Gaming News - Page 1745

There has been a push for more games to be pushed across from PC-only platforms to console in recent years with Minecraft instantly coming to mind. Next up is the third-person MOBA of SMITE, set for an Xbox One beta launch on the 8th of July and coming complete with Australian servers too.

Currently operating in closed beta, SMITE brags its placement as the first major MOBA to reach across to the console audience. Hi-Rez Studios' Xbox One Senior Producer, Andy Andersonm, stated in a recent press release that "We're delighted to offer SMITE communities the best possible experience on PC and now console," however mentioned no competitive announcements for this upcoming release.

SMITE offers a global championships for its PC audience, seeing a $2.6 million prize pool offered earlier this year in Atlanta. It seems console is left out, for now.

Back in February, we reported that Naughty Dog said that hitting 60FPS on the PS4 with Uncharted 4 was 'really f**king hard', with the developer inevitably hitting that brick wall. Naughty Dog has now confirmed that the single player side of Uncharted 4 will be locked at 30FPS.

Co-Lead Designer on Uncharted 4, Anthony Newman, explained that the frame rate being locked to 30FPS was because "the game we wanted to make, to make the best game possible. To me, a locked 30 is better than a variable 60".

This change to 30FPS for Uncharted 4 on the PS4 does have me asking a question: Naughty Dog did promise it was sticking with 1080p 60FPS for future games. If the studio can't hit 60FPS on the PS4 without a large jump in visual fidelity over Uncharted 3 on the PS3, we need to really start tackling a big problem: the current generation consoles were never fast enough to begin with. Oops, there, I said it, again.

I've only just taken my hands off the keyboard writing about the downgraded visuals in Elite: Dangerous, but now it looks like Next Car Game: Wreckfast is going through the same thing.

Bugbear Entertainment, the studio behind the game, has just pushed out a new DX11 rendering engine update, something that included an improved physics engine, and support for 64-bit operating systems. This new updated engine looks to have downgraded the visuals in the game, with some keen-eyed gamers spotting the differences as soon as the patch started making its way onto gamers' systems.

We've posted a bunch of images that DSO Gaming has shared, with the previous build on the left, and the updated build on the right. You be the judge, and let us know in the comments below.

Frontier Development is the latest studio in the firing line of the PC master race, with gamers reporting that the developer has watered down the graphics of Elite: Dangerous in its latest update.

Gamers have said that the dust/fog effects have been radically reduced, the Galaxy Map has changed, textures look worse, and the Ring LOD and Station Letterbox Draw Distance have both been reduced. Frontier has hit back, saying that some of those things have indeed happened, addressing concerns on whether the PC version of Elite: Dangerous has been downgraded because of the upcoming release of the game on the Xbox One.

Head of Rendering for Frontier Development, Greg Ryder, said: "Please thank Granite for putting together a thread like this. The team is always striving to make things better, and we've found a number of things using the profiling tools on the Mac and Xbox One that have improved the PC build (thus the opposite to the fear they might lower the quality of the PC build). Elite: Dangerous is built to scale on PC (including 16k screenshot ability and hopefully one day 16k game when the monitors & video cards exist!). We are certainly not inclined to downgrade the appearance of anything in the game. Exposing more tweakables for an enhanced Ultra is clearly something you guys are passionate about and we'll see where it can fit in the current roadmap".

Peter Moore, former Microsoft corporate VP of the Interactive entertainment business and now Chief Operating Officer at Electronic Arts, recently recounted the horrific times caused by the Xbox 360 "Red Ring of Death."

Issues related to the RRoD cost Microsoft more than $1 billion, and left many gamers frustrated. Despite strong global sales of the Xbox 360, it was a constant headache for Microsoft and a number of their frustrated gamers.

"We were seeing failure rates and starting to get reports through customer service. This was a thing where we couldn't actually figure out what was going on," said while speaking to IGN in a recent podcast interview.

Even though Nintendo had things to offer at E3 in Los Angeles last month, it still faced criticism regarding the Japanese company's presence at the gaming show.

Nintendo managing director Shigeru Miyamoto and President Satoru Iwata have become a bit more vocal in discussing the criticism. During a shareholder meeting, Miyamoto discussed the frustrations expressed by E3 attendees - and online viewers:

"We recognize that we have let down a number of the online viewers of this year's E3, especially the avid Nintendo fans, because we did not show what they had expected. On the other hand, since E3 was originally a U.S. trade show, when we consider what kind of messages we should dispatch and in what fashion, while we have to take into consideration the impression that we may give people outside the U.S., we have been very mindful about how we can maximize our immediate business in the U.S. this year."

Anytime I've written about Fable Legends in the past few months, it seems talk always turned to downloadable content (DLC) in free-to-play games. Lionhead Studios is going in a bit of a new direction with Fable Legends, and wanted to try to clear the air a bit regarding the controversial inclusion of DLCs in its upcoming free-to-play action role-playing game. We recently spoke with David Eckelberry, game director at Lionhead Studios, so here is what he had to say.

The addition of DLCs brings a high level uncertainty among many gamers, and some of you have already questioned it regarding Fable Legends.

"That's a reasonable thing to be unsure of. I'm unsure about free-to-play in some games!" David Eckelberry told TweakTown. "I believe it's up to the game developer. Some games I love are free-to-play, and I don't think it's a coincidence that first and foremost they are good games, regardless of how they get to market. It's also not a coincidence that these games seem legitimately fair: they don't let a player buy his way to victories, and the things you can purchase seem pretty fairly priced."

The Microsoft Xbox One is being handily outsold in Europe by the Sony PlayStation 4, with the PS4 holding 70-90 percent market share. Microsoft understands the importance in the European market, and the company is going to try to find ways to better compete against Sony.

"We need to do better in Europe. When I look globally, mainland Europe is definitely an area we want to focus on," said Phil Spencer, Xbox boss, while speaking to Edge magazine. Microsoft hopes to win over some gamers during Gamescom, a gaming-focused trade show in August that will be held in Cologne, Germany.

Spencer said the Xbox One "does really well" in Latin America, and is fighting Sony in the North American market.

DICE is feeling the pressure when it comes to trying to figure out what to include in the new Star Wars Battlefront video game - and it continues to be a major challenge, trying to sort out what makes the cut from the Star Wars universe.

"I wouldn't say that we've designed it by committee. We have a very strong, very competent design lead," said Sigurlina Ingvarsdottir, senior producer of Star Wars Battlefront, in a statement to GameSpot. "But, basically, what we've taken is what to us is the core of Star Wars. Star Wars is so vast, there's so many things in Star Wars that are beloved by so many. And so they are hard choices."

It looks like DICE has decided to support planets such as Endor and Hoth, with characters ranging from Han Solo and Darth Vader - giving gaming fans characters and locations that they will be extremely familiar with.

Sony is dominating the European market, where during a recent interview with VG247, Sony Europe President Jim Ryan saying that Sony has nothing less than 70% marketshare in every European country.

Ryan explains: "We have a very significant market leadership. We have market leadership in every country in Europe, and have very significant market leadership in continental Europe. Extremely significant. I don't think marketshare's any less than 70 percent, and frequently greater than 90 percent in continental Europe".

During the interview, Ryan said that the PS4 is still seeing "very considerable" momentum at its current price, with the company adding that it has no plans to cut the price anytime soon. Ryan added: "We're happy with the price and we're happy with the value proposition. We'll leave it where it is for now".