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It's complicated: Nintendo's relationship with indie gaming
Independent games are a cornerstone of Sony's PlayStation 4 messaging, and a contributing factor to the system's blockbuster success. They are not for Nintendo -- neither for the Wii U, nor the 3DS. An unsurprising strategy given the Japanese company's reliance on Mario and Zelda, its familiar, first-party franchises. And yet, independent games have had a presence on the company's digital software channel, the eShop, for almost a decade. Only now, they're more noticeable. "We've been supporting Indie content and self-publishing for a really long time," says Damon Baker, senior manager of licensing at Nintendo. "I mean, [going] back to the WiiWare, DSiWare days. But I think that it's just a more visible community because there's so much talent that's coming out of it; there's so much coverage for it that it just makes it naturally higher profile."
Another Steam Machine is coming, this one from Maingear
If you thought the Steam Machine news would be limited to Valve's announcement, well you're not quite right. Maingear's back to give the the platform another go with the Drift. What's in the aluminum box? An Intel i7-4790K processor mated with either an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 or an AMD Radeon R9 290X -- both of which are 4K capable. What's more, Maingear boasts that its Steam OS machine can hold up to 16GB of DDR RAM, a pair of 1TB solid state drives and a single 6TB hard drive as well. Those options alone will almost assuredly drive the price a bit beyond the $849 (!!!) baseline Mainger's asking.
Super-efficient 'Vulkan' leaves your games more graphics power
Psst: the games you play might not look as good (or run as smoothly) as they could. In many cases, the overhead from graphics standards gets in the way -- Apple went so far as to develop its own technology just to make sure that iPhones and iPads could live up to their potential. That bottleneck may not exist for much longer, however. The alliance behind the OpenGL video standard has given a sneak peek at Vulkan, an open standard that lets app writers take direct control of graphics chips and wring out extra performance on many devices, whether it's your phone or a hot rod gaming PC. The software isn't a magic bullet (developers still have to make good use of it), but it could easily lead to richer visuals and smoother frame rates without demanding beefier hardware.
Using NVIDIA's streaming, Android TV set-top box: the Shield
You already know what NVIDIA's latest Shield hardware is: an Android TV-powered set-top box that uses the latest chip from NVIDIA. It streams games over the company's "Netflix for gaming" platform known as GRID; it streams games from your local PC; it powers Twitch streaming at the same time of said streamed content; heck, it powers games like Crysis 3 locally, running on Android. But is it any good? The only answer I've got is maybe.
Shield: NVIDIA's $200 gaming-focused Android TV set-top box
Another year, another new Shield device from NVIDIA. What's Shield? It's the hardware line from NVIDIA that spans a bizarre handheld game console, a powerful gaming tablet, and now a $200, Android TV-powered set-top box. NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang unveiled the Android TV-powered set-top box this evening during a GDC 2015 press conference, which the company referred to as a combination "revolutionary TV", "gaming console" and "supercomputer." Head below for all the specs as we learn them live from NVIDIA.
$50 Steam Link streams PC games anywhere within your house
Along with a slew of new Steam Machines, Source Engine 2 and VR news, Valve announced an interesting add-on for anyone interested in in-home streaming for their PC games: Steam Link. These $50 boxes (in the US, international pricing is TBD) will stream content from your PC or Steam Machine, as long as they're on the same WiFi network. Adding a Steam Controller will cost an extra $50 when they launch in November, and can handle gaming in 1080p at 60Hz with low latency. Sony's Remote Play game streaming is a couple of generations old, while Microsoft just announced the feature for Windows 10, and now Valve has a cheap hardware solution too. The boxes were listed on the Steam store for a moment (see it in Google's cache here), and pictures showed a slim design, with three USB ports (one up front, two in the back) along with Ethernet, HDMI and power.
Valve's new 'Source 2' game engine has the low price of $0
Half-Life 2. Counterstrike: Source. Team Fortress 2. Left 4 Dead. Portal. Besides being developed by Valve, what else do those games share? They all run on the company's Source Engine that's been used since the first two released 11 years ago. Well, Valve has a new engine coming, officially, and it's aptly dubbed Source 2. Valve says that the focus of the engine this time 'round is "increasing creator productivity." The idea is to democratize game development and make it easier for amateurs (and budding indies) to use the toolset and enable them to, as Valve tells it, participate in the creation and development of their favorite games. In fact, the company specifically calls out the importance of user-generated content as a reason for making the engine easier to work with, which, undoubtedly plays into the millions of dollars its paying out to Steam Workshop creators.
Over a dozen Steam Machines 'more powerful' than consoles hit this fall
Valve continues to put console gaming in its crosshairs with news that a dozen new Steam Machines are hitting this November. Prices aren't concrete, but the company promises higher performance than game consoles starting at "the same price point." What's more, new units from Alienware and Falcon Northwest are on display at this year's Game Developers Conference, with the latter showing off Unreal Tournament running on a 4K monitor. Don't miss out on all the latest from GDC 2015! Follow along at our events page right here.
Valve's 'Lighthouse' VR tech brings TVs and headsets together
We already saw the new Vive virtual reality headset that Valve and HTC are working on, but they're not stopping there. Hardware engineer Alan Yates says that its Lighthouse room-scale tracking system brings the "high-resolution, high-speed tracking" that you need for a quality VR experience. According to Yates, the system is cheap enough to integrate into TVs, monitors, headsets, input devices or mobile devices. There's not a lot of detail on what exactly it includes, but it sounds a lot like the extra LEDs Sony just revealed on its new Project Morpheus prototype, and its PS Move controller. Those let the system track it with a camera to see how the wearer is moving in greater detail. Valve will make Lighthouse available to hardware manufacturers "freely," and we'll probably be looking for VR-ready stickers on our next TV or monitor. Don't miss out on all the latest from GDC 2015! Follow along at our events page here.
Using the PlayStation 4's new version of Project Morpheus
I just used Sony's newest version of the PlayStation 4 virtual reality headset, Project Morpheus. Rather, I should say that I just faced down a burly, British would-be-torturer before being whisked away to a first-person gunfight in a well-appointed London manor. That's "The London Heist," one of the new demos from Sony's London Studio being shown off this week at GDC 2015. It's intense, and demonstrative of the new prototype's upped specs.
Sony's PlayStation 4 VR headset launching in the 'first half of 2016'
Sony's PlayStation 4-powered virtual reality headset, Project Morpheus, has new specs and a slightly different look (seen above). Okay, it doesn't look that different. What's new? For one, the screen resolution is improved: it's now 1,920 x RGB x 1,080. The refresh rate is doubled from last year at 120Hz, and the new 5.7-inch screen also has a higher field of view (nearly 100 degrees). Oh right! It's got a new, bigger screen at 5.7 inches! But you already guessed that. Further upping the specs is lower latency, now under 18 milliseconds. Most importantly, the unit will launch at retail in "the first half of 2016." That's... kinda soon? Almost?
CyberPowerPC takes a second shot at Steam Machines
CyberPowerPC's original Steam Machine plans didn't amount to much (the company ultimately turned them into Windows boxes), but it's back again for another round. Its recently established Syber division has revealed that it will launch no less than six SteamOS computers this fall. The system builder isn't saying much about its new living room gaming rigs at the moment, but it'll give Game Developers Conference guests a sneak peek at three systems: the Mini, Mercury and Switch.
'Liquid VR' is AMD's push into virtual reality with software
The latest Silicon Valley company to hop on the virtual reality bandwagon is AMD, this morning unveiling what it's calling "Liquid VR": a software development kit aimed at making VR easier for everyone. The announcement comes from a presentation at GDC 2015 in San Francisco, where virtual reality is dominating the news. What does Liquid VR do for developers and users? It essentially makes everything much easier. As one AMD rep put it during this morning's presentation, "You can plug an Oculus Rift into a computer and start 3D rendering directly to the headset, even without Oculus' SDK." In so many words, Liquid VR is yet another solution for making various VR headsets work easily on various devices; it also optimizes the use of that headset for that particular computer (no doubt powered by AMD's chips).
We're live at the 2015 Game Developers Conference in San Francisco!
Every year, in late winter, covering the game industry gives me a chance to leave New York City at its most miserable. It's with great pleasure that I tell you, yes, we're here in San Francisco -- where it's 60 degrees and not 34 -- to bring you all the news, hands-ons, interviews, videos and combinations thereof, straight from the 2015 Game Developers Conference. From here on out, we're gonna make that name a bit simpler: GDC 2015. We've even got a page right here where you can keep up to date on all the aforementioned coverage. Head below for a brief rundown of the week to come.
'Mortal Kombat X' for mobile rewards your victories with konsole kred
After a lengthy hiatus, Mortal Kombat is coming back to the mobile world -- and it's giving you a few extra incentives to brutalize fighters while you're waiting for the bus. Mortal Kombat X will reach Android and iOS users on April 14th with not just the obligatory fatalities and other gory details, but a two-way reward system that encourages you to keep playing when you switch platforms. If you thrash enough suckers to unlock content on your phone, for example, you'll get some perks when you fire up your console at home. Something tells us the mobile MKX won't be as challenging as its full-size counterpart (swipe to finish someone off, really?), but look at it this way: it's not often that you get to break someone's jaw on your commute and feel good about it later.
Your phone now doubles as an Android TV game controller
So you want to play games on your Android TV set, but you'd rather not shell out for a gamepad? You might not have to in the near future. Google has revealed that an upcoming update to Google Play Services will let you use your Android mobile devices as controllers for Android TV games. If you want to start a four-way race or shooting match, you'll only have to ask friends to pull their phones out of their pockets. You'll have to wait for developers to use the technology before you can start playing, but that patience could pay off if it spares you from buying controllers that will likely spend most of their life gathering dust. Don't miss out on all the latest from GDC 2015! Follow along at our events page right here.
One of gaming's most used engines is now free
Created in Unreal Engine 4 Game development is expensive. It's not a question of the tools costing too much; game engines like Unity and GameMaker Studio offer free versions, and paid versions aren't far out of reach. That's a recent development, though. When the last generation of game consoles (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii) ruled the roost, the Unreal Engine was both ubiquitous and costly. Its latest iteration, Unreal Engine 4, is widely used, but has taken a sideline to free offerings from the likes of Unity. The engine's maker, Epic Games, isn't sitting idly by and letting the competition take over, though: as of this morning, Unreal Engine 4 is free for all to use.
Samsung's VR headset gets the first Oculus-powered paid app store
It's the day many, many virtual reality developers have been waiting for: Finally, a way to sell VR games to people with VR headsets. Namely, Oculus and Samsung's collaboration on the Gear VR headset is bearing digital fruit in the form of a digital store. In short: You can finally buy and sell games on Samsung's VR headset. That's a bigger deal than it sounds, as Gear VR's store has been riddled with little more than tech and game demos since its launch late last year. We've been anxious for deeper experiences, and many developers have been withholding those experiences for a time when they could actually make money on their work. Let the floodgates open!
'Light Field' 3D maps take VR broadcasting to the next level
Ever since I experienced a live 3D virtual reality broadcast for the first time, I've been giving demos of the technology to anyone who will sit still long enough for me to put a Gear VR on their head. Across the board, the reactions have included at least two things: "This is amazing," and, "Can you move around like you're really there?" Now, NextVR says the answer to that question is yes, since it's adding "Light Field" (aka plenoptic) capture technology to existing rigs (like this 6K unit shown above) that will let viewers look around the scene with full six degrees of freedom. This is similar to the tech Lytro uses for its cameras that lets you change focus after a picture is taken -- and just got a $50 million investment to implement on VR. According to NextVR, its patented approach creates a 3D geometric model of the scene (shown after the break) ready for headsets like the Oculus Rift, Sony's Project Morpheus or even augmented reality units like Microsoft's HoloLens or Magic Leap's... whatever it is.
Is this Valve's SteamVR headset?
Valve only just announced plans to bring a "SteamVR hardware system" to the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, and now we might have our first look at it. The sleuths at SteamDB have dug up this outline of a headset on the Steam Universe signup page, and it looks a bit different from anything we've seen from the likes of Oculus, Samsung or Sony. A year ago developers said that Valve was working with hardware with a higher resolution and refresh rate than what Oculus had at that time, but things could be different now. We'll be waiting until next week for confirmation (that three cables = Half Life 3, of course), but this may be the first accessory for your next Steam Box. Oh, and remember that Steam Controller with the added thumbstick? Today the Steam Client beta got an update with support for the new controller -- see you at GDC 2015!
