Latest News - Page 1656

Today PlatinumGames announced a new proprietary games engine that will help developers streamline their workflows on next-gen games.

Now that PlatinumGames is a developer-publisher that owns its IPs, it's time the company create a new future-proofed games engine for the new console generation. The new games engine, dubbed the PlatinumEngine (name not finalized), is being made from scratch. The engine has been in development for the past two years and has many goals, including high res graphics, but it's mostly focused on simplifying development.

"Our goal with this new engine is to reduce, as much as we can, the amount of effort that goes into game development. The idea is to take all the unnecessary work away from our game development teams," said R&D group leader Tsuyoshi Odera.

343 Industries could reveal bits and pieces about Halo: Infinite's matchmaking system during two multiplayer-focused GDC 2020 talks.

343 Industries engagement lead Josh Menke will hold two developer talks during the new GDC 2020 Twitch livestreams. The first, which goes live on Tuesday, March 17 at 12PM PST, focuses on the lessons the studio learned when developing Halo 5's multiplayer. Expect a deep dive on Halo 5's matchmaking infrastructure, probably including TrueSkill 2 optimizations and discussions, and maybe even hints or brief tidbits on Halo: Infinite's systems.

"What should matchmaking worry most about? Latency? Skill? Streaks? Wait time? There are several commonly held best practices on how to matchmake for engagement across the industry, some of which contradict each other, but little to no data-driven evidence to support them. The following will show how to effectively test matchmaking approaches and show real examples and data from a popular first-person shooter. The results show that not all practices are actually important, while others are critical."

The games industry's biggest publishers are gearing up projects for next-gen PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X consoles, and Square Enix in particular teases big things for the systems.

Next-gen is an exciting time for the industry. Every developer is eager to show off new games to push the boundaries of what's possible. Devs want to take advantage of the PS5's and Xbox Series X's raw power, flexibility, and new feature sets like variable rate shading, ray tracing, and 120FPS gaming. Square Enix will be among these devs and the company has some big games set for 2020 and beyond.

In a Tweet revealing its plans to host a digital-based E3 stream, the Final Fantasy dev says their 2020 and next-gen lineups are "stronger than ever," asserting there's more next-gen games in the works that haven't been revealed yet.

The PS5 and Xbox Series X are likely to be delayed outside of 2020 due to coronavirus disruption, analyst firm DFC Intelligence predicts.

Analyst firm DFC Intelligence just sent out an email newsblast that updates their 2020 gaming hardware forecast to reflect the world's current economic disruption. The firm expects COVID-19 to force Microsoft and Sony to delay their next-gen systems in 2021 as critical supply and manufacturing chains are disrupted. These predictions reflect the delay prediction I made in February.

"The conclusion is that coronavirus is likely to have a major short-term impact on the delivery of both systems. There is a strong likelihood one or both systems will not make a 2020 launch. If the systems do launch supply will likely be constrained and initial pricing could be higher than expected," the firm wrote in the email.

One ex-Naughty Dog animator exposes just how intense the studio's crunch can get, including hospitalizations from overwork.

The games industry is kind of like a vampire that drains those who work in it. Many studios suffer from hostile work environments with fatigue runs rampant. To get a game shipped, developers have to work months of ruthless crunch time, leading to mental and physical breakdowns, emotional outbursts, and general malaise and depression. Naughty Dog is one such studio.

In an eye-opening expose, sources tell Kotaku's Jason Schreier about Naughty Dog's culture of crunch. It's a brutal one. The general consensus among workers is a simple question: "How long can we keep doing this?" Crunch takes a serious human cost, and making games often requires prolonged periods of overwork. Those amazing AAA interactive experiences that blow us away demand sacrifice from the all-mighty Crunch God. Developers have to give up their time, their soul, and their minds for the billion-dollar games industry.

If you thought 150-player matches in Call of Duty: Warzone was big, then you are about to get a big shock as that number will soon be increasing.

Call of Duty: Warzone currently has one of the bigger battle royales with 150 players dropping into one map to wreak havoc on each other. But what if 150 isn't enough? Do we want more players? The answer comes from the developers of the game, Infinity Ward, and they certainly do want more players as they are planning on upping the anti very soon. According to Infinity Ward co-head, Patrick Kelly, soon players will be experiencing matches with 200 players.

Kelly spoke to USA Today, and said the following "Actually, I can tell you we are already playing with 200 players. We are going to release that a little bit later." On top of adding more players to a single match, Kelly also reveals that the development team is also testing larger squads. Here's what he said, "I can tell you we have four-and five-player squads we are already playing with. But we want to launch with something we know works really well and we have tested to the nines and then play around with these different team sizes."

If you are into battle royales, then you have most likely heard about Call of Duty's newest installment into the genre -- Call of Duty: Warzone.

If you have already heard about it and are wanting to jump into the action, then I must tell you to be prepared for a large download. The standalone Warzone client weighs in at anywhere between 80gb - 100gb, depending on your platform. The download can be smaller than that if you already have Call of Duty Modern Warfare installed as Modern Warfare shares some of the same assets as Warzone. But why is the new mode so large in general?

According to Production Director, Paul Haile who works at Infinity Ward, the developers for Call of Duty Modern Warfare and Warzone, the reason behind the file size being so large is because its "just a tone of content". Haile went into more detail behind why the file is so large, and partially blamed the size on Infinity Ward's production pipeline. Here's the full quote, "And also in this case since Warzone shares progression with MW every weapon and character asset from MP needs to also work in Warzone. Our pipeline isn't perfect but even if it was it's still a mountain of data to ship."

This probably won't be surprising to anyone who has been keeping up with the news recently, but the coronavirus has caused The Walt Disney Company to announce the closure of Disneyland.

The announcement was made this past Thursday, and according to the statement, there have been no cases of COVID-19 at the park, but the company has decided to close it anyway in the people's best interest. The closure will be for Disneyland Park and Disney California Adventure and will begin on March 14th until the end of the month. It was also mentioned that Disneyland Resort Hotels would remain open until March 16th so guests can sort out the proper travel arrangements.

According to New York Times reporter Brooks Barnes, this is the fourth time in the history of the park that it has closed down. The previous times the park has experienced a close was on September 11th, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, and the Northridge earthquake in 1994. At the moment, there is no word on whether or not The Walt Disney Company will be deciding to close Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida. If the news is announced, I will be sure to update you in a follow-up post.

Researchers and scientists have just make a major breakthrough when it comes to amputee patients and prosthetics.

Scientists at the University of Michigan have just had a breakthrough in mind-controlled prosthetics being used by patients. The new discovery has closed the gap between amputee patients thinking about moving a prosthetic limb, and the limb actually moving. According to Paul Cedena, a professor of biomedical engineering and Robert Oneal Collegiate Professor of Plastic Surgery at the U-M Medical School, "This is the biggest advance in motor control for people with amputations in many years."

Cedena continued, "We have developed a technique to provide individual finger control of prosthetic devices using the nerves in a patient's residual limb. With it, we have been able to provide some of the most advanced prosthetic control that the world has seen."

Call of Duty: Warzone has been out for 48 hours now, and players have already figured out a way to win games from within the deadly gas.

Originally found on the Call of Duty Warzone Reddit, players in the above video seem to be on the last round of their game. What is interesting is that instead of going for the other team in a guns-blazing fight, they decided to stick to staying in the gas, and while you might think that's a stupid idea, you will be surprised at what happens. Communicating with each other, one teammate gets dropped by the gasses damage, then his teammate picks up him.

Both teammates go back and forth rinse and repeating this same cycle of reviving each other in an infinite loop. The enemy team eventually cannot find the team that is reviving each other and seems to have been caught in the gas but didn't get the revive. This causes the team that was simply just back-and-forth reviving each other to win the entire game. It should be noted, MightyKonsti the user who posted the video to the subreddit, did mention that both he and his teammate had the TuneUp perk equipped, which speeds up revives by 25%.

An announcement from the European Space Agency (ESA) has revealed that the ExoMars mission will be delayed for a further two years as further testing is needed to be done.

According to the announcement, several parts of the spacecraft still need to crucial testing completed before it's given the green light to be sent off to the red planet. Since more testing is needed, the ExoMars mission will miss its launch window for 2020 and will need to wait until sometime between August and October in 2022 for another opportunity. Why do they have to wait so long? Well, that is because of the orbital cycles of Earth and Mars.

Space agencies can only launch spacecrafts to the red planet when the orbital cycles of Mars and Earth are at their closest points to each other. Launching it at any other time would require unnecessary amounts of fuel. The rover is being held back from launch this year to have its parachutes tested, which are used to ensure that the craft lands safely on the red planet. ESA director Jan Woerner said just yesterday, "Launching this year would mean sacrificing essential remaining tests. This is a very tough decision, but I am sure the right one."

Pornhub has stepped up for Italians that are currently in lockdown throughout the country over COVID-19 coronavirus, offering Italians free premium subscriptions for free.

Yeah, Pornhub knows that millions of Italians are sitting on their hands right now -- and wants those hands elsewhere. They won't even need credit cards to get the Pornhub premium goodness, while the company will also be donating some of its proceeds from Modelhub, which is Pornhub's subsidiary that helps creators sell content, to local hospitals.

Pornhub explains: "Pornhub has decided to donate its Modelhub March revenue to help Italy overcome the emergency. To keep you company at home during these weeks, you'll be able to access Pornhub Premium for free for the whole month, with no need for a credit card".

The Division 2 will be Google Stadia's first crossplay-enabled game, with Ubisoft pushing right into Stadia with upcoming releases that include The Crew 2 and Monopoly.

Ubisoft will be including crossplay support with PC gamers on The Division 2, as well as Stream Connect support -- something that lets you check your teammates' gameplay, all on a single screen. Ubisoft is following up with The Division 2 dropping on Google Stadia on March 17 with The Crew 2 and Monopoly.

Here's what to expect on Google Stadia from Ubisoft in the next few weeks:

Bitcoin has dropped by a very dramatic 40% overnight, from its 2020 highs of over $10,000 down to 2020 lows of under $4600 -- but so too is the stock market, and here: Apple.

Apple (APPL) stock has dropped by 11% down to $243 at the time of writing, down from its 2020 high of $327. This means that Apple has dropped from its huge share price highs of $327 on February 12 and a huge $1.432 trillion ($1,432,000,000,000) market cap, to now just $243 and a market cap of $1.065 trillion ($1,065,000,000,000).

Apple isn't the only one experiencing huge drops in their share prices, with most tech giants including Microsoft and Amazon experiencing huge drops and hundreds of billions of dollars wiped away. No tech company is safe, with travel companies and the travel industry in general bottoming out in slow motion right now with most people not wanting to travel over COVID-19 / coronavirus fears.

The world is going through a very scary time right now, with global markets in a complete panic -- with freefall events happening, which have pushed Bitcoin and virtually all other cryptocurrencies off a cliff.

Just overnight, Bitcoin (BTC) has seen a 40% change in its price -- where it enjoyed 2020 highs of just over $10,000 -- but overnight it has dropped to its knees and down to $4564 (at the time of writing) -- representing a 40.72% drop in its price. Even when Bitcoin was down 26% it represented the largest sell-off of BTC in over 7 years.

Altcoins aren't safe from this, with cryptocurrencies like Ethereum (ETH) dropping by an even larger 44%, down to just $105 from its 2020 highs of $284.

The new Super Mario Lego lineup is basically like a real-life Mario Maker...just a lot more tame.

Today Lego and Nintendo announced a new round of interactive Super Mario Lego sets to be released later this year. Unlike traditional Legos, these let kids (and a bunch of adults) make their own little Mario stages straight out of a Mario game.

The Mario figure has built-in speakers and even tiny LCD screens that allow him to change expressions, and Mario that interacts with special sensors on the bricks. You can literally create your own real-life version of a Mario stage complete with goombas, obstacles, helpful buddies like Yoshi, and time limits. Mario can even collect coins.

System Shock remake developers Nightdive Studios are working on a new remaster: An enhanced edition of 1997's beloved Blade Runner PC game.

Westwood's old-school Blade Runner game was MIA for a long time before popping up on GOG.com, but now it's about to be reborn altogether. The new Blade Runner: Enhanced Edition is coming to PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch, and Steam sometime in 2020, complete with remastered graphics, visuals, and effects for modern hardware.

Using their proprietary KEX engine used in the System Shock remaster, Nightdive will revitalize the classic with upgraded textures, environments, and character models. The team even plans to use AI machine learning to upscale in-game cutscenes. All the new bells and whistles won't betray the original gameplay, though, and Nightdive will ensure the remaster remains authentic.

The composer behind The Last of Us video game has been announced to also be working on the coming TV show.

The legendary composer behind both The Last of Us and The Last of Us Part II, Gustavo Santaolalla, has been confirmed to be doing the soundtrack behind the coming The Last of Us HBO series. The series' co-creator, Neil Druckmann recently took to his personal Twitter account to confirm the news, saying "Well this is exciting! Beyond lending his incredible musical talent to The Last of Us Part II, Gustavo Santaolalla is joining us to bring over The Last of Us to HBO!".

At the moment, there's no word on when HBO will be releasing The Last of Us series, but judging on how long it takes for a normal high-budget TV series to produce, I'd say we can expect a release either closer to the end of this year/start of next year. As for the video game franchise, the second installment in The Last of Us series, The Last of Us Part II will be launching on PlayStation 4 on May 29th.

Twitter has announced that all employees must work from home until further notice in an effort to help slow down the spread of the now rampant coronavirus.

Twitter had already strongly encouraged workers that can work from home to stay home and do so, but now the company has announced that it's a requirement. This goes for all Twitter workers across the world and has thrown a wrench in some people's lives who are unable to do so. Luckily, Twitter has said that they will continue to pay employees, contractors, and hourly workers their expected wages if they are unable to work at home.

Twitter will also be supplying workers with reimbursements for workers who purchase home office setups to continue working. On top of that, Twitter will also be reimbursing employees who have to pay for additional daycare services to continue working. Twitter is now on the growing list of other tech companies that have ordered their employees to work from home. Amazon, Google, Apple and now Twitter are on that list.

Astronomers have used the Very Large Telescope (VLT) to discover a new exoplanet that is so hot that it rains iron instead of water.

The planet is called WASP76b, and is an ultra-hot giant exoplanet that's dayside temperature of more than 2,600 degrees Celsius (4712F). This temperature is high enough that it can melt metals such as iron, but what happens is that strong winds push the iron vapor to the other side of the planet where it is cooled and turns into tiny droplets of iron. According to David Ehrenreich, "One could say that this planet gets rainy in the evening, except it rains iron."

So why does this happen on this planet in particular? Phys.org explains that 'iron rain' occurs on this planet because it only ever shows one side of the planet to its neighboring star. This means that the other side of the planet always remains in darkness, much like how our Moon is tidally locked to Earth. Since the dayside side of the planet is so hot, molecules separate themselves into atoms, and metals such as iron begin to evaporate into the atmosphere. Winds then carry the iron vapor to the other side of the planet where it's then cooled, and iron droplets are formed.