Italian police have dismantled a retro game counterfeiting ring, seizing fake consoles and pirated games with an estimated combined worth of over $50 million. While details on the matter are limited, the seized goods reportedly infringed on Nintendo, Sega, and Atari's intellectual property, among others.

According to a 2023 study conducted by the Video Game History Foundation, only 13% of games published before 2010 are currently available for purchase through legitimate means. The older a given title is, the less likely it is to still be retailing in any shape of form. This state of affairs gave rise to the popularity of all-in-one retro consoles, which are essentially emulators that come bundled with numerous classic games. With few exceptions, these products are typically never properly licensed and therefore considered bootleg materials.

One Italian operation specializing in the trafficking of such products has been dismantled by Turin authorities in mid-September 2024, AFP news agency reports (via France 24). Alessandro Langella, a Turin financial police official heading its economic crime unit, said that the action resulted in the authorities seizing approximately 12,000 consoles that stored over 47 million pirated video games. The confiscated products have all been imported from China for the purpose of being resold via online retailers and specialized retro gaming stores, the official said, adding that this helped in tracking them.

While Langella estimated that the combined value of the seized materials is in the ballpark of €47.5 million ($52.6 million), the official did not provide a breakdown of how Turin's financial police arrived at this figure. Based on the cited numbers, the recently seized batch consisted of devices that stored around 4,000 pirated titles on average. For reference, many all-in-one retro consoles that can currently be purchased stateside are priced in the sub-$100 range, including those that come with tens of thousands of games preinstalled. This would suggest that this batch of 12,000 consoles may not have generated more than a low seven-digit sum in revenue were the traffickers able to sell it, even if the total value of the licensed games that it contained was theoretically much higher.

All of the seized hardware has already been destroyed. Turin's financial police arrested nine Italian nationals as part of the operation. They have all been charged with trading in counterfeited goods and are consequently facing up to eight years in prison if found guilty. Apart from containing pirated games, another issue with the seized consoles was that they were equipped with non-certified electrical circuits and batteries that did not meet EU safety or technical standards.

A detailed list of the seized products has not been made public. However, authorities said that the now-destroyed retro consoles infringed on numerous intellectual properties, particularly those from Atari, Nintendo, and Sega. Street Fighter, Super Mario, and Star Wars retro games were among the most numerous pirated titles found on the seized devices.

A new Sony patent outlined an intriguing new prescription lens feature, potentially hinting at the company's research efforts regarding an all-new VR headset. This feature would require hardware that's not currently supported on PlayStation VR2, the current-generation VR headset from Sony.

Sales of the PlayStation VR2 waned in the months following its launch on February 22, 2023, leading many to theorize that Sony was planning to scale back its VR development efforts. Many attribute the VR headset's lackluster sales to its $549.99 price at launch and a shortage of compelling first-party and third-party titles during the launch year. In March 2024, a Bloomberg report claimed that Sony was halting production of PlayStation VR2, nearly a year after the VR headset's launch. This was due to low interest from players, leading Sony to hold onto a great amount of unsold PlayStation VR2 stock. Despite this, the VR headset has experienced a resurgence of sorts in recent months, thanks to steep discounts and the release of PlayStation's official PC adapter for PlayStation VR2.

According to a new patent from Sony, the company has researched a system that will detect prescription lenses added to a new VR headset. This patent was filed back on March 4, 2023, and made public a year and a half later, on September 5, 2024. As shown in the patent, the main goal of this system is to reduce the bulk and overall weight that comes with wearing vision correction eyeglasses and a VR headset like the PlayStation VR2 at the same time. In an effort to increase comfort and overall convenience, the system lets users insert prescription lenses into the sockets in the head-mounted device (HMD), instead of wearing traditional eyeglasses. Features like eye tracking and foveated rendering would still be supported on this new VR headset, as the HMD carries out many of the processes found in the PlayStation VR2.

It's worth noting that the headset shown in the patent is not a PlayStation VR2 headset, since Sony's current VR headset does not have a socket for interchangeable prescription lenses. It's possible that the patent could be describing a feature for an all-new revision of the PlayStation VR2 to capitalize on some of its newfound success from the summer, or the patent could be referring to a next-generation VR headset that's currently in R&D at Sony.

Despite PlayStation VR2's poor performance in its first year, the patent reassures fans that Sony is still working and trying to innovate in the VR space. Features and hardware shown in patents are not guaranteed to come to fruition, but this could be a sign that PlayStation fans may have more VR devices to look forward to in the future.

After a long time and an arduous legal process around two of his cars, Twitch star xQc has reportedly had a $500,000 lawsuit against former partner Adept dismissed by a judge. The long-standing legal battle between the Twitch streamer and his ex-girlfriend has made several headlines over the last few months.

Ever since their separation in 2022, the couple has been in the spotlight, as many elements of their relationship have arisen and been made known to the public through their legal issues. Many of the lawsuits revolve around xQc's McLaren and other assets, and it appears that, after a long period of deliberation, he's finally received an answer regarding this.

In a recent Q&A, xQc was asked about the status of his supercar lawsuit against Adept, to which he responded that it had reportedly been dismissed. According to the Twitch star, the McLaren was deemed a frozen asset, which means it could not be transferred to anyone but him. He also stated that Adept had taken it and sold it under the radar to pay for legal fees of her own, which he quickly pointed out to be illegal. This isn't the first time xQc has been amid controversy, as he's also been under the spotlight for his $100 million Kick deal and the questioning of its legitimacy by celebrities like Logan Paul.

xQc also clarified that he was suing Adept for both his McLaren 720s Spider and his BMW X6M Competition, but only one car had been included on file. This resulted in a tedious lengthening of the legal process, as the lawsuit had to be redrafted and resubmitted to include both assets and correct the original mistake.

With over 12 million followers on Twitch, many of his fans have stated that xQc could buy his supercars again without too much trouble, as he recently revealed to them that he'd spent a whopping $151,000 on Steam. However, the combined worth of both xQc's McLaren 720s Spider and BMW X6M Competition is somewhere in the $500,000 range, so, understandably, he would want to get them back or at least be made whole for that amount.

While he appeared a bit discouraged in the recent Q&A where he gave his followers updates regarding the lawsuit, he also said that he's already won two cases against Adept. The streamer closed by saying that he's willing to bide his time and won't give up on the supercar lawsuit, even if it takes longer than he'd like.

Sony’s just-announced PlayStation 5 Pro console will also offer performance improvements for PlayStation VR2 games.

That’s according to architect Mark Cerny, who told Cnet that the $700 console’s improved GPU power will allow for higher-resolution games on PSVR 2.

Eventually, PS5 Pro’s AI-assisted upscaling mode, called PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution, will also work on PSVR 2 games in the future, according to Cerny.

At the time of publishing, no specific PSVR 2 upgraded games have been announced and it’s not clear what kinds of improvements developers would make.

PS5 Pro will launch on November 7, 2024, with a manufacturer’s suggested retail price of $699.99 / £699.99 / €799.99 / ¥119,980.

According to a report earlier this year, Sony had paused production of PlayStation VR2, just one year after launch, so that it could deal with a backlog of unsold units.

PlayStation VR2 was released in February 2023 at a price of $549.99 / £529.99, but Sony has still yet to officially confirm how many units it has sold to date.

The PlayStation VR2 is getting PC support next month. The PlayStation VR2 headset PC adapter will be required.

We have good and bad news for Sonic Adventure fans. Well, we actually have two rounds of bad news, so let's get that out of the way first: Sonic Adventure 3 isn't in development right now, and the team doesn't think a solo Chao Garden game would work.

The good news? Sonic Team head Takashi Iizuka would "love" to make Sonic Adventure 3 at some point. This comes from an interview with VGC, in which Iizuka touched on the possibility of a third Sonic Adventure game after all of these years.

The possibility of another Sonic Adventure game came up when Iizuka was shooting down the idea of a Chao Garden spin-off.

"It’s not a standalone game, it’s integrated into the whole Adventure series gameplay, so we can’t just break it off and make it a thing," says Iizuka. "If you’re asking for Chao Garden and Adventure 3, then that’s pretty much asking for Adventure 3."


Of course, many fans are asking for Sonic Adventure 3, to which Iizuka has more positive thoughts to share. "I think at some time I’d like to say ‘Hey, yeah, we’re making Adventure 3’, but we don’t have plans for that yet," he explains. "It’s just one of those things that, if the stars align and it can all happen, then yeah, we’d love to make it."

So, if we get Sonic Adventure 3, then it's looking like we'll get another Chao Garden as well. But we also know that one was considered for Sonic Frontiers before being scrapped, so it's possible that future non-Adventure games will include one too.

In the meantime, the next game will be Sonic X Shadow Generations, which launches on October 25.

#sonic #team

We have good and bad news for Sonic Adventure fans. Well, we actually have two rounds of bad news, so let's get that out of the way first: Sonic Adventure 3 isn't in development right now, and the team doesn't think a solo Chao Garden game would work.

The good news? Sonic Team head Takashi Iizuka would "love" to make Sonic Adventure 3 at some point. This comes from an interview with VGC, in which Iizuka touched on the possibility of a third Sonic Adventure game after all of these years.

The possibility of another Sonic Adventure game came up when Iizuka was shooting down the idea of a Chao Garden spin-off.

"It’s not a standalone game, it’s integrated into the whole Adventure series gameplay, so we can’t just break it off and make it a thing," says Iizuka. "If you’re asking for Chao Garden and Adventure 3, then that’s pretty much asking for Adventure 3."


Of course, many fans are asking for Sonic Adventure 3, to which Iizuka has more positive thoughts to share. "I think at some time I’d like to say ‘Hey, yeah, we’re making Adventure 3’, but we don’t have plans for that yet," he explains. "It’s just one of those things that, if the stars align and it can all happen, then yeah, we’d love to make it."

So, if we get Sonic Adventure 3, then it's looking like we'll get another Chao Garden as well. But we also know that one was considered for Sonic Frontiers before being scrapped, so it's possible that future non-Adventure games will include one too.

In the meantime, the next game will be Sonic X Shadow Generations, which launches on October 25.

#sonic #team #head #would #love #to #make #sonic #adventure