Sony isn’t allowing Bethesda to support mods for PS4 players
Bethesda has announced that there will no longer be mod support for its PlayStation 4 titles. Unfortunately, it seems Sony has informed the company that they will not be approving user mods in the way they “should work,” where users have free reign over what they can create for Fallout 4 or Skyrim Special Edition.
Previously, Bethesda had promised mod support for the console and all of the niceties that came with it: flying Randy Savage dragons, ridiculous mods where everything looks like pizza a la some other very talented modders and more. Bethesda is “very disappointed” in Sony’s decision, but didn’t offer an explanation as to why it had been made in the first place, only lamenting the “considerable time and effort” that went into making the project come to fruition.
Bethesda still considers it an important and integral part of its plans for Fallout 4 and Skyrim on PlayStation 4, but states that it cannot move forward until Sony “allows” it to offer mod support. Unfortunately until then players won’t be able to sift through the gobs and gobs of mods out there for either game. The situation could possibly change, as the end of Bethesda’s blog attests, and there are plans to update fans if it does.
It’s a strange turn of events, especially since mod support was a large part of the marketing surrounding Fallout 4. Previously, Bethesda had only announced a series of delays with the update for PlayStation 4 users, having issues with file size limits for mods imposed by Sony.
Sony has not yet offered further comment on the matter.
Source: Bethesda
Transferring data between PS4s will soon be a snap
PlayStation 4 is receiving an upgrade in the form of the 4.0 software update, which is bringing a ton of new features along with it.
Among said new features is the ability to transfer data between the multiple systems you’ll probably have in the future when the PlayStation 4 Slim and PlayStation 4 Pro make their debut. It’s as easy as using an Ethernet cable, which makes it seem like far less of a headache than you probably thought.
Sony has detailed the transfer process at the official PlayStation Blog, highlighting it as a way for buyers who make the jump from the base PS4 to the PS4 Pro. You’ll be able to copy all the pertinent data you need, like games, saves, videos, system settings and more utilizing just an Ethernet cord, and it won’t matter what model of PS4 you’re using. It should, in theory, just work.
Right now, the process is far more complicated. You have to back up your entire system to an external hard drive and then move it to the other system you want it to exist on going forward. You could also just log in with your PlayStation Network account and download all of your content again, but either way is a right pain.
There’s no launch date for the software update just yet, but there will be a firmware update coming next week along with the new PlayStation 4 Slim on September 15th. It’s meant to augment current PlayStation 4 systems with high dynamic range (HDR) support.
Via: Polygon
Source: PlayStation Blog
High-profile Kickstarter games see delays, port cancellations
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, was crowdfunded to the tune of $5.5 million last year, with an ETA of March 2017. It promises to be a spiritual successor to the Castlevania series, but this week, project lead Koji Igarashi (known colloquially as IGA) personally announced via Kickstarter that the game will now be pushed back to “the first half of 2018.” The delay, IGA says, is because the game is currently at risk of not “meeting [his] quality standards.” To that end, he’s adding additional developers to the team, who will hopefully be able to put the project back on track. He also offered his apologies to anyone affected by the delay.
Separately, Hyper Light Drifter developer Heart Machine updated its Kickstarter, informing backers that the planned Wii U and Vita ports of the game are canceled. Speaking directly to backers, Heart Machine-founder (and director of the game) Alex Preston spoke about a need to prioritize his own health — he has a congenital heart disease which served in part as inspiration for the game — after several years of solid development. Despite his best efforts to complete both ports, the task proved impossible, he said, and after missing many treatments, he’s making the call to cancel development. “I’m sorry,” he told backers, “[but] I have to prioritize my own health right now.”
Explaining why these ports were so problematic, Preston said the Wii U port was down to issues with the game’s engine, GameMaker: Studio. Despite promises made, GameMaker owners YoYo Games and Nintendo couldn’t come to an agreement that would allow a native port on the system. The Vita version, meanwhile, was not performing to an adequate level despite “months” of work attempting to optimize it. The team will continue to push ahead with updates and fulfilling other rewards, with a large update planned in the coming weeks. Backers who requested a Wii U or a Vita copy of the game will be able to choose between other supported platforms or a refund.
Hyper Light Drifter backers’ responses to the news have been varied. There were many delays leading up to the original release earlier this year, with quality issues and Preston’s health largely to blame. The cancellation of the two ports after a three-year wait has provoked anger from some backers, and that’s understandable. But for every angry response, many more encouraging comments can be found.
For Bloodstained, backers have made comparisons to another high-profile not-a-reboot, Mighty No. 9. A spiritual successor to Mega Man, it was plagued by multiple delays. The original “Spring 2015” date was only pushed back in April 2015, then the “September 2015” release date got switched in August 2015. The final insult came when a February 2016 release date was only scrapped on January 25th, 2016. But while Mighty No. 9’s developers were slammed hard for missing their targets, backers of Bloodstained have so far been more understanding. That’s partly down to this being the first delay, but also due to IGA revealing the news six months in advance, and a generally being better at communicating the development process in general.
Bloodstained and Hyper Light Drifter are but two examples of a wider trend: troubled Kickstarters. For every successful project, like Republique, there’s a game that never materialized or failed to deliver on all of its promises. Mighty No. 9 was one such game. The 2D platformer was supposed to be a retro-modern fantasy, bringing the Mega Man series back to life. But the game was near-universally panned, and fans’ disappointment was compounded by the fact it had been delayed so much.
High-profile failures have tarnished Kickstarter’s reputation, and made it harder for games to get funded. But there’s a lesson consumers are beginning to learn. It should be clearer than ever that you’re not buying a game when you’re backing a project like Bloodstained. You’re giving money to a person or a team that wants to try and make something, because you want them to make it. If they’re successful, you’ll get what you asked for. If they’re not, you might get nothing. Head into every Kickstarter with that attitude, and only part with your money if you’re willing to accept the risks.
Doom’s multiplayer patch adds a messy free-for-all deathmatch
The new Doom had a bit of a different strategy for multiplayer when it launched earlier this year. The team at id Software focused on playing to the game’s strengths by offering play-as-a-demon game-types alongside Freeze Tag, riffs on traditional modes like Warpath (king of the hill) and the tried but true team deathmatch. The game’s next update adds free-for-all deathmatch (no cooperating with strangers on the internet required) and private matches, while an arcade mode for the single-player campaign is slated for later this fall.
Details are light at the moment, but there’s a trailer embedded below that should give you an idea of how deathmatch plays out. Spoiler: It looks like deathmatch! Not a slight against the game whatsoever, mind you, it’s just hard to make the mode look particularly unique without betraying the elegant simplicity of running around and sticking a virtual shotgun in someone’s face. Id has a Twitch stream scheduled for next week where it’ll show off more of what’s coming in the next free update.
Xbox is hosting the stream on its Twitch channel and fittingly enough, there will be a custom Doom;-themed Xbox One S up for grabs in addition to copies of the game signed by the development team. Want in? Then set a calendar reminder for next Tuesday the 13th at 1pm Eastern.
Source: Bethesda.net
Mix up ‘Rocket League’ action with Rumble Mode and item trading
We’re still waiting to see fully cross-platform Rocket League, but the game just made some other adjustments to keep things fresh for regular players. Dubbed Rumble Mode, the new 3v3 gameplay variant tosses in everything from a grappling hook to a tornado. Even better, more people can enjoy it now that the game has a beta version available on Linux and OS X, and at least on Steam, the game and all DLC are available for 25 percent off. One thing to note: Psyonix says it is aware of framerate issues post-patch and is “actively investigating.”
Those are hardly the only changes included in the v1.22 patch (you may enjoy trading items with other players or saving car customizations that switch depending on what color team you’re assigned), but you can see the full changelog here.
Source: Rocket League
Jonathan Blow’s ‘The Witness’ gets the PlayStation 4 Pro treatment
The Witness, Jonathan Blow’s latest release, is getting a special patch for the PlayStation 4 Pro to augment its visuals since it’s coming to a brand new home. Blow’s team at Thekla, Inc. is making it possible to enjoy the game at a higher resolution than ever before, offering an upgrade in visual fidelity over an increase in frame rate. The announcement comes right after Sony’s special PlayStation event, where the PS4 Pro was officially unveiled.
The Witness currently runs at 60fps on the PlayStation 4, and it will do the same on the PS4 Pro. However, when you use a PS4 Pro with a 4K display, it will be rendered at 1440p or higher while remaining at 60fps. In addition, it’ll be upscaled to 4K from there, with text, menus and other miscellaneous UI bits and bobs rendered at native 4K resolution. These aren’t the finalized specs just yet, but an estimation based on engineering tradeoffs, as communicated by Thekla.
If you’re using a PS4 Pro with a display that’s 1080p or less, the game will be rendered at 1080p instead of its previous 900p, with an increase in antialiasing quality from 2X to 4X MSAA. It’ll also remain at 60fps. These specs aren’t final, either, but Thekla will be announcing when they are in the near future.
PlayStation 4 Pro owners won’t be the only ones getting in on the graphical upgrades, though. Thekla is also interested in providing HDR support via patch when the company knows more about if and when it will be able to provide it. As far as PS4 Pro users, however, the aforementioned patch will be available on November 10th, launching alongside the system itself.
Source: Thekla, Inc.
The Professional eSports Association officially launches in 2017
The Professional eSports Association (PEA) has announced that it will officially begin operating in January 2017 with its inaugural title as Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. The PEA will be launching with seven prominent North American teams behind it: Team Solomid, Cloud9, Team Liquid, Counter Logic Gaming, Immortals, NRG eSports and compLexity Gaming. As Jason Katz, Commissioner of the PEA, states, the organization definitely represents “something new in eSports,” and that is a professional organization where the largest teams in North America have joined together to create a more “stable, healthy, long-term environment for the players.”
The organization is taking steps to address issues raised by professional eSports players over the last year or so related to issues whether spots in tournaments are for the players or the organizations to which they belong. To help combat this, the PEA is forming a Rules and Grievances Committee staffed by players to allow them a stronger, vocal influence over the way the PEA operations.
As far as the gaming side of the organization, the PEA has announced the format for the first season of its CS:GO league. It’ll include 10-week season with live matches played twice a week for a $500,000 prize pot.
There will also be a split of the revenue 50/50 between players and organizations. It seems like a positive step forward for eSports players, and a great way to improve relations between organizations and their stars.
Source: Professional eSports Association
Xbox One S helped Microsoft outsell the PS4 in August
The Xbox One outsold the PlayStation 4 in August, thanks to a boost from Microsoft’s latest console, the Xbox One S. A 2TB model of the Xbox One S hit shelves on August 2nd for $400 and sales of the new console are bundled under the broader “Xbox One” banner. The Xbox One S supports HDR, 4K gaming, streaming and Blu-ray, and it’s 40 percent smaller than the launch model.
Microsoft didn’t include sales figures in today’s announcement, though it did take the opportunity to poke fun at Sony. The PlayStation 4 Pro is Sony’s version of a 4K console, though we discovered yesterday that it doesn’t have an Ultra HD Blu-ray player. This is odd coming from the company that ushered in the gaming console Blu-ray player with the PS3.
With that in mind, Xbox Marketing CVP Mike Nichols offered the following in today’s statement about Xbox One S sales (emphasis added): “Thanks to our fans and their excitement for new Xbox One games and the recently launched Xbox One S, which is the only console available this holiday with built-in UHD 4K Blu-ray, 4K video streaming and HDR for video and gaming, Xbox One was the best-selling console in the U.S. in August, according to NPD Group.”
Sick burn, Nichols.
The 1TB and 500GB versions of the Xbox One S hit the market in late August; the 1TB model is $350 and the 500GB edition is $300. And then there’s Project Scorpio, the VR-ready 4K behemoth that Microsoft plans to drop in late 2017. Sony is also iterating on the current console generation, with plans to release the PS4 Pro on November 10th and a slimmer version of the PS4 on September 15th.
Welcome to the final console generation as we know it
PlayStation 4 architect Mark Cerny practically whispered into his microphone as he introduced the world to Sony’s latest console iteration, the PS4 Pro. His voice was at odds with the setting: He stood at the center of attention in a New York City auditorium packed with journalists and fans eager to hear about the latest and greatest Sony gaming technology. Amid frantic keyboard tapping and camera flashes, Cerny described the PS4 Pro’s upgrades like a museum curator detailing a magnificent piece of art he’d just acquired.
The Pro’s GPU is twice as fast as the standard PS4, it can handle PSVR out of the box, it has a 1TB hard drive, boosted clock rate, and it supports 4K and HDR gaming. Even some older games, including Shadow of Mordor and Infamous: First Light, will be patched to support 4K and HDR features in a move that Sony labels, “forward compatibility.”
Cerny called the PS4 Pro transformative, while PlayStation CEO Andrew House stressed that Sony wanted to ensure anyone playing on the new, beefed-up console would still be a part of the overall PS4 community.
“PS4 Pro is not intended to blur the lines between console generations,” Cerny said.
However, despite Sony’s best intentions, the PS4 Pro smudges this generational dividing line. Modern console generations have followed a fairly rigid pattern: standard console, “slim” console, rumors of a new console. Rinse and repeat for the next four to eight years.
Now, Sony and Microsoft have announced slimmer versions of the PS4 and Xbox One, but they’ve added another console iteration to the mix. Microsoft has Project Scorpio, a 4K, VR-ready console with juicier guts than the Xbox One. And Sony, of course, has the PS4 Pro.
Both of these consoles feel like a half-step forward. They aren’t part of a new console generation, but they are distinctly more powerful than their predecessors. It’s like Apple revealing the iPhone 6s a year after launching the iPhone 6. It’s like Alienware, Dell or HP announcing a new gaming PC: It’s fancier and faster, but it still plays all the games you already own.
These similarities to smartphone and PC upgrade cycles aren’t an accident. They’re a business plan.
“We think the future is without console generations,” head of Xbox games marketing Aaron Greenberg said in August. “We think that the ability to build a library, a community, to be able to iterate with the hardware — we’re making a pretty big bet on that with Project Scorpio. We’re basically saying, ‘This isn’t a new generation; everything you have continues forward and it works.’ We think of this as a family of devices.”
Even back in March, Xbox boss Phil Spencer compared the future of consoles to the PC market.
“We can effectively feel a little more like what we see on PC, where I can still go back and run my old Doom and Quake games that I ran so many years ago and still see the best new 4K games come out — and my whole library is always with me,” Spencer said.
Sony hasn’t been as open about its shift to a PC or smartphone approach to console generations, but it’s following Microsoft’s lead. In fact, it may be at the front of the pack: The PS4 Pro is scheduled to hit shelves a full year before Scorpio. The Pro lands on November 10th for $400, while Scorpio is due to land at the end of 2017.
This is not the end of consoles. It’s a moment of liberation. Microsoft and Sony can take advantage of faster iteration cycles to pump out more consoles, not fewer, though the changes in each new model may be incremental. (Maybe Valve was onto something with the Steam Machines after all.)
Despite Microsoft, Sony or Cerny’s intentions, console generations are definitely changing — but consoles themselves are not disappearing. The lines are just a little blurrier now.
Sony’s PlayStation 4 Pro reveal was a confident step forward
It’s been a good year so far for Sony Interactive Entertainment. Yesterday’s PlayStation Meeting continued the momentum from E3 and showed us the next step in its plan for home console domination: the PlayStation 4 Pro. The company’s strategy was simple: show, rather than tell. The big news, if you own a fancy UHD display, is that Pro will play nicely with all those extra pixels and show off your screen’s HDR capabilities.
Unlike with the Xbox One S, Sony also spelled out the benefits of buying a Pro, even if you don’t own a 4K TV. The new, beefier machine will make existing games look and perform better on the 1080p TV that’s sitting in your living room right now, and it can also give PlayStation VR games a facelift, too. All for $399 this November 10th. Sony’s always had the edge on Microsoft with this generation, but a strong finish to 2016 feels like the gap could be widening.
Over at Microsoft HQ, the company is banking on you either buying an Xbox One S right now or waiting for its high-powered console, code-named Project Scorpio, next fall based on little more than blind faith. Faith that its scant offering of (sight unseen) HDR games will drive you to buy a One S. Faith that Microsoft still knows enough about high-spec hardware, faith that it can get developers to support the Project Scorpio and faith that your investment in its experiment won’t go to waste. That was the pitch during its E3 keynote earlier this summer, at least — all without a price, release date or Scorpio hardware to actually show off.
Insomniac Games’ Spider-Man looks particularly awesome on the PS4 Pro hardware.
In terms of HDR gaming on Xbox, Forza Horizon 3 will launch September 27th and there hasn’t been a single demonstration of what impact the increased color gamut will have. Gears of War 4 comes out in October and barring a handful of theater presentations on the industry-only E3 show floor, it’s been kept away from the public gaze. You can’t even download HDR-enabled trailers for either from the Xbox Marketplace to get an idea of what the console’s biggest game-related feature will look like. Microsoft will have the bragging rights of being first with HDR, sure, but at some point you need to reveal your longer-term hand.
And that’s precisely what the competition did. Sony delighted in showing off exactly what benefits HDR has for its gaming system. Even watching the event stream at home, the benefits were pretty obvious: games that are typically very dark (like Infamous: First Light) showed extremely bright pops of color and much more detail. In person, it’ll look dramatically better.
Uncharted 4 and The Last of Us look stellar in HDR. Higher-res is cool too, but man… those sunsets in HDR… 😎 #PS4Pro
— Neil Druckmann (@Neil_Druckmann) September 7, 2016
Demos for Days Gone, Infamous: First Light and Deus Ex: Mankind Divided all graced the stage of the PlayStation Theater. There were also announcements that this year’s Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare and Modern Warfare Remastered will support HDR as well, and Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End and The Last of Us: Remastered will be upgraded to HDR via a patch. An internal source at Epic Games told Engadget that Paragon will also receive a patch that adds the feature, too. All this to say, there’s going to be something running in HDR for pretty much any gaming taste. And Sony’s not been shy about showing it off.
Microsoft’s other promise is that Project Scorpio’s raw horsepower is going to be enough to win you over next year, with no evidence of what it can do or how much it will cost. “We know it’s important to deliver an experience that demonstrates the power gap between [the PS4 Pro and Scorpio] at a price that makes sense to console gamers,” Microsoft’s Albert Pennello told Polygon. “The performance delta will be obvious.” Of course, that’s pretty easy to boast about when so little is known about Scorpio and specs are likely to change from one day to the next.
Again, Sony’s tactic was to let the games speak for themselves, rather than show off a motherboard and blather on about specs and buzzwords. Next year’s Horizon: Zero Dawn looked incredible, as did Rise of the Tomb Raider, Uncharted 4, Spider-Man, Watch Dogs 2 and pretty much everything else from the sizzle reels and live demos shown onstage. Sony was keen to explain the benefits of the Pro for folks without 4K TVs as well: more detailed imagery and overall better performance for the games you already own (or will own). People’s memories aren’t reliable, and things like the Scorpio’s 6.2 teraflops of power mean close to nothing next to the sight of a tough ginger lady riding a pin-sharp robotic brachiosaur.
Sony also extended its lead on virtual reality. On certain PS VR titles, the Pro’s hardware can double the pixel count resulting in better looks all around. Sony used clear examples to illustrate the Pro’s value proposition rather than pie in the sky platitudes. That hardware is basically ready, and the PS4 Pro will put headsets on, well, heads by the holidays. This clarity is the same basic strategy that’s put 40 million-plus PlayStation 4s in homes since 2013. Exactly what Microsoft’s VR plans are for Project Scorpio, however are still largely a mystery.
If Microsoft has one joker to play it’s the fact that Sony’s consoles don’t have a UHD Blu-ray player stuffed inside them.
There is, however, a common problem that affects both Microsoft and Sony: Each company is making a bet that, for the first time ever, we don’t need exclusive software to persuade us to buy a console. Sony has been adamant that the Pro is not replacing the standard PS4 (that’s the PS4 Slim’s job). Instead, the Pro exists for folks who want a little extra power from a machine or have a new display to connect it to. Microsoft’s company line isn’t much different. Aside from VR titles (which we still know nothing about), all Xbox One games will supposedly play on any version of the hardware, be it Scorpio, the One S or the Xbox platform on PC, yet despite similar approaches, Microsoft can’t seem to keep up with Sony’s onward march.
If Microsoft has one joker to play it’s the fact that Sony’s consoles don’t have a UHD Blu-ray player stuffed inside them. The Xbox One S does, and Project Scorpio seems certain to. The $399 1TB One S includes the next-gen physical media format because internally, the console is barely different from its predecessor in terms of power. Sony doesn’t have that advantage with the Pro. The UHD Blu-ray drive was likely a sacrifice Sony made to hit $399 while still dramatically bumping specs everywhere else.
That makes the question of which console to buy this fall a little tougher: Do you want to play games, and watch higher-resolution Blu-rays? Sony’s console offers gamers a distinct choice. Whether you’re going to upgrade your TV or not, the Pro has clear advantages over the PS4 of today. That’s something I couldn’t say when I reviewed the Xbox One S. Your move, Microsoft.
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