Why Core Gamers Hate Free-to-Play

What if Borderlands 2 were freemium, instead of $60? If this idea horrifies you, it is time to think about why...


http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/07/29/w...ee-to-play

GS News - PS4 vs. Xbox friends limit, GTAV screens, Fez II axed

The PS4 one-ups the Xbox One on friends limit, GTAV reveals more details, Fez II won’t see the light of day and Microsoft delivers on accessory pricing!

Assassin's Creed IV: The New Wolfpack

Kevin VanOrd exercises his prowess and his patience in Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag's Wolfpack multiplayer mode.

Journey of a Roach Screens

7 new shots posted.

Introducing Xbox One
The all-in-one entertainment system.



Be amazed.

Welcome to a new generation of games and entertainment. Where games push the boundaries of realism.
And television obeys your every command. Where listening to music while playing a game is a snap.
And you can jump from TV to movies to music to a game in an instant. Where your experience is custom
tailored to you. And the entertainment you love is all in one place. Welcome to the all-in-one, Xbox One.



Simple. Instant. Complete.

Xbox One is a state-of-the art gaming console, a new
generation TV and movie system and a whole lot
more. Gone are the days of switching inputs on your
TV to play a game or watch a movie. With Xbox One,
you can quickly jump from TV to movies to music to
a game. Just with the sound of your voice.



Be immersed.

With Xbox One, games are so lifelike, you’ll swear
they’re real. Immerse yourself in cinematic worlds
with characters that are more human than ever.
And reach into television, sports, music, and even
the web in ways you never imagined possible.



Be recognized.

Xbox One gets to know you. It learns what you like
and what you don’t. And brings it all together on
your own personal home screen. And because every
Xbox One comes with Kinect, it responds naturally to
your voice, movements, and gestures. Say goodbye
to the days of one-size-fits-all entertainment.




Be connected.

Xbox One brings you closer to the entertainment you
love and the people you care about. You can chat
with your friends on Skype while watching football
on TV. Or show off your best game highlights
instantly with Game DVR. And because Xbox One is
powered by the cloud, you won’t have to wait
around for game updates. It looks like the living room can finally start living up to its name.




All the entertainment you love. All in one place.

From the biggest blockbuster games to the most popular TV shows to the best
of the Web, Xbox One does it all. But this is just the beginning. Thanks to the
power of the cloud, Xbox One will keep getting better, with more games,
TV, movies, music, and apps launching all the time.


Home sweet home screen.

Xbox One’s custom-tailored experience starts at
Home. From the moment you say “Xbox On,”
you’ll be instantly recognized and welcomed by
a personalized Home screen with all your favorite
games, apps, and content. You can pin movies, music, and more for instant access, so that the things you love most are right where you want them.


Always ready when you are.

Xbox One was designed for today’s fast-paced
lifestyle. It wakes up instantly when you say,
“Xbox On,” and even turns on your TV. Downloads
and updates happen behind the scenes, so you can
jump right in. And when you need to pause, your
games are suspended right where you left off,
so you can resume instantly.



The new way to watch TV.

Connect your cable or satellite box to Xbox One and watch all your favorite television
shows right through the console.1 All your favorite channels. All your favorite shows.
All with the sound of your voice. You can even create your own personal channel
by pinning the shows and apps you watch most. Gone are the days of switching
inputs to watch TV or play a movie. Xbox One can do it all.



Come together
with Xbox One.

Xbox One was built to be social. Chat with friends
using Skype on your TV while you watch football.
Share your best game highlights with Game DVR.
You can even see what TV shows your friends are
watching most, simply by using your voice. And with
Xbox Live, you’ll be part of the most exciting social
entertainment network in the world.
Skype on Xbox One.

Skype has been specially designed for Xbox One.
Chat with friends on your TV in stunning HD. Use
Skype in Snap mode to chat while you watch TV.
Or do three-way Skype calls with people around the
world, all from the comfort of your living room.
Keep your finger on the pulse.

Xbox One lets you discover what TV shows and
movies are popular among your friends and tells you
what is trending within the Xbox community. It’s a
great way to stay on top of what is happening now.


All your favorite sports.
All in one.

Xbox brings your favorite sports together while giving you
command-center control of your favorite sports and teams.
Live games, fantasy sports, and a new generation of stats,
all on one screen. Xbox One is your new home for sports.
The NFL on Xbox.

Xbox and the NFL are partnering to shape the
future of football – forever changing the game.
Xbox One will transform the way fans experience
the NFL from the living room, through an
unparalleled, integrated fantasy experience on
the television that is truly social and personal,
and new innovations in connected experiences
with Skype and Xbox SmartGlass. Xbox is proud
to be the Official Interactive Content Provider
of the NFL.


A new generation of
apps on your TV.

Your favorite apps will find their home on Xbox One.
Find the apps you want instantly. Pin your favorites
to your home screen. Best of all, jump between
apps instantly, or snap them side by side to do
two things at once.
A new way to
explore the web.

Explore the web on your TV with Internet Explorer
for Xbox One. Use your voice to browse your favorite
sites with ease. Use Bing to find the best of the web.
Or use Xbox SmartGlass on your phone or tablet to
control your experience.


Features and requirements are under development and may change prior to release. Available features and content may vary by country. Broadband internet (ISP fees apply) and advanced TV hardware required. Games sold separately.

At GDC 2013 at the end of March, a room full of would-be PS4 developers and press got some new details about the hardware, controller, online and social functions of the forthcoming PlayStation 4.

Well before Microsoft eventually announced the Xbox One, Senior Staff Developer Support Engineer Chris Norden unveiled the news under an overarching theme of a "frictionless and seamless" gaming experience.

We've known that the PS4 will track both the controller in a gamer's hand, as well as their face, since the console's launch in Feb. But during his GDC talk Norden revealed some interesting ways that this technology will be implemented in games.

For example, the old multiplayer standby of split screen, divvying up television real estate when two or more players go at it, will be aided by this tracking tech. If a gamer gets up and moves right or left, his section of the screen will automatically be swapped.

So here's everything we know about the PlayStation 4 so far...

The PS4 release date is "Holiday 2013" for the USA. That's the only official detail Sony revealed at the launch in February and it's unclear which other territories it applies to, if any.

In an interview in May with our buddies at CVG, a source inside Sony said that the company is pulling out all the stops to launch worldwide in 2013 and ensure that the PS4 is not trumped by the new Xbox.

Officially, Sony has said it wants the PS4 release date in Europe to be as soon as possible but makes no promises on whether the UK and other European countries will get a release date in time for Christmas this year or whether it'll be an uncomfortable wait until sometime in 2014.

Stock issues might be the reason for this, and that's exactly what happened back in 2006/2007 when the PS3 launched. It went on sale in the US and Japan in time for Christmas and Europe and the rest of the world had to wait for March the next year.

Zavvi has actually listed a UK PS4 release date of 31st December which seems extremely unlikely - launching a few days after Christmas? Surely that's retail suicide.

Until Sony gives more details then, it's all just speculation. Even the retailers don't seem to know when the PS4 will release - so maybe Sony doesn't either. It could depend on how quickly they can get manufacture going on retail models, what yield rates are and the capacity of the factories.

Until we know more, we'll quietly pray to the gods of silicon that the PS4 release date will be Christmas 2013 worldwide. Or better yet, tomorrow!

What we know for sure is that we'll get our first glimpse of the PS4 at E3. Check out the PS4 teaser video.
PS4: Hardware specs

AMD, as we guessed all along, is coursing through this new system's veins.

Post-event, Sony revealed the system runs on a single-chip custom processor and utilizes eight x86-64 AMD Jaguar CPU cores, with a next-gen AMD Radeon based graphics engine powering the way.

So it's very much a PC-based system then, which is great news for developers who will find it much easier to code games for the next gen consoles and for PCs. However, that CPU is hardly next-gen - it may have been modified for this system but the AMD Jaguar platform is by no means the fastest of its kind - indeed it's slower than Intel's fastest by orders of magnitude.

However, with fewer redundancies than a PC has, the PS4 will certainly be able to make use of every single Watt of power it draws.

The "highly enhanced PC GPU" is another story. It's another AMD part - something along the lines of a Radeon 7850 card - and packs 18 GCN units. That may sound a like a lot of techy mumbo jumbo but what it essentially means is that the GPU packs 18 processing clusters, each packing up to 64 cores. That provides a lot of parallel processing power, and will thus handle the majority of the PS4's grunt work. It hits 1.84 TFLOPS of processing mojo. This is a far more powerful component than the Jaguar CPU and is rumoured to have the edge on the GPU inside the Xbox 720.

Sony announced at the NYC event that the console will even use GPU compute features to take advantage of the GPU's raw power - it'll be used for general computation tasks as well as making games shiny.

Memory

The PS4 will ship packing 8GB of GDDR5 memory. That's some super-fast stuff right there and should enable lightning fast performance.

Indeed, Sony has revealed that you will be able to power down the PS4 mid-game and then switch it on again in seconds and pick up right where you left off. That's the sort of loading power that this memory enables.

Other specs

We're also looking at Blu-ray disk support plus good ol' DVD, plus HDMI output support as well as Analog-AV out and an optical digital output.



PS4 camera

PlayStation 4 Eye

What's really grabbing though is the development of the PlayStation 4 Eye, a newly developed camera system that utilizes two high-sensitivity camera equipped with wide-angle lenses and 85-degree diagonal angle views.

Sony said the cameras (amounting to 1280 x 800 pixels) can cut out the image of a player from the background or differentiate between players in the background and foreground, enhancing game play handily. There's also mention of logging in using facial recognition and using voice and body movements to play games "more intuitively."



PlayStation 4 Specifications

CPU: low power x86-64 AMD "Jaguar", 8 cores
GPU: 1.84 TFLOPS, AMD Radeon™ Graphics Core Next engine
Memory: GDDR5 8GB
Hard Disk Drive: Built –in
Optical Drive (Read only): BD 6xCAV, DVD 8xCAV
I/O: Super-Speed USB (USB 3.0), AUX
Communication: Ethernet, IEEE 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth® 2.1 (EDR)
AV output: HDMI, Analog-AV out, Digital Output (optical)

DualShock 4 specifications:

External Dimensions: Approx. 162mm x 52mm x 98mm
Weight: Approx. 210g (tentative)
Buttons: PS button, SHARE button, OPTIONS button, Directional buttons (Up/Down/Left/Right), Action buttons (Triangle, Circle, Cross, Square), R1/L1/R2/L2/R3/L3, Right stick, Left stick, Touch Pad Button, Touch Pad 2 Point Touch Pad, Click Mechanism, Capacitive Type
Other Features: Light Bar, Vibration, Built-in Mono Speaker
Ports: USB (Micro B), Extention Port, Stereo Headset Jack
Wireless communication: Bluetooth® Ver2.1+EDR

PS4 camera specifications

External Dimension: Approx. 186mm x 27mm x 27mm
Weight: Approx. 183g
Video Pixel: (Maximum) 1280 x 800 pixel x 2
Video Frame Rate: 1280x800 pixel @ 60fps, 640x400 pixel @ 120fps, 320x192 pixel @ 240fps
Video Format: RAW, YUV (uncompressed)
Lens: Dual Lenses, F value/F2.0 fixed focus
Field-of-View: 85 degrees
Microphone: 4 Channel Microphone Array
Connection Type: PS4 dedicated connector (AUX connector)
Cable Length: Approx. 2m (tentative)

PS4 controller: DualShock 4

If you have an eye for details you may have noticed that the PS4'sDualShock 4 controller has no Start or Select buttons. Norden confirmed this, saying that it will have a so-called Option button instead, as well as the much bandied about Share button on the rear.

The analogue sticks have been tightened up to be more precise, and the controller also features a brand new three-axis gyroscopic motion sensor with three-axis accelerometer which should be great for getting you immersed in the games. The camera continuously tracks all four controllers with precise accuracy. Rotational tracking is provided by the internal components and.

The controller has a two-point Vita-like touchpad on the front with a 1920x900 resolution, and a tactile clicking sound letting you know you've pressed it. The light bar on the front will glow different colours depending on whether you're player 1, 2, 3 or 4 and will be tracked by the new PS Eye camera. It also has an Xbox-style headset jack and a mono speaker inside it.

Evil In It's Prime
Twenty years have passed since the Prime Evils were defeated and banished from the world of Sanctuary. Now, you must return to where it all began – the town of Tristram – and investigate rumors of a fallen star, for this is the first sign of evil’s rebirth, and an omen that the End Times have begun.



Diablo III is an action role-playing video game developed and published by Blizzard Entertainment. It is the third installment in the Diablo franchise and was released in the Americas, Europe, South Korea, and Taiwan on May 15, 2012, and Russia on June 7, 2012 for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS. PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 versions are planned with an unconfirmed release date.

In the game, players choose one of five character classes; the Witch Doctor, Barbarian, Wizard, Monk or Demon Hunter and are tasked with defeating the titular Diablo.

Diablo III set a new record for fastest-selling PC game by selling over 3.5 million copies in the first 24 hours of its release,

Gameplay:



Gameplay Footage:

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We will be providing an arrangement of information, techniques, videos, funny's, and other things like that for different games on several platforms.



Xbox One / All microsoft platforms
PS4 / And all other Sony Entertainment Systems
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