NASA has always embraced emerging technology for visualization, even if that tech was seemingly developed for frivolous entertainment. We recently covered its holographic Mars exhibit, and the many 3D resources that NASA makes available to developers and educators. Now, the US space agency has partnered with Epic Games’ Unreal Engine to create a mixed reality International Space… Read More
The PlayStation 4 Pro just got an update that makes it an even better companion for a 4K TV set. An update to the native PlayStation Media Player app will enable 4K video playback, for files in mp4 format saved on either a USB drive or kept in a home server the PS4 Pro hardware con communicate with. Not that if you’ve got a drive attached to your PS4 Pro that’s formatted to act as… Read More
Video game streaming site Twitch will soon begin selling PC games and other in-game content on its site, the company says. We understand the games may arrive as soon as tomorrow or later this week, though the exact timing is still in flux. Already one of the top destinations for live streaming and fan engagement, it’s not surprising that Twitch would take the final step… Read More
Xbox One is getting an update starting today, echoing some of the major changes coming to Windows in its forthcoming Creators Update. The big new additions include streaming via Microsoft’s own Twitch competitor Beam, as well as a brand new Xbox user experience made up of a new design for Guide, improvements to Home and more. The new features are designed around encouraging gamers to… Read More
New York City’s Tribeca Film Festival is getting a sister event — this year, it will include the kickoff of the very first Tribeca Games Festival. The event is being launched in partnership with gaming publication Kill Screen and will take place on April 28 and 29 (during the film festival). Read More
Super Mario Run hit Android a day early. Originally expected today, March 23, per Nintendo’s earlier announcement, the game arrived on the Google Play Store yesterday instead, along with an update on iOS. The iOS exclusive ran for three months, and brought the app over 78 million downloads, the gaming company said during its earnings in January. Of those players, more than five… Read More
Super Mario Run is officially making its way to Android, as Nintendo promised what seems like so long ago. The company has now revealed an exact date for Mario’s Android debut: March 23. That’s this Thursday, in case you’re bad at math or don’t have a calendar handy. Read More
Mass Effect is a video game series that attracts ardent fans and invokes emotional reactions from those fans via its storytelling decisions. The franchise builds on the legacy BioWare built with its stewardship of the Star Wars universe with the Knights of the Old Republic, but offers truly unique science-fiction storytelling in expansive action RPG games. Read More
Like all good games, Kendama is easy-ish to learn and frustrating as all ever-loving £%&*@£^% to master. What’s a poor entrepreneur to do when a game hasn’t changed for 400 years? Rename it Dendama, add a boat-load of electronics, invent a slew of multiplayer games and launch a Kickstarter campaign, of course. Read More
The newest Zelda game, Breath of the Wild, is — and I say this without any attempt at being hyperbolic — an instant masterpiece. I won’t go so far as to call it the best game of all time — but if such a title can exist objectively, this one is certainly in the ring. It’s rare to see something like this thrust into the world and have it so quickly and widely… Read More
Sony just announced that PlayStation 4 games are coming soon to the PlayStation Now cloud gaming service. It means that gamers will be able to pay a subscription fee and stream PS4 games to their PlayStation 4 or PC. Read More
Roblox has spent the greater part of the millennium creating a cool place for kids to play a diverse collection of games inside a single cross-platform world for its huge audience of tens of millions of monthly active youngsters. The company announced Tuesday that it has closed a massive $92 million funding round led by Meritech Capital Partners and Index Ventures. Read More
Nintendo shared on its YouTube channel three behind-the-scenes videos about Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Many thought the Nintendo Switch had a pretty thin launch lineup with Zelda: Breath of the Wild as the only big production. But anybody around you who owns a Switch will tell you that it’s an amazing game. Read More
It’s 2017, and conversational interfaces (people talking with machines the same way they talk to other people) are everywhere. Siri has become a household name. Taco Bell lets you order tacos over Slack. It feels like we may spend more time talking to computers than to one another in just a few short years. How did we get to this point? Read More
Nintendo Switch controllers are flexible, if flawed — the latest hardware they work with is the NES Classic, via 8bitdo’s $17 Retro Receiver, and a new firmware update available now for that little dongle. The wireless accessory already lets you connect a range of Bluetooth controllers to your NES Classic, including 8bitdo’s own NES30 controller replica, and PlayStation 4, Wii… Read More
Mixed reality arcades can be a huge boon for VR adoption, and I’m confident there will be profitable ventures created in these immersive arcade experiences. But the path to profitability will be a long one. Because VCs typically shy away from capex-intensive industries, I don’t see VCs as the right backers to see these exciting experiences to market. Read More
Having free games with Xbox Live Gold was one thing, but Microsoft wants to go one step further. The company is launching a new service called the Xbox Game Pass. It’s a library of more than 100 games that you can download and play for a monthly subscription of $9.99. The feature isn’t live yet, but the company already announced some names so that the company can start beta… Read More
We talked with Kevin Chou, co-founder and CEO of the gaming company Kabam, about his own both stressful and euphoric experience in running a gaming startup for roughly a decade before selling most of its assets in December to South Korea’s Netmarble Games for a reported $700 million. Read More
