BT Sport channels are coming to Chromecast in the UK

April 3rd, 2014, 11:41 Posted By: wraggster

Join In and Discuss Here

Submit News and Releases Here and Contact Us for Reviews and Advertising Here

I'm sceptical of Oculus Rift's mass appeal, says Xbox co-founder

April 2nd, 2014, 23:54 Posted By: wraggster

Ed Fries, the co-founder of the Xbox business who went on to advise several games industry businesses, is not yet convinced that gaming VR carries mass market appeal.
"Hardcore gamers love new technologies and experiences and are willing to do almost anything to get them, so that's a good market for Oculus," Fries said as part of an Ask Me Anything session on Yabbly.
After his work at Microsoft, Ed Fries went on to advise a range of games companies, from Ouya to Mixamo"General users however are a different crowd. Given how little success the consumer electronics companies have had with 3D TVs with glasses, I am sceptical that general users are going to be strapping this thing onto their face any time soon."
Fries's comments emerge just one week after Facebook acquired Oculus Rift in a deal potentially worth more than $2 billion.
During a conference call last Tuesday, Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg claimed that VR is the "next major computing platform that will come after mobile".
Meanwhile, Epic Games founder Tim Sweeney went as far as sayingvirtual reality devices will become a bigger phenomenon than smartphones".
Fries does not hold the same faith in the wearable computing market
"After watching 3D TV fail so spectacularly the last few years, I'm a bit of a sceptic about VR," he said.
In January, a new study published by Endeavour Partners suggested that about a third of American consumers who have owned a wearable product stopped using it within six months.
Elsewhere in the Ask Me Anything session, Fries was questioned on the landmark Rare acquisition which he helped secure.
"I left Microsoft soon after the Rare acquisition so it's hard for me to answer these questions," he said.
"Clearly things didn't turn out as we hoped when we acquired them."

http://www.computerandvideogames.com...ox-co-founder/

Join In and Discuss Here

Submit News and Releases Here and Contact Us for Reviews and Advertising Here

3DS, Sega rhythm game top Japanese charts

April 2nd, 2014, 23:43 Posted By: wraggster

3DS retained the top spot on the Japanese hardware chart during the week ended March 30.
Sales of Nintendo's portable jumped more than 50 per cent in the final week of the month, ensuring it comfortably held off competition from its nearest rival, Vita.
Japan increased its sales tax from five per cent to eight per cent on April 1, Nintendo Life reports, marking the first rise in 17 years, according to the BBC. This may explain the increase in sales of all hardware platforms (bar PS4) last week, as consumers rushed to purchase expensive items before the start of the month.
<figure style='background: rgb(255, 255, 255); font: 14px/23.79px "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; outline: 0px; border: 0px currentColor; width: 460px; color: rgb(38, 38, 38); text-transform: none; text-indent: 0px; letter-spacing: normal; word-spacing: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; display: block; white-space: normal; position: relative; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;' class="responsive single-article__canvas single-article__canvas--full zoomhover" title="" data-media992="http://cdn.medialib.computerandvideogames.com/screens/dir_3174/image_317484_460.jpg" data-media768="http://cdn.medialib.computerandvideogames.com/screens/dir_3174/image_317484_700.jpg" data-media480="http://cdn.medialib.computerandvideogames.com/screens/dir_3174/image_317484_480.jpg" data-media="http://cdn.medialib.computerandvideogames.com/screens/dir_3174/image_317484_320.jpg"></figure>The Vita version of Hatsune Miku: Project Diva F 2nd debuted at No.1 on the software chart with just shy of 100,000 sales, while the PS3 edition of Sega's rhythm game came in at No.3.
Sandwiched between the pair was the previous week's bestseller, Mario Party Island Tour, according to data from retail monitor Media Create, which was republished on NeoGAF.

Join In and Discuss Here

Submit News and Releases Here and Contact Us for Reviews and Advertising Here

Oculus VR picks up Valve's Aaron Nicholls

April 2nd, 2014, 00:49 Posted By: wraggster

Join In and Discuss Here

Submit News and Releases Here and Contact Us for Reviews and Advertising Here

E3 2014 countdown begins: 10 weeks to go

April 1st, 2014, 00:24 Posted By: wraggster

The biggest event in the global video games business is just 10 weeks away – are you registered yet?
The Electronic Entertainment Expo is the three-day, must-attend event at which the global video game industry unites to reveal the future of games.
It runs from June 10^th to June 12^th at the LA Convention Center.
Registration is open now – head here today using code MCVE32014.
E3 connects you with tens of thousands of the most influential professionals in the interactive entertainment industry. At E3 2014, you will see most innovative companies and the most groundbreaking new technologies, and experience the never-before-seen products that are changing our business.
Check out the companies that you will see at E3 here

You can follow the show online via Twitter at @E3 and on Facebook.

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/e3-20...-to-go/0130439

Join In and Discuss Here

Submit News and Releases Here and Contact Us for Reviews and Advertising Here

Microsoft bought wearable computing assets for $150m - report

March 31st, 2014, 21:33 Posted By: wraggster

Deal with Osterhout Design Group included more than 80 patents
[h=3]Microsoft[/h]microsoft.com


Microsoft has acquired various assets from wearable computing specialist the Osterhout Design Group for a rumoured $150 million.
According to a report on Techcrunch, Microsoft was in discussions to buy ODG outright in September last year, but the deal ultimately turned in favour of an IP acquisition. The transaction closed last year, with all relevant patents and IP transferred in January.
While Microsoft has so far offered no official comment, the deal has been confirmed by ODG founder Ralph Osterhout. A separate source attached the $100 million to $150 million price-tag.
As a result, Microsoft now owns more than 80 patents - 6 of which have been issued, the remainder of which are in progress - relating to wearable computing and head-mounted displays.
The timing is certainly right. At GDC this year Sony unveiled Project Morpheus, a head-mounted VR display that followed in the wake of the meteoric rise of the Oculus Rift. Just a few days later, Facebook confirmed that it had acquired Oculus VR in a deal worth as much as $2 billion.
Oculus has also employed Michael Abrash, who was working on wearable computing concepts at Valve.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...USD150m-report

Join In and Discuss Here

Submit News and Releases Here and Contact Us for Reviews and Advertising Here

Oculus founder Luckey received 'death threats' over FB deal

March 31st, 2014, 21:06 Posted By: wraggster

Oculus VR founder Palmer Luckey says he and his family have received death threats over his acquisition deal with Facebook.
Facebook announced its plans to purchase the virtual reality headset company for $2 billion last week, sparking a widespread backlash.
313261306020But Luckey says the uproar went beyond online rants, and that both he and his family have been harassed and threatened by people deeply unhappy at the news.
"We expected a negative reaction from people in the short term, we did not expect to be getting so many death threats and harassing phone calls that extended to our families," said Luckey via Reddit.
"We know we will prove ourselves with actions and not words, but that kind of shit is unwarranted, especially since it is impacting people who have nothing to do with Oculus."
Oculus vice president of product Nate Mitchell admitted last week that while the firm expected some bad feedback from core fans, it didn't expect the response to the FB deal "to be so negative".
"We assumed that the reaction would be negative, especially from our core community. Beyond our core community, we expected it would be positive. I don't think we expected it to be so negative," he said.
"As people begin to digest it a bit and think about it, you can see that Twitter and Reddit is swinging back the opposite direction," Mitchell added. "The onus is on us to educate people, and we want to share everything we're doing."
Backers of the original Oculus Rift have been heavily critical of the deal, bombarding the Kickstarter comments page with scathing messages.
Likewise, Minecraft creator Markus 'Notch' Persson also expressed his displease with the acquisition, to the extent that he publicly canceled a deal to bring Minecraft to Oculus Rift within minutes of the announcement.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com...-over-fb-deal/

Join In and Discuss Here

Submit News and Releases Here and Contact Us for Reviews and Advertising Here

UK chart: InFamous PS4 holds off Diablo 3 expansion

March 31st, 2014, 21:03 Posted By: wraggster

PS4-exclusive InFamous: Second Son holds the UK games-chart top spot for a second week, keeping Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes, Titanfall and new entry Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls at bay.Chart-track's data won't include Battle.net sales of Blizzard's new game, however, which presumably tell a different story. Reaper of Souls enters sixth.It's an InFamous, MGS, Titanfall first, second, third, then, with FIFA 14 fourth and the Lego Movie video game fifth.Obsidian's South Park RPG sticks around in seventh, followed by Call of Duty: Ghosts, Minecraft Xbox 360 and Final Fantasy 10/10-2 HD.Capcom's Professor Layton vs Phoenix Wright enters 15th, and MXGP: The Official Motocross Videogame 19th.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...lo-3-expansion

Join In and Discuss Here

Submit News and Releases Here and Contact Us for Reviews and Advertising Here

How Facebook and Oculus Could Be a Great Combination

March 30th, 2014, 22:59 Posted By: wraggster

Nate Swammer writes at Slashgear that with Facebook's purchase of Oculus for a cool $2 billion, the fervor surrounding virtual reality headwear quickly turned to disdain. Betrayal, confusion, and anger became the order of the day for contributors who gave Oculus $2.4 million through its Kickstarter campaign. But now that passions have cooled and looking at the issues dispassionately, the Facebook acquisition may turn out much better than anticipated for users. While many may have a fervent distrust for Facebook, this deal bodes well for Oculus, and by virtue, us.

First Oculus wasn't flush, and although Oculus may have had some hustle behind it, it may not have been enough. John Carmack, Oculus CTO, said via Twitter, 'I expect the FB deal will avoid several embarrassing scaling crisis for VR.' Theheadwear already famously suffered from a supply chain issue not long ago, which actually stopped it dead in its tracks. Next, in their official announcement of the Facebook deal, gaming was barely a blip on the radar. It wasn't until the very end that gaming was even mentioned, with the bulk of the post discussing 'culture' and driving virtual reality forward. There was little to indicate any big titles were coming for Oculus.

The fact is, Oculus needed help. Not technical assistance, but someone who could be their Sony, more or less. John Carmack says he has 'a deep respect for the technical scale that FB operates at. The cyberspace we want for VR will be at this scale.' Perhaps Facebook isn't the most popular choice, but they are the partner Oculus chose for their future says Swammer. 'Like Google purchasing Android in 2005, it all seems so strange right now [remember this story we discussed in 2009] — but we see how that turned out. If VR really is the next frontier, Facebook just staked their claim to a big slab of land in the heart of some virtual country they'll likely let us see someday — via Oculus.""

http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/1...at-combination

Join In and Discuss Here

Submit News and Releases Here and Contact Us for Reviews and Advertising Here

John Carmack on Facebook buy of Oculus: 'they get the Big Picture'

March 30th, 2014, 21:58 Posted By: wraggster

Join In and Discuss Here

Submit News and Releases Here and Contact Us for Reviews and Advertising Here

MIT Researchers Bring JavaScript To Google Glass

March 29th, 2014, 00:29 Posted By: wraggster

Earlier this week, Brandyn White, a PhD candidate at the University of Maryland, and Scott Greenberg, a PhD candidate at MIT, led a workshop at the MIT Media Lab to showcase an open source project called WearScript, a JavaScript environment that runs on Google Glass. White demonstrated how Glass's UI extends beyond its touchpad, winks, and head movements by adding a homemade eye tracker to Glass as an input device. The camera and controller were dissected from a $25 PC video camera and attached to the Glass frame with a 3D-printed mount. A few modifications were made, such as replacing the obtrusively bright LEDs with infrared LEDs, and a cable was added with a little soldering. The whole process takes about 15 minutes for someone with component soldering skills. With this eye tracker and a few lines of WearScript, the researchers demonstrated a new interface by playing Super Mario on Google Glass with just eye movements.

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/14/03...o-google-glass

Join In and Discuss Here

Submit News and Releases Here and Contact Us for Reviews and Advertising Here

E3 to showcase an "army of huge franchises", says Xbox exec

March 28th, 2014, 20:56 Posted By: wraggster

The ongoing barrage of closures and redundancies at major AAA game development studios is not a true reflection of the state of the AAA business, says Xbox boss Phil Spencer.
In fact, he argues, gamers will see a thriving industry in full effect at this year's E3, which he expects will feature an "army of huge franchises" from major publishers and platform holders.
<figure style='background: rgb(255, 255, 255); font: 14px/23.79px "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; outline: 0px; border: 0px currentColor; width: 460px; color: rgb(38, 38, 38); text-transform: none; text-indent: 0px; letter-spacing: normal; word-spacing: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; display: block; white-space: normal; position: relative; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;' class="responsive single-article__canvas single-article__canvas--full zoomhover" title="" data-media992="http://cdn.medialib.computerandvideogames.com/screens/dir_3131/image_313133_460.jpg" data-media768="http://cdn.medialib.computerandvideogames.com/screens/dir_3131/image_313133_700.jpg" data-media480="http://cdn.medialib.computerandvideogames.com/screens/dir_3131/image_313133_480.jpg" data-media="http://cdn.medialib.computerandvideogames.com/screens/dir_3131/image_313133_320.jpg"></figure>In 2014 alone, Irrational Games, the studio behind the BioShock series,has effectively closed, while widespread layoffs have affected multiple major PlayStation UK studios, God of War studio Sony Santa Monicaand Thief developer Eidos Montreal.
"I don't think it's a reflection of the vibrancy of the industry," Spencer told GameSpot in reaction to these recent events.
"If you look at attach rate on the consoles right now, people investing in the great new AAA IP, it's great," he argued.
"I think at this year's E3 between us and EA and Activision, Sony, and Nintendo, you're going to see another army of huge franchises coming."
It's common at present for large studios cut back its employee count following the release of a major product, sizing itself for the downtime before slowly scaling up during its next project.
This volatility is something Spencer says studios may stabilize in future. "I think the model for how studios deal with that peak and valley is still evolving," he said.
Spencer has assured fans recently that this year's Xbox E3 press briefing will be heavily focused on new game content.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com...ays-xbox-exec/

Join In and Discuss Here

Submit News and Releases Here and Contact Us for Reviews and Advertising Here

Notch: cancelled Minecraft for Oculus Rift would have been free

March 28th, 2014, 20:48 Posted By: wraggster

Earlier this week Minecraft creator Notch cancelled an Oculus Rift version of the game in protest at Facebook's $2bn purchase of Oculus. But what kind of game was that going to be?According to Notch, it would have been a free version of the phenomenally successful build anything sandbox designed to promote virtual reality.Notch revealed the now scrapped plans on Twitter last night after ex-Gears of War developer and Oculus investor Cliff Bleszinski wrote a blog post defending the Facebook deal.In the blog post, Bleszinski called out the "outrage" from some quarters about Facebook's purchase of Oculus, saying: "Your device is only as good as the store and community around it; if users can't say shut up and take my money, if developers can't post their work then the device will ultimately flounder. Facebook can assist with this sort of thing, as well as having a multi billion user reach."At the end of the post Bleszinski questioned Notch's decision to pull the plug on Minecraft for Oculus Rift. He said: "p.s. Notch, your cancelling Minecraft makes you look like a pouty kid who is taking his ball and going home. It's a bratty and petty move and it saddens me greatly."This seemed to get Notch's back up. On Twitter he responded: "CliffyB, one of the investors in Oculus, calls me a "pouty kid" for cancelling the Minecraft thing. Damn straight I am."

Join In and Discuss Here

Submit News and Releases Here and Contact Us for Reviews and Advertising Here

Bleszinski: Cancelling Minecraft on Oculus makes Notch look like a pouty kid

March 28th, 2014, 00:15 Posted By: wraggster

Famed developer Cliff Bleszinski has criticised Markus Persson for his decision to pull the plug on the Oculus Rift version of Minecraft.
Persson announced the cancellation of the project just moments after news of the Facebook acquisition of Oculuswas announced, saying: “I just cancelled that deal. Facebook creeps me out.”
However, in an impassioned blog post criticising much of the negative reaction to the news, Cliffy B has said that such responses are uncalled for.
“Notch, your cancelling Minecraft makes you look like a pouty kid who is taking his ball and going home,” he wrote. “It’s a bratty and petty move and it saddens me greatly.
“The Internet Outrage Machine loves to pile on something like this. People are very rear window in their thinking online ‘Oh now we’re going to get Farmville VR’. Maybe Zuck sees what everyone else has seen – the future – and wants to make sure it’s more than just great games and saw that it would add value to his business?
“More importantly, [Oculus] needed an ecosystem. IF their system is going to be (hopefully) a dedicated system instead of a (ugh) peripheral they need their version of whatever the app store would be. Your device is only as good as the store and community around it; if users can’t say shut up and take my money, if developers can’t post their work then the device will ultimately flounder.
“Facebook can assist with this sort of thing, as well as having a multi billion user reach. That’s pretty damned important.
“At the end of the day the fact that programming god John Carmack and up and coming tech god Palmer Luckey BOTH think this is a good fit SHOULD TELL YOU SOMETHING.”
Bleszinski also poured scorn on the Oculus Kickstarter backers who have cried foul of the move, rightly pointing out that they lack a fundamental understanding of how the crowdfunding system works and what it entitles them to.
“Apparently some folks don’t understand that donating to a Kickstarter gets you whatever reward you’re told when you donate, you don’t get equity, you don’t get to participate in the fruits of a sale of a company like that,” he added.
“Oculus crowdsourced traction from enthusiasts and then found the proper partner that can fund them and assist with bringing the platform of VR to the next level. Crowdfunding can only take you so far, especially when you’re doing something this ambitious. ‘I donated money to add value to a company that was eventually sold’. Well, that’s kind of how business works, folks, hate to be the bearer of bad news.”

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/blesz...ty-kid/0130308

Join In and Discuss Here

Submit News and Releases Here and Contact Us for Reviews and Advertising Here

Anti-Game-Violence Legislator Arrested, Faces Gun Trafficking Charges

March 28th, 2014, 00:12 Posted By: wraggster

Several readers sent word that California State Senator Leland Yee was arrested today. He's accused of conspiring to traffic guns and commit wire fraud, to defraud citizens of honest services, and bribery. The complant (PDF) also names 25 other defendants. Yee is known for pushing legislation that would ban the sale of violent video games to minors."Federal prosecutors also allege Yee agreed to perform official acts in exchange for the money, including one instance in which he introduced a businessman to state legislators who had significant influence over pending medical marijuana legislation. In exchange, the businessman -- who was actually an undercover FBI agent -- agreed to donate thousands to Yee's campaign fund, according to the indictment. The indictment also describes an August 2013 exchange in which [former school board president Keith Jackson] told an undercover officer that Yee had an arms trafficking contact. Jackson allegedly said Yee could facilitate a meeting for a donation."

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/14/03/...icking-charges

Join In and Discuss Here

Submit News and Releases Here and Contact Us for Reviews and Advertising Here

Did Facebook Buy Oculus To Counter Google Glass?

March 28th, 2014, 00:06 Posted By: wraggster

"In a statement soon after Facebook announced the acquisition of Oculus Rift, CEO Mark Zuckerberg suggested that the bulky Oculus headset had the potential to transform VR into the "most social platform ever." Whatever his reasons for shelling out $2 billion for the company, it's clear that Facebook is now a player in the augmented-reality space, which Google is also exploring in its own way. Yes, Google Glass serves a different function—overlaying maps and text over the wearer's view of the real world, rather than immersing people in a virtual environment—but the potential customer base for both devices is basically the same, and now Google has some real competition if it wants to transform Glass into some sort of gaming device. And despite some blowback from Markus Persson, it's likely that developers will continue to explore Oculus as a gaming platform, Facebook or no. Zuckerberg might be talking a good game about virtual realities far into the future (does he have to pay to promote his own posts on Facebook? Joke.), but this acquisition was likely a short-term play, as well."

http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/1...r-google-glass

Join In and Discuss Here

Submit News and Releases Here and Contact Us for Reviews and Advertising Here

Oculus Rift launch date unaffected by Facebook acquisition, Luckey says

March 27th, 2014, 23:47 Posted By: wraggster

Join In and Discuss Here

Submit News and Releases Here and Contact Us for Reviews and Advertising Here

Oculus founder: Rift is open, Sony's Project Morpheus is not

March 27th, 2014, 00:05 Posted By: wraggster

[h=2]

Join In and Discuss Here

Submit News and Releases Here and Contact Us for Reviews and Advertising Here

Peter Molyneux: Working For Microsoft Is Like Taking Antidepressants

March 26th, 2014, 23:36 Posted By: wraggster

Peter Molyneux is one of the most famous personalities in the history of gaming, especially recognized for having created God games Dungeon Keeper, Populous, Black & White, but also the Fable series. After creating the Fable series, Molyneux announced in March 2012 that he will be leaving Lionhead and Microsoft to start another company – 22Cans. During a recent interview, the former Microsoft employee has shared some interesting details regarding the time when he was working over at Redmond. Here's the excerpt from his interview: 'I left Microsoft because I think when you have the ability to be a creative person, you have to take that seriously, and you have to push yourself. And pushing yourself is a lot easier to do if you're in a life raft that has a big hole in the side, and that's what I think indie development is. You're paddling desperately to get where you want to go to, but you're also bailing out. Whereas if you're in a big supertanker of safety, which Microsoft was, then that safety is like an anesthetic. It's like taking antidepressants. The world just feels too comfortable.

http://games.slashdot.org/story/14/0...ntidepressants

Join In and Discuss Here

Submit News and Releases Here and Contact Us for Reviews and Advertising Here

Eyeing the virtual frontier: the Oculus Rift games that reinvent play

March 26th, 2014, 23:35 Posted By: wraggster

We said last week that virtual reality’s future is bigger than videogames; Mark Zuckerberg clearly agrees. Facebook’s $2 billion acquisition of Oculus has taken everyone by surprise, and it follows on from a GDC at which news of Sony’s Project Morpheus, on top of Oculus’ own Crystal Cove tech, has made virtual reality the most tantalising new frontier in videogames. In this feature written and published in print before news of the Facebook acquisition, we speak to the pioneers in virtual reality game development on Oculus Rift.

—

New devices have ever looked as likely to bring about radical change in the videogame industry as the virtual reality headset. Oculus Rift – and surely a raft of imitators to follow – places you at the centre of an immersive stereoscopic world. In doing so, it overturns many of the fundamental assumptions about how games are produced, controlled and experienced. Oculus’s own guidelines detail hundreds of ways VR games need to work differently to conventional ones to avoid confusing the human mind. That’s because VR isn’t just a new way of seeing a game, but a new frontier in game design, which makes it hard to predict what the future of videogames will look like.But by speaking to those development studios brave enough to chart the new frontier, we can get at least some idea. And for an analogue of the kind of change now happening, you could do worse than consider CD-ROMs. Their popularisation in the early ’90s provided games with a storage medium hundreds of times the capacity of standard floppy disks, and the industry lurched to make use of all the extra space, producing re-releases of older games (now with spoken dialogue), terrible games with full-motion video starring real actors, umpteen adventure games with higher-res textures than previously possible, and Myst.Oculus Rift has already inspired a raft of frighteningly similar projects, with developers simply attaching a VR camera viewpoint to traditional games, but these are just the start. In time, massmarket virtual reality headsets might be responsible for a larger and far more exciting adventure game renaissance than Kickstarter ever was.

http://www.edge-online.com/features/...reinvent-play/

Join In and Discuss Here

Submit News and Releases Here and Contact Us for Reviews and Advertising Here