gaming

ftc-attacks-microsoft’s-post-merger-game-pass-price-increases

FTC attacks Microsoft’s post-merger Game Pass price increases

Toldja so —

Regulator says move is “exactly the sort of consumer harm” it warned about.

xbox game pass ultimate

Enlarge / Access to first-party games on launch day remains a major selling point for the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate tier.

Microsoft

The FTC says the across-the-board price increases that Microsoft recently announced for its Xbox Game Pass subscription service tiers represent “exactly the sort of consumer harm from the merger the FTC has alleged” when it sought to block Microsoft’s merger with Activision. In a letter to the court posted as part of an ongoing appeal by the FTC in the case, the federal regulator alleges Microsoft’s moves are a clear example of “product degradation” brought about by “a firm exercising market power post-merger.”

The letter’s primary focus is on the soon-to-be-discontinued $10.99/month Console Game Pass tier. That’s being replaced with a $14.99/month Game Pass Standard tier (a 36 percent price increase) that no longer includes “day one” access to all of Microsoft’s first-party titles. To maintain that key benefit, “Console” subscribers will have to spend 81 percent more for the $19.99 Game Pass Ultimate tier, which also includes a number of additional benefits over the current $10.99/month option.

Is this “based on the acquisition”?

The FTC notes that these changes “coincide with adding Call of Duty to Game Pass’s most expensive tier.” Previously, Microsoft publicly promised that this Game Pass access to Activision’s ultra-popular shooter would come “with no price increase for the service based on the acquisition.”

It’s that “based on the acquisition” clause that’s likely to give Microsoft some wiggle room in arguing for its planned pricing changes. Inflation is also a sufficient explanation for a large portion of the price increase in nominal terms—the $14.99 Microsoft charged for a month of Game Pass Ultimate when it launched in 2019 is the equivalent of $18.39 today, according to the BLS CPI calculator. When Microsoft raised the Game Pass Ultimate monthly price from $14.99 to $16.99 just last year—just before the Activision merger was finalized—the company said in a statement it had “adjusted the prices to reflect the competitive conditions in each market.”

Microsoft might have a harder time finessing the alleged “degradation” inherent in going from the discontinued Game Pass Console tier to the new, more expensive Game Pass Standard tier. True, the replacement does include the online multiplayer benefits of Game Pass Core, which could previously be purchased separately. But the removal of the long-promised day one access to first party games will heavily reduce the value most subscribers get from the new option.

It’s now been over a year since the FTC first announced it intended to appeal the ruling that effectively stopped its attempted injunction against the merger deal. While Microsoft and Activision have moved forward with their merger since then, courts have reversed similar mergers on appeal even after a merger deal has fully closed.

Elsewhere in its letter, the FTC makes note of previous arguments that Microsoft’s recent round of nearly 2,000 Xbox-focused layoffs is a sign of “reduced investments in output and product quality” post-merger.

FTC attacks Microsoft’s post-merger Game Pass price increases Read More »

switch-2-is-around-the-corner,-but-nintendo-announces-a-new-switch-accessory-anyway

Switch 2 is around the corner, but Nintendo announces a new Switch accessory anyway

better late than never? —

Oddly timed accessory is released as the Switch’s life cycle is winding down.

  • Nintendo’s Joy-Con Charging Stand (Two-Way) seems useful, but it’s coming out at a strange time in the console’s lifecycle.

    Nintendo

  • The stand can charge the Switch Online NES controllers, something that Nintendo’s charging grip can’t do because the handles get in the way.

    Nintendo

  • The charging stand can be removed from the stand part to maximize flexibility.

    Nintendo

Nintendo’s Switch launched in March 2017, and all available information indicates that the company is on track to announce a successor early next year. It’s that timing that makes the launch of Nintendo’s latest Switch accessory so odd: The company has announced a first-party charging cradle for Joy-Con controllers, which up until now have been charged by slotting them into the console itself, via Nintendo’s sold-separately Joy-Con charging grip, or with third-party charging accessories.

The Nintendo of Europe account on X, formerly Twitter, announced that the charging accessory—formally called the “Joy-Con Charging Stand (Two-Way)”—will be released on October 17. It will work with both Joy-Cons and the Switch Online wireless NES controllers, and the charging cradle can be separated from its stand (where it looks a lot like the Joy-Con charging grip but without the grip part).

Power is provided via a USB-C port on top of the stand, which can either be connected to one of the Switch dock’s USB ports or to a separate USB-C charger. Other Switch controllers, including the Pro Controller and the SNES and N64 replica controllers, are charged via USB-C directly.

The Verge reports that the accessory has only been announced for Europe and Japan so far, though it will presumably also come to North America at some point. Pricing hasn’t been announced yet, either.

Switch 2 is around the corner

Why would Nintendo release a new first-party charging accessory for your old console just months before it’s slated to announce its next-generation console? Rumors about the design of the Switch 2 could hold some hints.

Accessory makers and others with firsthand knowledge of the Switch 2 have suggested that the new console will come with redesigned Joy-Cons with additional buttons and a magnetic attachment mechanism. This would likely make it impossible to attach current-generation Joy-Cons, which physically interlock with the Switch and its various accessories.

But reporting also suggests that the Switch 2 will retain backward compatibility with digital and physical Switch games, which could justify retaining some kind of backward compatibility with existing controllers. This new Joy-Con charging cradle could provide current Switch owners a way to continue charging Joy-Cons and NES controllers even if they can no longer be attached to and charged by the console itself.

But that’s just speculation at this point. It could just as easily be the case that Nintendo has to keep the Switch going for one more holiday season, and it’s eager to sell every accessory it can alongside the shrinking but still significant number of consoles it will sell between now and the time the Switch 2 is released. Nintendo recently announced new games in the Legend of Zelda and Mario & Luigi series, which will give past and future Switch buyers a reason to keep their Joy-Cons charged in the first place.

Nintendo has taken pains to make old controllers compatible with new consoles before. Most Nintendo Wii consoles came with built-in GameCube controller ports, which enabled backward compatibility with GameCube games and also allowed GameCube controllers to be used with compatible Wii games like Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Wii remotes also continued to function with the Wii U.

One thing we don’t know about the Switch 2’s backward compatibility is whether it will provide any kind of graphical enhancements for Switch games. Several titles released in recent years, including newer Pokémon titles, have suffered from performance issues. Nintendo had reportedly planned to release a more powerful “Switch Pro” at some point in 2021 or 2022, but the update was apparently scrapped in favor of the more modestly updated OLED Switch.

Listing image by Nintendo

Switch 2 is around the corner, but Nintendo announces a new Switch accessory anyway Read More »

nintendo-world-championships:-nes-edition-gave-me-new-respect-for-gaming-speedrunners

Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition gave me new respect for gaming speedrunners

Get ready to repeat this ~25-second slice of <em>Mario</em> over and over… and over… and over.” src=”https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/nwc3-800×450.png”></img><figcaption>
<p><a data-height=Enlarge / Get ready to repeat this ~25-second slice of Mario over and over… and over… and over.

If you’ve ever seen a record-breaking video game speedrun or watched a Games Done Quick marathon, you may have entertained fantasies that you, too, could put up some decent times on your favorite old games. Sure, it would probably take a bit of practice, but what these speedrunners are doing doesn’t look that difficult, does it? How hard can it be to press a few buttons with good timing for a few minutes?

After spending a few weeks with Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition, I no longer think that way. The game’s bite-size chunks of classic Nintendo games highlight the level of precision needed for even a few minutes of speedrunning perfection, not to mention the tedium of practicing the same in-game motions dozens of times to build up the needed muscle memory. In the process, I gained a newfound respect for the skill displayed by the best speedrunners and found a fresh way to experience some classic NES games that I felt I knew backward and forward.

Gotta go fast

While Nintendo World Championships draws its name from a series of competitions dating back to 1990, it draws its inspiration much more directly from the more recent rise of the online speedrunning community. Thus, the game’s main single-player mode is named “Speedrun,” tasking players with putting up the fastest times in 150 mini-challenges spread across 13 different Nintendo-developed NES titles.

Really? Get the Morph Ball? That's all you want me to do here?

Enlarge / Really? Get the Morph Ball? That’s all you want me to do here?

Nintendo

The earliest of these many unlockable challenges seem almost insultingly easy on their face—collecting the first Super Mushroom in Super Mario Bros. or collecting the sword in The Legend of Zelda, for instance. When you first dive in, you may be more than a little bemused to find yourself showered with in-game rewards for spending just a few seconds completing such basic tasks.

But then you look at how much time that challenge took you—which is thrown up in huge numbers on the screen—alongside an even bigger letter grade. The “A” you got for collecting that Mushroom might seem pretty good, at first, but you know you could do better if you didn’t miss the item box with your first few jumps. So you quickly restart the challenge (and breathe deep through a helpful three-second countdown) and trim off half a second on your second attempt, earning an “A+” for your efforts.

If you are a certain type of player, you might say, “Alright, that’s good enough,” rather than repeating this cycle yet again (if so, I’d argue this game is not for you). But if you’re a different type of gamer, the mere knowledge that you could achieve an S rank with some combination of strategy and execution will propel you through entire minutes of repeated attempts, looking to optimize the perfect few seconds of button presses.

The fact that Nintendo doesn’t reveal the specific timing cutoffs for the different letter grades is equal parts frustrating and subtly encouraging, here. There were plenty of challenges where I felt I played as optimally as I could only to be greeted with a mere “A++” rank next to my new best time. The S rank’s mere existence often inspired me to redouble my efforts and look for new ways to trim even more time off my personal best.

Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition gave me new respect for gaming speedrunners Read More »

full-dev-build-of-space-marine-2-leaks,-and-players-are-already-leveling-up

Full dev build of Space Marine 2 leaks, and players are already leveling up

Weaknesses in the Imperium of Man —

Developers canceled a beta test—but may have gotten one anyway.

Space Marine looking to the side in a rendered image from Space Marine 2

Enlarge / Heresy must be punished.

Focus Entertainment

How badly do you want to play the upcoming Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 ahead of its September 9 launch? Enough to torrent a 75GB package from a Russian site? Enough to not only unpack and play it, but connect to a server and start building up your character?

Me neither, but that hasn’t stopped seemingly hundreds of people from doing just that. Publisher Focus Entertainment had announced the third-person action game having “gone gold” (released for manufacturing) on July 9. The leaked build might date to February 23, 2024, as suggested by site Insider Gaming, which had previously suggested a June 20 date.

Footage from the leaked builds, which has been mostly taken offline by Focus through copyright claims, suggested that it was a mostly complete version of the game, with some placeholder assets in menus. Said footage also suggests that the game’s pirates are playing online, and their characters are retaining their levels and items. For now, at least.

Gameplay overview trailer for Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2.

In some ways, this shouldn’t really matter. When the game’s servers go officially live, developer Saber Interactive and Focus should be able to flag those accounts that have logged unauthorized time. Getting online to play will likely require authentication from the Steam, Xbox, or PlayStation platform one chooses. And there’s a chance that a closer look at the game, or even just news about its leak, might entice more people into buying and playing the game proper.

Focus Entertainment

In other ways, though, it stinks. Spoilers from the game’s campaign and multiplayer offerings will filter out, and firms that should be focusing entirely on release and quality control will have to deal with the security and fairness aspects of such a leak. A planned open beta of the game had already been canceled in favor of the developer’s focus on launch readiness.

Game leaks of this scale aren’t as common as select images or isolated information, but it does happen. Grand Theft Auto VI had nearly an hour of gameplay footage leak in 2022. Discs of Starfield being posted for sale in August 2023, weeks ahead of its September release, resulted in felony charges for a Tennessee man. Videos spoiling much of The Last of Us Part 2 leaked online in 2020, thanks to someone “not affiliated” with its developer and publisher.

And the biggest and most unexpected hack and leak came from a small German town, where Axel Gembe stole and leaked early source code for Half-Life 2. He later tried to apologize to Valve founder Gabe Newell and leverage his break-in to land a job at Valve, which was, to say the least, unsuccessful.

Ars has contacted Focus Entertainment for comment and will update this post with new information.

Full dev build of Space Marine 2 leaks, and players are already leveling up Read More »

pc-emulator-comes-to-ios,-but-apple’s-restrictions-hamper-performance

PC emulator comes to iOS, but Apple’s restrictions hamper performance

It works, technically —

UTM SE’s lack of JIT compilation means “SE stands for Slow Edition.”

<em>Space Cadet Pinball</em> has never been so portable… or so tiny!” src=”https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/utmse.png”></img><figcaption>
<p><a data-height=Enlarge / Space Cadet Pinball has never been so portable… or so tiny!

One month after PC emulator UTM was rejected from the iOS App Store, the developers have announced that a new “UTM SE” version is now available for free on the App Store. But the app’s performance is severely hampered by Apple’s restrictions on so-called “just-in-time” (JIT) compilation, limiting the app’s suitability for effectively emulating many PC games.

Built on the generic command-line emulation layer QEMU, the open-source UTM boasts support for “30+ processors,” from x86 and PowerPC to RISC-V and ARM64. The App Store listing promises you can “run classic software and old-school games” through both a VGA graphics mode and text-based terminal.

Don’t expect a seamless, RetroArch-style path to playing Space Cadet Pinball on your iPhone, though. The UTM developers link to pre-configured settings downloads for versions of Windows going back to XP, alongside guides for getting those OSes up and running on iOS. But users will need to bring their own legitimate Windows installation ISO and go through the cumbersome process of installing the OS as well as a version of SPICE tools to help coordinate access through iOS (downloading pre-built, UTM-compatible Linux builds seems more straightforward).

Slow by design

Even after that, don’t expect high-level performance from this new emulator. That’s because UTM SE must abide by App Store restrictions prohibiting apps that “install executable code.” As such, the App Store version is a “JIT-less” build that uses a Tiny-Code Threaded Interpreter (TCTI) to interpret each original line of code being run rather than fully recompiling it at runtime for smoother performance.

A video shows how the lack of JIT recompilation slows down GameCube emulation on DolphiniOS.

The lack of that JIT recompilation means the “SE [in UTM SE] stands for Slow Edition,” as moderator CZ pithily put it in the UTM Discord. “This is us telling you gaming on UTM SE is not happening.” At least one user who tested running Linux via UTM SE confirmed it is “dog slow” and “a gloopy experience.” Those who want full performance out of UTM can still install the regular, non-SE version of the app via sideloading or an alt store.

You may remember that the developers of GameCube/Wii emulator DolphiniOS cited the lack of JIT recompilation as the reason their app can’t run at a functional frame rate through the iOS App Store. However, similar restrictions haven’t stopped emulators like Delta from running classic gaming consoles up through the Nintendo DS at a playable frame rate, suggesting that UTM SE might be sufficient for older MS-DOS or Windows 95-era titles.

PC emulator comes to iOS, but Apple’s restrictions hamper performance Read More »

“superhuman”-go-ais-still-have-trouble-defending-against-these-simple-exploits

“Superhuman” Go AIs still have trouble defending against these simple exploits

Man vs. machine —

Plugging up “worst-case” algorithmic holes is proving more difficult than expected.

Man vs. machine in a sea of stones.

Enlarge / Man vs. machine in a sea of stones.

Getty Images

In the ancient Chinese game of Go, state-of-the-art artificial intelligence has generally been able to defeat the best human players since at least 2016. But in the last few years, researchers have discovered flaws in these top-level AI Go algorithms that give humans a fighting chance. By using unorthodox “cyclic” strategies—ones that even a beginning human player could detect and defeat—a crafty human can often exploit gaps in a top-level AI’s strategy and fool the algorithm into a loss.

Researchers at MIT and FAR AI wanted to see if they could improve this “worst case” performance in otherwise “superhuman” AI Go algorithms, testing a trio of methods to harden the top-level KataGo algorithm‘s defenses against adversarial attacks. The results show that creating truly robust, unexploitable AIs may be difficult, even in areas as tightly controlled as board games.

Three failed strategies

In the pre-print paper “Can Go AIs be adversarially robust?”, the researchers aim to create a Go AI that is truly “robust” against any and all attacks. That means an algorithm that can’t be fooled into “game-losing blunders that a human would not commit” but also one that would require any competing AI algorithm to spend significant computing resources to defeat it. Ideally, a robust algorithm should also be able to overcome potential exploits by using additional computing resources when confronted with unfamiliar situations.

An example of the original cyclic attack in action.

Enlarge / An example of the original cyclic attack in action.

The researchers tried three methods to generate such a robust Go algorithm. In the first, they simply fine-tuned the KataGo model using more examples of the unorthodox cyclic strategies that previously defeated it, hoping that KataGo could learn to detect and defeat these patterns after seeing more of them.

This strategy initially seemed promising, letting KataGo win 100 percent of games against a cyclic “attacker.” But after the attacker itself was fine-tuned (a process that used much less computing power than KataGo’s fine-tuning), that win rate fell back down to 9 percent against a slight variation on the original attack.

For its second defense attempt, the researchers iterated a multi-round “arms race” where new adversarial models discover novel exploits and new defensive models seek to plug up those newly discovered holes. After 10 rounds of such iterative training, the final defending algorithm still only won 19 percent of games against a final attacking algorithm that had discovered previously unseen variation on the exploit. This was true even as the updated algorithm maintained an edge against earlier attackers that it had been trained against in the past.

Go AI if they know the right algorithm-exploiting strategy.” height=”427″ src=”https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/GettyImages-109417607-640×427.jpg” width=”640″>

Enlarge / Even a child can beat a world-class Go AI if they know the right algorithm-exploiting strategy.

Getty Images

In their final attempt, researchers tried a completely new type of training using vision transformers, in an attempt to avoid what might be “bad inductive biases” found in the convolutional neural networks that initially trained KataGo. This method also failed, winning only 22 percent of the time against a variation on the cyclic attack that “can be replicated by a human expert,” the researchers wrote.

Will anything work?

In all three defense attempts, the KataGo-beating adversaries didn’t represent some new, previously unseen height in general Go-playing ability. Instead, these attacking algorithms were laser-focused on discovering exploitable weaknesses in an otherwise performant AI algorithm, even if those simple attack strategies would lose to most human players.

Those exploitable holes highlight the importance of evaluating “worst-case” performance in AI systems, even when the “average-case” performance can seem downright superhuman. On average, KataGo can dominate even high-level human players using traditional strategies. But in the worst case, otherwise “weak” adversaries can find holes in the system that make it fall apart.

It’s easy to extend this kind of thinking to other types of generative AI systems. LLMs that can succeed at some complex creative and reference tasks might still utterly fail when confronted with trivial math problems (or even get “poisoned” by malicious prompts). Visual AI models that can describe and analyze complex photos may nonetheless fail horribly when presented with basic geometric shapes.

If you can solve these kinds of puzzles, you may have better visual reasoning than state-of-the-art AIs.

Enlarge / If you can solve these kinds of puzzles, you may have better visual reasoning than state-of-the-art AIs.

Improving these kinds of “worst case” scenarios is key to avoiding embarrassing mistakes when rolling an AI system out to the public. But this new research shows that determined “adversaries” can often discover new holes in an AI algorithm’s performance much more quickly and easily than that algorithm can evolve to fix those problems.

And if that’s true in Go—a monstrously complex game that nonetheless has tightly defined rules—it might be even more true in less controlled environments. “The key takeaway for AI is that these vulnerabilities will be difficult to eliminate,” FAR CEO Adam Gleave told Nature. “If we can’t solve the issue in a simple domain like Go, then in the near-term there seems little prospect of patching similar issues like jailbreaks in ChatGPT.”

Still, the researchers aren’t despairing. While none of their methods were able to “make [new] attacks impossible” in Go, their strategies were able to plug up unchanging “fixed” exploits that had been previously identified. That suggests “it may be possible to fully defend a Go AI by training against a large enough corpus of attacks,” they write, with proposals for future research that could make this happen.

Regardless, this new research shows that making AI systems more robust against worst-case scenarios might be at least as valuable as chasing new, more human/superhuman capabilities.

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$500-aluminum-version-of-the-analogue-pocket-looks-like-the-game-boy’s-final-form

$500 aluminum version of the Analogue Pocket looks like the Game Boy’s final form

so metal —

Other Pocket iterations have stuck to colorful (and cheaper) plastic.

Analogue is launching another limited-edition version of its Pocket console, this time with an anodized aluminum body and buttons.

Enlarge / Analogue is launching another limited-edition version of its Pocket console, this time with an anodized aluminum body and buttons.

Analogue

Analogue has released multiple variations of the Analogue Pocket, its Game Boy-style handheld console that can play old cartridges and game ROMs using its FPGA chip. But until now, all of those designs have been riffs on the regular Pocket’s black (or white) plastic shell.

The company’s latest Pocket iteration might appeal more to people who prefer the solidity and durability of anodized aluminum to the cheap practicality of plastic. On July 15, the company will release a limited run of all-aluminum Analogue Pocket consoles in four different colors: white, gray, black, and a Game Boy Advance-esque indigo. The company says that “every single piece” of these consoles is “entirely CNC’d from aluminum,” including not just the frame but also all of the buttons.

The new material will cost you, though: Each aluminum Pocket sells for $500, over twice as much as the $220 price of a regular plastic Pocket.

The aluminum versions of the Pocket will run the exact same software as the standard plastic ones and will be compatible with all the same cartridges and accessories. Analogue’s site doesn’t compare the weight of the aluminum and plastic Pocket consoles, though intuitively we’d expect the metal one to be heavier. The aluminum consoles begin shipping on July 17.

An exploded version of the new Pocket; even the buttons are aluminum.

Enlarge / An exploded version of the new Pocket; even the buttons are aluminum.

Analogue

When the Pocket first launched in late 2021, ongoing supply chain disruptions and high demand led to monthslong wait times for the initial models. Things have gotten slightly better since then—you can’t simply open Analogue’s store on any given day and just buy one, but the basic black and white plastic models restock with some regularity. Analogue has also released multiple special edition runs of the handheld, including one made of glow-in-the-dark plastic and a colorful series of models that recall Nintendo’s mid-’90s “Play It Loud!” hardware refresh for the original Game Boy.

As much as we liked the Pocket in our original review, the hardware has gotten much more capable thanks to a series of post-launch firmware updates. In the summer of 2022, Analogue added OpenFPGA support to the pocket, allowing its FPGA chip to emulate consoles like the NES, SNES, Sega Genesis, and others aside from the portable systems that the Pocket was designed to emulate. Updates toward the end of 2023 allowed those third-party emulation cores to use their own display filters, replicating the look of classic CRT TVs and other displays.

The updates have also fixed multiple bugs in the system. The latest update is version 2.2, released back in March, which primarily adds support for the Analogue Pocket Adapter Set that allows other kinds of vintage game cartridges to plug in to the Pocket’s cartridge slot.

$500 aluminum version of the Analogue Pocket looks like the Game Boy’s final form Read More »

arm-tweaks-amd’s-fsr-to-bring-battery-saving-gpu-upscaling-to-phones-and-tablets

Arm tweaks AMD’s FSR to bring battery-saving GPU upscaling to phones and tablets

situation: there are 14 competing standards —

Arm “Accuracy Super Resolution” is optimized for power use and integrated GPUs.

An Arm sample image meant to show off its new

Enlarge / An Arm sample image meant to show off its new “Accuracy Super Resolution” upscaling tech.

Arm

Some of the best Arm processors come from companies like Apple and Qualcomm, which license Arm’s processor instruction set but create their own custom or semi-custom CPU designs. But Arm continues to plug away on its own CPU and GPU architectures and related technologies, and the company has announced that it’s getting into the crowded field of graphics upscaling technology.

Arm’s Accuracy Super Resolution (ASR) is a temporal upscaler that is based on AMD’s open source FidelityFX Super Resolution 2, which Arm says allows developers to “benefit from the familiar API and configuration options.” (This AMD presentation from GDC 2023 gets into some of the differences between different kinds of upscalers.)

AMD’s FSR and Nvidia’s DLSS on gaming PCs are mostly sold as a way to boost graphical fidelity—increasing frame rates beyond 60 fps or rendering “4K” images on graphics cards that are too slow to do those things natively, for example. But since Arm devices are still (mostly, for now) phones and tablets, Arm is leaning into the potential power savings that are possible with lower GPU use. A less-busy GPU also runs cooler, reducing the likelihood of thermal throttling; Arm mentions reduced throttling as a benefit of ASR, though it doesn’t say how much of ASR’s performance advantage over FSR is attributable to reduced throttling.

“Using [ASR] rendered high-quality results at a stable, low temperature,” writes Arm Director for Ecosystem Strategy Peter Hodges. “Rendering at a native resolution inevitably led to undesirable thermal throttling, which in games can ruin the user experience and shorten engagement.”

Why not just use FSR2 without modification? Arm claims that the ASR upscaling tech has been tuned to reduce GPU usage and to run well on devices without a ton of memory bandwidth—think low-power mobile GPUs with integrated graphics rather than desktop-class graphics cards. ASR’s GPU use is as little as one-third of FSR2’s at the same target resolutions and scaling factors. Arm also claims that ASR delivers roughly 20 to 40 percent better frame rates than FSR2 on Arm devices, depending on the settings you’re using.

  • Arm also says that reduced GPU usage when using ASR can lead to lower heat and improved battery life.

    Arm

  • Arm says that ASR runs faster and uses less power than FSR on the same mobile hardware.

    Arm

Arm says it used “a commercial mobile device that features an Arm Immortalis-G720 GPU” for its performance testing and that it worked with MediaTek to corroborate its power consumption numbers “using a Dimensity 9300 handset.”

When the ASR spec is released, it will be up to OS makers and game developers to implement it. Apple will likely stick with its own MetalFX upscaling technology—also derived from AMD’s FSR, for what that’s worth. Microsoft is pushing “Automatic Super Resolution” on Arm devices while also attempting to develop a vendor-agnostic upscaling API in “DirectSR.” Qualcomm announced Snapdragon Game Super Resolution a little over a year ago.

Arm’s upscaler has the benefit of being hardware-agnostic and also open-source (Arm says it “want[s] to share [ASR] with the developer community under an MIT open-source license”) so that other upscalers can benefit from its improvements. Qualcomm’s upscaler is also a simpler spatial upscaler a la AMD’s first-generation FSR algorithm, so Arm’s upscaler could also end up producing superior image quality on the same GPUs.

We’re undeniably getting into that one xkcd comic about the proliferation of standards territory here, but it’s at least interesting to see different companies using graphics upscaling technology to solve problems other than “make games look nicer.”

Listing image by Arm

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microsoft-asks-many-game-pass-subscribers-to-pay-more-for-less

Microsoft asks many Game Pass subscribers to pay more for less

Raking it in —

Launch day access to first-party titles now restricted to $19.99/month “Ultimate” tier.

Artist's conception of Microsoft executives after today's Game Pass pricing announcements.

Enlarge / Artist’s conception of Microsoft executives after today’s Game Pass pricing announcements.

Getty Images

For years now, Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass has set itself apart by offering subscribers launch-day access to new first-party titles in addition to a large legacy library of older games. That important “day one” perk is now set to go away for all but the highest tier of Game Pass’ console subscribers, even as Microsoft asks for more money for Game Pass across the board.

Let’s start with the price increases for existing Game Pass tiers, which are relatively straightforward:

  • “Game Pass Ultimate” is going from $16.99 to $19.99 per month.
  • “Game Pass for PC” is going from $9.99 to $11.99 per month.
  • “Game Pass Core” (previously known as Xbox Live Gold) is going from $59.99 to $74.99 for annual subscriptions (and remains at $9.99 for monthly subscriptions).

Things get a bit more complicated for the $10.99/month “Xbox Game Pass for Console” tier. Microsoft announced that it will no longer accept new subscriptions for that tier after today, though current subscribers will be able to keep it (for now) if they auto-renew their subscriptions.

In its place, Microsoft will “in the coming months” roll out a new $14.99 “Xbox Game Pass Standard” tier. That new option will combine the usual access to “hundreds of high-quality games on console” with the “online console multiplayer” features that previously required a separate Xbox Game Pass Core subscription (“Core” will still be available separately and include access to a smaller “25+ game” library).

Quick and dirty chart by me to display the new Xbox Game Pass structure (subject to correction).

I hope this helps. pic.twitter.com/Qj6CX7i4kG

— Klobrille (@klobrille) July 10, 2024

But while the current Xbox Game Pass Console option promises access to Xbox Game Studios games “the same day they launch,” those “Day One releases” are conspicuously absent as a perk for the replacement Xbox Game Pass Standard subscription.

“Some games available with Xbox Game Pass Ultimate on day one will not be immediately available with Xbox Game Pass Standard and may be added to the library at a future date,” Microsoft writes in an FAQ explaining the changes.

Players who want guaranteed access to all those “Day One” releases will now have to subscribe to the $19.99/month Game Pass Ultimate. That’s an 81 percent increase from the $10.99/month that console players currently pay for similar “Day One” access on the disappearing Game Pass Console tier.

To be fair, that extra subscription money does come with some added benefits. Upgrading from Game Pass Console/Standard to Game Pass Ultimate lets you use Microsoft’s cloud gaming service, access downloadable PC games and the EA Play library, and get additional “free perks every month.” But it’s the launch day access to Microsoft’s system-selling first-party titles that really sets the Ultimate tier apart now, and which will likely necessitate a costly upgrade for many Xbox Game Pass subscribers.

More problems, more money

When Game Pass first launched in 2017, it was focused on legacy games, not day one launch titles.

Enlarge / When Game Pass first launched in 2017, it was focused on legacy games, not day one launch titles.

While Xbox Game Pass launched in 2017, launch-day access to all of Microsoft’s new first-party games wasn’t promised to subscribers until the beginning of 2018. Since then, loyal Game Pass subscribers have been able to play dozens of new first-party titles at launch, from major franchises like Halo, Forza, and Gears of War to indie darlings like Hi-Fi Rush, Sea of Thieves, and Ori and the Will of the Wisps and much more.

Sure, access to hundreds of older games was nice. But the promise of brand-new major first-party titles was instrumental in driving Xbox Game Pass to 34 million subscribers as of February. And Sony found itself unwilling to match that “day one” perk for its similar PlayStation Plus service, which only includes a handful of older PlayStation Studios titles.

In a 2022 interview with GamesIndustry.biz, PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan said throwing new first-party games on their subscription service would break a “virtuous cycle” in which new full game purchases (at a price of up to $70) help fund the next round of game development. “The level of investment that we need to make in our studios would not be possible, and we think the knock-on effect on the quality of the games that we make would not be something that gamers want.”

And Microsoft may come to a similar conclusion. Including first-party titles with cheaper, console-focused Game Pass subscriptions probably seemed like a good idea when Microsoft was still trying to attract subscribers to the service. But Game Pass subscriber growth is starting to slow as the market of potential customers has become saturated. Microsoft now needs to extract more value from those subscribers to justify Game Pass cannibalizing direct sales of its own first-party games.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 to a Game Pass subscription.” height=”360″ src=”https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/codblops6-640×360.jpg” width=”640″>

Enlarge / Microsoft paid a lot of money to add the value of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 to a Game Pass subscription.

Activision

And let’s not forget Activision, which Microsoft recently spent a whopping $69 billion to acquire after lengthy legal and regulatory battles. Recouping that cost, while also offering Game Pass subscribers launch day access to massive sellers like Call of Duty, likely forced Microsoft to maximize Game Pass’ revenue-generating opportunities.

“Let’s put it this way: If 7 million Xbox Game Pass subscribers were planning to buy ‘Call of Duty’ for $70 but now have no reason to (as it’s part of their subscription), that leaves almost half a billion dollars of revenue on the table,” MIDia analyst Rhys Elliott told The Daily Upside by way of illustrating the significant numbers involved.

For players who enjoy a wide variety of games and would likely purchase all or most of Microsoft’s first-party titles at launch anyway, Xbox Game Pass Ultimate it still probably a good deal at its increased price. But players who subscribed to a relatively cheap console Game Pass option years ago may want to reevaluate if maintaining that launch day access is now worth $240 a year.

Microsoft asks many Game Pass subscribers to pay more for less Read More »

why-1994’s-lair-of-squid-was-the-weirdest-pack-in-game-of-all-time

Why 1994’s Lair of Squid was the weirdest pack-in game of all time

digital archaeology —

The HP 200LX included a mysterious maze game called Lair of Squid. We tracked down the author.

Artist's impression of a squid jumping forth from a HP 200LX.

Enlarge / Artist’s impression of a squid jumping forth from an HP 200LX.

Aurich Lawson / HP

In 1994, Hewlett-Packard released a miracle machine: the HP 200LX pocket-size PC. In the depths of the device, among the MS-DOS productivity apps built into its fixed memory, there lurked a first-person maze game called Lair of Squid. Intrigued by the game, we tracked down its author, Andy Gryc, and probed into the title’s mysterious undersea origins.

“If you ask my family, they’ll confirm that I’ve been obsessed with squid for a long time,” Gryc told Ars Technica. “It’s admittedly very goofy—and that’s my fault—although I was inspired by Doom, which had come out relatively recently.”

In Lair of Squid, you’re trapped in an underwater labyrinth, seeking a way out while avoiding squid roaming the corridors. A collision with any cephalopod results in death. To progress through each stage and ascend to the surface, you locate the exit and provide a hidden, scrambled code word. The password is initially displayed as asterisks, with letters revealed as you encounter them within the maze.

Lair of Squid running on the author’s HP 200LX, shortly after the moment of discovery.” height=”480″ src=”https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/squid_photo_1-640×480.jpg” width=”640″>

Enlarge / A photo of Lair of Squid running on the author’s HP 200LX, shortly after the moment of discovery.

Benj Edwards

Buckle up for a tale of rogue coding, cephalopod obsession, and the most unexpected Easter egg in palmtop history. This is no fish story—it’s the saga of Lair of Squid.

A computer in the palm of your hand

Introduced in 1994, the HP 200LX palmtop PC put desktop functionality in a pocket-size package. With a small QWERTY keyboard, MS-DOS compatibility, and a suite of productivity apps, the clamshell 200LX offered a vision of one potential future of mobile computing. It featured a 7.91 MHz 80186 CPU, a monochrome 640×200 CGA display, and 1–4 megabytes of RAM.

The cover of the HP 200LX User's Guide (1994).

Enlarge / The cover of the HP 200LX User’s Guide (1994).

Hewlett Packard

I’ve collected vintage computers since 1993, and people frequently offer to send me old devices they’d rather not throw away. Recently, a former HP engineer sent me his small but nice collection of ’90s HP handheld palmtop computers, including a 95LX (1991), 100LX (1993), and 200LX.

HP designed its portable LX series to run many MS-DOS programs that feature text mode or CGA graphics, and each includes built-in versions of the Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet, a word processor, terminal program, calculator, and more.

I owned a 95LX as a kid (a hand-me-down from my dad’s friend), which came with a simplistic overhead maze game called TigerFox. So imagine my surprise in 2024, when trawling through the productivity and personal organization apps on that 200LX, to find a richly detailed first-person maze game based around cephalopods, of all things.

(I was less surprised to find an excellent built-in Minesweeper clone, Hearts and Bones, which is definitely a more natural fit for the power and form of the 200LX itself.)

Lair of Squid isn’t a true Doom clone since it’s not a first-person shooter (in some ways, it’s more like a first-person Pac-Man without pellets), but its mere existence—on a black-and-white device best suited for storing phone numbers and text notes—deserves note as one of the weirdest and most interesting pack-in games to ever exist.

Just after discovering Lair of Squid on my device earlier this year, I tweeted about it, and I extracted the file for the game (called “maze.exe”) from the internal ROM drive and sent it to DOS gaming historian Anatoly Shashkin, who put the game on The Internet Archive so anyone can play it in their browser.

After that, I realized that I wanted to figure out who wrote this quirky game, and thanks to a post on RGB Classic Games, I found a name: Andy Gryc. With some luck in cold-emailing, I found him.

Why 1994’s Lair of Squid was the weirdest pack-in game of all time Read More »

the-new-riven-remake-is-even-better-than-myst

The new Riven remake is even better than Myst

A bridge to a mysterious island

Enlarge / The same gorgeous vistas return in the Riven remake.

Samuel Axon

A remake of Riven: The Sequel to Myst launched this week, made by the original game’s developers. It strikes a fascinating balance between re-creation and reinvention, and based on a couple of hours of playing it, it’s a resounding success.

Myst was the classic most people remembered fondly from the early CD-ROM era, but for me, its sequel, Riven, was the highlight. After that, the sequels declined in quality. The sophomore effort was the apex.

It was certainly more ambitious than Myst. Instead of a handful of tightly packed theme park worlds, it offered a singular, cohesive one that felt lived in and steeped in history in a way that Myst couldn’t quite match.

A worthy presentation

That was thanks to outstanding art direction but also to its iconic musical score.

For the most part, the remake nails both of those things. While the original game resembled the first Myst in that you had to click to scroll between static images to explore the game’s world, the new one follows the 2020 Myst remake (and 2000’s oft-forgotten realMyst) in giving the player full movement, akin to contemporary first-person puzzle games like Portal, The Witness, or The Talos Principle. Since it’s easy to re-create a lot of the original camera angles this way, it might have been cool if there had been an option to control the game as you did originally, but I can see why that wasn’t a priority.

The environments are just as atmospheric and detailed as they used to be.

Enlarge / The environments are just as atmospheric and detailed as they used to be.

Samuel Axon

It just so happens that today’s graphics hardware does an outstanding job of replicating previously static visuals in full 3D. (There’s even VR support, though I haven’t tried it yet.) And the music is just as good as it used to be.

There are only two downsides on the presentation front. First, I’ve heard that folks running on older machines may struggle to achieve satisfactory fidelity and performance. I played it on both an M1 Max MacBook Pro and a Windows 11 desktop with an AMD Ryzen 9 5900X and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080. The MacBook Pro ran the game at maxed-out settings at the laptop’s native resolution at around 30 frames per second. The desktop did the same at 4K at 120 fps. But those are both high-end, recent-ish machines, so your mileage may vary.

Second, the full-motion video performances in the original game have been replaced with full 3D, video game-looking characters. It’s a necessary concession, but I feel some of the character was lost. They did a pretty good job matching the motions of the original videos, though.

  • The original’s FMV performances have been replaced by respectable but still video game-ish 3D models.

    Samuel Axon

  • The fictional animals fare a bit better visually.

    Samuel Axon

The new Riven remake is even better than Myst Read More »

patent-document-showcases-the-cloud-only-streaming-xbox-console-that-never-was

Patent document showcases the cloud-only streaming Xbox console that never was

keystone revealed —

Microsoft couldn’t get the price of its streaming Xbox low enough to release it.

  • The streaming-only Xbox would have looked like a smaller, squarer relative of the Series S.

    Microsoft

  • The console had cutouts on the bottom and back, presumably for air cooling.

    Microsoft

  • Front-mounted Xbox button and USB port, much like the Series S.

    Microsoft

  • Rear-mounted Ethernet, HDMI, and power. The console would likely have worked over Wi-Fi, too, but wired Ethernet does help with latency and consistency when streaming games.

    Microsoft

  • Controller sync button on the side.

    Microsoft

  • There was a logo and a Series S-ish circle on the top of the Keystone Xbox, but there are no cutouts depicted, so this may have been a stylistic choice rather than a place for the console to vent hot air.

    Microsoft

Microsoft’s mid-generation plans for the Xbox Series S and X consoles looked a whole lot different a couple of years ago than it does now. A leaked slide deck from the FTC v. Microsoft case last year outlined detailed plans for a spruced up Series S, an overhauled Series X, and even a redesigned controller. Another part of that roadmap included a streaming-only version of the Xbox, codenamed Keystone, that was designed to connect to Microsoft’s Xbox Cloud Gaming servers rather than rendering games locally.

Microsoft has talked openly about this version of the Xbox before. Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer told The Verge that the Keystone console was designed and fully functional, but that it wasn’t launched because Microsoft had a hard time getting the price down low enough that it made sense next to the $299 Series S (which already occasionally goes on sale in the $200 to $250 range).

We’ve already seen glimpses of Keystone—once on Spencer’s shelf, and again in the FTC v. Microsoft documents. Both of those depictions were partial, or seen from a distance. But a new design patent document (PDF) unearthed by Windows Central shows even more detailed renderings of what the cloud Xbox would have looked like.

Series S meets Apple TV

Keystone’s styling was strongly reminiscent of the disc-drive-less Series S, with the same boxy white design and front-mounted Xbox button and USB port. There’s also a similar circular cutout on top, though it may not be an air vent as it is in the Series S—all of the holes depicted in the patent are on the back and bottom, and a streaming box certainly wouldn’t have needed the same cooling capacity as the AMD-designed CPU and GPU in the Series S.

The console also would have been square-shaped and considerably smaller than a Series S—not quite as small as a dedicated video-streaming box like an Apple TV or Roku Ultra, but not too far off either (the patent document doesn’t list dimensions, but we’ve done a rough size comparison using the HDMI and Ethernet ports on the Keystone box and an Apple TV 4K). The console’s controller sync button would have been mounted on its side, rather than in front, as it is on the Series S.

The cloud Xbox compared to a current-generation Apple TV 4K, with sizes roughly normalized based on the sizes of the HDMI and Ethernet ports. The Xbox console would have been a bit larger, but not dramatically so.

Enlarge / The cloud Xbox compared to a current-generation Apple TV 4K, with sizes roughly normalized based on the sizes of the HDMI and Ethernet ports. The Xbox console would have been a bit larger, but not dramatically so.

Apple/Microsoft/Andrew Cunningham

In the alternate reality of the FTC v. Microsoft slide deck, all of these new consoles and the new controller would have been announced or launched by now. But as Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer said shortly after those documents leaked, the company’s plans have changed substantially in the interim. A disc-less version of the Series X is coming, but it looks exactly like the current version of the console without a disc drive; Microsoft is also pursuing a strategy where it takes more of its internally developed games multi-platform, rather than restricting them to the Xbox and to Windows PCs. These moves are at least partially in response to sliding revenue from Microsoft’s console business, which has seen its revenue decline by double digits year over year for the last couple of years.

Neither Spencer nor Microsoft has ever said never about the Keystone console, leaving the door open to an eventual release if and when the price of manufacturing the console comes down. In the meantime, the streaming-only Xbox lives on as an app for newer Samsung smart TVs.

Listing image by Microsoft

Patent document showcases the cloud-only streaming Xbox console that never was Read More »