Author: Zach Walton

The Xbox One – Microsoft’s next generation games console – was finally revealed today. The machine looks capable enough, and will surely have some killer games. That doesn’t matter on Twitter, though, where gut reactions and cheap shots are all that matters.

Microsoft encouraged fans to continue the discussion on Twitter with #XboxOne and they did. People were talking about everything from the console’s TV functions to the still confusing used games policy.

I will say, the best thing that’s come out of today is that I more excited than ever for Killzone: Shadow Fall. #XboxOne

— Jim Sterling (@JimSterling) May 21, 2013

The instant switching on the #xboxone looks really good. Not really sure how TV will work outside of US. As our TVs have integrated Tuners.

— Muhammad Skaka (@productfeedback) May 22, 2013

Games locked to 1 account = other household members can’t play a game registered to someone else’s account. That’s a huge problem. #xboxone

— GameJournos (@GameJournos) May 22, 2013

I’m nerding out over the #xboxone and the amazing features. Split screen like my @surface pro? With Madden and an @nfl game? Yes please!

— Mike Ross (@IAmMikeRoss) May 22, 2013

Is it just me of did today’s #xboxone press conference target the ‘Bro Gamer’ almost exclusively?

— Zak Grim (@ZakGrim) May 22, 2013

Microsoft seems so confused and unsure on the used game issue because until this afternoon it actually forgot what videogames are. #XboxOne

— Jim Sterling (@JimSterling) May 21, 2013

At least Microsoft made the controller matte black #xboxone #aSmallvictory

— Michael Gallarello (@mjgconcepts) May 22, 2013

Can #xboxone wipe my ass for me?

— Bee (@itssbee_) May 22, 2013

If you want to follow all the Xbox One madness on Twitter, hit up the widget below:

Tweets about “#xboxone”

Goats aren’t typically known for holding up traffic, but one goat did just that this morning in New Jersey.

The AP reports that a goat had escaped onto the Pulaski Skyway in New Jersey this morning. Five police officers were called to scene to help catch the goat, but they had no luck for nearly two hours. It appears the goat was rather nimble and kept jumping back and forth over the divider causing problems for both sides of traffic.

Thankfully, nobody was hurt as a result of the goat running along the highway. There was, however, a small accident involving four cars as the drivers were attempting to avoid the animal.

Where did the mischievous goat come from? The police aren’t sure, but its tag did say U.S. Department of Agriculture. They assume that it had somehow escaped from a truck heading to a slaughterhouse.

Here’s some amateur footage of the police trying to catch the escaped goat:

Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston were once quite the pair. Their marriage lasted five years before the two called it quits in 2005. Looking back on it, Pitt says his marriage to Aniston was “pathetic.”

In an upcoming interview with the World War Z star in Parade Magazine, Pitt reflects upon his marriage with the Friends star. He told the magazine that his marriage with Aniston had basically devolved into him “sitting on a couch, holding a joint, hiding out.” He then said that it started to feel “pathetic.”

He went on to say that he was so absorbed in trying to “find a movie about an interesting life” that his real life became uninterested. He partially blames his marriage to Aniston for the feeling by saying that he was “trying to pretend the marriage was something that it wasn’t.”

This all may sound like Pitt blames Aniston for the above, but that’s not the case says the star. He says that he means he was becoming dull to himself in the marriage, and the blame fell on himself. He holds that Aniston “is an incredibly giving, loving and hilarious woman.”

As for his current life, Pitt says that he’s “satisfied” in his relationship with Angelina Jolie. The two raise children they have adopted from around the world and are regular activists for various causes. In fact, Jolie was raising awareness for breast cancer last week when she announced that she had undergone a double mastectomy to reduce her chances of developing the cancer. In the op-ed announcement, she urged other women to get tested for breast cancer, and to not be afraid of the surgery.

[h/t: NY Post] [Image: Georges Biard]

Arnold Schwarzenegger and his ex-wife Maria Shriver were on track to be divorced after it came to light that Schwarzenegger had fathered a child with a member of his household staff. That divorce may notwbe on hold for a pretty weird reason.

TMZ reports that sources close to both Schwarzenegger and Shriver have said that they aren’t in any rush to finalize the divorce. Of course, you can’t look too deep into this. It seems that they both aren’t ready to jump into divorce because neither have anything to gain.

Wait, what? It’s reported that couple are worth $400 million together. The divorce settlement would have them splitting that right down the middle. Neither side would be better off monetarily after a divorce.

Of course, there’s another, more logical reason, for both of them to hold off on the divorce. Sources close to both told TMZ that they may still have feelings for each other. At this point, however, it’s still very much in the air as they’re Schwarzenegger and Shriver are both sending mixed signals in regards to their future plans.

Either way, it seems that Schwarzenegger and Shriver aren’t quite done with each other yet.

Pot-eating pigs are the reality for some pork farmers in Washington state after the state legalized marijuana use late last year. You’re not going to get high from these bovine, but these pot-eating pigs are apparently delicious.

Reuters reports that Susannah Gross, a farmer outside of Seattle, has been feeding her pigs the leftovers of the marijuana plant. It’s an experiment that few farmers are participating in, but the results so far are encouraging.

Much like humans, pigs under the influence of marijuana eat far more food. This leads to pigs being 20 to 30 pounds heavier than usual. It also leads to the pigs being tastier than usual, at least to those who partook in a local “Pot Pig Gig” that saw the pork resulting from the pot-eating pigs being served as part of a meal.

The success of this initial program now has pot growers and farmers in Washington excited over the idea of raising chickens and cows on the leftovers of the pot plants.

Oh, and for those wondering, you’re probably not going to get high from eating animals fed weed waste. No studies so far have yet to find a link, but there’s not a lot of data out there to begin with. There will obviously be more studies once the use of weed waste as animal food enters the mainstream.

The Xbox One is the official name of Microsoft’s next-generation games console. While it may do more than just play games, gamers are still curious about certain rumors that have been floating around about the new console. Will it play used games? Will it require an always online Internet connection? Microsoft finally answered those questions today… kind of.

The Xbox One will kind of block used games from being played on the console. Now, what does that mean? It means that every game must be installed on the system. The game disc you buy in the store is merely a means of getting that information installed on the hard drive. Of course, what’s to stop from multiple friends all sharing the same disc, and getting the same game?

Wired explains:

“…each disc would have to be tied to a unique Xbox Live account, else you could take a single disc and pass it between everyone you know and copy the game over and over. Since this is clearly not going to happen, each disc must then only install for a single owner.

Microsoft did say that if a disc was used with a second account, that owner would be given the option to pay a fee and install the game from the disc, which would then mean that the new account would also own the game and could play it without the disc.”

Of course, it seems that Microsoft itself is confused as to the extent of its own used game policy. On the official Xbox site, a QA page (which has since been removed) says the following about used games on the Xbox One (courtesy of NeoGAF):

We are designing Xbox One to enable customers to trade in and resell games. We’ll have more details to share later.

Adding more layers to the confusion, John Hicks, Editor of Official Xbox 360 Magazine, tweeted out a few details regarding the policy:

On second hand games: you buy disc, it installs, you play from HD. Sell disc, it installs to new console and deactivates your install.

— Jon Hicks (@MrJonty) May 21, 2013

Again, at no point when I was talking to MS did they say there was a fee for used games. They said used games were important and supported.

— Jon Hicks (@MrJonty) May 21, 2013

So, what does this all mean? What we can pull from this mess of misinformation and confusing statements is that Microsoft will indeed have a policy regarding the use of used games on its console. It’s not going to be as simple as buying a used game and popping it in.

Now, the statements from the Microsoft itself and Hicks suggest that the next Xbox won’t be entirely anti-used games. Instead, the next Xbox may only charge a fee if you have no intention of sellin the game.

For example, you may be charged a small fee if you lend the disc to a friend and they install it on their system. You still get to play the game, but they get to as well after paying said fee. Now, that fee may not be present when buying used games because the person who sold the game previously forfeited the original license and had the game uninstalled from their system.

It should be noted that the above example is pure speculation based upon what we’re seeing from a variety of sources. We won’t know anything for sure until Microsoft clarifies the situation itself. The official QA said that we would hear more about Microsoft’s used games policy soon, but it may want to address it sooner rather than later to dispel all the confusion surrounding the Xbox One and its used game policy.

UPDATE: And the plot thickens. An official Xbox Support twitter account is now saying that there are no fees associated with used games on the Xbox One.

@modronfixer No fee, correct – and they just got that information wrong. As soon as we saw, we contacted them to correct it. ^EM

— Xbox Support 3 (@XboxSupport3) May 21, 2013

During the Xbox event this morning, Microsoft announced its vision for the next-generation of game consoles and entertainment. The philosophy governing the next Xbox is everything going through one console. As such, the next Xbox will be called the Xbox One.

The Xbox One is being designed to improve a living room that Microsoft sees as fragmented. With the next console, Microsoft hopes to bring games, TV and entertainment into one place with you as the center.

Instead of showing games first, Microsoft decided to show how the next Xbox is going change entertainment and television. The first major change is that everything is controlled via voice or gestures. The voice commands have also become more conversational.

The Xbox One will also be bringing a bit of Windows 8 to it with Snap Mode – the multitasking feature in Windows 8 that allows users to have two applications open at once. With the Xbox One, a user can be watching a movie and open Internet Explorer on the side. The side view can then be controlled with a tablet or phone via Smartglass.

Speaking of television, ESPN on the Xbox One has received a substantial improvement. Fans will now be able to access their fantasy leagues while watching games. Microsoft has also entered into an exclusive contract with the NFL to provide live updates to fantasy football rosters during games.

Microsoft has also teamed up with Steven Spielberg to produce a live action Halo TV series that will be a premium series only on Xbox One.

The final addition to the overall Xbox experience is Skype. With it, users can make video calls with the 1080p camera that’s in the new Kinect. It also supports Snap mode so users can make calls while watching movies, and presumably while playing games.

So, what’s powering all of this? Microsoft said that the next Xbox will sport an 8-core CPU, 8GB of RAM, a Blu-Ray Drive and USB 3.0. It’s also claimed that the machine will be cool and silent.

Interestingly enough, Microsoft says that the Xbox One will also be powered by three separate operating systems combined into one. The regular Xbox OS will be used by game developers while all other applications will use the Windows kernel. The other OS combines the two together for when you want to instantly switch back and forth between games and applications.

The new Kinect sensor sports a 1080p camera and more advanced tracking algorithms. Microsoft says that the new Kinect can even read your heartbeat.

As for the proper Xbox One controller, Microsoft says it has implemented over 40 changes to the design. One of which is impulse triggers that will deliver more feedback. The company also claims to have redesigned the d-pad.

Xbox Live is by far the most exciting part of the new system, and Microsoft seems to have noticed this. It has upgraded the Xbox Live server count to 300,000 so that players can do more. The first turns every Xbox One into a dedicated DVR capture device that lets players capture game footage and edit the footage on the console itself. Achievements will be revamped to be more about how much you play, and multiplayer games will search for matches while you play other games or watch TV.

After all of this, Microsoft finally decided to talk about some games. First up was EA Sports with an “unprecedented partnership” that will see four franchises being released on Xbox One – FIFA, Madden, NBA Live and UFC. For FIFA 14, the game’s popular Ultimate Team mode will be exclusive to Xbox.

Microsoft also announced Forza Motorsport 5 and Quantum Break as titles it’s publishing. The first speaks for itself, but the latter is the latest title from Remedy. It sounds like the guys at Remedy are trying to create a game that ties in with an in-game TV series. Both will influence the other or something. We’ll probably find out more at E3.

To end the show, Activision showed off the first footage of Call of Duty: Ghosts running on the Xbox One hardware. Of course, all DLC for Call of Duty: Ghosts will still launch first on Xbox.

As for other games, Microsoft says that there will be 15 exclusive titles for Xbox One in its first year with eight of them being new IPs. We will probably find out more about those titles at Microsoft’s E3 show in early June.

A terrorist attack in Moscow was foiled after Russian security forces engaged in a firefight with the alleged militants.

Sky News reports that two terror suspects were killed and a third captured after a shootout that took place in the town of Orekhovo-Zuyevo. The town is 85km east of Moscow, but Russian intelligence claims that the three people were planning on attacking Moscow in an unspecified manner.

Russia’s National Anti-Terrorism Committee released the following statement:

“Our forceful actions prevented an attempted act of terror in the capital. These criminals, who are citizens of the Russian Federation, came from the Afghanistan-Pakistan region, where they received training and preparation to commit a terrorist act. In the exchange of fire two of them were killed and one detained. A special forces officer was slightly wounded.”

Other details have since emerged claiming that the militants were trained in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region. The nationalities of those killed and arrested were not revealed though.

Most terrorist attacks in Russia are carried out by radical militant groups in territories under Russian control. The last major attack from one of these groups was a 2011 suicide bombing in Moscow that killed 37 people.

Georgia’s state parks are now allowing Bibles to be placed in rental cabins. An atheist group arguing for equal representation is now presenting a plan that would allow them to place books with atheist philosophies in those same cabins next to the Bibles.

The AP reports that David Silverman, president of the American Atheists organization, is now waiting to hear back from the state of Georgia on its plan to place atheist books in cabins. The plan, if approved, would see the group donating several books to state parks. These books will explain atheist philosophy.

According to Silverman, this isn’t about competing with Christianity. It’s all about fair treatment and allowing multiple viewpoints to be presented:

“We expect fair treatment, we anticipate fair treatment and we look forward to fair treatment. If the state is going to put Bibles in the cabins, they must allow alternate points of view — all alternative points of view without taking sides.”

All of this started when an atheist named Ed Buckner was dismayed to find nine Bibles at the cabin he rented. The state promptly removed the books, but soon returned them after the state Attorney General deemed them legal. Afterwards, Governor Nathan Deal said that literature from any religious group was welcome to donate literature.

So now Silverman plays the waiting game as Georgia works on new regulations regarding the distribution of materials. It’s likely that Silverman will have his way. A win for him will open the floodgates, however, as other religious groups may be jumping at the bit to put their own books in Georgia’s state parks. Visitors may soon even find that their rented cabin has been converted into a library full of religious texts.

[Image: justenableme/tumblr]

Linkin Park frontman Chester Bennington made a surprise appearance over the weekend at a Stone Temple Pilots concert. Even more surprising, he had teamed up with the band on a new single.

FMQB reports that Bennington appeared on stage with Stone Temple Pilots on Saturday at the Weenie Roast concert. As part of the set, Bennington performed a number of the band’s classic hits, but they also debuted a new song called “Out of Time.”

Of course, Bennington won’t be a full time replacement for recently ousted Stone Temple Pilots frontman Scott Weiland. Instead, the band says they “thought it would be cool to try something together.” Fans of Bennington will be pleased to know that Linkin Park will remain his priority.

As for Bennington himself, he said that he was thrilled to work together with Stone Temple Pilots:

“I’ve loved STP since I was 13 years old and they’ve had a huge influence on me. When the opportunity came up to do something creative with them, I jumped at the chance. The guys in Linkin Park have been incredibly supportive of me undertaking this project while I’ve continued to work on new music with LP.”

CBS Radio has released the new Stone Temple Pilots single as a free download. You can grab it here.

Making food with 3D printers is not a new concept, but it is still largely in the realm of science fiction. NASA wants to make science fiction into reality sooner than later, however, and it’s throwing plenty of money towards those at the cutting edge of the technology.

Quartz reports that NASA has awarded Systems & Materials Research Corporation a $125,000 grant to continue work on what company head, Anjan Contractor, calls a universal food synthesizer. As currently envisioned, the technology would use cartridges of powders and oils to create complex foods one layer at a time.

NASA is understandably interested in the technology as it would provide plenty of inexpensive food to space travelers. The current goal is to have the food cartridges last up to 30 years. It would ensure that any long distance space travel plans to Mars and beyond wouldn’t suffer from food spoilage.

Of course, space travel isn’t the only thing that this particular 3D printer would make easier. Feeding the world’s population would be a cinch if everybody owned a 3D printer and a number of inexpensive food cartridges that only doled out what a person needs so no food is wasted. It seems impossible with our current food production methods, but Contractor’s plans could very well end world hunger.

The first step in space travel and ending world hunger may just lie in the humble pizza. America’s favorite food seems to be perfectly suited to the 3D printing process as one layer of food is added at a time. In the case of pizza, the dough would be extruded onto a heated plate that bakes the dough as its being printed. Afterwards, a tomato powder would be added while being mixed with water and oil to create the sauce. Finally, a “protein layer” made up of plants or animals would be added to the top.

A 3D pizza printer may sound like some kind of revolutionary new concept, but NASA has been playing around with 3D printers for quite some time. The agency is even looking into whether or not it could deploy 3D printers to the surface of the moon to build 3D printed structures out of lunar soil.

As for 3D food printers, NASA may also want to look into Burritob0t or Google’s 3D pasta printer. There’s probably nothing quite like space travel accompanied by a steady diet of starches.

We now live in a world where a 3D printed gun is not out of the realm of possibility. In fact, it’s very real, and people are improving the design in minor ways every day. Now one 3D printing enthusiast has taken the next logical step – 3D printed ammunition.

YouTube user taofledermaus has what he reckons is the first 3D printed bullet. There’s a small bit of metal in the front of the bullet to add weight, but it’s still mostly plastic.

Now, this is mostly just a hobbyist thing for now. You’re probably not going to see 3D printed bullets being loaded into guns anytime soon. Even then, 3D printed bullets, at least when fired from a shotgun, lack any kind of spin. Much like plastic riot bullets, these bullets aren’t lethal when handled correctly.

We may see more videos from taofledermaus in the future as he mentioned that he and his friends are attempting to make The Liberator. It will be interesting to see if the first fully 3D printed gun can fire what I assume to be the first 3D printed bullets.

[h/t: 3ders]

At its Mobile Developer Conference in April, Facebook announced that it would be pushing Open Graph in a big way on mobile going forward. Part of those plans involved the Share Dialog – a tool that allows users to share on Facebook without having to login. It was only available as a limited beta at the time, but now all iOS developers can take advantage of it.

Facebook announced on Monday that the native Share Dialog is now available on the Facebook for iOS SDK. Fortunately, developers will not have to jump through any hoops to integrate it into their apps. The native Share Dialog is a single line of code that can be easily implemented.

Here’s what developers can look forward to when implementing the Share Dialog:

The Share Dialog offers a lightweight and consistent way to enable sharing from your apps. People now have the option to share activity from apps through this dialog without needing to login to Facebook first. This eliminates 1 – 3 extra steps required for login when sharing via the feed dialog.

The Share Dialog further improves upon the iOS 6 share sheet by adding support for publishing Open Graph actions to make it easier for people to tell their stories on mobile. In addition, people can now tag friends and share where they are enabling them to share in a more meaningful and engaging way, while helping even more people connect with your app.

Back in April, Facebook said that the Share Dialog would also be making its way to Android. Unfortunately, nothing was said about that on Monday. For now, only iOS developers can take advantage of the native Share Dialog, but we can hope that an Android beta or release isn’t too far behind.

If you want to learn more about the Share Dialog, check out the documentation.

The very first fully 3D printed gun – The Liberator – is now out on the Internet despite the State Department having the original files removed. So naturally, people are going to start making their own variations of the 3D printed handgun to improve its efficiency.

Forbes’ Andy Greenberg reports that a Wisconsin engineer going by the name of “Joe” has created his own 3D printed gun called the Lulz Liberator. The name comes from the 3D printer it was made with – the $1,725 Lulzbot. One plastic barrel survived eight shots, and they were able to fire off one more from a new barrel before nightfall.

Here’s a short video showing the test firing:

What makes this particular model more interesting is that it was printed on a hobbyist 3D printer. The original Liberator from Defense Distributed was printed on an $8,000 industrial 3D printer. The eventual goal of The Liberator project was to make it possible for hobbyists to print their own guns, but it seems that “Joe” was able to beat them to the punch.

Of course, there are some differences between the Lulz Liberator and The Liberator that must be taken into account. For starters, the Lulz Liberator uses metal screws to hold the gun together instead of the plastic pins found in the original Liberator. That could explain the stability, but Joe has another idea in mind – the plastic he used is just better. He claims that the generic ABS plastic used in hobbyist 3D printers is stronger than the official name brand ABS plastic used in industrial Stratasys printers.

Whatever the case may be, “Joe” is continuing work on something that makes a lot of people feel very uncomfortable. He’s not the only one either. Over 100,000 people downloaded the original Liberator CAD files and even more are accessing it on sites like The Pirate Bay. These people are already more than happy to share their handiwork with the world.

Iran is a dangerous place for anyone who might even be remotely in contact with foreign countries. That danger was clearly demonstrated over the weekend.

The AP reports Mohammad Heidari and Kourosh Ahmadi were hung over the weekend after being convicted of spying for foreign countries. Heidari was accused of spying for Israel, whereas Ahmadi was accused of spying for the CIA.

Not much more information is known at this point as the report came from Iran’s state-run radio station. The report failed to mention when the men were arrested, or if they were tried.

The executions come at a time when tensions between Iran, and the U.S. and Israel are at an all-time high. The latter suspects Iran is enriching uranium at its nuclear reactors to create atomic weapons while Iran insists its reactors are strictly used for peaceful power generation purposes. It was deemed enough of a threat that Israel launched a sophisticated computer virus, codenamed Flame, to cripple the computer systems at Iran’s reactor.

Since then, the rhetoric between Iran and Israel has risen dramatically. The two executed men were not Israeli or U.S. citizens so their deaths may not spark an international incident, and the two countries will obviously deny that they had spies working for them.

Still, it’s not going to help improve relations in any way going forward.

3D printing usually evokes images of plastic materials, but the truth is that any number of materials can be used in the rapid prototyping process. SLM, or selective laser melting, is one such method used to essentially 3D print items with metal. Now one bike company is embracing a similar, yet more sophisticated, technology.

UK-based Charge Bikes recently shared via Vimeo that it’s now using 3D printers to make bikes. The company is printing bikes in titanium using an experimental process that’s currently being used by the aerospace industry. If widely deployed, it could help cut down on the time required to make bikes as it would allow manufacturers to create multiple parts at once.

Charge TV: Week 11: 3D Titanium Printing from Charge Bikes on Vimeo.

In the comments, Charge Bikes addressed the cost of the process as well as the weight of 3D printed bikes:

Yes, it is a more expensive process, as it is in its relative infancy, but it will become more commonplace, we believe.

How do you figure it will be heavier? Unlike a drawn tube, we haven’t had to weld the disc-brake mount on afterwards (saving weight there), nor have we had to cast a solid shape (the dropout is entirely hollow apart from the disc-brake mount itself). This process lends itself entirely to weight-saving as you precisely control the amount of material used.

SLM machines and the like are still incredibly expensive so don’t expect hobbyists to be creating metal objects in 3D printers just yet. For now, check out the progress being made in printing bikes in plastic:

[h/t: 3ders]

There was only one question on the minds of many after February’s PS4 conference – where was the console itself? Well, those desperate to see what the PS4 actually looks like won’t have to wait much longer.

Sony announced today that it’s E3 2013 press conference will be taking place on June 10 at 6 p.m. PST/9 p.m. EST. To hype people up for the press conference, Sony has also released a short teaser that kind of shows what the new PS4 will look like if you squint really hard:

Of course, we’ll have to wait until June 10 to see what the final PS4 hardware will look like. Well, that is unless somebody decides to leak pictures of the hardware before then. Sony isn’t exactly known for being leak-proof.

In other next-gen news, we’re likely to see the next Xbox hardware tomorrow at its unveiling event. We might even see the next generation of Kinect hardware. Just don’t expect it to be cheap.

One of the better deals in gaming today is a $99 Xbox 360 that’s subsidized with two years of Xbox Live. Rumors suggested that Microsoft would be doing the same with the next Xbox, but those plans may have been scrapped.

Paul Thurrot reports that Microsoft has ditched its plans for a subsidized Xbox. The news comes from a recent tweet that also said Microsoft would be showing off its IllumiRoom technology at tomorrow’s next Xbox reveal:

A couple of Xbox news tidbits ahead of the launch… Illumiroom will be part of Tues event, subsidized Xbox v.Next model has been scrapped.

— Paul Thurrott (@thurrott) May 20, 2013

For those unfamiliar with the rumor, it was said that Microsoft would be selling the next Xbox for $499 with a subsidized version going for $299. The latter would be subsidized with a two-year Xbox Live subscription at $15 a month.

Now, this might be a good or bad move on the part of Microsoft. As Thurrot later speculates, Microsoft might just offer the next Xbox at a straight up lower price than the competition. Game consoles are generally sold at a loss anyway, but it’s hard to imagine Microsoft taking a massive hit early on just to undercut Sony.

The more likely scenario is that Microsoft will just go ahead with its plans to sell the next Xbox for $499. That would mean the company is confident that its machine will have enough exclusive content to warrant a purchase. That was at least the line being fed to gamers over the weekend during the Major Nelson podcast in which Microsoft’s Aaron Greenberg said that E3 would feature “tons of exclusives and world premiers” for the new console.

Still, many, including myself, think it’s unwise for Microsoft to ditch its subsidization plan entirely. The rise of smartphones have warped consumers’ perception of value and how much technology actually costs. The $350 price tag on the Wii U is evidence enough that consumers just aren’t up for paying that much for what many still consider a toy anymore. A subsidized model, even if it wasn’t “cheap” per se, would still perform better as people would think they were getting a deal.

All of this is nothing but rumor and speculation for now, but Thurrot does have a solid track record when it comes to Microsoft rumors. He reported the May 21 date for the next Xbox reveal two weeks before the official announcement from Microsoft. Even if Microsoft was ditching its plans for a subsidized Xbox, we probably won’t hear about it tomorrow. According to Greenberg, tomorrow’s next Xbox reveal will be about “the team, the people” behind the next Xbox.

Of course, we’ll be covering the next Xbox reveal tomorrow. It starts at 10 a.m. PST/1 p.m. EST.

[h/t: Neowin]