Someone Has Finally Found The Play Time Counter Limit On Nintendo Switch
One of the things we really like about Nintendo Switch is the fact that it keeps a record of how many hours you’ve played a game for, so you can add up just how much of your life you’ve poured down the metaphorical sink; time you will never, ever get back.
Sorry, where were we? Oh yes, that play time counter. It’s a great means of seeing which titles have captivated you the most, and we’re sure that many of you will have invested a fair number of hours into Zelda: Breath of the Wild – it was a launch game, after all, but it also helps that it’s one of the best video games of all time.
However, even if you consider yourself to be something of a Breath of the Wild veteran, we doubt very much that you’ve put as much time into the game as Samir AID:
That’s right – he’s clocked up so many hours in the game that he has maxed out the play time counter, which stops at 9,999 hours – or, if you prefer, 416 Days and 15 Hours (or 599,940 minutes). That’s equivalent to launching Splatoon 2 and watching Marina and Pearl discuss the current stages 448,107 times.
We can’t imagine many people will get anywhere near that total – even in an epic like Breath of the Wild – but does the fact that there’s a hard limit on the counter bother you?
GameStop Set To Close 180 – 200 “Underperforming” Stores This Fiscal Year
American gaming retailer GameStop has revealed that it plans to close “between 180 and 200 underperforming stores globally by the end of this fiscal year”.
The news comes from the company’s Q2 earnings call, where CFO James Bell noted that GameStop wishes to “de-densify” its chain despite 95% of its 5,700 worldwide stores remaining profitable. The move also includes plans to close more stores over the next couple of years (thanks, GamesIndustry.biz):
“While that is an impressive statistic, we have a clear opportunity to improve our overall profitability by de-densifying our chain. That work is well underway. We are on track to close between 180 and 200 underperforming stores globally by the end of this fiscal year. And while these closures were more opportunistic, we are applying a more definitive, analytic approach, including profit levels and sales transferability, that we expect will yield a much larger tranche of closures over the coming 12 to 24 months.”
This is the latest in a series of closures and cost-cutting techniques that have been taking place recently; approximately 170 employees lost their jobs with the firm in August including seven Game Informer staff members, a monthly gaming magazine published by GameStop.
It would appear that the changes won’t necessarily have an immediate effect, however. Bell went on to explain that the current timing of console generations and early next-gen announcements could have a negative impact on sales.
“We expect our year-over-year sales to be down over the next three to four quarters reflecting the end of [the console] cycle. Compounding this negative impact on sales is the fact that console makers have confirmed the launch earlier than they have in the past. We anticipate that this will lead to much lighter title slate through the rest of 2019 and early 2020 given the end of the cycle timing for current consoles.”
One of the major lingering questions about Apple Arcade was finally confirmed during Apple's September event this week. While we knew it was coming this year, we didn't know how much it would cost--one of the most critical aspects of a subscription service like this. Fortunately, the company shared new details regarding its all-you-can-eat Apple Arcade subscription service on Tuesday, and that included confirming a release date of September 19, and a price point of $4.99 per month. The company also announced it will have a free one-month trial, so you won't have to cough up any cash to check it out for yourself.
One subscription will allow a whole family to download and play the included games. The announcements came as part of a stage presentation where Apple also detailed a few of the exclusives coming to the service. Apple said it will have 100 games, more exclusives at launch than any other service, and a dedicated Arcade tab with new games added monthly.
The presentation showed off three exclusives, from Konami, Capcom, and Annapurna Interactive. Konami is bringing back Frogger with a new game developed by Q-Games. Frogger will use items like bombs to clear obstacles and can turn into a Super Frogger. Capcom debuted Shinsekai Into The Depths, an underwater exploration game. And Annapurna announced Sayonara Wild Hearts for the service.
Ambiera have released CopperCube 6.3. CopperCube is a commercial 3D engine with a generous free version available that enables you to create games with little to no programing required.
New features in CopperCube 6.3 include:
Publishing new apps to the google play store now works again (Google has upped their minimal API level) Android target version is now 29 (instead of previously 26).
Improved iPhone WebGL support:
iPhone normal map rendering now also works on WebGL. Most iPhones don’t support 4 lights at the same time, so rendering is reduced to two lights at the same time for these.
Nicer fallback shaders for iPhones
Added Italian translation
Improved arabic translation
When running your WebGL code on a device not supporting all shaders, the “could not link program” error messages isn’t displayed anymore.
Various other minor improvements here and there
You can learn more about this and previous releases here. If you are interested in learning CopperCube be sure to check out our complete tutorial series on our sister site DevGa.me or watch the video tutorial available below.
GameClub bringing classic iOS games back to the App Store this fall
By Amber Neely Monday, September 09, 2019, 06:59 am PT (09:59 am ET)
GameClub will launch it’s all-you-can-play subscription service to the App Store this fall, giving players a chance to revisit classic mobile games without the hassle of annoying advertising or IAP.
GameClub will work as a subscription service, not dissimilar to Apple Music or Netflix. For a small monthly fee, which is currently unknown, players will be able to play over 50 different titles at launch.
The titles, which include classics such as Super Crate Box, Legendary Wars, Minigore, Space Miner, and Mage Gauntlet, are fully updated and optimized for modern iOS and Android devices. More games will be added to the library on a weekly basis. Additionally, GameClub will release new and original games to the service as well.
All games brought to the service will be fully downloadable and available to play offline. This is an increasingly rare sight to see, as many mobile games require constant access to either data or wifi. Users without unlimited data often unable to play games away from home—which is a large draw of mobile gaming. GameClub’s new model circumvents this problem entirely, and that’s part of their bigger plan.
The service takes aim at solving the problem of the free-to-play app ecosystem. Gameclub posits that many people have left the mobile gaming market because free-to-play apps have driven them away.
“Smartphones sparked an explosion of creativity in games, however much of that innovation has been snuffed out by titles that are free to download but often rely on manipulative practices and annoying monetization schemes,” said Dan Sherman, CEO and co-founder of GameClub. “Too many talented game creators have been driven away from mobile and GameClub believes players deserve better.”
The content will be curated by former Touch Arcade Editor-In-Chi Eli Hodapp, with input from the community. In aggregate, the games in the GameClub library have been downloaded over one hundred million players over the last ten years. GameClub will act as a form of preservation, giving the titles a chance to live on and be enjoyed by both old and new fans alike.
Anyone interested in the service can sign up for the GameClub Early Access program at GameClub’s website. Doing so will give them a chance to receive pre-launch betas through TestFlight, as well as additional news about GameClub’s global launch.
When you install the Fedora Workstation, you’ll find the world-renowned Firefox browser included. The Mozilla Foundation underwrites work on Firefox, as well as other projects that promote an open, safe, and privacy respecting Internet. Firefox already features a fast browsing engine and numerous privacy features.
A community of developers continues to improve and enhance Firefox. The latest version, Firefox 69, was released recently and you can get it for your stable Fedora system (30 and later). Read on for more details.
New features in Firefox 69
The newest version of Firefox includes Enhanced Tracking Protection (or ETP). When you use Firefox 69 with a new (or reset) settings profile, the browser makes it harder for sites to track your information or misuse your computer resources.
For instance, less scrupulous websites use scripts that cause your system to do lots of intense calculations to produce cryptocurrency results, called cryptomining. Cryptomining happens without your knowledge or permission and is therefore a misuse of your system. The new standard setting in Firefox 69 prevents sites from this kind of abuse.
Firefox 69 has additional settings to prevent sites from identifying or fingerprinting your browser for later use. These improvements give you additional protection from having your activities tracked online.
Another common annoyance is videos that start in your browser without warning. Video playback also uses extra CPU power and you may not want this happening on your laptop without permission. Firefox already stops this from happening using the Block Autoplay feature. But Firefox 69 also lets you stop videos from playing even if they start without sound. This feature prevents unwanted sudden noise. It also solves more of the real problem — having your computer’s power used without permission.
There are numerous other new features in the new release. Read more about them in the Firefox release notes.
How to get the update
Firefox 69 is available in the stable Fedora 30 and pre-release Fedora 31 repositories, as well as Rawhide. The update is provided by Fedora’s maintainers of the Firefox package. The maintainers also ensured an update to Mozilla’s Network Security Services (the nss package). We appreciate the hard work of the Mozilla project and Firefox community in providing this new release.
If you’re using Fedora 30 or later, use the Software tool on Fedora Workstation, or run the following command on any Fedora system:
$ sudo dnf --refresh upgrade firefox
If you’re on Fedora 29, help test the update for that release so it can become stable and easily available for all users.
Firefox may prompt you to upgrade your profile to use the new settings. To take advantage of new features, you should do this.
Japanese Nintendo Switch Online Subscribers Will Face Increased Renewal Prices
Nintendo Switch Online subscribers in Japan will have to pay a slightly higher fee to renew their subscriptions starting from October, as the service’s standard price is due to rise.
Japanese Nintendo reports that Nintendo has been sending emails to Switch Online subscribers in Japan to notify them of the change; prices will be increasing from 1st October thanks to an increase in the country’s consumption tax. At present, Japan’s consumption tax stands at 8%, but this will be bumped up to 10% next month.
Thankfully, with the Switch Online service’s pricing being relatively low in the first place, we doubt the change will have too much of an effect on many players. A 12-month subscription currently costs ¥2,400 (approx. £18.10) and this will rise to ¥2,448 (approx. £18.46). By our calculations, a Family subscription will therefore rise from its usual ¥4,500 price to roughly ¥4,584 (approx. £33.90 to £34.53).
Naturally, Switch Online subscribers based in any other country won’t be affected and will be able to renew or pick up a new subscription at the original pricing.
VMware today confirmed that it is in talks to acquire software development platform Pivotal Software, the service best known for commercializing the open-source Cloud Foundry platform. The proposed transaction would see VMware acquire all outstanding Pivotal Class A stock for $15 per share, a significant markup over Pivotal’s current share price (which unsurprisingly shot up right after the announcement). (Source: TFiR)
PlayCanvas, the HTML5 based 3D game engine just released version 1.23.0. The primary new features of the release is that PlayCanvas is now available via the NPM, the Node Package Manager. Additionally you can now generate TypeScript definitions for the entire API.
As you read this, I’m not actually here, so today’s update is going to be a bit ad-hoc. It’s not been a great week for releases regardless, so I’ll be spending some time looking at other things that may be of interest.
This week I finally got up the Battle Chaserscontent I’d planned – apologies for the delay there. We’ve also been looking a bit more into Pokemon Masters, as well as catching up with Dota Underlords, which we haven’t spoken about in a while. Checking in with our BoardGameGeek list as well is always fun.
PSA: I’m on holiday between the 10th – 17th. While I’ll have cover as usual there will be no Weekender update on the 13th. Normal Friday service resumes on the 20th.
Meanwhile, in the world of mobile gaming…
Out Now – Tropico on Android
Feral continue to prove their are the king of premium mobile games with the recent release of Tropico onto Android. With an uncertain market in terms of premium mobile releases, it’s gratifying to know that porting last generation’s strategy games is still a viable option, but it’d be easy to imagine developers just doing an iOS port and being done with it.
The fact that Feral, who are traditionally iOS developers, have taken the time to skill-up and bring these beloved games to Android as well is quite touching. We’re not doing another review, but you can read our iOS review if you want an idea of how it plays. I’ve got an Android code that I will be testing out anyway. If I discover anything note-worthy for Android readers, I’ll let you know.
Announced – Homeworld Mobile
Gearbox were at Pax West recently talking about Homeworld. They announced that Homeworld 3 is a thing, but they also dropped the surprise announcement that there will be a Homeworld game on mobile as well. At the moment it just has the working title Homeworld Mobile.
When it will come, on what platforms and in what form is all very much TBD. All we do know is that it’s being made by Stratosphere Games, who are known for making F2P Clash Royale like experiences. Here’s to hoping it’s not going to be like that but you never know with Gearbox. There’s an official website you can check out here. https://www.homeworldmobile.com/
This is more than just a sale – for some reason MM3 has gone free? There are IAPs that range from like $6 up to $11 for a ‘bundle’. I honestly can’t remember if they were there when the game launch. Did this one go F2P without us noticing? Either way, you can pick it up for free on iOS and Android if you’re interested.
This is a neat two-player board game that’s about drafting a hand of cards to try and collect sets to score points. It plays very quickly over a couple of rounds, and is an excellent choice for couples or friends looking for a quick game to pass the time. It’s currently down to a couple of bucks on iOS and Android.
Seen anything else you liked? Played any of the above? Let us know in the comments!
