PlayStation Now, Sony’s game streaming service revealed

At CES, Sony revealed PlayStation Now, its new games streaming service that will let players enjoy “classic” PlayStation games on current-gen PS hardware and non-gaming platforms.

So what does PlayStation Now do exactly? The basic principle is that you won’t need to hang onto previous consoles in order to play games made for them. So if you wanted to play PS3 games but wanted to get rid of your PS3, you would be able to stream PS3 games to the PS4, Vita, TVs, tablets and smartphones.

Andrew House, head of gaming at Sony, confirmed that The Last of Us and Beyond: Two Souls will be available to play without a PS3 for testing purposes. And there has also been confirmation that Puppeteer and God of War: Ascension will be available on PS Vita and Sony Bravia TVs.

PlayStation Now will be subscription-based, Sony are yet to confirm it will tie in to PlayStation Plus, and will support Trophies and online multiplayer.

As of yet, the full range of games available is unclear and whether Sony will make still-selling games on previous-gen consoles available – but this does greatly help the PS4’s lack of backwards compatibility.

 

Nintendo has ended production of Wii in Japan

Spotted by Cheesemeister3k on Twitter, Nintendo has discontinued production the Wii. On the company’s Japanese site, it shows that no more Wii consoles will be made.

Originally released back in November 2006, the Wii introduced motion control to a commercial audience and featured full backward compatibility with the GameCube. As at June 2013, the console has sold over 100million units worldwide.

 

Source: Twitter

XBox One won’t support external storage at launch

Speaking on his podcast, Microsoft’s Major Nelson announced that the XBox One won’t support external storage when its launched in a few months.

“My understanding is that feature will not be there at launch because the team is working on some other things, but it definitely is on the list. I don’t know when it will come in though.”

The console does come with a 500GB internal harddrive as a standard. In March, Microsoft confirmed that extra storage is possible via the USB 3.0 port to use for game installs and downloads.

The XBox One is yet to have an official launch date but is expected to be reaching living rooms this autumn.

 

Source: Major Nelson

 

COD: Black Ops II final DLC revealed

Apocalypse, the last installment of downloadable content for Call of Duty: Black Ops II has been revealed. 

There are four new multiplayer maps, two of which are new. There’s Pod, which takes place on a Taiwanese cliff side through lots of residential pods, and there’s Frost which is a snow covered European city. The other two maps are reworked versions of Stadium from the original Black Ops’ First Strike DLC (Takeoff)  and Courtyard from World at War (Dig).

There also looks to be a big addition to the game’s Zombies mode, which is called Origins.

Apocalypse introduces Origins to the Zombie’s mode, and features the original cast. The origins of Zombies lore will be touched upon and new power ups will also be featured.

Not content with that, there’s also a 1000 foot  robot to players to take on, making Origins different from the previous content offered in Zombies mode.

Apocalypse will be free for Black Ops II Season Pass holders and will be available on XBox Live on August 27th.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Xbox One Turns Download Time to Game Time!

PS4 to be dev-friendly like original PlayStation

Key system architect of the PS4, Mark Cerny, has claimed that Sony’s new console will be developer friendly.

Cerny has spent five years working on building the next-gen console and claims that the development time to create games will be 1-2 months for the PS4, the same as for the original PlayStation, compared to the average 6-12 months for the PS3.

Cerny said that in 2008 he sent a questionnaire for third parties to ask what features they wanted on future hardware, and found that most popular request was unified memory, which has been fulfilled in the PS4.

After speaking with more than thirty teams from around the world, he said the most popular request from developers was unified memory – a requirement which the PS4 team fulfilled.

This has enabled a straightforward approach, that gives “excellent day one performance” and will cut down on developing time to one or two months, theoretically making the system as developer friendly as the original – benefitting indie developers.

Source: http://www.computerandvideogames.com/416631/ps4-as-dev-friendly-as-original-playstation-claims-cerny/

Ouya released in UK today

The Android console was released in the UK today, priced at £99.99

The console was funded by Kickstarter and raised $8.5 million, with creative backing from Square Enix, the makers of Final Fantasy III, which is available as a release title.

With the tech in place, existing Android developers can port their games to the Ouya easily. The developer toolkit is shipped with the console, so new game makers have a new option to try making their own game into a reality.

The specs are 8gig storage, HD graphics for TV ,1.7GHz Nvdia Tegra 3 quad-core chip with 1GB of RAM, the console also supports both WiFi and Ethernet.

Julie Uhrman, one of Ouya’s founders stated that “there will be a new Ouya every year, but the games will backwards compatible and tied to the user’s account, rather than the hardware itself.”

It’ll be interesting to see how well the Ouya does in the UK, and whether it’ll be around to stay.

 

Beta registration for Project Spark now open

The registration for the beta test of Project Spark has now opened. Microsoft hasn’t said which platforms the beta will use or when applicants can gain access to it.

To register for the beta, visit: https://joinprojectspark.com/

Source: http://uk.ign.com/articles/2013/06/24/project-spark-beta-registration-open-now