players

Xbox wants to have 1 billion players a day. It’s what 25 Steam would do on their best day

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Another day in the video game industry, this Monday Microsoft announced layoffs at Xbox. 1,600 at once, five studios to make a living and another 1,600 layoffs over the next few months. To carry out the restructuring, what is known as “Xbox reset”Microsoft put Asha Sharma at the head of the company who came from one of the company’s AI divisions and who arrived with a clear mission: to break with the past. After weeks of good words, drastic decisions began and, in a release gigantic, justified the decisions of layoffs and restructuring (the consequences of which we still do not fully know, since we have been learning about layoffs in different Xbox studios for two days). There are interesting data, such as extreme bureaucracy within Xbox that had complicated things in recent years, the enormous investment in Game Pass and the fact that caught my attention the most: the number of daily players that Xbox wants. Because Sharma talks about wanting a billion people to be “entertained” with Xbox every day. And, after wondering what it means to have a billion people every day on your platform, I have only been able to come to one conclusion: I would like to see how they do it. The Xbox of a billion players and the old woman’s account I don’t say this in a defiant sense, but out of genuine curiosity. I would like to see how Xbox, or any company, for that matter, is able to bring together a billion people a day on its platform. Sharma comments that they see themselves capable of achieving that goalbut the point is that there are many more stimuli than ever and, furthermore, setting these goals only has one consequence: when they are not met, there will be more ‘resets’. Let’s go in parts. The changes they are making seek to ensure that “Xbox has a bigger future, not a smaller one.” Furthermore, he notes that “the next decade of games will be bigger, more global and more creative than anything we’ve seen before.” Said like this, you may think that they are going to invest a lot (they themselves say that they are going to invest a lot, but with a better focus and discipline), but there is a problem: are there really that many players willing to be on your platform? What is an Xbox? Answering the first question, players… there are. We are more than 8,000 million people throughout the world and esteem what’s there around 3 billion people who play video games. This in total, not on a daily basis and, furthermore, you must keep in mind that everything is mixed here: the accounts include everything from the most ‘Eat’ of ‘Call of Duty’ to your grandfather who plays ‘Candy Crush’ or a Facebook game. Responding to the second, Sharma says they want a billion people entertained with Xbox. And not only those who have a console count (whose sales are quite poor), but also those who play from PC and Xbox games on Steam and platforms like PS5. That is, everything that has the Xbox seal. That said, let’s tell why one billion people seem to get it “easy” Yes, you have so many franchises and you are present everywhere, but things get complicated if we put the magnifying glass on the few games that can really help the company achieve those figures. They are all estimates, but we would talk about 110 million monthly players in ‘Minecraft’, between 70 and 90 million (counting mobile phones) monthly in ‘Call of Duty’ and between 200 and 300 million players diaries in ‘Candy Crush’. There we see the dimension of mobile games, really, and how they crush those on more traditional platforms. ‘World of Warcraft’ too would enter there, with about 9 million monthly players. These are figures that many companies would like, but they are far from those 1,000 million a day that Sharma points to. To further contextualize, Steam, which is another of the huge video game platforms, had its historical peak of players a few months ago, reaching more than 42 million. In the last 24 hours, almost 39 million people connected and, as we see in graphs like Steamdb, they are very stable… and in growth. Well, Sharma wants the same as they would get 25 Steams every day. As a player, I would love to have so many people because it would allow, perhaps, the industry to be somewhat more sustainable because there would be many more players among which smaller studios could find their place to grow, but the problem I see with these accounts is that, publishing that you want there to be 1,000 million people on your platform, the only result (the most likely, at least) is failure. And when you fail in such a large company when you have set this as an objective, the manager is not the one who pays the bill: it is the employees. It’s something we see constantly and We come from three years of constant layoffs in the industry to be optimistic about the issue. What we have seen these days is that they are changing the strategy in that sense. They are releasing the smaller studios that do not sell to bet on what makes money. An example is King (‘Candy Crush’) and Mojang (‘Minecraft’), which They will report directly to herwith Sharma being the one who will make the decisions to achieve the objective. Another thing is whether people who watch the ‘Fallout’ series, a game series whose license belongs to Xbox, count as “people entertained by Xbox.” We just have to wait and see what happens, but it is evident that Xbox’s turnaround is there, releasing studios that were developing games with soul to bet on what makes money. After all, it is the objective of every company. In Xataka | The best time to buy an electronic device was yesterday. The second best time is today

Players celebrate that ‘GTA VI’ will cost 80 euros. It turns out that only the 100 euro ‘special’ is the entire game

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‘GTA VI‘ is the topic of the week in video games. Of the year, if you hurry me. The Rockstar title is a generational game and today reservations are open to get a digital version or a box that Does not include the game in physical format. That is, precisely, one of the controversies, but not the only one. The other has to do with the price. We have had rumors and leaks for months suggesting that ‘GTA VI’ was going to be the 100 euro game. Nintendo came close with the 90 euros of the ‘Mario Kart World‘, but many eyes were still on that ‘GTA VI’ whose development has been so monumental and expensive that it seemed to justify a considerable increase in price. In the end, it turned out that the game arrives for 80 euros in its standard version. But the twist is that there is a 100 euro version, one called ‘Ultimate’ that doesn’t feel like an ‘Ultimate’ edition: feels like the real ‘GTA VI’. Because this edition is not a collection of skins, as happens in other games: they are content that is unlocked as we progress through the game and are “threaded in all aspects of the story” of its protagonists, according to Rockstar itself. And it ranges from exclusive stores, items for the protagonists, vehicles of all kinds and some missions. The key to the Ultimate edition of ‘GTA VI’ On the website, Rockstar describes this edition as follows: “Welcome to Leonida, the state where anything goes. Get everything this vast world has to offer with Grand Theft Auto VI: Ultimate Edition, an exclusive collection of premium vehicles, weapons, fashion and action galore. The Ultimate Edition’s bonus content runs through Jason and Lucia’s story, discovering new items in each chapter.” We are used to the fact that when a game comes out in two editions, we have the full experience in the base edition and then an ‘Ultimate’ or ‘Complete’ edition that includes a code with skins. There may be some other element such as a vehicle or a couple of exclusive weapons, but in the end it is nothing that alters the experience too much. These contents are usually unlocked from the beginning of the adventure if we enter the code, but In the case of ‘GTA VI Ultimate’ things seem slightly different. As the company has commented, these new contents will be unlocked not all at once, but as we complete steps in the adventures of its protagonists. And that, with my experience as a player, sounds to me like content that has always been unlocked as we played, without having to pay anything else, but that now they want to pass off as additional content. Because yes, we have some different weapons, vehicles, tattoos, hairstyles and outfits, but also two car modification workshops, a new safe house in one of the areas, a store that only opens with this version and what seems like a mission or event in which we can raid the warehouse of a gang in the city to recover their merchandise. As I say, all of that sounds to me like content that, In another era, we would have been achieving with the normal course of the adventure. And for this reason, precisely, it gives rise to thinking that the ‘GTA VI’ that they had in mind from the beginning was the one for 100 euros, and that this so-called ‘Ultimate Edition’ is nothing more than the standard version, but with a cut version for 80 euros so as not to be ‘GTA’ the saga that raised the games to the 100 euro barrier. Because, in the end, no matter how much of a ‘GTA’ you are, the price of a video game matters. For example, the one that got involved when PS5 raised the price of some games up to 80 euros or when Nintendo did it a year ago with 90 euros. In fact, Rockstar must be quite happy with Nintendo for the 90 euros of ‘Mario Kart World’. And, speaking of Nintendo, another detail that gives rise to thinking that the ‘GTA VI’ “really” is the 100 euro one is the one that was set up when Nintendo launched ‘Donkey Kong Bananza‘ for 80 euros and, just a month later, it released a DLC that they most likely already had prepared for the original launch, but costing 20 euros. In practice, whoever wanted the complete game ‘dropped’ 100 euros in just a month and a half. But hey, price and controversies aside, ‘GTA VI’ is going to be a generational game. Rockstar has been cooking this work for more than a decade, which has become, possibly, the most expensive entertainment product ever created. It is a game that will not leave anyone indifferent and that, without really having many details about it, fills rivers of digital ink and a lot of content on YouTube. It also seems that they want to get rid of all the negative aspects as soon as possible so that the launch on November 19 goes as smoothly as possible. Although Rockstar must deal not only with issues such as price or differences between versions, but with much more serious things such as the denounced treatment of its workers and their rights. And if Reddit is a thermometer, it is neither hot nor cold, with users defending the decision and others questioning, precisely, that content is blocked. In Xataka | There are more and more physical video games that are paperweights. It is a tremendous problem for video games as art.

Few watches are designed by and for padel players. This is one of them, and I have tried it

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What will we have to do as padel players so that smart watches do not allow us to monitor our matches. That same question I did it to myself back in 2021, five years ago, and the film is not very different from today. Although paddle tennis is an extremely popular sport, few, almost none, are the brands that remember those of us who enjoy this sport, and those that do remember have paddle modes that do not provide any useful information. Then MWC arrived and there I discovered Mibroa Chinese brand of smart watches that seeks to differentiate itself right there, in paddle tennis. They openly acknowledged that it is not that padel is gaining popularity in China, but that they want to use this sport to enter Europe. And of course, as someone who has been playing paddle tennis since I was little, I was curious, so I decided to try one of their watches on my own wrist. During these last weeks I have been using the Mibro GS Pro2 during my matches and padel classes, and this has been my experience. Forehand, backhand, layup, small to the foot Mibro GS Pro2 | Image: Xataka As a smartwatch, the Mibro GS 2 Pro ticks almost every box. It’s big, but comfortable; The screen looks good, the battery lasts two weeks with complete peace of mind and allows you to receive notifications, calls, etc. It has, however, three problems: The operating system, which is an RTOS, moves somewhat lazily and responds a little slowly to touches and gestures. You have a connectivity problem with your mobile phone that causes notifications to stop coming in at specific times. It lacks advanced functions such as ECG or mobile payments, something that cannot be criticized since it costs 140 euros. It has serious translation problems into Spanish, both in the app and on the watch. Positive part? The problem of performance, connectivity and the app could be fixed with a software updateit’s not something that worries me at all. Be that as it may, we have come here to talk about paddle tennis, so let’s get down to business. When we enter the court and activate the paddle mode, the first thing we have to do is put the watch on the same wrist as the hand with which we hold the paddle. I always wear the watch on my left wrist, but since I am right-handed, I hold the paddle with my right. This has no relevance in tennis, since the racket has no wrist ties, but in padel it is different. A paddle tennis racket has a wrist support that prevents it from flying away if our hand gets sweaty, if it slips due to a strong blow, etc. That support goes to the wrist, right where we have the watch. If it’s just a little rope, nothing happens, but if the grip is larger, as is my case, it can be a little uncomfortable. This, however, will depend on each person’s shovel. During the session, the watch measures in real time the type of stroke and the speed with which we execute it. You can actually see it live as you play. This is quite useful, especially when the hit defines the point. It helps you know if, perhaps, you have come forward with force in a defensive blow. This information, well managed, is useful, and you are going to allow me to go into coffee mode for coffee lovers. Mibro GS Pro2 | Image: Xataka Although paddle tennis seems like a sport where you hit the ball very hard, the truth is that it is not like that at all. As a general rule, a looser, well-defined stroke is more useful What a very strong blow. The weak and well-placed blow, hitting the wall or the mesh, creates more difficulty for the opponent. The strong hit, however, usually gives more opportunities. It all depends on the case, needless to say, but if you watch a professional padel game you will realize that they only hit the ball when they know very well that they are going to hit it for four (over the rear glass), for three (through the side glass) or that they are going to bring it back (the ball hits the opposite glass and returns to our court). And in fact, there is no need to spank him because, again, it is more a question of technique than strength. For the rest, they tend to use “weaker” and intentional blows. Mibro GS Pro2 | Image: Xataka And why am I telling you this? Because I, who go to weekly classes, have found it very useful review the speed applied to the blows to discover what I do well and what I do wrong. If I am volleying on the backhand and I want the ball to go to the cross net or deep to the double wall, a strong hit is of little use to me. Better a weak one. Reviewing the speed at which I hit the shot when it went well (or badly) helps me adjust future shots and memorize gestures. Coupled with the teacher’s feedback regarding posture, position and rhythm, it is valuable information. The watch detects the type of blow and its direction quite accurately. In the screenshots above you can see on the left a paddle tennis class focused on layups alternating turns of forehand and backhand; and on the right a game (which we lost, unfortunately) in which I played backhand, ergo the proportion of forehand shots is higher, the proportion of layups is too low and the proportion of lobs is too high. What does that mean? They took us out of the net very easily, they always kept us at the back and, therefore, we had little attacking capacity. The lack of context This information is useful, but if you know how to play you will know, with complete certainty, why you have won or … Read more

For the first time, Curaçao will play in a soccer World Cup. And only one of their players was born in Curaçao

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Curaçao has an area of ​​444 km2, fewer inhabitants than Almería and barely 16 years behind it. 16 years, of course, as an autonomous country after October 10, 2010 the Dutch Antilles were definitively dissolved and, with them, the vestige of centuries of colonization. More or less. Because they remain autonomous countries within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. That is to say, Curaçao, like Aruba and San Martinhave their own parliaments but depend on the Dutch force to defend their borders. They are also tied to their foreign policy. Peculiarities of a world that seems to have been left behind but that continues to remind him of the Netherlands and multitude of territories scattered around the world There was a day when the Dutch managed, administered and, of course, exploited their lands in favor of a metropolis that was thousands of kilometers away. Today those vestiges of the past are still more or less present. Between 2021 and 2023, Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema, Prime Minister Mark Rutte and King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands They took over to apologize for the exploitation and slavery of people for centuries wherever the Dutch were present. Today, the Netherlands cannot be understood without the immigrants from those territories. Nor does his team, which in the last Eurocup He participated with 16 soccer players who were children or grandchildren of immigrants African or Caribbean. But the Suriname or Aruba teams are not understood either. Of course, not to Curaçao either, the smallest country to compete in the final phase of a World Cup. globalist colonialism According to data from last year provided by the Netherlands Central Statistics OfficeOf the 18 million people who live in the country, there are more than five million people who are immigrants or children of immigrants. Of them, 2.1 million citizens are children of immigrants. Those five million people, according to FIFA regulationswould be eligible for the Netherlands if they have been residing in the country for more than five years. But of them, those more than two million people (to which the grandchildren of immigrants should be added) could also be selectable with the federation of their ancestors. They know it well in Curaçao. Of the 25 players called up for the 2026 World Cup, only one of them was born in Caribbean lands. Is Tahith ChongSheffield United player in England, born in Willemstadthe capital of the country that brings together half of the population of the entire territory. It is the result of a policy that began to be planted years ago and that has now germinated with the most attended World Cup in history. Opening participation to 48 teams was the perfect opportunity for Curaçao. With three nations such as Mexico, the United States and Canada already classified as hosts, Concacaf went from 3.5 World Cup berths to 6.5 (the “seventh” was played in the play-off with an African team). It was now or never. They explain in elDiario.es that the project was born from the hand of Gilbert Martina, president of the federation, who attracted Patrick Kluivert, a former FC Barcelona soccer player whose mother was from Curacao, to contact Dutch soccer players of Caribbean descent. And the project succeeds. He succeeds so much that today We only have one player born in Curaçao representing Curaçao. With three additional spots open for the North American and Caribbean Confederation, the opportunity to play in a World Cup was very attractive for those who decided to take a plane to play against Jamaica in a life or death final in Kingston and defend a tie that gave them a ticket to the most attractive competition in the world of football. The attraction of the project is evident in the statistics books. Of the 10 players who have played the most games for Curaçao since their emancipation as an independent team in 2011, nine are Dutch. The company has also raised interest among coaches. Since the arrival of Patrick Kluivert as coach in 2015, eight of the nine coaches have also arrived from the Netherlands, with a single exception from Curacao. Wearing the Curaçao shirt was the express (and only) ticket to reach a World Cup for these players, most of whom were unknown to the general public and undoubtedly without sufficient level to be part of Ronald Koeman’s plans where they were born. In fact, only five of them play in the Dutch first division. The rest of the players are divided between the second division of major leagues such as the English one or mid-table teams of lesser-known leagues such as the Turkish, Greek or Israeli ones. Use a “wild card selection” to guarantee a ticket to a final phase of a World Cup or a major national team tournament has been a common practice for years but such a “migratory movement” has never occurred. At the 2014 World Cup It was the only match where two brothers have participated wearing different shirts despite sharing the country of birth: Jerome Boateng defending Germany and Kevin Prince Boateng doing the same for Ghana. Iñaki Williams, a player from Athletic Club de Bilbao, also participated with Ghana in the 2022 World Cup in which Nico Williams wore the Spanish shirt. This time the paths did not cross. The debate about whether or not to call the best available is a tricky one. Alberto Edjogo-Owono, a well-known Dazn commentator born in Sabadell, defended the Equatorial Guinea shirt and recognizes that there is a debate within the footballer and another within the fan. This is how it was expressed in Africa Worldto David Soler’s questions: “A moral dilemma opens up for me: ok, on the one hand it’s fine, but of course. Be careful, I don’t want to be hypocritical. I was born in Sabadell and if I had had the level to play for the Spanish team, then I would have tried to play for the Spanish team, because it is the country where I was born, where I … Read more

There are millions of squash players in the world. Unknowingly, they owe a debt to an 18th-century London prison

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If you are one of the 20 million of people who practice squash in the world you owe a debt to the bankrupt British of the 18th century. The reason is very simple: several centuries ago those held in the fleet prison (London) because of their debts, they devised a game to kill time that was played with a ball, racket and wall. Over time that hobby, “rackets”became popular and led to a somewhat more sophisticated (and prestigious) version among the students of Harrow School that laid the foundations for what we know today as squash. All thanks to bill-stifled Londoners. The pleasure of hitting a ball. Maybe they didn’t do it like Alcaraz, but our ancestors they already enjoyed of the pleasure of hitting balls with spin. In fact they did it even before the Dutch invented the racket. in the 15th century. We know that almost a millennium ago French children entertained themselves with he game of paumea game that consisted of throwing leather or cloth balls filled with sawdust against the walls, and the monks also entertained themselves in a similar way in the cloisters, sometimes hitting the ball with branches. Over time the game was refined until it became tennis, a sport that caught on in Great Britain and soon fascinated the Tudors. It is said that Henry VIII (1481-1547) had courts built in all his palaces. Also that around 1600 in Paris there could be at least 250 courts. The success of the game was not only measured by its popularity at court or the number of clues. The old one game of paume It also led to different games, with their own styles and rules, such as he fivesor much later racquetball. Athletes behind bars. At the beginning of the 18th century, the love for tennis took root even in fleeta former London prison. Perhaps fed up with seeing hours pass by between walls and bars, its inmates created their own version of the fivesa fairly simplified one that was played they had it on hand in prison: a small ball (similar to those used in golf) of rolled cloth and a racket. The game ended up being known as ‘racquets’ or “rackets” and its dynamics were simple. The players were dedicated to hitting the ball against a wall. A special prison. It may sound strange, but the truth is that Fleet was not any prison. And not only because of its age, which can date back to 12th century. Murderers, rapists and thieves did not sleep in their cells. Not at least in the 18th century, when prison was reserved for people convicted of debt or having committed contempt before certain courts. In the 1770s John Howarda philanthropist who wrote the treatise ‘State of Prisons in England and Wales’, visited Fleet and left us this snapshot about life within its walls: “The prisoners play bowling in the yard, the mississippihe fivestennis… And not just the prisoners. I saw among them several butchers and others from the market, who are admitted as in another tavern.” Why is it so important? Because the ‘racquet’the game that had worked so well in Fleet or King Bench, soon spread throughout Great Britain. Far from being seen as a stigmatized sport, typical of prisoners and ruined men, it began to be practiced in the courtyards of taverns and alleys. Special fields were even built. The hobby spread so much that we know that in 1830 The Royal Artillery built a covered track in Woolwich so that its soldiers could play games even on stormy days. And then came Harrow School. One of the places where the racquet and fives was Harrow Schoola prestigious boarding school founded in the 16th century in the London borough of Harrow, northwest of the city. It was there that what we know today as squash would come to fruition. His students used to play in the courtyard outside the main building, a corner with side walls and a front wall, although they soon adapted the rules to their tastes. For example, they replaced the rigid balls that were used until then with rubber ones. It was not a minor detail. The new balls, hollow and larger, influenced the dynamics of the game, its rhythm… and opened the doors to squash. A sport with hook. “At first squash was a sport exclusive to Harrow. Like other private schools with their particular sports, it only existed in their school,” they explain from the International Squash Federation. That didn’t take long to change. As they went on holiday, with their balls and rackets, or simply graduated and left boarding school, Harrow students spread their love of squash to the rest of the country. Over time, other British schools and organizations ended up adopting that game devised between the walls of Harrow and the courtyard of an old prison. What was Fleet’s actual role? Some authors, such as JR Atkins, consider that in reality racquets and tennis are so similar that “it is impossible to separate them historically”, which would reduce the weight of Feels’ role. In any case, most accounts agree that the British prison played a relevant role in the development of the game and helped it become popular in taverns and other venues in the country. The final development of the game (and its respectability) was the merit of Harrow School, but even so the contribution of the Feel convicts is recognized for example World Squashthe Oxford University or the IOC. “At some point in the early 19th century the obsession with rackets and balls gave rise to another variant of this sport in a place as unusual as Fleet Prison,” explains Ted Wallbutton of the World Squash Federation (WSF). “The Fleet prisoners, mostly debtors, exercised by hitting a ball against the walls, of which there were many, with rackets. Thus began the game of ‘Rackets’. By some strange path they led to Harrow and other select English schools around 1820, and it … Read more

Nvidia reacts to criticism of DLSS 5 from players and press

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Nvidia introduced DLSS 5 at GTC 2026 as its biggest graphics advancement since ray tracing. In a matter of hourstechnology became the biggest meme generator of the year and turned the entire gaming community against it. After the criticism, the CEO of Nvidia has come to justify the company’s decisions. Spoiler: the situation has not improved. Almost unanimous rejection. Nvidia presented DLSS 5 at GTC 2026 as an evolution that goes beyond upscaling traditional. The system analyzes the color and motion vectors of each frame and applies an AI model to generate photorealistic lighting and materials anchored to the game’s original 3D data. However, a good part of the community and professionals industry called DLSS 5 “AI slop.” The examples used by Nvidia as a demonstration have been the spearhead of these problems: Grace Ashcroft from ‘Resident Evil Requiem’ with more pronounced cheekbones, fuller lips and uniform skin, or characters from ‘Starfield’ who gain facial resolution but at the cost of aesthetic coherence… A fundamental error that came from assuming that “more photorealistic” is equivalent to “better”, when decades of video game design point in a direction that is, at the very least, complementary. Nvidia’s response. Jensen Huang responded to the controversy during a question session in GTC 2026 itself, in what was the CEO’s first public reaction to the general unrest. His words left no room for ambiguity: “Well, first of all, people are completely wrong.” Their technical argument was that, according to Huang, DLSS 5 combines developer-created geometry and textures with generative AI, leaving control in the hands of art teams. Developers can adjust the model to fit the intended art direction, rather than handing that process over entirely to AI. The manager insisted that It’s not about post-processing at the frame level.but rather generative control at the geometry level, what Nvidia calls “content-controlled generative AI”, adding generative capacity over the game’s existing geometry without altering artistic control. Huang added that studios can also explore stylized or non-photorealistic results depending on the type of game they want to build, and that players who don’t want to activate DLSS 5 they can just ignore it and continue with current scaling techniques. Bethesda supported that position. The study clarified that what was shown was a very preliminary version. Calculation errors. There were those who pointed out that the presentation of DLSS 5 in the middle of a keynote mostly dedicated to the cloud and enterprise AI, before an audience already extremely polarized with AI, turns Huang’s statements into ammunition that will be repeated until Nvidia manages to convincingly explain what DLSS 5 is and why gamers and developers need it. Comparisons have been read to Apple’s “Antennagate” (when the company’s response to criticism was perceived as arrogance): being right and communicating it poorly is like not being right. What’s behind. PC Gamer also points to a deeper debate: if it was previously possible to modify the graphical style of a game through adjustments or mods, hardware-assisted generative AI represents a shortcut controlled by large technology companies that could radically transform how artistic authorship is perceived in video games. It remains to be resolved whether when games arrive that have integrated DLSS 5 from the beginning and with a defined artistic direction they will change that perception. There it will be detected, without a doubt, who in this entire battle was really wrong. In Xataka | NVIDIA is going to spend $4 billion on photonics companies. He is preparing for what is coming

Pokémon Go brought millions of players to the streets. Millions of players who were actually training an AI

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In 2016 it came to the mobile market Pokémon Goa spinoff of the popular entertainment franchise with a very interesting premise: capture Pokémon in your city using your cell phone’s GPS. The game caught on very quickly and became a phenomenon. It’s been almost 10 years since that and Niantic, its developer, has taken advantage of all the data that millions of players have been giving them to guide delivery robots through the cities. Your first client: Coco Robotics. The business that no one saw coming. The amount of information that can be obtained from Pokémon Go is truly impressive, since millions of people have voluntarily traveled the world with their mobile phones in order to capture (digitally) this type of creatures. And each game leaves an invisible trace, since there are millions of photos of buildings, squares and streets labeled with very precise coordinates that would not have been possible without the information provided by its users when playing. Five hundred million people installed the app in its first 60 days, according to Brian McClendonCTO of Niantic Spatial. Eight years later, the game still has more than 100 million players in 2024, according to data from Scopely, the company that acquired Pokémon Go from Niantic that same year. The problem that GPS does not solve. GPS devices become a bit silly when they have to operate on sidewalks and much of the urban fabric that does not correspond to the road. Signals bounce between skyscrapers, tunnels and viaducts and the margin of error can be up to 50 meters, enough to place a robot on the wrong sidewalk or the next street. “The urban canyon is the worst place in the world for GPS,” affirms McClendon. Coco Robotics, a startup that operates nearly 1,000 delivery robots in cities such as Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami and Helsinki, knows this well, as its devices operate precisely in those dense areas where the signal is never reliable. This is where Niantic Spatial comes in. In May 2024, Niantic separated its spatial and artificial intelligence division. created Niantic Spatial as an independent company. Its core product is a visual positioning system (VPS) trained with 30 billion urban images, capable of placing a device on the map with a precision of a few centimeters from a handful of photos of the environment. The key is that these images come from millions of points of interest in Pokémon Go and Login (the company’s pre-Pokémon Go AR game, released in 2013). In such popular games, players have for years been directed to photograph the same place from different angles, at different times and in different weather conditions. “We had over a million locations around the world where we can locate you to the nearest centimeter and, more importantly, know where you are looking,” explains McClendon. What this changes for robots. Coco Robotics has been the first partner to adopt this technology. Its robots, equipped with four cameras, will combine conventional GPS with Niantic Spatial’s VPS to position itself more accurately, especially in pickup areas in front of restaurants and in delivery to the customer’s door. According to Zach Rash, CEO of Coco, the goal is meet delivery times promised and not depend on margins of error that in practice mean arriving late or to the wrong place. The model already solves one of the most practical challenges of urban robotics: performing well where conventional systems fall short. Beyond the distribution. John Hanke, CEO of Niantic Spatial, talks about what he calls a living map: a hyper-updated simulation of the real world that updates as robots move through it and provide new data. The idea is not only that the maps are more accurate, but that they are designed for machines, not people. This involves adding descriptions of each element of the environment, its properties, its context. “This era is about building useful descriptions of the world for machines to understand,” says Hanke. In that sense, Niantic Spatial differs from other bets on world models, such as those of Google DeepMind or World Labswhich focus on generating virtual environments. Niantic Spatial wants to replicate the real world as it is. In Xataka | OpenClaw changed the rules of the AI ​​race. Technology companies already have their answer: copy it

For decades, the “00000” has fascinated Christmas Lottery players. The reason: the King’s Number

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All the Lottery numbers They have the same chance of winning the Christmas prize, but not all of them generate the same interest or are surrounded by the same halo of fascination. Perhaps one of the most enigmatic is the “00000”. And it is because the doubts it raisesquestions that resurface every December just like the nougats in the supermarkets, the perfume ads on TV or the LED lights in Vigo. Does it really exist? Can it be purchased? And above all… Is it true that it is the number that gives Lotteries and Betting from the State to the Royal House? There are those who are so sure of the latter that they even refer to “00000” as “The King’s Number”although (spoiler) it is not actually founded. Is 00000 played? Yeah. In the Christmas raffle they play 100,000 numbers different. From 00000 to 99,999. Both included. In fact, a quick search arrives to confirm that the first issue on the list has been sold this year in half a dozen of branches in Cádiz, Las Palmas, La Rioja, Valencia and Murcia. After all, there is nothing written about tastes (and superstitions): there are those who see 00000 as an ‘ugly’ number, a combination to avoid with little chance of receiving the jackpot, and those who bet their 20 euros on it as the winning horse. Have you ever played? No. Not at least if we’re talking about El Gordo or millionaire prizes, although that doesn’t make 00000 a special number either. Although the National Lottery traces its origins to 1812 (when the biggest prize amounted to 8,000 pesos) and the Christmas draw began to become popular 133 years agoin reality there are not so many numbers graced with El Gordo. That doesn’t mean that 00000 hasn’t made more than one person’s day (or Christmas). In 2014 he achieved a stones of 120 euros. It may not seem like a big deal, but that year the same administration in Logroño had sold 160 lucky tickets, leaving money in the pockets of its clients. 19,200 euros. In 1828 luck also happened to him. That year the lucky number was 00523. To many the figure may not be attractive because it is too ‘low’, but the truth is that the drums do not understand low or high numbers. Lotteries remember that Gordo touched figures between 0 and 10,000 61 times, 70 times to bills from 10,001 to 30,000 and 64 times to combinations ranging from 30,001 to 66,000. The King’s Number? One of the most famous myths about 00000 is that, precisely because it is the first in the numerical sequence, State Lotteries and Betting reserves a special destiny for it: a gift for the Royal House. You don’t have to look hard to find articles that remember a story that in reality is nothing more than that: a story, pure urban legend. “No. It is a baseless rumor. Institutionally, no tenth is given away,” they clarified already in 2011 from Lotteries to the newspaper ABC. It is not the only occasion in which he has had to deny the hoax. “No tenth with the number 00000 is given to the king for the Christmas draw,” insist to RTVE. The best proof is that the tenths of 00000 can be found in various administrations in the country and in 2014 the media even they interviewed to one of the winners with the 120 euro stone. Curiously, she decided to play that number and not another because she was convinced that it was the one they used in Zarzuela. Curious, commented… Feared? 00000 not only generates expectation for its history and myths. There is another detail that arouses the curiosity of Christmas Lottery lovers. In case he wins the first prize, if chance showers him with millions of euros… How the hell would it be sung? Would we hear the children of San Ildefonso hum “zero thousand zero hundred zero zero”? Would you opt for a simpler formula? theEconomist assures that 00000 would simply be sung as “zero”, without further flourishes. Although another thing (of course) is that their nerves play tricks on them on the 22nd. Images | SELAE 1 and 2 and Royal House In Xataka | ChatGPT You have the same chance of hitting the Lottery Jackpot as a witch reading the guts of a crow

The first video game made entirely with AI comes to Steam. The players’ rejection has been almost unanimous.

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The video game industry receives a controversial experiment that some already describe as dystopian, although in reality it has much of a privileged look at a reality that is, potentially, around the corner. ‘Codex Mortis‘ is a title that is openly presented as the first video game developed entirely using artificial intelligence, which has released its demo version on Steam and has immediately unleashed a divided (but mostly hostile) response among the gamer community. What did you sew? The project, signed by a developer who signs with the pseudonym Grolaf, has generated controversy for its shameless proposal (a clone of the acclaimed indie hit ‘Vampire Survivors’, one of the great surprises of recent years, but replacing the delicious retropixelated aesthetic with the blurry and rough aesthetic typical of generative systems). But also, as it could not be otherwise, it has reopened the debate about the ethical and creative limits of AI in video game development. It comes at a time when major studios are facing similar accusations and sectors such as voice actors are organizing strikes against these technologies. I don’t like it. In the Steam community reviewsthe demo registers only 60% positive ratings among around thirty reviews, with comments that range between technical curiosity and, above all, outright rejection. The press has not been much more generous, and some means gives it the dubious honor of being “a foundational milestone of poorer AI.” Various websites They have collected opinions from players as strong as “games are ART. They need soul, life, virtue. Something that AI will never be able to capture”, which define the game as “machine-generated garbage.” How it was born. ‘Codex Mortis’ was developed over three months in which Grolaf exclusively used artificial intelligence tools to build all elements of the game. The developer used ChatGPT to generate the images and Claude Code to write the code. As a programming language it used TypeScript, instead of traditional engines such as Unity or Unreal Engine. The technical architecture is supported by libraries such as PIXI.js for graphics and Electron for desktop execution, a decision that apparently makes it difficult to correct errors, since the developer does not fully understand, by his own admission, how the systems generated by the AI ​​interact. The lightning that does not stop. The negative reaction to ‘Codex Mortis’ is not isolated, but the latest episode in a battle that has been shaking the industry for months. In November, for example, ‘Arc Raiders‘, Embark Studios’ extraction shooter, received a score of 2 out of 5 from Eurogamer exclusively due to its use of AI-generated voices. This rating sank the title’s Metacritic from an impressive 94 to 86, sparking a debate on whether the use of AI should be considered in critical assessments. Controversy escalated when the game received a single nomination at the Game Awards, leading many gamers to accuse the awards of deliberately punishing the title for its technology. Another case: ‘Call of Duty: Black Ops 7’ included clearly AI-generated assets (with characters with the typical six fingers, among other visual irregularities characteristic of AI). The scandal forced Activision to issue supporting statements given the disclosure policy on the use of artificial intelligence that Valve requires to include in games sold on Steam. Rejection among professionals. The State of the Game Industry 2025 survey from the Game Developers Conference reveals a drastic change in the perception of AI by professionals: just 13% of developers consider that generative AI will have a positive impact on the industry, falling from 21% the previous year. The percentage of those who see it negatively shot up from 18% to 30%. The most revealing part of the study is who adopts these tools: 50% of the professionals are from Business and Finance, followed by 40% in Production and Marketing. However, among programmers and artists, the true creators, adoption is significantly lower. 87% of developers surveyed expressed concern on the impact of AI on the industry. In Xataka | Someone put ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and other AIs to play a kind of Risk. The results could not be more different.

A change of players is already discussed, according to Politico

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Europe has looked at the sky urgently. The great new generation hunting project, the FCASlaunched in 2017, advances in a continent that faces increasingly complex security challenges and, nevertheless, enters a delicate phase. Berlin has put on the table that, if there is no agreement before the end of the year, it will study alternatives that change the photo of the program, According to politician. Spain, project partner, observes a moving board that could alter its weight in the program. France, Germany and Spain are the three pillars of the FCAS, each with an industrial partner of reference: Dassault, Airbus and Indra. The ultimate goal is to reach 2040 with a system capable of replacing current fighters and making a interoperability jump in Europe. But between that starting point and the goal is opened a permanent negotiation on who leads, what technology is shared and how the work is distributed. That debate, more political than technical, conditions each progress of the program. From plane to collaborative network. FCAS is committed to a collaborative combat model in which the tripled hunting coexists with drones and remote carriers. Coordination will arrive through a Combat Clouda cloud that ensures safe high -speed communications and that connects with other systems, from satellites to ships or units on land. Airbus is co-leader of the program and leads pillars such as the Remote Carriers and the Combat Cloud, in addition to being the main partner of the NGF demonstrator, while indrating reinforces the Spanish role in areas such as connectivity and technological integration. GCAP, the other great program. In front of the continental commitment of the FCAS, the Global Combat Air Program (GCAP) brings together Italy, the United Kingdom and Japan around a different philosophy. Its manned plane is conceived as a “quarterback”, a coordinator capable of leading formations and orchestrating operations along with drones and other systems. The design is based on five payload pillars: armament, sensors, connectivity, non -kinetic capabilities and computing. According to its promoters, it does not intend to replace the F-35but to complement it and ensure that allied forces have an advanced node in very disputed environments. Italy, the United Kingdom and Japan boost the GCAP, a sixth generation program centered on global interoperability One of the main friction points is how the work is distributed. The expected thing was a balanced scheme between France, Germany and Spain, but in Berlin the information published by specialized means according to which Dassault claimed up to 80% of the load of the load of the load of the load of the load of the NGWS. The French company has denied italthough he insists that he needs more decision margin to avoid delays. Germany defends that the contract must be fulfilled and that the distribution remains equitable, while Spain aligns with that same position. Plan B in Berlin. German frustration translates into discreet movements to explore alternatives. According to the aforementioned media, the Ministry of Defense raised Airbus the possibility of opening the project to Sweden, relying on Saab’s experience with influen’s, or even the United Kingdom, leading the GCAP. Another option is to advance from the hand of Spain if France remains row. The German Air Force, the Luftwaffe, has reported these debates to the Bundestag, the Federal Parliament, where it is already warned that the decision to continue or not with the FCAS cannot be delayed much more. The FCAS seeks a European collaborative combat system with fighters, drones and fully integrated military cloud What is Spain played. The Spanish contribution is channeled through Indrawhich seeks to strengthen its role in critical technologies of the program. In public, Berlin has remarked that he maintains full coincidence with Madrid in the distribution of work and the vision of the project. The tuning was staged last week, on September 28, when Pedro Sánchez and Friedrich Merz appeared together in La Moncloa and The German president referred to FCAS in response to a press question. The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, and the German Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, at a joint conference on September 18 “We share the opinion that the current situation is not satisfactory because we do not advance. The two (Merz and Sánchez) are talking to the French government and we both want as soon as possible that a solution is reached. There is an agreement between France, Germany and Spain on this project. We both know that we need this type of project, but we cannot continue as it is being done now.” Three scenarios on the table. According to the aforementioned medium, the immediate future of the FCAS is played between three paths. The first, reach an agreement with France to unlock governance and move on to the next phase. The second, to open the door to new partners such as Sweden or the United Kingdom, with everything that would imply in terms of integration and overlapping of programs. The third, to advance with a small nucleus in which Germany and Spain assume leadership if Paris remains firm. Each option implies different industrial and political risks. The next few weeks will be decisive. In October A meeting is scheduled of defense ministers of Spain, Germany and France to review the status of the program. All eyes will also be placed in the French representative. If you drive a commitment to Airbus, the FCAS may advance; If not, the alternatives already outlined by Germany will charge more strength. Images | Airbus | La Moncloa In Xataka | Airlines have invested millions in entertainment. Passengers use it to see an plane icon slowly moving

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