News By Russell Holly Jan. 9, 2014 5:01 pm
As the Consumer Electronics Show winds down once again, we took a few minutes to talk about some of our favorite parts of the week. Spoiler, it’s mostly about video games!
There’s always plenty of big news at CES, but when we weren’t staring confused as Michael Bay forgot how to talk*without a teleprompter, it seemed like Sony had our undivided attention. Their vague and wholly undefined Gaikai streaming service that has been so thoroughly glossed over during the PS4 launch has been rebranded as PlayStation Now, and it looks like this will end up being quite a big deal. PlayStation Now isn’t just for streaming older PlayStation titles to your PS4 — it’s basically going to stream games to everything Sony. Bravia televisions, PS Vita, and even Sony Android phones and tablets will all be able to eventually*use PlayStation Now. You can bet we’ll have more on PS Now as soon as we’re able to get our hands on it outside of a Sony demo area.
Oculus Rift had a big update for us this year as well. The impressive virtual reality headset has been making waves for well over a year now, but everyone who has one is still using the old developer kit. While that kit is a lot of fun, the displays are kind of terrible and the tracking hardware was incomplete. The Oculus team has been working hard to update the hardware in preparation for a retail release, and at the same time wielding its John Carmack-infused developer team to work on games specifically for the hardware. There’s still no knowing when this hardware will see a retail shelf, but it’s getting closer every day.
Our app of the week comes from the team at Dandy, who developed the app Picture This under completely unique circumstances. While it’s generally considered good business to make changes to your app based on what your users want, Dandy took that philosophy to an extreme and made and app that was entirely crowdsourced. Picture This is a photo-sharing app unlike any other, with a built-in game of sorts that issues regular challenges for playing. The app is currently free on iOS and Blackberry, with Android support expected any day now. We’ve also had some time to play with a Google Glass version of the app, and it’s been a fun experience so far.
If you’ve got a topic you’d like us to discuss on our Geekout, or questions for us during a live broadcast, leave us a message here or on the Google+ page.
More...
There’s always plenty of big news at CES, but when we weren’t staring confused as Michael Bay forgot how to talk*without a teleprompter, it seemed like Sony had our undivided attention. Their vague and wholly undefined Gaikai streaming service that has been so thoroughly glossed over during the PS4 launch has been rebranded as PlayStation Now, and it looks like this will end up being quite a big deal. PlayStation Now isn’t just for streaming older PlayStation titles to your PS4 — it’s basically going to stream games to everything Sony. Bravia televisions, PS Vita, and even Sony Android phones and tablets will all be able to eventually*use PlayStation Now. You can bet we’ll have more on PS Now as soon as we’re able to get our hands on it outside of a Sony demo area.
Oculus Rift had a big update for us this year as well. The impressive virtual reality headset has been making waves for well over a year now, but everyone who has one is still using the old developer kit. While that kit is a lot of fun, the displays are kind of terrible and the tracking hardware was incomplete. The Oculus team has been working hard to update the hardware in preparation for a retail release, and at the same time wielding its John Carmack-infused developer team to work on games specifically for the hardware. There’s still no knowing when this hardware will see a retail shelf, but it’s getting closer every day.
Our app of the week comes from the team at Dandy, who developed the app Picture This under completely unique circumstances. While it’s generally considered good business to make changes to your app based on what your users want, Dandy took that philosophy to an extreme and made and app that was entirely crowdsourced. Picture This is a photo-sharing app unlike any other, with a built-in game of sorts that issues regular challenges for playing. The app is currently free on iOS and Blackberry, with Android support expected any day now. We’ve also had some time to play with a Google Glass version of the app, and it’s been a fun experience so far.
If you’ve got a topic you’d like us to discuss on our Geekout, or questions for us during a live broadcast, leave us a message here or on the Google+ page.
More...
