The Games with Gold 2019 line-up is headlined by NHL 19 and Rivals of Aether on Xbox One and Portal: Still Alive and Earth Defence Force 2017 for Xbox 360.
NHL 19 and Portal: Still Alive are the games first up, with the EA ice hockey game available between June 1 to June 30 and Portal available from June 1 to June 15.
Rivals of Aether is next up on Xbox One, available between June 16 and July 15 and Earth Defence Force 2017 available between June 16 and June 30.
ORIGINAL: Games with Gold June 2019 line-up will be revealed by Major Nelson soon with a whole host of new free Xbox One games getting announced.
Time is running out for the Games with Gold June 2019 announcement to be made with only a few days left in the month.
While Sony announce their new PS Plus line-ups on a specific day in the month, Microsoft are a bit more unpredictable.
The new Games with Gold reveal typically takes place at the end of the month, but the date and time that happens at varies.
The only thing that’s certain is Microsoft historically have not announced new selections of Xbox One free games on the last day in the month.
So, that means the Games with Gold June 2019 announcement is most likely to happen today (Thursday May 30).
As the Games with Gold June 2019 announcement approaches Major Nelson has delivered some great news to Xbox One fans.
New Deals with Gold offers have become available ahead of the Games with Gold June 2019 announcement being made.
The headline deals are Tekken 7 being reduced from £39.99 to £20 and Dark Souls Remastered being reduced from £34.99 to £24.49.
These money saving deals are only available for Xbox Live Gold members.
Click here to find out the full list of Deals with Gold that are running right now for a limited time only.
The news comes as another great offer is running which Xbox One fans can take advantage of at the moment.
Recently the price of a yearly Xbox Live Gold membership in the UK rose from £39.99 to £49.99.
Microsoft said this was taking place to “address market conditions”.
But right now you can get a saving of 26 per cent on the new price of an Xbox Live Gold yearly membership at CDKeys.
The online retailer is offering a big saving on Xbox Live with the price of a yearly subscription reduced to £36.79.
PC players, rejoice: Microsoft is bringing its previously-Xbox exclusive subscription service, Xbox Game Pass, to Windows 10. The company is promising "a curated library" with more than 100 titles from various third-party developers including Bethesda, Deep Silver, Devolver Digital and Sega. Phil Spencer confirmed the company's "intent" to make new Xbox exclusives available on the same day as their general release. That includes upcoming titles from Obsidian Entertainment, inXile Entertainment, and the other studios that Microsoft acquired last year. Subscribers will also get a few other perks including discounts of up to 20 percent for games in the Microsoft Store.
The new Game Pass sounds, in short, just like the console equivalent that launched in June 2017. It's not clear, though, how much the PC service will cost and if you'll need separate subscriptions for both platforms. Microsoft says it will be "sharing more at E3," including "when and how you'll experience the new Xbox Game Pass service for PC gamers," so stay tuned.
Today, Microsoft also announced its intention to release, at launch, first-party games through multiple storefronts on PC. That means the next Gears of War should, in theory, be available through Steam and possibly the Epic Games Store, not just the generally-disliked Microsoft Store. The company had already promised to release Halo: The Maser Chief Collection on Steam later this year. Today's announcement goes further, though, ensuring that all new games are available immediately in the stores that PC players typically prefer. Microsoft has also vowed to bring more than 20 older titles to Steam, including Gears 5 and all Age of Empires I, II and III: Definitive Editions.
Last, but certainly not least: the Microsoft Store will soon support native Win32 apps. That means developers can build and serve the same file to Steam, the Epic Games Store and the Microsoft Store -- they won't have to bother with the Universal Windows Platform (UWP) API, if that's their preference. The move should make it easier, and more attractive, for companies to distribute their games through the Microsoft Store. That could expand its catalog and, possibly, make it a more useful and relevant storefront for PC gamers.
"It's critical that we make decisions that reinforce the open nature of the PC, focusing on how best to unite players on all devices around the games they love," Spencer said. "That philosophy will guide us as we introduce new ways to discover and play games on Windows." For Microsoft, the strategy is simple: offer Xbox-branded games and services to as many people as possible. We already know that Xbox Live -- including your achievements, clubs and friends list -- will soon be available in Android, iOS and Switch games. Throw in Project xCloud, a still-in-development streaming service, and you can imagine a future where the Xbox brand is literally anywhere and everywhere.
Microsoft says it’s committed to supporting competing PC game stores and it’s announcing today that it will distribute more Xbox Game Studios titles through Valve’s Steam marketplace. Typically, Microsoft has distributed its games through only Xbox Live on its game console platform and through its own Windows storefront on PC. Now, Microsoft says it wants to better support player choice and let customers buy games in more than one destination on PC.
“Our intent is to make our Xbox Game Studios PC games available in multiple stores, including our own Microsoft Store on Windows, at their launch. We believe you should have choice in where you buy your PC games,” writes Xbox chief Phil Spencer in a blog post announcing the shift in strategy. The move follows Microsoft’s decision to publish its upcoming Halo: The Master Chief Collection on Steam.
“We will continue to add to the more than 20 Xbox Game Studios titles on Steam, starting with Gears 5 and all Age of Empires I, II, and III: Definitive Editions,” Spencer explains. “We know millions of PC gamers trust Steam as a great source to buy PC games and we’ve heard the feedback that PC gamers would like choice.”
It’s not an unusual move for Microsoft these days, especially not since Spencer took over the Xbox division in 2014 under CEO Satya Nadella, who promoted him again in the fall of 2017 to run all of the company’s gaming initiatives spanning Xbox and Windows 10.
The two have worked together to build a far more open and cooperative Microsoft, and that’s given birth to a lot of genuinely player-friendly advancements in the Xbox and Windows departments. Xbox games published by Microsoft can now be played on the PC free of charge, thanks to the Xbox Play Anywhere initiative, while Microsoft worked with Nintendo and game developers like Epic and Psyonix to successfully apply pressure on Sony to support cross-platform play. The company is also pioneering a new business model for games with its Xbox Game Pass subscription, and its upcoming xCloud cloud gaming service is poised to introduce an all-new distribution model for delivering games and potentially upending how games are both funded and sold.
What’s remarkable in this case is that Microsoft is standing somewhat in opposition to Epic Games, a company whose CEO Tim Sweeney once criticized Microsoft for attempting to create a closed ecosystem with its Universal Windows Platform strategy, which attempted to distribute all software, including PC games, exclusively through its own storefront.
”Microsoft has built a closed platform-within-a-platform into Windows 10,” Sweeney wrote in a 2015 op-ed in The Guardian, “as the first apparent step towards locking down the consumer PC ecosystem and monopolising app distribution and commerce.” At the time, Sweeney called for Microsoft to let developers publish games built using UWP on other stores. He went so far as to say UWP “can, should, must, and will die.”
Now, it’s Epic that’s trying to supplant Steam with its own game store and finding itself embroiled in controversy stemming mostly from its exclusivity contracts it secures with developers. Of course, Epic’s approach is much different than Microsoft’s was back then, given it does not own the Windows operating system and has nowhere near the level of power and control Microsoft did when it was trying to push UWP. But Epic, having grown to a level of unprecedented power in the PC marketplace due to the success of Fortnite, is discovering just how hard it is to dethrone Steam.
Microsoft, on the other hand, has given up entirely on that vision and is instead embracing a much more open model. And it extends beyond gaming. Microsoft recently announced a partnership with Google to rebuild its Edge browser, once built on UWP, using the open-source Chromium framework.
“We also know that there are other stores on PC, and we are working to enable more choice in which store you can find our Xbox Game Studios titles in the future,” Spencer writes, indicating that Microsoft may eventually publish its games on Epic’s store as well. Spencer goes on to say that the company is committed to providing voice and text chat, friends lists, and cross-play across PC and console to all titles it publishes under Xbox Game Studios. “On Windows 10 you’ll find this functionality in the Xbox Game Bar, which we’ll continue to evolve and expand,” he adds.
In addition to this shift to support Steam and competing stores, Microsoft says it’s also opening up support in the Microsoft Store for games built as native Win32 apps, which is the predominant Windows app format and the format that UWP effectively was designed to replace. This all but ensures UWP will fall out of favor with game studios that may have felt forced to adopt the format in recent years to better access core Windows 10 features.
“We recognize that Win32 is the app format that game developers love to use and gamers love to play, so we are excited to share that we will be enabling full support for native Win32 games to the Microsoft Store on Windows,” Spencer writes. “This will unlock more options for developers and gamers alike, allowing for the customization and control they’ve come to expect from the open Windows gaming ecosystem.”
Apple will kick off its developer conference Monday.
Apple
At WWDC next week, Apple may be talking to developers. But it's really all about you.
Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference is the company's annual gathering where it hosts designers and engineers making apps for iPhones, iPads and other Apple devices. Thousands will descend on the McEnery Convention Center in San Jose, California, at 10 a.m. PT on Monday to hear CEO Tim Cook and various executives outline their strategy for the company's software. They'll spend the rest of the week at sessions about the new technology and walk away with plans for updating their apps.
WWDC typically isn't where Apple launches new devices. Instead, it updates its iOS software for iPhones and iPads, MacOS for its computers, TVOS for Apple TV and WatchOS for the Apple Watch. Despite all of that news, most of what it unveils won't be available until later in the year, at best. Even if you're a big software fan, some of Apple's announcements, like discussions about the Swift programming language, get technical pretty fast.
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It may be easy to think WWDC doesn't have anything for you. You're not going to see the next iPhone there, and Oprah's not going to show up. She's already been to one Apple event this year, after all. What could a developer-focused show really offer you?
But if you look past all the talk about Swift and APIs, you'll find quite a lot. While WWDC is all about the developers, it's also Apple's way of teasing the features and services you'll see in products coming later this year. You won't see the new iPhone, but you will see what its interface will look like. You may not get the new Mac Pro, but at the very least, Apple will try to make you feel like it hasn't forgotten the creative professionals. And there will be various health, augmented reality and privacy advancements you'll soon get to access.
But just because it's doing more on its own doesn't mean Apple doesn't need developers. After all, it's their apps that keep you reaching for your iPhone. And Apple will give them even more ways to improve those apps you use everyday.
"Apple's not going to have a service for everything out there," Creative Strategies analyst Carolina Milanesi said. "At the end of the day, developers drive engagement, drive new use case and drive the link the consumer has with their device."
While Apple likely won't completely overhaul the App Store, it's got to find ways to keep its developers -- and in return, you -- happy.
At a time when rival Google is touting its artificial intelligence prowess, Apple's software also needs to be smarter. Apple's Siri Shortcuts feature from last year allows the company's digital assistant to complete complex tasks with a single voice command -- or sometimes without a voice command at all. But Siri still doesn't match up to the assistants from Google and Amazon.
The breadth of apps in the App Store isn't the advantage it used to be.
"I don't know the last time I downloaded a new app from the App Store," Milanesi said. "We're now in a very mature part of the market. Apple can't tell the same story."
Beyond the iPhone
This year, there could be two major announcements by Apple that actually have very little to do with its iPhones: the launch of a Watch App Store and a bigger push with Project Marzipan, the effort to make iPhone and iPad apps run on Macs.
Apple's huge installed base of iPhone users has made developing for the iOS App Store an easy sell. At the end of 2018, there were 1.4 billion Apple devices actively used around the globe, the company said in late January during its quarterly earnings report. More than 900 million of them were iPhones.
That same focus hasn't extended to Apple's other products, though. The Mac App Store never really took off, with most software on computers coming through Web browsers. Not all developers have made companion Apple Watch apps, and Apple TV has largely centered around video, not the gaming platform Apple once envisioned. It can even be hard to find apps optimized for Apple's various iPads.
The next version of Apple's WatchOS is expected to make the Apple Watch more "independent." You'll be able to download apps directly from your watch -- even if your phone is nowhere around. Today, Apple Watch apps are companions to the main iPhone app. You currently add them, update them or change their settings through your smartphone, not your watch.
"The watch is an area where Apple has an enormous lead over the competition," Techsponential analyst Avi Greengart said. "But there's still a lot of headroom on the watch."
Mac attention?
The biggest advancements from WWDC could come to Apple's long-neglected Mac computer line.
Apple still generates about 10% to 15% of its quarterly sales from its computer line, but it hasn't given its Macs as much attention in recent years as other its devices like the iPhone and Apple Watch. In October 2016, Apple redesigned the MacBook Pro laptop for the first time in four years, but the "butterfly switch" keyboard it's used in every new laptop since then has been criticized. Last week, Apple said it would replace all defective butterfly switch keyboards for free -- even on the new MacBook Pro models it just unveiled.
Apple's Mac Pro is long overdue for an update.
CNET
Power users, like graphic designers, also have been waiting for more pro-friendly features for years. The company hasn't made big changes to its high-power Mac Pro since 2013. Notable for its cylindrical design, the Mac Pro is favored by creatives who need a lot of horsepower for professional purposes. Apple said in April 2017 that it's working on a big refresh of the computer, but a year later, it said the device wouldn't hit the market until sometime in 2019.
It's unclear whether Apple will actually launch the Mac Pro at WWDC, but it likely will spend a big chunk of its keynote on its computer line.
At the end of Apple's WWDC presentation last year, the company gave a sneak peak of Project Marzipan, its effort to make it easy to take apps developed for iOS devices to Macs. Its MacOS update released in September included four of Apple's own apps that originated on iOS -- News, Stocks, Voice Memos and Home.
This year at WWDC, Apple is expected to open that capability up to third party developers, as well as port more of its own iOS apps, like Podcasts, to the Mac. Marzipan brings Apple's mobile devices and computers one step closer -- without actually merging them.
Like much of WWDC, it may seem wonky and pretty removed from your actual devices. But listen closely, and you just might see the future of those Apple products you'll one day hold in your hands.
Google has made some major alterations to its Play Store policies that tighten rules surrounding sexual content, hate speech and loot boxes. Android Police has spotted the changes, noting that they were designed to make the platform's ecosystem more suitable for children. Under the policies' Monetization and Ads section, Google now notes that games offering randomized virtual items for purchase "must clearly disclose the odds of receiving those items in advance of purchase." In other words, you'll now know how hard it is to get particular items from loot boxes or gacha, so you can better manage your expectations.
The addition of the new rule coincides with the government's efforts to crack down on loot boxes. Senator Josh Hawley recently introduced a bill that would prohibit games marketed towards children from selling them. The FTC also plans to host a public workshop in August to look into consumer protection issues linked to the virtual items.
Google Play has also expanded its rules regarding sexual content to include a ban on nudity and on instances wherein the subject is wearing minimal clothing not "acceptable in an appropriate public context." The tech giant has changed the section's wording to add that it doesn't allow "animations or illustrations of sex acts or sexually suggestive poses," as well anything that "depicts sexual aids and fetishes." In addition, the updated policies note that Google doesn't allow anything considered "lewd or profane" and apps that promote "sex-related entertainment."
Under hate speech, Google has added examples of common violations to clarify the kind of content that will get apps banned. First in the list? "Assertions intended to prove that a protected group is inhuman, inferior or worthy of being hated." Apps that contain theories on how a protected group is a threat or how members inherently possess negative characteristics aren't welcome, as well. Finally, Google says it doesn't allow any content that encourages others to hate others because they're part of a protected group.
An international coalition of civic society organizations, security and policy experts and tech companies — including Apple, Google, Microsoft and WhatsApp — has penned a critical slap-down to a surveillance proposal made last year by the UK’s intelligence agency, warning it would undermine trust and security and threaten fundamental rights.
“The GCHQ’s ghost protocol creates serious threats to digital security: if implemented, it will undermine the authentication process that enables users to verify that they are communicating with the right people, introduce potential unintentional vulnerabilities, and increase risks that communications systems could be abused or misused,” they wrire.
“These cybersecurity risks mean that users cannot trust that their communications are secure, as users would no longer be able to trust that they know who is on the other end of their communications, thereby posing threats to fundamental human rights, including privacy and free expression. Further, systems would be subject to new potential vulnerabilities and risks of abuse.”
GCHQ’s idea for a so-called ‘ghost protocol’ would be for state intelligence or law enforcement agencies to be invisibly CC’d by service providers into encrypted communications — on what’s billed as targeted, government authorized basis.
The agency set out the idea in an article published last fall on the Lawfare blog, written by the National Cyber Security Centre’s (NCSC) Ian Levy and GCHQ’s Crispin Robinson (NB: the NCSC is a public facing branch of GCHQ) — which they said was intended to open a discussion about the ‘going dark’ problem which robust encryption poses for security agencies.
The pair argued that such an “exceptional access mechanism” could be baked into encrypted platforms to enable end to end encryption to be bypassed by state agencies would could instruct the platform provider to add them as a silent listener to eavesdrop on a conversation — but without the encryption protocol itself being compromised.
“It’s relatively easy for a service provider to silently add a law enforcement participant to a group chat or call. The service provider usually controls the identity system and so really decides who’s who and which devices are involved — they’re usually involved in introducing the parties to a chat or call,” Levy and Robinson argued. “You end up with everything still being end-to-end encrypted, but there’s an extra ‘end’ on this particular communication. This sort of solution seems to be no more intrusive than the virtual crocodile clips that our democratically elected representatives and judiciary authorise today in traditional voice intercept solutions and certainly doesn’t give any government power they shouldn’t have.”
“We’re not talking about weakening encryption or defeating the end-to-end nature of the service. In a solution like this, we’re normally talking about suppressing a notification on a target’s device, and only on the device of the target and possibly those they communicate with. That’s a very different proposition to discuss and you don’t even have to touch the encryption.”
“[M]ass-scale, commodity, end-to-end encrypted services… today pose one of the toughest challenges for targeted lawful access to data and an apparent dichotomy around security,” they added.
However while encryption might technically remain intact in the scenario they sketch, their argument glosses over both the fact and risks of bypassing encryption via fiddling with authentication systems in order to enable deceptive third party snooping.
As the coalition’s letter points out, doing that would both undermine user trust and inject extra complexity — with the risk of fresh vulnerabilities that could be exploited by hackers.
Compromising authentication would also result in platforms themselves gaining a mechanism that they could use to snoop on users’ comms — thereby circumventing the wider privacy benefits provided by end to end encryption in the first place, perhaps especially when deployed on commercial messaging platforms.
So, in other words, just because what’s being asked for is not literally a backdoor in encryption that doesn’t mean it isn’t similarly risky for security and privacy and just as horrible for user trust and rights.
“Currently the overwhelming majority of users rely on their confidence in reputable providers to perform authentication functions and verify that the participants in a conversation are the people that they think they are, and only those people. The GCHQ’s ghost protocol completely undermines this trust relationship and the authentication process,” the coalition writes, also pointing out that authentication remains an active research area — and that work would likely dry up if the systems in question were suddenly made fundamentally untrustworthy on order of the state.
They further assert there’s no way for the security risk to be targeted to the individuals that state agencies want to specifically snoop on. Ergo, the added security risk is universal.
“The ghost protocol would introduce a security threat to all users of a targeted encrypted messaging application since the proposed changes could not be exposed only to a single target,” they warn. “In order for providers to be able to suppress notifications when a ghost user is added, messaging applications would need to rewrite the software that every user relies on. This means that any mistake made in the development of this new function could create an unintentional vulnerability that affects every single user of that application.”
There are more than 50 signatories to the letter in all, and others civic society and privacy rights groups Human Rights Watch, Reporters Without Borders, Liberty, Privacy International and the EFF, as well as veteran security professionals such as Bruce Schneier, Philip Zimmermann and Jon Callas, and policy experts such as former FTC CTO and Whitehouse security advisor, Ashkan Soltani .
While the letter welcomes other elements of the article penned by Levy and Robinson — which also set out a series of principles for defining a “minimum standard” governments should meet to have their requests accepted by companies in other countries (with the pair writing, for example, that “privacy and security protections are critical to public confidence” and “transparency is essential”) — it ends by urging GCHQ to abandon the ghost protocol idea altogether, and “avoid any alternative approaches that would similarly threaten digital security and human rights”.
Reached for a response to the coalition’s concerns, the NCSC sent us the following statement, attributed to Levy:
We welcome this response to our request for thoughts on exceptional access to data — for example to stop terrorists. The hypothetical proposal was always intended as a starting point for discussion.
It is pleasing to see support for the six principles and we welcome feedback on their practical application. We will continue to engage with interested parties and look forward to having an open discussion to reach the best solutions possible.
Back in 2016 the UK passed updated surveillance legislation that affords state agencies expansive powers to snoop on and hack into digital comms. And with such an intrusive regime in place it may seem odd that GCHQ is pushing for even greater powers to snoop on people’s digital chatter.
Even robust end-to-end encryption can include exploitable vulnerabilities. One bug was disclosed affecting WhatsApp just a couple of weeks ago, for example (since fixed via an update).
However in the Lawfare article the GCHQ staffers argue that “lawful hacking” of target devices is not a panacea to governments’ “lawful access requirements” because it would require governments have vulnerabilities on the shelf to use to hack devices — which “is completely at odds with the demands for governments to disclose all vulnerabilities they find to protect the population”.
“That seems daft,” they conclude.
Yet it also seems daft — and predictably so — to suggest a ‘sidedoor’ in authentication systems as an alternative to a backdoor in encrypted messaging apps.
The PlayStation Japan YouTube channel began streaming the Japanese trailer for Kojima Productions' Death Stranding PlayStation 4 game on Wednesday. The trailer features the same footage as English trailer that debuted on the same day, but with Japanese voice overs.
Both the English and the Japanese trailers also reveal two new characters: Mama (model based on actress Margaret Qualley) and Heartman (model based on film director Nicolas Winding Refn). Game director Hideo Kojima announced on Twitter on Thursday that Refn will not be voicing his character. The English trailer also revealed that Jesse Corti, Emily O'Brien, and Darren Jacobs will perform voice overs in the English version of the game.
Akio Ohtsuka will voice the character Die-Hardman, played by Tommie Earl Jenkins.
Mads Mikkelsen (Hannibal, Doctor Strange, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story) is also the basis of the model and the voice for the character Cliff in the game.
The game will ship on November 8. The Collector's Edition of the game will include special cases, a BB Pod, a Ludens keychain, a digital soundtrack with behind-the-scenes video, 10 PSN character avatars, and four in-game items. The Digital Deluxe Edition will include the soundtrack, avatars, and in-game items. The Special Edition will include the Steelbook case, soundtrack, and in-game Ludens Mask item. The Japanese version of the game will include both English and Japanese audio tracks, but Kojima Productions has not yet revealed if the North American version of the game will also have the Japanese audio track.
Kojima Productions describes the game:
Besieged by death's tide at every turn, Sam Bridges must brave a world utterly transformed by the Death Stranding. Carrying the stranded remnants of the future in his hands, Sam embarks on a journey to reunite the shattered world one step at a time. What is the mystery of the Death Stranding? What will Sam discover on the road ahead? A genre defining gameplay experience holds these answers and more.
Kojima himself posted a separate story synopsis for the game on Thursday.
Kojima Productions is developing the game using Guerilla Games' Decima Engine. The game will be an action game, and will have open-world elements with "some degree of freedom." Kojima stated the game's name originates from the phenomenon of cetacean stranding, where dolphins and whales wash up on land and die. While other games offer elements analogous to "sticks" for gameplay, Death Stranding will also offer "ropes" to tie and link players together.
The game will ship on November 8. The Collector's Edition of the game will include special cases, a BB Pod, a Ludens keychain, a digital soundtrack with behind-the-scenes video, 10 PSN character avatars, and four in-game items. The Digital Deluxe Edition will include the soundtrack, avatars, and in-game items. The Special Edition will include the Steelbook case, soundtrack, and in-game Ludens Mask item. The Japanese version of the game will include both English and Japanese audio tracks, but Kojima Productions has not yet revealed if the North American version of the game will also have the Japanese audio track.