Author: Kyle Orland

Those following virtual reality developments woke up to some surprising news this morning, with headlines blaring that Frontier's high-profile space sim Elite: Dangerous was dropping Oculus Rift support in favor of the SteamVR-powered HTC Vive. Those headlines were especially surprising considering that Elite: Dangerous had been one of the best showcases for the Oculus Rift development kits so far (just ask our own Lee Hutchinson).

It turns out that those initial headlines were wrong—or at the very least misleading. Elite: Dangerous is still planned for the Oculus Rift, as it has been all along. "This is not true. I wish people would check their facts," Elite CEO David Braben tweeted in response to one of those early headlines.

The source of the confusion seems to be a statement Frontier gave to Eurogamer, saying that "right now, we've chosen to focus on SteamVR. We haven't cut an exclusivity deal with any VR manufacturer, and we're still working with Oculus on Rift support."

(credit: Photograph by ChipperMist)

Overall, we've been pretty happy just to have the ability to play select Xbox 360 games on the Xbox One since Microsoft first rolled out the feature back in November. Digital Foundry has spent the past few months putting this backward compatibility through its technical paces, though, and the site's findings are a decidedly mixed bag.

While the Xbox One's system-level forced vsync eliminates the screen tearing common to many Xbox 360 games, that benefit "sometimes comes with a penalty of lower frame rates," as the site puts it. This problem is especially apparent in gameplay scenes with lots of moving on-screen characters; all that action puts additional stress on the tri-core CPU in the Xbox 360 and even more stress on an Xbox One trying to emulate that difficult chip architecture.

This means siginficant frame rate dips in the most hectic parts of games like Gears of War, Mass Effect, and Halo Reach. Those frame rate drops lead to noticable problems with the controls as well, as Digital Foundry says the system misses certain controller inputs amid the dropped frames during intense firefights and driving sections.

Shown here: Owners of the PC version of Mortal Kombat X

While versions of many Mortal Kombat games have come to the PC over the years, the series has always seemed console-focused. Mortal Kombat publisher Warner Bros. has shown just how extreme that console focus is this week, confirming that PC players will not be able to buy future DLC for last year's Mortal Kombat X.

PC players began to suspect the worst earlier this week when sign-ups for an "Enhanced Online Beta" version of the game didn't list the PC as a platform option. Then, yesterday, WB announced that Mortal Kombat XL—an expanded edition of the game that includes all current DLC and the upcoming "Kombat Pack 2"—would only be coming to the Xbox One and PS4.

NetherRealm Community Manager Tyler Lansdown confirmed later in the day that PC players wouldn't even be able to buy that DLC à la carte. "Mortal Kombat XL and 'Kombat Pack 2' will [be] available on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One only," he wrote on the TestYourMight forums.

Someone looks worried...

Uncharted developer Naughty Dog has already said that the upcoming Uncharted 4: A Thief's End will be the last game in the series that the studio plans to work on directly. But there's still the possibility that franchise owner Sony will decide to continue the Uncharted series with a new developer at the helm (for an example of how something like that could happen, look no further than the late history of Naughty Dog's own Crash Bandicoot series).

Potential spoilers ahead...

In a new interview, though, series director Neil Druckmann suggests that Uncharted 4 will put a hard stop to the story of series protagonist Nathan Drake, one that would make it difficult for the series to continue under Sony.

Amir Hekmati (credit: FreeAmir)

As part of a prisoner swap this weekend, 32-year-old Iranian-American game developer Amir Mizra Hekmati has been released from Iranian custody after over four years of imprisonment. The US State Department confirmed yesterday that Hekmati and three other Iranian prisoners had arrived safely in Geneva, en route to a military base in Germany.

Hekmati, who was born and raised in the US, was first imprisoned in August 2011 after he purportedly confessed to high-level espionage for the US government. According to the confession, Hekmati's company, Kuma Reality Games, was working with the CIA to release "games with the aim of manipulating public opinion in the Middle East. The goal of the company in question was to convince the people of Iran and the people of the entire world that whatever the US does in other countries is a good measure."

Hekmati was initially sentenced to death in 2012, but that sentence was overturned by a higher court later that year. He was resentenced to a ten-year term after a secret trial in which Hekmati was not allowed to present a defense, according to his family.

You didn't know that fascists in pre-war Germany were actually lizard people? Well... now you know.

5 more images in gallery

I’m generally not a big fan of the board game subgenre known as “bluffing games.” The particulars vary, but these games are all about trying to suss out which players have been randomly assigned a secret “bad guy” role (or, if you’re a “bad guy,” trying to convince everyone else that you’re actually not a “bad guy”).

On paper, these games are a great excuse to start conversations, get friendly accusations flying, and generate the social glue that makes a great, memorable game. In practice, though, most of the bluffing games I play usually go something like this:

Other player: I think Kyle is the “bad guy.”
Me (regardless of whether or not I’m the bad guy): No, I’m not.
Other player: He’s totally lying! I totally know it!
Me: No, I’m not.
*repeat over and over and with various other combinations of players*

This Amiibo can stay usable proudly standing while still inside its box.

The eternal question for the modern Nintendo collector: Do you leave that hard-to-find Amiibo in the box to maximize its long-term value, or do you take it out so you can actually scan it to unlock new features in select Wii U and Nintendo 3DS games? Thankfully, players don't have to make that decision with Yacht Club Games' new Shovel Knight Amiibo. It was purposely designed to be usable even while it's still in its packaging.

Shortly after the US launch of the Shovel Knight Amiibo last week (and the early December launch in Europe), sites like Siliconera and YouTubers like Nintendaan quickly discovered the NFC readers in the Wii U and New Nintendo 3DS can scan the figure even while it's still in its packaging. That makes it different from every other Amiibo released so far, all of which include a small piece of protective material to prevent the base from being scanned from inside the box.

Some assumed Shovel Knight's lack of a protective covering was an oversight or a cost-saving measure implemented for the new Amiibo, which is the first to be produced by a third-party outside of Nintendo itself. But Yacht Club games recently told Polygon that the design is actually an intentional decision.

Natsume made 2,800% more on this cartridge by waiting 23 years to sell it.

These days, it's not uncommon to see unopened, "factory sealed" copies of games from decades-past selling on eBay for huge markups over the original price they demanded on the shelves of Funcoland or Babbage's. Usually, though, those mint condition games are being resold by forward-thinking collectors looking to make a profit. But at least one storied game publisher is currently getting in on the act, making some decent profits by clearing out sealed copies of classic games that have been sitting around its office shelves for decades.

To be sure, the bulk of Natsume's business still comes from the niche games it continues to publish for the Wii U, 3DS, and PlayStation Vita. But the Japanese publisher's eBay store has recently started to include brand new copies of older games from Natsume's back catalog, plucked directly from the company's office closets.

Natsume's collection of sellable legacy titles boasts a lot of forgettable, low-cost "classics" such as Reel Fishing on the Wii and Math Play for the DS. But it also has quite a few well-regarded games that are relatively hard to find in factory-sealed condition today, including SNES action games Pocky & Rocky, epic RPG Lufia II, and farming simulator Harvest Moon 64.

Amazon is making a serious play for gamers' dollars today, extending a 20 percent discount on all new and pre-release video games to subscribers of the $100/year Amazon Prime service. The discount only applies to physical games (excluding console bundles) and expires two weeks after a game's launch. Discounts will show up once subscribers put the games in their shopping carts.

This new benefit puts Amazon on similar ground to Best Buy, whose Gamers Club Unlocked program provides a similar 20 percent discount on new video games (as well as bonuses on trade-in games and discounts on used games). Best Buy's program cost $120 for a two-year subscription when it launched in 2012, but that subscription now goes for just $30.

Amazon Prime's gaming discounts come on top of free Release Date delivery that Amazon already provides to Prime members for many pre-ordered games. The Prime subscription also comes with benefits including the streaming Prime Video and Prime Music services, cloud photo storage on Prime Photos, and free two-day shipping on most products.

For most of the mainstream market, the entry-level cost to get into PC-based virtual reality goes well beyond the $599 Oculus is charging for its first consumer Rift headset. Factor in the cost of a high-end gaming PC needed to power the Rift, and the "all-in" price for most consumers soars to at least $1,500.

But Oculus founder Palmer Luckey says he sees VR headsets like the Rift driving demand for that kind of high-end PC hardware, driving down overall costs in the process. "Most people have not had a reason to own a high-end PC for a long time," Luckey said in a wide-ranging AMA" conversation with the "Glorious PC Master Race" subreddit yesterday. "Your crappy PC is the biggest barrier to adoption [for high-end VR]..."

That won't be true for long, according to Luckey, as demand for VR drives adoption of high-end graphics hardware "much like video-related stuff drove high-end CPU adoption." In the near future, that demand will push PC technology to the point where even that "crappy PC" that most people have will be able to power a convincing virtual reality experience, Luckey said. "If 'normal' PCs get good enough to run VR, then the majority of people will be able to buy a relatively cheap headset and just use whatever computer they already own to drive it."