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YouTube hiring for next-gen console app integration [update]
YouTube is padding its ranks with next-gen gaming console programmers, looking to "build the next generation game-console-based TV experience with YouTube video content," a Google Jobs listing found by IGN reveals. YouTube already has an app on Xbox 360, but apparently it wants to build a presence across all next-gen platforms, seeking someone with "deep technical knowledge of Microsoft Xbox 360, Sony PlayStation 3 and/or Nintendo Wii."YouTube is seeking someone to "deliver a compelling lean back experience with monetization and e-commerce offerings (ie, pay-per-stream, ads)" and "develop leading edge User Interfaces and delight users with innovative media rich solutions." Looks like YouTube wants to figure out how to take our money, but wants to make us happy about it. That's better than wanting our money, but making us depressed about it.Now if YouTube would develop a PC app, it'd have all the important consoles covered. Oh... wait.Update: This is actually the same job listing Google posted a year ago. Please, someone go make YouTube's new app already!
Ready at Dawn on going from handheld to next-gen, and getting away from GoW
Ready at Dawn is known for having crafted two excellent God of War games for PSP, as well as assisting in their porting to the PlayStation 3. Unfortunately for Ready at Dawn, the company isn't known for much else – an issue that co-founder and CEO Ru Weerasuriya aims to fix by setting a new direction for his studio."When it came to really decide what we wanted to do next, I think most of the guys internally just wanted to do something that, in some ways, we had built this company for. It's taken us time to get there and we've wanted to do new IP, we've been working on it for a while, and we felt the time was right and it was just the perfect alignment of everything that was happening," Weerasuriya told GamesIndustry International.Which isn't to say the team never considered resting on its laurels and crafting yet another portable God of War, this time for the Vita. "It's an idea that was floated as far as what could happen on the Vita. And especially with a platform like that, we were enticed I think by the prospect of doing something on that platform, but it just didn't align with what we wanted," Weerasuriya said. He'd still love for Sony to do such a project ("There's so much potential for it!"), but for the first time in four-plus years, his studio isn't working on Kratos' next portable game.
Microsoft says there will be 'no talk of new Xbox hardware at E3 or anytime soon'
Sony has already confirmed that we won't be seeing a next-generation PlayStation at this year's E3 trade show, and now Microsoft has also come out and dampened any expectations about a new Xbox possibly making its debut. In a statement published by Kotaku (following a report on Twitter from Bloomberg's Dina Bass), a Microsoft spokesperson says flatly that "while we appreciate all the interest in our long-range plans for the future, we can confirm that there will be no talk of new Xbox hardware at E3 or anytime soon." The statement goes on to say that "2012 is all about Xbox 360," before rattling off a list of milestones and some of the big titles planned for release this year. That leaves Nintendo with the stage to itself hardware-wise, which will presumably be showing off more of its next-generation console, the Wii U.
Battlefield 3's rendering architect details his dream specs for the next generation of consoles
During the Game Developer's Choice awards, DICE took home the prize of "Best Technology" for its Frostbite 2 engine. After accepting the award on behalf of his team, we asked DICE rendering architect Johan Andersson what the next generation of consoles would need to include for Frostbite 2 to work 'perfectly and as intended on high-end PCs.' To Andersson, the answer is "pretty easy to answer." "There's two things: memory and processing power," he said. "We need lots and lots of processing power. The more you can cram into a machine, we'll take advantage of that." While 'more power' is the obvious answer -- both on the CPU and GPU side -- we wondered what wouldn't be 'enough' to work with."Two gigabytes would not be enough when it comes to RAM [random access memory]" Andersson said. "Four gigabytes would work. Eight gigabytes? Yeah. I think that would be perfect when it comes to memory." Recommended system specifications for Battlefield 3 call for 4GB of RAM.
God of War PSP studio readying next-gen third-person action title
After declaring themselves as officially done with God of War PSP games, and even going as far as to announce a "story driven action-adventure game based on original IP" back in late 2010, Ready at Dawn staffers promptly revealed they were ... creating a PlayStation 3 port of their previously PSP-exclusive God of War titles. Not quite what we were expecting! If recent job listings are any indication, though, it looks like Ready at Dawn is still working on that original IP -- but now, the game is also headed to a "next-generation home console game system." Eurogamer spotted listings for a variety of jobs on Ready at Dawn's job page, seeking experienced professionals in a variety of disciplines, from concept artists to a graphics programmer to a senior level designer. Little information can be gleaned from the listings beyond the general project, but we've reached out to Ready at Dawn for more info.
Debunk: Xbox720.com, Playstation4.com aren't owned by Microsoft, Sony
We'll wait while you click these links -- Xbox720.com and PlayStation4.com -- to see that they do indeed redirect to random technology-news pages. We'll even wait a little longer as you open a new tab, type both of those addresses in and see that we weren't lying, and they really do redirect to unofficial sites. Now we'll take a few seconds to get over the fact that you didn't trust us. Without trust there is no love; remember that.Yesterday Xbox720.com redirected to the US PlayStation website, but it appears the domain owner has used the attention gained from that to open his own blog, Fusible reports. Xbox720.com now redirects to a tech-news aggregation site and was previously monetized via Google's Adsense program; before that it hosted random sites dating back to 2006 at least. In November 2011, the site was registered to Jeremiah Germany, but that information is now protected through Whois Privacy.PlayStation4.com redirects to a PlayStation news and cheat site.It appears the redirections aren't as vindictive as the ModernWarfare3.com debacle, in which a Battlefield fan used the domain to convert Call of Duty players to his shooter of choice. We don't even know what the next Xbox will be called -- considering the first Xbox wasn't called "180," it's not set in stone that the third iteration will follow in the 360's footsteps. However, Microsoft's Xbox360.com redirects to the main Xbox site, and Sony's PlayStation3.com heads to the US PlayStation page, so it follows that they would want similar sites to do the same. [Image credit: Joseph Dumary]
Unreal Engine 4 to be seen 'later this year,' says Mark Rein
Epic's Mark Rein did some hit-and-run teasing at DICE last week, telling G4 that "people are going to be shocked later this year when they see Unreal Engine 4 and how much more profound an effect it will have." We've heard before that Epic is working hard on Unreal Engine 4, and while Epic doesn't expect to see games running on the engine until 2014, it makes a lot of sense that Rein would want to show it off, especially if we also see some next-gen console reveals later on this year.As for what it'll look like, we can only say (and sorry for all of the technical jargon on this one) that it will probably look "very good." How do we know? Because 4 is higher than 3, silly. You probably wouldn't understand.
Next Xbox console to be six times more powerful, headed for fall 2013 release?
Xbox 720, Xbox Loop -- whatever Microsoft ends up calling it, that hot rod of a console looks to be on deck for a late fall 2013 release. According to IGN's sources, this successor to the Redmond gaming throne is purported to pack a GPU based on AMD's 6000 series of chips and will boast silicon circuitry that catapults its performance past Nintendo's upcoming Wii U by 20 percent. If you're looking for a more apples to green X's comparison, this next-gen console's graphical capabilities are also reportedly six times greater than its 360 progenitor. While MS is likely holding back its monstrous new platform for a big E3 reveal, it appears the company's still whittling down its spec list, with dev kits to be issued later this August. No mention was made of its rumored Kinect 2 integration, but we're more than certain that famous hacking tech will be front and center.[Image credit: Joseph Dumary]
Epic wants Unreal Engine 4 ready for the next-gen console launch
Like an inattentive uncle, Unreal Engine 3 didn't visit this current generation of consoles until it was around a year old. But if Epic's Mark Rein has his way, Unreal Engine 4 will be right there in the birthing room to catch the Xbox 720 and PS4 from their ... electronic womb. "I want Unreal Engine 4 to be ready far earlier than UE3 was; not a year after the consoles are released," he told Develop. "I think a year from a console's launch is perfectly fine for releasing a game, but not for releasing new tech. We need to be there day one or very early. That's my primary focus." When asked what he wants from that next gen, Rein focused on giving developers and publishers more pricing freedom rather than pure horsepower. He wants a beefy GPU as well, but it's telling to see the acknowledgement that the next wave of consoles will be as much about how games are delivered as what they look like.
ASUS hints at next-generation Transformer in brief teaser video
ASUS has just posted a new video teaser for what appears to be a next-generation Eee Pad Transformer. Titled "The next Transformation," the clip is pretty light on details, though the mysterious device does make a brief appearance toward the end, sporting a design similar to what we saw last week, with ASUS' Zenbook lineup. No word yet on whether the forthcoming Transformer will be powered by NVIDIA's quad-core Kal El, as rumored, but you can see the teaser for yourself after the break. [Thanks, Lorenz]
Sony WhiteMagic LCD promises magic formula of better brightness, lower power
How do you make a brighter LCD without murdering battery life? Simple. Add a white pixel to each RGB trio, creating an RGBW panel that pumps out more nits without recourse to the backlight. We've already seen this technology in action on a tablet-sized screen from Samsung and Nouvoyance, and now Sony's come up with an OEM 3-inch panel that it hopes will prove popular in smartphones and cameras. The VGA screen is claimed to double brightness without increasing power consumption compared to conventional panels. Alternatively, it has an outdoor mode which sacrifices this power-saving in favor of doubling brightness -- although, when it comes to the sunlight problem, we're still hoping that PixelQi's approach will eventually come of age.
Michel Ancel on Beyond Good & Evil 2: I'm waiting for it as much as you are
Is Beyond Good & Evil 2 still alive? Yes. Will you still be alive when it comes out? Well, that's a question we posed to project lead Michel Ancel, whose attention is currently focused on his vibrant 2D platformer, Rayman: Origins. "Before Rayman we were working on Beyond Good & Evil 2," he said during an E3 meeting. "And the project is still on the tracks. I'd love to come back to it." Ancel describes the game as an ambitious, conceptually amorphous undertaking, still being prototyped and still looking for a home. "It's a question of making all those things able to fit the constraints of the consoles," he said. "But with this kind of game, we can do prototypes on very high-end PCs and we can really try to play in the kind of future-console style hardware. So, it's just a question of saying, 'Okay, do we cut everything and rebuild to these consoles, or do we try to move forward?'" Does that mean the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 are out? "I can't say totally no," Ancel said, "but the questions are still open." The small team crafting Beyond Good and Evil 2 is wary of downscaling its vision, making it essential "to have the game on the best platform, to make [the concepts] fit." And while that happens, for who-knows-how-long, fans can take advantage of the game industry's diversity."The good thing is we are not the only one making games, so they can play a lot of other games," Ancel joked. "The main thing, I would say, is that I'm waiting for that game as much as they are waiting for it. So that's pushing me to finish it."
E Ink dashes hopes of a next gen display in 2011, but pencils in full-motion video for 2012
E Ink Holdings is brazenly making us wait until 2012 before producing a successor to its popular Pearl electronic paper display. One of the company's VPs dropped into CNET's offices to spill the bad news: developing and testing a next-generation display "takes some time", apparently, and it is sticking to a two year product cycle. Perhaps E Ink has shifted its focus to the LCD screen in Amazon's rumoured tablet. Or maybe it's still working on the Triton color e-ink display that left us so underwhelmed at CES. Either way, the monochrome Pearl has been knocking around in the Kindle and other e-readers for a while now and although it has better contrast than earlier iterations, it is still ripe for a revamp -- especially a faster refresh rate. But the E Ink VP did hint at some brighter news: the next-gen display, when it does finally arrive, could sport full-motion video. So far e-ink video has failed to go beyond a slightly jittery 10-15fps, so full-motion 24fps or 30fps could definitely be worth the wait.
Qualcomm's next-gen Snapdragon roadmap leaks, exhibits great expectations (updated)
Seems like we just can't get ARM's next-generation Cortex-A15 system-on-chip out of our minds. Having figured as a headline item in LG's ARM licensing deal this morning, it's now shown up on a leaked Qualcomm roadmap, landing itself a lynchpin role in that company's Snapdragon future. Alas, Qualcomm had been promising for the earliest of its MSM8930 / 60 and APQ8064 Snapdragons to be sampling in Q2 of this year, but this latest schedule shows them as sampling at the end of 2011 (see update). This isn't hugely surprising in light of ARM's recent forecast of Cortex-A15 devices in "late 2012," but it'll be disappointing to users keen to be exploiting quad-GPU and quad-CPU mobile rigs as soon as humanly possible. Guess that just leaves us waiting for the NGP or NVIDIA's quad-core SOC in August. Hit the source link for more on Qualcomm's plans for the near and distant future. [Thanks, Mike] Update: Qualcomm got in touch to correct the timing here. The company's 3G/LTE MSM8960 chipset remains on track to sample in this quarter, as promised in the company's latest earnings report. The other two parts were already expected to come later, so there's no delay to speak of. Just juicy specs.
Next-generation iPhone coming in September?
Ok, so you won't be getting an iPhone refresh this summer. But according to a trio of sources speaking to Reuters, the next-generation iPhone should be shipping in September -- as we've heard before -- with production starting in July. One source said that the iPhone will feature a faster processor, naturally, and look largely similar to the iPhone 4. If true then prepare to see it unveiled at Apple's fall event, usually held in early September.
NVIDIA's next flagship graphics card to be unveiled at 9AM on Thursday, bring your own popcorn
In NVIDIA's own words, this Thursday will bring us the company's "next generation, highest performance graphics card." If that has you thinking GeForce GTX 590, you're not alone. The dual-GPU solution was expected to arrive at the PAX East get-together this month but seemed to shyly dodge the limelight, though now there's no escaping its date with destiny. Just make sure to be up nice and early tomorrow, say around 9AM US Eastern Time, for the inevitable barrage of reviews. An unsatisfyingly brief teaser video, featuring Crysis 2 slyly running in the background, can be found after the break. Update: Whoa, Nelly! Looks like it may end up being the GeForce GTX 590, as evidenced by these leaked images here. [Thanks, Abdulmalik]
Microsoft hiring for 'next-generation console' engineers
Though Microsoft isn't close to approaching the end of its ten-year plan for the Xbox 360, the hardware manufacturer seems to be staffing up to develop the heir apparent of the gaming console's kingdom. The company recently posted a handful of hiring ads for its Mountain View research facility, which is looking to add a design verification engineer, hardware architect and other positions to its roster to help with "defining and delivering next generation console architectures from conception through implementation." If these "conceptual" positions really are for the Xbox 360's successor, we're probably a few years out from learning anything else about the next-gen console. All we can hope is that the team also publishes a help wanted ad for the position of "Making Sure the Console Doesn't Spontaneously Stop Working Technician."
The Game Archaeologist and the NeverEnding Quest: The vets
We just had to start 2011 in style, didn't we? I knew that by invoking the sacred name of EverQuest, I'd be opening the door for thousands of collective years' worth of memories, opinions, frustrations, nostalgia, gushing and blocky screenshots. But the Game Archaeologist fears not even the greatest mountain in MMO legend; it had to be climbed sooner or later. And of course, who better to guide you up the mountain than a few EQ Sherpas who know the way? Sure, they might try to steal the idol and not throw me the whip in the end, but that was a very real risk I was willing to take to get the full story. So today I'd like to introduce you to three EverQuest veterans who are all now world-famous bloggers. If you sense a connection between these two facts, I will only hint at the possibility of a secret society in SOE's headquarters that bestows great blessings upon its faithful fans. Hit the jump to meet this EQ trio and hear what they had to say about the MMO that profoundly affected their playing careers!
Recon next-gen GPS goggles eyes-on
We brought you the official details earlier in the week and now we have images of the Recon next-gen GPS goggles in its broken-down self. Users will be able to choose from an assortment of Recon frames and lenses, in collaboration with the integrated LCD, allowing for customized appeal. Recon is bringing in a revised platform based on Android, which allows users to shred some powder while using apps, music and track their GPS locations as well as locations of others that share the must-have for apps-in-your-goggles fetish. The Android platform allows for full integration with your Bluetooth-enabled phone with real-time alerts and notifications straight onto the built-in LCD. With the Recon next-gen GPS goggles, you can look like a tech-savvy hipster while flying down your favorite trails. %Gallery-113295%
Epic new Rift video precedes tomorrow's beta test opening
If there's one MMO on the horizon that has everyone excited, it's Rift. Created by Trion Worlds, Rift promises to be the next big AAA launch title and has been drawing its share of attention from players. The game's closed beta begins tomorrow, and Trion has been giving out beta keys in preparation. Some Rift fans were able to grab limited beta keys that give access to several beta events, while others were lucky enough to secure an access-all-areas VIP beta key. Here at Massively, our 500 VIP keys disappeared in record time. For those of you who missed the chance to get in on the Rift beta, you can still sign up at the Rift website for a chance to get in. Rift is being marketed as a fully complete, next-gen MMO. But those are just marketing buzzwords, right? Guess again! In this new video (after the cut below), the Trion team has taken the bold step of defining what exactly those terms mean in a very practical context. Rift is promised to be a highly polished MMO right from launch, with none of those rough edges we've come to expect from new titles. Rather than follow the standard MMO formula wherein monsters are forever bound to respawn and walk around within a small area, Rift aims to create a truly dynamic game world. The demonic rifts that open randomly in the world will radically alter not just the look of the land but also the gameplay of nearby areas. Leave a rift unchecked for too long and you'll soon find they've set up camp and organised an invasion of the local area. If this new video doesn't make you excited for Rift and the future potential of the MMO genre, I don't know what will. Skip past the cut to watch the new Rift beta video in full HD.
