During the global coronavirus pandemic, demand for the Nintendo Switch console has skyrocketed and retailers have repeatedly run out of stock. Seizing that opportunity, some price gougers on Amazon and eBay are selling Switches for hundreds of dollars over the recommended retail price. From a report: Like lots of money-making opportunities in online-shopping, many of these resellers aren't just stumbling upon their in-demand product of choice. Instead, developers are creating dedicated tools to automatically buy Switches from stores when they come back in stock, and before others get a chance to. Motherboard has traced some of the bulk Switch buying to a community revolving around a new, particular bot. Hundreds of people looking to jump on the gold rush or who are just desperate to get their hands on a Switch for themselves have joined a Discord group where users share tips on how to effectively use the tool.

"I decided to make it as a joke, but I quickly realized just how powerful it could be," Nate, the creator of Bird Bot, the open source tool for quickly purchasing Switches, told Motherboard in an online chat. Right now it is open season for profit-seekers. Some resellers on eBay are asking for over $500 for a Switch, with some vendors successfully getting around $750 for the Animal Crossing themed bundle of the branded console and the game within the last week. The typical retail price for those products are $300 and $360 respectively.

Rockstar Games is working on a new Grand Theft Auto, but the next entry in the series is reportedly a long ways from release, and may take on a different scope due to alleged changes at the Red Dead and GTA studio. From a report: An anonymous source close to Rockstar Games has confirmed to IGN that the Red Dead Redemption 2 company is next working on a new entry in the Grand Theft Auto series, as first reported by Kotaku. Kotaku's report, which places a larger focus on workplace changes allegedly happening at Rockstar following the massive discussions on crunch in game development that centered around Red Dead Redemption 2, also notes, however, that the next GTA is "early in development."

The report further goes on to explain that, due to the changing nature of conditions at Rockstar, the company is considering ways of altering production to avoid similar crunch issues. One such plan is to allegedly have the next GTA, whether it be called GTA 6 or some other title, be "a moderately sized release (which, by Rockstar's standards, would still be a large game) that is then expanded with regular updates over time, which may help mitigate stress and crunch." Of course, given that the next Grand Theft Auto is early in development, it remains to be seen how the later parts of development could affect these plans to curb crunch, the process by which developers work frequent overtime in order to hit certain release dates and milestones.

Microsoft and Nvidia are releasing Minecraft with RTX in beta for everyone April 16. This update adds ray-tracing effects like lighting, reflections, shadows, and more. And this is potentially the next generation for Minecraft visuals. VentureBeat reports: Nvidia and Microsoft developed the game together, and they are finally ready to let everyone see it for themselves. You can get the game by opting into the beta for the Minecraft for Windows 10 version. Of course, you might ask if it "just works," then what took so long? And that's a fair question. But for Minecraft, Nvidia and Microsoft couldn't flip a switch. They needed to update the game with physically based materials. This enables the RTX light rays to correctly bounce off objects. A green block will add a green tint to any reflected light, for example. And water will bend light and reflect the world behind you in its surface. These sort of visuals are often too complicated for traditional lighting techniques.

Nvidia and Microsoft had to update Minecraft with physically based materials. The two companies also spent some time improving performance. Nvidia turned to its DLSS technology to achieve "playable framerates." DLSS is deep-learning super-sampling. It uses machine learning to determine what a game should look like at an ultra-high resolution. DLSS can then take that data and rebuild an image from significantly less visual information. This enables a game to run at 1080p while generating an image that looks nearly indistinguishable from native 4K. To ensure that Minecraft with RTX is actually playable, Nvidia is bundling the update with DLSS. This gets you 40-to-60 frames per second in most circumstances. That's up from about 25-to-35 frames per second without DLSS.

Sony plans to produce far fewer units of its upcoming PlayStation 5 in its first year than it had for the previous-generation console's launch, Bloomberg reported Thursday. From the report: The Tokyo-based tech giant is limiting its initial production run in part because it expects the PS5's ambitious specs to weigh on demand by leading to a high price at launch, the people said, asking not to be identified because the subject is private. The global Covid-19 pandemic has affected Sony's promotional plans for the new device but not its production capacity, they added. The company has told assembly partners it would make 5 to 6 million units of the PS5 in the fiscal year ending March 2021, according to other people involved in the machine's supply chain. When Sony released the PlayStation 4 in November 2013, it sold 7.5 million units in its first two quarters.

The Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB), which is the organization that rates the content of video games, announced a new label today to indicate that a game will offer in-game purchases of loot boxes or similar types of items that provide a player with randomized rewards. The Verge reports: "This new Interactive Element, In-Game Purchases (Includes Random Items), will be assigned to any game that contains in-game offers to purchase digital goods or premiums with real world currency (or with virtual coins or other forms of in-game currency that can be purchased with real world currency) for which the player doesn't know prior to purchase the specific digital goods or premiums they will be receiving (e.g., loot boxes, item packs, mystery awards)," according to the ESRB. The label will be applied to "loot boxes, gacha games, item or card packs, prize wheels, treasure chests, and more," the organization said.

The new label will sit below the game's content rating, as seen in the photo above. The ESRB originally introduced the "in-game purchases" label in February 2018, but that label was broad enough that it could be applied to any game that offered any sort of buyable digital good, including non-randomized items like subscriptions, season passes, or upgrades to disable ads.

kbahey shares a report from Planet Princeton: Renowned mathematician and Princeton University professor John Horton Conway died April 11 as a result of complications from the coronavirus. He was 82. Conway made contributions to many areas of mathematics, including game theory, but was most well known for the invention of the cellular automaton called the Game of Life. The Guardian once called Conway the world's most charismatic mathematician. "John Horton Conway is a cross between Archimedes, Mick Jagger and Salvador Dali. For many years, he worried that his obsession with playing silly games was ruining his career -- until he realized that it could lead to extraordinary discoveries," wrote journalist Siobhan Roberts in a 2015 profile.

A Nintendo Switch video game has been pulled off China's grey market e-commerce platforms, Reuters' checks show, after Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong used the game to protest against Beijing's rule of the Chinese territory. From a report: The game, "Animal Crossing: New Horizons," is a colorful social simulator in which players can decorate their own island and invite others to visit. It became an instant hit after its launch last month and has been used by many players to interact and simulate real-life scenarios while they are stuck at home because of measures to curb the coronavirus outbreak. Joshua Wong, a Hong Kong democracy activist, took his protests to the game last week and on Twitter posted a screenshot of his island decorated with a banner saying: "Free Hong Kong, revolution now." China has stringent rules on content from everything from video games to movies and music, censoring anything it believes violates core socialist values. Gaming companies must also seek licences for the games they want to publish.

Nintendo's Animal Crossing has become a place for Hong Kong protesters to congregate without flouting social distancing rules. Bloomberg reports: Animal Crossing is a simulation game where players live on an idyllic tropical island and befriend anthropomorphic animals. Players can customize their islands with in-game illustrating tools and visit each other's islands online. Pro-democracy content created for the game has gone viral on social media, including Twitter. In a tweet last week, one of Hong Kong's most well-known democracy campaigners, Joshua Wong, said he was playing the game and that the movement had shifted online. In one video posted to Twitter, a group of players use bug-catching nets to hit pictures of the city's leader Carrie Lam on a beach in the game. A nearby poster states "Free Hong Kong. Revolution Now."

Google's video game streaming platform, Stadia, is now free to anyone with a Gmail address, the company announced on Wednesday. To sweeten the deal, Google is also giving new users two months of Stadia Pro -- including access to nine games -- for free. From a report: Existing Stadia Pro subscribers won't be charged for the next two months of the service, Google said. Previously, access to Stadia required purchasing the $129 Google Stadia Premiere Edition, a bundle that includes a Chromecast Ultra, a wireless Stadia Controller, and three months of Stadia Pro, the service that offered free games and video streams up to 4K resolution and 60 frames per second with HDR lighting.

Sony has revealed the DualSense, PlayStation 5's new controller that will "bring a sense of touch to PS5 gameplay." IGN reports: Announced on PlayStation.Blog, the DualSense will keep "much of what gamers love about DualShock 4 intact, while also adding new functionality and refining the design." Touch was a big inspiration when designing the DualSense, and haptic feedback is one of the ways this new controller will help bring PS5 games to life. Sony mentions that this feedback will add " a variety of powerful sensations you'll feel when you play, such as the slow grittiness of driving a car through mud." Adaptive triggers have also been incorporated to the L2 and R2 buttons, which will help players "feel the tension of your actions, like when drawing a bow to shoot an arrow."

The angle of the hand triggers were changed and some subtle updates were made to the grip. One thing that will be missing from the DualSense is the "Share" button that was featured on the DualShock 4. Sharing from the controller is not gone, but that previous button was replaced by the new "Create" button. Sony promises more details will be revealed on this change as we get closer to PlayStation 5's launch. DualSense will also have a built-in microphone array that will allow players to easily chat with friends, even for those who don't own a headset.

As for the controller's color, it is a bit of a non-traditional design as far as PlayStation is concerned. Usually, PlayStation controllers have a single color, but the DualSense has a two-toned design to make it stand apart. Additionally, the position of the light bar, which will be returning, was moved to "give it an extra pop." Now, the light bar sits on either side of the touch pad, as opposed to the top of the controller. Here's a picture of the front of the controller:

Xbox co-creator Rob Wyatt has filed a lawsuit against Atari for failing to pay him for the design work he did in creating the Atari VCS console. From a report: Tin Giant, Wyatt's company, filed the lawsuit in federal court in Colorado, alleging breach of contract and defamation. Tin Giant said that Atari owes it in excess of $261,720. Wyatt, a co-creator of the Xbox and cofounder of The Last Gameboard, said in an interview last year that he quit as lead architect for Atari. He alleged that Atari did not pay his company, Tin Giant, for six months of work. Atari CEO Fred Chesnais declined to comment in a statement, saying that he had not received a copy of the lawsuit yet. Atari has not developed a game console for more than 20 years.

To help slow the spread of the coronavirus, the UK Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) is using advertisements in mobile games to encourage social distancing. CNET reports: The message "Stay Home. Save Lives" has begun to appear in popular games like Candy Crush Saga, Sniper Elite 4, Dirt Rally 2.0 and Farm Heroes. The DCMS teamed up with leading gaming companies in the UK like King Games, Rebellion and Codemasters to include the messages, with the help of geotargeting technology. "It is absolutely vital that we all follow the simple government advice to stay at home, protect the NHS and save lives. I'm delighted to see the UK's brilliant video games industry stepping up to strongly reinforce this message to gamers across the UK," Cultural Secretary Oliver Dowden said in a release Monday.

What games have you been playing on your Xbox, or PlayStation, or Nintendo Switch -- or any other gaming machine!

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Hollywood Reporter: Call of Duty maker Activision has prevailed in a closely watched trademark dispute brought by AM General, the government contractor for Humvees. On Tuesday, a New York federal judge responded favorably to Activision's argument that it had a First Amendment right to depict contemporary warfare in its game by featuring Humvees. "If realism is an artistic goal, then the presence in modern warfare games of vehicles employed by actual militaries undoubtedly furthers that goal," writes U.S. District Court Judge George B. Daniels in granting summary judgment in favor of Activision. The video game publisher fought AM General's claims along with Major League Gaming Corp., a professional esports organization. The dispute was potentially worth tens of millions of dollars, and the discussion attracted intellectual property professors and the Electronic Software Association to weigh in with amicus briefs. You can read the full opinion here.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: The day before University of Pennsylvania students were told that their college commencement would be held online, junior Andrew Guo thought of an alternative to holding the address over Zoom. Students could have a "Hey Day" and graduation inside Minecraft, just as a Japanese elementary school had organized days earlier. Quickly, "Penncraft" students began to recreate dormitories, food trucks, and local sculptures in-game. Makarios Chung, an early builder, measured buildings' dimensions and streets positions constantly to ensure their scale was as accurate as possible. The first day of building, students took an hour to decide the placement of one street. Their main goal was to have a completed campus, specifically Locust Street, for graduating seniors to walk down in-game now that COVID-19 ensured they wouldn't return to campus and complete this UPenn tradition.

Students from Boston University to UCLA, from South Louisiana Community College to Northwestern University, have recently created or resurrected Minecraft servers and shared their creations on Discord chats, in Facebook meme groups, and on Reddit threads. The boom of college Minecraft servers has begun. These servers have the express purpose of bringing students together and building, oftentimes focused on recreating their college campuses. Searches for Minecraft server hosting have peaked to unprecedented levels in the last few weeks, and thousands of students are discussing college servers, most notably on the Facebook group "Zoom Memes for Self Quaranteens." Smaller groups and clubs, like Bowdoin College's men's ultimate frisbee team or University of La Verne's debate team, have found ways to bond in survival mode servers after their practices and championships were canceled. Zoom isn't nearly enough, and it doesn't carry the ten years of memories that Gen Z has for Minecraft. "Come May there will be in-game graduations," writes Pearse Anderson. "Inspired by the aforementioned Japanese elementary school, Boston University seniors Rudy Raveendran and Warren Partridge created 'Quaranteen University.' This is a new server specifically made to host a Class of 2020 graduation for students from hundreds of different universities. 706 students from 278 institutions have signed up in the last week, and one mom has already emailed Raveendran asking how she can get an in-game seat to this massive ceremony on May 22nd."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Valve announced today that it won't automatically update games in customers' libraries as regularly as before to help preserve bandwidth during the novel coronavirus pandemic. Starting this week, Valve says Steam will only immediately auto-update games you've played in the last three days. Otherwise, Valve says Steam will be spreading out updates over several days. Steam had already been scheduling game updates for "the next off-peak local time period," according to Valve, though if you want to update a game manually, you can still initiate that yourself. Valve already lets you schedule auto-update windows and even self-throttle your connection to Steam if you want to additionally optimize how much of your bandwidth Steam uses at any given time.

The Super Mario series is turning 35 this year, and Nintendo has big plans for the plumber's birthday. From a report: That includes updating and bringing back most of his games for Nintendo Switch, according to a report from Video Games Chronicle. Eurogamer is backing up that report, and GamesBeat can as well. The core of the report is that Nintendo originally planned to focus on Mario's 35th anniversary at E3 (the Electronic Entertainment Expo) in Los Angeles in June. But organizers canceled that event due to the spread of the coronavirus. Nintendo is going ahead with that promotion, and it will likely hold a Direct-style event to provide all of the details. That includes info on remasters, a Paper Mario game, the upcoming Mario film, and Universal Studios' Super Nintendo World theme park. For the remasters, our source is telling us that Nintendo is pursuing something like a Super Mario All-Stars 2 for the 3D Mario games. This would include Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine, and then Super Mario Galaxy and Super Mario Galaxy 2.

An anonymous reader quotes Rock, Paper, Shotgun: For as long as there's been Minecraft, there's been people who want to re-create the world in Minecraft. For one modder, though, it's not enough to have a to-scale replica of our pale blue dot recreated in Mojang's block-builder. A new project named Build The Earth is looking for talented builders with too much time on their hands, bringing them together to fully recreate every last man-made structure on Earth in Minecraft.

YouTuber PippinFTS unveiled the project in a YouTube video earlier this week. It's awfully dramatic, but give the guy a break — he's only trying to go and build a planet.

PippenFTS' project is building from Terra 1 to 1, a project headed up by modders orangeadam3 and shejan0. Using a few extra mods to get around the game's strict world limitations, Terra 1 to 1 uses public terrain datasets, street maps and forest databases to accurately map the earth's terrain, roads and woodland areas in Minecraft... [H]e wants to build a community that can collectively recreate thousands of years of human history by filling out every single man-made structure on Earth. His "Build The Earth" project hopes to crowdsource player-recreated cities, towns, stadiums, bridges and otherwise. PippenFTS himself will contribute with his own hometown.

"Regardless," he writes, wistful in his obligation, "I will build Seattle. Super excited."
The project already has a Patreon account -- plus 5,500 members in its subreddit.

Epic Games: The engine maker, the game maker, the storefront handler... and now the games publisher. DarkRookie2 shares a report: Epic Games Publishing came into formal existence on Wednesday by announcing plans to fund, launch, and promote new multi-platform video games. The announcement hinged on two key points: which studios had already signed to EGP and what financial terms EGP games developers can expect. While most game publishing deals aren't typically laid bare for the public, Epic has already chosen to confirm some of EGP's financial nitty-gritty. In addition to letting studios retain "100%" control of their intellectual property (an increasingly popular term for game-publishing contracts), EGP also promises to fund "up to 100%" of all game development costs. "Once costs are recouped," Epic says, developers will earn "at least 50% of profits." (That mix of "up to" and "at least" in the last two points may imply that those figures vary as a pair -- meaning, if a developer pays for more of its dev costs, it might stand to claim more profit-sharing in the long term. Epic has not clarified that point.)

Unsurprisingly, Epic CEO Tim Sweeney described these terms as "the publishing model we always wanted for ourselves when we worked with publishers [as an independent game studio]," but we're still left with some questions, all of which Epic has declined to answer as of press time. EGP is touted as a "multi-platform" effort, but will EGP games ever be available outside of Epic Games Store on PC, and/or will those games' console versions launch later than their PC versions to give Epic Games Store any form of timed exclusivity? Can EGP partners develop separate games as indie efforts or for other publishers while they're part of an EGP deal? And will each game include a Fortnite outfit-and-dance tie-in? (The last question is a joke, but considering that Epic made a Fortnite skin for the Mixer game-streamer Ninja, anything's possible at this point.)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Engadget: AMD has been having a particularly rough few months, apparently. The chip designer has revealed that a hacker stole test files for a "subset" of current and upcoming graphics hardware, some of which had been posted online before they were taken down. While AMD was shy on details, the claimed intruder told TorrentFreak that the material included source code for Navi 10 (think Radeon RX 5700 series), the future Navi 21 and the Arden GPU inside the Xbox Series X.

The self-proclaimed hacker added that she wanted $100 million for the source code and threatened to "leak everything" if there was no buyer. She reportedly found the GPU data in a "hacked computer" in November, although AMD said it hadn't been approached until December. AMD doesn't appear to be bowing under pressure. It believed the stolen code was "not core to the competitiveness or security" of its products, and said there was an "ongoing criminal investigation."