Last month, Sony said that PlayStation Store access for the PS3, PS Vita, and PSP would end this summer. Today, Sony has partially reversed course, announcing on the PlayStation Blog that the PlayStation Store would remain open on the PS3 and PS Vita. CNET reports: "It's clear we made the wrong decision here," Sony Interactive Entertainment President and CEO Jim Ryan wrote on the PlayStation Blog. "We see now that many of you are incredibly passionate about being able to continue purchasing classic games on PS3 and PS Vita for the foreseeable future, so I'm glad we were able to find a solution to continue operations."

Commerce functionality for the PlayStation Portable will still expire on July 2, meaning that the PSP will no longer be able to buy any content on the digital storefront. Users should, however, still be able to re-download any previously purchased games or media.

Microsoft's Xbox Cloud Gaming service, previously known as xCloud, will begin rolling out in beta to iPhones, iPads and PCs this week. The service will be invite-only to start, Microsoft said in a blog post on Monday. From a report: Xbox Cloud Gaming was on track to launch for iPhones and iPads earlier, but Apple updated its App Store rules in September that impacted services like Xbox Gaming and Google Stadia. Apple's move forced the companies to use web browsers to redesign their services so that they could circumvent the App Store rules. Under the rules, Microsoft, Google and other companies with similar services would have had to offer each game as an individual download instead of offering a complete library the way Netflix does for movies.

Xbox Cloud Gaming is sort of like Netflix for games. People who subscribe to Microsoft's $14.99/month Xbox Game Pass Ultimate plan can access more than 100 titles. The cloud gaming aspect lets you stream the games without having to download them, provided you have a fast enough internet connection. The streaming option is already available for Android phones.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from IGN: In its first five months on the market, The PlayStation 5 has become the fastest-selling console in U.S. history in both unit and dollar sales. As revealed by The NPD Group's Mat Piscatella, this news arrives one month after the PS5 became the fastest-selling console in U.S. history in dollar sales. Despite that new record, the Nintendo Switch has continued its reign as the best selling hardware platform in both units and dollars during March 2021. However, the PS5 did rank first in hardware dollar sales in Q1 2021.

According to app developer Kosta Eleftheriou, Apple's App Store hosted a kid's game that's actually a front for gambling websites. "The secret password isn't one you'd be likely to guess: you have to be in the right country -- or pretend to be in the right country using a VPN," writes Sean Hollister via The Verge. "But then, instead of launching an ugly monkey-flipping endless runner game filled with typos and bugs, the very same app launches a casino experience." From the report: The app, "Jungle Runner 2k21," has already disappeared from the App Store, presumably thanks to publicity from Gizmodo and Daring Fireball, who each wrote about Eleftheriou's finding earlier today. It's not the only one, though: the same developer, "Colin Malachi," had another incredibly basic game on the App Store called "Magical Forest - Puzzle" that was also a front for gambling. [...] I accessed them from a VPN server in Turkey; While Daring Fireball notes that users in other non-US countries like Italy also seem to have been able to access the gambling sites, I tried them with a number of other locations including Italy without success.

Unlike the multi-million dollar App Store scams that Eleftheriou uncovered earlier this year, it's not hard to see why Apple's App Store review program might have missed these -- they largely look like your typical shovelware if you don't know the trick, with only a handful of tells... like the fact that Jungle Runner uses a Pastebin for its privacy policies. It's not necessarily clear to me that they'd be violating very many of Apple's App Store policies, either. Gambling apps are permitted by Apple, as long as they're geo-restricted to regions where that gambling is permitted by law, and you could maybe argue that's exactly what this developer did by checking your IP address.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Unless something changes, an issue lurking in older PlayStations' internal timing systems threatens to eventually make every PS4 game and all downloaded PS3 games unplayable on current hardware. Right now, it's not a matter of if but when this problem will occur. [...] The root of the coming issue has to do with the CMOS battery inside every PS3 and PS4, which the systems use to keep track of the current time (even when they're unplugged). If that battery dies or is removed for any reason, it raises an internal flag in the system's firmware indicating the clock may be out of sync with reality. After that flag is raised, the system in question has to check in with PSN the next time it needs to confirm the correct time. On the PS3, this online check happens when you play a game downloaded from the PlayStation Store. On the PS4, this also happens when you try to play retail games installed from a disc. This check has to be performed at least once even if the CMOS battery is replaced with a fresh one so the system can reconfirm clock consistency.

Why does the PlayStation firmware care so much about having the correct time? On the PS3, the timer check is used to enforce any "time limits" that might have been placed on your digital purchase (as confirmed by the error message: "This content has a time limit. To perform this operation go to settings date and time settings set via internet"). That check seems to be required even for downloads that don't have any actual set expiration date, adding a de facto one-time online check-in requirement for systems after their internal batteries fail. On the PS4, though, the timing check is apparently intended to make sure PSN trophy data is registered accurately and to prevent players from pretending to get trophies earlier than they actually had. You'd think this check could be segregated from the ability to load the non-trophy portions of the game, but player testing has shown that this seems to be a requirement to get PS4 games to load at all. Last month, Sony shut down PlayStation Store access for the PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, and PlayStation Portable. Sony will eventually shut off the PSN servers that power the timing check for hardware it no longer considers important. "After that, it's only a matter of time before failing CMOS batteries slowly reduce all PS3 and PS4 hardware to semi-functional curios," adds Ars.

Sony could release a firmware update that limits the system functions tied to this timing check, but Sony hasn't publicly indicated it has any such plans.

Epic Games may lose millions after struggling to recuperate costs from the Epic Games Store, following its fight to gain market share from Steam. From a report: The Fortnite giant spent around $444 million in 2020 on making the storefront more lucrative to PC gamers, mainly through giving away titles for free and exclusivity deals. The company dug deep to offer "minimum guarantees" to developers releasing games exclusive to the Epic Games Store. Under this arrangement, titles must remain exclusive to the PC storefront for one year, even if they're released on console platforms. This means that the developer will receive a guaranteed advance from Epic whether or not their game sells enough to recoup the number. As an example, the company spent over $10 million securing PC exclusivity for Remedy's Control in 2019. A report by IGN that shows players spent $700 million on the Epic Store in 2020, but only $265 million of that was spent on third-party games exclusive to it. According to predictions made by Apple, the Epic Store will not see any profitability until 2027 if it continues to operate this way. Apple also projects that the store could lose around $600 million by the end of the year. While Apple claims that the figure is a loss, Epic CEO Tim Sweeney confirmed on Twitter that he considers it a "fantastic investment into growing the business."

Space.com writes: Tank battles and history will collide this month as the makers of the free-to-play game "World of Tanks" honors the legacy of famed cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin for the 60th anniversary of his historic launch into space... "World of Tanks" developer Wargaming has launched its "To The Stars!" event, which recruits Gagarin into the game along with Vostok 1 themed goodies for players. The event launched Wednesday (April 7 ) and runs through April 19. Gagarin will be an in-game commander, dressed in his iconic orange flight suit, who will represent the U.S.S.R. nation.

"World of Tanks" creators worked with Gagarin's daughter, Galina Gagarina, to launch a commemorative website for the 60th anniversary of Vostok 1. You can see that "To The Stars! website here, where players can also track their progress in the event.

"Yuri Gagarin proved that humans can live and operate in space. His flight encouraged and gave hope to all those who dreamed of this! It kickstarted the deep understanding of humanity's role in preserving and developing our cosmic home — Earth," Galina Gagarin said in a statement. "I'm happy to know that, through the millions-strong audience of World of Tanks, the memory of mankind's first foray into space will be preserved for years to come!"
The press release promises a "shower of cosmic activities," including return of "Gravity Force Mode" between April 12 and April 18 with a new ability that "allows tanks to jump up and operate in the air."

And the Wargaming/MS-1 team behind the mobile tank game "World of Tanks Blitz" commemorated Gagarin's historic flight by launching a tank model into the stratosphere.

Four times in recent weeks, the White House press secretary was relayed questions from someone that Mediate describes as "a gag persona for a former Secretary of State made of Legos."

The reporters believed they were helping a real reporter who was prohibited by Covid protocols from attending. Politico reports: That colleague, who goes by the name Kacey Montagu, doesn't exist — at least not as an actual reporter. Since late last year, Montagu has taken on the identity of a White House correspondent extraordinaire with a fictional outlet to boot: White House News, shortened in emails to WHN... In communications with confidants, Montagu has posed as a member of White House Correspondents Association, claiming to be a reporter for The Daily Mail, the British tabloid known for its gossipy coverage of celebrities and political figures. Montagu also communicates regularly with top White House reporters and has had several exchanges with White House officials.

But Montagu never joined WHCA and The Daily Mail. There is no Kacey Montagu, except as a digital impersonation of a White House correspondent...

Montagu's activity is a remarkable illustration of how the online landscape, along with the age of pandemic-related virtual work, has opened up avenues for the mischievous-minded to infiltrate the top echelons of power. What's perhaps more remarkable is that he or she did it all without raising a solitary eyebrow... until Thursday.
Montagu had started a Twitter account showing the schedules of White House officials, which ultimately attracted a following by actual White House correspondents and even some minor government staffers, according to the article.

Acquaintances...believe Montagu's White House moonlighting began as something to boast about in the online global gaming platform called ROBLOX, where users jokingly call themselves "Legos." Within that platform is a role-playing group called nUSA, where people from across the world engage in a mock U.S. government exercise...

Another longtime member of the community in touch with Montagu said they suspected that they created the account "just for the memes" and never assumed things would progress this far.

Rei writes: Having moved from pigs to rhesus macaques in pursuit of the goal of hopefully beginning human trials by the end of the year, Neuralink has continued their recruitment drive with a pair of videos showing their latest progress. In the first video, they show how they train the macaque to control a joystick with its mind, and how after associating the neural signals with intent, they can disconnect the joystick and the macaque continues to be able to operate the training interface solely through Neuralink. They then switch it over to controlling a cursor in Pong (picture-in-picture showing synapses here). Even with the game set to high speed and with the distraction of his banana-milkshake reward, the macaque puts out an impressive gaming performance.

Musk expects the first commercial product to enable a paralyzed person to interact with a smartphone faster than a healthy person using their thumbs. ["Later versions will be able to shunt signals from Neuralinks in brain to Neuralinks in body motor/sensory neuron clusters, thus enabling, for example, paraplegics to walk again," adds Musk. "The device is implanted flush with skull & charges wirelessly, so you look & feel totally normal."]

Intel is launching an artificial intelligence application that will recognize and redact hate speech in real-time. It's called Bleep, and Intel hopes it'll help with one of gaming's oldest and most intractable problems -- people can be real pieces of shit online. From a report: A video of the app shows that it will allow users to customize what kind and how much hate speech they want to see, including "Racism" and "White Nationalism" sliders that can be set to "none," "some," "most," or "all," and a separate on and off toggle for the "N-word." "While we recognize that solutions like Bleep don't erase the problem, we believe it's a step in the right direction -- giving gamers a tool to control their experience," Roger Chandler, Vice President and General Manager of Intel Client Product Solutions, said during a virtual presentation at 2021's Game Developers Conference.

According to Intel Marketing Engineer Craig Raymond, Bleep is "an end-user application that uses AI to detect and redact audio based on your user preferences." In footage of the application, Bleep presented users with a list of sliders so gamers can control the amount of hate and abuse they encounter. The list included ableism and body shaming, LGBTQ+ hate, aggression, misogyny, name-calling, racism and xenophobia, sexually explicit language, swearing, and white nationalism. As Chandler explained, Intel can't "solve" racism or the long-running and well-documented problems in gaming culture (and culture more broadly). At the same time, Bleep is techno-AI solutionism that feels pretty dystopian, pitching racism, xenophobia, and general toxicity as settings that can be tuned up and down as though they were graphics, sound, or control sliders on a video game. It is also a way of admitting defeat: if we can't stop players from being incredibly racist in chat, we can simply filter out what they say and pretend they don't exist.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Live-streaming service Twitch will ban users for offenses such as hate-group membership or credible threats of mass violence that occur entirely away from the site, in a new approach to moderating the platform, the company said on Wednesday. The Amazon-owned platform, which is popular among video gamers, said under its new rules it would take enforcement actions against offline offenses that posed a "substantial safety risk" to its community.

It said examples of this "severe misconduct" include terrorist activities, child sexual exploitation, violent extremism, credible threats of mass violence, carrying out or deliberately acting as an accomplice to sexual assault and threatening Twitch or its staff. "Taking action against misconduct that occurs entirely off our service is a novel approach for both Twitch and the industry at large, but it's one we believe -- and hear from you -- is crucial to get right," the company said in a blog post. The company said users will be able to report such behaviors but it may also investigate cases proactively, for instance if there is a verified news report that a user has been arrested. Twitch said it would rely more heavily on law enforcement in "off-service" cases and is partnering with an investigative law firm to support its internal team. It declined to name the firm. The new standards will apply even if the target of the offline behaviors is not a Twitch user or if the perpetrator was not a user when they committed the acts. Perpetrators would also be banned from registering a Twitch account, it said.

Twitch said it would take action only when there was evidence, such as screen shots, videos of off-Twitch behavior or police filings, verified by its internal team or third-party investigators. Users who submit a large amount of frivolous reports will face suspension. The company said in cases where the behavior happened in the distant past, users had gone through rehabilitation such as time in a correctional facility, and they no longer presented a danger to the community, it might not take action or might reinstate users on appeal. It said it would share updates with the involved parties but would not share public updates about actions under this policy.

E3 will return in 2021 as a "reimagined, all-virtual" event, organizers announced Tuesday. E3 2021 will take place June 12-15, and will feature content from Nintendo, Xbox, Capcom, Konami, Ubisoft, Take-Two Interactive, Warner Bros. Games, and Koch Media, the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) said in a news release. From a report: Game developers and publishers will showcase their games at E3 2021 "directly to fans around the world," the ESA said. E3 2021 content will be free to access, thanks to unannounced global media partners. "We are evolving this year's E3 into a more inclusive event, but will still look to excite the fans with major reveals and insider opportunities that make this event the indispensable center stage for video games," said Stanley Pierre-Louis, president and CEO of the ESA. While this year's E3 will be virtual, organizers say they are planning for an in-person E3 2022.

An anonymous reader shares a report: In the world's largest gaming market, China, console games play a relatively small part as their revenue has been meagre compared to mobile and PC games for years -- at least by the official numbers. There remains a community of hardcore console lovers, but they are finding it harder to get hold of devices and cartridges recently. A handful of grey market videogame console vendors on Taobao stopped selling and shipping this week, according to checks by TechCrunch and online posts by gamers.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: The popular and entirely legal Steam Database has found itself in a precarious position following two erroneous DMCA notices from SEGA. Steam Database's host is being asked to suspend the platform due to a claimed lack of response to the first notice. This prompted the site to take down entirely legal content in an effort to address the problem. [...]

TorrentFreak was able to review the notice sent by SEGA to SteamDB's host and it pulls no punches. SEGA doubles down by stating that SteamDB is illegally distributing the game Yakuza: Like a Dragon, noting that it has tried to inform SteamDB but was "not able" to resolve the issue. Worryingly, it then implies that legal action might be taken against SteamDB for non-compliance, adding that the host should "immediately suspend" SteamDB due to the alleged ongoing infringement. Which, of course, is not taking place.

This puts SteamDB's host in a tough position. Failure to act against an allegedly infringing customer can put the host at risk in terms of liability but disabling a customer's website can cause a whole new set of problems, especially when that customer has not infringed anyone's rights. In an effort to sort the problem out, SteamDB's host asked for additional input from the operators of SteamDB but nevertheless warned that if that information was not received, it may still block the SteamDB server within 24 hours, as demanded in the SEGA takedown notice. In order to defuse the situation, SteamDB took down the allegedly-infringing page which as far as SEGA goes (and at least in theory) should solve the disconnection threat problem. However, the entire situation has proven counterproductive for SEGA too.

Sony confirmed on Monday that PlayStation Store access for the PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, and PlayStation Portable will end this summer. From a report: The PS3 and PS Vita stores close Aug. 27, 2021; the PSP's remaining purchase functions will end on July 2, 2021. PS3, Vita, and PSP owners will still be able to re-download and play any games they've purchased through the PlayStation Store. Users can still redeem voucher codes for games and PlayStation Plus, too. Additionally, multi-platform cross-buy purchases are still possible, meaning users can still buy content made available to both PlayStation 4 and PS3, PS Vita, and/or PSP. Players can still access their content by way of the Download List, on their respective device. Sony also specified that these store closures will not affect any user's PlayStation Now subscription, or their access to PlayStation 3 or PlayStation Vita titles they claimed through their PlayStation Plus subscription.

sciencehabit shares a report from Science Magazine: The video in this story will be familiar to anyone who's played the 3D world-building game Minecraft. But it's not a human constructing these castles, trees, and caterpillars -- it's artificial intelligence. The algorithm takes its cue from the "Game of Life," a so-called cellular automaton. There, squares in a grid turn black or white over a series of timesteps based on how many of their neighbors are black or white. The program mimics biological development, in which cells in an embryo behave according to cues in their local environment.

The scientists taught neural networks to grow single cubes into complex designs containing thousands of bricks, like the castle or tree or furnished apartment building above, and even into functional machines, like the caterpillar. And when they sliced a creation in half, it regenerated. (Normally in Minecraft, a user would have to reconstruct the object by hand.) Going forward, the researchers hope to train systems to grow not only predefined forms, but to invent designs that perform certain functions. This could include flying, allowing engineers to find solutions human designers would not have otherwise foreseen. Or tiny robots might use local interactions to assemble rescue robots or self-healing buildings. The researchers presented their system in a paper posted on arXiv.

Microsoft is rebranding Xbox Live to Xbox network. Instances of the new branding started appearing in the Xbox dashboard recently for beta testers, with clips being uploaded to "Xbox network" instead of Xbox Live. Microsoft has now confirmed the name change. From a report: "'Xbox network' refers to the underlying Xbox online service, which was updated in the Microsoft Services Agreement," says a Microsoft spokesperson in a statement to The Verge. "The update from 'Xbox Live' to 'Xbox network' is intended to distinguish the underlying service from Xbox Live Gold memberships." Microsoft has used Xbox Live to refer to its underlying Xbox service since its original launch 18 years ago. Larry Hryb, better known as Major Nelson, has been known as "Xbox Live's Major Nelson" for years, but Hryb now refers to himself as "Xbox's Major Nelson."

Nintendo plans to adopt an upgraded Nvidia chip with better graphics and processing for a new Switch model planned for the year-end shopping season, Bloomberg reported Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter. From the report: The new Switch iteration will support Nvidia's Deep Learning Super Sampling, or DLSS, a novel rendering technology that uses artificial intelligence to deliver higher-fidelity graphics more efficiently. That will allow the console, which is also set for an OLED display upgrade, to reproduce game visuals at 4K quality when plugged into a TV, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the plan is not public. The U.S. company's new chipset will also bring a better CPU and increased memory. DLSS support will require new code to be added to games, so it'll primarily be used to improve graphics on upcoming titles, said the people, including multiple game developers. Bloomberg News previously reported that the new Switch is likely to include a 7-inch OLED screen from Samsung Display and couple the console's release with a bounty of new games.

As VGC notes, the preservation group Hidden Palace has obtained 752 PS2 game prototypes and demos from collectors, shuttered developers and defunct media outlets as part of a Project Deluge initiative. Engadget reports: The mix includes prototypes of classics like God of War II, Katamari Damacy, Okami and the Ratchet & Clank series. There are also E3 demos, including big titles like Shadow of the Colossus, as well as very rough alpha previews for titles like Def Jam: Fight for New York and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3. It's not a complete look at the PS2's history, but it could easily make you nostalgic. Hidden Palace stressed it checked for differences from retail versions, and that most of these prototypes will run in emulators.

There's no tentative release date. Another batch is coming "real soon," though. If nothing else, this is already useful as a snapshot of gaming culture in the early 2000s. You can see breakthrough games before they were finished, or remember just how many extreme sports games were on store shelves.

Long-time Slashdot reader theshowmecanuck writes: A grandmother let her 13 year old grandson use her credit card to buy added content for one of his games for which she thought would be a $15 charge. After the account opened up because of the credit card on it, he started downloading other things not realizing they were adding substantial charges to her credit card. She asked Sony to refund the charges, it's not like they can't disable the added content if they wanted, but they told her basically too bad so sad.
From the article: When CTV News Toronto reached on to PlayStation on Liscoumb's behalf a spokesperson said "We reviewed this case at your request and determined that it did not qualify for a refund as outlined in our terms of service and user agreement."

"I'm just heartbroken and Visa said they can't do anything, because I'm the one that put the credit card into the system," [the grandmother, Diana] Liscoumb said... Liscoumb said it will be difficult to pay back the $1,400 in charges and says her grandson is upset too. "He even offered to get a job when he turns 14 to help pay for it."
This story drew a range of reactions from Slashdot readers:

• "This was a $1400 lesson that hopefully they both learned. Never trust a corporation to do the right thing."

• "This is not on the vendor it is on the grandson, his parents and his grandmother... This should not be a news story at all. This should be a private learning lesson for the child, and his guardians."

• "The real problem is still that companies are putting addictive gambling mechanics into games."

• "Someone at Sony should fix the problem."