Gaming - Page 1014

In a bid to eke out more earnings from subscription-based services, Sony will raise the fee for its PlayStation Plus to $60 starting late September.

PlayStation fans are in for a rather rude awakening. Not only is the current PS4 model being discontinued in favor of an ugly PS4 "Slim" design, but PS4 owners are being pushed to upgrade their consoles to Sony's new "hardcore" 4K-ready PlayStation 4 Neo after just three years of owning their consoles. Now to round out the disappointment, Sony is raising the cost of multiplayer to $59.99 a year.

"Starting on September 22, 2016, prices for PlayStation Plus memberships will change to $59.99 USD/ $69.99 CAD for twelve months and $24.99 USD/$29.99 CAD for three months. The monthly plan will change to $11.99 CAD in Canada, and remain $9.99 USD in the U.S. If you are a current member, the new prices will take effect if your membership renews on or after this date," reads an update on the PlayStation Blog.

News broke two months ago of the Tekken series finally making its way to PC, and now we have what might be the first footage of the superior version. Provided exclusively to NVIDIA, it's presented in glorious 4K, which offers a marked difference over standard 1080p (click the wheel and downsample to see for yourself).

It's said the development team is still working on the PC version and 4K isn't confirmed, but even at this stage, you can see it works well, a few performance issues aside.

Tekken 7 will launch early 2017.

Sony will reveal its new high-end 4K-ready PS4 console during a special presentation next month, sources indicate.

Sony's new upgraded PS4 console (aka PS4 Neo, PS4.5, PS4K) is set to be revealed during the PlayStation Meeting event on September 7, key industry sources have told the Wall Street Journal. Sony Interactive Entertainment President Andrew House confirmed the high-end PS4's existence ahead of E3 2016, affirming the console is specifically targeting "hardcore gamers" with 4K resolution support and upgraded hardware.

Although most current PS4 owners will likely adopt the new high-end model, Sony was careful to iterate that the PS4 "Neo" is still technically a PlayStation 4, so it won't replace the existing models and will instead sit in the same family. "It is intended to sit alongside and complement the standard PS4. We will be selling both [versions] through the life cycle," SIE President Andrew House continued.

No Man's Sky is still a gigantic mess, but Hello Games have said they will start improving the game "with new features", but only once all of the support requests have been answered. The latest patch arrived a few days ago, but there were no patch notes - and now, we have patch notes.

The notes that Hello Games released state that the fixes should address around 70% of the issues reported by gamers that were reported directly to the developer, on Steam or Reddit, or other forums. The team is now working on the remaining 30% of the issues, with the developers taking to Steam saying: "Right now the team is fully focused on categorising and fixing support issues in order of priority, based on the number of people they are affecting".

If you want to spend the next 15 minutes reading the patch notes on the last three No Man's Sky patches, check it out. Also don't worry, only 78% of the player base have left No Man's Sky... when will the rest abandon the game?

Injustice: Gods Amongst Us landed on game store shelves in 2013 for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, 4 and Wii U. Developers NetherRealm in conjunction with Warner Bros. Interactive announced Injustice 2 would hit the stores in 2017 for the Xbox One and PlayStation 4.

Injustice 2 will include new characters such as Deadshot, Blue Beetle, Supergirl, Red Lantern Atrocitus and Gorilla Grodd with the added features of new costumes and suits for characters such as Harley Quinn. Quinn recently made her debut in the DCEU in Suicide Squad, giving a new look from the standard red and black leotard that is portrayed in comics and games such as Batman: Arkham City and Origins. Original characters such as Superman, The Joker, Batman, Wonderwoman, Green Lantern, Cyborg and more are to return for Injustice 2, continuing with the already established storyline from Injustice: Gods Amongst Us.

The new trailer includes an official look at Harley Quinn and Deadshot, who were portrayed by Margot Robbie and Will Smith in Suicide Squad.

UPDATE: Eurogamer has confirmed that the leaked PS4 Slim console is indeed genuine. Sony will unveil the new slimmer, thinner model on September 7.

Sony will unveil a new standard PlayStation 4 model--the "PS4 Slim"--alongside the upgraded 4K-ready PlayStation 4 Neo console next month, with the slim variant becoming the new basic PS4 model, sources indicate.

Just hours after alleged images of Sony's new PS4 Slim model leaked onto the internet, the Wall Street Journal corroborates the existence of the slim console by reporting that Sony will unveil two new PlayStation 4 models at the PlayStation Meeting event on September 7: the same-specced PS4 Slim, and the new powerful PS4 Neo.

UPDATE: Eurogamer has confirmed that the leaked PS4 Slim console is indeed genuine.

Sony's new cheaper PS4 Slim variant launches globally on September 14, according to purported early owners of the console.

Some UK gamers have apparently gotten a hold of Sony's new PlayStation 4 Slim, revealing the console's aesthetics and basic features to the gaming world via GumTree listings.

UPDATE: Eurogamer has confirmed that the leaked PS4 Slim console is indeed genuine. Sony will unveil the new slimmer, thinner model on September 7.

It's looking pretty official: Sony might be making a PS4 Slim model alongside the new 4K ready PS4 Neo, and the alleged slim variant been spotted in the wild.

Sony's new cheaper PS4 Slim has been shipped out to some lucky owner, who posted a listing on eBay-like site GumTree for 295 Pounds, and the pictures soon arrived on NeoGAF and Shop.to.

Rise of the Tomb Raider was a big deal for the Xbox One last year, as it was a timed exclusive for Microsoft but now the PS4 is about to experience the latest Lara Croft outing. Before its release in October, Digital Foundry has played with the game, stating that it's locked at 30FPS. The game renders at 1080p on the PS4, too.

The input latency had "significant input lag" that was "very noticeable" when aiming precise weapons in Rise of the Tomb Raider on the Xbox One, but the Xbox 360 and PC versions of the game didn't experience this issue. The PS4 version is free of the input lag, which is a great thing to see from Crystal Dynamics and Nixxes, who is helping the former developer on the PS4 version of Rise of the Tomb Raider.

Rise of the Tomb Raider: 20 Year Celebration - yeah, that's what the PS4 version is called, will include all of the available DLC. This means you'll get Blood Ties as well, which is a mission that takes place exclusively in Croft Manor. Blood Ties can even be played in the first-person perspective, and on the upcoming PlayStation VR, which is exciting. There's also a zombie mode that will be unleashed with the PS4 version.

Microsoft has been experiencing unprecedented demand for its new Xbox One S console, so riding the Gamescom 2016 wave is a good idea, especially when you need to get rid of the taste of Quantum Break out of gamers' mouths.

During an appearance on the latest Inner Circle podcast, Xbox executive Albert Penello said that PC gaming doesn't take anything away from the console market, and instead of provides gamers with more ways to play the games they love. Penello talked about the idea that someone wouldn't buy a game because it was on another platform, where he said: "There's a debate or a discussion that you can have with a certain type of people online and you want to argue details and argue nuance, but the reality is that most people don't make that kind of choice".

Penello continued: "Today, if you play games, you're playing games on just about everything you own. You're playing games on your phone, you're playing games on your console when you want to lay back in front of that big TV, and you're playing PC games when you want that keyboard and mouse, up-close, highly customized kind of experience. Even guys that are diehard console gamers, we know they play on their phone and PC". He's right, you know?

No Man's Sky has some truly massive hype and so far, it hasn't really lived up to it at all and yet somehow, it has been the biggest release on Steam this year.

The game launched last week hitting an average of 212,000 players at its peak, quickly becoming the largest launch of 2016. But, the game has been losing players since its launch, with a massive 78% decrease from its peak 7 days ago of 212,000 players to hit its new peak of just 47,000 players.

The developer has patches being deployed as we speak, but I don't see it being able to help the not just stagnated, but plummeting growth of No Man's Sky. Check out what we thought about the game in our official No Man's Sky review.

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided will have a $30 season pass that includes two story-based DLC missions, extra weapons and gear, and more.

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided drops this Tuesday, continuing Adam Jensen's journey through the warring world of augs. Like pretty much every game released in this current generation, the sequel will have a $30 season pass that grants access to two new singleplayer missions called System Rift and A Criminal Past. You also get a bunch of extra filler items like Firaxis skill points, 5,000 credits (that's really not a lot), some item and weapon packs, and some boosters and chips for the new Breach mini-game.

For $30, this season pass looks extremely underwhelming. I'm hoping that those story missions are more than your typical linear quests, especially since you're basically paying $15 each for them. Honestly I think the whole "story mission" description is a misnomer because it implies that you're not getting very much, almost something like a little bonus quest that can be beaten in under an hour. And maybe it isn't a misnomer and the missions are pretty short, I'm not sure. But for $30 I'd hope that Square Enix would give us more bang for our buck.

Gamescom 2016 - Microsoft showcases a nice chunk of gameplay for Forza Horizon 3, the beautiful upcoming racer set in the heart of the outback.

The Forza series is known for its eye-poppingly enchanting visuals, and Forza Horizon 3 is no different: the game really captures the arid golden beauty of Australia quite well, and even has photorealistic locations that are found in the real-world. Interestingly enough, Forza Horizon 3's outback setting was way outside of the team's comfort zone, but they were happy to recreate the continent in game form:

"We never reuse anything in our games, we always rebuild everything from scratch in each new Horizon game," said Forza Horizon 3's creative director Ralph Fulton. "We call these areas playgrounds, because they're build specifically so you can get in your cars and go out and have fun."

Gamescom 2016 - Star Citizen shows us what real planetary exploration is like, making No Man's Sky look like child's play.

After playing No Man's Sky for the past week or so, I find myself wanting a real sci-fi experience. Star Citizen's new planetary exploration demo shown at Gamescom 2016 completely smashes the indie in nearly every way, showing us what real co-op interstellar planet-side should be like.

Star Citizen's new 3.0 update adds in worlds that have actual civilizations and cities and living, breathing NPCs, all of which can be explored with a friend: there's dirty steampunk-style worlds that resemble Blade Runner, and the planets are absolutely huge and varied.

No Man's Sky creator and lead developer Sean Murray reveals exactly why Hello Games made their procedurally generated space sim, and the two emotions that he wants to pass across to gamers.

Hello Games didn't want to make a perfect game with No Man's Sky. They didn't want everyone to like it, and they wanted it to be different and unlike anything we've really played before.

Speaking at the European Space Agency in Darmstadt, Germany, Sean Murray says he made the game specifically to make gamers feel two things: as if they've stepped into a sci-fi book cover to make the awe-inspiring excitement of planet discovery feel real, if only for a small while, and using the game's massive scope to trigger an understanding of how big our universe actually is.

Gamescom 2016 - Just as the developers promised, the Windows 10 PC version of Gears of War 4 has a staggering amount of video options

Microsoft is keen on pulling in more gamers over to Windows 10 PC gaming, and to do that Redmond will have to cater to enthusiast gamers' expectations. This means unlocked frame rates, 4K support, FreeSync and G-Sync compatibility, CrossFire and SLI support, and tons of tweakable video settings. So far Gears of War 4 has ticked all these boxes, and PC gamers will be able to tweak and adjust nearly every aspect of the game to their personal specifications.

Gears of War 4 rocks a pretty huge array of graphics options that are separated into two main tiers: Video Basic and Video Advanced settings.

Super Mario Bros. fans might want to look away at this news, or your credit card might hurt in the morning. Swiss watchmaker Romain Jerome has teased its new Super Mario Bros. themed watch, something that will cost a huge $27,000.

Jerome's new Super Mario Bros. themed watch will be available at Nihonbashi Mitsukoshi for the department store's 19th World Watch Fair. I don't know if I'd spend $27,000 on a Super Mario Bros. themed watch, even if I was ridiculously rich, but there are some rather large Super Mario Bros. fans out there.

Prepare your credit card, or handing over your soul, at the 19th World Watch Fair.

Gamescom 2016 - Now that Titanfall 2 is launching on PS4 for the first time, Respawn is keen on making a lasting impression on its new audience--almost to the point where the game becomes a brand new IP within itself.

"Titanfall 2 is really a new IP at launch if you think about it. The Xbox One install base is two or three times what it was when Titanfall launched, the PC audience continues to grow. Then there's the PS4 install base, which is enormous. It has a '2' next to its name, but that signifies the dual elements of Titan and Pilot, and the single player and multiplayer," Respawn's art director Joel Emslie told MCV at Gamescom 2016.

"We have to consider that there's a whole community that haven't played Titanfall before. That was a challenge for us - how do we make sure that Titanfall 2 is something that anyone could pick up and you don't need to have a played the original? For fans of the first game, we've added a lot of story elements and secrets that they'll appreciate. But it's a game that stands alone. It can reach out to that new community and they can enjoy it for the first time."

Facebook has announced that it's working with Unity on a new "dedicated, immersive experience [built] solely for gamers" that would see the Oculus owner and social networking giant competing directly against the likes of Steam.

With over 650 million users who play games through Facebook every month, we can see the allure of Facebook jumping into support PC gamers in a bigger, and better way. Facebook unveiled its desktop platform in May, where it was at the time, known as Facebook Games Arcade. Now, it's known as the "new Facebook PC gaming platform".

Facebook and Unity representatives told TechCrunch that the new platform will be "distraction free", but didn't elaborate on how much Facebook's influence in terms of the News Feed would find its way into the PC gaming platform. There will be support for casual games, but immersive games will also be there - and why wouldn't they, Facebook does own Oculus after all - this feels like a good push in the right direction for the company.

No Man's Sky continues to hit the headlines, with Hello Games pushing out a new patch that is now live on the PS4 version of the game.

The new v1.04 patch has already reached the PC, but the PS4 version of No Man's Sky is now updated, with a new patch promised for next week. There are no official patch notes, but designer Sean Murray has said that the v1.04 patch "improves stability", and will have some improvements that haven't been detailed just yet.

Murray took to Twitter saying "even though less than one per cent of players have raised support issues, we're going to resolve roughly 70% of them this week", following that tweet, he said: "Patch notes incoming but PC build adds support for more hardware + improves frame rate at low spec. PS4 improves stability + lots more".