GTA V boss talks about sales bans, says it's really 'disappointing'
We know that both Target and Kmart Australia have banned Grand Theft Auto V from their shelves, with a petition that has been fired back by peeved gamers that want to see the Bible banned from sale, too. Well, now Take-Two Interactive's Chairman and CEO, Karl Slatoff has stepped up to talk about it all.
Slatoff talked at the BMO Capital Markets 2014 Technology & Digital Media Conference, where he said that people who find individual pieces of content offensive should simply not purchase that product. He said: "It's one thing for someone to not want to buy a piece of content, which is completely understandable. And that's really the solution. If you don't like it and it's offensive to you, then you don't buy it".
He also talked about the petition, and that the results were an infringement on free speech, where he added: "For a person or a group of people to try to make that decision for millions of people... We have 34 million people who bought Grand Theft Auto, and if these folks had their way, none of those people would be able to buy Grand Theft Auto. And that really just flies in the face of everything that free society is based on. It's the freedom of expression, and to try to squelch that is a dangerous and slippery slope to go down".
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Rise of the Tomb Raider will be published by Microsoft for Xbox One
Microsoft has a nice exclusive for the Xbox One next year, with Rise of the Tomb Raider hitting its console sometime in 2015. The company's Head of Global Product Marketing, Aaron Greenberg, announced the news on Twitter. Greenberg said: "Yes we are publishing Rise of the Tomb Raider".
The company announced its exclusivity of the sequel to Crystal Dynamics' Tomb Raider at E3 2014 earlier this year, and then at Gamescom 2014, Microsoft's Corporate Vice President Phil Harrison announced that Rise of the Tomb Raider would be a timed exclusive for the Xbox One. This means the PlayStation 4 and PC could see Rise of the Tomb Raider sometime after it hits the Xbox One, but that timed exclusive for Microsoft could be months.
The reboot of Tomb Raider from Crystal Dynamics has been a big hit for the company, with Tomb Raider selling millions upon millions of copies across the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC. It was then released for the PS4 and Xbox One as Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition, and then we've just had the launch of Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris, too.
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Addonics releases ultra-fast portable HDD/SSD readers
Coming out of San Jose, CA - Addonics Technologies has recently announced their UDD25, a pocket-sized device family that can read multiple data storage devices ranging from 2.5-inch HDD's to CF Cards.
Said to provide the user with up to 6Gbps in both internal and portable versions, Addonics also claims support for write-protected devices that support read only. Their external Pocket UDD25 model can read/write to 2.5" SATA drives at the same speeds that any normal internal drive could, the same being said for their internally mounted option - which can be sat in your case in any 3.5-inch drive bay. Both of these models connect through a USB 2.0 or 3.0 port.
When connected to an eSATA 3.0 port, these devices claim a peak transfer speed of 6 Gbps, lowered slightly to 5 Gbps if you're utilizing a USB 3.0 connection. With new products like this on the market listed for a low $45, alongside SSD's reaching an ultra-low pricing structure, don't be surprised to see some people using this kind of technology to start transferring data compared to your standard 500 GB+ pre-built HDD enclosure. Not only is this smaller and lighter, it's going to be a lot faster too.
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Creative Assembly adds two new difficulty modes to Alien: Isolation
Alien: Isolation is one of the scariest, most atmospheric games ever made... so why not make it even harder? That must be the exact train of thought that Creative Assembly, the developer of the game, is on, as they've just announced two new difficulty modes for the game. Novice, and Nightmare.
Novice will slide in before Easy, Normal and Hard modes, but it's the Nightmare mode that has people excited. Creative Assembly promises that the new Nightmare mode provides the "ultimate alien". Nightmare cranks up the scares by making your motion tracker not-so-perfect, as its signal can be kinda on the fritz half the time. Other tweaks inside of the Nightmare mode for Alien: Isolation include faster-burning fuel for your flamethrower that is also harder to find.
The Novice mode for the game provides a slower, less adaptive and not-so-clicked-on Xenomorph, which can be good for gamers who don't want to be replacing their pants every 15 minutes. The combat in Alien: Isolation is also dialled down a notch on Novice, making it easier to play through the game in general.
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The Razer Comms program has just added a live Stream Viewer
Razer has just announced their launch of a Stream Viewer through their VoIP messenger program named 'Comms'. The press release issued explains this new advancements purpose is to "seamlessly integrates popular streaming providers such as Twitch, the world's leading video platform and community for gamers, to enhance the social experience of gaming".
Razer further explains that the three main issues of stream viewing today include; discovery of new streams, being alerted when streamers go live and social interaction on streams due to the amount of spamming in the popular channels. They plan to rectify these issues through various different methods, with their new software integration allowing stream recommendations to users based on interest, alongside friends being able to suggest streams to their peers.
The main features offered by the Stream Viewer integration with Razer Comms include:
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DICE still have content on its way for Battlefield 4
Even after the release of Final Stand, the fifth piece of DLC for Battlefield 4, DICE has said that they're not finished with the game. The developer has said that it wants to see gamers continue to tell them what they'd like to see in the form of future DLC for the first-person shooter.
DICE said in its latest Battlelog update: "With Battlefield 4 Final Stand released, we hope and believe that you will enjoy it together with the rest of the game for a long time. However, there is one thing we want to assure you: there is more content coming for Battlefield 4". We don't know what that will arrive as exactly, but DICE did add: "rest assured that we'll get back to you on the future of Battlefield 4 when the time is right".
Polygon reports that we could expect more reimagined maps, which are maps from the older Battlefield 4 games, remade in the well-powered Frostbite 3 engine. EA and DICE will have to do something with BF4, as there's no flagship Battlefield game coming out until 2016, with Battlefield 5 promised for two years from now. Battlefield: Hardline is coming next year, being developed by Visceral Games, but it's not a "true" Battlefield 4 successor. Bring on 2016.
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Piratebay servers raided by Swedish police, might be down for good
Some users have noticed that The Pirate Bay has been down for a much longer time than the normal sporadic downtime bursts. At 12 hours, and counting, many have suspected the worst. Google recently moved against apps made for Android devices that accessed the popular site, and many had speculated that Google may have had a hand in The Pirate Bay's disrupted service. It turns out Swedish police are the culprit. The Pirate Bay, deemed "The galaxy's most resilient BitTorrent site", had its apocalyptic safe haven in Sweden raided by the police.
The raid was conducted by Fredrick Ingblad, a specialized inspector in intellectual property crimes. A specialized forensics team and local police seized servers and computers, effectively bringing the popular torrent site to its knees. The Pirate Bay has been under fire for years and the original founders ended up in jail for their efforts. The scrappy site was spread out amongst the wind and managed to continue to thrive for several years, though eventually the website was changed from thepiratebay.org to thepiratebay.se.
The server room was found in a rock shelter in Nacka, Sweden. This is likely the secure Swedish Datacenter AB. This datacenter is housed inside a five-story building inside a gigantic rock cavern. The converted nuclear shelter has concrete walls and the requisite blast doors to hold back the worst of catastrophes, but it couldn't stop the Swedish police. It's hard to believe that one of the largest websites in the world, currently ranked 88 worldwide and 55 in the US, can be kept off-line for long. An employee was arrested during the raid, and there are apparently interrogations underway. We will keep an eye on the status of the site, and shout a joyful "Hallelujah!" if they manage to bring it back online.
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Seagate 8TB Archive HDD listed at amazing prices
The pressing need for more storage at an affordable price point has just been addressed by Seagate. Numerous online vendors have begun posting pricing and shipment information for the new Seagate Archive 8TB HDD. This new drive will be available to Amazon customers on Jan 7th, 2015, and comes with a shockingly low price tag of only $267 each. Seagate has claimed that their new Archive series 8TB will offer the industries best cost per GB and watt, and from the current pricing it seems they will deliver.
The SATA 6Gb/s Archive HDDs come in 5, 6, and 8TB capacities and offer 1.33TB of storage per platter. These drives are geared for storage over performance and feature a spindle speed of 5,900 RPM. Another key point with these drives is the SMR technology that delivers astounding density. SMR (Shingled Magnetic Recording) overlaps tracks on the platter to produce more storage capacity. Due to SMR architecture there are a few drawbacks, notably in performance and compatibility. There are two flavors of SMR coming to the forefront, drive-managed and software managed. Software-managed products require an associated API or software to allow proper function, but drive-managed offerings handle all SMR processing internally. The Seagate Archive HDD features a drive-managed format that delivers excellent out-of-the box compatibility. The Seagate DiskWizard software allows installation of the massive drives in Windows even without an UEFI BIOS.
There are secure models available to meet data security requirements, and the Archive series is geared to address online archiving, object storage, big data cold storage, and web-scale archiving requirements. The drives feature 128MB of cache, a maximum sustained data rate of 190 MB/s, and an average of 150MB/s. The two high density 6 and 8TB models have 12 heads and six platters, and the 5TB model packs eight heads and four platters. The drives features all of the usual Seagate datacenter-specific trimmings, and feature a low power draw of 7.5W operating and 5.0 Watts Idle. Sleep and standby power draw is lower than 1 watt, which is perfect for the target audience. Data reliability weighs in at 1 per 10E14 and the drives feature a workload rating of 180 TB per year with an 800,000 hour MTBF.
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Lambada Wars BETA: A free RTS mod set in the Half Life 2 world
Previously known as HL2: Wars, this Real Time Strategy (RTS) mod is currently in BETA and functions as a free multiplayer Source Engine modification for Alien Swarm set in the Half-Life 2 universe.
Self-described on its Steam store page as "the war between mankind and their brutal Combine overlords to a traditional real-time strategy (RTS) setting" it has many Half-Life fans foaming at the mouth.
With only 36 current reviews on record and 930 followers on Twitter, it's quite early days for Lambada Wars - however there's barely a negative thought to be seen surrounding all of its online media. Taking a quick browse through the user reviews you can see responses such as "Reminds me of starcraft II more than Company of heros, which I like. I know RTS's are not for everyone, but try it." and "EPIC! It's like HL2 Mixed with Command and conquer! Also there is sandbox mode. The gameplay is fun and exiting, and there are different gamemodes including Multiplayer. 10/10!".
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Bose products rumored to return to Apple Stores next week
After being ripped from Apple Store shelves not too long ago, Bose audio products are rumored to be making a return. iGen.fr, a French Apple website, has a source that said some Apple retail stores have been receiving shipments of Bose products, with orders from management to get them onto the shelves next week.
We still don't know why Apple removed Bose products from their shelves in the first place, but it most likely has something to do with its acquisition of Beats Electronics. Not only that, but the patent infringement that Bose pulled on Beats back in July, which would now obviously affect Apple.
After Apple acquired Beats, Beats and Bose decided to settle the patent dispute between them. This could have filtered down enough that Bose is now on talking terms with Apple once again, maybe.
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