Gaming - Page 1186

Sony has sent out an invite to members of the press for an event in February. Destination PlayStation will be held February 25-28 in Scottsdale, Arizona and will show off games, with attendees being "treated to food, drink, play, and a first look at all the amazing new releases coming from Sony Computer Entertainment America Entertainment in 2013."

SlashGear suspects that the PlayStation 4 will be announced here and released in 2014, if it follows past release trends from Sony. Couple this with the rumor that Sony has ended production of the PS2 to focus on the next-gen console, and it's starting to look really good for console gamers.

The PlayStation 4 will be competing against Microsoft's next-gen console, rumored to be called the Xbox 720, whenever it does eventually decide to launch. Some rumors have placed the announcements as E3 this year, but others say that it won't be until 2014. One thing is certain, they can't be too far in the future.

An era has come to an end. Sony has finally stopped production of the PlayStation 2 for Japan. The console, which was first released in March of 2000, has been sold consistently since then, and managed to rack up 150 million sales. The device proved so popular that it actually outsold the PS3 for the first three years of the latter's availability.

By ending production of the PlayStation 2, Sony has caused some to speculate that they are putting the manufacturing resources towards the yet unannounced PlayStation 4, a next-gen console rumored to be announced at this year's E3 in June. Incredibly, it's believed that about 11,000 games have been produced for the console.

Sony has not announced plans to end production for other regions, though a 12-year lifespan is longer than most consoles enjoy and is a likely announcement to be made in the future.

Some Xbox Live Gold users have experienced an outage for the cloud saving feature present in some games. Microsoft has now fixed the patch and automatically credited one month of free Xbox Live Gold to the users who were affected. Some were without their saves for mere hours, others for days.

Again, this outage proves that the cloud is not a perfect solution. Local backups are important, and in this case, would have been easy to do. It is nice to see Microsoft being proactive in applying the Xbox Live Gold credit, rather than requiring users to ask for it. That still doesn't help if you were left without your game saves this weekend.

Well, folks, Blizzard just confirmed that they will not be implementing a player-versus-player Team Deathmatch in Diablo III. Blizzard promised PvP modes for the game, but they have yet to materialize. Blizzard has said that plans for Dueling are still on and will be released in patch 1.0.7, which is coming sometime in 2013.

Keep in mind that Diablo III launched back in May of this year. At the time the game launched, Blizzard was promising these PvP features. Here's what they have to say about their plans:

News came out that the upcoming Sim City successor will be required to have an always-on internet connection to play and save the game. Some people have worried that this could be a problem if your internet drops out while you're playing. What exactly happens to your city? The answers aren't clear, but Lucy Bradshaw, lead for the Maxis lablel at EA, would like to defend the DRM scheme.

I'll leave it up to you to decide whether or not you believe or agree with Bradshaw. Of course, once the game comes out in March 2013, we, along with other sites, will be able to give you a better idea of how the game plays.

You may have heard of The War Z debacle over the last few days, but it looks like good guy Valve have stepped up and removed the entire game from sale on Steam until the developer sorts their stuff out. If you've already purchased the game, you can choose to keep it, or ask for a full refund from Steam support. Valve admits they made a mistake by releasing The War Z at all, with their full statement below:

I can't think of many companies that would remove a game after the public complained about it - but it shows that Valve are quick to act on decisions like this.

Sony have unveiled the PS3 Lunch Box, which is a special edition item as an appreciation from Sony Computer Entertainment for the continued support on long-running, and very successful games such as the Final Fantasy and Metal Gear series.

The PS3 Lunch Box will see a release in Japan, and is called a 'bentou', or a Japanese meal box. This particular device is a juubako, or a nest box type bentou. The top of the Lunch Box looks like your standard PlayStation 3.

This isn't any standard lunch box, either, as it has been claimed that the PS3 Lunch Box was made with the highest woodworking and laser etching techniques available to designers. The cool-looking lunch box can have any food inside of it, as it has been stated to be safe to put any food in it as it won't damage from spills easily.

Rockstar have teased gamers across the world by saying that they'd love to create one Grand Theft Auto game with all of the previous games' cities. During an interview with Digital Trends, Rockstar North head, Leslie Benzies said he sees players being able to travel back and forth to revisit places they explored in previous games. Benzies continues:

There was talk of a return to Vice City, where Benzies said:

Microsoft made a very weird, and foolish decision when they said they wouldn't sell, or support any game sporting a Mature rating in the US or 16+ PEGI rating in Europe through the Windows Store.

Considering the software giant sells plenty of Mature-rated games on their Xbox 360 console, as well as publishing many themselves, it truly was a weird decision. Customers have slammed this decision for a while, and thanks to their backlash as well as members from the gaming industry itself, Microsoft have announced that they've reversed this foolish decision.

The Redmond-based company confirmed this week that they will be expanding their commitment to the Windows Store games, and will now support PEGI 18-rated titles in Europe. Ted Dworkin, Director of Program Management for the Windows Store took to the company's blog, saying:

Meet the Arduino Esplora, an open source Arduino Leonardo based gaming pad that can be used in DIY Gaming projects, to control robots or just about any other project where a hand held controller is needed. Sporting an Atmega32U4 AVR microcontroller with 16 MHz crystal oscillator and a micro USB connection capable of acting as a USB client device, like a mouse or a keyboard.

With 32 KB of memory (with 4 KB used for the bootloader) and a 3 axis acceleration on board we are sure that there will be some awesome games configured to support this controller. The Esplora can appear as a generic keyboard and mouse, and can be programmed to control these input devices using the Arduino Keyboard and Mouse libraries.

"To facilitate writing sketches for the Esplora, there is a dedicated library that contains methods for reading the sensors and writing to the outputs on-board. The library offers high level methods which provide pre-processed data, like degrees Fahrenheit or Celsius from the temperature sensor. It also enables easy access to the outputs, like writing values to the RGB LED." We can't wait to see someone playing Angry Birds on their 10" tablet using the Arduino Esplora as the control device!

The Nintendo Wii U has been out for a few weeks now, and there have been some more interesting tests run on Nintendo's next-gen console. With no increase in actual processing power over the current-gen Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, where can we see some improvements? Efficiency.

Performance per watt numbers show Nintendo have the lead, where the Wii U offers some of the same graphical capabilities and gameplay experiences that the current Xbox 360 and PS3 offer, but at much lower power consumption numbers.

The Wii U is slimmer than the just-released PlayStation "Super Slim" model, but offers the same performance (and sometimes better) in terms of resolution support, and lower power consumption numbers by a decent amount. During the FIFA 13 Demo, the Wii U only consumes 32w of power compared to the Xbox 360S and PS3 Super Slim with 76.5w and 70w, respectively.

I've just come back from a 2 hour drive with my family to see my niece for her 7th birthday, and between getting home and going out again to drop my wife off to a friends house so they can go to the J Lo concert (ugh), I thought I'd sneak in some weekend news - little did I know I'd stumble across this bad boy.

As soon as I read the article, the inner-kid in me got incredibly excited, so here we go. At the VGA's on the weekend, Valve's Gabe Newell confirmed that you'll be able to buy a living-room-friendly PC package next year that will be a competitor to the next-gen consoles from Microsoft and Sony.

You might know I'm a little bit passionate about Valve, as I really think they're about the only company that can firstly, save PC gaming and secondly, change gaming in general. Gaming right now is stuck in this pathetic cycle where developers have all but abandoned high-end, or even now mid-range systems, and run off to the consoles. We see yearly releases of the same games (COD) and we don't really get anything exciting anymore.

Crysis 3 is incoming in just a couple of months and to get ready for the release, Crytek has teamed up with filmmaker Albert Hughes. Hughes will produce an online video series that draws inspiration from the Seven Wonders of Crysis 3. The show is aptly named The 7 Wonders of Crysis 3.

The videos will help to set some background, as well as the setting, for the upcoming Crysis 3 game. Viewers will catch a glimpse of the game's graphics, weapons, enemies, and gameplay features. Hughes is known for directly films such as Dead Presidents, From Hell, and Book of Eli, but his roll in the Crysis 3 videos is a bit more expansive.

He has helped with the scripts, storyboards, and shot plans. The nice thing about this is that the video will be using the game engine, so it will be exactly what players can expect when they hop in the game in February.

TIME Magazine have done a "Top 10 Everything of 2012", and within this, is the "Top 10 Gadgets of 2012". Taking out the number two spot is the Nintendo Wii U, which has only been out for a couple of weeks.

I find this great for Nintendo, but worrying for their credibility. Have TIME been using this for 6 months? Can you really don something with "second-best gadget of 2012" when there are only a handful of games, problems with updates, and more? I guess so. This is what they had to say:

Crysis 3 is only months away, but what sort of PC will you require to run the new crossbow-sporting Crysis 3? Well, Crytek have revealed the minimum, recommended and high performance PC system requirements.

Crytek's high performance recommendations don't seem all that bad - a single GeForce GTX 680 or Radeon HD 7870. I guess they're not pushing multi-monitor or high frame rates here - we'll definitely be doing our own testing when Crysis 3 is released. Anyway, here is the breakdown:

Minimum system operating requirements for PC:

Do you have a Wii U sitting under your tree just waiting for its recipient to open it up this holiday season to then spend hours updating the console? We're sure your new Wii U owner will be using their console a lot over the next few months, which means they're going to be sucking up a whole lot of juice out of their GamePad and Pro Controller. That's why you need to consider checking out Nyko's newly announced Wii U power accessories.

Nyko has introduced five new power accessories that will help keep your Wii U GamePad and Pro Controller charged before and during use. Here's a rundown of the peripherals Nyko have made available for the Wii U:

This might be nothing, this might end up as never seeing the light of day - but it's interesting nonetheless. Sony have applied for a new patent, which looks to be an interesting new form of controller for the company.

The new controller combines the usual dual analogue stick we've all come to know and love, with two of their motion-based move peripherals. It appears the controller can be separated into two pieces, which if used in the right way - could end up being a very cool twist on the now stale controller market (if your name isn't Nintendo).

The controller can be separated when needed, for a specific game or a specific part within a game, and then clicked back together when needed. The patent calls this a "hybrid separable motion controller".

We all know it's coming - but when exactly? Will the next-gen Xbox be revealed at CES in Las Vegas next month? Or will Microsoft wait until E3 in LA in June to unveil the Xbox 360's successor.

Well, "people familiar with the company's plans" have spoken up - telling everyone that Microsoft are preparing for the next-gen Xbox, which is usually referred to as the Xbox 720, and will be released in time for the 2013 holiday shopping season.

The next-gen Xbox, which I think will just be known as "Xbox", is rumored to pack a quad-core processor, 8GB of RAM, directional audio, Kinect 2.0 support as well as sport a Blu-ray player. We should expect a decent kick in the ass in terms of GPU capabilities, with full DX11 support and hopefully 1080p @ 60fps support and 4K support built-in.

If you were thinking of buying a second or third Xbox 360 this holiday season for your mansion, you might want to hold off on having one of your butlers order it for you as by this time next year, we'll be graced with a new Xbox console.

According to Bloomberg whose sources are "familiar with the company's plans," Microsoft will be making its next Xbox available for retail in time to be available for Thanksgiving and Christmas shopping next year. As of now, Microsoft isn't entirely sure when exactly they should unveil its next Xbox as its currently debating whether to unveil it at E3 in June or at an entirely different event completely dedicated to the unveiling.

With all of the recent rumors and possible leaks of the next Xbox's hardware, it does seem like much of what Microsoft has planned for its next console is already finalized at this point and they just need to decide when to announce it to the world. For now, we just need to sit back and wait to receive our invites to whenever Microsoft decides to announce its next Xbox, which will hopefully be soon as I'm sure many of you are waiting with your wads of cash in your hands right now waiting to throw it at Microsoft for its next-gen Xbox.

I've been enjoying my PlayStation Vita since it was released nearly a year ago, but I certainly have been feeling the big game releases have been too far and in between. With Sony's news of its PlayStation Plus service being made available on the PS Vita, they've decided to deliver a bundle that brings its popular premium service to new PS Vita owners.

The PS Plus Instant Game Collection PS Vita Bundle, which I hope you all take note as it may be a product with the longest name ever, comes with a 3G / Wi-Fi PS Vita, one-year membership to PS Plus, a voucher for Unit 13 and a 4GB memory card for $299.99.

With the PS Plus service on your Vita, you can access a number of the handheld's most popular titles like Uncharted: Golden Abyss, Gravity Rush and WipEout 2048. But if you plan on taking full advantage of PS Plus on your Vita with this bundle, you may think about investing in a new memory card as 4GB absolutely will not cut it with how much you'll download from PS Plus.