microsoft posts

Age of Empires Online is in the middle of its closed beta test at the moment but the development team at Gas Powered Games is already revealing more about what players can get when the online free-to-play RTS game launches later in 2011. In the latest video blog, we learn about one of the game's Booster Packs, Defense of Crete

This new gameplay mode is basically a tower defense game where you have to build up your forces and structures to defend your Wonder from an invading horde. This is a mode that you can play by yourself or you can team up with a buddy online to have him help you defend your wonder.

PC games have been wondering if Microsoft is really serious about re-entering the PC game publishing field with Fable III. The folks at developer Lionhead certainly seem serious about their work to bring 2010's Xbox 360 fantasy RPG to the PC platform, at least according to the game's new developer diary video.

The video shows a number of Lionhead team members talking about the various new changes they made to the game to make it work on the PC, including a total rewrite of the game's control system, the addition of 3D support and more. Fable 3 is currently due for release on May 17.

Download the Fable 3 PC developer diary video at Big Download

In a major about face for Microsoft, the publisher announced today that the upcoming PC version of developer Lionhead's fantasy RPG Fable III will be made available for purchase and download via Valve's Steam service as well as Microsoft's own Games For Windows Marketplace web site. Fable III will be the first Microsoft published game to be sold on Steam.

Microsoft and Valve have been rivals in the PC game download business as well as for extra PC game services (Steamworks vs Games For Windows Live) so Fable III's appearance on Steam is a pretty huge change of pace for Microsoft. The game will be made available for pre-orders later today on both Steam and Games For Windows Marketplace. Games For Windows Marketplace will offer Fable - The Lost Chapters, the PC port of the first game in the series, for free as a pre-order special. In addition Steam pre-orders will also get the exclusive Rebel's Weapon & Tattoo Pack, which adds four exclusive weapons and five character tattoos. The game will be released via these outlets and via retail stores on May 17.

Update: Games For Windows Live has now put up its pre-order page for Fable 3 as has Steam with its own Fable 3 pre-order page.

Age of Empires Online is the upcoming reboot of the classic PC RTS series. The game from developer Gas Powered Games and publisher Microsoft will officially launch later this year as a persistent free-to-play RTS game with a cartoony art style.

The game is currently in closed beta testing and now Big Download has 500 beta keys to give out to fans. Simply email us at contests@bigdownload.com with the subject line "Age of Empires Online". We will send players beta keys until they are all given out on our end. Our thanks to Microsoft for providing the beta keys. Good luck.

GoG.com had a number of announcements today at its streaming press conference including big hints about upcoming publishers:

• GoG.com is not only selling the only DRM-free version of The Witcher 2, but starting May 10 people who pre-order the game from the site can start pre-loading the fantasy RPG sequel before its released on May 17. GoG.com will be the only digital download service that will offer a pre-load of the game.
• GoG.com's sales went up 163 percent in 2010 compared to 2009. No specific sales numbers were mentioned.
• Later this spring GoG.com will get some new features including a new game downloader that will have multi-threading features for large downloads and an error checker that will check the download for corruption issues every 10 MBs. Another new feature will add private messages to the web site.
• At the end of the presentation, five big publishers were shown on the screen; Electronic Arts, Take Two Interactive, Square Enix, LucasArts and Microsoft. The press conference said that one of those five publishers has signed a deal with GoG.com to bring 25 of its classic games to the site this summer. Two more of the above publishers are in talks with GoG.com to bring some of their own games to the download service as well.

Microsoft is inching closer to releasing its official Kinect SDK tools for the PC. The company has now launched an official web site for the software tools ahead of the SDK's beta released later this spring.

The web site briefly goes over what will be contained in the SDK which will allow people with a Windows PC to develop applications and, yes, games for the PC via the Kinect motion controller that was released for the Xbox 360 console last November. The beta release of the Kinect PC SDK tools will be for making non-commercial ( i.e. free) PC applications only.

[Via VG247.com]

Fable III is set for its PC debut later this year and today IGN has posted up word that the hardware system requirements for developer Lionhead Studios' latest fantasy RPG have been revealed. You can check out both the minimal and recommended system specs for the game after the jump.

As we have reported earlier this year, the Fable III PC port will be released on May 17 and will include a new Hardcore difficulty mode. The game will also be the first PC game that will be released by Microsoft Game Studios since the Gears of War port back in December 2007.

Microsoft says it's fully behind PC gaming now after relaunching the Games For Windows web site last year and planning to release at least two PC games this year (the PC port of Fable 3 and Age of Empires Online). Now an internal Microsoft video has been leaked that shows some possible future plans for PC gaming via Windows.

The video was discovered by ZDNet which states that was first made back in May 2010 which means that some, if not all, of the things in the video may have been changed or dumped since then. The video from the Windows Gaming Experience team shows Xbox 360-like avatars doing things like purchasing more avatar outfits via Microsoft points, playing games on Facebook, finding new games to play and getting invites from friends to join online games. It's all pretty tame stuff, actually, and nothing that isn't available already via third party programs and companies.

Oh, and apparently Microsoft doesn't know how to spell "pwned".

[Via PC Gamer]

Age of Empires Online's switchover in developers seems to be going smoothly enough. The upcoming free-to-play RTS game is now firming in developer Gas Powered Games' hands. In its second video blog for the game, its head man Chris Taylor and others are shown handling a brainstorming session.

While there's some info on the game itself, most notably its game balance features, there's also teleportation, air guitar playing on the conference table and some soccer (or futbol for your Europeans) playing with some interesting gameplay twists. We are not sure what this has to do with an historical RTS game but it's fun to watch anyway.

DirectX has been the graphical API that most PC game developers use to make their game titles. Microsoft created the API years ago and has issued new versions around the time it also releases new versions of Windows. The latest version, DirectX 11, was released in the fall of 2009.

Now one of the PC hardware's biggest names, AMD, says it's perhaps time to do away with DirectX11. Bit-tech.net quotes Richard Huddy, the developer relations manager of AMD's GPU division, as saying that PC games should look a lot better than console titles because PCs have better hardware specs. However that's not the case and Huddy says, " To a significant extent, that's because, one way or another, for good reasons and bad - mostly good, DirectX is getting in the way." In fact he says that game developers have told him, "Make the API go away."

Programming graphics for game consoles do allow developers to program directly for the hardware. While PC game developers can use DirectX as a way to solve many problems, the software layer also prevents game developers to develop directly into the PC game hardware and thus keep them from using much of a PC's hardware. While its likely that DirectX will continue to be around for a while, Crytek's R&D technical director Michael Glueck states in the article that as PC GPUs become more like general purpose chips, the less an API like DirectX will be needed.

[Via Blue's News]