It wasn’t easy, but Electronic Arts (EA) managed to beat out the competition and make history by being named the “Worst Company in America” by Consumerist readers two years in a row. Consumerist writer Chris Morran says that EA won the award for a second straight year because it continued “treating… customers like human piggy banks” and released “so many incomplete and/or broken games with the intent of getting your customers to pay extra for what they should have received in the first place.” More →
When the next-generation Xbox arrives later this year, it will likely come with the same eight-core AMD chips being used by Sony’s (SNE) rival PlayStation 4. Unnamed sources have told Bloomberg that Microsoft (MSFT) will be making the switch from IBM (IBM) chips to AMD chips because it wants to “cut the cost of building machines and get developers to create more titles.” Bloomberg says that game developers will benefit from having common specifications for next-generation consoles since it should become easier to develop across multiple platforms. The next-generation Xbox is rumored to feature an 8-core 1.6GHz processor, 8GB of RAM, an 800MHz graphics processor, a 50GB 6x Blu-ray Disc drive, and Gigabit Ethernet connectivity.
Microsoft (MSFT) reportedly has plans to unveil its next-generation Xbox video game console during a press conference in May. The new console was previously expected to be revealed during a special event in April but Microsoft watcher Paul Thurrott now reports that the press conference has been pushed back to May 21st. The Verge then claimed to have independently confirmed the date in a follow-up report. Preliminary details are expected at the May 21st event and then a full unveiling will reportedly follow just a few weeks later at the E3 gaming conference in June. Microsoft’s next-generation Xbox is expected to launch ahead of the holidays this year.
While we still don’t know for certain if Microsoft (MSFT) will really require an always-on Internet connection for its next-generation Xbox, one Microsoft executive doesn’t see why anyone should be upset about the prospect of being online as a prerequisite to playing games. Kotaku has spotted some tweets sent out by Microsoft Studios creative director Adam Orth on Thursday that hit back at people who were critical of the idea that the Xbox must be online to work properly. More →
This is a crucial period for the PlayStation Vita: several weeks after a price cut that revived the console in Japan, Vita is demonstrating fairly astonishing tenacity. According to Famitsu, Vita remained the No. 2 console in Japan during the week of March 31st with 33,000 units sold, down moderately from 38,000 units in the previous week. The reason this week was particularly important was the debut of a major new title for Nintendo’s (NTDOY) struggling home console Wii U. Alarm bells at Nintendo’s headquarters must be on full blast, because Dragon Quest X sold just 36,000 units and failed to lift weekly Wii U sales higher than 21,000 units from the previous week’s dismal 10,000 unit level. More →
Could Rovio’s Angry Birds one day have the global brand recognition that Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck once had? That’s apparently the Finnish mobile gaming company’s ultimate goal, as The Wall Street Journal reports that Rovio plans to move beyond only developing games and become “a global entertainment powerhouse.” More →
Given Electronic Arts’ (EA) recent misadventures with requiring always-on Internet connectivity to play SimCity, you might think that Microsoft (MSFT) would be more cautious about implementing such a scheme for its next-generation Xbox. But unnamed sources have told Kotaku that Microsoft’s new Xbox “must have an active Internet connection to be used” and will only let users continue to play games on their consoles if their connection is disrupted for less than three minutes. To make matters worse, one source tells Kotaku that “no games or apps can be started” without an Internet connection, meaning that console will essentially be useless unless it’s hooked up to the web. We’d previously heard rumors that Microsoft would require an Internet connection when playing new games so that it could verify their activation codes and prevent users from playing used games, but this is the first time we’ve heard that the new Xbox will require an Internet connection just to function.
Don’t get freaked out if you see people dressed up like William Wallace trying to zap each other with their Nexus 7 tablets — they’re just playing Ingress, Google’s (GOOG) experimental augmented reality game that first launched last November. AllThingsD reports that since its debut last fall, Ingress has developed a small but loyal cult following around the world that has helped players build bonds with one another as they travel to real-life landmarks and engage in virtual fights with rival factions. Ingress creator John Hanke tells AllThingsD that one recent outing involved roughly 100 Ingress players converging on the monument of William Wallace in Scotland with some showing up “in Braveheart paint with Nexus 7 tablets to play.” More →
While Sony (SNE) and Microsoft (MSFT) prepare to roll out their next-generation gaming consoles, gamers will also soon have the option of paying just $99 for the Android-powered Ouya console that’s set to launch in retail outlets on June 4th. Engadget reports that the low-cost console, which began as a Kickstarter project, will ship to its financial backers this week before becoming available to the general public this summer. The Ouya console features a 1.7GHz quad-core Tegra 3 processor, 8GB of internal storage, 1GB of RAM, a USB port and microUSB port, a wireless controller, and Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. Ouya has signed up several big-name retailers to sell the console, including GameStop (GME), Best Buy (BBY), Amazon (AMZN), and Target (TGT).
Sony (SNE) on Wednesday shed some new light on the PlayStation 4′s all new controller at the Game Developers Conference, The Verge reported. One of the most predominant features of the new DualShock 4 is a two-point capacitive touchpad on the front of the controller that can support a variety of gestures such as flick, pinch and twist. The touchpad can be utilized by developers for on-screen slider buttons, navigating the user interface or can even act as a cursor controller. More →
At first glance, the idea of playing Bioshock Infinite on your web browser sounds like a pipe dream. But according to Ars Technica, it’s a pipe dream that Mozilla is working very hard to make real by porting Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 3 onto its open-source Firefox web browser. To achieve this daunting task, Ars says Mozilla “has been working on WebGL, in order to bring 3D graphics to the browser; Emscripten, a tool for compiling C++ applications into JavaScript; and asm.js, a high performance subset of JavaScript.” More →
Following a number of reports claiming Microsoft’s (MSFT) next-generation video game console, codenamed “Durango,” will block users’ ability to play preowned games, a new report appears to back up those claims. In a series of purported screenshots from Microsoft’s Durango SDK published by Vgleaks.com, several earlier rumors regarding Microsoft’s next console appear to have been confirmed. Among them is the claim that game play from a disk will not be supported, and users will instead have to install games to the device’s hard drive in order to play. More →
