Microsoft has had the Games for Windows Live Marketplace for a while now, but that was typically just to get downloadable content, trailers, or game demos. But now, Microsoft is seeing fit to take on the likes of Steam by offering a digital game distribution service of its own baked into the Marketplace. The new service will launch on November 15th and will bring with it around 100 games from the likes of Rockstar and 2K Games. The new Marketplace will require a Windows Live ID (like before) and can take Microsoft Points or a credit card. Like Steam, Microsoft will offer access to any PC and download to any PC using the account you bought the games with. Microsoft is touting "ultra-fast" downloads, fewer clicks to purchase and download games, easier navigation, improved search functionality, dedicated publisher pages, and weekly deals. Some launch and future titles include Age of Empires Online, Dead Rising 2, Deus Ex: Game of the Year Edition, Fable: The Lost Chapters, Fable III, Flight Simulator, Gears of War, Halo, Grand Theft Auto III, Lego Universe, Lost Planet 2, Max Payne, Microsoft Flight, Zoo Tycoon, and more. Microsoft should be able to expand the amount of titles, especially since Valve announced Steam has over 1,200 games and 30 million users recently. Hopefully in time it can take off since there are some good aspects of Games for Windows Live, but it will take a good amount of time to compete with Valve's offering.
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Final Diablo 3 Class Revealed
Blizzard has kicked off Blizzcon with a bang, unveiling the fifth and final class for Diablo 3, the Demon Hunter. The Demon Hunter will be a female, ranged weapon class, with similar attributes to the Assassin from Diablo 2. The class went through several designs, including a half demon proposal. Those that become Demon Hunters are chosen by other Hunters as the result of surviving a demon attack. Demon Hunters move around frequently, but call the North home. The Demon Hunter plays the role of an anti-hero, and will stop at nothing to eliminate the demons. The team also showed off some skills of the Hunter, and its emphasis on the use of gadgets. Players will have access to a newly announced feature, traits, which will allow them to put points into one of 30 traits to improve their characters. Also updated are runes, as they now upgrade the players skills. With five different types of runes and 7 levels per rune, there is a possibility of about 97 billion different skill builds. Also discussed were battle arenas, bringing improved PvP action to the game.
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Google to Test 1Gbps Internet at Stanford's Residential Subdivision
Remember when Google said it would be offering 1Gbps Internet to a community? Well, this isn't about that community but rather a test area for the 1Gbps Internet. Stanford's Residential Subdivision has been selected as the test site for Google's 1Gbps Internet service. The Residential Subdivision at Stanford University is a small chunk of the campus that has houses for faculty and staff, roughly 850 of them. This is a far cry from the 50,000 to 500,000 homes Google wants for the community, but it will at least be a leaping off point to see how well it does. The plan is to break ground on the service in early 2011. Google chose Stanford because the university was willing to test out the new fiber service and the Residential Subdivision is laid out in such a way as to make it easy for Google's engineers to wire it up. Plus Google is headquartered just a few miles away so the engineers will have a short travel time to fix any potential problems. Google still plans to roll out the 1Gbps connection to a community in the future, just Stanford will be a beta test if you will.
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ATI Catalyst 10.10 Drivers Released
ATI launched its newest drivers this morning.
You can grab them here.
There seems to be a lot of performance fixes with this driver update as well. The rest of the release notes can be found here.
Catalyst 10.10:
Aliens vs. Predator™ DirectX 11 Benchmark
Performance increases up to 6% on ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series single and
CrossFire
Performance increases up to 5% on ATI Radeon HD 5700 Series single and
CrossFire
Performance increases up to 5% on ATI Radeon HD 5600 Series
Performance increases up to 5% on ATI Radeon HD 5500 Series
Performance increases up to 4% on ATI Radeon HD 5400 Series
BattleForge™
Performance increases up to 6% on ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series single and
CrossFire configurations with anti-aliasing enabled
Performance increases up to 5% on ATI Radeon HD 5700 Series single and
CrossFire configurations with anti-aliasing enabled
Crysis Warhead®
Performance increases up to 9% on Single ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series products
with anti-aliasing enabled
Far Cry™ 2
Performance increases up to 7% on Single ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series products
Metro 2033™
Performance increases up to 7% on ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series single and
CrossFire configurations
Performance increases up to 8% on ATI Radeon HD 5700 Series single and
CrossFire configurations
Performance increases up to 5% on ATI Radeon HD 5600 Series in DirectX 11
and 10 modes
Performance increases up to 5% on ATI Radeon HD 5500 Series in DirectX 11
and 10 modes
Performance increases up to 4% on ATI Radeon HD 5400 Series in DirectX 11
and 10 modes
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.™ : Call of Pripyat Benchmark
Performance increases up to 7% on single ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series products
Unigine™ Heaven
Performance increases up to 9% on ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series single and
CrossFire configurations with anti-aliasing enabled
Performance increases up to 8% on ATI Radeon HD 5700 Series single and
CrossFire configurations with anti-aliasing enabled
World in Conflict™
Performance increases up to 9% on ATI Radeon HD 5600 Series
Performance increases up to 10% on ATI Radeon HD 5500 Series
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