Latest News - Page 2462

Microsoft Vice President, OEM Technical Sales Chris Cocks has resigned from his position to take the helm at gaming company Wizards of the Coast, where he now serves as President, replacing Greg Leeds. Cocks previously worked at Procter & Gamble, Xbox, MSN, and Leapfrog.

Wizards is best known for its Magic: The Gathering (MTG) and Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) properties. The former is gaining a particular lot of attention with this move, as Wizards has already confirmed a "new digital platform" for MTG (presumably replacing the current MTG Online client), and has posted job ads for Magic Digital asking for developers with Unity experience, so it looks like the new client will be built with the excellent Unity engine (which powers the ever-popular Hearthstone). In turn, this means it's likely to finally make it to mobile and Mac, as Unity is cross-platform.

"We're very excited to welcome Chris to the Wizards of the Coast family," said John Frascotti, President, Hasbro Brands. "As an avid fan and player [of MTG and D&D] with extensive digital experience, I'm confident Chris is the right person to help us build on the tremendous momentum around our brands and take the franchise to the next level by delivering exciting new experiences to our growing and passionate fan base around the world."

If you've read our Quantum Break review, you know that Remedy's latest time drama is quite a mess on PC. Now the developers have officially acknowledged the PC port's many problems, and promise that a fix is on its way.

Remedy has heard PC gamers loud and clear. The devs know Quantum Break is having a rough time on PC, with issues like frame-rate drops, screen tearing, and lack of GPU support just to name a few. Now the studio has delivered an official Quantum Break PC status update that gives a step-by-step explanation on which issues can be fixed, and by when.

The devs promise that a good portion of the game's technical issues will be fixed with an upcoming title update, and assure players that they're working alongside the graphics gurus at AMD and NVIDIA to help improve performance. Sadly, PC gamers will never be able to play Quantum Break in SLI or Crossfire configurations. "Quantum Break on Windows 10 unfortunately doesn't support DirectX12 multi-GPU rendering. Due to the engine architecture, the work needed to support multiple GPUs would have been significant and out of scope for Remedy for Quantum Break."

Microsoft's new filings with the Federal Communications Commission confirm that a new Xbox console is in the works, possibly an Xbox One slim variant.

A recent batch of FCC filings made by Microsoft indicates that Redmond will announce a new Xbox One variant at E3 2016. Microsoft has placed two FCC filings for the new Xbox One's wireless connectivity tech--one for a dual-band wireless accessory radio and another for an 802.11a/b/g/n/ac 2T2R dual-band wireless LAN radio. Microsoft has locked schematics, diagrams, and pictures of the new wireless chip under an NDA which expires on June 25, indicating that Microsoft could announce the new Xbox Slim at E3 2016.

As per the findings from a NeoGAF sleuth, we're able to confirm that the new wireless system is for the Xbox One. The filing for the wireless LAN radio lists "User Manual 1525", which is actually the code tied to the Xbox One's users manual from Microsoft's original Xbox One filing from 2013.

Meizu isn't about to let the rest of the world start announcing and releasing phones without having their own flagship refreshed as well. The Meizu PRO 6 is now official, and will be available starting this spring with some very high-end specs.

The new flagship phone from the Chinese company packs a smaller 5.2-inch super AMOLED screen, but with much more technology packed underneath. But not at the behest of battery-life. They've paired the MediaTek Helo X25 deca-core processor clocked at 2.5GHz with the Mali-T880, the flagship ARM-specified graphics chip. The two could potentially be a very potent combination, especially in terms of power savings with the way that the MediaTek can switch on tri-core clusters depending on the task at hand. It'll be able to draw from a 2560-mAh battery.

It had been rumored for some time that we'd see a massive 6GB of RAM, but instead, they've opted for a more reasonable, and realistic, 4GB and have paired that with either 32 or 64GB of internal storage. It's also can be expanded via the microSD slot as well, in case you want to keep your whole life on your phone. For the camera, they've gone with the tried and true Sony IMX 230 sensor at 13MP, which means that it's theoretically capable of 4K video recording and quite a few auto-focus points for taking photos faster. The front camera is a 5MP model of unknown type.

Castle defense just got a bit more serious, and realistic, with the latest alpha-test of Crowfall. ArtCraft has just announced that they're starting some external testing of their Castle Siege mode in their newest game, where you get the chance to topple castles.

Crowfall is an up and coming MMORPG that takes a bit of a different approach than some others. It's heavily focused on PvP and they even have a castle siege mode where you can literally destroy another persons castle, with real-time, server-side physics, to give one spectacular show of death, destruction and rubble. This is real castle defense, not that 2D isometric stuff that's popular, and addictive, with mobile games.

Right now the pre-alpha test 2.0 is a very closed test with only a few participants that get to square off as one of two factions that'll be in the final game, the Chaos or the Order. Right now they have five of Crowfall's eventual 13 archetypes will be available to players in this round of testing: Champion, Confessor, Knight, Legionnaire and the recently-added Ranger.

Microsoft is making some changes to the usual BSOD page, which itself has been updated with Windows 8 and now Windows 10. The information contained on it, and what can be gleaned through logs anyway, can already tell you what happened with a quick search on Google (or, dare we say, Bing?). But now they want to make it a little easier, with QR codes.

This new system isn't quite active yet, but when it does go live, presumably with the next big release planned this summer, it'll connect the QR code seen above with a page that that'll explain, hopefully in easy to read terms, what happened and why. This could make it much easier to pin down problems with your build because things do happen and go wrong unexpectedly. Right now the landing page is generic, however.

Microsoft is on to something here. The information that you usually get is not always easy to sift through or investigate for everyone. Information can always be found, it's definitely out there, but the ease of use demonstrated here could make for a much easier and more convenient troubleshooting time. Not to mention it'd be far easier for customer support.

A new Overwatch beta, a more inclusive one, will be kicking off this Friday, April 15th at 9AM PDT and running through Saturday, April 16th at 9PM PDT. A short test, to be sure, but one necessary to make sure the new pose works as stated and to further test the networking backend ready just in time for the full release. That's always the hardest part it seems.

Starting this Thursday Blizzard is going to scour through Battle.net to start flagging accounts and giving them the permissions necessary to actually play. Around Thursday, when the start, you might end up receiving an email notification saying that you've been selected.

If you do happen to get in, you'll have access to the entire roster of 21 heroes available to you with three maps; Hanamura, Route 66 and Nepal. Due to the limited focus of the test, there's no Weekly Brawl or Competitive Play at all. Instead, this is all about getting as many people onto their hardware and stressing it to the absolute maximum. To that end, Blizzard has stated that for this test, you might see some unexpected downtime or even performance issues. But to not worry, that's the scope of this particular test. In other words, we'll hear plenty of complaining about it across the Interwebs, even though it's meant to happen.

No Man's Sky is going to have a gargantuan galaxy to explore, one so big that they've had to build in-game probes to send out and explore it for them to ensure that the game is working as it should. It's so big, though, that Sean Murray, the founder of Hello Games, says that 99.9% of the planets won't even be discovered, let alone visited.

During a video interview with IGN, Murray was showing the progress of his game, he explained that there's likely to be no game guide sufficient enough to encompass absolutely everything. "When you land on a planet, like I said, no one has been there before. There is no YouTube video that you can look up, there is no FAQ, so you have to discover it for yourself. A big part of it is you can scan creatures, and when you scan them, you can name them" Sean Murray said. "It's actually a slightly sad but amazing thing that 99.9 percent of the planets in No Man's Sky I think will probably never be visited."

The galaxy is so massive due to the procedural generation technology that underlies it. They're able to generate an almost unlimited number of world's in the galaxy and even can spawn a whole ecosystem on each and every one of those world's. Infinite Kepler world's to explore, and almost literally no time to do it. There's infinite variety, though perhaps not infinite variety in stuff to do, which is always a concern in a space-sim that's so all-encompassing.

While Disney and Marvel Studios gear up for the release of 'Captain America: Civil War' later this month, the studios have already begun pimping the next Marvel franchise in the making - 'Doctor Strange', which has released its first footage today.

Starring Benedict Cumberbatch as Doctor Stephen Vincent Strange, aka Doctor Strange - a brilliant neurosurgeon who's crippled in a car accident, but goes on to become a powerful mystic. Also starring Chiwetel Ejiofor, Mads Mikkelsen and Rachel McAdams, 'Doctor Strange' is directed by Marvel Cinematic Universe newcomer Scott Derrickson.

'Doctor Strange' hits 2D, 3D and IMAX cinemas from November 4 worldwide.

Armored Warfare is still well into development and not nearly complete, but they're already adding new content like absolute mad. Update 0.15 has a lot of new things in store with new futuristic weapons of war, an overhaul of the Garage UI based on user feedback. There's also a lot more going on, too.

They keep on adding tiers to the garage, with Tier 10 being the latest. This tier is comprised completely of futuristic, theoretical and experimental vehicles that represent the future of what warfare might or will look like. They're planning on making models of the T-14 Armata, the PL-01, Leopard 2A7-140, SPHINX, XM1A3 and the Challenger 2B. Since these are going to be the most deadly vehicles in the game, they needed to be placed at the top, otherwise, it just wouldn't be fair. From the sounds of it, there is a chance that more super deadly vehicles will arrive alongside in the future, too.

They've also added in two new PvE missions that should be challenging. Operation Prometheus puts you racing towards a grounded cargo ship to secure the weapons that were being transported on it. Operation Meltdown has you defending a dam and an advanced nuclear reactor in a small snow-filled map. You'll be able to use the newly included Merkava 2B MBT, a premium Tier 7 tank, that they talked about some time ago.

Lindsey Lohan isn't the only one suing in response to Grand Theft Auto 5. The former president of Rockstar North and lead producer for the Grand Theft Auto series, Leslie Benzies, is taking legal action against parent-company, Take-Two Interactive, for the sum of $150 million in alleged unpaid royalties from GTA5.

Benzies alleges that he was actually forced out of the company after being compelled into a sabbatical that he went on starting in September of 2014. While on the compelled vacation, he apparently was privy to some information that pointed to just what he suspected, his colleagues attempting to force him out of the company. His lawyer, Christopher Bakes, gave a statement to Polygon, saying that "while on sabbatical, Mr. Benzies discovered numerous deceptions on the part of Take-Two, Rockstar, Rockstar North Ltd, Sam Houser and Dan Houser, who sought to force him out of the company and terminate his portion of royalty payments based upon arbitrary actions by the company's royalty Allocation Committee, a committee that may or may not have actually ever met."

That said, those royalties that he alleges haven't been paid, amount to a staggering $150 million. Those profits were part of a long-term agreement that Rockstar North entered into with Take-Two Interactive for an incentive program for upper-level executives back in 2008. All well and good, except now Take-Two and Rockstar are filing a counter-suit that cites that Benzies breached his contract, left without good reason and thus is not entitled to those royalties at all.

The folks at Creative Assembly have announced their plans for continued support after they finally release Total War: Warhammer. They're putting a lot of effort into the main game but they also want you to keep coming back for me. For free, as is tradition.

They plan on having three different types of DLC that'll eventually be available so that they cover every facet of the Warhammer universe, which is quite extensive. The World of Warhammer Fantasy Battles is vast, even covering it in three games would leave certain races and characters out of the mix. With DLC we're able to expand the experience post-release and, much as with our previous games, there will be a range of sizes and types of DLC pack on offer. We'll eventually see different DLC packs for new Lords, Races and Campaigns that'll bring new interesting avenues. The full explanation of what's in these new packs is below, after the break, and these aren't insignificant additions either. They want to provide an immense experience before the second game hits shelves, and it looks like they'll provide it with the

They're definitely excited about the DLC, well ahead of the games launch. This will follow a similar DLC pattern to their previous games, too, which was very heavy with new content. We're already getting around 100+ hours of stuff to do in the main game. "With both Rome II and Attila we were able to release playable factions, new formats and even a free campaign expansion as a thanks to players for supporting Total War," said Rob Bartholomew, Brand Director at Creative Assembly. "The Warhammer Fantasy Battles World is gigantic, and we're looking forward to exploring it over the forthcoming trilogy. But that incredible cast of characters and monsters also provides us the chance to make lots of interesting Free DLC to support our games over time."

The latest firmware update, version 3.50, was released at the beginning of the month with a few new changes that made the social aspect of gaming a bit easier to attend to. It also finally brought the ability to play PS4 games through your PC or Mac remotely, among other unannounced features that were secretly baked in. What wasn't expected were the numerous bugs and glitches that also came with it, more than usual, in fact.

Some of the more surprising issues that seem to have cropped up are a great number of reported issues regarding the PS4 seemingly not able to boot-up properly after being installed. This can be resolved by booting into safe mode and reinstalling the last update, but that's a lot of hassle for an issue that shouldn't exist. Some are reporting that they can't even enter safe mode, meaning their console is completely useless now. On top of that, the many that can boot in are seeing some strange artifacts in video playing apps like YouTube and Hulu.

Other issues seem to center around the controller, too. Rampart among those are connection problems, where the controller will become unresponsive, randomly, even while plugged in. Headphones with an inline microphone also seem to have stopped working for a number of people when plugged into their controller. So far temporary fixes have only worked sparingly for different reasons.

Apple recently pulled multiple Reddit apps from the App Store, apparently due to its wariness of not safe for work (NSFW) content. Narwhal, Eggplant, and Antenna -- among many other apps -- were pulled.

Many apps have since been restored after removing their NSFW options; the official Reddit app doesn't seem to have ever been removed, although it was required to axe its "Safe for Work Browsing" toggle. With this, it's clear Apple wants Reddit app makers to avoid custom options on that front and to leave it up to Reddit account settings instead, possibly because having such a toggle implies said NSFW content exists.

"This is a feature we previously refined with Apple's help. We were surprised by the notice," said a Reddit employee under the username ggAlex. "We just resubmitted our build. We were not informed that Apple would be removing other apps. We were very upset to see that they did. Honestly, if we were interested in getting rid of 3rd party apps (which we're not), this would be the stupidest possible way to accomplish it."

So Dark Souls III might have a game-breaking bug or two that completely destroys your will to continue, and that might cause literal headaches. But at least the launch trailer that Bandai NAMCO has put out just today is pretty stunning to watch. So soothe yourself on this trailer while they quickly fix the last of the bugs.

If you can hold on to your horses, I'd bet that a fix is on the way for those crashes that are happening early on. Sure, it's frustrating and since the game has actually been out in Japan for a few weeks longer, one would think this could be taken care of and shouldn't even be in the final game. But alas, we do not live in a perfect world. And at the very least we have a pretty trailer to look at. Rumor also has it that this game is actually quite enjoyable, easily as enjoyable as the first.

In case you're even more curious, the song used in the video is Hozier's In The Woods Somewhere.

After yesterday's leak, the flagship HTC 10 smartphone has been officially revealed.

Featuring a 5.2'' Quad HD 2560 x 1440 pixel display said to be 30% more colourful and 50% more responsive than its predecessor and the popular Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor (in the US; customers elsewhere will get a different, currently unknown Snapdragon processor), the new phone should be well-equipped to display and handle modern tasks with the best of them. Boost functionality helps further, allowing you to optimize security, power, and memory management among other things with ease.

The design, meanwhile, includes a full-glass front with a metal body and boasts impressive durability as achieved through 168 hours of extreme testing.

Torn Banner Studios is finally ready to take the lid off of their newest project, that they revealed only recently, at PAX East this year.

Their next Unreal Engine 4 multiplayer fantasy-based combat simulator, Mirage: Arcane Warfare, will be playable in limited numbers at PAX. If you can make it over to booth #10200 should you happen to be visiting the PAX East adventure this year, you can delight in some magical 6v6 combat. They'll let you choose from a variety of the classes that'll be featured in the final game so you can enjoy the different play styles. Want to be a backstabbing sneaky assassin? Sure. What about a someone a bit more up-close and personal? Of course that's in the game! You'll get to see first-hand what the objective-based gameplay is all about.

These are the guys that brought us Chivalry: Medieval Warfare, a particularly brutal FPS game set in the middle ages of history. They're bringing all their lessons learned and adding a particular fantastical flair to it for a different sort of game. It's based on Unreal Engine 4 and takes great advantage of all that has to offer, meaning some quite stunning backdrops while you're slaying your enemies. This also means that gore should be well rendered too. And who doesn't want that?

A glitch in Dark Souls 3's PC port is keeping players from progressing past the first bonfire, pretty much walling off the entire rest of the game.

Dark Souls day was actually a downer for many PC gamers. Tons of Steam users are reporting that Dark Souls 3 is constantly crashing at the bonfire in the tutorial section, and sometimes at the first Firelink Shrine. Countless users are reporting instances of the glitch--and other bugs--on Reddit and the Steam Forums.

Since the game crashes at the bonfire or the shrine, users can't progress past this point, meaning they can't even really play the game they paid for. Although the exact cause of the bug hasn't been determined, it seems to be somehow tied to your character's class and certain graphics settings. Users have found a workaround by setting your class to a Knight and adjusting the game's lighting level to "Low", but there's no guarantee it'll work.

Coming up later this week everyone on all platforms will get the chance to play through the multiplayer beta test of DOOM, so we've compiled everything you need to know about it right here.

DOOM is coming, and we'll be able to take part in some of the most violent gib-throwing

When is the beta test?

Shipments of early Oculus Rift pre-orders could be delayed by as much as two months, with some users having estimated shipping windows as far back as June.

The Oculus Rift's launch is an utter mess. Due to "unexpected component shortages", Oculus has delayed the shipments of its Rift virtual reality headsets across the board. Oculus promised that revised order updates would go out starting April 12--today.

Now that order shipment updates have started to roll out, we know just how bad the delays are. Users who grabbed a Rift just minutes after pre-orders opened up could be waiting until June (over two months after the original launch) to get their headsets. A user who ordered their Rift just 33 minutes after pre-orders went live has a shipping window of May 23 to June 2. That's a pretty big jump from March 28, isn't it?