Paragon deserved better. Epic Games’ recently shuttered title looked like a third-person shooter, but it was all MOBA under the hood. That might not seem like an argument in its favor, as conventional wisdom says the MOBA genre is oversaturated and already behind the multiplayer curve. This gorgeous contender was a bit different, however. It learned from the mistakes of similar abandoned projects and constantly shot for something just a little bit different from mainstays like League of Legends and Dota 2. That drive to find its own niche should have been Paragon’s greatest strength, but it might have ended up as the game’s greatest weakness.

Now Epic has moved onto bigger, more profitable, and arguably better things with Fortnite: Battle Royale, the biggest thing in the gaming world since the last biggest thing in the gaming world. The 100-player slugfest is certainly more popular than Paragon’s relatively staid five-on-five battles—especially based on rumors that few people were still playing by the end.

The more I play Fortnite, though, the more I see a lot of Paragon’s DNA.

Blizzard Entertainment just released Rialto, a new map for its hero-based first-person shooter Overwatch. Set in Venice, Italy, Rialto does a few things differently from past Overwatch maps—it has more water than any before it and uses 90° angles in tightly packed streets to create choke points in addition to narrow archways, to name a couple changes.

In this video, Overwatch Assistant Game Director Aaron Keller talks about how Blizzard approached designing the map and about the process for making Overwatch maps in general. I visited Blizzard HQ in Irvine, California, and among many other things, I asked Keller: How do you balance a map for nearly 30 characters? Do you design maps to be strong for specific characters? How do you make sure framerates stay high and the action stays fast? And do the differences between consoles and PCs affect map designs in any way?

If you want answers to all those questions and more, check out the video. Keller also revealed a hint about a new easter egg, and he explained how a fleet of small boats run by robot gondoliers saved players from getting booped into the water too much and helped keep the map balanced.

Enlarge / Imagine if the default Switch dock looked something like this?

One of the few sour notes in our initial review of the Nintendo Switch last year was for the “surprisingly flimsy” kickstand. Not only does the thin, plastic, flip-down strip on the system’s rear feel poised to snap off at the slightest pressure, but using the kickstand prevents you from simultaneously charging the system from the bottom-mounted USB port.

Nintendo seems to be acknowledging this problem after the fact, announcing a $20 Adjustable Charging Stand that will “enable longer play sessions” in tabletop mode starting July 13. Users will be able to charge the system via a USB-C plug on the side while tilting the stand “to create the best viewing angle for different environments,” according to Nintendo’s online shop listing.

Nintendo’s solution for better tabletop play comes well after a number of similar third-party stands for the Switch have hit the market, many of which retail for less than $20. The “official” stand, though, benefits from an extremely compact design and the assurance that it will conform to the Switch’s USB-C charging requirements (the stand doesn’t seem to come packaged with an extra wall charger, though).

(credit: Ars Technica/Aurich Lawson)

New statements from Electronic Arts suggest that Sony’s PlayStation 4 has sold 2.5 times as many consoles as Microsoft’s Xbox One through the end of 2017, with Sony now controlling over 70 percent of the “two-console” market worldwide.

As Variety noticed this morning, the numbers can be derived from a recent EA investor conference call, where CEO Andrew Wilson mentions “sales of current-generation consoles from Microsoft and Sony” totaling 103 million at the end of 2017. Combine that with Sony’s own reports of 73.6 million consoles sold through the end of 2017, and you get a rough estimate of 29.4 million Xbox One consoles on the market. That amounts to just under 40 percent of the PS4’s reported sales.

Even with a bit of wiggle room to account for EA’s market-size estimation methods, that’s an extremely tepid result for Microsoft’s console. The last time public estimates of the Xbox One’s installed base leaked out at the beginning of 2017, they fell in the 25 million to 30 million unit range, suggesting Microsoft sold less than five million systems in the 2017 calendar year. The PlayStation 4, meanwhile sold roughly 20 million consoles in 2017, expanding its already sizable lead in overall installed base.

Enlarge / Don’t expect to see a screen like this on the Switch.

With Nintendo offering a selection of 20 downloadable NES games as part of its newly announced Nintendo Switch Online service, starting in September, many have been wondering if the company is planning to revive its Virtual Console selection of emulated classic game downloads for the Switch as well. The answer to that question seems to be no, as Nintendo told Kotaku that “there are currently no plans to bring classic games together under the Virtual Console banner as has been done on other Nintendo systems.”

That doesn’t mean individual downloads for games from older consoles will be completely absent from the Switch, of course. Already, Nintendo offers up arcade games like Punch-Out!! and Vs. Super Mario Bros. as part of the Switch’s Arcade Archives series. Hamster has similarly released ports of a variety of Neo Geo classics on the system, and Sega has plans to do the same for many of its older titles.

But the announcement seems to cut off the possibility of the same kind of unified, system-level, one-stop clearinghouse for hundreds of emulated titles that became available on the Wii in 200  and later moved to the Wii U and 3DS under the Virtual Console name. It also seems to cut off the faint possibility that players might be able to carry forward Virtual Console purchases on previous Nintendo consoles to the Switch in the future.

Just a few more months…

First, the good news: Nintendo will finally begin offering a way for Nintendo Switch owners to back up their currently vulnerable game save data starting in September. Now, the bad news: that feature will only be offered to players who spend $20 a year for Nintendo’s first-ever paid online subscription service.

“Nintendo Switch Online,” which the company has been teasing for well over a year, will include an unexpected “Save Data Cloud Backup” feature, the company announced Monday evening. A Nintendo PR e-mail promises the feature will be “great for people who want to retrieve their data if they lose, break or purchase an additional Nintendo Switch system.” But it also warns that cloud saves will only be available “for most games,” with no details about the ones that will be left out. More details of how cloud saves will work will be available at a later date.

The subscription service will be required to play any Nintendo Switch games’ online modes from September onward. Games like Splatoon 2 and ARMS can currently be played online for free; that will change once Switch Online launches later this year.

On Monday, Oculus chief scientist Michael Abrash posted this image of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testing something at what was formerly known as Oculus Research. Now, these tests take place at Facebook Reality Labs. (credit: Oculus)

Nearly four years ago, Facebook paid roughly $2 billion to acquire the virtual reality company Oculus, yet since then, Oculus has continued operating as a formal, separate entity. All of the shared companies’ VR hardware and software have been sold and marketed under the “Oculus” brand, though sometimes with a “from Facebook” disclaimer.

That’s still the case, but Monday marked the first notable divergence from this trend. That’s when Oculus chief scientist Michael Abrash announced a pretty significant pivot. “Oculus Research has a new name—starting today, we will be known as Facebook Reality Labs (FRL),” he wrote (using Facebook, no less).

His announcement immediately assured readers that “our focus on the future hasn’t changed.” Abrash used the post to point out that FRL had already been “helping Oculus and all of Facebook create trailblazing AR [augmented reality] and VR experiences, from what’s most affordable to leading edge.” He then described a future in which mixed-reality technologies will usher in “the second great wave of human-oriented computing.” Abrash did not lean into his division’s new name and describe any upcoming products as “FR” or “Facebook Reality” experiences.

Enlarge (credit: Cyrus Farivar)

I have a love-hate relationship with Twitter.

As I write these words, I have deliberately quit out of the app on my laptop so that I don’t have the temptation to toggle over to it, indulging an eight-second distraction between typed lines of this book review. In fact, in recent months I’ve tried to become more conscious of how and where I use Twitter.

It’s just so fun and so damned useful. Twitter mainlines breaking news for addicted journalists. It’s also freakin’ hilarious at times. (I can’t get enough of @RikerGoogling, and I have a penchant for @BodegaBot, too.) But I also know that it’s an RT-laden, hashtag-driven, self-indulgent miasma that I will certainly get sucked into if I’m not careful.