Analogue, a retro gaming company, is releasing a hardware-emulated Nintendo 64 console that can play every N64 game in 4K resolution. TechCrunch reports: Analogue, as is its habit, spent years meticulously re-engineering the N64 in FPGA form -- basically, this means that the new 3D console is, in several important ways, indistinguishable from the original hardware. One hundred percent compatibility with the console's game library is the most obvious one, meaning every single N64 cartridge works with this thing. Perhaps the bigger challenge with the N64, as with many other consoles of that era, is how it produces an image.

The N64 put out an analog video signal intended for display on interlaced CRT displays -- something that directly influenced the gameplay and art styles of countless games for the platform. Many retro games simply look bad on modern high-resolution displays not because they are dated or the art is insufficient, but because the display techs are fundamentally different.

To that end, Analogue has built in a native upscaler that, rather than cleaning up and digitizing the analog video output of the original system (as some upscalers do, with varying degrees of success), produces a natively digital, 4K signal with imitation CRT artifacts and scanlines. This is something they pioneered early on and produced several versions of to reproduce accurate phosphors and display modes for the multi-system Analogue Pocket. [...] The result is simply that games ought to look how you remembered them, which is to say probably a sight better than they actually looked. The Analogue 3D is available for pre-order at 8am PDT on October 21. It's priced at $250.

Though native Linux game servers have been scarce over the last two decades, "I've seen people using the Box64 emulator to play x86_64 games on ARM devices," writes Slashdot reader VennStone. "It got me thinking: why not apply this to game servers...?

"I thought it would be fun to see if I could build a super low-power Trackmania 2 server using a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W."

They dubbed the experiment "Trackberry", and shared all the technical details in a blog post at Interfacing Linux (includinga video). For example, they installed PyEnv so it could create a virtual environment for the PyPlanet server controller. ("That's right, your little Pi Zero 2 W is about to compile some software, slowly....")

But ultimately "it turns out that the A53 can run not only the server but also the server controller, with minimal effort. Five players push one core to around 50% load, while the others handle the database and controller." WHY STOP THERE? There are a gang of x86 Linux servers that could potentially run with Box64. Imagine playing Pirraria, 7 Days to Pi, Counter-Pi 2, Pitorio, and countless others! Granted, you may need a more powerful device than a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W. I'll leave that research up to you.

My main takeaway from this experiment? Box64 is straight-up Scandinavian witchcraft and is not to be trifled with. Not even a little bit.

That said, it introduces a compelling option for those of us looking to run dedicated game servers that don't require much in the way of system resources. Under load, TrackBerry averages 2.8 watts and, according to the scientific number digits below, ends up running just under $3.00 a year or $0.25 a month. I find the concept of having a stack of microSD cards, each holding a different game server, neat....

You can see TrackBerry in action every Tuesday and Friday on Twitch...

In response to California's new law targeting "false advertising" of "digital goods," Valve has added the following language to its checkout page: "A purchase of a digital product grants a license for the product on Steam." Ars Technica reports: California's AB2426 law, signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom Sept. 26, excludes subscription-only services, free games, and digital goods that offer "permanent offline download to an external storage source to be used without a connection to the internet." Otherwise, sellers of digital goods cannot use the terms "buy, purchase," or related terms that would "confer an unrestricted ownership interest in the digital good." And they must explain, conspicuously, in plain language, that "the digital good is a license" and link to terms and conditions.

Which is what Valve has now added to its cart page before enforcement of these terms was due to start next year. The company has long made it clear, deeper inside its End User License Agreement (EULA), that a purchase is a license, and those licenses cannot be resold, which avoids issues of one's right to resell a game. Now it is something that every user sees on every purchase, however quickly they click-through to get to their download.

Microsoft will offer direct game purchases through its Xbox app for Android starting November, following a U.S. court ruling against Google's app store monopoly. The move allows Microsoft to circumvent Google's revenue cut on in-app purchases and signals renewed focus on mobile gaming, bolstered by its recent $75.4 billion Activision Blizzard acquisition.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Liliputing: The Fedora Asahi Remix GNU/Linux distribution is now shipping with alpha versions of OpenGL, OpenCL, and Vulkan graphics drivers that allow you to play some games on Macs with M1 or M2 series processors. But there are a few things to keep in mind. One is that most of the PC games you're likely going to want to play are designed to run on Windows PCs with DirectX drivers and x86 processors. So there's some emulation required to get them to run on Macs with ARM-based processors, a Linux-based operating system, and Vulkan drivers.

Some of the work was also made possible by the folks at Valve, who developed the Proton software that allows many PC games to run on Linux. And during a live demo at XDC 2024, developer Alyssa Rosenzweig demonstrated the Steam game client loading and running on an Apple Silicon Mac running Asahi Linux. For that reason, it takes a lot of RAM -- according to the Asahi team, "most games require 16GB of memory due to emulation overhead." So you're probably not going to be able to do much entry-level gaming on an entry-level Mac with just 8GB of RAM.

Some of the titles that have been confirmed to be playable include Cyberpunk 2077, The Witcher 3, Fallout 4, Control, Portal 2, and Ghostrunner. But there's a difference between playable and smooth. Developers say performance improvements will be required before "newer AAA titles" can run at 60 frames per second or higher. But less demanding games like Hollow Knight should run at full speed.

A new study suggests game piracy costs publishers 19% of revenue on average when digital rights management (DRM) protections are cracked. Research associate William Volckmann at UNC analyzed 86 games using Denuvo DRM on Steam between 2014-2022.

The study, published in Entertainment Computing, found cracks appearing in the first week after release led to 20% revenue loss, dropping to 5% for cracks after six weeks. Volckmann used Steam user reviews and player counts as proxies for sales data.

Nintendo has a new piece of game hardware coming in 2024. It's not the Switch 2, it's the Nintendo Sound Clock: Alarmo, a new motion-sensing alarm clock that will rouse you from sleep with the sounds of video games like Super Mario Odyssey, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and more. Polygon adds: The $99.99 alarm clock includes 35 wake-up "scenes" from Nintendo Switch games. Users will "experience immersive sounds and music" from those scenes, which are styled to match Nintendo's franchises. Alarmo will also track users' sleep and motion; Records will keep track of how much you move around, similar to the Pokemon Go Plus Plus sleep tracker that Nintendo released for Pokemon Go/Pokemon Sleep (and the long-promised, but seemingly abandoned QOL project).

Nintendo Sound Clock: Alarmo will feature various alarm settings, Nintendo said in a news release. The clock's Steady Mode features an alarm that will gradually get more intense the longer you stay in bed. Gentle Mode offers "a more consistent intensity level." And Button Mode is a classic snooze button mode, where you've gotta smack Alarmo to shut it up. Nintendo's new interactive, motion-sensing alarm clock also features "sleepy sounds" -- soothing music that will hopefully lull you to sleep at night.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Months ago, 13-year-old Willis "Blue Scuti" Gibson became the first person to "beat" NES Tetris, crashing the game after a 1,511-line, 157-level performance. Over the weekend, 16-year-old Michael "dogplayingtetris" Artiaga became the first to reach an even more impressive plateau in the game, looping past Level 255 and instantly rolling the game all the way back to the ultra-slow Level 0. It took Artiaga a bit over 80 minutes and a full 3,300 cleared lines to finally achieve the game's first near-mythical "rebirth" live in front of hundreds of Twitch viewers. And after a bit of celebration and recovery on the low levels, Artiaga managed to keep his rolled-over game going for another 40 minutes, finally topping out after a total of 4,216 lines and a record 29.4 million points.

Artiaga's record does come with a small asterisk since he used a version of the game that was modified to avoid the crashes that stopped Blue Scuti's historic run. Still, NES Tetris' first-ever level rollover is a monumental achievement and a testament to just how far competitive classic Tetris has come in a short time.

Investment firm Hindenburg Research claims Roblox is "consistently overstating the amount of people on its platform by 25 percent to 42 percent or more." The Verge reports: Roblox, which went public in 2021, reported having 79.5 million daily active users in its most recent earnings report. However, Hindenburg claims Roblox "intentionally conflates" actual people with daily users, as that number could also include alt accounts and bots. The research alleges that Roblox can separate alt accounts from single users, even though the company's disclosure says daily active users "are not a measure of unique individuals accessing Roblox."

Hindenburg is an activist short-selling firm that infamously publishes research when it says it's identified something shady about a business, allowing it to make a profit as its share value declines. One example is from 2020, when Hindenburg accused the EV startup Nikola of fraud. Subsequently, an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) resulted in a four-year prison sentence for its founder, Trevor Milton. [...] The firm also claims Roblox isn't doing enough to protect children on the platform, alleging its "in-game research revealed an X-rated pedophile hellscape, exposing children to grooming, pornography, violent content and extremely abusive speech." Roblox shares dipped following the release of the report. Desiree Fish, Roblox's chief communications officer, said in a statement: "We totally reject the claims made in the report. The financial claims made by Hindenburg Research are simply misleading. The authors are, admittedly short sellers and have an agenda irrespective of the substance of Roblox's business model and results. Over the past four quarters our bookings, the amount of cash receipts, have grown over 22% from $780.7 million in Q2 2023 to $955.2 million in Q2 2024. Over the same time, cash provided by operating activities have totaled $646.3 million, free cash flow was $440.3 million, and we have guided to even higher numbers for fiscal 2024. An examination of our GAAP balance sheet and our GAAP cash flow statement makes that clear. The focus on cash bookings and cash flow are themes that we have focused on consistently with investors dating back to our days as a private company. The author made no attempt to highlight any of that because the positive facts simply don't support their agenda."

Fourteen years after it debuted on PS3 and Xbox 360, and endless rumors later, Red Dead Redemption is finally coming to PC. From a report: It will hit the Rockstar Store, Steam and the Epic Games Store on October 29 with the Undead Nightmare standalone expansion included. Developer Double Eleven helped Rockstar with the port, which has many of the bells and whistles you'd come to expect from a PC version of a classic. Rockstar says RDR will run at up to 144Hz (no unlocked framerates, sadly) in a native 4K resolution if you have capable hardware. There's support for HDR 10 along with Ultrawide (21:9) and Super Ultrawide (32:9) monitors. You'll be able to play with a keyboard and mouse too.

A Nintendo Switch modder has entered a legal battle against Nintendo without legal representation, Torrent Freak reports. Ryan Daly, alleged owner of Modded Hardware, denied all allegations in a lawsuit filed by Nintendo in July. Nintendo claims Modded Hardware offers hardware and firmware for creating and playing pirated games, as well as providing customers with pirated Nintendo titles.

The company filed suit after Daly allegedly ignored warnings to cease operations in March and May 2024. Daly's court response denies wrongdoing and ownership of the business. His defenses include fair use, invalid copyrights, and unjust enrichment. The Modded Hardware website is now password-protected.

Along with 343 Industries now becoming Halo Studios, future Halo games will be developed using Unreal Engine 5. The Verge's Tom Warren reports: Halo moving to Unreal Engine 5 is being positioned as the first step of a transformation for Halo Studios to change its technology, structure, processes, and even culture. "We're not just going to try improve the efficiency of development, but change the recipe of how we make Halo games," says Pierre Hintze, studio head at Halo Studios. The team building Halo will move from the studio's Slipspace Engine to Unreal, after the proprietary engine it built for Halo Infinite became difficult to use and strained development. Halo Studios has had to dedicate a lot of staff to developing the Slipspace Engine, and parts of it are almost 25 years old.

"One of the primary things we're interested in is growing and expanding our world so players have more to interact with and more to experience," says Chris Matthews, art director at Halo Studios. "Nanite and Lumen [Unreal's rendering and lighting technologies] offer us an opportunity to do that in a way that the industry hasn't seen before. As artists, it's incredibly exciting to do that work." Halo Studios isn't committing to any release dates or new Halo game announcements just yet, but the team has been building some examples of Halo running in Unreal. Dubbed Project Foundry, the work is "neither a game nor a tech demo," but more of a research, development, and training tool. It's also the foundation for how the studio is changing up the way it builds Halo games.

Project Foundry has been built as if it was a shipping game so that a bunch of it can appear in Halo games in the future. "It's fair to say that our intent is that the majority of what we showcased in Foundry is expected to be in projects which we are building, or future projects," says Hintze. Project Foundry includes more detailed landscapes for Halo biomes, as well as foliage levels we haven't seen in Halo games in the past. Master Chief's armor has even been remodeled in this footage [...]. Halo Studios is now working on multiple Halo games, while the Slipstream Engine will continue to power Halo Infinite. "We had a disproportionate focus on trying to create the conditions to be successful in servicing Halo Infinite," says Hintze. "[But switching to Unreal] allows us to put all the focus on making multiple new experiences at the highest quality possible."

Nintendo has convinced Ryujinx's lead developer to shut down the project. According to The Verge, the Switch emulator's download page is empty and its GitHub is gone. The Verge reports: "Yesterday, gdkchan was contacted by Nintendo and offered an agreement to stop working on the project, remove the organization and all related assets he's in control of," writes developer and moderator ripinperiperi on Discord. "While awaiting confirmation on whether he would take this agreement, the organization has been removed, so I think it's safe to say what the outcome is." The rest of ripinperiperi's message is a eulogy for the project, including a pair of videos showing the Ryujinx team's progress on iOS and Android ports of the Nintendo Switch emulator, among other core changes -- ones that will now presumably never ship.

Nintendo would not confirm or deny to The Verge that it made a deal with the developer. Instead, Nintendo spokesperson Eddie Garcia mysteriously pointed me to the Entertainment Software Association's head of public affairs Aubrey Quinn -- who said she couldn't speak on behalf of Nintendo.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Somehow, Nintendo's NES Classic Edition console is already almost eight years old, while the Super Nintendo Classic Edition is about to turn seven. That's apparently old enough for Nintendo to announce that the Japanese versions of the consoles -- the Nintendo Classic Mini Family Computer and the Nintendo Classic Mini Super Famicom -- will no longer be eligible for repair once Nintendo Japan's current stock of parts runs out.

That doesn't mean that if you wake up tomorrow morning with a mini Famicom that won't boot you're out of luck. Nintendo Japan will continue to accept repairs but is warning users that it doesn't have a definitive timeline for how long that will be the case.

Steam has broken its record for the most PC players online, with 38,366,479 concurrent gamers. As IGN notes, that figure is a million more than the previous record, set last month. From the report: So, what helped propel Steam to new heights over the weekend? All the usual suspects were in the top 10 most-played games on Valve's platform, including Counter-Strike 2, Dota 2, Banana (yes, Banana has yet to split), and PUBG, with this year's Black Myth: Wukong, Satisfactory 1.0, Space Marine 2, and Valve's own Deadlock putting in work. Last week saw PlayStation exclusives God of War Ragnarok and Final Fantasy 16 both launch on Steam for the first time, which will have provided a modest boost, too.

The popularity of Steam is gradually increasing as Valve's vice-like grip on the PC market tightens ever further. Competitors such as the Epic Games Store and CD Projekt's GOG occupy a relatively small piece of the PC gaming pie, with Steam continuing to enjoy record-breaking success even amid perceived downturns in the video game industry. The release of Steam Deck is yet another platform on which Steam operates.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: After 20 years, it's now possible for solo players to finish storylines in the massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft that previously required a group to do an intensive raid. That's thanks to "Story Mode," a new raid difficulty that was added for the final wing of the first raid of the recently released The War Within expansion. Over the years, developer Blizzard has expanded the difficulty options for raids to meet various players and communities where they are in terms of play styles. The top difficulty is Mythic, where the semi-pro hardcore guilds compete. Below that is Heroic, where serious, capital-G gamers coordinate with friends in weekly raid schedules to progress. Then there's Normal, which still requires some coordination but isn't nearly as challenging and can typically be completed within a few tries by a pick-up group. The most accessible difficulty is Raid Finder, where you're matched with random players automatically to complete a vastly easier version of a raid. Now Story Mode has been added to the mix, and it's even easier than Raid Finder.

In Story Mode, you fight only the raid's final boss, which has been scaled back in stats and complexity so that it's beatable for a single player or a very small group of friends. Challenging encounter mechanics have been removed, and the whole fight has been retooled to focus exclusively on the narrative aspects. There are some rewards, but they're not the same as those on more difficult raids; the goal was to avoid cheapening the experience for those who do want to go all the way. So far, Story Mode is available exclusively for the newest raid, which is called Nerub-ar Palace. It hasn't been made available for other encounters yet, but Blizzard has hinted that this could be the long-term goal.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Pocketpair has responded to the lawsuit filed against it by Nintendo and The Pokemon Company. The studio that developed Palworld, the game at the heart of the suit, issued a statement early this morning saying it doesn't know what patents it violated. "At this moment, we are unaware of the specific patents we are accused of infringing upon, and we have not been notified of such details," the statement read.

According to Nintendo's press release, the reason for the lawsuit has to do with Pocketpair allegedly infringing on multiple as yet undisclosed patents. The details of the lawsuit have not yet been made public, so we do not yet know which patents, and according to Pocketpair's statement, it doesn't know, either.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from IGN: Final Fantasy 16 producer Naoki Yoshida has asked fans to please not make "offensive or inappropriate" mods upon the game's PC release tomorrow, September 17. Yoshida wouldn't comment on any specific mods he wants to see in Final Fantasy 16 in an interview with PC Gamer, though made clear what he doesn't want to see. "If we said, 'it'd be great if someone made X, Y, Z,' it might come across as a request, so I'll avoid mentioning any specifics here," Yoshida said. "The only thing I will say is that we definitely don't want to see anything offensive or inappropriate, so please don't make or install anything like that."

Mods allow players to create custom content for games, often resulting in incredibly useful gameplay changes such as the ability to play Elden Ring with friends seamlessly, or major additions such as an entire new expansion for Fallout 4 or the ability to play as custom characters in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. Due to the nature of the internet, however, many mods are also, as Yoshida put it, "offensive or inappropriate." While cheating is one thing, fellow publisher Capcom expressed concern in November 2023 that "there are a number of mods that are offensive to public order and morals" which cause damage to the property itself.

Intel lost a bid to design and manufacture Sony's PlayStation 6 chip in 2022, dealing a blow to its contract manufacturing business. The contract, worth potentially billions in revenue, went to rival AMD after Intel failed to agree on pricing with Sony, Reuters reported Monday.

Discussions between the companies spanned months and involved top executives. Intel's loss has hampered CEO Pat Gelsinger's turnaround strategy, which hinges on expanding the company's foundry operations. The PlayStation deal would have provided steady business for Intel's struggling manufacturing arm, which reported $7 billion in operating losses last quarter. Sony's need for backwards compatibility with older PlayStation models complicated Intel's bid, as AMD designed chips for previous console generations, the report adds.

Further reading:
Intel Foundry Achieves Major Milestones;
Intel Weighs Options Including Foundry Split To Stem Losses:
Intel's Money Woes Throw Biden Team's Chip Strategy Into Turmoil.

Flappy Bird's original creator hasn't posted anything on social media since 2017. Until today.

"This morning, the game's creator Dong Nguyen posted a characteristically terse comment stating that he has nothing to do with the revival," reports TechCrunch, "and that he 'did not sell anything.' He added, 'I also don't support crypto'... The post makes it clear that Nguyen is not involved with the new project, and that he doesn't seem particularly happy about it." As for Nguyen's reference to crypto, while the foundation's current PR materials don't mention anything crypto-related, Varun Biniwale did some digging around hidden pages on the Flappy Bird Foundation website and found a reference to Flappy Bird flying "higher than ever on Solana as it soars into Web 3.0," though it's not clear whether that refers to upcoming features or abandoned plans.
More from Fortune: Exactly what is going to happen with this zombified version of Flappy Bird is unclear, but digging through data and files has revealed things like different birds, loot boxes, and the idea that this is some sort of crypto play by the company involved. From a page on their website about the new Flappy Bird... "[D]evelopers and creators can build, play and earn from the legendary Flappy Bird IP."
Fortune concludes "it's crypto, it's NFTs and everyone is so annoyed by this almost every tweet of the resurrected Twitter account has even been 'Community Noted' revealing its crypto ties and snapping up of Nguyen's trademark."

PC Gamer adds that the Foundation acquired the Flappy Bird trademark from Gametech Holdings LLC. "And here there's a slight whiff of skullduggery." Dong Nguyen originally applied for the trademark in 2014, alongside a little drawing of the logo. This application then seemed to sit in limbo for many years, eventually being opposed by a Delaware-based company called Gametech. As this was going on, the U.S. patent office granted a trademark registration for Flappy Bird in 2018 (four years after the game was removed from sale) to another Delaware company called Mobile Media Matters. While I can't be exact on the link between Mobile Media Matters and Gametech, both companies' legal filings give the same Delaware address.

Subsequent to this there's been a legal disagreement between Gametech and Dong Nguyen, except Nguyen doesn't seem to have bothered representing himself or standing up for the trademark, which has ultimately led to it being classed as abandoned (a decade after he filed for it) and acquired by Gametech...

The Flappy Bird Foundation does have one ready-made comeback. As well as the rights to Flappy Bird it has acquired the rights to Piou Piou vs. Cactus, a mobile title that was the primary inspiration behind Flappy Bird, and employs the game's creator who goes by the handle, ahem, of Kek. "Today is a milestone not just in gaming but for me personally," says Kek. "It's so cool to see how influential Piou Piou has been for developers and hundreds of millions of gamers over the years. It's incredible to work alongside such a dedicated team of fans and creators who are truly passionate about changing the industry narrative and together bringing the original Flappy Bird back to life...." Way back in 2014, Kek said he'd contacted Nguyen about the resemblance, "and he told me he doesn't think he knew about my game when he made Flappy Bird. The games are very similar. And even if I did not invent the gameplay concept, the graphics are very close, and, of course, the concept."

The games are undeniably similar, but there are differences, and obviously the most important one is that, for whatever reason, Piou Piou didn't do much while Flappy Bird went stratospheric with a similar idea three years later.

Needless to say, the announcement and press release of the Flappy Bird Foundation does not mention Dong Nguyen once.