Hasta La Gadget!

Earlier today, we told you about a ridiculous amount of leaked Dragonborn details, but now we’re getting some news that is perhaps even bigger. Bethesda has confirmed Dragonborn for PC and PS3, saying that it’ll be available on those platforms early next year. We don’t have a specific release date to work with, but it stands to reason that Dragonborn will be available on PC and PS3 sometime in January, around a month after it launches on Xbox 360.

What’s surprising, of course, is the fact that the DLC has been confirmed for PS3. Bethesda’s struggles with Skyrim DLC on PS3 have been well-documented, with PS3 users receiving none of the DLC Xbox 360 and PC players have. That looks like it’s all going to change with Dragonborn, which is arguably the most exciting expansion released for Skyrim so far.

Sadly, Bethesda’s announcement didn’t give any updates on the progress of Dawnguard and Hearthfire on PS3, which makes it seem like the studio will give those two a pass and jump straight to Dragonborn. As far as content goes, Dragonborn is apparently the expansion to have, but we know plenty of PS3 owners who would love to have Dawnguard and Hearthfire, just like their Xbox 360 and PC counterparts.

At least Dragonborn has been confirmed for PS3, which is much better than nothing. Perhaps this means Bethesda has worked out the issues it’s having with PS3 and that Dawnguard and Hearthfire are coming to the console after all? It’s hard to say, but we’ll let you know if Bethesda says anything else regarding PS3 Skyrim DLC. Stay tuned.

Update: Bethesda has explained why it’s skipping straight to Dragonborn on PS3 in a statement to Eurogamer. “We think Dragonborn is our best add-on for Skyrim yet, and we didn’t want fans to wait long, so that’s our current focus. Each platform takes a lot of time and attention.” When asked about the fate of Dawnguard and Hearthfire, Bethesda replied, “As noted in our blog post, we’re not done with content for Skyrim. When we’re ready to share more details, we’ll update everyone.”

So, it looks like Hearthfire and Dawnguard may still come to PS3 eventually, but don’t expect to hear anything new about them until we’re into 2013. It isn’t the most desirable of situations, but at least Bethesda has confirmed Dragonborn for PS3, which is much better than nothing at all.

[via Bethesda]

Skyrim Dragonborn DLC confirmed for PS3 and PC [UPDATE] is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

For many, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion served as an introduction to DLC. Bethesda had its misses (horse armor anyone?) but it also some hits, one of which being the beyond excellent Shivering Isles expansion. Shivering Isles wowed Oblivion players when it released back in 2007, and ever since Skyrim was released, players have been asking for an expansion that’s on the same scale. So, is Skyrim‘s freshly-announced Dragonborn DLC the expansion everyone has been waiting for? There’s still a lot we don’t know, but what we do know suggests that it is.

Take, for instance, the fact that Dragonborn takes place on the island of Solstheim. The island, which lies off the northern coast of Tamriel, was already the setting of an Elder Scrolls expansion in the past: Morrowind‘s Bloodmoon. Right off the bat, we have our first evidence that Dragonborn will be a beefy expansion rather than a simple piece of new DLC – if Solstheim was big enough to take center stage is a previous expansion, it’s more than big enough to be the setting of a true-to-form Skyrim expansion.

Next we come to dragon mounts. It’s important to keep in mind that Bethesda hasn’t confirmed dragon mounts for Dragonborn, but the trailer for the DLC sure seems to suggest that players will get the chance to ride and control a dragon. If players can do so, that’s a huge feature – one that seems well-suited for an expansion but not a one-off piece of DLC like Hearthfire. That players can do something so epic is another thing that leads us to believe Dragonborn is the expansion we’ve all been waiting for.

In the trailer, we also get to see new enemy types, new weapons, and new armor. Naturally, that’s a no-brainer given the fact that Dragonborn takes place in an all-new setting, but the fact that we’re getting new enemies, weapons, and armor suggests that there’s plenty of content for players to devour. We also have the price to consider – 1600 MSP or $20. That certainly isn’t chump change, and even though Bethesda charged the same amount for Dawnguard, we’re thinking that the studio wouldn’t have an easy time getting away with charging much more. Therefore, $20 is about as much as Bethesda can charge for DLC, and it’s given Dragonborn such a price tag.

Finally, we’ve got the introduction of a new villain. If this were some paltry DLC offering, we wouldn’t be going toe-to-toe with the very first Dragonborn. We’ll have to wait until more details are released before making the final call, of course, but at the moment, Dragonborn is looking like the big Skyrim expansion we’ve all been hoping for.

Is Dragonborn the Shivering Isles DLC Skyrim fans crave? is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Thanks to the ever-vigilant players of Skyrim, it was speculated not too long ago that the next DLC for the game could be called Dragonborn. Exactly what the DLC will be about remains to be seen, but it looks like we could be getting a preview of it later today. Bethesda has teased on its Twitter account an image (pictured above) of someone wearing a Dragon Priest Mask, along with the announcement that a full trailer of the upcoming DLC will be revealed later today (5^th of November). We’re sure that many gamers are looking forward to getting their hands on the latest DLC for Skyrim, although these gamers are probably on the PC or Xbox 360 as it seems that Bethesda has yet to come up with a fix that would let their DLCs play nice on the PlayStation 3, a sore point amongst many PlayStation 3 owners. In any case we’ll keep our eyes peeled, so check back with us later today for more updates!

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Sony and Bethesda scramble to get PS3 Dawnguard DLC working, Hearthfire trademark filed, possible name for next Skyrim DLC?,

Welcome to Tuesday evening everyone. Today was a pretty big day as far as news goes, with Apple sending out invites to an upcoming event, which is where we’re assuming the company will announce the iPad Mini. Not one to be outdone, Microsoft finally gave us some substantial details on Surface today (including information on pre-orders), and Samsung was right there to put its line up of new Windows 8 PCs and tablets up for pre-order as well.

We heard that there could be as many as 24 different iPad Mini models when Apple finally gets around to revealing the device, and we got to see the insides of the new iPod Nano thanks a teardown from iFixit. Excited for the Padfone 2? If you are, you’ll be pleased to know that its tablet dock can stand up to some abuse. We found out that Intel’s Q3 profits were negatively influenced by slowing demand for PCs, and heard that the average screen size is on the rise for all types of devices except for “mobile PCs.”

A mysterious Texas Instruments-made chip was found lurking inside Apple’s Lightning cable today, and Verizon is catching some heat for monitoring user activity. PlayMG revealed a dedicated Android gaming device called the MG, and AVADirect put a number of Windows 8 PCs up for pre-order today. We heard that T-Mobile might be getting the iPhone 5 early next year, and were told that LTE customers in the US pay 10 times more than LTE customers in Sweden. If you’re a hardcore gamer, you might be pleased to find out that the rechargeable battery in the Wii U Pro controller could potentially last up to 80 hours on a single charge, and you also might want to check out this snazzy Black Ops II launch trailer.

Bethesda might be working on a new piece of Skyrim DLC called Dragonborn, and controversial company Foxconn admitted to hiring underage workers today. The Xbox 360 was given a new dashboard update, Beats Audio unveiled a new portable speaker that has been aptly named “The Pill,” and Boxee announced a new service called Boxee TV. Finally tonight, we have a review of the LG Optimus G and the Motorola DROID RAZR HD, both by Chris Burns, and Vincent Nguyen talks with Microsoft to get the inside scoop on what makes the Surface such a game-changer. That does it for tonight’s Evening Wrap-Up, enjoy the rest of your night!

SlashGear Evening Wrap-Up: October 16, 2012 is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few weeks, you likely know that Arkane’s new game Dishonored launched yesterday. It launched to critical acclaim too, despite the fact that it’s missing one key element that seems to be present in most modern games: multiplayer. Publishers, much to the chagrin of single player fans, are notorious for requiring multiplayer in the games they release these days, but in a new interview with Kotaku, Dishonored director Harvey Smith says that Bethesda never pressured Arkane to include a multiplayer mode.

That probably won’t come as a shock to most, considering that Bethesda is responsible for such single player epics as Skyrim, Fallout 3, and Oblivion, but often times publishers will look at a new IP like Dishonored and will decide that they’re not willing to take the risk unless the game can meet a list of desired features. Bethesda, apparently, is not one of those publishers. “I’ve been at a lot of publishers,” Smith said in the interview. “I’ve worked in games for 18 years. I’ve worked independently at times; I’ve worked in big teams, small teams. And I can honestly tell you, no smoke, that this is the smartest group of executives I’ve ever worked with.”

Smith continued by saying that at some points during Bethesda’s talks with Arkane, it was obvious that Dishonored was doing some things that fell outside of Bethesda’s comfort zone. Despite that, Bethesda allowed Arkane to keep its creative vision for Dishonored intact. “And at every step along the way those guys have supported us… This is as close as you’ll get to me saying that I have not had that experience with other publishers I’ve worked with, who forced us to bolt on multiplayer, or who said inane things like ‘First-person perspective doesn’t sell!’ or ‘RPGs don’t sell!’ I can tell you from the inside, 18 years, that this is a crazy, crazy business.

“Long story short: No one ever pressured us to do that. We told them that this was an aggressively single-player game, and they said alright, we moved forward, and that was it.”

It’s great to hear that Arkane wasn’t pressured into doing anything it didn’t want to with Dishonored, and that approach to development seems to be paying off, at least as far as review scores are concerned. The PC version of Dishonored currently holds a 92 out of 100 on Metacritic, while the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions boast aggregate scores in the high 80s. Dishonored is definitely one of the coolest games to launch this year, and we’re happy to see that at least some publishers still know that a single player game can do well in this market that’s dominated by titles with a focus on multiplayer.

Dishonored dev wasn’t pressured by Bethesda to add multiplayer is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.