News::These SteamVR games will make or break virtual reality

In one month, the HTC Vive will be available for pre-order, giving consumers a chance to buy the first room-scale virtual reality system with full head and hand motion tracking. It sounds great, but what are you going to play with it? Valve knew you were going to ask that -- which is why it hosted the SteamVR Developer Showcase in Seattle this week. In all, the company showcased twelve games that stood out as some of the best VR experiences Vive owners can have in 2016. Better still? There's not a bad egg in the bunch -- I've played all of them, and I already want to play all of them again.

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News::That time Twitch jumped the shark

Twitch made its debut in 2011. Since then, the service has evolved from a gaming-only subset of Justin.tv into a popular, culture-shaping phenomenon pioneering the world of live online broadcasting. Justin.tv was quickly swallowed whole by Twitch's immense success, and in 2014 Amazon acquired the entire company for nearly $1 billion. The service has launched careers, beaten YouTube to the punch, attracted celebrities, dominated the streaming eSports market and even spawned its own icon-based language. And it's done all of this in less than five years.

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News::The only video game developer in Mississippi

Mathew Weymouth lives one hour away from the birthplace of the blues, that humid, fertile swampland known as the Mississippi Delta. He grew up along the state's southern coastline, and over the years he absorbed tales of legendary local artists including "The Mad Potter," George E. Ohr, and the painter Walter Inglis Anderson. The Delta fertilizes creativity like it spawns towering cypress trees, and Weymouth is a product of his environment. He's an artist, but with a technical twist.

Weymouth is a self-taught video game developer with big plans for his local community. He wants to build a "gaming incubator" in southern Mississippi, a creative haven for the area's youth, artists, musicians, filmmakers and programmers. It's basically a high-tech neighborhood center where people can work together to create video games and other works of art. But there's one major problem with this idea: He might be the only serious video game developer in the state.

"Here, it's literally just this dead zone in the middle of the United States for technology," Weymouth says.

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News::PS Vita hit with battery and PlayStation Store problems

Sony's PlayStation Vita is usually a quiet little beast, slowly accruing indie titles and the occasional "triple-A" exclusive. Today, however, the under-appreciated handheld has stumbled into the limelight because of some unfortunate technical hiccups. As countless commenters on Reddit, NeoGAF and Sony's PlayStation forums explain, the most recent Vita firmware update (3.57) has rendered the console almost useless for some players. Launching the PlayStation Store can trigger a never-ending "Please Wait" message, and sometimes the console struggles to fall into its sleep/standby mode, draining the battery for many unsuspecting owners.

Via: Kotaku

Source: Reddit, NeoGAF

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News::EA might have revealed secret Xbox One sales figures

We know that Sony has sold 35 million PlayStation 4s, but Microsoft won't talk about how well its rival device is doing. A dignified silence is the stance you normally take when things aren't going too well, but a third party might just have let the key details slip. Eurogamer was listening to Electronic Arts' most recent conference call when CFO Blake Jorgensen revealed the firm's internal sales estimate for the current console generation. According to him, there are 55 million units out in the wild, and simple subtraction tells us that less than 20 million of those are Xbox Ones. We asked Microsoft about the figure, and it came back with a "no comment," as expected.

Source: Eurogamer

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News::Win college tuition if you're good at 'Heroes of the Storm'

If you're good at throwing, catching or hitting objects with sticks, then it's possible to go to college for free on an athletic scholarship. Kids who spent warm summer days indoors working out how to trounce their foes online, on the other hand, get nothing more than a raised eyebrow and a sneer from the admissions tutor. ESPN and Blizzard are hoping to rectify that situation with its Heroes of the Dorm contest, which is coming back for a second year. The tournament matches teams from various colleges, with the members of the winning team earning free tuition for the rest of their degree.

Source: Activision, Heroes of the Dorm

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News::'Need for Speed' becomes a little more social next week

Need for Speed's next Living Game update, dubbed "Showcase," arrives next week, and with it comes a handful of improvements both paint-level and a bit deeper. Taking screenshots has always been pretty easy in the game (click the right stick), but developer Ghost Games is going one step further and adding something that should've been in the game at the outset: A real photo mode with focus, depth of field and other effects that've become all the rage since Infamous: Second Son busted the feature wide open in 2014.

Source: Need for Speed

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News::PlayStation sells well (again), but mobile is hurting Sony

Sony made money. Again! The company saw in tiny increase (0.5%) in sales compared to the same quarter last to 2,581 billion yen (or $21.5 billion), but income now stands at $1.69 billion. This quarter's financial results was yet more balancing (and canceling) out of Sony's many moving parts -- profitable and not. Gaming and Motion Picture arms saw increases in sales, but these were cancelled out by woes in Mobile and Devices arms. Once a positive part of the company's earnings sheets, Sony's smartphone camera sensors saw a decrease in sales -- reflecting the tough times that all companies are experiencing with phone sales. The company seems to be stabilizing its giant electronics ship.

Source: Sony

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