Enlarge / You could soon be able to wear this kind of NFT sneaker in future EA Sports titles. (credit: Nike)

After a lot of hype from game makers in 2021, big publishers have been relatively quiet on the idea of integrating non-fungible tokens into their games since the collapse of Ubisoft's "Quartz Digits" platform last year. But EA Sports this week is proving the game industry hasn't completely abandoned the blockchain-based collectible technology, announcing a partnership with Nike's ".Swoosh" NFT platform to let players "express their personal style through play."

Details are still scarce, and Nike says that more information will be available "in the coming months." But the company said in a statement that "select .Swoosh virtual creations" will "unlock brand new levels of customization within the EA SPORTS ecosystem" and provide players with "unique new opportunities for self-expression and creativity through sport and style."

In other words, it sounds like you'll soon be able to put your NFT Nike sneakers on your Madden team.

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It has been only a week since Nintendo removed a number of popular The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom item-duplication glitches with the release of the game's 1.1.2 update patch. But intrepid players have already found alternate methods for creating infinite items to build and fight to their heart's content.

The most straightforward (if slow) new method for item duplication, as described by Kibbles Gaming, involves fusing an item to a weapon, preparing to throw that weapon, and then watching previously viewed cutscenes via the "memories" section of the Adventure Log. Each memory you view apparently advances the game's logic by a single frame, letting you easily pinpoint the four-frame timing window where you can throw a weapon while also retaining a copy in your inventory. While this method is consistent and simple to perform (even early in the game), it can take quite a while to fill up your inventory this way.

A more efficient item duplication method requires you to purchase Link's House near Tarry Town in the east, then place a shock emitter item near the weapon display. With good timing, you can place a weapon on that display during the same frame that the shock emitter knocks it out of your hands, thus creating two copies of the weapon (and any fused item) instantly.

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Enlarge / This Dolphin is not currently under legal threat from Nintendo. (credit: Flickr / Andreas Ahrens)

When it comes to emulation, Nintendo has a long history of going after the websites that distribute copyrighted game ROMs and some of the modders that make piracy-enabling hardware. But Nintendo's legal takedown efforts have generally stayed away from emulation software itself.

This weekend saw an exception to that rule, though, as Nintendo's lawyers formally asked Valve to cut off the planned Steam release of Wii and Gamecube emulator Dolphin. In a letter addressed to the Valve Legal Department (a copy of which was provided to Ars by the Dolphin Team), an attorney representing Nintendo of America requests that Valve take down Dolphin's "coming soon" Steam store page (which originally went up in March) and "ensure the emulator does not release on the Steam store moving forward." The letter exerts the company's "rights under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)’s Anti-Circumvention and Anti-Trafficking provisions," even though it doesn't take the form of a formal DMCA takedown request.

In fighting a decision like this, an emulator maker would usually be able to point to some robust legal precedents that protect emulation software as a general concept. But legal experts that spoke to Ars said that Nintendo's argument here might actually get around those precedents and present some legitimate legal problems for the Dolphin Team.

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Enlarge / A small selection of the characters that would be part of Microsoft if its proposed Activision/Blizzard merger is allowed to go through. (credit: Activision Blizzard King)

Activision isn't pulling any punches in its fight against the UK's regulatory attempts to block its merger with Microsoft. In a "motion to intervene" recently filed with the Competition Appeal Tribunal (and recently summarized on the tribunal's website), Activision excoriates the UK's Competition and Markets Authority for a "flawed conclusion" that was variously "unlawful, irrational, and/or disproportionate" and "arrived at in a procedurally unfair manner."

The appeal takes particular issue with the CMA's focus on cloud gaming in a vacuum, without taking into account competition from "native gaming" via games running on local hardware. The ability to easily switch from one type of game experience to the other means that cloud gaming should not be a "separate product market," Activision argues.

A source close to Activision's appeals process (who asked for anonymity to speak frankly about the appeal) put a finer point on this argument, saying that cloud gaming is a niche technology and that "most consumers continue to get games by download or physical disc because running the game on their local hardware gives them a much better experience."

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Enlarge / Finally, Link has enough diamonds to bling out every single one of his teeth. (credit: Nintendo)

Well, it was nice while it lasted.

For a few weeks now, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom players have been able to use a surprising number of glitches to endlessly duplicate items, materials, weapons, and more to their heart's content. But the endless item party officially comes to an end today, with data miners reporting that the new ver. 1.1.2 game update fixes these unintended endless item glitches (you can still stock up your inventory before installing the update, by all accounts).

While Nintendo lumps this fix under "several issues [that] have been addressed to improve the gameplay experience," I'm reluctant to call this an improvement at all. On the contrary, I think Nintendo should embrace this "glitch" and make secret codes for infinite items (and money and health, etc.) an integral, intentional option for players who just want to tinker with the game's amazing creation engine.

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Enlarge / Who needs a Nintendo Switch when you've got a McDonald's nugget-Tetris? (credit: McDonald's China)

According to gaming database Mobygames, officially licensed versions of Tetris have appeared on roughly 60 different gaming platforms, from the Oculus Quest to the Data Zapper M7000. Now, thanks to a new McDonald's China promotion, you can add "giant plastic chicken nugget with an LCD screen" to that list of official Tetris ports (to say nothing of the unofficial ones).

RetroDodo has the story of this strange promotion, which is centered around the 40th anniversary of the Chicken McNugget's premiere in 1983. That makes the protein-filled treat just a year older than Tetris itself, which was created on a Russian government mainframe computer by Alexei Pajitnov in 1984. And that, apparently, is close enough to make the game part of an International Children's Day promotion that will "take you on the time machine leading to childhood," according to a machine translation of the official McDonald's China webpage announcing the machine.

A video unboxing and demonstration posted by one Chinese McDonald's fan shows crisp shots of nugget-Tetris and its unlit LCD screen, as well as the included customization stickers and carrying case. Another unboxing video includes a better look at the back of the machine, including a removable battery pack, speaker grate, and power switch.

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Enlarge / Releasing Alan Wake 2 on pre-shredded discs would probably just add insult to injury, right? (credit: Getty Images)

Anyone who pays attention to the game industry knows that the segment of players buying games on physical discs has been becoming less important as physical releases become more and more niche. Still, even in recent years, you could usually count on big-budget console games from major studios to receive at least a perfunctory disc release to fill up the dwindling GameStop shelves.

So it was a bit of a surprise that yesterday's release date announcement for Alan Wake 2 came alongside news that developer Remedy Entertainment and publisher Epic Games currently have "no plans to release Alan Wake 2 on disc," as they put it in a new FAQ. When you look a little deeper, though, what might be more surprising is that there haven't been more major console publishers willing to give up on discs completely.

The rainbow of their reasons

The Alan Wake 2 FAQ notes, correctly, that "it is not uncommon to release modern games as digital-only." In fact, measured on a per-title basis, the vast majority of console games are now not available on disc at all. Still, such disc-free releases are relatively rare when it comes to the kinds of major games that dominate the console charts.

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Enlarge / A few of the 3DS variations that were once supported by Nintendo. (credit: Mark Walton)

It has been years since Nintendo stopped producing its Nintendo 3DS line of portable hardware and months since the company officially shut down the 3DS eShop for new downloadable game purchases. But those facts haven't stopped the company from issuing a new firmware update that seems at least partly focused on impeding some of the most common methods for installing homebrew software on the defunct console.

Monday night's surprise release of 3DS firmware Ver. 11.17.0-50 is the first official system update for the console since last September and the fifth update since the hardware was officially discontinued in 2020. The official patch notes for the sudden update cover the now-standard (if vague) promise of "further improvements to overall system stability and other minor adjustments [that] have been made to enhance the user experience."

But console hacking groups quickly noticed that downloading the update ruined many of the documented hacking methods that could previously be used to install custom 3DS firmware.

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Activision has sent cease-and-desist letters to two makers of popular fan clients for legacy Call of Duty titles in recent weeks. The move cuts off access to the many gameplay and quality-of-life improvements brought by these clients and stops what fans say is the only safe way to play these older games without the threat of damaging hacking by opponents.

The first victim of Activision's recent efforts was SM2, a major Modern Warfare 2 modding project whose development started over two years ago. Since then, the modding group has been working on updating that seminal 2009 release with new weapons, in-game perks, a redesigned UI, new streak and progression systems, and even a recent move to a more modern game engine.

Those efforts stopped last week, though, before the mod could even release its first version. The SM2 Twitter account reported that "a team member received a Cease & Desist letter on behalf of Activision Publishing in relation to the SM2 project. We are complying with this order and shutting down all operations permanently."

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Enlarge / A group of PlayStation owners worries that an image like this is coming in their near future...

A federal judge has refused to grant a requested preliminary injunction that would have stopped Microsoft's continuing effort to buy Activision Blizzard. But as the private case moves forward, the judge in the case writes that the plaintiffs have "plausibly" argued that they might be adversely affected by the deal's anti-competitive effects.

The so-called "gamers' lawsuit" against the Microsoft/Activision deal was initially filed by a group of 10 PlayStation Call of Duty players in December, alleging that the deal could lead to increased prices and/or decreased quality or availability for the franchise on their console of choice. While the case was dismissed in March, the plaintiffs offered an amended complaint last month, laying out more precisely the harm they believe they could suffer after a merger.

Regarding those amended claims, District Court Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley said in a Friday ruling that, while it was too early to fully rule on the merits of the case, the plaintiffs "plausibly attest to their loyalty to the Call of Duty franchise and thus that each will purchase a different console or subscription service, or pay an inflated price, if needed to continue to play Call of Duty, especially if needed to play with their friends." That's a turnaround from the initial March dismissal, where Corley wrote that the plaintiffs didn't "plausibly allege" that the merger "creates a reasonable probability of anticompetitive effects in any relevant market."

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Enlarge / A scene from a Garry's Mod server or a WWII documentary? Who can say, really? (credit: ModDB / Garry's Mod)

In the realm of online game moderation, the official Server Operator Rules for Source Engine physics sandbox Garry's Mod have always been pretty forgiving. For a long time, the only things that could get a server explicitly "blacklisted" by developer Facepunch Studios were sexual violence, unmarked NSFW content, fraudulent server information, or "malicious actions" that essentially hacked a player's local game installation.

On April 20, those scant rules were updated with one more specific prohibition: "Display of swastikas, the nazi salute or other glorification of nazism is prohibited, even for 'roleplay' purposes."

That new rule represents a change of heart for Garry's Mod creator Garry Newman, who told Ars his outlook on what should and shouldn't be allowed in online spaces has changed since he became a parent to two children (currently 9 and 6 years old).

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Enlarge / An example of the kinds of ads that showed up on the Xbox One dashboard. Soon those could expand to include video ads in exchange for gameplay time. (credit: Microsoft)

Since its launch in 2017, Microsoft has convinced over 25 million people to pay a monthly subscription fee to access a substantial library of Xbox Game Pass titles. For those not as interested in a monthly subscription, though, Microsoft is now floating a potential model where players could view an ad in exchange for a short period of game time.

The nod toward potential ad-supported game time comes from Xbox Corporate VP for Game Creator Experience and Ecosystem Sarah Bond, who told Rolling Stone UK that she's constantly looking to "introduce more business model diversity" for game developers.

"We’ve talked about how we’re experimenting with other models, like what does it mean for advertising in games which is more prevalent in mobile—are there models of that that work well in PC and console?" Bond said. "Are there other models where you might have timed slices of games and stuff like that?"

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Enlarge / "OK EVERYONE QUEUE UP! NO ONE GETS IN THIS SERVER PORTAL UNTIL YOU QUEUE UP!" (credit: Blizzard)

Blizzard says it's "really confident" that the upcoming launch of Diablo IV will not be subject to the infamous server issues that plagued the launch of Diablo III over a decade ago.

That quoted vote of confidence comes from Diablo IV Art Director John Mueller, who told Eurogamer that the game's March beta tests and recent "Server Slam" test weekend gave the team valuable perspective on how the game's infrastructure will function when millions of early adopters try to log in at once on June 5 (or June 2 if you paid for early access).

"It's not a marketing thing," Mueller said of the beta tests. "It's really about getting that information so we know day one is going to be as good as we can possibly make it and that we just feel confident going in. So, currently right now, we feel really confident."

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For a marquee game on 6-year-old hardware (which was already relatively underpowered when it launched in 2017), the open-world construction set of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is a pretty impressive technical feat. Digital Foundry recently laid out how the game's day-one patch ensures the software "holds very close to the 30 frames per second target" for "nearly the entirety" of their playtime.

Still, Digital Foundry does note that Tears of the Kingdom's frame rate can still drop down to 20 fps at times, especially when Link's signature Ultra Hand ability is activated in crowded areas like Kakariko Village or Goron City. For those situations, though, Switch users with a hacked console can use overclocking tools to make the game run more smoothly.

In a recent video, Modern Vintage Gamer (MVG) walks viewers through the overclocking options offered to Tears of the Kingdom players who have installed a tool like sys-clk on their hacked systems. Pushing the CPU up from around 1 GHz to 1.5 GHz leads to "really not much difference at all" in MVG's testing. By contrast, increasing the GPU speed from 768 MHz to just 900 MHz (in docked mode) results in frame rates that are "definitely smoothed out," though there are "still... times where it does drop its frame rate."

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Enlarge / Just a few of the Activision franchises that will become Microsoft properties if and when the acquisition is finalized. (credit: Microsoft / Activision)

The European Commission (EC) has officially approved Microsoft's long-proposed $69 billion acquisition of Activision, concluding a long-running "in-depth investigation" that has long been expected to go Microsoft's way. But the decision is in direct conflict with the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), which says it "stands by its decision" to block the deal in that Brexit-separated country.

Microsoft will fix it

Months ago, the EC's preliminary investigation of the Microsoft/Activision deal concluded that the proposed merger could reduce competition in areas including cloud gaming services and PC operating systems. And despite the EC's final decision, today's final report on the matter affirms some of those preliminary competition concerns.

"If Microsoft made Activision's games exclusive to its own cloud game streaming service, Game Pass Ultimate, and withheld them from rival cloud game streaming providers, it would reduce competition in the distribution of games via cloud game streaming," the EC concluded. Such a move could "also strengthen the position of Windows in the market for PC operating systems," the European regulators wrote.

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Enlarge / Is the Microsoft/Activision deal still "pining for the fjords"? Or has it "ceased to be"? (If you don't get this reference, what is is like to be young?) (credit: Python (Monty) Pictures | BBC)

Wednesday's decision by the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to block Microsoft's purchase of Activision may seem to be a fatal blow for the $69 billion deal. But Microsoft and Activision say they still see a path forward for their proposed merger, even if it's now a longer road than anticipated.

An unappealing appeals process

Bloomberg reports that in an all-hands meeting for the gaming division Thursday, Xbox chief Phil Spencer said Microsoft's interest in the deal "hasn't wavered" in the wake of the UK's decision. Spencer reportedly still sees a way forward for the deal despite acknowledging that the UK decision will "slow the approval process."

Though the Competition and Markets Authority's (CMA) release was the regulator's final report on the proposed merger, that doesn't necessarily represent the UK government's absolute final say on the deal. The CMA decision can be appealed to the UK's Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT), and both Microsoft and Activision instantly signaled their intent to do so in statements following the report's release on Wednesday.

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Enlarge / If the Xbox 360 could handle Call of Duty 2, then the Switch could handle a scaled-down modern CoD port, right? (credit: Activision)

Since their surprise December announcement of a 10-year deal to bring Call of Duty to Nintendo consoles, Microsoft and Activision have expressed confidence that the Switch hardware can handle their popular shooter series. But that confidence didn't convince the UK government, which says that it has "seen no evidence to suggest that [Nintendo] consoles would be technically capable of running a version of CoD that is similar to those in Xbox and PlayStation in terms of quality of gameplay and content."

That blunt assessment is just a minor part of the Competition and Markets Authority's sprawling, 418-page final report on Microsoft's proposed Activision purchase. That report blocked the proposed merger over concerns surrounding the cloud gaming market, but when it comes to judging Microsoft's console competition, the government body clearly considers the Switch in a class by itself.

"Overall, the evidence shows that the product characteristics of Nintendo Switch are significantly different from those of Xbox and PlayStation, including its technical specifications, capability to host graphically intensive games and prices," the CMA writes. "Xbox and PlayStation are more similar in this respect."

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Enlarge / Enough taking in majestic beauty, it's time to build! (credit: Nintendo)

For decades, solving puzzles and figuring out how to advance in Zelda games followed a well-established pattern. You'd hunt around a dungeon for a key item, use that item to get around some obstacle and/or beat a new boss, then explore the overworld until you found an area that was newly accessible with your shiny new item.

It's been over six years since Breath of the Wild turned that basic design on its head. Traversal abilities like climbing and floating made it much easier to carve your own path through the game's wide open world, to the point where players can technically run to the final boss after completing the tutorial area. The game's early introduction of Link's magical new abilities has also led players to craft some incredibly inventive and unintended solutions to the game's shrine puzzles and combat challenges.

After spending an hour or so playing a near-final build of Tears of the Kingdom, it seems clear that the newest Zelda sequel is determined to go even further in letting players craft their own creative solutions to the game's challenges. In doing so, though, the game seems to have gotten even further from the basic Zelda gameplay loop that served the series so well for so long.

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Despite creating one of the most recognizable video games of all time, Tetris creators Alexey Pajitnov (who first coded the game in Russia) and Henk Rogers (who was instrumental in bringing the game to prominence in the West) have not been all that recognizable to the general public. That has started to change, though, with the recent release of Apple TV's Tetris movie, which dramatizes the real-life story of the pair's unlikely friendship and business partnership.

In Ars Technica's latest Unsolved Mysteries video, Pajitnov and Rogers went all the way back to the game's earliest origins. That includes the origin of "the Tetris song," aka Korobeiniki, which Game Boy Tetris fans have had stuck in their heads for decades now.

"In 1988, when I first published Tetris in Japan... I knew somehow that Alexey didn't want Tetris associated with the Cold War side of Russia or the Soviet Union at the time," Rogers told Ars. "So I looked back in the history of Russia and found some folk songs."

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Enlarge / Taking a close look... (credit: Aurich Lawson / Ars Technica)

In its long-awaited final report, the United Kingdom's Competition and Markets Authority said that Microsoft's proposed $69 billion acquisition of Activision would "result in a substantial lessening of competition" (SLC) in the supply of cloud-gaming services in the UK. As such, the regulator said that "the only effective remedy to this SLC and its adverse consequences is to prohibit the Merger."

The final report cites Microsoft's "strong position" in the cloud-gaming sector, where the company has an estimated 60 to 70 percent market share that makes it "already much stronger than its rivals." After purchasing Activision, the CMA says Microsoft "would find it commercially beneficial to make Activision’s titles exclusive to its own cloud gaming service."

Microsoft has in recent months signed deals with Nvidia and smaller cloud-gaming providers in an attempt to "mak[e] even more clear to regulators that our acquisition of Activision Blizzard will make Call of Duty available on far more devices than before," as Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith said in a statement last month. But the CMA said these kinds of cloud-gaming deals—which Microsoft submitted to the CMA as a proposed remedy for any anticompetitive effects of the merger—were "limited to cloud gaming providers with specific business models" and thus not sufficient to address the regulator's concerns.

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