Latest News - Page 2483

GDC 2016 - Sony has revealed that all existing PS4 games will be playable within the PlayStation VR headset, along with a host of media playback like Netflix and 360-degree photos.

With the PlayStation VR's newly revealed Cinematic Mode, gamers can play PS4 titles in a virtualized space within the headset. The mode essentially transports gamers into a sizable rendered living room environment where the game is broadcast on a huge digital screen that measures up to 225 inches wide.

"With the headset on, users can also go into 'cinematic mode' to see the entire 16:9 PS4 menu and play all of their PS4 games," said Sony President Andrew House.

Modder Kaldaien is at it again with a mod for the recently released JRPG Disgaea. While a decent port, Disgaea still has some room for improvement, particularly on the visuals front, and that's what the 'Pretty Prinny' mod, as he calls it, is primarily focused on.

Among other things, it adds 'proper' V-Sync support and removes the 720p internal resolution cap as well as artifacts related to sprite smoothing. Pretty Prinny is only at version 0.2.1 at the moment, so expect lots more to come, including additional visual enhancements as well as performance and stability improvements. Tonight version 0.3.0 will be released with SSAO and MSAA support.

Hit the source to download the mod and for configuration and installation instructions.

Opera 36 is out and marks a major release for the alternative browser, bringing with it a new look and some key new features.

First up is the overhauled start page, which is now better optimized for widescreen monitors, and includes a customize button that allows you to alter themes and your news section, among other things. More will come in version 37.

There's lots of love for Windows 10 users, too: colours will change depending on your OS theme and such, touch input is supported (and accommodated with UI elements that auto adjust in size, and a fullscreen icon), and native notifications are included.

The Unity engine is one of the singularly most used game engines in the world. They've been working very hard at making game creation a more accessible endeavor, and that's paid off tremendously. Unity has been updated to version 5.3.4, which is stable, gorgeous and full of easy to use tools.

Unity has to keep up with the pace of innovation, so they're also introducing a more widely available public beta program for their unstable, yet advanced, beta versions. Which is now up to version 5.4. At their keynote at GDC they said that they're very committed to the future and evolving the engine to keep pace with the rest of the gaming community, and in order to better serve their users they've opted to open up beta testing to everyone. This way more people get to play with,and find all the things that could possibly go wrong with new implementations of technology, or new tech altogether.

Right now they estimate that Unity covers around 30% of the market. And that's across the 25 different supported platforms. That's a lot of games and developers that have their hands in the Unity pie. And so they're making it even easier to build games with improved collaborative functions that let you save assets to a cloud-based system to be shared among a team working far apart. And there's a lot in beta 5.4 to like and want to share with others. Just look at the difference above from version 5 to the 5.4.

It's been a few months since the hidden Cortana functionality was accidentally found in the November Xbox One update, but it seems that the full functioning digital assistant is getting much closer to being released. And the Xbox boss is quite excited about it too.

The Xbox One already has a great voice command system, one that's evolved upon their successful Sync and other speech recognition technologies, but in order to bring it into parity with the rest of their brand, they need to bring Cortana, a true digital assistance, into the mix. There's no release date quite yet, but Mike Ybarra did say that it was "coming along great."

Cortana would be just another feature that the PlayStation 4 and Nintendo's current lineup doesn't have. Just how useful it would be for a primarily gaming (re)focused device is unknown. It also means you'll need a microphone in order for her to hear you, which is either Kinect or through a headset plugged into your controller (or USB port). It'll be interesting to see just what kind of commands will be available and how they'll be used on the Xbox One. Just using your voice to launch a game isn't exactly exciting, or new, so there's hope that something more is coming from the infusion of Cortana.

GDC 2016 - AVADirect entered the VR gaming PC world quite quickly, and in a huge way, with beautiful, and compact VR gaming PCs. Their next step? Giving away the AVA Sixense Ultimate VR Desktop & Sixense STEM System Devkit. Yes, an entire VR gaming PC and the super-awesome STEM controller system from Sixense Motion.

The AVA Sixense VR Desktop can be configured with an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980, GTX 980 Ti or Titan X - providing the ability to play virtually any game at 1080p and above at 75FPS+. The STEM system from Sixense is an amazing wireless motion tracking controller setup for desktop and mobile VR, which is something we fell in love with at CES 2014.

But we're all here for the giveaway, which has a total value of $2599 - in this, you get the AVA Sixense VR Desktop packed with an Intel Core i7-6700, GeForce GTX 980 Ti from EVGA, 16GB of DDR4, and the STEM base with two STEM controllers - the best start for a VR system. All you need from here is the Oculus Rift and you're good to go.

Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward added in something very special when it came out. Aside from the great addition to the story, they gave us the ability to fly about the different locations of Hydaelyn with customizable winged mounts. The process to create those and really integrate them fully into the greater game was a bit more difficult than you'd think, and that process of animating the mounts is detailed in the newest Developer Diary video from Square Enix.

It was a challenge to make sure that flying was a smooth process that didn't detract from the beauty of the game. The designers had to decrease the overall amount of data while flying so there wasn't any stuttering. That and adding in an element of elevation was tricky, you can't have the controls be jerky or unintuitive.

The most important part, naturally, was introducing the Fat Chocobo as a potential aerial ride. But how does one make a gigantic creature like that capable of flight? Well, with the right motivation; cake. Check out the video, it's a very enlightening look into the creative processes that they go through to bring things to life.

AMD was once a very prolific force in the mobile, handheld GPU world. And it seems that Raja Koduri, the head honcho in charge of the new Radeon Technologies Group, isn't necessarily ruling out the idea of returning to that field either.

AMD is already well positioned to create custom chips with their deal that they've brokered with Sony and Microsoft, not to mention Nintendo. And Raja himself is open to the idea of licesning their IP to be used in mobile products. They don't, however, want to actively build their own mobile devices based on their technology, but if someone else approached them with the idea to integrate either an APU outright or Polaris into their own design, it wouldn't at all be out of the question.

The idea is a natural one, given the potential power savings that the new Polaris architecture could introduce on all fronts. Already Polaris 11 (the smallest chip thus far) can play Star Wars Battlefront at 1080P with a steady 60FPS while only consuming around 35 watts for the GPU itself. So, then, it isn't a stretch to have their new architecture appear in lower-power APU's for, say, tablets, micro-consoles or even phones.

Blizzard isn't done with StarCraft 2 just yet, and their next expansion, called Nova Covert Ops, will have three episodes of content with the first one coming on or before June 19th 2016.

There'll be nine new missions across those three episodes, where you'll get to play as November "Nova" Terra, who's a psionic ghost. You'll get to use your abilities to infiltrate bases and try to find out what happened to the other ghosts that seem to have disappeared. There's a large consipiracy for you to unravel here.

Being almost entirely story and character based, it's supposed to bring some interesting new elements into the fold, things that aren't traditional "StarCraft" at all. You'll also get a chance to use some experimental technology to properly complete those missions, and maybe even save the entire Dominion itself.

There was one particular race that we were very interested to see just how they'd be integrated into Total War: Warhammer, the Vampires. Who, by the way, they've been able to keep very quiet about up until now. And it's been worth the wait.

They are undeniably evil and even take pleasure in that fact. The Vampire Counts, here led by Mannfred von Varstein, you can watch as he raises your once dead army to use them to wreck havoc over anyone in their path. As would be expected you'll get to call upon death magic, necromancy and take a zombie dragon into battle. One can imagine that anything else dead can also become their pets, and possibly a lot more. They're the opponents that you won't want to face, but inevitably will have to. The Vampire Counts won't be playable right away, and will only make a playable appearance on May 24th due to a small delay.

GDC 2016 - Yesterday Sony officially revealed the PlayStation VR's $399 price tag, matching the PS4's original MSRP. At first glance the price seems more than fair, but the Japanese console-maker has a hook in that bait that could raise the final price of the PSVR experience to $500 and above.

Sony has made the decision not to bundle key hardware like the PS Camera and PS Move controllers with its PlayStation VR headset. This is surprising given the PlayStation VR cannot function without a PS Camera, transforming a once-optional peripheral into a must-have commodity. The PS Camera is currently priced at $60, but we've seen them rise as high as $100 back when stock was limited--and I'm betting Sony is counting on a giant influx of demand for the camera once the PSVR launches in October.

What's more is that certain PlayStation VR games require the use of $50 PS Move controllers. Some games actually require two PS Move controllers to play. So $399 suddenly turns into anywhere from $500 to $550, not including tax. On top of the hardware costs, PSVR games are expected to be anywhere from $10 to $60, so don't expect console-based VR to be cheap--just cheap-er.

The PlayStation VR finally has an announced price, and at $399, it could be the competitor that the HTC Vive and the Oculus Rift didn't quite see coming, though the full price of entry is just about the same anyway. But Sony is intent on having unique and exclusive experiences just the same. A small nugget of information slipped out about making an exclusive Star Wars Battlefront VR experience.

At the end of the GDC Keynote, Andy House said that EA and Lucasfilm would be using the PlayStation VR for a completely new, VR-based Battlefront game. This isn't the same as the Star Wars Cinematic Experience that's going to be available on the HTC Vive, but something completely separate, even though details happen to be a bit sparse at the moment.

House said that: "We at PlayStation are thrilled to be partnering with our friends EA and LucasFilm to create something all new for PlayStation VR. This will be a Star Wars Battlefront gaming experience like nothing else; coming only to PlayStation VR from the talented team at DICE, where players can transport themselves to a galaxy far far way." Not much to go off of at all, but just one more reason to consider the PS4. The natural question is whether this will be a timed-exclusive or a complete platform-exclusive game.

GDC 2016 - AMD came out swinging at its Capsaicin event, rolling out the red carpet and its impressive Radeon Pro Duo, but RTG boss Raja Koduri was on fire that night, teasing an unannounced VR headset, too.

Ars Technica reports that Koduri said: "We are already working with a headset manufacturer, unannounced, with a 4K per eye headset. It exists. It's quite, quite beautiful, and we believe that the roadmap to go into higher resolutions will happen more quickly than is probably expected. Once you've seen a high resolution VR experience, you can see that it's really quite beautiful".

It'll be interesting to see this happen, and what type of GPU we're going to need to power 4K per eye on a VR headset. Polaris can't come quick enough!

GDC 2016 - AMD unveiled its dual-GPU yesterday at its Capsaicin event, but now the company has revealed benchmark numbers on 3DMark Fire Strike from the Radeon Pro Duo.

The Radeon Pro Duo destroys the Radeon R9 295X2, AMD's previous dual-GPU champion based on the Hawaii architecture, as well as NVIDIA's only current GeForce GTX Titan Z - based on its older Kepler architecture. Keep in mind that NVIDIA never released a dual-GPU based on its Maxwell architecture, but we could see a dual-GPU based on its next-gen Pascal architecture in early April at GTC.

Back to the benchmarks, the Radeon Pro Duo beats the Titan Z and R9 295X2 in all resolutions - 1080p, 1440p and 4K. On the Standard preset, the Radeon Pro Duo beats the Titan Z by 134%. On the Extreme preset it's 148% faster, and on the Ultra preset it beats the Titan Z by 152%.

GDC 2016 - Battlezone fans are quite excited for Rebellion's reboot of the game, as it'll be including support for not just the PlayStation VR - which has just had its $399 pricing and October launch window revealed - but Oculus Rift support, and DX12.

AMD's Chief Gaming Scientist Richard Huddy revealed during GDC that Battlezone will have DX12 support, and during an interview with VRFocus, Rebellion CEO and Creative Director Jason Kingsley said: "We are doing a lot of work on DirectX 12, and it really depends on how well Oculus works on DirectX 12".

Just how successful has The Division been? Quite successful, thanks to Ubisoft announcing official revenue numbers for The Division.

In its first five days of release, Ubisoft pulled in over $330 million - beating out Destiny's $325 million five-day haul from September 2014. AlsoDestiny launched on the PS3, PS4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One, while The Division launched onto the PS4, Xbox One and PC.

Ubisoft co-founder and CEO Yves Guillemot said: "The Division taking the top spot in the industry for first week sales of a new franchise is a tremendous achievement. We are very proud of our teams, and humbled by and thankful for the millions of players who are giving us their feedback and support".

Apple has partnered with digital distributor Dubset Media Holdings to bring many thousands of previously unlicensed DJ remixes and mixes -- or in old people terms: that DJ music the kids are listening to -- to its Apple Music service. For now, these aren't available anywhere else, but Dubstep claims every distributor will be supported in time.

The deal is made possible by Dubset's agreements with over 14,000 record labels and publishers, as well as its MixBank technology (used in combination with other proprietary and related software), which can analyze songs to determine original artists and make sure their labels and publishers as well as DJs are paid accordingly, all at flat rates. It's an impressive feat given one of these mixes can have more than 600 different rights holders, and one that's already making both DJs and labels happy.

"Remixes are a huge part of our culture - they allow DJs and fans to put our own creative spin on music," says DJ Steve Aoki. "Apple working with Dubset now is a really simple solution to something traditionally complex, and allows everyone to make money on this content for the first time."

Earlier this year, Disney CEO Bob Iger promised that we'd see the return of the adventure icon 'Indiana Jones', and today the company which picked up the rights to the franchise in 2011 has finally made it official - and Harrison Ford is back.

In making the announcement that the Indiana Jones franchise will hit screens worldwide on July 19 2019, Disney Chairman Alan Horn said "Indiana Jones is one of the greatest heroes in cinematic history, and we can't wait to bring him back to the screen in 2019." Confirming that Director Steven Spielberg would be back on board, Horn continues "It's rare to have such a perfect combination of director, producers, actor and role, and we couldn't be more excited to embark on this adventure with Harrison and Steven."

Noticeably absent from the release was any mention of co-creator George Lucas, who served as co-producer for the previous four films. Instead, Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall will fill the role.

The AlphaGo AI created by Google's DeepMind division yesterday lost its first Go match to world champion Lee Sedol in a five-game series. Commentator Song Taegon remarked that Sedol had developed a better understanding of his opponent, making for a highly anticipated game 5. Sedol was beaten again, although it seems to have been a much tighter game, with commentators going back and forth right until the end about who was on top.

"It was difficult to say at what point AlphaGo was ahead or behind," said Michael Redmond, 9-dan, American commentator. "A close game throughout. AlphaGo made what looked like a mistake with move 48, similar to the mistake in Game Four in the middle of the board. After that AlphaGo played very well in the middle of the board, and the game developed into a long, very difficult end game."

GDC 2016 - Crytek announced its new CRYENGINE V at the Game Developer's Conference, with many exciting things to share from the latest iteration of its graphics engine. For the keen-eyed, CRYENGINE V skips CRYENGINE IV... as we still having games released with CRYENGINE 3.

CRYENGINE V has support for DirectX 12, full support for VR, a reworked low overhead renderer which "Significantly increases the performance of today's hardware in graphically intensive applications". Better yet, the latest version of CRYENGINE uses a "pay what you want" basis for developers, where "you contribute what you can" according to the Creative Director of Crytek, Frank Vitz.

Vitz continued: "Game engines that allow for lifelike rendering in real-time will be at the forefront of this revolution. Our first VR lab opened in Istanbul in January. We have seven more going in North America".