Blog Posts by Chris Morris

Was it a hint at one of the new Xbox's features? Was it a friendly argument that spun out of control? Either way, a tweet from a Microsoft bigwig has turned into a public relations debacle.

Microsoft Studios' creative director Adam Orth took to Twitter Thursday to comment on the growing gamer disgust with "always on" DRM, essentially technology that requires a game or device to be connected to the internet to work properly. That tech made the launches of high-profile PC games Diablo III and SimCity disastrous, and rumors are swirling that it will be included in the next Xbox system as a means to thwart used game sales.

Orth, however, just doesn’t understand why people hate it.

Ray Liotta, sorta (Credit: Activision/Treyarch)Activision has never been afraid to go big with its expansions for Call of Duty, but the next bit of downloadable content makes an offer you might not want to refuse.

Uprising, the next downloadable expansion for the billion-selling shooter, will feature four new diverse multiplayer maps and a new Zombie mode that features four of Hollywood's go-to actors for mafia-themed films.

Gamers who felt a great disturbance in the Force Wednesday -- as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced -- weren't imagining things.

Disney has shuttered LucasArts, the long-running game development wing of Lucasfilm, effectively ending all internal development at the company and laying off the majority of the staff.

Marty Cooper (Credit: Eric Risberg / Associated Press)When historians start to suss out the people who had the biggest global impact of the 20^th century, Marty Cooper may well be among the frontrunners.

Forty years ago today, Cooper made the first call ever on a portable cellular phone, a device he and his team at Motorola had just completed. (That call, ironically, was to the head of the research department at rival Bell Labs, which was racing Motorola to invent the technology.)

With this snitch I thee wed. (Warner Bros.)Ron and Hermione? Pfft. Two Harry Potter fans are on their way to the altar, thanks to a proposal Dumbledore himself would have approved of.

When Rachel Allison met Jaquie Richards in college, the two quickly became friends – and then something more. Richards was the original Potterhead, but quickly brought Allison on board – so when Allison decided to propose, it wasn't that hard to determine a theme.

Images: LEGO; Arild Vagen/Wikimedia CommonsWhat do a science-fiction slug-overlord, Lego, and one of the world's greatest architectural masterpieces have in common?  Read on to find out.

The Danish toy maker is being called culturally insensitive after releasing a model of "Star Wars" gangster Jabba the Hutt's palace that closely resembles a Turkish mosque. Lego says it will stop selling the toy – but denies the decision was tied to the protests.

The Palace, say critics, looks very much like Istanbul's Hagia Sophia, a historic mosque that became a model for other centers of Islam. It's a museum these days, but the chairman of the Turkish Cultural Association of Australia still takes issue with the likeness being tied to George Lucas' famous villain.

It was 15 years ago that StarCraft hit store shelves. And while anyone who knew even a little bit about the game's developer, Blizzard Entertainment, knew they had something special on their hands, no one could predict the global phenomenon that this fast-paced science-fiction strategy epic would blossom into.

It's one of the premiere titles in eSports – and its player base in Korea is dedicated nearly to the point of fanaticism. (In 2005, for example, 120,000 people went to a stadium to watch a StarCraft championship. That was 40,000 people more than were present at that year's Super Bowl.)

The series's first game has sold more than 11 million copies and set new standards for real-time strategy. Its sequel – released over 12 years later - became the fastest selling real-time strategy game of all time, moving 3 million copies in the first month.

But numbers are boring. Let's celebrate this birthday instead by looking at some of the game's other feats.

Ouya console and controller (Credit: Ouya)Ouya, the crowd-funded console that hopes to offer an alternative to pricier systems, finally has a launch date.

While those who helped fund the system through its successful Kickstarter campaign will start getting their units in the coming days, the rest of the world will be able to purchase the Android-based console June 4 for $100 from Amazon, Best Buy, GameStop and Target.

That's substantially less than a Wii U or the expected price of a PlayStation 4 or next-generation Xbox, but there are certainly some trade-offs for the low price.