Gaming - Page 961

The Switch's $70 Pro controller has a nifty USB Type-C port at the top that will make it much more future proof than other controllers. However, the device won't actually use the Type-C protocol to refill the Pro controller's internal 1300mAh battery--that's why it takes 6 hours to charge up.

The Nintendo Switch Pro controller 's Type-C integration is apparently only for convenience, not faster recharges or data transfers--at least when you use the included cord. The Pro controller comes with a fairly common USB Type-C to Type-A recharging cord. What's interesting is that the Type-A end, which channels energy from the Switch dock to the controller, is actually USB 2.0. This means the Pro controller won't see faster recharges and the standard 5V 1.8A recharge rate should apply.

Now how do we know all this, especially since there's no markings on the Switch Pro USB cord other than the HAC-010 model number? I admit I wasn't able to find exact specs of this USB cord. However I did find a clue. Nintendo has confirmed the Switch dock's single USB 3.0 port will only be USB 2.0 until a firmware patch is rolled out: "USB terminal (side × 2 [USB 2.0 compatible], back side × 1 (USB 3.0)* It will operate with USB 2.0. We plan to support USB 3.0 in future updates," the Switch dock spec page confirms.

Nintendo doesn't skimp out on the Pro Controller's charging cord, but it's a bit shorter than we'd like.

If you use your Nintendo Switch in a sizable living room, you'll be pleased to know the included charging cord isn't pathetically short. Since the Switch Pro controller can be played wirelessly via Bluetooth connectivity, it's a nice option for families and gamers who want to play on their couch without being tethered. But when those inevitable Type-C charging sessions occur it's good to know that Nintendo included a decently sized USB recharging cord.

We got our hands-on a Switch Pro controller and did some measurements, concluding that the HAC-010 charging cord measures at 60-inches, or about 5 feet. The original NES controllers are still longer in sheer length (they measure 91.5 inches or about 7.6 feet) but we at least get double the insanely tiny NES Classic's 30-inch cords.

At $299 Nintendo's new Switch console is less than a PS4 or Xbox One, but the system has a galaxy of peripherals, accessories, and controllers that can rack the cost real high real fast.

Buying a Nintendo Switch Pro controller and Zelda: Breath of the Wild cost me $137 at my local Walmart: the Pro controller is $69.99 and Breath of the Wild cost your standard $59.99. That's nearly half of the Switch's total $299 retail price--so in essence I purchased a single game and a single controller for almost 50% of the console's price tag.

So why is the Nintendo Switch Pro controller so much, and why would you buy it when the Switch comes with two JoyCon controllers? The Pro controller sports the JoyCon's motion tracking, gyroscopes, accelerometer and HD Rumble tech in a much more user-friendly package. The controller is comfortable and well-made, and if you plan on getting the Switch to play Zelda: Breath of the Wild then you might want to invest in the device. But the biggest reason to pick it up is simple: gamers are having connection issues with the JoyCons.

GDC 2017 - AMD had quite the show at their second annual Capsaicin & Cream event during GDC 2017 this year, unveiling the new name of their next-gen Radeon RX Vega graphics cards - teasing 16K 120FPS VR, and so much more.

One of the more interesting announcements was the partnership between AMD and LiquidSky, the game streaming service - which will connect gamers to a host server, with the games being rendered in the cloud - similar to how GeForce Now works. You'll need a good internet connection obviously, but there are other issues in between.

The rendering of the game is done in the cloud by LiquidSky, which means there will be latency in between - unescapable latency, at least for now. AMD used a not-so-great Surface Book to run Battlefield 1 in the cloud, with the hope of the future to provide millions of gamers Vega-powered gaming from the cloud, to your desk (or TV) in the near future.

GDC 2017 - Square Enix's latest tech demo shows Final Fantasy XV running on a high-end PC armed with NVIDIA's supercharged GeForce GTX 1080 Ti graphics card.

Remember when we said Square Enix was experimenting with Final Fantasy XV on PC using dual GTX 1080s in SLI? Now at GDC 2017 we see the fruits of the team's labor, and Final Fantasy XV may be a substantial step closer to a PC release.

The tech demo shows the evolution of Final Fantasy XV's proprietary Luminous Engine, which was used to deliver amazing next-gen performance, visuals, lighting and atmospheric effects even on outdated consoles like the PS4 and Xbox One. But the devs prove that PC is where the RPG will truly shine to a near-blinding luster. The demo taps NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 1080 Ti to deliver amazing power boosts in every regard: dramatically better lighting and animations, real-time shadows, dynamic destructible environments, and even the ability to drive a souped up Regalia anywhere you want.

If you're planning on getting the Shadow of Mordor sequel on PC but don't have a powerful rig, don't worry: the PC spec requirements aren't too bad.

On the heels of Shadow of Mordor's success, Warner Bros. Games recently announced a sequel called Middle-earth Shadow of War that's coming to PS4, Xbox One and PC in August. Considering the last game was fairly well optimized across the PC build spectrum, we should expect the same for the sequel, as the flexible required PC specs seem to indicate.

In order to play Shadow of War on PC you'll need at least an Intel i5-2550K CPU, a GeForce GTX 670 or AMD Radeon HD 7950 GPU, and 8GB of RAM. The game's install size will clock in at about 60GB, but given the huge scope this should be expected.

GDC 2017 - Gearbox's Randy Pitchford has confirmed that Borderlands 3 will leverage the power of Unreal Engine 4 to bring high fidelity advanced effects, dynamic shadows, lighting and much more to the next-gen Borderlands sequel.

Gearbox is doing some very, very interesting things with Unreal Engine 4. The studio has been developing Borderlands 3 for a while now, and at GDC 2017 Randy Pitchford showed off the game's first ever technical demonstration to highlight some of the more advanced effects the devs are using to make the game. "We're going to show you some technology that we're building within UE4 that will power the next Borderlands game," Pitchford said before the demo.

The demo shows just how far Borderlands has come, and how truly next-gen Borderlands 3 will be when it ships. The team has created some impressive experimental effects and features that absolutely breathe new life into the franchise and I fully expect Borderlands 3 to push the bar to new heights.

Nintendo has created a Witcher 3-level masterpiece swan song with The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and shortly after the review embargo broke, multiple perfect scores propelled the game to Metacritic's best games of all time list.

At the time of writing, Breath of the Wild is sitting comfortably as Metacritic's fourth best game of all time. The top spot goes to Ocarina of Time on N64, but I do think Breath of the Wild could even unseat the legendary classic to cement itself as a must-have system-seller that Nintendo needs for its new Switch system.

Metacritic plays a vital role to any game developer's success, and high scores on the review aggregate site can determine whether or not devs get bonus pay. If Breath of the Wild does one thing, it proves that the old adage "they don't make 'em like they used to" might be outdated: Nintendo is back in action and better than ever.

Now that Nintendo Switch's day-one update is rolled out we can finally see the exact way to add friends onto the system...but you're not going to like it. Yes, it uses friend codes.

Press Start has confirmed that the Nintendo Switch uses the outmoded--and often confusing--Friend Code system to add different players to your friends list. It was originally believed that the FC system would be scrapped in favor of being able to add users via their Nintendo Account User IDs, however this wouldn't work because anyone can change their User IDs at any time. So hence the necessity of the Friend Code system.

However it's worth noting that this is just one way to add friends to your list on the Switch. Users can search for gamers they recently played with and add them that way, or even add anyone you're playing LAN games with with multiple Switches.

GDC 2017 - Microsoft has announced that its "monster" 4K-ready Project Scorpio console will support both AR and VR headsets in 2018, facilitating a more unified Mixed Reality approach.

We've known for a while that Project Scorpio would support "high-fidelity VR experiences," but now Redmond has confirmed what we suspected at the start: those Windows 10 headsets being made by companies like Dell, Lenovo, Acer, and ASUS will bring VR and AR experiences to the total Windows Mixed Reality platform--which will soon include Xbox One consoles and Project Scorpio.

"We're also excited to share that Windows Mixed Reality experiences will light up on other devices over time, beyond desktop and Microsoft Hololens. Our plan is to bring mixed reality content to the Xbox One family of devices, including Project Scorpio, in 2018," Microsoft announced in a recent update post.

Nintendo's new Switch Pro controller can actually be used to natively play PC games--but only via Bluetooth.

A PC will actually recognize a Switch Pro controller when hooked up via USB Type-C, however you can't actually play any games over the protocol. But if you pair the Switch Pro controller to your PC via Bluetooth, you can play games on PC or Mac. It even works on Android devices.

But there is one caveat: the Switch Pro is DirectInput not XInput, meaning it may not work in some games that were made for XInput controller mapping, such as The Witcher III: Wild Hunt.

Microsoft today announced Xbox Game Pass, a new paid subscription service that offers 100+ Xbox One and Xbox 360 backward compatible games on a month-by-month basis.

Xbox Game Pass will cost $10 a month, and Xbox LIVE Gold isn't required for the sub, however you will need Gold to play multiplayer in Xbox Game Pass games. The service is exclusively for Xbox One and not Xbox 360 or Windows 10, however if a Play Anywhere game such as Resident Evil 7 is included, users can play them on Windows 10 PCs as well as Xbox One consoles. Just don't expect non-Play Anywhere games like Halo 5: Guardians to be playable on PC.

Microsoft is borrowing lots of ideas out of other sub service playbooks, including Netflix, EA Access, and even PS Now. Unlike Sony's disastrous PlayStation Now service, Xbox Game Pass will allow users to download full games to their consoles. The games lineup will rotate every month just like Netflix, and once a game is rotated out you can't play it any more. This is similar to Nintendo's game plan with the Switch's online service.

During AMD's Capsaicin & Cream event today, the company had lots to talk about - teasing Radeon RX Vega, but they also announced a huge partnership with gaming giant Bethesda.

AMD's new long-term strategic partnership with Bethesda is an interesting one, as Bethesda will better optimize their games for AMD's new Ryzen CPUs and upcoming Radeon RX Vega graphics cards. This means we'll get better PC ports of Bethesda's upcoming games, and since they're the publisher of games like DOOM, Fallout, and the Elder Scrolls series - it means that AMD are now positioned incredibly well heading into the future.

The companies will be pushing to develop and accelerate the adoption of APIs like Vulkan, which means we'll see the full power unleashed from Ryzen and Vega in upcoming Bethesda-made games.

UPDATE: Sony has fixed this issue and the $59.99 version of Horizon: Zero Dawn can now be added to your cart on the PlayStation Store. Glad it was fixed so soon!

Original story is as follows.

Sony is apparently playing some dirty tricks to get users to buy the $70 deluxe version of Horizon: Zero Dawn.

Shortly following the leak, Warner Bros. Games today announced Shadow of War, the sequel to Shadow of Mordor, will be optimized for Microsoft's "monster" 4K-ready Project Scorpio console when the system releases this holiday.

Microsoft has made a deal with Warner Bros. Interactive to make Shadow of War a cross-buy Play Anywhere title on Windows 10 PCs and Xbox consoles, but the agreement apparently doesn't end there: the game will almost certainly leverage the full brunt of Project Scorpios 6TFLOPs of raw GPU compute power to enable native 4K gaming.

As written on the Xbox Wire mainsite, Shadow of War "will also be available for Project Scorpio following the console's launch this holiday season." Since Project Scorpio is backwards compatible will all existing Xbox One games, why would Microsoft explicitly call this one out? This tells me one thing: Shadow of War will be specifically enhanced to tap Project Scorpio's full high-end 4K console hardware.

Although the Switch is billed as a "home console first and foremost," the system will have ports of smartphone mobile games that can only be played on-the-go.

The Nintendo Switch's namesake is derived from its ability to seamlessly switch between dual form factors; two JoyCon controllers attach to the sides of the table to transform it into a handheld in Mobile Mode, and then the tablet can be docked and transformed into a console in TV Mode. It was originally believed that any Switch game would have to support both modes, however that was wrong: the Switch will have games exclusive to Mobile Mode.

The first mobile-only Switch game is VOEZ, a rhythm-based iOS and Android game that uses touchscreen controls. The Switch port of VOEZ will be the same and utilize the console's 10-point capacitive touchscreen.

Battery life of Nintendo's new Switch handheld-console hybrid is always a concern, but a recent test shows that the Switch can last more than 5 hours at full brightness before it dies--provided you stay only on the homescreen and don't play any games.

The Nintendo Switch has a decently sized 4310mAh internal battery that Nintendo says can provide up to 6 hours of life on a single charge. We've seen that the Switch can last over 3 hours while playing Zelda: Breath of the Wild, but what about when you're not gaming? YouTuber FamilyGamerTV conducted a recent test to find out.

The test saw 20 mobile devices all with varying battery life, power efficiency and process architectures face off to see which lasted the longest. All of the devices were connected to Wi-Fi and turned up to maximum brightness.

YouTubers and press have gotten their hands-on early Nintendo Switch consoles, and now the million dollar question has been answered: the Switch can play Zelda: Breath of the Wild on-the-gomore than three hours on a full charge.

Nintendo has confirmed that the Switch's battery can last anywhere from 2.5 to six hours on a full charge while in handheld or tabletop mode depending on the game and mode. The Switch's internal 4310mAh battery takes 3 hours to fully recharge, and Nintendo estimated that the Switch would last about 3 hours while playing demanding games like Breath of the Wild.

It turns out that Nintendo's estimates were spot-on. YouTuber Arekkz conducted a quick Switch handheld battery life test and concluded that we can play Breath of the Wild for approximately 3 hours, 2 minutes and 52 seconds with a full charge. This is almost three minutes longer than Nintendo's battery life estimates.

Update: Target has now deleted the listings, but we spotted a possible August 22 release date for Middle-earth Shadow of War before they were taken down.

Retailer Target has just leaked Shadow of Modor's sequel, Shadow of War.

WB Interactive's successful Middle-earth Shadow of Mordor is getting a direct sequel called Shadow of War on Xbox One and PS4, and the game will come in two variants: the default and Gold Editions.

Sony's gamble into the realm of virtual reality has paid off in dividends: the PlayStation VR headset is a bona-fide success, with sales exceeding 900,000 units sold in the past fourth months.

Although Sony's PlayStation VR platform lacks the raw power of a desktop PC and has somewhat lukewarm, simplified games, it does have one massive advantage: accessibility. The PlayStation VR is powered by Sony's best-selling PS4 juggernaut, which has an install base of over 50 million units.

Just how much of a hot ticket item is the PS4-powered headset? Sony Interactive Entertainment President Andrew House has revealed that consumers bought 915,000 PlayStation VRs since the headset launched on October 13 of last year. Based on this tremendous momentum, sales will likely exceed Sony's original target of 1 million PSVR sales in six months.