According to sources, Apple's pay-TV service would include around 25 channels, featuring programming from networks such as ABC, Fox, and GameSpot parent company CBS.
The Apple TV service--not to be confused with the Apple TV set-top box--will reportedly be available for Apple devices such as iPhones, iPads, and the Apple TV box.
NBC Universal programming is not part of the package at the moment, sources said, due to a reported "falling-out" between Apple and NBCUniversal parent company Comcast.
As for price, unspecified "media executives" talking to The WSJ said Apple is aiming to offer its Apple TV service for about $30-$40 per month. By comparison, the Xbox One's Sling TV costs $20/month for the base package, while pricing for PlayStation Vue has not been announced.
Are you planning to "cut the cord" and go with an Internet TV service instead of a traditional cable package? Let us know in the comments below!
Ever played a Hearthstone match that gets completely out of hand before you even have a chance to fiddle with the backgrounds? If you're a devotee of Blizzard's glorious collectable card game, there's every chance you carry painful memories of an early knockout at the hands of a Zoolock. Or that now-forgotten army of Murlocs who pulled together a victory against you by turn 4.
But have you played a match that was certifiably crazy by the end of turn one? Such possibilities await in Blackrock Mountain, Blizzard's next Hearthstone adventure, which is due to go live in April.
Picture the scene: I'm pitted against Coren Direbrew, the first of the expansion's 17 new bosses, whose zero-mana automated hero power will draw a minion from both decks onto the board. Merely seconds after I've exchanged greetings with the AI (don't pretend you don't do it either), two cards drop. On my side, a Cenarius. On his, a Mal'Ganis. That's turn one.
After laughing, Frankenstein-like, at the sheer absurdity of it all, it becomes clear that this isn't the sort of challenge where a Knife Juggler is going to cut it by turn two. Your meticulously arranged ladder decks have wound up in the wrong tavern, pal.
"We want people to look through their old cards and a light bulb goes off"
Eric Dodds
It's an exciting prospect for those who found the theory-crafting aspect of the Naxxramas adventure so enjoyable. That previous adventure forced players to build custom, one-time decks to play their way around immensely powerful foes with a mystery Achilles' Heel. Finding that weakness, and building a deck that could exploit it, was just as fun as pulling off the victory.
"We really liked the Maexxna encounter in Naxxramas, where you had to build a whole new deck," says Eric Dodds, Hearthstone's lead designer. "Normally you wouldn't have a whole deck of seven and nine drops, but in this case it's absolutely a good idea."
After calling time on Direbrew with a swift 9-attack haymaker (pro-tip: Rogue's Sap spell is essential), I sat down with Dodds to discuss the expansion, as well as the smartphone version and, somewhat awkwardly, the ESL controversy.
Eric Dodds is one of the founding developers of Hearthstone
GameSpot: From what I've seen so far of Blackrock Mountain, it appears that the Hearthstone team wants to bring focus back to the original card set, as the spotlight is currently on the GvG cards. Would that be a fair assessment?
Dodds: Well the intention at a higher design level was really that players really like dragons, so it would be awesome if they could make a dragon deck.
The new Blackwing Technician card will be a good example of that. It's a 2/4 that costs three mana, but is 3/5 if you have a dragon in your hand, which is a pretty effective card.
We love the idea of people building their deck around dragons. Up until now, you could put Ysera or Alexstrasza in your deck, but we wanted to support that a bit more. We actually really like the idea of adding new cards that make you want to play the old ones again.
A good example of this is the new Shaman spell, Lava Shock, which suddenly makes overload cards much more compelling.
I'm guessing it will also encourage people, when they're buying cards, to choose the classic packs instead of GVG. Certainly at the moment I'm finding myself opting for the GVG packs, because there's still many of those I don't have, but there were a few classic cards that I missed too. Is it the intention to bring focus back to the classic packs again?
Not really. I mean, we're bringing attention back by saying that this card you already own can now be seen in a new light. We want people to look through their old cards and a light bulb goes off, and people suddenly have this idea of how to use them in an awesome new way. That's very exciting to us.
I did want to get some insight into how you internally test and balance these new cards. I know that you play the game incessantly to get a feel for them, but I've always wondered if you used any algorithms to test your cards, and whether you internally score things like batttlecry.
It's interesting because when I first started working on Hearthstone, I had played a ton of other [collectable card] games and I thought, oh it's great I can have spreadsheet and it's going to tell me how much everything should cost. It turns out that this is absolutely not what we do at all. It's certainly what I thought we would do, but there are so many factors that go into balancing cards, such as what hero uses them, that really what we do is assess on a case-by-case basis.
A designer creates a card, and tends to have a gut-instinct on how it's going to work, and then it goes over to our balance team. Now, our balance team is four amazingly skilled guys. I think all of them, at one point or another, have been in the top twenty legends. They are phenomenally good at the game. They take these cards that we're making, and play them and play them and play them, and they come back with the numbers that these cards should be released with.
That's incredibly interesting. It makes sense too because there are some cards that look better on face value than in practice.
What we love is when we see players' reactions to our new cards and they say "how could you do this?! How could you print that card?! It's broken!" We have actually seen that a few times before, but when you get to play it, people tend to realise it's not the be-all and end-all.
"Our balance team is four amazingly skilled guys. I think all of them, at one point or another, have been in the top twenty legends."
Eric Dodds
There are instances where the facts lie too. For example, I tend to prefer a card with six attack over seven, because it circumvents the Big Game Hunter.
Yes that's certainly the case now in the meta, but we'll see over time if the Big Game Hunter cycles out and those 7 attack cards become more powerful.
Let's talk about the smartphone version, which I know is a few months away from launch. Will it all remain cross-platform, in that an iPhone player can play a iPad or PC?
Yes absolutely, it will be your exact same account, so all your cards on tablet or PC will be available on your phone too. When you start a match on a phone, you could be playing someone on another phone, someone on a tablet, on a PC, who knows? It's all one big ecosystem.
The smartphone version of Hearthstone is expected to launch in a matter of months. Click on the thumbnails below for additional images
One fear I have is that the game is going to take hold of my life now that it's in my pocket. Would you ever be open to the idea of self-suspending accounts, just for a little while, if someone needs to lose the distraction for a few weeks?
[Dodds Laughs]
Seriously though! If I have a big assignment that needs completing, or someone has exams to study for, it could be handy to suspend your account for a brief while.
Well, I don't that's in the near-term plans. But I think one of the neat things about it being on the phone is that, very often, people find themselves with a spare ten minutes with not much to do. So I think the phone version will make Hearthstone fit into your life a lot better.
Will it destroy my phone battery? When I play on iPad, I need to keep the power cord plugged in...
It's certainly... it's a beautiful game, so it definitely uses power. One thing we're constantly thinking about is how to make the most of the phone's battery.
When you start a match on a phone, you could be playing someone on another phone, someone on a tablet, on a PC, who knows? It's all one big ecosystem.
Eric Dodds
Hearthstone's an always-online game too, so would it eat into your monthly 4G (LTE) allowance? I presume you would advise against people playing it on their phone if they have tight data usage restrictions?
I don't know if it uses a lot of data. You have to have a constant connection though. I wouldn't recommend playing it on a train.
I wanted to address the elephant in the room--the ESL Legendary series, where people on Reddit discovered that the winners had retroactively been given Blizzcon Qualifier Points. I suppose the main question is, do you have some level of regret about this?
I'm not sure what you mean.
So, the main finalists of the ESL Legendary series each won World Championship Qualifier points. Silent Storm, who came in first, won 100 points, which is the equivalent of getting two 1st places in a ranked season. One problem people have is that it wasn't ever announced as an officially sanctioned tournament. Were you not made aware of this?
Yeah, okay, I'm not as involved on the eSports side of things.
[Blizzard PR: "I think the best thing is to take that question to our eSports team"]
Okay, well that would be great because there's a lot of questions people have regarding it. [Update: As of press time, Blizzard has not yet officially responded to the question].
I wanted to also ask about buying card packs. At the moment I opt for GVG packs, but doing so means there's no chance of getting the final few classic cards. If I buy classic packs, there's no chance I'll get the final few GVG cards. Would you consider grouping these packs together in the future?
It's certainly something that we've talked about a lot, asking what is our long-term plan for packs of cards. We don't have anything planned right now, because at the moment it's only two kinds of packs, but it's certainly something that in the long term we'll be looking at.
Now it's all in the past, what is your overall view of the GVG update?
I loved it! I thought it went amazingly well. We certainly liked a lot of the randomness that was introduced, because you're never quite sure what's going to happen, but skilled players can figure out what to do in those situations.
I'm also a big fan of the Goblins Vs Gnomes style. I think the look and the charm is very Hearthstone. I like changing things up--you saw how Goblins Vs Gnomes was one style and tone--and now Blackrock Mountain represents a more serious tone. I like how we're encompassing different parts of the Warcraft universe.
As of press time, Blizzard has only revealed a handful of new cards
Blackrock Mountain will also add 31 new cards, which I think is an ideal size. Personally I felt there were too many GVG cards that were introduced and never used. For newcomers, the number of cards must start to become overwhelming. Surely, looking forwards, the sheer volume of cards is going to be your long-term enemy?
It's an ongoing thing that we're always talking about internally, because on one hand you've got players who are always looking for new content, and on the other hand you've got players who don't want to be overwhelmed with new cards. I think you hit the nail on the head with what we're trying to do with Blackrock Mountain, because we want to change the meta again, but we don't want to add so many things that players become overwhelmed.
I'm guessing you're also fairly happy that there's no major discussion about nerfs at the moment either. I suppose the likeliest candidate is Dr Boom, but I don't think the majority of people are complaining about it.
Well philosophically it's our intention to never get to a situation where we need to nerf cards. The only time we would consider it is if the card staying as it is would be damaging to the fun. We changed Undertaker because you were seeing a lot of decks based around that, and so we didn't have as much diversity, but actually right now there's a bunch of different decks.
So, as long as there continues to be a bunch of different types of decks, we really have no interest in nerfing anything. And out long-term goal is to get to a situation where we change as little as possible.
Nintendo's first mobile game has the potential to attract 100 million users per day, according to a key executive at DeNA, the third-party publisher enlisted to help develop the new range of smartphone games.
Shintaro Asako, the chief executive at DeNA West, believes Nintendo's IP has the gravitas to reach unprecedented numbers of smartphone players. While Candy Crush Saga peaked in 2014 at 93 million daily active users, Asako thinks DeNA can top that.
"I've wanted to create something globally successful, not only for kids, but for mid-aged people and beyond," Asako told Venturebeat.
"The game should attract a huge range of people. We wanted to get a huge audience like Candy Crush, like 100 million users. We wanted to create something with that kind of DAU [daily active user] base."
On Tuesday Nintendo revealed it has bought a ten percent stake in DeNA, as part of a wider plan to begin releasing new games on mobile. The first of these custom-made, bespoke titles is expected to be released before the end of 2015. Nintendo also announced that it is separately working on a new traditional games console, which is internally named the Nintendo NX.
Asako did not explicitly state that the new Nintendo mobile games would be free-to-play, but the 100 million target is not reasonably possible without such a business strategy.
"I think with the strong IPs Nintendo has, and the strong game operation expertise we have, I don't think we're dreaming [about reaching] 100 million DAU," he said.
"Mobile gaming is our core business, and we definitely wanted to be the No. 1 mobile gaming company in the world. We've wanted to be a dominant player," Asako added.
"We were originally focused on the feature phone space and then shifted over to smartphones, and now [we have] a lot of initiative in both the domestic and international markets. But we really want to be leading player."
He added that careful consideration was necessary to deliver choice to customers without jeopardizing Nintendo's commitment to quality.
"For this, I think the solution is not coming out with 10 or 20 games right away. We should pick the right game. We should actually create a smartphone-specific game that requires day-to-day social interaction. It's not just porting a Wii U game out to smartphones. But actually properly design a smartphone game."
Sony is rolling out a new promotion in Denmark where people who donate blood can get a free copy of upcoming PlayStation 4 role-playing game Bloodborne.
The event itself will be held on Monday, March 23. Blood donors can receive a free copy of Bloodborne or another PlayStation game.
They will also be entered into a sweepstakes for the chance to win a specially designed Bloodborne PlayStation 4 system.
Bloodborne, developed by Demon's Souls and Dark Souls creator From Software, launches March 24 in North America and March 27 in the UK.
Recently, game director Hidetaka Miyazaki spoke out to say that, while Bloodborne is most assuredly a violent game, its depictions of blood and gore are not gratuitous.
In a bid to promote its GearVR headset, Samsung has live-streamed the birth of a baby boy to a father wearing a virtual reality headset thousands of miles away from the delivery room.
The father was not there to witness the birth of his son first-hand because he was out of town for work. According to Samsung, such clashes are common.
"Every day, millions of life-changing moments take place. Sadly, many people miss these moments," Samsung says in the ad.
Using GearVR, however, the father was able to sit in the room to see his son's birth, at least virtually. He was on one side of Australia while his wife was delivering the child on the other, streaming the event with a multi-sided camera. Samsung is calling this the "world's first live virtual reality birth."
As many have pointed out, a standard webcam--which would have let the mother see her husband's face--might have sufficed. But the video does demonstrate the opportunity for virtual reality to bring people together in a way that's hard to argue against.
Oculus Rift creator Palmer Luckey said last year that he thinks virtual reality has incredible power to bring people together, even if they aren't meeting up physically.
"I guess you will have to ask yourself, 'Why do we care if we're physically isolated if we're mentally connected?'" he said at the time. "If you can perfectly simulate reality, why do you need to actually go see people in real life?"
GearVR, which is powered by Oculus Rift technology and requires a Galaxy Note 4, is currently available to developers through a $200 innovator edition. The consumer model, meanwhile, should launch by the end of the year, according to Oculus VR CTO John Carmack.
Carmack spoke at length about the future of mobile virtual reality technology at the Game Developers Conference earlier this month. Check out GameSpot's report for more.
Warhammer Quest developer Rodeo Games on Wednesday announced an all-new Warhammer game called Deathwatch: Tyranid Invasion. The game, which runs on Epic's Unreal Engine 4, is due to launch for mobile devices this summer.
A turn-based strategy game, Tyranid Invasion is set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe. Players will command a team of Space Marines through 40 campaign missions where they'll square off against an enemy faction known as the Tyranid.
In addition to a single-player mode, Tyranid Invasion features online multiplayer battles. Players will be able to customize their squad of 40 Space Marines, equipping them with "hundreds" of skills and abilities, as well as additional items.
Tyranid Invasion is Rodeo's first title built using the Unreal Engine 4.
"We had no experience with Unreal Engine before we started work on this project, but we were able to incorporate it into our company quickly," Rodeo technical director Rich Brooks said. "It has been a joy to work with over the last year and it has allowed a small team like us to produce a high quality finished product on mobile."
For more on Tyranid Invasion, check out the tease trailer above and some images in the gallery below.
Dead Rising: Watchtower, the upcoming movie based on Capcom's zombie game franchise, will debut March 27 through Sony's streaming service Crackle. But Xbox owners can watch it a week early.
Microsoft's Larry "Major Nelson" Hyrb has announced that Xbox 360 and Xbox One owners can watch the movie through the Crackle app on Xbox Live starting Friday, March 20. The film will be available exclusively through the Crackle app on Xbox until March 26.
Like the game, Watchtower takes place during a zombie outbreak. After a government-produced vaccine fails to stop the infection from spreading, four survivors seek out the root of the epidemic while fighting to stay alive against hordes of undead.
Watchtower was directed by Leprechaun: Origins director Zach Lipovsky. It stars Jesse Metcalfe, Meghan Ory, Virginia Madsen, and Dennis Haysbert, with Rob Riggle in the role of Frank West.
By Rob Crossley on Mar 18, 2015 05:46 pm Valve has amassed more than 125 million active Steam users
Valve has acknowledged in its end-user licence agreement that customers residing in European Union countries are legally entitled to a 14-day period where they can return purchased goods for refund.
However, the corporation asks its customers to waive that right at point of purchase. It means that, while Valve acknowledges the rights of its EU customers, the option for a refund disappears the moment a game is purchased.
On Monday, Valve updated its subscriber licence agreement to acknowledge that "if you are an EU subscriber, you have the right to withdraw from a purchase transaction for digital content without charge and without giving any reason for a duration of fourteen days."
This led to a Reddit thread, and some news reports, to incorrectly suggest that Valve now offers its EU customers the chance to return their games within 14 days.
However, the licence agreement goes on to say that the right to refund becomes invalid when Valve's "performance of its obligations has begun." This ambiguous legal term effectively means that, once Valve delivers content to a customer's PC (in accordance with its obligation as a games vendor), all options for refund will have ceased.
To make its stance clearer, Valve also attaches a message to the purchase button on its EU store, which reads: "By clicking 'Purchase' you agree that Valve provides you immediate access to digital content as soon as you complete your purchase, without waiting the 14-day withdrawal period. Therefore, you expressly waive your right to withdraw from this purchase."
According to internal tests at GameSpot, there is no way to buy games without agreeing to these terms.
Such a process clashes with some of the key features of EU's refund law. According to the body's own rules for refunds, it says that EU citizens "can choose to withdraw from your order for any reason within this timeframe--even if you simply changed your mind."
The eight-week Spring Fever event spotlights "unique" games, with Sony releasing a new PlayStation game every week through April 21. Last week's release was Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number, while this week's is four-player shoot-em-up Jamestown+ for PS4.
In addition, Sony has marked down numerous Assassin's Creed games and DLC. A series of Transformers movies are also on sale this week. All deals are good through March 23, and in every case, PlayStation Plus members will save 10 percent.
The full list of Spring Fever deals are listed below. Don't see anything you like? Check back next week (and the four weeks after that) to see even more Spring Fever deals when they're announced.
Microsoft's newest operating system, Windows 10, will launch this summer across 190 countries and in 111 languages, executive Terry Myerson announced in a blog post. The company isn't yet committing to a specific release date, however.
For the first twelve months following Windows 10's launch, PCs running Windows 7 and 8 will be eligible for a free upgrade to the new OS.
Microsoft has also announced a new partnership with Chinese Internet giant Tencent. As part of the deal, Tencent will bring some of its most popular PC games, including League of Legends and Cross Fire, to Windows 10 and the new Windows store.
Predecessor Windows 8, released in October 2012, was controversial in that it introduced a touch-focused tile design that was markedly different to Windows 7. Microsoft addressed these criticisms with frequent--and substantial updates--including Windows 8.1.
The company isn't starting over with Windows 10, but Microsoft appears to be taking a more traditional approach with the new OS.
"We believe that, together with the feedback you provide us, we can build a product that all of our customers will love," Myerson said last year. "It will be our most open collaborate OS projects ever."
Nintendo is expecting to release its first mobile game before the end of 2015, the corporation's chief executive has claimed.
On Tuesday, Satoru Iwata brought an end to more than two years of speculation and debate by announcing that Nintendo would begin to co-develop games for smartphone devices and tablets. The landmark proposal is Nintendo's first major venture into third-party publishing, and the result of a partnership with the mobile games specialist DeNA, who will co-develop these titles.
At the press conference where Iwata made the announcement, he was asked by press in attendance when the first Nintendo mobile game would be released.
"Regarding the individual video game titles, when it will be launched, we will be making the announcement when each of those games are ready," Iwata responded.
"At least, however, we believe that there is no means of collaboration if we can't launch anything, at least once, or some sort of output within this year."
Hours after Iwata's press conference, Nintendo's shares had jumped by more than 30 percent. For years, many analysts have urged Nintendo to bring its business to Apple's iOS and Google's Android platform.
Nintendo was keen to stress that its venture in mobile does not represent an abandonment of its traditional console business. To emphasise this, Nintendo also announced the project name for its next system, the NX. Iwata referred to it as a "dedicated games platform with a brand new concept".
Meanwhile, Nintendo also confirmed it is developing a membership service that will be "compatible with a variety of devices including PCs, smartphones, and tablets, as well as Nintendo's dedicated video game systems".
Iwata explained that the new membership service will "encompass the existing Nintendo 3DS and Wii U systems," as well as the NX.
Valve co-founder and managing director Gabe Newell and business development lead Erik Johnson have revealed an insight into why the company decided to venture into the hardware space. Speaking on the GameSlice Podcast with Geoff Keighley, the duo's discussion included topics such as Valve's current state, Source 2, virtual reality, and the future of the company.
Newell described how Valve's approach to branching out the experience of PC gaming led to the company looking to hardware.
"When you go back to the original Half-Life, we were all playing first-person action games… and it seemed like people were being kind of disrespectful toward gamers, that the attitude was that you could kind of trivialise what gamers would want in terms of how many barrels you put on a shotgun," he said. "And we were like, well, that is fun, but it kind of misses the opportunity to think about the broader kinds of experiences that people could have. So we were gamers, we wanted more, the story, the narrative, and having the sense of it being part of the world. That's what we were thinking about at the beginning of the company."
The desire to create more for gamers led to the creation of digital distribution service Steam, Newell explained. "When we started working on Steam, it was kind of the same thing. Are there opportunities for us to provide, in that case services more than experiences, but can't we be doing more that's really trying to address what customers want," he said. "We thought there were ways we could make the experience of being a PC gamer better by tackling those problems."
"So in a sense, what we're doing now with hardware really to us feels like an extension of that. Pick the problems that are of greatest significance to our customers in terms of continuing to improve that overall experience. We'd be happy to still be focused more narrowly just because it is a lot easier to continue to do the things you've done well, but we just reached a point where we thought we need to tackle some of these issues on the hardware side if we're going to be able to continue to keep the PC gaming experience moving forward."
A targeted DDoS attack on Xbox Live's server infrastructure on Tuesday evening has disrupted Battlefield Hardline's first day of release, with players reporting intermittent problems connecting to the game.
Publisher Electronic Arts says that the issue is, for now, limited to the Xbox One edition. At 8pm Pacific Time on Tuesday, the company wrote on Twitter that it was "aware of Battlefield Hardline connectivity issues" and hoped the matter would be resolved quickly.
Two hours later, however, it announced that the connection problems were the result of a targeted online attack and had not been resolved. It wrote: "We've identified the connectivity issues on Xbox One are due to DDoS attack and working to resolve. Apologies for the inconvenience."
We've identified the connectivity issues on Xbox One are due to DDoS attack and working to resolve. Apologies for the inconvenience.
No further statements were made. While some users are still reporting connection problems, it appears this issue is not widespread.
Battlefield Hardline shipped on Tuesday on Xbox One, PS4, Xbox 360, PS3, and PC. The response from critics has been mixed, with GameSpot's Battlefield Hardline review highlighting many issues with the game's AI, narrative, and challenge.
Bandai Namco's fighting game Dragon Ball Xenoverse has shipped over 1.5 milllion copies worldwide, the publisher announced today. The figure makes sense, given that the game was the second most-sold PlayStation 4 title on the PlayStation Network last month, despite being released on February 24.
On the success of the game, producer Masayuki Hirano said, "I would like to thank everyone for their support on this new challenge. We decided to take a risk and create a completely new concept to entertain our fans and Dragon Ball lovers and we are quite proud of the successful result!"
The first downloadable content pack for Dragon Ball Xenoverse is now available on Steam and the Xbox Market Place, and will be available on the PlayStation Network on March 18. The game's launch wasn't all smooth sailing however, with servers woes causing multiplayer issues early on.
The first trailer for Sony's upcoming video game movie Pixels--which stars Adam Sandler and Peter Dinklage--was released Tuesday.
The movie sees a variety of iconic gaming characters, including Pac-Man and Donkey Kong, attacking earth after misinterpreting arcade games as a declaration of war against them.
As you'd expect, it looks absolutely crazy.
Pixels, based on a popular short film, opens in theaters on May 15, 2015. The movie also features Kevin James, Michelle Monaghan, and Josh Gad. Directing is Chris Columbus, who previously directed various Harry Potter films and the 1990 Christmas classic Home Alone.
Valve updated the Steam Subscriber Agreement today, adding a few mundane things and one particularly interesting clause (via Gamasutra). Users are now required to "clearly indicate the source" when they use any Steam service to "promote or endorse a product, service or event" in exchange for money, free games, or another inventive.
This mirrors a change Valve made back in October for Steam Curators and is the latest attempt to bring new digital services in line with existing Federal Trade Commission regulations about properly disclosing potential conflicts of interest.
The FTC is an arm of the federal government that fights for consumer protection. Their rules have always applied to traditional media outlets, but this is the first time Steam has required its users to disclose conflicts of interest--possibly because of Steam's Greenlight voting platform and user reviews.
Last month, Valve publicly asked developers to stop offering free games to users in exchange for votes on Greenlight, adding that it puts Valve in a "really uncomfortable position." A similar issue cropped up in the YouTube community, prompting investigations by Kotaku among others.
"Generally speaking, if an advertiser or a marketer is paying someone to write favorable reviews, the reviewer needs to disclose that," Mary Engle, associate director for Advertising Practices at the FTC, said to Gamasutra, "and that disclosure should be clear and conspicuous, and should be upfront and easy to see where the viewer won't miss it."
You can see the full user agreement, and compare the changes to the previous version here.
Earlier this year, we reported that Sony had abandoned the trademark for The Last Guardian. At the time, the company said that it would be following up with that trademark. As of March 12, a new trademark for a Last Guardian game has been filed, and it is currently pending approval according to the United States Patent and Trademark Office (via NeoGaf).
The game has been in development for the better part of a decade. Despite rumors of cancellation, Sony told GameSpot last month that it "can confirm that the Last Guardian is still in development."
Last year, director Fumito Ueda said Team Ico was "making progress under completely new conditions." There's still been no word on what exactly Ueda meant by "new conditions," but it comes after repeated claims that the game is making "slow progress" and that Sony is "reengineering" the project.
Artists Dave Pollot, who describes himself as a "software engineer who spends his nights with a beer in one hand and paintbrush in the other," is showing video game characters in a new light
He repurposes unwanted art found at thrift stores by adding video game characters and other sci-fi people and objects into them.
The results are most definitely eye-catching. Luigi standing in a field of daises looks somewhat strange, sure, but I can't seem to look away.
Pollot describes his work as "art with a sense of humor." You can see a selection of his creations in the gallery below.
In an interview with Nikkei Trendy, a Japanese financial site, Square Enix President Yosuke Matsuda hinted at a "surprise" coming in the next year.
"For fiscal 2015, I think we have a considerable amount of high-end games both inside and outside the country," he said (via Gematsu). "Starting with Final Fantasy XV we'll be putting out news for Japanese RPGs. I think we'll have a little surprise, too."
When pressed, Matsuda clarified that the surprise would be a "JRPG for home game machines."
Until quite recently, it seemed that Square Enix was struggling to manage what used to be its core business--making JRPGs. Final Fantasy XV, for example, has now been in development for more than eight years, and we still don't have a solid date.
Still, Matsuda is confident moving forward, stating that Square Enix's "Japanese and Western Studios are both bolstering their lineups considerably, so it'd be wise to keep an eye on them."
We got a chance to try out Final Fantasy XV earlier this month at PAX East, noting that we are "more excited for it than ever before." We also reviewed Final Fantasy Type-0 HD, awarding it an eight out of ten.
[UPDATE] This afternoon, a PlayStation representative issued a statement to GameSpot on the matter: "This was a PIP mock-up of video chat through a TV for an episode of Powers. We do not have anything to announce at this time regarding video chat for PS4."
The original story is below.
A recent episode of PlayStation Network TV show Powers reveals in-game video chat functionality on PlayStation 4, a feature that the new console currently does not support.
Image credit: IGN
As spotted by IGN, the scene depicts a man chatting with a woman while playing a game. The woman appears in a small box on the lower left-hand corner of the screen.
Of course, this is not a confirmation that the PS4 will add in-game video chat functionality. After all, Powers, a show about superheroes, is set in a fictional world.
At the same time, however, vice president of video messaging app ooVoo Brian Liebler said at CES 2015 that he hopes his service will launch for PS4 in the April-June quarter. It will use the PlayStation Camera accessory, which is sold separately.
In-game video chat is already supported on Xbox One. People who own Microsoft's console and a Kinect camera can "Snap" the Skype app to talk with friends or family during gameplay.
GameSpot has contacted Sony, asking for additional details about the possibility of in-game video chat coming to PS4 someday.
The first three episodes of the Powers series debuted last week. The entire ten-episode series is available free for PlayStation Plus subscribers.
Would you be interested in an in-game video chat feature for PS4? Let us know in the comments below!
In a surprise announcement Tuesday, Nintendo and DeNA announced a landmark partnership that will see the companies work together to bring Nintendo IP to smartphones and tablets.
The announcement paves the way for Nintendo's long-held business strategy of releasing its franchises only for its own hardware to finally come to an end.
Details are light at the moment. While Nintendo isn't eyeing straight ports, it will consider its entire IP portfolio for possible iPhone and Android games. The first products out of the Nintendo-DeNA partnership will be released before the end of the year.
As part of the agreement, Nintendo also confirmed it is developing "a core system compatible with a variety of devices including PCs, smartphones, and tablets, as well as Nintendo's dedicated video game systems."
Though there remain a number of unanswered questions about Nintendo's plans for the smartphone market, investors are already responding positively. In Japan, Nintendo shares are skyrocketing in the wake of the announcement.
To dive deeper into the news, we polled a selection of GameSpot editors for their thoughts. See below for their full responses, and be sure to let us know what you think in the comments below.
Randolph Ramsay, Managing Editor:
My initial reaction to the news of Nintendo moving to mobile? FINALLY. Nintendo has been a long time holdout when it comes to embracing mobile platforms, and they've had very good reason to. But the reality is if Nintendo wants to remain viable in the long-term, if they want to attract new audiences to their outstanding portfolio of games and hardware, then expanding their reach to mobile is the most prudent bet. And no, I'm not talking about attracting Candy Crushed obsessed casual gamers.
I'm talking about the next generation of core players, young people whose main gaming platforms are--like it or not--are the tablets and mobile devices mom and dad give them to play with. I have a five-year-old son who loves playing on my iPad, and the only Nintendo 'game' I can provide for him is Camp Pokemon. I have a 15-month-old daughter who's already obsessed with playing on my phone, and I would love to introduce her to Mario and pals. There's a whole generation of potential gamers growing up without the Nintendo brand affinity many of us have. Grabbing them at their formative gaming years on the devices they already have access to is not only a smart move on Nintendo's part, but an inevitable one.
Rob Crossley, UK News Editor:
I've often sympathized with Nintendo's concerns about jumping in bed with Apple and Google. Mobile has become a tantalizingly vast business, now bloated to the size of an estimated two billion customers, which makes even the best selling consoles seem feeble by comparison.
But it's also a market that demands games are sold at about a hundredth the price of traditional titles. Publishing on iOS and Android, for Nintendo, comes with a tacit agreement that its games don't necessarily require a premium price point. That changes the very foundation of its age-old business proposition, of creating wonderful entertainment at a justifiably high price.
"One cannot underestimate the risk Nintendo is taking here" -- Rob Crossley
One cannot underestimate the risk Nintendo is taking here. Soon it will be in a position where it will offer two kinds of mobile games: some that are on 3DS and sold for $40, others that are on mobile that will be close to free. If both kinds prove to be immensely fun--and they will be--then it's only natural that people will gravitate away from the high prices.
Will the additional money from mobile offset the inevitable losses to handhelds? That is an incredibly difficult question, the answer of which will be central in determining whether its new direction is a success or not.
Justin Haywald, Senior News Editor:
Nintendo is making the smart move.
Following the mobile announcement, Nintendo's stock jumped by 26%. And while that doesn't mean much to gamers, Nintendo is a publicly traded company. They have to do more than make gamers happy; they have to make money.
While this could be seen as flip-flopping on Nintendo president Satoru Iwata's previous commitment to stay off of smartphones (because it is), the Japanese market has gone mobile. Microsoft's and Sony's home consoles are floundering in Japan while the portable market flourishes. So avoiding mobile right now is just a dumb move. This is an announcement that will keep shareholders off of Nintendo's back but also infuse the company with more money.
That doesn't mean we're going to get great mobile games from Nintendo. There's a reason that the best experiences on your phone come from small indie studios and all the microtranscation-based money makers come from larger studios. Nintendo is getting into mobile to make money, and we're going to get things more like the Puzzles and Dragons Super Mario crossover and the terrible (but successful) Pokemon Shuffle.
"Nintendo is making the smart move" -- Justin Haywald
So why am I still excited for this? Because of what this opens up for the company next. The pairing with DeNA could mean a dedicated login not just across Nintendo devices, but across all devices where you can access or play Nintendo games. Mobile is a necessary stand-in right now to bring in money and make shareholders happy. But a future where Nintendo once again has the freedom and popularity to create great experiences that aren't limited by platform? That's exciting.
If Nintendo's plan is to use this future freedom to give us cross-buy options for games, access to the virtual console everywhere, and to give small development teams room to innovate and experiment, rather than just pumping out ways to squeeze money from consumers one microtransaction at at time, Nintendo has an incredibly exciting future.
Eddie Makuch, News Editor:
"I was surprised today to learn that Nintendo would be jumping into the smartphone/tablet market through a wide-ranging partnership with DeNA. After all, Nintendo's long-stated--and often-repeated--stance on the subject seemed clear: 'We'll make content so compelling that people will eagerly buy a 3DS.' And Nintendo had good reason to take this approach.
But it now appears that the smartphone/tablet market is simply too large a sector to ignore. While Nintendo isn't yet talking specifics about its plans for mobile--beyond saying its first titles will debut later this year--it's exciting to imagine the possibilities. The Japanese game giant has some of the most beloved and recognizable characters not just in gaming, but across the entire media landscape.
Bringing Mario, Zelda, and Donkey Kong to mobiles could be an incredibly lucrative move for the company. Of course there are a number of unanswered questions here: Will Nintendo make these games or DeNA? Are they going to be bite-sized experiences that instead push you to a deeper experience on 3DS? Microtransactions? Whatever the case, Nintendo is making a future-focused move--and that's exciting."
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