gaming

analyst:-switch-2-will-have-a-massive-8-inch-lcd-screen

Analyst: Switch 2 will have a massive 8-inch LCD screen

gaming, Nintendo, screen size, Switch / /

Bigger is better? —

Larger screen size could lead to a larger device footprint than the current Switch.

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The 7

Enlarge / The 7″ screen of the Switch OLED (top) seen next to the 6.2″ screen of the original Switch.

Sam Machkovech

Nintendo’s follow-up to the aging Switch—which is widely rumored to be aiming for release later this year—will sport an 8-inch LCD screen. That’s according to Omdia analyst Hiroshi Hayase, who is cited in a Bloomberg News report focused on the upcoming handheld’s potential effects on the market for “amusement displays” over the next few years.

An 8-inch screen (measured diagonally) would put the Switch 2 near the extreme upper end of portable gaming screens historically. Among mass-market devices, only the recently launched PlayStation Portal (8-inch screen) and Lenovo Legion Go (8.8-inch screen) have broken past the 7-inch barrier for dedicated gaming handhelds.

That said, the 6.2-inch screen on the original Nintendo Switch also set portable gaming records when it launched in 2017, easily surpassing the once-luxurious 5-inch screen of 2011’s PlayStation Vita. The 2021 launch of the Switch OLED increased the diagonal screen measurement to 7 inches, a screen size that has since become somewhat standard on subsequent portable gaming devices like the Steam Deck and ROG Ally.

The Switch OLED achieved its screen size increase over the original model primarily by reducing the thickness of the black bezel surrounding the screen itself. An 8-inch screen on a Switch 2, on the other hand, would likely require the console’s physical footprint to increase. At a standard HD aspect ratio, an 8-inch (diagonal) screen would measure 7 inches (horizontal) by 3.9 inches (vertical), or a bit wider than a standard Switch without Joy-Con’s attached (about 6.8 inches wide).

The 6.2-inch screen of the Switch seen alongside the 5.5-inch screen of the Switch Lite.

Enlarge / The 6.2-inch screen of the Switch seen alongside the 5.5-inch screen of the Switch Lite.

A potential return to an LCD screen for the base-model Switch 2 might also be disappointing for players who have gotten used to the brighter colors and deeper contrast of the Switch OLED (or the recently launched Steam Deck OLED). But OLED screens cost 20 to 25 percent more to produce than similarly sized LCD screens in the smartphone market on average, according to analyst reports. And since the Game Boy’s 1989 launch with a low-resolution black-and-white screen, Nintendo has often eschewed support for the best display technology available in favor of lowering hardware costs (and consumer prices).

In November, Digital Foundry engaged in some informed speculation on the potential hardware power of an upgraded Nvidia chip that it thinks is the “best candidate” for use in a Switch follow-up. Reports from over the summer suggest developers have been shown demos of the upcoming hardware supporting modern graphical effects like ray tracing and DLSS.

Other reports from later in the summer suggest the new console will still include some sort of cartridge slot for physical media. Thus far, though, Nintendo has offered only vague answers to whether the next Switch will be backward-compatible with games designed for the current model.

Analyst: Switch 2 will have a massive 8-inch LCD screen Read More »

resident-evil-kart’s-fixed-camera-angles-make-for-a-charmingly-frustrating-classic

Resident Evil Kart’s fixed camera angles make for a charmingly frustrating classic

Classic, gaming, Nintendo, resident evil, retro, rom hack, super mario kart, Super Nintendo / /

As it was meant to be played —

“WELCOME TO THE WORST THING I HAVE EVER CREATED!”

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Is this <em>Super Mario Kart</em> or <em>Where’s Waldo</em>?” src=”https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/rekart-800×694.png”></img><figcaption> <p><a data-height=Enlarge / Is this Super Mario Kart or Where’s Waldo?

Here at Ars, we’re big fans of emulators and ROM hacks that actually improve on the limitations of classic games in some way or another. Today, though, we’ve found ourselves enamored with a Super Mario Kart ROM patch that easily makes the game much, much worse.

Longtime Super Mario Kart hacker MrL314 calls Resident Evil Kart “the worst thing I have ever created,” and it’s not hard to see why. As implied by the title, the ROM patch replaces Super Mario Kart‘s usual over-the-shoulder tracking camera with something more akin to the awkward fixed-angle “perspective shots” of the original PlayStation 1 Resident Evil games. The perspective automatically jumps between these fixed cameras around the track as your racer moves from section to section, forcing you to judge turns and obstacles from very skewed angles.

Resident Evil Kart release trailer.

MrL314 writes that the idea for this hack arose from time spent “researching how the camera system in Super Mario Kart works” as part of the development of the impressive-looking Super Mario Kart Deluxe. He first posted a concept video of the fixed camera system in SMK last July, before sharing an early prototype with his Patreon supporters.

Back then, he said, “this thing is a NIGHTMARE to play, but honestly I might actually release a polished version of it, since it is kinda cool honestly.” On Wednesday, he followed through with that plan, releasing a final version of Resident Evil Kart to the public as a ROM patch (which requires an original, unheadered, US Super Mario Kart ROM to be playable).

Watch where you’re going!

After playing the newly released public version of the hack this afternoon, we feel that MrL314 is, underselling just how difficult the fixed camera angle makes the game. The vagaries of the Super Nintendo’s Mode 7 scaling mean your racer is often reduced to a small blob of pixels that only give a vague indication of their true position and orientation on the course (a combination with that high-resolution Mode 7 mod might have helped on that score). Then, just when you’ve kind of gotten used to navigating from one perspective, the camera suddenly jumps to a new location and angle, forcing you to realign yourself on the fly.

A new perspective makes this ghost house even scarier.

Enlarge / A new perspective makes this ghost house even scarier.

Still, after a little practice, I found this “Nightmare” mode wasn’t impossible. With a few practice races, I could finish in first place on the first two Mushroom Cup tracks (at 50cc, at least) before finally giving up on Ghost Valley 1 and its destructible side barriers. Players who find it all too overwhelming can also cheat by glancing at the fixed, three-quarters Super Off-Road-style map view on the bottom half of the screen.

If nothing else, Resident Evil Kart makes us wonder what other classic games might take on new life just by changing their camera angles. Already, we’ve seen versions of Super Mario Bros. played from a first-person perspective and Virtua Racing played from the game’s dynamic “Live Camera” perspective. But how about reimagining Star Fox 64 as a top-down shoot-em-up or a first-person, VR version of Bubble Bobble? The sky’s the limit here, people.

Resident Evil Kart’s fixed camera angles make for a charmingly frustrating classic Read More »

microsoft-cancels-blizzard-survival-game,-lays-off-1,900

Microsoft cancels Blizzard survival game, lays off 1,900

Activision Blizzard, Biz & IT, gaming, layoffs, mergers, microsoft / /

Survival game won’t survive —

Job cuts hit Xbox, ZeniMax businesses, too, reports say.

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Activision Blizzard survival game

Enlarge / Blizzard shared this image teasing a now-cancelled game in 2022.

Blizzard Entertainment/Twitter

The survival game that Blizzard announced it was working on in January 2022 has reportedly been canceled. The cut comes as Microsoft is slashing jobs a little over four months after closing its $69 billion Activision Blizzard acquisition.

Blizzard’s game didn’t have a title yet, but Blizzard said it would be for PC and console and introduce new stories and characters. In January 2022, Blizzard put out a call for workers to help build the game.

The game’s axing was revealed today in an internal memo from Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer seen by publications including The Verge and CNBC that said:

Blizzard is ending development on its survival game project and will be shifting some of the people working on it to one of several promising new projects Blizzard has in the early stages of development.

Spencer said Microsoft was laying off 1,900 people starting today, with workers continuing to receive notifications in the coming days. The layoffs affect 8.64 percent of Microsoft’s 22,000-employee gaming division.

Another internal memo, written by Matt Booty, Microsoft’s game content and studios president, and seen by The Verge, said the layoffs are hitting “multiple” Blizzard teams, “including development teams, shared service organizations and corporate functions.” In January 2022, after plans for the merger were first announced, Bobby Kotick, then-CEO of Activision Blizzard, reportedly told employees at a meeting that Microsoft was “committed to trying to retain as many of our people as possible.”

Spencer said workers in Microsoft’s Xbox and ZeniMax Media businesses will also be impacted. Microsoft acquired ZeniMax, which owns Bethesda Softworks, for $7.5 billion in a deal that closed in March 2021.

After a bumpy ride with global regulators, Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard purchase closed in October. Booty’s memo said the job cuts announced today “reflect a focus on products and strategies that hold the most promise for Blizzard’s future growth, as well as identified areas of overlap across Blizzard and Microsoft Gaming.”

He claimed that layoffs would “enable Blizzard and Xbox to deliver ambitious games… on more platforms and in more places than ever before,” as well as “sustainable growth.”

Spencer’s memo said:

As we move forward in 2024, the leadership of Microsoft Gaming and Activision Blizzard is committed to aligning on a strategy and an execution plan with a sustainable cost structure that will support the whole of our growing business. Together, we’ve set priorities, identified areas of overlap, and ensured that we’re all aligned on the best opportunities for growth.

Laid-off employees will receive severance as per local employment laws, Spencer added.

Additional departures

Blizzard President Mike Ybarra announced via his X profile today that he is leaving the company. Booty’s memo said Ybarra “decided to leave” since the acquisition was completed. Ybarra was a top executive at Microsoft for over 20 years, including leadership positions at Xbox, before he started working at Blizzard in 2019.

Blizzard’s chief design officer, Allen Adham, is also leaving the company, per Booty’s memo.

The changes at the game studio follow Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick’s exit on January 1.

Microsoft also laid off 10,000 people, or about 4.5 percent of its reported 221,000-person workforce, last year as it worked to complete its Activision Blizzard buy. Microsoft blamed those job cuts on “macroeconomic conditions and changing customer priorities.”

Today’s job losses also join a string of recently announced tech layoffs, including at IBM, Google, SAP, and eBay and in the gaming community platforms Unity, Twitch, and Discord. However, layoffs following Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard deal were somewhat anticipated due to expected redundancies among the Washington tech giant’s biggest merger ever. This week, Microsoft hit a $3 trillion market cap, becoming the second company to do so (after Apple).

Microsoft cancels Blizzard survival game, lays off 1,900 Read More »

playstation-has-blocked-hardware-cheating-device-cronus-zen,-others-may-follow

PlayStation has blocked hardware cheating device Cronus Zen, others may follow

anticheat, Call of Duty, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, cheating, cronus, cronus zen, gaming, microsoft, PlayStation 5, Sony, xbox / /

What’s a little anti-recoil between friends? —

No more using a mouse and keyboard on PS5, or using aiming mods, for now.

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Ad showing

Enlarge / Who doesn’t want less recoil? Unless, that is, you’re someone competing against the person getting this benefit with a $100 “emulation” device.

Cronus

The Cronus Zen describes itself as a hardware tool for “universal controller compatibility,” letting you plug in a third-party controller, an Xbox controller into a PlayStation, or even your keyboard and mouse into a console. But you can also use its scripting engine to “amplify your game” and set up “GamePacks” to do things like reduce recoil animations in games like Call of Duty. And that is where Cronus seems to have gotten into trouble.

As first noted by the Call of Duty news channel CharlieIntel, the latest update to the PlayStation 5’s system (24.01-08.60.00) software blocks the Cronus from connecting. The update is “NOT mandatory,” Cronus claims in a notice on its website, so Zen players can hold off and keep playing. Still, there is “currently no timetable on a fix … it could be 24 (hours), 24 days, 24 months, we won’t know until we’ve dug into it.” There is, for now, a “Remote Play Workaround” for those already too far updated.

Ars attempted to reach Cronus for comment and reached out to Sony as well and will update this post with any new information.

The Cronus Zen, which costs $100 or more and is available on Amazon and at GameStop, among other outlets, does claim to offer accessibility and third-party compatibility options for players. But what has caught gamers’ attention, and Sony’s, is the wealth of GamePacks available for various games. Some single-player games, like Hogwarts Legacy and Cyberpunk 2077, are represented, but it’s the offerings for Call of Duty, Battlefield, Destiny 2, and other online multiplayer games that likely drew Sony’s ire.

Just a peek at the Apex Legends GamePack page suggests Zen mods “inspired by” the game, with options for “Aim Assist,” “Anti-Recoil Strength,” and “Fire Mods,” the latter of which can make you “harder to hit” and ping teammates when you are firing. Call of Duty: WarZone 3 mods include “Silent Aim. Insanely strong and not visible Aim Assist MOD!” The Zen was also capable of powering other cheat tools with emulated input, like AI-assisted aim assist.

Console manufacturers, already having more locked-down software than PCs, have taken up the cause of eliminating cheating at the hardware level. Microsoft issued a system-level ban on “unauthorized” accessories connecting to Xboxes in October. That had the unintended effect of cooling enthusiasm among fighting game enthusiasts and accessibility advocates. It did not, however, seem to block the Cronus, so long as you attached a compliant controller to it.

Individual game-makers have also attempted to block devices like the Cronus. Activision’s anti-cheat Ricochet tool called out “third-party hardware devices” that “act as a passthrough for controllers” in a blog post about its April 2023 updates. The same went for Ubisoft and Bungie, none of which called out the Cronus Zen in particular, but were signaling efforts to block it and similar devices, like the XIM and ReaSnow S1. Fortnite was ahead of the game, calling out the Cronus Zen and Cronus Max in late 2022.

None of these companies have offered a patch to the behavior of people who want to spend more than $100 and risk lifetime bans to earn undeserved points worth no tradable value.

Listing image by Cronus

PlayStation has blocked hardware cheating device Cronus Zen, others may follow Read More »

modder-re-creates-game-boy-advance-games-using-the-audio-from-crash-sounds

Modder re-creates Game Boy Advance games using the audio from crash sounds

Game boy Advance, gaming, gba, hardware hacking, Nintendo, Pokémon, pokemon emerald, Reverse-engineering, ROMs, sound files / /

To truly catch them all —

Create a bootable, working Pokémon game by recording it crash multiple times.

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Game Boy Advance, modded, on display

Enlarge / Andrew Cunningham’s modded and restored Game Boy Advance could, with enough time, sing out all the data loaded into a cartridge.

Andrew Cunningham

Sometimes, a great song can come from great pain. The Game Boy Advance (GBA), its software having crashed nearly two hours ago, will, for example, play a tune based on the game inside it. And if you listen closely enough—using specialty hardware and code—you can tell exactly what game it was singing about. And then theoretically play that same game.

This was discovered recently by TheZZAZZGlitch, whose job is to “sadistically glitch and hack the crap out of Pokémon games.” It’s “hardly a ready-to-use solution,” the modder notes, as it requires a lot of tuning specific to different source formats. So while there are certainly easier ways to get GBA data from a cartridge, none make you feel quite so much like an audio datamancer.

TheZZAZZGlitch’s demonstration of re-creating Game Boy Advance ROM data using the sounds from a crashing system.

After crashing a GBA and recording it over four hours, the modder saw some telltale waveforms in a sound file at about the 1-hour, 50-minute mark. Later in the sound-out, you can hear the actual instrument sounds and audio samples the game contains, played in sequence. Otherwise, it’s 8-bit data at 13,100 Hz, and at times, it sounds absolutely deranged.

“2 days of bugfixing later,” the modder had a Python script ready that could read the audio from a clean recording of the GBA’s crash dump. Did it work? Not without more troubleshooting. One issue with audio-casting ROM data is that there are large sections of 0-byte data in the ROM, which are hard to parse as mute sounds. After running another script that realigned sections based on their location in the original ROM, the modder’s ROM was 99.76 percent accurate but “still didn’t boot tho.” TheZZAZZGlitch later disclaimed that, yes, this is technically using known ROM data to surface unknown data, or “cheating,” but there are assumptions and guesses one could make if you were truly doing this blind.

The next fix was to refine the sound recording. By recording three times and merging them with a “majority vote” algorithm, their accuracy notched up to 99.979 percent. That output ROM booted—but with glitched text and a title screen crash. After seven different recordings are meshed and filtered for blank spaces, they achieve 100 percent parity. That’s about the halfway point of the video; you should watch the rest to learn how it works on physical hardware, how it works with a different game (an ARM code mystery in a replica cartridge), and how to get the best recordings, including the use of a “cursed adapter” that mixes down to one channel the ugly way.

Modder re-creates Game Boy Advance games using the audio from crash sounds Read More »

indiana-jones-and-the-great-circle-is-a-new-first-person-nazi-whipping-journey

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is a new first-person Nazi-whipping journey

bethesda, Bethesda Game Studios, gaming, Indiana Jones, MachineGames, nazis / /

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle —

Modern action/FPS is set inside Indy’s classic post-Ark, pre-Crusade era.

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Indiana Jones in front of an alcove in a ruin.

Enlarge / CGI Harrison Ford just can’t believe he’s getting roped into another globe-trotting adventure.

Bethesda/Machine Games

Almost two years ago to this day, Bethesda told everyone its Machine Games subsidiary was working on a new Indiana Jones game, one with “an original story.” Now we can see what Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is going to look like, with a gameplay trailer showing up during Microsoft’s Developer Direct event, and when it’s arriving: “2024.” You can now wishlist it on Steam and the Xbox store; it’s exclusive to those platforms.

Gameplay reveal trailer for Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.

While the game has Harrison Ford’s likeness, it’s not Ford voicing your character. Troy Baker, the original voice of Joel in The Last of Us, picks up the role of the archaeologist.

From the trailer, Great Circle looks a lot like the modern Wolfenstein games that Machine Games made—and that’s a good thing. The New Order and The New Colossus excelled at making you feel more like a human action hero than a shooting tank. They’ve got a knack for first-person platforming, stunts, and cinematic moments that are nowhere near as painful as in many shooters. They excel at balancing immersing you as a player and letting your character have a personality.

That, plus the developer’s interest in mystical-tinged WWII-era tales and art deco-influenced visuals, made them a natural fit for the project. It’s hard to think of Indiana Jones in the first person, but then it’s hard to think of any other team that could pull it off.

  • That cavalier charm! None but the most heinous of artifact-stealers can resist.

    Bethesda/Machine Games

  • These sites we’ve visited? They form a circle around the globe. A great circle, you might call it.

  • This is when I knew the Wolfenstein devs were involved.

    Bethesda/Machine Games

  • You will absolutely be able to whip, throw a hammer at, punch, shoot, shove, and otherwise bludgeon some Nazis.

    Bethesda/Machine Games

Machine Games has also shown a notable dedication to letting the player knock out, stab, and kill Nazis. The trailer shows Indy dispatching foes with whips, fists, and trickery but also straight-up plugging them with a revolver and two-handed machine gun. There will be other ways of dealing with foes and situations, according to Entertainment Weekly’s interview with Machine Games’ lead designer, Jerk Gustafsson.

The plot involves the theft of a relic from Indy’s teaching gig by a supersized villain, Locus. Digging into the mysterious theft, Indy makes marker-drawn stops on his paper map in the Vatican, the Himalayas, Egypt, and Thailand. There’s a journalist love interest, a villain with the decisive name Emmerich Voss, and, of course, there’s Marcus Brody.

Great Circle is the latest from Lucasfilm’s new game strategy under its Disney ownership. The firm has given out its IP licenses to lots of notable firms to make new games: Respawn with its Jedi-based series, Ubisoft’s yet-unreleased Outlaws, and a Knights of the Old Republic remake that is either dead or alive, but definitely struggling a bit.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is a new first-person Nazi-whipping journey Read More »

game-developer-survey:-50%-work-at-a-studio-already-using-generative-ai-tools

Game developer survey: 50% work at a studio already using generative AI tools

AI, Artificial Intelligence, game development, gaming, generative ai, tools / /

Do androids dream of Tetris? —

But 84% of devs are at least somewhat concerned about ethical use of those tools.

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The future of game development?

Enlarge / The future of game development?

A new survey of thousands of game development professionals finds a near-majority saying generative AI tools are already in use at their workplace. But a significant minority of developers say their company has no interest in generative AI tools or has outright banned their use.

The Game Developers Conference’s 2024 State of the Industry report, released Thursday, aggregates the thoughts of over 3,000 industry professionals as of last October. While the annual survey (conducted in conjunction with research partner Omdia) has been running for 12 years, this is the first time respondents were asked directly about their use of generative AI tools such as ChatGPT, DALL-E, GitHub Copilot, and Adobe Generative Fill.

Forty-nine percent of the survey’s developer respondents said that generative AI tools are currently being used in their workplace. That near-majority includes 31 percent (of all respondents) that say they use those tools themselves and 18 percent that say their colleagues do.

A majority of game developers said their workplace was at least interested in using generative AI tools.

Enlarge / A majority of game developers said their workplace was at least interested in using generative AI tools.

The survey also found that different studio departments showed different levels of willingness to embrace AI tools. Forty-four percent of employees in business and finance said they were using AI tools, for instance, compared to just 16 percent in visual arts and 13 percent in “narrative/writing.”

Among the 38 percent of respondents who said their company didn’t use AI tools, 15 percent said their company was “interested” in pursuing them, while 23 percent said they had “no interest.” In a separate question, 12 percent of respondents said their company didn’t allow the use of AI tools at all, a number that went up to 21 percent for respondents working at the largest “AAA developers.” An additional 7 percent said the use of some specific AI tools was not allowed, while 30 percent said AI tool use was “optional” at their company.

Worries abound

The wide embrace of AI tools hasn’t seemed to lessen worries about their use among developers, though. A full 42 percent of respondents said they were “very concerned” about the ethics of using generative AI in game development, with an additional 42 percent being “somewhat concerned.” Only 12 percent said they were “not concerned at all” about those usage ethics.

Developer policies on AI use varied greatly, with a plurality saying their company had no official policy.

Enlarge / Developer policies on AI use varied greatly, with a plurality saying their company had no official policy.

Overall, respondents offered a split opinion on whether the use of AI tools would be overall positive (21 percent) or negative (18 percent) for the industry. Most respondents seemed split, with 57 percent saying the impact would be “mixed.”

Developers cited coding assistance, content creation efficiency, and the automation of repetitive tasks as the primary uses for AI tools, according to the report.

“I’d like to see AI tools that help with the current workflows and empower individual artists with their own work,” one anonymous respondent wrote. “What I don’t want to see is a conglomerate of artists being enveloped in an AI that just does 99% of the work a creative is supposed to do.”

Elsewhere in the report, the survey found that only 17 percent of developers were at least somewhat interested in using blockchain technology in their upcoming projects, down significantly from 27 percent in 2022. An overwhelming 77 percent of respondents said they had no interest in blockchain technology, similar to recent years.

The survey also found that 57 percent of respondents thought that workers in the game industry should unionize, up from 53 percent last year. Despite this, only 23 percent said they were either in a union or had discussed unionization at their workplace.

Game developer survey: 50% work at a studio already using generative AI tools Read More »

harmonix-is-ending-rock-band-dlc-releases-after-16-years,-~2,800-songs

Harmonix is ending Rock Band DLC releases after 16 years, ~2,800 songs

DLC, downloads, epic, epic games, gaming, Harmonix, Rock, rock band, song / /

Don’t look back in anger —

Previously purchased songs will still be playable via Rock Band 4.

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After 16 (nearly unbroken) years of regular DLC releases, <em>Rock Band</em>‘s avatars haven’t aged a day.” src=”https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/RockBand4_NoHUD_03-640×360.jpg”></img><figcaption> <p>After 16 (nearly unbroken) years of regular DLC releases, <em>Rock Band</em>‘s avatars haven’t aged a day.</p> </figcaption></figure> <p>Here at Ars Technica, we remember covering <em>Rock Band</em>‘s weekly DLC song releases <a href=way back in 2007, when such regular content drops were still a new concept for a rhythm game. Now, Harmonix has announced the last of the series’ roughly 2,800 downloadable releases will finally come on January 25, marking the end of a nearly 16-year era in music gaming history.

Previously purchased DLC songs will still be playable in Rock Band 4, Harmonix’s Daniel Sussman writes in an announcement post. Rock Band 4 live services, including online play, will also continue as normal, after online game modes for earlier Rock Band games were finally shut down in late 2022.

“Taking a longer look back, I see the Rock Band DLC catalog as a huge achievement in persistence and commitment,” Sussman writes. “Over the years we’ve cleared, authored and released nearly 3,000 songs as DLC and well over 3,000 if you include all the game soundtracks. That’s wild.”

A long-lasting content commitment

You’d be forgiven for not realizing that Harmonix has kept up its regular releases of downloadable playable Rock Band songs to this day. While we were big fans of 2015’s Rock Band 4, the Xbox One and PS4 release generally failed to reignite the ’00s mania for plastic instruments that made both Guitar Hero and Rock Band into billion-dollar franchises during their heyday.

Yet, Harmonix has still been quietly releasing one to three new downloadable Rock Band 4 tracks to faithful fans every single week since the game’s release over eight years ago. Before that, Harmonix had kept a similar weekly release schedule for earlier Rock Band titles going back to 2007, broken up only by a 21-month gap starting in April 2013.

Those regular releases were key to maintaining interest and longevity in the Rock Band titles beyond the dozens of songs on the game discs. For a couple of bucks per song, players could customize their in-game soundtracks with thousands of tracks spanning hundreds of indie and mainstream acts across all sorts of genres. And even after all that time, the last year of newly released DLC has still included some absolute bangers from major groups like Steely Dan, Linkin Park, and Foo Fighters.

Rock Band 2 at that game’s 2008 launch party at LA’s Orpheum Theatre.” height=”481″ src=”https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/GettyImages-81960955-640×481.jpg” width=”640″>

Enlarge / A couple of folks absolutely getting down to Rock Band 2 at that game’s 2008 launch party at LA’s Orpheum Theatre.

Getty Images

Harmonix also deserves credit for making its DLC cross-compatible across multiple different games and systems. That copy of The Police’s Roxanne that you bought to play on your Xbox 360 in 2007 could still be re-downloaded and played on Rock Band 4 via your Xbox Series X to this day (Switch and PlayStation 5 owners are less lucky, however). And for songs that were trapped on earlier game discs, Harmonix also went out of its way to offer song export options that let you transfer that content forward to newer Rock Band titles (with the notable exception of The Beatles: Rock Band, whose songs remain trapped on that version of the standalone game).

Compare that to the Guitar Hero franchise, which also relaunched in 2015 as the online-focused Guitar Hero Live. When Activision shut down the game’s “Guitar Hero TV” service in 2018, 92 percent of the new game’s playable songs became instantly inaccessible, leaving only 42 “on-disc” songs to play.

What’s next?

While official support for Rock Band DLC is finally ending, the community behind Clone Hero just recently hit an official Version 1.0 release for their PC-based rhythm game that’s compatible with many guitars, drums, keyboards, gamepads, and adapters used in Rock Band and other console rhythm games (microphones excluded). While that game doesn’t come with anything like Rock Band‘s list of officially licensed song content, it’s not hard to find a bevy of downloadable, fan-made custom Clone Hero tracks with a little bit of searching.

Rock Band DLC, but we do get… this.” height=”360″ src=”https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/ff-640×360.jpg” width=”640″>

Enlarge / We might not get any more Rock Band DLC, but we do get… this.

Epic Games

Shortly after its acquisition by Epic in 2021, Harmonix has been working on “Fortnite Festival,” the incredibly Rock Band-esque mini-game embedded in Epic’s Fortnite “metaverse.” Sussman writes that a “rotating selection” of free-to-play songs will continue to cycle through that game mode, and that support for Rock Band 4 instruments will be coming to Fortnite in the future as well (peripheral-maker PDP looks like it will be getting in on the Fortnite guitar act as well).

As for the last few weeks of Rock Band DLC offerings, Sussman writes that Harmonix is planning “some tear jerkers that sum up our feelings about this moment.” Here’s hoping we finally get an official Rock Band version of November Rain as part of that closeout; as Guns N’ Roses memorably said, “Nothing lasts forever, and we both know hearts can change.”

Harmonix is ending Rock Band DLC releases after 16 years, ~2,800 songs Read More »

that’s-never-happened-before:-games-done-quick-video-stars-speedrunning-dog

That’s never happened before: Games Done Quick video stars speedrunning dog

games done quick, gaming, speedrun / /

Personal Best Boy —

The Shiba Inu was trained to use a custom controller in a game meant for a robot.

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Peanut Butter the dog speedruns Gyromite at Awesome Games Done Quick 2024.

The twice-a-year video game speedrunning and fundraising live event Games Done Quick has been a source of amazement and joy for years, but we’re still saying “that’s never happened before” even now, more than a decade after the first event.

Case in point: Awesome Games Done Quick 2024, which is streaming live 24 hours a day this week on Twitch, saw the very first speedrun performed by a dog.

A Shiba Inu named Peanut Butter (shortened to PB, also a speedrunner term for “personal best” finish time) completed a 30-minute speedrun of the 1985 Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) game Gyromite.

Gyromite was originally bundled with the nostalgic but failed ROB (Robotic Operating Buddy) accessory for the NES. It’s a platformer of sorts, but not a conventional fast-paced one. Rather, it’s a comparatively slow-moving game where you make inputs to raise and lower pipes to allow a character to pass through the level safely.

In the speedrun, PB took over for the robot in a category called B Game. PB didn’t set a world record or a personal best (most GDQ runners don’t at the event), as there were a couple minor mistakes, but he still finished the game under its estimate by dutifully sitting, pressing buttons, and holding down those buttons at the right moments at owner JSR_’s prompts. JSR_ also prompted PB to periodically bark “hello” to the stream’s tens of thousands of viewers. PB received numerous treats throughout the run, including bits of cheese and ham.

The final time was 26 minutes and 24 seconds, compared to PB’s personal best of 25 minutes, 29 seconds. The human record is 24 minutes and 39 seconds, by a runner named Octopuscal. PB’s PB is currently the world record among dogs, but of course, he’s the only runner in that particular category.

Speedrunner JSR_ adopted PB during the height of the pandemic and has spent a portion of every day training him to press and hold large buttons on a custom controller for treats in order to play the game. “This took years of training,” he said. “I wanted to train him to do something special, when I realized as a puppy that he was much smarter than most other dogs I’ve seen. Since I’m a speedrunner (and PB was literally named after, you know, getting a ‘PB’ in a speedrun) it only made sense to me.”

You can see the full video of the run above. Awesome Games Done Quick is an annual event benefiting the Prevent Cancer Foundation. A sister event called Summer Games Done Quick benefits Doctors Without Borders later in the year. You can watch and donate on the event website.

That’s never happened before: Games Done Quick video stars speedrunning dog Read More »

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Why I hope the Atari 400 Mini will bring respect to Atari’s most underrated platform

atari, Atari 2600, Atari 400, Atari 8-bit, Atari 8-bit computers, Atari 800, atari vcs, commodore 64, gaming, HDMI, mini consoles, MULE, retrotech, Tech / /

Have you played Atari today? —

Can USB, HDMI, and built-in games raise awareness for a platform overshadowed by the C64?

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Retro Games' THE400 Mini console.

Enlarge / Retro Games’ THE400 Mini console.

Retro Games / Benj Edwards

Last week, UK-based Retro Games, Ltd. announced a mini console version of the Atari 400 home computer, first released in 1979. It’s called “THE400 Mini,” and it includes HDMI video output, 25 built-in games, a USB version of Atari’s famous joystick, and it retails for $120. But this release means something more to me personally because my first computer was an Atari 400—and as any other Atari 8-bit computer fan can tell you, the platform often doesn’t get the respect it should. This will be the first time Atari’s 8-bit computer line has received a major retro-remake release.

My Atari 400 story goes a little something like this. Around the time I was born in 1981, my dad bought my older brother (then 5 years old) an Atari 400 so he could play games and learn to program. My brother almost immediately found its flat membrane keyboard frustrating and the Atari 410 cassette drive too slow, so my dad ordered an Atari 800 and an Atari 810 disk drive instead. This began our family’s golden age of Atari 800 gaming, which I’ve written about elsewhere.

I’ve often said if a modern game designer wants to learn how to make games, just dive into the Atari 400/800 game library. There are some priceless gems there you can’t find anywhere else, plus others that play best on the platform. OK, I’ll name a few: The Seven Cities of Gold, Archon, M.U.L.E., Wizard of Wor, Salmon Run, Star Raiders, The Halley Project, and so much more.

A photo of Benj Edwards' family Atari 800 and Atari 400 in his brother's room, Christmas 1985.

Enlarge / A photo of Benj Edwards’ family Atari 800 and Atari 400 in his brother’s room, Christmas 1985.

Even with the new 800, it seems that my dad must have kept the original Atari 400, because by the time I grew up more and wanted “my own computer” in the late 1980s, he gave me the Atari 400. The 800 was still my brother’s baby and typically remained in his bedroom. When I wasn’t playing more complex games like M.U.L.E. and Archon on the 800 with my brother, I hooked up the 400 to a small black-and-white TV set in my room and mostly played Galaxian, Pac-Man, and Donkey Kong on a cartridge. Not long after, I got an Apple II Plus and learned BASIC on that, but the Atari 400 always got pride of place in my growing computer collection.

A snippet from a 1988 to-do list written by Benj Edwards' dad that says

Enlarge / A snippet from a 1988 to-do list written by Benj Edwards’ dad that says “Get TV/monitor for Benj’s Atari 400 computer,” completed 4/14/88.

But enough about me. Let’s talk about the new Atari 400 Mini. I haven’t used it myself yet, so all we have to go on is the information provided by the company—and the company’s reputation. Retro Games has previously released full-sized remakes of the Commodore VIC-20 and the Commodore 64, and mini consoles of the Amiga 500 and the Commodore 64. In 2020, Engadget gave the company’s “THE64 Mini” mixed reviews, praising its looks but complaining about its joystick and poor game selection. We’ll admit preconceived bias and hope the 400 Mini fares much better. Even if the joystick ends up a dud, Retro Games says you can provide your own USB stick or controller.

I also hope THE400 does well because Atari 8-bit fans have a tough time with group identity in the span of retro tech history. Few Americans aside from Atari 400/800 owners have heard of the platform (though the platform did very well in Eastern Europe). The Atari 8-bit series didn’t sell nearly as well as competitors like the Commodore 64 in the US (although Sean Lennon had an Atari 400 as a kid—cool trivia).

And even though the Atari 400/800 series provided the template for Commodore to imitate with the VIC-20 and C64, Commodore undercut Atari in price with cheaper parts, which contributed to Atari’s crash in 1983 and drove Texas Instruments out of the home computer business. More recently, the Commodore 64 has had several retro re-releases since the Commodore 64 Direct-to-TV in 2004. The Atari 400/800 platform has had none until now.

Why I hope the Atari 400 Mini will bring respect to Atari’s most underrated platform Read More »

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Supreme Court denies Epic v. Apple petitions, opening up iOS payment options

App Store, Apple, Apple v Epic, epic, fortnite, gaming, Google, Policy, Supreme Court, Tech / /

Epic v. Apple —

Most of Epic’s arguments are moot now, but one point will change the App Store.

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Fortnite characters looking across the many islands and vast realm of the game.

Enlarge / Artist’s conception of iOS developers after today’s Supreme Court ruling, surveying a new landscape of payment options and subscription signaling.

Epic Games

The Supreme Court declined to hear either of the petitions resulting from the multi-year, multi-court Epic v. Apple antitrust dispute. That leaves most of Epic’s complaints about Apple’s practices unanswered, but the gaming company achieved one victory on pricing notices.

It all started in August 2020, when Epic sought to work around Apple and Google’s app stores and implemented virtual currency purchases directly inside Fortnite. The matter quickly escalated to the courts, with firms like Spotify and Microsoft backing Epic’s claim that Apple’s App Store being the only way to load apps onto an iPhone violated antitrust laws.

The matter reached trial in May 2021. The precise definitions of “games” and “marketplace” were fervently debated. Epic scored a seemingly huge victory in September 2021 when a Northern California judge demanded that Apple allow developers to offer their own payment buttons and communicate with app customers about alternate payment options. An appeals court upheld that Apple’s App Store itself wasn’t a “walled garden” that violated antitrust laws but kept the ruling that Apple had to open up its payments and messaging.

Today’s denial of petitions for certiorari means that Apple has mostly run out of legal options to prevent changes to its App Store policies now that multiple courts have found its “anti-steering” language anticompetitive. Links and messaging from developers should soon be able to send users to alternative payment options for apps rather than forcing them to stay entirely inside Apple’s App Store, resulting in a notable commission for Apple.

Epic’s goals to see Fortnite restored to the App Store or see third-party stores or sideloading on iPhones remain unfulfilled. This is not the case with Epic’s antitrust suit against Google, which in mid-December went strongly in Epic’s favor. With a unanimous jury verdict against Google, a judge this month will determine how to address Google’s violations—potentially including Epic’s request that it and other developers be allowed to issue their own app stores and payment systems on Android devices.

Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic Games, wrote in a thread on X (formerly Twitter) that the Supreme Court’s denial means the “battle to open iOS to competing stores and payments is lost in the United States” and that it was a “sad outcome for all developers.” Sweeney noted that as of today, developers on Apple’s platforms can “tell US customers about better prices on the web.” And he noted that regulatory and policy actions around the world, including the upcoming EU Digital Markets Act, may have further impact.

Apple has yet to comment on today’s Supreme Court decision.

Supreme Court denies Epic v. Apple petitions, opening up iOS payment options Read More »

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Twin Galaxies, Billy Mitchell settle Donkey Kong score case before trial

billy mitchell, defamation, Donkey Kong, gaming, lawsuit, twin galaxies / /
Two men give a presentation in what appears to be a hotel room.

Enlarge / Billy Mitchell (left) and Twin Galaxies owner Jace Hall (center) attend an event at the Arcade Expo 2015 in Banning, California.

The long, drawn-out legal fight between famed high-score chaser Billy Mitchell and “International Scoreboard” Twin Galaxies appears to be over. Courthouse News reports that Mitchell and Twin Galaxies have reached a confidential settlement in the case months before an oft-delayed trial was finally set to start.

The settlement comes as Twin Galaxies counsel David Tashroudian had come under fire for legal misconduct after making improper contact with two of Mitchell’s witnesses in the case. Tashroudian formally apologized to the court for that contact in a filing earlier this month, writing that he had “debased myself before this Court” and “allowed my personal emotions to cloud my judgement” by reaching out to the witnesses outside of official court proceedings.

But in the same statement, Tashroudian took Mitchell’s side to task for “what appeared to me to be the purposeful fabrication and hiding of evidence.” The emotional, out-of-court contact was intended “to prove what I still genuinely believe is fraud on this Court,” he wrote.

Billy Mitchell reviews a document in front of a <em>Donkey Kong</em> machine decked out for an annual “Kong Off” high score competition.” height=”1024″ src=”https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/mitchellpaper.jpg” width=”683″></img><figcaption> <p>Billy Mitchell reviews a document in front of a <em>Donkey Kong</em> machine decked out for an annual “Kong Off” high score competition.</p> </figcaption></figure> <p>In <a href=a filing last month, Tashroudian asked the court to sanction Mitchell for numerous alleged lies and fabrications during the evidence-discovery process. Those alleged lies encompass subjects including an alleged $33,000 payment associated with the sale of Twin Galaxies; the technical cabinet testing of Carlos Pineiro; the setup of a recording device for one of Mitchell’s high-score performances; a supposed “Player of the Century” plaque Mitchell says he had received from Namco; and a technical analysis that showed, according to Tashroudian, “that the videotaped recordings of his score in questions could not have come from original unmodified Donkey Kong hardware.”

Tashroudian asked the court to impose sanctions on Mitchell—up to and including dismissing the case—for these and other “deliberate and egregious [examples of] discovery abuse throughout the course of this litigation by lying at deposition and by engaging in the spoliation of evidence with the intent to defraud the Court.” A hearing on both Mitchell and Tashroudian’s alleged actions was scheduled for later this week; Tashroudian could still face referral to the State Bar for his misconduct.

“Plaintiff wants nothing more than for me to be kicked off of this case,” Tashroudian continued in his apology statement. “I know this will not stop. I am now [Mitchell’s] and his counsel’s target. The facts support [Twin Galaxies’] defense and now [Mitchell] realizes that. He also realizes that he has dug himself into a hole by lying in discovery. I do not say that lightly.”

Mitchell, Tashroudian, and representatives for Twin Galaxies were not immediately available to respond to a request for comment from Ars Technica.

Twin Galaxies, Billy Mitchell settle Donkey Kong score case before trial Read More »