A rumour has surfaced claiming that Nintendo is hard at work on its next generation of home and portable consoles, collectively known as “Fusion.”

An anonymous source claims that Nintendo, which is reeling after an absolutely disastrous year, is working on the successor to the much-maligned WiiU. Called Nintendo Fusion, it’s a collective name for Nintendo’s next generation of both the home and portable consoles.

Nintendo actually purchased the nintendofusion.com domain in 2003 in support of the Nintendo Fusion Tour, a rock and video game music festival that ran for four years, but it has since gone dormant. And while news that Nintendo isn’t just watching its money evaporate is not in itself remarkable, it is noteworthy that there are actual “possible” specifications for the hardware, suggesting that development is relatively far along.

Fusion DS:

CPU: ARMv8-A Cortex-A53 GPU: Custom Adreno 420-based AMD GPU
COM MEMORY: 3 GB LPDDR3 (2 GB Games, 1 GB OS)
2 130 mm DVGA (960 x 640) Capacitive Touchscreen
Slide Out Design with Custom Swivel Tilt Hinge
Upper Screen made of Gorilla Glass, Comes with Magnetic Cover
Low End Vibration for Gameplay and App Alerts
2 Motorized Circle Pads for Haptic Feedback
Thumbprint Security Scanner with Pulse Sensing Feedback
2 1mp Stereoptic Cameras
Multi-Array Microphone
A, B, X, Y, D-Pad, L, R, 1, 2 Buttons
3 Axis Tuning Fork Gyroscope, 3 Axis Accelerometer, Magnetometer
NFC Reader
3G Chip with GPS Location
Bluetooth v4.0 BLE Command Node used to Interface with Bluetooth Devices such as Cell Phones, Tablets
16 Gigabytes of Internal Flash Storage (Possible Future Unit With 32 Gigabytes)
Nintendo 3DS Cart Slot
SDHC “Holographic Enhanced” Card Slot up to 128 Gigabyte Limit
Mini USB I/O
3300 mAh Li-Ion battery

Fusion Terminal:

GPU: Custom Radeon HD RX 200 GPU CODENAME LADY (2816 shaders @ 960 MHz, 4.60 TFLOP/s, Fillrates: 60.6 Gpixel/s, 170 Gtexel/s)
CPU: IBM 64-Bit Custom POWER 8-Based IBM 8-Core Processor CODENAME JUMPMAN (2.2 GHz, Shared 6 MB L4 cache)
Co-CPU: IBM PowerPC 750-based 1.24 GHz Tri-Core Co-Processor CODENAME HAMMER
MEMORY: 4 Gigabytes of Unified DDR4 SDRAM CODENAMED KONG, 2 GB DDR3 RAM @ 1600 MHz (12.8 GB/s) On Die CODENAMED BARREL
802.11 b/g/n Wireless
Bluetooth v4.0 BLE
2 USB 3.0
1 Coaxial Cable Input
1 CableCARD Slot
4 Custom Stream-Interface Nodes up to 4 Wii U GamePads
Versions with Disk Drive play Wii U Optical Disk (4 Layers Maximum), FUSION Holographic Versatile Disc (HVD) and Nintendo 3DS Card Slot
1 HDMI 2.0 1080p/4K Port
Dolby TrueHD 5.1 or 7.1 Surround Sound
Inductive Charging Surface for up to 4 FUSION DS or IC-Wii Remote Plus Controllers
Two versions: Disk Slot Version with 60 Gigs of Internal Flash Storage and Diskless Version with 300 Gigs of Internal Flash Storage

Nintendo News claims it has an “impeccable reputation” with regard to rumours but also notes that none of this is substantiated and is subject to change and/or outright denial at any time. And while it’s only been a little over a year since the WiiU was released, it’s been such an unmitigated disaster that I wouldn’t be surprised if Nintendo is in a rush to get a successor out the door. Whether or not it will do anything to restore its credibility is another matter entirely, but at this point, anything is better than nothing.

Source: Nintendo News

Customers show more Windows H8 as popular demand encourages HP to push 8.1 to “optional” status

It’s no secret that Windows 8 got off to a rough start, with users confused by the new tiled, touch- and mobile- friendly interface; irritated by its difficulty to use with the traditional mouse-and-keyboard setup of old; and/or put off by its outwardly un-charming appearance. Unfortunately for Microsoft, its attempt to alleviate some of the concerns of current and potential future customers – by improving the experience and making concessions for those still clinging on to the traditional desktop environment – seems to also be burning up faster than the Hindenburg.

In advertising material found on the United States version of their official website, HP has apparently decided to give short shrift to the sinking popularity of Windows 8 and 8.1 and states that it has bought back Windows 7 on its computers “by popular demand”. The site is now heavily promoting computers with Windows 7 as an alternative to Windows 8, with most of the available computers now coming with 7 pre-installed – unless Windows 8 is deliberately ticked as a “customisable option”.

The advertisements even claim that choosing a Windows 7 computer can save you “up to $150” from your purchase.

Numerous rumours have suggested that with the retirement of Steve Ballmer as CEO, Microsoft are eager for the next generation of Windows to distance from the media firestorm surrounding Windows 8 as much as possible, with many suggesting that Microsoft’s plans to reveal the next update for Windows at its Build Conference in April will reveal concepts for a whole new Windows – Windows 9, perhaps – rather than another refresh of 8. HP’s decision to highlight Windows 7 adds a little more to the ever-growing weight that rests on Microsoft’s shoulders to reassure everyone that they have their interests in mind.

The wait is finally over. Blizzard’s virtual card game, Hearthstone has officially entered Open Beta! … At least for those playing in the North America region.

The Hearthstone news section has been updated recently with a post confirming the Open Beta, with the journey of Hearthstone over the past year from announcement of the game at PAX East to today’s launch being set out briefly before Blizzard invite players in North America who didn’t manage to get into the Closed Beta to download the game and begin playing against their friends; assuring them that there won’t be any more wipes of the cards accumulated in accounts so they are free to begin building their collections.

The post then goes on to assure players in other regions that they are planning to bring the Open Beta to all over server regions within the next few days, but say that open beta registration might be closed at points if the servers get too overwhelmed by the influx of new players. They also remind everyone that Open Beta is still Beta and therefore they are still monitoring the game closely and things might still go wrong even after all this time.

I can’t guess how many new players are going to come into Blizzard’s popular free-to-play now that the gates have finally been opened, but I believe the decision to open them region by region is a smart move from the company to avoid too much server overload from new registrations and annoying down-times during those periods when hype is once again at a high for the game. At the very least, I know that an awful lot of people are going to be very excited today/tonight after reading this news.

Blog post is here.

Machinima, bastion of 360 no-scope headshots and other YouTube memes was just outed for offering a monetary incentive to their YouTube partners who created positive videos about Microsoft’s new Xbox One console and it’s games. (PredictedCyborg’s original blog about it here)

While I would like to claim I am surprised by this, the sad truth is…I’m not.

(Full disclosure: I am a YouTube Content Creator myself. In fact, I happen to be partnered with the Fullscreen network.)

Here’s the facts about being a YouTube creator.

1) Its Hard – Making videos is hard work. Its even harder to get noticed. making quality content doesn’t guarantee exposure.

2) Its Hard To Make Money – Once you get exposure, making money is hard. You need a lot of views, yes. But you also need to be able to monetize your content in the first place. And if you’ve been following the recent Content ID kerfluffle, you know that easier said than done these days.

3) People Like Money – Ok, maybe I’m cheating this one. But yeah, people like money. Its a rule of life basically.

With this in mind lets move on.

What Machinima is doing, with either explicit or tacit approval from Microsoft (I’ve seen sources reporting both ways – Microsoft is actually behind the idea, or that they are smiling and nodding at Machinima’s bright idea that’s getting the Xbox One good press), is appealing to the base nature of the human animal. Most creators who are part of a network want to make money. My own network, Fullscreen, runs campaigns for us all the time. And yes, they get us extra money. The difference here is that a Fullscreen campaign is usually something silly. As an example, we ran one over Thanksgiving where we could make a video with a silly way to say “turkey stuffing”. They then gave us extra money on those views. What’s the difference between that and what Machinima is doing you ask? Simple:

Machinima is asking it’s own members to state positive things about a product. In fact, the agreement even explicitly states that you may not say anything negative or disparaging about Machinima, Xbox One or any of its games in said video. This engenders in me a feeling of deep distrust towards ANY video that I see on Machinima about the Xbox One. And it calls into question many of their other videos. For better or worse, many gamers these day tun to YouTube “celebrities” for news, reviews and other gaming related content.

An uproar is sure to break out over the next few days about this. So let’s all remember a few things. Machinima is a business. Machinima and it’s partners are in this game to make money. Microsoft is also a business out to make money. Furthermore, the shining image of YouTube creators as paragons of journalistic integrity that so many people are crying foul over is ludicrous. People out to make money aren’t going to have that type of journalistic integrity. Especially when almost none of them were trained as journalists to begin with.

Do I find what Machinima is up to shady? Hell yes.
Am I surprised by it? Hell no.
Should we cry foul at YouTubers over their journalistic scruples? Maybe. Maybe not. Each YouTube has their own goals and morals. Its up to them to establish what they are and aren’t willing to do for money. Be that making videos of CoD headshots, giant dicks they built in Minecraft, taking money from Microsoft/Machinima to pimp the Xbox One, or shaving a goat while wearing a speedo (maybe that last one is just me), they are going to do what they are going to do.
In the end, its up to the viewer to make their own judgement about the creator’s intentions.

(For our XBox One review, look here)

One of the most common complaints levelled at gaming Youtubers who get big and well known are that you can’t be sure of their journalistic integrity, that they might be being paid off to say good things about games that maybe aren’t that good. Most Youtubers will deny anything of the sort, however it does seem that not everyone involved in Youtuber gaming journalism are so above-board…

This Saturday an e-mail emerged on NeoGAF as a leak, that detailed a a promo deal that Machinima was offering to the content creators they have under them to promote the new Xbox machine for a bonus $3 per CPM (which refers to per thousand views on a video). A since-deleted tweet from Machinima’s Ron Smith confirmed that the deal was for real.

While this seems a bit shady in itself, a copy of Machinima’s terms for signing up for the promo deal has also come to light and it just makes this situation even murkier. One particular line of the terms reads “You may not say anything negative or disparaging about Machinima, Xbox One or any of its Games in your Campaign Video.” which seems to justify those worries from people about Youtubers accepting cash to big up something that isn’t really that good to begin with. What’s more, the terms go on to tell the creators signing up that they are effectively also signing an NDA about the entire promo deal between Microsoft and Machinima.

 You agree to keep confidential at all times all matters relating to this Agreement, including, without limitation, the Promotional Requirements, and the CPM Compensation, listed above. You understand that You may not post a copy of this Agreement or any terms thereof online or share them with any third party (other than a legal or financial representative). You agree that You have read the Nondisclosure Agreement (attached hereto and marked as Exhibit “A”) and You understand and agree to all of terms of the Nondisclosure Agreement, which is incorporated as part of this Agreement.

A lot of viewers listen to their favourite Youtube personalities and Microsoft know it. While there’s been no word about how many have taken up this offer, this is surely a blow for the video reviewers’ journalistic integrity and all those content creators who value being honest about anything they review above all else.