Kinect Sports Rivals Preseason international wake race competition kicks off Saturday

A worldwide wake racing contest in Kinect Sports Rivals Preseason kicks off this weekend, Microsoft announced in a post on the Xbox Wire. Starting February 1, players can start competing to set the best race time across the in-game national and international leaderboards to win a gold-encrusted wake racer as the worldwide champion. Those who set the best time in their own country will receive a silver-encrusted wake racer. To participate, interested players need to grab the Kinect Sports Rivals companion app as well as the free Preasondemo. The Preseason International Championship concludes February 28. Kinect Sports Rivals launches in full sometime this spring. Source: Xbox Wire

Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate launching on 3DS early 2015

Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate is coming to the west early 2015, series producer Ryozo Tsujimoto announced in a video posted to Capcom-Unity. According to Tsujimoto, Monster Hunter 4 will be largely familiar, but will also introduce new elements to spice the series up. While we wanted to maintain the familiar features that fans have come to love, we really wanted to evolve the series in a new direction to appeal to existing players and attract new ones as well. This includes an emphasis on vertical and lateral movement through climbable areas in the environment as well as greater multiplayer options through online and local co-op.

Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare video shows off Xbox Oneexclusive modes

In a new video for Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare, producer Brian Lindley breaks down the Xbox Ones exclusive splitscreen co-op and Boss modes. The two-player split-screen co-op sees players defending their garden against endless waves of zombies, and every few waves theres a Zomboss Slots that randomly selects either three bosses or bonuses to spawn the next round. Boss Mode, meanwhile, is a top-down map mode accessed through either SmartGlass or controlled through Kinect that is, functionally, the same as Battlefield 4s Commander Mode. Players presiding over the game as the Boss can help their teammates by dropping spotting stations to reveal enemy locations, healing stations to provide assistance, resurrecting fallen players, and unleashing cherry bomb airstrikes. Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare launches on Xbox 360 and Xbox One February 25 in North America, February 20 in Europe. Listings on the Korean and Brazilian (the Brazilian listings for PS4 and PS3 have since been taken down) ratings boards indicate a A Windows PC, PS4, and PS3 release might be down the line.

World of Warcraft reaches 100 million players milestone

Blizzard has announced that 100 million World of Warcraft accounts have now been created since the game released back in 2004, and to celebrate the developer has released an infographic breaking down almost 10 years worth of stats. From the rise of Onyxia to the fight for Pandaria,more than 100 million of you across the globe have visited Azeroth since the first realms went live in 2004, the developer wrote. Weve gathered some epic statistics to show what youve been up to all this time. According to the developer, players in 244 countries and territories have created World of Warcraft accounts, with 52 percent of players choosing to represent the Alliance, 47 percent siding with the Horde, and a few Pandarens that werent able to decide. Over 500 million characters have been created, which is more than the population of the U.S., who are part of over 9 million guilds. The developer also shared some details regarding the pets and mounts that players use. The Heavenly Onyx Cloud Serpent is the rarest mount in the game, according to the developer. While the Tiny Red Carp is the rarest pet.

Titanfall beta confirmed for Xbox One and PC

Following a retail leak yesterday, Respawn Entertainment head Vince Zampella has confirmed that a Titanfall beta test is being prepared for Xbox One and PC. Speaking on Twitter Zampella said: Im sure no one has been able to guess from the leaks. PC and XboxOne Beta! Sadly no dates were offered, but he did promise more details in the coming days. Yesterday, posters from a French retailer advertising a Titanfall beta appeared online. The posters stated that the beta would begin on February 14 and run until February 19. Whether these dates are correct remains to be seen.

Three new Witcher 3 screenshots show off nextgen environments

CD Projekt RED has released three new screenshots for its upcoming next-gen open-world RPG, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, which offer a glimpse at a couple of the games environments. The screenshots were released to celebrate the launch of the games new official forums. One of the shots show Geralt traveling through a city devastated by war, a second shows him making his way through a rather dangerous and creepy looking swamp, while the third sees him stumble upon the scene of a bloody battle. CEO Marcin Iwinski recently revealed that porting The Witcher 3 to Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 would be an impossible task. Its impossible. It would have to be a different gamea smaller game, not an open-world game, or with terrible loading times, with sacrifices in graphics, he said.