Ahead of the new shooter Get Even's release next month, you can now listen to some of the game's music tracks composed by Olivier Deriviere. You may not know him by name, but you're likely familiar with his work, as he composed the music for Assassin's Creed IV: Freedom Cry and Remember Me.
Developer The Farm 51 and Bandai Namco are promising something new for Get Even's soundtrack, as the music will combine "real-time MIDI," performances by live musicians," and "other audio tricks." The music itself blends electronic and live orchestra, as performed by the Brussels Philharmonic.
You can listen to all five of the preview tracks through the Soundcloud embed below. Additionally, the mini-documentary above sheds more light on how Deriviere and The Farm 51 went about creating the game's music and their ambitions for it, stylistically and tonally.
There will be 19 tracks in all on the Get Even soundtrack, spanning 60 minutes. A premium version of the soundtrack will come with a music sheet and extra songs.
GameSpot spoke with Deriviere about the soundtrack for Get Even. He told us about how he became attached to the project and revealed that he turned down offers from AAA franchises to work on the game because Get Even is a "very personal game, unlike any other."
Another interesting element to the music is that it's all connected to the story...somehow.
"Everything in the music makes sense and has a purpose that connects to the story of the game," Deriviere said. "If you hear a solo violin, if you hear a clock, if you hear breathing…etc…it is all connected."
He also discussed the "music journey" players will get to experience with Get Even, touching on all manner of tones and feelings, including "melancholic, oppressed, [and] happy."
GameSpot: How did you come to be attached to Get Even?
Deriviere: I think, as for any game, that I landed the title due to a number of factors including an element of luck as well as hard work and friendship. This game was such an amazing challenge that I even turned down some other exciting offers, including some AAA franchises, because I hoped we would achieve our ambition to create a very personal game, unlike any other.
When you say you're "challenging industry conventions" with the music for Get Even, I presume this is the real-time MIDI system. Can you talk more about how that works and what it required from you, the performers, and the game?
Get Even is not a VR game but its setting takes place in VR so I had to approach it as a VR game. Therefore, I wondered how music would work in a world where everything looks, hears and feels so physical. How can an abstract music cue play when there is no ground for it? So the first rule we created was that every composition should start with an actual source from the world. Let's take the first level. You progress in a building with many different rooms. In the real world rooms emit a random tone called "room tone." We designed them to be all in the key of C as well as for the lights buzzing around you. So we have a low pitch C and a high buzzing pitch C that will morph seamlessly to a drone texture. As you progress through the level. But that's not all! On top of that we have a very slow clock mechanical sound triggered in MIDI that will accelerate the more you approach your objective. At the end of the level we hear a live recording in sync with the clock and the drone that creates a very emotional and intense moment in the game. This could not be achieved in a traditional way.
What kind of preparation did you do for this project?
This was very challenging work and preparation was key. I had to do a lot of research on both an artistic and technical level to make sure it would meet what the game needed. To merge real time generated music with pre-recorded music was really fun because we had so much more flexibility. But what really mattered to me, and for any game I score, is to be meaningful with what I am doing. Writing music just for the sake of adding a musical layer to a game has never been enough to me and Get Even is so mesmerizing that I had to make sure everything you would hear is connected to the story. Everything in the music makes sense and has a purpose that connects to the story of the game. If you hear a solo violin, if you hear a clock, if you hear breathing…etc…it is all connected.
What were some of the themes and tones you wanted to accentuate with your music and how did you go about delivering on those? I heard regret and guilt are two themes of the game.
Nobody can anticipate what this game is about but yes, the main themes are regret and guilt. Time also has a big part to play. When you look at some screenshots of the game or the trailer you might think it is a horror genre game. There is some of that but it's maybe less than 10 percent of the experience. As well as the shooting part. Get Even is a very narrative-driven game that will play with your mind and, hopefully, talk to your heart and soul. That's what my music is definitely for. It is a very intimate story; there is no world to be saved, no zombie killing, etc… It's about making mistakes and the utter feeling of being powerless against them.
What kind of access did you have to the development team at The Farm 51 during the production of your score? And was it a very collaborative effort?
My relationship with a studio I work with is like the ones you can have in the movies such as Spiellberg/Williams, Burton/Elfman, Nolan/Zimmer... It is an intense collaboration to provide the best experience we can to players. I think this is the only approach for me to really capture the vision and enhance it with music.
"Get Even is a very narrative-driven game that will play with your mind and, hopefully, talk to your heart and soul." -- Deriviere
You've worked on some very high-profile projects in the past such as Alone in the Dark. How did this experience compare?
Well, working on high-profile games is no different in my opinion. You give the best you can. Of course it is very gratifying when you have worked on big franchises like Alone in the Dark or Assassin's Creed but Get Even is very special to me. This game is not about the big picture but much more about us. Also the team was much smaller, we are talking about 60 people, so it feels more personal. I really had a great time talking with the team and I must say the lead level designer Gosia really provided me with all the material I needed for the music, I can't thank her enough!
What should people know about the musical score for Get Even?
I think people will be very surprised listening to the whole soundtrack, it is such a musical journey that they will feel sometimes melancholic, oppressed, happy but in the end, at the very end, they will listen to it and, if I did my job, deep down, they will know it is about them as well.
Ubisoft veteran Alex Hutchinson has left the company to create his own studio. Hutchinson, who was the game director on high-profile Ubisoft projects such as Assassin's Creed III and Far Cry 4, announced his departure from the French gaming giant on Twitter this week (via IGN).
"Extremely proud of all we achieved on Far Cry and Assassins but very excited to build something new," he said. He's starting a new company, Typhoon Studios, with former EA and Warner Bros. producer Reid Schneider and "some other wonderful people." Hutchinson added that you should not expect to hear much about the developer's first game soon, though he did tease, "We are hard at work imagining a brand new world to inflict on all of you, so stay tuned."
So! I left Ubisoft after 7 years. Extremely proud of all we achieved on Far Cry and Assassins but very excited to build something new.
Hutchinson made headlines in 2012 when he said the the pursuit of AAA games is "kind of cancerous growth…that will leave AAA blockbusters as nothing more than the last of the dinosaurs." In 2013, Hutchinson said something similar, claiming that AAA games are dying out.
Today at an event in Taipei, Wargaming revealed new details on the company's previously announcedWorld of Warships partnership with the naval-themed anime High School Fleet.
This will come in the form of a pair of new premium ships to buy, including the HSF Harekaze (destroyer) and the HSF Graf Spee (cruiser). You can see these ships in the image below.
Voice actors from High School Fleet will lend their voices to the DLC, for the characters Akeno Misaki and Moeka China, Wargaming announced during a stage presentation. A video was shown, but the voices were not added yet. We'll add the video here when it's made available.
The new High School Fleet ships are coming to World of Warships later this year, timed with the release of the anime's launch for Blu-ray.
Keep checking back with GameSpot this weekend for more from the Wargaming event. For more on what we've seen and learned so far, check out the stories below.
First, the developer confirmed the game will get monthly updates. Previous entries in the series have instead opted for seasonal updates, so around four major ones per year. "Considering all we have in store for Battlefield 1, we've decided to move to monthly updates," DICE said. "With this new tempo, we're going to bring you more of what you want, faster than ever."
The next major update for Battlefield 1, the Spring Update, will add Platoons as a new feature. As its name suggests, Platoons let you join up with friends to form a unit. That's all we know for now, but DICE says more details are coming.
An update scheduled for May will help make Battlefield 1 "as frictionless as possible," DICE said.
"This includes streamlining the flow into matches (especially Operations) and improving many gameplay grievances that will hopefully make the action feel more balanced and fair," the studio explained. "The development team is also working on a feature update to the Battlefield 1 Rent-a-Server Program which we hope to release soon."
The other part of DICE's blog post today focused on Battlefield 1's three upcoming expansions: In the Name of the Tsar, Turning Tides, and Apocalypse. We already knew about these, but DICE published some new concept art, which you can see embedded above, and official descriptions (see them here).
Are you looking forward to what's next for Battlefield 1? Let us know in the comments below!
The next Total War game differentiates itself from those that came before it. Total War: Arena is a free-to-play, online-focused game in the works for PC, made by series studio Creative Assembly. It's still without a release date, but progress is moving along, and employees from Wargaming--whose Alliance label is working on the game--shared some new insight on the project in an interview with GameSpot today at the WGL APAC event in Taipei.
Wargaming producer Jose Edgardo Garcia talked about potentially bringing the game to consoles and how Wargaming is trying to avoid a pay-to-win scenario, among other topics. On the subject of console plans, he said the focus is on bringing the game out for PC first, though he strongly suggested that a console release could happen further down the road.
"Right now, we want Creative Assembly to focus on what they have--which is a PC game," Garcia said. "Now, the thing is, Total War: Arena will be under the Wargaming universe in our portfolio. That means they will follow the rules that our other games have."
Wargaming's biggest hit, World of Tanks, launched first on PC and came to consoles later--it's available on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Xbox 360. It sounds like the same thing could happen for Total War: Arena. One thing is for sure, though--Wargaming is not going to push Creative Assembly into something before it's ready.
"We don't want to pressure them to rush into anything," Garcia said. "We want them to concentrate on making a high-quality game and that's where we are at right now."
Moving on to Total War: Arena's business model, we asked about the stigma that is still attached to some free-to-play games for being "pay-to-win." Some games might be guilty of this, he said (without naming any names), though Total War: Arena hopes to not be one of them.
"Definitely going to say no," Garcia said about Total War: Arena being pay-to-win.
"We know our audience; we definitely get their feedback," he added. "We make sure that the game is for their enjoyment, their entertainment. We want to make happy players, not pissed off players."
"We are very committed to keeping players happy."
Wargaming's head of marketing for APAC, Tatsiana Martsinouskaya, stressed that Arena remains in development (it's in alpha now), so the main goal currently is to refine and polish the gameplay. The decisions about monetization will come later, she told us.
Keep checking back with GameSpot for more from this interview and other topics in the coming days. For now, you can see some footage of the game in its alpha state in the video above.
Are you looking forward to Arena? Let us know in the comments below!
As Mass Effect: Andromeda recently showed, even games with massive budgets, schedules, and teams can sometimes come up short. According to XCOM Lead Jake Solomon--a man whose own forays into triple-A development have produced highly successful games like XCOM 2--that's not too surprising.
In a talk Solomon gave last month at PAX East, he explained that failure is as much a tool as it is a stumbling block, that the lessons we learn from it outweigh the toll it takes. In the world of triple-A game development, however, it can still be a liability. We recently caught up with Solomon to take a peek inside his high-stakes world in hopes of better understanding the people and processes behind some of our favorite games.
GameSpot: I wanted to start with something that you spoke about in your speech last month. One of the subjects you touched on was failure and how it's an important step in building toward success.
Solomon: Absolutely.
So my question is, do you think that triple-A development currently leaves room for failure? Is there time and money for people to iterate and experiment and fail on their way to creating something great?
Yes, I think so, but even in triple-A, the absolute top, most developers […] have some types of constraints and schedule and things like that, which of course makes sense. I think that there is an opportunity for failure, but I think […] the reaches that you take have to be planned to where anything you're innovating on, you have to plan for that type of failure in the schedule.
With sequels, typically, you don't have to reach as far. I think the real challenge is when you're either making something new or rebooting something. Just by the nature of it, you're going to have to take some really creatively risky reaches, attempts at things, and so when you do that, there's guaranteed to be big failures along the way. I think that the challenge is, I guess, having enough time.
But in terms of the industry as a whole, it's a tightrope. It is an absolute tightrope, I think because triple-A games are so hit driven. It's an interesting thing to think about. In this industry, I think your first failure is probably going to be your last one, too.
It certainly seems that way, yes.
It wasn't that way a while ago, but it's just the nature of [the industry]. And it makes total sense. There's nothing wrong with that. I think that if you're talking about tens of millions of dollars to make games, if you're talking about margins like that, then yeah, it's hard to recover from that.
"In this industry, I think your first failure is probably going to be your last one, too." -- Jake Solomon
You have to take risks, you have to innovate, otherwise you're not offering value and people will find it somewhere else. At the same time, those risks could sink you if you don't fail fast enough and get to the actual right answer, so I think it really is kind of a tightrope.
I think it's why people in my position typically don't stay relevant for that long. It doesn't bother me to say because it's just a fact. There are some people who stay at the absolute top of the game for a long time. Todd Howard's been making games for a long time, but you can think of any name from 10 years ago and you could say, "Oh yeah, they're not as big as they were 10 years ago, so in 10 years, what does that mean for me? What does that mean for a lot of people in my position?"
This word is going to sound harsh, but that almost makes developers sound disposable, to an extent. Is that true, and if so, how do you escape that mindset? How do you go into a project knowing, "Maybe this will be my last one; maybe I won't matter after this"?
I think that that is always my mindset. It's the sort of thing that I keep very, very present. It does not make for a really relaxed thought process, but it's something that I always try to keep present in my mind: the thought that when you're creating things, you're basically pulling ideas out of thin air. The only way you can offer value to people is coming up with something new.
When you try to come up with something new, failure is a big part of that, and so that means failure is a very big part of what I do. And so there's a very good chance that my failure could end up becoming big enough that maybe a game is my last game, for a long time or forever.
I don't know if developers are disposable so much as... It's like any business, basically, except that ours has a lot of turn over, really quick, and I think it's because our industry's still kind of in the early stages. We're still trying to find out what it is that provides the most value to players. I think that you just have to keep in mind that if you don't innovate, somebody else will, so you have to taking those risks, knowing that inherent in those risks, potentially, is your failure as well.
That's why I think you just can't dwell on failure. You have to fail efficiently, and that means that you can't dwell on failure as a personal thing. You can't dwell on it as an emotional thing. You have to be very cold-blooded about it and say, "We are going to fail. I'm going to fail." The key is to fail efficiently. When we fail, look at it right in the eyes and say, "What did that teach us?" And we very quickly need to get onto our next failure because we've got to get through these failures until, all of a sudden, we have something that we say, "Okay, this is good enough."
The scary part is that you can never predict. Eventually I think, as a designer, you have this sense of, "This will work out at some point," but you don't know how many failures that's going to take, and you only have so much runway. So it is kind of terrifying when you're in the middle of the process and you're like, "This is not good. This feature's not good, but it must be good," and you're like, "We've just got to get through. We've got to keep trying to find the right way."
To circle back to something you mentioned a little while ago, it seems like, ultimately, what raises the stakes, what makes failure such a potential liability for a developer, is money, really. It's an economic question. Like you said, you're investing tens of millions of dollars into a game. From an economic standpoint, it's hard to question publishers' need for guarantees.
Not at all.
The question is, what does that money actually allow you to do as a developer? Is that trade-off worth it? Is raising the stakes to that degree worth that kind of monetary investment?
It's kind of an industry question. Whatever game you're making has to have the audience to support your investment, obviously. Certain games have massive audiences, and so that means that they can support [bigger budgets]. I'm more of a standard developer. We have limits on what we do, and we have to be efficient with what we do, and we have to think about, "Is this really going to provide value to our audience? Should we really be doing this, because it's eating up time?"
I think that you rise to, basically, a breaking point. This is just industry wide. Everything has changed so much. When I started, something like Civilization III, it probably sold a couple million copies or something like that, but it cost nothing to make. But then eventually, a certain standard of quality is expected and your teams get larger and they continue to get larger and the quality of titles continues to be expected to go up, and all of that means that as the cost of development's going up, you either have to increase the revenue [or] increase your audience. It's all a question of which game you're making, because your return does justify the investment--and if it didn't, it'll be the last time you do it.
"The only way you can offer value to people is coming up with something new. When you try to come up with something new, failure is a big part of that." -- Jake Solomon
It's interesting because the return on hits are so big that you can certainly understand why people want to make these big, big games. I don't know what the return on Call of Duty is, but I'm sure it's really f**king great, so you certainly understand why people would want to make games like that. There are so many other games that exist in the middle. I was talking to a designer who's a really good friend of mine. He's more of an indie developer. I said, "How you guys doing?" He said, "Well, if we sold half of what we sold we'd be out of business. If we sold twice what we sold we'd be rich." And I'm like, "You basically just described all of us."
I think that holds for most people and the vast majority of game development. And so the tension, obviously, on the business side comes from rising costs and how can you recoup that. Because you can't just sit there and costs can't continue to rise if you're not also increasing your audience or revenue. Business is a really big part of what we do. It's just not something we talk about because most people find it dry, I suppose.
It's inescapable, though. Games are a business. And to hear you talk about it, it almost sounds like game development is somewhere between an arms race and a gold rush. Is the current system sustainable? Where does this end?
The industry is so varied now; even indie games have a really high level of polish now. I think the problem is that, every time you make a game, you have to look at [all these different games] and say, "Wow, they did this thing, and wow, they did that thing," and then there are all these reasons you're like, "Yeah, we could 20 more people to do all these neat things," and then you have to balance that against, "Okay, is that really going to be worth it?"
I'd love to try making a game where it doesn't f**king matter and I can be like, "You know what? I want to add this feature and this feature and this feature." But a lot of us have to think in terms of, "This is the most valuable feature to our audience. This is what they love, so this is what we're going to focus on. We can't just throw everything in there."
You have to be real smart about that, and obviously, that's another place where you can't make mistakes. You can't say, "The big feature for this next game is X," and if your audience is like, "We don't give a shit about X," then you're like, "Oh s**t" because we spent a lot of money making that.
Do you have a project or an idea that you would pursue if you didn't have to worry about money from publishers or even fan expectations?
Whenever I see people designing space sims and things like that, I'm like, "That sounds like so much fun." I think the best sim that's ever been made is Minecraft. Minecraft is so simple, but it feels so real. It feels so authentic, which is its power. I just think Minecraft is amazing, and I never would've been able to come up with an idea like that because I tend to think in incredibly complex simulations type stuff.
That would probably be the thing I'd work on. I joke about that, even with other developers I joke. That's what I would do. The kind of person I am, I would be happy spending 20 years working on some obscenely complicated universe simulation and then never release it, probably, and go f**king crazy by the end. I'd be the guy with the hair, pissing in bottles, telling people, "Er, go away. I'm working on the space simulation." There'd be websites about "Whatever happened to Jake Solomon?"
So what you're saying is, you're not going to make a space sim?
No, no. I'm not going to because I don't want to go crazy.
Your most recent game, XCOM 2, is a strategy game. Strategy's not really known for being a big triple-A seller. How do you approach making a triple-A strategy game knowing that it's not traditionally a high-selling genre?
XCOM would never exist without Civilization, because Civ is the proof. They're a very non-standard triple-A game, but they do amazingly, amazingly well because they have a loyal audience. I think that's what's important about strategy, and that's why I like making strategy games. Not only because I love strategy, but we have a relationship with our audience and it's probably more important to us than a lot of other titles.
Having a very distinct, loyal audience makes it easier as a developer to focus on, "Okay, this is what they like. This is what our relationship's like," and you get to a point where, when you're making Civ or when you're making XCOM and you're making sequels, the ownership shifts from me as a designer.
When you make your first game, you feel like you have creative ownership over it. When you make games that have an audience already, then you shift the ownership over to your audience. And now you're in a position where you're sort of curating this game for your audience, and you can have this back and forth with them in terms of understanding what it is they want. I think that that's how you have to approach a game like XCOM, or even a game like Civ--you feel like you have this shared ownership.
At the end of the day, whose opinion about what happens in the game is more important: the fans or the developers?
Unquestionably the fans, unquestionably. I always, always say that our players' values are our values. They have to be. I always have to project players' values onto my own, and when I'm designing a feature I have to try and say, "This is something they're going to appreciate or they're going to like," because if I don't, if I'm off this way, then the problem is, I'm going to have to readjust. It's not like the players are going to readjust what they like based on what I've said.
For a specific example, in XCOM 2, a lot of the missions are timed--like, you have to complete this mission in this many turns. And I did that because I was just thinking, "Okay, objectively, that's a better design because it forces players to make sub-optimal decisions. They don't have all the time in the world, so now they have to take risks." The good thing about that is that when players take risks, they have varied experiences from mission to mission. There's no optimal way to solve a mission. You can't just sit back and be real defensive.
The problem is, some players didn't like that kind of pressure on them, and it's not for me to then defend my design decisions. Another death trap for designers is to say, "Let me explain to you why I'm right and you're wrong." Instead, the goal is to say, "Okay, if that's what my players' values are, I need to readjust." It's one of the hardest things, but I really have to force myself to say, "I need to find a way to make this work with my players' values, not my own particular opinion about what's the best design."
At the same time, though, most fans are not developers. They don't necessarily know what's going to work in the context of the game. So if you're turning creative control over to people who don't know how to make games, could you ultimately end up with something that doesn't work or make sense?
Oh yeah, [but] I think the mechanics are up to the designer. It's more the broad strokes of, if the players don't like something, you're like, "Okay, well this is what I want to achieve, but if they didn't like this mechanic, I need to come up with another mechanic." Again, you just have to make sure your values are aligned with your players.
"I always, always say that our players' values are our values. They have to be." -- Jake Solomon
Again, it goes back even to the thought of money and development. The only things that matters are the things that bring players value. It's like if an artist was modeling a table and they spend a s**t load of time modeling the underside of the table and the player never sees the table. All that time is just money poured down a hole. That's the kind of thing we have to be careful about. Because if you're doing that, you're just wasting time. They'll never see it. They'll never care.
The only way to get around it is to make sure you understand your players' values well enough to say, "You know what? We shouldn't waste time on that. They're not going to give a s**t. We shouldn't worry about that. We should worry about this thing that they really care about, that they spend a lot of time on." That's why understanding your players is so, so important.
Welcome to GameSpot Q&A, a section where we ask our staff and readers an interesting discussion question about video games. Look at this as a forum where you and others can discuss and compare your opinions of this beloved hobby of ours. Let us know what your answer is to this week's question in the comments below!
This week's question is:
How Much Should Xbox Project Scorpio Cost?
Microsoft recently announced more details about its upcoming Project Scorpio Xbox One hardware. The console's specs are beyond what we've seen in the current console generation, but with such power, the current big question is its price point. Our editors voice their thoughts towards the issue in the answers below.
Jimmy Thang, Technology Editor | $500
If I had to guess, I'd wager that Project Scorpio will debut at $499. I think the PS3 showed that users are resistant to spending $599 for a console (despite the fact that it was actually kind of a steal, being one of the most affordable Blu-ray players at the time). I think Microsoft recognizes that and won't go above $500 as a result.
Having said that, on paper, the console is poised to be noticeably more powerful than the PS4 Pro, which currently costs $399. I would be very surprised if Microsoft came out at roughly the same price, considering Scorpio's beefier specs. So, I'm going with $499. Think that's too expensive? Well, I'm willing to bet that Microsoft would say, "That's what the Xbox One S is for." It helps that Project Scorpio is backwards compatible with the S, even down to the peripherals.
Peter Brown, Senior Reviews Editor | $400
Considering Scorpio's spec advantage relative to PlayStation 4 Pro, it stands to reason that Microsoft will release the system at a higher cost than Sony's current top dog. $500 might be the sweet spot, but that creates a perception problem given that Xbox One S retails for $250. The working theory is that both Xbox One S and Scorpio will run the same games, meaning Scorpio will only have a performance advantage, albeit a considerable one. Still, in the eyes of consumers, paying twice as much to play the same games with better visuals will be a tough pill to swallow; performance helps, but it isn't the whole story.
If Scorpio sells for $400--where Microsoft (likely) sells the system at a loss--people might forgive the current lack of enticing Xbox exclusives due to the perceived value of the hardware compared to PS4 Pro. Microsoft wouldn't be the first manufacturer to subsidize the cost of a new console, and doing so with Scorpio may be the only way it can revive Xbox's competitive edge in light of the current lukewarm game forecast.
Scott Butterworth, Editor | $450
I know consoles are generally priced in nice, round $100 increments, but I think $450 might be the best way for Microsoft to balance the points already raised by Jimmy and Peter. Scorpio is far beefier than the $400 PS4 Pro, which would make it easy for Microsoft to justify charging a slighter higher price (and even at $450, Scorpio would be a steal relative to what that amount buys in PC components).
But it's also important to remember that, despite its impressive specs, Scorpio does not mark the beginning of a new console generation. It will likely play the exact same games as the $250 Xbox One S. That means consumers are ultimately paying extra for a performance boost, and I'm pretty confident most people aren't willing to pay fully double the price of an S just see their games run in higher resolutions and framerates, especially since many gamers don't even own 4K-capable TVs yet. So my guess is Microsoft will launch several Scorpio bundles at $450: a console plus one or two free games (most likely Forza, given the demo during Scorpio's recent unveiling).
Justin Haywald, Managing Editor | $500
We don't think about the cost that often, but your phone probably costs a lot of money. A current top-of-the-line iPhone 7 Plus starts at $770. A Samsung Galaxy S8? $850. And it's that early-adopter, technologically savvy consumer that I think Microsoft will be courting.
$500 for Project Scorpio seems pricey, but it puts it within striking distance of its competition in the PS4 Pro, while firmly establishing Scorpio as a machine with better specs and more capability. People who will benefit the most from a Scorpio are those who own a 4K TV, and while the price of that technology is rapidly dropping, that just means that Scorpio can start out at a premium and drop in price early in 2018.
The more interesting question will be how (and if) Microsoft handles virtual reality. Part of the reason for a system like Scorpio has to be in preparation of an increased emphasis on VR, but what would an Xbox hardware bundle look like? Sony's PlayStation VR is still hard to find in stores, and the launch bundle for that system (even without a console) was $500. I'd expect, sometime in 2018, Microsoft will offer up an all-in-one VR console package in the $800 range--and Project Scorpio will be at its core.
Eddie Makuch, News Editor | $500
For a long time now, Microsoft has referred to Project Scorpio as a "premium" device. It will of course be more expensive than Xbox One S, and my estimation is that it will go for $500. That price point steers clear of $599, which does not have good memories attached to it. Given the guts of the console, anything under $500 seems an unlikely scenario. At the same time, Microsoft has been clear in its messaging for Scorpio that this is a console aimed at players who want a higher-end experience--and will presumably pay for it. Doubling down on this, Phil Spencer has said Scorpio is not expected to sell anywhere near as well as Xbox One S. With the reveal of Scorpio's specs now out of the way, it will be intriguing to see where Scorpio comes in for price. Expect all to become clear at E3, if not sooner.
Michael Higham, Associate Tech Editor | $500
Considering how much power is under the hood, I can't see Project Scorpio priced any lower than $499. Also, the PlayStation 4 Pro is currently $399, and who knows if there will be a holiday season price cut this year. Of course, if Microsoft is willing to sell the console at a lower price, the barrier to entry will be lower and we'll all win. But I'm not holding my breath. Scorpio is coming with a robust cooling solution to keep that 8-core 2.3GHz CPU and 6 teraflop GPU system-on-chip (SOC) cool, not to mention it'll come equipped with 12GB of GDDR5 RAM. This is all-powerful stuff, and I wouldn't be surprised if it's expensive to manufacture.
I used to fake being sick to stay home from school as a kid, so I watched a lot of The Price is Right--you can bet on me.
This year's edition runs April 11-17, Microsoft's Major Nelson announced on Twitter today. There will be more than 350 games in the sale, with discounts as deep as 67 percent. Additionally, Xbox Live Gold members can save as much as 10 percent more.
Spring Sale runs from 11-17 April and features over 350 titles with savings up to 67% off (Xbox Live Gold members save up to 10% more) pic.twitter.com/EWbJE2qHjk
Additionally, new Xbox Live Gold members can subscribe for just $1, while Xbox Design Lab custom controllers will see a $15 discount for the first time ever as part of the sale. On top of games, music and movies will be featured in the sale, according to the video.
We will post a rundown of the deals when they are announced.
In the extended discussion, Penello started off by clearing up some comments he's heard about the reveal on Thursday. It was always the plan to focus on specs only, as Microsoft is saving more details--like price and release date--for other events later in the year. Penello said one of the next reveals could happen "in LA perhaps," which is surely a reference to E3 2017 in June.
The reveal this week with Digital Foundry was an effort to "prove definitively" that Microsoft will deliver on the promises it made about the console at E3 2016 where it was announced--and then exceed them. Microsoft anticipated a lot of questions about Scorpio's specs and it was satisfying this week to start to tell more of the story, Penello said.
He also talked about why Microsoft is making Scorpio in the first place, saying people today expect hardware refreshes faster than in the past. Not only that but people today understand that the content they own on one system, say an iPhone, will stay with them when they upgrade to the next device, which may be more powerful. This will also be true for Scorpio, as it plays all of your existing games (with better quality in some cases) and supports controllers and other peripherals you own.
Overall, Penello described Scorpio as a "really badass gaming PC."
Scorpio comes out this holiday. Keep checking back with GameSpot for more on the console in the days and weeks ahead.
Are you looking forward to Scorpio? Let us know in the comments below!
In order to fly, you need a mine cart and a metal box. The easiest way to acquire these two components is to go to the Death Mountain region.
To get a mine cart, follow the path towards the Goron Hot Springs, which is located southeast of Goron City. You'll find it either on a rail or resting near the edge of a cliff.
X marks the path.
Now you need to find a metal box. Luckily, there are quite a few in a nearby Lizalfos encampment. Quickly grab the mine cart with your Magnesis rune and head down the path through the hot springs until you see an X-shaped steel plank on the ground, signaling a fork in the road. Follow the path to the right; you'll notice several steel planks lining it. Once you reach the end of this steel plank road, make a U-turn to the right towards the path leading downhill. Proceed down this path until you reach an encampment surrounded by metal boxes.
Lay down the mine cart and dispatch the enemies at the encampment. After doing so, use your Magnesis rune to place the mine cart onto the ground as flat as possible. Next, grab one of the metal boxes and center it on top of the mine cart. Once both pieces are set, jump on top of the metal box and lightly pull upward with Magnesis to propel the mine cart up into the air. Make slight adjustments with the right analog stick to maintain a steady course, but don't pull up too hard, as doing so will cause the box to fly out of the mine cart.
Next level Hylian airship technology, right here.
And that's how you fly in Breath of the Wild. Enjoy!
Shannon Woodward, who plays Elsie in Westworld, has a role in The Last of Us: Part II, she announced on Twitter with a nice picture of herself and game director Neil Druckmann (via IGN).
All we know for now is that Woodward is in the game; there is nothing to go on yet regarding the character she's playing and any connections to the first game.
In the hunt for a Nintendo Switch and haven't been able to find one? You might have another chance this weekend, as Toys 'R Us has announced that all of its US stores will have consoles in stock on Sunday, April 9.
A representative for the company told GameSpot that supply will be "limited," so shoppers are encouraged to line up at their stores before they open at 10 AM local time.
If the situation at Toys 'R Us is similar to other stores, you can expect stock to go quickly. The console remains sold out basically everywhere in the United States.
"We owe the continued momentum and recognition to the dedicated players exploring the world and creating adventures together in Pokemon Go," Niantic said in a blog post. "Each and every award Pokemon Go has won is a testament to the game's awesome and supportive community."
Niantic also teased that Pokemon Go is only still at the start of its life, suggesting many more updates are on the way. He teased that some kind of "new cooperative" gameplay is coming.
"We're still at the beginning of the journey and there's a lot more to come. With spring arriving in the northern hemisphere, players can look forward to all new cooperative social gameplay experiences in Pokemon Go that will give Trainers new and exciting reasons to get back into the sunshine."
A new international poster has been released for Alien: Covenant, whichhits theaters next month. The latest movie in the sci-fi horror franchise stars Michael Fassbender as the android Walter, and this Korean poster puts him alongside one of the movie's iconic creatures. Check it out below:
"There will be another one before we kind of literally and logically, clockwise, back into the rear back head of [the original] Alien," he said last month. "It will go Prometheus, Awakening, Covenant. There will be more after this. If this is successful, and then the next one, and then there will definitely be three more."
Alien: Covenant arrives in theaters on May 19 in the US and May 12 in the UK.
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