gaming

switch-emulator-ryujinx-shuts-down-development-after-“contact-by-nintendo”

Switch emulator Ryujinx shuts down development after “contact by Nintendo”

gaming / /

Ryujinx in Peace —

GitHub removal comes months after a Nintendo lawsuit took down the Yuzu emulator.

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These copyrighted Switch games shown on Ryujinx's former GitHub page probably didn't curry any favor with Nintendo.

Enlarge / These copyrighted Switch games shown on Ryujinx’s former GitHub page probably didn’t curry any favor with Nintendo.

Popular open source Nintendo Switch emulator Ryujinx has been removed from GitHub, and the team behind it has reportedly ceased development of the project after apparent discussions with Nintendo.

Ryujinx developer riperiperi writes on the project’s Discord server and social media that fellow developer gdkchan was “contacted by Nintendo and offered an agreement to stop working on the project, remove the organization and all related assets he’s in control of.” While the final outcome of that negotiation is not yet public, riperiperi reports that “the organization has been removed” (presumably from GitHub) and thus “I think it’s safe to say what the outcome is.”

While the Ryujinx website is still up as of this writing, the download page and other links to GitHub-hosted information from that website no longer function. The developers behind the project have not posted a regular progress report update since January after posting similar updates almost every month throughout 2023. Before today, the Ryujinx social media account last posted an announcement in March.

Followers of the Switch emulation scene may remember that March was also when the makers of the Yuzu emulator paid $2.4 million to settle a lawsuit with Nintendo over a project that Nintendo alleged was “facilitating piracy at a colossal scale.”

What is left?

Switch emulator Suyu, which emerged as a “legal gray area” Yuzu fork shortly after that Suyu takedown—is still available on its own self-hosted servers as of this writing (though the project’s last stable release is now six months old). Nintendo previously targeted Suyu’s GitLab hosting through a DMCA takedown and later took down the project’s official Discord server with a similar request. Another prominent Yuzu fork, Sudachi, was removed from GitHub in July via DMCA request.

In the wake of those legal efforts against other Switch emulator developers, the Ryujinx developers posted an automated message on their Discord server in response to any questions about Ryujinx’s ultimate fate. “Nothing is happening to Ryujinx,” the message read. “We know nothing more than you do. No dooming.”

A video of an in-development Ryujinx feature allowing local wired multiplayer between an emulator and official hardware.

Riperiperi reports that development will now stop on “a working Android port” of the emulator, which was not yet ready for release, as well as a tech demo iOS version that would likely have remained a “novelty” due to Apple’s just-in-time compilation restrictions. Developers were also working on updates that would have allowed local wired multiplayer gameplay connections between Ryujinx and real Switch hardware.

“While I won’t be remaining in the switch scene either, I still believe in emulation as a whole, and hope that other developers aren’t dissuaded by this,” riperiperi writes on the project’s Discord. “The future of game preservation does depend on individuals, and maybe one day it’ll be properly recognized.”

According to the developers, “as of May 2024, Ryujinx [had] been tested on approximately 4,300 titles; over 4,100 boot[ed] past menus and into gameplay, with roughly 3,550 of those being considered playable.”

Switch emulator Ryujinx shuts down development after “contact by Nintendo” Read More »

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“So aggravating”: Outdated ads start appearing on PS5 home screen

ads, gaming, PlayStation, PlayStation 5, ps5, Sony / /

Ad station —

Players are annoyed as new home screen needs work.

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PlayStation 5

Getty

PlayStation 5 owners are reporting advertisements on the device’s home screen. Frustratingly, the ads seem to be rather difficult to disable, and some are also outdated ads and/or confusing content.

The ads, visible on users’ home screens when they hover over a game title, can only be removed if you disconnect from the Internet, IGN reported today. However, that would block a lot of the console’s functionality. The PS5 dashboard previously had ads but not on the home screen.

Before this recent development, people would see game art if they hovered over a game icon on the PS5’s home screen. Now, doing so reportedly brings up dated advertisements. For example, IGN reported seeing an ad for Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse “coming soon exclusively in cinemas” when hovering over the Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales game. Webheads will of course recall that the Spider-Verse movie came out in June 2023.

Similarly, going to NBA 2K25 reportedly shows an ad for gaining early access. But the game came out early this month.

Per IGN, it seems that the console is “pulling in the latest news for each game, whether it be a YouTube video, patch notes, or even the announcement of a different game entirely.” That means that not all games are showing advertisements. Instead, some show an image for a YouTube video about the game or a note about patch notes or updates for the game.

There also seem to be some mix-ups, with MP1st reporting seeing an ad for the LEGO Horizon Adventures game when hovering over the icon for Horizon Zero Dawn. The publication wrote: “The ad also make[s it] confusing a bit, as… it looks like you’re playing LEGO Horizon Adventures and not the actual Horizon game we’re on.”

Some games, like Astro Bot, however, don’t seem to be affected by the changes, per IGN.

Annoyed and confused

Gamers noticing the change have taken to the web to share their annoyance, disappointment, and, at times, confusion about the content suddenly forced into the PS5’s home screen.

“As someone playing through the Spiderman series now, this confused the hell out of me,” Crack_an_ag said via Reddit.

Others are urging Sony to either remove the feature or fix it so that it can be helpful, while others argue that the feature couldn’t be helpful regardless.

“Forcing every single game to make its latest news story its dashboard art is SO stupid as no one game uses the news feature consistently,” Reddit user jackcos wrote.

Sam88FPS, meanwhile, noted that ads drove them from Xbox to PlayStation:

One of the main reasons I moved away from Xbox was the fact they started to build the Xbox UI around ads and pushing [Game Pass]. Hopefully Sony listens more because Xbox absolutely refused to, in fact, they even added full screen startup ads lmao.

It’s unclear what exactly prompted this change. Some suspect it’s related to firmware update 24.06-10.00.00. But that update came out on September 12, and, as IGN noted, its patch notes don’t say anything about this. Considering the obvious problems and mix of content being populated, it’s possible that Sony is working out some kinks and that eventually the content shown on users’ home screens will become more relevant or consistent. The change has also come a few days after a developer claimed that Sony lost $400 million after pulling the Concord online game after just two weeks, prompting digs at Sony and unconfirmed theories that Sony is trying to make up for financial losses with ads.

Ars Technica has reached out to Sony about why it decided to add non-removable ads to the PS5 home screen and about the outdated and otherwise perplexing content being displayed. We’ll let you know if we hear back.

“So aggravating”: Outdated ads start appearing on PS5 home screen Read More »

steam-doesn’t-want-to-pay-arbitration-fees,-tells-gamers-to-sue-instead

Steam doesn’t want to pay arbitration fees, tells gamers to sue instead

gaming, mandatory arbitration, Policy, steam, valve / /

Mandatory litigation —

Valve previously sued a law firm in attempt to stop mass arbitration claims.

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A pen and book resting atop a paper copy of a lawsuit.

Valve Corporation, tired of paying arbitration fees, has removed a mandatory arbitration clause from Steam’s subscriber agreement. Valve told gamers in yesterday’s update that they must sue the company in order to resolve disputes.

The subscriber agreement includes “changes to how disputes and claims between you and Valve are resolved,” Steam wrote in an email to users. “The updated dispute resolution provisions are in Section 10 and require all claims and disputes to proceed in court and not in arbitration. We’ve also removed the class action waiver and cost and fee-shifting provisions.”

The Steam agreement previously said that “you and Valve agree to resolve all disputes and claims between us in individual binding arbitration.” Now, it says that any claims “shall be commenced and maintained exclusively in any state or federal court located in King County, Washington, having subject matter jurisdiction.”

Steam’s email to users said the updated terms “will become effective immediately when you agree to it, including when you make most purchases, fund your Steam wallet, or otherwise accept it. Otherwise, the updated Steam Subscriber Agreement will become effective on November 1, 2024, unless you delete or discontinue use of your Steam account before then.” Steam also pushed a pop-up message to gamers asking them to agree to the new terms.

One likely factor in Valve’s decision to abandon arbitration is mentioned in a pending class-action lawsuit over game prices that was filed last month in US District Court for the Western District of Washington. The Steam users who filed the suit previously “mounted a sustained and ultimately successful challenge to the enforceability of Valve’s arbitration provision,” their lawsuit said. “Specifically, the named Plaintiffs won binding decisions from arbitrators rendering Valve’s arbitration provision unenforceable for both lack of notice and because it impermissibly seeks to bar public injunctive relief.”

Mandatory arbitration clauses are generally seen as bad for consumers, who are deprived of the ability to seek compensation through individual or class-action lawsuits. But many Steam users were able to easily get money from Valve through arbitration, according to law firms that filed the arbitration cases over allegedly inflated game prices.

Valve sued lawyers behind arbitration claims

Valve used to prefer arbitration because few consumers brought claims and the process kept the company’s legal costs low. But in October 2023, Valve sued a law firm in an attempt to stop it from submitting loads of arbitration claims on behalf of gamers.

Valve’s suit complained that “unscrupulous lawyers” at law firm Zaiger, LLC presented a plan to a potential funder “to recruit 75,000 clients and threaten Valve with arbitration on behalf of those clients, thus exposing Valve to potentially millions of dollars of arbitration fees alone: 75,000 potential arbitrations times $3,000 in fees per arbitration is two hundred and twenty-five million dollars.”

Valve said that Zaiger’s “extortive plan” was to “offer a settlement slightly less than the [arbitration] charge—$2,900 per claim or so—attempting to induce a quick resolution.”

“Zaiger targeted Valve and Steam users for its scheme precisely because the arbitration clause in the SSA [Steam Subscriber Agreement] is ‘favorable’ to Steam users in that Valve agrees to pay the fees and costs associated with arbitration,” Valve said.

Zaiger has a “Steam Claims” website that says, “Tens of thousands of Steam users have engaged Zaiger LLC to hold Steam’s owner, Valve, accountable for inflated prices of PC games.” The website said that through arbitration, “many consumers get compensation offers without doing anything beyond completing the initial form.” Another law firm called Mason LLP used a similar strategy to help gamers bring arbitration claims against Steam.

There hadn’t previously been many arbitration cases against Steam, Valve’s lawsuit against Zaiger said. “In the five years before Zaiger began threatening Valve, 2017 to 2022, there were only two instances where Valve and a Steam user could not resolve that user’s issue before proceeding to arbitration. Both of those arbitrations were resolved in Valve’s favor, and Valve paid all of the arbitrator fees and costs for both Valve and the impacted Steam user,” Valve said.

Valve’s lawsuit against Zaiger was dismissed without prejudice on August 20, 2024. The ruling in US District Court for the Western District of Washington said the case was dismissed because the court lacks jurisdiction over Zaiger.

Steam doesn’t want to pay arbitration fees, tells gamers to sue instead Read More »

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RTS classics StarCraft, StarCraft II make their way to PC Game Pass

game pass ultimate, gaming, Phil Spencer, rts, starcraft, Starcraft 2, StarCraft II, starcraft remastered, Xbox Game Pass / /

YOU MUST CONSTRUCT ADDITIONAL PYLONS —

The collection includes the 2017 remaster of the original StarCraft.

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Phil Spencer’s Tokyo Game Show update.

Beloved real-time strategy classics StarCraft and StarCraft II will soon be available in Microsoft’s Game Pass subscription for PC, the company announced during the Tokyo Game Show.

It’s already free to play both StarCraft and StarCraft II‘s multiplayer modes on PC. This move to Game Pass will make the equally excellent single-player campaigns available to anyone with a subscription, though. Game Pass will also offer all the expansions for both games.

The subscription will provide access to StarCraft Remastered, a revamped version of the original 1998 game that came out in 2017, as well as the StarCraft II Campaign Collection, which includes all 70-plus single-player missions from StarCraft II‘s Wings of Liberty, Heart of the Swarm, Legacy of the Void, and Nova Covert Ops.

The announcement was the lone bit of new information in a brief video by Xbox boss Phil Spencer. He appeared in the video wearing a StarCraft T-shirt, which might have gotten StarCraft fans’ hopes up that the franchise would be getting a new game for the first time in over a decade.

That didn’t happen, of course, but the games’ addition to Game Pass will likely expose them to many new players who may have been too young to play the influential strategy titles when they debuted in 1998 and 2010.

These aren’t the first Blizzard games to be added to Game Pass since Microsoft acquired Activision-Blizzard. First came Diablo IV, then Overwatch 2—the latter was free-to-play already by the time it came to Game Pass, but Microsoft included it in the Game Pass distribution platform and offered cosmetics and goodies to Game Pass subscribers.

The StarCraft games will launch for PC Game Pass and Game Pass Ultimate subscribers on November 5.

Listing image by Microsoft

RTS classics StarCraft, StarCraft II make their way to PC Game Pass Read More »

assassin’s-creed-shadows-delayed-after-poor-star-wars-outlaws-reception

Assassin’s Creed Shadows delayed after poor Star Wars Outlaws reception

assassin's creed, Assassin's Creed Shadows, gaming, open world, Star Wars Outlaws, ubisoft / /

So Many Samurai Games —

It will now launch the same year as another, maybe better, open-world samurai game.

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A samura and a ninja pose in a video game

Enlarge / The dual protagonists of Assassin’s Creed Shadows.

Ubisoft

Assassin’s Creed Shadows, the long-anticipated next major edition in the popular historical, open-world game franchise, has been moved back from its previously announced November 15, 2024 release date.

The new date is February 14, 2025, according to an open letter posted to X by franchise executive producer Marc-Alexis Côté. “We realize we need more time to polish and refine the experience, pushing further some of our key features,” Côté wrote. “As such, we’ve made the decision to postpone the release date.”

He went on to promise a same-day launch on Steam as well as the console platforms for that date.

Côté wrote the note to players, but a letter from publisher Ubisoft to investors went into more detail. “While the game is feature complete, the learnings from the Star Wars Outlaws release led us to provide additional time to further polish the title,” it says. “This will enable the biggest entry in the franchise to fully deliver on its ambition, notably by fulfilling the promise of our dual protagonist adventure, with Naoe and Yasuke bringing two very different gameplay styles.” (It was previously announced that the game allows players to play as two characters: a samurai warrior and a stealthy assassin.)

The investor note also says that “the game will mark the return of our new releases on Steam Day 1,” so that’s a silver lining for PC players.

A precarious position

The massive-budget Star Wars Outlaws was positioned as an “Assassin’s Creed, but in the Star Wars universe” game and was released on August 30. However, it was met with a mixed reception. Players, reviewers, and streamers praised its meticulous, high-fidelity presentation of Star Wars locales and characters, but they criticized its stealth gameplay as repetitive and frustrating.

Among other things, the game involved lengthy stealth sequences that forced the player to start over if they were discovered; it also didn’t do a very good job of giving players the information and tools they needed to complete these sequences without resorting to trial and error. Shortly after the launch, one of the game’s creative leads promised a patch (which arrived) that would fix one of the earlier missions, but his suggestion in an interview that the problem was simply with a single mission early in the game rather than something more fundamental rang hollow for many players.

Ubisoft acknowledged publicly that Star Wars Outlaws did not meet expectations in terms of either sales or critical reception.

It’s unclear exactly which lessons Ubisoft intends to take from the misfire of Star Wars Outlaws. But Assassin’s Creed is its most vital franchise, so after a big failure like that, the company can’t afford anything other than an enthusiastic reception for Shadows from players. It’s the first tentpole release in the storied franchise in four years.

Of course, this delay now means that Ubisoft’s big-budget open-world samurai game will launch in the same year as Ghost of Yōtei, a sequel to the Sony exclusive big-budget open-world samurai game called Ghost of Tsushima that many players felt did the Assassin’s Creed formula more justice than most Ubisoft titles. Shadows will also launch just a few months before the planned release of Grand Theft Auto VI, which is likely to suck all the oxygen out of the room in gaming spaces for some time. There remains some possibility that GTA6 will be delayed, though.

This is the first time an Assassin’s Creed game from the main franchise has been delayed in a decade; the last delay was Assassin’s Creed Unity, which saw its release date bump from October 28, 2014, to November 11. Despite the delay, that game launched with significant technical problems, which were mostly fixed in later updates.

Assassin’s Creed Shadows delayed after poor Star Wars Outlaws reception Read More »

meta’s-new-lightweight-ar-prototype-shows-a-future-beyond-bulky-vr-headsets

Meta’s new lightweight AR prototype shows a future beyond bulky VR headsets

gaming, Tech / /
The future's so bright, Mark Zuckerberg's gotta wear shades.

Enlarge / The future’s so bright, Mark Zuckerberg’s gotta wear shades.

Thus far, Meta’s heavily money-losing Reality Labs division has been primarily focused on bulky virtual reality headsets (and some odd, display-free Ray-Ban branded sunglasses). So when Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg pulled out a 100 g pair of see-through, augmented-reality glasses at this year’s Meta Connect keynote, it represented a bit of a new direction for the company.

The prototype Orion AR glasses Zuckerberg showed off today don’t mean Meta will be ready to release a pair of consumer AR glasses anytime soon. But the demo represents a new vision for lightweight, wide-ranging, see-through smartglasses that Zuckerberg calls “a glimpse of the future” and “the dream of Reality Labs.”

Not your average screen

The core challenge of building a pair of comfortable augmented-reality glasses, Zuckerberg said, is that “they have to be glasses.” That means no bulky headset (a la Quest), no wires (a la Apple Vision Pro), and a weight of less than 100 grams (compared to a full 515 g for the Meta Quest 3). While there’s a tiny battery and “custom silicon” in those lightweight glasses, Zuckerberg admitted that some processing is done in a “small puck” that connects wirelessly to the glasses themselves.

  • Orion is a little thicker than actual glasses, but a whole lot smaller than VR headsets.

  • A wireless “puck” helps a bit with Orion’s processing, while a wristband provides for the “neural interface.”

  • Goodbye screens, hello “waveguides.”

  • You, too, could look this suave while wearing an AR headset.

  • Average Orion user shown in actual size.

  • The “neural interface” wristband lets Orion users interact without vocal commands or awkward, large hand gestures.

To achieve true augmented reality, Zuckerberg said Orion uses a screen that “is not actually a screen.” Instead, the glasses use tiny projectors embedded in the arms, which shoot light into specially designed waveguides. From there, the light hits “nanoscale 3D structures etched into the lenses” to show holographic images that can be layered at various depths and sizes on top of a natural view of the real world as seen through transparent lenses.

Zuckerberg said it has been a challenge making sure those images are sharp enough to capture fine details and bright enough to be seen in all sorts of lighting conditions. “This isn’t passthrough,” Zuckerberg stressed during the keynote. “This is the physical world with holograms displayed on it.”

Orion’s microprojection technology allows for a field of view that Meta says is “the largest… in the smallest AR glasses form to date.” In live demos to press, Meta said that the field of view reaches 70 degrees, compared to just 52 degrees for Microsoft’s older Hololens 2 or 50 degrees for the Magic Leap One, to cite some more limited examples of consumer AR.

To control these holograms, Orion users can use voice commands or hand- and eye-tracking like that already seen on Quest VR headsets. But Zuckerberg also talked up a “neural interface” wristband—which the company has teased previously—that can read tiny wrist and finger movements even without line of sight to the glasses themselves. That will let you interact with what’s on your glasses without having to awkwardly speak out loud or hold your hands in front of you like a zombie, Zuckerberg said.

Meta’s new lightweight AR prototype shows a future beyond bulky VR headsets Read More »

frostpunk-2-goes-wider-and-more-political-but-keeps-the-gritty,-stressful-joy

Frostpunk 2 goes wider and more political but keeps the gritty, stressful joy

11 bit studios, city builders, frostpunk, frostpunk 2, gaming, resource management, strategy, strategy games / /

If you had a time machine, would you shoot baby Krakatoa? —

Sequel has yet again made losing your humanity to survive somehow… fun?

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<em>Frostpunk 2</em> has you planning and building districts, rather than individual buildings or roads. You make plans, and a particularly icy god laughs.” src=”https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/FP2_Launch_Screenshots_Districts-800×450.jpg”></img><figcaption> <p><a data-height=Enlarge / Frostpunk 2 has you planning and building districts, rather than individual buildings or roads. You make plans, and a particularly icy god laughs.

11 Bit Studios

I can’t remember every interaction I had with the advisers in Civilization games, but I don’t believe I ever had to send my guards to put down a protest one of them staged in a new settlement.

Nor could I ask any of them for “Favours” to scrape a few more heat stamps necessary for a new food district, indebting me to them at some future point when they decide they’ve had enough of some other faction’s people and ideas. In Frostpunk 2 (out today), the people who pop up to tell you how they’re feeling aren’t just helpful indicators, they’re a vital part of the strategy. To keep these people going, you’ve got to make some of them mad, some of them happy, and balance a ledger of all you’ve gained and demanded from them.

That’s the biggest difference you’ll notice in Frostpunk 2 if you’re coming from the original. The original had you making choices that affected people, but you were the Captain, in full control of your people, at least until you angered them enough to revolt. In Frostpunk 2, you manage factions and communities rather than groups of survivors. You place districts, not hospitals. Time moves in days and weeks, not hours. You play multiple chapters across a landscape in a world that is 30 years removed from its initial peril.

The challenge of Frostpunk 2 is no longer simply getting everyone through this winter. There is now some thought of what kind of people you want to be once you have enough fuel, food, and children. Are you in managed decline, or can you build something better, despite the world trying to kill you?

  • You’re still building a city in a radius around the generator, but it’s big hexes and districts, not buildings on grids.

    11 Bit Studios

  • When your city gets built up, it can be mesmerizing to just watch it glow.

    11 Bit Studios

  • Exploring the places beyond your city’s reach can be rewarding, and risky, of course.

    11 Bit Studios

  • Each Faction has their priorities (Cornerstones). You can ask favors, promise things, and track their favor.

    11 Bit Studios

  • A lot of the original Frostpunk feel remains in the game. Should we teach our perfectly pipe-sized kids how to weld inside the oil tubes? What could go wrong?

    11 Bit Studios

A beautiful grid with brutal choices

Those are the big-picture changes to Frostpunk 2. At the ground level, the general feeling is quite familiar. It’s cold, it sometimes gets colder, and there’s a furnace to feed. This time, you need to do “Icebreaking” to unlock tiles for development, but you don’t have to worry so much about the exact placement of individual bits. Your colony or city will link itself up and look beautiful in the game’s grim Victorian cryo-future style. You have to figure out how to scrimp the resources to put an extraction district on the oil reserves, making enough heat for the residents to stop getting sick so you can then send them out to recover goods from a decimated wagon and then icebreak some more toward a food source, all while planning to build a research center and council building.

The research and political trees you climb are more varied and even harder to choose in this sequel. Early in Frostpunk 2, your explorers find a body in the ice with the insignia of the first game’s city on his jacket, and they ask you if it stands for Order or Faith. However you answer, you will have more than just two ideas to choose from. At the base level are two communities, Progress-focused New Londoners and Adaptation-minded Frostlanders. Then you get Order-obsessed Stalwarts, Faithkeepers, and their respective opposition, Pilgrims and Evolvers. Playing the game’s “Utopia Builder” mode after the chapter-based story mode brings in a lot more communities and factions. You know, for this fun thing you do in your spare time.

At the Council Hall, you will need to negotiate with these factions to get votes out of the 100 members, divided up by faction influence. Most votes need 51, but votes that change your power require 66. If a faction is on the fence, you can promise them something, like future research projects or other law changes. Break that promise, and they will work against you in the future. Radicals will show up inside each faction, requiring you to either appease them or find support elsewhere. You can look at all the players and “Cornerstones” (ideologies) at play in one of the game’s beautifully informative screens. You can ponder this while, all around you, the basic needs like fuel, materials, food, and shelter keep needing to be managed.

Your settlers can now lose faith in you not because they’re starving and freezing, but because of political factions. Huzzah!

Frostpunk 2 goes wider and more political but keeps the gritty, stressful joy Read More »

30th-anniversary-limited-run-ps5-and-ps5-pro-bring-back-mid-’90s-gray-plastic

30th-anniversary limited-run PS5 and PS5 Pro bring back mid-’90s gray plastic

gaming, PlayStation 5, ps5, ps5 pro, Tech / /

u r not (red) e —

Sony launched a similar gray PlayStation 4 in 2014 for the 20th anniversary.

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  • The PS5 Pro version of the 30th anniversary bundle comes with both varieties of DualSense controller, a plate for an (optional) optical drive, and other accessories.

    Sony

  • The regular PS5 version of the limited edition console.

    Sony

  • This is still a PS5 Pro, despite the PS1-inspired casing.

    Sony

  • It’s possible that Sony should have never stopped using the multicolor PS logo.

    Sony

  • The limited-edition PlayStation Portal.

    Sony

Sony launched the original PlayStation console in Japan on December 3, 1994, and Sony isn’t letting the 30th anniversary pass by quietly. Today the company has announced limited-edition versions of both the PS5 and PS5 Pro with gray plastic shells and multicolored PlayStation logos, inspired by the gray plastic shells of the original. The retro-inspired modern consoles will be released on November 21 and will be available for preorder starting September 26 from Sony’s direct.playstation.com site.

Sony is also releasing DualSense and DualSense Edge controllers with gray shells and colorful PS logo buttons and a gray version of the Switch-esque PlayStation Portal streaming console. Sony says that the limited-edition PS5 Pro will be limited to 12,300 units—a reference to the December 3 launch date—but didn’t mention any specific manufacturing numbers for the regular PS5, either DualSense controller design, or the PlayStation Portal.

Both console bundles also come with a handful of other accessories: a PS logo sticker, a PS logo paperclip, cable ties, and (my personal favorite) a regular USB-C cable with a giant, chunky PS1-style controller connector on one end.

Though they’re inspired by the original PlayStation, neither limited edition console comes with a built-in optical drive; however, they do include the gray plastic enclosure for anyone who chooses to add an $80 optical drive after the fact.

The USB-C cable with the PS1-style connector housing on it may be my favorite part of this entire announcement.

Enlarge / The USB-C cable with the PS1-style connector housing on it may be my favorite part of this entire announcement.

Sony

Sony has, notably, announced no pricing information for either console or any of the controllers or other accessories, though it almost doesn’t matter—the nature of limited-edition gaming-related collectibles is such that enthusiasts and scalpers will snap these consoles up shortly after launch, regardless of whether Sony sells them at the usual MSRP or not.

Sony released a similar PS1-inspired version of the PlayStation 4 for the PlayStation’s 20th anniversary in 2014, and it still fetches a high price—upward of $1,000 on eBay for used versions in good condition and between $1,500 and $2,000 for mint-in-box consoles.

Listing image by Sony

30th-anniversary limited-run PS5 and PS5 Pro bring back mid-’90s gray plastic Read More »

after-20-years,-world-of-warcraft-will-now-let-players-do-solo-raids

After 20 years, World of Warcraft will now let players do solo raids

Blizzard, gaming, MMO, World of Warcraft, wow / /

No more randos —

People have been playing WoW solo for years, so this was just the final step.

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An insect queen in a video game

Enlarge / The final boss of the new WoW raid, who will now be beatable as a solo player in Story Mode.

Blizzard

After 20 years, it’s now possible for solo players to finish storylines in the massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft that previously required a group to do an intensive raid.

That’s thanks to “Story Mode,” a new raid difficulty that was added for the final wing of the first raid of the recently released The War Within expansion.

Over the years, developer Blizzard has expanded the difficulty options for raids to meet various players and communities where they’re at in terms of play styles. The top difficulty is Mythic, where the semi-pro hardcore guilds compete. Below that is Heroic, where serious, capital-G gamers coordinate with friends in weekly raid schedules to progress. Then there’s Normal, which still requires some coordination but isn’t nearly as challenging and can typically be completed by a pick-up group within a few tries.

The most accessible difficulty is Raid Finder, where you’re matched up with random players automatically to complete a vastly easier version of a raid. Now Story Mode has been added to the mix, and it’s even easier than Raid Finder.

How Story Mode works

In Story Mode, you fight only the raid’s final boss, which has been scaled back in stats and complexity so that it’s beatable for a single player or a very small group of friends. Challenging encounter mechanics have been removed, and the whole fight has been retooled to focus exclusively on the narrative aspects.

There are some rewards, but they’re not the same as those on more difficult raids; the goal was to avoid cheapening the experience for those who do want to go all the way.

So far, Story Mode is available exclusively for the newest raid, which is called Nerub-ar Palace. It hasn’t been made available for other encounters yet, but Blizzard has hinted that this could be the long-term goal.

Supporting new (well, actually, old) play styles

Throughout WoW‘s history, it’s been common for the conclusion of a major storyline to involve defeating the final boss of a raid or dungeon. In the earlier years, Raid Finder didn’t exist, so only a small percentage of players who were willing to take on hardcore raiding could see those narrative outcomes.

Raid Finder was added in the Cataclysm expansion, but that still required grouping with other players, which isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. For some players, the social aspect of WoW is simply guild chat while doing solo activities at their own pace. Some people even play WoW without interacting directly with other players at all, treating others in the game as background crowds that add immersion to the experience.

In most areas, WoW has been better than most of its peers at supporting this kind of play. I played WoW socially early on, but I’ve played almost exclusively solo for the past several years. To see the endings of storylines I encountered while questing, I often turned to YouTube to see the cutscenes players got when they beat the raids.

Story Mode is also relevant for older content; Blizzard wisely introduced a new approach to leveling new characters where players can essentially pick a past expansion to level through. It’s tuned so that the players reach the level cap and are ready for current live content at more or less the same time they finish the final story in that expansion. But it’s only during special Timewalking events that those players got the opportunity to find other players to do the raids with, so they often didn’t get to finish the stories.

Story Mode solves both of those scenarios, and it’s a fundamental philosophy shift for how WoW approaches endgame content.

A lot of players enjoy WoW‘s positive community aspects but don’t like the pressure of having to perform for others in a high-stress situation. Raid Finder addressed some of their concerns, but since some people just play for the story, there was no good reason for Blizzard not to have done this ages ago.

Story Mode might even be enough to get lapsed players back who might have left because they didn’t have time for the demanding social schedules associated with raiding. It also doesn’t take away from hardcore players’ satisfaction or enjoyment if casual solos can see some version of the final encounter and cutscene of a story arc, especially since the rewards are so distinct.

Sometimes, casual and hardcore players can play the same game without ruining each other’s experience. That’s a fine line that Blizzard has struggled to walk sometimes, but Story Mode is one of a handful of cases where it’s a win for everyone.

After 20 years, World of Warcraft will now let players do solo raids Read More »

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Age of Mythology: Retold is surprisingly playable with a controller

gaming / /
I hope you like radial menus, because you'll be looking at a lot of them.

Enlarge / I hope you like radial menus, because you’ll be looking at a lot of them.

Age of Mythology: Retold brings a lot of the usual advancements that you’d expect for a reboot of both the increasingly dated 2002 original game and its previous reboot: 2014’s Extended Edition, which is still perfectly playable and available on Steam. The newest version of this real-time strategy classic comes with the requisite improvements in graphics and user interface, making the whole game much easier to look at and parse at a glance. And while the updated voice acting isn’t going to win any awards, neither is the stilted, bare bones dialogue that those actors are working with (which seems faithful to the original game, for better or worse).

But Retold does add one thing that I wasn’t really expecting in a modern real-time strategy game—full support for a handheld controller. Developers have been trying to make RTS games work without the traditional mouse and keyboard since the days of SNES Populous and Starcraft 64, usually with limited success. Microsoft hasn’t given up on the dream, though, fully integrating controller support for Age of Mythology: Retold into both the PC version (which we sampled) and, obviously, the Xbox Series X|S release.

The result is definitely the best version of an RTS controller interface that I’ve tried and proof that a modern controller can be a perfectly functional option for the genre. In the end, though, there are just a few too many annoyances associated with a handheld controller to make it the preferred way to play a game like this.

Too many functions, too few buttons

A detailed map.

Enlarge / A detailed map.

Microsoft

To get a feel for what I mean, just look at the “Controls Popup” summarizing all the things a single controller needs to do in a game like Age of Mythology. The game makes full use of every single button and directional input on the Xbox gamepad for some function or other. Things are so crowded that commands like Stop and Delete need to be mapped to a combination of two shoulder buttons, with different functions for holding and tapping (and there are a few other multi-button menu toggles that aren’t even listed here).

If anything, this diagram undersells the control complexity here. Tapping either trigger brings up context-sensitive radial menus full of general commands or construction options for the currently selected building. Finding the right option then often means scrolling through multiple pages of radial menus in this full-screen interface, an awkward solution to the problem of having too many options for too few buttons.

To the game’s credit, it does its best to limit how much of this menu-based fumbling you have to do. Tapping the Y button when a building is selected, for instance, automatically starts construction on the most common unit you’d want to create with that building. And holding down the Y button maximizes the production queue for that building quickly, saving the need to spend a few seconds clicking through menus to do so.

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No “offensive or inappropriate” Final Fantasy XVI mods, producer pleads

final fantasy xvi, gaming, Square Enix / /

Mind your mod manners —

Request continues a long tradition of modding concerns from Japanese game studios.

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This screenshot of a Final Fantasy PC mods that are way too inappropriate for publication on Ars.” src=”https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/clouddress-800×450.png”>

Enlarge / This screenshot of a “Cloud in a dress” mod is being used in place of some other Final Fantasy PC mods that are way too inappropriate for publication on Ars.

Final Fantasy XVI finally arrives on Windows PCs today, over a year after its launch on the PlayStation 5. That means expanded access for a game that sold below Square Enix’s expectations on console. But it also means the first opportunity for modders to add their own content to the game.

For game producer Naoki Yoshida, though, that new opportunity comes along with a plea for the user community to behave themselves when modifying the game. In a recent interview with PC Gamer, Yoshida felt the need to step in when director Hiroshi Takai was asked about what “goofy mods” he would like to see in the game.

“If we said, ‘It’d be great if someone made xyz,’ it might come across as a request, so I’ll avoid mentioning any specifics here!” Yoshida told PC Gamer. “The only thing I will say is that we definitely don’t want to say anything offensive or inappropriate, so please don’t make or install anything like that.”

It’s a plea that’s likely to fall on deaf ears, if history is any guide. A quick perusal of the Nexus Mods page for the Final Fantasy VII Remake turns up everything from the relatively tame “sexy dress Aerith” and “Regular Dress Cloud” mods to the much less appropriate “Tifa 4K Hi-Poly Nude Mod” (which is blocked by Nexus Mods’ filters unless you actively enable adult content). A little Googling can easily find forums with multipage threads of explicitly adult-oriented mods for the game as well.

Get used to it

This isn’t exactly a new type of concern for Japanese game developers. In 2015, Dead or Alive 5 producer Yosuke Hayashi asked “PC users to play our game in good moral and manner” (a bit ironic for a series so focused on scantily clad, buxom female competitors). Last year, Capcom went even further by likening PC game modding to “cheating,” citing the “reputational damage caused by malicious mods” that can be “offensive to public order and morals.”

Dead or Alive character, modders.” height=”360″ src=”https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/doa5-2-640×360.jpg” width=”640″>

Enlarge / Please don’t do anything immoral with this Dead or Alive character, modders.

“When these [offensive mods] are disseminated, the image of the product is tarnished and branding is affected,” Capcom said, adding that when these mods are “mistaken for legitimate implementations” it can cause “reputational damage” and “bad publicity.”

Bandai Namco, meanwhile, has taken legal action against Dark Souls modders and, more recently, started taking down YouTube videos featuring Tekken mods. Tekken director/producer Katsuhiro Harada went so far as to ask one Tekken modder to “plz stop” with his Elden Ring-themed mod for the game, even while he praised the mod as “ridiculously well-made.”

Um … Sure, Elden is a Bandai Namco-funded title, and I was the production general manager in charge of Elden, so it’s not irrelevant … it’s ridiculously well-made mod but plz stop it lol https://t.co/ISlXLrjfhM

— Katsuhiro Harada (@Harada_TEKKEN) March 31, 2022

“Personally, I wouldn’t say anything for your personal enjoyment,” Harada said in a follow-up post. “The only problem is that many people misunderstand it as official and ask us to support the problems it causes (I’m tired of this wrong inquiry).”

While we understand how annoying it is for random players to confuse a fan mod with a developer’s core product, it’s well past time for these developers to start accepting that this is how PC gaming works. When you publish a game on an open platform like the PC, you relinquish some level of control over what the community does with the gaming canvas you’ve given them. If a developer isn’t comfortable with that, they should stay out of PC games altogether.

Rather than chastising “inappropriate” mods, maybe developers should try to embrace the attitude that FFXVI director Takai was able to express in an interview posted on the Epic Games Store: “Feel free to have fun on your own,” he said. “Within reason, of course!”

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how-crypto-bros-wrested-flappy-bird-from-its-creator

How crypto bros wrested Flappy Bird from its creator

crypto, flappy bird, gaming / /
Imagine owning one of those funky birds as an NFT!

Enlarge / Imagine owning one of those funky birds as an NFT!

Fans of ultra-viral mobile gaming hit Flappy Bird who were stunned by the game’s sudden removal from the iOS App Store 10 years ago were probably even more stunned by last week’s equally sudden announcement that Flappy Bird is coming back with a raft of new characters and game modes. Unfortunately, the new version of Flappy Bird seems to be the result of a yearslong set of legal maneuvers by a crypto-adjacent game developer intent on taking the “Flappy Bird” name from the game’s original creator, Dong Nguyen.

“No, I have no related with their game. I did not sell anything,” Nguyen wrote on social media over the weekend in his first post since 2017. “I also don’t support crypto,” Nguyen added.

No, I have no related with their game. I did not sell anything.

I also don’t support crypto.

— Dong Nguyen (@dongatory) September 15, 2024

“Flappy Bird was designed to play in a few minutes when you are relaxed,” Nguyen said in a 2014 interview after removing the game from mobile app stores. “But it happened to become an addictive product. I think it has become a problem. To solve that problem, it’s best to take down Flappy Bird. It’s gone forever.”

“A decade-long, convoluted journey to get here”

So how can another company release a game named Flappy Bird without Nguyen’s approval or sale of the rights? Court filings show that a company called Gametech Holdings filed a “notice of opposition” against Nguyen with the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in late 2023, seeking to invalidate his claim on the “Flappy Bird” name. When Nguyen, who lives in Vietnam, didn’t respond to that notice by November, the US Patent and Trademark Office entered a default judgment against him and officially canceled his trademark in January, allowing Gametech to legally claim the name.

But Gametech’s efforts to legally acquire the Flappy Bird name seem to go back much further than that. Back in 2014, an outfit called Mobile Media Partners tried to claim the Flappy Bird trademark in a filing made mere days after Nguyen pulled the game from the App Store. Coincidentally enough, the specific New Jersey address listed by Mobile Media Partners on that 2014 application matches an address used by Gametech Holdings in the paperwork for its 2023 legal efforts.

Mobile Media Partners’ 2014 application makes reference to a (now-defunct) FlappyBirdReturns.com and asserts that the company had “reserved/acquired the name from Apple in their Apps Store [sic].” It also claims that “Flappy Bird” is “not being used by any other companies and/or people,” taking quick advantage of Nguyen’s decision to take the game down.

A section from the USPTO's 2018 trademark certificate granting

Enlarge / A section from the USPTO’s 2018 trademark certificate granting “Flappy Bird” to “Mobile Media Partners.”

With this “evidence,” the USPTO actually granted Mobile Media Partners a Flappy Bird trademark in 2018, a fact that Gametech cited in its successful 2023 opposition to Nguyen’s use of the mark.

In a press release, a spokesperson for the newly formed Flappy Bird Foundation—which acquired the trademark from Gametech—summed this all up as “a decade-long, convoluted journey to get here.” The new company said it also acquired the legal rights to Piou Piou vs. Cactus, a little-known 2011 web game that seems to have heavily inspired Flappy Bird.

The newly launched FlappyBird.org website proudly refers to “the decade-long mission” to revive the game, which “involved acquiring legal rights.” The post also mentions “working with my predecessor to uncage me and re-hatch…” in phrasing that seems to imply a link to the original Flappy Bird but which could also reference the Piou Piou vs. Cactus acquisition.

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