The first episode of Telltale Games’ The Wolf Among Us hits Xbox 360 and PC on Friday (October 11) and the publisher today released a revealing launch trailer for the sport.

The game is predicated at the popular Vertigo Fable comics. Bigby Wolf, the Sheriff of Fabletown, stands out as the main character inside the game. Players will use the Wolf’s powers to check out and protect his fellow fairy tale characters, making decisions along the manner with a view to affect outcomes in future episodes.

The Wolf Among Us is Telltale’s first new adventure game since last year’s surprise hit, The Walking Dead. Returning to the comic world is smart for the publisher, and the art style seen inside the trailer certainly matches the sector of Fables well.

However, the strength of The Walking Dead adventure game was its spectacular writing and characterization. Without those things, The Wolf Among Us could find yourself being in the direction of Telltale’s Jurassic Park: The sport than last year’s award-winning offering.

For years, the console cycle was predictable. Nintendo, Sony and whoever else would release a console, wait five years after which release a brand new one. This past generation, however, has completely destroyed that idea with a console cycle that has lasted eight years. Some may feel that long console cycles will now be the norm, but GameStop’s CEO doesn’t see it that way.

CNET recently had an opportunity to speak with GameStop CEO Paul Raines concerning the upcoming console shift to the PS4 and Xbox One. He predicted that we’ll see the successors to the PS4 and Xbox One sooner in place of later. In actual fact, he says that new consoles must pop out a “greater frequency” in the event that they would like to remain relevant in the house.

It’s an attractive concept, but a pricey one. Consoles cost handsome profit to make, and releasing one every two to a few years as opposed to the established five to seven would make little financial sense. Manufacturers like Apple, Samsung and others can iterate on their devices yearly because of their ability to sell the devices at an incredible mark up above the particular cost. Game consoles however are most commonly sold at a loss at launch, and make up for it with software sales. If game consoles went for biannual iterations, the software sales just wouldn’t be there to prop up the hardware losses.

All of this just makes the new revelation of Steam machines much more desirable to these seeking out a AAA gaming experience inside the lounge. With a Steam machine, you pay a high upfront cost for high-of-the-line hardware, after which you could continually upgrade said hardware through the years as new components are released.

This PC-centric solution to console gaming may very well be what the longer term holds for Microsoft and Sony. It’s been suggested by some industry figures and analysts that this upcoming generation would be the last – not less than in a normal sense. The price of producing customized game hardware has now gotten to a degree where it only is sensible for Sony, Microsoft and others to construct and sell PCs that buyers can then upgrade as they see fit.

We can save that discussion for the long run though. For now, the PS4 and Xbox One would be launching next month to not less than 1,000,000 preorders for the previous. Raines says that’s going to translate to produce shortages. That’s only healthy for the industry, and GameStop especially, because the retailer makes about $1 billion a year in console sales. With this latest generation, it’s expecting to look a large bump in revenue because of the pent up demand for brand spanking new consoles.

[Image: Wikimedia Commons]

There are still weeks to head before the discharge of Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, but Ubisoft today began detailing its DLC plans for the title. The primary DLC for the sport may be titled Freedom Cry! and tells the backstory of a key Black Flag character.

Players will tackle the role of Adewale, the crew quartermaster in Black Flag, before he joins the key character’s crew. The content will turn up in Port au Prince, where Adewale will organize former slaves right into a Maroon resistance force. Players may also get to regulate a brand new fully-customizable ship commanded by Adewale. A live-action teaser trailer for the content provides some pretty strong imagery depicting Adewale’s past:

Ubisoft is, after all , offering a “season pass” deal for upcoming Assassin’s Creed DLC content. As well as Freedom Cry, the Black Flag season pass comes with extra weapons, ship customizations, in-game clothing, and additional multiplayer character models. Freedom Cry is made from 9 single-player missions and no further single-player DLC story content was announced or included inside the season pass offer.

Mad Catz is a reputation that many aged-school gamers will go along with subpar third-party accessories while modern fighting game fans love the corporate for its high-quality fight sticks. Both probably never thought the corporate will be getting in the console business though.

Mad Catz announced today that it’ll be officially entering the micro-console market on December 10 with the M.O.J.O. The $250 micro-console will join the likes of the Ouya and Nvidia Shield in trying to convince consumers that playing mobile games on TVs is somehow preferred over their native home on mobile devices.

“The M.O.J.O. Micro-Console for Android has attracted strong interest through its high-performance hardware, open software platform and the ecosystem of accessories,” said Darren Richardson, the President and Chief Executive Officer of Mad Catz Interactive, Inc. “M.O.J.O. is the centerpiece of our GameSmart mobile initiative and brings core gaming experiences to the mobile platform.”

So, what’s this “high performance hardware” that Richardson speaks of? In any case, the Ouya claimed an analogous thing, and its Tegra 3-based chipset has only proven to be a hurdle in bringing mobile games to the large screen. Well, the M.O.J.O. should be one upping the Ouya with a Tegra 4 CUP clocked at 1.8GHz, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of internal storage, HDMI out capabilities and a microSD slot with support for as much as 128GB flash carts. It also runs on Android 4.2.2 so it will become ready to make the most all however the most advanced mobile graphics technologies.

Even with those specs, will it’s enough to convince folks that this micro-console thing isn’t only a fad? It’s hardware is surely in a position to playing some pretty games, and its controller doesn’t look cheap. Beyond that, its only real defining feature is that it would stream PC games out of your PC to the lounge. So that it will certainly excite some PC gamers, but a lot of them will probably watch for the presumably more cost-effective SteamOS-powered streaming machines.

Still, when you’re captivated by Mad Catz foray into the micro-console space, you could look at more details here.

[Image: Mad Catz]

A game like Call of Duty doesn’t just need dedicated servers – it requires them. Unfortunately, dedicated server support was spotty over the last few games, with the console versions of contemporary Warfare 3 not supporting them. Infinity Ward’s latest game won’t repeat an analogous mistake.

Mark Rubin, Executive Producer at Infinity Ward, took to Twitter on Monday to announce that decision of Duty: Ghosts would have dedicated server support on every platform:

I desired to give a brief update on one of the vital work that was done to enhance everyone’s online experience. We’ve already mentioned dedicated servers as element of the whole plan to enhance connectivity. Dedicated servers can be used on current gen, next gen and PC with Ghosts. And, with the intention to guantee that people have the very best experience despite platform, location or connection, Ghosts can be using a hybrid system of dedicated servers and listen servers. So regardless of where you’re the game will always be attempting to provde the best online performance possible. There’s also some great new tech within the matchmaking system as a way to place players in matches which have the appropriate combined overall connectivity performance. Again these are only a number of the things which are going into Call of Duty: Ghosts to provide players an effective online experience. Can’t wait to determine you all online.

This is excellent news for the decision of Duty fan, and shooter fans commonly. Supporting dedicated servers on every platform is a giant undertaking, but one who fans deserve. Hopefully this translates to more developers adding dedicated server support to their games sooner or later.

And what of Call of Duty: Ghosts primary rival – Battlefield 4? Well, DICE is performing some interesting things with dedicated servers that you’ll like to check up on here.

[Image: CALLOFDUTY/YouTube]