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Samsung's foldable smartphone tipped for November unveiling
Dragon Quest XI Proves There's Still a Place for Traditional JRPGs
Xbox Chief Mike Ybarra Blasts Sony's Killjoy Blocking Of Fortnite PS4 CrossPlay

Samsung's foldable smartphone tipped for November unveiling

Posted: 04 Sep 2018 06:05 AM PDT

Following years of rumors of its development, Samsung will be revealing its plans to produce a foldable smartphone later this year, the head of the electronics giant's mobile division has confirmed, with the first appearance of the fabled device potentially occurring in November.

A 2014 Samsung concept of a foldable smartphone

Samsung CEO DJ Koh advised the Korean firm will provide details of a foldable smartphone it intends to produce, confirming the product was under development. While it is unlikely for a finished product to be available to consumers before the end of the year, Koh suggested to CNBC there is a possibility it will make an appearance at the Samsung Developers Conference, held in November.

Koh did not state how the smartphone's folding action works, but in describing the logic behind its design, suggested it would be more like a smartphone when folded, but like a tablet when unfolded.

"You can use most of the uses... on a foldable status but when you need to browse or see something, then you may need to unfold it," advised Koh at the IFA electronics show last week. "Even unfolded, what kind of benefit does that give compared to the tablet? If the unfolded experience is the same as the tablet, why would they (consumers) buy it?"

According to the company's consumer surveys, Koh claims there is a market for such a device to exist, and that it is "time to deliver" the technology to consumers.

Samsung has reportedly invested considerable resources into flexible OLED screens over the years, but while flexible screens have so far been used in relatively limited ways, such as with fixed bends, a foldable display has yet to make it to market.

Numerous reports in the past have speculated that a foldable smartphone was on the way, with one codenamed "Project Valley" consisting of a screen that could fold in half. Another has also been rumored to consist of a smartphone with a 5-inch display when folded, but turns into an 8-inch screen when unfolded.

As Samsung is a major supplier of displays to Apple, reports have also circulated suggesting it was developing flexible displays for iPhones, but not necessarily a foldable version. Current analyst speculation suggests an iPhone with a foldable display could launch as soon as 2020, potentially in collaboration with LG.

Apple has already secured a number of patents relating to the creation of a foldable smartphone, including ways to produce a flexible display in hinged devices, along with wrap-around displays. It has also applied for patents for other related elements, including stretchy substrates for attaching components together on a flexible device, and enabling force gesture controls on bendable devices. </span>

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Dragon Quest XI Proves There's Still a Place for Traditional JRPGs

Posted: 04 Sep 2018 06:04 AM PDT

JRPGs have had a huge resurgence in recent years, with massive titles like Final Fantasy XV, Persona 5, NieR: Automata, Ni No Kuni II, and more making waves in mainstream media. Advancement and modernization have been a big focus for many of these games, particularly with Square Enix’s poster child, Final Fantasy. That’s what makes Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age so interesting, considering it’s on the other side of the coin of Square Enix’s biggest series. While Final Fantasy XV strove to be completely modern and open-world, Dragon Quest XI completely embraces the classic tropes and design of JRPGs, and functions as a succinct summary of 30 years of Dragon Quest. More than anything, though, it proves that there’s still a viable place for the traditional JRPG.

On its face, Dragon Quest XI tells a story we’ve seen time and time again. You play as a young man who finds out he’s the Luminary, the chosen hero who will dispatch the forces of darkness. This is JRPG 101, but Dragon Quest XI isn’t concerned with telling a twisting, complex main narrative that pushes the bounds of storytelling. Instead, the game uses a super traditional main story to evoke a sense of nostalgia, while using it to also set up a rich, diverse world. While journeying through the world of Erdrea, Dragon Quest XI goes to painstaking lengths to get you invested in each and every town, as well as each and every party member. In this regard, it uses modern storytelling techniques to flesh out the characters and towns, layering depth on top of JRPG tropes and fairy tale inspirations.

This combination of traditional JRPG with modern sensibilities seeps into every other aspect of the game as well. There are no drastic changes made, a la FFXV, but there’s just enough modernization to make the game appealing to players who may not have experience with a traditional JRPG. During combat you can pick from two different modes, a more traditional camera and a free-form camera that lets you rotate the view, and move your characters around the battlefield. It’s purely aesthetic and makes no changes to combat, but it makes everything more digestible for players that want a bit more control.

Everything about Dragon Quest XI is developed with these two types of players in mind, experienced and newcomers, and the options within the game let you adjust your experience how you want to. Battle view can be swapped to your style, you can use the Draconic Quest options to bump up the difficulty if you’re more experienced, the AI system can control party members automatically with specific tactics, and you can even auto-equip your party to specific specs. These steps help simplify the game’s systems, but the depth and control over everything is still entirely there for those that want it. It’s quite admirable, really, how Dragon Quest XI manages to straddle the line for these two types of players.

Of course, the other modernization for the game come with its phenomenally gorgeous graphics, combining cel-shaded characters with photorealistic visuals. These aspects all combined together manage to make Dragon Quest XI feel fresh and exciting, despite using many of the tried and true systems and mechanics the series has used for 30 years.

In many ways Dragon Quest XI almost feels like a ‘greatest hits’ sequence for the franchise, bringing back tons of references, creatures, items, and more. The story loops in the exploits of an old Luminary named Erdwin, who bears and uncanny resemblance to the heroes of early Dragon Quest games, creating an interesting loop that seemingly brings the series full circle.

Even with all these modernizations, there are still elements that completely resemble classic games. You need to manage each character’s inventory, towns are jam-packed with little secrets and chatty NPCs, party members fill a specific role, and there’s even a switcheroo “true ending.” Dragon Quest XI is pure tradition, boiled and refined, and it works so well. It’s a sweeping experience filled with nostalgia for the JRPG veterans, while simultaneously being a great entry point for those unfamiliar with the genre.

It’s interesting to see a grand new release in 2018 that sticks so closely to traditional style, and it’s not the only one. Octopath Traveler earlier in the year also stuck to tradition, while implementing a few modern changes with its visuals and battle system. Both of these games have sold staggering numbers, especially for titles that call back to history so thoroughly. As of now, Octopath Traveler has sold over one million copies in just a couple months, and Dragon Quest XI has sold over 3 million after being released only in Japan.

This helps cement even further the fact that traditional JRPGs are here to stay, and boy do people want more.

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Xbox Chief Mike Ybarra Blasts Sony's Killjoy Blocking Of Fortnite PS4 CrossPlay

Posted: 04 Sep 2018 07:30 AM PDT

Sony has not exactly been a champion of supporting multiplayer gameplay across different platforms, otherwise known as crossplay. If there was a time and place to reverse course, it would be now, in Fortnite, the world's most popular battle royale shooter. Sony is sticking to its guns, however, drawing ire from not just gamers, but also Microsoft.

Fortnite is a veritable cash cow for developer Epic Games, and part of the game's success is its availability on so many different platforms—PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, iOS, and Android. And for the most part, players on one platform can play against people on another platform. That is, expect for PlayStation 4 owners, who can only play against other PS4 owners.

"On cross-platform, our way of thinking is always that PlayStation is the best place to play," Sony's new chief executive officer Kenichiro Yoshido recently said, according to Independent. "Fortnite, I believe, partnered with PlayStation 4 is the best experience for users, that's our belief."

It's an absurd excuse, that somehow forcing people with friends who own a PS4 to also purchase a PS4 for crossplay is somehow in their best interest. As one former Sony executive put it, the stance essentially boils down to a dumb money grab. It's also drawn the attention of rival execs, namely Microsoft Xbox boss Mike Ybarra.

"[Sony] still isn't listening to gamers. All games should be crossplay and progression with the right input flexibility and gamer options," Ybarra wrote on Twitter, in reference to Sony's lack of crossplay support in Fortnite.

Make no mistake, Sony's hesitation to support crossplay in Fornite is not rooted in some kind of technical limitation. Yoshida essentially confirmed as much, noting that Sony picks and chooses when to support crossplay, based on this mystery metric of user experience.

"But actually, we already opened some games as cross-platform with PC and some others, so we decide base on what is the best user experience. That is our way of thinking for cross-platform," Yoshida added.

It seems clear that Sony is financially motivated. Does the company have a point? After all, the PS4 has more cumulative sales than the Xbox One. Ybarra addressed this when it was brought up as a comment to his above Twitter post. Here's the exchange:

Twitter user Hero: Lol he's wrong but can you really blame him... as far as a business standpoint, they've been beating Xbox for years now.

Mike Ybarra: We run Windows and Console. Larger gaming audience who wants to play together. Gaming is diverse, if you only serve to bring joy to part of an audience then you are behind in many, many ways.

The situation stinks, though as was also pointed out in the Twitter thread, there is room to criticize Microsoft as well. Specifically, Microsoft's subscription Xbox Live service is viewed as a 'paywall' to multiplayer (and by extension, crossplay) by some users.

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