Gaming News - Page 298

The single largest acquisition in the history of video games has been accepted by shareholders...and now it's up to the FTC.

The Microsoft-Activision deal is one step closer to going through. Today, the overwhelming majority of Activision-Blizzard stakeholders have voted yes to Microsoft's share buyout offer. As per an SEC filing, 98% of company shareholders (539.332 million) voted in favor of the buyout.

Microsoft has bid $95 a share to acquire all of Activision-Blizzard's stock, representing a massive deal worth $68.7 billion. The deal is expected to close by June 2023 if it can clear the FTC, which has been emboldened to crack down on industry-shaking mega-mergers.

Meta's Reality Labs division has reported billion-dollar operating losses for six consecutive quarters, showing that Meta's new ambitious plans for the metaverse may not pay off any time soon.

The metaverse is an expensive new frontier. Meta Technologies Inc. wants to pioneer the nebulous metaverse, and is spending billions to lay down foundational technologies for the new inter-connected, commercialized and consumer-friendly social infrastructure. This will be a long-term strategy will many more years of expenses, as Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg doesn't expect the metaverse to mature until the 2030s.

Meta's Reality Labs division is doing much of the heavy lifting for its metaverse ambitions. Reality Labs, which includes VR headsets, AR technologies, and new software platforms like Horizon Worlds, is a big part of Meta's R&D investments due to its experimental focus on XR.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg thinks the metaverse will usher in a "very exciting 2030s".

One of the richest men in the world has a purely ambitious plan for the future of work and play: A new, inter-connected social computing platform for commercial enterprise, consumer leisure, and interactivity that beams directly to proprietary hardware. It's called the "metaverse," and Meta is investing heavily into what it believes will be the primary platform throughout the next decade.

When asked about investments into the metaverse, Zuckerberg said that Meta's high expenses are a result of foundational spending for the metaverse, and that the company is in for the long haul: "Maybe primarily, this is laying the groundwork for what I expect to be a very exciting 2030s when this is sort of more established as the primary computing platform at that point. I think that there will be results along the way for that, too. But I do think that this is going to be a longer cycle."

Internal sources familiar with Bethesda's plans have apparently debunked recent rumors on The Elder Scrolls VI, a new Mandalorian MMORPG, and other in-production games.

YouTuber Skullzi recently posted up a supposed list of Bethesda's latest projects, including new info on The Elder Scrolls VI. The list is pretty eye-opening. Skullzi's sources say ZeniMax Online is working on a new Mandalorian MMORPG, that a Quake reboot could be in early negotiations, the original cRPG Fallout and TES games are getting remastered by inXile, and some details on TES VI.

Sources have told Bloomberg's Jason Schreier that reports are inaccurate--in fact, they're "bullshit".

Starfield's game engine is a "piece of crap," a former Bethesda Game Studios developer has said.

Starfield's new revamped Creation Engine 2 may be having some issues, particularly with flight mechanics. A former Bethesda Game Studios developer actually says the "engine is a piece of crap," saying that space flight isn't all that fun.

The developer has been sharing Starfiled info on forum site ResetERA since 2021. The user has been authenticated by ResetERA's site admins, and Jason Schreier also confirmed the user was legitimate.

Sony's new game demo policy won't interrupt developer's workloads, and will instead be automated by the PlayStation Store group.

Sony has announced a new mandate that all games on the PlayStation Store that cost more than $34 in wholesale pricing need to have a 2-hour game demo. This is a pretty tall order as there are thousands of games on Sony's storefront.

There's been lost of concern that this would overload game devs with extra work (unless, of course, they asked Sony to lower MSRP of their games on the store to get under the $34 threshold). Now sources tell Kotaku's Ethan Gach that game devs won't actually make the demos. Sony's PlayStation Store engineers will do the heavy lifting and create the 2-hour demos themselves.

Blizzard's segment revenues have dropped to an all-time 8-year low as the developer gears up big projects like Diablo 4 and Overwatch 2.

Activision-Blizzard's latest quarterly earnings show declines in key segments including Blizzard, who has reported the lowest revenues in nearly a decade.

According to data provided by the publisher and compiled by us, Blizzard Entertainment made $274 million revenues throughout Q1 2022, a 43% decline from last year.

Microsoft confirms its Xbox division is currently investigating new fledgling tech like NFTs and cryptocurrency.

After microtransactions and live services, NFTs are gaming's latest craze. In fact, it's possible NFTs could radically change the video games business. Major publishers like Square Enix and SEGA are interested in NFTs, whereas Ubisoft and Konami have already released NFTs (to varying success).

Now Microsoft could be experimenting with NFTs and crypto at its Xbox R&D teams. An Xbox representative recently told Bloomberg that the division is "aware and looking into NFTs, cryptocurrency and other emerging technologies, but don't yet have anything to share."

Sony has clarified on exactly how subscription upgrades will work with the new PlayStation Plus 3-tier plans.

Sony plans to merge PS Plus and PS Now on June 13. So what if you're already subscribed to both services? Sony confirms that these users will get access to the higher-end PlayStation Plus Premium tier.

Existing subscribers of both PlayStation Plus and PlayStation Now will migrate to PS Plus Premium at no cost, unlocking access to 740 games across six console generations including PS1, PS2, PS3, PS4, PS5 and PlayStation Portable.

Ubisoft's new video game releases have been delayed and pushed back farther than expected, sources have told Kotaku.

Ubisoft is a big publisher with even bigger value, but the company's long-term vision is potentially in jeopardy. Ubisoft's slate of upcoming premium games has reportedly been set back, with new entries in the Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, and Ghost Recon franchises being farther away than Ubisoft would've hoped.

The absence of big game releases makes Ubisoft decidedly vulnerable. The company's live services aren't necessarily able to sustain long-term revenue growth; unlike Blizzard, who can make hundreds of millions every year from monetization, Ubisoft needs to release full games every so often to 1) make revenues from the sales and 2) establish new entry points for microtransactions and live services.