Video Game News

As you know, 1UP.com has breathed its last. Such are the vicissitudes of business. Happily, Jose Otero managed to pull together a startling number of former 1UP staff during Game Developers Conference this year for one final podcast. Not everyone was there due to the last-minute nature of this show (or because they had other duties that kept them away), but if you paid any attention at all to the site for the 10 years it lived you're bound to hear some voices you recognize in this three-hour tag-team adventure. Rather than spoil the surprise, though, we'd rather just let you hear the show for yourself.

Although the economy might not be in the thick of a recession as it once was, that doesn't mean things are going especially great for videogame publishers. Take Electronic Arts, for instance, which hasn't exactly set the world on fire with its performance as of late. The start of the next generation is an ideal opportunity to effect change that doesn't come along often, and it seems EA doesn't intend to miss it; just yesterday it revealed plans to proliferate microtransactions throughout each of its games. As EA and publishers in general attempt to do this (and try out other means for generating additional revenue), I hope they don't forget to treat gamers with respect.

This current generation of consoles has seen the onset of numerous new money-making tactics.

Excited as I was to finally see a next-generation console, much of the PlayStation 4 software we saw last week struck me as underwhelming. It was pretty, certainly, and I'm all for beautiful games; I paid a great deal to upgrade my PC in 2011 so that Battlefield 3 would look its finest, and it irks me that Far Cry 3 and Crysis 3 each stresses my computer to the point that I can't see every last bit of visual goodness they have to offer and maintain a decent framerate.

Always the eyes watching you and the voice enveloping you. Asleep or awake, working or eating, indoors or out of doors, in the bath or in bed -- no escape. Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimeters inside your skull. -- George Orwell, 1984

Ever since George Orwell published his dystopian masterpiece in 1949, people have compared it to the current state of national or international affairs. But in the always-connected, always-public world of 2013, perhaps the novel's themes hit closer to home than ever. We're living in a time of fierce debate over privacy concerns, an era where government and law enforcement argue for the right to GPS-track citizens without their knowledge. And like any form of art, video games are influenced by life.

Much like their disc-based counterparts, PlayStation 3 downloadable games won't be supported on PlayStation 4. What that means is your entire PlayStation Network library is going to have to stay put, and won't be carried over to the next generation as many people were hoping it would. That's no surprise considering the major changes to the system's architecture which, other than the issue of backwards compatibility, are excellent news. This leaves gamers who wanted the PS4 to fully replace the PS3 currently sitting on their entertainment centers in an unfortunate position, although it does present Sony with an opportunity.

Backwards compatibility has never been a guarantee going into a new generation.

The corporate version:

Kenji Eno, famed game designer and composer, passed away yesterday from heart failure at the age of 42. Eno was truly a unique individual, both in terms of the games he worked on over the course of his more than two-decade-long career and the bold way he operated.

One of Eno's first experiences with games was Space Invaders, which was quick to make an impression on him. "I liked how it made you feel kind of different. And the first time I experienced it, it's like the first time you meet a woman -- you feel something there; you feel some kind of chemistry," he told 1UP in an extensive 2008 interview. "So I felt something like that for Space Invaders.

I used to love Sony.

It's true, the games are ultimately what we are most concerned with when we talk about a games console. But when they are first announced, it's the systems themselves that are often the most fascinating topics. This is perhaps truer than ever before in the case of the PlayStation 4, what with the industry changing so dramatically and the current generation of systems having lasted for as long as it has. Going into today's event, I was of the belief that Sony needed to present a convincing reason for why it chose to make the decisions it would unveil and, more importantly, why it is that gamers should care about investing hundreds of dollars in a new system.

As expected, today's big Sony event focused solely on one thing: the newly announced PlayStation 4. The presentation clocked in at two hours and covered a wide variety of subjects, although many of the key details -- a specific release date, a price, plans for its online service -- were nowhere to be found. What we do know is the system will indeed be known as the PS4, its rumored controller is the real deal, it's coming this holiday, and its games look very pretty -- although it's debatable whether the games we saw showed the kind of innovation you'd hope to find on a next-generation console.

When it came to the games shown, what was and was not real gameplay footage was not always clear. Some things were clearly labeled as tech demos.

The future of PlayStation is set to be revealed in just a matter of hours. 1UP will be in New York City to see firsthand what is widely presumed to be the unveiling of the PlayStation 4. As we get closer to the start of the event -- scheduled to begin at 3pm Pacific, 6pm Eastern -- you'll find a livestream of the event above. You can also follow along with all the happenings by way of our Twitter stream below.

We also want to hear what you have to say as Sony kicks off the next generation of console gaming. We'll be talking a great deal about everything we learn (and don't learn) tonight in the coming days, and we have one story coming tonight that we'd like to include your thoughts in. If you'd like a chance at having your take on the new console featured here on 1UP, simply tweet @1UP using the hashtag #1UPps4 with your impressions.

After an unusually long console cycle, we're now just a day away from the reveal of the PlayStation 4. Sony hasn't been especially coy about what the purpose of tomorrow's event is, though it has been reluctant to provide any information that could clue us in on its plans for its next home console. Besides the sorts of things Sony can't hide, like domain registrations and its acquisition of Gaikai, there has been no shortage of leaks and reports to give us some sense of what to expect tomorrow, as well as some ideas for what Sony needs to accomplish.

The unveiling of the PlayStation 4 is still two days away, yet we've already heard a great deal about what to expect from it. Last week, an alleged picture of the system's controller was published by Destructoid, and despite being only a single image, it was extremely telling. It showed off two major components that we'd heard about before in a touchpad and light bar, although physically seeing them was a great deal different than simply hearing about them.

This week we put together a show that ties into our site's cover story theme, "It Came From Outer Space." Join host Jose Otero along with guests Bob Mackey, Marty Sliva, IGN's Ryan McCaffery for games discussion. The crew gathers to discuss Aliens: Colonial Marines and trade some impressions from next week's big release, Metal Gear Rising Revengeance.

Image courtesy of Earthbound Central

Knowing the Wii U's immediate sales prospects weren't as great as it had hoped is what prompted Nintendo to recently slash sales projections for the console. Rather than expecting to sell 5.5 million units by the end of March, it was now expecting 4 million units to be sold by that same point. That is a significant cut, and one which meant Nintendo was anticipating just under a million units to sell worldwide in the first three months of 2012 after ending 2012 with 3.06 million units sold.

There was invariably going to be a drop-off as the year started because Nintendo systems sell best around the holidays, but without the excuse of supply constraints, a million consoles in three months didn't sound great. Now, at least in the United States, the Wii U's start to the year has been nothing short of abysmal.

Digital distribution has given the independent games scene a major boost. No longer are publishers or shareware discs needed to get the creations of small developers with no marketing budgets or prowess into the hands of gamers. Over the last decade, we've seen the level of attention indie games receive in the media greatly increase, oftentimes approaching that of games from major publishers -- perhaps not on par with the latest Call of Duty or Halo, but anyone who routinely reads a gaming website or magazine has likely seen the name Braid or Super Meat Boy pop up once or twice.

What we hear about much less often, at least in the West, are the games being made by independent developers located in Japan.

Much of the recent talk about Durango, the code name for the next-generation Xbox, has been about its rumored always-online requirement. Aside from the fact that you'd need an Internet connection in order to use the system, this would also supposedly block the use of secondhand games, potentially eliminating used game sales, game rentals, and maybe even something as simple as borrowing a game from a friend. It's difficult to imagine for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the disadvantage it would put Microsoft in if Sony doesn't do the same with the PlayStation 4.

Rayman Legends was, for myself and many others, a major reason to pick up a Wii U early on. Although it was known more than a month in advance of the system's launch that Legends would be coming in the first quarter of 2013, rather than in November as originally planned, it had been a game touted as a Wii U exclusive for some time.

The prospect of a keynote discussion at the DICE Summit between Gabe Newell and J.J. Abrams seemed intriguing enough. After all, the two are some of the biggest names in their respective fields, Newell being the co-founder of Valve and Abrams being one of the most prolific producers and directors in Hollywood over the past decade.