Author: The enConnected Team

Following a morning filled with rumors that Don Mattrick, Head of the Interactive Entertainment Business at Microsoft, might be on his way out the door; an email sent out to company employees has confirmed that Mattrick is leaving the company.

Mattrick will be trading in his office at Microsoft for, somewhat surprisingly, free games developer Zynga. It is the Interactive Entertainment Business that is responsible for the Xbox console and services.

Here’s a full copy the email out by Steve Ballmer to Microsoft employees:

Zynga announced today that Don Mattrick would be its new CEO, effective July 8. This is a great opportunity for Don, and I wish him success. Don’s directs will report to me and will continue to drive the day-to-day business as a team, particularly focused on shipping Xbox One this holiday.

Since joining IEB more than six years ago, Don and his team have accomplished much. Xbox Live members grew from 6 million to 48 million. Xbox 360 became the No. 1 selling console in North America the past two years. We introduced Kinect and have sold more than 24 million sensors. We released fantastic games, and, most importantly, we expanded Xbox to go beyond great gaming to deliver all the entertainment people want — sports, music, movies, live television and much more.

In the past month, the IEB team showed for the first time here on our Redmond campus, and again at E3, how we are going to continue to transform entertainment with Xbox One. I am incredibly proud of the work and vision culminating in Xbox One. I’m particularly excited about how Xbox pushes forward our devices and services transformation by bringing together the best of Microsoft. The consoles are incredible all-in-one devices with built-in services that consumers love, including Bing, Xbox Live, Internet Explorer, SkyDrive and Skype. And, just as important, Xbox Games, Xbox Video, Xbox Music and SmartGlass light up Windows PCs, tablets and phones.

Thank you, Don, for setting us on a path to completely redefine the entertainment industry. The strong leadership team at IEB and their teams are well positioned to deliver the next-generation entertainment console, as well as transformative entertainment experiences, long into the future.

 

Steve

Don Mattrick Leaves Microsoft for Zynga

The magical unicorn that will save Windows from being relegated to the dust bin is finally here! No seriously, that’s what some people are saying out there. You’ve been listening to tech pundits talk about the Windows 8.1 update for weeks now, and you know what? We’re more interested in finding out what you guys think of the operating system.

Do us a favor and post about your experiences with Windows 8.1 in our topic in The Social. We wanna know what you think.

View the topic in The Social

 

From The Social: What do you think of the Windows 8.1 Preview?

Xbox Music Pass subscribers can now enjoy their entire music collection on a Mac or PC using the service’s new online portal.

Users can get access to the new web interface by heading to Xbox.com, where they’ll be prompted to sign in, and asked to subscribe to the Xbox Music if they don’t already have a membership.

In our, admittedly brief, testing of the site this morning we found the front end to be pretty fast and easy to browse. As the site is a near copy of the Xbox Music application that’s in the Windows 8.1 Preview, the ease of use isn’t exactly a surprise.

What did surprise us was the new site’s complete incompatibility with mobile web browsers. Each time we opened the site on our mobile device of choice we tested to had an error message, which highlighted the service’s system requirements.

This is huge since Microsoft has yet to make the Xbox Music Pass streaming available outside of their own products. The company did announce that it would create iOS and Android applications after the service debuted last year, but so far has remained quiet on when the applications will  arrive.

This online implementation doesn’t seem to have the Smart DJ/Radio functionality that is a part of all other Xbox Music clients.

Microsoft has yet to formally announce Music.Xbox.com.

Xbox Music Makes Its Debut on the Web

So you’ve had all the family togetherness, awkward dates, spoiled sports stars and overrated high-brow writing you can take this weekend? We’ve compiled The Favs, some of the best connected entertainment stories from this past week. It’s all that you need to feed for intellectual growth — short of going back to work tomorrow morning. Some of its original reporting, and some of it is the work of others.

 

Xbox One is not all about DRM

Recently, Microsoft gave the axe to many of the digital rights management or DRM policies that it spent the last month defending. While we’re inclined to think that the decision to kill off those policies, many of which would have meant a move toward progress in the gaming community, the deed has been done. Now we’re slowly starting to see a sense of normalcy return. That is, now most publications are actually looking at the games that were announced for the console. Here, Kotaku takes a look at what the titles that are coming to the Xbox One. Xbox One’s Awful DRM Drowned Out Some Really Cool Games

 

Sony shot itself in the foot trying to outdo Microsoft

Most news watchers seems to get a bit nervous whenever large publications talk about having sources inside a company that know things that aren’t public knowledge. First, they should. Second, sometimes anonymous sources turn out to actually know the truth. No, we can’t verify that this is true, but inside sources who spoke to IGN indicate, that in order to undercut Microsoft’s Xbox One at the last minute, Sony dropped the PlayStation 4′s dedicate camera. What’s key here is the article’s tone. While most gamers would be comfortable with Microsoft removing the Kinect sensor that is included with every Xbox One, it would seriously harm the platform, and by extension users. Sony Scarified the PlayStation 4 Camera to Beat Microsoft

 

Time well spent with Windows 8.1

ConsumerCamp tends to always approach things from the eye of users looking to create and explore with Microsoft’s latest offerings. This week, they took a look at the long awaited Windows 8.1 Preview. We won’t spoil it by discussing their final feelings on the subject, but it looks like they may be impressed. Hands on with Windows 8.1 Preview

 

Have any good reads of your own? Drop them in the comments to share with everyone.

The Favs: June 30th – Xbox One DRM and Windows 8.1

When Microsoft first announced that it would create a multi-part live action series for its, then upcoming Halo 4 game, Forward Unto Dawn, I was naturally surprised.

Don’t get me wrong here. I’m a fan of the franchise completely. I’ve played most of the games, lusted the games that I haven’t and even wondered where Microsoft would take the franchise next. Well, now that the company has announced that the newly established Microsoft Entertainment Studios will be creating  another live-action Halo series, I thought it would be a great idea to re-watch Forward Unto Dawn.

I’d forgotten just how great the show really was. The entire show really is a buildup for another round of badassery from the Master Chief.

That is, with the understanding that the show’s writing and cinematography comes off as absolutely cheap. Still, if you’re free this Saturday night why not check out the show’s entire run? It’s free to Netflix subscribers and available to rent from the Xbox Video Store for just $3.99.

What’s On: Forward Unto Dawn

From time to time, we like to spend Friday office at the afternoon jamming to whatever quality music we can find. Here’s what we have this week from our resident DJ, ThinkingWeasel.

Summer is the BEST time for new music and the team over at @stereo_dose have a great way to achieve whatever shall we say, ‘ambiance’ you may be seeking to create. When you visit Stereodose, you can select from a few different flavor varieties and then relax as wave after wave of sonic perfection rolls over your trembling eardrums. You can share via the standard socialBORGmedia channels and save to favorites too. The favorites list is a fickle thing, as yet. The developers told me via Twitter that it indeed saves everything but pulls from the list randomly, with no way to view/edit. To overcome this, I share everything I favorite so I can look it up again later. This works out well because the best part is that a vast swath of the tracks are available free, via SoundCloud as well.

The developer also mentioned that if there were enough interest that they would create a Windows app, to compliment the Android and iPhone apps that naturally, already exist. As a WP user, I lament daily the lack of app support for cool things like this, so do me a solid; get out there, check out the site, and demand StereoDose for Windows Phone!

https://twitter.com/stereo_dose

https://www.stereodose.com/

Free Music Friday: Use Stereodose for A Social Music Experience

The ATIV S Neo, a variant of Samsung’s Windows Phone flagship ATIV S, is headed to Sprint.

According to Sprint, the handset, which will debut alongside the network’s flagship HTC Windows Phone device will launch sometime this summer.

For $149.99 with a two-year service agreement and mail-in rebate, users will get a device that’s stuffed with the latest and greatest hardware from Samsung. The ATIV S Neo will feature a 1.4 GHz dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM and a 4.8″ inch HD display. Users will be able to add to the device’s storage using the microSD card slot that’s embedded on the device, making the ATIV S Neo the only updated flagship Windows Phone 8 to allow for external memory cards.

The device will also feature a built in NFC or near-field communications chip. That combined with the ATIV Beam application the company just launched last week will ensure that all Samsung device owners that feature NFC will be able to send photos and other media wirelessly without any added hassles.

The photography inclined will find that the ATIV S Neo doesn’t exactly have the picture taking credentials that Samsung’s Android flagship, the Galaxy S4, does. Instead of the 13 megapixel sensor on that device, the ATIV S Neo will feature an 8 megapixel rear-facing camera and a 1.9 megapixel front-facing camera. That camera will boast all the same Camera app enhancements that Windows Phone 8 users have come to expect from Samsung including, more than a few digital filters and Manga Camera, an app that lets users turn people in their pictures into animated characters.

In addition to have the latest Windows Phone 8 hardware, the ATIV S Neo will have compatibility with Sprint’s 4G LTE network though they won’t be able to make use the faster internet connectivity if they aren’t in one of the markets in which Sprint offers the service.

Samsung ATIV S Neo Headed to Sprint This Year

Though we’re not again, not suggesting that you run out and download the Windows 8.1 Preview, one of the perks of having the operating system installed is the newly revamped Xbox Music application. Officially, Microsoft has said that it will add more 50% more pictures to the final version that ships to users later this year..

Pictures: The Xbox Music 2.0 Preview

Following today’s BUILD Conference Keynote, Microsoft has now made a preview of the Windows 8.1 Preview available to all users.

The download, which involves a somewhat streamlined installation process can be started from here. Users will be prompted to download a small system update to Windows 8 before the installation of the update begins. The Windows 8.1 update includes many of the features the company had already announced would be coming to all Windows 8 users later this year. These features include, the return of the Start button to the taskbar, a revamped Xbox Music –of which the company says currently only has half of all the new features that will ship this fall and the ability to personalize the Start Screen even more.

Though the update is freely available, having now tried it for the past two hours, we’d strongly suggest that users hold off on downloading the preview. As it’s effectively a beta, some features cold not perform well or break in the preview. For example, our paige aiden Media issued XPS 13′s trackpad performance has been terrible.

Windows 8.1 Preview Now Available to Download

Following a year filled with shutting down service outlets and misaligning feature branding in the name of usability, Microsoft could be poised to launch a new online portable for Xbox Music.

According to sources who talked exclusively with The Verge, sometime next week Microsoft will update Xbox.com to allow for Xbox Music Pass streaming. That’s a feature that we haven’t seen since Microsoft shut down the Zune.net music portal last fall.

No other details about the new Musix.Xbox.com have leaked, though we’ll of course be keeping an eye out for it now. Microsoft is already planning on launching an updated version of Xbox Music for Windows 8 devices tomorrow, alongside Windows 8.1.

Last fall, Microsoft announced that Xbox Music would also be coming to iOS and Android devices. We’ve yet to hear anything about those applications since.

The Verge: Xbox Music to Come to the Web Next Week