Developers at Google's recently formed game studios were shocked February 1 when they were notified that the studios would be shut down, Kotaku reported Tuesday, citing four sources with knowledge of what transpired. From the report: Just the week prior, Google Stadia vice president and general manager Phil Harrison sent an email to staff lauding the "great progress" its studios had made so far. Mass layoffs were announced a few days later, part of an apparent pattern of Stadia leadership not being honest and upfront with the company's developers, many of which had upended their lives and careers to join the team. "[Stadia Games and Entertainment] has made great progress building a diverse and talented team and establishing a strong lineup of Stadia exclusive games," Harrison's January 27 email read, according to sources. "We will confirm the SG&E investment envelope shortly, which will, in turn, inform the SG&E strategy and 2021 [objectives and key results]."

Five days later, Harrison appeared to reverse course completely, announcing in a public blog post that the head of Stadia Games and Entertainment, Jade Raymond, left the company, and Google would "not be investing further in bringing exclusive content from our internal development team SG&E." Stadia developers learned the news, first reported by Kotaku, at almost the same time as everyone else via an internal email and conference call with Harrison. The messy rollout came after an already grueling year working through the pandemic. It was reminiscent of Stadia's own launch, which appeared rushed and left out many features promoted during the service's reveal, only to be added months later. In this case, however, Stadia's own developers were the ones impacted by the botched planning. Released in November 2019, Stadia initially struggled due to its monetization model and a lack of games.

Some movie theaters around the world are renting out their screens to gamers to bring in a new revenue stream amid the coronavirus pandemic. The BBC reports: With many cinemas across the country closed due to coronavirus restrictions meaning that they can only open with 50% capacity, and far fewer movies being released to tempt cinemagoers, CGV [South Korea's largest cinema chain] came up with the idea of renting out its auditoriums to gamers to bring in a new revenue stream. Before 6pm up to four people can hire a screen for two hours for around $90. This then rises to $135 in the evening. Users have to bring their consoles, games and controllers with them. The auditoriums being hired out have between 100 and 200 seats, and by comparison CGV movie tickets cost around $12 each. So a 100-seat screen half filled for a film would bring in revenues of $600, rising to $1,200 for a 200-seat one at 50% capacity. And that is before the filmgoers buy their drinks and popcorn.

Yet while CGV isn't making anywhere as much money from the gamers, it is bringing in some additional income. The scheme is called Azit-X after "azit," the Korean word for hideout. Since the new service launched at the start of this year, auditoriums have been booked more than 130 times so far. While the majority of customers are said to be men in their 30s or 40s, couples and families have also taken part.

Korea's CGV is not the only cinema chain now letting gamers book cinema screens, as U.S. group Malco Theatres has been doing the same since November. Memphis-based Malco allows up to 20 people to hire a screen at its 36 cinemas across Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri and Tennessee. The prices for service, which is called Malco Select, are $100 for two hours or $150 for three. Other U.S. chains, such as AMC and Cinemark, have been allowing customers in small groups to book auditoriums for private screenings.

The hackers behind this week's ransomware attack on Cyberpunk 2077 studio CD Projekt Red appear to have found a buyer for the stolen data. Engadget reports: They ran an auction on a hacking forum but, as The Verge notes, they shut it down after reportedly accepting an offer from elsewhere. The starting price for the auction was said to be $1 million and there was the option for an interested party with a spare $7 million to buy the data outright. It's not clear who has acquired the data, how much they paid for it or what they're planning to do with the information.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Eui Jeong Lee and three of her friends sit in an otherwise empty 200-seat cinema auditorium and play a video game on the giant screen. As Ms Lee blasts her gaming opponents with her wireless controller, the sound whips loudly around the dark room from the numerous cinema speakers. "The sound quality is particularly amazing," says the 25-year-old student. "The sound of the gunshots is just so vivid, and when something flew directly at me from the screen I even screamed." Ms Lee and her mates had hired the screen for two hours at a branch of South Korea's largest cinema chain, CGV. With many cinemas across the country closed due to coronavirus restrictions meaning that they can only open with 50% capacity, and far fewer movies being released to tempt cinemagoers, CGV came up with the idea of renting out its auditoriums to gamers to bring in a new revenue stream.

Before 6pm up to four people can hire a screen for two hours for around $90. This then rises to $135 in the evening. Users have to bring their consoles, games and controllers with them. The auditoriums being hired out have between 100 and 200 seats, and by comparison CGV movie tickets cost around $12 each. So a 100-seat screen half filled for a film would bring in revenues of $600, rising to $1,200 for a 200-seat one at 50% capacity. And that is before the filmgoers buy their drinks and popcorn. Yet while CGV isn't making anywhere as much money from the gamers, it is bringing in some additional income. The scheme is called Azit-X after "azit", the Korean word for hideout. CGV employee Seung Woo Han came up with the idea after he realised that films and video games share many similarities.

Similar to Nintendo's "Joy-Con drift," Sony's PlayStation 5 DualSense controller is apparently suffering from drift: movement on-screen that doesn't correspond to any button press or input. ExtremeTech reports: Users have reported DualSense drift as quickly as 10 days after purchasing a PlayStation 5, which tracks with some of the shorter reports we've heard about Nintendo as well. We can assume that some DualSense controllers will suffer drift because no consumer company can guarantee that literally 100 percent of its products will not contain a defect of some kind. One key factor to look for when judging the seriousness of claims like this is how many people encounter the same issue repeatedly. [...] Kotaku reports that Sony is honoring requests to repair DualSense controllers under warranty, but you'll have to pay the shipping fee to send your controller to the company. Return shipping and the cost of repairs or replacement will be covered by Sony. According to IGN, the U.S.-based law firm of Chimicles Schwartz Kriner & Donaldson-Smith LLP has set up a questionnaire page on its website, allowing PS5 owners to report problems with their DualSense controllers.

No action has been take yet, but CSK&D stated that it is "investigating a potential class action based upon reports that Sony PS5 DualSense controllers for the PlayStation 5 console can experience drift issues and/or fail prematurely," reads the page introduction. "Specifically, it is reported that the joystick on certain PS5 DualSense controllers will automatically register movement when the joystick is not being controlled and interfere with gameplay." The firm was one of the firms that handled the Nintendo "Joy-Con drift" situation last year.

Thanks to the hard work of the SwitchRoot team, it's now possible to enjoy an Android 10-based LineageOS 17.1 port on your Nintendo Switch console. XDA Developers reports: The Android 10 release is based on the LineageOS 17.1 build for the NVIDIA SHIELD TV and brings many improvements over the previous release, including a much-needed deep sleep mode so the OS doesn't murder your console's battery life. It's also generally faster and more responsive than the previous Android 8.1 Oreo version, according to the SwitchRoot team.

The ROM comes in two flavors: a Tablet build that offers a standard Android UI with support for all apps and an Android TV build that supports both docked and undocked use cases but has more limited app support. The former is recommended if you primarily use your Nintendo Switch while undocked, while the latter will offer a much-better docked experience. As for bugs and broken things, the developer says games built for the SHIELD (Half-Life 2, Tomb Raider, etc.) aren't supported, and you might notice some stuttering with Bluetooth audio. Some apps also may not support the Joy-Con D-Pad.

In order to install this build, you'll need an RCM-exploitable Nintendo Switch, a USB-C cable, a high-speed microSD card (formatted to FAT32), and a PC. If you already have the Android 8.1 Oreo build installed on your SD card, just make sure to back up your data before installing the Android 10 build, as flashing this new ROM will wipe all data. After installing the ROM itself, be sure to flash the Google Apps package, Alarm Disable ZIP, and Xbox Joycon Layout ZIP if you use an Xbox controller. You can download LineageOS 17.1 for Nintendo Switch here.

New submitter Pibroch(CiH) writes: Andrew Spinks, the creator of Terraria and lead developer for Re-Logic, has been trying to find out why his Google account (which encompasses YouTube, Gmail, and many other important services) was suddenly banned and locked with no warning.

According to Ars Technica: "Spinks says his entire Google account has been down for three weeks now, and Google has 'done nothing but given me the runaround.' You can view the quality of Google's support on Twitter for yourself. After the tweet from the official Terrarria account, YouTube support declined Re-logic's request to try to solve the problem privately, choosing instead to publicly offer irrelevant suggestions to the game developer with over 30 million customers. First, YouTube asked if Re-Logic could access its banned email account, which the developer already explained was banned. Then, YouTube suggested trying Google's account recovery system, which is only for users who have forgotten their Google password. Finally, YouTube shared instructions for how to recover a voluntarily deleted Google account, which is in no way relevant to an account ban."

Spinks has moved to cancel the release of the popular game Terraria on Google's Stadia game streaming platform.

Long ago there were plans for a remastered Xbox 360 version of the Nintendo 64 game "Goldeneye 007" — but they never materialized, and that game became a lost legend. But then Monday Ars Technica interviewed longtime Spanish game streamer Graslu00, who had somehow uploaded a two-hour video demo-ing the lost game. The files came with a peculiar note: "Never say never, release coming soon, James."
Days later Engadget reported: This week, a ROM of a canceled 2007 Xbox 360 remaster of the game appeared online, allowing those with a PC to play it using an emulator. According to VGC (via Polygon), the leaked ROM includes the game's entire single-player campaign, as well as its multiplayer component. It also allows players to seamlessly toggle between the remaster's enhanced textures and effects and the original's blocky N64 graphics.
So this weekend the BBC tracked down videogame designer David Doak, who'd worked on the original 1997 game, who admitted it was fun finally seeing the remastered game "out in the wild." "It is always heart-warming to see that the original game is still so fondly remembered and has obviously brought joy to so many people over almost 25 years since release.

"The current excitement over the leak of this 'naughty remaster' speaks volumes for the impact and enduring legacy of GoldenEye 007."

David Doak also appeared as a character called Dr Doak in the original game, but was replaced in the remastered version. Some gamers have already modified the leaked software to put him back in, which he said was "particularly touching."
Since 2009 he's been using the Twitter handle @DrDoak.

In March he'd tweeted, "Dr Doak works in a chemical weapons facility. He washes his hands regularly and is careful to avoid touching his face. This is good practice. Be like Dr Doak."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: One day before he was named the next chief executive officer ofAmazon.com Inc., Andy Jassy reaffirmed his commitment to making video games while acknowledging the stark challenges the team has faced, according to an email to staff reviewed by Bloomberg. Jassy expressed support for Mike Frazzini, the head of Amazon Game Studios and the subject of a Bloomberg profile last week examining the troubles the company has faced in gaming. The story was based on interviews with more than 30 current or former Amazon employees. Both executives sent emails to their staff this week referencing the article, saying the accounts were exaggerated but recognizing that they had made mistakes.

"Some businesses take off in the first year, and others take many years," wrote Jassy, currently the head of Amazon's cloud computing division and Frazzini's boss. "Though we haven't consistently succeeded yet in AGS, I believe we will if we hang in there." "Being successful right away is obviously less stressful, but when it takes longer, it's often sweeter," Jassy wrote in the email Monday. "I believe this team will get there if we stay focused on what matters most."

The pledge of support from Jassy takes on added importance now that Amazon has said he will succeed Jeff Bezos as CEO this summer. The company's entry into video game creation in 2012 was originally ordered by Bezos, three people who worked with the founder have said. Since then, Amazon has spent billions of dollars, released two big-budget games -- both of which flopped -- and canceled many other projects. Its struggles reflect broader issues big tech companies have discovered when trying to break into gaming.

Sony shipped more than 4.5 million PlayStation 5s from the console's Nov. 12 launch to the end of the year, but it took a loss on those sales because the PS5's "strategic price point" is lower than what it cost to manufacture it. From a report: The disclosure was part of Sony's quarterly report to investors, delivered in Japan earlier today. The losses on PS5 sales were not specifically broken out -- and they were part of an overall Game & Network Services Segment that saw a 26.7 billion yen ($2.5 billion) increase in operating income over the same quarter in 2019. Sony's PlayStation revenue from game sales (both PS4 and PS5, add-on content included) plus larger profit margins on the outgoing PlayStation 4 more than made up any shortfall, the company said. By comparison, the PlayStation 4 sold more than 4.2 million units from its November 2013 launch to the end of that year. The company in November said the new PlayStation 5 is facing "unprecedented" demand, making its availability scarce, even though more PS5s have been available, in whole numbers, than their predecessor. Microsoft's Xbox Series X has faced the same issue, with the company's chief financial officer telling investors back in November that a console shortage could last until April.

A mysterious hacking group has compromised the server infrastructure of a popular Android emulator and has delivered malware to a handful of victims across Asia in a highly-targeted supply chain attack. ZDNet reports: The attack was discovered by Slovak security firm ESET on January 25, last week, and targeted BigNox, a company that makes NoxPlayer, a software client for emulating Android apps on Windows or macOS desktops. ESET says that based on evidence its researchers gathered, a threat actor compromised one of the company's official API (api.bignox.com) and file-hosting servers (res06.bignox.com).

Using this access, hackers tampered with the download URL of NoxPlayer updates in the API server to deliver malware to NoxPlayer users. Despite evidence implying that attackers had access to BigNox servers since at least September 2020, ESET said the threat actor didn't target all of the company's users but instead focused on specific machines, suggesting this was a highly-targeted attack looking to infect only a certain class of users. Until today, and based on its own telemetry, ESET said it spotted malware-laced NoxPlayer updates being delivered to only five victims, located in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Sri Lanka. "We discard the possibility that this operation is the product of some financially motivated group," an ESET spokesperson told ZDNet today via email. "We are still investigating, but we have found tangible correlations to a group we internally call Stellera, which we will be reporting about in the near future."

Tesla boss Elon Musk said in an interview late Sunday that a monkey has been wired up to play video games with its mind by a company he founded called Neuralink. CNBC reports: Neuralink put a computer chip into the monkey's skull and used "tiny wires" to connect it to its brain, Musk said. "It's not an unhappy monkey," he said during a talk on Clubhouse, a new social media app gaining popularity that allows people to have informal voice chats while others listen in. "You can't even see where the neural implant was put in, except that he's got a slight like dark mohawk."

The billionaire -- who also spoke about space travel, colonies on Mars, crypto, artificial intelligence and Covid-19 vaccines -- said Neuralink is trying to figure out if it can use its chips to get monkeys to play "mind Pong" with each other. "That would be pretty cool," said Musk, who is CEO of Neuralink, in addition to SpaceX and Tesla. Neuralink's team of around 100 people is trying to develop an implementable computer-brain interface. Musk describes it as a Fitbit in your skull with tiny wires that go into your brain. [...] Musk said Neuralink will "probably" be releasing some videos that show the company's progress in the next month or so. Last August, Neuralink conducted a live demo of its technology on three pigs. A wireless link from the Neuralink device showed the pig's activity activity as it snuffled around a pen on stage.

Musk made the comments on the audio chat app Clubhouse, where he also grilled Robinhood CEO about what happened with GameStop.

Google Stadia, the late 2019 streaming platform that promised to revolutionize gaming by letting users stream games without needing to own a powerful PC or console, is altering course, getting out of the game-making business and will now offer its platform directly to game publishers alongside offering Stadia Pro to the public. From a report: The company is announcing the news today, though Kotaku began to hear rumblings from sources close to Stadia last week that Google's service was heading for a major change. One games industry source told Kotaku that Google was canceling multiple projects, basically any games slated for release beyond a specific 2021 window, though they believed games close to release would still come out. Today brings some clarification. Google will close its two game studios, located in Montreal and Los Angeles. That closure will impact around 150 developers, one source familiar with Stadia operations said. The company says it will try to find those developers new roles at Google. Jade Raymond, the veteran producer who helped build Assassin's Creed for Ubisoft and moved on to EA several years ago before leaving to run game creation at Stadia, is exiting the company, according to Google.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg, which is "based on interviews with more than 30 current and former Amazon employees, most of whom spoke under the condition of anonymity citing fears of litigation or career repercussions." From the report: Mike Frazzini had never made a video game when he helped start Amazon Game Studios. Eight years later, he has released two duds, withdrew both from stores after a torrent of negative reactions and canceled many more. For a company that dominates countless areas of retail, consumer electronics and enterprise computing, the multiple failures in gaming show one realm that may be impervious toAmazon.com's distinctive business philosophy. It tried to make games the Amazon way, instead of simply making games people would want to play.

Frazzini is an Amazon lifer who came up in the books section of the website, where he endeared himself to Jeff Bezos as a manager there. Conventional wisdom inside the company is that if you can run one business, you can run any other. Amazon's deep financial resources certainly help. As head of the games division, Frazzini has acquired established development studios and pushed the company to spend nearly $1 billion for the live video streaming website Twitch. Frazzini recruited some of the top names in the video game industry, including creators of the critically acclaimed franchises EverQuest and Portal, as well as executives fromElectronic Arts Inc.and other big publishers.

Then, according to numerous current and former employees of Frazzini's game studios, he ignored much of their advice. He frequently told staff that every Amazon game needed to be a "billion-dollar franchise" and then understaffed the projects, they say. Instead of using industry-standard development tools, Frazzini insisted Amazon build its own, which might have saved the company money if the software ever worked properly. Executives under Frazzini initially rejected charges that New World, an Amazon game that would ask players to colonize a mythical land and murder inhabitants who bear a striking resemblance to Native Americans, was racist. They relented after Amazon hired a tribal consultant who found that the portrayal was indeed offensive, say two people who worked on the project. The game, previously planned for release last year, is now scheduled for this spring.

Nintendo faces a complaint from BEUC, a European consumer group, over what it calls "systematic problems" with the controllers for the company's popular Switch games console. BEUC said it filed a complaint with the European Union and national consumer protection organizations after evidence from users showed that in 88% of cases, "the game controllers broke within the first two years." A report adds: The group said some 25,000 gamers and other consumers across Europe, including France, Belgium and the Netherlands, complained about a "recurring technical problem with Nintendo Switch controllers, commonly referred to as 'Joy-Con Drift,' according to a statement on Wednesday. The problem causes a glitch where characters can move within games without any input from the user.

Brian Fagioli, writing at BetaNews: Today, Plex launches a retro video game streaming service that should make playing older titles even easier. Called "Plex Arcade," it currently only offers games licensed from Atari, so we are talking really old-school stuff here, folks (think Centipede and Combat). At $4.99 month ($2.99 for those with Plex Pass) it is rather affordable. Unfortunately, there is one big catch -- Linux users are being left out.

GameStop shares surged to a record Monday, before pulling back and giving up much of their gains, the latest sign that frenetic trading by individual investors is leading to outsize stock-market moves. From a report: Class A shares of the Texas-based games retailer surged as much as 145% to $159.18 in morning trading, before reversing course and briefly turning lower. By midday, the stock was up 27% at $82.55, up more than 330% in 2021. The rapid swings prompted the New York Stock Exchange to briefly halt trading multiple times. The rally has been fueled by individual investors, encouraging each other on social media to pile into GameStop shares and options. The buying pressure has led money managers to switch out of substantial bets that the stock would fall, analysts said. This resulted in a short squeeze, in which rising prices prompt investors to buy back shares they had sold short to cut their losses, pushing the stock higher still.

The company has become a high-profile battleground between bullish chatroom-driven day traders, especially on online platform Reddit, and hedge fund short sellers, who have been betting against the stock. GameStop has been the most-actively traded stock by customers of Fidelity Investments in recent sessions, with buy orders outnumbering sell orders by more than four-to-one, according to the brokerage. "We broke it. We broke GME at open," one Reddit user wrote Monday after the NYSE halted trading, referring to GameStop's stock-market ticker. The tussle over the company, with a modest market value of about $5 billion at Friday's close and four years of declining sales, exemplifies the increased sway of retail investors. Many poured into the market during the coronavirus lockdown, congregating on online platforms to swap trading ideas and to boast about winning bets. From last week: Gaming the System: How GameStop Stock Surged 1,500% In Nine Months.

"We messed up today," the Xbox Live Gold team wrote late Friday night, "and you were right to let us know." Their blog post's new title? "No Changes to Xbox Live Gold Pricing, Free-to-Play Games to be Unlocked."

Forbes reports: It has been a very strange few days for Microsoft and Xbox fans. On Friday, Microsoft announced that for effectively no real reason, it was doubling the price of Xbox Live Gold from $60 a year to $120 a year. Immediately, this generated massive pushback from both players, who would bear those costs, and the press, who dubbed Xbox Live Gold suddenly "the worst deal in gaming."

It took all of maybe 14 hours for Microsoft to come back and...kill the entire idea. Not only that, as in addition to reverting the planned price increase, they also announced that they were working on making all free-to-play games able to be played without needing Xbox Live Gold, a long-requested change, which would roll out over the next few months...

Microsoft is trying very hard to push people into signing up for Ultimate and Game Pass, and this price increase was meant to be a win-win for them. Either people were now close enough to the yearly price of Ultimate where they'd just do that instead, or they would be paying twice as much for Gold which meant more sub revenue anyways. What could go wrong? What is not clear, however, is why Microsoft did not anticipate the reaction....
Citing a Twitter thread from analyst Daniel Ahmad, the article concludes that "Microsoft knows that it is losing the console sales battle, and they will likely continue to lose it to Sony.

"So their main desire is to increase Game Pass adoption as much as possible to essentially be the definitive game subscription service in the market before others catch up."

Microsoft continues sending not-so-subtle signals that it would really, really like you to drop Xbox Live Gold in favor of Game Pass. From a report: The company has raised prices for new Xbox Live Gold memberships across the board, with the changes becoming more noticeable the longer you're ready to commit. The one- and three-month plans aren't much pricier at $11 and $30 respectively (up $1 and $5), but six months now costs you $60 -- well above the $40 you used to pay. And when there's no longer a 12-month membership, you'll be looking at $120 per year if you insist on Gold. Existing six- and 12-month members will renew at the current price, Microsoft said.
UPDATE: 14 hours Microsoft rescinded this price hike. Their apologetic blog post began "We messed up...."

Opera has acquired YoYo Games, a British game development platform best known for GameMaker Studio 2, and is launching its Opera Gaming division. Engadget reports: Opera has bought the company for a simple reason: Opera GX. The gamer-focused web browser was launched in early access back in June 2019. Its headline feature is a slide-out control panel that lets you limit the browser's bandwidth and see which tabs are demanding the most CPU and RAM resources. Opera says it will create a new division, sensibly called Opera Gaming, by combining the Opera GX and GameMaker teams.

"We have always had big plans for improving GameMaker across all platforms, both from the perspective of improving accessibility and further developing the features available to commercial studios," Stuart Poole, General Manager of YoYo Games said. "And now we can't wait to see them arrive much sooner."