Microsoft has announced that there will be a Titanfall bundle for the Xbox One for a very attractive price of $499.99. This is the same price as any other standard Xbox One. However, this bundle comes loaded with goodies for people who haven’t made the switch yet.
It’s been a crazy week with so much going on. It’s been a challenge to try and keep up with it all.
First, earlier in the week Toy Fair 2014 kicked off in New York. I covered a lot of NECA’s toy line ups for the year. I’ve completed my coverage of Toy Fair today. I’ve covered a large majority of NECA’s toy releases for this year. I also covered Hasbro’s Star Wars 6″ Black Series line, as well as Mezco Toyz’ Breaking Bad licensed merchandise. I added a Game of Thrones section because I saw some very cool stuff that’s coming to the market soon. Most of it is for the high-end collectors.
There was a lot going on with Titanfall this week as well. I got into the beta last Friday, continued to play through Wednesday night, and captured a lot of in-game footage. We learned that Titanfall will have monsters and they can be a threat. I posted my first impressions of the beta and working on a final impressions with suggestions on how to improve the game.
On Tuesday this week, HBO’s original series Game of Thrones season 3 released on Blu-Ray and DVD. I posted an unboxing video of the Amazon collector’s set. I also found out that the Xbox One could not play the Game of Thrones Blu-Ray discs. I did some research and apparently these Blu-Ray discs have some DRM on them and may have affected more Blu-Ray players than just the Xbox One. Microsoft quickly corrected the problem and now Game of Thrones season 3 Blu-Ray discs work on your Xbox One machine.
This week Microsoft also began to send out invitations to random Xbox Live members to participate in the Xbox One Dashboard Preview Program. The next major Xbox One update will arrive March 4th. It will address the party and notification systems as well as a few other improvements to the system.
What did you do? Put your week in review, and have a great weekend.
Late last night around midnight on the East Coast, Respawn began to kill the servers, and one by one each server was brought down. You could hear the Internet cry out in sorrow as we now have to wait three weeks to play the full retail version of Titanfall. I was fortunate enough to continue playing until 2 AM, almost two hours after Respawn Entertainment killed the servers. So me and a few friends kept playing with whoever could still find our lobby. Search times were increased to nearly 10-15 minutes. I eventually became too tired to continue and so I signed off and said goodbye to the Titanfall Beta.
Yesterday, IGN posted early images of the Titanfall art book, and in this art book there were allegedly monsters. IGN reported that these monsters would walk or fly around the maps. Some may only engage you once you’ve fired upon them, and others will attack for purely looking at them.
As as a friendly reminder the Titanfall beta will come to an end tonight at 6 PM PST. That’s 9 PM Eastern.
However, new details have emerged about the beta. Jon Shiring tweeted that a test for server patches will go out tonight at 6 PM PST. He says that if the patch is a success he will keep the servers online for a few more hours to allow us to test out the servers with the new patch.
With the Titanfall beta opened up to all on Xbox One and available to all those who registered their email for the PC version should see it on their Origin’s game list more people are able to get on and log jam the limited amount of servers Respawn has available for the beta. If you experience any server issues this is why! The full release will have many more servers to play on, remember this is a test.
Earlier this week Respawn Entertainment launched the Titanfall beta to stress test their servers. Due to the overly anxious public begging to get their hands on the game and delays in beta key emails, Respawn decided to open the flood gates and open the beta to anyone who wants to take part. This is a smart move, it gets the greatest amount of pilots playing on the servers. This gives me confidence that on March 11th, the always-online, multiplayer only Titanfall, will be at peak server performance on day one. Please go to the Titanfall forums to leave feedback about the beta as well as any issues you may experience.
Great news for everyone who wants to get into the Titanfall beta but has been unable to get a key or have just been too anxious to play. Titanfall is the most exciting game coming out in this first round of games releasing in the early part of 2014.
Jon Shiring, programmer at Respawn Entertainment said “Let’s break it.”
| @VinceZampella Ok, just heard from @jonshiring. His words are ‘Let’s break it’, so the plan is to make the beta fully open and have you max stress it! 2/15/14, 9:10 PM |
The servers will be opening up for Xbox One first and then PC later on. Vince Zampella believes that the servers should hold up fine, and that the only issue might be a delay in finding a server at peak times, but that’s only the worst case scenario.
| @VinceZampella It should hold up fine now, worst case should be delays in finding a server during peak times. 2/15/14, 9:13 PM |
Vince Zampella also said on Twitter that they would be extending the beta to make up for the downtime experienced earlier in the weekend.
| @VinceZampella We are going to extend at least a day, to make up for the down time. 2/15/14, 8:29 PM |
Microsoft’s Major Nelson has details on how to download the Titanfall Open Beta on his blog www.majornelson.com.
I look forward to seeing more of you on the battlefield. I have my first impressions coming up along with a few videos that will excite you for falling Titans.
The Titanfall Beta has arrived for much of the gaming public on Xbox One and PC. I was fortunate enough yesterday early in the morning to get some game sessions in before the servers took a dive later in the day. I was then able to get on again later in the night. The Titanfall servers are back online and new waves of beta codes will continue to be sent out until February 17th. So don’t worry if you haven’t got your code yet. I’ve recorded some videos and put them together for a couple of wall run videos and a first encounter video. These videos can be found on my YouTube page, and when I finish writing my reactions to the game they will be posted here as well.
A little bit later I will have that post up and in it my reactions to the game will be discussed as well as what Respawn can do to provide an even better experience to the users. I will also discuss the game’s controls and which button layouts are best to use on the Xbox One controller. Until then here’s the first wall running video I made so you can get a look at one of the game’s core mechanics. Hope this helps all you new Pilots learn how to be a better Titanfall commando!
[youtube http://youtu.be/-3gJLgEEBOw]
David Doc. Rogers 