– Former technical lead engineer on Metroid Prime Jack Mathews on if Metroid being exclusive to Nintendo will affect future sales. 

In an interview with Shinesparkers (a Metroid Prime fan community), former technical lead engineer on the first three Metroid Prime games Jack Mathews looks back at his experience developing each title. 

When asked what the hardest thing to program in the games were, Mathews mentions the struggle to maintain 60 frames per second in SkyTown during Metroid Prime 3. “I remember the first time the concept was shown to me, I tried to get the area killed,” He recalls. “We had to write a bunch of tools to support it and make the artists jump through a bunch of hoops. But even today, I’m still awestruck when I get to SkyTown and am super proud at what we all accomplished.”

He admits, however, that the challenge wasn’t so much about programming, but practicing discipline for engineering and art. “The Metroid Prime series’ environment art was (and often still is) second-to-none, so it was a constant balance between keeping the game running well and still looking amazing,” Mathews explains. “This meant making sure that every artist was running the game on the console, that QA had the tools to spot and surface frame rate issues.” 

With the hardships of development also come the criticisms. Mathews acknowledges that there were things he would have liked to do differently if the team at Retro (the development studio of the first three Metroid Prime games) had more time and money. Some players have speculated over the years that Metroid being a Nintendo console exclusive may have hindered the games’ success in the long run.

But Mathews disagrees. “I feel like we could have built more, spent more, and made a cooler looking game on other consoles with more time. Would it have sold much more on more platforms? I’m not so sure about that any more,” He says. “The easy answer is to look at the critical success but low sales and blame the platform, but I think that answer is a bit of a cop out.”

Since Nintendo announced that Metroid Prime 4 was in development (although there have been no confirmations over which studio is developing it), Mathews expresses his hopes for the next title in the Metroid series. “It may be nice to see what a fresh team with fresh eyes does with it.”

Be sure to check out the entire interview over at Shinesparkers.

Starting at 2 p.m. PT today, members of the Xbox One Preview Update Alpha ring will begin receiving the latest Xbox One system update (1802.180116-1916). This update includes brand new features, such as expanded inactivity shutdown options and the “Do not disturb” option. Read on to learn more about these features (and features introduced last Sunday!) as well as fixes and known issues in the latest system update.

New Features:

Inactivity Shutdown Options

• We’ve added additional inactivity shutdown options to the Power mode & startup menu. In addition to shutting down the console after one or six hours of inactivity, you’re now able to select options for two, three, four and five hours. To enable the inactivity shutdown options:
  
  1. Under Options, select the “Turn off after” dropdown menu.
  2. Navigate to Settings > Power & startup > Power mode & startup.

Do Not Disturb

• Sometimes all you want to do is avoid all distractions and focus entirely on your game. We’ve included a “Do not disturb” online status, which will suppress notifications and let your friends know that you’re not available for another game or activity right now. To enable Do not disturb status:
  
  1. Open the Guide and select your profile icon to the far left.
  2. Select My profile.
  3. From the Appear online dropdown to the right, select Do not disturb.

Mini Game Hubs

• With Mini Game Hubs you can access great content for the games you’ve played recently from a Game Hub without ever having to leave the action. Mini Game Hubs provide an easy way to see friends who are currently playing, upcoming Achievements, Looking for Group posts, and more. To find the Mini Game Hub, launch the Guide and look for a new icon to the right of all Game tiles in the Home section.

Scheduled Themes

• You asked—we listened! We’re excited to announce that we’ve added the ability to put your themes on a schedule. In addition to choosing either the light or dark theme, you can now schedule a time to automatically switch between them. Simply follow these steps:
  
  1. Navigate to Settings > Personalization > Theme & motion.
  2. Select Scheduled from the “System theme” dropdown.
  3. Select the times at which you want the light theme to start and end.

Guide Enhancements

• A new icon will appear in the Guide.  The Guide Game Pass Discovery Tile (the “Surprise me with a random Game Pass Game tile”), now shows in Guide.

Fixes:

Home and Guide

• Additional fixes to address an issue which could cause Home and Guide to fail to display or crash.

Installation and Achievements

• Resolved an issue which caused the progress bars for downloads/installations and achievements to display incorrect information.

Known Issues:

System Update

• When downloading a system update, you may get stuck at a loading screen and only see the loading spinner. Workaround: If this occurs, please DO NOT try to factory reset or reboot the console—this is an issue with the update service and should eventually resolve on its own.

Guide

• The Guide may sometimes lose focus during navigation.

Party Chat

• Party chat sometimes crashes in the Guide.

Games Installation

• Games that are installed fail to launch. Workaround: If the games are installed to an external drive please copy the game to the internal drive or attempt to delete the title and redownload to fix the launch error.

Display

• We are investigating the inaccurate RGB colors that have been reported when displaying in 4K HDR mode when playing a UHD disc.

Avatars on Home

• Users can now represent themselves as an Avatar on Home by changing their settings. To do so, simply navigate to My profile > Customize profile > Show my avatar.

Tournaments

• The left and right navigation for selecting date and time during Tournament creation is currently reversed when the console language is set to Arabic or Hebrew.
• Left and right navigation in Tournament twists is reversed when the console language is set to Arabic or Hebrew.
• Left and right navigation in the bracket view of Tournaments is reversed when the console language is set to Arabic or Hebrew.

Consoles like the NES, SNES and Game Boy may just be fashioned from circuit boards, chips and plastic, but they’re a portal to a seemingly limitless world of possibilities and will, for many players, have provided a wondrous backdrop for entire childhoods.

London-based artist Jing Zhang was recently commissioned by Sony to create an infographic for its “Parents’ Guide” which added a little more magic to the reality of gaming tech, and she was then inspired to do the same for other classic hardware – mostly Nintendo-based. The images crack open some of the most iconic consoles of all time and add a little bit of fantasy to the internals.

The series features the NES, SNES, Game Boy, DS, Switch and Wii.

Even though we’re perfectly aware that all that lies inside our beloved consoles is cold, hard tech, we’d much prefer it if they contained some of the elements shown above.

LEGRAND LEGACY: Tale of the Fatebounds is Now Available on Steam!

A love letter to all time favorite JRPGs with a fresh take on classic turn-based combat and tactics. Wishlist us now and discover why Legrand Legacy is the “Most Promising Game” of the year!

Microsoft announced the introduction of chemistry into Minecraft: Education Edition, where concepts like states of matter and structures of atoms can be accessible through the use of new crafting tools designed to explain different chemistry concepts. 

Educators are already using Minecraft: Education Edition to teach concepts like coding, the water cycle, photosynthesis and renewable energy. The addition of chemistry in Minecraft allows for teachers to introduce chemistry concepts without the cost of lab equipment, making the subject more accessible to their students. 

“Bringing chemistry to Minecraft not only helps spark interest in STEM, but also helps educators engage students in the scientific process, reinforcing creative problem solving and engaging experiments,” explains Minecraft education director Neal Manegold. “Concepts like states of matter, structure of atoms and chemical reactions become accessible in Minecraft through the immersive world and these brand-new tools.”

The chemistry update is set to launch in February for all Minecraft: Education Edition customers and there’s already a lab journal for teachers looking to incorporate the program into their curriculum.

Guild Wars 2 developers donated $3,500 to a fan’s crowdfunding page after a fire consumed everything but a copy of her collectors edition of Nightfall, an expansion for Guild Wars.

As Kotaku reports, the fire struck two weeks before Christmas and destroyed the home that Siadina (real name Flora Hunsucker) lived in with her family. When returning to survey the damage to see what could be salvaged, she filmed the discovery of her unscathed collectors edition of Nightfall.

She posted the video to Twitter and tagged developer ArenaNet, and was approached shortly after by the studio’s social media coordinator asking for her address to send a t-shirt. Flora started playing Guild Wars in 2005. “It was my first MMO,” she told Kotaku. “I fell in love with it.” She has logged over 4,000 hours in the first game, and about another 2,500 in Guild Wars 2.

Later on it was revealed that ArenaNet made a $3,500 donation to Siadina’s crowdfunding campaign, and instead of receiving a t-shirt she was sent all of the Guild War games signed by the developers. 

“Thank you is so inadequate. It’s all I got. Thank you for me and my family and everything. I didn’t expect any of this,” Siadina expressed to Kotaku. “To have the Guild Wars community come up behind me so strongly and so positively, it’s a blessing without price.”

Hello, Xbox Insiders! 2017 has been a busy year for Team Xbox and the Xbox Insider Team (which now includes Mister Retr0 and the Xbox Feedback team). Our dedication to making Xbox the best place to play could not be done without the feedback and suggestions from the community.

Xbox Insiders are already familiar with the Xbox Insider Hub, Quests, Insider content, and how to report a problem. But in case you didn’t know, you can also suggest a new feature or change to an existing feature through Xbox Feedback. The feature teams working on Xbox One, Xbox on Windows, Xbox mobile apps, and Xbox Live regularly review the ideas you submit, incorporating them into their work to make your Xbox experience even better.

In 2017 we heard you, and we really liked some of the great features you voted for. We liked 274 of them so much, we implemented them! Of course some of the ideas we already had on our backlog, but your comments and explanations help us make these features in the way that you want.

Here are some highlights from some of the highest voted suggestions in 2017:

Xbox Platform Suggestions

Original Xbox backward compatibility!

24,375 Votes – Updated on 10/24
Original Xbox games are now part of Xbox One backward compatibility! Compatibility for Original Xbox titles launched with thirteen games; you can find the whole list of backward compatible games at http://www.xbox.com/xbox-one/backward-compatibility

Option to Sort Xbox 360 Games from Xbox One Games

7,192 Votes – Updated on 07/25
With the new Games & Apps, you can now sort and filter your games by platform! Open My Games & Apps, and in the Games section, use the drop down filter to choose Xbox 360 games only!

Customizable GamerPic for your Profile Picture

6,566 Votes – Updated on 07/24
Custom Gamerpics are now available for your Xbox Live profile! You can choose any image for your gamerpic (as long as you follow the Xbox Live code of conduct). You can see more details about customer gamerpics and other new features here: https://news.xbox.com/2017/07/13/custom-gamerpics-console-co-streaming-arena-updates-roll-xbox-fans-today/

Proper HD Audio Support

4,868 Votes – Updated on 04/04
Xbox One now offers the option to pass Blu-Ray audio via Bitstream directly to your receiver for decoding! This option supports DTS:X, Dolby ATMOS, and other HD Audio formats. You can turn this option on by going to Settings > Display & sound > Audio output and setting the Speaker audio to “Bitstream out.”

Remove the 5 minute cap on recording

4,641 Votes – Updated on 04/04
Users can now record up to 10 minutes at a time with the new improved GameDVR! While playing a game, press the Xbox button to bring up the Xbox Guide, then press the View button to see your recording options. Choose “Start Recording” and the GameDVR will record up to 10 minutes of gameplay.

Halo Wars 2 on the Xbox One

4,498 Votes – Updated on 04/20
Halo Wars 2 is available for Xbox One and Windows 10!

Automatic download and install for game updates

4,243 Votes – Updated on 06/26
Xbox One now offers the ability to automatically install updates for consoles. You can set updates for the Xbox or games & apps separately by going to Settings > System > Updates and checking “Keep my console up to date” and “Keep my games & apps up to date.”

Tell me when my console has been updated!

3,839 Votes – Updated on 04/24
Your Xbox One will not provide a notification on the dashboard if your console has been updated. Selecting the notification will bring you to a description of new features. More information about console updates can be found here: http://support.xbox.com/xbox-one/console/system-update-operating-system

Family Timer that Enables Play Limitations for Child Accounts

2,988 Votes – Updated on 04/04
Parents who have child accounts can now set limitations on screen time for Xbox One! When signed into your parent account, go to http://microsoft.com/family to view and set limits for any child accounts.

Add a number value to commands like “Volume Up”and “Skip Forward”

2,002 Votes – Updated on 05/30
When you ask Cortana to turn the volume up or down, you can now add a number to the end, and say “Hey Cortana, turn the volume up 5” for a more accurate change. You can also ask Cortana to fast forward or rewind faster or slow by simply saying “faster” or “slower.” You can find more details about how to use Cortana here: https://support.xbox.com/xbox-one/console/cortana-voice-commands

Backward Compatibility

You can also find the list of Xbox 360 titles that we have completed in 2017, and vote for more titles to come in 2018! In just the last year, we’ve shipped 133 backward compatible titles for the Xbox One (not counting OG Xbox!). Here are the Top 10 (by vote count):

• Call of Duty: Black Ops II – 217,119 Votes
• GTA IV – 87,951 Votes
• Assassin’s Creed III – 68,447 Votes
• Halo 4 – 59,051 Votes
• Battlefield 3 – 58,038 Votes
• Halo 3 – 57,241 Votes
• Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood – 51,760 Votes
• Far Cry 3 – 47,450 Votes
• Batman: Arkham Origins – 47,191 Votes
• Saints Row: The Third – 45,012 Votes

2018

Since we launched Xbox Feedback in 2014, we’ve completed over 900 ideas, and satisfied over 4 million users who voted! We’re looking forward to continuing to implement your ideas, and sharing some exciting changes for Xbox Feedback in 2018. Thank you!

-Nathan