TV Achievements Coming to XBox One?

  With a much more extensive focus on other aspects of entertainment besides just gaming, especially television integration, Microsoft is looking for ways to encourage viewership of not just shows, but also ads.  Taking a page from GetGlue, they've applied for a patent on TV achievements, offering Gamerscore points (or TVscore points?) to viewers.

  "Television viewing tends to be a passive experience for a viewer, without many opportunities for the viewer to engage or have interactive experiences with the presented content," the application states. "To increase interactive viewing and encourage a user to watch one or more particular items of video content, awards and achievements may be tied to those items of video content." 

  Click 'read more' to check out the entire article where we look at this, plus we take a look at how a couple of patent applications regarding the Kinect could be used to monitor users if implemented.

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Amazon Launching Licensed Fan Fiction Publishing: Kindle Worlds

  Amazon is going to offer a platform to publish fan fiction, though licenses they establish.  Some Warner Bros properties have already been picked up and more are on the way.  This could end up being a pretty big deal if amazon manages to get licensing for enough of the right properties, but it also has a few hurdles, which I'll get to. 

Here is the Press Release:

Get ready for Kindle Worlds, a place for you to publish fan fiction inspired by popular books, shows, movies, comics, music, and games. With Kindle Worlds, you can write new stories based on featured Worlds, engage an audience of readers, and earn royalties. Amazon Publishing has secured licenses from Warner Bros. for Gossip Girl, Pretty Little Liars, and The Vampire Diaries, with licenses for more Worlds on the way.

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XBox One Questions Answered

  On Tuesday, I talked about what I thought Microsfoft Could Have Done Better at the XBox One Launch Event, pointing out one of the biggest issues were the questions left unanswered in the official reveal: Always Online, Used Gaming, Detailed Stats and more. 

  Microsoft responded to inquiries throughout the day, through various people, getting answers to these almost universal questions every site and gamer was curious about.  You can check out our formal write-up from the event for more info, but for the big questions, here we go (starting with the big one):

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What Microsoft Did Wrong at the XBox Reveal

The XBox One is definitely a decent piece of hardware with solid software backing it up and as an XBox fan I was looking foward to todays reveal.  Unfortunately, many felt they came up short for fans today and with Sony's stock rising immediately after the XBox reveal, it wasn't just gamers that thought the event was lacking.

I'm not here to talk about the appearance of the console, personally, I'd rather have something that blends into my A/V equipment than what we've been offered from console makers in the past.  I'm not going to harp on the name, which is not that great (OK, I guess I harped on it a little).  I won't even talk about the fact that it's not backwards compatible with old XBox games, a problem it shares with the PS4.  I'm here to talk about the presentation itself.

This was an event they promoted the heck out of.  It wasn't just a stream for journalists or a presentation to stockholders, this was going out to everyday gamers.  So what could they have done differently?

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Microsoft Announces: X-Box One

The new system will have 8GB of RAM, an 8-core CPU, 500GB hard drive, Blu-Ray drive, HDMI in and out ports, USB 3.0, 802.11n wireless and a new version of Kinect. 

The new Kinect will have 1080p capture capabilities and better movement detection, being able to notice the "smallest turn of the wrist." 

The controller is very similar to the XBox 360 controller, which is a good thing in my opinion.  They changed the countours of the handles a bit, hopefully that doesn't change the feel for the worse.  The rest of the control looks pretty much the same with the exception that the battery compartment is integrated.  Not sure how I feel about that when I remember how often I had to swap out batteries when playing for a long time.  The triggers are supposed to have direct feedback integration, but the best news they mentioned is for the D-pad, which has been reworked.

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A Journey Through Skyrim #42

  'A Journey Through Skyrim' is a free fan-fic webcomic created by yours truly that chronicles the adventures of a character through the game's trials and tribulations, with a few twists and turns.

  Kol has left Skyrim's mainland to travel north to Solstheim and confront a man calling himself 'the true dragonborn', but has found he lacks the power to equal him.  Joining with the wizard Neloth, they hope to uncover more of the mysterious black books that may hold the key to this Miraak's power... 

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'Star Trek Into Darkness' Writer Damon Lindelof Apologizes for "Gratuitous" Underwear Scene

  io9 addressed the tweets on Monday in a tongue and cheek manner, saying "Good. If we're going to start blasting IMAX shots of naked medical/science officers for no reason besides because they could, at least give us a few Bones pics." But was sure to add they thought the scene was ridiculous.  My feelings wouldn't be hurt if the scene wasn't in the movie, but often notice there isn't much of an uproar when the situation is reversed.  My biggest issue about it was that it was used in a viral video campaign for the movie, putting the scene in a spotlight that made it stand out.  If you are going to point to the men being half naked as well, yet not highlight them, you can't be surprised the scene would get extra attention from fans. 

   What I found more interesting was a blog post from actress Felicia Day about the movie where she took notice that the movie was lacking in strong women.  Feeling Carol Marcus (pictured above) served as little more than damsel in distress and Uhura mostly only served to humanize Spock.  Mainly she points to the scene where Kirk and all the Admirals are sitting around the big table and get attacked, not seeing any women there.  I think she is on the money with that specific point and think they could have been well served by having a woman or two sitting around the table (unless there was and both her and I don't remember).

   That being said, I do think the female leads have some good qualities as well...

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George R.R. Martin & Gardner Dozois 'Dangerous Women' Cover Reveal and Details

   Earlier this week, we posted some news about Martin & Dozois' Rogues Anthology that was heading to the publishers, but Dangerous Women has long been sent in and will be released later this year.

   Much like Rogues, and Warriors before it, Dangerous Women has an impressive list of contributors, such as Joe Abercrombie, Sherilynn Kenyon, Jim Butcher, Lev Grossman, Martin himself and many more.  We should see the novel on shelves by Christmas of this year.

  The cover reveal is after the break, as well as the list of contributors, and as you can see they've stuck with the same cover style they used for Warriors and will probably use again for Rogues.  With a list of names like that, you probably don't need fancy art.

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Kevin Conroy Clears up 'Batman Arkham Origins' Confusion

  We said this weekend that Kevin Conroy, the voice behind Batman in the previous two Arkham games, would be doing work on Arkham Origins after all, when prior news said they were getting another voice actor for the role.  It was an assumption on my part (and every other journalist that ran the story) based on his appearance at the Dallas Comic-Con where he stated he had been hard at work for the last nine or ten months on "the next Arkham" game.

  Well, this morning as the new trailer launched for Arkham Origins (you should check that out by the way, if you haven't yet) Warner Brothers announced that Roger Craig Smith would be voicing Batman for the game.  This is where the confusion really started, since we heard straight from Conroy that he had been working on the game.  It was speculated that perhaps he was working on part of the voice-work since the game is an origin story, maybe a future version of Batman before a flash-back?  Yet, nine to ten months of work seemed quite the stretch for a smaller role.

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#RVWS 5/20/2013

Comic Reviews in 140 Characters or Less!

This week we take a look at Age of Ultron, Enemy Within, X-Factor, The Massive, Fatale, G.I. Joe, Thief of Thieves, Thunderbolts, Fables, Conan the Barbarian, and more...

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Kevin Conroy Will Be Voicing Batman in Arkham Origins (Update: No He Won't)

  The news going around a month ago that Kevin Conroy was not working on Arkham Origins from NAG Magazine looks like it may have been a bit premature.  Arkhamverse is now reporting that Conroy mentioned working the last "nine or ten months" on "the next Arkham" game at a panel at the Dallas Comic-Con.

   He didn't mention the game by name, but unless there is another Arkham game we don't know about being worked on in addition to Arkham Origins, it seems likely he is returning to the role.

Video of the entire panel is after the break.

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2012 Nebula Award Winners

  The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (that's SFWA to make it easier on all of us) announced the winners for the 2012 Nebula Awards tonight, along with the Ray Bradbury Award, and Andre Norton Award.  It's like the Emmys of speculative fiction, with all the good and bad that comes with a statement like that.

  Solstice Awards were awarded to editor Ginjer Buchanan and astronomer and entertainer Carl Sagan, the latter of which was accepted by his son Nick Sagan.  The Kevin O'Donnell Jr. Service Award was awarded to Michael Payne.  Check out the full list of nominees and winners after the break...

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