"On the 25th anniversary of the original Sony PlayStation, The Verge shares the story of the PlayStation supercomputers," writes Slashdot reader jimminy_cricket. From the report: Dozens of PlayStation 3s sit in a refrigerated shipping container on the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth's campus, sucking up energy and investigating astrophysics. It's a popular stop for tours trying to sell the school to prospective first-year students and their parents, and it's one of the few living legacies of a weird science chapter in PlayStation's history. Those squat boxes, hulking on entertainment systems or dust-covered in the back of a closet, were once coveted by researchers who used the consoles to build supercomputers. With the racks of machines, the scientists were suddenly capable of contemplating the physics of black holes, processing drone footage, or winning cryptography contests. It only lasted a few years before tech moved on, becoming smaller and more efficient. But for that short moment, some of the most powerful computers in the world could be hacked together with code, wire, and gaming consoles. "The game consoles entered the supercomputing scene in 2002 when Sony released a kit called Linux for the PlayStation 2," reports The Verge. Craig Steffen, senior research scientist at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, and his group hooked up between 60 and 70 PlayStation 2s, wrote some code, and built out a library.

"The PS3 entered the scene in late 2006 with powerful hardware and an easier way to load Linux onto the devices," the report adds. "Researchers would still need to link the systems together, but suddenly, it was possible for them to imagine linking together all of those devices into something that was a game-changer instead of just a proof-of-concept prototype."

In an interview, Xbox chief Phil Spencer downplayed VR as an "isolating" experience, saying that "nobody's asking for VR" -- at least, from his customer base. From a report: He said, "the vast majority of our customers know if they want a VR experience, there's places to go get those" he explained, though he also said "nobody's selling millions and millions" of VR headsets. For these reasons, the company isn't planning to support VR on its next Xbox console, codenamed Project Scarlett. [...] Spencer's take apparently didn't sit well with Sony's Shuhei Yoshida, who led the company's worldwide studios through much of the growth of PlayStation VR -- a headset that has, in fact, sold well over 4 million units. This morning, Yoshida tweeted that "we oftentimes work hard to make things that no customers are asking for," a fairly gentle retort that recalls the supposed quote from car pioneer Henry Ford, "if I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses."

Scott Stein, reviews Google Stadia cloud gaming service for CNET: Stadia's launch day was earlier this week... sort of. Really, consider this the start of Stadia's early-access beta period. Because Google's big promises haven't arrived, and at the price of the Stadia's Founder's Edition, I can't recommend anyone jump onboard at the moment. Google's experimental game streaming service, Stadia, launches without many of its promised features, and just a handful of games. It works, but there's not much incentive to buy in. We've heard about the promises of streaming games over the internet for a decade. Stadia really does work as a way to stream games. I've only played a couple of the 12 games Google promised by Tuesday's launch, though. That short list pales compared to what Microsoft already has on tap for its in-beta game-streaming service, xCloud. It's no match for what Nvidia's game streaming GeForce Now already has or what PlayStation Now offers. Prices of Stadia games at launch in the US are below. They're basically full retail game prices. This could get crazy expensive fast.

[...] Stadia has so few games right now, and I'm trying them with no one else online. It isn't clear how things will work now that the service is going live, and what other features will kick in before year's end. I'm curious, but I might lose interest. Others might, too. I have plenty of other great games to play right now: on Apple Arcade, VR and consoles such as the Switch. Stadia isn't delivering new games yet, it's just trying to deliver a new way to play through streaming. One that you can already get from other providers. Until Google finds a way to loop in YouTube and develop truly unique competitive large-scale games, Stadia isn't worth your time yet. Yes, the future is possibly wild, and you can see hints of the streaming-only cloud-based playground Stadia wants to become. But we'll see what it shapes into over the next handful of months and check back in. Raymond Wong, writing for Input Mag looks at the amount of data playing a game on Stadia consumes and how the current state of things require a very fast internet connection to work: Like streaming video, streaming games is entirely dependent on your internet speed. Faster internet delivers smooth, lag-free visuals, and slower internet means seeing some glitches and dropped framerates. Google recommends a minimum of connection of 10Mbps for 1080p Full HD streaming at 30 fps with stereo sound and 35Mbps for 4K resolution streaming (in HDR if display is supported) at 60 fps with 5.1 surround sound. Reality didn't reflect Google's advertising, though. Despite having a Wi-Fi connection with 16-20Mbps downloads in a hotel room in LA, streaming Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Destiny 2 to my 13-inch MacBook Pro wasn't 100% stable. The visuals would glitch out for a second or two about every 10 minutes of playtime. [...] A fast internet connection isn't the only thing you need for Stadia to work right. You need a lot of bandwidth, too. One hour of playing Red Dead Redemption 2 at 1080p resolution on my 46-inch HDTV via a Chromecast Ultra ate up 5.3GB of data. This seemed insane until I saw an hour of Destiny 2 on a Pixel 3a XL with 6-inch, 1080p-resolution display gobbled up 9.3GB of data!

Hulu said Friday it will increase the price of its online cable TV alternative product Hulu Live by $10 to $55 a month in what is the latest sign providers are having trouble making money on discounted packages of channels that rival cable. From a report: Hulu Live, which offers about 60 channels such as ESPN and CNN, was first introduced two years ago. The price increase takes effect Dec. 18, the company said in a statement. So-called skinny bundles -- cheaper online alternatives to cable packages -- have struggled recently as budget-conscious consumers seem more willing to just cut out traditional cable networks entirely. Sony is shutting down its offering, PlayStation Vue, in January.

Microsoft has added more than 50 new games to the preview of its Project xCloud game streaming service, including Devil May Cry 5, Tekken 7 and Madden 2020. Engadget reports: In a blog post today, Microsoft said it'll send out a new wave of xCloud preview invites to gamers in the US, UK and South Korea. Starting next year, it also plans to expand the preview to Canada, India, Japan and Western Europe. If you live in one of those countries, you can sign up for the preview here and hope you get selected.

For now, the xCloud preview is only available for Android phones and tablets, but Microsoft says next year it'll also be headed to Windows PCs and other devices. I'm sure Roku owners would be pleased, but it'd be even more intriguing if Microsoft could eventually bring the xCloud preview to smart TVs and Apple devices. While testers need to use Xbox controllers with the service now, Microsoft also says it'll work with other bluetooth controllers next year, including Sony's Dual Shock 4 and Razer's entries. Yes, you'll soon live in a world where you can play Halo with a PlayStation branded gamepad. Among other tidbits, the xCloud preview will also let gamers stream titles they already own next year, as well those made available through Xbox GamePass for subscribers.

Apple, Disney, and WarnerMedia are all launching new video streaming services that you're going to hear a lot about over the next few days. But here's news about one streaming service that's shutting down: Sony's Playstation Vue, which offered a digital version of the cable TV bundle, will close up shop in January. From a report: "The highly competitive Pay TV industry, with expensive content and network deals, has been slower to change than we expected," Sony said in an announcement on Tuesday. Translation: Sony was losing money on the service -- which sold for around $50 a month and was supposed to appeal to people who owned its Playstation gaming consoles -- and didn't have many subscribers. Sony had previously tried to find a buyer for the service, according to a report from The Information. Sony was one of the first so-called "virtual mvpds": bundles of network programming delivered over the internet that replicate what traditional pay TV distributors like Comcast sell. That group now includes YouTube, Hulu, and Dish's Sling.

Netflix has always been aware of password sharing and has never seemed to mind it, but that attitude may change as the company says it's looking into "consumer-friendly ways" to address the issue. When Guggenheim Securities' Miachael Morris asked about it, Netflix CFO Spencer Neumann said: "We continue to monitor it. "We're looking at the situation and we'll [look for] those consumer-friendly ways to push on the edges of that." However, Neumann noted that Netflix has "no big plans to announce at this time in terms of doing something different" with how password sharing works. MobileSyrup reports: As it stands, users can sign into Netflix on as many devices as they want, with the only limitation being how many can stream at the same time (depending on the plan). Naturally, this allows people to share their accounts with family or friends. Given how open this is, it's possible that Netflix would want to reduce the number of devices an account can be registered to. For example, Sony allows users to share content between PlayStation 4 systems by logging into the same account, although it limits this functionality to two consoles. Trying to do this with additional consoles could get an account flagged and blocked.

An anonymous reader quotes Forbes: Nvidia has a lot riding on the success of its GeForce RTX cards. The Santa Clara, California company is beating the real-time ray tracing drum loudly, adamant on being known as a champion of the technology before AMD steals some of its thunder next year with the PlayStation 5 and its own inevitable release of ray-tracing enabled PC graphics cards.

Nvidia has shown that, with ray tracing, it can breathe new life into a decades-old PC shooter like id Software's Quake 2, so why not dedicate an entire game studio to remastering timeless PC classics? A new job listing spotted by DSOGaming confirms that's exactly what Nvidia is cooking up.
The ad says NVIDIA's new game remastering program is "cherry-picking some of the greatest titles from the past decades and bringing them into the ray tracing age, giving them state-of-the-art visuals while keeping the gameplay that made them great." (And it adds that the initiative is "starting with a title that you know and love but we can't talk about here!")

Meanwhile, a China-based industry watcher on Medium reports that "six RISC-V positions have been advertised by NVIDIA, based in Shanghai and pertaining to architecture, design, and verification."

Sony has confirmed that its next-generation console will be called the PlayStation 5, and it'll be out next year, launching in time for "Holiday 2020." From a report: The company also announced several changes that it'll be making to the controller on the PS5. Chief among them is replacing the current rumble technology that Sony has been using since the original PlayStation for new haptic feedback technology that it promises will offer a "broader range of feedback." The other big change that Sony is talking about today is a technology it's calling "adaptive triggers," which will go in the primary R2/L2 triggers on the PS5's controller. According to Sony, developers will be able to "program the resistance of the triggers," giving the example that you'll be able to "feel" the increased tension as you draw back a bow or force you to push down with extra pressure if you're driving through rough terrain. It sounds pretty similar to a Microsoft patent from earlier this year, which detailed a similar trigger system for a future Xbox controller.

It's happening a little later in the season than usual, but Apple's latest version of macOS is available to download today. From a report: Catalina arrives on the heels of iOS 13, which saw several back-to-back updates after an initially rough launch. For what it's worth, I've been using successive versions of the Catalina beta as my daily driver for months now and can assure you that the latest build is stable enough to safely install. [...] Speaking of games, today also marks the first time that Catalina beta users will have been able to play Apple Arcade games. If you're wondering how the heck you'll play those titles from your Mac, it's worth a reminder that many Arcade games support Xbox and PlayStation controllers.

Also new in this release: As you browse episodes in the podcast app, you'll see avatars for guests and hosts. Apple also says it's made some small usability tweaks to Sidecar, the feature that allows you to use an iPad as a secondary Mac display. You'll also notice more promotional Apple TV+ material in the new TV app, which makes sense -- the streaming service launches November 1st. It'll cost $4.99 a month, but Apple is offering a free year with the purchase of a new Mac, iPhone, iPad or Apple TV. Further reading: Apple's MacOS Catalina Opens Up To iPad Apps; Apple Will Permanently Remove Dashboard In macOS Catalina; Apple Replaces Bash With Zsh as the Default Shell in macOS Catalina; and Apple Finally Kills iTunes.

In anticipation for Google's upcoming Stadia cloud gaming service and Microsoft's Project xCloud, which enters open beta this month, Sony is lowering the price of PlayStation Now for PS4 and PC. "Monthly subscriptions are now available for $10, which is a considerable reduction from the previous $20 price point," reports GameSpot. "Quarterly subscriptions, meanwhile, will now cost $25, having previously been $45 in the U.S. and unavailable elsewhere. Finally, a year's PS Now membership is now $60, down from $100." From the report: The new price points are active right now; existing customers will see the new cost reflected in their upcoming bill. The price cut applies worldwide on the platform's catch-all subscription -- not on individual game rentals. Sony also revealed a number of new titles being added to the PS Now library. God of War (2018), Infamous: Second Son, Grand Theft Auto V, and Uncharted 4: A Thief's End are all now available as part of the service's subscription offering--but they will be removed on January 2, 2020, Sony said.

Both Sony and Microsoft on Monday committed to making their future video game consoles better for the planet. The two console makers laid out their plans alongside the UN Climate Summit as part of the Playing for the Planet Alliance. From a report: Microsoft will start a pilot program to create 825,000 carbon neutral Xbox consoles, the company said in a press release Sunday. It said these will be the first video game consoles to achieve that goal. Sony will focus on the upcoming PlayStation 5's energy consumption. The Japanese company will improve the next console's low-power suspend mode to make it more efficient than the PlayStation 4. Sony said if 1 million users make use of the PS5's energy-saving feature, it'll save the equivalent of the average electricity use of 1,000 US homes. Sony will also reassess its carbon footprint in its gaming service and data centers. The Playing for the Planet Alliance is a joint effort among the console manufacturers, publishers, developers and Twitch through various eco-friendly initiatives, spreading awareness, and reducing carbon emissions and power consumption.

An anonymous reader shares a report: A fortnight ago, Twitter user @drip133 asked a seemingly innocent question above a photo of the joypad: "Do you say 'x' or 'cross' button?" There were hundreds of contradictory responses, which became increasingly furious as the week wore on. Some insisted that because the other buttons are named after shapes -- Triangle, Square and Circle -- logically, the "X" button must be called "Cross"; others pointed out that as 'X' was the common usage, this was the only acceptable pronunciation. [...] Then, in a shock move, Sony itself became involved. On 5 September, the official Twitter feed of PlayStation UK stated: "Triangle. Circle. Cross. Square. If Cross is called X (it's not), then what are you calling Circle?" The scrap is a rare event in the world of video games as console manufacturers usually name buttons after numbers, unambiguous letters of the alphabet or colours. The groundbreaking Nintendo Entertainment System pad, for example, went with A, B, while the SNES added X and Y (a configuration also used by Sega and Microsoft), and in this context, it's clear that "X" is X.

Years ago, in an interview with the now defunct video game website 1UP, Sony designer Teiyu Goto explained how the buttons came to be named: "We wanted something simple to remember, which is why we went with icons or symbols, and I came up with the triangle-circle-X-square combination immediately afterward. I gave each symbol a meaning and a colour. The triangle refers to viewpoint; I had it represent one's head or direction and made it green. Square refers to a piece of paper; I had it represent menus or documents and made it pink. The circle and X represent 'yes' or 'no' decision-making and I made them red and blue respectively." Sadly, this doesn't really help because in the quote he has characterised the "X" button with an "X" symbol and who knows whether that was actually him or the journalist who wrote the piece.

dvda247 writes: Since there's the Nintendo Switch and previously there was the Sony PSP (Playstation Portable), should Microsoft make an Xbox Phone? There are already 'gaming phones' like the ASUS ROG Phone 2, but should Microsoft jump back into the smartphone game to make a phone running Android that is focused primarily on playing Xbox One games? Xbox Game Pass and Xbox Play Anywhere would be huge selling points to make an Xbox Phone. What are your thoughts?

Sony has purchased the California-based game studio Insomniac Games, best known for last year's Spider-Man on PS4, which sold 13.2 million copies. Sony says Insomniac will become an exclusive PlayStation developer. Kotaku reports: Founded in 1994, Insomniac remained independent for 25 years, working largely with Sony on series like Ratchet & Clank and Resistance but also with other big game companies like Microsoft, which published the colorful open-world game Sunset Overdrive (unlikely to get a sequel any time soon). Insomniac has also worked on several VR games with Oculus, including the upcoming Stormland, currently announced as an Oculus Rift exclusive. Notably, Insomniac's previous VR games have not been released on PlayStation VR.

According to a recent financial report from Sony, the PlayStation 4 has become the fastest home console to reach 100 million sales. Geek.com reports: The 100 million mark is an impressive milestone for any console no matter how long it takes to reach it. Sony previous hit it with the original PlayStation and set the total sales record with the PlayStation 2's 155 million sales. Meanwhile, Nintendo also achieved this with the original Wii, the Game Boy line of handhelds, and the 154 million sales of the Nintendo DS. But after failing to hit the target with the beleaguered (albeit still successful) PlayStation 3, Sony has bounced back with the PlayStation 4. And since the PS4 has only been on the market for five years and seven months, it beat the record two months earlier than the previous fastest seller the PS2.

If the US-China trade war continues to escalate, consumers could soon find themselves paying more for PlayStations. From a report: As with other electronics giants, Sony manufacturers most of its consoles in China, with the company warning that if a new round of higher tariffs goes into effect the price for its game console may go up. "We believe, and therefore have told the U.S. government, that higher tariffs would ultimately damage the U.S. economy," said Hiroki Totoki, Sony's chief financial officer, according to The Wall Street Journal. Totoki added that the company hasn't decided yet how it would handle additional tariffs but said that it may have consumers share some of the cost. In May President Trump raised US import tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods from 10% to 25%, threatening to place additional tariffs on another $300 billion of Chinese exports which would include video games. The US and China resumed trade talks Tuesday.

To celebrate the 25th anniversary of Doom, there's now mobile versions in the Google Play Store, reports Android Police, "and since this is a 25th-anniversary release, it includes the fourth expansion Thy Flesh Consumed. It's the complete package folks, and it's finally available on Android as an official release."

And in addition, three Doom re-releases are now available for the Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4, reports the Verge -- though there was one little glitch: Bethesda says it'll get rid of the strange requirement that players must log into an online account before they play the newly re-released versions of Doom, Doom II, and Doom 3, which went live yesterday. Players quickly criticized Bethesda for the seemingly ridiculous limitation -- the first of these games was released more than 25 years ago, at a time when there was obviously no internet requirement. The online login will be made optional in a coming update, Bethesda said today.
The re-releases were part of QuakeCon 2019, reports IGN, noting that Bethesda also showcased Doom Eternal's multiplayer, "revealing new details about the unique 1v2 Battle Mode."

Forbes hails the re-releases as "id Software's fast-paced, ultra-violent...classic shooters," adding that "It appears the re-releases are actually Unity remakes, though whether much has changed beyond resolution support remains to be seen." But they may also have some other minor differences, Engadget reports: There have been a few other complaints as well, such as the addition of copy protection, graphical changes (such as filtering that softens those 1993-era graphics) and apparent music tempo slowdowns on the Switch. That's not including the removal of downloads for the old PS3 and Xbox 360 versions. It's not a fiasco, but these clearly weren't the straightforward ports some were expecting.

An anonymous reader shares a report: A 23-year-old man from Utah was sentenced this week to 27 months in prison for a series of DDoS attacks that took down online gaming service providers like Sony's PlayStation Network, Valve's Steam, Microsoft's Xbox, EA, Riot Games, Nintendo, Quake Live, DOTA2, and League of Legends servers, along with many others. Named Austin Thompson, but known online as DerpTrolling, the man is the first hacker who started a trend among other hackers and hacking crews -- namely of launching DDoS attacks against gaming providers during Christmas, which they later justified using ridiculous reasons such as "to spoil everyone's holiday," "to make people spend time with their families," or "for the lulz." The hacker's DDoS attacks were extremely successful at the time, in 2013, in a time when most companies didn't use strong DDoS mitigation services.

President Donald Trump's plan to increase tariffs on goods produced in China would affect a wide range of consumer goods. One gadget that could see a price increase because of a trade war is the video game consoles, and the three biggest companies behind consoles have come together to ask Trump for a pass. From a report: Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony sent a letter dated June 17 to the Office of the United States Trade Representative requesting that video game consoles be removed from the list of products covered by tariffs. The companies say a tariff on consoles would stifle innovation and harm the larger gaming ecosystem -- threatening jobs and injuring consumers, video game developers and retailers. Microsoft makes the Xbox console, Nintendo makes the Switch, and Sony makes the PlayStation. "While we appreciate the administration's efforts to protect US intellectual property and preserve US high-tech leadership," the three companies said in the letter, "the disproportionate harm caused by these tariffs to US consumers and businesses will undermine -- not advance -- these goals."