On November 1, Nintendo will jump back into the fitness gaming category it helped create with Wii Fit U. Later this year, Microsoft could be throwing its hat into the hoop with an identical app for Xbox One.

On Friday, Microsoft announced a brand new Xbox One app called Xbox Fitness a good way to be launching this holiday season. Unlike Nintendo’s game that utilizes a virtual trainer and the Wii balance board, Xbox Fitness will use real trainers alongside Kinect to assist people get into shape.

Check it out:

“What makes Xbox Fitness so innovative is the feedback it can provide,” says Insanity’s Shaun T. “The Kinect sensor can evaluate your form, tell how high you’re jumping, how hard you’re punching or even read your heart rate. It’s that little missing piece of validation that hasn’t been possible for home fitness products before. Xbox Fitness completes the puzzle.”

Alongside its exercise programs, Xbox Fitness acts as an individual trainer. This will create personalized workout programs for every user in response to their history and past performance. This will also accommodate any schedule with workouts that last anywhere from 10 to 60 minutes.

Xbox Fitness can even include Xbox Live integration within the variety of online challenges, leaderboards and other methods that you can compare your performance with that of your pals.

Speaking of Xbox Live, Xbox Fitness might be free to all Xbox Live Gold members until December 2014. Microsoft doesn’t explicitly say it should start charging separately for the service at that time, but it’s heavily implied. Meaning you’ll desire to take full benefit of Xbox Fitness when it launches this holiday season.

[Image: xbox/YouTube]

Map variety might be probably the most important aspects of any multiplayer shooter. Sure, gameplay still reigns supreme, but a limited choice of maps would be sure things get boring very fast. That’s why it’s reassuring to be informed that DICE is launching Battlefield 4 with a variety of maps.

On Friday, DICE announced that Battlefield 4 could have 10 multiplayer maps when it ships on October 29. That’s already loads of maps, but it’s much more impressive should you take the scale of Battlefield maps into account. These are maps intended for 64 players on PC and next-gen consoles. It’s going to take players weeks, if not months, in finding your complete hidden nooks and crannies in such large maps.

As a part of the announcement, DICE announced the general map – Zavod 311 – and released a listing of the ten maps players could have access to at launch.

Starting with the brand new map, DICE says that Zavod 311 is determined in a Soviet tank factory from the Cold War era that have been overrun with foliage. What makes the map interesting is that it contains an undetonated warhead which might be activated to destroy a part of the map to open up new areas.

Here’s the primary image of the map (courtesy of the Battlefield blog):

As for the remainder, here’s all 10 maps which may be available at launch:

Of course, more maps would be added to the sport over the process its lifetime. EA and DICE have already announced Battlefield 4 Premium – a season pass that may net you every of the game’s planned DLC expansions two weeks before they launch for everyone else.

If you desire more Battlefield 4 multiplayer goodness, have a look at the most recent trailer that was released earlier this month.

[Image: Battlefield Blog]

The launch of the Xbox One is not up to two months away, and Microsoft knows it has a big perception gap to shut against Sony’s PlayStation 4. On the way to educate people about its recent Xbox One policy reversals and make allowance gamers to check out out its next-generation console, Microsoft today announced that it’ll be taking the Xbox One at the road.

The “Xbox One Tour” will begin on October 1 and run until the tip of the year, even after the launch of the Xbox One in late November. People in large North American or European cities might be ready to play Xbox one games during what Microsoft is asking “experiential events.” The events are free, though limited to people not less than 18 years old and attendance is first-come, first-serve.

Games featured through the tour will include Forza 5, Ryse: Son of Rome, Killer Instinct, Dead Rising 3, Crimson Dragon, Max: Curse of the Brotherhood, and LocoCycle.

The primary 13 cities at the tour had been announced and include Paris, Philadelphia, Toronto, Chicago, Vienna, Atlanta, Dallas, Berlin, Phoenix, San Francisco, Dublin, La, and London. The primary “One Tour” event starts on October 3 in Philadelphia. Tour dates leading as much as launch day are located at the “One Tour” website.

In addition to the tour, Microsoft may have “Test Drive” tour busses roaming North America and Europe, hitting college campuses, music festivals, and other locations. The “Test Drive” busses will hit many major cities omitted of the tour date announcements.

PlayStation 4 might be hitting the market in parts of Asia, including Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan. North America, Europe and Latin America shall be getting the console in November, just in time for the vacations.

Launch titles for Asia include “Watch Dogs,” “Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag,” “Minecraft” and “Dynasty Warriors 8 Xtreme Legends,” while “Driveclub,” “The Crew,” “Killzone: Shadowfall,” “Battlefield 4,” “FIFA 14,” “Knack” and “Lego Marvel Super Heroes” were shown in a trailer at a press conference on Wednesday.

Japan can also be getting two other new gaming devices q4. A slimmer version of the PlayStation Vita portable should be hitting shelves in October and Vita TV might be arriving in November. America will see these devices somewhat later within the winter, with the recent PlayStation Vita arriving in November and the Vita TV arriving in January. Prices and exact release dates for the devices haven’t yet been released.

GameStop stores in in Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland have announced that they’re going to be allowing customers to trade of their standard edition PlayStation 3 games for the brand new PlayStation 4 version of a similar game for less than €14.99.

This is an awesome opportunity for our European customers to enjoy their favorite PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360 games until the PlayStation 4 or Xbox One versions become available,” said Mike Mauler, executive vp of International at GameStop. “This offer gives our customers the risk to upgrade their current PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360 games for the recent PlayStation 4 or Xbox One versions of a similar game for an excellent price. This can be a great example of ways GameStop helps gamers world wide make the transition to the subsequent generation of consoles economical and seamless.”

Image from Wikimedia Commons.

On Monday, Valve announced SteamOS, a brand new PC operating system tuned specifically for gaming. It followed-up that announcement on Wednesday with the reveal of Steam Machines, new hardware from Valve and its partners that can profit from SteamOS. Today Valve revealed the general piece of its front room strategy: the Steam controller.

The controller itself is the oddest-looking online game controller to be revealed since Nintendo’s Wii controller. Rather than the joysticks which have become standard on modern controllers, the Steam controller has dual trackpads. In accordance with Valve, the gigantic, circular trackpads will allow for a far better input fidelity than joysticks. The trackpads also feature “super-precise” haptic feedback to supply players with physical context. The intention is to make traditionally PC-centric genres equivalent to real-time strategy a true possibility using a controller.

The second most noticeable oddity in regards to the Steam controller is button placement. In place of the standard four-button diamond formation for the suitable side of the controller, A, B, Y, and X buttons are put on the within edges of the touchpads. The four trigger buttons at the top of the controller look like fairly standard, however the device also has two large buttons on its rear side. There are a complete of 16 buttons at the Steam controller, with both trackpads and the heart touch screen clickable.

The touch screen just mentioned could have a high-resolution display. Developers can be capable of use the screen however they prefer, and touching the screen displays an overlay at the main gaming screen, allowing players to apply it without looking down.

The Steam controller was designed to work with Steam’s entire back-catalog of games. To complete this, Valve has created a “legacy mode” that enables controller buttons to be easily mapped to a normal keyboard. Moreover, Valve has stated that it’s going to release some form of tools to permit modders to open up the controller and hack around with it.