Links: EGMNOW

Rumor time!

The Nintendo NX is a rather powerful device, about as powerful and easy to program for at the Xbox One. So lets go through the list shall we.

1. Wireless HDMI… that’s pretty cool. And what I am wondering then is, is the device portable or is it a stationary one. I mean the only reason I would imagine a wireless HDMI is that the game console is basically similar to the Wii U game pad itself.

2. A new type of force feedback that pushes back on your controller, so running into a wall or shooting a gun will have a recall. It’s very interesting and can be used in a variety of ways. Say like in a racing game actually feeling the force and recall or the steering wheel when trying to turn. Something I can say if they would have announced it early it would have probably been copied by their competitors (e.g. PlayStation with it’s DualShock controller after Nintendo came out with the force feedback with the N64).

3. Bluetooth syncs with everything easily. This would fit with the rumors that they want to use mobile more, and with their already in action plans of mobile games.

4. Power and easy to transfer too/program for. So as I said above as powerful as an Xbox One, 50x more powerful than the Wii U, 100x more powerful than the PlayStation Vita (though not sure why that was referenced). With this much power it can perform well with the current gen machines and be easily transferred to from any of the current systems.

5. Pokemon Go as a social feature. Nintendo is extremely smart if this is the way they are thinking gaming will go. ARGs have been around for a while and they seem to just be getting better with mobile devices. So if Pokemon Go is a Bluetooth device it can easily connect to the NX. If they have other AR type games with their own devices then you could easily connect those as well. Could you imagine an AR version of Animal Crossings?

6. So the device looks like a Samsung 2DS, which would fit with my theory of a portable yet still home gaming device. The operating system is very mobile like, very much like Android OS which is why people may have thought it was originally based off Android. The OS is simply called NintendOS and works like every modern mobile OS.

Now if this is to be believed then it’s really awesome, but it’s a rumor so you can usually never trust rumors.

Link: TechCrunch

It’s interesting to see that Tablets are Dead, or at least dying, and in truth I can agree with it. Even though I don’t like it I have an iPad, two of them in fact. The older one is laying around my room somewhere dead, the second I use as a kindle mostly and, since I have a keyboard for it, occasionally to write. My Roommate got the Nexus 7 a while back and he loved it then, but once he upgraded his laptop he hasn’t used it since that I am aware of, and also he has a Nexus 6 now too which is about the same size.

Why I bring this up? Well if tablets are dying there’s one less place we can make a game for. Not that it really matters much since most phones are becoming bigger anyway and playing games on a tablet seemed rather bulky. Also most new computers are tending to be 2-in-1s where you can flip the keyboard or detach it and still have a working “tablet”. Personally I really don’t think the tablet is dead but has evolved into computers on one end and phones on the other. It filled a void when we needed it filled and now that things have evolved we no longer need the lesser of the three.

Link: CHRIS’S SURVIVAL HORROR QUEST via Kotaku

This story is interesting too and deals with the cellphone dilemma. I actually read it mostly because my game idea “Wish I Was There” uses a cellphone as its primary mechanic throughout the game. It’s hard to think that in this age of instant connection with people that having a horror, suspense, or survival game with a cellphone is almost a no go. That’s why a lot of games set their stories in the 1990s. Like “Gone Home” and “Firewatch” they base the games when there is no cellphone technology so there is no chance of calling family members, police, or anyone really.

Links:

Forbes
Android Community

This is an interesting What’s News because I got the idea from two things. One, class constantly talking about gaming going to be more AR related in the future, and two, I actually got the link from a friend on twitter. Also interesting because both those articles were out in 2014 and it has now become beta in 2016.

If you go to http://father.io you will see a video of the game play which is an advanced camera that is placed on your phone and acts like basically laser tag. The game itself seem to use an image of a real gun, firing sounds, etc. to get people immersed into the game.

The plot of the game closely resembles that of one those dystopian sci-fi novel and movies we’re now familiar with. Mix a drop of Matrix with Hunger Games and you’ll get the idea. Action is set in 2040 and players are divided in two teams: the Humans and the Evolved, humans who have chosen to interface their biological brain with Ethereus, the Artificial Intelligence which rules the planet. Thanks to Ethereus, all territorial conflicts, religious conflicts, ideological conflicts, and race conflicts finally belong to the past.

But something goes wrong: FatherIO – a mysterious digital virus of unknown origins – infects Ethereus’s behavioural algorithms, sending out the order to extinguish all human beings that haven’t yet become “Evolved” (Forbes)

I like the concept, as I always like ARGs but still not sure how I feel about the shooting aspect of it. Either way with this coming out soon from the looks of it the game field is drastically changing.

Link: Gamasutra

Amazon has made their own game engine to sell games on their website. This is actually interesting as they are entering a field as a content creator rather than just a content seller. It’s also great for us as game designers as the game creation system is completely free, meaning they will not make any money off of the games you create, where they will make the money is from Amazon Web Servers.

Monetization for Lumberyard will come strictly through the use of Amazon Web Services’ cloud computing. If you use the engine for your game, you’re permitted to roll your own server tech, but if you’re using a third-party provider, it has to be Amazon.

That makes sense as very few companies would make nothing without expecting some form of profit.

Lumberjack, which is the name of the engine, is based off Crytek’s CryEngine. They got “full, unencumbered access to the technology” to build upon and change as needed. Of course as they move forward the differences between engines will inevitably grow.

The only disadvantage of the engine seems to be the focus on multiplayer games, not that this is a huge disadvantage, but it feels like they would

Link: Gamasutra

Nintendo is no longer doing their life “Quality of Life” products which they announced when the Wii U was announced, which I suppose is understandable since they have not actually brought anything out for it as of yet and they are in the works with a new system in general.

President Tatsumi Kimishima said, “In regards to the Quality of Life [device], which was not mentioned in any of today’s questions, we do not have the conviction that the sleep-and-fatigue-themed [device] can enter the phase of actually becoming a product. We no longer have any plans to release it by the end of March 2016.”

I do think it’s good they are dropping things that they believe they cannot make work although I don’t know why they don’t work with companies that already make it work and make a Wii U app that tracks your health with FitBit or something similar.

Link: Polygon

Looks like Peter Molyneux Twitter account was hacked. Someone hacked his account and stated that he was retiring, that Godus was going to be removed from the Steam Store, and that the 2010 Xbox 360 game Fable 3 was his “biggest mistake” and that “it pushed me and my team to the limits.” His company revealed that, no he isn’t retiring and that Godus, which apparently is getting abysmal reviews from Steam, is still being made.

But there is news of a game that is still being made…

Link: Digital Spy

Beyond Good and Evil 2 is still being made. Even though the original was made 13 years ago, the sequel is still in the process of being made. The reason follows below:

Ancel was asked outright if the follow-up was still being made, to which he answered: “Yeah, but it’s difficult because it’s hard for me to redo the same kind of game two times.

“I always want to do something different. It has to be great. When we started [the first] game there was not that much pressure.”

Which I find funny as it was then being touted as the “Zelda Killer”… how many times have we heard that about a game?

Link: Engadget

The NX is not going to be a sequel to the Wii or Wii U according to Tatsumi Kimishima, which I think is a good thing as the Wii did an amazing job and had big shoes to fill and the Wii U completely did not succeed in that. Other than that there is still very little that is known about the NX except that according to earlier reports it will not use Android as the operating system, and according to a patent could be a “stationary game console” that doesn’t include a disk drive. In truth it would probably make more sense to make cartridges as you can easily store more data in them now than you could 10 or even 5 years ago.

A lot to look forward to for the next generation of Nintendo consoles. Hopefully it becomes as powerful as the current machines so it can keep up with the pack.

Link: Game Informer

Shortly after the release of the fan made PS4 remote play app Sony Playstation confirmed they are working on their own version for PC and Mac. It’s actually interesting to have the prospect of playing your PS4 games on you PC or Mac, specifically the Mac as it it is usually ignored by gamers in general even though most game art/games tended to be made on Macs.

Link: Gamasutra

Afro Samuri 2 was such a horrible game that the publisher Versus Evil pulled the game from Steam and PSN because:

“The game was a failure. We could not do, in good conscience, volume 2 and volume 3. So we’ve begun the [refunding] process,” said Escalante.

So, obviously from that quote, they are pulling the game and giving refunds due to it’s poor production. It’s actually quite refreshing though that a game company would go this far to pull a game and give a refund due to the game being bad. Most will just try and fix it or not do anything. So good on Versus Evil.

Link: GameSpot

Dontnod mentioned that they are working on a sequel to Life is Strange. The sequel will be based in the same world as the first game but with different characters. The original game has you rewinding time and going back in time using using photos so you can change things in the past in an story filled point and click adventure game that’s all about choice, in five different episodes. Sadly “as of yet, Square Enix has not said whether it plans to publish a second season, and Dontnot has not officially announced a follow-up.” … which really makes this a non story.

Link: Polygon

There’s a video game museum opening up in Texas this December. The National Videogame Museum will open next month in Frisco, Texas and will “will debut with a variety of displays including a replica 1980s arcade, a console history timeline, a hall dedicated to head-to-head games as well as a collection of rare artifacts including a Sega Neptune prototype and an Atari Mindlink controller.” More info can be found here http://nvmusa.org/

Also there’s apparently this game that’s coming out called Fallout 4 I haven’t heard much about it or anything though… except on every single site spanning multiple articles that take up any other gaming news.