A new wave of smaller, but less expensive Ultra HD televisions is hitting.

Sony’s new 65-inch ($6,999) and 55-inch ($4,999) XB4 4K Ultra HDTVs have been available for order on Sony’s online store for a few weeks. But the sets are just now hitting retailers for customer pickup.

Several Sony Electronics executives will be on hand at Video & Audio Center in Santa Monica Thursday, starting at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m., to sell its first sets in the U.S. and the first Xperia Tablet Z ($499 for a 16-gigabyte version or $599 for 32GB).

The Android-based tablet, which lands at other retailers at the end of the month, works with the new 4K TV sets (hitting most other retailers this weekend) to let you view tablet content on the bigger screen. You can also view a TV guide on the tablet and select what to view on the 4K TV (the tablet connects to the TV using one-touch near field communication technology).

“Consumers want their devices all to talk to each other and that’s what these devices do,” says Video & Audio Center’s Tom Campbell. “It’s

Ultra HD or 4K TVs provide four times the resolution of current HDTV. The first sets, which arrived last fall, were larger than 80 inches and priced at $15,000 or more. Sony’s 84-inch Ultra HD set retails for $24,999.99

In response to consumers buying larger sets, TV makers introduced 4K (since renamed “Ultra HD” by the Consumer Electronics Association) because the higher pixel count – more than 8 million vs. current HDTV’s 2 million — allows for better, bigger displays.

But consumer pocketbooks might find the price tag of smaller sets more palatable. Other makers including Vizio and Samsung have smaller sets planned, too.

Viewers can see a difference between 55-inch HDTVs and Ultra HDTVs, says Campbell. “We’re going to put them side by side,” he says. “With (a) 42-inch (sets) you wouldn’t see it, but with 55- and 65-inch sets, it’s dramatically different.”

What can you watch on an Ultra HDTV? Everything that you currently watch, but the new set will upconvert it to the higher resolution. And Sony plans a $700 4K Ultra HD media player that will download new higher resolution films. With the sets it sells, Video & Audio Center will include a USB drive with 4K footage.

For those not in the L.A. area, many Best Buy stores currently have the Sony sets on display.

Follow Mike Snider on Twitter @MikeSnider.

Copyright © 2013 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

REDMOND, Wash. — Now representing Microsoft in the next round of the video game battle: Xbox One.

The software giant introduced the successor to the Xbox 360 at an industry event at its headquarters here Tuesday. No price was announced, but the system will join the Sony PlayStation 4 in stores this holiday season.

A renewal of the Microsoft and Sony rivalry will energize the global $27 billion console game industry, says Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter. “Gamers have become fatigued, and they are ready for something different. Publishers have been reluctant to launch new (intellectual properties) late in the cycle, so there is a lot of fresh content ready for the next generation,” he says.

Nintendo’s Wii U system, launched last November “is a flop so far, and that opens up the playing field for Microsoft and Sony,” he says. Last week, Electronic Arts announced that it would no longer be supporting the Wii U. That decision, says Pachter, “is probably only the first of many similar decisions by third parties, but everyone will support the next Xbox and PlayStation.”

What is clear is that Microsoft hopes to expand its dominance in living rooms with the Xbox One. In addition to cutting-edge video games, the new system will have larger on-demand movie and TV libraries, bolstered Internet features, including Skype video calling and increased control of live TV programming. The new system also aims to capitalize on emerging consumer acceptance of smart TV and social television experiences with improved online networking while viewing.

Adding to the luster: A new TV series based on the Halo video games, with Steven Spielberg as executive producer, is in the works. A new deal with the National Football League will result in Surface tables on sidelines and real-time interactive video, stats and data delivered split-screen during broadcasts.

“There is more entertainment flooding into the living room than ever before, delivered through a sea of devices,” said Don Mattrick, president of Microsoft’s interactive entertainment business. “We designed Xbox One to be the first all-in-one device that puts you at the center of it all — making games, TV, and entertainment better and easier to enjoy.”

Included with each Xbox One will be an upgraded Kinect controller, with improved voice- and gesture-tracking with its built-in camera, microphone array and infrared detection. Pay-TV subscribers can connect their set-top box and let the TV programming flow through the system and be controlled by Kinect’s voice and gesture monitoring.

“We’re making the proposition to gamers and developers alike that you can assume every single box has voice and gesture capability, and (developers can) build applications on top of that,” says Yusuf Mehdi, corporate vice president of marketing, strategy and business for Microsoft’s interactive entertainment business. “We know that the way people enjoy entertainment in their living rooms is going to change a lot over the next 10 years. … We are architecting (the system) for the living room of the 21st century.”

Rumors had the system named “Infinity,” including a Blu-ray disc drive and requiring an always-on Internet connection. Xbox One does have the Blu-ray drive; the system is an “Internet native device,” says Microsoft chief product officer Marc Whitten. However, movies and TV can be viewed when not connected to the Net, as can some single-player games, “assuming they don’t take advantage of something on the Net.”

Microsoft sold 76 million Xbox 360 systems worldwide since bringing it to market in 2005; that’s slightly more than Sony’s PS3 (74 million) but short of Nintendo’s Wii (99 million). The designers behind the new system have tried to build this successor for an equally long life.

“We believe our next console will be a ‘must-have’ product for anyone who wants to take the entertainment experiences they love and make them decidedly better,” Mattrick said. “By expanding beyond just the best game experiences to the best TV and entertainment experiences, the value proposition and market for Xbox becomes significantly greater and as a result, will continue to drive growth in the overall industry.”

Xbox One will only support games made specifically for the system, as well as used Xbox One games. The new system will build on current smart-TV features found in sets from Samsung and other makers that customize TV menus for each member of the family. But the new Xbox One will “remember the things you did before, watching TV or playing games,” Mehdi says, “and start to tailor content around you. … When you walk up and say, ‘Xbox On,’ it will automatically recognize you and give you your own personalized, customized home screen.”

Xbox Live, which has 48 million members, will evolve beyond online gaming to foster social TV “moments” during special events such as the Academy Awards or major sports events, he says. “The whole idea is get to a premium single box that can do the best of games and entertainment in one system.”

Top video game publishers were on site pledging support for the new system. Activision showed the first footage from Call of Duty: Ghosts. EA Sports previewed its lineup of games, including new Madden, NBA Live, FIFA and UFC releases.

To prepare for the increased computing power in Microsoft’s new system — as well as Sony’s PS4 — EA Sports has created a new underlying Ignite game engine that will transform games, says the studio head Andrew Wilson. Athletes in the games — be they football or soccer players — will be drawn in real time with 10 times as many animations, and four times the artificial intelligence, or brains.

That means a running back will more naturally follow a blocker and hit a hole in the defensive line. Of course, the opposition is smarter and more agile, too. “You start to feel like these (virtual) athletes are making decisions based on human-like intelligence,” Wilson says, and moving with fluid, realistic motion. A running back in Madden might, “give a stutter step as he tries to anticipate where his offensive line is and where the defensive line is going,” he says.

More frequent, faster influx of sports data — daily performance and injury updates — will make athletes in the games more resemble their real-world models. “Every time you boot up the game, you’ll get players that truly interact how they were interacting at that moment in the real world, Wilson says.

As for Microsoft’s deal with the NFL, the new multi-year interactive TV rights deal means fans watching at home will be able to augment live game broadcasts with interactive fantasy football stats, displayed side by side on screen during live NFL broadcasts. Via Skype and Microsoft’s SmartGlass apps, viewers will get additional video, photos, stats and be able to interact with friends via social networks.

“We want to improve all facets of the NFL experience for fans and the game on the field,” said NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell in an e-mailed statement.

Actual NFL teams will begin using Microsoft tablets. Two years from now, Microsoft hopes to see coaches calling plays using Surface tablets.

Also planned: Increased integration of Skype to include fitness and education uses. “The integration of Skype into the Xbox experience will allow friends to see one another’s screens (and) to talk to one another while playing,” Pachter says. “I think it’s a killer app.”

Details were sketchy on when the Halo TV series would arrive. But Microsoft has high hopes for the project. “The longstanding success of the Halo novels is testament to the fans’ hunger for new stories, and last year’s live action (online video) series Halo: Forward Unto Dawn garnered enormous community support and won numerous awards,” Mattrick said. “We now have the technology, teams and our newly announced relationship with Steven Spielberg to bring Halo The TV Series to life in ways never before possible.”

Copyright © 2013 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

Original story: REDMOND, Wash. — Microsoft is hosting an event at its Redmond, Wash., headquarters today, and has announced the successor to the Xbox 360, the Xbox One. Follow along as we update the features as the Xbox team takes the new system through its paces on stage.

The event began with a retrospective video with many such as Bill Gates, Cliff Bleszinski, Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and J.J. Abrams touting pop culture importance of Xbox.

Then, interactive entertainment biz president Don Mattrick unveils the new Xbox One, a black and silver component with a Kinect seeing eye on the left. “It’s built to amaze on day one and continually approve in the generation ahead,” he says.

Then, exec Yusuf Mehdi shows off how Xbox One will instantly switch from TV, to music, games and movies nearly instantly by voice.

Update at 1:28 p.m. ET: Microsoft’s Mark Whitten talks about the tech behind the new system and that it will have a built-in Blu-ray Disc drive.

And the new Kinect tracks more precise body movements, even the slight rotation of a wrist, he says. And “it can read your heartbeat.”

New Xbox Live is based on same membership you have today but “more personal and more intelligent.”

Update at 1:40: EA Sports studio head Andrew Wilson takes the stage and says four new video games are in works for Xbox One (Madden, FIFA, NBA Live and UFC). “All four will be revolutionary and Fundamentally change the way you play,” he says.

A new EA Sports Ignite engine that drives all the games will blur line between the real world and virtual world of games, he says.

Then, a video shows how EA Sports’ games will look and play on Xbox One. You can see the reflection of the defensive line in the faceguard of Washington Redskins’ quarterback Robert Griffin. Wow.

1:43 p.m.: Head of Xbox entertainment Nancy Tellem takes stage to discuss the future of TV. “TV will be truly personalized to your tastes and needs,” she says, adding there will be more of a social focus.

1:45 p.m.: The head of 343 Industries, Bonnie Ross, appears to discuss Halo. This is interesting: Halo and TV.

1:47 p.m.: Ross introduces Steven Spielberg, who speaks via video message. He’s creating an original TV series based on Halo. “For me, the Halo universe is an amazing opportunity” to meet that intersection of TV and technology, says Spielberg.

1:50 p.m.: Tellem shifts to sports, starting with a montage of classic NFL highlights. Microsoft’s Don Mattrick talks with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell to discuss NFL-focused apps, such as integrating fantasy football with games. “Imagine your NFL team integrated with your large screen TV,” says Mattrick.

1:51 p.m.: Mattrick on stage to wrap up the Xbox One event. “The one system you’re going to love and use every single day,” he notes.

Mattrick says Xbox One will launch globally later this year.

1:53 p.m.: Mattrick concludes by introducing Call of Duty: Ghosts, noting Xbox will continue the exclusive downloadable content deal with Call of Duty and Activision. So, Xbox One owners will get Call of Duty downloads before owners of other devices.

1:55 p.m.: Activision’s Eric Hirshberg unveils a behind-the-scenes look inside studio Infinity Ward, developers of Ghosts. The game will boast a new technical engine and the writing talents of Stephen Gaghan, who wrote the film Traffic.

1:57 p.m.: The big question is how will developers change Call of Duty mutliplayer, the game’s most popular option. Dynamic maps and customized characters are among the new options.

2:00 p.m.: Another video breaks down how visuals will change from Xbox 360 to Xbox One. A drastic improvement when lined up side by side. For example, players can see better details from arm hair to dirt under fingernails.

2:02 p.m.: Here comes the official reveal of Ghosts. Definitely a Call of Duty title, only seemingly far more environmental detail compared to what’s on the 360.

2:03 p.m.: The video ends with a massive submarine breaking through the ice. Powerful finish. No details yet on the game’s release.

2:04 p.m.: Show’s over. Thanks for joining us!

Copyright © 2013 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

AUSTIN — Vampire Weekend’s new album Modern Vampires of the City pays tribute to its American roots.

Hipsters need not fear that the New York-based indie rockers have gone John Mellencamp on them. Instead, the blending of gospel, Motown and Sun Records adds heft to the band’s Upper West Side Soweto-style on the new album, out May 14.

Songwriters Rostam Batmanglij and Ezra Koenig didn’t set out to re-vamp the group’s sound. Vampire Weekend’s first two releases — the eponymous 2008 debut and 2010′s Contra — have gone gold, and Contra hit No. 1 on Billboard‘s album chart.

About two years ago, Koenig tapped into the gospel vibe he found on a piano-powered instrumental that Batmangjli had worked up. That song, Obvious Bicycle, the first finished for the album, set a tone. “It reinforced our feeling that exploring organic sounds, something simple like the sound of a piano, was interesting,” says Koenig, who chatted on a park bench along the Colorado River during the South By Southwest music festival in March. “And that maybe even getting a little deeper into American music than we ever had before felt right at the moment.”

Cosmopolitan twists still spike this and other new tunes. The haunting beat created by a sampling of Rastafarian Nyabinghi hand drums makes space in the Bicycle chorus for the alternating interplay of Koenig’s and Batmanglij’s voices. “That gave the song a certain type of life,” Koenig says.

From that point on, the group set out to engage with “the music that we personally found identifiably American, whatever that means to us,” says Batmanglij in his posh hotel room. “It doesn’t have to be what Mumford & Sons thinks is American music. They grew up in England and we grew up in America, so we have a different version of what American music is. We were less afraid to make music that connected with the tradition of rock in some ways.”

That’s evident on Unbelievers, which is driven by keyboards that evoke the Spencer Davis Group, Jerry Lee Lewis and A Flock of Seagulls. A rolling surf-rock drum wave builds the song to a horn-infused Irish jig before quiet Simon & Garfunkel-style closing harmonies.

Like a good film, the songs on Modern Vampires reward repeated and attentive consumption. Or listeners can simply succumb to the vibe, as many already have to the infectious Diane Young, an album track listenable online for weeks. In a voice recalling Elvis Presley and Carl Perkins, Koenig advises an “out of control” friend who has “the luck of a Kennedy.”

During parts of the song, Koenig’s voice is digitally morphed using formant-shifting, which sounds a bit like Auto-Tune, but doesn’t correct pitch. “It’s taking the sound of the voice and making it sound older and younger,” Koenig says.

That effect, employed elsewhere on the album, reinforced Modern Vampire‘s theme, Batmanglij says. “Some people have said that that song feels like it’s moving through the history of pop music,” he says. “That is kind of what I want all of our songs to be doing, both as an album together and within one song. I like that to be something that you get from our music.”

Adding to the historic feel, the band convened at L.A.’s legendary Vox Studios, where Chris Tomson and Chris Baio provided drums and bass, respectively, that were captured on analog tape. “This album has some of our most subwoofer exciting moments,” Koenig says.

Modern Vampires has already gotten rave reviews in Entertainment Weekly, Paste and Rolling Stone. “This album does everything that we already knew Vampire Weekend are great at: It’s witty, it’s catchy, it’s fun,” says Simon Vozick-Levinson, an associate editor at Rolling Stone. “But it also tackles some big philosophical questions they’ve only hinted at before. Songs like Ya Hey and Unbelievers really capture what it’s like to start getting older and search for meaning in an uncertain world. And Hannah Hunt is just gorgeous on a classic songwriting level.”

Now three albums into its career, the band has also stepped up its game onstage, Baio says. The band has already begun touring to promote the album, with a Saturday Night Live appearance tonight.

“We can play almost the entire record really, really well and in a way I think is maybe better than the previous two records because we’ve gotten much more into using samplers and triggering samples when we play live,” says Baio, who spoke via telephone from New York, where the band was prepping for its SNL performance.

Having not toured for nearly two years, Baio wondered what it would be like when the band convened for Australian dates early this year. “It’s funny, it was almost like no time had passed,” he says. “When we have to get up early in the morning, we just come up with really stupid inside jokes and get giddy in a way that reminds me very much of hanging out in college.”

The band’s crew has gotten larger, but its personal entourage hasn’t grown significantly, says Baio, who recently got married (“That hasn’t really changed anything … there’s no kids yet”).

On the road, he says, “we’ve never been a particularly hard-partying band, but we do take our stuff seriously. If anything, it’s a little bit more mellow. We like watching dumb comedies on the bus.”

“It is going to feel pretty nice to start playing shows where we have three albums’ worth of material to choose from, because when you only have one or two, the options are really limited,” says Koenig. “I feel like this is going to reinvigorate us on the road.”

Vampire Weekend’s itinerary includes festival appearances at Glastonbury in June and Lollapalooza in August.

Modern Vampires wraps up a trilogy for the bandmates, who are all in their late 20s. “In terms of our creative journey as a band, I feel like we have figured out that we can do whatever we want now. I mean this in purely creative terms. I’m not talking about, you can only sweat the commercial stuff so much. But I feel like we have figured out how to take the essence of our band to new places,” Koenig says. “We can kind of go off in any direction. We have proven to ourselves, at least, that the band is an open enough system that it has the capacity to adapt and change over the years.”

Copyright © 2013 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

For fans of the new Ouya game console, there’s good news and bad news.

The bad news first: you’ll have to wait a few more weeks for the $99.99 Android-based system to hit stores. Its June 4 retail release has been pushed back to June 25. Those how supported Ouya on Kickstarter have begun receiving systems already.

The good news: The move will allow the company to satisfy brisk retail demand and “have enough units on retail shelves when we launch,” says founder and CEO Julie Uhrman. “We want to be this in long haul and the funds that we just raised will allow us to continue to support game developers and also meet the demand from retailers and gamers alike.”

In other news from the company today, Ouya announced that it has received $15 million in new funding from venture capital firms including Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, the Mayfield Fund and Shasta Ventures, as well as graphics chip maker NVIDIA.

Ouya began as a Kickstarter project last June and set records raising $8.6 million. “Ouya, to some extent, has really broken the mold on how you bring a new product to market by starting with Kickstarter and then going to venture funding,” Uhrman says.

The company is the largest, and perhaps the only, project to start on a crowdfunding site and then receive major venture funding, she says. “We went to our audience first and asked them if they wanted this product,” Uhrman says. “We are going to continue to seek feedback and improved the product based on that.”

This additional funding “signifies that Ouya is going to be around for a long time,” she says.

Additionally, it will help procure more high-def games for the system that connects to TVs. About 120 games are currently available for the system, with more due before the retail launch. About 12,000 developers are working on Ouya games, Uhrman says.

Among them: game designer Kim Swift, who previously worked on Portal and Left 4 Dead at Valve, and her studio Airtight Games are working on an Ouya exclusive, Soul Fjord Studio.

Kleiner Perkins general partner Bing Gordon, who spent a decade as chief creative officer at Electronic Arts, will join Ouya’s board, also. Gordon, Uhrman says, “has a wealth of experience in the gaming industry and … just an amazing track record (with) respecting game creators and thinking outside the box. I have every expectation he will help us do the same thing in establishing us as the fourth console.”

In a statement included in the announcement, Gordon said that “Ouya’s open source platform creates a new world of opportunity for established and emerging independent game creators and gamers alike. There are some types of games that can only be experienced on a TV, and Ouya is squarely focused on bringing back the living room gaming experience. Ouya will allow game developers to unleash their most creative ideas and satisfy gamers craving a new kind of experience.”

Follow Mike Snider on Twitter: @MikeSnider

Copyright © 2013 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

NEW YORK – Theft on a grand scale is emphasized in Grand Theft Auto V, the upcoming installment in the billion-dollar video game franchise.

Since 2001′s Grand Theft Auto III — the game that elevated Rockstar Games to headliner status — the series has offered varying takes on the criminal element, from the ’80s Miami drug wars in 2004′s GTA: Vice City to the immigrant experience in 2008′s GTA IV.

But in GTA V (out Sept. 17 for PS3 and Xbox 360, ages 17-up), it’s all about the heists, while robbery and vehicle theft play a huge part, too.

In a recent advance demo of the game at Rockstar’s New York offices, the three main characters – Michael, Franklin and Trevor – pull off a job reminiscent of one in the movie Heat. In preparation for the heist, the characters have stolen a garbage truck used to block the road and a tow truck used to ram the prey, an armored car.

Players take part in the planning, just as George Clooney and Brad Pitt did in Ocean’s Eleven. “We give the players choice on how they will do the heists and (make) them put in the legwork and prep, as well as choosing a suitable crew,” says Imran Sarwar of GTA V development studio Rockstar North in Edinburgh, Scotland. “What we want to do now is give the players choices, to really feel like they’re planning the heist and preparing for it, and then to have that pay off in a big, satisfying mission shaped by their decisions.”

The scene, which occurs about a third of the way through and is just one of many heists players attempt to pull off, shows how players will get to control all three of the main characters, a first in a Rockstar game. And the characters won’t be sitting idle when they aren’t on screen, says Rockstar North president Leslie Benzies. “The player might switch to Michael as he’s shopping with his wife, or to Trevor as he’s being chased by the cops, or Franklin as he’s chilling in front of the TV. The player might then take Franklin out to rescue Michael from the shops and go for a drink, or help Trevor deal with the cops.”

Rockstar North is creating Rockstar’s largest game world ever. The virtual Los Angeles (in the game it’s “Los Santos”) and the surrounding Blaine County countryside is larger than the world of 2004′s GTA: San Andreas, 2008′s GTA IV and 2010′s Red Dead Redemption combined.

Over the years, Rockstar has sold more than 125 million GTA games. The most recent edition 2008′s GTA IV was the most popular, with sales approaching 25 million.

Of course, controversy has followed the franchise’s success. GTA III and GTA: Vice City (2002) drew criticism because players could do business with prostitutes and shoot them afterwards. Then, 2004′s San Andreas became notorious because hackers found the hidden code, later nicknamed “Hot Coffee,” that could be unlocked to see the game’s main character simulated — but fully-clothed — sex with his girlfriend.

Non-gamers may focus on that reputation, but gamers are more interested in the massive open worlds that the studio’s designers create. “The real appeal for players has always been the incredible freedom they are allowed and the incredible attention to detail,” says David Kushner, author of Jacked: The Outlaw Story of Grand Theft Auto. “Of course, you can wreak havoc if you want to, but you can also drive an ambulance.”

With the arrival of smartphones and tablets, the gaming landscape has changed immensely in the five years since the last full GTA game was released. But Kushner expects V to be another blockbuster. “Grand Theft Auto is kind of like Star Wars,” he says. “The fans are always going to show up, (and) I’m sure they will be breaking records again.”

Follow Mike Snider on Twitter: @MikeSnider

Copyright © 2013 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

The next Call of Duty game will focus on a new kind of modern warfare.

Call of Duty: Ghosts, due Nov. 5 for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and next generation game systems, is being developed by Infinity Ward, the Santa Monica, Calif., studio that created the original Call of Duty and Modern Warfare games.

“Everyone was expecting us to make Modern Warfare 4, which would have been the safe thing to do. But we’re not resting on our laurels,” said Infinity Ward executive producer Mark Rubin in a statement accompanying the game’s announcement. “We saw the console transition as the perfect opportunity to start a new chapter for Call of Duty. So we’re building a new sub-brand, a new engine, and a lot of new ideas and experiences for our players. We can’t wait to share them with our community.”

The game was announced by publisher Activision via social media with the arrival of a new Facebook page and a YouTube teaser trailer.

Showing a series of masked warriors — among them Spartans, Vikings and samurai — and finishing with a sextet of special ops fighters and a canine squad member, the video ends with the voiceover saying that “there are those who wear masks to protect themselves. And there are those who wear masks … to protect us all.”

Ghosts will be an all-new story in an original Call of Duty universe with new characters — so no Capt. Price from the three Modern Warfare games — powered by a next generation Call of Duty engine, said Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg. “Infinity Ward is going all-in to create the next generation of Call of Duty worthy of the world’s greatest fans,” he said in the announcement.

More about the game will be revealed at the May 21 Xbox: The Next Generation event on Xbox.com, Xbox Live and Spike TV.

Copyright © 2013 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.