N3: Nightly News Narration – Diablo’s High Cost, Tropico PS4 Bound, & More

The price of gaming has gone up dramatically if you are a fan of the Diablo series and expecting to pick up a copy of the expansion pack Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls. The newly announced Collector’s Edition of Diablo III: Reaper of Souls is set to release with a behind the scenes DVD and two disk Blu-ray, art book, soundtrack, Diablo 3 mouse pad, a spectral hound minion, artifacts, WoW treasure Goblin pet, and StarCraft 2 portraits. What does this all cost you? A cool $79.99 for an expansion pack…

If you prefer the digital goodies only, they will run you $59.99 with the expansion or you can go with just the expansion for $39.99. 

Is it just me or is the price a bit out of control?

QuakeCon 2014, the 19th year of the show and convention, has dated themselves historically early this year. Instead of the normal August timeframe, the event will now take place Thursday, July 17 – Sunday, July 20, 2014, at the Hilton Anatole Hotel in Dallas, Texas. 

Everything is bigger in Texas and so is their BYOC (Bring Your Own Computer) LAN Party. It is the largest gathering of gaming computers in North America. QuakeCon 2014 is open to the public and attendance is FREE thanks to the support of id Software and Bethesda, the QuakeCon volunteer staff, and the 2014 event sponsors and exhibitors.
 
QuakeCon will offer plenty to do if you don’t participate in the BYOC. Bethesda will be showing off their latest and upcoming games and give players the chance to go “hands-on” with them. In addition, the world’s leading technology companies will be on site demonstrating their latest hardware and software developments. Each day of QuakeCon is packed with game presentations, contests, entertainment, announcements, panel discussions, parties and more!

CVGames and our podcast Parents Press Play will be on hand and you should join us as well in good old Dallas, Texas!

Kalypso Media announced today that Tropico 5, the next installment of the highly anticipated and critically acclaimed Tropico city-builder series, is currently in development for PlayStation 4.   Developed by Haemimont Studios, Tropico 5 will see the series come to the PlayStation platform for the first time and will take full advantage of the unique features of the PlayStation 4 hardware and controller. No word, however, was given on what those specific features are.
 
Andrew Johnson, Managing Director at Kalypso Media UK had this to say:
“We are delighted to be able to work with Sony to bring Tropico 5 to PlayStatio ®4 and enter the next generation market. The PlayStation 4 version of Tropico 5 will expand the Tropico brand to the new generation hardware and to a new generation of gamers.’
 
There is no word about a Wii U or Xbox One version. Is this a sign of the times? Will Developers and Publishers now choose only PlayStation 4 as their console to go along with the PC and Mac?

As promised, Sony has begun sending out Beta Codes for PlayStation Now to lucky gamers across North America. The beta says: “exclusive access to test PlayStation’s game streaming service before its full launch and the opportunity to provide your regular feedback to the PlayStation Now team.” It requires players to have a 5Mbps or higher broadband connection to participate in the beta. This will probably be similar to the final requirements for the service.

For those of you who want to play their older games locally, Sony is apparently working on bringing an emulator to play PlayStation One and PlayStation 2 games without the use of PlayStation Now. This means that Sony is not rolling out PlayStation One or PlayStation 2 support in PlayStation Now. They currently are only using the service to test out PS3 titles.