Games and gear

We're taking a different approach to the show today with a story from Memorial Day that takes the entire episode, but trust us--it's worth it. It's a tale of survival, of tech failure and success, the power of nature, and a tightrope walk above surefire doom. What's the closest you've ever come to the end? This is mine.

After you're done with the story, this is the Fenix LED flashlight that got me through the night and this is the SLX Extreme Snow Lizard case that kept me safe.… Read more

We missed the official anniversary by a couple of days -- mark the calendar for May 22 -- but let's not close the week without taking a moment to mark Pac-Man's remarkable status as a cultural icon. In the 33 years since the game's creator, Toru Iwatani, saw his invention make it into the market for the first time, Pac-Man has become a part of our cultural lexicon, appropriated as a symbol by the likes of professional boxers as well as political protesters.

It hardly seemed that would be the outcome given Iwatani's rather modest ambitions … Read more

We're very proud to have Tony Hale on the show today. You probably know him as Buster Bluth on "Arrested Development" and most recently as Gary Walsh on "Veep." We get him on Skype today to talk about this weekend's long-anticipated fourth season return of "Arrested" and the moment he learned that Netflix would release all 15 episodes at once.

We'll also go back to the beginning and get the story about the audition process, the steps that led up to creating the Buster character, and the suggestion that perhaps the … Read more

Microsoft's policy concerning used Xbox One games has proven a bit confusing, but a new report may have spilled more concrete details.

Citing information from "retail sources," gaming news site MCV claims that Microsoft and gaming publishers will take a bite out of the sale of each used Xbox One game. In the process of selling a used game, original owners would also see the game wiped from their online accounts so they no longer can play it.

Microsoft has already confirmed that Xbox One users who install a game on the console's hard drive will no longer need the disc … Read more

In case you missed it, Microsoft unveiled a new game console the other day, the Xbox One. We now know a lot about it, but as with most game console launches, we were left with a few unanswered questions that my colleague Dan Ackerman summed up nicely in his "Unanswered questions about the Xbox One" piece.

It's the last one that seems to be generating the most controversy: "Will used games work on the Xbox One?"

Simple question, complicated answer You'd think the answer would be a simple yes or no, but alas, it'… Read more

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- Amazon's Kindle Worlds will pay writers to write fan fiction.

- Hire your favorite musician to write you a song .

- And now a reading from the worst fan fiction I've ever read.

- Follow Russ Frushtick on Twitter.… Read more

When Sony has a secret up its sleeve, the company loves to tease. If you missed last week's video enigma, Sony revealed very brief pictures of the mysterious PlayStation 4 hardware, leaving gamers in the dark about what the highly anticipated gaming console will look like.

Luckily, graphics guru Andy Gilleand has the imagination (and skills) to piece together Sony's puzzle, and created a general conceptual rendering of the PlayStation 4.

While Gilleand's interpretation will have most Sony purists crying foul, the render does align with the general shape and accents seen in the official teaser videos. It's widely expected that Sony will finally show off the PlayStation 4 during a company press event at E3 2013 on June 10.… Read more

For the better part of a decade the video game landscape remained mostly unchanged, complacent in a sea of sequels, motion controls, and downloadable content.

It's a generation that has lasted longer than any other before it, albeit for generally good reasons. And perhaps most impressive is that though their PC gaming counterparts have long since passed them by, these aging consoles are still able to render great-looking games.

So while the sun begins to set on what will go down as a pivotal generation for video games, we look ahead to see what owning a console will be … Read more

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- All of CNET's coverage of yesterday's Xbox One event.

- Here's what we know about Xbox One games.

- Microsoft talks Xbox One naming, privacy and more (Q&A).

- Sharon Vaknin and CNET Reviews' John Falcone at last night's Webby Awards.

- Courts turning to UrbanDictionary as an authoritative source on slang. And here's The 404's contribution to UrbanDictionary.… Read more