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