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Nintendo sold 196,000 NES Classic Editions in November
The NES Classic Edition has become a tough gift to find during this holiday season. Cheers to those who've already located one (or two), but according to industry tracker NPD, Nintendo sold 196,000 pieces of nostalgia-bait to US customers between its launch and the end of November. Compare that to Media-Create's numbers, which showed Japanese sales of the Classic Mini Famicom surpassed 261k units in just one week. Clearly, the demand is there, but the question is if Nintendo will be able to make enough of the systems available before the holiday rush is over. (If it follows this up with an SNES Classic Edition, we'll probably be lining up all over again.)
'Hyper Light Drifter' special edition comes with a SNES cart
I know what you're thinking -- another special edition for an indie game? Sure it's been done before, many times, but the Hyper Light Drifter Collector's Edition looks pretty sweet. It comes with a cyan "SNES cartridge," a 24-page manual, a 24-inch by 18-inch world map poster, a box to store it all in and a digital code for the game. That manual is particularly welcome; a full-color booklet with information on enemies, drifters, and tons of beautiful artwork. The SNES cartridge is in quotes because it's just a non-functional piece of art. Also it's a North American-style SNES cartridge, so if you owned a European or Asian console, it won't look very familiar to you.
The massively multiplayer online role-playing orgy I never had
It was supposed to be my first orgy. NSFW Warning: This story may contain links to and descriptions or images of explicit sexual acts.
From adorable to appalling: The week of E3 that was
E3 is one of the most exciting events of the year. There's plenty of gaming news from Microsoft, Sony, Ubisoft, EA and other big players. Behind the scenes, though, the power of the brands is out in full force, featuring life-size product placements that make you feel like you're in another world. And yes, that includes zombies.
'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.
Virtual reality can't cause PTSD, but it can treat it
Usually when we talk about virtual reality on Engadget, we talk about it in terms of entertainment, but it's important to remember that the technology can be much more than a mere toy. It's ability to substitute reality for any imaginable experience has been shown to have real, measurable effects on people, to the extent that one developer used it to cure his own diplopia. Popular Science magazine is now asking if the experience is real enough to inflict post-traumatic stress disorder on VR gamers. The short answer is no, probably not -- but virtual reality technology has been used to help treat the disorder.
There will be blocks: 'Tetris' is coming to the big screen
If you've ever pined for a feature film about the beloved 80s classic Tetris, you're in luck. The Wall Street Journal reports that an adaptation of the popular game is on its way, thanks to Threshold Entertainment. While that studio may not immediately ring a bell, it's the force behind transforming Mortal Kombat into two full-length movies in 1995 and 1997. So, what can we expect? A "very big, epic sci-fi" effort that aims to be much more than a bunch of CGI blocks with arms and legs. "What you [will] see in 'Tetris' is the teeny tip of an iceberg that has intergalactic significance," Threshold CEO Larry Kasanoff tells WSJ. What's more, "location-based entertainment based on the epicness" in addition to the film itself could be in the plans, too. One thing's for sure: these folks are going to be pretty excited about the news. [Photo credit: Oli Scarff/Getty Images]
Far Cry 4 arrives November 18th on current, last-gen consoles and PC
Amidst talk of its 2014 financials, Ubisoft hid a sliver of information that will please fans of open-world, first-person shooters: Far Cry 4 exists, and it's coming out this year. Ubisoft Montreal -- with the help of developers at Red Storm and the company's other dev shops in Toronto, Kiev and Shanghai -- is bringing the title to PC, PS4, Xbox One, PS3 and Xbox 360 on November 18th in the US, and on November 20th in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. In the fourth installment of the franchise, players will roam the mountainous terrain of Kyrat, a region of the Himalayas with a "despotic self-appointed king."
86,000 square miles of Great Britain meticulously recreated in Minecraft
There are those with free time, and then there's Joseph Braybrook. This fine bloke managed to recreate some 86,000 square miles of Great Britain within the Minecraft universe, and moreover, it took but a fortnight to concoct. Further justifying his work as more than goofing off, he used Ordnance Survey terrain data in the world's construction, leading Graham Dunlop, OS Innovation Lab Manager, to proclaim the following: "We think we may have created the largest Minecraft world ever built based on real-world data." The new universe contains over 22 billion Minecraft blocks, and once players have downloaded the 3.6GB file, they're free to build at will. Just don't go planting any US flags -- that's just downright rude.
Portal co-creator unveils OUYA-exclusive game Soul Fjord (video)
It's no secret that Portal co-creator Kim Swift has been developing an OUYA-exclusive game, but details regarding it had been kept under wraps until today. Dubbed Soul Fjord, the Airtight Games-developed title fuses Norse mythology with '70s Funk and Soul, and charges its main character Magnus Jones with climbing the World Tree to demand an invitation to Ragnarok, "the party that will end the world." Gameplay hasn't been shown quite yet, but the experience is described as a dungeon-crawler with rhythm-based combat that'll see players battle their way through randomly generated areas. Do the hustle past the break to catch the game's first trailer and a developer video diary.
Bird poop and Big Screens: Attempting a multiplayer world record
There's no category in the Guinness World Records for the most players in a single-screen multiplayer game. However, that's likely to change soon thanks to a group of New York University graduate students who created SPLAT, a multiplayer game designed for the 120-foot video wall installed in the lobby of the IAC building on the west side of Manhattan. The screen is a Prysm laser phosphor display and sports a whopping resolution of 11,520 x 1,080 pixels. The game was debuted at a packed showcase event last Friday night, along with the work of other students from an NYU Interactive Telecommunications Program class appropriately called Big Screens.
China's complicated history with video games: when a ban isn't really a ban
Earlier this week, China Daily quoted an anonymous government source -- allegedly straight from the Ministry of Culture -- saying China is considering lifting a 12-year-old "ban" on game consoles soon. While it was unclear how reliable the source was at the time, the Tokyo stock market sucked it up anyway, with Bloomberg observing a significant rise for Sony and Nintendo after the rumor was published. Then today we learned from Tech In Asia that Dongfang Daily followed up with two representatives from the Ministry of Culture, one of which said the department has never looked into lifting the ban, while the other person was more vague about the matter. But here's the thing: game consoles were never really banned in China. Allow us to set the record straight for you.
Feel the Force: Angry Birds Star Wars coming November 8th to iOS, Android, WP, Kindle Fire and computers
Rovio teased a certain film-inspired Angry Birds picture a long, long last week, and as expected, it's another new game -- Angry Birds Star Wars. Our furious feathered friends are assuming the likenesses of characters from the epic saga, with the trusty Red Bird taking on Luke Skywalker's role. It wouldn't be the Rebel Alliance without a dark side to fight, which is where the Pigs fit into the storyline; even the music and levels for gravity-based play will hark back to the film franchise. In addition to the software, details of related merchandise have also been uncovered, including table games, toys and costumes. The game is out on November 8th for iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Kindle Fire and computers, and if it follows the original storyline, we wonder how Red Bird's going to feel about his porcine family history.
Rovio hints at Angry Birds tie-in with Star Wars on October 8th, Red Bird Five standing by
The green pigs have had their moment in the sun: it's time for the Angry Birds to come back. Rovio Mobile has posted a teaser of a collaboration between its frustrated avians and Star Wars that will get a grand reveal on October 8th at Toys R Us' Times Square location in New York City. No clear giveaways exist as to what's coming, although Rovio is promising animations, comics and other material in the weeks ahead -- we imagine it means more than a toy line, as unique as that can be. But does it mean an Angry Birds Space add-on that goes well beyond the Martian landscape, an entirely new game or something else altogether? We've asked the company for more details and will let you know if we're given more information. In the meantime, get ready for what's likely to be a geek culture explosion. [Thanks, Jaakko]
Microsoft announces new entertainment and game studio focused on Windows 8 tablet development
Windows 8 slates are riding a wave of 40 Xbox titles into an October launch, and now Microsoft has laid the foundation to deliver more games with a brand new studio focused on tablet development. The currently unnamed, London-based outfit will be headed by former Rare Production Director Lee Schuneman, who has shepherded Kinect Sports titles, the Xbox 360 Avatars, Fable: The Journey and the Xbox's Sky TV app to completion. Slabs running Redmond's latest OS won't see a project from the team for a while, however, as the studio is still looking for new hires and won't open its doors until November.
Atari 2600s get PC innards, 22,857 times more processing power
Atari games redesigned in HTML 5 may bring back a flood of nostalgia, but they leave out a key part of the gaming experience: the classic hardware. Hard Drives Northwest filled that void by gutting a limited number of authentic Atari 2600s and stuffing them with modern PC components. Packing a Core i7 3.4GHz processor, the retro console now boasts 22,857 times more processing power than it did in its heyday, according to Microsoft's calculations -- more than enough oomph to handle the recent remakes. Other internals include 8GB of RAM, a 120GB SSD and a Radeon HD 6570 graphics card with 1GB of video memory. With support for USB 3.0 and 2.0, eSATA, DisplayPort, DVI and HDMI, the system is well stocked on the connectivity front. Finally, the signature of Atari founder Nolan Bushnell acts as the cherry atop the faux wood grain-toting package. While the souped-up machines aren't up for sale, a pair of them are slated for a giveaway. Glamour shots and the full set of specs await you at the source.
NYT: Steam's Big Picture public beta begins Monday
Can't wait to use Steam's forthcoming Big Picture mode to game from the comfort of your couch? Well, you're in luck, because it might be ready for a test drive tomorrow. According to The New York Times, the living room-friendly user interface is getting the public beta treatment starting Monday. Gabe Newell let loose last month that both the TV-geared view and Steam for Linux betas would be "out there fairly quickly," but there's still no word on when the Ubuntu-bound preview will land. In the meantime, we'll keep busy by gawking at Valve's augmented reality headset, which the NYT got a glimpse of during a trip to the firm's headquarters, at the source link below.
Visualized: what Zynga workers do when they're not playing FarmVille
Zynga's staffers might have had a laser-like focus on releasing FarmVille 2 this week, but that doesn't mean the company has forgotten how to take a break. One employee (thankfully, also a Reddit member) has revealed that the developer's San Francisco headquarters has a giant, 16-screen video wall for gaming in the cafeteria -- and yes, they're playing Halo in that photo rather than some future, first-person version of Mafia Wars. It's no surprise that the employees aren't playing their own games all the time; we're pretty sure that even the most avid Facebook gamers would burn out if they did. Nonetheless, it's hard not to smile at the thought that the same people urging us to buy new crops are sticking plasma grenades in their spare time.
Switched On: The old adventures of new 3D
Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology. In the unmarked office of 3-D Vision, Inc., you can see a television or PC display a videogame or movie with a convincing stereoscopic effect. That might not seem very unique. However, the television is a CRT from the 1990s, the video game is Super Mario for the Nintendo 64 and the movie is The Wizard of Oz, made in 1939. Despite the growth in 3D television sales, the requirement to wear 3D glasses has loomed as one of the most significant barriers to adoption. 3-D Vision's technology still requires glasses, at least for now. However, with some caveats, it overcomes some of the other, oft-overlooked barriers to 3D adoption by creating 3D video from 2D content on 2D (or 3D) displays. On televisions, this is achieved via a small set-top box -- a prototype of which approaches the size and noise level of a mini-fridge -- that plugs into the video source and the TV and converts the video in real-time with virtually no latency. The box should be available early next year.
University of Michigan's Computer and Video Game Archive houses over 3,000 different games, roughly 35 unique consoles (video)
Systems such as the ColecoVision, TurboGrafx-16 and 3DO may have been ousted from most home entertainment centers long ago, but they still have shelf space at the University of Michigan's Computer and Video Game Archive. Slashdot caught up with Engineering Librarian and Video Game Archivist Dave Carter and took a look inside the repository, which has curated around 35 classic and current-gen platforms and more than 3,000 different games. Having "one of everything" is the project's ultimate goal, but the logistics of acquiring every new game make achieving that feat a stretch. "Our realistic goal is to be sort of representative of the history of video games, what was important -- what was interesting," Carter said. "And then, not only to preserve the games, but also to preserve the game playing experience." As a "useable archive," patrons of UM's library can dig in and play at different stations with era-appropriate monitors and displays. While many visit for leisure, students have used the resource to research topics ranging from music composition to the effects of texting while driving (using an Xbox 360 racing title and steering wheel peripheral, of course). You can catch a glimpse of the collection in the video below or visit the archive's blog at the more coverage link.
