Gaming - Page 973

When it ships in Holiday 2017, Microsoft's "monster" Project Scorpio will be the world's most powerful games console. The "beast" has been lauded by developers at its E3 2016 announcement, and now that AMD is putting the finishing touches on its new high-performance Ryzen (Zen) CPU and enthusiast Vega GPU architectures, Project Scorpio is likely being shown off to key developers--and these devs are quite surprised with what they're seeing.

Microsoft's first-party developers will be privy to Project Scorpio's full unrestrained power, and we expect first-party titles to leverage the most out of the console itself. Frank O'Connor, longtime Halo dev and Franchise Development Director at 343 Industries, one of Microsoft's key first-party studios, said that the new 4K-ready console is "beefier than I expected." Is this even more evidence that Project Scorpio will leverage AMD's new Ryzen CPU and high-performance Vega GPU architecture?

"Haha, although I probably "know" in that I might have seen it in a slide or something, it's literally not something I have time to think about now and I actually couldn't remember whatever specs I've been exposed to even if I was tortured. I literally couldn't leak or answer a question that went beyond "Can I do this? Does it support that? How many of these could it render?" What I do remember is that it's beefier than I expected," O'Connor said in a recent NeoGAF post.

A copy of the Nintendo Switch Presentation's schedule sheet has apparently been leaked onto the internet, revealing that Nintendo's new handheld-and-console Switch hybrid may release on March 17--and that Zelda: Breath of the Wild will be a launch game.

If authentic, the presentation sheet also shows off which games will be available on the Switch's launch, and throughout 2017. We have no way of confirming this information, so take it with a grain of salt.

While the sheet doesn't explicitly say the Switch will launch on March 17, 2017, it does have many games listed for said date, and I highly doubt the games would release before the actual system. It's likely that the games listed for March 17 will compliment the system's official launch, and include games like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, a special port of Mario Kart 8, a Splatoon port called "Counterattack," and a new Super Mario RPRG spliced with Ubisoft's Rabbids.

The launch games lineup for Nintendo's new Switch console-and-handheld hybrid has apparently been leaked onto the internet.

Thanks to a reported slip-up by IGN France, the Switch's launch games lineup has been showcased prematurely ahead of Nintendo's official presentation event planned on Jan 12. The list is pretty interesting, confirming recent reports, but also showing off some new games we haven't heard about yet including Ubisoft's newest Assassin's Creed: Egypt game, a new Pikmin game, and the latest Super Mario adventure.

The games include Super Mario Frost Land, a special Switch version of Mario Kart 8, a Switch port of Splatoon called "Counterattack," a new Piikmin game, Zelda Breath of the Wild (releases March 17!), Skyrim: Special Edition, Dragon Quest, and more.

Rockstar Games has promised that the sequel to its open-world Western would arrive in Autumn 2017, but no official release date has been given. In sheer industry fashion, an overseas retailer might have prematurely unveiled the game's launch date, and we could be waiting until October to jump into the game.

Red Dead Redemption 2 is slated for a release on October 2, 2017, according to UK retailer Littlewoods. The retailer recently posted up a pre-order listing for the game which outright shows a 10/2/2017 release date.

So what do we know about Red Dead Redemption 2 so far? We know it'll have a bigger open world than its predecessor, and we've heard it may have three protagonists just like GTA V that are memebers of John Marston's old gang. I personally think that Rockstar will tie in old infamous Old West gunslingers into the game, and the preview trailer shows seven men riding on horseback, possibly hinting at the Magnificent Seven. There's also reports it'll be set in a prequel timeline, and we have evidence to back that up.

Every big-budget game has a cutting room floor filled with amazing and expansive things that just didn't make it into the final game--especially Final Fantasy 15. I recently talked about some of the major game-changing things found on Fallout 4's cutting room floor, and now thanks to a new glitch we've uncovered a massive portion of Final Fantasy 15's scrapped content.

YouTuber Fotm Hero recently glitched through the game's barriers to uncover an absolutely massive in-game environment that wasn't explicitly used in the main game. The area is so big that the user spends a full hour running through the environment, which isn't fully fleshed out with items or anything, but it has towns and buildings and is still very far from unfinished.

Considering Final Fantasy 15's troubled development, finding an unused area this big isn't necessarily surprising: lots of Square Enix's plans never manifested into the final game, especially story content. That's one of the major reasons why the story seems so awkward. Pre-development leaks suggest that the devs wanted to have a second open world in Niflheim, but the plans were scrapped because of the strict deadline.

Nintendo's new hot-ticket NES Mini console is one of the most ridiculous things I've seen in a long time. Not only is the product ridiculous with its rather awkward non-expandable games library, but Nintendo's absolutely laughable business practices ensured no one could actually buy the thing due to artificially stunted demand. But hackers have taken matters into their own hands to fix at least one of these problems.

The NES Mini has officially been jailbroken, and the piddly library of 30 games has been expanded to 60 NES titles, including many of the must-have golden age games of yore. As we all know, the NES Mini is an cheap modified version of a Raspberry Pi 2 microconsole.

Despite having 512MB of onboard memory, the NES Mini only holds 30 NES games, which are insanely small despite having been touched up and "remastered," and since it can't be hooked up to the internet because its cheap PCB lacks the components to do so, it can't download any more games.

BioWare has confirmed that Mass Effect: Andromeda won't have a season pass, but that's not surprising, considering BioWare RPGs typically don't have season passes. But that doesn't mean the new Mass Effect won't have paid DLC--in fact, it will have microtransactions to fund multiplayer content.

BioWare General Manager Aaryn Flynn recently confirmed that ME: Andromeda wouldn't sport a season pass on Twitter. Like I said above, this isn't really a surprise--in fact, it's to be expected. What is surprising is that the game will have a loot bag style microtransaction model in its online multiplayer mode to unlock features in its card-based economy, likely similar to the one featured in Dragon Age: Inquisition.

And I fully expect Mass Effect: Andromeda to have DLC packs, but we'll have to pay for them a la carte like usual--but PC gamers will likely have to shell out for more BioWare Points.

CES 2017 - With LiquidSky, gamers can transform their old rigs into high-end PCs for free--all you have to do is watch ads.

LiquidSky is a more accessible free-to-play and microtransaction-style answer to NVIDIA's premium GeForce Now game streaming service. Using custom built IBM servers outfitted with high-end CPUs and enthusiast-grade NVIDIA video cards, LiquidSky using the cloud to beam supercomputer power to your outdated laptop, desktop PC, Mac, or Android and Apple mobile devices.

Yes, this service will stream PC games from Steam like GTA V on your phone over the cloud, although the touchscreen controls are a bit wonky.

I'm worried about Mass Effect: Andromeda. Actually, I'm worried about the future of the games industry as a whole--it feels like publishers only want to do safe bets and not take any chances. I think this strategy will bleed over into the latest, biggest Mass Effect game, and the RPG elements will suffer because of it.

BioWare has followed certain trends with their recent games: the titles feel derivative, casualized, and more streamlined towards all gamers, not just core RPG fans. Not too long ago, BioWare was known for making great RPGs; now the studio's identity is much more nebulous, much more uncertain. Many of BioWare's core fans who grew up playing Dragon Age: Origins and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic often feel alienated, and know that something is amiss. Games like Dragon Age: Inquisition feel off, as if something isn't right; there's a big immersion disconnect, and it all boils down to one thing: watering down RPG elements.

EA games as a whole are focused more on high-end flashy graphics, environmental effects, and other eye-catching features. While the fluidity of many games are noteworthy, especially those powered by DICE's advanced Frostbite 3 engine, there's a distinct lack of depth to the current games (with the exception of Respawn's Titanfall 2, which had impressive depth...but Battlefield 1's campaign could've been so much more than what it felt like, which was a glorified tech demo). Dragon Age: Inquisition is very guilty of this, and it felt like BioWare put graphics and effects over the meat and potatoes of the game itself.

Microsoft is teasing that its upcoming "monster" 4K-ready Project Scorpio console could be unveiled at E3 2017, months ahead of the system's planned Holiday 2017 release.

Project Scorpio has excited millions of Xbox fans across the globe, and even key Microsoft execs are pumped for Scorpio's "new era of 4K console gaming." Xbox exec Aaron Greenberg recently said that "2017 is the year of Project Scorpio," following it up by asking gamers if they're "ready for the beast," and now Xbox spokesperson Major Nelson has dropped some not-so-subtle clues on Twitter by counting down the days until E3 2017.

Read Also: Project Scorpio renders games in native 4K

CES 2017 - Mention of Project Scorpio was seen at AMD's Vega and Zen CES 2017 booth...is the graphics giant teasing an answer to our predictions?

Following the announcement of its impressive new Ryzen CPUs, AMD just announced its new high-performance, enthusiast-grade Vega GPU architecture at CES 2017, and is currently holding a booth to showcase this new tech to the public. One thing we didn't expect to see at the booth was mention of Microsoft's new "monster" 4K-ready Project Scorpio console.

Japanese games site 4Gamer snapped an interesting picture that mentions Project Scorpio at AMD's CES 2017 booth. Despite what you think, this isn't a 100% confirmation; AMD was showing a stream of its New Horizons Zen CPU announcement video at the booth, and AMD CEO and President Dr. Lisa Su directly discussed Project Scorpio at the event (you can find mention of that here and in the video embedded below). So this could just be a coincidence and nothing to get crazily excited over, or AMD might be teasing what I've been saying all along: Project Scorpio is built using AMD's latest and greatest technology.

Tomb Raider, Deus Ex and Final Fantasy publisher Square Enix's European account has been hacked, and the would-be ne'er-do-wells are trolling the industry.

Almost an hour ago, Square Enix Europe's Twitter account started spewing ridiculousness to its 70,000+ followers, leading gamers and fans to come to the obvious conclusion: the account has been compromised. The hacking group responsible for the invasion is apparently called the #cyberwolfgang, and the users are currently still in full control over the account.

Just months ago No Man's Sky developer Hello Games had their Twitter account compromised, leading to the damning--if not quite true--statement "No Man's Sky was a mistake" put out for the entire world to see.

Nintendo has apparently had a change of heart, realizing that its new handheld and console Switch hybrid needs the strongest possible launch game lineup. As such the Japanese console-maker has chosen to accelerate its game plan for the new Zelda adventure on the Switch platform.

Zelda: Breath of the Wild will be a Nintendo Switch day one launch game in North America and Japan when the system releases in March 2017, sources at Nintendo have told Eurogamer. We originally reported that the new Zelda game wouldn't meet the Switch's March 2017 launch due to Nintendo needing extra time to optimize the game on yesteryear Wii U consoles.

Although the game is expected to release alongside the Switch's march debut, there's a chance that Zelda: Breath of the Wild could be delayed on the Switch in Europe. I'm also curious whether or not Breath of the Wild will launch on Wii U simultaneously in JP and NA, or if that version will be delayed along with the European Switch version.

During its CES 2017 keynote NVIDIA revealed that GeForce Now, its cloud-game streaming service that beams games to its NVIDIA Shield TV microconsole, is coming to PC and Mac. Since Nintendo's new Switch handheld-and-console hybrid features similar Tegra-based architecture as the Shield TV, what if Nintendo opened up its own games rental service?

Nintendo offering cloud streamed game rentals might sound like an insane idea, but bear with me. I know that Sony tried a la carte games rentals with PlayStation Now, which ultimately failed and forced the company to adopt a subscription-based plan instead. But Nintendo's new Switch hybrid uses a highly customized Tegra processor, so it shares similarities with the Shield TV, and could very well be compatible with its own Nintendo-branded fork of GeForce Now.

And there's also the Switch's Supplemental Computing Device (SCD). Remember that thing? The SCD was first mentioned in Nintendo Switch patents, and is essentially an external console upgrade box that boosts CPU power to facilitate higher internet bandwidth--the kind of bandwidth you'll need to, say, stream a game. The interesting part of the SCD is that it actually let users rent out their own internet connections for specific rewards. So Nintendo could even do internet connection rentals as well as game rentals, which would be something that no other console-maker has really done before.

CES 2017 - BioWare revealed key details about Mass Effect: Andromeda tonight, showing how its new jack-of-all-trades class-less system will work. We break down the info in easily digestible chunks to show you what to expect when the game launches in March.

BioWare has already confirmed Mass Effect: Andromeda won't have set classes. Instead, as a Pathfinder, players will be able to switch between classes like Vanguard and Infiltrator on-the-fly. Here are the included classes that will be available in the game:

Now these classes don't have their own skill trees--the skills are separated. Rather than having trees of specific skills like the other Mass Effect games, the classes give you specific buffs like extra damage, health regeneration, and specific little additions like drones and items that will buff you in combat.

Our previous coverage was right on the mark, and the Titan Books leak was 100% accurate: Mass Effect: Andromeda will release on March 21, 2017 on PS4, Xbox One and PC.

BioWare will showcase the first ever Mass Effect: Andromeda PC footage during NVIDIA's CES 2017 keynote address (which goes live tonight at 9:30pm EST / 6:30 PST). We could even see the game running on NVIDIA's new GeForce GTX 1080 Ti graphics card. In fact, Mass Effect: Andromeda might be launching quite closely with the Nintendo Switch, so we could see the game crossover, despite clickbaity articles that say otherwise (remember, EA has said that it'll bring "one or two" of its biggest games to the Switch).

Here at TweakTown we've covered Mass Effect: Andromeda extensively, so be sure to check out our extensive catalog of news for the latest info on the game. BioWare has confirmed that Andromeda will be the biggest and best Mass Effect ever, and that it'll run at an uncapped frame rate on PC with 21:9 support, and possibly even a performance boost on NVIDIA video cards.

CES 2017 - Nintendo might not have much of a presence here at CES 2017, but its partners do - peripheral maker Snakebyte is teasing some of their upcoming Nintendo Switch accessories right now.

There's a foldable headset and starter kit, power adapter and extension cable for the NES Classic on their way, but the Switch accessories caught my eye.

First up, we have Snakebyte's Nintendo Switch carrying bag.

While most retailers like EB Games Australia command outrageous $725 Nintendo Switch pre-order prices, GameStop Italy has opted for a more conservative price of just 399 Euros.

GameStop Italy has listed Nintendo's new Switch handheld-and-console hybrid for 399 Euros, which could indicate the system's actual launch price. In this case, the MSRP of specific hardware is typically priced the same across Europe and the U.S., so if the Switch costs 399 Euros, it'll be priced at $399 in the United States as well. However, it is worth noting that GameStop Italy doesn't confirm the actual pricing, and this could be a placeholder: "the official release date will be announced later. In the event that the price will be lower it will be refunded the difference," reads a disclaimer on the listing.

We've originally reported the Nintendo Switch could release in two SKUs--a $249 basic bundle and a $299 deluxe bundle--but $399 is the same price of a PlayStation 4 Pro that offers upscaled 4K gaming and performance that, quite frankly, will likely wipe the floor with the Nintendo Switch.

Super Mario Run has earned an impressive $30 million in its first two weeks of available on Apple's iOS platform, but Nintendo could've magnified those earnings by tenfold if they played their cards right.

Although Super Mario Run saw widespread downloads and peak engagement for the Nintendo brand, the game is only living up to a fraction of it potential. This is strongly due to Super Mario Run's free-to-try business model, which allows anyone to download the game and play its first few levels for free, then locking the game behind a $10 paygate. Other factors, like the game's always-online requirement that eats through LTE data plans, continue to deter gamers. So while Nintendo has enjoyed stalwart downloads, Super Mario Run isn't achieving where it really counts--in the pocketbook.

In fact, the game has a dismal purchase conversion rate of only 3.4% ; out of the 90 million users who have downloaded the game, only 3 million or so have actually paid the $10 to buy the full experience. That's a lot of wasted money on the table, and investors know it--Nintendo's shareholders actually predicted this would happen as soon as the game released.

CES 2017 - To compliment its insane $9000 21-inch dual GTX 1080 Predator 21 X notebook, Acer has rolled out two more budget-friendly gaming laptops equipped with NVIDIA GTX 10-series video cards and Intel 7th-gen Kaby Lake processors: the Aspire V Nitro and Aspire VX 15.

The Acer Aspire V Nitro gaming notebooks come in two flavors: the Aspire V Nitro 15, which sports a 15.6-inch IPS display, and the Aspire V Nitro 17, which rocks a 17.3-inch IPS panel. Both models can be upgraded to 4K displays as well. The Aspire V Nitro 17 can also be upgraded to include Tobii eye-tracking technology.

As far as specs go, Acer allows buyers to customize their build to meet certain needs and price points, with hardware specs rocking up to an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 GPU with 6GB of GDDR5 VRAM, an Intel 7th generation Kaby Lake i7-7700HQ CPU, 16GB of dual-channel DDR4 system memory, 512GB PCIe Gen 3 at 8Gbps and 512GB NVMe at 6Gbps SSD storage, and 2TB 2.5-inch 5400 RPM HDD storage options.