Microsoft is about to release a big Xbox app update for iOS that includes the ability to stream Xbox One games to an iPhone. The Verge reports: A new Xbox app will arrive in the App Store soon that includes a remote play feature, which lets Xbox One console owners stream their games to an iPhone. Remote play is different to Microsoft's xCloud service, which streams games directly from servers instead of your own Xbox One console. This Xbox remote play feature will only connect to your own Xbox console, not to xCloud. It's similar to Sony's own PS4 Remote Play feature that's also available on Android and iOS.

You will be able to access an Xbox console over Wi-Fi, or even an LTE or 5G connection, too. As this app takes control of your home Xbox, you can remotely start your console outside of your home. The Xbox will start up without a sound or the Xbox light at the front, and when you disconnect, it goes back into standby after a brief period of inactivity. A new Xbox app arrived on Android recently, and this updated iPhone version includes the same new design and new features.

At its 2020 hardware event today, Amazon announced a cloud gaming platform called Luna. The news isn't too surprising: the service has been rumored since last year, previously codenamed "Tempo," while an Amazon-made game controller leaked out just ahead of today's event. From a report: It's not clear when Luna will launch widely, but it will initially be available on PC, Mac, Fire TV, and iPhone and iPad (via web apps), with an Android version planned for after launch. Amazon says that interested users in the US can request early access to the service starting today. There's no word on international availability. The service will be available for an "introductory price" of $5.99 a month during its early access phase, which gives subscribers the ability to play Luna Plus channel games across two devices simultaneously and offers 4K / 60fps resolution for "select titles." Naturally, it will be powered by AWS, Amazon's ubiquitous web platform.

Mike Morhaime, the cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment, has launched a new game company called Dreamhaven, and it has established two new game studios: Moonshot and Secret Door. VentureBeat reports: The Irvine, California-based company is a pretty good clue that Morhaime and his wife Amy Morhaime weren't quite done with games when they left Activision Blizzard in 2018. Mike will be the CEO of Dreamhaven, while Amy will head operations. They have hired a number of (mostly former Blizzard) industry veterans to help run their studios, which will work on separate games. That's an ambitious startup, as working on two games at once is a handful. But it's not without precedent, as Harold Ryan's Probably Monsters startup in Seattle also has two studios working on two games at once. What makes the Morhaimes' company unique so far is that they're funding it themselves. [...] So far, the company has 27 employees across all three entities, and it's hiring more staff. The artwork on the company's homepage combines aspects of both fantasy and science fiction, but the company isn't yet saying what games it is working on, nor is it talking about genres. But it is working on a familiar model, as it closely resembles the way Morhaime ran things at Blizzard, with an emphasis on quality, iteration, and giving creative staff enough time. The parent company's role is to provide guidance and funding, as well as central services that each studio will need, such as communications and human resources. But each studio will make its own decisions about how to make the best games, Morhaime said. The founders have equity in the parent company.

Moonshot's leaders are Jason Chayes, Dustin Browder, and Ben Thompson. Chayes was previously an executive producer at Blizzard Entertainment, where he worked on the Hearthstone team. He also worked at Electronic Arts and Disney. Browder's 25-year career includes roles as the game director for StarCraft II, Heroes of the Storm, Command & Conquer, and The Lord of the Rings. Thompson's credits include creative director for Hearthstone and art director for the World of Warcraft trading card game, with additional credits on Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering. Moonshot is also home to a team of seasoned developers who've worked on some of gaming's most popular franchises.

Dreamhaven's second game studio, Secret Door, has a leadership team of Chris Sigaty, Alan Dabiri, and Eric Dodds. Sigaty's roles have included executive producer on Hearthstone, StarCraft II, and Heroes of the Storm, as well as lead producer on the original Warcraft III. Dodds was the original game director of Hearthstone and veteran game designer on World of Warcraft and StarCraft. Dabiri has filled both technical director and game director roles and has worked on Warcraft III, StarCraft II, and Heroes of the Storm. Sigaty was at Blizzard for almost 24 years, working closely with Chayes on games like StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty. He left Blizzard at the end of 2019 and to devote some time to family. He also talked with Morhaime and Chayes.

Legendary horror game Amnesia: The Dark Descent and A Machine for Pigs is now open source, meaning that modders can dig in and see what lies underneath the hood of both games. Polygon reports: The full source code for The Dark Descent and A Machine for Pigs has been released on Github for folks who want to take a crack at modifying the game. It's relatively rare for developers to post their game codes themselves, though sometimes proprietary code can make its way online via leaks. "This doesn't mean that the game is suddenly free," Amnesia developer Frictional Games said in a blog post. "It just means that people are free to use the source however they want as long as they adhere to the GPL3 licence. The game and all of its content is still owned by Frictional Games. Just like before."

Seeing how these classic games are built will also mean seeing things like flaws, and inefficiencies Frictional Games warned -- but it's all still functional and potentially useful to anyone learning game development. "I also hope this release can be of help to anyone wanting to create their own engine or just wanting to learn more about game programming," Frictional Games said. "While the code is not the greatest in places and the tech used is not the latest, it is a fully contained game engine in a fairly easy-to-understand package. It is also a testament that it is possible to do this sort of thing, even with a very limited team."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Forbes: According to reports, more than 500,000 Activision accounts may have been hacked with login data being compromised. The eSports site Dexerto has reported that a data breach occurred on Sunday, September 20. The credentials to access these accounts are, Dexerto said, being leaked publicly, and account details changed to prevent easy recovery by the rightful owners. Activision accounts are mostly used by players of the hugely popular Call of Duty franchise.

"This is a substantial breach," Martin Jartelius, CSO at Outpost24, said, "in parts, the clean-up will be a large undertaking for Activision, we can only hope backups allow restoring original contact data, resetting access and managing the users who still cannot regain access which should be a smaller group." Changing your password, if you still have access to your account, is vital, as is changing passwords at any other site or service where you use the same password. This should be to something long and strong, the use of a password manager will help you here. Developing...

Microsoft's Xbox team significantly expanded its list of game development studios on Monday, announcing the purchase of ZeniMax Media for $7.5 billion in cash. From a report: The entertainment company owns several industry-leading game developers, including Bethesda Softworks, the maker of the post-apocalyptic Fallout games and the fantasy series the Elder Scrolls. It also owns id Software, known for its Doom, Rage and Wolfenstein shooting game franchises. The move grows the number of in-house Xbox game development studios to 23, up from 15 earlier, and giving it control of some of the game industry's most popular franchises. Microsoft also plans to run Bethesda as its own division, with leadership and structure intact. "As a proven game developer and publisher, Bethesda has seen success across every category of games, and together, we will further our ambition to empower the more than three billion gamers worldwide," Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in a statement.

"The sky is clear, the breeze is strong. A perfect day to make the long sea voyage to Mythyn," writes BBS history blogger Josh Renaud. "You prepare your galley, hire a crew of sailors, and cast off. But a few hours into your trip, the dreaded words appear: 'Thou seest rippling waters...'"

He's describing the beginning of a 27-year-old game that he'd been searching for since 2013. Slashdot reader Kirkman14 why the game is so special — and so rare: Thieves' Guild is a BBS door game for the Atari ST that came out in 1993. [A "door" connected the software running the dial-up Bulletin Board system to an external application.] What made Thieves' Guild unique was its graphical front-end client, which features dozens of eye-popping pixel art vignettes, along with simple animated sprites, sampled speech, and sound effects.

As a BBS door game (strike 1) for the Atari ST (strike 2), not many people played this game or saw its front-end in the 90s. But it's worth re-discovering.

The game was created by Paul Witte and Herb Flower who teamed up again in the early 2000s to produce the MMORPG "Linkrealms."

The Pascal source code for several versions of Thieves' Guild, including an unreleased 1995 port for PC BBSes, has been rescued and published on GitHub.

Epic Games says Fortnite: Save the World will no longer be playable on macOS beginning on September 23rd because Apple is preventing the game from receiving new updates. The Verge reports: The co-op action shooter was initially released as a paid early access title in 2017. Epic's far more popular free-to-play battle royale will still be playable on Mac, the company says. Epic says Apple is blocking new updates and patches for the macOS version of Save the World, and an upcoming update going out to other platforms will cause bugs and "a very poor experience" for players stuck on the current version.

In late August, Apple terminated Epic's developer account, meaning users cannot download or reinstall games developed by Epic, including Fortnite, and Epic can no longer validate updates for distribution. The studio said that it will issue refunds to "all players who purchased any Save the World Founder's or Starter Packs (including Upgrades) and played Save the World on macOS between September 17, 2019, and September 17, 2020." Epic Games says it may take until October 2nd for players to receive refunds.

In a Wednesday interview, Sony Interactive Entertainment chief Jim Ryan confirmed that the upcoming PlayStation 5 console won't natively support PS1, PS2, or PS3 games. Ars Technica reports: Ryan explained that "PS5-specific engineering" meant the design team was mostly focused on "the simultaneous use of high-speed SSDs and the new DualSense controller." This prevented Sony from delivering compatibility with older consoles, Ryan told Famitsu, even though he made clear that Sony wanted to support PlayStation 4's "100 million players" by developing compatibility with "99%" of PS4 games, since "we thought that they would like to play PS4 titles on the PS5, as well."

This announcement doesn't clarify whether PS1 games purchased for use on PS4 will transfer to PS5. It also doesn't mention the existing ability for players to stream older-generation games to PS4 from the PlayStation Now cloud-subscription service or whether we should expect that functionality to seamlessly transfer to PS5 in November. [...] Wednesday's dump of PlayStation 5 news did not go into further detail about additional boosts to PS4 games as played on the upcoming console. Instead, we learned that some major PlayStation 5 games, particularly Horizon: Forbidden West and Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales, will launch simultaneously on PS5 and PS4. This appears to run somewhat counter to Sony's recent comments about maintaining "generations" instead of supporting an Xbox-style "forward-compatible" plan for its biggest games.

Nintendo has discontinued its 3DS handheld after about 76 million sales over a nine-and-a-half year period. The BBC reports: A notice on the Japanese firm's site says "manufacturing of the Nintendo 3DS family of systems has ended." The device had the ability to trick the human eye into seeing 3D images like those in some cinema screenings -- but without special glasses. However, its launch received a lukewarm reception and it only gained popularity later. The console's demise has long been expected. Last year, the company said it no longer planned to make any new first-party games for the system. It means the original Nintendo DS retains the title of being the bestselling mobile console. And the Nintendo Switch -- a hybrid handheld-and-home machine -- is the current focus of Nintendo's efforts.

The PlayStation 5 will cost $499 for the standard version of Sony's next-gen console and $399 for the PS5 Digital Edition -- the system without an optical disc drive -- when it launches Nov. 12, Sony Interactive Entertainment announced Wednesday during its PlayStation 5 Showcase livestream. From a report: The Nov. 12 release date is for the consoles' launches in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea. They'll become available on Nov. 19 for the rest of the world, Sony said. Sony's PS5 price announcement follows similar news from Microsoft, which announced the release date of its $499 Xbox Series X and $299 Xbox Series S earlier in September.

NBC News spoke to 21 people who said they were hooked on casino-style apps and had spent significant sums of money. The industry is almost entirely unregulated. From a report: Shellz, 37, a nurse from Houston, spends at least two hours a day with her husband playing a casino-style smartphone game called Jackpot Magic. The app offers a variety of typical casino games to play, including their favorite, called Reel Rivals, a game in which players accrue points by playing a virtual slot machine. As in a real casino, players exchange money for coins to bet. Unlike in a real casino, there is no way to win money back or earn a payout on coins. But that has not stopped Shellz and her husband from spending about $150,000 in the game in just two years. She asked to use her in-game username so her family does not find out how much money they have spent on the game. "We lie in bed next to each other, we have two tablets, two phones and a computer and all these apps spinning Reel Rivals at the same time," she said. "We normalize it with each other." Jackpot Magic is an app made by Big Fish Games of Seattle, one of the leaders in an industry of "free-to-play" social games into which some people have plowed thousands of dollars. Big Fish Games also operates a similar app, Big Fish Casino. Both are labeled as video games, which allows the company and others like it to skirt the tightly regulated U.S. gambling market. But unlike the gambling market, apps like Jackpot Magic and Big Fish Casino are under little oversight to determine whether they are fair or whether their business practices are predatory.

NBC News spoke to 21 people, including Shellz and her husband, who said they were hooked on the casino-style games and had spent significant sums of money. They described feelings of helplessness and wanting to quit but found themselves addicted to the games and tempted by the company's aggressive marketing tactics. Most of the 21 players wished to remain anonymous, as they were ashamed of their addictions and did not want their loved ones to find out about their behavior. A 42-year-old Pennsylvania woman said she felt saddened that she spent $40,000 on Big Fish Casino while working as an addiction counselor. "The whole time I was working as an addiction counselor, I was addicted to gambling and with no hope of winning any money back," she said. Big Fish Games did not make anyone available for an interview, nor did the company respond to detailed questions. The company has said in previous court filings that only a fraction of the game's players actually spend money. In a response to NBC News' inquiries, the company issued a statement saying its games are not gambling and should not be regulated as such.

How-To Geek has discovered three of the world's most popular web browsers contain Easter Eggs: It seems like every browser has a hidden game these days. Chrome has a dinosaur game, Edge has surfing, and Firefox has . . . unicorn pong? Yep, you read that right — here's how to play it.

First, open Firefox. Click the hamburger menu (the three horizontal lines) at the upper right, and then click "Customize." On the "Customize Firefox" tab, you'll see a list of interface elements to configure the toolbar. Click and drag all the toolbar items except "Flexible Space" into the "Overflow Menu" on the right.

Click the Unicorn button that appears at the bottom of the window....
There's screenshots in the article illustrating all of the steps — and the result.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The latest quarterly earnings report from GameStop doesn't show much sign of a turnaround for the long-troubled game retailer. Sales were down 26.7 percent year over year for the April through June quarter. Even accounting for permanent store closures and COVID-related reduced operating hours, so-called comparable "same-store" sales were still down 12.7 percent year over year. GameStop's already depressed stock is down nearly 8 percent on the news, as of this writing. GameStop still publicly sees an "opportunity to capitalize" on the upcoming release of new Sony and Microsoft consoles, which could help turn its business around in the short term. But there's some reason to believe the coming generation of consoles could actually make GameStop's long-term prospects worse, thanks to console options that get rid of disc drives entirely.

In an earnings call, GameStop CEO George Sherman acknowledged that "there has been growth in digitally downloaded games" and said GameStop is "not debating the growth of digital gaming." But he also tried to put a positive spin on the fate of GameStop's physical game sales going into the next generation of consoles. "First, new consoles have a disc drive," Sherman said. "So for the next seven years, the consoles will play both the physical and digital software that we sell." That's only partially true, though. Both the Xbox Series S and the PlayStation 5 Digital Edition actually won't have a disc drive. And while GameStop does sell some digital software, the bulk of its business comes from the sale of new physical games and high-margin pre-owned games. We don't know what percentage of consumers will opt for these disc-free consoles, of course. Still, lower hardware costs could definitely make discless consoles an attractive option to many potential customers this generation. The Xbox Series S is $200 cheaper than the more-powerful, disc-drive-equipped Series X, a sum that could go toward a lot of digital game purchases...

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Today, Microsoft revealed prices for its next-gen consoles: $299 or $499 for an Xbox Series S or Xbox Series X, respectively, starting November 10. But Microsoft is also talking up a smartphone-style program that lets players get either system for no money upfront as part of a subscription plan called Xbox All Access. With Xbox All Access, you make a two-year commitment to pay $24.99/month (for the Xbox Series S) or $34.99/month (for the Xbox Series X). In exchange for that commitment, you get the relevant hardware upfront, to keep, as well as a two-year subscription to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. Game Pass Ultimate usually costs $14.99/month, so your All Access monthly payments end up a bit higher to make up for that "free" upfront hardware. But in addition to not having to spend hundreds of dollars in one lump sum, All Access subscribers can actually come out ahead at the end of two years.

For the Xbox Series S:
- With All Access: $0 upfront + $24.99/month * 24 months = $599.67
- Without All Access: $299 upfront + $14.99/month * 24 months = $658.76
- All Access savings: $59.09

For the Xbox Series X:
- With All Access: $0 upfront + $34.99/month * 24 months = $839.76
- Without All Access: $499 upfront + $14.99 * 24 months = $858.76
- All Access savings: $19.00

So All Access subscribers save a lot of money upfront and a little money in the long run over players who buy their console and Game Pass separately. Not a bad deal, all things considered. Some things to note: you should be interested in Microsoft's Game Pass Ultimate subscription in the first place and know that it locks you in to that subscription for a full two years. It's also subject to a credit check and approval of a line of credit from Citizens One bank, which is partnering with Microsoft for the program.

Microsoft's next-generation consoles, the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S, will be released on Nov. 10, Microsoft announced on Wednesday. Microsoft also confirmed the price of Xbox Series X: $499. Pre-orders will open on Sept. 22. From a report: As part of Wednesday's announcement, Microsoft also said it will expand Xbox All Access program to 12 countries. This program essentially allows players to purchase a console and Xbox Game Pass on a monthly payment program -- $24.99 a month. Xbox All Access will be available in Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, South Korea, Sweden, United Kingdom, and United States. Microsoft's localized Xbox Twitter accounts have also been tweeting regional pricing: In the U.K., the Xbox Series X will cost $499 and the Xbox Series S will cost $299. This holiday Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and Xbox Game Pass for PC members get an EA Play membership at no additional cost.

Last week, India banned another 118 apps with links to China. PUBG Mobile Lite and PUBG Mobile Nordic Map were included in that sweeping ban. Now, PUBG Corporation says it's looking for ways to bring the apps back to India. Engadget reports: The South Korean company was included in the ban because the mobile games are published by China's Tencent. In a statement shared today, PUBG Corporation said it will no longer use Tencent Games to publish the PUBG Mobile franchise in India. According to TechCrunch, prior to the ban, PUBG Mobile had more than 40 million monthly active users in India, so there's a strong incentive to restore the game.

"Moving forward, PUBG Corporation will take on all publishing responsibilities within the country," it said. "As the company explores ways to provide its own PUBG experience for India in the near future, it is committed to doing so by sustaining a localized and healthy gameplay environment for its fans."

Microsoft has confirmed via its official Xbox Twitter account that a discless, tiny Xbox called the Series S will be released alongside its forthcoming Xbox Series X. From a report: The Series S was initially leaked late Monday, first by Brad Sams on Twitter, and also by Walking Cat. The Xbox account tweeted an image fo the same small design dominated by a large, round vent grill, and said that the estimated retail price at launch for the new version of the console will be $299. The original leak from Sams also includes the $299 price, and Walking Cat's leaked trailer video inlaid more details -- including noting that the console is 60% smaller than the forthcoming Series X, but that it includes a high-speed 512GB NVMe SSD, with performance offering up to 1440p resolution at 120FPS, along with 4K upscaling. It'll also support DirectX ray tracing.

EA's UFC 4 is off to a rough start. From a report: The developer told Eurogamer it had removed commercials from the MMA game's replays and overlays after many fans complained about the experience. These weren't small, unintrusive promos -- one commonly-cited example was a full-screen video ad for Amazon's second season of The Boys. UFC 3 players have reported similar ads. The company said it turned the ads on in early September, but that it was "abundantly clear" from the backlash that ads in replays and overlays were "not welcome." These commercials "will not be reappearing in the future," EA said. It added that ads weren't new to the UFC series, but were typically reserved for main menu titles or Octagon logo placements. Critics complained not just that they were seeing ads in a paid game, but that the timing was dishonest. The ads appeared roughly two weeks after UFC 4's launch, or well after initial reviews. If you were an early adopter, you wouldn't have realized you were in store for a marketing blitz.

Nintendo is going back to the beginning with a modern version of its original Game & Watch handheld that's been revamped with a full-color LCD. It can play Super Mario Bros. in honor of the franchise's 35th anniversary. The new handled was announced during a surprise Nintendo Direct showcase. From a report: In addition to Super Mario Bros., the handheld can also play Super Mario Bros: The Lost Levels (released in Japan as Super Mario Bros. 2) and an updated version of Game & Watch: Ball that stars Mario (instead of Mr. Game & Watch). [...] The Game & Watch: Super Mario Bros. handheld will be released on November 13th in "limited production" for $49.99.