Monthly Archives: January 2016
Tomb Raider, Halo Sales Pass 1 Million
Halo 5: Guardians, Forza Motorsport 6, Gears of War: Ultimate Edition, and Rise of the Tomb Raider have each sold over one million copies on Xbox One.
The sales feat was announced on Xbox Wire in a post celebrating Xbox's record holiday season. The post added that the number of Xbox One gamers playing Microsoft-published games more than doubled compared to 2014.
Tomb Raider's milestone is impressive considering the Xbox timed-exclusive has yet to hit PlayStation 4 and PC. The PS4 version will release sometime during the 2016 holiday season, while the PC version is coming later this month on January 26.
Hacked PS4 Plays Pokemon
A team of hackers have demonstrated a low-level hack of the PlayStation 4 recently, and they managed to get Pokemon running on it.
Fail0verflow, the same group responsible for hacking the PlayStation 3, Wii, and Wii U bypassed the PS4’s security and installed a custom version of Linux. As seen in the video below at the 3:50 mark, a modded version of Pokemon Emerald called “Pokemon PlayStation Version” is shown running on the console.
In a blog post on fail0verflow’s website, the hackers noted the PS4 hardware does resemble PC hardware but “it is not a PC, and Linux needs quite a bit of extra work to get running.”
Star Wars: New Republic – Bloodlines and Aftermath – Life Debt Delayed
Star Wars novels "Aftermath: Life Debt" and "New Republic: Bloodline" have been delayed by about six weeks each, Del Rey has announced.
Lost Stars writer Claudia Gray's Star Wars: New Republic - Bloodline will now launch on May 3, 2016, instead of its planned date of March 29. The sequel to author Chuck Wendig's Star Wars: Aftermath was formerly launching May 31, 2016, and will now hit on July 19.
Check out our review of Aftermath, theories about its ending, and 9 important details from the story set after Return of the Jedi. For more on what happened after RotJ, check out our video below.
Minecraft PC and Mac Sales Hit New High Over the Weekend
Minecraft sales have passed 22 million copies over the long holiday weekend. The figure, while impressive, is made even more so by the fact the 22 million figure is only for the PC and Mac versions of Minecraft.
According to Minecraft's own stats page, an additional 14,000 gamers bought the game in the last 24 hours alone.
It's easy to see why Microsoft made the investment in the purchase of Mojang, as Minecraft's popularity and pop-culture relevance show no signs of slowing down. In June of 2014, the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of Minecraft eclipsed the sales generated by the PC version. At that time, sales across all versions totaled 54 million.
FF15 Draws Storytelling Inspiration From The Last of Us
Final Fantasy XV director Hajime Tabata recently discussed the storytelling goals of Square Enix's upcoming RPG, citing Naughty Dog's The Last of Us as a source of inspiration.
In an interview with Examiner, Tabata said the studio is aiming to deliver a narrative "where the gameplay and storytelling are really one in the same," noting "it's important that the story progresses through the gameplay in a very unforced way, in a similar way that it was done with The Last of Us."
The director also shared a few details on the story itself, saying "a really big part of the game" centers around the "emotional journey" of Noctis as he "goes from being a young prince in waiting to becoming the king of the country."
Oculus Rift Pre-Orders Open This Week
Those waiting to get their hands on a virtual reality headset will soon be able to reserve their spot, as Oculus has announced that pre-orders for their Rift headset will go live on Jan. 6, 2016.
At 8 a.m. Pacific, the Oculus website will open pre-orders for the first consumer version of the Rift. Each Rift will come packaged with Lucky's Tale, a VR platforming adventure from Playful, and a copy of CCP's EVE: Valkyrie.
Mark Zuckerberg to Create Jarvis-Like AI for His Home
Mark Zuckerberg says his personal goal for 2016 is to build "a simple AI" to run his home, kind of like Iron Man's J.A.R.V.I.S.
The Facebook CEO gives himself a personal challenge at the start of each year, and this year's theme is invention. He'll start by exploring already available technology and teach himself to use that. From there, Zuckerberg will move on to voice control, using it to "control everything in our home—music, lights, temperature, and so on."
His AI butler will, ideally, read guests' faces when they ring the doorbell and let them in automatically. He wants the AI to be able to function without explicit instructions from him or his wife, Priscilla Chan.
ReCore is Also Coming to Windows 10
The upcoming post-apocalyptic action-adventure game ReCore will be coming to both Xbox One and Windows 10, according to an Xbox official blog entry.
Among a number of other games set for 2016, Armature Studio and Comcept's ReCore is still set for an unannounced date in 2016, but Xbox lists it as coming to both the Xbox One and PC through Windows 10.
Details on ReCore are still vague, but you can learn more about protagonist Joule and her journey through the wasteland in IGN's interview with Armature Studio's Mark Pacini and Comcept CEO Keiji Inafune.
Crash Bandicoot Getting Unofficial Unreal Engine Remake
YouTube user Anisotropic is working on an unofficial Crash Bandicoot game, and they're developing it in Unreal Engine 4. Check out some prototype footage of the crate-smashing, mascot platforming below.
The work-in-progress footage is incomplete, as the creator is still sharing new updates throughout the week, but it's an impressive first look at early work of a fan project.
At the PlayStation Experience last year, we wondered if Crash could ever make a comeback. Check that out below, as well as our look at Crash as an amazing icon in his definitive era.
Scalebound Delayed to 2017
Scalebound has been delayed to 2017, PlatinumGames announced.
The upcoming Xbox One exclusive was originally set to release later this year, but according to an update on the studio's official site, development is going to require a bit more time.
"In order to deliver on our ambitious vision and ensure that Scalebound lives up to expectations, we will be launching the game in 2017," PlatinumGames explained. "This will give us the time needed to bring to life all the innovative features and thrilling gameplay experiences that we have planned."