Game Tech News

Nvidia’s GeForce Now service started life as GRID, a free beta service that could stream high-end PC games to Nvidia’s Shield mobile devices. In late 2015, the service was launched as GeForce Now, a Netflix-style subscription service for streaming games from the cloud. PCs were notably absent from GeForce Now, but at CES Nvidia has announced a new version of the service for PCs. The business model is much different, though. Instead of a Netflix-style all-you-can-eat, it’s more of a game hosting service.

Like GeForce Now on Shield, the idea here is that you’ve got a device that’s not powerful enough to play a game. Nvidia runs servers with tons of power, so you can run the game on that server and stream the video down while sending your control inputs up to the server. Based on my experience using GeForce Now on the Shield, this works better than you might expect. Lag was usually imperceptible compared with playing on a console or PC, although there was some occasional artifacting in the video stream.

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After all of the knockout titles we saw the year before, 2016 had a lot to live up to. And with the launch of three major VR platforms, a half-step console released from Sony, and the rise of 4K gaming, 2016 turned out to be extremely eventful. There was plenty of new hardware for devs to take advantage of, but raw horsepower doesn’t always win out in this industry. Pluck and ingenuity during the development process are just as important for the final product.

Today, we want to call out the year’s most impressive games. Each of these titles have noteworthy technical accomplishments, but this isn’t a pixel count and frame rate competition. Instead, we want to tip our hats to the games that astonished us the most.

Sadly, there’s just not enough time to discuss each and every impressive release — even some of our personal favorites. Games like Abzû and Rez Infinite make our hearts sing, but even they missed the cut. So with that in mind, here’s our list of 2016’s most impressive games. And as always, you’re welcome to give props to standout games in the comment section below.

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Razer brought neat hardware to show off, but someone thought it was so neat they wanted to take it home.


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Nintendo will unveil its Switch hardware this evening at 11 PM, with a small number of consoles up for pre-order beginning at 9 AM on Friday morning. We’ve heard a great many rumors about the platform, its capabilities, price, and battery life over the last few months, ever since Nintendo kicked things off with its initial unveil video.

Thus far, the rumors have pointed to a device built on Nvidia’s Tegra X1 (Maxwell) SoC on TSMC’s 20nm process. The screen is expected to be roughly*6 inches wide, with a target resolution of ~720p. Earlier rumors that the display could be 1080p with a 1440p upscale are by no means impossible, but it’s going to be a question of weight, battery life, and available horsepower. Higher-resolution targets help one of these factors, at the cost of the other two. Reports suggest the Switch or the Switch dock will include a cooling fan as well, to allow it to hit higher clock targets, but we don’t know all the details yet.

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Nintendo doesn’t do consoles like everyone else. Microsoft and Sony are competing with each other using traditional high-power gaming boxes that have essentially become small form factor PCs. Nintendo’s new Switch console appeals to a different kind of gamer. After announcing the Switch in October, we now have all the details on this 6.2-inch tablet with a game console inside.

The first big reveal was the price — $299.99. That’s a little higher than the more optimistic projections, which pegged a $250 starting price. That said, there’s plenty in the box. The Switch comes with the main tablet/console hardware, a dock, a left and right “Joy-Con” controller half, controller grip, controller straps, an HDMI cable, and the power adapter. Each half of the controller can actually be used as a separate controller for multiplayer in certain games, so Nintendo points out it’s almost like including two controllers, just like the old days.

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Over the last nine months, we’ve discussed the fate of the legacy server Nostalrius. The project was first*created by a team of dedicated World of Warcraft players who wanted to experience the game as it existed prior to the launch of The Burning Crusade in 2007. It was then hit with a cease-and-desist order from Blizzard and forced to shutdown.

In most cases, that would’ve been the end of it. But the Nostalrius’ story was big enough that Blizzard agreed to meet the team in question, inviting them to company HQ and discussing the possibility of a legacy server project. When that meeting didn’t produce the results the Nostalrius team hoped for, the group announced it had given the Nostalrius code and character records to a different group, named Elysium. Elysium was expected to bring compatible servers online, merge the codebase, and handle character transfers.

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Ever since Nintendo declared that the Switch would be a hybrid tablet/console that you can take on the go or play from home, there’s been chatter about what the new console would mean for Nintendo’s 3DS. Now that the Switch has formally been unveiled, general consensus has been that the tablet is an amazing improvement over the Nintendo 3DS or New 3DS, but only a modest step forward compared with the Wii U. Given how dramatically the 3DS has outsold the Wii U (61.6 million units vs. 13.6 million units), it made sense for Nintendo to focus on the Switch as a potent handheld follow-up — but that may not be the company’s plan.

In a recent interview with Wired, Nintendo of America’s president, Reggie Fils-Aime, answered questions about how the Switch and the 3DS would co-exist, post-launch:

3DS has a long life in front of it. We’ve already announced games that will be launching in the first couple quarters of this year. There are a number of big games coming. And in our view, the Nintendo 3DS and the Nintendo Switch are going to live side-by-side. You’re going to be meeting different price points, you’re going to be meeting different types of consumers, you’re going to have the newest, freshest content available on Nintendo Switch, you’ve got a thousand-game library available on Nintendo 3DS, plus some key new ones coming. They’re going to coexist just fine. We’ve done this before, managing two different systems.

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A few weeks ago, sharp-eyed users spotted something new in a Windows 10 Insider Preview build — reference to a new “Game Mode.” Discussions on what the feature might do, or how it could improve performance, have made the rounds since. But a new investigation suggests the new feature won’t make much difference for the vast majority of Windows 10 gamers.

PCGamesN has details on the latest Insider Preview build (15007) and what it exposes in the OS. While Game Mode can’t be enabled yet, you can read the description of what it’s going to do. Basically, it performs some low-level services tailoring to make the system work smarter when you’re actively using Microsoft’s GameDVR function.

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Gravity Rush 2 hits shelves this week, and there’s definitely cause for excitement. This lengthy follow-up to the original 2012 Vita game is receiving high praise from critics, and it seems that those of us fortunate enough to have a PS4 Pro are in for a real treat.

Created by Keiichiro Toyama (Silent Hill, Siren), the Gravity Rush series puts the player in control of Kat — a red-eyed woman who can manipulate gravity as she sees fit. Picking right up where the first game ended, you’re tasked with navigating the open world with your stupefying powers in hopes of learning more about a particularly troubling gravitational event.

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A few months ago, Sony launched the PlayStation VR after several years of work. Early reviews were generally positive, though they carried the caveats common to all VR today — the various experiences have some great moments, but a true killer app has yet to emerge. Since then, Sony has gone quiet about the platform, despite being happy to talk about total PS4 shipments through the holiday season or various other aspects of its gaming sales.

First up, there’s the recent closure of Guerilla Cambridge, a game development studio that created what’s been hailed as one of the PSVR’s best initial titles — the mech battlegame Rigs. The main studio, Guerilla Games in Amsterdam, won’t be affected, but Guerilla Cambridge had been in operation for 19 years — hardly a fly-by-night. Sony has stated that Rigs will be left online, but there won’t be any new DLC or support for the title going forward.
Next, there’s early evidence that the PSVR’s sales figures may not have been to the company’s liking. There was little mention of VR or upcoming VR titles at the PlayStation Experience last month, and Sony’s Kaz Hirai has refused to give concrete figures, saying: “We’ve always said it’s going to be a slow start, unfortunately, we did produce a lot of units but we ran out of stock in some retailers, but I think based on reports coming out of the holiday season, we’re actually happy with the numbers. One of the reasons we’re not talking about the numbers so much is because we don’t want the numbers to take a life of their own.”


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