Ray-tracing for SNES, Devotion Pulled from GOG

Real-time ray-tracing for Super Nintendo

Real-time ray-tracing is all the rage these days, and an enterprising chip designer has created a dedicated ray-tracing expansion chip for Super Nintendo called SuperRT.

Game developer and software engineer Ben Carter used a an FPGA to design the chip, hooking it up to a real Super Nintendo cartridge much like “the Super FX chip used in titles such as Star Fox.”

Custom chip: The custom chip ray-traces so-called constructive solid geometry defined by a special instruction set that's submitted to the SuperRT by the Super Nintendo's main CPU and ray-traced using four rays per pixel. All the spicy details can be found on the project page.

Seeing is believing: There's both a short demonstration of SuperRT in action and a longer video explaining the technology in detail, and both are well worth seeing.

Which famous Japanese videogame composer lied about being deaf?

a) Junichi Masuda
b) Ryuichi Sakamoto
c) Mamoru Samuragochi
d) Yoko Kanno

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.

There was a Sly Cooper film in the works, and it even had a trailer

Remember Sucker Punch’s classic 3d platforming series Sly Cooper? Well, the titular thievius raccoonus was meant to become a silver screen star: Rainmaker Entertainment worked with Sucker Punch to develop an animated movie, scheduled for release in 2016.

The adaptation was coming along nicely, but the failure of the Ratchet & Clank movie apparently caused some consternation and the project kept getting delayed – until Rainmaker finally left the project in 2017. All we know is that the movie wouldn’t be an origin story, since the official teaser trailer shows the whole gang together committing their crime capers.

Join our community on Twitter and Facebook to discuss today's fact.

Horror game Devotion pulled from GOG

Red Candle Games recently announced that their troubled horror game Devotion was coming back on sale via GOG, but now the game has suddenly vanished again.

Devotion fell foul of Chinese censors after players discovered a reference to a meme mocking Chinese president Xi Jinping. The studio apologized and claimed the reference was supposed to be have been removed before launch, but to no avail.

GOG statement: GOG's official statement is vague: “Earlier today, it was announced that the game Devotion is coming to GOG. After receiving many messages from gamers, we have decided not to list the game in our store,” according to the official GOG Twitter account.

Market pressure: Since GOG does not explain expactly what kind of messages they allegedly received from gamers, it doesn't seem entirely unlikely that the game was delisted in response to pressure from Chinese authorities, and that GOG complied to ensure future access to one of world's fastest-growing game markets.

UK law makers target scalpers market

Six Scottish members of the UK parliament tabled an Early Day Motion proposing legislation forbidding the resale of electronics “greatly above Manufacturer’s Recommended Retail Price.”

While the legislation is unlikely to pass in its current form, it is most likely the first step towards outlawing scalpers who use bots to buy out stock from retailers and then sell it through auction sites and other online marketplaces at greatly inflated prices.

Gaining support: So far, 15 UK MPs have signed on to the motion, which would make using bots to automate purchases an illegal offence. The goal is to match the customer protections introduced to deal with ticket resellers.

Supply & demand: PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X as well as the latest Nvidia and AMD GPUs have been particularly popular with scalpers due to stock shortages and high demand. Next-generation consoles are typically sold for nearly twice the price, while GPUs are typically market up by around 50%.

• Build-A-Bear Workshop online exclusive Dragonite plushie for sale in both the US and the UK
• 24 hour Happy Holidays event in Watch Dogs: Legion featuring free outfit and mask
• Three fresh screenshots from Resident Evil Village in latest developer update shows off some next-gen horror 
• Fall Guys season three started on December 15th and will introduce new Crown Ranks
• DOOM Zero from id Software adds over 30 levels including new graphics, sounds and even monsters to DOOM 1 & 2

As we head into the end of the year, we're going to be giving away a PlayStation 5 to one lucky reader. The winner will be revealed in the Christmas eve issue of DailyBits.

Here’s the Giveaway Code for Week 51, which will allow you to gain more points: 5362

Which famous Japanese videogame composer lied about being deaf?

ANSWER: Mamoru Samuragochi!

Mamoru Samuragochi became famous in Japan for being a deaf composer – a Beethoven for the digital age. He contributed to Resident Evil: Dualshock Version and composed the music for Onimusha: Warlords. His fame was to be shortlived, however.

It came to light that his compositions were actually ghostwritten by Takashi Niigaki, and Samuragochi later admitted that while his hearing was impaired, he was not deaf and had in fact regained his hearing to the point where he would no longer be considered hard of hearing. Unsurprisingly, this dissipated much of his mystique, and he has not worked on a videogame soundtrack since.

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