Gaming - Page 1099

Starting today Destiny's mysterious interstellar merchant is selling one of the best exotic-class items in the game--the highly covered Gjallarhorn.

From now until Sunday morning Destiny players can pick up the infamously powerful Gjallarhorn for a pittance of 17 Strange Coins from Xur. This week the Agent can be found in the upper rightmost section of the Tower, in the barroom corner between the Shipwright and the Future War Cult vendor.

Up until now the Gjallarhorn rocket launcher has been an item that's had a supremely mystical quality about it. Every Guardian wants one--it's even argued that every Guardian needs one when facing the atrociously difficult Level 35 Prison of Elders boss Qodron. After weeks and weeks of lackluster rolls and common exotics that everyone already has or doesn't need, Bungie decides to just give Destiny players an early Christmas present and finally cave in to the demands.

Some of the best games coming out in the next few months are going to be exclusive to the Xbox One, but with Microsoft behind the Xbox One, some gamers hope that these titles would transition over to the PC. Unfortunately, they won't be - at least for the foreseeable future.

Xbox boss Phil Spencer has talked about it, where he said that these games might reach the PC, but we should expect them to be exclusive to the Xbox One. Spencer said: "In the case of things like Scalebound or Crackdown or Quantum Break, you know, just to be completely honest with you, we started those games before we really looked at expanding into Windows in the way that I wanted to bring as part of becoming head of Xbox".

He added: "Going to those teams mid-cycle and saying: 'Hey, by the way, I want to add a platform,' didn't really feel like necessarily the best way to end up with the best result for the game. They had a path that they were on. It's not to say those games could never come to Windows, but right now we're on the path to finish the great games that they've started, and I want that to be the case. These games are on a path, whereas with, like, Halo Wars 2 I had the opportunity from the beginning, when we're sitting down with the studio, to say, 'Here's the target. Here's what we wanna go do".

Xbox boss Phil Spencer has nothing but praise for Nintendo it seems, where he recently talked with Eurogamer at Gamescom 2015 saying that Nintendo has "the best first-party on the planet".

Spencer was asked if console-exclusive games can still be system sellers, where he said that the Wii U has the best exclusive games. But, the Wii U sales haven't been too strong, even with those kick ass first-party games, where Spencer deflected criticism over Wii U sales. He reiterated that publishers still can't beat "the strength of IP that Nintendo has". He added: "On the Wii U, I think people downplay how many units they've sold".

He continued: "I've got a Wii U, I think there's some great games on there. I think Splatoon's a really nice game and I don't think there's a first-party out there that has the strength of IP that Nintendo has. They're always a beacon to me when I look at what it means to build a first-party portfolio of products, they've done a great job".

The Sony PlayStation 4 has sold more than 25 million units across the world since launch, and the Microsoft Xbox One is still looking for ways to close the sales gap. However, Xbox chief Phil Spencer understands what it will take to try and close the gap, even if the Xbox One can't topple the PS4.

"Honestly, I think it's about growing Xbox. Sony's had great success with PlayStation, they've earned that success over multiple decades of building a great product. Kudos to them for their market position. All I can do is focus on Xbox, and I love that," Spencer told Eurogamer.

The PS4 has a healthy sales lead over the Xbox One, but Spencer is looking at the entire Xbox gaming ecosystem instead of Xbox One vs. PS4 sales.

Twitch may be the king of eSports live streams, but YouTube is proving to be a popular outlet to watch previously recorded gaming matches. The No. 1 video website has billions of hours of eSports and video game footage viewed by users every month, despite increasing popularity of livestreaming sites.

League of Legends, Counter-Strike, FIFA, and Call of Duty - four popular eSports titles - make up the top 10 list of all-time game videos viewed on YouTube. Some viewers prefer to watch events live, but there is plenty of previously-aired eSports footage available on YouTube and other video sharing websites.

"Twitch clearly has the lead in video game livestreaming and eSports, but if all game-related YouTubers start using YouTube to do livestreaming, they could be back in the game soon," said Peter Warman, CEO of the Newzoo global market research firm, in a statement to Fortune. "Often gamers can choose between Twitch or YouTube streams when it comes to eSports events."

With the rise of professional eSports, games like League of Legends and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive would not have taken off, at least not to the point where they are today. These games have tens of millions of very, very dedicated gamers with tournaments that have tens of millions of dollars being thrown at gamers.

This means it shouldn't come as a surprise to most that some Swedish high schools are now introducing eSports into their curriculum, just like some physical sports are. The eSports subjects will be handled just like physical education subjects, with rooms dedicated to practicing games like DOTA 2 and League of Legends, with guest lectures being given by professional gamers and personalities from within the eSports community.

Magnus Alehed, a principal at one of the high schools offering eSports as a subject said that the idea behind it was to get rid of the negative stigma behind video games and mainstream society. You know, how they think gamers all sit around with a controller in their hands blasting expletives at their TV. Alehed said: "We're looking to dispel the myth that this would be a bad thing and it is about respect for this group of students".

It looks like Deus Ex: Mankind Divided will have watered down graphics, with the producer on the game, Oliver Proulx, talking with Eurogamer explaining that the final build of the game should look close to the suped up graphics we saw from E3 2015 earlier this year.

Proulx explained: "In terms of the graphical fidelity we're very mindful of what we wanted to show at E3 that we don't show something that's impossible to achieve later down the road, and it was really discussed with the team". He continued, talking about the smaller changes that the studio will make to Mankind Divided, with improvements and compromises, but the quality we see should be mostly the same.

"We're confident what we showed, what you'll see when the game comes out, is going to be very consistent in terms of graphical quality", he continued. "Obviously the game goes through iteration and the debugging phase, so you can pick up some differences there - some improvements, maybe some other compromises - but it's going to be pretty much what we've got".

Electronic Arts could offer backward compatibility so EA Access members can play Xbox 360 game titles on their Xbox One game console, according to a recent tweet from the official EA Access account:

The EA Access subscription offers access to EA games, DLC discounts, and early access to game titles - and while the game collection is for Xbox One titles - it looks like Xbox 360 games could be thrown into the mix.

The addition of Xbox One backward compatibility has been praised by game studios, according to Microsoft, with Xbox One owners happy to be able to play their Xbox 360 game libraries. Microsoft is offering gamers who purchase Gears of War: Ultimate Edition a few additional games: Gears of War 2, 3, and Judgment.

Larian Studios, the developers behind the acclaimed Divinity series, today announced a new sequel to the PC CRPG hit Divinity: Original Sin will enter development following the success of a new Kickstarter campaign.

"For a long time, we've dreamed of making something even bigger, better, and more engaging than Divinity: Original Sin, and now it might finally be within our reach," Larian Studios said on its Kickstarter page for Divinity: Original Sin II. "However, we can't reach that dream without your help. As Swen says in his latest blog post, 'Divinity: Original Sin wouldn't be the game it was without the input from our Kickstarter backers ... without having that same community on board, it's going to be very hard for us to achieve the goals we have for Divinity: Original Sin 2.'"

Larian has opened up its forums and encourages the community to provide ideas and feedback for stretch goals and pledge rewards to help shape the game's development. Fans have already posted up a few suggestions like 4-player co-op, an original physical map, a collector's edition guidebook and even a card game (anyone up for a round of Gwent?).

By heavily modding and cracking Microsoft's region-locked free-to-play Halo Online, a tech-savvy team of modders is working hard on bringing a free, fully functioning port of Halo 3 multiplayer to the PC for the first time.

In an effort to serve PC gamers with an authentic Halo 3 port, a growing community of modders have created the Eldorito mod, a bit of software that effectively allows gamers to test-play a user-modified version of Halo 3 online multiplayer.

"I feel strange saying I want an almost ten-year-old game on my PC with nothing new, but there is something about Halo 3's simplicity that I enjoy," Sam Fish, one of the modders working directly on the project, said to PC Gamer. "I think that having Eldorito at least getting to Vanilla Halo 3 status would be an insane starting point for modding and going crazy with the game. We have already seen an insane amount of support with the community with people making Forge maps and mods and posting them on our subreddit almost daily. I think that if our community stays this awesome, Eldorito will have an amazing year."

Every month Valve conducts in-depth surveys to determine the most popular hardware and software solutions used by Steam gamers and compares them on a month-by-month basis. Last month's survey report reveals that most gamers are using stock hardware rather than high-performance rigs.

According to July 2015's hardware survey, only 34% of Steam users play at 1920x1080 resolution, with 26% running games at the laptop standard resolution of 1366x768. Out of the gamers that opt in for multi-display gaming, a full ~29% of these users run at 3840 x 1080 resolution.

When it comes to CPU's ~48% of Steam users run dual-core CPU's, with quad-core CPU's close behind at ~45%. The bulk of CPU clock speeds are between 2.3 GHz and 2.6Ghz, but the 3.3-3.69Ghz clock bracket is on the rise accounting for approximately ~16% of users. Intel CPU's predictably dominate with an inclusion rate of 75% versus AMD APU's at just a quarter of users.

Although the acclaimed P.T. demo will turn a year old tomorrow, the game continues to spellbind players across the globe who continue to search for secrets buried in the hallowed depths.

One gamer shares his find on Reddit, saying that P.T.'s terrifying ghost Lisa will appear as a mini jump-scare in the starting basement.

"After you get trapped in the bathroom and are forced to be possessed on the next loop, get killed by Lisa to get back to the room you start in," says metatronicsauce, the finder of the new scare. "If you exit the room backwards, you will see Lisa very briefly before you enter the hallway. You might also sometimes hear her moaning in the basement room as if you were possessed." Lisa only pops up in the corner of your eye so you have to watch closely or you'll miss her.

Gaming company Nintendo announced earlier this year that it planned to enter the mobile gaming market - and at least five mobile games could be expected by March 2017.

"We can't deny the massive install base of smartphones out there, and some fans that aren't old enough yet to afford their own gaming console, perhaps for those consumers they can start to appreciate some of our content and build a relationship with some of our characters and our franchises," said Scott Moffitt, executive of Nintendo of America, in a statement to the Examiner. "We feel it's going to be an additive to our console business."

Just because Nintendo is dabbling in the smartphone game market doesn't mean investors and supporters need to be worried about executives abandoning the company's core business: "Normally, we wouldn't have taken that step of telling people we are working on the next system, but we wanted people to know we remain committed to the dedicated game device business," he said while referring to the Nintendo NX.

Smach has just surprised gamers by unveiling its new portable Steam Machine which will go on sale on November 10 for $299, the day that Valve begins selling its Steam Machines, but it won't begin shipping until late 2016.

The company that will be building the portable Steam Machine is Smach, which has said it will begin shipping out units in Q4 2016. The $299 price is the pre-sale price only, so expect this to go up a little. What was known as the Steamboy is now known as the Smach Zero, claiming to be "the first handheld console to play Steam games on the go" and will play "more than 1000 games" from the Steam library upon launch.

When it comes to specs, Smach announced back in June:

Video game studios try to deliver a great gaming experience, especially for multiplayer gamers, though must walk a fine-line. There has been more always-online functionality included in even more games, but many gamers don't necessarily like it - not surprisingly, some gamers interested in Need for Speed weren't happy to hear the news.

"We've been pretty big with Autolog throughout the years and, as we know, it's a really powerful feature," said Marcus Nilsson, executive producer of Need for Speed, in a statement published in the Official Xbox Magazine. "This time around we're going to give it more of a human voice. It will treat your friend's play as if it is part of the narrative experience."

The game studio is quite excited about including a new automatic image sharing system, which also benefits from always-online:

At Gamescom 2015 the renown master of macabre Hidetaka Miyazaki sat down with Gamespot to discuss Dark Souls 3, revealing some hints on what's next for the series.

"Dark Souls is my life's work. Everything I came up with for Dark Souls 3 is based on my personal preferences," Miyazaki said, his words offering huge relief for fans who preferred the "Miyzaki touch" that was present in the original game. "Dark Souls 3 is also actually the turning point for the franchise. This project was launched by the previous From Software management, before I was appointed president. In that sense, Dark Souls 3 is the turning point for the series. As president of From Software, I am planning to launch several new projects. I can't quite specify exactly what they are. Those could be something sci-fi, but you'll have to stay tuned for more about that in the future."

This isn't the first time Miyazaki echoed these words; at E3 2015 he squashed reports that Dark Souls 3 would be the final game in the series, but provided no concrete details on what's next. What we do know is that Miyazaki will have full creative control over the future of the franchise, meaning that Dark Souls 3 will act as a bridge towards Miyazaki's new grand scheme.

In an effort to dramatically improve performance, Skyrim modder UniqueUses created an ultra-low graphics overhaul that transformed the once-detailed continent into a majestic winter wonderland straight out of a Pixar movie.

The mod, officially called "Toon Skyrim", was showcased in a Reddit post that has seen some six-thousand upvotes, proving many gamers are eager to try it out. But UniqueUses still has a lot of work cut out for him before Toon Skyrim is ready for release--including fleshing out NPC's, fixing signs, and a number of tweaks across the board.

"I'm basically making my own potato texture mod, with an enb and weather that goes with it to help hide that ugly lod," the modder said in the post, using the term "potato textures" to describe low-def textures. "I like the potato texture style, but I think a lot of fixing up needs to be done for it to be playable. So I'm going to attempt to make things like signs and faces readable but still fit the potato style."

Rumors have been flying left and right about the next singleplayer Elder Scrolls game--could it be Elder Scrolls VI: Argonia, or even a Skyrim sequel?--but Bethesda's own Pete Hines has squashed these rumors, affirming that the studio won't be divulging any new details until long after Fallout 4 is finished up.

At Gamescom 2015 Bethesda's VP in Marketing Pete Hines squashed the Elder Scrolls VI rumors, saying that it will be a "very long time" until a new TES game is announced and that the team is currently "100% committed to Fallout 4".

Speaking of Fallout 4, the team still has a lot of work on their plate with optimizing mods for consoles, tweaking bugs and fixing up the massive crafting system. Considering how huge Fallout 4 is--there are reports that it could take up to 400 hours to beat--this will be a lofty goal with post-release updates to keep the studio busy for some time.

The latest gameplay video on Star Citizen shows off a bunch of stuff, including Quantum Travel mode, the ZeroG mode that has you floating around your ship, and some of the multiplayer goodness, too.

The 13-minute video also features some combat, with some scanning technology being used to find bogies, as well as some aerial fighting through space which is always awesome. We get to see some of the different ships on offer, with different view points into space, and your enemies, depending on where you sit in the ship.

After watching the video, some of the shadows don't look too good, but the overall lighting when you get out of your quarters is super-impressive. The walking around effect is going to take some getting used to, and RSI has some serious optimization to go on the performance, but we are talking about a game that is still in development.

With just mere weeks away from release Konami has revealed the full specs for its AAA stealth espionage blockbuster Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain across all platforms, giving gamers a quick look of what kind of performance values that can be expected for next month's launch.

PlayStation 4 flavors of MGSV will hit a fluid resolution to frame-rate ratio of 1080p 60FPS, whereas Microsoft's Xbox One will be rendered at not-so-surprising native 900p at 60FPS. The PC variants are predictably beefier, with support of a maximum 4K resolution (3840x2160) output but is also capped at 60FPS.

The last-gen PS3 and Xbox 360, which were put on the back burner of development, will be both internally scaled at 720p and see their frame rates halved at just 30FPS. All-in-all these rates are wholly consistent with Ground Zeroes' cross-platform specs.