The head of the Xbox team, Phil Spencer, has expressed a measure of frustration or offense with how Sony reacted to questioning about their choice to block cross-play.
This all came up as Minecraft and Rocket League are set to work across the PC, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch platforms in cross-play. If I own those games on my Switch, for instance, I’ll be able to play with you on your Xbox One.
Bungie, BioWare, and Bethesda were the three largest breakout game developers of the 2000s, storming into the mainstream and changing the way we look at shooters, RPGs, and a hybrid of both. This year at E3, each three of the “Bs” is bound to turn up huge, and indeed, two of them will emerge in direct competition with one another.
You wanted big games? Xbox Games with Gold for June is all about big games. They’re a bit older, but there’s no doubt that most of the games this month are flagship titles.
Years ago, 500GB seemed like an unimaginably huge amount of hard drive space. For your phone and for most daily computer use, it still is. For gamers, though, it seems like a pittance, and it’s only going to get worse as games with ultra-high-resolution textures meant to be viewed at 4K become a thing. To mitigate that, the Xbox One allows users to plug in an external drive of their choice, allowing for massively-expanded game storage without the need to crack open the system or worry about copying games.
This year’s Call of Duty is ultra-serious. Not that previous ones hadn’t been, but the return to World War II demands a bit more respect than jetpacks and spaceships. There was some concern then, among all the focus on realism and respect, that there wouldn’t be any room for the poor, unfortunate undead.
Twitch is set to offer viewers more choices when it comes to supporting their favorite streamers on the platform. The news was made official today by the company.
We don’t have a name, a look at the outside of the box, or a price tag to hang on it, but we have a much better idea of what’s inside Project Scorpio following Eurogamer‘s extensive and exclusive reveal today. We’re likely going to be plowing through all the data for a while, but here’s what we know so far.
Microsoft has announced the Xbox Game Pass, a new subscription program that will offer access to more than 100 Xbox One and Xbox 360 backwards compatible games. It sounds a lot like Netflix without the hangups of streaming games.
For $9.99 per month, players can cruise through a growing list of games, pick whatever they want and download it directly to their Xbox One for play until their subscription is done. Xbox head Phil Spencer touched on a few of the games included in the experience by glazing over Halo 5: Guardians, Payday 2, NBA 2K16 and SoulCalibur II.
Layoffs happen in video games all the time. It’s common, but it always sucks. The latest in the long list is Activision which, according to Kotaku, has laid off 5% of its workforce.
Some of those are members of Activision’s corporate offices, but game studios were included in that as well. Infinity Ward, the developer behind 2016’s Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, saw 20 members of its team let go, while Beenox’s in-house quality assurance team has been shut down completely. Gamasutra says the latter still has 150 people working, so it seems the studio itself isn’t in trouble.
UPDATE: Two things, as we’ve received clarification from a PR rep. First, the total Zenimax in the suit was actually $6 billion, with $4 billion towards punitive and $2 billion to actual damages.
Second, Oculus released this statement.
“The heart of this case was about whether Oculus stole ZeniMax’s trade secrets, and the jury found decisively in our favor. We’re obviously disappointed by a few other aspects of today’s verdict, but we are undeterred. Oculus products are built with Oculus technology. Our commitment to the long-term success of VR remains the same, and the entire team will continue the work they’ve done since day one – developing VR technology that will transform the way people interact and communicate. We look forward to filing our appeal and eventually putting this litigation behind us.”
Original Story: Over the last few weeks, a lawsuit has been unfolding between Oculus, the Facebook-owned company behind the Oculus Rift, and ZeniMax, the parent company of Bethesda. Yes, that Bethesda. That’s now finished, and the jury has ordered that Oculus pay ZeniMax $500 million.
The two companies have a long and unique history as it relates to the development of virtual reality. In 2014, ZeniMax wound up suing Oculus, alleging that the company had essentially pulled off a corporate heist and stolen trade secrets in order to design and produce the Oculus Rift.
In closing arguments, as detailed by Polygon, ZeniMax’s counsel argued that Oculus owed the company closer to $4 billion spread over compensation and damage. The jury ruled that Oculus had not misappropriated trade, instead ruling that Oculus CEO Palmer Luckey failed to comply with a signed non-disclosure agreement. The bill for breaking the NDA? Half a billion dollars.
Oculus is lucky to be owned by Facebook
I can’t pretend to know how Oculus would have weathered this storm if it were still an independent company. Thanks to being acquired by Facebook, though, it has a parent company that can likely handle the $500 million loss and the hefty legal fees. Facebook bought Oculus in a deal worth $2 billion. Interestingly, it only paid around $400 million in cash for the purchase, the rest came from Facebook stock.
We’ll see how this shakes out, though I can’t imagine Zuckerberg’s too happy right now.
Bastion’s been due for a buff practically since launch. The character is routinely deemed a troll pick, whether that’s true or not, and he’s a hero that is easily countered.
So, Blizzard’s working on some serious fixes. On the Battle.net forums, Blizzard Principal Designer Geoff Goodman offered up a rundown of “high level stuff” they’re likely to have testable in the next PTR (Public Test Realm) update. Here’s the rub.
Recon Mode – Lowered spread and increased magazine size, to help with general viability in this mode.
Sentry Mode – We’re looking at focusing this mode into more of a tank-buster and barrier-buster mode, while also making it feel less suicidal to be transformed. To that end we’re testing stuff like increased spread and removing headshots, but taking less damage while transformed.
Self-Repair – We’ve been testing a few big changes to this that are feeling really good so far. Currently our internal build has Bastion able to use Self-Repair while moving and also having it no longer interrupted when taking damage. To balance that out it is now on a resource system (similar to the route D.Va’s defense matrix went). These changes have turned this ability from a more niche rarely used ability, to a much more powerful and core survivability tool.
