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The games console has always been a proponent of convenience and safety at the cost of freedom, so it makes sense that the Xbox One would bring us to the analogous Big Brother moment we should have known was an inevitability.

Gamers eschewed the complexities of the PC platform - one where the player needs to maintain hardware, update drivers and try not to surf shady porn sites lest malware cost them precious frames - in favour of popping a cartridge/cd in a drive and playing immediately.

Developers avoided the exposed PC platform - where consumers stole games with abandon, modded them into games of their own design and could dig through backwards engineered code to find all of their secrets - in favour of the safety of a protected system (or at least the illusion of it).

Every year Activision unveils a new Call of Duty, and every year a vocal portion of the games community cries out against it, contemptuously deriding its familiarity, its questionable morality and its self-seriousness all at once.

I'm not a member of this group of detractors. Where they see icky choices I see a mirror held up to society. Where they see grimness I see self-respect. And where they see the same game over and over I see innovations that either lead the industry in new directions or at least hone ideas to a sharp edge.

Yes, I stayed up so you wouldn't have to and the next generation console from Microsoft - the Xbox One - has been revealed. In an event lasting 2 hours, Microsoft showed off the new console, its new features and a bunch of the new games coming to the device when it launches later this year. Read on for all the highlights from the event!


The new Xbox One. Microsoft were certain to actually show the console.

If you're reading this within a few hours of it going up you are probably more interested in news about another console, but before Microsoft went on to dominate the gaming news cycle for the next couple of days it seems like Sony wanted to do something cool for Australia - with the launch of their PlayStation First program in association with the Academy of Interactive Entertainment.


Recently release indie metroidvania Guacamelee

PlayStation First is a programme (not a program) through which Sony Computer Entertainment establishes partnerships with institutes of higher learning to provide support, tools and materials for students to aid them in the video game development process. Through the programme AIE receives 6 PlayStation Vita development kits - and PlayStation development is added to the syllabus. The programme will be available across AIE's Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne campuses in the near future.

This move makes a lot of sense to those who have been following Sony's movements of late, as they have been giving a lot of attention to the indie scene (and receiving it in kind.) Sony seem to have been particularly keen to get indie development going on the PS Vita, no doubt in part due to the lower cost of development and access. All up it's pretty much a triple-win - a win for Sony, a win for game dev students and a win for us poor suckers who have a PS Vita.

Did you like Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning? Not a lot of people did. Or at the very least, not enough people did to get 38 Studios and Big Huge Games out of hot water. Almost exactly one year ago today, 38 Studios was forced to lay off their entire staff, 378 employees across 38 Studios and Big Huge Games after the game failed to return their investment.




With that, the company began its unfortunate movement towards bankruptcy - and the State of Rhode Island, who gave them a loan of $75 Million - sued 38 Studios. The suit included allegations of fraud, financial misconduct, neglect and conspiracy to deceive officials about the company's financial prospects. Now, in an attempt to recoup its losses - which still sit at around $50 Million (all up 38 Studios owes approximately $130 Million to its creditors) Polygon reports that Rhode Island lawyer Richard J. Land is attempting to get clearance to sell the Kingdoms of Amalur IP and assets, with the money from the sale going towards paying off investors.

While we currently don't know who is looking to buy the Kingdoms of Amalur IP and assets, it could be profitable - the game was designed by Ken Rolston, with lore by R.A. Salvatore and art by Todd McFarlane - and all that work would be available to someone who picked up the IP and assets. Big Huge Games were at work on their MMO version of Kingdoms of Amalur when all of the staff was laid off, so there is a partially developed new game in there as well. We'll be sure to let you know when we learn more, but in the meantime - would you play a new Kingdoms of Amalur? Did you play Reckoning? Joaby was pretty happy with it when 0he wrote his review it back in February last year, what did you think? Let us know in the comments below!

Last year Kotaku ran an expose into mismanagement at Denis Dyack's Silicon Knights - the company responsible for the incredibly popular Eternal Darkness and the significantly less popular Too Human and X-Men: Destiny. Citing eight anonymous sources who had previously worked for Silicon Knights, the article looked into exactly how X-Men: Destiny came to be the unpopular game it is.

And now, as spotted by AusGamers, Denis Dyack has responded. Now working for Precursor Games, where he is the Chief Creative Officer, Dyack was asked to speak on the issue after their new Kickstarter project Shadow of the Eternals was inundated with comments from concerned gamers wondering what kind of shenanigans Dyack and Silicon Knights had been up to. In a 33 minute video on Youtube (embedded below) Dyack responds to a number of questions raised by the community, with the hope that clearing things up will allay suspicions and get people pledging to his Kickstarter again.

This week on the GA Podcast Jae, Luke and Heath talk about Wasteland, Neptunes Pride 2, StarCraft 2 and more. In the news it’s all about the financials as they discuss the fiscal results from Sony, Square Enix, Take 2, Sega, Namco Bandai, Activision and EA. This episode contains coarse language and it goes for 2 hours(ish).

The GA Podcast Episode 178 – Such Fiscal Beasts

You can grab the latest episode of The GAP right here or from iTunes if that's your thing. You can also check The GAP out on Facebook if that's your thing!

Metal Gear has always been associated with consoles. Sure, you can get Metal Gear Solid and Metal Gear Solid 2 on PC, neither Snake Eater nor Guns of the Patriots ever made it - although Snake Eater is surely on every other playable device by now. Metal Gear Solid 5 was demonstrated on PCs back at GDC when it was announced, but since then Konami have neither confirmed nor denied whether The Phantom Pain will be available on PC.




On the weekend however, Platinum Games confirmed that Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance - the Extreme Action spin off starring Raiden - will be coming to the PC in the near future. As spotted by Joystiq, Platinum Games Creative Producer JP Kellams confirmed the game's impending PC release on Twitter following Hideo Kojima revealing the information on his blog. Unfortunately nothing else is known about the game yet - but it better have proper controller support.

A short while ago people were up in arms after news sites picked up on something from South African gaming magazine NAG. According to some, Kevin Conroy - the voice of Batman in almost everything - would not be doing the voice of Batman. Lacking any way to verify information from a magazine sold in South Africa, we didn't run with it - and besides, it made some sense - Arkham Origins tells the story of a younger Batman - and Conroy is nearing 60 years old now.

Now however, thanks to Kevin Conroy's appearance at the Dallas Comicon (as spotted by Batman News) we now know that Kevin Conroy will be in Arkham Origins - he just couldn't talk about it before, due to Warner Bros. contract. Note however, that I didn't say Kevin Conroy will voice Batman in Arkham Origins - because Conroy himself didn't say that. What he said is:

I can talk about it now. We've been working for about 9 or 10 months on the next Arkham... We were all signing these contracts that we weren't allowed to talk about it - you know the studio likes to completely control the roll out of any product, so they don't like any of us to talk about anything.

Ah, it's Friday and you know what that means - Andy is back with another episode of The Weekly Update! This week Andy checks out the launch of the Avermedia Live Gamer Portable at the ShadowLogic HQ in Melbourne. He chats with ShadowLogic co-founder Ali Abdo and hears a run down on the new device's features and specifications.

He then chats with Daniel Chlebowczyk - the President of CouchWarriors - about the Battle Arena Melbourne tournament, which kicks off today at the CQ Hotel. If you're looking for something fun to do this weekend you can read all about Battle Arena Melbourne on the official site and you can watch The Weekly Update embedded below or in our videos library. And don't forget to go full screen for HD!