General Gaming Article

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• 50 Awesome TGS 2013 Pictures
• Valve's Third and Final Reveal is a Steam Controller
• Tear Filled Steve Ballmer Bids Farewell to Employees, Takes Parting Jabs at Competition
• BitFenix Announces Phenom Case for Small Form Factor Builds
• Newegg Daily Deals: LG External DVD Burner, NZXT H630 White Steel Ultra Tower, and More!
• Dell Stops Selling XPS 10 Windows RT Tablet

50 Awesome TGS 2013 Pictures Posted: 27 Sep 2013 03:48 PM PDT Pictures of Japanese booth babes, cosplayers, and more from the Tokyo Game Show! The 2013 Tokyo Game Show took place in Makurai Messe in Chiba City just outside of Tokyo this past weekend. The gaming expo may feel like E3 for the first two business days with only media and businessmen inside. However, it gets more jam packed than Seattle's PAX gaming convention on days three and four, as any gamer can get in for about 10 bucks US. Complete with a cosplayer area, TGS is definitely a sight to behold! To take advantage of the photogenic event, we decided to bring along a camera. We ended up snapping 50 pictures of booth babes, cosplayers, and more! Note: Make sure to click on each image for the full view! Let us know what are your favorite pics in the comments below!

Valve's Third and Final Reveal is a Steam Controller Posted: 27 Sep 2013 10:21 AM PDT Valve is coming at your living room in a big way We now know what the last of Valve's big three announcements is this week. Following the introduction of SteamOS and Steam Machines earlier this week, Valve today unveiled its Steam Controller, the last piece of the puzzle intended to get you playing PC games on your big screen TV using Linux. In making the transition to the living room, Valve is somewhat following in the footsteps of traditional consoles with a controller that looks nothing like a keyboard and mouse combination. Valve maintains that its controller, which resembles an Xbox 360 gamepad in shape, is "vastly superior" to what's out there currently. It's also been designed to work with all games on Steam, including past, present, and future titles. For older titles that don't support gamepads, Steam says it "fooled" them into thinking they're communicating with a mouse and keyboard. The Steam Controller sports dual high resolution trackpads as its base. They're also clickable, allowing the entire surface to act as a button. According to Steam, the higher fidelity input that's made possible here will be appreciated by PC gamers who are used to gaming on high resolution mice. "Trackpads, by their nature, are less physical than thumbsticks. By themselves, they are 'light touch' devices and don't offer the kind of visceral feedback that players get from pushing joysticks around," Valve explains. As we investigated trackpad-based input devices, it became clear through testing that we had to find ways to add more physicality to the experience. It also became clear that 'rumble', as it has been traditionally implemented (a lopsided weight spun around a single axis), was not going to be enough. Not even close." Valve's Steam Controller uses a new generation of super-precise haptic feedback with dual linear resonant actuators. They consist of small, strong, and weighted electro-magnets attached to each of the dual trackpads. There's a touchscreen in the center of the controller, and that too is clickable. It will be interesting to see how developers take advantage of this feature, though in its most basic form, you can expect to be able to swipe through menus and tap on various options. The Steam Controller boasts 16 buttons in all, half of which are accessible without ever lifting your thumbs. All of them have been placed symmetrically, which will be a boon to left-handed gamers who want to reverse the layout. Finally, the Steam Controller is hackable, so expect some funky mods by the gaming community and third-party developers alike. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook

Tear Filled Steve Ballmer Bids Farewell to Employees, Takes Parting Jabs at Competition Posted: 27 Sep 2013 09:25 AM PDT Nobody expected Steve Ballmer to go quietly, and he didn't Having announced his impending retirement at the conclusion of a 12-month (at the latest) search for a replacement chief, Steve Ballmer finds himself savoring several last moments. The most recent and so far the most emotional of those moments came during what is in all likelihood his last annual meeting with employees. It was essentially a farewell meeting, and it left Ballmer in tears. Some 13,000 of Microsoft's 100,000 employees were in attendance, and around 25,000 others tuned in via webcast. Outside the Seattle arena where it took place, traffic was brutal. And inside the building, an emotional Ballmer was full of energy, as he always is, entering the stage to "Can't Hold Us" by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, Reuters reports. "We have unbelievable potential in front of us, we have an unbelievable destiny," Ballmer said, repeating a quote from MIcrosoft's first employee meeting in 1983. "Only our company and a handful of others are poised to write the future. We're going to think big, we're going to bet big." He would eventually leave the stage to "(I've Had) The Time of My Life" behind a standing ovation, but not before getting in some final digs at the competition. He declared that Apple is focused on being "fashionable," Amazon tries to be "cheap," Google is all about "knowing more," but Microsoft is about "doing more." For all the criticism heaped on Ballmer for Microsoft's missteps, we have to admit, we'll miss some of his antics. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook

BitFenix Announces Phenom Case for Small Form Factor Builds Posted: 27 Sep 2013 08:21 AM PDT A case Q-Bert would have loved If you're a fan of cube shaped computer cases, you should take a look at the new Phenom line by BitFenix. The case maker says its Phenom cases sport a "sleek modern cube design" intended to blend into just about any environment, whether it's at the office or home in the living room. Outside of the cube shaped styling, there are two case options, one for mini-ITX builds and the other for micro-ATX configurations. Don't be fooled by the small size. The mini-ITX variant has enough room for a thick radiator up to 240mm in length, BitFenix says. It also has a FlexCage that can store up to five 3.5-inch hard drives or solid state drives, or remove it entirely so you can squeeze a long graphics card up to 330mm in length or additional water cooling on the front panel. Along with the 5.25-inch drive adapter and additional mounts on the side panel and PSU case, Phenom can fit up to half a dozen 3.5-inch HDs or 11 SSDs. There are also five fan locations and room for a tower CPU up to 175mm high. The micro-ATX version has five PCI slots and can accommodate dual graphics cards in SLI or CrossFire. Like the other Phenom, it's water cooling friendly and has ample room for hard drives and SSDs. Both cases will be available in October. No word yet on price. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook

Newegg Daily Deals: LG External DVD Burner, NZXT H630 White Steel Ultra Tower, and More! Posted: 27 Sep 2013 06:34 AM PDT Top Deal: All it takes is for one cloud outage or data breach to serve as a reminder why local backups are still relevant. The problem is, most laptops these days don't ship with an optical drive, so if you're sitting on stacks of unused discs, you might as stock up on drinks and use them coasters. Alternately, have a look at today's top deal for an LG USB 2.0 External Super Multi DVD Rewriter (GE24NU40) for $40 with free shippping (normally $60 - use coupon code 0924CLRNCE299; additional $7 mail-in-rebate). This drive can sit vertically or horizontally and it supports LightScribe, too. Other Deals: Acer S236HLtmjj 23" 6ms LCD Monitor w/ Built-in Speakers for $150 with free shipping (normally $160 - use coupon code: [ACERIPS23]) NZXT H630 White Steel Ultra Tower Silent Case for $140 with free shipping (normally $150 - use coupon code: [0924CLRNCE81]) Crucial Ballistix Tactical 8GB 240-Pin DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory for $73 with free shipping (Extra savings with promo code: [DYMEM15P]) Seagate Momentus 500GB 7200 RPM 2.5" Internal Notebook Hard Drive Retail kit for $65 with free shipping (Extra savings with promo code: [DYMHDD10])

Dell Stops Selling XPS 10 Windows RT Tablet Posted: 27 Sep 2013 05:33 AM PDT Microsoft Surface RT is now the only Windows RT device on the market The Dell XPS 10 Windows RT tablet is no longer available from the PC vendor's website and the now-private company is recommending  the Windows 8-running Latitude 10 instead to anyone who comes looking for the former. With Samsung, Lenovo and Asus having already given up on the struggling platform, this is probably the last thing Microsoft needed at this point. From Microsoft's point of view, the timing couldn't have been worse. On the heels of the announcement of only its second Windows RT device, the Tegra 4-powered Surface 2, Microsoft has to suffer the embarrassment of being the only company to still have an RT device on the market. That being said, Dell has yet to make it clear whether this is indeed the end of its Windows RT stint, or if it's simply making way for a successor to the XPS 10.  All it is willing to say at this stage is this: "We're going to be announcing our full tablet portfolio at the event in New York next week [October 2, 2013] and will be providing full details then."  But the chances of Dell unveiling a Windows RT tablet at the upcoming event — or at any event in the foreseeable future for that matter — remain slim. "I just don't see why you would stop selling your existing product until the new product comes out," Jack Gold, principal analyst at J. Gold Associates, told PCWorld. Follow Pulkit on Google+

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