Comcast tests streaming games to your cable box
Not happy with simply launching its Stream video service this week, Comcast announced the start of a beta test for Xfinity Games. A partnership with Electronic Arts (confirming Reuters rumor from last year), it’s not going to compete with PlayStation and Xbox, but is closer to what Roku, Amazon and Android are already doing for TV gaming. At least for now, the games offered are older and mobile-versions of games like Plants vs Zombies, Real Racing 2 or FIFA 13. There’s not a connection for a standard gamepad, so players control them with phones and tablets (right now the list appears to cover iOS, and mainly Samsung Galaxy phones/tablets on the Android side). The main requirement? Comcast’s X1 TV platform, so if you have it you can sign up to be a beta tester here. X1 isn’t ready to be a powerhouse gaming platform yet approaching the level of OnLive or PlayStation Now, but with this and home automation add-ons, it’s clear we’re not the only ones thinking of the cable box as a the center of your connected home. Now, let’s see if we can get Yu Suzuki to launch a Sega Channel Kickstarter.
Source: Comcast
The 1989 Batmobile and Batsuit are coming to ‘Arkham Knight’
Yeah, you heard that right. To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the original movie’s theatrical release, the one directed by Tim Burton, Rocksteady Studios is releasing Michael Keaton’s 1989 Batsuit and Batmobile as DLC for Batman: Arkham Knight in August. Of course, that’s assuming you’ve shelled out the requisite $40 for the game’s season pass. In addition to the two iconic skins, the expansion will also feature two new audio tracks and six new character skins — 1990’s Catwoman, Original Batman, One Year Later Robin, Arkham Origins Batman, 1970’s Batman and Arkham Nightwing. Batgirl, unfortunately, is only available as a separate download.
Filed under: Gaming
Source: Polygon
YouTube fame to game developer: A chat with CaptainSparklez
It’s a strange day when a YouTube star named CaptainSparklez gets bigger billing in a headline than the co-founder of Activision, but here we are.
YouTube phenom CaptainSparklez, whose real name is Jordan Maron, has partnered with Activision co-founder Howard Marks to develop Fortress Fury, a competitive mobile game. Maron and Marks operate at seemingly opposite ends of the video game industry, but working together, they’ve found common ground and cultivated more than 1 million downloads of Fortress Fury in its first few weeks on iOS and Android. In a video interview, the unlikely duo tell us how they first met (Grandmother Sparklez makes an appearance), and how the industry is evolving with crowdfunding, YouTube and eSports.
First, some background: Activision’s parent corporation, Activision Blizzard, is the company behind Call of Duty, Skylanders, Hearthstone, World of Warcraft and other major mainstream franchises. Marks left Activision — a company with roughly $14 billion in assets — in 1998, after seven years in charge of game development. He’s since founded his own crowdfunding platform, StartEngine, which allows people to invest in private companies (something that Kickstarter doesn’t do).
Maron has dominated his corner of the video game industry, too. As CaptainSparklez, he plays video games — mostly Minecraft — and provides amusing commentary for all 8.7 million of his YouTube subscribers. He got into the Minecraft YouTube game in 2010 and the rest, as they say, is (relatively recent) history.
The Big Picture: ‘Dark Souls’ gets creepy with ‘Limbo’-like mod
The Dark Souls series might not be the game for those folks who lack patience, but what you see up above is something just about anyone can appreciate. Reddit user CystisomaMagna was fooling around with the Reshade mod for the game and happened across some settings that turned the world of Lordran into a monochromatic, but still absolutely dangerous, wonderland. The user notes that the Limbo-esque modification isn’t just for show, and that it’s even possible to keep the game’s HUD intact with it active. It might not get you soft-banned, either. Wanna know how to activate it on your system? That’s what the videos embedded below are for.
Filed under: Gaming, Home Entertainment, HD
Via: Kotaku
Source: Reddit
Deleting Google Photos won’t stop your phone from uploading pictures
Google Photos is pretty amazing. Not only does it offer free, unlimited back-up space for your photos and memories, it also automatically creates collages, slide-shows and movies from your uploaded library. I loved it from the first moment I installed the app–but if you don’t, watch out: uninstalling Google Photos won’t stop your phone from uploading pictures to your account.
The issue was recently brought to light by the Nashville Business Journal, after David Arnott discovered hundreds of photos he thought he deleted preserved in his Google Photos account–all taken weeks after he uninstalled the backup app. It’s not a fluke, either: I tried it myself, deleting not only Google Photos, but also disabling my phone’s Google Drive and Google Plus apps, and my phone still backed up every photo I took. All six of these photos uploaded, even after I deleted the whole suite of apps:
It’s a quirk in how Google Photos deals with upload settings–instead of keeping it all localized within its own app, Photos farms out the task of managing uploads to the Google Settings app, which also handles location data, search functions ad settings and more. When you delete the Google Photos app, its settings live on, as do whatever backup settings you chose when you first installed it. It’s easy enough to disable (just pop into Google Settings and tap on “Google Photos Backup”), but it’s not very intuitive.
Filed under: Misc, Gaming, Mobile, Google
Via: Android Central
Source: Nashville Business Journal
Ex-‘Assassin’s Creed’ lead joins EA to build ‘Star Wars’
As a producer at Ubisoft and founder of Ubisoft Toronto, Jade Raymond had a hand in creating some of the most notable AAA experiences of our time, including Assassin’s Creed II and Watch Dogs. She left the company in October to pursue “new opportunities,” and now those ambitions have a name: Electronic Arts. Raymond has joined the company and opened Motive, a new EA studio in Montreal. Motive’s first project is the new Star Wars game coming from Uncharted series writer and Creative Director Amy Hennig. Raymond now also oversees Hennig’s studio, Visceral Games, and she says Motive will “work in close quarters with the BioWare team,” which is responsible for Mass Effect and Dragon Age. No pressure.
“I’m thrilled that the first big project that we will work on in Montreal will have Amy as Creative Director,” Raymond writes. “An opportunity to work with her and the Visceral team, and to play in the Star Wars universe, is once-in-a-lifetime stuff.”
Raymond is now a mastermind behind Star Wars, Mass Effect, Dragon Age and whatever else Motive and Visceral dream up. With a solid background in creating large, innovative experiences, it will be interesting to see how much Raymond can shake up EA’s established franchises.
Source: EA
Nintendo chief Satoru Iwata dies
It’s a sad, sad day in the video game world. Nintendo reports that President Satoru Iwata has died at the age of 55 due to a bile duct growth. The executive had been forced to skip E3 2014 due to health issues and had surgery to remove a growth later that year, but it’s unfortunately clear that this wasn’t enough. The company isn’t saying much about succession at this point, but it looks like Genyo Takeda and company legend Shigeru Miyamoto are taking the reins for now.
Iwata had a profound effect at Nintendo. He came to the company in 1983 and helped create some of the developer’s legendary titles, such as EarthBound and the early Kirby titles. He took charge of the firm’s corporate planning in 2000, and in 2002 became the first person to lead Nintendo that wasn’t part of the founding Yamauchi family.
His track record as the head of the firm is mixed, but memorable. He presided over most of the GameCube’s less-than-stellar history and, of course, the struggling Wii U. However, he also led the company through the Wii’s glory days, ushering in the era of motion-controlled gaming. Also, he helped cement Nintendo’s dominance in dedicated handhelds through the DS and 3DS. Moreover, his company was also gradually adapting to the reality of a smartphone-dominated world, with plans to develop mobile games.
Developing…
Via: Kotaku
Source: Nintendo (PDF)
7 games with a Zen state of mind
You’ve had a long day. Your alarm didn’t go off, so you rush to get to work. To make matters worse, you get to your bus just as it’s pulling away, so you have to wait 15 minutes for the next one. Then you spill coffee down the front of your shirt right before a meeting with a client. And to top it all off, it looks like you accidentally sexted your mom instead of your significant other. But it’s going to be all right, because as soon as you get home, you fire up that one game that’ll let you chill, zone out and play your problems away. For me, that Zen gaming go-to is Two Dots, with its deceptively simple connect-the-dots missive and pleasing illustrations seemingly ripped from the pages of a children’s book. But there are other, equally as charming and calming video games out there. So if you’re in need of a tranquil gaming fix, then we’ve got just the list for you.
[Image credit: thatgamecompany]
Twitch on Android can stream ‘Hearthstone’ while you play
Twitch loves Android. Following its persistent player that debuted on Google’s mobile OS this past April, the game-broadcasting outfit’s premiering a pop-out player window on the platform. Once popped, you can adjust the size at will and when you’re done, go back to the app to find the next broadcast to jump into. The implications of such, as noted on the Twitch blog, are that you could effectively watch someone play Hearthstone while you play a game of it yourself. Yo dawg.
What’s more, the outfit also recently announced that it’s added more transcode servers. The idea behind that being it’ll give broadcasters more flexibility for their shows, and viewers have the chance to choose the video quality that their connection can handle best. Twitch says that the plan is to make sure every one of its Partner streamers has the option available. Since it over-allotted the necessary hardware on its end, it’s providing the transcode option to the “most popular” non-Partners. The company writes that this brings the viewership numbers necessary to gain access to the feature to an all-time low, but as the number of Partners and the service itself grows, that low number is going to increase. So! Maybe take this opportunity to grow your follower count and hopefully insulate yourself, Twitch streamers.
Filed under: Gaming, Home Entertainment, HD, Mobile
Source: Twitch (1), (2)
Someone made real life ‘Splatoon’ weapons
Sure, they’re basically portable pressure-washer guns but they’re still strong enough to knock a grown man on his ass.
Filed under: Gaming, Home Entertainment, HD
Via: Siliconera
Source: YouTube
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