News::Logitech's Saitek purchase is all about flight sticks

Logitech has been expanding its product line in several directions, moving up to pro-gamer gear and down to basic, yet robust, mice and keyboards. But it's also been moving beyond the desktop computer market, like buying wearables and sport headphone maker Jaybird back in April. Today the company acquired Saitek, maker of high-end simulation hardware, presumably to supply peripherals for the driving and flight genres. You know, the kinds of games you'll really want a specialty controller to play in VR. Whether this means the end for the custom controller Saitek was building for the upcoming Star Citizen is uncertain, as its new parent company wouldn't comment when asked by Polygon.

Source: Logitech Blog

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News::Beam's interactive livestreaming hits Windows, Xbox this winter

In early August Microsoft announced its acquisition of Beam, a videogame livestreaming service that separates itself from the competition by using tech that allows for low latency and interactive features. Now, Beam has announced it will launch on Microsoft's gaming platforms (Windows 10 and Xbox One) this winter. That's not a very specific window, but it will be interesting to see what happens once the parts come together. Currently, Amazon-owned Twitch is the most popular livestreaming service, but Beam's hook is the ability for viewers to influence the streamer's gameplay and broadcast.

Source: Beam (Twitter), Beam.pro

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News::Sony's Shuhei Yoshida 'understands the criticism' of 'No Man's Sky'

The vast and ambitions No Man's Sky didn't have the smoothest of launches. Even after pushing out a huge day-one patch, some players still encountered glitches and crashes, and some players even feel like the game didn't deliver on what the marketing campaign promised. Speaking to Eurogamer, Sony Studios president Shuhei Yoshida said he understands complaints from players who don't feel like they're getting what was promised to them.

Source: Eurogamer

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News::The best of the Tokyo Game Show 2016

The biggest gaming show outside of the US, the Tokyo Game Show has a different atmosphere that;s all its own. While it's contracted and shrunk over the last few years, the heat and interest in virtual reality has reinvigorated the show -- despite the lack of an official Xbox or Nintendo presence. Sony may have already revealed two new consoles in the last month, but it wanted to remind everyone that it's got a VR headset coming out. In short: lots of VR, PlayStation and domestic-centered games, sprinkled with just enough weird.

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News::Introducing the world's smallest way to play 'Donkey Kong'

Once upon a time, video games like Pac-Man and Donkey Kong were the absolute height of entertainment technology, imperfect pixels packed into six-foot-tall cabinets in arcades and pizza shops around the world. Now, those same games run on a machine that fits inside a teacup. Adafruit tinkerer Phillip Burgess created the world's smallest Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator cabinet using a Raspberry Pi Zero computer, 0.96 inch RGB OLED displays and an audio amplifier. It's fully playable and totally adorable.

Source: Adafruit

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News::I barely survived on a dinosaur planet in PlayStation VR

Stepping outside a battered space pod, I drink in the forest's sights and sounds. A shallow river meanders to my left. Some birds chirp overhead. It's a tropical paradise. Or it would be, were it not for the legions of dinosaurs roaming around. I'm playing Robinson: The Journey, a game developed by Crytek for the soon-to-be-released PlayStation VR. As Robin, a young astronaut, I'm tasked with searching for survivors on a strange, alien planet. The problem is that I suck at pretty much everything.

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News::Surely I just played my final 'Final Fantasy XV' demo

While Final Fantasy XV's decade-long development doesn't beat Duke Nukem's excessive run, it's still a hell of a long time for another part of one of gaming's biggest, longest-running franchises. And it's still not here. However, at the Tokyo Game Show, I got what is possibly the last taster before the main course; a lengthy 30-minute play-through that -- barring some brutal initial loading times -- felt like a finished game.

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News::'Yakuza 6' adds the thrill of running your own cat cafe

As Sega attempts to tie up the long-running (typically late-to-translation) Yakuza series, the sixth iteration has yet more ridiculous mini-games and side jobs, offering more mundane distractions from the boot-to-face Japanese gangster brawls that typically make up a large part of the games. While calming a weepy baby is certainly mundane IRL, if you're a speedy enough typer (through your DualShock controller) you'll be able to charm webcam girls online -- for those days when the protagonist can't quite make it to his regular hostess club. And that's just to start with.

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News::PlayStation platformer 'Shu' has Vita-exclusive goodies

Sony isn't showing the PS Vita handheld any love, but indie developers sure are. The latest example is the 2.5D platformer Shu. "Shu feels right at home on the handheld and is a great experience, especially since it's running at 60 FPS," a post by developer Coatsink on the European PlayStation Blog reads. More than that, the Vita version will have some exclusive bits and bobs when the game comes out sometime later this year. Coatsink says that supporting the handheld is something that the team feels "very strongly about" and it's been hard at work ensuring that the portable version isn't a lazy port.

Source: PlayStation Blog (Europe)

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