Software & Gaming

Blizzard's popular free to play collectible card game, Hearthstone, has begun rolling out to iPads. The developer is referring to this as a ‘soft-launch' as it is currently only available in select countries in order to test the app's stability but global availability is expected to come soon. Right now …

Age of Mythology (AoM), while not quite as well remembered as Age of Empires, is one of the PC's classic RTS titles, and like Empires, it's getting a re-release on Steam. However, as well as being updated for modern PC compatibility, it's also getting a few tweaks to make it …

Microsoft Corp. announced at the Build 2014 conference on Wednesday that it would waive licensing fees for special versions of Windows operating systems for select devices. Microsoft wants to enable partners to offer lower-cost systems in the highly competitive smartphone, tablet and PC categories. Microsoft Windows will be available for …

What do smartwatches, intelligent coffee mugs, robots and smart goggles have in common? It looks like Intel Corp. and Microsoft Corp. have an answer: Intel chips and Windows software inside. At the Build 2014 conference, the two companies indicated they would team up for wearable devices, tiny intelligent electronics, robots …

Amazon on Wednesday introduced its first set-top-box, the Amazon Fire TV. The new STB combines powerful hardware with one of the world’s richest collections of digital content and video games. The STB supports an external gamepad controller to make it more appealing to gamers. The novelty will cost $99 in …

Microsoft has been keeping the Indie developers in mind this generation with its ID@Xbox publishing programme. Unfortunately, in order for your game to qualify it must launch on Xbox One first or at the same time as other platforms, a requirement that is causing some developers trouble. While there has …

EA has apologised for some April Fool's tweets that came from the Frostbite Engine Twitter account yesterday, branding them as “unnecessary” and “stupid. The Wii U taunting tweets have been deleted but EA COO, Peter Moore, has still apologised on behalf of the company. Gamers will know of the Frostbite …

You might want to check that your Thief save is okay as reports began popping up yesterday suggesting that lots of gamers are currently losing their save files to corruption or just flat out losing them altogether. Square Enix has begun investigating the problem but some have managed to fix …

Advanced Micro Devices on Wednesday announced plans to slightly boost its purchase commitment from GlobalFoundries by around $50 million this year compared to last year. As part of the agreement, the contract maker of chips will manufacture not only its traditional central processing units (CPUs) and accelerated processing units (APUs) …

Tim Sweeney, a legendary game developer, said in an interview that virtual reality technologies will have higher influence on video games than the smartphones had. At present the VR technology is mostly aimed at game developers, researchers, enthusiasts and early adopters, but eventually it will not only appeal to loads …

Satya Nadella, the newly appointed chief executive officer of Microsoft Corp., continues to re-appoint executives in an attempt to create an efficient executive team at the software giant. In addition to the new team, we are starting to see changes that Mr. Nadella wants to bring to Microsoft. For example, …

Microsoft has revealed a range of statistics today, showing off the popularity of Twitch streaming on the Xbox One console. The Twitch app launched on the same day as Titanfall and as a result, 30 per cent of Twitch broadcasts were coming straight from the Xbox One on the 11th …

Although the code-named “Blue” updates were supposed to modernize virtually all products and services offered by Microsoft Corp., the Windows Phone still has not received its updates nearly half a year after the launch of Windows 8.1 and Windows RT 8.1. However, the wait seems to be nearly over as, …

Square Enix President, Yosuke Matsuda , believes that the company has”lost its focus”, after trying to make games that would appeal to players world wide. The realisation came about after seeing how well 3DS JRPG, Bravely Default, performed across the globe. In an interview with Nikkei Trendy (translated by Siliconera), Matsuda …

Although Qualcomm took part in the announcement of Microsoft Corp.’s DirectX 12 application programming interface, the company’s plans regarding support of the new API were not completely clear. Last week an executive of Qualcomm confirmed that the future Adreno graphics cores will fully support DirectX 12. The current Snapdragon 800 …

Many gamers were blind-sided by Facebook's recent acquisition of  Oculus VR and it seems that even John Carmack wasn't aware that it was happening. However, after sitting on it for a few days, he has decided to speak positively about the move, stating that Facebook gets “the big picture” when …

If you've been playing PlanetSide 2 recently then you may have noticed that SOE has implemented a new notification system. This new system will give free players little pop-up ads which periodically ask them if they want to upgrade to a premium membership. Many players began receiving these notifications several …

Oculus VR, which is about to become a subsidiary of Facebook, has hired Michael Abrash, a renowned video game guru. At Oculus VR, Mr. Abrash will serve as the chief scientist, a logical position for a long-time evangelist of virtual reality technologies. What is noteworthy is that the legendary game …

Following on from the franchises recent alien DLC, Call of Duty is set to get Predator themed DLC too, Infinity Ward has teased. The new DLC is said to be part of the upcoming Devastation pack for Call of Duty Ghosts, which arrives on the 3rd of April for all …

This weekend we are running a little competition on our Facebook page – to win a STEAM game of your choice (or TitanFall if you want it). All you have to do is join our silly Facebook comment thread and place a funny/entertaining caption to this image from TitanFall. It …

Despite once long ago saying that it wouldn't offer game sales, EA has now made the original Dead Space entirely free on its Origin download platform for a limited time, as part of a new scheme it's launched called “On the House.” In this new system, EA will offer up …

Dell and Microsoft this week announced a patent licensing agreement that covers a broad set of intellectual property and also causes a lot of questions. Under the terms of the deal, Dell will obtain licenses to use Microsoft IP that covers Google Android and Chrome platforms. Moreover, Dell may get …

Sony Corp. has posted the first video covering hands-on experience with its code-named project Morpheus virtual reality helmet. The device seems to work perfectly with the PlayStation 4 video game console. [yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlS3Yx_aJH8′] The current iteration of the project Morpheus features a 5” panel with 1920×RGB×1080 (960×RGB×1080 per eye) resolution …

Cut the Rope developer, ZeptoLab is currently fighting King.com's controversial trademark of the word “Candy” on the grounds that the trademark hinders fair use of the word in the development community.  If ZeptoLab's push is successful, then King will lose the trademark in Europe and game developers can freely use …

King, makers of the smash mobile hit Candy Crush Saga, isn't very popular at the moment, whether you consider its recent trademark trolling actions, or simply the fact that yesterday it went through a public offering of its stock for the first time and it didn't go very well at …

Xbox Live is set to get a revamped reputation system that will separate the trolls and the cheaters from the regular gamers. This new system will inform players when they are playing with someone who has built up a bad reputation and will single out those deemed disruptive by the …

EA bought the rights to the Star Wars franchise in May last year, since then gamers have been wondering what the Publisher plans to do with the franchise as so far, only Battlefront 3 has been announced. However, EA CEO, Andrew Wilson, has shed some light on how developers are …

When the Xbox One was first announced, being able to digitally share games with friends and family was one of the few stand out features the console had that gamers supported. However, upon being forced to reverse its online policies, Microsoft removed the sharing feature and until now, we had …

The parent company of Riot games and one of the largest mass media organisations in the world, Tencent, is expanding further into the gaming scene, by buying up a 28 per cent stake in South Korea's CJ Games, for $500 million (£302 million). The share acquisition will also transfer control of …

Facebook on Tuesday announced that it has reached an agreement to acquire Oculus VR, a developer of virtual reality technology, for a total of approximately $2 billion. The move will provide Oculus necessary money to finish development of its Oculus Rift VR headset and start to market it. But what …