Xbox

Microsoft has been wrapped up in sports deals for the last few days and yesterday’s partnership with the National Football League, was yet another welcome addition. The NFL and Microsoft plan to upgrade interactive TV viewing for football fans through the company’s latest entertainment console, Xbox One. The $400 million deal was announced Tuesday and will be set into effect as early as Q1 2014.

We first began reporting on the next Xbox console (codenamed Durango) earlier this year, but the new console had been rumored for quite some time now. Earlier today, Microsoft finally announced the console during the Xbox Reveal event.

The console’s final name is not Xbox Infinity as many had expected. Instead, Microsoft has named it the Xbox One. The name stems from Microsoft’s goal of this console becoming the One device you use for all of your entertainment needs. The OS is comprised of three layers: one dedicated to gaming, one based on the Windows 8 kernel, and a third layer that interfaces between the other two. It will launch sometime later this year.

You'll find everything we know about the Xbox One past the break!

The Xbox One should offer an exponentially better entertainment experience than our beloved but aging Xbox 360. The gaming possibilities are greater than ever before thanks to beefier hardware (16 times as much RAM, for instance) and the new Kinect. That said, Microsoft chose to reveal precious few games during the event.

Let’s see what titles they announced and what we can expect when the console launches later this year…

Hopefully you watched our Live Blog of Microsoft’s “next generation” Xbox One announcement today, if not, just check out our continuing coverage here.  

Assuming you did, what do you think? The bar was set a bit low with Sony’s PlayStation 4 announcement with many in the industry smirking that all Microsoft had to do was show their new console. But jokes aside, did Microsoft impress you? Is the Xbox ONE what you hoped it would be and do you think it’ll succeed?

Our heads are still whirling after the announcement of the Xbox One earlier this morning. The event is over, but details are still pouring in. We’ve got two items to highlight real fast. One good, one bad.

Today at 3PM EST (12PM PST) Major Nelson (Larry Hryb) will be sitting down with special guests to discuss the new architecture of the recently announced Xbox One.

The new Xbox One architecture is a combination of three operating system: Xbox OS, The Windows Kernel, and a "third" OS to tie the other two together.

Microsoft has today announced the new Xbox One, but what would the Xbox 360 successor be without a controller? Fear not as the company has this well and truly covered. Reportedly sporting over 40 design innovations, Microsoft has improved the controller in many ways to further enhance the gameplay for gamers. Check out the new look.

In case you’re living under a cave, today is Microsoft’s big day: the reveal of the next generation Xbox console. We wrote about what to expect yesterday, and today, we finally get to see what it’s all about.

You can watch the event live on your Xbox 360, Windows Phone 8 device, or of course your PC.

We’ll have a live blog of the event in case you can’t watch it any place or you want some live commentary on the announcement (and to discuss with your fellow Windows Phone Central community members).

The event starts at 10AM PT/1PM ET. You can use this handy scheduler to see your local time or use the countdown clock below.

Link to event: http://www.wpcentral.com/microsoft-xbox-next-generation-live-blog

Does anybody remember the Xbox Deal of the Week for Windows Phone? It started quite humbly back in March 2^nd, 2011 with a sale on Konami’s so-so port of Frogger. The sales rolled on in the weeks to come, typically discounting $5 games down to $3 and $3 games down to $2. Only holiday event sales would grant larger discounts, until the fateful day when Gameloft’s UNO HD became the first 99 cent Deal of the Week on November 14, 2012.