Microsoft will reportedly not launch the highly anticipated follow-up to the Xbox 360 this year. Cedrick Delma, Microsoft’s marketing director in France, recently told Le Point that he was “certain” the Redmond-based company would not release a new Xbox this year. Gamers shouldn’t give up all hope on at least getting a glimpse at Microsoft’s next-generation console this year, though. BGR exclusively reported last June that Microsoft has plans to unveil its Xbox 360 successor d...

Microsoft may be preparing to discontinue its virtual currency system by the end of the year, according to Inside Mobile Apps. The software giant is reportedly looking to phase out Microsoft Points in favor of real money transactions. After the switch, customers with existing Microsoft Points balances will have them converted into their local currency. Microsoft is said to have already warned mobile developers to plan their upcoming downloadable content and in-app purchases in accordance with the change. The...

Dave Cutler, who has been called the “father of Windows NT” has joined Microsoft’s Xbox team. “Dave is one of our brightest minds and is currently working on projects that will help advance our goals in the consumer space as we continue to grow the Xbox from a game-centric console to a complete home entertainment device,” a Microsoft spokesperson told ZDNET‘s Mary Jo Foley, who confirmed the move recently. Reportedly, Cutler will be tasked with taking Xbox “beyond a gami...

It’s the end of an era. Microsoft announced last month that this year’s Consumer Electronics Show keynote will be the company’s last for the foreseeable future. The show definitely won’t be the same without Microsoft’s chief executive officer Steve Ballmer kicking things off with his unique brand of charisma, but all good things must come to an end. According to reports, Microsoft won’t have anything big to announce at this year’s keynote. Instead, Ballmer will reca...

A patent that was granted to Microsoft in December suggests the company is working on an Xbox game console that will double as a digital video recorder (DVR). The patent describes several processors that are dedicated to “game titles” and a second batch that are reserved for “game titles and system (including DVR).” Specifically, the patent details a system that is equipped with a “digital video recorder (DVR) application running alongside a television client component allows use...

Apple sold 925 iPhone 4S handsets each minute during the device’s debut weekend, and it sells 81 iPads every 60 seconds on average. Research In Motion sells 103 BlackBerry phones, Amazon sells 18 Kindle Fire tablets and Microsoft sells 11 Xbox 360 consoles every minute. More than 700 computers are purchased around the world every 60 seconds, and 232 of them are infected by malware. That malware stat seems surprisingly low, however, when you consider that 2 million people watch online porn every minute...

Microsoft just sold nearly one million Xbox 360 consoles last week alone, but we’re nearing the end of the road for video game consoles according to one industry visionary. Richard Garriott, known for having created the fantasy role-playing franchise Ultima and the massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) Tabula Rasa, says converged devices such as computers, smartphones and tablets will soon render dedicated game consoles obsolete. Read on for more. (more…)

Microsoft announced on Tuesday that last week marked the Xbox 360′s best ever week of sales. The company sold more than 960,000 Xbox 360 consoles and more than 750,000 Kinect controllers last week. Microsoft also confirmed that more than 800,000 of the consoles it sold last week were purchased on Black Friday alone. ”We have seen tremendous excitement from customers for our hot holiday gaming offers,” said Chris Homeister, senior vice president and general manager of Home Entertainment at B...

Activision’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 has become the fastest-selling video game in history, crushing previous records set by earlier titles in the Call of Duty franchise. The game lab on Tuesday announced that week-one sales of Modern Warfare 3 totaled 12.3 million units, making it the biggest launch of all time and pulling in an estimated $738 million in revenue. The Xbox 360 version of the game lead sales with more than 7 million copies, a record for game sales on a single console that was previ...

Sales of video games and video game hardware remained lackluster in October according to market research giant The NPD Group. Overall industry sales in the U.S. grew just 1% to $1.08 billion last month compared to October 2010. Total hardware sales were up 6% year-over-year to $295.6 million in October, and software sales were up 3% to $621.3 million. Sales of video game accessories in the U.S. dipped 5% to $135.9 million last month. Microsoft’s Xbox showed the most impressive growth among home consoles...

Microsoft’s Zune player is no more. Again. Last week, Microsoft put up a support page announcing that it would no longer build or sell Zune hardware, choosing to instead focus on Zune software for Windows Phone and other platforms. ”We recently announced that, going forward, Windows Phone will be the focus of our mobile music and video strategy, and that we will no longer be producing Zune players,” the company said in a statement on the Zune website. Shortly after the page went live, Micro...

Sony announced on Tuesday that it is lowering the price of its 160GB PlayStation 3 console to $249, down from the console’s original $299 price tag. In addition, Sony will now sell the 320GB version of the PlayStation 3 for $299 instead of $349. The Japanese consumer electronics firm also dropped the price of the system in Japan and in Europe. The move is likely an effort to tackle Microsoft’s Xbox 360 console, which has been the best-selling console in the United States for past seven months acco...

On Tuesday, Microsoft noted several of the Games Hub changes that will go into effect when Windows Phone Mango launches this fall. Mango’s Games Hub will include new “Avatar Awardables” which, much like on the Xbox 360, will allow you to dress your avatar up with a number of unique clothing items. The first title to support Avatar Awardables will be the game “Chickens Can’t Fly.” Games Hub will also feature new game add-ons. For example, in the game “Beards & Beak...

Microsoft’s internal Tellme team is working on implementing speech recognition software into the Redmond-based firm’s portfolio of software and hardware products. Microsoft will build the feature into its new Windows 8 operating system, its Bing search engine, Windows Phone, Kinect and Xbox, Azure and other products, ZDNET has learned. We already know Microsoft’s upcoming Windows Phone Mango release will offer voice-to-text and text-to-voice functionality, but Tellme senior director of sales...