Latest News - Page 2140

As I predicted weeks before official confirmation, Star Wars: Battlefront II will be monetized with its own premium currency that's sold for real money that allows players to buy in-game loot boxes.

Battlefront II's monetization scheme has been heavily criticized for being "pay to win", but the writing was on the wall way before DICE and EA officially confirmed mTX was in. We've covered how EA makes billions from its online-based service games, especially from games like FIFA, and typically any time they discuss non season-pass approaches to service games that means heavy lootbox-style pay-to-win monetization. Futhermore, all post-release DLC and content for Battlefront II will be free, which is another huge clue of loot box mTX monetization. Now thanks to a recent Amazon leak, we know how much gamers will pay for Battlefront II's premium currency.

The game's premium currency is called "crystals", and if you played the beta you likely saw the icon in the upper right between credits and crafting parts. Crystals will be sold at tiers ranging from $5 for 500 crystals to $100 for 12,000 crystals. The exact crystals-to-lootbox exchange rate remains unknown at this time, and we probably won't see that until the game drops in November. Expect to spend crystals on everything from lootboxes to crafting parts.

To celebrate Nissan's 20th year involvement with Gran Turismo and the upcoming release of Gran Turismo Sport, Nissan modified a Nissan GT-R to be compatible with a DualShock 4 controller. That's right, this GT-R was fitting out with robots and a micro-computer and was driven around Silverstone's National Circuit using an unmodified DualShock 4 controller and nobody behind the wheel!

Professional racer Jann Mardenborough was chosen to drive the Nissan GT-R, or GT-R/C as it's officially known as, around the race track. The Nissan GT-R/C is fitted with four robots that controls the race car- Steering wheel, transmission, brakes and throttle. A micro-computer receives the inputs from the DualShock 4 controller and then processors the data for the robots to control the car.

So this begs the question, who is faster? The man, or the controller? Jann was hoisted above the race track in a helicopter to provide the perfect viewing point. His fasted lap around the circuit was 1 minute and 17.47 seconds, reaching a top speed of 131 MPH and average speed of 76 MPH.

No one can deny Japan's passion and loyalty for the Nintendo brand, it should then come as no surprise that Nintendo's latest retro mini-console, the SNES Mini (Mini Super Famicom in Japan) is selling extremely well.

Nintendo have sold 368,913 units in Japan since the SNES Mini has been on sale, that's only 4 days! In comparison, the NES mini sold 262,000 units over the same period. Both are impressive statistics considering the SNES mini is essentially a 16 year old miniature console. No figures have been released regarding the rest of the world's sales figures, but due to a stock shortage you can bet the SNES Mini is selling well across the globe.

The NES Mini sold 2.3 million units during its 6 months before it was discontinued, you can expect the SNES Mini to surpass that figure and open the door for the N64 Mini to be produced.

Silicon Power have unleashed their first external SSD, the Bolt B80. Featuring an innovative and futuristic design, the B80 is not only stylish and compact, but also able to deliver impressive performance for an external hard drive.

Equipped with a Type-C port and USB 3.1 Gen 2 interface, the B80 is able to provide read/write speeds of up to 500/450MB/s that allow for exceptional performance. Equally impressive is the B80's design, the UFO-shaped aluminum housing measures only 11.9mm thick and 75mm in diameter, while only weighing 53 grams. Silicon Power have included IP68 rating, meaning this portable SSD is not only waterproof, but also dustproof.

The Bolt B80 will be available in 120GB, 240GB and 480GB, SP are yet to release a price or release date.

WWII shooters have dominated the FPS market recently with big AAA titles such as Battlefield 1 and the upcoming Call of Duty: WWII. One of my personal favorites and very underrated game Day of Infamy is receiving a free weekend from October 12 through to October 16.

To help entice new and experienced campaigners back to DOI, developer New World Interactive is offering double XP points to help unlock the 30 playable units featured in DOI. If that's not enough, a recent update included a new map called 'Brittany'. Set in the French region of Brittany, players will fight through the map's rail-yards, bombed-out buildings and fortified bunkers.

This weekend is the perfect chance to try out Day of Infamy, a hardcore WWII FPS that emphasizes teamwork oriented objectives and lethal gunplay featuring nine specialized classes.

CS:GO gamers are set for a treat, Valve have announced that the iconic map 'Dust2' has received a make-over to 'honor its pure form while buffing away the jagged edges'. The new release of the popular map features quadruple the texture resolution and significant lighting improvements.

Valves intentions for the new version of Dust2 were to:

It's not only the map that has received love, player models have also been overhauled with the infamous Leet Krew receving a visual update to match their updated environment. Other noticeable changes include Bombsite A with the broken down cars reduced to one car, this should allow for increased player movement in that area and removal of drain pipes so players can peek around corners more effectively. Bombsite B also receives some changes, as the busted cars have been moved further away to again allow more player movement around that area.

Fortnite: Battle Royale has reached 10 million gamers since its release two weeks ago, after releasing in Early Access earlier this year - without its Battle Royale game mode.

Epic Games has said that an estimated 3.7 million gamers were playing Fortnite: Battle Royale on Sunday, with a concurrent base of 525,000 gamers. This doesn't compare to the near 2 million concurrent players in PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, but it's damn good for Epic.

Epic Games released a bunch of details on Fortnite: Battle Royale in an infographic, with 44 million hours played, 58 million traps found, and a huge 292 million people jumping from the Battle Bus. There are lots of other random details included, with 6.9 million umbrellas earned and 797 million walls/stairs/floors/ceilings built. Impressive.

Oculus has been announcing a few things today during its Oculus Connect event, with the VR company showing off the latest version of its Santa Cruz prototype VR headset.

Santa Cruz should end up as a higher-end version of its new entry-level Oculus Go headset, which is due in early 2018. Oculus' upcoming Santa Cruz prototype headset has a stand out feature of six degrees of freedom (6DoF) using inside-out tracking, with Oculus saying their Santa Cruz headset is the first standalone headset with inside-out tracking.

Oculus' upcoming Santa Cruz doesn't need any wires or external sensors, which would make the VR experience much easier to setup. The new prototype VR headset was also shown off with updated controllers, with Oculus calling them the Santa Cruz controllers - it must have taken months to decide on that name. The new controllers look and work like the current Oculus Touch controllers, except they're smaller. The controllers feature the same four sensors that the headset uses for motion and positioning tracking.

It seems we can't go a week without a major breach in security at a huge company, with T-Mobile's website now reportedly hacked and the data from 76 million of its users could be exposed.

Security researcher Karak Saini discovered the bug in the wsg.t-mobile.com API, where if someone searched for someone else's number, the API sending back the data would include that users' data. The data in question included users' email addresses, IMSI network code, billing account data, and more. All hackers had to do was know, or guess a user's phone number, and they could have virtually all of that person's information, and more.

Saini spoke with Motherboard, where he said: "T-Mobile has 76 million customers, and an attacker could have ran a script to scrape the data (email, name, billing account number, IMSI number, other numbers under the same account which are usually family members) from all 76 million of these customers to create a searchable database with accurate and up-to-date information of all users".

Now that the Star Wars Battlefront II beta is about to close, DICE have been able to see how their latest first-person shooter will run on gamers' consoles and PCs. As usual, Digital Foundry have put some massive effort into a performance analysis and graphics comparison between various versions of the game.

The PS4 version of Battlefront II will render at 972p but have dynamic resolution scaling up to 1080p, while the slower Xbox One can only render at 900p and upscale to 1000p. Sony's improved PS4 Pro is capable of rendering Star Wars Battlefront II at 1296p with dynamic res scaling bumping it up to 1400p, with Digital Foundry reporting that all versions of the game dip below 60FPS.

The site said: "Just like many of you, we've been playing the Star Wars Battlefront 2 beta over the last few days. We've already gone in-depth on PS4 Pro, but here's how PS4, Xbox One and Pro stack up in terms of resolution, performance and visual feature set".

It hasn't taken as long as I thought, but PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds has officially hit a huge peak of 2 million concurrent players on Steam.

At the time of writing, PUBG's new peak was 2,016,498 players while its closest competitor being Valve's Dota 2 with 622,839 peak players and Valve's other smash hit CS:GO with 568,207 peak players. Remember that this is Bluehole's first massive success with 15 million copies sold and $450 million in sales.

PUBG hasn't even hit consoles yet either, with an Xbox One version on the way and a possible release on the PS4 coming as well.

Developers will have a hard time recreating Fable's magical charm without key Lionhead devs at the helm.

Even as Lionhead is now defunct, leading to the long awaited Fable Legends project being cancelled, Microsoft still owns the rights to Fable so the company could (and probably will) continue the IP in some form. But if Microsoft chose to do this they'd probably have a tough time bringing the series' distinct flair, style, and grace back to the gaming world without the help of ex-Lionhead veterans.

In a recent interview with The Daily Star, ex-Lionhead gameplay programmer Adam Langridge said a new Fable without Lionhead would be quite different. "We feel such a personal connection to that series. There are such a large number of key people - creative director Dene Carter, for example - whose vision crafted that franchise, and without those key people, you're going to have a very hard time recreating the same kind of Fable," Langridge said. "Their personalities permeated the games, you know? You could feel them in there like names through a stick of rock."

The Oculus Rift VR headset now costs $399 permanently, the company announced today at the Oculus Connect 2017 event.

Months ago we Oculus dropped the price of its Rift headset bundle, which includes the HMD headset and the Oculus Touch motion controls, for $399. Now with a new $199 wireless headset on the way, the company has dropped the price of its first-generation mainstream Rift headset down to $399 for good. While the bundle includes motion controllers and the headset, you still need to have a decent VR Ready desktop or laptop computer in order to play virtual reality games.

This price slash is spurred on by low Rift sales. Right now the PlayStation VR headset leads the pack in gaming HMD sales, and the $99 Samsung Gear VR, which slots in a mobile phone to simulate an accessible VR experience, is leading in total headset sales due to its lower price and mainstream appeal.

Oculus has announced the wireless Oculus Go, a standalone VR HMD that sits above traditional mobile VR headsets like the Samsung Gear VR and below the higher-end PC-powered Oculus Rift headset.

The new wireless Oculus Go is a way to make virtual reality more accessible to mainstream users while blending features from the Rift, and targets the "sweet spot between high-end PC headsets and mobile solutions," Oculus said during today's Connect event. The Oculus Go is essentially a knee-jerk reaction to the Rift selling so poorly because of low accessibility--not everyone has a higher-end PC that can support VR.

This new headset costs $199, and is standalone so it doesn't require any tethering to a PC or mobile device to operate, unlike the Gear VR and Rift. Oculus touts a "super lightweight design" that sports a self-contained mini PC that can power VR gaming experiences found on the Samsung Gear VR--but Oculus didn't stipulate whether or not the Go can run traditional Rift VR games (probably not). The Oculus Go also features "next-gen" VR lenses and a WQHD 2560x1440 resolution LCD display. Built-in headsets beam spatial audio for a more immersive experience.

Oculus has teamed up with Respawn Entertainment to make a major new VR game that aims to recreate the visceral, brutal chaos of the life of a soldier at war.

Respawn Entertainment, the developers of Titanfall and veterans of the FPS genre, today announced a new VR game for release in 2019. The untitled project will show the bloody brutality of war through the perspective of a soldier's eyes, and sounds like a major Oculus exclusive that could end up being the Rift's killer app answer to Vive's Fallout 4 exclusive. It's also possible that this next-gen game will be powered by the new high-end Oculus Rift headset, codenamed Santa Cruz, which may release in 2019.

Respawn is just only now starting work on the new VR experience, and is currently developing an unannounced narrative-driven third-person Star Wars action game that may release in 2019 or 2020. Visceral Games' new Star Wars game will release next year in 2018. So it's possible Respawn's new Star Wars game and VR experience will both release in 2019.

Contrary to popular opinion, lootboxes apparently aren't exactly gambling, and the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) won't designate them as such.

Gamers' calls for the ESRB to formally designate in-game lootboxes, which allow users to spend real money to get random items, as gambling have failed. The ratings board told Kotaku that, because lootboxes are always guaranteed to give players something for their money, they can't be considered gambling--the latter has no actual guarantee of winning anything. Lootboxes are similar to the random element in, say, buying a Magic: The Gathering booster pack from a store, says the ESRB.

"ESRB does not consider loot boxes to be gambling. While there's an element of chance in these mechanics, the player is always guaranteed to receive in-game content (even if the player unfortunately receives something they don't want). We think of it as a similar principle to collectible card games: Sometimes you'll open a pack and get a brand new holographic card you've had your eye on for a while. But other times you'll end up with a pack of cards you already have."

Two of my favorite passions are about to combine... and no, I had nothing to do with it. WWE 2K18 is set to include the fast-food pioneer, KFC's Colonel Sanders as a playable character in 2K's upcoming installment in WWE 2K series. Oh it's true, it's damn true.

While Colonel Sanders is not technically an official wrestler in WWE 2K18, the Colonel is easily created in "Create a Wrestler". If you're an avid viewer of WWE's products then this crossover is of little surprise, you would have noticed some subliminal obvious advertisement of KFC within WWE television with wrestlers such as Shawn Michaels, Dolph Ziggler and now, Kurt Angle all portraying the legendary Colonel Sanders.

SilverStone have released an innovating product, an external enclosure that coverts a M.2 SATA SSD into a USB 3.1 flash-drive, the SST-MS09C. The perfect solution for those spare M.2 SSD drives or for users wanting to more external storage options.

The SilverStone SST-MS09C features an all-aluminum external enclosure that houses a PCB with a M.2 B-key slot. The SST-MS09C allows you to install a M.2-2260 or 2280 SATA SSD that utilizes a VIA Labs VL715 controller to connect your SATA 6Gb/s drive to USB 3.1 10Gb/s. The SST-MS09C is designed to work without any additional driver installation, this means plug in and enjoy the instant access.

Silverston have included a retractable USB connector and is on sale now for $36.99 from Newegg.com

AMD have today released released Radeon Software Crimson ReLive Edition 17.10.1 drivers. These beta drivers add optimizations for upcoming releases such Middle-Earth: Shadows of War and The Evil Within 2, including Radeon Chill support for both releases.

The drivers also include fixes for some common issues including where bezel compensation in mixed-mode cannot be applied using Eyefinity setups and rare flickering for DiRT 4 with certain multi-GPU configurations. AMD have updated the common issues to include two new concerns- freeze/crash when using Windows 7 and upgrading Radeon Software with multi-GPU Vega configurations and corrupted graphics on certain HDR displays in Forza Motorsport 7 when HDR is enabled in-game.

You can view the official release notes here and upgrade your drivers here

Hulu, a video on demand service, will exclusively stream four unique series that are based around esports that will air this Fall. The series will be produced by ESL with each series focusing on a unique theme delivered in a podcast-style discussion, rather than a traditional documentary. These series captures various aspects of esports, including athlete training and preparation, news and industry trends, and coverage of ESL's tournaments.

Player v Player (10x30 minute episodes) is a gamified debate show that features casters and esport influencers, as they debate the hottest tops in esports to accrue points.

Bootcamp (6x30 minute episodes) is a weekly series that follows CS:GO team- The Immortals. The series features in-depth footage of how the team rebuild their roster leading up to one of CS:GO's premier tournaments, IEM Oakland.