Gaming

In a nutshell: You'd be forgiven for thinking that the Epic Games Store's Mega Sale gave away its best freebie first when Borderlands 3 was handed out gratis last week, but the next game—or games, to be accurate—are even better: from now until June 2, you can download and keep BioShock: The Collection from the store without paying a penny. Following the Borderlands 3 giveaway last week, the next free game in the Epic Games Store's Mega Sale is BioShock: The Collection . It comes with the System Shock spiritual successor BioShock, as well as BioShock 2, BioShock Infinite, and all of the single-player DLC packs and expansions released for the games, including Minerva's Den and Burial At Sea. Depressingly enough, it's been almost 15 years since the first BioShock arrived and added the phrase "Would you kindly?" to the gaming lexicon. But it's still worth a playthrough, especially if you never had the pleasure the first time around. Sequel BioShock 2 returned us to Rapture … [Read more...] about Free games alert: All three BioShock titles available now, Far Cry 4 giveaway next month

Audio player loading… If you're thinking of picking up a PSVR 2 at launch, there's good news. Sony has confirmed its next-gen virtual reality headset will launch with more than 20 games. Offering first-party and third-party games for PSVR 2 , which was confirmed during an investor relations briefing (opens in new tab) , there will seemingly be plenty to play at launch. Unfortunately though, if you're hoping for fresh reveals, you won't find them here. Sony didn't name-drop any new releases, but the presentation slide does include Horizon Call of the Mountain, which was widely assumed to be a launch game. Speaking within this briefing (thanks, VGC (opens in new tab) ), PlayStation boss Jim Ryan stated: "Right now, there is a considerable amount of money being spent on partnerships with independent and other third-party developers to secure a considerable pipeline of attractive VR content at the launch of PlayStation VR2." From Sony's recent … [Read more...] about Sony promises over 20 PSVR 2 games at launch

SAN FRANCISCO: Epic Games , the maker of Fortnite game, has challenged Apple for its stand that third-party app stores would compromise the iPhone's security. In a fresh court filing, Epic said if Apple can allow sideloading on Mac devices and still call those computers secure, then surely it could do the same for iPhone. "For macOS Apple relies on security measures imposed by the operating system rather than the app store , and anotarisationa¿ programme that scans apps and then returns them to the developer for distribution," the new filing said. "The operating system Apple uses in its Mac computers (macOS) does not include the challenged restraints found in the iPhone operating system (iOS), and Apple publicly touts the Mac's security," read the filing. Apple also permits multiple alternative payment solutions in the App Store for apps selling physical goods, "confirming that the requirement to use Apple's in-app payment solution, IAP, for digital goods … [Read more...] about apple: Epic Games challenges Apple again in App Store anti-trust case

Japanese tech giant Sony has announced that half of its game releases will be on PC and mobile by 2025. A chart shown during the presentation, on annual investor day, suggested that this would be a major increase from its releases this year, when around a quarter of the company's releases will be on PC and mobile, with the remainder split between its PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 consoles. "By expanding to PC and mobile, and it must be said... also to live services, we have the opportunity to move from a situation of being present in a very narrow segment of the overall gaming software market, to being present pretty much everywhere," Sony Interactive Entertainment President Jim Ryan was quoted as saying by Video Games Chronicle. Ryan also said that investing in PC and mobile could lead to "significant growth in the number of people who play our games, the number of people who enjoy our games, and the number of people who spend money on our games". … [Read more...] about Sony plans to release half of games on PC, Mobile by 2025

Rumor mill: Sony seems to have little reason to slow down its recent push into PC releases. After God of War, Horizon Zero Dawn, and Days Gone—with Uncharted still to come—another PlayStation hit appears headed to Steam. Recently, a listing appeared on SteamDB sounding suspiciously similar to Sony and Housmarque's award-winning roguelike shooter Returnal. Titled Oregon, the listing's tags accurately describe the game with terms like "third-person shooter," "bullet hell," "rouge-lite," and "female protagonist." Its history section mentions a Tower of Sisyphus—an extra mode in Returnal. Released last year, Returnal was one of the PlayStation 5's first AAA exclusives. It won two awards at the DICE Summit in February and the top prize at the BAFTAs. It appears Returnal is headed to Steam https://t.co/wuFqDwLV7o pic.twitter.com/jrvZf70s1K — Nibel (@Nibellion) May 26, 2022 The game's eventual appearance on PC would come as no surprise. This week, Sony optimistically … [Read more...] about SteamDB listing indicates PlayStation 5 exclusive Returnal might see a PC release

Niantic made a name for itself in the mobile gaming industry through the enduring success of Pokémon Go . Now the company is hoping to become something else: a platform for other developers to build location-aware AR apps on top of. This plan has been in the works since at least 2018 , but it’s taking a big leap forward this week with the long-awaited release of Niantic’s location mapping software for AR, which it calls the Visual Positioning System, or VPS in a nod to GPS. The technology makes it so that AR experiences can be grounded to a physical location, like the front of a building or a park monument, rather than just floating aimlessly through a phone’s camera view. Developers can now use VPS as the tentpole feature of Niantic’s broader Lightship SDK , which also lets multiple devices access a shared AR experience — like a 3D multiplayer game — at the same time. VPS will be free during an initial public beta period and then switch later this year to a tiered billing … [Read more...] about Niantic moves beyond games with Lightship AR platform and a social network

Audio player loading… PC Gamer has a big event incoming next month, namely the 2022 PC Gaming Show (opens in new tab) , which is set to be packed with revelations on some 45+ games – including exclusive first-looks at two unannounced titles. Our sister site has revealed that the eighth annual PC Gaming Show will take place on Sunday June 12, with the main event kicking off at 12:30pm PT in the US (which is 8:30pm in the UK). You can watch the proceedings unfold on Twitch (opens in new tab) or YouTube (opens in new tab) at that time, with a whole bunch of exclusive trailers, game announcements, interviews with devs and more to be enjoyed. Sean ‘Day[9]’ Plott and Mica Burton will be hosting as was the case previously. Some of the highlights to look out for include new gameplay that’ll be shown off from the Half-Life: Alyx – Levitation mod, an update on Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2 provided by Tim Willits of Saber Interactive (who you may remember from … [Read more...] about E3 is dead, but the 2022 PC Gaming Show lives on with some big reveals promised

Audio player loading… Sony’s PC ports of PlayStation games (opens in new tab) are set to make a load more money in the coming year, although the firm’s PC projects are already doing well in terms of earnings. This became clear from a shareholder briefing where Sony presented a bunch of slides, one of which outlined income from PC ports, showing that they brought in $80 million over the past fiscal year (running up to the end of March), no less. Those are the proceeds from Horizon: Zero Dawn (opens in new tab) , God of War and Days Gone, but there are far greater things to come, Sony predicts. Namely that in the next financial year, the company expects its PC games (opens in new tab) to earn $300 million, almost quadruple the figure from this past year (and not far off a ninefold increase on the $35 million made in 2020). That’s a huge leap in takings, of course, and it begs the question: what has Sony got in the pipeline to make it so confident that … [Read more...] about Forget PS5 – Sony is making big bucks with PC games

Further Reading The state of 4K gaming in 2015 With the 2020 release of the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5, we've started to see the era of console games that finally make full use of TVs capable of 4K resolutions (i.e., "Ultra HD" 3840×2160 pixels) that have become increasingly popular in the marketplace . Now, though, at least one TV manufacturer is already planning to support 8K-capable consoles (i.e., 7680×4320 resolution) that it thinks could launch in the next year or two. Polish gaming site PPL reports on a recent public presentation by Chinese TV and electronics maker TCL . Tucked away in a slide during that presentation is a road map for what TCL sees as "Gen 9.5" consoles coming in 2023 or '24. Those supposed consoles—which the slide dubs the PS5 Pro and "New Xbox Series S/X"—will be capable of pushing output at 8K resolution and up to 120 frames per second, according to TCL's slide. First off, there's little reason to believe that a lesser-known TV … [Read more...] about Are we on the verge of an 8K resolution breakthrough in gaming?

At its annual investors' meeting, Sony says that it plans to bring half of its PlayStation titles to PC and mobile by 2025. In 2022, Sony plans to release a quarter of its IPs for PC and mobile, while the rest will constitute new titles coming to PlayStation. As of now, only 10 per cent of the IPs are available for mobile, and as per the company’s plan, it should reach 20 per cent in the next three years. Jim Ryan, president, Sony Interactive Entertainment , said that expanding the company’s portfolio to PC, mobile, and live services will allow the company to move away from the narrow segment of the gaming market to being omnipresent in the entire gaming scene. Ryan further added that if the company executes its plan for expansion into the PC and mobile segment, then it could witness a “significant growth in the number of people who play our games, the number of people who enjoy our games, and the number of people who spend money on our games.” Sony recently … [Read more...] about sony: Sony wants half of PlayStation games on PC and Mobile by 2025