Xbox is snubbed as Street Fighter V becomes a PC and PS4 exclusive

Xbox is snubbed as Street Fighter V becomes a PC and PS4 exclusive

The Street Fighter franchise is one that has been quiet for a while now, but Street Fighter V is on the way. Capcom has confirmed that work is currently underway on the latest instalment of the game, bringing an end to months of speculation and rumor. But that is not the end of the news.

It has been revealed that Street Fighter will appear exclusively on PS4 and PC. Owners of Microsoft's Xbox One console will miss out this time around, but there's an interesting feature for anyone who does buy the game on the two supported platforms -- cross-platform play.

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Partial refunds for PS Vita customers after Sony's 'misleading' ads

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Sony has been hit with an order to issue partial refunds to customers who bought PlayStation Vita consoles. The Federal Trade Commission found that the company had produced false advertising for the handheld console which suggested that the PS Vita had certain features when in fact it did not. Anyone who bought the console before June 1 2012 is entitled to either $25 cash or credit, or a $50 voucher.

Adverts for the three year old console suggested that players could start a game on a PS3 and pick up from where they left off on a PS Vita console. This feature was only supported by a small number of games. Ads also suggested that 3G subscribers could engage in live online games when in fact this was not possible.

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Frank Lantz -- Director of Logitech's 'Together We Game' project [Q&A]

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Video games are currently a wildly popular entertainment medium for all ages, but earlier perceptions were that they are only for children. You see, in the early days of video games, they were viewed as somewhat of a toy; appropriate for young people. Guess what happened? Those children and teens grew up, but they did not grow out of playing the games. More importantly, some of them grew up to become game developers.

Sadly, not all of us could become developers -- the world needed boring and mindless jobs to be filled too. With that said, earlier this year, Logitech launched 'Together We Game' -- a crowdsourced video game project, where anyone on the internet can contribute and vote on ideas for the development of a tower defense video game. In other words, for those of us that never got to make our own game, Logitech is empowering us to get involved with one. BetaNews recently had the opportunity to ask Frank Lantz, director of the project, some questions.

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Gamer alert -- you can now play Tetris on your Roku

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Most people don't think of a set-top box as a gaming device, but that concept has been changing recently. Amazon's Fire TV and  Google's new Nexus Player are both enabled with capability that has the gamer in mind. Now Roku is stepping up as well.

The company announces that the classic game of Tetris is now available to its customers. "Casual gaming is a great feature available on Roku players and is perfect for a little friendly competition on family game nights. The addition of the Tetris game to the Roku Channel Store provides another great option for a fun, engaging game to keep your whole family entertained".

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Alienware Alpha is the next-gen console ready to take on PS4 and Xbox One

Alienware Alpha is the next-gen console ready to take on PS4 and Xbox One

It must be coming up to Christmas; Alienware, the game-focused arm of Dell, is beginning to ship its new gaming console. The Alienware Alpha is described as the world's first PC gaming console, and it has been designed to blend the power of a gaming rig with the ease of use of a console. With prices starting at $549, gamers have the ability to customize their hardware to suit their needs. The Alpha runs Windows 8.1, and it includes either 4GB or 8GB of RAM, as well as a USB adapted Xbox 360 controller.

The price of the console is bumped up for anyone opting to increase the size of the hard drive or speed of the processor, but the aim here is to blow the Xbox One and PS4 out of the water with raw power.

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Get your groove on as Google launches family games for Chromecast

Get your groove on as Google launches family games for Chromecast

Just in time for Christmas, Google is introducing family games for Chromecast. The diminutive streaming device is more readily associated with watching YouTube videos, but there are a growing number of apps springing up. The latest additions to the selection are a batch of games which can be enjoyed by the whole family.

What's that? The Chromecast has no controller? Far from being a problem, Google sees this as a big advantage: "there's no hassle or expense with extra controllers. Anyone with a phone or tablet can join in". Just as you use your phone or tablet to control media playback, you can do the same to control games, and the built-in sensors found in many handsets mean they work like Wiimote (or Wii Remote if you will insist on proper terminology).

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The Internet Arcade lets you play 900 gaming classics in your browser

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Fancy a spot of retro gaming? Never mind faffing around with emulator software, these days you can play the oldies and goldies right in your browser -- and a new site which has just launched offers almost a thousand arcade classics.

The Internet Arcade boasts some 900 arcade games, and runs them via a modified version of the JSMESS emulator, which was tinkered with by the site curator Jason Scott.

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PlayStation 4 sales double that of Xbox One in first year

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If you’ve been following the sales of Microsoft and Sony’s next gen consoles, you’ll know that the PS4 has been outselling its rival each month. However, a year after they went on sale we finally get to see the scale of the sales difference between the two.

In the last quarter, Sony shipped 4.1 million PlayStations globally, of which 3.3 million were PlayStation 4s. Microsoft on the other hand shipped 2.4 million Xbox units. Now we don’t know how many of those were Xbox Ones, and how many were Xbox 360s (Microsoft doesn’t provide a breakdown), but given the older console still sells very well, it’s safe to assume the PS4 sales were double that of the Xbox One in that quarter. Now, let’s look at the bigger picture.

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UK national videogame museum set to open in 2015

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A videogame museum is opening in Britain that hopes to become the "hub for videogame culture".

The National Videogame Arcade in Nottingham will display a selection of highlights from the National Videogame Archive, a collection of 20,000 objects owned by the Science Museum.

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Xbox One set to go on sale for the holidays, bundles included

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Microsoft has struggled a bit recently with Xbox One sales, at least in comparison to rival Sony's PS4, though strides are being made. So what to do to combat this problem? For starters the company recently began selling a cheaper model that comes without the Kinect. But things will heat up even more this holiday shopping season, which is fast approaching.

Beginning November 2nd, the Xbox One will be available for $349 -- $50 off the regular non-Kinect price. That price will only be available in the US. And it's not the only discounted offer coming to the gaming platform next month.

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FlightGear 3.2 enhances graphics, flight dynamics, plane models

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The free, open-source flight simulator FlightGear 3.2 has been updated to version 3.2 with a stack of new and enhanced features.

A more realistic JSBSim flight dynamics model now includes support for ground effects, including bumpiness, solid-ground detection and adjusting of friction factors. (The official release notes point out that you can’t ride on water any more, either.)

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Open General and OpenPanzer are classic turn-based strategy games

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If you’re a fan of turn-based strategy games -- or just very old -- you might remember Panzer General 2, the 1997 classic which tested your tactics across a range of brutal World War II battles.

Its varied campaigns, scenarios and engrossing gameplay ensured that Panzer General 2 is still remembered fondly today, but it’s not just about memories. The game has also been remade and reimagined in various forms, and old fans and newcomers can try them out for free.

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Why I have grown to hate steamgames.com

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A son of mine, I’m not saying which one, borrowed from my desk a credit card and -- quick like a bunny -- bought over $200 worth of in-game weapons, tools, etc. for the Steam game platform from steamgames.com, which is owned by Valve Corp. Needless to say, the kid is busted, but the more important point for this column is how easily he, for a time, got away with his crime.

I would have thought that vendors like steamgames.com would not want children to be buying game stuff without the consent of their parents, yet they made it so easy -- too easy.

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OpenClonk 5.0 adds Worlds League, new scenarios, music, more

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OpenClock.org has announced the release of OpenClonk 5, a major new version of its open source Worms/ Settlers/ Minecraft/ Terraria- like action game.

The new release adds two missions targeted at new players, two more "which can provide a challenge for the more experienced Clonkers”, and “an action-packed, cooperative scenario where you defend against waves of attackers".

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Xbox One launches in India, UK price drops, and Chinese gamers have 'approved games' list

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It's almost as though we are entering that time of the year when people start thinking about Christmas presents. Game consoles -- like the Xbox One -- are likely to feature pretty high up on wishlists the world over and, out of the blue, there's a raft of Xbox One news spilling out.

It is quite some time since the wraps were taken off the console, but today is the day it finally launches in India. The version with Kinect is available for Rs 45990 (around $755), with the Kinect-free version costing Rs 39,990 (around $655) -- so compared to other parts of the world, the Indian version of the Xbox One is relatively expensive. It will be interesting to see what sort of an impact this has on its popularity.

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