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Sony: PlayStation VR is for the mass market, not enthusiasts

Derek Strickland | Extended Reality (XR) | Mar 10, 2016 12:25 PM CST

Sony admits that its PlayStation VR won't be as robust as PC-powered VR headsets like the Oculus Rift, and affirms the PSVR isn't made for hardcore enthusiasts.

Sony: PlayStation VR is for the mass market, not enthusiasts

Sony isn't playing coy with the PlayStation VR. The Japanese console-maker outright says that the Oculus Rift (and HTC Vive by implication) is more powerful than its PS4-powered PSVR headset, but waves the age-old trade-off that consoles are much cheaper than high-end PCs.

"If you just talk about the high-end quality, yes, I would admit that Oculus may have better VR. However, it requires a very expensive and very fast PC," PlayStation executive vice president Masayasu Ito told Polygon. Ito goes on to say that the PlayStation VR is meant for everyday consumers and probably won't meet the high-spec needs of enthusiasts. "The biggest advantage for Sony is our headset works with PS4. It's more for everyday use, so it has to be easy to use, and it has to be affordable. This is not for the person who uses a high-end PC. It's for the mass market."

Continue reading: Sony: PlayStation VR is for the mass market, not enthusiasts (full post)

Stick your phone wherever you want with this $1 double-sided thing

Chris Smith | Peripherals | Mar 10, 2016 10:34 AM CST

Sent to us recently in an email, TinySticky is a current crowdfunding project on Indiegogo and aims to be the next best smartphone or tool accessory.

Stick your phone wherever you want with this $1 double-sided thing

Holding up to 3 pounds in weight on any smooth and flat surface, this little device is exactly as the name suggests - tiny and sticky. This double sided contraption has been designed mainly for smartphone use, allowing you to stick your phone on your car dash, home wall, whiteboard, kitchen bench or roof if you really want.

While 'Tiny Sticky Labs' (the manufacturer) suggests that this product will be rejuvenated of its stickiness just by a simple wash, I would be a little hesitant to use the same tab consistently for an extended period of time. What's great regarding this fact is that it's quite cheap, currently available for $1 if you share it on Facebook or $3 plus shipping at a normal price.

Continue reading: Stick your phone wherever you want with this $1 double-sided thing (full post)

Fallout 4 patch 1.4 brings a lot of great fixes to consoles today

Jeff Williams | Gaming | Mar 10, 2016 9:59 AM CST

The consoles seem to get patches a little later than the PC with Fallout 4, but that's not a bad thing at all, it just means further time for refinement and optimizations. Right? This patch, 1.4 is a big one and it has a lot of changes, specifically those that'll help to add support for add-ons and mods that'll be coming later on.

The list of fixes and additions is quite long with more metal and wood door variants to choose from when looking to create the perfect settlement, more signs to put up to confuse yourself and others and more clutter. But the important part is the support for future mods, something that consoles haven't been able to enjoy as much as their PC brethren.

The long list of what the patch brings can be found right here, and we'll be updating this if there's anything specific to the consoles that isn't quite listed in that list.

Continue reading: Fallout 4 patch 1.4 brings a lot of great fixes to consoles today (full post)

GIGABYTE's 990X-Gaming SLI motherboard announced

Chris Smith | Motherboards | Mar 10, 2016 9:33 AM CST

Released in an ATX form-factor format and carrying support for AMD AM3+ processors, GIGABYTE's new 990X-Gaming SLI motherboard is said to be a direct continuation of its AMD 970 motherboard releases, as reported by techPowerUp recently.

GIGABYTE's 990X-Gaming SLI motherboard announced

Designed to be built with an AMD FX-8370 processor, this new product features support for up to 32GB of dual-channel DDR3 RAM running at 2400MHz speeds, further packing in two PCI-E x16 slots, PCI-Express 2.0 x1 and legacy PCI options. Other ports include two USB 3.1 Type-A, four USB 3.0 ports, an Intel-powered I-218C gigabit Ethernet connection and 10-channel audio thanks to a 115 dbA SNR CODEC. Wrapping up the feature list are storage offerings including a single 20 Gb/s M.2 port and six SATA 6 Gb/s ports.

With this board set for release soon, reports say that it should hit the shelves at around $100.

Continue reading: GIGABYTE's 990X-Gaming SLI motherboard announced (full post)

Dead Island 2 development no longer dead, Sumo Digital to save it

Jeff Williams | Gaming | Mar 10, 2016 9:02 AM CST

Things are looking up for the future of Dead Island 2. Sumo Digital has agreed to take up the project and continue development where it left off.

The publisher, Deep Silver, was left without a proper developer once they officially parted ways with Yager, who was contracted to create the game. That left an IP without a proper home. But now they plan on partnering with a company that Deep Silver believes understands the brand better and has the creative foresight to fully realize the idea.

Sumo Digital is a very well renowned developer, having exclusively created LittleBigPlanet 3 and helped a number of other developers realize high-end and complex projects, such as Crackdown and Disney Infinity 3.0. And because of their achievements, Deep Silver is incredibly excited about their partnership.

Continue reading: Dead Island 2 development no longer dead, Sumo Digital to save it (full post)

Lite-On joins the enterprise storage game, announcing EP2 U.2 SSD

Chris Smith | Storage | Mar 10, 2016 8:32 AM CST

With many companies vying for the number one position in the emerging enterprise SSD market, Lite-On has announced its addition recently, showcasing its EP2 U.2 Series SSD.

Utilizing a U.2 interface, this model is able to be converted to both SATA-Express and M.2, as explained by techPowerUp recently. With speed being key, this new product features sequential transfer rates capped at 2200 MB/s read and 1300 MB/s write.

Further features include a 290,000 IOPS 4K random read rating, a capacity of up to a massive 1920GB and being quoted as "designed for read-intensive database servers."

Continue reading: Lite-On joins the enterprise storage game, announcing EP2 U.2 SSD (full post)

Body collision issues in The Division get a clever workaround

Jeff Williams | Gaming | Mar 10, 2016 8:05 AM CST

The body collision issue in The Division is a fairly serious issue that takes away some of the joy from playing The Division. The problem is that other players can physically block you from progressing by simply standing in your way. It's frustrating many players in safe-houses, the Dark Zone or any other area cooperative area.

Ubisoft has issued a statement on the matter and has detailed a very clever workaround that's been put into the game. If you find yourself unable to move forward, just move into the offending person for around 3 seconds and then you'll be granted access to where you're trying to go. Simple, effective and it doesn't completely remove object collisions because it's a surprisingly important part of a tactical game.

The Division has sold more than any other game for Ubisoft in a 24 hour period, which is quite the achievement. The launch of the game has been mostly successful. Servers have had small issues related to the unexpectedly high traffic though for the most part logging in and playing hasn't been an issue. The Snowdrop engine, too, has performed rather well in our initial benchmarks. In all, a much better launch than previous games from Ubisoft.

Continue reading: Body collision issues in The Division get a clever workaround (full post)

ASUS introduces sub-2 liter PC with 4K UHD support

Chris Smith | Computer Systems | Mar 10, 2016 7:31 AM CST

While there is already an extended series of ASUS VivoPCs on the market, ASUS has decided to expand its plethora of company offerings with the VivoMini VM65 series of products. All models in this series are packed into a chassis that measures under 2 liters in capacity and will include 6th Generation Intel Core processors.

The top model is said to feature not only 16GB of DDR4 memory, but it will also have a discrete NVIDIA GeForce 930M inside. This model is named the VM65N and has been designed for 4K in mind, ASUS said in a recent press release, with the 4K support in this model being designed to "allow users to enjoy stunning videos, play casual games at their highest settings, or view incredibly-detailed photos."

The VM65N further comes packed with two SuperSpeed USB 3.1 ports, four USB 3.0 ports, a 4-in-1 card reader, audio output, an inbuilt Intel Wi-Fi card, plus further Display Port++ and HDMI display options. Wrapping up the feature list is room for a single 4.5-inch HDD or two 2.5-inch storage solutions, with this PC being VESA-mountable.

Continue reading: ASUS introduces sub-2 liter PC with 4K UHD support (full post)

AMD releases its new Radeon Software Crimson Edition 16.3 drivers

Anthony Garreffa | Graphics Cards | Mar 10, 2016 3:00 AM CST

AMD has just released its new Radeon Software Crimson Edition 16.3 drivers, which include a bunch of new features, optimizations and more. The new drivers from AMD also include support for Hitman, which launches on March 11.

The Radeon Software Crimson Edition 16.3 drivers include performance improvements and a Crossfire profile for Hitman, as well as an updated Crossfire profile for The Park. We also have performance improvements for Rise of the Tomb Raider (16% improvement on Fiji-based cards), Gears of War Ultimate Edition (which is up a huge 60% on Fiji hardware, and even 44% on R9 380 series cards).

The 16.3 release also has AMD providing full support for Vulkan's initial release, which supports compatible GPUs to make good use of a low-overhead API in supported games and applications. There are some new features with the 16.3 release, including per-game display scaling, support for two-display Eyefinity configurations, as well as the ability to disable some of the power efficiency optimizations through a 'Power Efficiency Toggle' on Radeon 300 and Fury X series GPUs.

Continue reading: AMD releases its new Radeon Software Crimson Edition 16.3 drivers (full post)

Remedy teases it could 'come up with something cool' for Max Payne

Anthony Garreffa | Gaming | Mar 10, 2016 1:06 AM CST

The original Max Payne was a huge game at the time, with its sequel improving on the game in many ways - but many gamers felt Max Payne 3 wasn't as good as it could've been - with developer Remedy selling the rights to Max Payne to Take-Two Interactive all the way back in 2002.

Under Take-Two's ownership, Rockstar Games (the developers of Grand Theft Auto) released Max Payne 3 in 2012 - which was met with success. Fast forwarding to now, with the impending release of Quantum Break, Remedy's Sam Lake talked with Metro Game Central about what the developer would do if they were to be in the position of making another Max Payne game. Lake teased: "They did contact us close to the end of Max Payne 3 and wanted us to be consultants. We were playing the game and giving them feedback, and I had a nice opportunity of working with Dan Houser when he was creating the prequel comic book for Max Payne 3. But other than that we were not involved".

Lake continued: "I don't know... if that kind of opportunity did present itself I think it would be fun. Yes. You can't help but have all kinds of ideas, but we did two Max Payne games. From a creator's perspective it was actually nice knowing that we had sold the IP to Rockstar after the first one, and part of the deal was to make the second one. So through that whole project I knew that in all likelihood this was the last Max Payne that we would make. So doing that and saying your goodbyes to that franchise had a lot of closure for me. But who can say, if something like that would suddenly happen I'm sure that we could come up with something cool".

Continue reading: Remedy teases it could 'come up with something cool' for Max Payne (full post)

2016 Rio Olympic Games broadcasting with VR and 8K

Ben Gourlay | Celebrities & Entertainment | Mar 10, 2016 12:32 AM CST

The upcoming 2016 Rio Olympic Games is only five months away, and this year it's coming with some pretty exciting technological breakthroughs.

According to Engadget, not only will select events including the opening and closing ceremonies be made available in VR around the world, around 130 hours of select events will be filmed with 8K cameras and broadcast in Japan in 8K, with a mind-blowing 22.2 channels of sound, as an experiment towards broadcasting the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games in the Super Hi-Vision format. Unfortunately, sports fans in other countries will have to be content with 1080p broadcasting where available , as there are no plans for 4K broadcasts, which is a real bummer.

Continue reading: 2016 Rio Olympic Games broadcasting with VR and 8K (full post)

Kim Kardashian's mobile game makes $80 million, still can't help Kanye

Anthony Garreffa | Business, Financial & Legal | Mar 9, 2016 11:45 PM CST

I don't know why I'm writing about Kim Kardashian of all things, but her latest mobile game 'Kim Kardashian: Hollywood' has made so much money, I had to write about it.

Glu Mobile's Kim Kardashian: Hollywood made an insane $80 million, a figure that Mrs Kardashian West took to Twitter to brag about. In a tweet, Kardashian said: "sorry I'm late to the party guys I was busy cashing my 80 million video game check & transferring 53 million into our joint account". We can only guess that Kim Kardashian: Hollywood made that money throughout 2015, as the mobile game earned $13.4 million in Q4, or 24% of Glu Mobile's total revenue for the quarter.

Throughout the entire of 2015, Kim Kardashian: Hollywood made $71.8 million, or 30% of Glu Mobile's total revenue. The game is of huge importance to the company, but the earning power of the game has declined since its launch in 2014, where it made $43.4 million in revenue in Q3 alone. In the same quarter of 2015, this revenue dropped to $18.8 million. Not too bad for a game... about Kim Kardashian.

Continue reading: Kim Kardashian's mobile game makes $80 million, still can't help Kanye (full post)

Hollywood finds 'Where's Wally', plans feature film

Ben Gourlay | Celebrities & Entertainment | Mar 9, 2016 10:41 PM CST

The 'Where's Wally' series of children's book (known as 'Where's Waldo' in the United States) is set to come to the big screen, with comedian Seth Rogen set to produce.

According to Tracking Board, MGM are behind the live-action project from Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg's production company Grey Point Pictures. 'Kung Fu Panda' screenwriter Todd Berger has written the latest draft of the script.

While there's no current word on who's being targeted to play the red and white striped hero, whoever brings him to life could be residing over a stroke of genius project - or a mad one.

Continue reading: Hollywood finds 'Where's Wally', plans feature film (full post)

SuperData reduces VR forecast by 30%, says console VR will beat PC

Anthony Garreffa | Extended Reality (XR) | Mar 9, 2016 10:16 PM CST

Earlier this year, SuperData predicted that some 38.9 million VR headsets would be sold by the end of 2016 - well, it looks like they've had some time to think, and have reduced their VR forecast by 30%.

The research firm expects console VR to reach a larger audience than PC, with the company expecting worldwide VR revenues to hit $3.6 billion - 30% less than the $5.1 billion it predicted in January. SuperData's Director of Research and Insights Stephanie Llamas explained to GamesIndustry.biz: "Since we published our original figures, we have had a number of conversations with both hardware and software developers, as well as access to newly public information".

Llamas continued: "We previously overestimated PC and mobile hardware penetration and underestimated console hardware sales. Console will be high-end VR's white horse since it has lower hardware requirements, easier set-up and lower pricing. PlayStation's 35 million-plus users are also a far larger accessible audience than that of high-end PCs, which tops off at about 17 million".

Continue reading: SuperData reduces VR forecast by 30%, says console VR will beat PC (full post)

Google surprises by releasing Android N in Developer Preview form

Anthony Garreffa | Software & Apps | Mar 9, 2016 8:33 PM CST

Out of nowhere, Google has released Android N in preview form, limited to Nexus smartphones and tablets. Android N is a very early beta of Google's next mobile OS, something it should release in fuller, more finished form as we get closer to Google I/O in mid-May.

For now, the beta is available on g.co/androidbeta and judging by the screenshots - Android N has three big new features. The first is split screen, for an improved multitasking experience - something that the likes of Samsung have been doing with TouchWiz on their Galaxy smartphones for a while now.

The second one is a new notifications panel, and a new and improved Doze power saving feature. There's heaps more in Android N, with a full list of what the Preview has to offer.

Continue reading: Google surprises by releasing Android N in Developer Preview form (full post)

Quantum Break on PC doesn't require an always-online connection

Derek Strickland | Gaming | Mar 9, 2016 7:08 PM CST

Quantum Break's live-action video can be skipped on all platforms, alleviating the need for always-online connections.

Quantum Break on PC doesn't require an always-online connection

We recently reported that PC players have no choice but to stream Quantum Break's live-action segments, raising questions whether or not the game would need a persistent internet connection on PC. Xbox players, on the other hand, have the option to download the videos for offline play.

Now a Remedy developer confirms that players will have the option to skip the game's video segments, meaning the game can be played offline on PC. "I see a few people who are upset that you can skip the live action show in #QuantumBreak if they want to... what? Are options bad?" Remedy developer Lennie Hakola said in a recent Tweet.

Continue reading: Quantum Break on PC doesn't require an always-online connection (full post)

The Division sold more copies in 24 hours than any other Ubisoft game

Anthony Garreffa | Gaming | Mar 9, 2016 5:33 PM CST

Now that The Division has launched, the first 24 hours have been a huge success for Ubisoft. The company has said that The Division sold more copies in its first 24 hours than any other Ubisoft game, ever.

The Division also sold incredibly well when it comes to digital sales, but Ubisoft didn't reveal any concrete numbers. Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot said: "The launch of The Division is a tremendous achievement for Ubisoft, and demonstrates our unrivaled capacity to create fantastic new game brands and transform them into entertainment blockbusters".

Guillemot continued: "This is a momentous day for Ubisoft, but more importantly it marks the start of millions of players' enduring engagement in The Division's game world, which we are confident they will love".

Continue reading: The Division sold more copies in 24 hours than any other Ubisoft game (full post)

Facebook Messenger Windows 10 app screenshots leaked

Sean Ridgeley | Software & Apps | Mar 9, 2016 5:02 PM CST

While the Windows 10 Facebook app is pretty great for serving your Facebook needs, you may prefer to use the Messenger portion only, as many do on mobile. That's where the upcoming Facebook Messenger Windows 10 app comes in, which we get a first look at today courtesy of screenshots leaked by Windowsblogitalia.

There aren't any big surprises aesthetically: it's pretty much what you get now. However, it includes more features such as GIF support, voice, a like button, and so on.

Not pictured: notifications, live tile support, contact groups, and message forwarding.

Continue reading: Facebook Messenger Windows 10 app screenshots leaked (full post)

PlayStation VR games will be priced from $10 to $60

Derek Strickland | Extended Reality (XR) | Mar 9, 2016 4:35 PM CST

Virtual reality is almost here, and Sony's PS4-powered PlayStation VR will be the first console-ready VR experience on the market. But what about the games? According to Sony, we can expect to pay as much as $59.99 for a single PSVR game, and the games won't be extensive AAA experiences, they'll be small and experimental.

PlayStation VR games will be priced from $10 to $60

In a recent interview with Polygon, Sony exec Shuhei Yoshida says that PlayStation VR games will cost "anywhere from $10 to $60". We know that Sony has plans to release more than 100 games throughout the headsets lifecycle, with the games described as "simple, passive experiences".

"At this point, VR is about creating new experiences, and we don't need as much content--asset creation. That's where it takes the largest number of resources," Yoshida said.

Continue reading: PlayStation VR games will be priced from $10 to $60 (full post)

Intel buys instant replay technology company for $170 million

Sean Ridgeley | Business, Financial & Legal | Mar 9, 2016 4:05 PM CST

There's been a lot of talk in sports media in recent times about giving the viewer control over what they're watching, such as changing angles at will. It was finally put to work at the NBA All-Star Weekend, where Israeli startup Replay Technologies allowed fans to view replays and highlight reels from virtually every angle with its "freeD" tech.

Intel buys instant replay technology company for $170 million

FreeD works by rendering a 3D simulation of the court based on captures from 28 ultra HD cameras positioned around the arena, which is then uploaded to Intel servers for fans to play with.

Intel has been working with Replay Technologies since 2013 on this project (referred to as "immersive sports"), which has culminated in the former acquiring the latter for $130 million today. Intel says the acquisition means Replay will be better able to speed up freeD processing and add more customization for users.

Continue reading: Intel buys instant replay technology company for $170 million (full post)

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