Apple TV and games

Apple has recently made headlines once again (in the game development community) with the Apple TV announcement which included news which directly relate to both games developers and the relevant audience alike (such as a controller which uses touch and also motion sensing, pictured below).

With Apple being Apple this could have significant potential for the future, becoming (potentially) a very credible gaming platform that could be a major contender in the market place.

Epic's Bullet Train

Epic has recently showcased Bullet Train; a VR game using the Oculus Touch controller which is firmly in the area of expertise of the company, i.e. one of first person shooters.

The video above shows what can be achieved with the Oculus Touch in this genre, using also the Unreal engine too. It is quite impressive and hopefully could form the basis on which fuller titles could be built upon in the future.

Playstation VR

Project Morpheus, i.e. Sony's VR headset for the PS4, appears to now have a new name after trading under the old one for while; this is now Playstation VR.

This does sound like a better name though the Morpheus one had been around for a significant amount of time and did have a ring to it too; nevertheless, this appears to be the final name of the headset which is soon to be released and forms Sony's answer to technologies such as the Oculus one.

Angry Birds movie trailer

Angry Birds now has a movie trailer; for those who do not know about this the Rovio game is being turned into a movie to be released next year.

There have been other attempts in the past for games to be turned into movies and with mixed results it is hoped that Angry Birds will built on the incredibly successful game and stand on its own as a movie too.

Time will show if that will be the case but this is nonetheless eagerly anticipated.

Games Funding Forum event

A conference very useful potentially to indie studios is to take place, in half day form, in London on the 15th of October. This is The Games Funding Forum which, as the name suggests, covers, via a number of talks, different ways of obtaining funds for developing and launching a game.

More information about the conference on its official website here.

TIGA awards shortlisting

The upcoming TIGA awards shortlisting is now complete and it is great to see Bournemouth University but also the SIGN (Southern Independent Games Network initiative) in the running for awards.

More about the shortlisted nominations here.

Rite of Like Kickstarter campaign

An indie games dev studio, Rebourne, consisting of Bournemouth University students from the Games Technology course has recently launched their Kickstarter campaign for their game Rite of Life.

You can find more about the game and the campaign (which has exceeded the original goal and remains ongoing) here. 

Gamechangers

The BBC recently made an original TV movie called Gamechangers which focused on the controversy around the Grand Theft Auto games (this was around the San Andreas era of the series).

For those who have not watched here is the iPlayer link (you need to be UK based), the show is still available to watch and is well worth an hour and a half of watching time.

Epic Games makes UE4 content available for free

On more Unreal related news, Epic has over the last few days a significant amount of free content that one can download and use with UE4 (via their Marketplace). This is a) the Infiltrator tech demo (pictured below) b) Infinity Blade game assets and, finally, c) the Showdown VR demo.

This is a commendable practice and hopefully one that will be kept up as it offers the dedicated UE4 community both insight and content.

New version of the Unreal engine

Version 4.9 of the Unreal engine has recently been released (and is currently on 4.9.1 already). Fascinating to see how far the engine has come along since this version was (first) launched in spring 2014.

You can read the full features update on the official site here.