Latest News - Page 2489

As we inch closer to the Game Developers Conference next week, and NVIDIA's own GPU Technology Conference in the first week of April, we're hearing more on NVIDIA's next-gen Pascal-based video cards.

According to a listing on the Zauba database, there are four different variants that we could see shown off in the very near future. They're priced at $600, $700, $900 and $1100 - where I think the $900 and $1100 cards could be Pascal-based GeForce GTX Titan X successors. I think we'll see a consumer-orientated card with 16GB of HBM2, while there'll be a higher-end Titan X successor with 32GB of HBM2 - remember, that HBM2 provides up to 1024GB/sec of memory bandwidth, up from the 334GB/sec on the 384-bit memory bus on the GTX 980 Ti and Titan X.

NVIDIA co-founder and CEO Jen-Hsun Huang kicks off his opening keynote to GTC on April 5, where we should be introduced to a Pascal video card at the time. I can barely contain my excitement, as by then we'll be introduced to something "spicy" from AMD, and not even two weeks later NVIDIA will come out stomping with Pascal.

According to Microsoft's former Xbox community manager, Raj Patel, Hello Games' upcoming title No Man's Sky looks "stale". With No Man's Sky explained as a "science-fiction game about exploration and survival in an infinite procedurally generated universe", I don't see how that can be.

In a few tweets, Patel said: "Every gameplay image I've seen of No Man's Sky looks like it could take place on the same planet. 'Infinite universe' eh? I don't see it". Then someone tweeted him, saying "procedurally generated games don't interest me too much after about an hour you've seen most possible biomes and creatures etc".

Patel tweeted a reply, saying "Yeah, I mean it has potential and COULD be great but from what I've SEEN so far, it already seems stale. I haven't seen the fun". Someone asked Patel "have you seen all hundreds of trillion planets or half a dozen?" with Patel tweeting back "I've seen everything that has been publicly shown. As my tweet indicated I'm commenting on what I've seen".

As a kid, I played the hell out of point-and-click adventure games like Maniac Mansion, Full Throttle, Leisure Suit Larry and Day of the Tentacle. DOTT holds a special place in my heart, so the news of Day of the Tentacle Remastered got me excited, and now we're nearly here - the day of its release.

Day of the Tentacle Remastered will arrive on March 22, with pre-orders now open on GOG.com with a 10% discount offered for the first two weeks of its availability. Day of the Tentacle Remastered will allow players to relive their youth through the game, all on modern hardware with new features that weren't in the original release - such as a new interface, in-game developer commentary and more.

The game is explained as: "Day of the Tentacle Remastered is all the adventure you may remember with an optional layer of sweet improvements on top. You can mix and match between the unmistakably 1990s pixely art and a fresh high-res coat of paint, remastered audio, and an all new interface. There are extra goodies in the Remastered release as well, including in-game developer commentary and a fully playable version of the original Maniac Mansion. Your pre-order also comes with three exclusive Day of the Tentacle wallpapers, available right away to fuel your anticipation".

Following the 2012 transitioning of 'The Matrix' trilogy co-director Larry Wachowski to Lana Wachowski, her brother Andy Wachowski has now done the same thing. Welcome to the world Lily Wachowski.

According to The Guardian, Lily Wachowski made the news of her gender reassignment public after a journalist from Britain's Daily Mail attempted a form of black mail in exchange for the exclusive. The director went on to reveal all to her hometown newspaper the Windy City Times instead.

"So yeah, I'm transgender. And yeah, I've transitioned.", Wachowski writes, adding that "Everyone is cool with it. Yes, thanks to my fabulous sister they've done it before, but also because they're fantastic people. Without the love and support of my wife and friends and family I would not be where I am today."

The VR revolution is here, with the Oculus Rift launching on March 28 and the HTC Vive on April 5. Sony is behind with its PlayStation VR, with no release date revealed yet. We expect this to change at the Game Developers Conference next week, though.

In a new interview with developer Alfonso del Cerro, the founder of Pentadimensional Games over their new indie superhero game Megaton Rainfall, we have some new details on the PlayStation VR. Megaton Rainfall will be one of the very first games on the PlayStation VR, with del Cerro explaning: "Sony showed a lot of interest in our game since they played it at GDC 2015. They were looking for projects por PSVR and I was showcasing MR at the Indie Megabooth".

He continued: "Since then they have been very friendly, they helped us with the visibility, showing the game in videos, their blog, and events like PlayStation Experience and next week at GDC 2016. They even offered an exclusivity deal so I'm happy with them. And of course being one of the first games for PlayStation VR will give the game a lot more visibility".

We thought it was coming, and now the day is here - Kingdom Come: Deliverance has been delayed, with consoles to blame. Developer Warhorse Studios wants a simultaneous release on consoles and PCs, and has delayed the PC version of the game so it can do just that.

PR manager Tobias Stolz-Zwiling said earlier this month: "The idea was to release the game in the summer and then to follow up with the console versions. Right now we are still indie developers but we are in negotiations with publishers to, well, we need someone to bring the games into the shops, so we need a distributor, and he kind of wants us to synch it with the console versions. We are still in negotiations, we will see. Best case for you will be summer this year for the PC version and then with the follow-up for consoles; or if the publisher wants us to synch it we will release everything let's say by the end of the year, so we will see about that".

But now Polygon is reporting that Kingdom Come: Deliverance has been delayed, so that Warhorse can release the game onto the consoles and the PC at the same time.

'Game of Thrones' fans - the wait is almost over. The HBO network is gearing up for the release of the premier episode of season six is just seven weeks away, and have today released a new Red Band restricted trailer for the season, which gives some tantalising glimpses at upcoming plots.

Unlike the previous five seasons, season six will not be based on a George R.R. Martin plot, having exhausted all the 'A Song of Ice and Fire' books in the last season. Instead, screenwriters have crafted the plot through discussions with Martin, but they may very well deviate from the material presented in the forthcoming sixth novel. It's truly uncharted waters for the series and anything could happen - and that makes it even more compelling than ever.

'Game of Thrones' returns to HBO on April 24, for another ten episodes.

It's always nice to see the inner creative processes that go on when making a video game. Getting behind the scenes can help you to appreciate the game even more if you hadn't before, or even help give insight into the difficulties a developer goes through to bring us the final product. The latest developer diary for Final Fantasy XIV is all about the narrative and creating the overarching story.

The creative process is different for everyone and is always, almost, a sacred process to be cherished. In the case of the stories that are in Final Fantasy XIV, the main loremaster, Kazutoyo Maehiro, doesn't ever write scenarios around characters, but that they naturally emerge as he's working.

The end result is a very well put together narrative that's coherent with not only the entire Final Fantasy XIV story, but with past games from the franchise. It all comes together quite nicely. And this MMORPG is one that will likely continue to call upon the inspiration from previous games to make for a very personal and exciting experience.

Goodyear has been in the tire game for 117 years, and now it's looking to turn it on its head with spherical tires. Eagle-360 tires, as they're known, are only a concept, but the company says they "present an inspiring solution for the long-term future when autonomous driving is expected to be more mainstream."

Safety is a major concern of autonomous driving skeptics and Eagle-360 tires are a direct response to that: as they are multi-orientation and sport "active technology", they can move in all directions which is said to make for increased maneuverability and reduced sliding caused by black ice, obstacles, and so on. Additionally, sensors register tire wear for extended mileage, and communicate road conditions to the car and nearby vehicles. Interesting to note: the tread is 3D printed, and so could be customized for different terrain in different regions, making for safer driving due to better equipped vehicles.

As for luxury features, the tire is suspended by magnetic fields, and as such is said to offer more comfort and less noise than with a traditional tire.

The memory masters at Seagate have just smashed through the world SSD speed record with a new blazing-fast solid state drive.

During a demonstration, Seagate's new ultra-fast SSD hit an unbelievable transfer rate of 10GB/sec, which is 4GB/s faster than the former world's-fastest SSD. The company's new 10GB/s SSD is built for high-end enterprise use, and utilizes the NVMe protocol and rides 16 PCIe lanes for maximum throughput. The drive also meets the storage specifications outlined by Facebook's Open Compute Project.

"Your data is only as good as how easily you can access it and put it to use," Seagate's SSD executive Brett Pemble said. "Seagate is committed to providing the full spectrum of technologies to help meet the diverse needs of organizations so they can unlock this value. Whether for consumer cloud or business applications, this SSD will help improve on demands for fast access to information, where split seconds drive incremental value gains."

SEGA and Creative Assembly are going to delay the launch of Total War: Warhammer for a month longer than they originally intended. It'll now be launching on May 24th 2016 instead of the earlier April 28th release date.

The developers are very excited about the game and want us to be able to get the most out the game. Namely they want it to be as polished as possible before they release it, hoping to avoid the pitfalls that some recent releases have suffered. "This could be the best Total War game we've ever made. We don't want to rush it," said the creative director, Mike Simpson.

This is the first foray into high fantasy for Total War, with a lot of excitement surrounding it. That said, because it's a PC only game, and previous Total War games have had some performance issues, they're looking at making sure that it's optimized on a variety of hardware. Specifically, they want us PC gamers to have a chance to enjoy it at 60FPS in even the most massive of battles at the highest of settings.

The Khronos Group's open source Vulkan API launched publicly last month, which brought some to wonder if Star Citizen would come to support it. Development subscriber Kyran inquired on exactly that for the '10 for the Chairman' Q&A video series, to which Chris Roberts, Chairman of developer Cloud Imperium Games, responded with what could be interpreted as a yes.

"We have looked at Vulkan; we're pretty excited by it," he says. "So we are considering our options between Vulkan and DirectX 12. We haven't made a full decision."

He continues: "Vulkan has some advantages, the biggest one being as long as it works properly that it can work on a PC but also work on Linux and work on other platforms, whereas DirectX 12 is specifically just for Windows. They are both very similar architectures; essentially Vulkan's not that different from what Mantle was originally set up to be. So we're considering it. You never know whether we will do DirectX 12 or Vulkan first."

Far too often publishers milk games franchises to the point where the cash cow dries up. We've seen this with Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed franchise, whose lukewarm reception led the publisher to rethink its annual strategy. Thankfully, Take-Two Interactive affirms that we won't ever have to worry about Grand Theft Auto or Red Dead Redemption games going down this path.

In a recent presentation in New York, Take-Two president Karl Slatoff discussed why the company doesn't ship out annual sequels. "We don't intend to change annual strategy because of product fatigue. We create franchise value and games have to be managed deliberately. It's tempting to have continuous releases and milk a franchise as far as you can, [but] we've seen that fatigue in other franchises in the games industry. With almost every single franchise for us, the latest release is bigger than the one before."

Take-Two Interactive understands that there's a delicate balance when it comes to the games industry. A high-profile AAA has to be carefully curated and managed in the marketing sector, and it's important that the companies build up as much hype and interest as possible. If you saturate the market with too many franchise releases, interest starts to wane, and the whole thing falls apart rather easily.

Amazon has their fingers in nearly every type of media there is. They have a successful games studio, a television and movie studio that's working on several exciting new projects, a hardware division that's had great success and now they're breaking into virtual reality.

At least so far as a job announcement that's been posted on Glassdoor seems to indicate. They want to help integrate VR into their Amazon Video projects, probably to dive into something new while others are still planning how they'll attack it as well.

The job posting says they're looking for a senior software development manager to lead a team to build a VR experience within Amazon Video. So far Netflix and Hulu have VR apps that give you a sort of theater experience, though this may be more than just a VR-centric app, and more a full-on VR video experience right from their own internal player. My guess is that they want to expand their web application to include a VR hub for those that make VR and possibly even integrate that into their own video projects.

In the games industry, it's only natural that any high-profile online game is accompanied by a rocky launch. In The Division's case, though, dastardly gamers have already found a way to grief other players by simply standing in their way.

In The Division, players can stand in the way of doorways and block them off from other players. Ubisoft made the decision to make all in-game avatars solid rather than allowing players to pass through one another, which is standard for any huge MMO-style online game. This oversight has caused a substantial amount of grief in the community, and armed trolls with an effective way to frustrate just about every would-be Division agent in New York.

Sadly, griefers can inhibit progress right at the game's start. Right after the opening cutscene, players start off in a safehouse that has only one exit. By simply standing in the way, griefers are pretty much denying access to the rest of the game, taunting other players by dancing and waving in place.

If you rely on the Netflix Mobile App to get your fix of drama, action or comedy on a regular basis, it's likely that your phone plan data is suffering as a result.

As seen on Gizmodo Netflix has been, and will be, working on a better experience for users, implementing what Gizmodo's Campbell Simpson explained as "a number of small but significant changes." Recent changes to this service include the evolution of the home screen, with plenty more improvements currently in testing and on the horizon for this media giant.

A large planned change is a 'data saving' feature set for availability to mobile users on iOS and Android platforms. Explained as an algorithm based service, rather than a clear-cut bitrate or resolution limiter, it means that the quality control and limitations will be fluid and change user to user.

Were you affected by the massive 2011 hacking of Sony's services? Do you happen to want some free stuff for your trouble?

Sony is sending out emails to those that were affected by the massive 28-day hack from April of 2011 and allow those that filled out the lengthy claim form the ability to redeem codes for free stuff on the services that you were signed into.

The free download codes are for a number of different PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, and PSP games. If you were one of those that downloaded a free game as part of the Welcome Back promotion that happened right after they got their services back up, then you're only allowed to have one free game. You can also choose from some premium themes as well.

Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare 2 was just released at the end of last month and PopCap and EA just now announced the Graveyard Variety Pack, the first of many free DLC packs for the amusing game.

The update is quite generous with what they've added to it. They've created a new Aqua Center map that's rather elaborate in design and have put a lot of different, new, quests throughout the Backyard Battleground map. It wouldn't be Plants vs. Zombies if they didn't add in more options to customize your characters in wild new ways, either. So there's a lot of fun new costumes and options to choose from. They've also gone and balanced the characters a bit more from all the great feedback they've had from players.

And in case you're in love with microtransactions, EA has also added a few more packs so you can get even more customization options. $2.49 can get you 56K coins to spend on your wacky characters. But, just remember that these microtransactions are optional and solely cosmetic. It's a nice surprise to see PopCap dedicated to bringing value to a game that's always had a special place in a lot of gamers hearts. This franchise is genius.

Contrary to the promises made by an Ubisoft developer, console players have no option to improve frame rates in The Division.

According to the claims made by an unknown Ubisoft developer, PS4 and Xbox One gamers would be able to scale down lighting effects to boost frame rates in The Division. Now that the game is out on all platforms, console gamers can confirm that the settings simply aren't there.

"You can disable certain lighting aspects to improve frame rates in the console versions. I don't know of another game that does that. So if you want to choose frame rate over visuals, you can if you want," reads the erroneous quote given by a purported developer on a Team Epiphany stream.

Including an interesting $9.90 (AU) monthly 'Plan Freeze Fee' that Vaya enforced on consumers in addition to regular access fees even when their contract was over, this mobile company has been under Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) investigation due to some creative charges.

Another one slammed on end users was sent via email in February 2015 and depicted that users will need to pay a "once-off, refundable $20 (AU) Security Deposit" for the use of a Vaya mobile, with this company telling users to refer to its Terms and Conditions for more information. While the ACCC believed that the freeze fee and security deposit emails were misleading and failed to inform users of rights of termination, Vaya has responded with its side of the story.

Vaya's response to the investigation was to refund all customers incorrectly recruited into the freeze fee campaign, further outlining contract termination rights in what Gizmodo claims as an attempt to be more transparent with its users and the ACCC.