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Is Sega restarting Nintendo rivalry with new Sonic Racing game?

BBC News

The slogan, from the 1990s, is one of the most famous in video game history. It was a time when the bitter rivalry between the two Japanese game companies was at its fiercest. Today, that relationship has softened. You can play Sonic games on Nintendo consoles and the characters have even appeared in games together. But is Sega trying to restart the beef?


Will 75 be the new normal for video games after Switch 2's Mario Kart?

BBC News

Experts don't think Mario Kart World will be a one off. Christopher Dring, editor-in-chief and co-founder of The Game Business, said he expected to see price rises elsewhere too - particularly for the most anticipated titles, such as the latest edition of the Grand Theft Auto franchise. "I think if you're going see a game that's going to be able to charge more, look out for when GTA 6 gets a release date later in the year," he said. He says there are lots of reasons prices might go up, part of which is that modern games are a lot of work. "These games are taking longer to make, they require more people to make them," he said. But there's also the fact, he says, that video game prices have not kept up with inflation.

  mario kart, switch 2, video game
  Industry: Leisure & Entertainment > Games > Computer Games (0.99)

Nintendo DS at 20 – the console that paved the way for smartphone gaming

The Guardian

By 2004, video games were well into their adolescence. The war between Sega and Nintendo that defined the early 1990s was in the rear-view mirror – the PlayStation had knocked both of them off their perch, and Microsoft had released the Xbox. The critical and commercial hits of the day were not cartoon platformers but operatic space shooters (Halo) and anarchic crime games (Grand Theft Auto). There were lots of guns, and most games were embracing increasingly cinematic cutscenes. Nintendo, meanwhile, had fallen into third place with its Game Cube home console – but it still owned the handheld game market with the Game Boy Advance.


How a drunk dial from a friend led to paralyzed man becoming Neuralink's patient zero - five months later he is playing Mario Kart with his mind

Daily Mail - Science & tech

A mid-day drunk-dial from a friend has changed one man's life forever. Noland Arbaugh, 29, rose to fame after being revealed as Neuralink's first patient to receive its brain chip, but it all started when his friend called slurring his words in September. Arbaugh was paralyzed eight years ago during a diving accident. The friend called Arbaugh to tell him about Elon Musk opening up human trials and urged him to apply and even helped him fill out the form. Just five months after he was approved for the Neuralink trial, Arbaugh had a cutting edge brain chip embedded in his skull.


The spirit of 80s racing games lives on in Lego 2K Drive

The Guardian

Classic video games never really die. While they're still remembered by designers and producers, their influence lives on and they can crop up in the most unexpected places. It combines the explorable world and discoverable challenges of Forza Horizon with the fun handling, weapons and power-ups of Mario Kart – but its origins lie in a completely different set of car games. Executive producer Mark Pierce started his games career at Atari in the late 1980s, working on the company's classic racers RoadBlasters, Road Riot and San Francisco Rush, and was around while another team was crafting the legendary 3D racing sim Hard Drivin'. "I was so fortunate because a lot of the original Atari guys were still there," he recalls.


Ensuring AI works with the right dose of curiosity

#artificialintelligence

Friday night has rolled around, and you're trying to pick a restaurant for dinner. Should you visit your most beloved watering hole or try a new establishment, in the hopes of discovering something superior? Potentially, but that curiosity comes with a risk: If you explore the new option, the food could be worse. On the flip side, if you stick with what you know works well, you won't grow out of your narrow pathway. Curiosity drives artificial intelligence to explore the world, now in boundless use cases -- autonomous navigation, robotic decision-making, optimizing health outcomes, and more.


Grand Theft Auto VI will feature the video game franchise's first playable female protagonist

Daily Mail - Science & tech

The highly-anticipated next installment of the Grand Theft Auto video game franchise will feature a playable female protagonist for the first time, according to a report. Developer Rockstar Games first announced it was working on GTA VI earlier this year, writing in a February statement that'active development of the next entry in the Grand Theft Auto series is well under way'. Now a report in Bloomberg reveals that GTA VI will be the first to let players take on the role of a female lead character in its story mode. The woman, who is said to be'Latina', reportedly will be one of a pair of leading characters in a story influenced by the bank robbers Bonnie and Clyde. People familiar with the game told Bloomberg that developers are being cautious not to'punch down' by making jokes about marginalised groups, in contrast to previous games.


For Kids in the Hospital, Video Games Are Part of Recovery

WIRED

Shane Rafferty plays video games for a living. He's neither a developer nor a ranked professional, but his work revolves around gaming all the same: Rafferty is a gaming technology specialist. As the name suggests, he uses technology--and video games in particular--to provide social and emotional support for hospitalized children and their families. Though the job description sounds like fantasy, gaming technology specialists are a reality at more than 50 hospitals worldwide. Among them is the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago.


Call of Duty and Mario Kart are coming to phones in the next few weeks

Daily Mail - Science & tech

Two of the world's biggest video game franchises - Call Of Duty and Mario Kart - are poised to roll out mobile phone and tablet editions. Industry titans Activision and Nintendo are both weeks away from launching app versions of their games which have racked up combined estimated sales of 350million copies on console. Both Mario Kart Tour and Call Of Duty: Mobile will be available on Google's Android and Apple's iOS from September 25 and October 1 respectively. Activision has confirmed that maps, characters and weapons which first-person shooter fans enjoyed on Xbox, Playstation and PC would be featured on the all-new Call Of Duty: Mobile. Company vice president Chris Plummer said: 'We are delivering the definitive first-person action experience on mobile with signature Call Of Duty gameplay in the palms of your hands.' 'We are bringing together some of the best the franchise has to offer, including Modern Warfare maps like Crash and Crossfire, Black Ops maps like Nuketown and Hijacked, and many more, into one epic title.


Tesla cars will soon come with the ability to stream Netflix and YouTube

Daily Mail - Science & tech

Tesla cars will be able to stream Netflix and YouTube according to CEO, Elon Musk who announced the addition in a recent tweet. Musk said that the services will be coming to the company's line of electric vehicles'soon,' albeit with one major caveat -- the apps may only be used when the car is fully stopped. 'Ability to stream YouTube & Netflix when car is stopped coming to your Tesla soon!,' Musk wrote in a tweet over the weekend. 'Has an amazingly immersive, cinematic feel due to the comfy seats & surround sound audio.' Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced that cars will'soon' be able to stream videos from Netflix and YouTube when the car is stopped'When full self-driving is approved by regulators, we will enable video while moving,' said Musk in an additional tweet. In anticipation of full autonomy, Tesla already started to add several features to its breed of semi-autonomous cars which include high-profile video games like Mario Kart and, more recently, indie favorites like Cuphead.