Analogue, the company best known for modern takes on retro hardware, is turning its attention to the 64-bit era with the Analogue 3D, a reimagining of the Nintendo 64. From a report: The company says the new console will have "100 percent compatibility" with N64 cartridges in every region and will even support 4K output. It will also include "Original Display Modes featuring reference quality recreations of specific model CRTs and PVMs" for the purists out there, along with Bluetooth support and four controller ports. Today's announcement is mostly a tease. While we have some details, there's no word on price or a specific release date beyond 2024. Analogue isn't even showing the hardware yet -- right now, we just have these brief glimpses of what appears to be the console, as well as the wireless 8BitDo controller that's launching alongside it.

Last year Netflix put up a billboard on Los Angeles's Sunset Boulevard to poke fun at itself. It read: "Wait, Netflix Has Games?" The company is working hard to clear up any confusion. It is deepening its push into the videogame industry, taking advantage of the studios it has acquired in the past two years to create more titles based on popular Netflix movies and TV shows. WSJ: Though Netflix has up to now focused on mobile games -- which appeal to casual gamers and can be downloaded on a smartphone or tablet -- it is taking steps to expand into higher-end games that can be streamed from TVs or PCs. That approach would put it up against giants such as Sony and Microsoft, which just closed its $75 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, and would bring some significant technical challenges.

Over the next several months, Netflix subscribers will be able to play games on their mobile devices based on hits such as Korean thriller "Squid Game" and supernatural comedy "Wednesday," according to people familiar with the situation. Similarly, Netflix is discussing games based on "Extraction," its Sherlock Holmes series and its "Black Mirror" series, the people said. Even as Netflix creates homegrown titles, it will continue to license the well-known games, from "Bloons TD 6" to "Classic Solitaire," that currently make up its catalog. It has discussed plans to release a game within the popular action-adventure series "Grand Theft Auto" from Take-Two Interactive Software through a licensing deal, some of the people said. The strategy rips a page from the streaming giant's playbook in Hollywood, where it built an audience based on reruns from other studios -- such as "Friends," "The Office" and "Breaking Bad" -- while gearing up machinery to churn out originals like "House of Cards" and "Stranger Things."

Polish video game developer CD Projekt used AI technology in its latest release to recreate the voice of an actor who passed away, the company said. From a report: The voice of the late Milogost Reczek, a popular Polish voice actor who died in 2021, was reproduced by an AI algorithm for the Polish-language release of Phantom Liberty, the new expansion to CD Projekt's Cyberpunk 2077. In a statement to Bloomberg, the company said it received permission from Reczek's family to do this and that it had considered replacing him in the expansion and rerecording his lines in the original game but decided against it.

"We didn't like this approach," CD Projekt localization director Mikolaj Szwed said in the statement, as Reczek "was one of the best Polish voice talents" and his performance in the game as the doctor Viktor Vektor "was stellar." Instead, CD Projekt hired a different voice actor to perform new lines for the role and then used a Ukraine-based voice-cloning software called Respeecher to create an algorithm that would alter the dialogue to sound like Reczek. "This way we could keep his performance in the game and pay tribute to his wonderful performance as Viktor Vektor," Szwed said.

Microsoft completed its $69 billion purchase of Activision Blizzard after a nearly two-year fight with global regulators threatened to scuttle the deal. From a report: The biggest-ever acquisition in the video game industry gives the maker of Xbox consoles a more formidable position against rivals, vaulting it from fifth to third place globally, behind Tencent Holdings and Sony Group. The acquisition is a stunning turnaround after Microsoft executives underestimated the magnitude and longevity of antitrust objections, forcing the software giant to seek a three-month extension of the deal's expiration period from Activision.

Microsoft was able to close after making alterations to its merger agreement to win over UK authorities. The US Federal Trade Commission, which lost an attempt to block the transaction in court, continues to pursue legal action in its own administrative hearing. That could still force the two companies to unwind the deal if the commission is successful. The UK's Competition and Markets Authority announced on Friday that it had approved the deal after accepting a restructuring plan involving selling some gaming rights to French publisher Ubisoft Entertainment SA. The regulator was concerned about preserving competition in the nascent market for games streamed via the cloud.

Microsoft could use board games to revisit dormant franchises owned by Xbox Game Studios, with Zoo Tycoon: The Board Game potentially being the first of many. From a report: Zoo Tycoon was developed by Elite: Dangerous studio Frontier Developments and published by Microsoft Studios (the previous name for Xbox Game Studios), on November 22, 2013 for Xbox One and Xbox 360. Speaking to Xbox Wire, Xbox Game Studios executive producer Robert Jerauld said this board game adaptation is a "prime illustration" of how Microsoft could expand its franchises that don't have video games in active development. "It's crucial to recognize that even if certain franchises aren't currently undergoing active development, they can still be actively appreciated by their fans," Jerauld said.

"Zoo Tycoon serves as a prime illustration of this. It presents a valuable chance for Microsoft to extend gratitude to the dedicated and ardent Zoo Tycoon fans who have worked tirelessly to sustain the game's enchantment. We acknowledge your dedication and deeply appreciate you." While Jerauld didn't say if he had any other dormant franchises in mind, Xbox certainly has a wealth to choose from. These could include Banjo-Kazooie, Viva Pinata, Blinx: The Time Sweeper, Project Gotham Racing, MechAssault and plenty more. There are some bigger names that haven't seen a release in a long time, of course, but many of these currently have sequels in development at Xbox.

Sony Interactive Entertainment has announced plans to launch cloud streaming for PlayStation 5 this month. From a report: The feature, which will be available to PlayStation Plus Premium members, will receive a staggered rollout. Sony is targeting an October 17 launch for Japan, October 23 for Europe and October 30 for North America. "Select PS5 games will be available for streaming, and we're planning to have hundreds of PS5 titles to support this new benefit," said Hideaki Nishino, SIE's senior VP of platform experience.

Supported titles will include Game Catalogue offerings like Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Horizon Forbidden West, Ghost of Tsushima, Mortal Kombat 11 and Saints Row IV. Some PS5 digital titles that players own will be available for streaming too including Resident Evil 4, Dead Island 2, Genshin Impact, Fall Guys and Fortnite. Game Trials for PS5 titles like Hogwarts Legacy, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and The Calisto Protocol will also be available. Sony said DLC and in-game purchases will be available for PS5 game streaming too.

Sony announced new PlayStation 5 models that will likely be unofficially called the "PS5 Slim." From a report: The new model has the same horsepower on the inside, but it has a smaller form factor with an attachable disc drive and a 1TB SSD. The new model's detachable drive means you can buy the Digital Edition and change your mind later, essentially adding the drive as an $80 modular accessory. [...] Sony says the new PS5 has 30 percent lower volume, and its weight is 18 percent and 24 percent lighter than the original. The model with the disc drive will cost $500.

Valve says it has no plans for a macOS version of the recently released game Counter-Strike 2, the follow-up title replacing the hugely popular FPS Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. From a report: Valve confirmed its decision and gave its reasons in a newly published Steam support FAQ: "As technology advances, we have made the difficult decision to discontinue support for older hardware, including DirectX 9 and 32-bit operating systems. Similarly, we will no longer support macOS. Combined, these represented less than one percent of active CS:GO players. Moving forward, Counter-Strike 2 will exclusively support 64-bit Windows and Linux."

Slashdot reader TranquilVoid writes: To better understand the battles between native and invasive ants, scientists at Australia's national science agency have turned to Microsoft's classic computer game to model ant warfare.

Across Australia, 50 different species of invasive ants have established themselves, including electric ants, fire ants and yellow crazy ants, with hundreds of millions of dollars spent attempting to eradicate them.

"Ants are one of the few groups of animal species in which warfare resembles human warfare, in terms of scale and mortality," researcher Samuel Lymbery said. The research found small armies of strong soldiers did better in complex terrain-based battlefields and large armies of weaker soldiers fared better in simple open battlefields. In the ant world, a simple battlefield would be a footpath or park while a complex battlefield would be bushland with undergrowth and woody debris.

Dr Lymbery said his work could help develop new approaches to habitat management, like adding undergrowth or more environmental complexity back into urbanised environments, to tip the competitive balance back in favour of native ants.

Sony is bringing its own movie streaming service to PlayStation consoles beginning today. From a report: Previously known as Bravia Core, the service is being rebranded to Sony Pictures Core as it arrives on the PS5 and PS4. "Once you sign up for Sony Pictures Core, you will be able to buy or rent up to 2,000 movies straight from your console," Sony's Evan Stern wrote in a blog post. "At launch, this will include blockbuster hits such as Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Spider-Man: No Way Home, Uncharted, The Equalizer, No Hard Feelings, Bullet Train, and Ghostbusters: Afterlife, among others."

Now, you can rent or buy those movies in any number of places. If you're wondering why you'd want to use Sony's service, the answer is video fidelity. As noted on the Bravia Core website, it includes what the company calls Pure Stream, "which can stream HDR movies at up to 80Mbps -- similar to 4K UHD Blu-ray -- on a wide range of content." That is a significantly higher bitrate than anything Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Max, Vudu, or other streamers will give you. So, if you're a stickler for picture quality and have the right TV for it, you should notice greater detail when using Pure Stream. In addition to all that, Sony also claims it has the largest collection of IMAX Enhanced films of any streaming service.

After closing its 3DS and Wii U eShops earlier this year, Nintendo will shut down online services for those consoles in "early April 2024," it announced. From a report: That will put a halt to multiplayer features, along with "online co-operative play, internet rankings and data distribution," Nintendo wrote. Nintendo's Badge Arcade that allowed users to decorate their Nintendo 3DS home menu will also disappear. The date isn't fixed in stone yet, and Nintendo said it may even discontinue services "earlier than planned."

Liam Proven writes via The Register: Steam OS is the Arch-based distro for a handheld Linux games console, and Valve is aggressively pushing Linux's usability and Windows interoperability for the device. Two unusual companies, Valve Software and Igalia, are working together to improve the Linux-based OS of the Steam Deck handheld games console. The device runs a Linux distro called Steam OS 3.0, but this is a totally different distro from the original Steam OS it announced a decade ago. Steam OS 1 and 2 were based on Debian, but Steam OS 3 is based on Arch Linux, as Igalia developer Alberto Garcia described in a talk entitled How SteamOS is contributing to the Linux ecosystem.

He explained that although Steam OS is built from some fairly standard components -- the normal filesystem hierarchy, GNU user space, systemd and dbus -- Steam OS has quite a few unique features. It has two distinct user interfaces: by default, it starts with the Steam games launcher, but users can also choose an option called Switch to Desktop, which results in a regular KDE Plasma desktop, with the ability to install anything: a web browser, normal Linux tools, and non-Steam games.

Obviously, though, Steam OS's raison d'etre is to run Steam games, and most of those are Windows games which will never get native Linux versions. Valve's solution is Proton, an open-source tool to run Windows games on Linux. It's formed from a collection of different FOSS packages, notably: [Wine, DXVK, VKD3D-Proton, and GStreamer]. The result is a remarkable degree of compatibility for some of the most demanding Windows apps around [...]. You can view Garcia's 49-page presentation here (PDF).

The next-generation of Meta Quest hardware is here, and Meta announced a bunch of software news alongside the Quest 3 VR headset hardware reveal at its Connect conference. One such announcement was the debut of Microsoft's Xbox Cloud Gaming service on Meta Quest 3, which is actually a huge boon for fans of the Facebook owner's mixed reality gear. From a report: The Xbox Cloud Gaming implementation in Quest resembles a lot of how Apple showed its own vision for mixed reality with the Vision Pro headset: It's primarily a virtual screen that can float in either a virtual or mixed reality space, which appears to be reposition-able and resizable, but which basically works exactly as you'd expect an Xbox game to work with a large TV. This is a key acknowledgement on the part of Meta that while immersive, native gaming is undoubtedly a draw for users, so too is a more traditional gaming experience that basically just benefits from taking place in your own private face-mounted theater.

EA has suddenly removed downloadable versions of FIFA 23 from multiple digital storefronts. The delisting comes earlier than expected for the title and coincides with the company's launch of the newly FIFA-license-free EA Sports FC 24. From a report: While many reports suggest there has been a recent mass purge of all legacy FIFA games from online stores, EA has a history of delisting older sports titles at a pretty regular cadence. FIFA 22, for instance, was delisted from digital storefronts in May, roughly seven months after the launch of the subsequent FIFA 23. And FIFA 21 wasn't taken down from Steam until June 2022, about eight months after FIFA 22's launch.

FIFA 23, on the other hand, has been delisted less than a year from its October 2022 launch. SteamDB tracking data suggests that the delisting came on September 21, the day before the new EA Sports FC became available for a 10-hour early access trial for EA Play members. The Steam store page for FIFA 23 now notes that the delisting comes "at the request of the publisher" and that the game "will not appear in search." The game also no longer appears on Steam's EA publisher page. FIFA 23's earlier-than-expected delisting could have something to do with the dissolution of EA's 30-year licensing relationship with FIFA. That ending came amid reports that EA was dissatisfied with gameplay restrictions and licensing costs demanded by FIFA.

Kyle Orland writes via Ars Technica: The "first official Unity user group in the world" has announced that it is dissolving after 13 years because "the trust we used to have in the company has been completely eroded." The move comes as many developers are saying they will continue to stay away from the company's products even after last week's partial rollback of some of the most controversial parts of its fee structure plans.

Since its founding in 2010, the Boston Unity Group (BUG) has attracted thousands of members to regular gatherings, talks, and networking events, including many technical lectures archived on YouTube. But the group says it will be hosting its last meeting Wednesday evening via Zoom because the Unity of today is very different from the Dave Helgason-led company that BUG says "enthusiastically sanctioned and supported" the group at its founding.

"Over the past few years, Unity has unfortunately shifted its focus away from the games industry and away from supporting developer communities," the group leadership wrote in a departure note. "Following the IPO, the company has seemingly put profit over all else, with several acquisitions and layoffs of core personnel. Many key systems that developers need are still left in a confusing and often incomplete state, with the messaging that advertising and revenue matter more to Unity than the functionality game developers care about."

BUG says the install-fee terms Unity first announced earlier this month were "unthinkably hostile" to users and that even the "new concessions" in an updated pricing model offered late last week "disproportionately affect the success of indie studios in our community." But it's the fact that such "resounding, unequivocal condemnation from the games industry" was necessary to get those changes in the first place that has really shaken the community to its core. "We've seen how easily and flippantly an executive-led business decision can risk bankrupting the studios we've worked so hard to build, threaten our livelihoods as professionals, and challenge the longevity of our industry," BUG wrote. "The Unity of today isn't the same company that it was when the group was founded, and the trust we used to have in the company has been completely eroded."

In an online Q&A Friday, Unity president Marc Whitten said they're pursuing a "sustainable" long-term future for Unity by creating a "shared success" business model that still allows for "massively, deeply investing in the engine". But Whitten began with acknowledging they had work to do to earn trust. "I just want to say that I'm sorry. I know it's been a very tough week to hear a bunch of the very well-deserved feedback on the changes we made. It's very clear we did not take enough feedback, listen to enough feedback before we rolled out the program."

Ars Technica writes> : If there's one thing Unity Create President and General Manager Marc Whitten wants to make clear, it's that he appreciates your feedback. "It's been a very feedback-giving week for Unity," Whitten told Ars, possibly the biggest understatement he made during an interview accompanying the new, scaled-back fee structure plans... "There was a lot more [feedback than we expected] for sure... I think that feedback has made us better, even though it has sometimes been difficult."

But Whitten was also quick to find the bright side of the tsunami of backlash that came Unity's way in the week since the company announced its (now outdated) plans for per-install fees of up to $0.20 on all Unity games starting in 2024. That's because that anger reflected "the extraordinary passion that our community has for their craft, their livelihoods, and their tools, including Unity," Whitten said. "When Unity disappoints them, in a way where they're overly surprised or whatever, they give very, very critical feedback. I don't love hearing every single one of those pieces of feedback — sometimes they can be pretty pointed — but I love that that passion exists."

"They let us know when we disappoint them," he added. "That's not always easy to hear, but it's really, really great feedback, and it makes us better...."

Whitten said he hopes the new fee structure — which removes ongoing fees for free Unity Personal tier subscribers [and Unity Plus subscribers] — makes it clear that this move was never meant to extract excessive value from the company's smallest development partners. "It was not our intent to nickel-and-dime it, but it came across that way," he said.
Other changes announced by Unity:

• No games created with any currently supported Unity versions will be impacted. Only those created with or upgraded to the Long Term Support version releasing in 2024 (or later), currently referred to as the 2023 LTS will be impacted.
• For those games, the fee is only applicable after a game has crossed two thresholds: $1,000,000 (USD) in gross revenue (trailing 12 months) AND 1,000,000 initial engagements. After crossing these two thresholds, you can choose to pay the Runtime Fee, either based on monthly initial engagements or 2.5% of your game's monthly gross revenue. Ultimately, you will be charged the lesser of the two.

In 2019, CD Projekt Red unexpectedly announced Cyberpunk 2077's 2020 release, surprising some employees. Released in December 2020, it faced bugs and issues, symbolizing industry crunch. However, post-release updates, particularly in 2022, significantly improved the game, leading some to praise its transformation. A Kotaku critic wrote that the game "might finally be complete." But CD Projekt Red wasn't finished just yet. Now, in September 2023, the Cyberpunk 2077 saga is coming to an end with two final, major releases:
1. The 2.0 patch, which came out Sept. 21 and overhauls many of the game's core mechanics.
2. Phantom Liberty, an expansion starring Idris Elba that's out on Sept. 26.

Bloomberg adds: Both appear to be excellent. The expansion adds a new area to the game's dystopian Night City and tells a heist story in which you team up with the president and government spooks. It has received glowing reviews from critics, with IGN declaring that, "Phantom Liberty is Cyberpunk 2077 at its best." New content is great, but it's the 2.0 patch that makes the biggest impact on Cyberpunk 2077, with changes that are made immediately apparent when you open up the game. The menus are cleaner, the loot system is less convoluted and character building feels completely different thanks to a revamped skill system that allows for more distinct playstyles. You can now specialize, transforming your character into a stealthy ninja, a speedy assaulter or a cybernetic hacker.

Cyberpunk 2077's biggest problem, aside from the bugs, was its uncertainty over whether it wanted to be Deus Ex or Grand Theft Auto. It straddled the line between deep role-playing game and systemic open-world sandbox, ultimately feeling like an inferior version of both. Although the new patch doesn't pick a side in this divide, it does bolster them. The new level system allows for the type of build experimentation that RPG fans were hoping to see in Cyberpunk 2077.

Unity has announced some key changes to its widely panned Runtime Fee policy, which spawned both derision and confusion from developers and the gaming community at large when it was unveiled earlier this month. From a report: It's easing up on some big aspects of the previously announced charges, removing the fee from the Unity Personal tier entirely, although it still remains in a revised form on the Unity Pro and Unity Enterprise tiers. In short, as originally announced, starting on Jan. 1, 2024, Unity would start charging developers a small fee every time someone downloads a game built on Unity's game engine after a certain threshold for minimum revenue and install count.

The different tiers of Unity plans - Unity Personal/Unity Plus, Unity Pro, and Unity Enterprise - had different thresholds and, per the original announcement, smaller developers using Unity Personal/Unity Plus would have to pay Unity $0.20 per install once their game passes $200,000 in revenue over the last 12 months and 200,000 life-to-date installs. Unity announced today, however, that there will be no Runtime Fee on games built on Unity Personal, which will remain free. They will also be increasing financial theshold of Unity Personal from $100,000 to $200,000 and will remove the requirement to use the Made with Unity splash screen.

Parents in the U.S. whose children purchased items in the popular game Fortnite without their permission will be able to claim a refund from today. The BBC reports: The U.S. regulator accused the game of tricking players into making unintended purchases and breaching privacy. Fortnite developer Epic Games agreed to pay $245 million in refunds in 2022. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has now begun the process of contacting 37 million people to alert them to the compensation.

The FTC said Epic Games duped players with "deceptive interfaces" that could trigger purchases while the game loaded, and accused it of having default settings that breached people's privacy. In total, it agreed to a settlement of $520 million with Epic Games over the concerns. This includes a $275 million fine relating to how Fortnite collects data on its users, including those aged under 13, without informing parents. It is the largest fine ever levied by the FTC for breaking a rule. The rest of the settlement will be paid out as refunds.

Yesterday's massive leaks from the Microsoft vs. FTC case have a large swath of the gaming world expecting that a more powerful, disc-free Xbox Series X refresh could be coming as soon as next year. But Xbox boss Phil Spencer is warning that players shouldn't put too much stock in what he called "old emails and documents." ArsTechnica adds: "It is hard to see our team's work shared in this way because so much has changed and there's so much to be excited about right now, and in the future," Spencer wrote on social media late Tuesday. "We will share the real plans when we are ready." Spencer followed up that post with a memo sent to the Xbox team, apologizing for the unintentional disclosure of internal plans. "I know this is disappointing, even if many of the documents are well over a year old and our plans have evolved," the memo reads, in part. "I also know we all take the confidentiality of our plans and our partners' information very seriously. This leak obviously is not us living up to that expectation... That said, there's so much more to be excited about, and when we're ready, we'll share the real plans with our players."

While Spencer's statements are vague about who was responsible for the "unintentional disclosure" of Microsoft's plans, a representative for the FTC was quick to push the blame on the company itself. "The FTC was not responsible for uploading Microsoft's plans for its games and consoles to the court website," FTC Director of the Office of Public Affairs Douglas Farrar wrote early Tuesday. In a follow-up post, Farrar pointed to a court order resealing the leaked information (too late for it to prevent the spread of the information, of course), which notes that "Microsoft provided the link on September 14 and the Court uploaded the exhibits to [the] internet page established for this case." Further reading: Microsoft's Phil Spencer Says Acquiring Nintendo Would Be 'a Career Moment'
Microsoft's Next Xbox, Coming 2028, Envisions Hybrid Computing.