Gaming - Page 963

Up until now Square Enix and PlatinumGames have been pretty cagey about NieR: Automata's PC release. All mention of the PC port was scrubbed from multiple official game sites, leading many to question a delay or cancellation. Now we can confirm the PC port is indeed coming, and we know the reason behind the silence: the PS4 may have timed exclusivity.

In a recent gameplay video, Square Enix accidentally revealed that NieR: Automata's PC version will launch on March 10, 2017 on Steam. The game will launch first on PS4 and then three days later on PC. Shortly after the video went up, Square Enix yanked it and replaced it a revised video that scrubs out any mention of the PC port. See a side-by-side below.

So what's going on here? It appears Square Enix and PlatinumGames signed a deal with Sony to not discuss the PC port's release date until after the game has shipped on PS4. I long thought that this was a marketing deal, especially since scrubbing any mention of a competing platform from a site just reeks of an exclusivity deal.

The Nintendo Switch will launch with Dragon Quest Heroes I & II in Japan, and if you want to play it digitally you'll have to invest in expandable Micro SD cards: the game is literally too big to fit on the system's onboard storage.

Nintendo's new Switch handheld-console hybrid has a paltry 32GB of onboard NAND flash memory, which converts to 29.8GB, and 4GB of that is taken up by the Switch's OS. This leaves gamers with 25.9GB of memory that's actually available for game downloads, saves, screenshots and other content.

Although most Switch games are small, if you plan to download your games digitally you'll want to make use of the Switch's supporting up to 2TB Micro SDXC cards and pick up some expandable memory.

Platinum Games and Square Enix have been pretty cagey about Nier: Automata's PC release date and now we know why: piracy. The game likely won't release until an adequate DRM solution is found, and Square Enix may not go with Denuvo this time.

Nier: Automata's PS4 version is set to release in two days in Japan and March 7 in the West, but nor the publisher or devs have locked in a PC release date. The Steam port is still listed as "2017". In fact, any mention of the PC version is missing from the game's official North American site, the Japanese site, and even Platinum Games' official gamesite. This led many to believe the game may be cancelled on PC.

But Nier: Automata's game producer Yosuke Saito confirmed that the PC port is still happening. Saito goes on to say there may be a "slight delay" for the PC version until the team can find an adequate anti-piracy measure. Saito also wants to ensure the game runs smoothly on PC, claiming that "certain recent games" ran badly on the platform, and this isn't acceptable for Nier (Saito is likely talking about Mutants in Manhattan, which was locked to 30FPS on PC).

While gaming in handheld mode, Nintendo's new Switch console actually runs quite cool and only hits a max of 37C in demanding games like Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.

While attending a Nintendo Switch event a Swedish gamer took some FLIR images of the system in handheld mode to see how hot the device gets. Considering the Switch can deliver dedicated on-the-go gaming, thermal heat mitigation is extremely important, and we're happy to report the device runs pretty cool.

Thanks to recent teardowns we know the Switch is actively cooled by a fan system that works in tandem with an L-shaped heat sink, and, of course, the customized and highly efficient 20nm NVIDIA Tegra X1 chip.

Horizon Zero Dawn has been receiving some amazing compliments so far, and after Digital Foundry's analysis on the PlayStation exclusive, it looks like it's the best-looking PS4/PS4 Pro game to date.

The game maintains its 1080p resolution on the PS4, but the beefier PS4 Pro can run Horizon Zero Dawn at 4K - while performance, stays roughly the same. We're looking at a "near-locked and well-paced" 30FPS, with "very few drops below" 30FPS - with both of these drops in performance happening at the "same spots regardless of the console", which means we should see updates for Horizon Zero Dawn that will improve those dips in the near future.

Guerrilla Games harnessed the additional horsepower inside of the PS4 Pro to not only crank up the resolution to the non-native "checkerboard 4K presentation" - but the graphical detail is increased. There's higher antistrophic filtering and texture resolution on the PS4 Pro version of Horizon Zero Dawn. There will also be an update pushed out on day one for Horizon Zero Drawn that will offer a high-performance option.

A gamer recently bought a Nintendo Switch early and showed off the system's startup screens, revealing that the console-handheld hybrid only has approximately 25.9 GB of the advertised 32GB of onboard memory will be available for games, downloads, and screenshots.

The Nintendo Switch is supposed to come with 32GB of flash storage. However, as any tecchie will tell you, the advertised memory isn't what you actually get (and here's why).

Given that a 32GB flash drive will only actually have about 29.8 GB of usable space, we can assess the Nintendo Switch's customized operating system takes up about 4GB of space by default, leaving about ~26GB left over for gamers to use (29.8GB - 25.9GB = 3.9GB).

NVIDIA is expected to unveil their GeForce GTX 1080 Ti graphics card during their event at GDC 2017 next week, but the GTX 1080 Ti has been teased... with Halo Wars 2.

Halo Wars 2 is coming soon, with Microsoft and developer THQ Nordic listing NVIDIA's unreleased and unannounced GeForce GTX 1080 Ti as the GPU of choice for Halo Wars 2's Ultra graphics requirements. We should expect NVIDIA's new GeForce GTX 1080 Ti to be a slightly gimped Titan X, which is not a bad thing - 3328 CUDA cores, 12GB of GDDR5X, and 10.8TFLOPs of performance - enough for Ultra settings in Halo Wars 2.

Microsoft is going to shake up the console space later this year with the 4K-capable Project Scorpio console, the fastest Xbox ever made - but Microsoft seems to have moved away from making PC gaming the best gaming platform there is.

Over the years this has happened, even with the release of DX12 and Vulkan, we haven't seen giant technological leaps and bounds from our increasingly faster hardware. But, Xbox boss Phil Spencer talked about Microsoft's commitment to PC gaming heading into the future, something he touched on during the Halo Wars 2 launch party.

Spencer hinted at PC exclusive games that haven't been announced yet, as well as upcoming Xbox One exclusives that will be unveiled in the coming months. We have Crackdown 3 on the way, which should be a big hit when it launches in a few months.

Nintendo's next-gen Switch console is nearly here, so we're finally seeing the retail packaging for Switch games - and what a huge waste of plastic for such a small cartridge.

The game cartridges that Nintendo Switch games comes in at 31mm x 21mm x 3mm, making them small - as the 3DS cartridges are just 35mm x 33mm x 4mm. But, Nintendo has used a gigantic case for the cartridge, coming in at 170mm x 104mm x 10mm. SomeSwitch game packages won't include instruction manuals, registration cards, legal health warning or anything else that would use more physical space in the case. However, Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth+ will have a 20-page full-color game manual, and we can clearly see where the actual game manuals go in the case.

This isn't an unusual thing for Nintendo, as 3DS cartridges only use 2% of the volume in the package, Sony isn't any different with Vita cartridges taking just 0.8% of its total packaging volume. The retail boxes seem to be for those who want to have a library of games on their shelves like previous-gen games - but we live in a new world, Nintendo.

I admit I had my worries about BioWare's new Mass Effect: Andromeda game. But after watching the latest combat trailer, most of those worries were dispelled. The game's battle system is a breath of fresh air. The same way Dragon Age: Inquisition pushed the bar for its own franchise, ME: Andromeda does the same for Mass Effect. The latest game was built from scratch on DICE's advanced Frostbite 3 engine, and it clearly shows: this time around we have such massive freedom and flexibility that it genuinely feels like a next-gen sci-fi action game.

via GIPHY

The Nintendo Switch has already been torn down, revealing some interesting things: a custom NVIDIA Tegra X1 chip that perfectly matches the second-gen Shield TV's 20nm Tegra X1 transistor count, and the possible confirmation that the handheld-console hybrid will use efficient DDR4 mobile RAM.

We already know the Nintendo Switch should use 4GB of unified shared RAM system memory, but until now we weren't exactly sure how fast or what grade of memory would be in the Switch. Now we might know. According to recent Switch teardowns spotted on Chinese site Tabao, two Samsung-made SDRAM modules were spotted on the system's PCB.

The pictures are very fuzzy, but the consensus is that the SDRAM modules are K4F2E304HBMGCH modules, which are described as "LPDDR4 DRAM Chip Mobile LPDDR4 DRAM 16G-Bit 512Mx32 1.8V 200-Pin FBGA." These particular Samsung LPDDR4 modules have a 16gigabit density, which is 2GB, and there are two of them totaling for 4GB of unified LPDDR4 memory.

Can you believe we're only weeks away from the launch of the Nintendo Switch, and now we're seeing a purported teardown of Nintendo's next-gen console. There's lots of things to look at, but we'll list of what we can see - including the massive 4310mAh battery.

NVIDIA's custom Tegra-based chip can be spotted, next to 2 x DIMMs, a USB Type-C slot on the circuit board, and the huge 6.2-inch touchscreen can be seen on the other side.

The NVIDIA chip is interesting, as it has a code label of "UDNX02-A2" - and as Ars Technica points out: "the Switch is set to contain a Tegra chip, and we had been led to believe that this would be much like the X1 found in NVIDIA's Shield devices. But this "A2" designation, unlike the "A1" printed on existing X1 chips, could mean we're getting a significant change to the design".

Mass Effect: Andromeda has been detailed in a new gameplay video, teasing a bunch of weapons in the form of melee, rifles, shotguns, and sniper rifles. There's also the Helios side of things: plasma-based weapons that can be charged up and hit enemies with heatseeking technology.

The game looks absolutely delicious, with it being a beautiful sci-fi game that continues in the Mass Effect universe. We get a great look at the UI, which looks slick to use - and the skill system can be customized for specific fights. There are skill trees that fall into three sections: combat, tech, and biotics. We know what combat and tech will be used for, but with biotics we can expect to see dark energy being used to shield yourself, or it can be used to pick up enemies and throw them around.

Mass Effect Andromeda will be launching on March 21 for the PC, Xbox One, and PS4.

Remember those Nintendo Switch consoles that were supposedly shipped out early? It turns out that these consoles were actually stolen from retail stores and Nintendo is slapping down the hammer.

"Earlier this week, individuals claimed to prematurely purchase a small number of Nintendo Switch systems from an unspecified retailer. Nintendo has determined these units were stolen in an isolated incident by employees of a U.S. distributor, with one system being illegally resold," Nintendo told IGN in a statement.

Nintendo is treating this quite seriously and has identified the thieves, wiped out their jobs, and are pursuing criminal charges. "The individuals involved have been identified, terminated from their place of employment and are under investigation by local law enforcement authorities on criminal charges."

Platinum Games' latest dystopian action RPG Nier: Automata won't arrive on Xbox One, but it will launch on PC. Why wouldn't the studio--and Square Enix--want to maximize their potential sales by including the game on all platforms? It's simple: Xbox just isn't popular in Japan.

"The main reason for this is that the Japanese market for Xbox One is not strong, so the decision was made to focus on PlayStation 4 rather than to split our efforts across two platforms," game producer Yosuke Saito told Express UK in a recent interview.

Saito goes on to say that being able to focus development on a single platform meant more time to optimize everything to a pristine polish. Wait...one platform? Nier: Automata is coming to PC too, right? Interestingly enough Square Enix hasn't talked about the PC port's release date for quite a while, and PC isn't even listed on Nier Automata's JP site nor on Platinum Games' Nier site.

Now that more video games are getting their own films and TV shows, Rockstar Games parent company Take-Two Interactive has opened up licensing opportunities to adapt key IPs into feature-length and/or episodic entertainment.

Take-Two Interactive is all about taking advantage of the market and leveraging its IPs in new ways to make money. The games giant is now pushing into the $40 billion a year mobile gaming industry, and now it's opened up the options for movies and TV shows based on its hit franchises--but the catch is Take-Two won't be putting any of its own money into the possible projects.

"We've licensed a couple of titles for motion picture production and we don't have much more to say about that yet,"Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick said in a recent interview with MCV.

Nintendo has finally reversed one of its most clandestine business tactics, signifying the company is absolutely changing for the better. Digital game licenses are now bound to Nintendo Accounts instead of platforms, meaning users can re-download previously purchased Virtual Console content and DLC to the Nintendo Switch.

This news comes from Twitter user Bjorn the Switchy, who saw the following interesting addendum on a recent Nintendo Switch setup video:

"Your Nintendo Account contains your Nintendo eShop purchase history and current balance. By re-linking your Nintendo Account after initializing the console, it will be possible to re-download any software or DLC purchased using that account. (Software that has been discontinued may not be available to re-download in some cases.)"

Square Enix has dropped two new Final Fantasy VII: Remake screenshots that confirm the game's first boss battle as Guard Scorpion and show off the battle HUD.

Final Fantasy VII: Remake's battle HUD is rather...minimalist. The battle UI contrasts to that shown during the PlayStation Experience trailer, and Materia has now replaced the Summon bar in the action menu. The new screens also clearly list an ATB gauge but before you get too excited remember Tetsuya Nomura has confirmed that FF7 Remake won't be turn-based--the combat will be like Final Fantasy XV.

So what's with the ATB gauge then? The PSX footage shows a gauge that fills up as Cloud strikes enemies, and when it turns red, he initiates a finishing move. The ATB gauge in this game could be a combo counter of sorts that can trigger powerful mini cut-scene attacks in battle. The new screens show that you can press triangle when Cloud's ATB bar is full to likely trigger a combo finisher. This is separate from the limit break attacks, and limits have their own bar still.

It's no secret that Sony has given up on the PlayStation Vita. This void allowed Nintendo to swoop in with their unique handheld-console hybrid Switch system and tap the best of both markets. But Nintendo's victory might be short-lived: Sony apparently is working on a Vita successor.

The Japanese Patent Office just published a patent for Sony's new handheld gaming device which may be the company's next-generation PlayStation Vita. It appears the patent was originally filed in Aug. 2015 and published on Feb. 16, 2017.

Sony's new Vita-like handheld patent resembles the Nintendo Switch--it's actually close to Razer's Project Fiona--and essentially looks like a tablet with two halves of a DualShock controller on the ends.

Microsoft studios have a penchant for absurdly massive game updates: Master Chief Collection had a colossal update, as did Halo 5. It's just what MS Studios do, and The Coalition is no different.

Gears of War 4's latest update has pushed the game's total install size to 101GB. For comparison's sake, the actual main game is 80GB on PC. So after downloading the update, Gears of War 4 will be taking up 101 GB on your machine. What's even worse is that the Windows Store can sometimes botch the update and make you download 248GB instead. Fun times!

So why is the game so huge now?This latest 10GB patch is the February Update, which adds a special Valentine's Day event, two new maps, and a few tweaks to the Guardian mode. Since the maps are locked behind a season pass paywall, not everyone will have access to them, but these maps are obviously taking up the most data on the update. This means that you might be downloading massive GBs of content that you can't even access--similar to Destiny's on-disc DLC.