2015: Happy New Year everyone!

January 1st, 2015, 09:00 Posted By: Shrygue

Hello, I wish to bid on behalf of the DCEmu UK network a happy new year to all users and visitors alike. 2014 has been quite eventful in the world of video games and also in the real world too.

Here's to 2015!

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Japanese Hardware Sales Fail To Impress In The Lead-Up To Christmas

December 30th, 2014, 23:29 Posted By: wraggster

In the week prior to Christmas week (we’ll refer to this as “Week 51″), videogame hardware sales in Japan were down significantly compared to the same period last year, according to Japanese sales tracker Media Create. Overall hardware sales this year were 71.48% of last year’s during the week of December 15th – 21st.The biggest hit to hardware sales comes from the Wii U and Nintendo 3DS. Nintendo typically sells the most hardware in Japan, but with Wii U sales at only 35.11% compared to last year and the 3DS at 84.42%, overall Nintendo hardware has declined to 68.33% compared to Week 51 in 2013.On the bright side, software sales are relatively healthy in the case of both platforms when compared to 2013. Wii U software sales were at 97.88% compared to 2013, while Nintendo 3DS software was at 114.12%. Unfortunately, all of this software is being purchased by people that already own both consoles, which is why hardware was down.Of course, Nintendo platforms aren’t the only ones to blame for the hardware decline in Japan. Sony’s PlayStation 4 has seen slow sales for most of the year, while PlayStation Vita sales have declined slightly from 2013, despite attempts to spur growth through multiplayer games like Freedom Wars, Toukiden and Phantasy Star Nova. The problem is, each of these games caters to more or less the same demographic, so their impact on hardware sales decreases with each successive release.It should be interesting to what steps, if any, the two companies will take to counteract the decline in hardware in 2015. The New Nintendo 3DS was supposed to offset the decline in 3DS sales in Japan, but even it hasn’t proven capable of this feat thus far (although it has certainly prevented them from falling even further).
Read more at http://www.siliconera.com/2014/12/30...cL2QrO1DlxF.99

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Samsung just added a 360-degree video store to its VR headset

December 30th, 2014, 23:00 Posted By: wraggster

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BestBuy Sunday Ad Video Game Deals: 12/28 Edition!

December 28th, 2014, 22:25 Posted By: wraggster

BestBuy Sunday Ad Video Game Deals Summary!This week, BestBuy is featuring discounts on Xbox 360, Xbox One, PS3, PS4, 3DS, Wii U, and PC games!Highlights include:

• Sunday Ad:
  • Save on Select Games including Assassin's Creed Unity,Sunset Overdrive + More
  • Save $15 on Xbox 360 Wireless Controllers
  • Save $25-$35 on Skylanders Trap Team Starter Pack
  • Free $50 BestBuy Gift Card with Xbox One Assassin's Creed Bundle!
  • Save $10 on Mario Kart 8 Racing Wheel Set
  • Free $30 Gift Card with Xbox 360 Console
  • Save on Select Accessories
• BestBuy Gamers Club:
  • $30 BestBuy Gamers Club Unlocked
  • Get $10 in Reward Certificates on Pre-orders
  • Save on Xbox One Controllers
  • 25% Off PS4 Media Remote
• http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Games-Pr...mcat8400050004

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Merry Xmas to You All

December 25th, 2014, 11:58 Posted By: wraggster

Hi everyone, its Xmas nearly all over the world and from everyone here and me in particular I wish you all a very happy xmas and hope you get what you wished for and if not a great xmas anyway

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Sony can make any eyewear more like Google Glass

December 19th, 2014, 00:20 Posted By: wraggster

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Nintendo's next device will reportedly, bizarrely, be donut-shaped

December 19th, 2014, 00:19 Posted By: wraggster

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webOS 2.0 will make LG's smart TVs much faster next year

December 19th, 2014, 00:14 Posted By: wraggster

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Create an inclinometer using a raspberry pi

December 17th, 2014, 01:05 Posted By: wraggster


The latest gizmo that you can make using the cheap and easy Raspberry Pi is here courtesy of [Mark Williams]. He has hooked up an inertial measurement unit (IMU) to the Pi and built an inclinometer to use to measure the various angles of an off-road vehicle.
This particular guide goes through the setup of SDL to control the video output to a small screen. Then, a function is created to rotate the images based on input from the IMU so that the vehicle position can be shown graphically on the screen. Now, when your truck is about to roll over on a hill, you’ll get advance warning!
Of course, this whole project is predicated on installing the IMU and getting it up and running on the Raspberry Pi in the first place. [Mark] has you covered on a guide for setting that up as well. This delves into setting up the IMU over I2C to get it talking to the Raspberry Pi, and then converting the raw data from the IMU into data that is more usable. Be sure to check out [Mark]’s page for all of the code and details!

http://hackaday.com/2014/12/16/creat...-raspberry-pi/

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No change in UK top 5 as releases wind down for holidays

December 17th, 2014, 00:40 Posted By: wraggster

FIFA still top, The Crew swaps places with Just Dance
[h=3]GfK ChartTrack[/h]
[h=3]UKIE[/h]The Trade association for UK Interactive Entertainment
ukie.info


Very little has changed in the UK charts this week after a lull in the frenetic release period as publisher gird their loins for the festive season. The top five remains exactly the same, with Just Dance swapping place with stablemate The Crew in sixth and eleventh. Both Minecraft PlayStation and Xbox editions gain a place at the expense of Unity and Destiny returns from a brief exile to the lower orders.
Charts courtesy of UKIE and Chart-Track Gfk.

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Raspberry Pi helps old school pinball machine spew internet cliches

December 17th, 2014, 00:21 Posted By: wraggster

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Raspberry Pi In Space

December 14th, 2014, 22:27 Posted By: wraggster

When British astronaut Tim Peake heads off to the International Space Station in November 2015 he will be accompanied on his 6-month mission by two augmented Rapsberry Pis, aka Astro Pis. The Astro Pi board is a Raspberry Pi HAT and provides gyroscope, accelerometer and magnetometer and sensors for temperature, barometric pressure and humidity. It also has a real time clock, LED display and some push buttons — it sounds like the sort of addon that we could do with down here on earth as well! It will also be equipped with both camera module and an infra-red camera. UK school pupils are being challenged to write Rapberry Pi apps

http://build-beta.slashdot.org/story...ry-pi-in-space

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Using the oculus rift as a multi-monitor replacement

December 12th, 2014, 09:11 Posted By: wraggster

[Jason] has been playing around with the Oculus Rift lately and came up with a pretty cool software demonstration. It’s probably been done before in some way shape or form, but we love the idea anyway and he’s actually released the program so you can play with it too!
It’s basically a 3D Windows Manager, aptly called 3DWM — though he’s thinking of changing the name to something a bit cooler, maybe the WorkSphere or something.
As he shows in the following video demonstration, the software allows you to set up multiple desktops and windows on your virtual sphere created by the Oculus — essentially creating a virtual multi-monitor setup. There’s a few obvious cons to this setup which makes it a bit unpractical at the moment. Like the inability to see your keyboard (though this shouldn’t really be a problem), the inability to see people around you… and of course the hardware and it’s lack of proper resolution. But besides that, it’s still pretty awesome!
In the future development he hopes to add Kinect 2 and Leap Motion controller integration to help make it even more user intuitive — maybe more Minority Report style.

http://hackaday.com/2014/12/11/using...r-replacement/

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Raspberry pi powered super digital photo frame

December 12th, 2014, 09:09 Posted By: wraggster

HaD reader [Greg] just finished an LCD picture frame project he’s been working on for a while. This is no ordinary photo display. His brother came up with the idea of having a device to display photos that could be changed remotely. [Greg] gave it some thought and came up with a plan; use a Raspi as the brains, connect to the internet via WiFi and display photos stored in a specific Google Drive folder. Any authorized user can upload photos remotely to the frame so the frame-owner has a constant stream of new photos to view.
Of course, using an off-the-shelf picture frame may have been too easy. Instead [Greg] decided to start with an old computer monitor and wrap it in a wooden frame so it looks good. Mounted to the back of the LCD is a Raspberry Pi with a USB WiFi dongle. The monitor runs at 14 VDC and luckily has an external power supply. Since the Pi runs at 5 V, a buck converter taps into the LCD’s input power and outputs a Pi-happy 5 volts.
This project doesn’t stop with displaying photos! The user can also switch to a weather view. The weather image displayed is generated from weather data pulled from the internet in the exact same manor used by folks who make stand-alone weather displays out of old Kindles. Oh yeah, switching between photos and weather is done by wireless remote! On the frame unit itself there is only one button, but it has 3 functions: A quick press turns the screen off, a short hold syncs with Google Drive and a long hold powers off the RaspPi.
If you’d like to make your own frame, [Greg] has graciously made all his scripts available for download…. not to mention his very detailed build log.

http://hackaday.com/2014/12/11/raspb...l-photo-frame/

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Japan's #1 is Super Smash Bros. for Wii U

December 12th, 2014, 08:55 Posted By: wraggster

Super Smash Bros. for Wii U entered the Japanese charts right at the top this week, making Pokemon Omega Ruby / Alpha Sapphire (which have now sold close to 1.8 million copies) down to second place.
Super Smash Bros. also has the distinction of being the only non-3DS title in this week's top five.

1. [Wii U] Super Smash Bros. for Wii U - 227,527 (New entry)
2. [3DS] Pokemon Omega Ruby / Alpha Sapphire (Pokemon, 11/21/14) - 171,813 (Lifetime sales - 1,798,097)
3. [3DS] Derby Stallion Gold - 73,616 (New entry)
4. [3DS] Aikatsu! 365-Hi no Idol Days - 33,151 (New entry)
5. [3DS] Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS - 29,670 (1,788,460)

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NPD: Retail sales down, Xbox One outsells PS4

December 12th, 2014, 08:53 Posted By: wraggster

Call Of Duty: Advanced Warfare was November's biggest seller on the NPD charts but it's Microsoft that's really celebrating. According to NPD figures its Xbox One outsold PlayStation 4 last month.
"November set a new record for sales of Xbox One, and Xbox One was the best-selling console in the US and UK. Response to the holiday lineup of games on Xbox One was incredible, with Xbox One fans buying more games in November in the U.S. than any other gen eight platform and enjoying over 357 million hours of gameplay globally," Xbox Marketing's corporate VP Mike Nichols said in a statement to media.
"In fact, more fans logged into Xbox Live across Xbox One and Xbox 360, and enjoyed more entertainment, than any other month in the history of Xbox. We love to see the excitement from our fans and are grateful for their passion, support and contributions to the Xbox community."
While the Xbox team is no doubt doing a victory dance, sales across all categories were actually down more than ten per cent compared to the same period last year.
"Overall retail sales across hardware, software, and accessories declined 11 per cent this November versus November 2013," said The NPD Group's Liam Callahan.
"For the most part throughout 2014, we have seen software declines that were offset by year-over-year increases in hardware spending. This November, however, hardware declines totaled $294 million while software declined $17 million or 2 per cent.
"Accessory sales increased by a modest $5 million. Currently, year-to-date sales across hardware, software, and accessories through November 2014 are up 2 per cent."
In hardware, bundles played a large part in sales during November with some new bundles ranking as "the highest selling hardware bundles so far this year" and "one bundle ranking as the highest selling hardware bundle ever based on dollar sales."
Combined Xbox One and PlayStation 4 sales were 80 per cent higher in November than the combined sales of their predecessors, the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3.
"While the majority of the decrease in dollar sales of hardware stemmed from an expected drop of seventh generation console sales, eighth generation sales also decreased and represented 38 per cent of the total declines in hardware sales from November 2013 to November 2014," said Callahan.
"Despite a decline in dollar sales, hardware unit sales for eighth generation consoles increased by 3 percent over November 2013."
In software, the new November launches scored 14 per cent more sales than November 2013's new launches, and the handheld and PC categories got a boost from high profile releases.
"Software declines stemmed from losses from consoles software as portable software and PC Games software increased over November 2013. Portable software increased by 25 per cent due to the combined performance Pokemon Alpha Sapphire, Pokemon Omega Ruby, and Super Smash Bros. for the 3DS. PC game sales increased by 34 per cent over November 2013 due to The Sims 4 and the launch of World of Warcraft expansion, Warlords Of Draenor."

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2014-12-12-npd

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Back to Reality: What can we expect from VR games?

December 12th, 2014, 08:52 Posted By: wraggster

With the launch of the Samsung Gear VR this week, what many believe will be a revolution for video games started in earnest. In the two-and-a-half years since the Oculus Rift first came to attention as an enthralling hobbyist project it has generated more excitement - and prompted more career changes - than any gaming technology since the iPhone. Right now, anticipation could scarcely be at a higher pitch.
And yet for all the positive press, virtual reality remains something of a mystery for those not actively working with the technology: a regular feature of industry conferences and consumer events, but generally showcased to limited numbers of people by brief demos or discrete sections of modified games. Like many journalists, I have tried a broad selection of what's available: some of it seductive, some of it jarring, but very little of it resembles a product that could be sold to a consumer.
Indeed, despite all the exposure, exactly what Oculus Rift or Project Morpheus retail games will look like is as indistinct now as the day that John Carmack arrived at E3 2012 with a unique new way to play Doom 3. This is far from ideal, because, as Palmer Luckey has taken great care to point out, the quality of the software will be vital to establishing a viable consumer market for VR gaming. In an attempt to gain a little perspective, I looked back over a year in which VR has dominated the conversation. A year in which I've interviewed the prime movers, reported on a string of lectures and panel discussions, and talked to some of the most excited and engaged developers I've ever encountered.
"When the commercial version comes out somebody is going to scare somebody to death. It is going to happen"
Denny Unger, Cloudhead Games

Amidst all of that noise a few key trends emerged, with one in particular underpinning them all, neatly summarised by nDreams' senior designer Andreas Gschwari: "Nobody really knows anything. That's the scary part, and it's also bloody incredible."

[h=2]Size matters[/h]At a panel led by Oculus VR at this year's Unity Technologies conference, Cloudhead Games' Denny Unger warned developers about what he saw as a very real danger of virtual reality: player death. With any new technology, he explained, developers will always be tempted to reach for the "low-hanging fruit," which, in the case of VR, are horror games full to the brim with jump scares. "When the commercial version comes out somebody is going to scare somebody to death," he intoned. "It is going to happen. Absolutely."
It seemed a little melodramatic at the time, but Unger's words still resonated with my own VR experiences. When I played Alien: Isolation on a widescreen television and an Oculus Rift DK2 in quick succession, my preference was unquestionably for the former. The addition of VR made The Creative Assembly's game so intense it was overwhelming, to the point where even a 20-minute session struck me as unappealing. Even demos that weren't situated in so overtly horrifying presented a clear challenge to the long play sessions preferred by the core audience.
This is an entirely relevant concern, because core gamers and their expectations will be a key driver of the early market for VR software. In a recent interview, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick echoed this idea when explaining the publisher's reticence to commit resources to VR development. Take-Two's customers, he said, "play our games for a long period of time," and yet public access to the hardware has largely been restricted to 10 or 15 minutes in a given session, and only at events attended by a relatively small number of people.

But the reality is that these snappy play sessions may be closer to actual VR gaming than many assume. For Julie Heyde, an independent developer, the comfort level for a VR play session is 45 minutes or under, and she's using that as a cornerstone for the structure of her game, XTODIE. "That's after discussing with a lot of people how long we should actually make it," she says. "We'll have save points so you can put it down if you have to, but I want it to be a complete experience where you can finish it in that time without taking a break. The only way to be sure that people stay inside the experience until the end is by design."
nDreams' Andreas Gschwari's sees the matter differently. He agrees that VR is better suited to shorter play sessions than those associated with, say, Skyrim, but he maintains that abbreviated play sessions needn't be such a challenge to the tastes of the core audience - not in certain genres, at least.
"We are concerned that you'll play our games for a long period of time. We don't want people getting nauseated"
Strauss Zelnick, Take-Two

"If you look at most AAA shooters, one level is around 15 minutes and a chapter is around 45 minutes - that's the length of a TV episode," Gschwari says. "That's about as long as you've got, in my opinion, of a player's attention. I'm an average gamer, with a lot of other things going on in my life. 45 minutes is a good amount of time to fill. I see VR in a similar range.
"With pure VR games, you should play them as episodic content, just as most gamers do with all other content."

[h=2]Motion sickness is not just a hardware problem[/h]When Strauss Zelnick questioned whether VR could support the long play sessions preferred by Take-Two's audience, he added a very important qualifier: "We don't want people getting nauseated." Speaking at a conference last month, EA CFO Blake Jorgensen voiced similar concerns. "If you are even slightly motion sick prone, it's very tough," he said. "I've seen people within 30 seconds have to take the goggles off." Even Brendan Iribe, the CEO of Oculus VR, described motion sickness as, "the elephant in the room," and a problem with the potential to harm the growth of the VR market.
It should be noted that Iribe was referring to problems with VR hardware, which a great many attendees of the Oculus Connect conference believe have been solved with Oculus' Crescent Bay prototype. It should also be noted, however, that motion sickness isn't related to the hardware alone. It is also borne of inappropriate design choices, and those will be all but impossible to eradicate.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...-from-vr-games

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Oculus is buying a company that brings hands into virtual reality

December 12th, 2014, 00:20 Posted By: wraggster

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Nintendo was the big winner at The Game Awards

December 10th, 2014, 01:22 Posted By: wraggster

Dragon Age: Inquisition was named Game of the Year at The Game Awards' inaugural ceremony in Las Vegas, but Nintendo was the biggest winner overall.
Nintendo won four categories in total: Best Sports/Racing Game and Best Family Game for Mario Kart 8, Best Fighting Game for Super Smash Bros. Wii U, and Developer of the Year. That overshadowed EA Bioware, which took home arguably the most important award of all: Game of the Year for Dragon Age: Inquisition, which also won Best RPG.
The only other games to win more than one award were Ubisoft's Valiant Hearts (Best Narrative and Games for Change) and Bungie's Destiny (Best Online Experience and Best Score/Soundtrack).
The full list of winners is below:

• Best Shooter: Far Cry 4
• Best Action/Adventure: Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor
• Best Role Playing Game: Dragon Age: Inquisition
• Best Fighting Game: Super Smash Bros. Wii U
• Best Family Game: Mario Kart 8
• Best Sports/Racing Game: Mario Kart 8
• Best Online Experience: Destiny
• Best Mobile/Handheld: Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft
• Best Remaster: Grand Theft Auto V
• Best Narrative: Valiant Hearts: The Great War
• Best Score/Soundtrack: Destiny
• Best Independent Game: Shovel Knight
• Games for Change: Valiant Hearts: The Great War
• eSports Player of the Year: Matt "NaDeSHot" Haag - Call of Duty
• eSports Team of the Year: Ninjas in Pyjamas - Counter-Strike GO
• Trending Gamer: TotalBiscuit
• Best Fan Creation: Twitch Plays Pokemon
• Developer of the Year: Nintendo
• Best Performance: Trey Parker, South Park: The Stick of Truth
• Most Anticipated Game: The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt
• Game of the Year: Dragon Age: Inquisition

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The Crew charts at six in the UK

December 10th, 2014, 01:19 Posted By: wraggster

FIFA 15 has returned to number one in the UK software chart, after Ubisoft Reflections' The Crew failed to mount a serious challenge in a thin week for new releases.
The Crew - an open-world racing game that Ubisoft withheld from reviewers until launch day due to the importance of online play - entered the chart in sixth, leaving older releases to duke it out for the five places above.
EA's evergreen football franchise was the biggest beneficiary of the spartan release schedule, hitting number one for the first time in six weeks. Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham showed the biggest gains, leaping from 19th to 5th on the back of retailer promotions.
Charts courtesy of UKIE and Chart-Track Gfk.

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