Hasta La Gadget!

You might say the week is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workweek, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Weekly Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past seven days — all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.

Filed under: Misc, Microsoft, Nokia

Comments

Battlefield 4 has already gotten a bit of love at this year’s Gamescom, being named as one of 23 Xbox One launch titles, but the shooter had even more time to shine as one of the titles that took center stage at EA’s press event. At the top of the list of announcements for the FPS was a bit more specificity around when we’re actually going to see the beta. The fall date that we got back in March has been narrowed down to early October, which should give you just about enough time to perfect your aim.

Filed under: Gaming

Comments

In holiday 2011, while fans of both the Call of Duty and Battlefield series were gearing up for virtual war, the publishers behind each megafranchise were gearing up for a different type of virtual war. With the launch of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Activision’s in-game social network — dubbed “Call of Duty Elite” — went live. Just prior, alongside the launch of competing title Battlefield 3, EA introduced its “Battlelog” system. And thus began a parallel virtual war for fans’ loyalty, battled via user numbers and engagement metrics. It’s a pretty boring war, but its armaments are the games many of us know and love.

The first-person-shooter social network war continues to this day (in silence, of course), with EA recently stepping up its rhetoric surrounding this October’s entry, Battlefield 4. Since E3, where some new Battlelog features were shown for the first time during EA’s presser, the company’s released its first big Battlelog marketing video (seen below). But we wanted more details about what the first next-gen version of Battlelog will look like, and what EA’s DICE studio has been able to accomplish with new hardware.

Filed under: Cellphones, Gaming, Handhelds, Tablets, Internet, Software, HD

Comments

It appears that while EA’s making claims that its Frostbite 3 game engine (which powers next-gen’s Battlefield 4) can’t run on Nintendo’s Wii U, the game publisher is also working on bringing “true Frostbite experiences to all major mobile platforms.” The Frostbite website details the initiative as “Frostbite Go,” and calls it “one of our most exciting current projects.”

Without directly saying “Frostbite 3,” the blurb details Frostbite Go as aimed at “empowering EA game developers” — in so many words, it sounds like Frostbite Go isn’t meant for indies as much as it’s meant for EA studios used to working with Frostbite. Battlefield 4 will be the first game from EA to launch using the latest iteration of Frostbite, which isn’t a huge surprise considering that BF4‘s developed by the same folks who develop the engine (EA DICE). It’s expected to arrive this fall on both current and next-gen platforms.

Filed under: Gaming, Software, HD

Comments

Via: Game Informer, NeoGAF

Source: EA

This year’s Battlefield series entry — Battlefield 4 — is headed to PCs this fall. The game wasn’t given other platforms, but logic dictates it’ll arrive on the PlayStation 4 and Microsoft’s Xbox 360 successor. Apparently, since only Sony’s next-gen console is a known quantity and Microsoft’s staying mum, EA isn’t sharing other platforms yet (but hey, it’s probably PlayStation 4 and the next Xbox). The game’s being built on the latest iteration of DICE’s Frostbite engine, though no other details were given about the engine just yet.

Like previous Battlefield entries, EA-owned Swedish game studio DICE is at the helm, and Battlefield 4 remains planted in current times (unlike the pseudo-future of Call of Duty‘s latest entry, Black Ops 2). A beta for the game will go live some time this fall, and folks who bought last year’s Medal of Honor: Warfighter are automatically part of said beta. We’ll have more info as EA offers it up, but color us not surprised if Battlefield 4 makes a reprise appearance at Microsoft’s still undated Xbox 360 successor unveiling.

Update: EA also released a 17-minute gameplay demo of the game’s prologue section, played on a PC. It features a squad of four soldiers on the run from Russian spec-ops militants in the capital of Azerbaijan, Baku. You’ll find it just beyond the break.

Update 2: Per a listing on EA’s digital store, Battlefield 4 is headed to Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in addition to the PC. PlayStation 4 is curiously missing, as is mention of Microsoft’s next-gen game console.

Filed under: Gaming, Software, HD

Comments