Category Archives: Sony

Train2Game News: PlayStation 4 UK release date and price announced

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PS4 ControllerExciting news for all Train2Game students who are looking forward to Sony’s PlayStation 4. The UK release date and price has been announced.

The Sun news paper announced that the next gen console will be released later this year in October, this follows what Sony said when they announced the console last month.

Even better news is the price. The Sony PS4 will cost you £300. This is much cheaper than when the PS3 was released in 2007, costing £425. This new cheaper price makes it a much more viable option for most gamers and, in my opinion, there should be close competition with the next gen Xbox.

The cheaper price for the new Sony console is probably due to Android consoles like the Ouya and Game Stick being released for £99. The next gen consoles will also have the mobile and free-to-play markets to compete with so I can see a lot of surprises being pulled out from Sony and Microsoft.

The PlayStation 4 console it’s self still hasn’t been seen by public eyes. A good guess would be that both the next generation Xbox and the PlayStation 4 will be revealed at E3 in June in an attempt to compete with one another further.

Train2Game News: Injustice: Gods Among us final contestants announced

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BatmanWarner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and DC Entertainment reveal the two iconic characters headed to the ultimate finals of the Injustice Battle Arena. The semi-final rounds kicked off last week, advancing legendary powerhouse characters to the final showdown.

The speed and agility of The Flash was pitted against quick-witted skill and gadgetry of Batman, while in the second match-up, Green Lantern harnessed the power of his ring against Superman himself, a clear fan favourite throughout the Battle Arena.

The thousands of fan votes have been tabulated, and the victors have been chosen.
Fighting their way through four weeks of preliminaries, the quarter-final and semi-final rounds, to now face off in the Finals – the Battle Arena will come down to a final match between Batman and Superman, kicking off April 8th.

You can view the videos of the contenders below that ultimately sealed their fates.

In addition, the demo for Injustice: Gods Among Us will be released on Xbox360 and PlayStation 3 on April 3. The Injustice: Gods Among Us demo features Batman, Wonder Woman and Lex Luthor – three playable characters pulled from the game’s robust DC Comics roster.  Set in the Gotham City arena, fans can get a taste of the included characters’ unique super powers and individual move-sets as they destroy elements of the world and fight through the multi-tiered arena.

Train2Game News: Final Fantasy X and X-2 remastered

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Final-Fantasy-XGood news for Train2Game students who are fans of the Final Fantasy games! Final Fantasy X and X-2 are being remastered.

The games are being remastered and made high definition to be released in Europe this year. The games will be released bundled on a disc together called FINAL FANTASY X/X-2 HD Remaster. It will be released on PlayStation 3 and PS VITA separately.

Final Fantasy fans will be excited to know that they’re not just getting a mind-blowingly beautifully HD version of the game that they love. Both games are based on the International version, which is the most complete, feature-heavy iteration of each game to release. The International version of FINAL FANTASY X-2 never made it to European shores before, so there’s quite a chunk of additional content for you to enjoy.

The International version of FINAL FANTASY X introduces an Expert version of the Sphere Grid in which all the characters start in the middle and you can choose any path but there are fewer nodes and therefore a decrease in the number of upgrades available. This edition also includes new abilities, new super-bosses and more.

FINAL FANTASY X-2 is also getting the International treatment, high definition graphics and more content that has not yet but announced.

Enjoy the trailer!

Train2Game News: Games Industry News – 08.03.13

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UE4It’s the end of the week so it is time for another Train2Game News round up.

Epic announced earlier this week that the Unreal Engine 4 is available for PlayStation 4. In addition to showcasing the new Unreal Engine 4 “Elemental” demo running live and in real time on PlayStation 4 at the PlayStation Meeting 2013, Epic is providing the resources PlayStation 4 developers need to harness the full power of its Unreal Engine 4 technology and realize all facets of their creativity using Epic’s revolutionary new toolset now and in the future.

Multiplay, a leading provider of community gaming, game server hosting, events management and broadcast services, is pleased to announce Insomnia 48. Taking place on 22nd-25th March at the Telford International Centre, i48 pits 1,000 of the best gamers against each other to compete for prize funds of up to £10,000 per tournament. The event will give UK gamers their first hands on experience with Injustice: Gods Among Us. Find out more about the event by going to http://iseries.multiplay.co.uk/

High Moon studio and Marvel have released a new trailer for the upcoming game featuring every bodies favourite “Merc with a mouth”, Deadpool. If you know the insane Marvel character, you will know what to expect. If you don’t know him, prepare for a shock! If you are over 18, you can watch the trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaCBD7NPhCQ&feature=player_embedded

Sony Computer Entertainment UK MD Fergal Gara announced that PlayStation VITA sales absolutely exploded over the holiday period. When asked how he rated the handheld’s performance in its first year on the market, the executive said: “Vita really, really responded as we went into Christmas. We had a pre-Christmas lull where sales were quite low. But that absolutely exploded 20-fold from that low-point into the peak of Christmas. That’s very encouraging and shows that with the right promotion and software we can light that fire.” Mr Gara also admitted that the system’s software release schedule currently appears light, but promised: “It looks bare in terms of what we have announced. The cupboard won’t be bare.”

Finally Eidos Montreal have confirmed they are working on a reboot of Thief. The game is scheduled for a 2014 release and will be coming to PC and Next Gen consoles. The official blurb for the game is “Series hero Garrett returns to the Gothic, industrial metropolis known simply as the City to steal any and everything that will make him richer. Unfortunately, the City is broiling with social tension as it is ravaged by a plague and lorded over by a political tyrant known as the Baron. In order to survive his adventures, Garrett will have to pay attention to his environment and make use of the many possible paths through each of the game’s levels.” Sound familiar?

Train2Game News: Games news round up – 22.02.13

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Barack Obama speaks at the Rodon Group in PennsylvaniaIt’s the end of the week so Train2Game News will bring you some of the news stories of the week!

United States president, Barack Obama, revealed he was in favour of computer programming lessons in schools as part of a Google+ discussion. He said computers and videogames excited youngsters and spurred them on to learn. He referred to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, saying he taught himself to program due to his interest in games. He said he wanted people to understand the principles involved in a career in videogames such as maths, science and design.

Following the troubles THQ had they have sold the rights to the WWE video game series to 2K. 2K are more than familiar with sports titles having previously developed the entire NBA series of games since 2011. The series, which will continue to be developed by Yukes in Japan and will combine the studio’s signature gameplay with 2K’s commitment to authenticity in this years WWE ’14.

In addition 2K Games and Irrational Games today announced that production of downloadable content has recently begun for their forthcoming BioShock Infinite and revealed details of the BioShock Infinite Season Pass. Three all-new add-on packs are in development that will provide hours of additional gameplay and continue the player’s journey in the sky-city of Columbia with new stories, characters, abilities and weapons. The BioShock Infinite Season Pass will be available on March 26, 2013 when the game is planned to launch.

Despite Sony showing the currently-available PS Move controller being used with PS4 during the console’s unveiling event on Wednesday, the firm says the new console will not support the use of the standard DualShock 3 controller. The reasons are unclear since the DS3 controller uses the same industry-standard Bluetooth 2.0 tech as the Move controller to connect with PS3, which suggests PS4 will have Bluetooth 2.0 capabilities.

Commander Shepard’s story is finally coming to an end with the announcement of the last bit of single player DLC. Available on March 5th, Mass Effect: Citadel will see Shepard “explore and discover new locations across the vast, deep-space station” while reconnecting with some recognizable characters from the series past. Mass Effect was truly a great game, a save game that lasted six years across three games. Commander Shepard and the crew of the Normandy shall be missed.

Train2Game News: Sony’s big announcement revealed!

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PS4 Controller

Last night Sony made their big announcement that gamers around the world were waiting for with baited breath. Their big announcement was the reveal of… a controller.

Sony have not yet given a look at the next console but they have stated it will be called the PlayStation 4 and they unveiled some of the specifications for it. Their new console has 8GB of unified memory so the PS4 can do a lot more at once. The CPU behind that is the x86 which should be more than powerful enough to keep that 8GB of unified memory running nicely.

There was no mention of a disc drive in the machine. This may mean that their isn’t one and it will be all digital but what Sony did confirm is that it WON’T be backwards compatible but it WILL play second hand games. This could be proof there is actually a disk drive.

Older games may eventually reach the Cloud. Despite that, while browsing the store, Sony said that with the hit of the “X” button, you’ll be able to play games before you purchase them. The way they insinuated the concept, it sounds similar to going to the library and reading the books right there in the building. Any cloud services that they are talking about will be rolled out in phases, so it doesn’t sound like this will be fully functional at launch.

Sony did reveal they have a vision for an online world. It is very ambitious and staying connected with friends is a priority. As they demonstrated during an animation in one of their videos, they want you walking the streets staring into your smartphone and tablet keeping up with whatever’s happening with your friends on PSN. Those friends can don their real names and faces, too. The ability to keep your reverent online alias is still a possibility. This is a rather funny choice from Sony, considering they had the worst breach of online security in recent memory and are probably still paying for it.

In addition to this Sony have also added a “Share” button to the new controller they revealed. This will work in the same way as Facebook’s share button to share any video clips of your games if you are particularly proud of something. When you hit the Share button it will take you to a mini video editor letting you clip your video to what you want before displaying it on Facebook and Twitter. You’ll also be able to stream yourself live through Ustream and people can interact with you and your game to the point you’ll be able to let players take over your game and play for you. It’s remote access on your console.

There is also an option called Remote Play that will be available. It’s similar to the PS3 and Vita’s cross-play except that it acts more like the Wii U’s Gamepad functionality. As marketed, the compatibility can take a game from the PS4 and put it on the Vita with “full” functionality – meaning full graphic capability. The game they demo was a more cartoony game than something heavy like Crysis or Watch Dogs and it’s probably not going to work with every game, nor did they say it would. It’d be highly unlikely that a future Crysis game would fair well at the same graphical capability on the Vita but Sony may suprise us yet.

Finally let’s get to the new controller they unveiled. The controller will keep its inventive and memorable name, just like the console: DualShock 4. The changes in its design are immediately apparent, but not terribly ugly. It might take getting used to for some. The edges aren’t as rounded and it certainly looks curvier. One of the biggest change is the touch pad in the middle which I can imagine will be used in games in the same way the Vita utilises it. Flanking the pad at the top of the controller is also the “Share” button I mentioned earlier and an “Options” button. There is also an addition of a headphone jack. The size of the jack has not yet been confirmed however.

There is also a light bar that sits on the back portion of the controller that gives a “simpler, more friendly way to identify players.” The controller also acts as the old Sixaxis should have except that the DualShock 4 can read depth in front of the controller and the light bar helps read its position in space in conjunction with a stereo camera.

There was absolutely no sign of the console and no mention of a price during the event but Sony did announce that the PlayStation 4 will be available for Christmas this year.

If you would like to watch the two hour announcement, you can do so by going to http://www.ustream.tv/channel/playstation-live—english-2

Train2Game News: PlayStation 4 announcement coming soon?

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PS TeaseA post and video on the PlayStation firm’s official blog invites fans to “see the future” at an event set for February 20 at 6pm EST. Sony has also launched a countdown website with the tagline “be the first to know”.

A report suggest that invites have been sent to media and investors for a ‘PlayStation Meeting’ in New York City on the same date.

The Wall Street Journal reports that people “familiar with the matter” have confirmed the event will indeed be an unveiling of the PlayStation 4.

The ‘Orbis’, which is the PlayStation 4 code name, has been the subject of an increasing number of high profile ‘leaks’ in recent weeks, including more than one alleged system specifications dossier. In January senior games studio sources announced the next PlayStation will utilise a brand new controller and that versions featuring a biometric sensor and LCD touch screen have been tested.

Sony has publicly suggested that the next PlayStation will not go on sale before Microsoft’s Xbox 360 successor. Whether this is a good plan is yet to be seen.

There have been rumours that the next Xbox will also be announced in some form before E3, but further leaks of information are not likely.

Train2Game News: PS4 and Xbox720 likely to be announced before E3

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PS and XboxTrain2Game has discovered that Microsoft and Sony may reveal their next generation of consoles prior to E3 which takes place in June.

Rumours published in the February edition of Game Informer suggests that both companies are working on a press conference that is to be held near the time of the Game Developers Conference in March.

Sources have confirmed that the PlayStation 4 and Xbox 720 systems will be revealed before E3, though specific dates or events have not been finalised.

“We hear that both Sony and Microsoft are targeting special Apple-style press conferences to unveil their platforms near the Game Developers Conference in late March,” reads the Game Informer report.

“E3 in June may be the industry’s biggest event, but both companies want to give their systems their own limelight,” the piece adds.

Analyst Colin Sebastian of Baird Equity Research also suggested that the PS4 price and Xbox 720 price could be £225 to £275 if the prices are equal to the American predictions.

“Our checks suggest that next-generation console hardware will be largely built from ‘off the shelf’ high-end PC components, along with hybrid physical/digital distribution models, enhanced voice controls and motion sensing (Kinect integration with every Xbox), and broad multi-media capabilities,” Sebastian added.

“The cost of production and retail price points should be lower than prior console launches.”

Sebastian also estimated that the Xbox 720 release date is expected for November, while the PlayStation 4 release date may be later than November due to “early production issues”.

Train2Game News: Dust 514 Open Beta for PS3

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Dust 514CCP Games are doing an open beta on January 22 for their up coming game Dust 514. This is a great opportunity for Train2Game QA Testers to practice what they have learned.

CCP Games have announced that it will merge the servers for its space management simulator EVE Online and Dust 514, the PS3 shooter set in the same universe. By uniting both games, the way has been paved for Dust 514 to head into open beta.

The game is a PS3 exclusive so providing you have one you can download the game and enter the Beta which launches on January 22 for free.

Hilmar Veigar Pétursson, CEO of CCP said in a press release “The launch of the Dust 514 open beta is another step towards our long-term vision for CCP and EVE. But this is just the beginning.  As we have done with EVE Online, in the coming weeks, and for years to come, we will continually improve upon and add to the Dust 514 experience, as well as add deeper integration between the two games and their communities”

There are no character resets planned, so anyone currently participating in the closed beta will be able to continue right as rain. In fact, those who’ve played at least one match before January 22nd will receive a 100,000 skill point bonus to take into the open beta.

CCP are very proud of the fact that this is the first integrated gameplay experience between two games that are not only of a different genre, but also exist on different platforms. Order an aerial bombardment on a PS3 game of Dust 514 and an EVE Online player might marshall the power of his PC to deliver the deadly barrage.

This is a very exciting and interesting new step in gaming. How well they do could see further platform crossing in the future.

Train2Game News: A round up of tech from CES

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The Consumers Electronics Show is coming to a close and Train2Game are bringing you the news of some of the most interesting technology to come out of the show.

Steam BoxValves media named Steam Box was finally confirmed at the show after much speculation through 2012.  Valve has invested in computer manufacture Xi3 who will be developing a special customised PC designed to bring Steam to the living room.

The box, codenamed Piston, will offer up to 1TB of internal storage and the ability to upgrade components like the RAM and CPU in the future, a spokesperson told Polygon. Valve will also be making its own Steam Box in-house, and they’ll be a few more from other PC manufacturers too.

It is currently rumored to have 4-8 GB of DDR3 RAM and a quad-core 64-bit, x86-based 32nm processor running at up to 3.2GHz with 4MB of Level2 Cache.

Asus Transformer AiOA new tablet from Asus was announced at the show but this is a tablet with a difference.

The Asus Transformer AiO is a standard tablet running Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) from an Nvidia Tegra 3 processor but you can take it home and connect it to its stand and it becomes a desktop PC running Windows 8 running on a Core i3 processor and Nvidia GT 730M GPU.

The trick is the stand, which has its own array of USB ports and a built-in 1TB hard disk. The tablet itself has 16GB flash memory.

RAZER GROUP EDGE GAMING TABLETAnother exciting tablet that was announced this year was the Razer Edge which is optimised for gaming.

The Razer Edge is a Windows 8 tablet, but a ferociously powerful one with the sort of tech you would expect to find in a gaming laptop. The standard model has a Core i5 processor, an NVidia GT640M LE GPU, 4GB of RAM and a 64GB solid state drive, while the Edge Pro has a Core i7 processor instead, 8GB of RAM and either a 128GB or 256GB solid state drive.

The tablet can also be plugged into a Gamepad Controller, which comes complete with two Wii Nunchuk-style handles featuring two analogue sticks, a D-Pad and a variety of face buttons.

Xperia ZSony Xperia Z was the smart phone announcement to look at for gamers. It’s only 7mm thin, has a 1080p 5-inch screen and is packing a beast of a quad-core Qualcomm processor with 2GB of RAM.

According to Sony, the Xperia Z is the most powerful phone it’s ever made and the first it’s had a strong say in since it took over manufacturing from Ericsson, and it also claims that while it’s running Android 4.1 instead of 4.2, its own “skin” is very minimal and it should be easy to upgrade the OS in the future.

It is set to be an incredibly powerful phone with a good battery life thanks to Sony’s new technology that apparently draws very little power while in sleep mode.