Rare Limited is a British video game developer and a studio of Xbox Game Studios based in Twycross, Leicestershire. Rare's games span the platform, first-person shooter, action-adventure, fighting, and racing genres. Its most popular games include the Battletoads, Donkey Kong, and Banjo-Kazooie series, as well as games like GoldenEye 007 (1997), Perfect Dark (2000), Conker's Bad Fur Day (2001), Viva Piñata (2006), and Sea of Thieves (2018).
Xbox Game Studios is an American video game publisher based in Redmond, Washington. It was established in March 2000, spun out from an internal Games Group, for the development and publishing of video games for Microsoft Windows. It has since expanded to include games and other interactive entertainment for the namesake Xbox platforms, other desktop operating systems, Windows Mobile and other mobile platforms, and web-based portals.
Epic Games, Inc. is an American video game and software developer and publisher based in Cary, North Carolina. The company was founded by Tim Sweeney as Potomac Computer Systems in 1991, originally located in his parents' house in Potomac, Maryland. Following its first commercial video game release, ZZT (1991), the company became Epic MegaGames, Inc. in early 1992 and brought on Mark Rein, who has been its vice president since. After moving the headquarters to Cary in 1999, the studio changed its name to Epic Games.
Cliff Bleszinski, popularly known as CliffyB, is an American video game designer, known for his work on the Unreal and Gears of War series while at Epic Games. After leaving Epic in 2012, he co-founded Boss Key Productions in 2014 which closed in 2018 after the commercial failure of the multiplayer shooter LawBreakers. Since Boss Key's closure, Bleszinski has spent his time with theater and writing.
Silicon Knights was a Canadian video game developer. Founded in 1992 by Denis Dyack, the company was headquartered in St. Catharines, Ontario. They started developing for computers such as the Atari ST and IBM PC compatibles. After 1996, they moved to console titles.
Gears of War is a 2006 third-person shooter video game developed by Epic Games and published by Microsoft Game Studios. It is the first installment of the Gears of War series, and was initially released as an exclusive title for the Xbox 360 in November 2006. A Microsoft Windows version, developed in conjunction with People Can Fly, was released in November 2007. The game's main story, which can be played in single or co-operative play, focuses on a squad of troops who assist in completing a desperate, last-ditch attempt to end a war against a genocidal subterranean enemy, the Locust, and save the remaining human inhabitants of their planet Sera. The game's multiplayer mode allows up to eight players to control characters from one of the two factions in a variety of online game modes. Gameplay features players using cover and strategic fire in order to win battles.
The Xbox 360 is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. As the successor to the original Xbox, it is the second console in the Xbox series. It competed with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles. It was officially unveiled on MTV on May 12, 2005, with detailed launch and game information announced later that month at the 2005 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3).
Augustus "Cole Train" Cole is a fictional character in the Gears of War media franchise. He first appeared in the first video game of the series as a supporting character, and has since appeared in some capacity for every mainline and spin-off installment of the Gears of War franchise. Cole is voiced by Lester Speight in all of his video game appearances.
Kinect is a line of motion sensing input devices produced by Microsoft and first released in 2010. The devices generally contain RGB cameras, and infrared projectors and detectors that map depth through either structured light or time of flight calculations, which can in turn be used to perform real-time gesture recognition and body skeletal detection, among other capabilities. They also contain microphones that can be used for speech recognition and voice control.
343 Industries is an American video game developer located in Redmond, Washington, part of Xbox Game Studios. Headed by Pierre Hintze, the studio is responsible for the Halo series of military science fiction games, originally created and produced by Bungie, and is the developer of the Slipspace Engine. Named after the Halo character 343 Guilty Spark, the studio was established in 2007 after the departure of Bungie after the release of Halo 3.
Kinect Star Wars is a Star Wars video game developed by Terminal Reality and published by LucasArts and Microsoft Studios for the Xbox 360 that uses the Kinect motion peripheral. The game features four game modes: "Jedi Destiny", the primary game mode; podracing; Rancor Rampage; and Galactic Dance-off. In Jedi Destiny, players assume the role models of Jedi Padawans as they wield their lightsabers and use the Force to attack enemies mostly from the prequel trilogy using gestures. Podracing is a race-based game mode, Rancor Rampage is a destruction-based game mode, and Galactic Dance-off is a dance-based game mode similar to the Dance Central series.
Haunt is a horror-themed adventure game developed by NanaOn-Sha and Zoë Mode, and published by Microsoft Studios. It was made available for download worldwide on the Xbox 360 via Xbox Live Arcade on January 18, 2012. The game requires the Kinect peripheral.
Gears of War 4 is a 2016 third-person shooter video game developed by The Coalition and published by Microsoft Studios for Windows and Xbox One. It is the fourth main installment in the Gears of War series, and the first mainline entry not to be developed by Epic Games. The game was released worldwide on October 11, 2016. The sequel, Gears 5, was released on September 10, 2019.
Xbox is a video gaming brand that consists of five home video game consoles, as well as applications (games), streaming service Xbox Cloud Gaming, and online services such as the Xbox network and Xbox Game Pass. The brand is produced by Microsoft Gaming, a division of Microsoft.
The Xbox One is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. Announced in May 2013, it is the successor to Xbox 360 and the third console in the Xbox series. It was first released in North America, parts of Europe, Australia, and South America in November 2013 and in Japan, China, and other European countries in September 2014. It is the first Xbox game console to be released in China, specifically in the Shanghai Free-Trade Zone. Microsoft marketed the device as an "all-in-one entertainment system", hence the name "Xbox One". An eighth-generation console, it mainly competed against Sony's PlayStation 4 and Nintendo's Wii U and later the Switch.
The Xbox system software is the operating system developed exclusively for Microsoft's Xbox home video game consoles. Across the four generations of Xbox consoles, the software has been based on a version of Microsoft Windows and incorporating DirectX features optimized for the home consoles. The user interface, the Xbox Dashboard, provides access to games, media players, and applications, and integrates with the Xbox network for online functionality.
Rod Fergusson is a Canadian video game producer, best known for overseeing the development of the Gears of War franchise, originally at Epic Games and then as head of The Coalition. More recently, Fergusson moved over to Blizzard Entertainment to oversee development on the Diablo series.
Gears of War is a media franchise centered on a series of video games created by Epic Games, developed and managed by The Coalition, and owned and published by Xbox Game Studios. The franchise is best known for its third-person shooter video games, which has been supplemented by spin-off video game titles, a DC comic book series, seven novels, a board game adaptation and various merchandise.
Gears of War: Ultimate Edition is a 2015 third-person shooter video game. It is a remastered edition of the 2006 video game Gears of War, the first installment of the Gears of War series. Developed by The Coalition and published by Microsoft Studios, Ultimate Edition is based on the original game's source code; The Coalition's goal for the project was to accurately preserve the original gameplay experience while updating its visual presentation for a contemporary console generation. Ultimate Edition was released for the Xbox One in August 2015 and for Windows in March 2016.
SkyBox Labs Inc. is a Canadian video game developer located in Burnaby, British Columbia. Founded in 2011 by Derek MacNeil, Shyang Kong and Steven Silvester formerly from EA Vancouver, they are mostly known for their work with Xbox Game Studios on the Halo, Age of Empires and Minecraft franchises.
