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After securing both the Xbox One and PS4, it would appear that an AMD SoC will also be powering Nintendo’s next console. Nintendo has been hinting at new hardware for a while now, probably to appease any disgruntled gamers and shareholders over the Wii U’s lackluster impact in the eighth-generation console war — now, Shigeru Miyamoto has confirmed that Nintendo is working on a possible new gaming system, and AMD has confirmed that it’s got another major design win. Are they one and the same thing? Probably.

At a recent conference, AMD’s CFO Devinder Kumar said that the company had two major new design wins. When pushed on the details, he elaborated a little further, “I will say that one is x86 and the other is ARM, and at least one will be beyond gaming, right … They [the customers] are going to announce it and then … you will find out that it is AMD’s APU that is being used in those products.” When he talks about ARM, it’s hard to say if he’s talking about AMD’s 8-core Cortex-A57 server Opteron chip (which is rather boring), or a Project Skybridge SoC with a custom-designed ARM CPU. Hopefully it’s the latter, though that new ARM CPU isn’t due until 2016.



Over the last six months, Nintendo has made a few hints that it was working on some new hardware. Back in May, the company said it was, rather intriguingly, working on a cheaper console for emerging markets. Now, in an interview with Associated Press, Shigeru Miyamoto said, “While we’re busy working on software for the Wii U, we have production lines that are working on ideas for what the next system might be.” In the same interview he said he wants to see Mario lead the way on the next console, likening the bearded plumber to Mickey Mouse.



The innards of a PS4, with an AMD SoC at the heart of it

So, this isn’t quite confirmation that AMD is working on an SoC for Nintendo’s next console, but given everything that we know about the industry, it seems highly likely. It would be interesting if Nintendo’s next console was powered by an AMD ARM chip, but it’s much more likely that it’ll be an x86 SoC, just like the Xbox One and PS4.
Assuming Nintendo’s next console isn’t due for another year or two, we’re probably looking at an x86 APU with Puma (next-gen Jaguar) CPU cores. At this point it’s impossible to say what GPU Nintendo might go for — it could go for something old and cheap (a 2012-era Pitcairn GCN 1.0 GPU like the PS4 and Xbox One), or it could opt for one of the newer GCN 1.1 or 1.2 cores like Tonga Pro. It will all depend on timing, and whether Nintendo wants to stick to its cheap-and-cheerful strategy or compete with Sony and Microsoft for the flashy visuals (and the rich 25-35 demographic that comes with them).



The Wii U SoC (CPU and GPU), with the CPU made by IBM

If Nintendo does indeed go with a conventional x86 CPU/GPU, it will mark the first time, a) Nintendo hasn’t used some kind of crazy, non-conventional hardware, and b) that all of the console makers are using the same architecture. This might seem like a fairly dramatic move, but don’t forget that the last three generations of Nintendo console (the GameCube and later) have used an ATI or AMD GPU, paired with a Power architecture CPU custom designed by IBM. With x86 holding such a dominant position in the gaming market, and IBM mostly getting out of making chips, it wouldn’t be surprising to see Nintendo join the x86 bandwagon.

Of course, there is one other interesting possibility: Given ARM’s dominance in the mobile world, and the fact that almost all of Nintendo’s portables use ARM CPUs… maybe Nintendo’s new console really will go for AMD’s upcoming custom ARM CPU, paired with a beefy GPU.


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Showing off exactly how you play is a huge part of the modern gaming experience. Live streams and Let’s Play videos are increasingly common, and barriers to entry are lowering every year. Capturing and streaming gameplay from the PS4 can now be accomplished from the device itself, and a small hardware investment nets some incredibly high-end results. With a little bit of effort, anyone can stream and capture console video without an elaborate or expensive set-up.
Today, I’m going to walk you through the process of capturing and streaming PS4 gameplay on the device itself and using the excellent Game Capture HD60 from Elgato. Cameras and microphones are an optional addition, but you won’t need any other specialty gear to get up and running.



On the DualShock 4 itself, you’ll find a dedicated “Share” button. Give it a tap, and you’ll be shown all of your sharing options from screenshots to video clips to Share Play. Press the “Options” button, and then select “Share Settings.”



From this menu, you can drill down, and configure your settings as you see fit. The first option let’s you change how the “Share” button behaves. The second option let’s you change clip length, and toggle the mic on and off. Number three lets you customize what shows up in your broadcasts, and the final option lets you enter all of your account info. If you’re just recording video clips locally, you can leave all of the settings to default, but feel free to tweak these settings to fit your needs. Once you’re done, exit out.



Whenever you’re playing a game on the PS4, the last 15 minutes are always being recorded in the background. If you’d like to save and upload any portion of your gameplay, simply press the “Share” button. Pressing “Square” will save the most recent footage, and selecting “Upload Video Clip” will allow you to pick which clip you’d like to use.



Once you’ve selected your clip, you can choose to upload it to either Facebook or YouTube. Make sure you’re logged in, fill out all of the forms, trim your clip to taste, and post away. It’s a very simple process , but don’t be surprised if the final result is heavily compressed.



Copy to USB

Alternately, you can simply move your video clips to a USB drive. Plug in your drive, and launch the “Capture Gallery” application from the PS4’s main menu. Navigate to the video you’d like to save, and then press the “Options” button. Select “Copy to USB Storage Device,” wait for it to transfer, and then you can use the video on your PC however you’d like.


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One of the issues that comes up frequently in technical discussions of both gaming and video is what frame rate should be considered “good enough.” On the one hand, you have people who argue for what I’ll politely call tradition, who believe that 24 fps for film and 30 fps for gaming represents a magic figure that we don’t benefit from exceeding. There’s actually a great deal of objective evidence suggesting this isn’t true, and a new blog post by Simon Cooke, from Microsoft’s Xbox Advanced Technology Group, delves into why humans tend to prefer higher frame rates.

Part of the problem with trying to discuss this topic is that the human eye is a fantastically complicated piece of equipment that performs its own image processing before the signal is ever relayed to the brain. We tend to think of what we see as a cohesive whole because our entire visual system has evolved to allow us to do so. In many ways, however, this is an illusion. The eye’s sensitivity to color, motion, light, and acceleration/deceleration are all different. The situation is further muddied by the fact that, while we often think of the eye as a camera and discuss vision with the same terms we use to talk about computer-generated graphics, neither of these analogies actually capture how the eye receives or processes information. The video below, courtesy of Imgur user Vz58V, shows the difference between 60 fps and 30 fps at three different movement rates.

All of this said, people do tend to prefer higher frame rates for gaming when given the opportunity to try them. This preference holds up even above 60 fps (60Hz), for a number of potential reasons depending on the nature of the game, its graphics, and how fast-paced the action is.

Simon Cooke’s theory is that this preference has to do with one of the interesting mechanical aspects of human vision — even when you fix your eyes on a single fixed point, the retina is never actually still. The wobble — more properly known as ocular microtremor — occurs at an average frequency of 83.68Hz, with a jiggle range of around 150-250nm, or about the width of 1-3 photoreceptors in the retina.

So what’s the point of this wiggling back and forth? Cooke thinks he knows. By wiggling the retina back and forth, you sample the same scene from two very slightly different points. Meanwhile, inside the eye, you’ve got two different types of retinal ganglion cells — on-center cells that respond when the center of its receptive field is exposed to light, and off-center cells that respond when the center of the field is not exposed to light.





When the retina wiggles back and forth, incoming light strikes both on-center and off-center cells, stimulating both. Cooke thinks this may boost our ability to detect the edges of objects. He also argues that all of this ties back to the Uncanny Valley, though I’ll leave that to him to explain.


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For the past few years, conventional wisdom has predicted that innovation in the PC market was essentially moribund. That’s not the same as declaring the market dead, but tablets, two-in-ones, and smartphones were all seen as driving the future of computing. Looking back, 2014 may be the year that killed such statements, thanks to a wide range of new and interesting*PCs*from multiple manufacturers.

Here’s our list of the most innovative work done in the PC space this year, both in total systems and at the component level in several cases — as well as a few dishonorable mentions. Note that “innovative” doesn’t always mean practical — some of these systems are fairly specialized, but they still display a willingness to think outside the box.

HP’s Sprout reinvents PC control

HP’s Sprout is a computer system that eschews conventional keyboards and control mechanisms in favor of a 20-point touchpad that ships with the system and functions as a control grid. Laser projected keyboards have been on the market for a while, but no major manufacturer has attempted to build a PC that meshed virtual hardware and objective reality in quite the same way.



The Sprout doesn’t just offer a projected keyboard — it includes an Intel Realsense camera, a 14.6MP camera, and an LED desk lamp. An integrated stylus is also provided, and the system is designed to facilitate image and object scanning, data manipulation, and exploration in ways that conventional PCs haven’t previously attempted. Whether or not the system will sell is another question, but it’s expected to be front-and-center at HP’s CES show in a few weeks’ time.


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Sony is about to take your so-called “smart” TV back to school. Starting next year, the PlayStation Now game streaming service will be making its way to Samsung Smart TVs. Select models will support Sony’s cloud-powered gaming service, and will mark the first time that PS Now has been made available on anything other than Sony’s own hardware platforms.

In a press release Sony and Samsung gave a brief overview of this partnership. Sometime in the first half of next year, the PlayStation Now application will be available for download on Samsung’s Smart Hub. Select Samsung Smart TVs will run the app, and pair with a DualShock 4 for gameplay. It’s unclear exactly how widespread support will be on Samsung’s televisions, but it’s promising to see Sony working with other hardware companies.



Now that the door is open for other hardware manufactures to support PS Now, it leaves me wondering about what else Sony has planned for the next couple of months. Partnering with set-top boxes like Roku and Fire TV seems like a no-brainer, but obviously landing a deal with Apple for the Apple TV would be quite a bit more difficult. It would also slightly undermine Sony’s own hardware, but that ship has already sailed with this Samsung deal.

Earlier this year, Sony enabled Remote Play on the Xperia Z3, so mobile versions of PS Now are definitely possible. An Android version of PS Now could be quite a hit, but an iOS version seems problematic. Apple is notoriously puritanical when it comes to content featured in apps, so streaming M-rated games is probably not going to happen without a policy shift. Clearly, none of this works at all without controller support, but since the DualShock 4 uses simple industry standards like Bluetooth and micro-USB, that shouldn’t be a problem.
If you want to try out PS Now for yourself, you can easily do so right now on existing hardware. Obviously, the PS4 and PS3 support this game streaming service, but Sony has already started porting the PS Now app to other platforms as well. The PlayStation Vita, PlayStation TV, and select Sony Smart TVs can participate in the open beta, so you’re definitely not locked into the traditional console model.

For under $100, you can turn any HDTV into a full-fledged game streaming device with a PSTV and DualShock 3 bundle. The business model and game selection remain suboptimal for the time being, but I’m excited to see what Sony does with the service in the coming year.

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New rumors today imply that Nvidia is preparing to release a mainstream version of its Maxwell GPU in late January. Nvidia debuted Maxwell in three desktop GPUs in 2014 — the lower-end GTX 750 Ti in February, and the high-end GTX 980 and GTX 970 in September. The GTX 970 was the crown jewel of that arrangement, as far as the price-performance ratio is concerned. Now, the company is reportedly prepping a new card for the mainstream market — the GTX 960.

Specs on the card, at present, are a bit of a muddle. Today’s report indicates that the chip will use a 128-bit memory bus, paired with a new GM206 GPU core and 2GB of RAM. Previous reports, however, had pointed to a larger chip, a 256-bit memory bus, and a 4GB memory buffer using a cut-down version of the same GM204 that powers the GTX 980 and 970.



The GTX 970 and 980 are great cards, but they’re priced out of most budgets

I suspect there’s truth to both rumors. Right now, the GTX 970 sells for $329, with 1664 CUDA cores, an 8GB frame buffer, and a 256-bit memory bus. Nvidia could trim the die to create a GTX 960 (or 960 Ti) by disabling more cores, but the GTX 970 is already a fair bit smaller than the 980, with 13 SMMs enabled (1664 cores) as opposed to 16 (2048 cores) on the full chip. Given that Nvidia typically targets both the $180-$200 and the $250-$280 market with separate SKUs, it makes sense to assume that the company will introduce products to address both these segments. The question is, how will it hit them?

When we reviewed the GTX 750 Ti this past spring, we noted that while the card’s power efficiency and performance-per-watt was excellent, AMD ultimately had a stronger offering from its own hardware. The GTX 750 Ti’s 128-bit memory bus appeared to handicap it in 1080p gaming — there were several cases where the older GTX 650 Ti Boost was faster than the card that ostensibly replaced it.



From our GTX 750 Ti review

This implies that the GTX 960, when it does launch, will either offer a larger L2 cache than the GTX 750 Ti, draw on faster memory (the GTX 750 Ti used 1350MHz GDDR5, but GDDR5 clocked at 1750MHz is available on the market), or will simply use a wider memory bus. A 2GB frame buffer, possibly with a 4GB OEM option, probably makes the most sense for the current space — though given the RAM requirements on next-gen games, Nvidia could plausibly push the envelope on this front a bit.

How this plays out will depend on how much trouble Nvidia wants to make for AMD, and what kind of yields it’s getting on 28nm Maxwell hardware. After the GTX 980 launched, AMD responded with aggressive price cuts on the R9 290 and R9 290X. Combined with the R9 285 that it launched in August, Team Red currently has a solidly competitive lineup at the $329 price point and below. Maxwell’s major claim to fame, however, is its performance-per-watt — and that’s a gain that AMD’s current crop of GCN cards simply can’t match. If Nvidia gets aggressive with pricing this new card, it could put significant pressure on AMD’s competitive structure in the important mainstream market.


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On December 9, the Pirate Bay, long a central link repository for various illicit torrents, went offline. The 11 year-old site had long been lambasted by content creators and studios for the way it enabled and encouraged piracy, which means its removal from the Internet ought to have had some impact, at least temporarily, on total piracy across the Internet.

According to Green Man Gaming (GMG), a UK-based online gaming distribution firm, the impact of The Pirate Bay’s shutdown on its own sales has been negligible. According to CEO Paul Sulyok, he expected this outcome because he doesn’t think people who pirate games are likely to be GMG users in the first place.

Larger stores, like Steam and EA’s Origin, apparently haven’t weighed in on the issue yet, but Sulyok’s findings are still interesting. I suspect he’s wrong, however, when he says that gamers who use GMG don’t ever pirate. Without naming names, most gamers I’ve known have both pirated software and bought it legitimately. It’s relatively rare for a person to only pirate or only purchase — many people have pirated at least a few pieces of software (even if it wasn’t a game), or have engaged in what I’ll call “technical” piracy, such as downloading a game online when you previously purchased physical media, but have a lost or damaged disc.

Still, the fact that taking down TBP didn’t seem to have any impact at all on piracy is a bit surprising. It’s supported, however, by other research — according to Demonii, the bittorrent tracking system, taking down The Pirate Bay had only a tiny impact on worldwide torrent traffic.



This data is from earlier in December, but it seems to show an impact that was extremely modest and may have only impacted users who didn’t know enough to find other torrent sites. It would be interesting to know which torrent aggregators saw a surge in traffic once TPB was down and what kinds of traffic patterns emerged from that shift. It’s also possible that the takedown had greater impacts on other types of media or distribution patterns that weren’t necessarily apparent within the greater search data.
Another alternative is that the shutdown will have long-term impacts on piracy of new material, but not impact current distributions as much. Since the old Pirate Bay trackers and torrent files are still mirrored in other locations, those files are still available. If you were seeding Game of Thrones Seasons 1-4 before TPB went down, you can still seed those files, which might explain why seeding rates haven’t changed. It may take somewhat longer for new files entering the network to come up to speed, however, or for new data to be shared as widely as the old was.

If there’s one thing we’ve observed, however, it’s that pirates adapt. Technologically proficient users would’ve immediately switched to other torrent providers, and while the non-proficient may lag them by weeks or months, the simple act of asking “Hey, where’s a good place to download movies/music/games now that The Pirate Bay is gone?” will eventually seed that information into the community again.

By the time enough new content exists to make a dent in potential traffic growth, knowledge of new sites may have already eradicated the gap that would’ve made a traffic dip noticeable. Regardless, site shutdown is no more than a temporary fix.

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Running out of disk space on your PS4 with those monthly PlayStation Plus releases? Maybe those long load times are slowly eating away at your sanity. That tiny, slow drive that comes standard with the PS4 leads to nothing but heartbreak, but you do have options at your disposal. It’s easy to swap out the default hard drive for something much better, but what about all the cool stuff already on your drive?

Today, we’ll walk through the process of backing up your files and how you can upgrade your console with little more than a screwdriver. Unfortunately, the data migration process isn’t very pretty as it stands, but the extra storage is absolutely worth the investment.



Copy your save files to an external drive

First off, plug in an external USB drive into your PS4. From the main menu, launch Settings. Scroll down, and navigate to Application Saved Data Management > Saved Data in System Storage > Copy to USB Storage Device. From here, select a title. Select the save data you wish to preserve, and press “Copy.” Wait for the files to transfer to your external drive, and then repeat on any other save files you want to keep around.



Copy your screenshots and videos to an external drive

From the home screen, launch the Capture Gallery. Open the All folder, press right on the D-Pad, and then press the “Options” button. Next, navigate to Copy to USB Storage Device, and select everything you want to keep. Press “Copy,” and wait for the media to transfer over to the external hard drive.

At this point, you can copy your screenshots and videos to your PC. Sadly, you won’t be able to move them back to the PS4 just yet. Sony still offers very limited media playback functionality on its flagship console. Of course, you could always stream your media to your PS4 with Plex, so it’s not the end of the world.



What about the game installations?

If you’re following along in the PS4 menus, you may have already noticed that Sony doesn’t offer any official way to back up your game installations. Unfortunately, there isn’t a perfect solution for this problem just yet. If you’re upgrading your PS4’s drive, Sony wants you to download and install your entire library all over again. If you’re living with a slow connection or bandwidth caps, it might take weeks to get your games back — it’s a mess. Hopefully, Sony will eventually patch in a better backup solution, but our options are limited for now.

In the mean time, you can mount your PS4’s drive on your PC, and attempt to use third-party tools to move your data from one drive to another. This can potentially result in data loss, so make sure your saves, screenshots, and videos are safely backed up on a separate drive beforehand. The dd utility on Unix and Unix-like platforms is capable of making nigh-on perfect clones, but you’ll need a partition editor like GParted if you’re moving to a larger drive. Plug in the 2.5-inch PS4 drive to your PC, run the utilities, and you’re off to the races.

Keep in mind, this method isn’t officially endorsed by Sony, so any number of things could break. It’s unlikely that you’ll do any damage, but oddball formatting and screwy DRM might stand in the way of complete data migration. If you’re not comfortable with this command-line sorcery, just stick with the officially supported method, and re-download your games from PSN.


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Sony has been making major inroads in the world of game streaming, but up until now, the PlayStation Now service was an incredibly poor value. After all, a couple of hours of access to a single game can’t compete with the likes of Steam sales and Humble Bundles. Thankfully, all that is about to change this month as Sony introduces an all-you-can-play subscription service that gives you unlimited access to the entire PS Now library for about $15 per month.

Beginning on January 13, PS4 owners in North America will be able to purchase a one-month subscription to PlayStation Now for $20 and a three-month subscription for $45. Eventually, the subscription service will roll out to other regions and devices. Considering how quickly Sony is pushing PS Now to other devices, it’s unthinkable that the subscription’s PS4-exclusivity will be long-lived.

When PS Now was first announced, I was extremely skeptical of Sony’s cloud-focused initiative. Game streaming isn’t exactly new, but it’s never been executed perfectly before. When the beta launched on PS4, I spent hours testing it, and I was actually pleasantly surprised by the experience. My biggest complaints were the cost and selection of games — not the core streaming tech. With the announcement of this new subscription model, Sony is one step closer to offering a game streaming service that I can whole-heartedly recommend.

Now, Sony needs to work on filling out the library with titles both large and small. The PS3 alone has well over 700 games, so the measly “100+” titles currently available is a bit of a letdown. Sony is using custom PS3-based hardware to run the existing PS Now titles, but adding in PS1, PS2, and PS4 support at some point seems inevitable. After all, we were promised streaming PS4 demos all the way back in 2013 when the PS4 was announced.

So, should you jump aboard the streaming train this month? I’d suggest holding off for the time being. Considering the recent instability of PSN, investing 20 or 45 bucks on an online-only service labeled as a “beta” is a hard sell. While the PS Now subscription pricing is a step in the right direction, Sony still has a lot of work to do in terms of overall network reliability and selection. PS Now still holds a lot of promise, but the value proposition and level of trust isn’t quite where it needs to be just yet.


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What on earth could make a game controller worth $300? Is it made of gold? No, the LYNX 9 from Mad Catz isn’t coated in precious metals, but it does have a few tricks up its sleeve. This whacky controller is designed to transform into numerous configurations to fit your gaming needs. Whether you’re playing on a smartphone, tablet, or PC, this screwball gamepad morphs to fit the platform. It’s not a bad idea, but is it worth spending five times the cost of a DualShock 4 or Xbox One controller for this monstrosity?

The core chassis itself is actually three pieces, and it splits apart to fit whatever you choose to mount. It comes with a smartphone clip and tablet frame for mobile gaming, and even folds down into a compact size for travel. In addition, it has a built-in mic and a detachable thumb board for easy communication. Don’t want any of that? For PC gamers, it also morphs into a plain old controller in roughly the same configuration as a DualShock 4.


The controller itself pairs with your PC or Android device over Bluetooth, and sports a battery life of about 30 hours. That’s nothing to sneeze at — especially since the DualShock 4 has laughably bad battery life. During long sessions on the PS4, it’s inevitable that I’ll run out of juice at some point, so I always keep my USB cable handy. If nothing else, this goofy controller is surprisingly solid in the battery life department.



I’ll admit that the transforming nature of the LYNX 9 appeals to my dorkier side, but at $300, it’s an awful value. If you’re just looking for an Android controller, there are much more affordable options available. Playing on a PC? The Xbox One controller is a much better solution. Even if this controller turns out to work extremely well, I cannot recommend this to anyone with a price tag this massive.

The LYNX 9 will supposedly ship sometime in March of this year, but with so many different parts, a delay is certainly in the realm of possibilities. If you have $300 burning a hole in your pocket, you can pre-order your own on the Mad Catz store in white, black, and red. Just don’t be surprised when the buyer’s remorse sets in. After all, for the cost of this silly controller, you’re three quarters of the way to a PS4.

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