In a move that has at once shocked and thrilled gamers across the globe, Microsoft announced earlier today that it is to scrap controversial plans to inhibit the trading and sharing of games for its upcoming home system, Xbox One. The company also assures consumers that they will no longer be required to connect their console to the internet every 24 hours to validate their software.
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This week at E3, Sony unveiled the design and retail price of the new PlayStation 4, but is still keeping us in the dark over expected release dates. However, an industry insider claims to have the lowdown on when we can expect the highly anticipated console to hit the shelves.
Most people only ever see fireworks from the ground, staring up and watching them explode into the night sky. But what would they look like if you saw them from above? Now there’s a video on YouTube that lets you find out!
For many fitness enthusiasts, exercising in front of a TV while perched a Nintendo Wii balance board might seem like a bit of a joke, and we’re sure that yoga is the last thing on many gamers’ minds when they power up their machine. So when we first caught sight of the following video from Nintendo we weren’t quite sure what to make of it. As it turns out, though, as well as introducing not one but two new Super Smash Bros games for Wii U and 3DS, with new characters to boot, the video itself is actually quite awesome.
As I’m sure the vast majority of our gamer crowd is aware, it’s almost time to wrap up this year’s annual industry-oriented trade fair, E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo). RocketNews24 has already covered the big announcements for Sony and Microsoft’s upcoming consoles, the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, but it’s time now to take a trip through the exhibition booths, where game producers showcase their upcoming titles. Most provide game demos and release brand new trailers to introduce curious attendees to the game’s plot and basic game play. Capcom, however, took a different approach for their booth promoting the all new Dead Rising 3. It’s different in that the booth could barely be approached at all!
Warning: this article contains graphic images that some may find disturbing.
Ever the video game fans and hungry for news of upcoming titles and hardware, we sent our reporter extraordinaire Kuzo over to L.A. to check out the games event of the year. It wasn’t long, though, before he became distracted by the swathes of official swag on sale.
Thankfully, before he found himself completely over encumbered Kuzo was able to get a few snaps from the trade show floor. Check this little lot out!
Calling all MacHeads! Can’t wait to get your hands on that ever-so-sexy Mac Pro introduced at the WWDC a few days ago? Not to worry, Amazon Japan has you covered, almost. Check out the New TUBELOR (black) from ideaco which can be yours for a mere 3,465 yen (about US$36). Though it doesn’t come with dual GPUs, PCI Express-based flash storage or high-performance Thunderbolt 2, with a little work on your part, this piece of just-as-sexy office hardware could have your co-workers drooling with envy, and, bump you to the top of your office’s cool colleague rankings.
Jack Tretton, president and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment America, thrilled gamers today when he declared that the company will not impose any restrictions whatsoever on used games. Suffice it to say, the crowd at E3 went wild.
Seconds after the announcement had been made, a video appeared on Sony’s YouTube channel that simultaneously shows how easy it is to trade games with friends while poking fun at competitor Microsoft. Check it out after the break.
It’s the moment millions of fans have been waiting for ever since Sony first announced that its new console would be in our hands by the end of 2013: the PlayStation 4 has finally been revealed for the world to see!
And it looks…
Japan’s answer to YouTube, NicoNico Video, will be showing live coverage of the Electronics Entertainment Expo (E3) in both Japanese and English!
What do you do when it’s late into the evening the day before a big project is due? If you’re a good little worker, you rest easy because everything is already taken care of, but for those of us who have perfected the art of procrastination, it’s time to pull an all-nighter. And what is your beverage of choice when you want to stay awake? For a lot of people, the answer is a strong cup of coffee.
However, what many view as a miracle mug of liquid energy can actually have the opposite effect! In Natsuko Kasai’s book Sweet things are Bad for the Brain, the certified nutritionist and meal counselor explains how drinking coffee has an unexpected side-effect that can wear you out more than wake you up.
Square-Enix is offering this adorable, limited edition slime hourglass for Dragon Quest series fans with the munchies. The company says the hourglass is timed at about three minutes, which is around the same amount of time it takes to perfectly cook a cup of instant ramen noodles.
Humor, generally, is very subjective. Even when everyone’s speaking the same language, local cultural differences can have a massive impact on how jokes are received. Attempting to bridge these divides can be both difficult and frustrating. Not to mention dangerous if you happen to offend the wrong crowd.
All of which makes it even more impressive when someone does manage to leap over the gap with aplomb.
With just a few days to go until E3–one of the year’s biggest video game trade shows–opens its doors, we’re currently knee-deep in rumour, speculation and digital fancy. Although Nintendo has already broken millions of gamers’ hearts by stating that its presence at the event will be minimal, both Microsoft and Sony are set to show off their newest hardware, as well as give the gaming press a look at the titles we can expect to play in the near future.
According to a recent poll being hotly shared by Japanese gamers today, though, some press conferences are being looked forward to far more than others.
The annual Air Guitar World Championships held in Oulu, Northern Finland celebrates the beloved guitar without actually using them. Instead, participants channel all the energy, attitude, and athleticism of playing rock guitar into their invisible air guitar while performing on stage.
With the 18th championships being held in August this year, RocketNews24 has assembled our finest imaginary guitarists, Stardust Sato and Fantastic Hatori, to represent us. However, the two must first face the qualifying round. Find out if they made the cut after the break.
We can see why this futuristic pod… chair… thing is called “The Emperor,” because there’s no way you wouldn’t feel like some powerful sci-fi movie villain hunting the rebels from your battle cruiser’s control station when sitting in it. But if you can actually keep your power fantasies from distracting you, this chair guarantees increased productivity and maximal office comfort.
“GameCenter CX”–also known as “Retro Game Master” in the West– has captured the hearts and minds of literally millions of video game fans across the globe since first airing in 2003. The premise of the show is simple: middle-aged, self-confessed game otaku and part-time comedian Shinya Arino pits himself against a series of treasured but often fiendishly difficult old-school video games, playing through them with the help of his cheeky “assistant directors”, a pile of snacks and stack of cooling towelettes to stick to his forehead.
The show has already spawned nine DVD boxsets in its native Japan, with English translations of many of the shows made available to Western audiences both in DVD format and online. But now, the show’s parent company has announced that a special 10th anniversary project is underway that will purportedly take an entire year to complete.
A telltale sign in a promotional video for Sony’s PlayStation 4 controller has led video game fans to believe that the camera peripheral for the company’s upcoming console will be sold separately from the PlayStation 4 itself, contrary to initial expectations.
While this may seem like little more than a minor inconvenience at first, if found to be true the rumour may point to a key difference between Sony and Microsoft’s console strategies, as well as potentially having ramifications for how developers approach either platform.
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