Gaming - Page 1168

There were more than 9.7 million Sony PlayStation 4 video games sold to support the impressive 4.2 million consoles sold before the end of December 2013. Sony officials "couldn't be more thrilled" with the early success of the PS4, and it will be a great battle to see the PS4 compete with Microsoft's Xbox One game console.

The global demand for the PS4 is outpacing the Xbox 360, as Microsoft finds success in the U.S. market, while overseas shoppers tend to jump onboard with Sony. Both Microsoft and Sony will battle to control the next-generation gaming market, though it looks like Sony has the initial international upper hand.

Video games were on full display during the 2014 Consumer Electronics Show (CES), where Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo showed off their latest product innovations. Sony's PlayStation Now streaming game service, which is scheduled for launch this summer, will be a cloud-based game streaming service for PS4 gamers.

We saw a tease of twelve Steam Machines at CES 2014, but according to Marc Whitten, the Xbox Chief Product Officer, he isn't worried about Steam Machines taking over gamers' living rooms.

During an interview with Engadget at CES, Whitten said he's "not sweating" over Valve's push into the living room, stating that "there's room for both." Whitten continued: "I personally don't know how to think about Steam Machines yet. I'm not knocking it or whatever. I continue to think that PC gaming - the sort of uber configuration and I can change everything and I can mod - that's an important thing and there's a lot of people that wanna do that."

Whitten did add that when a device is in the living room, gamers want to be instantly entertained. He said that gamers don't want to fiddle with settings or anything else, where he wrapped up with: "When you get into that living room environment, you don't want to spend any of your brain cells doing anything but being entertained. I don't want to work on it; I don't want to feel like I have to know how it works. I would like to be blowing things up now, or watching a thing now. That's the fundamental thing that you want to do."

The Sony PlayStation 4 game console has reportedly racked up more than 4.2 million units sold worldwide since launch time in mid-to-late November to most major markets. Early last month, Sony said it sold 2.1 million units worldwide, with the company clearly having a successful 2013 Christmas shopping season.

"The momentum of the PS4 system keeps getting stronger, and we couldn't be more thrilled gamers worldwide are enjoying the incredibly immersive gaming experiences along with deep social capabilities and entertainment provided by our network," said Andrew House, Sony Computer Entertainment President and CEO, in a statement. "After a remarkable launch, we look forward to bringing even more exciting content and continuing to explore the power of the PS4 system by adding new features and services, including PlayStation Now, in 2014."

Meanwhile, the Xbox One reportedly sold 3 million units to close out 2013, as Microsoft is reportedly proud of the console's early success. Xbox One should outsell the PS4 in the United States, while the Japanese company is able to cater better to international gamers. More gamers want to use a single device in the living room, so the ability to support streaming content, social media, and more robust software is common.

Over the last few days many gamers looking to log into Battlefield 4 have been experiencing an error that prevents them from joining any servers. The most common error reads "Error: No contact with EA Online. Please try again later." The issue first arose last week, and it appeared that EA had fixed it, but this morning the issue arose again.

EA suggest that users check their NAT type and Port Forwarding settings in their router, but several users are reporting that nothing seems to fix the issue. The issue does in fact appear to be with servers on EA's end as Battlefield 3 players are experiencing the same issue.

I just checked and I was able to log into one Atlanta based server, but was unable to log into an LA based server. Unfortunately EA has not released any info on outages this morning, and until they fix things on their end, the issues will most likely persist. I wonder if EA realizes that server downtime equals negative kills in Battlefield?

Valve is currently offering Left 4 Dead 2 for free, which promptly took down the Steam Store servers, but the Steam Holiday Sales continue no matter what, right? Of course!

Today sees a bunch of new games on sale, including Skyrim with 75% off, down from $34.99 to just $8.74, and Deus Ex: Human Revolution - Director's Cut also seeing 75% off, down from $19.99 to just $4.99. If those games don't tickle your fancy, you could grab Payday 2 for $13.49, down from $29.99 or 55% off.

The Division is an MMO coming from Ubisoft and Massive Entertainment, which runs the jaw-dropping Snowdrop Engine, something we took a look at a few weeks ago now. Well, during a Reddit Q&A, the developer talked about the PC version of the game.

Massive said: "As you know, Massive has its roots in PC development. We are working hard and we want to make sure that we have a very high quality experience on PC. You can be sure that our PC version won't be a port, but a full-fledged, optimized version! We want to create the best game possible regardless of what platform you play on."

This is some incredibly exciting news, as the PC version should look the best out of every platform The Division is released on. I'm looking forward to getting my hands, and eyes, on the game even more now.

As with every new piece of consumer technology that comes across its doorstep, iFixit has once again posted a spectacular teardown of one of the hottest products in tech at the moment. Today the company released the worlds first teardown of a Steam Machine from Valve.

Valves Steam Machine's are nothing more than full blown desktop PCs that have been packed in a very small package, so many of you have performed essentially the same thing when building your new PC. iFixit does make the process look very cool though. iFixit says that the Steam Machines are easily repairable and as such, granted the device a repairibility score of 9 out of 10, something almost unheard of in today's tech world.

iFixit gave Valve the best award for packaging ever, as the Steam Box arrives in a wooden crate themed like you would see in a video game. They also have the Steam Controller high marks for its wealth of buttons, and unique touchpads. They did make note of the unique SATA and power cable configuration, and noted the 1TB Seagate SSD that has been installed. The unit they tested featured a ZOTAC GeForce GTX 780, and housed 8GB of Crucial Ballistix RAM. A Silverstone 450W PSU rounded things out.

EA DICE has pushed out the December 16 patch for Battlefield 4 on the PC, which fixes a list of bugs, but has its own issues, too. The new update improves BF4's netcode, so that it will hopefully stop "kill trading".

Kill trading is something where two players who fire at each other, and die in the same place. The patch fixes the amount of time where players with high pings should already be dead, but get the kill instead. The patch also fixes:

But, there are new issues: users with NVIDIA GeForce SLI systems, like myself, get massive flickering issues - with the only option to stop this is by disabling SLI. DICE has said: "Both of these have our attention, and we're investigating them."

Some of you may recall a lawsuit that Nintendo filed and won against an Australian citizen named James Burt. Burt was successfully sued by Nintendo back in 2010 for pirating games for the Nintendo Wii. Nintendo won $1.5 million AUD in the suit, and today it appears that the company has decided to put that in their past.

Burt has just received a statue of Ganon, the evil villain from The Legend of Zelda series. The Statue was given to Burt for being a "Good Customer of Nintendo," something they obviously did not think three years ago. Burt took to Reddit to thank Nintendo, and tell the world that despite the lawsuit, he still loves Nintendo.

Fresh from his position at Epic Games, Cliff "CliffyB" Bleszinski, is wanting to make a new game: a first-person arena shooter for the PC. He told the world the news through a podcast known as Pointless, the podcast from former Attack of the Show host, Kevin Pereira.

CliffyB told Pereira: "I have a slide deck, I have a pitch, I have concept art, I know pretty much what I want to do. It will be a PC experience that will hearken back to a certain type of game that we cut our teeth on, if you know what I'm saying." CliffyB explained the game as something that isn't like the first-person shooters we see today, adding: "a lot of these kids playing Call of Duty, I don't think they know what a proper arena shooter is."

What does the ex-Epic Games boss need to make it happen? He explains: "It would require a studio. But as much as I'm impressed with No Man's Sky, you know, that's four people. I don't want to work with the old guard, per se. I'll talk to them, have meetings. But the last thing I need is some mid-level marketing guy telling me that 'well, traditionally, this doesn't sell well, so we're concerned,' and all that. Because they're all rearward-looking, and it just drives me fucking batshit."

It's no secret that EA pushed out Battlefield 4 early so that it could beat Call of Duty: Ghosts to the punch, and the result was an amazing next-gen shooter that is still quite fun despite its flaws. Unfortunately for some, the game has been a little more less than fun and more of a pain in the neck as crashing, lagging, and player syncing on servers have plagued the game.

Today DICE announced that it has released a new patch for the game that fixes some of these issues, as well as a wealth of others. One of the biggest issues that this patch is said to fix is the ability to shoot a player while he is standing behind cover if that player changes his stance. Other issues fixed in this patch are listed below.

This coming Friday is going to be a big day for 300 lucky Steam users as Valve is set to ship its first Steam Machine prototypes to those who qualified. The combo package will include a Steam Machine prototype chassis that is fully upgrade-able, a Steam Controller, and SteamOS.

While only 300 Steam users qualified for this awesome beta program, the rest of us get something out of the deal as well. Valve announced today that alongside the Steam Machine prototype launch, it will be releasing SteamOS to the public. SteamOS is a Linux-based operating system designed to bring Steam gaming into the living room.

Unfortunately, Valve says that unless you are a seasoned Linux veteran, the new OS will not be easy to install off the bat, and that most users should wait until the official launch in 2014 before attempting to install. Valve says that it will fully unveil SteamOS and Steam Machines at CES, and TweakTown will be there for full coverage of the event.

This morning, Elder Scrolls Online game director, Matt Firor, released an official announcement detailing when we can expect to see ESO launch to the public. Firor said that we Elder Scrolls Online will launch on PC and Mac on April 4th, 2014 with a version for Xbox One and the PlayStation 4 arriving in June of 2014.

"We long ago promised that as soon as a version of the game is ready, we will launch it," Said Firor. "So we're happy to announce that the game will launch worldwide for PC and Mac players on Friday, April 4, 2014, while PlayStation 4 and Xbox One fans will see the game arriving on consoles in June 2014." Firor's full statement can be found at the link below.

As a long time Elder Scrolls fan, and a participant in every beta event held for Elder Scrolls Online, I am quite excited to see the game launch. Bethesda has done a fantastic job with ESO and it really does take the series to the next level! As a part of the official launch date celebration the company released a new trailer for the game titled War in Cyrodiil, and I can attest to the game looking as good as the trailer depicts.

During an interview with Wired, John Carmack talked with the struggles of requiring hardware upgrades to continue gaming. Carmack looked back on the days of making Doom a 386-only game, something that paid off, as he said the experience with a 286-based machine at the time would've been sub par.

Carmack also talked about the last generation of consoles, the Xbox 360 and PS3, with their hardware not yet fully utilized. But now, programmers and developers are having to move onto next-gen hardware. Carmack said: "Even to this day, I struggle a little bit with that; there's so much you can still do on the previous console generation."

He continued: "The 360 and PS3 are far from tapped out in terms of what a developer could do with them, but the whole world's gonna move over towards next-gen and high-end PCs and all these other things. Part of me still frets a little bit about that, where just as you fully understand a previous generation, you have to put it away to kind of surf forward on the tidal wave of technology that's always moving. That's something that we've struggled with in every generation. And now I at least know enough to recognize that some of my internal feelings or fondness for technology that I understand or have done various things with usually has to be put aside. Because data has shown over the decades that that's usually not as important as you think it is."

The upcoming Thief Reboot from Eidos Montreal will be a little special on the PC, even with the next-gen consoles having a air guitar competition over in the corner.

Eidos Montreal's Art Technical Director, Jean-Normand Bucci, said: "The new consoles are very strong, very powerful. They allow for much more than what a console gamer is used to. The gap between PC and next gen has massively reduced for sure. The new consoles and high-end PC offer better frame rate, higher resolution, and many new features along with DX11 support", when talking with DSOGaming.

When Bucci talked about the PC version of Thief, he said: "The PC version will support all the graphical features of the next-gen consoles with numerous improvements, including even better anti-aliasing, higher resolution shadows, and support for multi-monitor. Thief on PC will also be amongst the first batch of games that support AMD's new Mantle API for high performance graphics."

During VGX, Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition was confirmed for both the Xbox One and PlayStation 4. We heard rumors of this, but it has now been confirmed. The new version of the game will be "re-built specifically" for Microsoft and Sony's next-gen consoles.

The Definitive Edition of the game will feature all of the DLC from Tomb Raider, a digital art book, six outfits for Lara, and a digital comic. What I don't get, is why it needs to be "re-built specifically" for the next-gen consoles, if it was released on PC - which is a platform that completely outstrips every console on the market.

Unless, the developer is going to crank the graphics up even more - but I don't see that happening. Hopefully I'm surprised, though. What do you think? What do you expect from the Definitive Edition of Tomb Raider on the Xbox One and PS4? Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition hits the next-gen consoles on 1/28 in the US, and 30/1 in Europe.

We just reported that Deus Ex: Universe would not be getting released on the Nintendo Wii U, but that won't matter if the owner of Play.com is right with his prediction: that the Wii U will outsell the Xbox One and PS4 this Christmas.

Play.com owner, Rakuten, has said that the Wii U, backed up with the iPad, will sell more units than the next-gen consoles from Microsoft and Sony, even after both of the next-gen consoles have sold over 1 million units each. Rakuten told MCV that it saw a 75% increase in Wii U sales in October, and expects that upwards trend to continue as we move closer to Christmas.

The retailer is citing a Twitter analysis, which reveals that the Wii U and iPad are "the most talked about presents for children this Christmas". Play.com added: "The marketplace's social media analysis surprisingly showed that the brand new PlayStation 4 and Xbox One consoles are trailing in second and third place respectively behind the Wii U and iPad. This is despite the fact that both new consoles sold out on Rakuten's Play.com during Black Friday, which have since been restocked. It appears that those on the hunt for the latest consoles are gamers rather than consumers buying for their loved ones."

This is quite the rumor, but according to Wedbush Morgan analyst, Michael Pachter, DICE won't be developing the next Battlefield title. This is interesting, especially because it's EA.

Pachter said in a note to the press: "We spoke with management on Thursday afternoon, and although they have not yet announced a version of Battlefield for FY15, they confirmed that our understanding is spot on and that if a version of Battlefield were to be released in FY15, it would be developed by a studio other than DICE."

This would make sense, if EA wanted to pump out annual Battlefield games, like Activision does with Call of Duty. It would make more sense, because EA has killed off the Medal of Honor franchise, and doesn't have two military shooters to go back-to-back every alternate year. But, would it water down the Battlefield franchise, or would it help it flourish?

I've had issues with Battlefield 4, don't get me wrong, but when it works, it's an amazing game. Well, there are issues plaguing most platforms - next-gen consoles included - and EA wants to get it all fixed before it continues working on its DLC for BF4.

EA has put its foot down, with future expansions not being worked on until the problems with Battlefield 4 are a thing of the past. It's good to see EA kicking ass this early into the game, but these problems wouldn't be here if they didn't rush the game to release. EA said in its statement:

It's no secret that Valve has been very Linux friendly as of late, and today the company publicly declared its commitment to the open source operating system by officially joining the Linux Foundation. This adds Valve to a prestigious list of heavy hitters such as HP, Intel, IBM, Oracle, and Samsung who are also part of the foundation.

"Joining the Linux Foundation is one of many ways Valve is investing in the advancement of Linux gaming," Mike Sartain, a key member of the Linux team at Valve said. "Through these efforts we hope to contribute tools for developers building new experiences on Linux, compel hardware manufacturers to prioritize support for Linux, and ultimately deliver an elegant and open platform for Linux users."

With SteamOS just around the corner, and more game developers supporting Linux and Steam every day, 2014 is going to be a big year for Linux gaming. I have a friend who has been predicting this for several years now, and today I had to concede all of my arguments to him on why this would never happen. At the rate things are progressing, I am willing to bet that in 5 years Linux and SteamOS will be as big of, if not a larger gaming platform than Windows is now.