Tag Archives: Windows 8

Train2Game News: Mid-week round up

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Blizzard Entertainment released Mists Of Pandaria yesterday. The latest expansion for World Of Warcraft. Blizzard have also said that they have no fear of Windows 8 and will release games for any platform their players are on.

Avenged Sevenfold have released a new track that will feature on Call Of Duty: Black Ops 2. The song, Carry On, is the second song the band have released for a Call Of Duty game. They previously released Not Ready To Die with one of the Call Of Duty: Black Ops DLC packs.

Telltale’s five Walking Dead episodic games will be put on disc in December for Xbox360 and PS3. The game is based on the graphic novel turned TV show and through playing them myself I can say, if you are a fan of the series, play this game. You won’t be disappointed.

Nvidia’s head of cloud gaming, Phil Eisler, believes that cloud gaming could take over from consoles. He believes that consoles have one final generation in them before they die out, leaving the world of gaming in the hands of the cloud.

Ubisoft have announced that Assassins Creed 3 will not play on Windows XP. The company has released the specifications needed to play the game. There is a version for Windows 8 in the pipeline though.

Bethesda have released an animated prequel to its upcoming Dishonored. The webseries is called Tales of Dunwall and the gorgeous animated shorts are being released in three parts. The videos can be found on YouTube and they show the downfall of the in game city.

Sony Xdev are giving a small studio the opportunity to win £25,000. This new initiative, called Playstation Pioneers, will reward developers for a PlayStation Mobile game concept and will also offer successful candidates the opportunity to work alongside XDev. Further details can be found here.

An extra four titles have been added to the Humble Bundle 6. The titles are: Bit.Trip Runner, Gratuitous Space Battles, Jamestown, and Wizorb. If you have already purchased the bundle, you will get the new games added at no extra cost.

If you are attending Eurogamer this weekend you can get a special surprise when you play Company Of Heroes 2. Everyone that plays the game or attends the developer session at the event will get a code to access a future beta for the game.

Finally Train2Game will be at Eurogamer this weekend. If you are attending go and say hello, it is always nice to meet these people. I will be attending on the Saturday so if you see me feel free to talk to me. I hope everyone that attends has a brilliant time.

Train2Game News: Microsoft opening doors to new Windows 8 games studio

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Following the weekend’s world record-breaking Game Jam, Microsoft is making more waves in the UK games industry.

Microsoft is opening their fourth studio in London dedicated to developing games for Windows 8 phones and tablets. The other Microsoft studios in London are Rare, Lionhead and Soho Productions.

The new studio will be headed by Lee Schuneman, current production director of Rare. He will report to Phil Harrison, corporate vice president of the interactive entertainment business in Europe. Schuneman was behind Kinect Sports, the Xbox 360 avatars, Fable: The Journey and the Sky TV app.

Schnueman said “I’m hugely excited by this new venture.

“Adding a fourth UK-based studio to the incredible roster of talent already in place not only increases our regional studio presence, but will allow Microsoft Studios to explore the many creative and business opportunities that developing new games and entertainment experiences on Windows 8 tablet devices and platforms will afford.”

The Windows 8 operating system was put to the test for games development by the students at the world record winning Game Jam at the weekend. The students proved that Windows 8 had a good diversity with all the different games they put together in 48 hours.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer sung the praises of Windows 8.

Ballmer said “Windows 8 is going to do great.

“I’m not paid to have doubts. I don’t have any. It’s a fantastic product… people talk about “how healthy is the PC market?” There’s going to be close to 400 million PCs sold in the next year, which makes it a big market. And whether it’s 405 million or 395 million, it’s a big market, and Windows 8 will propel that volume.”

Train2Game News: Windows 8 sees the light and goes to the Cloud

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Microsoft has joined forces with, Any Games Any Where Instantly (Agawi) to bring Cloud gaming to Windows 8.

The company Agawi, formerly known as iSwifter, has just released version 2.0 which allows streaming of everything from social games to triple A titles on to current supported devices is now bringing its services to Windows 8.

Some big name titles will be available for instant play on Windows 8 devices with no additional work from developers and Agawi encourages more companies to contact them about having their game ported to the cloud.

Microsoft VP Walid Abu-Hadba said “Game developers want to focus on building great games, not worrying about back-end issues like scalability and platform management

“With Windows Azure, Agawi 2.0 enables developers to make high-performance games easily accessible across devices with the high-quality graphics and virtually instant game downloads. For gamers, Windows 8 delivers a fast, fluid and no-compromise experience that opens the door to exciting new form factors.”

Agawi demoed their Windows 8 service at Cloud Gaming USA in San Francisco on Tuesday and Wednesday.

With the Games Jam tomorrow, knowing that Windows 8 is using the Cloud, the games that are released could have a wider audience.

Train2Game News: Mid-week Round up of game news

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This will be a mid-week round up of all the biggest news in the gaming industry. Depending on the reaction it gets this may become a weekly post.

Gearbox’s Borderlands 2 comes out next week and in the lead up to that they have released the skill trees for the different classes available in the game. This is a good chance to see how the characters are going to play out through the game.

Valve has released a list of the first ten games being released through Steams Greenlight initiative. Some of the games on the list are Black Mesa the Half-Life mod and Project Zomboid. A full list of the Greenlight approved games can be found here.

The Wii U is having its release date and recommended retail price announced tomorrow. At 8am Nintendo will announce in a special webcast on the official Nintendo Direct Page. The release date is rumoured for UK release date early December with a possible price of £190.

Double Fine studios have accidentally released there first mobile title ahead of schedule. Thanks to some quick thinking from lead designer Kee Chi and the team behind the studios first mobile exclusive, the release turned into an unplanned beta.

Sony is ready to display a new virtual reality headset at the Tokyo Game Show. This follows the news of the Occulus Rift kickstarter and Valves augmented reality headset plans being released. The Sony headset will have a full 360 degree experience with head tracking and a live camera.

The last and possibly biggest bit of news is that this Friday the Train2Game world record attempt sponsored by Microsoft begins. The 48 hour event will see students creating games in the time they have using Windows 8. It is always fun and is always a great learning experience.