Latest News - Page 2478

Valve is doing some Spring Cleaning in Dota 2, getting rid of the fat and all those dust bunnies that have built up over the years. That is, they've detailed an absolutely massive update that's been designed to make some significant changes throughout just about every aspect of the game.

Chief among those are fixes that address some quality-of-life issues that have been annoyances, yet never quite taen care of in any previous update. There are now neutral spawn indicators, where you can view Neutral Creep spawn boxes when selecting Observer and Sentry Wards to place on the map. Camera control hotkeys are also making it into the update to help make switching between views a bit easier. The settings menu has been streamlined and the armory has been vastly expanded and updated as well. They've made nearly 200 different fixes in this particular update, all of which are shown below.

IO Interactive is asking a very important question to setup for the very first Hitman interactive contract. Who would you rather kill? Gary Busey, or Gary Cole? The video they've prepared features the two Gary's as they explain just how terrible they actually are with, hopefully, fictitious arguments.

This "Choose Your Hit" campaign is a way to kick-off their dynamic elusive targets contract mode, which puts high-profile individuals in the game for a limited amount of time. Those individuals will be decidedly harder to take care of due to not having nearly as much time to prepare, or redo a mission should something go awry.

You can head over to the Choose Your Hit website and see more media and reasons why you should choose each Gary, and there's going to be more videos coming in the future from the two, explaining why they're the best one for you to choose. The winner will be decided with the use of the hashtags #KillBusey or #KillCole.

With the Nintendo NX on the way, Japanese news outlet The Nikkei delivered not-so-surprising reports that Nintendo would cease production of the Wii U console in 2016. The Japanese games maker stepped in to squash these reports, putting Wii U fans at ease.

"That's [Nikkei's report], not an official announcement. We plan to continue production through the rest of the year," Nintendo said in a statement to ITMedia. The company's response was quite vague and only confirmed that the Nintendo NX isn't going to instantly kill off the Wii U when it launches in 2016.

Given that the NX will be compatible and interact with the Wii U and existing Nintendo hardware, it makes sense that the current console would still be in production. That being said, the NX will be a "very different experience" than the WIi U. Nintendo continues to push out new Wii U games regardless of extremely underwhelming sales, but big upcoming hits like Zelda Wii U have been delayed to coincide with the NX's 2016 launch.

The hype surrounding the launch of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice has been nothing but out of this world, with early reviews really slamming Warner Bros.' new superhero movie.

Some of the reviews, such as Uproxx's review, state: "I am gobsmacked by just how dull this movie turned out to be". Screencrush's Matt Singer said: "In Snyder's formulation, protecting the world from evil isn't a gift or a calling; it's a burden. And that feeling is reflected in the movie itself, a burdensome 150-minute slog about two men fighting over who is in the right when both are very clearly in the wrong".

Todd McCarthy from the Hollywood Reporter says that the writers gave up when it came to pushing Wonder Woman into the movie, explaining: "With just her sword and shield, she doesn't seem meant to mix it up with these big guys right off the bat".

It's an end of an era: Intel has confirmed through their latest K-10 filing that its infamous 'tick-tock' process development cycle is dead.

Instead of having two processor families on each die shrink, Intel will be using three or more over the coming years. The K-10 filing states that Intel will "expect to lengthen the amount of time we will utilize our 14 [nanometer] and our next-generation 10 [nanometer] process technologies".

Intel will continue to release new products each year, but there will be a tighter control over architecture optimization, as the development of process technology slows. So... what does this mean? It confirms that Intel's next-gen 'Kaby Lake' platform will be made on 14nm. It also confirms that the release window for 10nm from Intel will be 2017 at the earliest, and 7nm - well, that's 2019-2020 or beyond now.

NVIDIA has just doubled down on its latest Quadro M6000 professional video card, with the new Quadro M6000 featuring a huge 24GB of GDDR5. The previous model had 12GB of VRAM.

As for what makes the Quadro M6000 tick, it is technically similar to the GTX Titan X, with a full GM200 core and 6 Graphics Processing Clusters. Each of the Graphics Processing Clusters features four SMM (Streaming Multiprocessing Units) with 12 cores in each SMM block. There's 3072 CUDA cores, 192 TMUs, 96 ROPs and 3MB of L2 cache, with six 64-bit memory controllers - with a 384-bit memory bus, and the GPU clocked at 988MHz.

The only difference between the older Quadro M6000 and the new model is that the new model features 24GB of GDDR5, up from the 12GB on the previous M6000. The card has a 225W TDP, with a single 8-pin PCIe power connector, DVI, HDMI and 3 x DisplayPort outputs.

GDC 2016 - One of the stand out VR experiences from CES 2016 was Bullet Train from Epic Games, something we tested when we stopped by and had a chat with NVIDIA in Las Vegas in January.

At the Game Developers Conference, we wanted to try Bullet Train again - just because it's such an awesome VR experience. We noticed that this version was an updated build, with some slight changes - including the ability of being able to hold certain guns like the AK-47 with two hands, thanks to the Touch controllers on the Oculus Rift.

Check out the video above, where I explain it all. If you have the chance of playing Bullet Train, do not miss that opportunity - take it. It's the closest you'll get to being Neo from The Matrix.

Some more sad news rocks the industry as the developer of Driveclub, Evolution Studios has been shut down. Their parent company, Sony, has reviewed their assets and have determined that it's in their best interest to shut the studio down.

The company had an internal review process as part of a restructuring and has determined that there is some redundancy in the staff and function at Evolution Studios. "Regular reviews take place throughout SCE Worldwide Studios, ensuring that the resources that we have in such a competitive landscape can create and produce high quality, innovative and commercially viable projects," Sony said in a statement. "As part of this process we have reviewed and assessed all current projects and plans for the short and medium term and have decided to make some changes to the European studios structure. It has been decided that Evolution Studio will close."

Some of the positions will be shifted to other internal studios, but as is the case the majority of time, it also means that there will be some redundancies and thus layoffs as a result. "It is regrettable that this decision will lead to compulsory redundancies. We accept that this decision will mean that we risk losing high calibre staff but by focusing on other Studios that already have exciting new projects in development we believe we will be in a stronger position going forward and able to offer the best possible content of the highest quality for our consumers."

One of the three founders of Intel, Andrew Grove, has died at 79. Grove served as company president in 1979 and became CEO in 1987; he served as Chairman of the Board from 1997 through 2005. He is remembered as a hugely influential figure in the world of technology, an excellent manager, and and as an author, public advocate for Parkinson's disease research, and philanthropist (he once donated $26 million to establish the Grove School of Engineering in New York, to name one venture).

"We are deeply saddened by the passing of former Intel Chairman and CEO Andy Grove," said Intel CEO Brian Krzanich. "Andy made the impossible happen, time and again, and inspired generations of technologists, entrepreneurs, and business leaders."

Grove is credited with shifting Intel's focus from memory chips to microprocessors, and making Intel into the widely known brand it is today. With his leadership, Intel created the 386 and Pentium processors, which are partly responsible for the ubiquity of the PC today.

The renowned Cryengine gets an upgrade with a new, fifth version, as shown off in the new video below. Some of it is developer-centric and won't interest you, but quite a bit will be exciting to gamers of all kinds.

Graphically, Cryengine V offers support for DirectX 12 and VR and advanced particles and clouds with much less of a CPU hit, among other things. The latter you can see an example of in the video; the clouds are pretty realistic and impressive, particularly those seen in the distance.

In an intriguing twist, Crytek has adopted the pay what you want model with this version, with the option to contribute as much as 70% of your payment to its Indie Development Fund, much like the Humble Bundle setup. For more information, head to the website.

Rise of the Tomb Raider has a very good base-game story, with a lot to explore and do in former Soviet Russia. But the final piece of DLC is going to add something that was clearly missing; zombies. Or zombie-like creatures that seem to be very blood-thirsty, for both your death and likely your brains as well. Even though that isn't explicitly mentioned. Zombies, in some form or another, seem to be a tradition with DLC.

The Cold Darkness will be the absolute last content pack coming along and can be purchased separately from all the other DLC. In this, though, there are nightmarish predators that are actually soldiers from an abandoned Cold War base in Russia. The Trinity soldiers have been transformed and are extremely dangerous. This'll present new dangers and challenges to Lara as she has to shut down the decommissioned base.

It's $9.99 by itself for the new DLC, or you can opt to get the Season Pass for $29.99, which includes the entire set of DLC that's been released thus far. The newest, and last, will be available on March 29th 2016 via Steam, the Windows Store or through your Xbox One's store as well. Good luck with those zombies.

Sometimes it stings a little when you see a game that was supposed to be, but never quite made it out of development. Especially one like the cancelled Superman game from Factor 5, best known for their very well done Star Wars games. It could have been a great game, should have been. But it's no more. You can watch some footage from the unreleased game, however.

The game was being developed for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and even the Wii, though it really never exited the concept stage, of the most part. A good portion of Metropolis has been created and a number of models to showoff the ideas they were working on, as a tie-in to the also cancelled sequel to Superman Returns.

At the stage that it was finally left, a story hadn't been created yet, though it would be fairly simple to translate any number of different story arcs from the comics into a viable backdrop. Factor 5 was working on finding and developing interesting gameplay elements to add to the game, and had some very interesting Superman specific ideas. Of course there would be a slew of his enemies that you would eventually face-off against, and you'd be able to grapple with them while flying furiously through buildings, with destruction being dynamically rendered in real-time in your wake.

According to Xbox marketing exec Aaron Greenberg, Microsoft has absolutely no plans to allow Xbox gamers to trade in unwanted digital games back to the company's digital storefront for credit.

"Yeah we are not actively planning such a thing, surprised it was even asked in a survey," Greenberg wrote in a Tweet response to industry analyst Michael Pachter, who criticized the trade-in policy as "playing with fire". As Greenberg is Microsoft's chief marketing exec, he'd be on the up and up when it comes to new storefront features.

The whole idea was kicked off by an official Microsoft user survey that asked gamers if they'd like to be able to trade in digital Xbox games for 10% of their purchased value. The news spread like wildfire, engulfing the entire Xbox community within days. Suddenly every Xbox One owner saw dollar signs when eyeing all those old digital games they never play.

Square Enix today revealed that its upcoming JRPG Star Ocean 5: Integrity and Faithlessness now has an official summer 2016 release window for North America and Europe.

As part of its new Star Log live stream, the publisher further revealed key details about Star Ocean 5 including story tidbits, character info, and tons of gameplay footage. Star Ocean 5 mirrors the unique JRPG battle mechanics found in the previous games, and players will unleash streams of devastating combo attacks in the game's dynamic real-time battle system.

Based on the heaps of screenshots and footage released thus far, Star Ocean 5 is ever the fantasy mashup, featuring a brilliantly-hued spectrum of colors and an enchanted world rife with magic and mayhem. Japan will get the game on March 31 so we should see a ton of gameplay footage all over the place, so be sure to keep your eyes peeled if you're looking forward to Square Enix's latest RPG masterpiece. Also, remember that Europe and North America only get the PS4 version when summer rolls around--the PS3 port is exclusive to Japan.

Recently there's been much controversy regarding the reduction in native resolution in Quantum Break from the promised 1080P at 30FPS to 720P and performance that still wasn't quite what we expected, or rightly wanted from a Microsoft platform exclusive game that's making use of DirectX 12. Remedy has spoken up about the resolution dispute, explaining, for better or for worse, their decision and also the actual techniques used to render at their target resolution, which is technically 1080P, though doesn't quite start that way. It's... complicated it seems.

Quantum Break is a very good looking game, there's really no denying that fact outright. There are aspects that are quite stunning given the base hardware configuration that Remedy is working with. The scenes we've seen in the various trailers, demos and screenshots are, thankfully, accurate to the actual game. That is, there's no "downgrade" that's happened in the slightest, it's just that the final perceived resolution differs from the initial resolution, and can vary wildly in-between.

It's 1080P, sort of. But initially, any given scene seems to begin life as a 720p frame with 4X MSAA added to it (which actually looks great by the way). But it's upscaled and reconstructed from four frames to make the final output that we see. This is a way to save on power by making it the resolution we want with a decent amount of visual quality thrown in.

Sony has revealed the different times that you'll be able to pre-order a PlayStation VR headset, giving consumers ample time to secure their own HMD.

Rather than opening up pre-orders all at once like its competitors and shipping hardware on a first-come first-served basis, Sony has opted to accept pre-orders in phases and waves. The first wave is already over, following the PlayStation VR's price reveal, and Sony has announced two more pre-order phases before the headset's launch in October.

The next pre-order window for the PlayStation VR is today at 7 am PST, but it's only for the $499 PSVR Launch Edition which includes the PS Camera and other hardware, not the $399 Core Edition. The next time you'll be able to pre-order the $399 PSVR Core Edition is on March 29 starting at 7 am PST. If you happen to miss both of these pre-order windows, Sony has plans for another phase in the summer, and we're not sure if this will be the last pre-order wave before the headset launches in October.

XCOM: Enemy Unknown has been rumored to be making a debut on the PlayStation Vita sometime this year, but it's been somewhat mired in mystery, at least the release date has been. It's on nearly every platform, including mobile devices with potentially less powerful hardware than the PS Vita, but not on Sony's premier portable gaming console. But now it's been spotted on the UK PlayStation Store for £15.99.

The original release date was going to be in December of 2015, though that was pushed back until around January 26th 2016, but was pushed even further back with a hitherto unknown date of "later this year". It's a perfectly sensible option to delay a port if the studio needs to focus on releasing XCOM 2, which released in February. But apparently the game has now shown up on the UK PlayStation Store. Though it's curiously absent from the North American PlayStation Store.

Though it was released just today and we might end up seeing it in the NA store sometime later than might be considered usual. The game itself should run fairly well given the (still) surprisingly stout PowerVR SGX543MP4+ that's inside. The interface of the game was well suited for both controllers and a keyboard w/ mouse, so that should not be an issue. It'll be interesting to see if this version retains the touchscreen enhancements found in the Google Play Store version. Hopefully we do actually find it out throughout the world sometime later today, or at the very least within the week.

With Dark Souls 3 just around the corner, we thought you could use a refresher on Hidetaki Mizayaki's final punishing RPG.

Namco was in attendance at this year's SXSW festival to show off Dark Souls 3, which culminated in a surprisingly informative live stream. The stream has a particularly energetic Namco commentator that highlights tons of features that From Software's latest cult offering has to offer, so you'll likely learn a thing or two. Plus you get to revel in the visual style; that overpowering sense of awe-inspiring woe is still ever-present, mingling with the haunted, eldritch darkness that permeates from the entire franchise.

In other news Namco Bandai has officially confirmed that Dark Souls 3 will hit 1080p 60FPS on PC, which is pretty important in games like these where every split second matters. Dark Souls 3 is slated to release on April 12, 2016 for PS4, Xbox One, and PC.

Right now (as of this writing) the servers for The Division are back up from undergoing necessary maintenance while patch 1.02 was applied worldwide. The patch focuses on addressing the a lot of the small complaints that people have brought up regarding quality of life items. UI elements are slightly improved and nearly 14, appreciated, gameplay-affecting issues have been found.

One of the bigger changes is that named enemies, who were roaming New York and were considerably tougher than they appeared (cuddly), will now drop actual good loot instead of something more normal. They'll also disappear and won't return after you kill them. There's incentive to taking a bit of time to take them out, as opposed to avoiding them.

The Dark Zone has also gotten a bit of an overhaul. Instead of being at the mercy of your teammates when down, any other neutral player can heal you, and vice versa. You'll also lose far less credits and experience if you die, even if you decide to go rogue.

GDC 2016 - This year's Game Developers Conference was so popular it broke records, with UBM Game Network reporting that it was a record-breaking GDC with 27,000 attendees.

GDC GM Meggan Scavio explains: "This year's GDC, paired with the inaugural VRDC, allows us to look both backwards at the legacy and lessons of previous years, and forward to the future of games and VR experiences. Even in its 30th edition, GDC continues to evolve and grow to encompass all of the key lessons, advancements and artistic strides that the industry makes. Once again, the staff, volunteers, speakers, students and attendees have made GDC 2016 an amazing, fun and safe show all around".

She continued: "As technologies mature and tastes in games change, we're happy have a place for all of our friends, colleagues and soon-to-be-friends to meet about, learn about and discuss the games and VR experiences that we love. Games are becoming the most popular form of entertainment in the modern world, so it's only appropriate that GDC carry with it the same spirit of fun, adventure and discovery as the games themselves, just as it has since its beginning".