Microsoft is enabling its Xbox FPS Boost mode on 74 more games today, bringing the total up to 97 games. Titles getting an FPS Boost include Assassin’s Creed Unity, Deus Ex Mankind Divided, Wasteland 3, and Far Cry 5 all moving to 60fps. You can find the full list at Microsoft’s site.
The FPS Boost feature for Xbox Series X and Series S consoles is designed to make existing games run better. Microsoft has improved frame rates with some backward-compatible games, but the FPS Boost feature improves older games without developers having to make changes.
The updates come just weeks after Microsoft also added FPS Boost mode to 13 EA games, with 12 of them adding support for up to 120fps. Microsoft also added FPS Boost to a number of Bethesda games back in March. Both of these previous additions bumped the total of number to 23 games in total with FPS Boost, but Microsoft’s updates today brings that all the way up to 97.
Playing games on your Raspberry Pi is far easier with a good game controller. Many different game controllers can be connected to your Raspberry Pi using USB. Furthermore, some well-known console controllers can also be linked up using Bluetooth.
In theory, all controllers should work with any Raspberry Pi projects. This covers everything from generic USB joypads to the latest Bluetooth devices. So, you can expect to be able to connect an Xbox One controller and a PS4 controller to your Raspberry Pi. Controllers designed for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 will also work, as will Nintendo gamepads.
Own a PlayStation 5? The new Sony console features a major revision of the much-loved game controller. But despite being fresh out of the box in 2020, the PS5 controller will easily connect to a Raspberry Pi over Bluetooth, just like its predecessor. Meanwhile, Xbox Series S and X controllers are backward compatible, and can be used on an Xbox One console. The new controller design should also work with the Raspberry Pi.
In this tutorial, we’ll look at what you need to do to connect the most widely used game controllers to a Raspberry Pi: those intended for the Xbox One, PS4, Xbox 360 and PS3 consoles.
Connecting the Xbox One Controller Via USB to Raspberry Pi
The Xbox One boasts one of the most popular game controllers available. Also compatible with PC games, this is a well-designed, multi-purpose controller that can be easily connected to a Raspberry Pi, either using USB or Bluetooth.
1. Update and upgrade the software on your Raspberry Pi.
sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade
2. Connect the controller and launch a game such as Minecraft Pi Edition, which comes preloaded when you install Raspberry Pi OS with all the recommended software. If you can move your character with the controller then everything is ready to go. If not, go to the next step.
3. Install the Xbox One driver and then reboot your Raspberry Pi.
sudo apt install xboxdrv
4. Open your game and test that you can move around.
Connecting the Xbox One / Playstation 4 and 5 Controller Via Bluetooth
Using a wireless Xbox One controller with the Raspberry Pi is a little more complicated. Two types of wireless Xbox One controller have been released. One uses wireless, while the second requires Bluetooth. How can you tell which is which?
If you have the 1697 wireless model, you’ll need to connect the official Microsoft Xbox Wireless Adapter to your Raspberry Pi. This is a standard USB dongle that should work out of the box. Simply hold the pairing buttons on the adapter and the Xbox One controller to sync, then start playing.
To Connect the Xbox One Bluetooth Controller
1. Update and upgrade the software on your Raspberry Pi.
sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade
2. Install the Xbox One driver.
sudo apt install xboxdrv
3. Disable ERTM (Enhanced Re-Transmission Mode). While enabled, this Bluetooth feature blocks syncing between the Xbox One controller and your Raspberry Pi.
echo ‘options bluetooth disable_ertm=Y’ | sudo tee -a /etc/modprobe.d/bluetooth.conf
4. Reboot your Raspberry Pi.
5. Open a terminal and start the bluetooth control tool.
sudo bluetoothctl
6. At the [Bluetooth]# prompt, enable the agent and set it as default.
agent on
default-agent
7. Power up the Xbox One controller and hold the sync button. At the [Bluetooth]# prompt, scan for devices.
scan on
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
The MAC address should appear, comprising six pairs of letters and numbers followed by “Xbox Wireless Controller.”
8. Use the MAC address to connect the Xbox controller.
connect [YOUR MAC ADDRESS]
9. To save time for future connections, use the trust command to automatically connect.
trust [YOUR MAC ADDRESS]
Connecting an Xbox 360 Controller to Raspberry Pi
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
If you don’t have more recent controllers (or the budget to buy them), it might be easier for you to grab a controller from an older generation of consoles, such as the Xbox 360, or PS3.
1. Update and upgrade the software on your Raspberry Pi.
sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade
2. Install the Xbox One driver.
sudo apt install xboxdrv
3. Connect your controller via USB and it should just work. Wireless controllers will require a dedicated wireless receiver (the type that is developed for PC use).
Connecting a Playstation 3 Controller to Raspberry Pi
Connecting a Playstation 3 controller via USB is straightforward, but Bluetooth access requires some compiling.
1. Update and upgrade the software on your Raspberry Pi.
sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade
2. Install the libusb-dev software. This ensures the PS3 can communicate with the Raspberry Pi over Bluetooth.
sudo apt install libusb-dev
3. Create a folder for the sixpair software, switch to that folder, and download the sixpair.c software.
mkdir ~/sixpair
cd ~/sixpair
wget http://www.pabr.org/sixlinux/sixpair.c
4. Compile the code with gcc.
gcc -o sixpair sixpair.c -lusb
5. Connect the controller to the Pi using its USB cable and run sixpair to configure the Bluetooth connection.
sudo ~/sixpair/sixpair
6. Take note of the MAC code, then disconnect the PS3 controller.
7. Open a terminal and start the bluetooth control tool.
sudo bluetoothctl
8. At the [Bluetooth]# prompt, enable the agent and set it as default.
agent on
default-agent
9. Power up the Playstation 3 controller and hold the sync button. In the [Bluetooth]# prompt scan for devices.
scan on
10. The MAC address should appear, comprising six pairs of letters and numbers. Look for your Playstation 3 controller’s MAC address. Use the MAC address to connect the controller.
connect [YOUR MAC ADDRESS]
11. To save time for future connections, use the trust command to automatically connect.
trust [YOUR MAC ADDRESS]
For other Bluetooth controllers, meanwhile, generic connections should work. This means that anything – smartphone game controllers, for example – can conceivably be connected using bluetoothctl , but some calibration may be required.
Whatever device you’re using, you may need to test it. To do this, simply use the testing tool in the Linux joystick utility.
sudo apt install joystick
To test your gamepad, ensure that it is connected and run the jstest command to check that each button is registered.
sudo jstest /dev/input/js0
This article originally appeared in an issue of Linux Format magazine.
At some point during my time with Disco Elysium: The Final Cut, after I read yet another minutes-long dialogue sequence to try and learn more information about the game’s murder mystery, I realized I felt like I was slowly working my way through a long novel — one that went just a little bit over my head.
In The Final Cut, an enhanced version of the 2019 cult hit role-playing game that made its console debut on PlayStation in March, you play as a cop with amnesia investigating a murder case about a hanged man. You’ll explore a fictional place called Revachol and talk to a huge cast of characters to piece together clues about the hanged man’s killer.
Almost every conversation or interaction has an extensive dialogue tree, allowing you to respond to or direct a conversation in ways that can influence other moments in the game down the line. One time, I convinced somebody to give me the jacket off their back, which I could then wear. With another person, I refused money so that my character wouldn’t feel indebted to him.
A conversation in Disco Elysium.
Occasionally, these interactions can drag on, feeling a bit like a book chapter that just won’t end. But the game’s writing is sharp and often quite funny, which usually made all of the reading worth it.
Disco Elysium takes place in what I imagine as a parallel universe to ours. Characters frequently reference countries, races, and historical figures that don’t exist in our world but who are core to the societal and ideological makeup. While Disco Elysium’s incredible depth of historical detail made Revachol feel like a real place, at times I struggled to keep facts and information straight.
You won’t just be talking to other people, though: any one of 24 different parts of your personality, like your sense of logic, composure, or authority, can butt into conversations to discuss and debate what’s going on, sometimes even with each other. It’s kind of like Pixar’s Inside Out, if it was a murder mystery.
But like the historical details packed into the game, these traits can also have their own inscrutability. During my playthrough, one attribute sometimes relayed short stories about other police officers. Another, as far as I could tell, was something like a sixth sense about Revachol itself. As each one of your personalities jumps in, you’ll have more text to read. Usually, they add useful context, but other times, I wish they wouldn’t have said anything at all so that I could get to the next part of the game sooner.
Your personalities in Disco Elysium.Image: Studio ZA/UM
You can also level up each of them as “skills” to give you advantages during the game. I put a lot of points into my empathy skill, for example, which meant that Empathy (the character) would often chime in with advice about how to respond empathetically in a situation.
Putting points into skills also helps with “checks,” where the game rolls a virtual dice to determine if you succeed at an important action. (Saying the right thing in a conversation can help with the potential success of a check, too.) You can retry most failed checks by leveling up a specific skill.
Some checks can only be attempted once, though, and I liked those the best — I always held my breath while I waited to see if I had succeeded or failed. They also felt like they had the most impact on the story itself, particularly near the end, where a dice roll can mean the difference between someone living or dying.
A check in Disco Elysium. Image: Studio ZA/UM
Overall, the game’s systems make for a fun twist on typical role-playing mechanics. Instead of leveling up external skills like magic power or speed, it really feels like you’re building your character’s personality.
Developer Studio ZA/UM added some new features to the original game, which was first released in October 2019, for The Final Cut. Every line is now fully voiced, and the acting is consistently excellent. There are some new quests that let you explore your character’s political ideologies. And The Final Cut marks the game’s first appearance on consoles, hitting PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5. (It’s coming to Xbox consoles and Nintendo Switch later this year.) The game was a bit buggy for me on PS5, especially at launch, but Studio ZA/UM has released several patches that have fixed the majority of issues I ran into.
Bugs weren’t the only thing that detracted from my experience, though. The game punts you to a short loading screen every time you transition to a new area, which got annoying over the course of the 24 hours I spent with it. Getting to the quests menu takes three button presses. And the text is very small, even on the largest setting.
But if you’re willing to immerse yourself into the world of Revachol and put up with some small annoyances along the way, Disco Elysium tells a satisfying story that I really enjoyed. Like a huge, epic novel, the game can at times be enigmatic, opaque, and a little too long. But as is often the case for those kinds of stories, it’s well worth slogging through the boring stuff to see the game all the way to its fantastic end. I’m glad I read this one all the way through.
Disco Elysium: The Final Cut is available now on PS4, PS5, PC, Mac, and Stadia. It’s set to release on Xbox One, Xbox Series X / S, and Nintendo Switch later this year.
With quality programmes, vast platform support and a great interface, iPlayer is the best video-on-demand catch-up TV service out there
For
Superb content
Intuitive and slick interface
Extensive platform support
Against
Still no permanent 4K offering
It’s free (although you need a TV licence). It’s the home of superb TV shows. There are no ads. And you can download programmes for offline watching. Put simply, BBC iPlayer is the UK’s best catch-up TV service.
Even without considering all the live broadcast TV and radio the corporation provides across many channels, iPlayer is almost worth the licence fee on its own.
Missed the last episode of Line of Duty, need another Pointless fix or want to see what all the Killing Eve or Fleabag fuss is about? BBC iPlayer is your answer. It was already a great desktop service when first introduced in 2007 and, well over a decade on, it’s even more excellent in its incarnation as an app for your TV, smartphone and tablet.
Features
(Image credit: BBC)
Unlike Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, iPlayer is free to use – so long as you pay the BBC’s annual licence fee (currently £159), which has been in place, in some form or another, for almost a century.
The on-demand service is the home of BBC shows that have recently aired, offering a (typically 30-day) window to catch them before they are free to whizz off to the BBC and ITV’s relatively new, £5.99-per-month BritBox streaming service, which is where you’ll find the biggest collection of British TV content ever, combining current and classic boxsets for on-demand viewing.
BBC iPlayer does host some of its most popular TV shows for longer durations, however – Killing Eve (which became the first British-made show to be named the best comedy series at the Emmy Awards last year), Line of Duty (multipleBAFTA Television Awards nominee), Luther (multiple Golden Globe nominee) and Doctor Foster (two-time National Television Awards winner) are, at the time of writing, available to binge in their entirety on iPlayer, for example.
In a bid to boost the nation’s spirits during lockdown, the BBC helpfully added a slew of new long-term boxsets to iPlayer. The ‘from the archive’ tab in ‘categories’ is where you’ll find full series’ of classic fare such as Absolutely Fabulous, Black Adder and The Vicar of Dibley as well as pretty much every Michael Palin documentary ever made.
It would be difficult to guess how many hours of content iPlayer offers at any one time, but there always seems to be at least one show on iPlayer that everyone is talking about – and that’s a credit to the broadcaster’s consistency for quality programming.
As with many streaming services these days, BBC iPlayer lets you download shows onto your smart device for offline watching for up to 30 days. This is great for long train journeys, if you’re travelling out of the country (iPlayer is only available in the UK) or can’t get any internet or data signal.
You can choose whether to restrict downloading to when you’re connected to a wi-fi network or allow downloading over your mobile network data in the app’s settings.
Best media streamers: the best TV streaming devices
(Image credit: BBC)
BBC iPlayer’s familiar grid layout is neat and stylish, with its home screen logically presenting you with ‘Featured’, ‘Recommended for You’, ‘Continue Watching’ and ‘Most Popular’ suggestions. The service dynamically highlights programmes, too, mixing documentaries and comedy panel shows so that there’s something for everyone.
You can also browse programmes by channels (BBC One, BBC Two or CBeebies, for example), categories (Arts, Food and Documentaries, say) or TV guide schedules. Or you can simply search for them. You can add shows to your ‘My Programmes’ list, too, so new episodes are easy to access.
Essentially, each update to iPlayer over the years has made it fresher and more intuitive to use. Scrolling through the service is a swift and smooth process, regardless of what platform you’re using.
This is probably a good time to mention that the iPlayer app is everywhere: on pretty much every smart TV and media streamer, available to download across iOS and Android devices, even on Xbox Series X/S. iPlayer’s not currently on the PS5, but it’s still one of the most prevalent apps across smart devices in the UK.
Just be aware that you need to create a BBC ID account to watch any iPlayer content, although it is free to sign up and stays logged in at all times, keeping your favourites list and watching history synced across all devices.
29 BBC iPlayer tips, tricks and features
Picture
(Image credit: BBC)
With increasingly high-quality screen resolutions on smartphones and tablets, both standard and high-definition shows on iPlayer look as good as you’d reasonably expect them to.
Naturally, we would urge you to play HD whenever you can. Most programmes are available in HD, so long as they’ve first been broadcast on a BBC HD channel.
Then there’s the BBC’s next-level 4K Ultra HD content, which offers a huge step up in picture quality – namely in resolution and detail. While the BBC still doesn’t yet have a regular, permanent 4K offering, it has run several 4K trials on iPlayer since 2016, including Planet Earth II and Blue Planet II on-demand viewing and, even more excitingly, live broadcasts of the 2018 FIFA World Cup football and Wimbledon tennis.
After temporarily removing 4K content during 2020 to help ease the strain on broadband networks, iPlayer has made UHD programming available again. The current ‘trial’ has nine shows available to stream, including His Dark Materials and Black Narcissus. We can’t help but feel it really is about time for 4K to become a permanent fixture of the service.
Despite broadcasting some HD programmes, such as The Proms, in 5.1 surround sound, all content on iPlayer is only available in stereo. This is a bit disappointing, especially when streaming modern films or the flagship 4K documentary Seven Worlds, One Planet, which we know has a lush Dolby Atmos soundtrack on its Blu Ray release. Although some paid-for streaming platforms do have tiers that support multi-channel sound, we understand that the BBC doesn’t have any plans to add that functionality to iPlayer in the short term.
The BBC does provide excellent accessibility features for the visually impaired and hard of hearing. Many programmes will have icons that tell you whether audio description (AD) or sign language (SL) options are available.
Here’s what’s next for 4K HDR streaming content on the BBC
Verdict
BBC iPlayer isn’t entirely free, of course. But when the license fee amounts to less than 45p per day, and you look at the incredible range and accessibility of programming available from the BBC, not to mention the cutting-edge picture technologies it strives to offer in the hopefully near future, we’d happily carry on paying so that we can see more of the broadcaster’s David Attenborough-narrated nature documentaries.
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We’re just a week out from the release of Resident Evil Village, and as part of the game’s promotional campaign, Capcom has uploaded an absolute treat to the YouTube channel for Biohazard (which is the name of the Resident Evil series in Japan): an official puppet show starring characters from the game. Yes, everyone’s favorite tall vampire lady, Lady Dimitrescu, is one of the puppets.
The three-minute video is simultaneously adorable and terrifying. The show is entirely in Japanese, so I don’t have any idea what the actual story is — I think all of the puppets are meeting up to paint together, using blood as the ink? But it’s worth watching for some seriously silly puppet antics, like puppet-Lady Dimitrescu gleefully gulping down a bucket of blood. And the video’s title suggests this is just the first episode, according to Kotaku, so it appears there’s more to come.
Resident Evil Village will launch on May 7th for PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X / S, PC, and Stadia. The game’s final demo will unlock in North America tomorrow, May 1st, at 8PM ET, and Capcom recently extended its availability so you can play it through May 9th at 8PM ET. Once you start the demo, though, you only have 60 minutes to play it.
I woke up feeling a little strange this morning, but I didn’t think much of it. It’s just another day living in the pandemic. But after I got some strange looks at the cafe, I started to get a little worried. On my way home, I took a sip of my coffee and somehow pierced through the paper cup with bottom fangs that I didn’t have yesterday. I ran to the bathroom mirror when I got inside, only to discover that I’d turned into an ork. Awesome!
As decreed by the Shadowrun lore (via Twitter user @Gen_Ironicus), April 30th, 2021 is the day of Goblinization. The Shadowrun wiki over at Fandomsays that, today, 10 percent of the world’s population will be transformed into orks and trolls for no apparent reason. Guess I just got lucky!
I thought maybe Goblinization would primarily target people who had played the Shadowrun tabletop RPG or the video games. I’ve only played the first-person shooter released in 2007 for the PC and Xbox 360, so I’m not the world’s biggest fan. But now that I’m an ork, perhaps I’ll give Shadowrun: Dragonfall a try now.
If you aren’t currently feeling or noticing the transformation taking effect, don’t worry. It could happen later in the day. The lore says that most humans will change before “the very eyes of horrified spectators, causing much panic and alarm.”
And as if the COVID-19 pandemic weren’t enough, apparently Goblinization is the start of major strife between humans and the “metahumanity” created during today’s events. Perhaps worse, it’s said to eventually lead to the Coffee Famine of 2022. I don’t know if I’ll survive that.
Mustafa Mahmoud 12 hours ago Console, Featured Tech News, Software & Gaming
For most of its history, the Monster Hunter franchise had seen support from a select and dedicated number of fans, with the series existing within its own moderately-sized niche. With Monster Hunter World exploding into popularity and becoming the best selling Capcom game of all time, all eyes were on the game’s next entry. Monster Hunter Rise has now sold over 6 million copies in just one month.
Just one month after its 26th of March release date, Monster Hunter Rise has sold 6 million copies. This is a massive achievement on many fronts. This makes Rise the 8th best selling Capcom game of all time in its 40 year history.
This is doubly impressive when considering the fact that Rise is currently only available for the Nintendo Switch, which now makes Rise the second best selling single-platform title, just 300,000 copies behind Street Fighter II on the SNES.
With its current trajectory it wouldn’t be surprising to see Monster Hunter Rise take the number 2 slot on the publisher’s best selling games of all time. Currently, Monster Hunter World sits at the top with 16.8 million copies sold. Second place meanwhile goes to Resident Evil 7 Biohazard at 8.5 million.
With Rise only having been out for a month, and with it set to come to PC some time next year, it is clear that despite being over 15 years old, the Monster Hunter franchise is just getting started.
KitGuru says: Have you picked up Monster Hunter Rise? Are you surprised by its sales success? Do you think it will outsell World? Let us know down below.
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Starfield reportedly targeting 2021 release; will be Xbox exclusive
Starfield is the next big game from Bethesda Game Studios. Teased all the way back …
Mustafa Mahmoud 13 hours ago Console, Featured Tech News, Software & Gaming
Starfield is the next big game from Bethesda Game Studios. Teased all the way back in 2018, nothing else has been shown from the game, leading many fans to assume it to be a long ways away. According to one leaker however, Microsoft is hoping to get the game out of the gate by the end of this year.
According to Jez Corden (of WindowsCentral and the Xbox Two podcast), as well as Rand Al Thor 19, Microsoft is “trying their hardest to get the game out for this holiday. They really want Starfield out this holiday,” with the game currently said to be “basically sort of finished – it’s in bug squashing mode right now, very much like Halo Infinite, and it would be a big boon for Game Pass and Xbox if both Halo and Starfield could launch this fall.”
This isn’t the only statement made by the duo, with them claiming that “I’ve been told, by very reliable people, that Starfield was 100% an Xbox exclusive. I’ve even made bets about it, and I don’t bet unless I know I’m willing to bet. So I’m really, really confident that Starfield is only releasing on Xbox when it does.”
Ever since the announcement that Microsoft had acquired ZeniMax Media (and by proxy Bethesda), the future of Bethesda titles has been somewhat uncertain, especially regarding those which had already been announced prior to the acquisition (such as Starfield and The Elder Scrolls VI).
If what has been reported is true, then it will be interesting to see how the perception of both PlayStation and Xbox is impacted by this decision – and whether Starfield will in fact manage to release by the end of this year.
KitGuru says: Do you think Starfield will be exclusive to Xbox (and PC)? Will future Bethesda games impact your console purchasing decision? Do you think Starfield will come out this year? Let us know down below.
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Monster Hunter Rise has outsold Street Fighter V in just one month
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Home/Software & Gaming/Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is getting upgraded for Xbox Series X/S and PS5
Matthew Wilson 15 hours ago Software & Gaming
Back in 2019, EA finally broke its Star Wars curse with the release of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, an excellent single-player adventure set between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope. Now later this year, the game will be upgraded to take advantage of Xbox Series X/S and PS5 hardware.
Over on the official Star Wars website, we are starting to see announcements ahead of May 4th, otherwise known as Star Wars Day. One of the announcements is an early tease of Jedi Fallen Order heading to next gen consoles.
“Coming this summer, we’re excited to announce the next-gen release of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, bringing a number of technical improvements to the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S console versions of the game. This will be a free cross-generation upgrade to current owners.”
We’ll have to wait a little bit longer for specific details on these technical improvements, but higher resolutions and 60 frames per second gameplay seem like natural upgrades for these new consoles. In fact, the game can already run at 60 frames per second on next-gen hardware in backwards compatibility mode, but this new update should improve graphical fidelity at this performance level to further optimise the experience.
KitGuru Says: I’ve been wanting to give this one a replay recently, so I’ll be looking forward to the next-gen upgrade. Are any of you going to be jumping back in to Jedi Fallen Order when the Xbox Series X/S and PS5 version launches?
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Earlier this week, we heard that Microsoft was due to make some announcements about its PC gaming store. Now, we know what changes are coming, as Microsoft is reducing its revenue cut for PC games sold through its store from 30 percent to 12 percent.
This is the same strategy that Epic Games employed when it first launched its store two years ago. From this point forward, developers bringing their games to the Microsoft Store will get a bigger share of the revenue compared to a platform like Steam, which still takes a 30 percent revenue cut for most titles.
Speaking on the change, Xbox Game Studios head, Matt Booty, said: “Game developers are at the heart of bringing great games to our players, and we want them to find success on our platforms. A clear, no-strings-attached revenue share means developers can bring more games to more players and find greater commercial success from doing so.”
As pointed out by The Verge, the timing here is very interesting. This week, a survey of 3,000 game industry professionals revealed that the majority of developers don’t believe Steam does enough to justify its 30 percent revenue cut. With Microsoft and Epic Games now both offering a larger revenue share to developers, it puts more pressure on Valve to reduce its own cut in order to stay competitive.
Now the next issue for Microsoft is tackling the store itself. While the Xbox Game Pass (beta) app has an improved layout, the proper Microsoft Store app is still a mess. Soon, developers will be able to upload Win32 apps to the store, removing the need for UWP applications. Other overhauls to the store are also on the way, including a completely new store layout, improved install reliability and faster download speeds. All of these changes will be in place in the coming months.
“We know that we still have a lot of work to do, but based on the response from both PC gamers and PC game developers, we think that we’re headed in the right direction for this community with the investments we’re making”.
These changes to the Microsoft Store on PC will be in place starting from the 1st of August, at which point the new Store app should also be available.
KitGuru Says: With Epic Games and Microsoft now offering larger revenue cuts for developers on their PC stores, do you think Valve will adjust its business model at all to keep Steam competitive?
Home/Software & Gaming/Fortnite is not on Xbox Cloud Gaming due to competition with Epic PC offerings
Matthew Wilson 16 hours ago Software & Gaming
With the Epic Games V Apple trial set to get underway in just a matter of days, court documents are starting to reveal some interesting facts about both companies. One court document reveals that Epic Games is keeping Fortnite off of Microsoft’s xCloud streaming service, as Epic views it as a competitor to its own PC offerings.
The document, which was uncovered by The Verge, goes over deposition questions directed towards Epic Games VP of business development, Joe Kreiner. When asked about why Fortnite isn’t on Microsoft’s Xbox Game Streaming service, Kreiner said: “we viewed Microsoft’s efforts with xCloud to be competitive with our PC offerings”.
As a result, Fortnite isn’t available to stream on Microsoft’s service, although it is available elsewhere, including Nvidia’s GeForce Now streaming service.
On GeForce Now, all revenue made through microtransactions and in-game subscriptions goes straight to Epic Games, while on the Xbox, Epic has to use the Xbox Store for in-game transactions. However, Kreiner does admit that Epic Games hasn’t negotiated this with Microsoft.
This line of questioning is all part of the lawsuit between Epic Games and Apple. Epic’s case against Apple is centred around iOS App Store policies, which prohibit rival app stores and payment processing methods from being used. Due to this, Fortnite was removed from the iOS platform last year.
KitGuru Says: We’re going to get some interesting looks behind the scenes of mobile, PC and console businesses during this case. The Epic V Apple trial is set to begin next week.
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Home/Software & Gaming/Cyberpunk 2077 Patch 1.22 brings further optimisations and fixes
Matthew Wilson 2 days ago Software & Gaming
At this point in time, CD Projekt Red has picked up work on upcoming, new content for Cyberpunk 2077 but there is still a team working to squash lingering bugs and improve performance. The latest patch does just that, with some more open world and quest fixes, as well as further optimisations.
Cyberpunk 2077 Patch 1.22 is now live across all platforms, addressing “the most frequently reported issues”. For quests and open world, we have the following fixes:
The Metro: Memorial Park dataterm should now properly count towards the Frequent Flyer achievement.
Fixed glitches in Johnny’s appearance occurring after buying the Nomad car from Lana.
Fixed an issue in Gig: Until Death Do Us Part where it was not possible to use the elevator.
Fixed an issue in Epistrophy where the player could get trapped in the garage if they didn’t follow the drone and ran into the control room instead.
Added a retrofix for the issue we fixed in 1.21, where Takemura could get stuck in Japantown Docks in Down on the Street – for players who already experienced it before update 1.21 and continued playing until 1.22, Takemura will now teleport to Wakako’s parlor.
Fixed an issue preventing the player from opening the phone in the apartment at the beginning of New Dawn Fades.
Fixed an issue where the player could become unable to use weapons and consumables after interacting with a maintenance panel in Riders on the Storm.
This patch will also fix instances of NPC clothing clipping, an issue with subtitles not being properly aligned and memory management improvements for the PC version, which should reduce the number of crashes. On the PC side, further optimisations are now in place for skin and cloth rendering, which should now have less of a performance hit.
For consoles, the Xbox One version gets additional GPU and ESRAM optimisations and memory management has also been improved for the game on PlayStation 5.
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KitGuru Says: We’ve had several months of bug fixing patches, hopefully soon, CD Projekt Red will be ready to start discussing plans for future Cyberpunk 2077 content. We know new story content is coming thanks to the efforts of dataminers, so it is just a matter of when we’ll start seeing announcements.
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For most of its history, the Monster Hunter franchise had seen support from a select …
Mustafa Mahmoud 2 days ago Featured Tech News, PC, Software & Gaming
With Microsoft’s renewed brand focus for Xbox revolving around making games as accessible to players as possible, the console manufacturer has been putting more effort into the PC market than ever before. According to industry insider Jeff Grubb, Xbox is set to provide an update on its commitments to the PC market tomorrow.
Jeff Grubb, who has garnered a reputation over the past year for his accurate string of leaks, recently claimed that Xbox would provide an “update about its commitment to PC gaming”. Such commitments could include an increase in parity between Xbox Game Pass on console and PC – something which the latter has fallen behind on somewhat. Furthermore, Microsoft is reportedly set to give a high level update reaffirming “how important” PC gaming is to them.
Grubb stressed that this will neither be an event nor a showcase, but will most likely be in the form of a blogpost on its website. The final possible point of discussion according to Grubb is providing an update on the new Microsoft Store for PC – though this announcement is less likely than the rest.
While fans eagerly await whatever Microsoft has to announce, some fans have speculated that the console manufacturer may bring Xbox Game Pass to Steam – though there is no substantiated evidence to back this up. Regardless of what is announced tomorrow, it is clear that the PC market is important to Microsoft, and hopefully overtime they will show the platform just as much attention as they do to the Xbox. We will have to wait and see what they have planned for the future.
KitGuru says: What do you think the update will be? Do you use Game Pass on PC? Would you like to see Game Pass come to Steam? Let us know down below.
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Matthew Wilson 2 days ago Console, Featured Tech News
Microsoft revealed its quarterly earnings results last night, giving us a good idea as to how well Xbox is doing right now to start off the new console generation. Microsoft unfortunately doesn’t reveal specific sales numbers, but everything appears to be on the up, with the gaming division generating $15 billion in revenue over the last year.
Gaming revenue for Microsoft has risen by 50 percent year-on-year, thanks in part to the new Xbox Series X/S consoles, as well as growth from services like Game Pass. In the last quarter alone (January 2021 to March 2021), Xbox brought in $3.53 billion for Microsoft. For the entire fiscal year, gaming revenue rose to $15 billion, which is up from $10.3 billion in the previous year.
As reported by industry analyst, Daniel Ahmad, Xbox content and services revenue rose by 34 percent year-on-year, which was driven by strong third-party releases on Xbox, the growth of Xbox Game Pass and first-party game sales. Those first-party game sales now include Bethesda’s entire catalogue, as Microsoft closed its acquisition of Zenimax Media in early March.
Finally, Xbox hardware sales rose by 232 percent year-on-year due to the Xbox Series X/S launch. Specific sales numbers were not revealed, but Microsoft will have sold several million units at this point. Unfortunately, due to supply constraints, Microsoft is expecting to see a slight decline in Xbox revenues in the third quarter.
Of course, Microsoft has many divisions bringing in revenue and doesn’t rely on Xbox all that much. As a whole, Microsoft brought in $41.7 billion in revenue, with a profit of $15.5 billion.
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KitGuru Says: Microsoft’s gaming strategy is clearly paying off and we’ll likely see another big jump in late 2021, thanks to first-party game releases like Halo Infinite.
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I wish I’d had this to test with Samsung’s Odyssey G9
Microsoft has something of a history of neglecting PC gaming, but it’s trying to change that in a big way — by promising its flagship HaloInfinite will feel like a native PC game when it arrives later this year. We’ve known for many months that it wouldn’t be the Xbox Series X’s killer app, but Microsoft’s trying to make PC gamers feel like first-class citizens too, with features as forward-looking as support for 32:9 super-ultrawide monitors like the Samsung Odyssey G9 I reviewed late last year.
This morning, we learned the game would support ultrawide monitors, in addition to triple-keybinds, advanced graphics options, and both crossplay and cross-progression between Xbox and Windows PCs. But this evening, the Halo Waypoint blog went way deeper, revealing what Infinite will look like at 32:9 and an array of other PC-gamer-friendly details like being able to adjust your field of view up to 120 degrees — and the ability to host your own LAN multiplayer server!
In my Samsung Odyssey G9 review, I bemoaned how even the games that do support 32:9 typically look abnormally, wildly stretched out on each side, providing over a dozen examples of how they don’t properly adjust the shape and curvature of the window they’re opening into the 3D game world. But Halo Infinite PC development lead Mike Romero says the game’s designed to support arbitrary window sizes, and can fit its HUD, menus, and even in-game cutscenes into the wider aspect ratios.
“There’s dozens of people across the studio that have had to put dedicated effort into supporting something like ultrawide throughout the entirety of the game, and I’m very excited to say I think we’ll have some of the best ultrawide support I’ve ever seen in a game,” boasts Romero.
Looking at these Halo Infinite images at 32:9, it’s not immediately clear to me that Microsoft has solved the 32:9 issue — looking at the hill on the right of this image below, for instance, it seems like the game world still might appear a little bit skewed and warped.
But it is clear that you’ll see a lot more of the game world at once this way, if you’re one of the few who’ve ascended to an ultrawide monitor — and have a PC powerful enough to drive it, of course.
Here’s a short list of all the PC-esque perks Microsoft is promising:
LAN play, hosting a local multiplayer server on PC that you can join from both PC and Xbox
Crossplay, restricting ranked matches to input type rather than console vs. PC, with server-side anti-cheat
Adjustable FOV (up to 120 degrees) on both PC and console
Mouse and keyboard support on both PC and console
Triple keyboard and mouse bindings
Visual quality settings up to ultra presets on PC, with individual settings for texture quality, depth of field, anti-aliasing etc.
High refresh rate options
21:9, 32:9 “and beyond” ultrawide monitor support on PC
Minimum and maximum framerate settings on PC
Fixed and dynamic resolution scaling options on PC
Optional borderless fullscreen on PC
FPS and ping overlay on PC
Out-of-game multiplayer invites let you join games through Xbox Live, Discord and Steam
As my colleague Tom Warren notes, there’s still more to learn, like whether the game will support GPU-dependent features on PC like Nvidia’s framerate-enhancing DLSS, ray tracing, and more.
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