Have you ever bought a movie or TV show through the PlayStation Store? Me neither. As a result, Sony announced today it will remove them, starting August 31, 2021.
The PlayStation Store will remove the ability to purchase or rent movies and TV shows on 31st August 2021.
Any existing content you have purchased will remain yours to view, and you'll still be able to access this via the PlayStation Store on all your devices. You just won't be able to buy more, and have to get Netflix instead.
Explaining the change via the PlayStation blog, PlayStation pointed to the shift away from owning individual movies or boxsets. People are now more likely to just stream content from a subscription-based service (such as Disney+ or Amazon Prime) or one that's free but includes ads (such as ITV Hub or All 4).
Nvidia's DLSS has gradually evolved into one of the most exciting technological innovations in the PC space. The idea is remarkably straightforward: the GPU renders at a lower native resolution, then an AI algorithm takes that frame and intelligently upscales it to a much higher pixel count. There's an instant performance win, but remarkably, also a quality advantage too up against native resolution rendering. In the past, we've wondered whether this quality win comes down to mitigating the artefacts of temporal anti-aliasing - TAA - but the recent arrival of a DLSS upgrade to Nioh 2 provides us with an interesting test case. Nioh 2's basic rendering lacks much in the way of any form of anti-aliasing at all. It's pretty much as raw as raw can be. So the question is: can DLSS retain its performance advantage and still provide an actual increase to image quality up against native resolution rendering? Remarkably, the answer is yes.
14 years after it came out, Halo 3 is getting back bling.
Taking a page out of the Fortnite playbook, Halo 3 is getting a raft of new customisation options, including what are called back accessories.
These new customisation options, which do not affect gameplay, are live now in the Halo: The Master Chief Collection flight (the version of the game where upcoming features are tested).
Nintendo has today released a new firmware update for... the Wii U.
Today's Wii U system update, version 5.5.5, is listed by Nintendo as "improving system stability". Under the hood, dataminer OatmealDome (thanks, Nintendo Life) has suggested it updates the system's SSL verification code, which powers secure connections online.
It's been two and a half years since the last Wii U update, in September 2018. Do you still have yours plugged in?
PlayStation users will still have access to any content they’ve already purchased
Cold Iron Studios’ new shooter is coming to consoles and PC
Alien fans got their moment in the sun with Alien: Isolation, Creative Assembly’s exquisite homage to Ridley Scott’s 1979 film. Folks who lean more toward the bombastic action that James Cameron’s 1986 sequel Aliens provided have had to be more patient. We haven’t gotten a truly great Aliens game (sorry, Colonial Marines), and while it’s absolutely too early to assess its quality, the newly revealed Aliens: Fireteam looks like a combat-booted stomp in the right direction.
Cold Iron Studios is using Aliens as a launching point, but the development team is determined to carve out its own path. One way it’s doing so is by setting Fireteam in the year 2202 – 23 years after the events of the Alien trilogy. In other words, don’t expect to see cameos from familiar characters or to revisit locations that we’ve explored time and time again. Instead, players will be experiencing an all-new storyline that spans four campaigns (each containing three missions).
Kadokawa Games’ newest visual novel Root Film is finally coming soon to the west courtesy of PQube, and it just got a new trailer.
Like the Ace Attorney series and its predecessor Root Letter, Root Film isn’t just a visual novel in which you sit back and read the story making the occasional choice. It actually has more involved interaction, and the trailer shows exactly that.
You can watch it below and see for yourself.
You can read more about Root Film below. It’s coming west on March 19 for PS4 and Nintendo Switch.
Hybrid of Two Genres
‘Root Film’ differs from a standard kinetic novel by fusing elements of both mystery themed visual novels with unique investigative and fighting-game-style mechanics to create an entirely unique experience for players.
Inspired to break the walls of the standard gameplay within the established visual novel genre, Kadokawa Games wanted players to draw from their personal intuition as well as pit them against rapid fire face-off mechanics as a central spoke of the games’ investigation mechanics.
Intuition Mechanics
As usual, Genshin Impact developer MiHoYo really loves trailers, and today they released another for the massively-popular free-to-play RPG.
Following her introduction and her first look at gameplay, we get to take another look at the newest character joining the game, the cute Hu Tao, who the 77th Director of the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor.
This time around the video shows even more of her gameplay, focusing on her skills and talents.
You can check her out below, including both English and Japanese voice acting, depending on your preference.
Here’s a winner winner for PS5 owners. Maquette releases today, offering up its weird recursive puzzle-based gameplay to the masses. What’s more, it’s also the free PS5 PlayStation Plus game for March, meaning it won’t cost you a penny.
Maquette tasks you with solving a series of puzzles where you’ll be dealing with plants, buildings and objects that are both absolutely massive, and teeny tiny at the same time.
What you need to do is manipulate the smaller objects in order to move the larger ones and clear your path to the objective. The further out you make it, the larger and more complex things get.
Bravely Default II is the latest JRPG from Claytechworks and Square Enix that’s just been released exclusively for the Nintendo Switch. It features a totally new cast of characters, though the story setup will feel wildly familiar to fans of the genre: four heroes journey across a continent in search of four magical crystals.
The four new characters are Seth, Adelle, Gloria, and Elvis. And while the story setup might seem really familiar and cliched, the characters themselves are fairly well-defined with distinct characteristics that set them apart from your run-of-the-mill heroes. With that in mind, we’ve put together a quiz that will attempt to determine which Bravely Default II character you’re most like.
Without further ado, take the quiz to find out which character you are.
Internet sleuths are at it again, and it seems as if Bandai Namco has trademarked a peculiar phrase.
"Bandai Namco Next" was recently approved, and evidently applies to "amusement parks, esports competitions, movies, toys, plays, musical performances, radio programs, computer networks, online publications, animated feature films, and games," according to TheGamer. Given that their prior Bandai Namco event was kind of a bust (consistently mostly of stuff we've already seen, very late at night in the US), I hope they bring it.
So if there is a direct, there's a lot of things they could go for in terms of gaming. The next Dark Pictures Anthology game could use a boost through a presentation like this, for example. We could also get a look at Digimon Survive, Tales of Arise, Scarlet Nexus, and Elden Ring.
The latter has been rumored to get an update for some time now, and this could be the way to do it: on Bandai Namco's own terms.
Bandai Namco Next [WIPO via TheGamer]
The furor surrounding mystery-horror title The Sinking City continues to get uglier with each passing day, as both publisher Nacon (formerly Bigben Interactive) and developer Frogwares continue to dispute ownership rights and numerous other contract issues.
Just before the weekend, Frogwares asked customers not to purchase The Sinking City, which had been recently re-uploaded to Steam, stating that it had no hand in the development of this particular version. Yesterday, the Ukrainian developer went one step further, openly alleging that Nacon had, in fact, hacked a copy of the 2019 title from another digital storefront, altered its code, and submitted it for sale via the Steam platform.
Frogwares has gone as far as to release a detailed video which it claims shows exactly how Nacon "cracked, hacked, changed [the] game's code and content and illegally uploaded" The Sinking City back onto Steam, without Frogwares' knowledge or permission. This accusation, alongside the video in question, can be viewed on Frogwares' website.
"In order to achieve the removal of this protection and checking system, Nacon modified both the game executable and the config files inside the packages," alleges Frogwares in its statement. "We believe Nacon did this to hide the fraudulent exploitation of the game on Steam but also on other portals which they may be planning to send the game to. Nacon wants Frogwares or anyone, including the French Justice, to never know the true scope of their exploitation of the game."
Nacon also released a statement yesterday, responding to Frogwares' earlier complaint.
Sony Interactive Entertainment has announced that, as of August 31, 2021, PlayStation users will no longer be able to purchase or rent movies and TV shows from the PlayStation Store.
Speaking on the official PlayStation blog this morning, SIE noted that all previously purchased films and shows will still be readily available, on-demand, via PlayStation consoles and mobile devices, but said content will no longer be purchasable as of the aforementioned date. You can check out SIE's full statement below.
"At SIE, we strive to provide the best entertainment experience for PlayStation fans, and that means evolving our offerings as customer needs change. We’ve seen tremendous growth from PlayStation fans using subscription-based and ad-based entertainment streaming services on our consoles. With this shift in customer behavior, we have decided to no longer offer movie and TV purchases and rentals through PlayStation Store as of August 31, 2021."
"When this change takes effect, users can still access movie and TV content they have purchased through PlayStation Store for on-demand playback on their PS4, PS5 and mobile devices. We thank our fans for their continued support, and we look forward to further enhancing the entertainment experience on PlayStation."
Yes, the Vita lives. ScourgeBringer Vita digital and physical copies are on the way, with digital copies showing up next month.
The post ScourgeBringer Vita Digital and Physical Copies Are on the Way appeared first on Siliconera.
The latest Hu Tao trailer is here, and Dainsleif has something to say about all of her attacks in Genshin Impact.
The post Learn About Hu Tao’s Attacks in the New Genshin Impact Trailer appeared first on Siliconera.
Sony announced the PlayStation Store won't offer TV and movies anymore, but your existing purchases are safe.
The post PlayStation Store Movies and TV Shows’ Sales Will End in August appeared first on Siliconera.
The last Wii U system update prior to this version was made in September 2018.
The post Wii U Receives Version 5.5.5 System Update After 2.5 Years of Inactivity appeared first on Siliconera.
The upcoming Harry Potter game Hogwarts Legacy will allow players to create transgender characters, according to a new report from Bloomberg. ...
Naughty Dog's acclaimed sequel is up for 13 awards at the 2021 British Academy Games Awards, beating the previous record of 11 nominations. ...
A sale on Pokémon 25th anniversary apparel and Aukey’s Smart Watch lead Tuesday’s best deals.
Sixty hours later I still love watching these numbers go up.
Coming summer 2021 to Xboxes, PlayStations, and Steam from Cold Iron Studios, Aliens: Fireteam is a co-op survival shooter set 23 years after the original Alien trilogy. Turns out those pesky H.R. Giger critters are still a huge problem, and it’s up to the Colonial Marines to feed them. Or exterminate them, I guess.
Harry Potter prequel game Hogwarts Legacy is planned to include a "trans-inclusive" character creator, as well as a transgender character, Bloomberg has reported.
The character designer will let you pick from unlinked body type and voice options for your Hogwarts school protagonist. Body types are labelled as either "witch" or "wizard", and this will also determine which of the school's dormitories your character is placed in.
Numerous video games now offer unlinked body type, voice, and gender pronoun options, or simply avoid specific gender labels, but the fact Hogwarts Legacy will as well has drawn attention due to the game's connection to Harry Potter universe creator JK Rowling.
There's a new Aliens game on the way.
Aliens: Fireteam is a co-op third-person shooter due out summer 2021 on PC via Steam, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and S, and Xbox One.
The gameplay trailer is below (it looks a bit like Gears of War meets Aliens to me):
We're finally getting a little closer to the release of Rust's elusive console version, as developers Double Eleven and Facepunch have released a new trailer - and opened up registration for a closed beta.
The trailer itself doesn't show anything particularly revolutionary - it's Rust, looking quite nice on console - and we don't yet have a release date for the final product, but you can put your name in the ring for access to the closed beta. You can sign up over here, and if selected, you'll be sent a key to access the beta. According to the new Rust Console Edition Twitter account, some players have apparently already been sent keys, but according to the FAQs more players will gradually be given access over the next few weeks, with this particular window of beta testing due to end on 29th March.
Rust was originally supposed to launch on Xbox One and PlayStation 4 sometime last year, but the port had to be delayed due to the difficulties of working from home during the Covid-19 pandemic. With the console release now getting official ratings and inviting players into betas, it seems we're finally inching closer to the full release.
Get some Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove DLC with a kids meal
Collaborators and fans took issue with Adam Koebel’s involvement
Click here to watch embedded media Hazelight Studios likes to make games about collaboration. In Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, players controlled a pair of characters simultaneously to play through an interactive fable. A Way Out gave two players a chance to break out of prison and experience life on the lam. The studio’s latest project, It Takes Two, is a romantic comedy featuring more split-screen co-op, and also an insane amount of variety. In this episode of NGT, I share my experience playing three hours of the game with Blake Hester and Alex Stadnik – and how it nearly tore my family apart.
OK, that’s a little bit of hyperbole. I dragged one of my sons along with me for the co-op session, since we had a fun time playing through A Way Out together. Besides, who wouldn’t want to participate in an interactive romantic comedy … with their … dad? He was exactly as enthusiastic about the idea as you might expect. Once we started playing, however, he was fine (thanks for asking).
Click here to watch embedded media What do you think of when you hear the name Josef Fares? Is it his moment during The Game Awards where he gave his...candid opinion about The Oscars? While the man is responsible for one of the more memorable moments in TGA history, he and his team at Hazelight have also been pioneers in the field of co-op video games. It Takes Two, the studio's upcoming release, follows in the footsteps of A Way Out in that players are only able to play together if they hope to achieve success.
This time around, the story follows May and Cody, a couple on the precipice of divorce who get turned into dolls through the youthful magic of their daughter. The two must work together to get their lives back to normal and (hopefully) mend their relationship while fighting all manner of squirrels, insects, and (checks notes) sentient toolboxes?
The enemies in It Takes Two are diverse from level to level. That also includes the bosses you'll square off against. Join Jeff Cork, Blake Hester, and me as we take you through some of the game's earliest boss fights and discuss how the different encounters feel unique and challenging in their own way.
Today Microsoft released a new update for Microsoft Flight Simulator as a hotfix to address issues introduced in the previous patch.
The main fixes solve an issue that caused flaps to generate too much lift and another that spawned a lot of stray taxi lights in airport scenery.
The photogrammetry for Southampton and Portsmouth (which was accidentally removed by the previous update) was also added back in.
The full patch notes can be found below.
General
Developer mode
The update requires launching the Microsoft Store client or Steam and downloading 1.03 gigabytes of data.
Recently, we published our massive interview with head of Microsoft Flight Simulator Jorg Neumann, who provided a lot of new info about the present and future of the sim.
