Gaming - Page 2064

During an interview with Industry Gamers, creator of Ultima, Richard Garriott had a few things to say about consoles. He thinks consoles will be extinct in the near future. Really...

With consoles multi-billion dollar, long-term investments for companies such as Sony and Microsoft, it is a bet. A big one. Longer development cycles are now the norm, with both companies touting a 10-year life cycle for this generation, and we're already up to seven years now.

Consoles are also now faced with super-tough competition from what seems all sides. Smartphones are more powerful than ever, tablets will receive quad-core chips within days thanks to NVIDIA's Tegra 3 and the first Tegra 3-powered tablet, ASUS' Eee Pad Transformer Prime. Social gaming on PC is not helping with companies such as Zynga having over 100 million active users on games such as CityVille.

YES! Battlefield 3's first [and hopefully not last] expansion pack, Back to Karkand, has a release date of December 14. It comes out seven days earlier on the Sony PlayStation 3, with a release date of December 7.

Sony's Asian PlayStation Store lists Battlefield 3 Back to Karkand for December 7, 2011, which is how the news broke of the December 14 date. I don't mind waiting 7 more days, because I'm just so damn excited.

For now, enjoy yesterday's gameplay footage from one of the maps on Back to Karkand, Gulf of Oman.

Just days ago, 2K Marin had a Canberra, Australia-based arm to help with development. This studio is now working with former sister studio Irrational Games on BioShock Infinite. Irrational Studios boss Ken Levine said when asked for a comment:

Then we have a history lesson, in 2007, Irrational Games was bought by Take-Two, just before the release of BioShock. Just before this, the studio was split apart and renamed 2K Boston and 2K Australia. Since this time, 2K Boston has become Irrational Games, but 2K Australia was skipped. 2K Australia helped 2K Marin on BioShock 2, after which 2K Australia became 2K Marin, but based in Australia. After this, they helped with the XCOM reboot.

Skyrim has received a 1.2 patch for the PS3 version of the game, which fixes a whole heap of annoying issues and strange bugs. PC or Xbox 360 Skyrim gamer? You'll have to wait 48 hours for your patch.

The 1.2 notes are below:

Improved occasional performance issues resulting from long term play (PlayStation 3)

Microsoft's next-generation Kinect 2 is set to receive a hefty upgrade in specs, which will allow it to be so accurate, it could lip read. Yes, lip read. Kinect 2 will also offer improved motion sensing and voice recognition.

Eurogamer was told by a development source that Kinect 2 will be so powerful it will be enable games to lip read, detect when players are angry, and determine in which direction they are facing. Kinect 2 should also have the ability to track the pitch and volume of player voices and facial characteristics to measure different emotional states.

Current Kinect technology is held back by USB technology as it has to pass data through the ageing technology. Kinect launched in November 2010 with the depth sensor set to 30 frames per second and a 320x240 resolution limit. The USB interface is capable of roughly 35MB/sec but is artificially held back to use only 15/16MB/sec because multiple USB devices can be used at once on the Xbox 360.

Psst. Come over here. Yeah, over here. I have a secret - I'm secretly addicted to Battlefield 3. I don't play it often, but a few hours here and there and I'm on level 20. I don't want to thrash into it, I've had a few things happen lately that takes my time away from it. But, today brings a new gameplay video of Battlefield 3's expansion pack - Back to Karkand.

The map displayed is Gulf of Oman and features combat vehicles that you'll be able to control in the game. Three of the vehicles are from Battlefield 2 and those vehicles are: STOVL fighter jet, desert buggy (woo!), and one of the APC's.

Back to Karkand Lead Designer Niklas Fegraeus says:

PC gamers have had a great week, with 95-percent of them accused of being pirates, and just bagging them out in general and blaming piracy for lack of sales. But Good Guy Game Newell has come through with a treasure map of where to find success in digital distribution [I hope you get the pun there, it was intended].

Gabe tackles the issues of claiming that lowering prices for games will make piracy go away, and he also takes on companies that seek to fight piracy by inconveniencing consumers. He says:

I'm sure some of you pulled out your Lightsabers for the Star Wars: The Old Republic beta weekend just gone, and I've been hearing nothing but great things about it, but now we have some news on just how successful it was. Bioware had invited practically everyone to play in their MMORPG, so that they could stress-test their servers to see how they went with hundreds of thousands online at once.

Most servers had queues on them all weekend, with a few of them with queues of over 1000 gamers waiting to get in. Other beta testers and Twitter posts indicated even higher numbers on the queue, so you would think that it would be a limited server issue, right?

Wrong. Bioware were continuously adding new servers, with 51 North American-based servers and 37 European-based servers pumping away keeping SWTOR fans happy. Also, this was just for the beta. While the beta was free, it came in the cost of bandwidth. The beta client weighed in at more than 20GB, so it would be a turn off to those who are bandwidth restricted.

Yesterday we reported that Ghost Recon: Future Soldier won't be coming to PC because "95-percent of PC gamers would pirate it." Think I'm joking? Check the article out. Today, we have news that I Am Alive won't see the light of day on PC, with the game's creative director Stanislas Mettra telling IncGamers the news in an interview.

The game will hit Xbox Live Arcade and the PlayStation Network sometime next year, but the PC version is doubtful as piracy makes profitably uncertain. Mettra is also aware that PC gamers have been quite vocal regarding the lack of official statement regarding a PC release. Mettra says:

For a while now, casual games on mobiles have been thought of the death knell of console games. But, according to a survey run by 3DS Buzz, mobile games aren't hurting console games at all. 3DS Buzz conducted a survey to find out who owns the latest handheld gaming consoles would disagree with the idea that it is dying out.

3DS Buzz wanted to ask those who had been DS gamers, but they had turned their backs on the latest gaming system. They found out nearly 300 people who had bought a DS but not a 3DS so 3DS Buzz asked them why they didn't buy the new 3D portable system. 3DS Buzz provided 16 options on the survey, which allowed participants to pick as many reasons why they hadn't made the purchase they wanted.

2-percent of voters selected "I'm happy with my mobile phone/tablet for handheld gaming." But, consider that 3DS gamers are a totally different kettle of fish, as personally, I know of only two people in my entire family and friends circle with one. Considering over half of them have a console (PS3 or 360) and every single one of them has a PC.