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.

Police in Italy "smashed" a videogame trafficking ring, reports the BBC. They seized fake vintage Nintendo, Sega and Atari consoles that didn't meet strict safety standards, as well as counterfeit games — including Mario Bros., Street Fighter and Star Wars — that together were worth almost €50m ($55.5m) Around 12,000 consoles holding over 47 million pirated video games were seized by police, Alessandro Langella, head of the economic crime unit for Turin's financial police, told the AFP news agency... They were "all from China" and were imported to be sold in specialised shops or online, Mr Langella said...

The seized games have been destroyed. Nine Italian nationals have been arrested and charged with trading in counterfeited goods. If found guilty, they face up to eight years in prison.

Annapurna Interactive's entire gaming staff has resigned from the company following a leadership dispute, according to a Bloomberg report. From a report: The report, which IGN can confirm based on conversations with our own sources, states that Annapurna Interactive president Nathan Gary had recently been in negotiations with Annapurna founder and billionaire Megan Ellison to spin the gaming segment off as its own company. However, Ellison eventually pulled out of negotiations, at which point Gary resigned. Almost 30 other individuals, including division co-heads Deborah Mars and Nathan Vella, as well as the entire remaining staff of Annapurna Interactive, joined him.

"All 25 members of the Annapurna Interactive team collectively resigned," Gary and the resigned staff said in a joint statement to Bloomberg. "This was one of the hardest decisions we have ever had to make and we did not take this action lightly." While negotiations were still ongoing, Annapurna Interactive re-hired former Epic Games executive Hector Sanchez as its president of interactive and new media, and Paul Doyle as its head of strategy. IGN understands that Sanchez was expected to head up Annapurna's gaming efforts in Gary's absence once his part of the company was spun-off. With Gary now having resigned, Sanchez has taken the lead. Annapurna has earned success and awards for games including Cocoon, Stray, Neon White, The Artful Escape, and Sayonara Wild Hearts.

Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks revealed at a Goldman Sachs conference that the company has been using AI in game development, including for "Dungeons & Dragons" and "Magic: The Gathering," and plans to integrate AI further into gameplay, despite previously banning AI-generated content. "Inside of development, we've already been using AI," Cocks said. "It's mostly machine-learning-based AI or proprietary AI as opposed to a ChatGPT approach. We will deploy it significantly and liberally internally as both a knowledge worker aid and as a development aid." Futurism reports: While the logistical aspects of the technology seem fairly par for the course in the world of out-of-touch CEOs over-relying on it, Cocks then suggested that it will become a part of D&D gameplay. "I'm probably more excited though about the playful elements of AI," he said. "I play with probably 30 or 40 people regularly. There's not a single person who doesn't use AI somehow for either campaign development or character development or story ideas. That's a clear signal that we need to be embracing it."

After paying lip service to using AI "responsibly" and "paying creators for their work," Cocks then doubled down on his point. "The themes around using AI to enable user-generated content, using AI to streamline new player introduction, using AI for emergent storytelling -- I think you're going to see that not just our hardcore brands like D&D but also multiple of our brands," the Hasbro CEO said. Further reading: Magic: The Gathering Community Fears Generative AI Will Replace Talented Artists

Mobile video game phenomenon Flappy Bird is set to return 10 years after its creator pulled it offline. From a report: In 2014, Vietnam-based developer Dong Nguyen shocked the gaming world when he pulled viral hit Flappy Bird from the App Store and the Google Play Store at a time when it was making tens of thousands of dollars a day. He went on to say: "I can call Flappy Bird a success of mine. But it also ruins my simple life. So now I hate it."

Now, Flappy Bird is set to return, with an expanded version aiming for launch by the end of October across multiple platforms including web browsers, and an iOS and Android version planned for release in 2025. But this new Flappy Bird isn't from Nguyen, it's from 'The Flappy Bird Foundation,' which is described as "a new team of passionate fans committed to sharing the game with the world."
UPDATE (9/15/2024): The original creator of Flappy Bird returned to social media after a seven-year silence just to disavow the resurrected game -- and its possible ties to cryptocurrency. PC Gamer also digs into exactly how the Flappy Bird trademark was acquired.

Microsoft is laying off a further 650 staff from its gaming business, according to a memo sent by Xbox chief Phil Spencer to staff today, September 12. From a report: In the memo, Spencer said the roles affect mostly corporate and support functions, and were made "to organize our business for long term success." He clarified that no games, devices or experiences are being canceled and no studios are being closed as part of these cuts. These latest layoffs mean Microsoft has let go of 2,550 staff from its gaming business since acquiring Activision Blizzard for $69 billion in 2023. In his memo, below, Spencer makes it clear that the cuts are related to the acquisition.

An anonymous reader shares a column: The PS5 Pro's announcement yesterday wasn't a surprise. What was a surprise was the price: at $699.99, it debuts as Sony's most expensive console ever. It brought back memories of the PS3's controversial price tag, a console that when adjusted for inflation is the same $779 price point of a PS5 Pro with the additional disc drive. It's a very expensive PlayStation, and I fear it's a test of what's to come for next-gen console pricing.

For years, console gamers have been used to purchasing hardware at a significantly reduced price compared to what you could build yourself in the PC gaming space. Yes, you can find components that match the PS5 or Xbox Series X on paper, but it's still difficult to hit the price points that consoles sell for, especially when they're discounted during promotions. Besides, the easy plug-and-play model, simplified UI, and hassle-free warranty process are all big benefits over having to build or find a good prebuilt PC and then deal with Windows and driver updates. Consoles sell in their millions because they're far more consumer-friendly than PCs.

Earlier today, Sony unveiled the $699.99 PlayStation 5 Pro -- a mid-generation upgrade model for the PlayStation 5 that requires a separate $79.99 disc drive if you want to play your physical games. As The Verge's Jay Peters writes, the announcement "may have marked the beginning of the end for game console disc drives." From the report: Microsoft is clearly eyeing the discless direction with Xbox as well. The more affordable Xbox Series S can't play discs, and there's a discless Series X in white that's set to launch later this year. Last year's giant Xbox leak revealed a cylindrical, "adorably all digital" Xbox Series X redesign too. That hasn't been announced as an official product, but it shows a disc-free future is on Microsoft's mind. It seems likely that Sony and Microsoft are testing the waters for going all-digital for the PlayStation 6 and the next generation Xbox -- or at least offering disc drives separately. It's like Apple removing the disc drive all over again.

But this time it's not just the people making the devices. Retailers are stepping back from physical media, too. Redbox is toast. Best Buy said last year that it would stop carrying physical movies, and Target recently confirmed that it would be all but ditching DVDs in its physical stores. I know movies aren't video games, but it doesn't seem like a big leap that brick-and-mortar stores might stop carrying physical video games down the line; UK retailer GAME has already ended video game trade-ins.

Sony has officially revealed the long-rumored mid-generation upgrade model for the PlayStation 5, the PlayStation 5 Pro. Set for release on November 7 at a price point of $699.99, the upgraded model, styled like the "slim" PS5 but with a triple groove design, will be available only in an all-digital version compatible with Sony's existing add-on optical drive. The console boasts a larger GPU and faster memory, delivering 45% faster rendering than the base PS5. It also features advanced ray tracing at double or triple the speed and an AI-driven upscaler for improved resolution and clarity.

Several games, including "The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered" and "Horizon Forbidden West," will receive enhanced versions for the PS5 Pro. A new Game Boost feature aims to improve performance across the entire PS5 and backward-compatible PS4 libraries.

Scott J Mulligan writes for MIT Technology Review: Roblox plans to roll out a generative AI tool that will let creators make whole 3D scenes just using text prompts, it announced today. Once it's up and running, developers on the hugely popular online game platform will be able to simply write "Generate a race track in the desert," for example, and the AI will spin one up. Users will also be able to modify scenes or expand their scope -- say, to change a daytime scene to night or switch the desert for a forest. Although developers can already create similar scenes like this manually in the platform's creator studio, Roblox claims its new generative AI model will make the changes happen in a fraction of the time. It also claims that it will give developers with minimal 3D art skills the ability to craft more compelling environments. The firm didn't give a specific date for when the tool will be live.

[...] The new tool is part of Roblox's push to integrate AI into all its processes. The company currently has 250 AI models live. One AI analyzes voice chat in real time and screens for bad language, instantly issuing reprimands and possible bans for repeated infractions. Roblox plans to open-source its 3D foundation model so that it can be modified and used as a basis for innovation. "We're doing it in open source, which means anybody, including our competitors, can use this model," says [Anupam Singh, vice president of AI and growth engineering at Roblox]. Getting it into as many hands as possible also opens creative possibilities for developers who are not as skilled at creating Roblox environments. "There are a lot of developers that are working alone, and for them, this is going to be a game changer, because now they don't have to try to find someone else to work with," says [Marcus Holmstrom, CEO of The Gang, a company that builds some of the top games on Roblox].

This week after striking for over a month, videogame performers reached agreements with 80 games this week, reports the Associated Press. "SAG-AFTRA announced the agreements with the 80 individual video games on Thursday. Performers impacted by the work stoppage can now work on those projects.

"The strike against other major video game publishers, including Disney and Warner Bros.' game companies and Electronic Arts Productions Inc., will continue." The interim agreement secures wage improvements, protections around "exploitative uses" of artificial intelligence and safety precautions that account for the strain of physical performances, as well as vocal stress. The tiered budget agreement aims to make working with union talent more feasible for independent game developers or smaller-budget projects while also providing performers the protections under the interim agreement.
Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, SAG-AFTRA's national executive director and chief negotiator, said in a statement that companies signing the agreements are "helping to preserve the human art, ingenuity and creativity that fuels interactive storytelling."

"These agreements signal that the video game companies in the collective bargaining group do not represent the will of the larger video game industry," Crabtree-Ireland continued. "The many companies that are happy to agree to our AI terms prove that these terms are not only reasonable, but feasible and sustainable for businesses."
Deadline calls the agreement "a blow for major developers." As Deadline previously reported, AI is the one and only issue at the crux of this strike, as the union has managed to find common ground with the developers on every other provision. More specifically, the union has said that the sticking point in these negotiations is encompassing all performers in any AI provisions, without loopholes related to whether an actors' likeness is recognizable. In video games, similar to other forms of animated content, motion capture performers and voice actors are often performing as creatures or other non-human characters that make their voice and likeness unrecognizable.