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Sony pulls out of PAX East over coronavirus concerns
Sony is pulling out of PAX East this year owing to coronavirus concerns. The company had planned to showcase a number of upcoming PlayStation 4 games there, including offering gamers their first chance to try a demo of The Last of Us Part II.
Gearbox officially announces 'Borderlands 3'
After several teasers over the last few weeks, Gearbox Software officially revealed Borderlands 3 at Pax East. The first trailer reveals the long-awaited sequel will include over a billion guns (including some with legs), plenty of familiar faces (such as a saxophone-playing Brick and Tiny Tina) and some new characters. It also showcases a number of locations, including a swamp, desert and city full of highrise buildings, as well as plenty of enemies for you to take down.
Gearbox teases 'Borderlands 3' reveal on March 28th
Yes, an honest-to-goodness Borderlands sequel (not a pre-sequel) appears to be on the horizon. Gearbox has posted a teaser for what's likely to be the Borderlands 3 reveal at PAX East on March 28th. It doesn't say much about the game, but there's not much mystery here -- not when it features Borderlands' signature cell-shaded art and a "3" at the top.
MLS eSports league's first tournament streams on Twitch this April
Last month, Major League Soccer became the latest US sports association to create its own eSports league, eMLS, which will exclusively run EA Sports' game FIFA 18. We knew its first-ever event would be a tournament (the eMLS Cup) at the upcoming PAX East where 19 players, each representing an MLS team, will compete to qualify for the league's global playoffs. But today, the nascent eMLS has laid out how the tournament will go down -- and where folks at home can stream it.
Major League Soccer is creating its own FIFA eSports league
There's a new eSports organization in town. In partnership with EA Sports, Major League Soccer is launching eMLS -- an eSports league in which 19 of the 23 MLS clubs will select a competitor to represent them. Those gamers will compete in the eMLS Cup, which will take place during PAX East in April, and the winner will then go on to the FIFA 18 Global Series and have a chance to play in the FIFA eWorld Cup.
'Voodoo Vince Remastered' brings the bayou to Xbox April 18th
Cult classic Voodoo Vince is getting a second chance at life (death?) next month. Come April 18th, the quirky platformer from Microsoft's first game console will launch as a Play Anywhere title on Windows 10 and Xbox One in the form of Voodoo Vince Remastered. As a post on Xbox Wire tells it, the game will run you $14.99. Want to meet with its developer, Clayton Kauzlaric? If you're in Boston this weekend for PAX East you can talk to him at the show and get your hands on Xbox chief Phil Spencer's favorite game before anyone else.
Operation Finish All the Games: April 2016
After a bit of a squeaker back in March, I'm happy to say I'm back on track with my quest to reduce my backlog by completing one game a month for the entire year of 2016. Unfortunately, my "currently playing" list seems to be growing quite a bit on its own, occupied by various titles that I have very little hope of finishing any time soon. But, that's an issue for next month's post. How did I do in April?
Logitech made this retro game display from 160 light-up keyboards
Because when there's VR and cosplay around the corner, a simple gaming keyboard is not going to cut it.
PAX East beta invites now active
Players who attended PAX East earlier this year and played Warlords of Draenor also found themselves in possession of beta keys for the new expansion. However, the keys were not immediately available for use, as the beta hadn't launched. Now that beta has officially rolled out, those keys are fully functional, according to a tweet made yesterday on the official Twitter account. Those who received a #Warlords beta key from us at PAX East can now claim them! Those who claimed them before should be flagged for access.- World of Warcraft (@Warcraft) June 27, 2014 If you immediately used your key when you got home from the convention, your account should now be properly flagged for beta access. If you have not used your key, you may log into your Battle.net account and use it to gain access to the beta. This is in addition to the beta invites that rolled out yesterday -- so if you happened to attend PAX East and pick up a key, be sure to claim it now that you can.
Play Warlords of Draenor at PAX East, get beta access
If you're at PAX East this weekend, you may want to find the Blizzard booth post haste. Why, you may ask? I'll tell you why. Play #Warlords of Draenor at #PAXEast and get a beta key for use in a future testing phase! pic.twitter.com/6MbSeeIJgx - World of Warcraft (@Warcraft) April 11, 2014 Because that's why - if you play Warlords of Draenor while you're at PAX East, you get a beta key for use when Warlords of Draenor enters later testing. So if you're there or planning on attending, you should get on that. It's interesting they have this for conventions like PAX East but they didn't for BlizzCon - I'm not sure why that is. But have it now they do. Community Manager Lore has tweeted that there will be other opportunities to gain beta access, so perhaps keep an eye out for other convention appearances by Blizzard.
Twitch takes over streaming duties for PAX, New York Comic Con
The folks in charge of running America's largest biannual gaming event are teaming up with gaming's most popular streaming solution to offer streams of PAX Prime, PAX East, and New York Comic Con going forward. The company behind all three conventions, ReedPOP, are working in conjunction with Twitch.tv to offer live broadcasts from the aforementioned three shows, as well as Chicago's Comic & Entertainment Expo. ReedPOP also runs PAX Australia, though it looks like Twitch isn't handling that streaming as well. Twitch's biggest competitor in the streaming space, Ustream, secured a deal with Sony to handle streaming from the company's forthcoming PlayStation 4 game console. Microsoft's Xbox One can also handle streaming -- Xbox One distinguished engineer Nick Baker told Engadget, "We architected in several components to allow that. We have a video hardware encoder, h.264, and the ability to essentially screen scrape. Take your output without having to render two separate images. Take your output, feed that back to memory, compress it, save it, stream it to a companion device. The hardware has the capability." Microsoft has yet to announce a plan for how its streaming will work on Xbox One, but we imagine we'll know much more as of next week.
Corsair debuting Vengeance gaming headset, PC case at PAX East
You don't need a webcam-charted mood-graph to tell you that gaming can be a frustrating, enraging experience. Unbridled rage only begets revenge -- lucky for you, then, that Corsair is beefing up its Vengeance gaming line-up. Its $149 Vengeance 2000 2.4GHz wireless 7.1 headset, for instance, hopes to help you suss out the location your foe with its optimized HRTF (head-related transfer function) positional audio chops. Failing that, you could always wrap your hardware in the outfit's new C70 PC gaming case, a rugged rack designed to look like an ammo-box. This $139 steeled exterior case has room for eight PCI-E slots, 10 fan mounts, dual USB 3.0 ports and six SSD-ready hard drive bays -- in arctic white, gunmetal black and the traditional military green. You can mosey on past the break for a peek at Corsair's official press release, but folks in Boston will be able to able to check out the new digs in person at PAX East this weekend. If, you know, Vengeance is your thing.[Thanks, Justin]
PAX East 2011: Turbine makes the case for the free-to-play model
"Pioneers get the gold!" Turbine's Fernando Paiz is fond of saying. "And they get the arrows too..." Instead of the wild, wild west, Paiz was referring to the frontier of MMORPG business models, companies that have diverged from traditional subscriptions over the past 10 years. In a presentation at PAX East titled "The Game Monetization Revolution," he shared how this movement has come about, ways that it can fail, and how pioneers have grabbed the gold by getting it right. Of course, Paiz has a great perspective on this revolution, having helmed Dungeons & Dragons Online as it made the transition from a pure subscription game to a hybrid free-to-play/subscription title. Both DDO and Lord of the Rings Online have done tremendously well since moving to this business model, proving that AAA titles can thrive outside of the subscription-only checkout lane. Hit the jump as Fernando Paiz takes us down memory lane and addresses the biggest fear players have with F2P.
PAX East 2011: Hands-on with Nexon's Dragon Nest and Vindictus
Nexon spread its wings over much of PAX East's exhibit hall this year, with booths scattered about dedicated to it and its partners' various titles. At the center of the storm lay one of Nexon's hottest new properties, Dragon Nest, which was available for all manner of pokings and proddings. I sat down to play through a couple of Dragon Nest's dungeons with Dee Lee and Moon Kim, who provided commentary on the various game features we were seeing. At its core, Dragon Nest is a fast-paced dungeon crawler, a mash-up between Dungeon Runners, Diablo and Final Fantasy. Instead of spending time roaming around the world, players will primarily be jumping into multi-stage instances over and over again. Each dungeon, such as the Forest Sanctuary and the Valley of Mourning, can accommodate between one to four players (or up to eight for raids) as they try to battle their way to the end boss. It's colorful, heavy on clicking, and definitely arcade-like through and through. Hit the jump to hear the rest of our Dragon Nest impressions as well as a sneak peek at Vindictus' big update coming later this month!
Radeon HD 6990 pictured, GeForce GTX 590 rumored for PAX East 2011 reveal
Multiple cores are old hat, particularly in the GPU world where you can have hundreds of simultaneous processing units working in concert, but multiple GPUs on the same PCB, that's still exciting territory (not least because of the crazy thermal and power requirements that go with it). AMD and NVIDIA are set to clash horns on this field of battle once again, fishing for mindshare as much as they are for high premium sales, with the Radeon HD 6990 and GeForce GTX 590, respectively. The former has already slipped out of the shadows of mystery to reveal a size slightly longer than an A4 sheet of paper, while the latter is being rumored for an unveiling at the PAX East 2011 gamer gathering. Expected GTX 590 specs include 1,024 total CUDA cores, 3GB of onboard RAM with dual 384-bit memory controllers, and three DVI outputs for some single-card 3D Vision Surround gaming. This year's PAX East is kicking off on March 11th and AMD is also looking very close to launching its part, so you should need no more than a couple of weeks' worth of patience before everything about the latest and greatest from both camps is known.
[Updated] Meet up with the Massively staff at PAX East, win prizes
If you're in Boston next week for PAX East and you suddenly find yourself shirtless, we may be able to help. We'll be giving away Massively t-shirts at the expo throughout the weekend of March 26th - 28th, and you can bet we'll be having some fun while doing it. We'll have two contests involving Twitter: one as a scavenger hunt for swag (appropriately named the Swavenger Hunt) and one as a hide-and-seek contest based on tweeted photos around the expo floor. Plus, we'll be sure to have a small informal meet-up with readers while we're there. Follow along after the jump for a schedule of events and details on how you can win yourself a Massively t-shirt. Shirtlessness not required.
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480 and GTX 470 Fermi cards launching March 26th
It's okay, we understand your confusion, but the news here isn't that NVIDIA uses CoTweet as its Twitter client. What's exciting is that the GeForce GTX 480 and GTX 470 -- the company's first to use the new Fermi architecture -- are just over a month from release. Friday, March 26th, and given that also happens to coincidence with the kickoff date for Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) East 2010 (of which NVIDIA is a major sponsor), we tend to think that's not just some convenient coincidence. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
