Prince of Persia Remake Leaked, Payment Plans for Next-gen

GameStop offering ‘installment plans’ for Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5

Brick and mortar store chain GameStop thinks they can get into the installment plan business to make more money from the next-gen consoles.

Simply put, GameStop will offer customers three ways to buy Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 consoles. The goal is to entice buyers who can’t afford to cough up the whole asking price, since the Xbox Series X costs $499 and the PlayStation 5 is expected to cost a similar amount.

GameStop’s proposed options

• Third-party plan: Financing will be offered through third-party providers like Quadpay and Klarna, with four zero interest payments split across six weeks.
• Direct layaway: This option will be managed by GameStop itself, and allows customers to pay small installments over a period, only receiving the console after you have paid in full.
• Rent-to-own: Finally, there’s the rent-to-own option where you pay a small amount up-front, take the console home and then pay monthly for up to 12 months, after which you own it. You can return the console at any time during the payment period.

Bitesize plans: Microsoft offers their own installment plan called Xbox All Access, offering both Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S consoles bundled with Xbox Game Pass for $35 or $25 a month for two years.

Which film director makes a cameo appearance in No More Heroes 2?

1. Takashi Miike
2. Akira Kurosawa
3. Hideaki Anno
4. Satoshi Kon

The answer will be revealed at the bottom of today’s issue. Join up with our community on Twitter and Facebook to discuss what the answer could be.

The Two Thrones continues after the bad ending from Warrior Within

Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones opens by explaining that the Prince royally screwed up in his previous adventure by allowing the Dahaka to take Kaileena’s body and Farah’s amulet from the Prince as well as remove the Sands of Time and its relics from the timeline. As a result, Babylon got sacked and the prince is left all alone.

Luckily, that’s not actually what happened – at least if you get the proper ending in Warrior Within. The Empress in Two Thrones will also explain what really happened. Originally, the prince was supposed to end the game by saying the exact same line that closes Sands of Time, which suggests that he has been telling Farah about his adventures all along.

Join up with our community on Twitter and Facebook to discuss today’s fact.

Developers not thrilled about targeting both Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S

Microsoft has finally unveiled Xbox Series S, their budget next-gen console featuring a lower price point and correspondingly lower performance than the Xbox Series X – and not everyone is completely on board with the idea.

Sasan Sepehr at Control developer Remedy Entertainment both loves and loathes the idea, and thinks it’s great for consumers – but as a technical producer, he’s worried. Having a significantly less powerful console in the mix means tailoring games for both platforms, which complicates content delivery all the way from development to updates and DLC

Overclocked: Microsoft is keen to point out that the Series S is still a powerful machine, despite featuring a CPU running at lower frequency, less RAM with lower memory bandwidth and a less powerful GPU.

Time will tell: Microsoft is confident that the two consoles are similar enough that it will be easy to target both of them. After all, developers are already used to targeting Xbox One S and Xbox One X, but only time will tell with both models set to launch on November 10th.

Sands of Time remake leaked

There have been rumours about a Prince of Persia reboot for a while now, and a leak just ahead of the Ubisoft Forward event seems to confirm them.

Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, the 2003 game that revived the series and introduced its trademark time rewinding mechanic, is being remade. The classic platform adventure was listed too early on the Russian Uplay store, and a store page featuring a banner and a video briefly appeared.

Brief leak: The short banner video was captured and shared on Reddit, but it doesn’t reveal much. Ubisoft put the series on hold in 2013, following a moderately successful Hollywood adaptation starring Jake Gyllenhaall and Ben Kingsley, but are now clearly ready to bring it back into the spotlight.

More today: The leak pretty much confirms that the new game is a remake, since one of the images depict a puzzle from the original game. Find out more at the Ubisoft Forward event tonight. Expect to see more of Watch Dogs: Legion and Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla too.

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Facebook Connect on September 16th

Oculus Connect is now Facebook Connect, following the announcement that Oculus owners will need Facebook accounts to use their headsets. Facebook’s VR and AR teams are now Facebook Reality Labs, and that means Facebook Connect will include AR and products like Facebook’s Portal video call service in addition to VR. The conference will be streamed live on September 16th.

GORN is coming to Oculus Quest

Following an overwhelmingly positive reception on Steam and PlayStation VR, gladiator sim GORN is coming to Oculus Quest next. The port will be handled by 24 Bit Games, who also helped bring the game to PlayStation VR.

GORN is an immersive first-person melee combat game with famously bouncy ragdolls, where you fight for survival in arena combat – but make sure you don’t smash your TV or trip over any cables while you’re at it! GORN for Oculus Quest has no release date yet.

Nvidia confirms DLSS 2.1 for VR

Nvidia’s RTX 3000 GPUs are bringing next-generation gaming to desktop computers two months before Sony and Microsoft’s new consoles launch, improving on features like ray-tracing and deep learning super-sampling (DLSS). DLSS intelligently upscales games from low resolutions like 1920×1080 and produces high-quality images at 4k and beyond.

Nvidia recently confirmed that DLSS 2.1 supports VR, which could dramatically lower system requirements of VR games. Modern VR headsets can feature resolutions up to 2160×2160 per eye, which places unprecedented demands on GPUs. DLSS 2.1 is a step into a future where VR gaming is much more accessible – at least for owners of high-end Nvidia GPUs!

Necromunda: Underhive Wars Codes

You have a chance to nab a Steam code for Necromunda: Underhive Wars if you refer DailyBits to a friend! Use our widget to start earning referrals, which you can build up throughout the year to increase your chance of being selected.

Necromunda: Underhive Wars is available today on Steam for $29.99 or £27.99, and we’ve got some codes to hand out this week, with the giveaway ending this Friday.

Deep below the nightmarish, polluted hive cities of Necromunda, in the twisted, vertiginous, dark tunnels of the Underhive, rival gangs fight to the bitter end for personal power, wealth, survival and the honour of their Houses. Only the strongest survive.

• Super Monkey Ball narrator Brian Matt teases something for Switch, on his Instagram account and promises that whatever is coming in September “will be amazing”
• Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity is a prequel set 100 years before Breath of the Wild
• Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War multiplayer has been revealed and will feature “all new and fan-favorite modes”
• Suda51 has delayed No More Heroes III and Grasshopper Manufacture offers their “sincerest apologies”
• Ubisoft Forward tonight at 12.00pm PT / 3.00pm ET / 8.00pm BST showcasing Ubisoft’s upcoming games

Which film director makes a cameo appearance in No More Heroes 2?

Answer: Takashi Miike!

It’s not a Suda51 game if it’s not at least a little weird, and that’s why No More Heroes 2 features a Japanese cult director handing you a sword.

Takashi Miike is a wildly prolific director, famous for ultraviolent cult films like Audition and Ichi the Killer, as well as adaptations of the Yakuza and Ace Attorney games. He meets Shinobu at Bishop’s grave, and gives her a new katana meant for Travis – the Rose Nasty. It’s a dual sword that can pack quite a punch if wielded confidently.

Today’s issue of DailyBits was written by Gavin Herman, Erlend Grefsrud, Simon Priest and Jamie Davey.