvestment by Microsoft in PC gaming? How is this different from the previous times you’ve announced a reinvestment in PC gaming and not quite come through with a robust offering?

A: In terms of revenue, Windows is far and away the largest gaming platform in the world, so it’s an incredibly important part of Microsoft’s business. From core games like “Fable III” to casual, social and Facebook titles, more gaming happens on Windows than anywhere else. Windows 7 is a world-class gaming platform, and you can bet Microsoft has a vested interest in using it as a platform for amazing first party content. “Fable III” on Windows as well as Xbox 360 this holiday is a great first step, and we’ll have more news for you later this summer.

Considering Facebook games are comparable to Fable III may reveal more about Microsoft’s current mindset than anything they’ve so far demonstrated, but we can still hope for “more news” on the company’s PC plans over the summer months. What are YOUR hopes? Let us know below.

It’s alive! Microsoft is banking on Kinect to not only revolutionize our gameplay, but to also elongate the lifespan of the Xbox 360 itself. Paired with the new Xbox 360 model, Microsoft’s European executive Chris Lewis expects Kinect to keep the console’s heart monitor beeping for another five years.

“What you’ve seen is with this new sleek design and Kinect for Xbox 360 we’ve got at least another five years of this generation where we continue to offer great experiences for people,” Lewis told GamesIndustry.biz. “We continue to attach more games than competitive platforms and we have the healthiest ecosystem with 25 million people connected through Xbox Live. So we are uniquely placed to continue to do really, really well in this business and enjoy ongoing momentum.”

Elapsed time between the release of the Xbox and the Xbox 360 was roughly four years, so the current generation is already outliving its ancestor. But with Sony’s prediction of a 10-year lifespan for the PS3 (which was released in 2006), the 360 would still be dying prematurely if it wasn’t plugged into the correct hardware this year.

So Microsoft has created the technological fountain of youth – How do five more years of our current consoles sound to you? Are you ADHD Generation X-ers itching for something more than Kinect and Move, or are these hardware add-ons enough? Microsoft says it has “the healthiest ecosystem” and “more games than competitive platforms,” but after its E3 showing, it might be time to pull the plug after all. What do you think? Shout out below!