It’s as official as possible without being officially official: According to numerous sources speaking with Kotaku, Microsoft will release a new, more powerful version of the Xbox One (code named Scorpio) in 2017. This doesn’t come as a big surprise, seeing as Xbox heaD Phil Spencer strongly hinted at an upgraded Xbox One several months ago. And with all the rumors we’ve been hearing lately about a PlayStation 4.5, it seems inevitable that we’ll be getting new gaming hardware from all of the major console makers much quicker than anyone expected.
This signals a major shift in the video game industry, which has always progressed through “console generations,” periods of five or more years between new, better hardware. The Xbox One Scorpio and PlayStation 4.5 would be “half-step” consoles that extend the current console generation indefinitely. Microsoft’s Phil Spencer envisions a future for Xbox that looks like the iPhone. New models are introduced over the years, but they maintain compatibility with the games and apps that came before.All of this begs the question: Are frequent console upgrades a good thing? Here are some pros and cons about the rumored Xbox One Scorpio.
Pro: Potentially endless backwards compatibility
If you like playing old games, you know how much of a pain it is to keep all of your video game consoles plugged into a TV. According to Phil Spencer, if the future of Xbox plays out how he outlined earlier this year, all Xbox One games will still be playable on all Xbox consoles going forward. That means, in theory, that your copy of Halo 5 will be compatible with whatever an Xbox is in 2035.
Con: You’ll probably spend more money
No one has to buy a super-charged Xbox One Scorpio, of course, but if you want to stay current on video games, you’ll need to get one eventually. That’s too bad, because most Xbox One owners bought their console with the expectation that they’d have a system capable of playing state-of-the-art Xbox games for a good five to 10 years. More frequent hardware refreshes means more money for gamers who want to stay current.
Pro: Better graphics
Obviously, a more powerful new console allows for better looking games. Standard Xbox One games already look pretty fantastic as they are now, but with hardware powerful enough to pump out 4K graphics and power an Oculus Rift — as the rumors suggest — the Xbox One Scorpio could run games that look even more incredible.
Con: Xbox gaming would be more complicated
One great thing about console gaming is that if you own the console, you know you can play any game made for that console. That’s not the case with PC gaming, where games have required hardware specs and occasional compatibility issues with certain PC parts. With a new, more powerful Xbox One coming out, the Xbox One market will be split. Some people will have the original Xbox One, while others will have the newer, more powerful Xbox One Scorpio. It seems likely that games in the future will drop compatibility with the original Xbox One.
Pro: The Oculus Rift could come to Xbox One Scorpio
With Sony set to launch PlayStation VR in October, Microsoft’s virtual reality future looks bleak, seeing as it hasn’t announced anything at all for Xbox gamers (HoloLens doesn’t count). If the rumors are true and Microsoft is looking to partner with Oculus to bring the VR headset to Xbox One Scorpio, it would be a major boon for Microsoft and Xbox fans.
If Microsoft does launch a new and improved Xbox One in 2017, it will shake up much of what gamers have come to expect from consoles. It’s pretty exciting, even if I’m not looking forward to dropping several hundred dollars on a new console that’s only marginally better than the one I already own.
While Microsoft is rumored to be planning two new “Xbox TV” streaming devices at E3, it appears a slimmer and smaller Xbox One will be unveiled too. References to a new Xbox One wireless chip were discovered last month, and now Kotaku claims Microsoft will release a “cheaper, small Xbox One” later this year. The updated Xbox One is rumored to include a larger 2TB hard drive. Sources familiar with Microsoft’s Xbox plans tell The Verge that the refreshed Xbox One will be 40 percent smaller than the current model, and will likely include 4K video support.
Microsoft is also reportedly planning a larger update to the Xbox One next year. Codenamed Scorpio, Kotaku claims the new console will have a more powerful GPU to support 4K gaming, and that “it will also be technically capable of supporting the Oculus Rift.” Microsoft is reportedly pursuing a partnership with Oculus, but the details seem vague and it’s not clear if this will mean native support of Oculus Rift on the new Xbox One or the previously announced game streaming to the VR headset.
Microsoft’s new consoles are part of what’s described as “Project Helix,” to converge Xbox and Windows 10 gaming. Microsoft is expected to talk more about part of its efforts towards this at E3 next month, and announce the smaller Xbox One console. The Verge will be covering Microsoft’s E3 event live at 12:30PM ET / 9:30AM PT on June 13th.
Disclaimer: This is a very personal story, one I’ve been meaning to write for a while. Given my career path and retro-gaming area of expertise, this is just the best way I could tell it creatively. Please don’t mistake my tone for trivializing a serious issue. This is a very important topic to me.
I write to you today a survivor from the seventh layer of my own personal hell. If you’ve ever been unfortunate enough to live through one of the most excruciating painful experiences known to man, then you’re about to get a fresh reminder of those long sleepless nights and dreary days spawned by powerful painkillers.
I’m, of course, talking about kidney stones. Over the course of my 30 years of existence, I’ve unfortunately suffered through about a dozen of these calcified demons, and I work hard everyday to drink enough water and manage my diet to make sure it does not happen again.
I’m roughly three years kidney stone free since starting this management, and I’m grateful every single day that I wake up pain-free. However, the slightest lingering pain in my lower-left back can still send chills down my spine for days on end until I feel it’s safe enough to relax.
Yes, kidney stones are among the absolute worst, and I’m here to help with the aid of video games. More specifically, NES classics that are bound to help you better understand exactly what kidney stones are and how to react to them.
These are five NES classics that you should play when your kidney has literally stabbed you in the back and sent torturous, jagged rocks through the most sensitive area of your body.
Life Force
Konami’s excellent NES SHMUP Life Force is actually a spin-off of its better known SHMUP series, Gradius. This classic improves the established formula in a few ways, but what’s even more unique about it is that it takes place entirely inside of a living organism.
Levels design themselves based on different areas within an alien body, and both common enemies and boss fights tend to be a twisted combination of mechanical and biological in design. Who could ever scrub from their memories that horrific brain boss at the end of level 1?
Players take control of a little white jet that navigates these thin tunnels, and one bullet or wayward enemy is all it takes to wreck your mission. Crashing into the ground also causes your ship to explode, and it is here that we find our similarities to kidney stones.
Some who have lived through kidney stones might think that the most overrated part of the experience is when it actually leaves your body. The image of passing a stone while going to the bathroom is enough to make anyone shudder, but it’s actually the easiest part, in my experience at least. Mine have been relatively small compared to what others have seen, though. A pinch of pain, a sudden spurt, and poof, it’s over.
Even so, I think most would agree that the hard part is actually the journey from the kidney into the bladder through the ureter. Kidney stones only hurt when they are in motion. They are sharp, jagged little beasts that literally slice you every single millimeter along the way. Could be two months, could be half a week, but you’ll know exactly when that thing is moving every inch of its journey.
I hope the imagery is catching on here. A small, sharp white object navigating through thin tunnels surrounded by living tissue. Just like a kidney stone, the jets in Life Force are of no risk if one can successfully guide its way through each level. Skilled players try with all their concentration to navigate, shoot, and dodge in tight quarters to make sure the worst doesn’t happen.
But when that jet steers the wrong way and crashes it jagged edges into a fleshy corridor… game over, man.
Little Nemo: The Dream Master
Capcom’s 8-bit interpretation of the 1989 remake of Winsor McCay’s classic comic. Little Nemo: The Dream Master is an excellent Mega Man clone that oozes personality. It sets itself apart from others using a unique mechanic that allows our hero to overtake the bodies of animals, contriving their powers to aid in traversing this brutal game’s torturous levels.
Nemo can take the form of a frog, mole, or gorilla and ride on the backs of lizards or hornets. And the way he can whip these animal buddies into obedience is to lull them to sleep by feeding them candy. Sweet, sweet, lovely candy that puts them right to sleep before he pounces.
Now, obviously the image of wonderful candy that puts monsters to sleep is every kidney stone sufferer’s personal savior. Delicious, wonderful goodness that not only tastes like your favorite arranged flavor but also sends you off to dreamland after a quick dose or two? Absolutely!
Kidney stones can be rough enough to deny anybody sleep, and even then, sleep is the only relief from the constant pain that these horned abominations can delve out. I remember waking up some mornings during my trials and just praying, hoping to everything that the day would not come and that I could just magically be whisked away to an unconscious state.
Luckily, drugs do allow that, and in North America, it’s not much of a problem.Take your pill, go to sleep or at least walk around in a relatively pain-free, barely aware state. In Japan, where I have had several stones erupt, it’s not quite so simple in that the medicine doctors prescribe aren’t exactly taken… “orally.”
I don’t think I need to spell it out any further, but I would definitely prefer Little Nemo’s dream candy to what the official solution is.
Popeye
Nintendo doesn’t dive into licensed properties very often, but did you know that one of its original arcade games and NES launch titles was actually a Popeye game? Don’t get too excited. There’s not much to it, and this second-thought projects feels more like a bad Donkey Kong knock-off than anything else.
Still, Nintendo working with a popular character that is not one of its own? That’s enough to churn anyone’s curiosity! How exactly does the spinach-swilling sailor tie into kidney stones? Well, pretty easily, actually.18
So, you’ve done it! You’ve passed the stone and you’re back at the hospital for a follow-up appointment. Like a good patient, you caught the devious cretin in a filter provided by your doctor, and his lab assistants have had ample time to study it and tell you exactly what caused it.
What was it? What did I put into my body that could have possibly caused me such ill-fortune? I mean, I hear a lot of french fries and get a real sweet-tooth for chocolate this time of year. Could that be it?
“No,” the doctor says. “Those certainly don’t help, but this stone was actually caused by calcium oxalate.”
And what is the most common food that contains calcium oxalates? You guessed it… spinach! I’ve improved my diet a lot over the last few years, mostly thanks to this thing called “marriage,” but back when I was suffering through kidney stones, I ate a lot of junk food.
One of the few healthy foods I genuinely loved was just that… spinach.
And it was also the cause of all my pain and sorrow in the world. The doctor instructed me to eat it with a special Japanese fish to cancel out the oxalate reaction or try a substitute like Japanese “komatsuna” which doesn’t have calcium oxalate, but it’s just not the same.
I love spinach, so much, and being banned from it just makes me crave it more. After playing this horrible Popeye game for hours on end, though, that should be enough to kill any love for the leafy vegetable. Ugh, what was Nintendo thinking?
Sorry, no spinach. Still, that’s the sacrifice one must make if they want to remain healthy. Management and balance. It’s not always junk food that must be cut.
Super Mario Bros. 2
Needs no introduction. Super Mario Bros. 2 is not the realSuper Mario Bros. 2, but anyone who says that we should have gotten the actual one back in the day is just plain wrong. This is an excellent game, and it is aging just fine alongside its NES brothers.
Now, kidney stones generally occur within older people or those who are overweight. During the peak of my kidney stone era, when I had three in a single year, I maxed out at about 195 lbs, the heaviest I have ever been in my life. Not severely overweight, given that I’m a pretty tall guy, but definitely not an ideal weight either.
However, the doctors said that it was not enough to garner such frequent kidney stones in a mid-twenties year old man, and one figured that there must be an underlying problem besides my diet. Turns out, he was correct.
Unknown to both my parents and me, my left kidney is actually a “double pelvic/double ureter” kidney. This means that it operates as two separate kidneys and both have ureters that connect to the bladder.
It’s not exactly a dangerous situation, but it can lead to an increase in kidney stones. Water is important for a kidney to function properly as it keeps them hydrated, and flushed kidneys means less chance of calcified chunks to take form. However, with a split kidney, water will usually travel to the larger, healthier, and more “normal” half, meaning that the weaker, smaller half tends to be drier unless the body is constantly hydrated.
This smaller half was the reason for my kidney stones. Fine, I keep myself hydrated, and if things get too serious, the doctors say I’ll still have the larger half working properly if the lower half ever needs to come out. Surgery is “unlikely” if I treat my body properly, but “unlikely” is not a word hypochondriacs, like myself, want to hear.
“I have a defective kidney.” The psychological impact of something being “wrong” inside your body is a heavy burden on anybody’s soul. Even if the situation is not immediately dangerous and problems can be picked up from a mile away now that I know about it, the idea of something “wrong” inside took a lot to get over.
But hey, it’s okay! Super Mario Bros. 2 has a lot of elements inside of it too that other Super Mario Bros. games don’t have. Lifting enemies above Mario’s head, POW blocks, an entirely new army of enemies to battle, Princess Toadstool and Toad as playable characters. Super Mario Bros. 2 might be “defective” and “wrong” on the inside, but it’s still a beloved game that hangs with the best of its legendary siblings.
Likewise, my kidney might be strange and weird, but it still functions. The doctor also graciously reminded me that it has kept me going for 30 years, so it can’t be that useless. Hopefully, it has many more years of health now that I know how to properly treat it.
If you can’t tell by the length of this section, coming to terms with this was actually harder than passing the kidney stones themselves. Getting the bloody thing out is only half the battle. The rest is figuring out how to stop them from forming.
No fifth game. Why is that? Because when you have a kidney stone, video games are the last thing on your mind!
You can’t sit and enjoy your hobby because a sharp piece of waste is constantly tearing your insides. You’re constantly exhausted because you can’t sleep at night, and when you can sleep, it’s because you’ve taken drugs that knock you out through chemical induced “fake” sleep.
Constantly lingering on the verge of consciousness, constantly fighting back tears of pain, constantly drinking water to keep the flow moving and ureters flushed, constantly releasing that water. Sitting on heating pads, family members propping you up if you need to walk outside or even to the john.
Seriously, who has time for videos games when your body is in such a ragged condition like this? Who can concentrate and dedicate the grueling attention required by this brutal era of level design? If you play anything on your NES, it might as well be Wheel of Fortune or something that doesn’t require quick reactions or a whole lot of focus. Because attention is something you have very little give when the horrible bits of evil are traveling through your body.
Take care, drink a lot of water, stay in shape, and treat your kidneys nicely. They are two of the most important organs in your body, and if you respect them, they’ll do their job and keep you alive. Mistreat them… they will stab you in the back.
The Uncharted Series came to an end last week. We’ve been with Nathan Drake through thick and thin, through witty and morose. And with Uncharted 4 comes a moment to reflect on those adventures, their high points, and their low points. In many ways, Uncharted 4 is a reflection of where the industry stood in 2007, refined, polished and perfected for nearly a decade. But was it the best the series had to offer? There were five Uncharted games in total, all of them excellent, but not all of them equally so. And because ranking is a thing that one does from time to time, I’ve done so:
Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception: This one was sort of a mess. The game was a trip through giant set pieces, some of which were built before the developers had any idea how they would fit into the story, and it shows. Not quite sure if it wanted to end close a trilogy or not, and not quite sure if it wanted to delve into Drake’s darker side or not, it ended up lacking both focus and drive. Uncharted 3 made some important gameplay strides forward, but I found myself more irritated with Drake than ever while playing it. A bad Uncharted game is still an excellent game, but for me Uncharted 3 just failed to capture that swashbuckling magic that defines this series. It felt stuck, and it felt, at times, like filler. And while the Atlantis of the Sands is certainly a thing, it felt like a odd attempt to toe the “lost city” line. Does it always have to be a lost city?
Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune: I debated the bottom two of this list for a while, because there are a lot of things we need to forgive about the first entry in this particular series. Naughty Dog hadn’t really figured the whole thing out yet, and neither the gunplay nor the navigation were quite there yet, and the pacing was all wrong. But it had that kernel to it that would later grow into Uncharted 2, and for all its faults, I had a better time with this game than I did with Uncharted 3. It was fun! It was flawed, but it was fun. Fun is important, and that’s why I’m giving it no. 4.
Uncharted: Golden Abyss — Some will be surprised to see a Vita port quite so high on this list. Uncharted: Gold Abyss was meant to be a selling point for Sony’s quixotic portable, showing us a future where we all played “console-quality (whatever that means)” games on the go, on the toilet, or on the couch when we didn’t feel like turning on the console. We all know how that panned out, but the Vita did leave us with this one. Golden Abyss was stacked with odd vita-specific features showcasing motion controls, a light sensitive camera, the touchscreen, and more, and that whole rigamarole could get pretty tiring. But at the heart of that game was Drake’s purest adventure in the entire series. There was none of his troubled relationship with Elena, none of the broader emotional arcs that define the main series, just a good old fashioned adventure. Golden Abyss told a self-contained, satisfying story, and for that I give it number 3. The Uncharted series is a love letter to 30′s pulp adventure stories, and no game captured that better than Golden Abyss.
Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End — This game was a true accomplishment. It takes that emotional weight that bogged down Uncharted 3 and commits wholeheartedly, wrapping up Nathan Drake’s adventure with grace, charm and a a surprising maturity. It helps that the combat is the best in the series, it helps that the visuals are the best I’ve seen in any video game, ever, and it helps that Naughty Dog experimented with opening up the corridor shooter just enough to give us a hint of player agency. Uncharted 4 was a rough game to get through sometimes — knowing that you’re coming to the end of the adventure will do that to you. But Naughty Dog pulled it off in the most emotionally affecting game of the series. The treasure of Henry Avery, too, was the only goal in the series that felt like it had a story to tell every bit as interesting as the one in the present day.
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves — As you can see from my love of Golden Abyss, I prefer it when Uncharted sticks to the breezy pulp that inspired it, and we see that in spades with Uncharted 2. This the game that came to define the series, and for good reason: we were not yet weighed down with the broader character arcs that gave us such trouble in Uncharted 3, nor were we tasked with introducing the characters like we were in Uncharted. There are parts of this game that haven’t aged quite as well — the shooting could be improved, the stealth could seriously be improved, and you spend too much time crouched behind cover mowing down legions of enemies. But damn, was this an adventure. Grand, funny, exciting and quick, Naughty Dog managed to tell a story that didn’t lag for a single moment, from the opening moments on the train to a striking, quiet moment in a Tibetan village. This game, always, will be the masterpiece of the Uncharted series.
Yesterday in Beijing Wang Feng, the CEO of Chinese gaming startup Fuze, took to the stage at a press conference to proudly unveil his venture’s newest product—a home video game console called the Tomahawk F1.
Like many CEOs with products that compete against established foreign brands, Wang was quick to play up the device’s unveiling as a watershed moment in China’s tech industry, which has yet to see a domestic console pose a significant challenge to the likes of Sony and Microsoft.
“When will China’s games market—especially high-resolution consoles and high-performance consoles, the best products [out there]—be taken over by Chinese businesses?” Wang asked the audience (link in Chinese).
There’s some irony to Wang’s ambitions. His company’s console bears a striking resemblance to both Sony’s PlayStation 4 and Microsoft’s Xbox One. As Kotaku points out, the controller for the Tomahawk F1 resembles the Xbox One’s, right down to the button layout and overall shape.
The software design harkens back to the PlayStation. Blogger and analyst ZhugeEx noted that many of the features of Fuze’s Android-based operating system have direct analogs on the PS4:
“It’s clear that the company have pretty much ripped off the design rather than creating their own unique take,” he writes. “It’s very much a complete copy with the home page having the exact same social and news features that the PS4 home page does, even the game store looks exactly the same with all the text and other interfaces in the exact place you’d find it on PS4.”
Quartz reached out to Fuze spokesperson Du Qingyang with questions about the design similarities, but did not receive a response.
Copy at your own risk
Aping the branding and design choices of well-established competitors is lamentably commonplace in China. In recent weeks one Chinese film company made headlines with ham-fisted attempts to ape Disney’sZootopia poster, and an apparel maker came under fire for copying Under Armour’s logo.
For those who want to see more innovative products coming from China, Fuze’s design decisions sting in particular because they mark a missed opportunity to create something original.
After a longtime ban on game consoles, China legalized the domestic sale and manufacture of the devices in early 2014. Sony and Microsoft soon offered the PS4 and Xbox One, respectively, to the domestic audience. Legacy Chinese tech firms—including Huawei and Tencent—also released home video game consoles. But those typically were little more than projectors for big-screen Android gaming, which were unlikely to appeal to hardcore gamers.
A few years ago Fuze launched as a startup willing to enter China’s console market in earnest. Backed with money from high-profile venture capital firms, it billed itself as a Chinese competitor focused on gaming experiences that could rival Sony’s and Microsoft’s, while still running on Android software. It would optimize high-quality games for home use, and also work with publishers and developers to make the best Xbox and PlayStation titles compatible as well.
But excitement over Fuze has already cooled since the product details were announced yesterday. Priced at 899 yuan ($138) for the basic version, the device is less than half the cost of an Xbox One or a PS4—which will only fuel detractors arguing it’s a “cheap knockoff.” Its game catalog looks to be wider than those consoles, but that’s mostly due to its Android-based operating system, which allows for the easy import of mobile games.
The company has already taken a merciless beating from commentators. Under its product announcement on Weibo (akin to Twitter), many gamers expressed their disappointment (link in Chinese) at the company for shamelessly aping Sony and Microsoft designs.
“As a serious gamer, when I see you compare yourselves to the three big console makers, I sense a lot of lofty ambitions,” one wrote. “But what I want to know is, do you really want to make a high-quality console? Or do you just want to take advantage of consoles [being hot] to make a quick buck and run off?”
Others were more sarcastic:
“Good luck! After looking at this product, I feel like even I can make a console—all I need to do is brag about how hard-working I am, con a few investors, and copy other consoles.”
Rumors are picking up once again for Batman: Return To Arkham HD Collection after some ads and retailer postings for the HD remaster packs leaked online. Apparently the game will release on June 10th for the Xbox One and the PS4 for $40, assuming the ads are to be trusted.
Game Informer covered the story after it originally broke on Gaming Tree House, where they managed to capture an image from a retailer listing on the Italian version of GameStop. The listing has no box art or images but stated that the game would be available for around $40 and would launch on June 10th for only the Xbox One and PS4.
The listing on the Italian version of GameStop was pulled shortly after being discovered. Gaming Tree House later discovered an ad in an Italian magazine that also showed a listing for Batman: Return To Arkham HD Collection, indicating that the package would be available with both Batman: Arkham Asylum and Batman: Arkham City packed inside.
Both games will be the full versions and will also come jam packed with all of the DLC that released over their respective lifespans.
I’m sure the most obvious thing about this collection is the fact that it’s not listed for PC. Following the absolutely atrocious debacle last year involving Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment and the PC release of Batman: Arkham Knight on PC, it was made pretty clear that the publisher would be stepping back from their PC support. They did so by completely forgoing the release of Mortal Kombat XL on PC and opted not to release any balance patches or additional season 2 DLC for Mortal Kombat X on PC.
It’s kind of unfortunate that PC gamers are being punished because Warner Bros rushed out Batman: Arkham Knight and caused a lot of heartache to paying customers on PC.
However, it’s entirely possible that Warner Bros could later announce a digital PC release of Batman: Return to Arkham HD Collection. It’s not entirely impossible that maybe they’re just waiting closer to June to make the announcement official for console and PC gamers… or at least, one can hope.
As for the HD collection containing Arkham Asylum and Arkham City, it has been rumored for quite some time that Warner Bros would attempt to re-release the games in HD. I’m a little shocked that they didn’t include Arkham Origins, though. Maybe they’ll wait it out until the PlayStation Neo and whatever the mid-gen Xbox One refresh is to re-release Arkham Origins and Arkham Knight. If the PS4K or PS Neo is going to tout 4K upscaling then I can easily see a bunch of publishers re-releasing games as 4K renditions, such as Batman: Arkham Knight 4K or what have you.
Anyway, right now the HD collection for the first two Arkham games is still a rumor, but if the June 10th date has any weight to it then we can expect an official announcement from Warner Bros soon enough to verify the claims and make an official announcement for Batman: Return To Arkham HD Collection.
Publishers and console manufacturers have been wanting to move to an “all digital future” for quite some time, but national network infrastructure and consumer resistance has prevented that from happening. Well, EA thinks that it will eventually happen and that consoles will stop being produced.
Gamespot picked up the inflammatory quote from the Daily Orange, where Electronic Arts’ chief competition officer, Peter Moore, explained why consoles might stop being produced, saying:
I’m not sure there will be consoles, as we know them anymore. Games will be accessed by streaming technology, so we don’t need hardware intermediaries in between the two. If you and I want to play Battlefield 12 against each other, we’ll just jump into a game via whatever monitor we happen to have in our homes. It’ll be on a chip, rather than in a box.
The comment section was not pleased with these comments at all.
In fact, that line of thinking is where Microsoft was originally going with the Xbox One, and that’s part of why they aren’t in first place at the moment. Microsoft was pushing for an “all digital future”, putting lock and key restrictions on digital content, digital access and digital libraries. Quite naturally, there was a lot of push back from the core gaming community who did not like the idea of used game fees, digital signatures for games installed from a disc, and a 24-hour DRM check-in to play games.
Gamespot tries to ease up the impact of Moore’s comments by saying that’s a “far future” concept, but let’s be real here: unless major first-world nations widely adopt fiber optic connections, the broadband setup we currently have is just not convenient enough to support some 50 million hardcore gamers trying to download and stream both single and multiplayer games all at once through small wireless devices.
Heck, just talking about the current setup we do have, Xbox Live or PSN are usually down at least once a month, if not for one issue or another it’s due to some DDoS attack. Having to rely on online services for single-player games would be a pain.
But beyond the inconvenience of network infrastructure, there’s still the consumer aspect of digital only goods. Steam is the largest consumer oriented digital distributor for video games, and despite being considered the most consumer friendly, there’s still the issue of ownership, resale, and trading- something even Valve hasn’t been able to escape from, with a number of lawsuits under their belt that eventually led to them implementing a limited form of refunds.
Right now, a lot of gamers enjoy being able to play games when and where they feel like it without the constant restrictions set upon them by publishers and console manufacturers. While multiplayer games require constant online connections, there are still plenty of people playing single-player games offline, and I can’t see them being pleased to have to deal with lag, server issues, or a hotspot dropping a connection while trying to play the latest Mass Effect game.
Nevertheless, Microsoft already made their intentions clear to move toward an all-digital spectrum, and Sony has facilitated PlayStation Now for this purpose as well (though it hasn’t been quite as popular as they probably hoped).
Interestingly enough, if the companies are moving toward an all-digital spectrum, it’s diametrically opposed to the technology required to facilitate VR, since VR is heavily reliant on powerful hardware to render high fidelity content. So if VR really does take hold and becomes mainstream the consoles won’t be going anywhere, but if VR doesn’t take hold and companies move more toward a digital setup, then what Moore is talking about could be a possibility in the near future, even against the wishes of many core gamers.
If you ever see a copy of Stadium Events at a yard sale, snatch it up quick.
by Jake Swearingen via Popular Mechanics
For a different generation, it was the story of the baseball card that got away. A rookie Mickey Mantle that got lost during a move. A mint Darryl Strawberry from 1984 that your mom threw away. But in 2016, you may want to think about where all your old NES cartridges are.
Michael McCaskill was at a yard sale in Texas two years ago when he bought a box of 40 NES games for $80. Among those was Stadium Events, one of the rarest Nintendo games ever released in America—only 200 made it to market before Nintendo decided pull the game. It was later released, along with the Power Pad, as Athletic Worlds.
McCaskill vaguely recognized the game, and after a quick Google realized he had struck gold. “(It’s crazy) to just go to your video game shelf and pick off a piece of plastic with a sticker on it that’s worth $8,000 that you didn’t pay anywhere near that for,” said McCaskill, speaking to his local CBS station. “So you have to constantly pick it up and go, how lucky am I?
After holding on to for two years, he sold it to Alec Featherstone, owner of Freaks and Geeks Video Games in Denton, Texas, for $7,500. Featherstone got the game for a relative bargain—a copy of Stadium Events sold for $31,500 dollars when it went up on auction on eBay in January of last year.
McCaskill says he and his wife will use the money towards buying a home, but they still plan to hit up yard sales. “Can lightning strike twice? I don’t know. I’d like to see it if it does,” said McCaskill. “If I found another one, I’m keeping it.”
If you’re curious, here’s a bit of gameplay footage from the game:
When Activision pulled back the curtain on its next big FPS, Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, quite a few fans took to the internet to spew venom all over every comments section and message board available. Activision CEO Eric Hirshberg decided to address those haters head-on with the best weapon in his arsenal: Calm and collected logic.
Secondly, of course, we know there are people in our community who are nostalgic for the boots on the ground-style gameplay; that’s why we made Modern Warfare Remastered. But we also have millions of people in our community who want to have new, innovative experiences in the game each year and Infinite Warfare is going to deliver that
There’s no better way to respond to the type of unbridled rage that pops up on the internet than to offer up a retort that is both level-headed and makes a lot of sense. Even if you’re bummed about Infinite Warfare’s setting, you can’t really argue with Hirshberg’s response. His comments were made during an earnings call earlier this week, pointing out that the old adage of “no press is bad press” rings true.
In case you aren’t up to date with this whole Infinite Warfare situation, it all began with the launch of a new trailer for the game which, among other things, makes it clear that the series is now literally gunning for the stars.
When that video hit YouTube, saying that viewers reacted negatively might be something of an understatement. As of this writing, the video have 469,954 dislikes, pretty much making it the “most disliked” video on the planet. Fans of the video are only half that number, with about 203,000 likes to date.
During the earnings call, Hirshberg starts out by saying that you’ve “gotta love the passion of gamers.” In his view, having so many people react so strongly simply goes to show how big the Call of Duty franchise has grown over the years. I’m pretty sure sales figures are a solid clue to that fact, too, but he’s not wrong here.
Finally, Hirshberg goes on to remind folks that, if they want to enjoy the good old-fashioned version of Call of Duty, then they can enjoy a remasterd version of Modern Warfare in the same package. That version will also include 10 multiplayer maps, all included if you pick up Infinite Warfare. Still, many complain that they don’t want to have to buy one to get the other. Considering the fact that most remakes go for full price, I’m not sure what the issue is.
Still, in recent years, it seems like more and more fans have been itching for a return to classic CoD gameplay while the more recent iterations of the series have moved further away from that style of play. Infinite Warfare appears to be an extreme case of exactly that. So depending on how things go this fall, we’ll just have to wait and see if the next Call of Duty goes full Halo or if we’ll be back in the trenches.
Oculus Rift turned out to be an unintentionally ideal name for a gadget dedicated to carving ruptures between people. They also could have called it the “Digital Chasm” or the “Interaction Canyon.”
The virtual-reality headsets, available at 48 Best Buy stores beginning May 7, promise to widen further what is already an alarming, tech-induced gap among couples, friends and families. Smartphones have already whipped up a wasteland of blankness — the real-life equivalent of dead air on the radio.
We’re living in “Um, honey?” time. As in, “Um, honey, how was your day at school?” (No answer. Lots of tapping.)
“Um, honey, have you seen my glasses?” (No answer. “Memes” are being considered.)
“Um, honey? I need your attention, please. Please? We have an infestation of gila monsters. The house is burning down. I’m leaving you for another family.” (No answer. Snapchat being checked.)
The Oculus Rift? It’s basically a smartphone you wrap around your face. Put it on; reality can’t get in. This is the appeal of drugs, too.
As with drugs, easily bored young people are particularly susceptible. Think your kids are hard to connect with now? Wait till they get themselves an Oculus Rift and begin to expend all their attention, instead of just most of it, on the Great Elsewhere. They’ll be off in a world of their own imagining: hiking up Everest. Having a light-saber duel with Kylo Ren. Joining the Kardashian family.
Considering the porn implications of the gadgets, we’re now within half a step of the Orgasmatron, the Woody Allen-invented virtual-reality capsule (from the 1973 film “Sleeper,” which also accurately predicted the resurgence of fatty food and the surprising endurance of the Volkswagen Beetle), which couples short on time would use for a brisk, machine-made sexual experience. What Woody got wrong (in the scene in which Miles Monroe mistakenly enters the Orgasmatron alone) was that tech would assume the existence of couples.
No, tech is turning out to be the great atomizer, wrenching people apart. I well remember the first time (maybe eight years ago) I saw a couple in a restaurant, clearly on a date, yet each of them gazing longingly into a smartphone instead of addressing the facing person. I thought: Here. It. Comes.
Smartphones today are zapping dates, dinners, conversations and spontaneous meetings so everyone can disappear into his own independent iFog. Another filmmaker, Wim Wenders, foresaw this as far back as 1991, in his unappreciated but brilliant film “Until the End of the World.” In a post-apocalyptic climax, a tech gadget that can record your dreams takes the form of a wraparound virtual-reality headset exactly like the Oculus Rift. Users become addicted to their own interiors, and they begin to wander the land in the headsets, blind to one another, in a lonely daze.
Maybe we’re smarter than that. Maybe people will see the Rift forming and take a step back. Maybe Oculus Rift will be the next Google Glass.
Or maybe people will soon be using the gadget to watch videos of “Sleeper” and “Until the End of the World,” thinking: Given those prophecies, why couldn’t we have had our Oculus Rift sooner?
