Look, there is a real and indisputable problem with mobile gaming- the storefronts through which these games are sold are hardly curated, meaning all sorts of crap eventually manages to make its way through to consumers. And while quality control is something we can debate all day long, the larger issue is when obvious knock offs, which are in clear violation of copyright law, and which generally mislead customers and exist to scam them out of their money, manage to make their way to the storefronts too.

Such a thing has happened right now. If you visit the App Store from an iOS device, you will find a listing for Minecraft: Pocket Edition 2 (adding insult to injury is the fact that it is currently charting high on the Paid Apps list). The title of the app would suggest that it is a sequel to the first Minecraft game’s mobile version- and indeed, the description of the game would suggest that too:

“Minecraft is a game about breaking and placing blocks. Minecraft II is taking those activities to a whole new level of excellence and uniqueness. At first, people built structures to protect against nocturnal monsters, but as the game grew players worked together to create wonderful, imaginative things.

“Explore randomly generated worlds and build amazing things from the simplest of homes to the grandest of castles. Play in creative mode with unlimited resources or mine deep into the world in survival mode, crafting weapons and armor to fend off the dangerous mobs.

“Craft, create, and explore alone, or with friends on mobile devices or Windows 10.”

It’s a well written blurb, unlike so many other scam or knock off products, and the mention of other copyrighted properties like Windows 10 would probably allay any fears you may have had. Unfortunately, Minecraft: Pocket Edition 2 is not an official product. It’s a scam made by someone called Viktor Todorov (though on the game’s official page, the developer is listed as Scott Cawthorn, possibly in an attempt to mislead customers into associating the game with the developer of the Five Nights at Freddy’s series, Scott Cawthon).

Worse than the copyright infringement, however, is the nature of the product itself. The game advertises itself using screenshots from Minecraft, misleading players into thinking that the game will play like that. Unfortunately, the actual game is nothing like Minecraft– according to Eurogamer, who have discovered this knock off via Reddit, it is a “terrible top-down swipe game” which eventually crashes your phone.

You want to know what somehow manages to make it even worse? Worse than the fact that it infringes upon multiple copyrights, worse than the fact that it misleads customers, worse than the fact that it is a terrible product? It’s the fact that it costs £5 (or $11)- it’s a terrible product that doesn’t even have the decency to be free, or cheap.

Eurogamer has gotten in touch with Mojang, and received an official statement.

“It’s great that Minecraft has inspired people to create amazing things, but when a product attempts to dupe our community or exploit their enthusiasm for the game, it’s our responsibility to step in,” Mojang’s Owen Hill said.

“Our dedicated enforcement team are extremely busy!”

Meanwhile, of course, we are all left wondering if this is truly what mobile gaming has become- exploitative and scammy at the best of times, but at the worst, an uncurated wild west where games that are buggy, misleading, and illegal end up somehow rising to the top of the charts.

The last time something like this happened, there was a video games crash- that may be the direction that mobile gaming is headed in itself.

Ubisoft’s mobile ship combat title Assassin’s Creed Pirates was a fairly decent addition to the smartphone gaming market, allowing users to focus on combat with ships rather than the rote assassination of the series. It’s an off-shoot of Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag and set in the same universe.

If you haven’t gotten a chance to check it out yet, Ubisoft has revealed that it will be available for free on iOS all week along. Hilariously, it seems that Android users have been ignored entirely. Pirates allows you to use different ships and upgrade the same, along with recruiting your own crew and finding treasures spread out across the world. You can play and compete with other players in the process. It also has some fairly snazzy graphics including great water and wind simulation.

Will you be picking up Assassin’s Creed Pirates? Or do you already own the game? Let us know in the comments.

The PlayStation App has tons of functions when used in conjunction with the console and on its own. You can view your own PSN profile, access and compare Trophies with friends, send messages and purchase content on the PlayStation Store. The app will also act as a second screen for certain games and allow you to spectate on other’s gameplay when they are live-streaming. You can post comments and footage of your own as well. Did we mention being able to use your smartphone or tablet to control the PS4 using the App?

The PlayStation 4 will launch in North America on November 15th and in Europe on November 29th.

We recently spoke to various individuals over at AMD – with answers compiled by Robert Hallock, PR Lead for Gaming and Enthusiast Graphics – about the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, including the company’s role in designing the consoles, and on what the future holds for PC gaming as well what the company is doing to innovate in graphics.

Rashid Sayed: Next generation seems to be firmly in AMD’s grasp, since all the three platform holders–Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo–are using AMD tech. What benefits will this bring to the company as a whole in, say, the next 5-6 years?

"Coming into this latest generation, our flagship Graphics Core Next architecture is the common fabric for any game developer looking to publish. "

Robert Hallock: It’s tremendously difficult to predict where things will go in 5-6 years, but we can talk about the near-term with more confidence: the game development industry now uses AMD Radeon graphics for six shipping platforms: Nintendo Wii, Nintendo Wii U, Sony PlayStation 4, Microsoft Xbox 360, Microsoft Xbox One and the PC.

For five of those six platforms, Radeon is the only choice in the development process. And coming into this latest generation, our flagship Graphics Core Next architecture is the common fabric for any game developer looking to publish. It’s all a bit oblivious to believe or assert that this situation won’t have a positive and obvious effect on the overall level of optimization games demonstrate for AMD architectures.

Rashid Sayed: It has recently been revealed that DICE will be optimizing Battlefield 4 for AMD hardware. Which, given that AMD powers the PS4 and Xbox One, seems to make sense. However, as more next generation titles release for the Xbox One and PS4, we could see more games being optimized for AMD hardware. How will this trend affect the company going forward in the PC market, which is still dominated by Nvidia?

Robert Hallock: The vast majority of the AAA PC titles released in 2012 and 2013 were already optimized for AMD Radeon, including Tomb Raider, Crysis 3, Hitman: Absolution, Far Cry 3, Battlefield 4 and more. That was through our ongoing AMD Gaming Evolved program.

By this measure, I think it’s difficult to characterize a market dominated by NVIDIA; the proof is not in the pudding. And when you also take into account that AMD’s GCN Architecture is now the singular architecture of focus for any developer looking to do business in consoles, then it’s perfectly logical to conclude that Radeon is the force to be reckoned with.

Rashid Sayed: Since Sony and Microsoft have [different] philosophies towards the videogames market, how difficult was it creating a custom solution that catered to their needs?

Robert Hallock: I can’t personally speculate on the difficulty of creating such solutions, and I’m sure Sony, Nintendo Microsoft would like to tell their own story. But what I can say is that AMD’s semi-custom business is an excellent example of our engineering prowess, our world-class IP portfolio, and our dedication to our customers.

"I think the gaming community would do itself an injustice by rushing to crown a winner or a loser. I don’t see it as that kind of race, because we all win—users and, yes, AMD alike--when the market provides a big matrix of choices that can appeal to gamers of every stripe."

We were able to collaboratively design and bring up several unique solutions that, as you say, catered to their needs. Nobody else in our space is offering this manner of flexibility, and our full house of design wins is proof that this strategy is working.

Ravi Sinha: Much has been made about the power of the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, and how one is more powerful than the other. Given that the AMD technology powering them is the same, how far does technology actually influence the success of either console in the initial period? The Wii U, for instance, is technologically inferior to both, but has still had a fairly decent initial period, however understated, in the market.

Robert Hallock: Success is an awfully nebulous recipe, and I would argue that it’s literally impossible to isolate how much “technology” weighs on the final product. Other ingredients are just as important to many people: price, game library, content partnerships, accessories and the like.

However, I think the gaming community would do itself an injustice by rushing to crown a winner or a loser. I don’t see it as that kind of race, because we all win—users and, yes, AMD alike–when the market provides a big matrix of choices that can appeal to gamers of every stripe. We’re thrilled to be the beating heart of these amazing CE devices.

Ravi Sinha: Following up on the previous question, will there ever be a time where the architecture is no longer a factor in the improvement of one console generation? Microsoft, for instance, announced that it would be able to use Cloud Computing to continuously improve one’s gaming experience, effectively adding on to the base experience (Forza Motorsport 5’s Drivatar is one such example). It could become a matter of “why get a new console when your current games are continually updated?”

" Choosing AMD over NVIDIA is an obvious choice for a consumer electronic device. We offer x86 and powerful state-of-the-art GPU solutions in a single chip with our Accelerated Processing Units (APUs). "

Robert Hallock: I think such a development is best answered by the console makers. It’s only natural that they would know best the future of their respective businesses. Whatever that future might be, however, we are in the business of creating solutions to meet the needs of our customers. In the arena of cloud gaming, for example, we have the AMD Radeon Sky Series of GPUs, which are server-grade graphics processors specifically engineered to render, compress and stream games in the cloud.

Rashid Sayed: How deeply was AMD involved in building/suggesting the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One’s architecture? Also, how did Sony and Microsoft go about selecting AMD over Nvidia?

Robert Hallock: Choosing AMD over NVIDIA is an obvious choice for a consumer electronic device. We offer x86 and powerful state-of-the-art GPU solutions in a single chip with our Accelerated Processing Units (APUs). This is what the console makers demanded, and only AMD has the ability to deliver on that demand. With respect to our level of involvement, the design of the APUs in these consoles was collaborative.

Rashid Sayed: Are there any differences in terms of GPU design and raw horsepower on the PS4 and Xbox One?

Robert Hallock: Sony and Microsoft would be in a better position to comment on the relative merits of their hardware.

Rashid Sayed: Nvidia recently said that the profit margins were low in the console business, and they didn’t think it was something they should aggressively pursue. What are your thoughts on this?

Robert Hallock: The position seems a bit like sour grapes to me. The reality, according to industry legends like John Carmack (citation), is that the standardization of console hardware will, in his words, ‘make it cheaper and easier to develop games for multiple platforms.’ And, he continues, that will improve the quality of games as devs spend time polishing them, rather than juggling architectural particulars.

We are very proud to help enable this sort of ecosystem for game developers, and excited that such an ecosystem runs almost unilaterally on our hardware. I can’t imagine why anyone would willingly cede such a favorable situation.

"A similar upward trend [for PC gaming] was predicted by JPR for 2012, and it bore out positively. Obviously none of us have a crystal ball, but analysts seem quite bullish on the market."

Rashid Sayed: The PS4 and Xbox One have exotic architectures, but do you think they will be able to stand the test of time and give stiff competition to the ever evolving PC platform in the future?

Robert Hallock: I think Sony and Microsoft would be better suited to answer how they intend to keep their platforms healthy over the long term.

Ravi Sinha: Tell us a bit about the PC platform. We know you guys are heavily invested in it, so how do you see it shaping up in the next few years after the PS4 and Xbox One are released?

Robert Hallock: Peddie Research just released some excellent data on this topic, illustrating a continuous rise in PC gaming hardware–$20.7 billion by 2016. A similar upward trend was predicted by JPR for 2012, and it bore out positively. Obviously none of us have a crystal ball, but analysts seem quite bullish on the market.

Ravi Sinha: One of the major bastions for Nvidia is in the mobile market, with its upcoming Tegra 4. Intel has also been making waves in the market with its Atom series and the upcoming Haswell. AMD has recently announced its next generation processors for tablets and laptops, but are there any plans for implementing these APUs in smartphones? Also, how far will the mobile APUs go towards combating the likes of not only Nvidia but Qualcomm, which will release the Snapdragon 800 in the near future for supporting 2K resolutions on smartphones?

Robert Hallock: We are tremendously proud of our APUs and the form factors we enable, such as that VIZIO tablet I mentioned. Ditto our sweep of the next-gen consoles. But Lisa Su, our SVP and GM of AMD’s Global Business Units, recently noted in a call with Gulf News that we have no plans to enter the smartphone market.

"I’m continually fascinated by the ways you can creatively reinterpret graphics APIs (like DirectX) to come up with cool effects like TressFX Hair. Who knows what AMD’s game developers are cooking up? "

Ravi Sinha: AMD introduced TressFX with Tomb Raider earlier this year that lent to realistically modeled and shaded hair on characters. Will we be seeing any other games taking advantage of this technology in the future, or maybe an advanced version of the same? Also, what other areas of graphical design is AMD working towards for creating visual realism?

Robert Hallock: Technologies like TressFX Hair enter into our portfolio of in-game effects that we can offer developers when we collaborate with them as part of the AMD Gaming Evolved program. Other effects in that portfolio include High-Definition Ambient Occlusion (HDAO), Forward+ rendering, or sparse voxel octree global illumination (SVOGI). We don’t force game developers to take any or all of these technologies, rather we open the buffet table to enable them with the tools to meet their vision of the game.

It is absolutely conceivable that TressFX Hair will appear in future games, but it’s too soon to comment on when or what those games might be. With respect to what we’re working on going forward, I’m continually fascinated by the ways you can creatively reinterpret graphics APIs (like DirectX) to come up with cool effects like TressFX Hair. Who knows what AMD’s game developers are cooking up? (Yes, AMD has game developers on staff!)

Ravi Sinha: With the release of the Richland APU for PCs, AMD is beginning to move towards the next generation of PC technology. What does this entail for PCs, and what will be the focus areas for AMD in the next few years?

Robert Hallock: I’m not in a position to forecast the future for our business, but here and now we are intensely focused on gaming technologies. Our workstation team has the AMD Radeon Sky Series of GPUs, designed to stream games from the datacenter to a thin or light client. Our CPU business continues to push the envelope with chips like the 5GHz AMD FX 9590.

"Our APU and semi-custom businesses are firing on all cylinders with the “Jaguar” core for consoles, and the Richland, Temash, and Kabini chips for a diverse range of PC form factors."

Our APU and semi-custom businesses are firing on all cylinders with the “Jaguar” core for consoles, and the Richland, Temash, and Kabini chips for a diverse range of PC form factors. And of course our graphics IP is intimately woven throughout most of these products, demonstrating a real harmony amongst our teams and within our technology portfolio.

Ravi Sinha: Bottlenecks for PCs have always been around, with significant hurdles still existing in utilizing the full power of multi-core CPUs and connections between the RAM and CPU in a system. What is currently being done to reduce those bottlenecks and take full advantage of the power that AMD provides?

Robert Hallock: Programming for multi-threaded platforms is an inherently challenging task, as many PC enthusiasts have probably heard. Therefore it seems unwise to offer products that explicitly depend on such optimizations. Coming from that perspective, we offer a portfolio that enables excellent performance regardless of the developer’s approach to threading. If the developer happens to be particularly good at it, then our architectures are scalable to accommodate as well.

Rashid Sayed: Last question. Chris Doran the founder of Geomerics recently said to us that CGI level graphics is still an active area of research in video games and at the moment artists do not have the freedom to put their stuff at will while they move around the world. Now, we have seen some amazing tech demos from AMD or the recent Infiltrator demo from Epic Games, which seems to indicate that the power to integrate such high end graphics is there but we still don’t see retail games taking advantage of that. What is your take on the same?

Robert Hallock: Tech demos are a very strange and often misunderstood beast. While some demos, like our “Leo” demo, were designed to demonstrate technologies we’re making available in games today (Partially Resident Textures and Forward+ rendering), other demos are very aspirational, painting a picture of where the industry could go in a few years’ time.

"The truth is that these aspirational demos are the ideal, pristinely perfect environment: they’re designed for a fixed hardware target, using the best possible implementation of a technology, allocating virtually all GPU resources to rendering that technology."

It is the latter kind of demo that often causes people to wonder why a technology can’t be in a game if it can be played in a demo. The truth is that these aspirational demos are the ideal, pristinely perfect environment: they’re designed for a fixed hardware target, using the best possible implementation of a technology, allocating virtually all GPU resources to rendering that technology.

But spending your GPU resources to rendering just one effect is not how games work. To be blunt, you cannot blow your entire performance budget on one effect. So the industry must advance a few years to a time when the effect and the quality of yesteryear’s demo now consumes a manageable portion of the GPU’s performance, rather than the whole.

TressFX Hair is a powerful example, because it wasn’t until we combined sufficient compute and triangle rendering capabilities in a single chip with the GCN Architecture that real-time hair physics could be a reality. Many companies have done aspirational tech demos for hair, but we alone were able advance the industry by making it a reality.

I don’t envision a time when aspirational demos like this will ever fall out of favor, because it is fascinating to not just imagine, but see the possibilities the future holds.

A big thank you to Roy Taylor, Robert Hallock, Christine Brown and the entire team at AMD for making this interview happen.

But that’s not all. Not by a long shot. A handy infograph released by Rovio indicated that for that week – from December 22nd to 29th – Angry Birds had a whopping 30 million downloads. Is it any wonder that the company is able to ready it’s own production studio for an Angry Birds movie…in 3D? Check out the infograph below.

Angry Birds has seen nothing but success since releasing on the Apple App Store in 2009, going on to debut for multiple platforms including Android, PC and even Xbox 360. The title has seen more than 1 billion downloads and is considered one of the most mainstream games currently available.

Source: GIBiz

I am trying to think of what I can’t plug the X-Tatic SR’s into, but I am drawing a blank.  First lets get it out of the way that they are not wireless, they are wired, getting all their power through USB and in today’s day in age, an electronic device with out a USB port, is pretty much alien technology.  In fact speaking of wires, there are a lot of them when it comes to the SR’s, so if you are not a wire person then these might not be for you.  Most high quality wired gaming headsets do have a lot of wires anyway though.  While having all those wires may be looked at as a down side you would have to have that many to be able to have a headset that can support the Xbox 360, Playstation 3, PC, Mac, Tablets, MP3 players, DVD players, Smartphones and MVP’s.  Not many gaming headsets can do all that and as a gamer, I play on all platforms so the X-Tatic SR’s are a thing of convenience.  That’s right you can go from watching a movie in surround sound on your iPad (or other tablet) to hearing man eating zombies creeping up behind you on the Xbox 360.

All the convenience you could need in a headset.

You may be telling yourself ‘Oh well my headset can hook up to this or that too, if I just get this wire adapter’.  Well… SILENCE!  Because not only do the SR’s come with all the wires, adapters and everything you need to hook them up to just about any multimedia device, but they have got the digital support as well, with the help of the Sound Control Unit.  The SR’s support Dolby Digital 5.1, Dolby Pro Logic 2, and regular Dolby Headphone.  The important thing to note here is that although it supports Dolby Digital 5.1 Input it does not support the same output which is a bummer but, the sound is very high quality with a crispness that you have got to love.  There is a built in amplifier and a 3D Expander as they call it to give you a unique 3D Sound with ‘multi-dimensional detection’. You can also between a Stereo input as well with the touch of a button as well as the X-Tatic SR’s also having a ‘Music Mode’ that can all be changed  by using the buttons on the Sound Control Unit (SCU).  These modes are known from the light displays on the SCU.

It also has an in-line amplifier with volume control, where there is the microphone volume control, as well as a mute mic button on the top of it, which is separate from the over sound volume control on the other side.  A clip is also provided if you want to keep the volume amplifier at a certain position.  The detachable microphone is nice as it locks in nicely with out having to worry about it falling out but can easily be detached if not needed.  Although the mic is flexible, it almost seemed too flexible as I had to keep adjusting it as I was playing games, between movements and occasionally taking it off only to put them back on.  It’s easy to chat over Xbox Live and on the Playstation 3, with microphone connecting to the Xbox through the controller via 2.5 mm plug (Xbox 360 Customized Clip), while the microphone connects to the PS3 via USB, powering it at the same time. It comes with a 3.5 mm stereo cable, a stereo extension cable, an optical connection cable (S/PDIF), a USB 2.0 cable and a G6 adapter cable.

The Sharkoon X-Tatic SR Headset also comes with detailed manuals, with pictures easily describing setup for all devices.  Overall these are a great pair of headsets at a great price of around $139.99.  There are a lot of wires and it can seem kind of bulky with all of them but as I said before it has all the convenience one would need, supporting all different media devices.  You can even connect a separate headset connected via the 3.5mm audio jack through the SCU to have two people listen in on the same thing.  The SR’s are also very comfortable which is a big deal when it comes to gamers, as I have used many headsets that start to hurt after a while, but wore these for an extended time and they felt fine.  I believe it mostly comes down to personal preference when deciding on whether or not to purchase the SR Headset.  If it has everything you want then it is a no brainer.  However it might come down to whether or not you want that crisp 3d sound, will all the convenience or you would rather spend a little more money on a gaming headset with multiple speakers with more surround sound.  This, I can’t decide for you but can say that the Sharkoon X-Tatic SR Headset is something that you will not be disappointed with.

Sony Ericsson has teased that Minecraft is headed to Xperia Play. They have posted a small 9 second video showing the game running on the slider Smartphone. Tell us what you think of the footage in the comments section below.