Gaming News - Page 1781

With the Xbox One launching in just a few short weeks, Microsoft is looking to generate as much hype around the next-gen console as possible. Today a new video surfaced online that takes us on a brief, but detailed walkthrough of the console's dashboard. Unfortunately Microsoft has chose to post it on the official Xbox One Website, fortunately, IGN seems to have a copy on their YouTube channel.

The video is only 1:23 long, but it does a very good job at showing us how fast one can navigate through the various screens, menus and features using a combination of voice commands and input from the controller. Microsoft will launch the Xbox One on November 22nd and is expected to hit record sales despite a very rough reception after its announcement earlier this year.

While it may have had some hiccups on launch, Grand Theft Auto Online can be considered nothing but a smashing success at this point, and today Rockstar has announced the first DLC pack for the game. The all new Beach Bum pack will be released early November and will be available for download at the unbeatable price of Free!

The Beach Bum pack will add new weapons as well as beach-themed vehicles that will be available for use in both GTA Online as well as GTA V. The update will feature several new jobs including Survivals, parachutes, deathmatches, races, and much more. New Tattoos, hairstyles, and clothing will also be included as well. Additionally users will be able to create custom deathmatches and races with the included Content Creator which is free to download as well.

NVIDIA has just updated its "GeForce Experience" software to version 1.7 and with the update, has launched the all new ShadowPlay gameplay recording module. ShadowPlay enables gamers to easily record video of their most exciting moments and quickly share them with the world.

ShadowPlay is a hardware-based encoder that reduces the impact that recording has on in-game performance and limits the frame rate reduction drastically over other recording methods by encoding to H.264. This reduces the exorbitantly large multi-gigabyte file sizes we are use to seeing, which equates to more space for additional videos, as well as a less taxing experience on the computers storage medium.

ShadowPlay is compatible with GeForce GTX 650 or higher cards, has two different modes, Shadow Mode and Manual Mode. Shadow mode constantly records gameplay for up to 20 minutes in Windows 8 (10 minutes in Windows 7) at full 1080p resolution. This feature allows you to press a pre-defined hot-key when something epic happens and the footage will be saved to your hard drive. Manual mode is what many of us are use to, and will record 20 minutes of continuous footage to the hard drive.

This morning, NVIDIA announced that it has launched a massive update for its Shield handheld gaming console. The update brings forth GeForce. NVIDIA says that the update allows Shield owners to take control of thousands of Android games that were only designed originally for touch-screen devices and remap their controls to be compatible with the Shields physical controls.

The other new and exciting feature is what NVIDIA is calling "Console Mode," which allows users to transform their portable shield into "full living room gaming and entertainment experience" for the big-screen TV. This new mode allows gamers to pair up a Bluetooth equipped gaming controller to the shield, and play the games on the big screen. NVIDIA says that its GameStream mode is compatible with Console Mode and will allow users to stream their PC Games directly to their TV.

Other Android 4.3 feature updates include restricted profiles, expandable notifications, and code and bug fixes that make everything operate much smoother and fluid than before. Additionally, Shield owners can now select game and app files which they want to move to the SD card. Before only .APK files could be moved, but now .OOB files can make their way over as well which will free up a lot of room on the Shield's internal storage.

You've just unwrapped your shiny new next-gen PlayStation 4, plugged it all in and want to get some online gaming a bash - well, you'll have to wait because there's a 300MB day-one patch you'll need to complete before you do anything.

This 300MB patch will enable a bunch of multiplayer/online functionality such as Remote Play, sharing, broadcasting and more. Sony of the PS4 features won't be available at launch, such as the suspend/resume mode that allows the PS4 to enter low-power mode, and then lets you pick up where you left off. The day-one patch will enable to following goodies:

Remote Play

The final system requirements for the upcoming Call of Duty: Ghosts has been released, with the first-person shooter having some steep requirements. First off, you'll need a 64-bit OS, secondly, a huge 6GB of RAM.

Sure, 6GB of RAM isn't that much these days, with lots of systems coming with 8GB minimum, but this is going to cut a serious chunk of consumers away from even being able to play COD: Ghosts. The CPU requirements aren't too bad with either an Intel Core 2 Duo E8200 or AMD Phenom X3 8750. GPU's also get a sigh of relief, with the minimum requirement only being an NVIDIA GeForce GTS 450 or AMD Radeon HD 5870 or better.

With these minimum requirements, I'm hoping to see a good jump in graphics from COD: Ghosts.

During an interview with Eurogamer, Guerrilla Games' Technical Director, Michiel van der Leeuw said that Killzone: Shadow Fall was exploding out to a size of over 290GB, but with Sony's help the studio shrunk the first-person shooter to just 40GB.

Van der Leeuw said that most of the PS4 exclusive's 39.7GB consisted of high-res textures that were designed for the PS4. He said: "I think at some point the disc image that we were generating was around 180 GB. And if we would have put all the levels in, which we didn't, because then the disc image generator broke, it would have been around 290 GB of data."

He continued: "So we had to completely re-architect how we deal with data. And we did a lot of work - this is actually something I'm extremely proud of - to optimize our disc access pattern. Sony made special libraries for us because we were the first ones hitting these sort of problems. I think it's something that a lot of people will need to be doing in future."

Call of Duty players generally get a bad rap and are often called out for their fanboy-like behavior anytime anyone writes an article about Call of Duty. It appears that Infinity Ward, the developers of Call of Duty: Ghosts are taking a stab at their franchise's fans as well.

During a recent interview, Infinity Ward executive producer Mark Rubin basically said that he does not look at Call of Duty players as hardcore gamers at all. "It's kind of a weird, ironic thing to say; They aren't hardcore gamers, or even gamers, but they play Call of Duty every night. And those guys are going to continue to play regardless of platform," Rubin said. "So I think not only will we continue to engage with that existing player base, but we'll take next gen and see how far we can go with it."

Rubin also thinks that the upcoming next-gen consoles will not do much in the way of strengthening the Call of Duty franchise, and says that the consoles will not have much of an impact on the games players either. "Regardless of platform - people's gaming habits aren't going to change just because there's a new platform," he said. "We have an enormous amount of players who are more in the casual game space, but they play a lot.

NVIDIA has announced its holiday game bundle packages for its mid to high-end video cards. The announcement came during the company's Montreal game showcase and this years bundle is going to be a tough one to beat. Unlike its current bundle which features Batman: Arkham Origins as the standalone bundled game, the new bundles will feature more games and a big discount on NVIDIA's Shield.

This fall, those who purchase an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770, GTX 780, or GTX Titan will receive 3 game bundle of Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, Batman: Arkham Origins, and Splinter Cell: Blacklist. Additionally, this package includes a $100 discount on an NVIDIA Shield handheld gaming device. Those who purchase a GeForce GTX 660, GTX 660Ti, GTX 670, GTX 680, or GTX 760 will receive Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag and Splinter Cell: Blacklist with $50 off Shield.

A new report out from CNET says that during the month of September total game spending in the physical channel topped $1.08 billion, and a considerable chunk of that was due to sales of Grand Theft Auto V. The report says that spending was up 27-percent in the US which was directly related to GTA V earning $848 million just days after launch.

Overall, total game software spending was up 53-percent year over year at $754 million, but hardware spending was down 13-percent. This drop was expected as consumers prepare for Microsoft and Sony to release their next-gen consoles later this fall. Nintendo did see its 3DS handheld console claim the top hardware spot for the fifth month in a row however and for the first time in 32 months, Sony's Playstation 3 edged out Microsoft,s Xbox 360 in number of units sold.