Xbox Scorpio: The End of Console Generations?

Microsoft's Project Scorpio Is Blurring The Lines Between Console & PC

Project Scorpio E3 2016

 At this years E3 Microsoft dropped a bomb. A 4K ready, GTX1080 Titan equipped bomb. The Xbox Scorpio is the first console to be released with the best available graphics card & that is only fraction of the amazing specs that were touted at E3. The console is hitting stores with an 8-core CPU, 6 teraflops of graphics power & 320Gb/s of memory bandwidth. With this hardware, the Scorpio is going to be capable of competing with gaming PC's at a price point far below. To give you a comparison, the PS4 can hit speeds of 176GB/s & the Xbox One can hit just 68GB/s. Estimates for the price on release range around $600.

Read Also: Top 5 E3 Announcements

Beyond the technical specs, Microsoft has already assuaged the woes of Xbox One users. All new content is going to be compatible with all of Microsoft's hardware. Phil Spencer, Microsoft's head of Xbox, said that Microsoft intends to add to the community without forcing users to buy into the new hardware releases. Xbox Scorpio & Xbox One games will also work on the Windows 10. Microsoft is creating a platform where users can move seamlessly between their hardware.

With the Scorpio's announcement & the upcoming holiday release date of the PS4K, are we seeing an end to console generations as we know them? PC gamers have enjoyed the freedom of playing old games on new hardware for years. Now with this next console iteration, we are seeing console platforms begin to take from the PC playbook. Given the specs of the new consoles & the upcoming release of VR for both Sony & Microsoft platforms, console users have more reasons than ever to avoid paying the high cost of a gaming PC.

Read Here: For more details on Microsoft's Scorpio Plan

 

Any thoughts on the upcoming consoles? Let us know.

Justin Asaya is the lead writer at The Gaming Room © 

When he's not writing, he's streaming new games & content on Twitch @TheAsaya 

Astroneer: Crafting & Ship Travel Gameplay

I'm going to put solar panels on everything.

This Astroneer gameplay video showcases the resource gathering & modular crafting which is going to drive the game. The full range of crafting hasn't yet been showcased, however we have an idea of the base building & transportation in the game. If the crafting system is deep enough, this game has the potential to gain more traction than No Mans Sky which releases at a similar time in 2016.

 

Star Citizen & The Rise of Crowdfunded Games

Star Citizen is bringing a highly detailed, user influenced universe to a fanbase that is already funding it.

 

The project, developed by RobertsSpaceIndustries has already generated $116,713,219 & has continued funding goals. With this amount of investment, early access players have gotten a game with possibly the largest scope of its kind. Star Citizen is expected to have a fully persistent economy & universe. Want to take over a processing plant? Maybe run your own pirate merchant squadrons? In the Star Citizen universe, these are barely scratching the surface.

 Many of these features, have now been implemented in the current 2.4.0 Update. You can get early access by purchasing a package that starts you with a ship a hangar & some resources. The game currently has a server side persistence engine running & being tested by the players.

The development team working closely with the players has come up with an ambitious universe and built a community to bring the persistent economy to life.   

 Star Citizens success with crowdfunding showcases the benefits of blurring the line between the development team & the play.ers. What we aren't seeing however is a monetary incentive being included in this process. Instead we see issues in the support for user content that could be fixed if content creators were paid. Game developers could start to follow the lead of crowd source online marketplaces like DesignCrowd & TopTal. If developers monetized the process of adding user generated content to their games, they will gain access to a massive source of development potential & create a new job market. 

If a developer at E3 unveiled a plan to pay content creators who contribute to their games, the crowd would go wild. Roberts Space Industries working in tandem with its community is building a game the ambition of which will showcase the massive leaps games could take if every developer started using this strategy. 

 

Justin Asaya is a lead writer at The Gaming Room © & hosts a Twitch stream @TheAsaya with new gameplay & content

Astroneer Brings Space & Minecraft Gameplay Together

Be The First to Develop The Frontier of Space

 Imagine Minecraft going interplanetary. This is exactly what everyone at E3 2016 was thinking when they saw the gameplay in Astroneer. The game is being developed by a small Seattle development group ' System Era Softworks ' & has a release date on Steam in October2016.

 

To give you an idea of the extent of your characters ability to manipulate the playing environment, Astroneers worlds have been compared to PlayDoh. You can craft tools with resources you gather & build complex, energy dependent bases. The game has massive subterranean chambers which are reminiscent of the massive caverns in Minecraft. But that is only a part of this amazing blend of exploration adventure & RTS aspects, you can also travel via spacecraft to other planets.

 

Astroneer has the ability to generate its multitude of planets & building options by cutting down on processing power with their low polygon resolutions.

With a relatively small indie developer like Systema Era Softworks generating more buzz at E3 than some of the larger developers, we are continuing to see a shift toward indie games & user generated content. If the game gains enough traction we might even find ourselves exploring Astroneer in a VR format in 2017.

 

Justin Asaya is a lead writer at The Gaming Room © & an avid gamer.

Check out live gaming content during the week on Twitch @TheAsaya

 

 

Highlights from E3 2016

E3 2016 Showcased 5 Big Changes Coming To Gaming Throughout 2016-17

1.) The Xbox Scorpio

Delivering 6 teraflops of processing power, an 8 core CPU, 320gigs of memory bandwidth, VR Gaming accessibility & 4K gaming straight out of the box, the Scorpio looks to be a more powerful platform than the PS4 Neo, giving Microsoft a new weapon in the console wars.

2.) Sony Playstation VR

Hitting store shelves October 13th for $399 or $499 for the launch bundle edition, this VR is going to be far more accessible than the $599 HTC Vive VR system.

  3.) Fallout 4 Coming to VR

Fallout 4's lead designer Todd Howard appeared in the Xbox Scorpio announcement trailer promising Fallout 4 in VR when the Scorpio hits store shelves in December of 2017.

4.) No Mans Sky Competitor Astroneer

Astroneer is Minecraft meets No Mans Sky. The interplanetary building & exploration game is set for Early Access on Steam in late 2016.

5.)   A Packed 2017 Game Release Lineup
Beyond all of the amazing E3 announcements listed above, the Sony & Microsoft presentations gave everyone an amazing group of games to look forward to this Fall & throughout 2017.

Justin Asaya is a lead writer at the Gaming Room.
Catch live gaming content on his Twitch @TheAsaya

Gaming Goes Indie

Established Developers Ditching Successful Franchises For Entirely New Development Strategies.

 Since 2003 Treyarch & Infinity Ward have released 22 games under the Call of Duty IP, with a 23rd title 'COD: Infinity War' expected in the Fall of 2016. While the franchise has made over $10bn in sales since 2003, the trailer for the upcoming 'Infinity War' has, at the time of this articles publishing, 2,945,849 dislikes and growing. We have also seen Ubisoft take a break from its Assassin's Creed franchise.  With new title in the massive COD franchise hitting the top 10 most disliked videos on youtube & Ubisoft taking a break from Assassin's Creed, what does this say about what gamers want from developers? 

 Luckily we have an answer in the changing focus at a well established developer, EPIC Games. In an interview with Polygon, EPIC Games CEO Todd Sweeney discussed EPIC's new direction as "EPIC 4.0". The main focus the developers shift, says Sweeney, is putting an end to developing games to be "finished out of the box". EPIC is leading the charge in established developers ditching successful franchises for entirely new development strategies. With new titles like Paragon & a sequel like Unreal Tournament being Free To Play & developed in tandem with the community.

Unlike other developers, EPIC communicates regularly with the player community on the Paragon sub-reddit & on both  the major ranking website forums for the game, Fury.gg & Agora.gg. This strategy is keeping the companies new titles constantly up to date with the patches & improvements that their millions strong community discuss & share with them.

This shifting focus is happening at a time when indie developers like Hello Games are being backed by Publishers like Sony to secure NoMansSky as a PS4 exclusive.

We are seeing this trend of community generated content given the same respect as developer created content in another area as well. Fallout 4 developer Bethesda has brokered a deal with both Sony & Microsoft to allow user created Mods to be downloaded to the PS4 & the XboxOne. This development is going to increase the lifespan of console games as new content can be generated more quickly while the developers focus on new franchises & sequels. This shift is showcasing the changing mindset of Publishers & Developers as they begin to release titles in development & outsource much of their games improvement to the community. The future of gaming is not decade long franchises & sequels, we are seeing a paradigm shift as developers blur the lines between company & community. In the future pro gamers might be pro developers as well.

Justin Asaya is the lead writer at TheGamingRoom ©2016 

When hes not writing hes streaming new content on Twitch @TheAsaya