Xbox One games will be playable with the Oculus Rift...sort of

LOS ANGELES — Xbox One games can played with the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset, but it's not what you think it is.

At E3 2015, Oculus VR co-founder and vice president of product Nate Mitchell told Mashable the Xbox One will be able to stream games to the Oculus Rift, but what you'll see will be more like being in a theater with a really big projection screen.

SEE ALSO: The Xbox One's $150 Elite controller may be the best controller ever created

"You'll be able to [stream Xbox One games] to the Rift on a projection screen on the moon," Mitchell said. Although he didn't elaborate in detail, he did confirm the feature will be similar to the Oculus Cinema app for the Samsung Gear VR that simulates the feeling of watching movies on the moon and in the theater.

Just imagine what you see below, but with Xbox One games on the screen instead of movies:

It's not full-blown VR gaming like Sony's Project Morpheus for the PlayStation 4, but the idea of being able to play on a virtual screen that's massive already has me excited the idea of being able to play on a virtual screen that's massive already has me excited since I really dug watching movies in Oculus Cinema.

While Sony has embraced VR, Microsoft hasn't done the same for its Xbox One. Instead, the company is pushing its HoloLens "mixed-reality" headset with games like Minecraft.

That's not to say Microsoft has no interest in VR at all. That's really not the case. The company is working closely with Oculus VR and Valve VR to optimize Windows 10 for the consumer version of the Oculus Rift headset and HTC Vive. Additionally, the company is partnering with Oculus VR to include an Xbox One controller with every Rift.

There may be no real VR experience on the Xbox One (yet), but it wouldn't shock us if they're looking into it and just haven't announced anything so far.

At its E3 press conference, Microsoft announced that backwards compatibility is coming to the Xbox One. The feature is currently in beta mode with 21 titles available for gamers.

Microsoft will open the service in fall 2015 and hopes to have approximately 100 games playable for holiday 2015. The company has a poll in which gamers can vote for Xbox 360 titles that they want to come to the Xbox One.

Technology is not preventing all Xbox 360 titles from being transferred; legal rights are the problem. Video game publishers who previously allowed only the Xbox 360 to host their games will need to authorize the games for the Xbox One.

Gamers’ digital titles that are part of the backwards compatibility list will be available in the “Ready to Install” menu of Xbox One. Xbox 360 disc games that are on the list will need to be inserted into the Xbox One to download and kept in the system during play.

Cortana on Xbox One requires Kinect

Microsoft is planning to roll out an updated Xbox One dashboard later this year, and one of the key new features is Cortana integration. While Microsoft didn’t even mention Kinect during its E3 keynote, its console accessory is key to the Cortana experience on Xbox One.

In a new promotional video Microsoft says "Kinect required for Cortana speech recognition," but the company isn’t commenting on whether Cortana for Xbox One will be updated in the future to support headsets at a later stage. If you want Cortana on your Xbox One this fall then you’ll need a Kinect if you bought one of the console bundles without the accessory.

The new Xbox One dashboard also includes improvements to speed and performance for the built-in apps, and an entirely new interface. Microsoft is using a slide-in menu to bring features like the friends list, messages, notifications, and even Cortana into view quickly within games. It all looks similar to Windows 10, and that’s because the new update will actually bring Windows 10 to the Xbox One. There’s no exact date on when the Xbox One update will be made available, but it’s scheduled for the fall.

Women gamers make a statement at Electronic Entertainment Expo

Women showed their emerging presence in the video game world at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) this week.

The three-day event at the Convention Center in Los Angeles, California, is home to the world’s premier trade show for computer, video and mobile gaming. The conference is attended by software developers, programmers, distributors, entertainment industry representatives, venture capitalists, and video game consumers. Big name companies in attendance include Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo.

And this year, whether it be programmers or fans, women were in high attendance at the traditionally male-dominated expo. 

Video game console, Xbox (owned by Microsoft) had a plethora of their gaming presentations operated by female leaders and executives, according to NBC News Los Angeles.

RELATED: Feminist critic forced to cancel lecture after gun threat

“Sometimes, girls feel as if video games aren’t meant for them,” said Erica Hampson, a game developer for Virgini to NBC News. “Games used to be very sexualized but it’s been getting a lot better.”

With a strong increase in female attendance at the conference, more female characters were displayed in new game releases.

Emily Kaldwin, the assassin in Bethesda Softworks’ “Dishonoured 2,” Rae, a blind female character in Microsoft’s “Beyond Eyes,” and a female hunter in Sony’s “Horizon: Zero Dawn,” were some of the new heroines presented, according to the Associated Press. These characters all joined established female lead characters like Lara Croft of “Tomb Raider” series.

Meanwhile, Bethesda’s “Fallout 4,” EA’s “Mass Effect: Andromeda” and Ubisoft’s “Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate,” gave players the option to play as female characters. In addition, “FIFA ’16” is introducing women teams, as the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup is currently underway.

A small all-female gaming development group from South Carolina called 3 Queens also made an appearance at E3, to introduce their new game “Creeping with the Crudashians,” a mobile game parody of “Keeping Up With the Kardashians,” according to MTV News.

Before “Creeping with the Crudashians,” Cara Florence, Nicole Young, and Maureen Coffey-Edri created an mobile platform application called WeConsent2, which established affirmative consent for women who are at risk of being sexually assaulted.

The positive vibes at the expo served as a counterpoint to the prevailing image of the gaming industry as sexist, and even potentially dangerous, for women. Just last year, Anita Sarkeesian, a feminist critic who has written extensively about misogyny rampant in video games had to cancel a planned lecture at Utah State University after mass murder threats were made.

“I think that women and young girls have a different perception of gaming or even anything in technology or software-related. I think the perception is off, and if they could see more and be exposed to these types of events or opportunities and even see other women, like us, who are actually being successful at these types of opportunities, that would really inspire them. I wish that they could see that more,” Cara Florence, a co-founder of 3 Queens, told MTV News.

“Just do it, and be open to collaboration with other women too,” her fellow co-founder Nicole Young added. “Don’t be intimidated by the male dominance of this industry.” 

Can the Microsoft shake-up get Windows 10 moving in mobile?

Likely realizing the challenges ahead, the world's largest software maker announced on Wednesday an overhaul of its executive ranks. The most notable change was the departure of Stephen Elop, whose devices business -- which includes smartphones -- will be integrated into the operating systems group run by Terry Myerson.

"We are aligning our engineering efforts and capabilities to deliver on our strategy and, in particular, our three core ambitions," Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in an email to employees. "This change will enable us to deliver better products and services that our customers love at a more rapid pace."

The shake-up underscores what's at stake if Microsoft fails to bolster its mobile presence. With Microsoft pushing the idea of getting its Windows 10 operating system on as many devices as possible -- and having them work together -- it's critical that the company establish a bigger foothold in mobile. Without the smartphone, for many the single-most important device in their lives, the idea of a seamless Windows experience between devices breaks down.

"Microsoft's reorg shows that Microsoft is determined to be a part of the mobile mind shift, and that their mobile efforts will benefit from closer engineering alignment with Windows," said Forrester analyst Frank Gillett.

For most people, the idea of a Windows phone remains foreign. Smartphones running on Microsoft's Windows Phone operating system (which will be rebranded to Windows 10 Mobile) made up only 2.5 percent of the global market in the first quarter -- a fraction down from a year ago, according to Gartner. In comparison, Android controlled nearly 80 percent of the market, with iPhones making up 18 percent.

That task is now up to Myerson, who will lead the newly created Windows and Devices Group and will focus on "enabling more personal computing experiences powered by the Windows ecosystem."

Microsoft didn't make Myerson available for interviews.

For Elop, the departure marks the end of his four-year quest to get consumers to buy a Windows Phone, first as the CEO of Nokia, when, in 2011, he controversially shifted the Finnish phone giant's strategy toward Microsoft's mobile operating system. Elop, who originally left Microsoft to join Nokia, returned after the software giant acquired Nokia's devices business in 2014.

His unit, however, released only a handful of cheaper, lower profile devices under Microsoft, and Elop was absent from the company's Build developer conference keynote presentation in April.

Better  together

One of the challenges Elop faced -- and Microsoft still faces -- has been the lack of popular apps available when compared with Android and Apple's iOS operating system. Whether it's new games like Fallout Shelter or social networks like Snapchat, there remains a lot missing from the Windows App Store. Even if a popular app like Spotify shows up, it's often much later in the game.

Microsoft's pitch has been that the common foundation behind Windows 10, which will power PCs, tablets and smartphones, allows developers to write an app for one device and easily have it run on the others. The hope is that more apps pop up for all Windows users.

It's a story that's been told before by Microsoft, even back when Windows 8 was making its debut with the idea of the common tile-based user interface across PCs, phones and tablets. But back then, there were still fundamental differences between the guts of the mobile and PC platforms, something they've worked on for Windows 10.

Microsoft's move to create a new group under Myerson also underscores the importance of tying together parts of the business that have largely run separate from each other.

"When you talk about integration between software and devices, you need to integrate on the staff level," said Chris Hazelton, an analyst at 451 Research. "This will give you the full integration that Microsoft wants."

Progress with Surface

Microsoft has already made strides in one aspect of the mobile business: tablets. Its Surface Pro 3 has proved to be a hit with consumers, particularly business-minded ones.

In January, Microsoft declared that Surface represented a billion-dollar business, led by the high-end version of the tablet. Its rise comes as Apple's own iPad business has struggled with declining revenue.

"It's stealing share from competitors and slowed the growth of the iPad," Hazelton said.

The Surface Pro 3 is an important ingredient in Microsoft's software-anywhere recipe, but Myerson needs to parlay that success into broader interest in its Windows smartphones.

Surface Pro 3 was successful enough that Elop hinted that the next Microsoft flagship smartphone could find inspiration in the tablet.

"There are a few clues on a device like this," he said in an interview in March as he grabbed a Surface Pro 3.

So where is that flagship smartphone?

All the software improvements and integration in the world won't get consumers excited about Windows 10 Mobile without a sexy flagship product to rally behind. One of Myerson's biggest priorities in his new role is to ensure that Microsoft has an exciting product (or products) to push when the new Windows Phone platform, Windows Mobile 10, makes its debut.

"The lack of a halo device is a major gap in their portfolio," Hazelton said.

The older Windows Phone platform has clung to its market share by offering affordable smartphones in the emerging markets. In the US, it has similarly won a small following through attractively priced devices. On Wednesday, AT&T said it would sell its large Lumia 640 XL smartphone for $8.34 a month for 30 months, or roughly $250.

These devices, however, tend to get overshadowed by higher profile -- and more expensive -- products such as Apple's iPhone 6 or Samsung's Galaxy S6, which benefit from significant advertising and retail support.

Getting that high-profile device in the hands of consumers is vital to showing off the new Microsoft, one in which all of its software and experiences can flow from device to device.

Microsoft has already made progress with the Surface Pro 3. It's a virtual certainty that the PC and laptop makers will heavily push Windows 10-powered devices when they become available. The missing link is the smartphone.

"If I can move seamlessly between devices, I can see the value in having a Windows smartphone," Hazelton said.

Google zooms in on smart-home vision with Nest Cam

Nintendo is in a time of transition, Reggie Fils-Aime, Nintendo of America’s president, said Tuesday in the company’s Digital Event video released for the annual Electronic Entertainment Expo. Nintendo is making a push into mobile gaming and it’s working on its next console, the NX, but details of those two efforts won’t come this year, Fils-Aime said. They’ll come in 2016.

This year, Nintendo is using E3 to focus on the games it has for its two current platforms: the Wii U console and the 3DS hand-held. The big star of the video, which Nintendo released online instead of an arena-filled live event like Microsoft and Sony held yesterday, is “Star Fox Zero,” the new Wii U space shooter.

Star Fox Zero marks the return of the franchise, which hasn’t been seen on a home console since 2005’s “Star Fox: Assault,” on the Nintendo GameCube. The game creatively uses the Wii U’s tablet-like GamePad controller’s built in 6.2-inch touchscreen to display a cockpit view of the fighter-pilot action that the game centers around. A more traditional third-person view is shown on screen, and Nintendo expects gamers to switch their gaze between their TVs and the GamePad while playing the new title.

Shigeru Miyamoto, Nintendo’s famous game designer, concocted the dual-screen gameplay. The company is collaborating with Japan’s Platinum Games to finish Star Fox Zero, which should be in stores this holiday season. Playable demos are available at the E3 expo in Los Angeles this week.

The game is graphically impressive, filled with starscapes and planetary scenes of mountains, ancient ruins and oceans. But, while the game looks good for a Wii U title, it falls short of the visual breakthroughs happening on rival consoles such as Microsoft’s Xbox One and Sony’s PlayStation 4.

In a press event Sunday, Miyamoto said that the point of Star Fox Zero is the gameplay and the visual style of the game, which is somewhat cartoony. It was made that way with a purpose. “A lot of games nowadays look so realistic that they all look the same,” Miyamoto said.

The famed designer is right–many casual gamers might have trouble telling the difference between a “Call of Duty” and “Battlefield” game. But Nintendo’s strategy also reflects that the Wii U has far less graphical horsepower than rival home consoles.

The Wii U is also set to get another title centered on one of Nintendo’s longest-running and most successful characters: Mario. To mark the 30th anniversary of the Super Mario Bros. series, Miyamoto and other developers at Nintendo created a title called Mario Maker, set for release Sept. 11. In Mario Maker, players can design their own slide-scrolling levels in the visual style of both old-school 8-bit consoles and modern Wii U graphics.

The company showed an especially difficult level created at its Nintendo World Championships e-sports competition, which was hosted Sunday at Los Angeles’s Microsoft Theater  as a part of E3. Miyamoto said he had another reason for creating Mario Maker: “I still just love making games, it’s my favorite thing,” he said. He wanted “to let other people enjoy the experience of making games themselves.”

Some Best Buy stores in the U.S. will let gamers demo Mario Maker for themselves this week. Other Mario titles are on the way as well, including Mario Tennis Ultra Smash, which will hit the Wii U later this year. Nintendo is also launching a website called LetsSuperMario.com, where people can upload their own Mario-themed videos to celebrate the game’s 30 years.

Also Missing: Zelda on Wii U

Nintendo, meanwhile, has plans for its hit line of amiibo “toys-to-life” figurines. They will work with Mario Maker, so that characters like Zelda and the Wii Fit Trainer can appear in the game with the tap of a figurine on the GamePad controller. The new “Skylanders Superchargers” Wii U game also will work with special Bowser and Donkey Kong amiibo. And the coming “Yoshi’s Wooly World,” a beautiful platform adventure game in which the dinosaur runs through a world made of digital yarn and cloth, will have plush amiibos when it goes on sale this October.

The 3DS portable console got some love at E3 as well. Nintendo has a new “Hyrule Warriors Legends” adventure game coming early next year for the hand-held, and “Metroid Prime Federation Force” is a four-player shooting game that lets friends play online. There’s also a “Legend of Zelda” game coming this fall called “Zelda Triforce Heroes,” which lets players solve puzzles and traverse through dungeons with other players online.

One thing Nintendo disappointingly made no mention: the new Zelda title for the Wii U, which it showed a brief trailer of last year at the big show. The unnamed game is still under development, but it’s a no-show so far this year.

Nintendo at E3 2015: ‘Star Fox’ Returns but Silence on Wii U ‘Zelda’ and NX

Nintendo is in a time of transition, Reggie Fils-Aime, Nintendo of America’s president, said Tuesday in the company’s Digital Event video released for the annual Electronic Entertainment Expo. Nintendo is making a push into mobile gaming and it’s working on its next console, the NX, but details of those two efforts won’t come this year, Fils-Aime said. They’ll come in 2016.

This year, Nintendo is using E3 to focus on the games it has for its two current platforms: the Wii U console and the 3DS hand-held. The big star of the video, which Nintendo released online instead of an arena-filled live event like Microsoft and Sony held yesterday, is “Star Fox Zero,” the new Wii U space shooter.

Star Fox Zero marks the return of the franchise, which hasn’t been seen on a home console since 2005’s “Star Fox: Assault,” on the Nintendo GameCube. The game creatively uses the Wii U’s tablet-like GamePad controller’s built in 6.2-inch touchscreen to display a cockpit view of the fighter-pilot action that the game centers around. A more traditional third-person view is shown on screen, and Nintendo expects gamers to switch their gaze between their TVs and the GamePad while playing the new title.

Shigeru Miyamoto, Nintendo’s famous game designer, concocted the dual-screen gameplay. The company is collaborating with Japan’s Platinum Games to finish Star Fox Zero, which should be in stores this holiday season. Playable demos are available at the E3 expo in Los Angeles this week.

The game is graphically impressive, filled with starscapes and planetary scenes of mountains, ancient ruins and oceans. But, while the game looks good for a Wii U title, it falls short of the visual breakthroughs happening on rival consoles such as Microsoft’s Xbox One and Sony’s PlayStation 4.

In a press event Sunday, Miyamoto said that the point of Star Fox Zero is the gameplay and the visual style of the game, which is somewhat cartoony. It was made that way with a purpose. “A lot of games nowadays look so realistic that they all look the same,” Miyamoto said.

The famed designer is right–many casual gamers might have trouble telling the difference between a “Call of Duty” and “Battlefield” game. But Nintendo’s strategy also reflects that the Wii U has far less graphical horsepower than rival home consoles.

You’re the Game Designer in Mario Maker

The Wii U is also set to get another title centered on one of Nintendo’s longest-running and most successful characters: Mario. To mark the 30th anniversary of the Super Mario Bros. series, Miyamoto and other developers at Nintendo created a title called Mario Maker, set for release Sept. 11. In Mario Maker, players can design their own slide-scrolling levels in the visual style of both old-school 8-bit consoles and modern Wii U graphics.

The company showed an especially difficult level created at its Nintendo World Championships e-sports competition, which was hosted Sunday at Los Angeles’s Microsoft Theater  as a part of E3. Miyamoto said he had another reason for creating Mario Maker: “I still just love making games, it’s my favorite thing,” he said. He wanted “to let other people enjoy the experience of making games themselves.”

Some Best Buy stores in the U.S. will let gamers demo Mario Maker for themselves this week. Other Mario titles are on the way as well, including Mario Tennis Ultra Smash, which will hit the Wii U later this year. Nintendo is also launching a website called LetsSuperMario.com, where people can upload their own Mario-themed videos to celebrate the game’s 30 years.

Also Missing: Zelda on Wii U

Nintendo, meanwhile, has plans for its hit line of amiibo “toys-to-life” figurines. They will work with Mario Maker, so that characters like Zelda and the Wii Fit Trainer can appear in the game with the tap of a figurine on the GamePad controller. The new “Skylanders Superchargers” Wii U game also will work with special Bowser and Donkey Kong amiibo. And the coming “Yoshi’s Wooly World,” a beautiful platform adventure game in which the dinosaur runs through a world made of digital yarn and cloth, will have plush amiibos when it goes on sale this October.

The 3DS portable console got some love at E3 as well. Nintendo has a new “Hyrule Warriors Legends” adventure game coming early next year for the hand-held, and “Metroid Prime Federation Force” is a four-player shooting game that lets friends play online. There’s also a “Legend of Zelda” game coming this fall called “Zelda Triforce Heroes,” which lets players solve puzzles and traverse through dungeons with other players online.

One thing Nintendo disappointingly made no mention: the new Zelda title for the Wii U, which it showed a brief trailer of last year at the big show. The unnamed game is still under development, but it’s a no-show so far this year.

Nintendo CEO Apologizes After Lackluster E3 Showcase Leads to a Collective Fanboy Meltdown

PS4 gamers and Xbox One gamers were given a lot to be excited about at this year’s E3. Many Wii U gamers, on the other hand, feel like they’ve been given a big lump of coal.

RELATED: Every New Game Trailer Nintendo Showed Off At E3 2015

There’s no one exact reason why so many Nintendo fans walked away from E3 disappointed but this comment from a Redditor at /r/nintendo sums it up nicely: “Basically every big title for the Wii U that we saw, we’ve known about since 2013 (correct me if I’m wrong) with the exception of Star Fox. Heck, the 3DS selection came across as a bunch of B-Teams putting together spinoff games to pad out a drought/make easy cash. Almost shovelware with the exception of a few titles.”

Essentially, it looks like Nintendo isn’t putting much of an effort into releasing first-rate Wii U games even as the Xbox One and PS4 are gearing up for major new exclusives such as Halo 5 and The Last Guardian. In fact, MCVUK.com reports that the fan disappointment has been so acute that Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata actually issued an apology on Twitter and vowed to improve his company’s efforts in the future.

“We take opinions of this year’s Digital Event seriously and will work to better meet your expectations,” Iwata said.

So, just how intense was this fanboy meltdown? This comment posted on a massive NeoGAF thread might be the single most overwrought comment we’ve ever seen about video games, and that includes all the comments we saw from rage-consumed BioWare fans about the ending of Mass Effect 3:

OK, so, wow. There is no way anyone should ever get this upset by anything related to video games. This sort of meltdown would be over-the-top for a 10-year-old boy, let along a supposedly grown up 31-year-old.

And it doesn’t stop there. Many fans were particularly outraged by the announcement of Metroid Prime: Federation Force, which marks the first time Nintendo has worked with the Metroid IP for years. Unfortunately, this game isn’t a AAA Wii U game but a four-player co-op that will be released for the Nintendo 3DS.

Outraged fans who wanted a new Metroid for the Wii U have started a Change.org petition asking Nintendo to cancel the new game and have almost reached their goal of hitting 10,000 signatures.

“With the release of the Wii U and its greater technological capabilities thousands of fans were expecting a new and improved Metroid game,” the petition reads. “What we got however is a disgrace of a game with the name “Metroid” slapped on the title. It has no elements at all of what Metroid is about and its a disrespectful manner to old and new fans of the series of showing them that the Metroid franchise is not dead afterall.”

Again: No one should ever take video games this seriously. On the other hand, it seems that Nintendo has really, really angered a big portion of its fan base, which is exactly what it doesn’t need right now.

Nintendo Re-Confirms Zelda Wii U is Still Launching on Wii U

In a sea of underwhelming or expected announcements at Nintendo’s E3, the elephant in the room remains The Legend of Zelda on Wii U. Many have despaired to have not seen it in Nintendo’s Digital Event, despite promises earlier by Eiji Aonuma to the contrary. Despite fears that the game might be delayed to the upcoming NX, Shigeru Miyamoto told IGN that it is still on track for Wii U.

We’re here to talk about Star Fox but Zelda is still coming to Wii U, so don’t worry about that.

My thing with E3 is that we always focus on what’s coming out in the immediate future. We have some really great Zelda footage and, at some point we will be showing that off, but not today.

Reggie Fils-Aime reaffirmed this in a later interview, once again with IGN, stating that the company doesn’t believe in showing long-term propositions, as we’ve seen with Microsoft and Sony this week.

it goes back to the statement I made earlier about how we view E3. We just fundamentally don’t believe in showing content at E3 that is going to be a long term proposition. We like to show content that typically will launch in the upcoming Holiday and maybe extending into the first half of the following year. And at this point, the new Zelda for Wii U is not a 2015 project.

He added that even if they had shown Zelda, he believes it wouldn’t have made the wait any less frustrating for consumers anticipating the title.

In fact, in separate interviews [Shigeru] Miyamoto has reinforced that it’s a 2016 game, and I also believe he’s reinforced that it’s a Wii U game because I know that there is that thinking floating around. …Our mentality is more near-term when we think about E3. And, yes, we take it on a case-by-case basis. There’s also a recognition that we didn’t want to frustrate the consumer. We could have scored a lot of points and showed some little tidbit of Zelda Wii U, but in our collective opinion the belief was, in the end, that would cause more frustration than benefit.

Google’s Nest adds home-monitoring camera to suite of smart-home products

Nest Labs, the home automation company owned by Google, has announced the Nest Cam, the newest addition to theirrange of connected devices.

A connected home-monitoring camera with microphone, speaker, motion sensors and night-vision, the Nest Cam is a redesigned version of the highly regarded home camera manufactured by Dropcam, which Nest acquired in June 2014 for $555 million.

Shooting video in 1080p high-definition with a wide-angle glass lens and three megapixel sensor, the Nest Cam retails for €199, and can upload 10-30 days worth of continuous video to the newly announced Nest Aware cloud service. The additional Nest Aware cloud service costs either €10 or €30 a month for the different storage options.

Nest also announced a redesigned version of the Nest Protect, a fire, smoke and CO2 alarm, with new sensors to detect fast-spreading fires.

Software announcements included upgraded software for Nest’s original learning thermostat, first launched in 2011, as well as version 5.0 of its mobile app for controlling and interacting with Nest’s suite of products.

Co-founded by former Apple vice president Tony Fadell and former Apple engineer Matt Rogers in 2010, Nest Labs was acquired by Google in January 2014 for $3.2 billion.

“At Nest, we always wanted to build more than a thermostat,” said Nest chief executive Fadell. “Our vision was to create a thoughtful home, a home that takes care of itself and the people in it. Five years later, all the pieces are in place.”

Nest’s general manager for Europe, Lionel Paillet, said “We have three products today, they work well on their own, they work better together, and they work great with third-party products.”

The so-called Internet of Things category of internet-connected devices has long been seen as a major growth area by technology companies, with numerous manufacturers now developing home automation products.

In recent weeks, both Google and Apple have focused on the area with software announcements – Google unveiled Brillo operating system for connected devices, while Apple revealed details about its HomeKit framework for communicating with and controlling connected accessories.

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Microsoft Corporation Xbox Chief Phil Spencer Sheds Light On Topics Ignored At E3

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Microsoft Corporation’s (NASDAQ:MSFT) Xbox Chief, Phil Spencer, spoke about the HoloLens, Xbox sales in China, how the gaming industry has evolved with the introduction of the 1TB Xbox One, and other information not mentioned during the company’s E3 conference. Here’s what the expert had to say.

Microsoft recently acquired the popular and creative block building game Minecraft, and used it to demonstrate the capabilities of the HoloLens, at this year’s E3 conference. The HoloLens was mainly marketed as a product that is expected to increase productivity and communications. Mr. Spencer explained that Microsoft is still working hard to find the “sweet spot for different scenarios”.

Productivity is still the main priority for the HoloLens, Also, being at E3, it was only fitting to demonstrate it with a game and Minecraft was the most authentic option. The HoloLens will target various segments of the market, when launched. “It’s hard to name a consumer-electronics device today, where games aren’t an important content category — whether it’s your phone, a tablet, [or] obviously PCs game consoles.” Mr. Spencer explained. The Minecraft HoloLens demonstration can been watched here.

Microsoft has been giving significant importance to its mobile gaming industry, and has invested a lot, given that console and PC games are a major part of its portfolio. Mr. Spencer explains that the reason for doing do so is that people who play these small mobile games develop addiction to them, and in other high quality games with time. He uses the "Angry Birds" franchise as a prime example. Angry Birds started off initially on mobile devices, and became so popular that it then appeared on the consoles. According to Mr. Spencer, just getting more people playing video games is “good for business”.

The launch of the 1TB Xbox One is also a sign of how the market has shifted away from physical discs towards digital storage. People have long been expanding digital storage capacity by plugging in a USB hard drive, even before the launch of 1TB consoles, which signifies the evolution of gaming. “Every game that’s released at retail is digital,” Mr. Spencer said, further stating that, “Being able to sell games directly through the dashboard and seeing that people want to buy them is important, so one of the reasons, we make a bigger hard drive is we’re seeing the adoption of digital purchases and we want to make that possible.”

Mr. Spencer also gives his view on why Microsoft has chosen to partner HoloLens with other Virtual Reality headsets like Facebook Inc.‘s (NASDAQ:FB), Oculus VR, and Valve’s and HTC’s Vive. “They’re different technologies. When you put on the Oculus you don’t see anything in the real world. It’s completely black,” he said.

Oculus had a head start on Windows, partnering to make Windows 10 the best platform for virtual reality is a logical choice.

The Chinese market isn’t as fruitful as expected for Microsoft, but Mr. Spencer is optimistic about future prospects. He claims that the company is going through its maximum sales since its foundation. There is also a major Chinese gaming conference scheduled in July, with Xbox as a major part.

Deutsche Bank Reiterates Buy Rating On Microsoft Corporation (MSFT) Stock

According to a research note published on Wednesday, Deutsche Bank has reiterated a Buy rating on Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) stock with a price target of $55. The sell-side research firm hosted a lunch meeting on Tuesday with approximately 20 investors to exchange insights on Microsoft.

Deutsche Bank noted that the stock has been trending down modestly after hitting a peak of $49 in late April. The firm believes that the downward trend is due to unusual strong move in the stock, following the March quarter results as well as recent weak PC market news. The investors mostly focus on cloud transition, the state of the PC market, and how the stock would react if Microsoft was to acquire Salesforce.com, Inc. (NYSE:CRM).

The bull case focuses on the cloud transition story, with Office 365 and Azure now providing 7% of the revenue mix and growing more than 100%. The operating expense story and the stability of Microsoft’s Server product revenue were mentioned far less in the bull scenario. The bulls also argued that the pending Windows accounting change and associated GAAP earnings per share (EPS) cuts are in the stock already, as are weak PC market trends.

The bearish side of the investors focuses on near-term and secular PC growth concerns with consensus view mixed at best, without any Win 10 lift in the second-half of 2015. The bears also discuss skepticism about the cloud transition, mostly saying that is it a drag on margins or will it cannibalize on-premise workloads. The bears also question about Office 365 growth being offset by the decline in traditional license Office.

Deutsche Bank analyst, Karl Keirstead stated, “We conclude that the weak PC market is largely in the stock (the PC-centric Windows OEM business is now just 12% of MSFT’s rev mix), the cloud transition story is additive and will lift sentiment for some time.” He further added that Microsoft’s valuation multiple will appear more reasonable to the skeptics as EPS growth recovers in fiscal-year 2016 (FY16).

According to Bloomberg, 23 analysts rate Microsoft stock a Buy, 14 recommend it a Hold, and only seven tag a Sell. The consensus 12-month price target on the stock is $49.9 showing an upside potential of 9.6% on the current trading price.

The stock is currently trading down 0.87% at $45.43 as of 1:06 PM EDT. Since the start of the year, the stock experienced a decline of 3.42% with an average daily trading volume of 29.27 million shares.

Microsoft Corporation Digital Assistant Cortana Is Coming On Google Android This July

After announcing Cortana for the Xbox One this fall, Microsoft has revealed that Cortana will be making its way to Google’s Android next month

Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) is looking to bring its digital assistant Cortana to Apple Inc.'s (NASDAQ:AAPL) iOS and Google Inc.'s (NASDAQ:GOOG) Android operating systems. The release date has not been announced, but many suspect that the app will be ready for Android users around the time Windows 10 is released.

On Tuesday, the company announced in a blog post that the beta version of the Cortana app for Android will be available in July, “to test as a companion to Windows 10 PCs.” Being one of the prime features of Windows 10, the company does not want to shut out iOS and Android users from fully experiencing what Cortana can do with Windows 10. During the company’s E3 2015 conference, it announced that Cortana will be making its way to the Xbox One console as well, in the US and the UK “this fall”.

The way Cortana works is that if users set reminders on their iPhone or Android smartphone, it will sync on all platforms. For instance, if one is busy playing games on the PC or Xbox One, the notifications will still pop up. It is a way of keeping users connected 24/7, and to make sure that they are able to access information across all devices owned by them.

Even though the company has still not announced a release date, Android users now have a time frame to work with. Windows 10 launches worldwide on July 29, and the beta app will most probably be ready around that time, although Microsoft has not announced the app release date for Google Play Store and Apple App Store. It is important to remember that Cortana will be available on Windows 10 only in selected markets during the initial launch period.

Cortana was initially built as a rival to Google Now, providing users with important information quickly, but Microsoft has taken it to the next level. Even though it will be available on the iPhone and Android smartphones, the experience will still be a little limited as Cortana is heavily tied to the company’s apps and services. Nonetheless, important functions like reminders and the ability to sync data across platforms will be enough to satisfy Android and iOS users.

THE BUBBLE GIRL

Bubble Girl - Fun and Addictive Bubble Pop game! Get it free at Play Store.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.PixotriTechnologies.bubbleGirl&hl=en

·       .Bubble Girl is an entertaining game for kids and all age groups. 

• Pop the maximum amount of bubbles without losing lives.

• Soothing visuals and engaging sounds for immersive game play.

• Choose between two difficulty settings. Easy and Hard.

• Pop the power up bubbles to earn additional points.

• Beware of the naughty bubble. When you pop it you lose a life.

• No Ads while playing.

Microsoft Corporation Shakes Up Leadership Team

In an e-mail to employees, Nadella said the change will allow Microsoft to “deliver better products and services that our customers love at a more rapid pace.”

He also emphasized that Microsoft has three interconnected and bold ambitions: (1)reinvent productivity and business processes,(2) build the intelligent cloud platform, and (3) create more personal computing.

Changes to Microsoft senior leadership team

According to Nadella, he made a decision to organize Microsoft’s engineering efforts into three groups to work together to deliver on the company goal and strategy.

Terry Myerson will lead Windows and Devices Group (WDG), which combines the engineering efforts of the current Operating Systems Groupo and Microsoft Devices Group (MDG) led by Stephen Elop.

According to Nadella, the WDG brings together all the engineering capability required to drive breakthrough innovations that would bring the Windows ecosystem forward. It would also position Windows as a service across Microsoft devices including Lumia, Surface, HoloLens, Surface Hun, Band, and Xbox.

Scott Guthrie will continue to lead the Cloud and Enterprise (C+E). The team is focused on building the intelligent cloud platform of Microsoft. It would also concentrate in building high-value infrastructure and business services that are unique to customers such as data, analytics products, business processes, security, and management offerings.

The Dynamics products development teams will join the C&E team to accelerate further the company’s work on ERP and CRM.

Qi Lu will continue to lead the Application and Services Group (ASG), which is focused on reinventing productivity. The team is leading the development of productivity services for digital across all devices. Nadella said Microsoft’s engineering efforts to build a solution for education would be transferred to the ASG team.

Stephen Elop retires

Nadella also announced that Stephen Elop’s retirement. Elop led the Operating Systems Group and Microsoft Devices Group when he returned to Microsoft after its $7.2 billion acquisition of Nokia Corporation (NYSE:NOK) (BIT:NOK1V) (HEL:NOK1V)’s devices and services business.

“Stephen and I have agreed that now is the right time for him to retire from Microsoft. I regret the loss of leadership that this represents, and look forward to seeing where his next destination will be,” said Nadella.

Three other executives including Kiril Tatarinov, Eric Rudder, and Mark Penn also decided to leave Microsoft to explore other opportunities.

How the Cheaper Xbox Could Shake Up the Console Wars

HoloLens stole the show at E3. The challenge for Microsoft is to not let it become the next Kinect

Microsoft is continuing to use its HoloLens “mixed reality” headset to steal the show at E3. On Monday, it brought down the house with an onstage Minecraft demo in which one player wore the headset to play the game while another player used a tablet. On Tuesday, it unveiled another demo, this one connecting the HoloLens to Microsoft’s most important gaming franchise, Halo. 

At its booth on the show floor, Microsoft shuttled attendees in batches of 10 into a room that resembled the inside of a spaceship. Each one was outfitted with a HoloLens headset and walked into a briefing room, where a hologram of a battlefield emerged from a table and a computerized voice ran through tactical instructions. The groups then played, on Xboxes, the multiplayer mode of Halo 5: Guardians. The headsets weren't involved in the gameplay itself. 

The Halo demo showed off the advantages and shortcomings of HoloLens. On the plus side, you could walk around with them (something that would be impossible, or at least inadvisable, with an Oculus headset), while the HoloLens gave directions through the hallways of the "spaceship." However, the actual portion of the screen where a hologram can appear is relatively small. Don't expect to see any holograms in your peripheral vision. The width of the image is a major reason why the current generation of virtual-reality headsets is more convincing than its predecessors.

While the HoloLens is making Microsoft look pretty visionary right now, there are plenty of dots yet to be connected. The augmented-reality headset presents a two-pronged challenge. The first one is technical. It’s just not that easy to create a device that makes holograms appear to be actual objects in the physical world. Microsoft is having increasing success with that task, as the Minecraft and Halo demos show. 

But HoloLens will also one day have to be a product that Microsoft sells or otherwise distributes to the public. Pretty much all the questions about how HoloLens becomes a business remain unanswered. The actual Halo game sold to consumers will not have a mixed-reality component. 

A cautionary tale is Kinect, the motion-sensing camera that Microsoft released in 2010. The camera allowed people to play games and otherwise interact with their Xbox consoles using gestures and voice command. It was an immediate hit. But despite an early wave of neat applications, Kinect never really developed into a platform for developers in the way that other successful computing devices have. Microsoft’s vision for Kinect got muddled and the project ended up losing momentum. 

There are a lot of parallels to HoloLens. Even though the gaming applications are at the front of everyone’s mind this week, the device comes from a different division of the company. It is not clear whether Microsoft sees this as a tool for primarily gamers or professionals, or whether it could convincingly develop it to be both things at the same time. Microsoft hasn’t released a software developers kit that would allow people to make independent apps for the HoloLens. The company does say it is working with some partners, but isn’t giving any details.

For now, caution is the word with the device. “We’re trying to be a little bit conservative about HoloLens just because it is a very new platform and we’re still exploring it,” says Shannon Loftis, Microsoft’s general manager for global games publishing. “We obviously don’t want to over-promise. I don’t think we’ll under-deliver.” 

In the last two years, Kinect became a liability for Microsoft. It bundled the camera with the Xbox One, which made it more expensive than the PlayStation 4. After initial sales lagged, Microsoft finally began gaining ground by letting people buy the Xbox One without Kinect. While the company is stepping carefully to bring HoloLens into the Xbox fold, it has all but pushed Kinect out the door. Not once during the company’s 90-minute presentation on Monday was it mentioned. 

E3: Virtual Reality, Mobile Games Change How People Play

The annual Electronic Entertainment Expo is the top venue for companies to announce new video games, but the event's big news this year is how mobile devices and virtual reality will reshape those digital fantasies.

The conference, also known as E3, will showcase 270 exhibitors and more than 1,600 products between Tuesday and Thursday, but the convention's greatest draw, virtual reality, is a market that isn't mainstream yet. Many virtual reality devices will not be released for nearly a year, making it hard to determine whether they will be affordable and engaging enough to be a popular option, explains Brian Blau, who analyzes the video game industry for technology research firm Gartner.

"It's hard to tell right now since there is not a market yet – all we have to go on is hype," he says.

Traditional consoles may get an extra life when virtual reality devices hit the market and stave off competition from less-expensive cloud-based devices, including Valve's online Steam platform.

The Oculus Rift virtual reality headset, built by Facebook-owned Oculus, is scheduled to launch on Xbox One at the start of 2016 but a price for the visor has not been released yet. The HTC Vive headset which uses software designed by Valve will also go on sale by the end of the year. Game makers Ubisoft also revealed it is developing several VR games and plans to announce details later this year, and Sony is developing its own headset called Project Morpheus for PlayStation 4, scheduled for release in 2016.

The virtual reality devices are likely to have a life beyond gaming: sthe headsets could be used to watch online movies or take virtual tours of far off places. Microsoft is also planning to bring virtual reality to its new Windows 10 software through partnerships with both Oculus and Valve, though details have not yet been released. On Monday, Mojang showcased a version of its "Minecraft" simulator that is playable with Microsoft's HoloLens headset.

Games designed for Wi-Fi accessible phones and tablets are another trend changing the entertainment industry, aimed at casual players who only have a moment or two to play a quick puzzle or battle a friend in "Clash of Clans."

Mobile games are predicted to generate more revenue than traditional consoles in 2015, according to market research firm Newzoo, which projects the growing sector will make $30 billion worldwide this year, compared with $26 billion estimated for console games. Driving the trend: Anyone with a device running Apple's iOS or Google's Android have instant access to app stores, making it easier for mobile users to get games, Blau explains.

"There are more people playing mobile games than any on other platform," he says. "Developers of PC-only games are going to think more about mobile game development."

Bethesda Software, for instance, showcased "Fallout 4," the latest in its role-playing game series about a post-apocalyptic America, but also released a simpler city-building game for tablets and phones called "Fallout Shelter,"​​​​​​ that allows faster game-play. Electronic Arts announced "Star Wars Battlefront," due in November ahead of the new movie "Star Wars: The Force Awakens," but it also announced a trading card game for mobile devices called "Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes," that takes less time to play.

Nintendo bowed to player demand for more smartphone games in March by announcing a deal to become the second-largest shareholder in mobile video game company DeNA. The company is not revealing new details during the convention about plans for that deal or about its new console system, dubbed the NX. The past few years have seen Nintendo fail to jump out of third place in the gaming industry behind Sony and Microsoft, largely due to the lackluster performance of its Wii U console, so adopting new trends like mobile gaming could be their chance to advance to the next level. 

Behold Kingdom Hearts Unchained: a mobile port of a browser game

Square Enix released a gameplay video of Kingdom Hearts Unchained at E3 2015. The mobile game is a port of the Japanese-only browser game Kingdom Hearts X. The story is connected to the Keyblade War mentioned in the new footage of Kingdom Heats 3.

The gameplay features Final Fantasy characters alongside Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, Hercules, and many others. Kingdom Hearts Unchained will appear on iOS and Android, but no release date has been announced.

How Kamcord could run away with mobile gaming videos while YouTube fights with Twitch

Gaming is a visual medium, and that has helped video sites like YouTube and Twitch build huge audiences of people seeking game-related content. But as more of the world shifts its game time to mobile, a new company is trying to establish itself as the leader there.

Kamcord is a startup based in San Francisco with offices in New York and Japan, and it’s all about enabling gamers on mobile to make and share videos. This started exclusively on iPhone and iPad way back in 2012, but the company has since expanded to Android. 

It even recently introduced an app on the Google Play store that can record any game where, previously, developers had to integrate Kamcord’s SDK. This has the company, its technology, and its social network on the verge of growing into a huge destination for people who love mobile gaming, and GamesBeat wanted to look back at how it got to here.

“[Cofounders Matt Zitzmann, Kevin Wang, and I all knew each other from school,” Kamcord engineer Aditya Rathnam told GamesBeat. “We did computer science at MIT together.”

The group got together in early 2012, and — at that point — the idea wasn’t to make a solution for sharing videos from mobile games. It was simply just to come up with any startup at all.

They started brainstorming ideas because they knew they wanted to work together. During one of the sessions, Wang was playing Battlefield and watching a lot of videos of the game on YouTube.

“Why doesn’t this exist for mobile games,” asked Wang.

And when none of them had an answer for that, they all realized that they could probably build it.

“There has to be a place you can go watch mobile games all day,” said Rathnam. “Similar to how people were watching so much PC and console gaming on YouTube and Twitch. It felt like one of those ideas that would exist. We weren’t sure how to make it happen or whether there was a business model or whether it would even be feasible, but it felt like one of those things that, in four or five years, there would be a destination you could go to to watch mobile gameplay and interact with other gamers.”

The three students really started exploring the space. At that time of 2012, Twitch was really starting to come on strong. And YouTube was turning into a powerful means to get the attention of gamers. So Kamcord started talking to developers about whether they would want a new toolkit that could enable game recording.

Rathnam met with a developer friend of his who was super skeptical. The friend explained that game makers already have too many tools to select from, and no one wants more. But when Rathnam explained exactly what they were thinking, the friend gave an endorsement by saying: “I don’t hate this idea.”

“That’s literally what he said,” Rathnam relayed. “This is an idea I don’t hate, so maybe you should pursue this. That was encouraging.”

So, Wang, Zitzmann, and Rathnam decided to form Kamcord. They knew all along that they wanted to build the destination where people would find their favorite content. They wanted to build an alternative to YouTube for mobile gamers. But, first, Kamcord had to figure out the tech.

“We realized pretty quickly — within the first couple days — that we couldn’t go build the destination directly,” said Rathnam. “We needed to have actual content in order to build the destination. Kevin began exploring ways to record what was happening on the screen without slowing down the game. The general consensus was, if you started recording the screen you would slow down the game to 1/6th its original speed, making the game unplayable.”

Thank you, Apple

But Kamcord’s timing was fortuitous. Apple had just released iOS 5, which came bundled with a new low-level OpenGL-based path to enable recording.

“It wasn’t the entire solution. Just a part of it,” said Rathnam. “But it was a way to record the screen without slowing down the game. Kevin discovered this new piece of technology that had just come out and used that, adding a bunch of other optimizations, to eventually get a working prototype of recording the screen without slowing down the game.”

But built-in iOS technologies and Wang’s magical optimizations still didn’t make things easy.

“We’d underestimated how much work it would be to record the screen in a performance-minded way,” said Rathnam. “‘Oh, yeah, we’ll build this in a couple of months and get it out there, this is going to be awesome.’ It turns out it actually took — we did get something working in a couple of months, but we’re still working on it today.”

Once Kamcord had the technology, it still didn’t have anything it could really provide to gamers. So, it started pitching its SDK to developers. Wang had a demo where he had a spinning box playing on his phone, and he was able to record and share that. It was by no means a completely solution, but it was a start. And it was something that could get people who make mobile games — the kinds of people who stay up nights trying to figure out ways to make their products more discoverable — excited.

And Rathnam thinks it was great that the Kamcord team didn’t just sit around in a room trying to solve every riddle mobile-gaming videos could throw at them.

“It would have been overwhelming, the amount of work we’d have to do,” he said. “But we were able to get some quick wins every one or two months. That kept the ball rolling. Before we knew it we were neck-deep in it. ‘Okay, I guess now we have to build a way to record audio as well.'”

Naturally, that was way harder than Kamcord expected. It’s actually something it still struggles with.

“Three years in and we’re still focusing on low-level audio capture for Android devices,” said Rathnam.

The real challenge

And while the technology is hard, Kamcord’s true difficulty was establishing a rapport with developers.

It’s one thing to have a super skeptical friend say that he doesn’t hate it, but it’s another to get strangers to put your code in their game. But again, Kamcord was making the right deal at the right time.

“We were fortunate,” said Rathnam. “As part of that market research phase, we got connected with a couple of guys who were the owners and maintainers of the Cocos2D [game development] platform. We put a form on the Cocos2D blog that said ‘we’re building this recording and sharing solution, here’s a video of how it works in this particular game, who wants to sign up?'”

Kamcord didn’t expect that to have a big impact. They were anticipating to get around five signups before the blog fell off of the Cocos2D page. They ended up getting 75 on the first day.

“We immediately started talking to all these people and getting as many of them on board as possible, even just sharing a test video,” said Rathnam. “The feedback they gave was invaluable.”

Of the 75 who reached out to Kamcord, the startup was able to get recording working in about 10 of their games. With that under its belt, the company went back to Cocos2D and asked if they could do a new blog about the success they’ve had. Cocos put it up on their blog and didn’t post anything new for a month, so every developer that checked out that page saw Kamcord’s tech first.

“We used that to get another 600 sign-ups,” said Rathnam. “Those 600 very quickly translated into about 20 to 30 live games. That was the initial momentum for us.”

Those were all tiny games, but Kamcord now had around two dozen working examples of its technology. It had a record it could rely on in its discussions with bigger studios or in talks with investors.

Getting that money

Later in 2012, after the early success with Cocos2D developers, Kamcord got accepted into the seed-funding investment group Y-Combinator.

Kamcord had 20 games ready to show off for its demo day at Y-Combinator, and that helped the company stand out. It’s technology wasn’t just an idea.

Y-Combinator backed the company, and Kamcord has since raised a total of around $25 million from investors like Yahoo chief executive officer Marissa Mayer, Chinese gaming behemoth Tencent, and Japanese megadeveloper GungHo Online Entertainment.

A history of good timing

We’ve already talked about how Kamcord was able to capitalize on several key moments throughout its history because it was doing the right thing at the right time.

It was trying to figure mobile recording as Apple released its new technology to make that easier. It was able to work with Cocos2D at a time when developers were looking for exactly something like Kamcord. The company was then able to turn that into funding.

Moving forward into the future, the company is now well positioned to once again take advantage of good timing. That’s because the aforementioned updates to Google’s Android — along with another change coming to iOS — have blown the market wide open.

On Google’s platform, you no longer need to implement recording on a game-by-game basis. You can, but the Google Play store already has a few dozen apps capable of recording or even livestreaming your games or everything you do on your phone.

That would maybe make Kamcord concerned — if it hadn’t planned all along to end up as the destination for mobile gamers everywhere.

“On the competition side, we feel like we’re in a strong place in the U.S. and Europe,” said Rathnam. “Everyplay is the other big company in the space, but we’ve taken a big lead over them.”

Kamcord has shifted a lot of its focus to China and Japan where it has competition that caters specifically to those markets. Rathnam claims his company still has better tech, but he admits that isn’t enough.

“That’s a big part of why we’ve opened up a Japanese office,” said Rathnam. “We have five people at Kamcord Japan now. We’re making our experience as localized for the Japanese market as possible. Similarly, we opened a two-person office in Korea, and we’re opening an office in China as soon as possible.”

Kamcord wants to win this space and have a share of the market similar to what YouTube has for gaming on the Web.

And it could get that simply because it has always had that clear goal of building a social network for mobile game-video sharing in place.

“We think of ourselves as similar to Instagram,” said Rathnam. “Instagram lets you share videos and pictures to Facebook and Twitter and so on, but Instagram is the authoritative version of all the content they have. We’d like to build a similar experience and be that destination for mobile gamers using our app and our website.”

And that’s already starting to happen.

Kamcord users have already shared 45 million videos, and more than 1.3 million people make videos using Kamcord every month. That’s more than Twitch, which claims to have over 1 million content creators. And Kamcord says it has not even spent any money on acquiring gamers.

“Things are going well on that front,” said Rathnam. “But we obviously want to reach more and get more content.”

With its community side growing, the new competition might not matter. People want to share their videos where the audience is, and right now, on mobile, that’s the Kamcord app.

Getting ahead; staying ahead

“For this year, we have two big focuses for us as a company,” said Rathnam. “One is Asian expansion and the second is growing the community in our app.”

For Asia, Kamcord is going to keep doing its best to localize the experience for the three biggest markets of China, Japan, and Korea. It will also keep hiring in those regions to boost its relationships with developers.

“On the community side, in the U.S., we’re laser-focused on retention in the app right now,” said Rathnam. “Toward the end of this year the plan will be to get more users into the app and to build a vibrant community in the app around some of the features we have there, like chat and group chat and so on. People are taking to that.”

Finally, the company is looking into livestreaming, and it expects to have something that can enable gamers to share their videos as they play them in the near future.