Gaming - Page 13

Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition is a 2021 compilation that includes the franchise's first three iconic open-world games: Grand Theft Auto III (2001), Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (2002), and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (2004).

However, these highly anticipated remasters were not received well at the time and felt like the opposite of 'Definitive' thanks to bugs, poor AI-generated textures, and visuals that felt like a massive departure from the original games.

Two main criticisms echoed by fans and critics alike were the dramatic shift from stylized lighting and the complete removal of all fog effects. With no fog and an increased draw distance, the previously massive open world of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas felt small. On top of that, the yellow and orange look of the GTA's West Coast was missing.

Two gamers are accusing Ubisoft of "duping consumers" into purchasing The Crew without informing buyers the game's servers would be shut down, thus making the online game unplayable.

Ubisoft announced in December last year that servers to The Crew would be shut down, and those who "recently" purchased the game would receive refunds. Due to the age of the title, many gamers were unable to receive refunds. The lawsuit claims Ubisoft deceived players in two different ways, and because of the deception, the company has violated California's consumer protection laws.

The first is Ubisoft allegedly duped players into thinking they were purchasing the game when they were merely licensing it, despite them physically owning the disk. Second is the accusation that Ubisoft "falsely represented" that game files for The Crew were freely accessible on the physical disk and not "a key" for the game. The two players have submitted the lawsuit in a California Court.

Running games at the highest end graphics can be even demanding for some of the most expensive graphics cards on the market.

One of, if not the best-looking engine on the market right now is Epic's Unreal Engine 5.4, and that has been used to create Project Borealis - A Prologue to Half-Life 3. The fan-made project was created using the latest version of Unreal Engine (5.4), and it was run on an NVIDIA RTX 4080 at 4K, 1440p at Very High settings with DLSS 3.7 and Frame Generation on and off. The results were quite interesting, as the RTX 4080 could not provide 60 frames per second at native 4K.

However, with DLSS Ultra Quality and Frame Generation, the experience improved significantly, pushing the fan-made project above the 60 FPS mark. The video demonstrates the power of NVIDIA technologies such as DLSS and Frame Generation with heavier graphical engines such as Unreal Engine 5, and the necessity of having these performance-improving tools available to developers so graphically intensive titles can run on the widest variety of hardware possible.

Sony has officially launched the PlayStation 5 Pro, and while the announcement of the console was met with criticism from fans regarding its price and touted graphical improvement, Sony has already said it is exceeding sales expectations and even beating the pace of the PlayStation 4 Pro during the same period.

Unfortunately, Sony didn't convey the graphical / performance improvements of the PS5 Pro compared to the standard model very well during its announcement, which was in part due to the explanations Sony gave and also the limitation of viewers looking at the showcase through devices with low-resolution displays. Regardless of where you may think the fault lies, the PS5 Pro has made it into customers' hands, and now we are starting to get independent graphical comparisons between the new console and the old one.

A new video by Cycu1 showcases The Matrix Awakens Unreal Engine 5 demo running on the PS5 Pro much better than the standard model. Additionally, the PS5 Pro version doesn't have a dedicated patch, which means there is even more performance to be gained here once one is released, as the beefier components within the PS5 Pro will be fully utilized.

Alright, this is kinda cool to see from Pizza Hut Canada: introducing the PIZZAWARMR, a new 3D-printed download for your PlayStation 5 console that sits ON TOP of the console and keeps your pizza warm using the heat generated from the PS5. You can grab your own PIZZAWARMR here.

Pizza Hut Canada announced its new PIZZAWARMR that will fit on your PS5 and take "several slices" of pizza, with some inspiration pulled from Pizza Hut's iconic red roof.

Pizza Hut Canada explains its new PIZZAWARMR: "Upgrade your console with the hottest pizza warming technology. Using the warmth from your gaming system to keep your slices warm while you play. Pulling inspiration from Pizza Hut's red roof, the lid seamlessly opens like a laptop for easy pizza access".

Valve is launching a Steam Deck OLED: White Edition PC gaming handheld that will be available in limited quantities beginning November 18 at 3:00 pm Pacific Standard Time. This will be a custom version of the 1TB model, priced at $679 USD, with a white and grey color scheme that extends to the all-new white carry case.

With white-colored peripherals becoming increasingly popular, this custom Steam Deck OLED will undoubtedly sell out quickly. Valve is allocating stock to every region where the Steam Deck is officially available - including Australia, which just got it in November 2024 - to give everyone a fair chance of picking it up.

Gamers in the US, CA, UK, EU, and the AU region can order one - and that's one literally, as Valve is restricting Steam Deck OLED: White Edition purchases to one per customer/Steam user.

Myths and prophecies about the moon stretch way back into the annals of history, but in the digital age, it's now being used for predictions relating to Grand Theft Auto 6.

The game has obviously hit the headlines in a big way with news that Take-Two Interactive has finally confirmed a fall 2025 release, but fresh speculation has fired up over some promotional material for GTA Online.

Eurogamer reports that all the fuss is around an image (see the top of this article) showing a character leaning on a car, in front of a factory, with the moon at the top-left of the pic. The moon is shown as waning gibbous, and the phase depicted corresponds to how the earth's satellite will look on November 22 in the real world.

Ahead of publisher Take-Two Interactive's earnings call, company CEO Strauss Zelnick sat down for an interview with IGN, where he revealed the Borderlands Movie's box office flop translated into more sales of the games.

Zelnick said to the publication that it's obvious the Borderlands Movie didn't perform as intended, but the marketing for the movie, whether it be bad or not, translated into more sales for the catalog of Borderlands content. According to Zelnick, and, at least from the perspective of Take-Two Interactive, "I don't think it hurt at all, if anything I think it may have helped a little bit." Additionally, the Take-Two Interactive CEO said the failure of the movie highlights something the company has mentioned previously: the difficulty of bringing its intellectual property over to another medium.

More specifically, the Take-Two Interactive CEO said back in August to IGN that there is difficulty in correctly bringing gaming IP over to other mediums, and while there is very little risk economically (from Take-Two's perspective) when agreeing to license some IP to a movie, the result of the Borderlands Movie highlights this difficulty Zelnick has warned about.

Sony has taken to its official PlayStation YouTube channel to share a quick launch trailer for the PlayStation 5 Pro, the company's latest console, which Sony's CFO has confirmed is currently beating the PS4 Pro when it comes to sales during the same period.

Sony's latest fiscal financial report outlined many of the company's successes throughout the current financial year and offered a brief insight into the sales performance of the recently released PlayStation 5 Pro. The mid-gen refresh of the PlayStation 5 was released last week, and according to Sony's President, COO, and CFO, Hiroki Totoki, Sony isn't too bothered by the heavy criticism surrounding the price tag of the new console, as the company is aiming the PS5 Pro at its "core customers," which translates to enthusiast-level gamers that want the absolute best Sony can offer.

Additionally, Hiroki spoke on the number of sales the PS5 Pro has achieved since it launched, and surprisingly, especially considering the recent criticism surrounding the console, anecdotally reflected by the Like/Dislike ratio on the PS5 Pro launch video (7.1K likes to 9.7K dislikes, the PS5 Pro is selling better than the PS4 Pro did during the same period. Hiroki said, "I'm under the impression that the product is performing slightly stronger than the pre-orders of the PS4 Pro during the same period, so I don't think it is adversely affecting the product's sales plan."

Nintendo has outlined in its recent earnings report when it will be unveiling the successor to the Nintendo Switch, and how the Nintendo Account will be a big part of the next-generation console.

Nintendo recently published its second-quarter financial results for the fiscal year ending March 2025, and within that financial report, the company briefly touched on the successor to the immensely popular Nintendo Switch. Nintendo writes that it will be making the announcement for its next-generation console "during this fiscal year," which runs until April 2025. This technically isn't a new piece of information, as the company previously stated that it would be finishing off this financial year with the current Nintendo Switch.

However, what wasn't known was Nintendo's emphasis on the Nintendo Account and how that will be a big part of the next-generation console. The company writes in its financial report that it believes the Nintendo Account is "important for Nintendo's future" and that it will "carry over the good relationship that we have built with the over 100 million annual playing users on Nintendo Switch to its successor." This statement confirms that Nintendo Switch Online will be a service linked directly to a user's Nintendo Account and will be available on the Nintendo Switch successor.