Gaming News - Page 110

Bandai Namco is the latest video games publisher to start pricing its standard PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S games at $69.99.

Thanks to inflation and other economic effects, practically everything on the planet is now more expensive to produce, ship, and buy. The same is true for gaming. Although the video games industry is set to make about $187 billion in 2023, the cost of making games has gone up exponentially. Publishers like Sony Interactive Entertainment, Take-Two Interactive, and Activision-Blizzard were quick to use the new PS5 and Series X/S console generation as a way to introduce a new $69.99 baseline price for games.

Nearly all of gaming's platform-holders and publishers have now priced their games at the newer $69.99 MSRP, breaking the $59.99 model that had been in place for multiple console gens. These days, it's actually an anomaly to find a new PS5 or Xbox Series game that is less than $70, but Japanese publishers like SEGA, Capcom, and Bandai Namco in particular have been hesitant on embracing the new pricing scheme. Until now, that is.

Sony today announced that it will be raising the prices of its 3-tiered PlayStation Plus subscription starting September 6, which is exactly when Starfield releases on Xbox.

In a move that is sure to frustrate PlayStation owners, Sony has revealed its plans to increase the cost of its annual PlayStation Plus subscriptions. Starting next week, each individual PS Plus tier will increase by over 30%.

PlayStation Plus Essential will now cost $79.99 annually, as opposed to its previous $59.99 cost, representing a 33% increase over the previous price. PS Plus Extra will likewise rise by 33% to $134.99 annually, up $35 from its original $99/year price tag. PlayStation Plus Premium is seeing the largest price hike to $159.99 per year, up $40 from the previous $119 per year, representing a 34% price increase.

Marvel's Spider-Man 2 Limited Edition PS5 consoles have made their way out to the public despite the launch of the game being a few months away.

Officially, these limited edition PS5s were meant to be released on September 1, but one lucky buyer has seemingly gotten theirs early, as showcased in the above image. While the image could have certainly been more HD, we can still make out some details about the highly anticipated Insomniac Games title, such as the minimum requirement of 98GB of storage space. For comparison, Marvel's Spider-Man on the PS4 required just 45GB of free space, which quickly jumped up to 71GB when the title was remastered for the PS5.

Spider-Man: Miles Morales came in at 54GB, but it seems Spider-Man 2 will blow that figure out of the water with a required 98GB of free space. It should be noted that this 98GB is a minimum, meaning Insomniac Games could easily blow past the 100GB figure between now and the title's release. While 100GB is a large game, it's nothing compared to the likes of other titles, such as Call of Duty: Warzone 2, which is approximately 200GB.

Cooler Master has revealed a new driving and flight simulator that is designed specifically for enthusiasts who want to take their gaming to the next level.

Introducing Cooler Master's Dyn X, a driving and flight cockpit that is constructed out of high-quality materials and features 14 adjustable sitting positions for every type of racing preference. The above video released on the Cooler Master YouTube channel showcases each of the sitting positions that can be changed quickly with a single adjustment. The video demonstrates sitting positions such as Formula, GT, NASCAR, Rally, or Trophy Truck.

As for build quality, the Dyn X is constructed of fiberglass, features premium synthetic suede leather, an adjustable headrest, and interchangeable cushion covers. Additionally, Cooler Master has outfitted the Dyn X with multiple attachment points for monitors, shifters, motion systems, and more. The Dyn X is expected to launch sometime in September 2023 and will be priced at $1,999 for just the cockpit. Those who want the racing seat to go with the Dyn X will need to pay an additional $499.

Bethesda's announcement of Starfield really shook up the gaming industry as many excited gamers were told that they would be able to explore thousands of planets. However, that doesn't necessarily seem to be the case.

Leading up to the release of Starfield next week, there has been plenty of footage from early releases uploaded to various social media platforms. This footage has given us clues about the validity of Bethesda's statements about the title's exploration capabilities. Bethesda's head of publishing, Pete Hines, was asked on August 22 if players will be able to explore an entire planet, to which he responded, "Yup if you want. Walk on, brave explorer".

That statement, conjoined with countless marketing of the raw exploration of Starfield's planets, has left gamers slightly suspicious. Is this hype from the developer, or will they actually be able to roam the entirety of each of the planets? Here's how it seems to work. When a player selects a new planet to land on, they create a landing area/site. This landing area generates a 1km explorable area, which equates to about 10 to 15 minutes of running in a single direction. When the border of that area is reached, the player will get a pop-up message informing them they cannot go any further.

The first patch for Baldur's Gate 3 landed towards the end of last week, and the developer is now building up hype for the second patch.

We're told that patch #2 is just around the corner, and that it's going to make some big changes to the RPG.

Specifically, that includes major boosts on the performance front, a whole bunch of tweaks - likely in the same vein to the ones we saw in patch #1 - and it also "begins our journey incorporating [player] feedback into Origin Character epilogues."

Ubisoft's Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is a new open-world action-adventure set in the universe created by legendary filmmaker James Cameron, created by the studio behind the hit third-person action series The Division. Pre-release gameplay looks impressive, with a style that feels like Far Cry in how the world will change and the environment will react to your actions.

With a release date of December 7, 2023, on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC, we've got some info specific to the game's PC version. Fidelity-wise, you're looking at both ray-traced reflections and shadows alongside being able to fine-tune and tweak several graphics settings beyond what's possible on PS5 or Xbox Series X|S.

Like all major Ubisoft releases, it's set to launch with a benchmark tool that will offer a detailed look at performance while serving as a great way to optimize settings. It gets interesting that as an AMD-sponsored title, you're getting AMD's FSR 2 support for upscaling, FSR 3 Fluid Motion Frames for frame generation, and NVIDIA DLSS on day one.

With Lenovo set to unveil its dedicated portable gaming handheld, the Lenovo Legion Go, in the coming days at IFA 2023, we've now got more details on what to expect thanks to new information courtesy of Windows Report covering hardware specifications, pricing, and even availability. It's on track for an October release.

As a dedicated Windows 11 PC gaming handheld, the Lenovo Legion Go is positioned as a direct competitor to the ASUS ROG Ally and Steam Deck, albeit more premium regarding its make-up. Specs-wise, Lenovo looks to be going all out with the Legion Go, especially when put up against the formidable ROG Ally, with the handheld featuring a larger screen with a higher resolution and frame rate (QHD+ 2560 x 1600), the Ryzen Z1 Extreme from AMD, and super-fast 16GB LPDDR5X-7500 memory.

Storage-wise, the Legion Go will use PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 2242 with 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB capacities. Pricing will start at USD 799, with the handheld also set to debut with three months of Xbox Game Pass.

The gamer who leaked 45 minutes of Starfield footage has been arrested on felony theft charges and released on bail.

Days ago, 29 year-old Darin Harris was arrested in Shelby County, Tennessee on charges of Class D felony theft. According to police reports obtained by Polygon and the Memphis Commercial Appeal, Harris had allegedly stolen dozens of copies of the game and potentially intended to sell or distribute the stolen copies through FedEx shipments.

Shelby County police searched Harris' home, finding multiple copies of the unreleased game. The copies of Starfield in Harris' possession had been stolen from a Memphis-based Vantiva warehouse where the game discs are stored and distributed. Authorities also found copies of Starfield that were packaged in FedEx envelopes, presumably to be sold to users online.

Diablo IV was one of the most hyped games of this year, and following its release, there has been a mixed bag of opinions by people who really enjoy the game, and people who really enjoy pointing out Blizzard's shortcomings.

One of the latter players decided to compile a list of all of Blizzard's grammatical errors found in-game, and there aren't just a few - there are quite a lot. This user goes by the name Aeretes and posted a slew of screenshots to Reddit in a post that has since gained a lot of traction within the Diablo subreddit. The screenshots revealed many basic grammatical errors as well as punctuation errors - some as simple as unnecessary apostrophes in the word "it's".

Other errors included blatant misspellings of characters and creature names. An example of this would be the two separate objective descriptions in the quest Bad Blood, which points players to a potion that is said to have the ability to turn people in Nangiri. Notably, there isn't a race of Nangiri within the Diablo universe, but there is a race of serpentine people called the Nagari. While these errors are small, and some gamers may not even care, others believe it represents sloppy development.