Gaming - Page 968

Although smartphone gaming reigns supreme in Japan, the portability of Nintendo's new handheld-console Switch hybrid has attracted young Japanese mobile gamers, and may even disrupt the market.

Nintendo designed its new Switch system around one specific point: playing games anywhere with anyone. The Nintendo Switch merges the best of gaming's three top sectors and injects a social dynamic to the mix:

Mobile gaming, as the Switch tablet has a 10-point capacitive touchscreen that could facilitate traditional experiences with the added benefit of transforming into a mini arcade console via Tabletop Mode;

UPDATE: EA has confirmed it's not currently developing Skate 4. Sorry folks!

Original story as follows.

After six years of waiting, Skate fans might be getting a new game in the series.

Namco confirmed today that Masaya Nakamura, the so-called Father of Pac-Man and founder of one of Japan's and the gaming industry's most important companies, has died at age 91.

Masaya Nakamura's Namco was a transformative force in the massive arcade boom during the 80s during that golden age when gaming was starting to take shape. He was a major player in the games industry, and enjoyed massive success with immortal Pac-Man, which is forever known as the world's most popular arcade game.

We can only imagine what gaming would be like had Mr. Nakamura not taking the initiative to start his business in 1955. If you grew up in the 80's, you no-doubt owe quite a bit of your childhood to Mr. Nakamura. He will be sorely missed.

Bethesda will roll out a high resolution texture pack for Fallout 4 on PC, but the publisher affirms only higher-end rigs with beefy video cards and processors will be able to handle the update. In fact, Bethesda lists a GPU that doesn't even exist yet: AMD's Radeon RX 490.

Fallout 4 is getting spruced up on consoles with a new PS4 Pro patch enabling native 1440p and on PC, but the latter will enjoy the biggest and most enhanced upgrade. Everyday PC gamers apparently won't benefit as the high-res texture pack as Bethesda wants you to have an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 or an AMD RX 490 with 8GB of VRAM and an Intel Core i7-5820K or better to use the update.

While these are listed as recommended specs, the publisher says: "make sure you have an additional 58 GB of available and that your system meets/exceeds the recommended specs below."

Deus Ex developer Eidos Montreal has apparently put Adam Jensen's dystopic future on hold so it can work on new high-profile projects with Marvel.

Square Enix recently signed a multi-year deal with Marvel for a batch of games based on key characters and series in the Marvel comic-book universe, and the publisher has enlisted its key development studios to create these games.

This partnership is not unlike Disney giving EA exclusive access to make Star Wars games, and EA responded in kind by enlisting Respawn, Visceral, DICE, EA Motive and more to the cause. The first game in the Square Enix-Marvel alliance will be an all-original new Avengers game.

UPDATE: HORI's official Nintendo Switch SD cards aren't actually that expensive. According to HORI"s Japanese website, the 32GB Micro SDHC card will be sold for 3840 Yen, which is about $30. This is in line with the cost of most of the cards that deliver 80MB/sec read and 15MB/sec write speeds with Class 10 and UHS I speed ratings.

Apologies for the mix-up folks! Original story is as follows.

Nintendo will apparently release official Micro SDHC cards for the Nintendo Switch, but they'll be overpriced compared to other cards on the market.

Microsoft has affirmed that Windows Store UWP games may leverage the most out of Windows 10's new Game Mode feature, which re-allocates system resources to boost in-game frame rates. However, this rate won't be anything dramatic, and games will see as little as a 2% FPS boost.

Xbox program manager Kevin Gammill recently opened up to Ars Technica about the new Game Mode feature that will help optimized Windows 10 PCs for gaming. Gammill says that while Game Mode supports both Win32 and UWP games, the latter may see "slightly better" FPS boosts.

Game Mode can improve in-game frame rates for CPU and GPU-bound games from anywhere from 2% to 5%, so this may not be a dramatic boost depending on the game. Also it's interesting to note that the possible performance boost disparity is due to Win32 games being able to launch extra processes, whereas UWP games are more lightweight and this respect and can't install background services and whatnot.

Beloved Nintendo exec and Zelda grandfather Eiji Aonuma has been working on Zelda: Breath of the Wild for the past four years. The game is a massive open-world expanse that represents tens of thousands of hours of work from countless developers, featuring a sprawling landmass filled with dynamic monsters and activities. But that doesn't mean it can't all be summed up in three simple words.

When asked to simplify the staggering behemoth that is the first real open-world Zelda game in a single sentence, Aonuma didn't hesitate. In fact, the internal dev team has been following three words as their core tenants when designing and building the game--in a sense, these three words are the very ethos of the land of Hyrule.

"Climb, live, protect. These are the three words used in advertising on the official Japanese website. It means exploring by climbing everywhere, living in harmony with the world around us and protecting something or someone to accomplish a mission. This is really the essence of this game," Zelda grandfather Eiji Aonuma said in a recent interview with French gaming site Gamekult.

Capcom Japan today announced that its latest smash-hit Biohazard horror Resident Evil 7 has shipped 2.5 million copies worldwide, and the company is optimistic about the game's total earnings.

If you haven't played Resident Evil 7 yet, I think you should rectify that immediately. It's a horror fan's dream game. Within the first hour of the game I had more fun than I've had in years--more true, visceral and grisly horror fun than most games can even accomplish.

This chapter is a true return to Resident Evil's horror roots, and combines all kinds of themes and sensibilities that players will recognize. In the truest sense, this is the purest form of that hallowed terror that pulled us in some 20 years ago and hasn't let go since.

Hideo Kojima is working on something quite magical with Death Stranding, with a few teases of the game so far - and now, the team is moving into the new offices, and they look swanky AF.

Kojima left Konami back in December 2015, and has said that he and his team were working in a "temporary workspace". But now, they've built something truly beautiful - I want to visit it, and breath in everything - now.

We can see a 360-degree camera setup in a large room, a massive table with a large screen TV for discussions and I'm sure, the daily footage on Death Stranding.

BioWare and EA today dropped the second official cinematic trailer for Mass Effect: Andromeda, which shows even more of the galactic battle players will face during their jaunt across the universe. And we also get to see a bunch of new aliens and characters to boot.

The footage is a cinematic bit so don't expect in-depth looks at anything; it's mainly a story teaser that showcases characters, locales, and highlights the main struggle we'll face throughout the game. In actuality it looks like players are put in a rather dire situation, as their Ark is marooned in deep space and running out of power. Ryder and his crew set off on the new Tempest ship in search of New Earth--and aid to help the ailing Ark and its 20,000 inhabitants. Instead of finding help, however, they find the fearsome Kett.

Read Also: Mass Effect: Andromeda skills and classes revealed

BioWare's Mark Darrah continues to tease the studio's next Dragon Age project, and now we know for sure that the mysterious red book is based on the Dragon Age series, which may or may not tie into BioWare's mysterious new IP that they're working on. I have a strong feeling this is the Dragon Age Tactics game Darrah teased a while back, or perhaps a MOBA based on the fantasy universe.

Remember a bit ago when Mark Darrah teased a cryptic red book with a rook piece on its cover? It's been a while since we've heard anything about BioWare's new mystery IP, but Darrah actually opened the red book and shared the pictures online, confirming that the studio is indeed working on a new Dragon Age title. The pictures show internal concept art (see above) for characters or armors in the new game, showing a wide variety of possible character classes or outfits.

Here's the older post where Darrah asks gamers if they'd play a "Dragon Age Tactics" game:

Marvel has signed a multi-year partnership with Square Enix to create triple-A games based on the hit comic book franchises, with the publisher's award-winning Eidos Montreal and Crystal Dynamics helming development of the major titles.

The Marvel-Square Enix alliance's first game will be an Avengers game, with Tomb Raider dev Crystal Dynamics heading up major development in collaboration with Deus Ex devs Eidos Montreal. The Avengers game will feature a completely original story and may not be tied to the MCU

"The Avengers project is being designed for gamers worldwide and will be packed with all the characters, environments, and iconic moments that have thrilled longtime fans of the franchise. Featuring a completely original story, it will introduce a universe gamers can play in for years to come. More details on The Avengers project and other games will be announced in 2018."

Microsoft has now officially demoed Windows 10's new Game Mode feature, which optimizes a desktop PC specifically for gaming.

As we reported a few weeks ago, Microsoft's new Game Mode will boost in-game performance by allocating specific resources on a hardware and OS level. This will translate to an expanded FPS threshold as well as an overall tightening of persistent frame rates, and will benefit both Windows 10 UWP and traditional Win32 games. However, there were no specific frame rates mentioned considering the benefits are likely on a game-by-game basis, so we don't know how much of an affect Game Mode will offer.

"We're targeting performance enhancements in two ways: one, an increase in overall frame rates for peaks; and two, an increase in average frame rates for consistency."

Nintendo's new Switch handheld-console hybrid marks a tremendous paradigm shift within the company's business strategy, and acts as a kind of bridge that will repair its relationship with third-party publishers like EA and Activision. In fact, Electronic Arts says that Nintendo listened to feedback from industry parties outside its own first-party circle while making the Switch, indicating the system was tailor-made for all developers, irst-party and third-party alike.

Nintendo is breaking out of its shell. The Switch will have tons of third-party games from big publishers and devs, and the company has partnered with the industry's biggest movers to help facilitate a strong, consistent software library on the transforming hybrid system. More than 50 developers are working on more than 80 games right now, many of which haven't been revealed.

According to Electronic Arts Executive Vice President of Electronic Arts Patrick Soderlund, Nintendo has been instrumental in shaping the Switch's key infrastructure around feedback from publishers and devs--the very partners that avoided the flagging Wii U have been courted for a new kind of song and dance on a hip new system.

Bethesda Softworks today announced that Arkane's new re-imagining of Prey will release on May 5, 2017 on PS4, Xbox One and PC.

Prey is a rather interesting slice of creepy psychological horror infused with innovative FPS elements; in many ways it hearkens to 2001: A Space Odyssey with an ominous Dead Space touch, and a nice helping of Dishonored-style infused-yet-corrupted alien superpowers. But make no mistake: this isn't a reboot or a sequel, but a cerebral new re-imagining of the Prey franchise at the hands of Arkane.

"Prey is not a sequel, it's not a remake, it has no tie with the original. You have to look at it as a re-imagining of the IP," says Raphael Colantonio, president of Arkane Studios and creative director of Prey.

Despite Project Scorpio's reputation being potentially damaged by yesterday's "spec leak," one developer is keen on setting the record straight about the system: Project Scorpio isn't a half-assed machine like the PS4 Pro, and it'll be a full-blown next-gen machine.

Yesterday the gaming community was hit with a big surprise: a dev gave Eurogamer's Digital Foundry an internal whitepaper on Microsoft's 4K-ready "monster" Project Scorpio console, which they promptly dissected and reported on. The whitepaper (entitled Reaching 4K and GPU Scaling Across Multiple Xbox Devices) isn't available to the public and is meant for developers. DF's reports generated tons of buzz in the community and everyone basically saw Project Scorpio as an upjumped PS4 Pro that won't live up to Microsoft's promises. But one developer--who no-doubt saw the official whitepaper--says the system will basically live up to the hype.

Thomas Mahler, a dev at Moon Studios who helped create the popular Xbox exclusive indie Ori and the Blind Forest, set the record straight by telling NeoGAF this gem:

UPDATE: Microsoft has responded to the reports by re-confirming that Project Scorpio will indeed support high-fidelity VR gaming when it becomes available.

"When Project Scorpio ships later this year it will be the most powerful console ever built with a 6 teraflop GPU to deliver true 4K gaming, high-fidelity VR experiences, and greater graphic fidelity. We have nothing additional to share at this time," a Microsoft rep told Gamespot.

Original story is as follows.

More details have been leaked on the upcoming Project Scorpio console from Microsoft, with a GPU that is still capable of 6 TFLOPs of performance, providing 4.5x the GPU compute performance of the Xbox One.

Digital Foundry's new report states that Microsoft has removed ESRAM from Project Scorpio, which has been in the center of the Xbox One and Xbox One S consoles, with the site reporting: "ESRAM remains essential to achieving high performance on both Xbox One and Xbox One S. However, Project Scorpio and PC are not provided with ESRAM. Because developers are not allowed to ship a Project Scorpio-only SKU, optimising for ESRAM remains critical to performance on Microsoft platforms".

Furthermore, it looks like Project Scorpio will have a GPU that falls more in line with AMD's current-gen Polaris GPU architecture, rather than Vega. This is something I've said for a while, as I don't see AMD providing Microsoft with a semi-custom APU based on a GPU architecture that's not even available yet. We might see a Polaris-based GPU with Vega features thrown in, but not an entire Vega GPU. Zen CPU cores should be featured, and I'd be surprised if Microsoft didn't tap AMD's revolutionary leap in CPU technology inside of Project Scorpio.

BioWare has yet to reveal Mass Effect: Andromeda's full PC spec requirements, but the studio did give us a piece to the puzzle that allows us to gauge our expectations.

All too often in this industry we're able to glean new info via Tweets and social media posts, and this time is no different.

BioWare producer Mike Gamble recently said that he "thinks" Mass Effect: Andromeda will run on an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 745 GPU, which could indicate the minimum video card requirements for the game. "If this is your card you should be ok, I think," Gamble replied in a recent Tweet.