Monthly Archives: October 2015
Pillars of Eternity Sales Surpass Half a Million
Pillars of Eternity has reached a new sales milestone, having now sold over 500,000 copies across the globe.
"Pillars of Eternity has been a life-changing experience for me, and for everyone involved in its creation. Knowing that over half a million people have gotten to share in that is both flattering and humbling," Obsidian Entertainment CEO Feargus Urquhart said in the studio's official announcement.
"I want to deeply thank all of our fans and supporters. We can’t wait to share what we’ve got next for the world of Eora," he added.
Why the Paranormal Activity Series is Ending
When I recently spoke to Blumhouse Productions founder Jason Blum about his new horror-themed game show, Hellevator, I also asked him a bit about the end of the Paranormal Activity series, which wraps up with the newly-released Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension
Blum has served as producer on the entire series, having worked with the original film’s writer/director Oren Peli to re-edit the movie and eventually get the $15,000 production major studio distribution via Paramount, where it turned into a huge hit. Five follow-ups followed, including The Ghost Dimension, all of which follow Blumhouse’s successful strategy of micro-budgets, making even the lower grossing installments notably profitable. So why was it time to end the story? Blum gave me his thoughts.
‘Plenty of Chance’ Halo 5 Gets Ported to PC
While Halo 5: Guardians is currently exclusive to Xbox One, there's a good chance developer 343 Industries will bring it to Windows 10.
“There is plenty of chance that Halo 5 could appear on the PC," franchise director Frank O'Connor said during a GamesRadar livestream (via MCV). "Nothing to announce at this point, but it’s absolutely within the bounds of reason."
O'Connor continued, noting the porting process wouldn't be all that difficult. "We developed the game on an Intel platform. It wouldn’t be the hardest thing in the world to move it to PC and take advantage of PC stuff. But nothing to announce today."
Sony Introduces Wishlists on the PSN Store
You can now create a wishlist on the PlayStation Store.
Available on the PlayStation website and mobile app, the feature - which currently cannot be accessed via your PlayStation 3 or PlayStation 4 console - permits you to select games from across the online store and save them to a wishlist that you can choose to share with friends.
Goatbread Is an I Am Bread and Goat Simulator Crossover
Coming soon to Steam, gamers will be able to play a Goat Simulator and I Am Bread mashup entitled Goatbread.
The downloadable content for owners of either game adds a Goat Simulator-inspired level to I Am Bread or a playable slice of bread to Goat Simulator.
Here’s the official blurb:
"Coming soon to Steam, players will be able to access the super new cross-love content, GoatBread, for both I Am Bread and Goat Simulator. I Am Bread will have a new Goat Simulator-inspired level ‘RAMpage mode’, and Goat Simulator a new, playable piece of bread. Crumbs! This brand new content will be included in both games and is free to existing owners, adding 100% more Goat and Bread to their experience."
Overwatch European Beta Launch Date Revealed
Blizzard has revealed Overwatch will enter closed beta in Europe on October 27, the same day it does in North America.
The beta, which will run for an undetermined amount of time and feature 18 Heroes and seven maps, will slowly add more players as time goes on. A launch in Asia will follow once North America and Europe are stable.
"I think the Overwatch beta is what I would call a little more of an old school traditional beta," Game Director Jeff Kaplan told IGN. "The goal is not to get as many people in as possible. It's not a promotional event.
During this, Blizzard aims to test its Heroes and environments, and update the game accordingly as all beta testing developers do, but Kaplan noted that "anyone who's followed our betas knows we're willing to add big systems…. We will do drastic changes for a game if we feel like the game is not going the direction we want it to go."
Guild Wars 2 Hits 7 Million Players as Expansion Launches
ArenaNet has announced Guild Wars 2 has passed the 7 million account milestone, up from 5 million in August.
The news comes on the day the MMO releases its first expansion, Heart of Thorns. The news comes two months after the announcement the core game would be embracing a free-to-play model, with the expansion set to stay buy-to-play.
Harmonix: Dev Team Did Post Rock Band 4 Reviews on Amazon
Harmonix has acknowledged that positive Rock Band 4 reviews posted on Amazon were written by members of the development team.
The reviews, which were uncovered by Reddit members and reported by Destructoid, vary in length and detail, but all appear to have given the game 5 out of 5 stars.
In one such review, project manager Matthew Nordhaus simply wrote "You can still rock in America. Aw yeeah. Aw right."
Afterwards, he added: "I added this review half in jest (as you might be able to tell from the tone of the original). In hindsight, it's probably important that I note that I worked on the game and work for Harmonix. That being said, I'm confident that if I didn't I would still give the game five stars. It's a beautiful, peaceful, cooperative game, rare enough already in today's landscape, that I can play with my wife and kids."
Sony Confirms it’s Stopped First-Party Vita Development
Sony has confirmed its first-party studios are no longer working on PS Vita titles.
Sony Computer Entertainment SVP Masayasu Ito told 4Gamers (via DualShockers) that from here on out, all attention has been switched to PS4.
"Currently, first-party studios have no titles in development for PS Vita," he said. "Since third-parties are working very hard on PS Vita, SCE’s own strategy is to focus on PS4, which is a new platform.
“At the beginning the PS Vita did not resonate with age targets under 20, but now the situation is changing and the popularity with younger demographics is increasing. Minecraft: PS Vita Edition has provided a boost.
NASA’s Kepler Finds Dead Star ‘Devouring’ a Mini Planet
Researchers using NASA’s Kepler space telescope, the K2 mission, have discovered “strong evidence” that a white dwarf star is tearing apart a rocky object in its orbit.
“We are for the first time witnessing a miniature “planet” ripped apart by intense gravity, being vaporized by starlight and raining rocky material onto its star,” said Andrew Vanderburg, graduate student from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and lead author of the paper published in Nature.
A dense white dwarf star is created when a star, similar to our sun, balloons in size into a red giant as it ages then gradually sloughs off half of its mass to shrink to the size of Earth. The latest finding confirms a theory that these white dwarfs can cannibalize any surviving planets in their solar system.