Gaming - Page 1170

The AMD APU13 conference is continuing on, with some new details about AMD's Mantle API. DICE's front man for the Frostbite engine, Johan Andersson, took the stage at the APU13 conference to talk about Mantle, and how it is going to be used extensively in Frostbite.

Andersson said that there would be a Mantle-powered version of Battlefield 4 released soon, something I'm excited to start testing on, and that there will be a bunch more games released under the Frostbite engine, that would be powered by Mantle. The biggest benefit to take away here is that Mantle has a lot less of an overhead to it, when compared to DirectX.

Jorjen Katsman, from Nixxes, the developer who is working on porting Thief to the PC, said that DirectX 11 has an overhead of around 40%, while Mantle has an overhead of just 8%. Katsman said that it's "not unrealistic that you'd get 20% additional GPU performance" with a Mantle-powered GPU.

Sony's PlayStation network has always been a free service to all PlayStation users. Sony's head of global marketing and vice president of Sony Network Entertainment, Eric Lempel explains to GamesIndustry.biz why they had to make the change and that it would be too difficult to keep the PlayStation Network free. Although the PlayStation Network's app services will still be free, Lempel says the PlayStation 4 will still have an edge over Xbox One due to Xbox Live's requirement to use many of its services. Lempel also explains that you get a good value and that it is worth paying for.

Eric Lempel mentioning it's difficult to keep PSN free: "There's a ton of value in the network. We've built up the network over the years and made a significant investment... and it's quite honestly hard to keep everything free"

Lempel continues: "The network's gotten so much better and it's completely redesigned on PS4. And the investment in Plus gives the user a ton of value, so putting multiplayer in there will continue to help us build the network up for our users. It's a massive infrastructure to run this thing, and now with some of these social features there's a lot going on."

The next generation of consoles are just right around the corner. Ubisoft's CEO, Yves Guillemot comments that the PlayStation 4 is doing better in pre-orders than the Xbox One. Guillemot is not worried though, and says the Xbox One is improving in pre-orders. Guillemot was asked if he was worried about a lack in demand for The Xbox One's pre-orders.

Guillemot comments: "What we see is that there is a good pre-order list on that machine. Even if the PS4 is in front in terms of pre-orders, we see lots of improvement in the pre-orders that are coming on Xbox One. So no, we are not worried at all. We think it will be a big seller as well."

Guillemot is also not worried about the short term transition the consoles bring. Guillemot says, "The PS4 and Xbox One will be released in a few days' time and will be a new driving force for the industry,"

Its no secret that I am one of the biggest fans of Valves Steam platform in the world, and to back that claim up, I have almost 200 games in my Steam Library. One of my biggest gripes about Steam has always been that it will not allow users to download games while they are playing other games, but today Valve has changed that.

Earlier today, Valve began releasing an update to Steam that now enables background downloading. This means that Steam customers can now download and install games while they play other games. This feature can be turned off and back on at any time by the user too, which will be good for games that require high-bandwidth for online play. A full list of the new features and fixes that this latest update brings is listed below.

For those who play Diablo 3 on PC, which is most Diablo 3 players, the mouse and keyboard combination is something that shouldn't be messed with - right? Well, Blizzard has considered building in gamepad support, to bring it in line with the consoles, but this won't be happening.

Senior Level Designer, Matthew Berger, has said: "The rhythm on PC is tactactactactactac - you're clicking the mouse, you're telling your character where to go. On console, the rhythm is very different. It flows more, because you're constantly repositioning your character with the thumbstick; you're really never stationary on console, whereas on PC you're a lot more stationary ... When you're playing on the PC, you're not really looking at your character as much, you're kind of focusing on the cursor. Whereas on console it's the exact opposite, you're drawn in."

Berger continued: "[I]f I let you use the controller on the PC, then I have to let you use the user interface that goes with it, and if I give you the roll and I haven't throttled the number of enemies attacking you because the mouse-and-keyboard players can handle all those enemies, but with a controller you have too many guys ... The games have really been structured to take advantage of their environment and their ecosystem, so in the same way it would not be a good fit to put a mouse and keyboard on the console."

We are hours away from the next-gen consoles launching, and an interesting statistic has hit my inbox from Amazon. An Amazon spokesperson has said that if you were to combine the pre-order sales of the PS4 and Xbox One consoles, "it would make up the largest product release in Amazon history for all categories worldwide".

This is a seriously strong statement, and goes to show the kind of money that is rolling around with these next-gen consoles launching right now. Amazon is one of the biggest retailers shipping and selling the PS4 and Xbox One, but those numbers above are just gigantic. The company with the biggest smile on their face? AMD. AMD have APUs in the PS4 and Xbox One, and they must be laughing all the way to the bank, or at least to the Kaveri APU.

Sony mentioned a just a couple weeks in their FAQ that the PlayStation 4 will not play MP3 or CDs, which was a huge disappointment from fans. Most people where thinking it was a way to push out their Music Unlimited service. Sony says that was never their intention. So they have decided they will push out a update after the PlayStation 4 launches.

Sony's Worldwide Studios president Shuhei Yoshida comments on an episode of Giant Bomb's Interview Dumptruck: "The biggest surprise for us all internally at Sony was there are so many people who passionately reacted to our announcement that there's no MP3 support or CD support on day one," he says. "It's not like we actively decided 'let's not do this feature so people will have to subscribe to Music Unlimited."

Yoshida continues: "The focus has been more on the game features. Some of the features we wanted but we couldn't get in on day one. We didn't really think about MP3 or CD. We thought 'we're going to do that eventually.'... It caught us off-guard. People don't really talk about these features, right? Some people get really mad and [say] 'I'll cancel my pre-order!' So as we speak, people in Japan - the system guys - are discussing when we can put these features in."

The PlayStation 4 is pushing all controller-based gameplay, as you'd expect from a console, but there will be one mouse and keyboard driven title. War Thunder is currently on the PC, with over 5 million gamers in the open beta.

The PS4 version of War Thunder will let you play like you do on the PC, as it supports mouse and keyboard gameplay. Oh, and flight sticks. Better yet, War Thunder will also pit PS4 gamers against PC gamers, which is something we should see more of. War Thunder will also support the PlayStation Eye camera, which will feature head-tracking, letting you change the viewpoint in the game by just turning your face.

War Thunder is coming, soon, with the game launching across Europe on the 29th of this month.

The minutes are counting down until the next-gen consoles launch from Microsoft and Sony, with the latter updating its PlayStation 4 Software Usage Terms today, stating that it may monitor and record PSN activity, including content of voice and text communications.

Sony has said that is cannot monitor "all PSN activity" and that it makes "no commitment to do so." But, Sony's statement does say: "However, we reserve the right in our sole discretion to monitor and record any or all of your PSN activity and to remove any of your UGM at our sole discretion, without further notice to you." It goes on to state:

I have to give props to KitGuru, who have called this huge resolution debacle surrounding the Xbox One "resolution-gate" and I'm going to use it from now on, too. We have yet another game that has joined the "we can only pump 720p out on next-gen consoles" club, Dead Rising 3.

The Xbox One exclusive title will not run at 1080p, and just 720p, but the more disappointing part of this, is that it's 720p, at just 30FPS. Executive Producer at Capcom Vancouver said during an interview with Eurogamer that 1080p wasn't their main target, he continued: "It was not really something we actually set as a mantra. When we first started there was no platform, it was PC and we were just targeting next-gen. It's more important that the end image looks awesome - look at how much stuff is on screen, that's always been a Dead Rising sort of brand. That still looks really good, and that's been our goal. I hope it shows - just look at how much insane stuff is going on screen."

This starts to beg the question, where did the resources go into, if Dead Rising 3 can't run at 1080p, or even 720p at 60FPS? Well, it looks like improved AI, and more on-screen actions in terms of the number of on-screen zombies, and objects.

André Weingarten is one lucky guy, who received an Xbox One weeks early, and is known online as the "Moonlight Swami" who unleashed a bunch of content from the Xbox One onto the Internet, but got into trouble with Major Nelson after playing six hours of Xbox One games.

We reported this yesterday, but one of the more interesting facts I found while reading about it, is that Call of Duty: Ghosts takes around 30 minutes to install. This isn't too bad, considering its a 39GB installation, but you can't play the game for 15 minutes (or around half way through the installation). I find this quite the point, as you can't just plug-and-play - by inserting the Blu-ray disc and playing right away.

This is one of the major points in the whole console vs. PC battle, that PC's require an installation of games. But, pre-loading games through Steam is much easier, and with an SSD system and a backup of your games on another SSD or a HDD, you can transfer your games at 100MB/sec+ without a problem. 15 minutes to begin playing the game seems like a long time, or is that just me? I'd expect 'next-gen' consoles to have gotten you into the game quicker - or are my expectations too high? What do you think?

While the PS4 version of Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls will reportedly render everything at 1080p at the fluid 60 frames per second, it should also feature touchpad support and shorter load times. Polygon is reporting that one of the bigger features to the PS4 version will be something called "Avenger Kills."

In the "Ultimate Evil" edition of Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls for the PS4, "Avenger Kills" will see a player die after being killed by a monster, that monster could level up and jump through a special portal. Once through the portal, the monster will target a player on your friends list. Once your friend comes online, that monster will appear during a special event, where the skies will darken and the player will receive a warning, such as "Matthew's Bane" - a special title - is hunting them. If this monster is successful in killing the player, it will level up once more, becoming the "Bane" of that character, and receiving a new target to kill.

There are other gameplay additions, which are built around a shared experience for the player, even if they're not all playing the game at the same time, like Avenger Kills, above. Senior Level Designer, Matthew Berger, has said: "I'm going to be running around, killing monsters and a Legendary will drop," he said, "and then - cue awesome sound, column of light - a box, a gift will pop off that Legendary. It's going to say 'Gift for Michael.' I'm going to pick it up and send it to you."

It looks like the Xbox One will not be supporting 3D Blu-ray movies at launch, even after the kerfuffle Microsoft went through to get Blu-ray support onto its next-gen console. The news is coming directly from Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb, who has vaguely confirmed both 3D and 4K output for the Xbox One.

But, during his most recent interview with CNET, Major Nelson said that the Xbox One will not be capable of playing back 3D Blu-ray movies. He did note that 3D Blu-ray playback hasn't been ruled out, and that it could arrive in a future update to the Xbox One. I have no idea why Microsoft would do this, it feels like both next-gen consoles are pretty gimped from launch, you would think they'd both have features spilling out of them, but it seems like the physical hardware launches are now like games these days - in beta form for months after release.

We are so close to the PS4's release, I can almost smell that fresh electronic smell from here. Well, Wired has a nice exclusive, the teardown of the PlayStation 4. Sony's next-gen console gets torn down by Sony's Engineering Director, Yasuhiro Ootori.

Ootori both unboxes the PS4 and then tears it apart, showing off its innards to the world. We can see there's a gigantic heatsink that cools the AMD-powered APU down, but a smallish fan, which is a surprise. We have an integrated power supply, which we had with the PS3, and the usual circuit boards and components in and around the center of the console. Up until now, we didn't really get an up close and personal shot of the power and eject buttons, but they're here, and they're small.

Until now, Quake Live has lived within our browsers, but before the new year arrives, it will be a standalone game. Not only that, but the first-person shooter will also drop native support for both Linux and Mac, which is an unfortunate consequence.

The developer explained that Quake Live will be playable through emulation or virtualization software, for those who have paid subscriptions for the Mac- or Linux-based versions of the game. A news post on the game's official forum states: "Over the past few years, browser support for plugins such as Quake Live have dropped off significantly, causing problems for plugins to operate in a consistent and working manner. With the recent announcement of Google Chrome's roadmap to turning off plugin support and the upcoming changes in Firefox, it seems that now is the time to make the transition."

Valve is set to light the entire gaming market on fire next year with the company firing on all cylinders with SteamOS, Steam Box, Steam Machines, Steam Controllers, and hopefully a slew of new games like Half-Life 3, Team Fortress 3, Left 4 Dead 3, and more.

Well, Microsoft has now chimed in with some 'advice' from Phil Spencer, Microsoft Studios' VP. He said: "Valve is right down the street from us. They've done a great job of keeping the PC ecosystem strong at a time where I don't mind saying that we could have been more focused on what was going on in PC gaming. We were probably too focused purely on console. With Steam, [Valve has] done an amazing job of building this thing that, in a lot of ways, we should have been building as well at Microsoft."

Spencer thinks that the Linux-based SteamOS will be a hard sell on consumers, and some hard times for Valve moving from developer and distributor to platform holder. He added: "That's an evolutionary jump. They made the jump from building Half-Life to having a set of franchises to running Steam. They did a good job of learning through that. Now they're taking the next job to become a platform company - in some sense a hardware company, but in the truest sense more of an OS company. That's not an easy transition."

We are weeks away from the launch of the Xbox One, and now Microsoft Studios' Vice President, Phil Spencer, has come out and reiterated Microsoft's commitment to PC gaming. The news comes from a chat between Spencer and Shacknews, where Spencer revealed that Microsoft has a few core gamer-focused titles in production for Windows.

Spencer said: "We probably have more individual projects on Windows than we've had in ten years at Microsoft Studios. At the launch of Windows 8, we had about 30 games in the Windows Store. A lot of those you'd consider lightweight or casual games... But we've covered all of that property now. Now we're starting to look at bigger and core gamer things. I'm excited by that."

One of the biggest surprises here is that Spencer noted that cross-platform interactivity and content-sharing will be a key part of Microsoft's strategy going into the future. Spencer added: "For us, we're first-party across all Microsoft devices. We definitely think about ourselves that way in our studios. If you think about a service like Spotify or Netflix, you expect that service to work on any device you have. For some games, it will be similar. I just want to have an Xbox Live account and it works on my phone, on my console, and my Windows machine. And then I'll be able to access my content in a screen-appropriate way."

What is EA thinking? It has been trying to shake off The Consumerist's "Worst Company in America" award, but now a report on Reddit has shown that EA forced itself to unleash Battlefield 4 too early, so that it could have the jump on Call of Duty: Ghosts.

Well, it looks like there are all sorts of issues with Battlefield 4 - myself, no issues here - but according to a QA tester at DICE, EA pumped BF4 through quality control and testing in order to beat COD: Ghosts to the market. This means that the various teams at DICE simply didn't have the time to properly test all of the features of BF4, its guns, weapons, and more. There are massive bugs such as the one that mutes everyone on the server if any player chooses a silencer on a particular weapon.

You can read the entire thing above, which is quite shocking, and disappointing. It means that we'll have to wait months for the game to be more stable, which after the whole BF3 debacle, I was hoping we'd skip this time around.

Microsoft is looking to take on Spotify and Pandora in terms of free music streaming with its Xbox Music service on the Xbox One. The company confirmed in a tweet, that Xbox One owners will not have to subscribe to Xbox Music to stream music to the console, but that they would experience the occasional advertisement as a result.

This aligns Xbox Music on the Xbox One with the services Windows and Web versions which also allow free streaming through the use of advertisements. Unfortunately, Microsoft made no mention on if the Xbox 360 would be getting this same feature, or if it were exclusive to the Xbox One. With music streaming becoming more popular than illegal downloading these days, Microsoft is making a good move here and should compete well with other free streaming services like Spotify and Pandora.

Back when Valve first announced SteamOS, we all knew that it would be something big, and today we got a glimpse of just how big it may be. 4A Games, the guys behind Metro: Last Light have just finished porting the game to Linux with full support for SteamOS, and a visit to the games page on Steam (Source link below) will confirm this.

A report from Shacknews, states that Metro: Last Light will be fully compatible with SteamOS and the Steam Controller in time for those lucky 300 to play on their beta-edition Steam Machines. Metro: Last Light is available now on Steam for just $39.99, but lets be honest, who has time to play with both Battlefield 4 and Call of Duty: Ghosts both out right now!