gaming
Sources: Nintendo to launch SNES mini this year
Sources: Nintendo to launch SNES mini this year
Tom Phillips writes at Eurogamer:
The reality of a SNES mini is certainly exciting - while the NES was unique for being Nintendo's first home console, the SNES arguably boasts the better software line-up, and a catalogue of classics far more advanced than their NES forebears. Compare The Legend of Zelda on NES to A Link to the Past, for example, or Donkey Kong to Donkey Kong Country.Other top SNES games from Nintendo include Super Metroid, Super Mario Kart and Super Mario World, as well as Earthbound, Star Fox and Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars. The console also had some of the best RPGs of the era, including Square’s Chrono Trigger and Secret of Mana.
Many people use emulation software of questionable legality (not that I have ever done anything even remotely like that, like, at all, ever) but soon there may no longer be a need for emulation. This is exciting and I’ll absolutely be buying one of these.
Trans characters in the first big video games of 2017
Trans characters in the first big video games of 2017
Laura Dale, writing at Polygon:
The past month of AAA video game releases might be the most interesting I have ever experienced as a trans woman, meaning someone who was designated male at birth but is now living as female. While far from perfect in execution, I can point out three trans characters in three separate AAA video games released in the past four weeks. That’s pretty unbelievable.
I’ve been playing Zero Dawn with my wife and it’s a truly remarkable game. I wish I hadn’t missed the trans character’s introduction, but now that Dale points it out it does seem like a respectful, if imperfect, attempt to include a trans person in Aloy’s world.
Video gamer hunts down, stabs man who killed his online 'Counter-Strike' character
Video gamer hunts down, stabs man who killed his online ‘Counter-Strike’ character
Michael Sheridan reports at NYDailyNews.com:
Julien Barreaux reportedly spent six months looking for the person who killed his online character in a virtual knife fight, and eventually found the foe living only a few miles away in Cambrai, a town about 2 hours north of Paris.
The lunatic only got two years' imprisonment for what pretty plainly looks to me like premeditated attempted murder. I don’t know anything about French law, but that seems like an embarrassing outcome for any prosecutor.
Image is top of French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen
Aol dials up the stupid with 150 editorial layoffs
Aol dials up the stupid with 150 editorial layoffs
Brianna Royce, Editor in Chief of Massively, the MMORPG arm of popular gaming blog Joystiq, which is also going away, talking about Aol Corporate’s most recent stupidity:
I would like to be able to tell you truthfully that this is an equitable and just decision that makes some sort of logical sense, but the reality is that our overlords’ decisions have always been unfathomable. I know more of what I know about corporate from reading tech and finance news than through my own job. We all suspected this was coming eventually a year ago when a VP whose name I don’t even know and who never read our site chose to reward our staggering, hard-won 40% year-over-year page view growth by… hacking our budget in half. There’s nothing to do in the face of that kind of logic but throw your hands in the air.
Aol still depends, yes, depends on its dial-up revenue to survive. That is why these popular sites have been euthanized and at least 150 people laid off. Because Aol leadership, millionaires all, can’t figure out how to run their company.
Aol owns The Huffington Post, TechCrunch and at least a couple of other very successful blogs. There are people working there who know how to run a profitable blog. Is it executive hubris that prevents the brass from asking someone what the hell to do?
I hate to be morbid but thetruth is that some day relatively soon everyone willing to endure dial-up will be dead. What will Aol do then?
I don’t know, but more importantly, and infuriatingly when it means people lose their jobs, neither does anyone at Aol.
Steam has more subscribers than Xbox Live
Steam has more subscribers than Xbox Live
The Steam gaming network is now the number 2 community for gamers in the world. Sony’s PlayStation Network is on top with 110 million users, followed by Steam with 65 million. Microsoft’s Xbox Live network takes the third spot with 48 million subscribers.
The Steam number is truly impressive because, unlike the other two on the list, Steam has no console on the market yet.
The PC-gaming market and multiplayer software maker expects to launch beta hardware soon, but to take the second position without anything in households yet is quite a feat.
US government recognizes League of Legends players as pro athletes
US government recognizes League of Legends players as pro athletes
This is fascinating, especially with immigration such a hot topic recently.
OUYA and Emulation
Darrell Etherington, reporting at TechCrunch:
OUYA forum admin and owner Ed Krassenstein said in a post on his site that EMUya, a NES emulator, has been submitted to OUYA for review and should definitely be available at launch, and a couple of SNES emulation options are confirmed, including the SuperGNES and the Mupen64Plus Nintendo 64 emulators. The Mupen64Plus project is also said to be available at launch, with the developer behind it posting that it has already been approved by OUYA for inclusion in the official store.
OUYA would do well to backtrack on this, and fast. If they mean to make themselves a legitimate part of the console landscape, the encouragement of unlicensed emulation, which amounts to copyright infringement, is not the way to go.