Gaming - Page 1970

During Nintendo's annual investors Q&A, one investor admitted that he did not understand video games. Considering he owns shares in one of the most beloved video game companies in the world, it's quite strange to hear.

Here's what the investor said: "I do not understand video games and I even feel angry because, at Nintendo's shareholders' meetings, the shareholders always discuss things relating to video games or such childish topics as "what the future of video games should be," while I, for one, was flabbergasted that Mr. Iwata continues to hold his position although he had said that he would resign if the company's performance were bad".

"I hope that Nintendo's shareholders' meeting will become an opportunity where the shareholders discuss the company's business operations from the viewpoints of capital gain and dividends", the investor added. But don't worry, Nintendo executives were quick to fire back, with Genyo Takeda and Tatsumi Kimishima replying.

CliffyB, of Epic Games fame, has just announced he has formed a new game studio, Boss Key Productions. CliffyB has teamed up with Arjan Brussee, a former EA employee and Guerrilla Games co-founder.

Boss Key Productions' CEO is CliffyB, while the Brussee sits in the position of COO. Before Brussee founded Guerrilla Games, he was helping Bleszinski on co-developing the infamous Jazz Jackrabbit series. At the moment, Brussee's LinkedIn says he's working as an Executive Producer at Visceral Games, the studio that is working on Battlefield: Hardline.

Just what will Boss Key Productions be offering gamers? Well, according to a document filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office, Boss Key's goods and services will be "downloadable multi-player interactive computer game programs; computer and video game software; downloadable computer and video game software; downloadable electronic games via the Internet and wireless devices; downloadable computer application software in the field of games; interactive computer and video game programs".

QuakeCon 2014 is nearly here, but now we can start forming a plan of action thanks to Bethesda Softworks unveiling the schedule of events for the convention. The biggest part should be the reveal of Doom 4, id Software's next-gen Doom title.

The Doom 4 reveal will happen during the annual QuakeCon welcome ceremony, which kicks off at 6PM CT on Thursday, July 17, at the Ventrilo Main Stage. Bethesda has also said that this presentation will be exclusive to QuakeCon 2014 attendees, so we unfortunately won't see that footage. Other events that will take place during QuakeCon's first day include tournaments for The Elder Scrolls Online.

On Saturday, July 19, there is a "Designing the Perfect Game" panel that will see Obsidian Entertainment's CEO, Feargus Urquhart take the stage, former Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe, and others. This will be livestreamed over Twitch, running from 5-6PM. The full schedule can be found over on the Bethblog.

Before Ubisoft has even released Assassin's Creed: Unity, the company is teasing that its Quebec-based office is the lead studio on "a future Assassin's Creed" game. This breaks the norm of Ubisoft Montreal being the lead developer on the game.

Ubisoft Quebec Managing Director Nicolas Rioux talked about the history of Assassin's Creed with his studio, where he said: "We were involved in Brotherhood. We were involved in Revelations. We were involved in Assassin's Creed 3. With AC 3 we were working on the biggest DLC for the franchise - The Tyranny of King Washington. After that we were also involved with Freedom Cry. We have the confidence of the brand team and also from Ubisoft to take leadership of an upcoming Assassin's Creed title. The team is ready for the next big step".

One of the driving reasons behind the "future Assassin's Creed" game being developed at Ubisoft Quebec could be that the company is using $4 million of a $28 million investment to create a new workspace. From this new workspace, three entire floors will be dedicated to AAA game development. The city of Quebec is chipping in $500,000 to the studio, too. Ubisoft Quebec hires 350 people right now, with a goal of hiring a total of 425 before the end of 2017.

Creative Assembly's awesomely scary Alien: Isolation is coming out for the Xbox 360, Xbox One, PS3, PS4 and PC later this year, but the studio has announced that the Xbox One and PS4 versions of the game will run at 1080p.

As for the frame rate, that will be "pretty compatible" On both consoles. Creative Assembly Lead Game Designer, Gary Napper, talked with OXM where he said: "When I think about working on the game, it's almost platform agnostic because I only think about the differences between platforms and the different mechanics we can use, like the light on the PS4 pad and the stuff with Kinect 2.0. So I think with framerate it's pretty comparable. There's no noticeable drop or change in graphics between them. Obviously there are a lot more options to tweak and scale up on the PC".

We've heard studios talking up the PC version of their games before, so I hope that Creative Assembly keep to their word and truly a truly next-generation game on PC - without watering down or gimping the graphics on the much more powerful PC platform. Alien: Isolation will be providing scares in virtual reality with Oculus Rift support, something I can't wait to try out myself.

A new project has hit Steam Greenlight, ramping up from #69 on the list to #9 very rapidly thanks to its popularity online - Rock Simulator. Yes, we're not joking - a game, about rocks.

Rock Simulator is sitting on Steam Greenlight, and according to its makers, it's "a genuine rock simulator". The introduction explains: "For a long time, there has been one game missing from the market. This simulator is a rock enthusiasts dream. You can watch beautiful rocks in any location in the world. From grass plains to salt flats, there are dozens of hand designed BEAUTIFUL environments".

You can check out Rock Simulator right here.

Wolfenstein: The New Order was a smash hit for Machine Games, and while the company hasn't announced a sequel to the first-person shooter, it is already plotting the sequel to the game.

Machines Games' Creative Director, Jens Matthies talked with Giant Bomb earlier in the week, where he said: "We would love to do a sequel. We have a very, very clear idea of what we accomplished with this game, and what we want to accomplish with a sequel". Matthies explained that the studio will focus on the pre-production side of things if it ends up working on a Wolfenstein sequel.

He continued: "[B]ecause these projects are so long in terms of development -- this was three-and-a-half years for [The New Order] -- and given how long it takes to make a game these days, this kind of game, and whenever you design in terms of preproduction, what becomes the plan for all of those years, has to be a flawlessly polished diamond," he explained. "If it isn't, you end up paying for that further down the line. You have to react to it, change, and do stuff".

If you don't want to know about any leaks to The Witcher 3, you've been warned. From here on out, do not read this post. Eurogamer is reporting that someone has hacked the Google Drive account of a CD Projkect Red employee, which was then shared around on the Internet on sites like 4chan and Reddit.

The hacker gained access to screenshots from the game, concept art, but most of all - design documents which go into detail about The Witcher 3's setting, story, and even its endings. CD Projekt Red talked with Eurogamer, with its Manager, Michal Platkow-Gilewski admitting that the leak took place, and "strong advised" people to not access the files if they don't want the game to be spoiled.

Platkow-Gilewski said that the leak doesn't affect the development of The Witcher 3, so we shouldn't expect any delays in its release - hopefully.

We've been through a crazy week or so with Ubisoft, with the company deliberately gimping the PC version of Watch Dogs, claiming that the next-gen console version of Far Cry 4 will be equal to "Ultra High" settings on PC, and The Division being locked at 30FPS. Can it get any worse? Yes, yes it can.

GameSpot recently interviewed the studio behind The Division, Massive Entertainment, which had some interesting things to say. When asked about "making a console game after spending so many years in the PC space", Ubisoft Massive Managing Director, David Polfeldt said: "We were a very, very hardcore PC gamer studio before. And we never understood the previous generation of consoles very well from a technological standpoint. But then when we saw the specs for this generation consoles... I remember we had a meeting at Massive and we just looked at each other and said 'Is this what I think it is?!' 'Is this our home turf?' Because on this hardware, we can be excellent; we can be one of the best. And as soon as we had that, we just started focusing on this generation of consoles like crazy".

So in that quote, we see that Massive went from being a "very, very hardcore PC gamer studio" to "focusing on this generation of consoles like crazy" after Massive saw what would be powering the next-gen consoles. In the quote above, Massive talked about next-gen consoles, saying that "because of this hardware, we can be excellent; we can be one of the best". The proof is right there.

When Ubisoft unveiled The Division at E3 2013, most - including myself - were quite blown away. Could this be? A true next-gen title? Well, we thought so until this year - but even with the game hitting only next-gen consoles and PCs (with no release on previous generation platforms) - the game is being gimped, just like Watch Dogs.

This is just a rumor right now, as we can't prove it like the modders did with Watch Dogs, but according to Whatifgaming, a source close to them said that Massive Entertainment - the studio behind The Division - has already removed "quite a lot of screen space reflections from the game" and that The Division will not look as good as it did during the reveal at E3 2013.

This source had some interesting things to say: "We really loved the reception to the demo we showed on the PC version at E3. Currently as it stands, there is definitely a lot of push coming from publishers to not make the experience so different on consoles as to alienate people into thinking that next generation is not as powerful as PC. This is probably what happened at Ubisoft Montreal. I think that while making stability changes is definitely important, it does not completely obliterate a lot of enhanced rendering applications".