Gaming - Page 1121

Dying Light launched yesterday, but it looks like the PC version is filled with various performance-related issues, as most games are these days that are multi-platform.

Techland has been seeing Dying Light gamers experience random crashes and stuttering issues, low FPS or FPS drops, sound stuttering or noise and sound lag issues, DLL crashes on startup of "DyingLight.exe has stopped working", SLI problems, and even a total failure of starting the game itself. There are various things you can do to get around these issues, but I think there's a bigger issue at hand here: why are these problems here in the first place?

Dying Light isn't a small game on Early Access (which if it was, it would probably not have 75% of these issues). But, if you need to get it working and you're experiencing these issues, you're going to have to do some work to get it working.

Nintendo has posted its latest financial report, where we can see just how successful its consoles and handhelds are. Starting with the New 3DS, it has helped Nintendo push the "3DS family" over the 50 million mark.

This is all while the New 3DS hasn't even launched in the United States or Europe, with these sales scooting along in Japan and Australia for now. When it comes to the Wii U console, Nintendo pushed 1.91 million units during the holiday quarter, while Wii U sales are sitting at a total of 9.2 million systems. Wii U software sales are sitting at 52.87 million.

Mario Kart 8 and Super Smash Bros. were big sellers for Nintendo across 2014, with Mario Kart 8 selling 4.77 million units while Super Smash Bros. sold a nice 3.39 million units. In total, New Super Smash Bros. had sold 4.16 million units.

Ubisoft isn't going to win many customer appreciation awards with their recent move to ban game key licenses purchased through third-party key resellers. Sites such as G2A and Kinguin (among others) buy license keys in countries where prices are lower, then offer them for sale globally. Ubisoft isn't appreciative of the practice, so they took the step of wantonly deploying the Ubisoft Banhammer and revoking the keys. The problem with this approach is that it punishes the customer, instead of pursuing litigation or other methods against the resellers. In many cases, the user who purchased the key is unaware there is an issue with the practice.

G2A has taken to Facebook to respond, and first denied involvement in any wrongdoing, and then offered refunds on all keys purchased with G2A Shield. It is important to note that only G2A Shield customers are protected, and that other situations will be decided individually.

"As some of you may already know, steps have been taken to remove games purchased indirectly from a publisher, via main marketplaces in the web. G2A.COM is not in any case responsible for any of these procedures. However, we are well aware of this process and will do everything possible to compensate for that. For users who have made transactions without G2A Shield, we will check if the corresponding merchant was responsible for the withdrawal of the code. If so, these users will get a compensation. Any user who used G2A Shield affected by the current process will get either a new code for the game or the money back. G2A.COM will make every possible exertion to prevent this kind of procedures in the future and exclude merchants responsible for such incidents from the marketplace."

Yesterday we told you about how ESEA and the all-mighty Valve had spoken up, banning numerous American and Canadian professional Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) players from their future events due to match fixing and a betting scandal.

In recent news, two other large-scale CS:GO entities have followed suit - seeing FACEIT and CEVO both taking action against these players.

FACEIT have removed the ex-iBUYPOWER team from their 2015 league, further stating that Joshua "steel" Nissan and Derek "dboorN" Boorn from Torqued will be barred from competing in their league closed qualifier. Not only the players were affected, with Casey Foster (pictured above), a member in this scandal and a head admin of FACEIT North America, being dismissed from his position.

While CD Projekt Red may have delayed The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt to May 19, we're finding out more information on the game thanks to various members of the press playing with the latest build of the open-world title.

The developer has revealed that the most recent build of The Witcher 3 is running at 1080p on the PS4 while the Xbox One version is knocked down to 900p on the Xbox One, which is the least impressive version of the game against the PS4 and PC. The Witcher 3 on the PS4 is running at 1080p at 30FPS with higher fidelity graphics than the Xbox One version, even though it's been knocked down to 900p.

What's more interesting is that gaming industry insider 'shinobi602' reporting that the PCs that CD Projekt Red had setup with The Witcher 3 were "specced to consoles" or whatever that means.

With $1.428 billion net revenue posted for the reported period, EA blew their $1.275 billion expectation out of the water - claimed by CEO Andrew Wilson as due to "great execution with our leading IP, new mobile hits and continued strength in our catalogue of top games and services."

Proud of their results, Wilson went on to state that "Electronic Arts delivered amazing experiences to our players in Q3, from the award-winning Dragon Age: Inquisition to SimCity BuildIt to our live services for FIFA, Madden NFL and more," as seen in their recent press release. The results achieved this quarter mark a record for Electronic Arts, seeing it ranked as the best "cash flow for a calendar year period."

Further results include EA being listed as the #1 publisher on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One - due to their releases of Dragon Age: Inquisition, FIFA 15, NHL 15, Madden NFL 15, UFC, Titanfall, Battlefield 4 and FIFA 14. They also pushed through 22 million downloads on SimCity Buildit and saw their titles hit the top 5 iOS downloads in more than 100 countries.

Between PC gaming and console gaming, there is a lot that gamers have to be thankful for - but it could be a rather dull year, according to an industry analyst.

"My general thesis is that nothing is going to happen in 2015, it's going to be really, really dull," said Nicholas Lovell, founder of Gamesbrief and industry analyst, in a statement to the Guardian.

Don't worry, gamers, Lovell is speaking more towards an industry shakeup, not that new game titles won't be entertaining to play. There will be plenty of new game titles for PC, console, and mobile gamers, with studios excited to push the limits of recent hardware improvements.

Not only has the popular North American-based Counter-Strike league ESEA thrown the ban-hammer at some professional Counter-Strike: Global Offensive players caught in a betting ring, but Valve themselves have spoken - barring these players from all future 'Valve majors'.

The betting ring saw players gather upwards of $10,000 worth of in-game items thanks to one singular match in which members created numerous betting accounts and purposefully altered the final score to suit their own benefit.

In an official release, ESEA stated that these bans were originally listed as one-year only on their platform, however "ESEA reserves the right to extend the bans indefinitely."

Elite: Dangerous launched in December last year, but it'll be many more years before the entire galaxy has been mapped. The game takes place in a one-to-one recreation of our Milky Way galaxy, something that will take lifetimes to explore.

There are over 400 billion star systems to explore, but with part of the leveling mechanic in the game incentivising exploration of unknown star systems, Elite: Dangerous is being mapped quickly. At the current rate of exploration, Elite: Dangerous' playerbase is visiting 17,585 new star systems each day. This breaks down into 732 per hour, or 12 per minute.

If this rate continues and there isn't an influx of players in the short term, it would take a gigantic 150,895 years to map the entire galaxy. The developer behind the game is running a content for the first player to reach Elite status in exploration, giving away a $1500 prize. The first player to reach Elite in all three statuses will receive $15,000.

Let's start the week off with some big news for Electronic Arts, which is charging real money for in-game gas in Need for Speed: No Limits. Yes, you will need to buy gas through in-app purchases, or you could wait for your tank to fill back up. This isn't something you want to wait for when you feel the need, the need for speed.

Need for Speed: No Limits is currently an iPhone exclusive, but will be reaching Android in the near future. In the game, each race requires a certain amount of gas, so some gamers will choose to front up real money to pay for gas, so that they can play at their own pace. There are varying levels of currency in the game, with the real-world currency applying to 'gold'.

What do you think of EA charging for gas in a game? What will we be paying for next? Oxygen?

Microsoft reportedly shipped 6.6 million Xbox game consoles to retailers, including both the Xbox 360 and Xbox One, during its most recent quarter that ended on December 31, 2014, it confirmed today. Even though it saw a "strong holiday season performance" for its Xbox 360 and Xbox One, Microsoft didn't provide a shipment breakdown for each individual console.

The shipment figures were a noticeable drop from 7.4 million Xbox One and Xbox 360 units shipped to retailers during the same time frame in 2013 - as the aging Xbox 360 is shown the door in favor of its next-generation counterpart.

Despite the Xbox One outselling the PlayStation 4 last November and December, Microsoft will have a lot of work cut out for itself in 2015.

NVIDIA's 900 series has proven to be a big hit, but a recent issue with the GTX 970 has many users complaining. The problem with the 970 occurs when the GPU memory on the card is fully utilized. Once the 970's GPU memory is filled past 3.2 GiB the bandwidth drops below 20% of expected performance. The precipitous drop leads to speeds as low as 22 GBytes/s, which is much less than the 150 GBytes/s average.

This problem seems to be confined to the GTX 970; the 980 still performs within expectations when GPU memory is full. The net result is severe stuttering during gaming, and many users have taken to the NVIDIA forums to complain about the issue. NVIDIA has issued a statement that they are exploring the problem and will provide an update soon.

GPU memory architecture is somewhat similar to the overall design of all computer systems. The memory bus is a linearly scalable bus, which means all RAM components connected have to respond with the same latency and bandwidth, regardless of how much RAM is present. GPU's are also designed with the same approach, so the results are definitely not expected. The problem is most likely a firmware bug, in light of the fact that these memory subsystems are almost identical on the GTX 970 and GTX 980.

Ubisoft has taken the questionable action of banning gamers without warning over the last several weeks. The issue stems from Ubisoft's distaste for several services that sell game licenses at steep discounts.

The affected users have had their licenses for popular games, such as Far Cry 4 and AC: Unity, revoked without warning. The issue stems from the fact that these gamers purchased their keys from services such as G2A.com and Kinguin. G2A.com and Kinguin provide steep discounts for game licenses by purchasing license keys in countries with reduced prices, then making them available to anyone globally.

It's disconcerting to see Ubisoft targeting end users, instead of the companies undertaking the questionable buying/selling policies. It is certainly possible that many who purchase the games are simply unaware that these sites are redistributing game keys to disparate regions, or that there is an issue with the practice.

We only just reported on the first rumor of Call of Duty: World at War II, but it looks like this could be wrong. Instead, Activision will reportedly announce Call of Duty: Black Ops III. Whichever one gets announced, we know a new COD is on the way.

When the news first broke, we were teased that Activision would reveal a new Call of Duty title on May 4. Soon after this happened, Xbox Canada's Community Manager, Ray Patel, tweeted a teaser image which had a hidden message inside. When translated, it matched up with what the leaked poster had to say about the May 4 reveal. Industry insider "shinobi602" has now chimed in, tweeting: "This should be real entertaining since it's not happening," adding "More info regarding Call of Duty: World at War 2 coming soon".

This is where it gets confusing, as shinobi602 replied to a fans tweet, where he said: "Bookmark this reply. Come May, and watch when World at War 2 doesn't happen". After that, he replied to a tweet that asked which era the new Call of Duty would be based in, to which he replied "Just remember what Treyarch's big games are". Something that could hint toward Black Ops III. It's all a big whirlwind of mess right now, but I'm sure the picture will become much clearer in the coming months.

The images of the purported PS4 Slim are coming from Italian site Multiplayer.it, but they didn't state who was behind the original image. What we are seeing are press images for the PS4 Slim, which is going under the codename of "Monolith". The PS4 Slim looks to be around half the size of the current PlayStation 4, with a slight change to its shape, too.

We should hopefully see Sony showing off the new smaller, thinner PS4 Slim at either E3 or Gamescom later in the year. As for when we should expect it, we should expect it in 2016-2017 going by previous Slim iterations of the PlayStation consoles. Let's hope its sooner, rather than later.

Battlefield Hardline is much closer to its release on March 17, with Electronic Arts teasing what maps and modes to expect from the new entry into the Battlefield franchise.

The maps that will be included with Hardline are as follows: Downtown, Bank Job, The Block, Dust Bowl, Hollywood Heights, Derailed, Riptide, Everglades and the 420 friendly map Growhouse. As for the modes, we have Conquest, Team Deathmatch, two capture the flag variants with Heist and Blood Money; Rescue, where gamers playing as cops have to handle a hostage situation; Crosshair which sees a VIP being protected; and finally Hotwire, where the bad guys try to steal cars while the cops try to stop them from taking the cars - usually resulting in a big shootout.

The upcoming new beta of Battlefield Hardline will include both Dust Bowl and Downtown, but we don't know when the new beta of Hardline will be arriving.

It looks like Activision is preparing for the unveiling of the next entry into the Call of Duty franchise with Call of Duty: World at War II. The publisher will reportedly unveil the new game on May 4 according to an alleged promotional poster for the gmae.

While Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare took gamers into the future with some next-gen weapons, exosuits and more, World at War II will bring things back to reality, and history. Anonymous Protection leaked out the reveal date, which is May 4 at 10AM PDT/1PM EDT. It makes sense, as Activision unveiled the first look at Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare on May 1 last year.

Treyarch will likely be the studio behind the development of the game, handing off the yearly Call of Duty game torch from Sledgehammer.

Gamers have a lot to look forward to in 2015, and Microsoft hopes to blend its upcoming Windows 10 operating system with the Xbox One, so gamers don't have to be tied to a specific platform. Xbox chief Phil Spencer understands there may be some bumps in the road along the way, but feels gamers will benefit from the expected "symbiotic" relationship between the Xbox One and Windows 10.

" So I look at the opportunity to make Windows gaming and Xbox gaming kind of symbiotic with one another," Spencer said during a recent press conference. "And try to grow the number of people that are connected and the amount of content that's available on both platforms - [I feel is] a huge opportunity. I don't feel that there's some kind of financial motivation for me to keep things off of PC."

Microsoft wants to generate Xbox One sales, and hopes integrating Windows 10 into the overall gaming experience could help.

After news reports revealed a 32-year-old Taiwanese man died after an epic three-day gaming session, many people said he was foolish and should have known better. However, experts are speaking out to discuss the topic, due to increased headlines and more people suffering from these types of incidents. Prolonged gaming sessions can lead to health and psychological problems, including repetitive strain injuries all the way to visual hallucinations.

"For me, addiction boils down to constant reinforcement, or put more simply, being constantly rewarded while playing the game," said Mark Griffiths, chartered psychologist and director of the International Gaming Research Unit at Nottingham Trent University, in an editorial posted on CNN.

He also explained the rewards that gamers can receive from continuous gaming.

Fans of the Game of Thrones game from Telltale Games should get excited, as the second episode of the six-part adventure game series is coming to Android devices on February 5.

The second episode is dubbed "The Lost Lords" with Telltale teasing fans of the series with a brand new trailer. The summary of the storyline for The Lost Lords should also have fans pumped: "House Forrester is in disarray. Their liege lord and his heir are dead, and Ironrath is occupied by Whitehill soldiers. The survival of the family depends upon those who are left. Placed at King's Landing, the epicenter of intrigue, Mira Forrester must weigh her loyalty to Margaery Tyrell against the needs of her family, while choosing how to play the political games of Tyrion Lannister. One misstep could spell doom for Mira and her entire family".

The summary continues: "To the far north, Gared Tuttle finds that the wall and its crows hold little love for a squire from the Wolfswood, but finds kinship in the bastard son of Ned Stark. Gared must prove worthy of becoming a ranger in order to carry out the mission given him; one that is vital to the future of those he serves. To the east, Asher Forrester, the exiled son, is called back to Westeros to aid his family, but how can one man help when the Boltons rule the north with an iron fist? Meanwhile, an unexpected source of hope returns to the Forresters, but Ironrath is no place for the weak".