Weekly Wrap Up! (9/20/13)

- Rockstar announced the free Grand Theft Auto 5 companion app called iFruit. The app allows you to receive the latest GTA news, Rockstar Social Club news, and interact with your copy of GTA 5. You can create and customize a car and have it sent to your GTA 5 game. You will also be able to take care of a friend's dog named Chop and unlock rewards for GTA 5. The iFruit app is available in the Apple App Store and no word on an Android version has been released.

- Take-Two announced that Grand Theft Auto V raked in over $800 million in just 24 hours, and has reached $1 billion in just three days of release! 

- The open beta for Battlefield 4 will be available on October 4th for the Xbox 360, PS3, and PC. An "exclusive" beta for those who pre-ordered the Battlefield 4 digital deluxe version or Medal of Honor: Warfighter Limited Edition will be available on October 1st.

- Microsoft and Activision has announced that people can pay $70 can get both digital copies of Call of Duty: Ghosts for the Xbox 360 and the Xbox One. The digital games will be tied to your gamertag. If you're unsure about getting a Xbox One right now, you can pay $60 and download CoD: Ghosts on the Xbox 360, then only pay $10 for the digital Xbox One version, but this must be done before March 31, 2014.

- Microsoft stated that the Xbox One was not designed to sit vertically, and that players who decide to do so will be doing it at their own risk as it could damage the console. Microsoft said it is not a cooling factor, but that they just didn't design the drive to support being set vertically. So keep that Xbox One horizontally! 

- Blizzard announced that they will be shutting down the auction house in Diablo III on March 18, 2014. Blizzard said the reason is that the auction house undermines the core gameplay.

- DICE announced that there could be Kinect enabled features for the Xbox One version of Battlefield 4. The features could enhance the peeking/leaning controls, head tracking, and voice commands. It's not official if the Kinect controls are going to be available because DICE has said they are only looking into it.

- GameStop unveiled that a bundle of Rocksteady's two Batman: Arkham games will be released on September 23rd for the Xbox 360 and PS3. The bundle includes the game of the year editions of both Batman: Arkham Asylum and Batman: Arkham City (which features bonus dlc). The bundle edition will cost $50.

- Sony has stated that the PS4 will be sold at a loss at launch, but they are planning on helping minimize that loss by the sales of games and PlayStation Plus memberships.

- Sony revealed that the PS4 will allow for video capture via HDMI, which was not supported with the PS3. However, the HDMI video capturing will not be available on the PS4 at launch, but will be released in a patch on a later date.

- Sony confirmed that the PlayStation Camera will support voice commands, facial recognition, and gesture controls.

- Mythic announced that  they will be shutting down the servers to their mmo Warhammer: Age of Reckoning on December 18th.

- Crimson Dragon (successor to Panzer Dragoon) will be released on the Xbox Live Arcade on November 22nd for $19.99. The game is exclusive to the Xbox One, and people who buy the game before December 31 will receive a special dragon to use in the game.

- In a very interesting announcement, Microsoft confirmed that the PS4 will work through the Xbox One's HDMI pass-through port. An example that was given at the Tokyo Game Show was with the snap feature. Albert Panello said, "Any application can be snapped to a game. This could be the live TV feed, so if you wanted to be playing Ryse and Killzone at the same time, you could snap that." So see, both next gen consoles can get along!