Platform News, Tips, Tricks & Ideas

It’s still unclear whether cloud gaming will ever become the next big thing. The appeal is clear: The game you’re playing runs in a data center near you, and the video output is directly streamed to your local device. When you interact with the game, everything is relayed back to the data center.

Microsoft's CEO, Satya Nadella, has passed comment about Xbox's increased presence on other platforms. Speaking during an earnings call, he said how titles under the Xbox umbrella have been selling rather well on PlayStation Store.

Now that anyone can join in on the pirate fun in Sea of Thieves across all platforms, that means there's no reason you need to sail the seas solo. Beginners especially will benefit from forming a crew to help ease into the experience, but inviting and playing with your friends isn't always smooth sailing. Because your friends can be on PS5, Xbox, or PC, inviting friends isn't as straightforward as a traditional game. Let's raise our flags and team up for some expeditions together to learn how to add friends and team up in Sea of Thieves.

Sea of Thieves is a game that really only works with a group of friends. Rare’s live-service pirate simulator is one of the best co-op games available today, allowing you to put together a swashbuckling crew to take to the high seas, raid rival ships, and hunt for treasure. Thankfully, you don’t need to be on the same system to put together such a crew. Here’s everything you need to know about Sea of Thieves’ cross-platform support.

Building and managing your own medieval utopia is a lonely job. Sure, you have a population of citizens to grow and order around, but they can’t compare with another actual human player. At least at launch, Manor Lords is a PC exclusive, and it’s also going to be coming to Xbox consoles as well so even more people can get in on the city-building fun. We can expect basically any modern game to allow for cross-platform play, but what if Manor Lords is stuck in the Middle Ages? Here’s everything you need to know about cross-platform support for the latest and greatest management simulator.

Sometimes there’s a game that’s just a delight to write about, however you slice it. That’s how I feel about getting to tell you about Oyster Wars, a platforming game that melds the fluid movement of Celeste with the puzzle dungeons and hookshot traversal of Zelda. Oh, and top of that it’s about rebelling against capitalism via oyster farming - and it’s made by a real-life oyster farmer. Let’s get into this package of joys.

South Park has reached a new level of international exposure as the popular animated show hits a new milestone in its reach with the latest development in its distribution model for international markets under a new plan by Paramount Global.

Last week, we asked you put the spotlight on robots and droids using #PSshare #PSBlog. Here are this week’s highlights:

AI roundup, April 26: With growing concerns about fake images and videos created by AI going viral, Google has announced a content labelling tool in YouTube's Creator Studio. This tool will label which video is AI-generated. In other news, Microsoft and Alphabet's quarterly earnings in AI have exceeded Wall Street's expectations. Check out more such AI news from today.

's long-awaited next-gen upgrade has finally been released on PC, Xbox Series S/X, and PS5. In a post that coincided with the launch of the acclaimed live-action adaptation on Amazon Prime Video, Bethesda that the next-gen enhancements would include new Performance and Quality mode settings available across all platforms, as well as stability improvements and fixes. While there have been some issues surrounding the patch since its launch on April 25, it seems like it has fixed one notorious bug that's been plaguing players since 2017.

Capcom has revealed that, mainly due to Dragon's Dogma 2's success, the company will pay out more money to shareholders than previously anticipated. The combination developer/publisher has revised its full-year earnings and dividend forecasts for the financial year ending 31st March 2024.

Microsoft has reported their results for Q3 2024 (which ran from the beginning of January to the end of March of this year) and it throws into very stark relief two narratives unfolding for Team Green. On the one hand, Microsoft Gaming revenue is up significantly overall following the purchase of Activision Blizzard, but the rest of the Xbox business has continued to suffer with console sales down badly year-on-year.

Atlus' upcoming RPG, Metaphor: ReFantazio, seems built around systems that wouldn't feel out of place in the developer's Persona series. It's got turn-based battles that hinge on striking enemy weaknesses, it's got warrior spirits that you can summon in combat, and — most crucially to this article — it's got a bonding system where you can hang out with key characters, learning more about them in the process.

We’ve all loved exploring the different regions of the wasteland in the Fallout series alone, but it wasn’t until Fallout 76 that we had the chance to do so with friends. While it wasn’t quite what people were hoping for at launch, years of support have made this an excellent world to explore and go on quests with friends in. While most games released in recent years support cross-platform play between consoles, Fallout 76 came out before that was the standard. If you’ve got a group of friends playing on different systems, will you still be able to enjoy the sights and sounds of the wasteland together? Here’s what you need to know.

This GeForce NOW Thursday brings several major additions to NVIDIA's cloud gaming platform. Arguably the most important one is Manor Lords, currently the top wishlisted game on Steam by over three million users. To quell the hype, the solo developer behind Slavic Magic recently wrote a blog post to explain what the game is not:

The Fallout craze continues to pay dividends for Bethesda. Earlier this week, the studio announced that Fallout 76 surpassed one million daily players across all platforms for the first time since its launch in late 2018. The multiplayer game is one of the top sellers on Steam (and elsewhere), largely thanks to various promotions and offers that have, however, since ended. On Valve's PC platform, the game reached 73.3K concurrent players last Sunday.

PC giant Valve has come up with a new term for when consumers can play a game ahead of its release because they pre-ordered.

An alleged "official" AMD document with information regarding AMD's Zen 5-powered Strix & Strix Halo APU has leaked out, spilling the beans on the full platform details for the red team's next-gen mobility lineup.

Two new leaks of AMD's next-generation Strix Point APU family have emerged and they cover both 55W "Halo" & 28W "Standard" Ryzen chips.

The full Persona 3 Reload soundtrack is now available on music streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music. Spanning 62 songs across 2 hours and 15 minutes, the soundtrack is one heck of ride, made up of immaculately smooth beats and rousing battle themes. We can't recommend it enough.

PS Plus Extra has delivered the second of three PS5 games it has slated to arrive on the service the moment it releases across April and May 2024. Tales of Kenzera: ZAU is rolling out now across the UK, Europe, and the USA. Dave the Diver was already made available with the general April 2024 service refresh, then the third day one title Animal Well launches on 9th May 2024.

Developer FromSoftware minted a new genre when Demon’s Souls first released on PlayStation 3 back in 2009. The “Soulslike” genre was born, inspiring developers across the globe with its risk/reward mechanics, thoughtful melee combat, and connected world design.

I couldn’t tell you what the last Super Monkey Ball game I played was, but I can still talk your ear off about the series. That’s thanks to the speedrunning community that has formed around the franchise, making it into the most exciting game to watch when it’s played at a high level. After spending close to a decade watching old games turned inside and out, I’m ready to finally dig into a new entry for myself.

Shepherding your online tabletop group for a game night is going to get a little bit easier. Popular virtual tabletop tool Roll20 is coming to Discord, integrating right into the chat and voice platform. So, instead of running Roll20 separately in a browser with some other voice client, you can start the activity from right inside Discord itself.

AMD is expected to introduce its mainstream server family in the form of EPYC 4004 CPUs which will be compatible with the AM5 platform.

The ongoing success of the Fallout TV show has fuelled renewed interest in the Fallout games ever since it hit Prime Video, and now Bethesda has confirmed just how big an impact it’s made.

Gigabyte has officially spilled the beans on the next-gen AMD Zen 5 Desktop CPU family which is now confirmed as Ryzen 9000 series.

An engineering sample of AMD's Zen 5-based Strix Point "Ryzen 9" APU with 12 cores, 24 threads, and 24 MB of L3 cache has been spotted at Geekbench.

Your main upgrades in a metroidvania like Tales of Kenzera: Zau will always be your new abilities. These transform the way you move and fight, but there are other ways you can make Zau a more powerful shaman. Trinkets are introduced right away, but aren’t given away as freely as you might think. Each one requires you to overcome a small trial that tests your platforming abilities off the main path. Technically, you can miss every single one aside from the one you begin the game with. Even though there are a few fast travel points, backtracking isn’t a particularly fun experience. Here are all the Trinket locations in Tales of Kenzera: Zau, plus which ones you should equip.

Who would’ve thought the post-apocalypse could be such a fun time? The Fallout franchise has taken the idea of a Mad Max–like future and not only made it into a wildly popular game franchise but also a hit TV series. The core franchise has been around since the late ’90s, and yet we’ve had only a handful of mainline entries in the series since it was revived by Bethesda with Fallout 3. With Starfield in the rearview mirror and the next Elder Scrolls title currently being the dev team’s focus, it could be close to another decade before we can set foot in the wasteland ourselves once again.

A former Epic Games developer has revealed why Metroid's playable protagonist Samus Aran never joined Fortnite.

Back in 2021, court documents released as part of Epic’s legal battle with Apple revealed that Epic had, at some point, planned to put Samus Aran in Fortnite. But a skin based on the futuristic bounty hunter from Nintendo’s Metroid series never materialized.

Nintendo has rolled out Nintendo Switch update 18.0.1, which fixes an annoying Wi-Fi connection issue that has been plaguing players.

Microsoft launches compact AI model for content creation; Adobe to launch full AI image generation in photoshop; India leads global GenAI adoption, investment surge expected: Report; Scientists develop 'Toxic AI' to train safe chatbots- this and more in our daily roundup. Let us take a look.

Former Epic Games Chief Creative Officer Donald Mustard has explained why Fortnite was never able to add a Nintendo representative like Samus Aran as a playable character.

Amazon is surely one of the best e-commerce platforms in the country. The platform offers great services for its customers and also offers great discounts and deals via different sales. Whether it's Amazon Prime Day or the Great Indian Festival, the platform holds many sales throughout the year and provides heavy discounts on different segments, including smartphones, home appliances, fashion, electronics, books, and more. 

Loss is inevitable, and yet, knowing that makes it no less difficult. Grief is all but guaranteed to touch your life — to touch my life. And, most certainly, it already has. That assuredness — that we’ll all be touched by death — is part of the reason so much art is dedicated to interrogating those feelings. For so long, video games have been one medium that, for all its death, dying, and multiple lives, had not quite unpacked the emotion of grief. There was little reason to: When you die in a video game, you always come back to life. The danger of death amounts to nothing but a few hearts on a screen, a number. Oftentimes, it’s encouraged. The more kills you get, the better. Death is not something to mourn there, but a celebration. But this isn’t a universal truth across all games. More and more video games are exploring what it means to lose — no longer just a level, but the more tangible, life-altering loss. It’s games like Spiritfarer, a “cozy management game about dying,” which is about life after death; What Remains of Edith Finch, about the stories that are left behind; or A Mortician’s Tale, which has you going hands-on with death. You’ll find grief in games, too, that are not explicitly about loss; like I said, it’s inevitable.

Ember Lab will seemingly be spreading its wings for pastures new in the future as a new ESRB rating all but confirms an Xbox Series X|S version of Kena: Bridge of Spirits is in the works. First released for the PS5, PS4, and PC in September 2021, the Xbox port could bring up to three years of console exclusivity to an end. Ember Lab developed and put the indie game out itself, so no publishing ties with Sony have been cut despite how much the platform holder marketed it.

Tales of Kenzera: Zau MSRP $20.00 Score Details Pros

There's something about playing Tales of Kenzera: ZAU that never feels quite right. Whether it's the slow, sluggish controls or frustratingly frequent one-hit kills, reaching any sort of flow state where you're vibing and jiving with the latest EA Originals title is nigh-on impossible. It's a very stop-start experience at odds with the usual hallmarks of the Metroidvania genre, instead spotlighting a touching, personal tale of parental loss. Such a heavy narrative focus is no bad thing, but with little gameplay satisfaction to count on between plot points, it feels so lopsided that anything else comes across as an afterthought.

A tipline set up 26 years ago to combat online child exploitation has not lived up to its potential and needs technological and other improvements to help law enforcement go after abusers and rescue victims, a new report from the Stanford Internet Observatory has found.

The Nintendo Switch is one of the most popular gaming platforms of the last decade, and because of it Nintendo Switch deals can be hard to come by. Today, however, you can save on the Nintendo Switch Lite, which is marked down from $200 to $179 at Walmart. This deal makes for a savings of $21 and free shipping is included, but if you’re willing to spend a little more you can save a little more, as at Woot!, which makes for a savings of $30 from its regular price of $350.

In the realm of programming, where challenges often abound, the emergence of AI coding assistants has significantly simplified the coding process for developers worldwide. These tools, powered by machine learning algorithms, offer a range of functionalities such as code autocompletion, bug resolution, and even real-time code generation. Let's explore some of the top AI coding tools that are reshaping the programming landscape.

This is not investment advice. The author has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Wccftech.com has a disclosure and ethics policy.

Stuck in front of a mirror in Fallout 4? Don’t worry, we know you aren’t being vain.

Sapphire has introduced its first AM5 socket motherboard, the Nitro+ B650I WIFI Ultra Platinum which features a Mini-ITX design.

Amid the success of the Fallout TV show, Fallout video games are enjoying a resurgence in popularity. The player boost is so significant that even NexusMods is struggling to cope.

Netflix's recent crackdown on password-sharing has proven to be a strategic success, defying expectations and boosting the streaming giant's financial performance in the first quarter of the year.

There is arguably no more idiosyncratic descriptor in the entirety of gaming than “Metroidvania.”

Like any FromSoftware game, Elden Ring is full of bosses so tough that every time you reach them in a new playthrough, part of you wants to put the controller down and save yourself the headache. We're all human, or as human as Tarnished can get. And that's what the subreddit has been discussing, sharing all the big bads that they go out of their way to skip every time they play the game.

Staying ahead means embracing innovation and scalability in the ever-evolving enterprise technology landscape. Today, businesses are not just adapting to new technologies; they are effectively transforming their operations to harness the potential of these advancements’ potential. 

People love playing old Pokémon games, to such an extent that even fan-mod ROM projects like Pokémon Unbound can find a big audience.

It's been a while since the last proper Crash Bandicoot game - no, I'm not including Crash Team Rumble, and neither should you - and even longer since the last Spyro game, although rumors continue to circulate that the purple dragon will be revived soon. Odd considering how much stock both characters have with multiple generations of gamers. The pair's remastered trilogies are evidence of that, and right now you can grab both with Crash 4 thrown in for good measure for a lot less than usual.

Norman Caruso, the creator of the beloved Gaming Historian documentary series on YouTube, has announced that he is 'permanently' stepping back from full-time content creation on the site. This news may come as a surprise to many fans of Caruso's long-running YouTube channel, and this is only the latest in a string of high-profile departures from the social media platform.

It's a bad time to enjoy platformers built on community level creations, as LittleBigPlanet 3 servers have shut down just a week after support for Wii U servers and Super Mario Maker were killed. But while Nintendo fans got to say goodbye to their game, the death of LittleBigPlanet came as a sudden shock.

The director of upcoming Sims competitor Life By You has said that players are free to create and monetize their future mods. 

It hasn't been a great week for Paradox Interactive, and things just got a little worse for the publisher. It has announced another delay for Prison Architect 2, the sequel to a cult hit from 2015. The game had been set to drop on May 7 (which was already a delay from March 26) but now it won't arrive until September 3.

WhatsApp, the popular messaging platform under Meta's umbrella, continues to innovate to enhance user experience. Recently, reports surfaced regarding a new feature under development: the ability to add specific messages to notes. This development aims to streamline information organization within conversations.

From the looks of it, former PlayStation console exclusive Kena Bridge of Spirits is coming to Xbox Series consoles.

Gaming accessory manufacturer Turtle Beach has revealed a range of upcoming wireless gaming headsets, including the open back Atlas Air, a redesigned Stealth 600, and a more affordable Stealth 500. Pre-orders for each of these products are available now via the Turtle Beach website, with all three models set to release on May 19 this year.

In a recent move, Apple has taken down two popular Meta-owned apps, WhatsApp and Threads, from its App Store in China. This decision comes in response to a request from the Chinese government, making these apps inaccessible for new downloads within the country. Here's why.

Intel & JEDEC have pointed out DDR5-8800 memory capabilities for next-gen servers such as Xeon 6 "Granite Rapids" CPUs with up to 128 cores.

Sony has today confirmed a new PlayStation overlay that will ship on its PC ports, with next month's Ghost of Tsushima Director's Cut being the first to use it. You'll be able to access it from Windows PCs from either the in-game menu or by pressing «Shift + F1», which will pull up a new screen housing your PSN profile, friends list, and Trophies.

Unless a game is breaking records, it's quite rare that we get direct sales data from publishers — and Square Enix in particular is somewhat notorious for this. As such, interested parties usually have little choice but to try and determine commercial success through other means.

Boy, those first few months of 2024 were crazy, right? The torrent of big, flashy new games is finally relenting, though, and the UK's physical games chart is beginning to settle into a groove. EA Sports FC 24 is number one, once again, and Hogwarts Legacy is equally consistent at number two.

Sony has today updated the Last Chance to Play section of its PS Plus service, revealing far and away the biggest batch of PS5 and PS4 titles leaving at once. On 21st May 2024, a whopping 25 games will be taken off PS Plus Extra and PS Plus Premium, including some quality Final Fantasy entries and indie hits. The complete list is as follows:

Atari has announced it's collaborating with Shantae and River City Girls developer WayForward to develop a new entry in the Yars' Revenge series, named Yars Rising. Slated to launch at the end of this year, the title was announced during today's Nintendo Indie World showcase, but will release also for PS5 and PS4. Check out the reveal trailer above.

It seems Toys for Bob's warmly received Crash Bandicoot sequel has been a huge success. Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time, the first numbered sequel in the series since 1998's Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped, has sold over five million copies, according to the studio's design director, Toby Schadt.

It's a pretty odd time to be an Xbox fan right now, uncertain about your platform's future due to Microsoft's willingness to stick its best exclusives on rival platforms. However, it appears to be a strategy that is actually paying off, as the company currently has more Xbox games on the PlayStation Store than PlayStation itself.

Hey everyone! Senior game producer Adam Massey and lead gameplay engineer Daniel Razza here, subbing in for Aaron this week. We’re going to share some updates on fair play for console players in Overwatch 2 regarding the issue of unapproved peripherals.

Pizza Tower fans have been waiting for the well-loved PC indie platformer to make the jump to consoles, but this week's Nintendo Indie Showcase once again failed to deliver that announcement. Instead, we saw a very similar-looking game called Antonblast - and while some elements of the fandom were quick to call it a "Pizza Tower clone," both games owe their inspiration to a much older Nintendo classic.

Platform, the UK gaming bar chain with two locations in London, has reportedly ceased trading and entered liquidation.

Twitch has been testing a discovery feed for livestreams and Clips on mobile since last year, in hopes of giving users a new way to find new streamers to follow and, hence, spend more time on the platform. Now, the website has announced that it's rolling out the feature to all users later this month. The feed will first appear as a new tab in the mobile app and will allow viewers to switch between a scrollable feed for livestreams and another one for Clips. Like their names imply, the live feed will show users broadcasts from people they already follow and ongoing streams from people they don't based on their watch history. Meanwhile, the Clips feed will be filled with short snippets from live broadcasts.

This is not investment advice. The author has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Wccftech.com has a disclosure and ethics policy.

In a bid to enhance user experience, WhatsApp is reportedly testing a new feature that allows users to privately mention contacts in their status updates. This upcoming feature aims to facilitate more personalised interactions within the platform.

In a recent announcement, social media giant Snapchat revealed its plans to incorporate watermarks onto AI-generated images within its platform. This move aims to enhance transparency and safeguard against misuse of AI-generated content.

iOS 18 will open new doors for the iPhone in terms of utility and possibly UI design changes, which will make it the biggest update Apple has released since the beginning of the platform itself. The company's AI-driven utilities will extend beyond standard features as it is expected to implement the technology on a system level, with various apps gaining improvements. The latest information suggests that the Notes app in iOS 18 will offer Voice Memos and math functionality within the app for convenience and easier access.

In a world where so many games send you on missions with tense action and high stakes, sometimes it’s nice to just sit back and relax a bit. That’s where the cozy genre comes in with calming exploration, crafting, and decorating that give you a sense of purpose without all of the stress that comes from more action-oriented games.

If you missed out on the DOS era of gaming, there has never been a better time to dip your toes into the best of what the platform can offer. Retro gaming is in vogue once more, so why not get in on the fun with a gaming platform that doesn't get enough love?

Today's Nintendo Indie World features 20 minutes of new indie game reveals and updates to anticipated titles. If you missed the event, we've gathered each announcement here for a cursory glance at what showed up.