PAX Australia: Xbox One

More Xbox One coverage. Enjoy.

Read More

Sony offers PS4 Devkits to Universities.

SCEE’s head of academic development says Sony are helping to improve teaching with their PlayStationFirst Academic Programme, which is strategically vital for the future of their business. PlayStationFirst is now open for expressions of interest from universities who want to access PlayStation 4 dev kits in 2014, once developer demand has been met.

Dr Maria Stukoff says: “Our aim is to increase the quality and teaching of game courses and therefore we demand universities reach a certain level before they can register on the full programme. Engaging with academia means that SCEE is actively taking part in shaping the future of game development education and offering pathways for students to get skilled-up whilst learning about the industry, the players and the products.”

PlayStationFirst is a Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE) and SCE Worldwide Studios (SCE WWS) partnership programme which introduces aspiring developers, computer scientists and researchers to Sony’s dev tools while they are at university. Institutions on the scheme get access to cut-price dev kits and other benefits as Sony invest in a generation of developers who they hope will become PlayStation-savvy.

Stukoff adds: “It is of huge strategic importance to the future of our business. Technology for gaming is evolving at an ever-increasing rate while traditional markets are changing. The next-gen of indie developers are currently in education and PlayStationFirst provides this talent group with unique access to our professional PlayStation tools and support and to choose PlayStation as a platform of choice to learn their craft to create fun news gaming experiences.”

The PS4 academic licencing programme will begin in 2014. “We’d like to start sooner,” explains Stukoff, “but the main challenge is that all most PS4 dev kits will be sucked up by the keen demand of PlayStation registered game developers. However we are offering immediate access to PS Vita SDK, our latest console which has a lot of similarity with the approaches taken on PS4, so as an example the Visual Studio based approach taken by the Razor optimisation tool is common across both platforms – and so students getting experience today on PS Vita will be able to smoothly migrate to PS4.”

Sony’s interest in indie – which is increasingly cited as the career route of choice by young developers – has been reinvigorated by high-profile success stories such as Journey. And its commitment to small-budget development was reiterated by Mark Cerny at the Develop conference. Stukoff explains that PlayStationFirst should be seen as a route to next gen publishing by aspiring developers. “Since the dawn of PlayStation, SCE has provided access to universities to explore our full professional SDK and tools. Providing access to the PS4 SDK is a natural step for us, especially when building upon the complementary skills PS Vita development has to offer. This is about finding the talent and enabling that talent to get skilled-up and be future-fit for PlayStation publishing opportunities.”

Citing examples such as Sheffield Hallam University’s puzzle game Bounceback, which was published by the university’s own studio Steel Minions for PSP in 2012, Stukoff adds: “We are really keen for students to publish their games on PSN and will continue to promote channels for student games to feature on PlayStation whilst studying. Playground Squad, who are based in Sweden, have published various PlayStation mini titles such as ‘Swap Zap!’ and are about to release their first PS Vita title. So, watch this space…”

PlayStationFirst-registered universities will gain access to support akin to help offered to commercial game developers, a feature unique to Sony’s programme says Stukoff. “Alongside providing online training we offer mentors from all disciples of our studio. Furthermore we are actively support educational events, student game jams and completions hosted by our University members.”

Since its launch three years ago, PlayStation first has tripled its number of partners to 100. Now the scheme is expanding to not only cover Australia, Middle East, Europe and the UK by offering the same support and access to our hardware to Universities in America and Japan.

Universities interested in taking part in PlayStationFirst should email applications@ps-edu.scedev.net to discuss registration. Once SCEE send out the official application form, they will review applicants. Institutions have to fulfil a set of academic and PlayStation oriented criteria to demonstrate the use of PlayStation technologies as a critical part of the teaching curriculum. Institutions who do not meet Sony’s criteria can work towards elgibility for the programme by gaining access to other platforms such as the Move.me SDK and PlayStationMobile.

“PlayStation 4 is setting the pace for global indie development, we are very excited that through PlayStationFirst we are able to offer registered Universities access to PlayStation 4 for the next generation of soon-to-be Indie developers,” adds Mick Hocking, vice president studio group at London and Evolution Studios. “Now is the time for new talent to get skilled up on PS Vita and explore the future of PlayStation game development.”

Thanks to edge-online for this article.

Read More

Blog Update!

YJB Reviews has now been renamed to Fist Pump Gaming.

We are currently updating the blog; so many of the links may not work. Please be patient.
We shall still post news during this time. (Yes, we have more writers.)

Thanks.

- YJB

In the mean time:

Read More

Xbox One Drops DRM.

As you may as well have heard by now. The Xbox One has changed their policies; this has created memes and jokes with the unofficial  renaming of the console to "Xbox 180".

What does this mean? Well, you can now play offline without needing an internet check. You can lend your discs freely and so on.

You can find the official article here. Xbox.com

This does sadly drop some awesome features that would have potentially shaken the gaming industry.
Sadly, the 'loud minority' won... or I dare say, the ignorant.

Read More

Free Games on Xbox

Xbox has started a new scheme. All gold members will get 2 free xbox games every month starting from July.


In the mean time, Fable 3 is currently free to download on the Xbox marketplace.

Grab it here Xbox Marketplace




Update:
The two games that are announced for July are: Assassins Creed II and Halo 3
The availability window will be July 1st - 16th. Be sure to download them if you do not possess these!

If you have no room for these, no worries! As long as you press download and then cancel, the games will stay on your account for future download.

Read More

Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition - Title Update 9

Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition's latest Title Update (9) has recently past Microsofts certification testing and has been announced by 4J that the newest patch will be released on 5th April.

Read More

The Walking Dead 'SpringSale!'

The Walking Dead game by TellTale Games is a fantastic piece of art, I highly suggest that you play it if you have not done so already.

Xbox Live customers can get the chance to grab episode 1 for FREE on the Spring Sale (which is located on your dashboard). Along with the free edition is a 200 Microsoft Points reduction for all episodes of The Walking Dead. This means you can grab the whole season for a whooping 800 Microsoft Points! (£6.80), compared to the 2000 Microsoft Points (£17.00) it would cost you.

A game of this quality and immersion is well worth the cost and your time. What are you doing still reading this? Go and play!

Read More

PS Vita First Impression

After going away from blogging I found this in my draft pile. I realise that I was very excited when I first got my hands on this device and believed it would go far... no. It is sadly not been given the love it deserves.

On that note, after the PS4 announcement I do believe Sony are planning on giving the Vita more TLC that it deserves and using a similar system that the Wii U and 3DS have been implementing (but better apparently).

Read More

Dues Ex: Human Defiance

Dues Ex: Human Defiance was recently trademarked by Square Enix.
What is Human Defiance? Well it could be a number of things: a hopeful sequel, an alternative game in the series or it could even be the movie that is in the pipeline. I am not quite sure nor do I wish to confirm.

Only time will tell.

Read More