Since its release on all platforms more than a year ago, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim has been a bit of a nuissance for PlayStation 3 owners.
The experience was marred with game-breaking bugs, some of which still haven’t been resolved. Even worse, the downloadable content that the Xbox 360 and PC crowds were enjoying was being held back. Bethesda simply couldn’t get the extra stuff working for the PS3.
Finally, after a good time spent waiting, the PlayStation 3 crowd will have access to all the DLC they’ve been missing out on. Every piece of content is bound for the PlayStation 3 in February. Here’s the word from the official Bethesda Blog:
PlayStation 3: Dragonborn will be the first add-on arriving on PSN in February. Hearthfire will release next, followed by Dawnguard, and all three should be out in February. The 1.8 update will also release, just prior to Dragonborn. We’ll keep you posted as release dates get finalized both on our end and with Sony for each and its various languages. Last but not least, each one will be 50% off during their launch week on PSN.
That bold emphasis is the work of the blog post. And, yes, the DLC that hits the PS3 next month will be 50 percent off during its initial week on the PlayStation Store.
Finally, if you count yourself among the PC crowd, Dragonborn will be available starting February 5th.
What do you think, PlayStation 3 gamers? Is this release and brief apology sale enough to get your love, or is it coming too little too late?
The DualShock controller that’s been the mainstay of Sony’s home consoles since 1997 (it hit North America in 1998) might have reached the end of its legacy with the PlayStation 3. According to a “senior games studio source working on an upcoming Sony game,” as per CVG, Sony’s newest console features a controller design apart from the DualShock line.
CVG further muses that some rumors point towards a new Sony controller modeled after the look of the PS Vita. That means a touchscreen in the center and motion sensors packed into the device. They also suggest that Sony’s hard at work with adding biometric readers to their new input unit.That last bit has been rumored for a long time now.
Given the Bluetooth nature of the DualShock 3, I find it hard to believe that Sony’s potentially named PlayStation 4 would abandon the controllers entirely. I wouldn’t be surprised if the PS4 features a new line of controllers, but also allows for DualShock 3 connectivity specifically for the arena of backwards compatibility. Plus, gamers love options, and the ability to use classic DualShock controllers in new games would be a major selling point.
We’ll be following the PlayStation 4′s inevitable unveiling closely, and we’ll be sure to hit any controller highlights. The DualShock design, for a lot of gamers, is one of the best this medium’s ever seen.
Sony might be firing the starting pistol on the next generation of game consoles earlier than we thought. Hiroshi Sakamoto, the company's vice president of home entertainment, told Chilean tech site Emol "we must wait until May at the earliest" for the PlayStation 4.
"That's still a big secret, but our friends are preparing Sony PlayStation," Sakamoto teased, as translated by the Google magicians. "I can only say that we are focused on the E3 gaming event, scheduled for June's announcement may be in that minute or even earlier in May."
E3, in June, is the enormous annual show -- like CES for gamers -- that was expected to see the debuts of both the PlayStation 4 and next Xbox. But Sony might be taking a leaf out of Apple and (lately) Samsung's book and holding its own separate launch event to hog the limelight.
Asked if a pre-E3 event would be a proper announcement or just a teaser, Sakamoto replied, "Probably the first, in that time we expect to deliver great news, but we must wait until May at least."
While the launch would show us what the hardware looks like, whether it has any controller gimmicks and what we can expect in terms of exclusive games, we almost certainly won't get our hands on the PS4 until much later in the year.
The PS2 reached Europe in November 2000, while the PS3 launched in Japan in November 2006, but we had to wait until March the following year. Seven years on, a near-simultaneous worldwide launch is all but guaranteed.
The PS3 was £299 when it launched, a year later than its bitter rival the Xbox 360. After a couple of redesigns and major price drops, it finally outsold Microsoft's console a few months ago. The PS4 is likely to be cheaper, thanks to third-party components (as opposed to the PS3's expensive and hard to code proprietary Cell chip).
The whole tech industry worked itself into a later over the astonishing world-changing properties of 4K TVs at CES -- so I'd be amazed if the PS4 didn't support the ultra hi-def resolution. Sony has TVs of its own to sell, after all.
Fresh on the heels of the biggest entertainment launch of 2012 – Call of Duty®: Black Ops II, Activision Publishing, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Activision Blizzard (Nasdaq: ATVI), and their award-winning development studio Treyarch are kicking-off 2013 with the announcement of Revolution, the first massive Downloadable Content (DLC) Pack for the record-setting game. Since the launch of Call of Duty: Black Ops II, millions of fans have taken-on the game’s ambitious near-future fiction, engaged in over 427 million hours of near-future warfare in non-stop multiplayer action, and survived hordes of Zombies. Set to launch January 29th first, exclusively on Xbox LIVE® for the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft with other platforms to follow, Revolution delivers an unprecedented level of content, and for the first time in Call of Duty® DLC history, a new bonus multiplayer weapon.
"With Black Ops II, the team set out to challenge assumptions about what fans should expect from Call of Duty, and there’s no exception with Revolution," said Mark Lamia, Treyarch's Studio Head. "It starts with the massive amount of content that Revolution offers: four distinct multiplayer maps, an entirely new Zombies map and new Zombies mode, and a new bonus weapon. But quantity is just the start — it’s the variety of new gameplay options in Revolution that sets it apart, making it our most compelling DLC offering to date, and a must-play experience for Call of Duty fans."
Revolution takes players to unexpected new locales the world over. “Downhill” is set in the ski country of the French Alps, where players fight their way down the slopes and through a ski lodge, while avoiding the moving hazards of the mountain’s gondola system. Opponents must dodge the floodwaters in “Hydro” as they contend for dominance of this hydroelectric dam facility in Pakistan, filled with treacherous spillways. “Mirage” pits players in competition amidst the sand dunes of a dilapidated luxury resort in the sandstorm-devastated Gobi Desert, where a range of long-distance and close-quarters combat will mix up the action for all play styles. Finally, “Grind” transports players to the historic birthplace of skateboarding, California’s Venice Beach, where they will battle it out through the ramps and half-pipes of this massive, epic skate park in a multiplayer environment comprised of unique curved architecture requiring players to adapt and learn new ways to take cover. Each map in Revolutiondelivers a uniquely exhilarating new landscape for tactics and battle.
Revolution also delivers a lethal bonus multiplayer weapon, the “Peacekeeper.” This powerful SMG, accompanied by its own set of weapon challenges for additional XP, is unlocked to all Call of Duty: Black Ops II fans that pick-up Revolution.
Additionally, Revolution transports players to the Far East, where they will attempt to overcome a zombie infestation inside a series of collapsed skyscrapers towering over the remains of an obliterated Chinese city. In this new and original Zombies map, “Die Rise,” players will wield powerful, upgradable Wonder Weaponry as well as combine new buildable devices to fight a relentless army of the undead throughout Escher-esque sceneries over a deep and perilous chasm. And in a twist, Treyarch has added a new game mode, “Turned,” where players can finally complete against each other as a zombie!
LAS VEGAS -- There might be a real solution to your online gaming at home after all, thanks to D-Link.
The networking vendor announced today at CES 2013 the first 802.11ac-based router designed specifically for gamers, which it aptly calls Gaming Router (model DGL-5500). In a way this is the first major upgrade to the first router of this type, the DGL-4500 GamerLouge, that D-Link released more than four years ago
Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang unveils Nvidia Shield, a brand-new gaming device that leverages Android and the Tegra 4 quad-core processor.
(Credit: James Martin/CNET)
LAS VEGAS--Who says you can't teach an old chipmaker new tricks? Not Nvidia. At CES, the company announced its own gaming device, Nvidia Shield, which will bear its brand name as well as its quad-core Tegra 4 processor.
Project Shield is small -- smaller than a Wii U controller. Fittingly, it looks like a portable Xbox controller with a small flip-up screen. It's got analog joysticks, buttons, and controllers. Nvidia promises between 5 and 10 hours of gameplay on Shield.
Still a prototype, the final name and design could change before the product goes to market, as soon as in a few months, an Nvidia spokesperson said.
"It's pure Android," says Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang. There's nothing proprietary about it; all jacks are standard and the platform is open. It comes with a microSD card slot.
Shield can connect to the cloud to play Android games, TegraZone games, and PC games for PCs with compatible GeForce graphics cards. It also supports multiplayer mode.
Microsoft's SmartGlass and Microsoft's Halo 4 apparently aren't quite getting along on Windows Phone 8 devices. Using SmartGlass, Halo 4 players can normally access their stats and other info about their android supersoldier using the long-established Waypoint service -- except for Windows Phone 8 users, apparently. A forum thread dating back to Halo 4's November launch highlights the issue -- as Xbox.com forum user "Scion Eon" puts it: "Whenever I try to log into SmartGlass on my phone while playing Halo 4, I am immediately greeted with a message that says 'Your device is missing certain required features.'" As it turns out, Mr. Eon isn't the only one experiencing said connectivity issues -- specific to Windows Phone 8 devices -- and Microsoft's aware of the situation.
"We are aware that there is an issue with the Xbox SmartGlass experience for 'Halo Waypoint' on Windows Phone 8 devices, which may prevent users from accessing Halo 4 player stats," a Microsoft rep told us this afternoon. Thankfully, Redmond's also taking care of a solution. "We are actively working on a fix and expect to have a solution within the coming weeks. We appreciate your patience as this gets resolved and apologize for any inconvenience this causes," the statement reads. Of course, should you want to access Halo 4's Waypoint functionality on SmartGlass before that fix, you can always use Microsoft's competitor's devices. But then who'd do that?
ROCCAT made its debut in the States a year ago and now the German gaming outfit is looking to get a jump start on the happenings at this year's CES. The company has announced the Ryos, its first mechanical gaming keyboard with per-key lighting and up to two 32-bit ARM Cortex processors. This method of illumination allows the peripheral to display key functions and macros in addition to information like health stats. The unit also sports 2MB of internal flash storage, up to four Cherry MX key switches in a variety of colors and an included SDK. No word on pricing yet, but the Ryos is expecting to ship during Q1 2013. If a few more details are what you're after, take a gander at the PR that awaits just past break.
Sony's PlayStation 3 has been on the market so long you'd think that production of the relatively ancient PS2 stopped some time ago. Well, that wasn't true, but according to the Japanese PlayStation website, the PS2 has now officially been discontinued in the region. Japanese site Famitsu adds that shipments of the console have ended, so once the remaining stock has been depleted in Japan, there'll be no replenishment. It's a sad thought, but let's remember the good times-- the PS2's various iterations have been entertaining gamers for 12 years, and with over 150 million units purchased worldwide it's become the best selling console in history. We're not sure if the PS2 is still shipping to other regions, but its retirement in Japan is probably the beginning of the end globally, so we'd recommend you pick one up now if you intend to explore that extensive back catalogue one day. The PS2 era may be drawing to a close, but its legacy will live on and it can now rub controllers with the other greats in console heaven -- we still miss you, Dreamcast.
Nintendo of America announced this morning that its delayed Nintendo TVii service for the Wii U will launch on December 20. Nintendo TVii, first introduced back in September, intends to tie all of your currently balkanized media services on the Wii U -- various streaming services, your cable box, and your DVR -- into a single, cross-searchable application. At launch, the service will tie in Hulu Plus and Amazon Instant Video, but Netflix and TiVo are skipping the party until some time in "early 2013."
Nintendo TVii was given a December 8th launch date in Nintendo's home country of Japan, lining up with the launch of the company's new console; the TVii service notoriously missed the launch of the console everywhere else in the world, remaining absent ever after its various support services were added (Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon Instant, etc.) as individual apps. Like those apps, Nintendo TVii wasn't built by Nintendo itself, but in a partnership with i.TV. It's unclear what lead to the delay of the TVii service, but we're glad to see it arrive ahead of the various big present-giving days.
The Wii U launch didn't go quite as smoothly as consumers would've liked, with a major update to sit through right after unboxing, and support for various video streaming services absent on day one. Well, head honcho at Nintendo Satoru Iwata has taken to YouTube and announced from his cream studio that the next system update is due late December. It's primarily being pushed out to improve the frustratingly slow software loading times on the new console -- an issue we highlighted in our review. Iwata only makes a fleeting appearance at the beginning of the video before it moves on to talking up the latest Dragon Quest iteration, but if you've got a decent knowledge of Japanese, the embed awaits you below.
Sony has been continually pushing its PlayMemories brand of apps across its hardware offerings, and this latest update falls at the feet of PlayStation 3 owners. It's PlayMemories Studio in particular, and a forthcoming patch that adds new functionality. The meat of the update centers around PlayMemories Online integration for added cloud-based photo and video sharing options, with slide shows. Other revisions include support for "improved" resolution of exported videos (up to 1080p), faster thumbnail display, more choices of background music, improved editing features and -- of particular interest to early adopters -- support for 4K photos with Bravia TVs. The version 2.0 release is slated for release "soon" but in the meantime head to the Sony Japan source link for a little more info in the interim.
Since its release on all platforms more than a year ago, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim has been a bit of a nuissance for PlayStation 3 owners.
