All PlayStation 4 Games Downloadable, Will be on PSN Day 1, “They’re 50GB”

The PlayStation Vita is besting the PlayStation 3 in digital downloads, mostly due to the fact that all Vita titles are made available on the PlayStation Network on release day. Sony will now be continuing that strategy with the PlayStation 4, where every title will hit the PSN day one.

This news comes from a Shuhei Yoshida interview with The Guardian, where he was asked how important it was to help support small studios:

I believe it’s very important for the platform to have a wide variety of developers making things that are unique and creative. We’re shifting our platform more and more to the digital side – PS4 will be similar to PS Vita in that every game will be available as a digital download, and some will also be available as a disc. The Witness will be a digital release and because of the flexibility of the digital distribution scheme, we can have more small games that might be free or available for a couple of dollars, or different services like free-to-play or subscription models.

Shuhei then continued by answering a question if he thinks that the drawn out task of finding a game, downloading it, then downloading updates is a thing of the past:

Absolutely. Yes. I find myself spending more time playing Vita games and I think part of the reason for that is it’s immediate. I can stop at any time without quitting and it’s instantaneous to start again. I don’t have to quit out or reboot. It’s wonderful. That’s one part of immediacy – the other is waiting for downloads. That’s ridiculous, that’s crazy! We want to get out of this madness with PlayStation 4. The games are big, they’re 50GB; download isn’t instantaneous. So we’re making purchase available from any device, so when you’re at work, you can spend a couple of moments looking at PlayStation Store and choosing a game, and straight away it starts to download at home. It may take a couple of hours but that’s okay because you’re still at work.

Also, similarly to progressive download on some movie services, you don’t have to wait for all the data to download before you start playing. Once you have the minimum amount of data downloaded you can begin the game, and while you play, the remaining data downloads. It takes some engineering input from developers so we’re talking to the community. We’re evangelising it.

So, with the PS4, we can expect day one digital on every retail game, automatic downloads when you purchase a game from any device, and that the download sizes can reach 50GB.

Do you think you’ll be going digital or retail with PS4 games? Let us know in the comments below.

 

[source]

Uncharted 3 Gets Free Egomaniacal Holiday DLC

Naughty Dog is wishing everyone a Happy Holiday with a couple free customizable Christmas character items for Uncharted 3‘s online multiplayer, along with a wonderfully complex looking (and very secular by contrast) Block Mesh Lab map.

So, what specific character DLC can you look forward to? Aside from present Drake head from above, there’s also a character shirt sporting Naughty Dog’s Co-President Christophe Balestra’s festive fuzzy face. You can also catch Balestra’s handsome mug gracing a customized candy cane crowned AK-47.

You can use all of these (predominantly Christmas centric) holiday items from now until January 8th of next year in Uncharted 3s multiplayer mode.

Do you plan on curling up with (and possibly murdering) your entire family with present-head-Drake imbued with the power of the almighty Balestra branded AK-47 on Christmas day? Let us know in the comments!

 

source: psls

Nintendo apologizes for Wii U update issues

Satoru Iwata is sorry that the day-one patch took so long to download and install.

New Wii U owners had to go through some trouble first time they booted up their console. A lengthy day-one update had to be downloaded, which in some cases took hours. And if the player got impatient and turned off the Wii U console, it would completely “brick” the device, making it useless.

That’s a serious design flaw in the hardware, and Nintendo is aware of it. Nintendo president Satoru Iwata apologized for the issues. “Personally, I think that users should be able to use all the functions of a console video game machine as soon as they open the box,” Iwata said in an interview with IGN, adding “So I feel very sorry for the fact that purchasers of Wii U have to experience a network update which takes such a long time, and that there are the services which were not available at the hardware’s launch.”

Iwata also said that Nintendo isn’t looking to mirror Xbox Live or PlayStation Network with the Wii U’s online features. Instead, Nintendo wants to do something new with the Wii U. One of such things is Miiverse, as Iwata pointed out, which sets Nintendo apart from the competition.

The Wii U launched in North America on Nov 18 and sold over 400,000 units during its first week on the market. It launches in Europe tomorrow (Nov 30), and on December 7 in Japan. Hopefully Nintendo has corrected the issues so that European and Japanese Wii U owners won’t have to go through such a lengthy day-one update.

Source (via Wii U Forums)

You Can Download the Sequels to Zelda and Pushmo to a 3DS Today

 

Here in America, yesterday was Thanksgiving. It was a day to be thankful, a day for eating turkey and cranberry sauce and a day for ignoring the normal Nintendo download update.

Cutting to the chase, the sequel to Pushmo my favorite 3DS game is out today. The new one is called Crashmo. In the old game you pulled and moved blocks in order to climb to your destination.. In the new one, you do the same… but now the blocks can fall! This sounds like the most boring thing ever, but both last year’s game and this year’s—which I’m about 40 puzzles into and not close to halfway—are very good puzzle games. Watch the Japanese trailer up top, ok? Or go to Nintendo’s Crashmo site, which is full of videos and justified hype.

Not sold on Crashmo? Well, back in the day there was a game called Zelda. It had block-pushing puzzles, too. It also had a sword, a shield, a bow and arrow and octorocks. It was very good. Then they made a sequel and it was strange. And by strange I mean it was a side-scrolling role-playing game that seemed to have little to do with the first Zelda. Nintendo loves re-selling their old games, so, as of today, you can buy Zelda II: The Adventure of Link on your 3DS. Previously, you could only have it on your 3DS if you were a 3DS Ambassador (translation: you paid full price back when the 3DS was not worth its price tag and before Nintendo cut the price by a third; today, the 3DS is wayyyyy better).

Also in today’s Nintendo eShop update:

• Spirit Hunters Inc: Light for the 3DS and DSi shops. Official info page.
• Spirit Hunters Inc: Shadow for the 3DS and DSi shops.. Official info page.
• 3D MahJongg for the 3DS shop. Official info page.
• Ninja Master’s for the Wii shop, which can also be accessed with a Wii U in Wii mode. (Sorry, no info page)

BUT WHAT ABOUT THE WII U?

That’s what you’re thinking, right?

Well, tough. Wii U owners get no new games today. They’ll just have to be happy with this handful of games that were put on the Wii U’s eShop . Just a few indies and whatnot:

• Assassin’s Creed III
• Chasing Aurora
• Darksiders II
• Disney Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two
• EA Sports FIFA Soccer 2013
• ESPN Sports Connection
• Game Party Champions
• Just Dance 4
• Little Inferno
• Madden NFL 2013
• Mighty Switch Force! Hyper Drive Edition
• Nano Assault NEO
• NBA 2K13
• New Super Mario Bros. U
• Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor’s Edge
• Nintendo Land
• Rabbids Land
• Scribblenauts Unlimited
• Sing Party
• Sonic All Star Racing Transformed
• Tekken Tag Tournament 2 Wii U Edition
• Trine 2: Director’s Cut
• Warriors Orochi 3 Hyper
• Your Shape: Fitness Evolved 2013
• ZombiU

Source: Kotaku

World of Warcraft Optimizer taking forever?

 

Still at 1% ?

 

School and work have been taking up quite a bit of my time and I have not been to Azeroth in a few months, but in anticipation of Blizzard’s new expansion coming in 4 days (Mists of Pandaria), I decided to take a gander at how my favorite online game is doing.To my surprise I was greeted with a “Mist of Pandaria Optimizer” download page. I thought, hey no big deal, it says it could take anywhere from 15-60 min. well, that couldn’t be futher from the truth. It reached 1% after about 10 min then it disconnected saying it was my internet connection, but everything was fine with my connection. I left it on all night. When I woke up all excited, it had again disconnected. I almost cursed the screen (in fact, I think I did). I searched online frantically and read forums on Blizzard’s site.It seems I was not alone. Many people were experiencing the same thing.

I contemplated installing everything again and deleting WOW from my laptop but I just did not have the patience for that. I thought to myself that it just might be some sort of file that was erased by mistake. I remembered installing and using CCleaner recently and it said it was erasing certain files. was it possible it took away something this patch needed? Possibly, or possibly not.

I decided to re-install only my Cataclysm CD which took about 20min. When it finished, I was again prompted to install the optimizer. I nervously clicked the button. I thought to myself, If this did not work, I don’t know what I was going to do?

To my surprise and relief the bar went from 0% to 8%, then on to 40% in less than 5 min. After it was done, the game still needed updates, about 15.5 GB of updates. It took too long, my connection was doing like 30-40 KB/s, after yelling at the walls and my sister’s cat for almost an hour I realized I was on WiFi. Maybe, just maybe if I used a direct connection it would help a little? Just in case anyone wants to know, I have cable internet (Road Runner) with Time Warner) I proceeded to unplug my PS3 and plugged the cable into my laptop, rebooted my PC and BAM! That baby jumped up to 145MB/s. I finished the whole download in about 2 hrs and kissed the cat, who now hides in a corner looking at me with strange curiosity.  And to think I went through all this for a bunch of fury Pandas.