Tag: Video games

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Nintendo resurrects motion controls with Switch Sports

In what seems like an effort to recapture the magic of mid-2000s pop culture phenomenon, Wii Sports, Nintendo has revealed a Switch version of the title called — you guessed it — Switch Sports.

Sports set to be part of the title include the following: Tennis, Bowling, Chambara (it looks like a Sword fighting game), Badminton, Volleyball and Soccer.

During its Direct presentation, Nintendo outlined that the game features both local and online play. Further, later this summer an update will add leg strap accessory support to soccer, followed by a golf update in the fall.

Nintendo says that it plans to launch an Online Playtest of the title that runs from February 18th to the 20th.

Switch Sports will release on April 29th.

Image credit: Nintendo

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Mobile Syrup

Nintendo resurrects motion controls with Switch Sports

In what seems like an effort to recapture the magic of mid-2000s pop culture phenomenon, Wii Sports, Nintendo has revealed a Switch version of the title called — you guessed it — Switch Sports.

Sports set to be part of the title include the following: Tennis, Bowling, Chambara (it looks like a Sword fighting game), Badminton, Volleyball and Soccer.

During its Direct presentation, Nintendo outlined that the game features both local and online play. Further, later this summer an update will add leg strap accessory support to soccer, followed by a golf update in the fall.

Nintendo says that it plans to launch an Online Playtest of the title that runs from February 18th to the 20th.

Switch Sports will release on April 29th.

Image credit: Nintendo

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Mobile Syrup

Latest PS4 and PS5 beta now rolling out to select participants

A new PS4 and PS5 beta is now rolling out to select participants in Canada, the U.S., Japan, U.K., Germany and France.

Additionally, participants in the U.S. and U.K. can now preview a feature that enables voice commands for finding and opening games, apps and controlling media playback.

If you aren’t selected for this beta, the full update will launch globally later this year. Here’s what the beta includes:

Party Chat Update

When you start a party, you can select whether to create an open or closed party. An open party lets friends see and join a party without an invite, and friends of party members can also join. A closed party is only for players you invite. Open and Closed parties were already a feature, but now you don’t have to go into any menus to start them.

There’s also now a voice chat reporting feature, so if you want to report something that someone said, there are now visual indicators for you to identify who was speaking.

Additionally, in the PS5 beta, you can start a Share Play directly from the voice chat card; this means you don’t need to start Share Screen first to use Share Play.

On the PS4 beta, you can individually adjust the voice of each player in a party, similar to PS5.

Voice chats are also called ‘Parties’ again, and the Game Base menu is now divided into three tabs: ‘Friends,’ ‘Parties,’ and ‘Messages.’

Two other Game Base updates include an “on-air” icon when someone is sharing their screen and a button that will let users quickly decline a friend request.

New PS5 UI Features

Beta participants will now be able to filter their game collection by genre. You can also choose up to five games or apps to keep on the home screen by selecting “Keep in Home” with the options button. However, you can also keep up to a total of 14 games and apps on your home screen.

There’s now a new trophies UI update that shows a cool visual design of trophy cards on the trophy list and sees suggestions for which trophies you can earn on the trophy tracker.

You can also start the Share Screen from the Create menu and stream your gameplay to an open party.

Accessibility features

There are new accessibility features, including a screen reader, which reads aloud on-screen text and spoken guidance for operating the console. Additionally, there’s now mono audio for headphones instead of a stereo or 3D audio sound mix. This should provide a better experience for players with unilateral hearing loss.

You can also show a checkmark on enabled settings so you can see which settings are turned out.

Source: PlayStation Blog 

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Mobile Syrup

PlayStation’s ‘Critics’ Choice’ sale offers games up to 60 percent off

The PlayStation Store’s ‘Critics’ Choice’ Sale offers a variety of games at a discounted rate.

Some of these titles include Ghost of Tsushima, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Far Cry 6 and more.

Below is a selection of some of the top offers:

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Mobile Syrup

Microsoft’s ‘Deals with Gold’ sale offers games up to 75 percent off

Microsoft’s weekly Deals with Gold sale is offering games like Vampyr, Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy and Call of Cthulu at a discounted rate.

This week, Microsoft is offering discounts of up to 75 percent off on a variety of Xbox games.

Xbox Deals with Gold sale is only available with an Xbox Gold Live membership. A 12-month Xbox Live Gold membership costs $69.99. If you have Xbox Game Pass Ultimate (which costs $16.99 per month), the service also includes Xbox Live Gold and EA Play subscriptions.

Image credit: Square Enix 

Source: Microsoft

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Mobile Syrup

Nintendo’s next Direct stream is set for Feb. 9

Nintendo has revealed that its next Direct streaming event is set for Wednesday, Feb 9th at 5pm ET/2pm PT.

The stream is expected to offer a look at new Switch titles headed to Nintendo’s console in the first half of 2022. As always, the event will be streamed on Nintendo’s YouTube channel.

It’s likely that the stream will offer a look at Kirby and the Forgotten Land, which releases on March 25th, and Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp, which drops this coming Spring. The event will also likely offer a glimpse of Triangle Strategy given it drops on March 4th.

Though slightly less likely, we could also get a new look at The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild 2, Bayonetta 3 and Splatoon 3. That said, it’s worth noting that none of those titles have specific release dates yet.

MobileSyrup will have more on Nintendo’s upcoming direct tomorrow.

Image credit: Square Enix

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Mobile Syrup

Canadian Nintendo hacker Gary Bowser could face up to 5 years in jail

The U.S. government wants Canadian Nintendo hacker Gary Bowser (yes, that is his real name) to face a five-year prison sentence for creating and selling devices that allow the Japanese gaming giant’s consoles to play pirated games.

As first reported by Eurogamer, a recently uncovered court document argues that Bowser should be sentenced for five years, with three years of supervised release to “recognize the harm” of his crimes. Bowser pled guilt to two piracy charges last year.

Bowser’s legal team understandably aims for a much shorter sentence and argues that their client is the “least culpable and only apprehended defendant from this indictment.” With this in mind, his legal team is asking for a far shorter 19-month sentence.

Bowser has admitted that he earned “tens of millions of dollars” from the hacking devices he sold, but only actually took home roughly $320,000 USD (about $405,360 CAD) over seven years.

Though Bowser initially denied Nintendo of America’s allegations against him following his extradition from the Dominican Republic in 2020, he eventually pled guilty to being involved with Team-Xecuter, the hacking group allegedly behind the project.

Team Xecuter has sold hacking devices for Nintendo consoles like the Switch, the 3DS and even the NES Classic. The group is best known for making hardware and software mods that allowed users to play pirated titles on the Switch. Though similar groups have existed and released similar tools in the past, the scale at with Team Xecuter manufactured and sold its products caught the attention of the U.S. government.

Bowser faces a $4.5 million USD (about $5.7 million CAD) fine from the U.S. government and a $10 million USD (roughly $12.6 million CAD) fine from Nintendo’s civil lawsuit.

Via: Eurogamer

Source: U.S. Government 

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Mobile Syrup

Canadian Nintendo hacker Gary Bowser could face up to 5 years in jail

The U.S. government wants Canadian Nintendo hacker Gary Bowser (yes, that is his real name) to face a five-year prison sentence for creating and selling devices that allow the Japanese gaming giant’s consoles to play pirated games.

As first reported by Eurogamer, a recently uncovered court document argues that Bowser should be sentenced for five years, with three years of supervised release to “recognize the harm” of his crimes. Bowser pled guilt to two piracy charges last year.

Bowser’s legal team understandably aims for a much shorter sentence and argues that their client is the “least culpable and only apprehended defendant from this indictment.” With this in mind, his legal team is asking for a far shorter 19-month sentence.

Bowser has admitted that he earned “tens of millions of dollars” from the hacking devices he sold, but only actually took home roughly $320,000 USD (about $405,360 CAD) over seven years.

Though Bowser initially denied Nintendo of America’s allegations against him following his extradition from the Dominican Republic in 2020, he eventually pled guilty to being involved with Team-Xecuter, the hacking group allegedly behind the project.

Team Xecuter has sold hacking devices for Nintendo consoles like the Switch, the 3DS and even the NES Classic. The group is best known for making hardware and software mods that allowed users to play pirated titles on the Switch. Though similar groups have existed and released similar tools in the past, the scale at with Team Xecuter manufactured and sold its products caught the attention of the U.S. government.

Bowser faces a $4.5 million USD (about $5.7 million CAD) fine from the U.S. government and a $10 million USD (roughly $12.6 million CAD) fine from Nintendo’s civil lawsuit.

Via: Eurogamer

Source: U.S. Government 

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Mobile Syrup

Rockstar finally confirms GTA VI is in development

Despite now appearing across three generations of video game consoles, Grand Theft Auto V was first released eight long years ago. With this time frame in mind, the franchise is long overdue for a new entry.

While it’s been assumed for years that GTA VI was in development on some level, Rockstar has finally officially confirmed that the title is “well underway” in a post on the company’s blog:

“With the unprecedented longevity of GTA V, we know many of you have been asking us about a new entry in the Grand Theft Auto series. With every new project we embark on, our goal is always to significantly move beyond what we have previously delivered — and we are pleased to confirm that active development for the next entry in the Grand Theft Auto series is well underway.”

Reports from last year cited that the game was in development and scheduled for a 2024 to 2025 release date. Beyond this, however, not much is known about the GTA VI, with speculation pointing to the title possibly making a return to Miami-inspired Vice City.

Given GTA V still has a player base of roughly 155 million thanks to GTA Online, it’s not surprising that Rockstar isn’t in a rush to release a sequel to one of the best-selling games of all time.

While GTA V was a technical marvel at the time, I’d really like to see the series return to a small, more detailed world and a grounded plot in the vein of GTA IV.

Rockstar’s recently released GTA Trilogy received a unanimously negative reception from critics and gamers due to its strange glitches and shoddy visuals. Subsequent updates to the collection have reportedly fixed many of the issues the games experienced at launch.

Image credit: Rockstar 

Source: Rockstar 

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Mobile Syrup

Stadia reportedly deprioritized as Google shifts focus to selling streaming tech

Despite hardcore Stadia fans’ sometimes naive best efforts, a new report indicates that Google is deprioritizing the game streaming service to focus on selling the underlying tech that powers it as a white-label platform.

According to Business Insider, Google was in talks with Bungie to use its white-label streaming technology, ‘Google Stream,’ with Destiny 2. However, Sony’s acquisition of the developer likely killed those talks. The Destiny developer would have owned the “content and control the front-end experience,” with Google Stream being the underlying architecture that powers it.

Google is also reportedly in talks with Capcom regarding utilizing Google Stream technology. Outside of the gaming space, the report mentions that Peloton could take advantage of Google Stream to bring gaming-related content to its fitness equipment.

According to the report, “about 20 percent” of the Stadia team’s efforts are currently focused on the consumer side of the business, with the rest of the division working on Google Stream. Lastly, Business Insider says that Google failed to reach its one million monthly active users goal for Stadia by “about 25 percent,” with retention being a critical issue.

In a statement to Business Insider, Google says that it’s “still focused on bringing great games to Stadia in 2022.” If you’ve been following the news surrounding Stadia for the best few years, this report isn’t the least bit surprising. Google’s lack of interest in making Stadia a real contender in the video game industry became apparent when the tech giant closed its internal studios early last year.

Of all the major streaming video game platforms, I did find that Stadia performed the best on a technical level. That said, Stadia Pro is a tough sell in the face of Microsoft’s excellent all-in-one Game Pass Ultimate platform that also includes Xbox Game Streaming (formerly called xCloud).

Source: Business Insider