Gaming - Page 1120

As seen on Daily Dot, one lucky Reddit user has claimed to make the nostalgic find of this century, a Nintendo PlayStation prototype console - apparently limited to 200 total units worldwide.

In the dawn of the 1990s Nintendo entered partnership with Sony, set to produce a console partnered between these two technology giants. Apparently this partnership wasn't to last, with Nintendo focusing on the N64 and Sony working on its first PlayStation release instead. With a claimed 200 models of this 'Super Disc' produced, it's said that this piece of gaming history was found in an box belonging to an old Nintendo employee.

Brandishing a SNES-style controller, a cartridge and disc slot and line-out through the power of RCA, it seems that this console hasn't seen the light of day in some time. It's also been stated that the owner isn't sure if it even works, completely devoid of a power pack to test it out with.

If you didn't already know, the Star Wars: Battlefront alpha build leaked out to torrent sites yesterday, but now it looks like All Games Beta has leaked out something we all wanted to see... 4K screenshots of Star Wars: Battlefront, which look absolutely gorgeous.

As you can see, there is an extreme amount of detail in the game, powered by the Frostbite engine, the same engine that Battlefield 4 and Battlefield: Hardline is based on.

Below, we have over 20 screenshots, so prepare your Internets!

There has been a push for more games to be pushed across from PC-only platforms to console in recent years with Minecraft instantly coming to mind. Next up is the third-person MOBA of SMITE, set for an Xbox One beta launch on the 8th of July and coming complete with Australian servers too.

Currently operating in closed beta, SMITE brags its placement as the first major MOBA to reach across to the console audience. Hi-Rez Studios' Xbox One Senior Producer, Andy Andersonm, stated in a recent press release that "We're delighted to offer SMITE communities the best possible experience on PC and now console," however mentioned no competitive announcements for this upcoming release.

SMITE offers a global championships for its PC audience, seeing a $2.6 million prize pool offered earlier this year in Atlanta. It seems console is left out, for now.

Back in February, we reported that Naughty Dog said that hitting 60FPS on the PS4 with Uncharted 4 was 'really f**king hard', with the developer inevitably hitting that brick wall. Naughty Dog has now confirmed that the single player side of Uncharted 4 will be locked at 30FPS.

Co-Lead Designer on Uncharted 4, Anthony Newman, explained that the frame rate being locked to 30FPS was because "the game we wanted to make, to make the best game possible. To me, a locked 30 is better than a variable 60".

This change to 30FPS for Uncharted 4 on the PS4 does have me asking a question: Naughty Dog did promise it was sticking with 1080p 60FPS for future games. If the studio can't hit 60FPS on the PS4 without a large jump in visual fidelity over Uncharted 3 on the PS3, we need to really start tackling a big problem: the current generation consoles were never fast enough to begin with. Oops, there, I said it, again.

I've only just taken my hands off the keyboard writing about the downgraded visuals in Elite: Dangerous, but now it looks like Next Car Game: Wreckfast is going through the same thing.

Bugbear Entertainment, the studio behind the game, has just pushed out a new DX11 rendering engine update, something that included an improved physics engine, and support for 64-bit operating systems. This new updated engine looks to have downgraded the visuals in the game, with some keen-eyed gamers spotting the differences as soon as the patch started making its way onto gamers' systems.

We've posted a bunch of images that DSO Gaming has shared, with the previous build on the left, and the updated build on the right. You be the judge, and let us know in the comments below.

Frontier Development is the latest studio in the firing line of the PC master race, with gamers reporting that the developer has watered down the graphics of Elite: Dangerous in its latest update.

Gamers have said that the dust/fog effects have been radically reduced, the Galaxy Map has changed, textures look worse, and the Ring LOD and Station Letterbox Draw Distance have both been reduced. Frontier has hit back, saying that some of those things have indeed happened, addressing concerns on whether the PC version of Elite: Dangerous has been downgraded because of the upcoming release of the game on the Xbox One.

Head of Rendering for Frontier Development, Greg Ryder, said: "Please thank Granite for putting together a thread like this. The team is always striving to make things better, and we've found a number of things using the profiling tools on the Mac and Xbox One that have improved the PC build (thus the opposite to the fear they might lower the quality of the PC build). Elite: Dangerous is built to scale on PC (including 16k screenshot ability and hopefully one day 16k game when the monitors & video cards exist!). We are certainly not inclined to downgrade the appearance of anything in the game. Exposing more tweakables for an enhanced Ultra is clearly something you guys are passionate about and we'll see where it can fit in the current roadmap".

Peter Moore, former Microsoft corporate VP of the Interactive entertainment business and now Chief Operating Officer at Electronic Arts, recently recounted the horrific times caused by the Xbox 360 "Red Ring of Death."

Issues related to the RRoD cost Microsoft more than $1 billion, and left many gamers frustrated. Despite strong global sales of the Xbox 360, it was a constant headache for Microsoft and a number of their frustrated gamers.

"We were seeing failure rates and starting to get reports through customer service. This was a thing where we couldn't actually figure out what was going on," said while speaking to IGN in a recent podcast interview.

Even though Nintendo had things to offer at E3 in Los Angeles last month, it still faced criticism regarding the Japanese company's presence at the gaming show.

Nintendo managing director Shigeru Miyamoto and President Satoru Iwata have become a bit more vocal in discussing the criticism. During a shareholder meeting, Miyamoto discussed the frustrations expressed by E3 attendees - and online viewers:

"We recognize that we have let down a number of the online viewers of this year's E3, especially the avid Nintendo fans, because we did not show what they had expected. On the other hand, since E3 was originally a U.S. trade show, when we consider what kind of messages we should dispatch and in what fashion, while we have to take into consideration the impression that we may give people outside the U.S., we have been very mindful about how we can maximize our immediate business in the U.S. this year."

Anytime I've written about Fable Legends in the past few months, it seems talk always turned to downloadable content (DLC) in free-to-play games. Lionhead Studios is going in a bit of a new direction with Fable Legends, and wanted to try to clear the air a bit regarding the controversial inclusion of DLCs in its upcoming free-to-play action role-playing game. We recently spoke with David Eckelberry, game director at Lionhead Studios, so here is what he had to say.

The addition of DLCs brings a high level uncertainty among many gamers, and some of you have already questioned it regarding Fable Legends.

"That's a reasonable thing to be unsure of. I'm unsure about free-to-play in some games!" David Eckelberry told TweakTown. "I believe it's up to the game developer. Some games I love are free-to-play, and I don't think it's a coincidence that first and foremost they are good games, regardless of how they get to market. It's also not a coincidence that these games seem legitimately fair: they don't let a player buy his way to victories, and the things you can purchase seem pretty fairly priced."

The Microsoft Xbox One is being handily outsold in Europe by the Sony PlayStation 4, with the PS4 holding 70-90 percent market share. Microsoft understands the importance in the European market, and the company is going to try to find ways to better compete against Sony.

"We need to do better in Europe. When I look globally, mainland Europe is definitely an area we want to focus on," said Phil Spencer, Xbox boss, while speaking to Edge magazine. Microsoft hopes to win over some gamers during Gamescom, a gaming-focused trade show in August that will be held in Cologne, Germany.

Spencer said the Xbox One "does really well" in Latin America, and is fighting Sony in the North American market.

DICE is feeling the pressure when it comes to trying to figure out what to include in the new Star Wars Battlefront video game - and it continues to be a major challenge, trying to sort out what makes the cut from the Star Wars universe.

"I wouldn't say that we've designed it by committee. We have a very strong, very competent design lead," said Sigurlina Ingvarsdottir, senior producer of Star Wars Battlefront, in a statement to GameSpot. "But, basically, what we've taken is what to us is the core of Star Wars. Star Wars is so vast, there's so many things in Star Wars that are beloved by so many. And so they are hard choices."

It looks like DICE has decided to support planets such as Endor and Hoth, with characters ranging from Han Solo and Darth Vader - giving gaming fans characters and locations that they will be extremely familiar with.

Sony is dominating the European market, where during a recent interview with VG247, Sony Europe President Jim Ryan saying that Sony has nothing less than 70% marketshare in every European country.

Ryan explains: "We have a very significant market leadership. We have market leadership in every country in Europe, and have very significant market leadership in continental Europe. Extremely significant. I don't think marketshare's any less than 70 percent, and frequently greater than 90 percent in continental Europe".

During the interview, Ryan said that the PS4 is still seeing "very considerable" momentum at its current price, with the company adding that it has no plans to cut the price anytime soon. Ryan added: "We're happy with the price and we're happy with the value proposition. We'll leave it where it is for now".

Just how popular is Minecraft? Well, very. Mojang has just announced on their website that they've sold over 20 million copies of Minecraft on the PC.

Not just that, but the total sales of Minecraft across all platforms, has passed over 70 million - quite the achievement. In the last 24 hours alone, Mojang has sold over 10,000 copies, proving the game is an unstoppable success. Most people were worried when Microsoft paid $2.5 billion to buy Mojang not too long ago, but with Minecraft being shown off in HoloLens, we can see how big this game is going to be going into the future.

Microsoft hopes teachers use Minecraft to help stimulate students in the classroom, allowing them to think creatively - and have fun while doing it.

After the game originally launched in 2011, some teachers found unique ways to embrace Minecraft. It has been used to help teach students about Japanese-American internment camps, DNA extraction, architecture, all while helping grow leadership and digital citizenship.

"Many of the most fun parts of Minecraft, including the collaborative nature of play, the need to experiment, the open world, the earning of achievements, and the growth of players' in-game characters as well as their personal skill sets, are also key to excellent learning environments," according to a recent blog post on the Minecraft Education website.

It looks like film studios have asked Bethesda about creating movies based off of Elder Scrolls and Fallout, but the gaming studio is more focused on creating great video games. The Bethesda board of directors has two TV and movie industry executives, so there is a "really good window" available - but gamers shouldn't hold their breath.

Bethesda believes video games are the "best form of entertainment in the world," according to Pete Hines, marketing executive at Bethesda, in a statement to GameSpot. "Generally speaking, we view ourselves as a video game company. We make video games. Movies and TV shows are an entirely different thing."

The added insight from CBS President Leslie Moonves, former MGM CEO Harry Loan and other people close to Bethesda has offered unique insight into trying to create something away from games: "We've gotten a lot of very good advice about, 'There's way more things that can go wrong than can go right with this. The concern is always... do you want the world's view of The Elder Scrolls to be what [director Todd Howard] envisions in Skyrim or do you want it to be some other director who decides to make a movie that looks like Cats?"

Nintendo hasn't had the best run with the Wii U, with Nintendo's legendary designer Shigeru Miyamoto talking with Fortune recently, where he had some interesting things to say.

There have only been 9.54 million units sold, making the Wii U the slowest-selling Nintendo console of all time. During his interview with Fortune, Miyamoto said: "I feel like people never really understood the concept behind Wii U and what we were trying to do. I think the assumption is we were trying to create a game machine and a tablet and really what we were trying to do was create a game system that gave you tablet-like functionality for controlling that system and give you two screens that would allow different people in the living room to play in different ways".

It was all bad timing with the tablet-like controller with the Wii U, where Miyamoto added: "Unfortunately, because tablets, at the time, were adding more and more functionality and becoming more and more prominent, this system and this approach didn't mesh well with the period in which we released it. I still feel it was a very novel approach - and a very interesting idea".

Gamers have patiently waited for The Last Guardian for a long time, after the game was originally announced during E3 2009 for the PlayStation 3.

However, it was a general relief to be able to show the game off during E3 2015 and promise a 2016 ship date to gamers.

"Last night was, but now the reality settles in. We have to deliver, we have extra pressure, and the team has too, but it's a good pressure. The team is super happy," said Shuhei Yoshida, President of Sony's Worldwide Studios at Sony Computer Entertainment, in a statement to GamesIndustry.

Sony isn't interested in directly offering backward compatibility so PlayStation 4 gamers can play their PlayStation 3 titles on the new generation console. However, Sony wants gamers to check out the PlayStation Now streaming subscription service that provides access to hundreds of PS3 games.

There are some PS4 gamers and media members that think Sony should investigate rolling out a backward compatibility feature for the PS4 - just to make gamers happy. Sony has worked hard to create a good gaming ecosystem, trying to keep sometimes fickle fans happy.

If it doesn't offer backward compatibility, Sony runs the risk of leaving gamers disappointed, though with other methods to play PS3 titles - for free or paid rental - I think the Japanese electronics company has done enough already.

The creator of Mario, The Legend of Zelda and other popular game titles, Shigeru Miyamoto, is focused more on new video game development instead of the Nintendo NX.

Miyamoto is more of a software and gaming guy, but has contributed input regarding previous Nintendo hardware platforms - but seems more interested in just watching the hardware develop, and make sure future titles are able to run well on NX.

"I've pulled myself back out of some of the hardware section and I'm really focused on some of the software I'm involved in- for example, the new Starfox game," Miyamoto recently said to Forbes. "Of course, I am observing and looking at the hardware, but I am not actively participating and making decisions."

It seems like gamers are interested in Steam machines, as Valve has sold out of "get it early" Steam Machines. The preorder allows gamers to get a Steam Machine one month earlier than the general public.

The Steam Machine runs the SteamOS, a customized version of Linux. Valve is working with Alienware, Syber and other third-party hardware OEMs so gamers will be able to enjoy a comfortable gaming experience. The hardware ranges in price from about $450 up to $1,500, and gamers still have plenty of questions regarding Steam Machines and SteamOS.

The "Get it Eary" Steam Machines sold out in less than one month. It's unknown how many units actually have been preordered, and if this is just a clever marketing ploy from Valve. If you missed out on the Steam Machine, it's still possible to reserve a Steam Controller, Steam Link, or Alienware Steam product.