Hasta La Gadget!

Epic Games isn’t just offering up its ubiquitous current-gen game creation tool Unreal Engine 3 to Oculus Rift developers, but also its next-gen tool, Unreal Engine 4. Epic Games VP Mark Rein told Engadget as much during an interview at this year’s Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, repeatedly stating he’s “super bullish” on the Rift, all the while rocking an Oculus pin on his exhibitor lanyard. “Oh, for sure,” he said when we asked about UE4 support for the Rift. “We’re working on that now.” The Rift dev kit was demoed at CES 2013 running Unreal Engine 3’s “Epic Citadel” demo, and Epic’s offered support to the Oculus folks since early on, making the UE4 news not a huge surprise, but welcome nonetheless.

The next-gen game engine was being shown off at GDC 2013 with a flashy new demo (seen below the break), as well as a version of its “Elemental” demo running on a PlayStation 4 dev kit (shrouded behind a curtain, of course). Rein was visibly excited about that as well, unable to contain random vocal outbursts during the presentation. “It’s a war out there, and we sell bullets and bandaids,” he jokingly told us in an interview the following day. The quote comes from coworker and Epic VP of business development Jay Wilbur, and it’s fitting — Epic only makes a handful of games, and the company’s real money comes from game engine licensees. In so many words, the more platforms that Unreal Engine variants can go, the better for Epic (as well as for engine licensees, of course). “It’s a good place to be — we try to support everything we can. We have to place some timed bets on things that we feel are gonna be the most important to licensees, and also to us where we’re taking games. But because the engine is portable — it’s written in C++ — a licensee can take and do whatever they want,” he said.

Filed under: Gaming, Peripherals, Software, HD

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Gamers were down-right spoiled at this year’s GDC with a full 17 minutes of beautiful Battlefield 4 in-game footage. Minds blown, AMD took responsibility for the part it played in the mess, admitting the demo was running on its Radeon HD 7990 graphics card. It’s the first time the company’s confirmed the existence of the long-fabled card, and went as far as calling the case-busting monster “the world’s fastest.” All we know is the card combines two of the HD 7970’s Tahiti GPUs — AMD’s not sharing the full specs — but the eagle-eyed folks at AnandTech have plucked a few extra details from the limited pictures available. They note the open-air cooling, which would require a drafty case but mean the fans should run fairly quiet, and that power consumption is likely to be no more than 375 watts. Not much to go on, we know, but we’ll be waiting eagerly for AMD’s full reveal. Now, your BF4 video awaits. (Warning: the game dialogue contains a few naughty words).

[Image Credit: AnandTech]

Filed under: Desktops, Gaming, Peripherals, AMD

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Via: AnandTech

Source: AMD Gaming (Facebook)

It’s been a long time coming, and now the Android-powered, Kickstarter-funded OUYA video game console is finally heading to backers. Sure, the final retail units for non-backers won’t be available until June, but around 50,000 lucky folks who pledged over $99 to OUYA’s massively successful campaign will be receiving their units in the coming days. We’ve already heard what developers have to say about it, but this week we got our first hands-on with the miniature, Tegra 3-powered game console we’ve been hearing so much about since last summer.

Is it the “best Tegra 3 device on the market,” as OUYA’s claimed? Let’s find out!

Filed under: Gaming, Software, HD

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What’s YouTube doing at the annual Game Developers Conference in San Francisco? Talking about integration with video games, obviously. More specifically, the company is hoping to expand an idea we first noticed in Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, whereby users could easily stream in-game content to YouTube. Clearly, the company worked in concert with Activision to make that possible, but forthcoming APIs will enable game developers far and wide to add the same functionality to other titles. Unfortunately, details remain murky regarding availability, but we are told that these new tools won’t be limited to just consoles — it sounds as if PC and mobile games will too be able to take advantage.

Filed under: Internet, Google

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Source: The Slanted, CNET

The PlayStation 4’s new DualShock 4 controller can be charged even while the PlayStation 4 is turned off. The PlayStation 4’s new Eye motion camera has a tilt sensor so it can tell players when its facing the wrong direction or if it’s fallen off your TV stand. The PlayStation 4’s Blu-ray disc drive is three times as fast as the PlayStation 3’s. In case it weren’t clear, Sony’s PlayStation 4 panel at this week’s Game Developers Conference wasn’t chock full of major revelations, but it did provide plenty of interesting little details about the PlayStation 4 and its various hardware companions.

For instance, the console’s “True Name” social functionality isn’t automatic — you have to opt-in to who will see your real name versus your PlayStation Network ID. That is, unless you find a friend through Facebook or another social network where your real name is already your main ID; in that instance, the console defaults to displaying your actual name. That’s not the only change coming to your friends list, either, as the standing 100 friends cap is being raised to an unknown amount.

Additionally, the Gaikai-powered Remote Play functionality between the Vita and PS4 is said to be “much better,” according to Sony senior staff engineer Chris Norden. Not only can it display your PS4 games in the Vita’s native resolution (960×544), but it can be activated at any given time rather than having to be preset. And unlike Remote Play on PS3, with PS4 the game being pushed to the Vita is mirrored on your television screen. None of this stuff is what we’d call red hot, but we’re hungry for PS4 details and this is what Sony’s delivering. Here’s hoping the company’s more forthcoming at E3.

Filed under: Gaming, HD, Sony

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