Amazon must have a lot of free time for gaming during its summer vacation: just a day after unveiling GameCircle as a cloud infrastructure, it’s trotting out Game Connect to make buying game content that much easier. Once it’s integrated into a title, the new platform will let customers buy content in free-to-play games, or subscribe to massively multiplayer online games, directly from their Amazon accounts — no copy-and-paste juggling involved, even if the game account has to be made on the spot. A handful of game developers have already lined up, including Super Monday Night Combat creator Uber Entertainment and World of Tanks’ Wargaming.net. If you’re engrossed in gaming enough that you’ll need 1-Click to buy virtual goods and MMO renewals that much faster, Amazon has you covered… although you may also want to slow down and relax.

SOURCE via Amazon

Traditional console makers have often sworn up and down that mobile doesn’t make money for game development. That might still be true for some developers, but you’ll get a very different answer if you ask Epic Games. Co-founders Tim Sweeney and Mark Rein have collectively described the currently iOS-only, Chair-developed Infinity Blade as the “most profitable game we’ve ever made” when considering the amount of money and time invested relative to the money coming back. Yes, that includes even the Gears of War series, which most consider Epic’s primary cash cow. Sweeney, like his long-time competitor Johh Carmack at id Software, is also taken aback by the power stuffed inside the latest generation of mobile devices — a 2012 iPad is nearer the performance of a PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360, he tells Gamasutra, and the pace is only picking up. Even more insights await in the interview with Sweeney; click below if you want a hint of what one of gaming’s pioneers has to say about where your tablets, phones and (yes) PCs are going.

SOURCE via Gamasutra

If an enthusiast-built Portal 2 turret piques your interest, Gaming Heads’ Valve-licensed miniature replica may very well force your wallet open. Modeled using Portal 2′s in-game assets and cast in “high quality poly-stone,” these mini-turrets aim to intimidate intruders with a motion activated light-up eye. In addition to the stoic and silent basic model, the company’s offering an exclusive edition, which plays sounds and voice samples from the game. Only 1,100 of these hand-painted facsimiles will be produced (350 with sound, 750 without), but the company notes that other figures based on the adorable death machines are in the works. Pre-orders have already begun, so collectors will want to act fast — provided they’re ready to pony up $300-325, of course.

SOURCE via Joystiq

Every June, Nyko outs all sorts of gaming peripherals at E3, and this year is no different. It’s latest is the ambidextrous Free Fighter arcade-style joystick for PS3 that can be set up for either left- or right-handed gamers. It can be further customized to suit button-mashers of all styles with two variable-speed turbo keys and four programmable macros to let you perform complex combos with a single press. Plus, every button’s backlit, and the whole thing comes with a detachable, expandable base to keep it from sliding around in your lap while you’re hurling hadoukens and slinging sonic booms. It’ll hit store shelves in September with $180 price tag.

We’re entering a world of mainstream 64-bit computing — whether we like it or not. Just weeks after Adobe started requiring 64-bit Macs for CS6, DICE’s Rendering Architect Johan Andersson has warned that some of his company’s 2013 games using the Frostbite engine will need the extra bits as a matter of course. In other words, it won’t matter if you have a quad Core i7 gaming PC of death should the software be inadequate; if you’re still running a 32-bit copy of Windows 7 come the new year, you won’t be playing. The developer points to memory as the main culprit, as going 64-bit guarantees full access to 4GB or more of RAM as well as better virtual addressing. Andersson sees it as a prime opportunity to upgrade to Windows 8, although 64-bit Vista and 7 (and presumably OS X, if and when Mac versions exist) will be dandy. Just be prepared to upgrade that Windows XP PC a lot sooner than Microsoft’s 2014 support cutoff if you’re planning to run the next Battlefield or Mirror’s Edge.

SOURCE via Eurogamer

Now that NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 690 is shipping through some vendors, gamers have been wondering if it’s worth the wallet-busting $999 to get those higher frame rates. Surprisingly, the answer is “yes.” As AnandTech notes, the GTX 690 is often almost as fast or faster than a pair of GTX 680s working together in SLI mode, only using less power and running at cooler and quieter power levels through those two 28-nanometer Kepler chips.

Across multiple reviewers, though, the GTX 690 was sometimes slower than two Radeon HD 7970 boards using CrossFire. HotHardware and others found that it’s definitely the graphics card of choice for Batman: Arkham City enthusiasts: problems with AMD’s CrossFire mode leave a dual Radeon HD 7970 setup running at just half the frame rate of its NVIDIA-made challenger.

Caveats? There are still some worries beyond the price tag, as the twin Radeon cards are as much as three times faster at general-purpose computing tasks than the latest and greatest GeForce. PC Perspective likewise warns that fans of joining three displays together for some 3D Vision Surround action will still take a big frame rate hit when they put the 3D glasses on.

Still, the GTX 690 looks to be tops if you’re looking to get the fastest single-card gaming on Earth, and as Legit Reviews adds, that trivalent chromium-plated aluminum makes it one of the “better looking” cards, to boot.

Reviews: via Anandtech, HotHardware, LegitReviews, PC Perspective

Razer looks to be the latest getting into the Diablo III-themed peripheral game with a special version of the Naga Hex, even if it won’t mention the click-and-slash title by name. The Wraith Red edition keeps the same six mechanically-driven side buttons as the original, but drapes the top shell and lights in an infernal red. It’s otherwise functionally similar to the Razer-green Naga Hex we had mixed feelings about last month. Gamers who like what it offers don’t have to wait for Blizzard’s action role-playing game to show, as it’s shipping now in the US for $80 and should be ready for the rest of the world by the end of the spring.

SOURCE via Razer

It helps to be free on the fastest-growing mobile platform, but that shouldn’t draw all the attention away from Rovio’s latest announcement. It’s space-based reinvention of Angry Birds has now topped 50 million downloads in under 35 days, breaking its (and presumably everyone else’s) record for mobile game downloads. In Rovios’s own way, it recently thanked eager gamers for their consistent support by slathering ten additional levels on both the iOS and Android version last week.

SOURCE via ROvio

Granted, we hope to see a new Xbox before 2014, but if NVIDIA has its way, mobile devices will have enough graphical prowess to surpass the current generation of gaming consoles by that time. The company brought the smackdown today with a chart that combines both historical and projected data, and while we don’t recall NVIDIA exiting the desktop market in 2010, it reinforces the idea that smartphones and tablets of the future may stand as thoroughly enviable gaming devices — provided that developers are willing to create enough visuals to make these things sing.

SOURCE via Anandtech

Canadian modder Brent Smith has managed to connect an aging exercise bike to Nintendo’s perennial racer. Naturally, there’s some Arduino involvement, but the whole setup plugs directly into an original SNES console — no emulation necessary. Power-ups are accessed with a button in the center of the exercise bike’s handles, each of which has a directional button for steering, while the pedals function as the acceleration button, accurate to one sixth of a rotation. According to Smith, “it’s a lot harder than it looks” — and we believe him. Watch his test-drive kart plow off-track in the video demo after the break. Read more…