Gaming News - Page 301

The video games industry has raised over $113 million for humanitarian relief efforts in Ukraine, analysis has shown.

The world's most lucrative entertainment industry has banded together to raise money for Ukraine, with many companies (like Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo) cutting off Russia due to the ongoing war. According to data compiled by us (with the help of Levvvel), the games industry has raised over $113 million in funding for various organizations aimed at helping the beleaguered nation.

Below we've put together a list of the current known donations, but it is by no means a complete and definitive grouping that catalogs every donation made. Epic Games tops the list with its mighty $70 million generated from Fortnite revenues on PC and Xbox, followed by the Stand With Ukraine bundle on Humble Bundle, then the mighty Bundle for Ukraine indie megapack on Itch.io takes third place with over $6.3 million earned.

Netflix has secured yet another game developer to help fuel its new free game offerings for subscribers.

Mobile game dev Boss Fight Entertainment is now part of Netflix's first-party video games studios initiative. The studio is mostly known for Android and iOS mobile games like Dungeon Boss, a popular RPG with voxel-style graphics. Boss Fight is the third indie studio to join Netflix behind Night School and Next Games.

Boss Fight will bring its mobile expertise to help Netflix release a salvo of free mobile games to subscribers as well as plan out future titles for the company's eventual games rollout on TVs, browsers, and game consoles through the app.

Gamers have raised $70 million in Fortnite microtransactions in a week, showing just how powerful Fortnite's in-game revenues are.

Epic Games is currently donating 100% of Fortnite VBucks proceeds to Ukrainian relief. Gamers managed to raise $36 million for Ukraine through VBucks purchases in one day, and now that number has almost doubled to an astronomical $70 million in microtransactions in a week's time. These values include 100% of revenues on PC via the Epic Store and Xbox (Microsoft has partnered to donate 100% of Fortnite revenues through April 3), plus the 70% cut from the PlayStation Store and Switch.

"Together we've now raised $70 million USD in humanitarian relief funds for Ukraine. Congratulations and thanks everyone and Xbox for joining this effort!"

Sony will make a historic change in its lucrative services business model next week, sources tell Bloomberg.

Reports indicate that Sony Interactive Entertainment is poised to announce its new breakthrough subscription service next week. The tech giant, who made $3.6 billion from network services last year, aims to combine its two major subscription offerings into one cohesive package.

The service is codenamed Spartacus, and will bundle PlayStation Now (3.2 million subscribers) with its popular PlayStation Plus (48 million subscribers) into one powerhouse offering. While PlayStation Plus outpaces Microsoft's Xbox Game Pass by 15 million subscribers, Sony is positioning Spartacus to compete with Game Pass in strategic ways utilizing Sony's core strengths. The Roman-named contender will offer three tiers with varying value points that include game streaming and classic era games.

Rockstar has announced a new $5.99 a month subscription service for Grand Theft Auto Online.

GTA Online is getting its own monthly subscription plan called GTA+ exclusively for PS5 and Xbox Series X/S versions of GTA Online.. The new service is priced at $5.99 a month and includes a bunch of monthly freebies and bonuses, including in-game cash, cosmetic skins, early access to upgrades and features, and bonus experience points. Rockstar is even adding special Shark Cards exclusive to GTA+ subscribers.

"Being a GTA+ Member gets you a recurring monthly GTA$500,000 direct deposit to your Maze Bank account, plus the opportunity to claim properties in and around Los Santos that unlock gameplay updates you may have missed out on, special vehicle upgrades, Member-only discounts, GTA$ and RP bonuses, and more each month."

Microsoft has paid out billions in royalties to indie game developers as part of its ID@Xbox program, but these payments are just a drop in the company's very deep money bucket.

It's been nine years since the ID@Xbox program first launched in 2013, helping usher in a new wave of indie games onto the Xbox console-and-PC ecosystem. The initiative has helped publish and fund thousands of indie games that have earned Microsoft, and the developers themselves, billions in revenue.

In fact, Microsoft says it has paid out more than $2.5 billion in royalties to indie developers. That sounds like a lot, but it's actually not, at least in comparison to the company's gargantuan earnings from the Xbox marketplace.

Future builds of DirectStorage will help optimize CPU usage even more than it already does, and could significantly impact the performance and gameplay of new PC games.

Microsoft's DirectStorage API empowers developers with new tools to supercharge IO throughput and workload efficiency. The current version of DirectStorage can reduce CPU overhead by up to 40% on systems running Windows 11 with 2.5GB/sec NVMe SSDs; the new IO file stacks included in Windows 11 work in tandem with DirectStorage's simultaneous decompression and asset loading to help free up the CPU for other work--like, say, environment destruction.

Those gains will only get better over time. Right now DirectStorage uses the CPU to decompress data, but future builds will directly feed compressed files into the GPU's VRAM for efficient, ultra-fast decompression and processing. This will free up the CPU even more, giving developers more flexibility to assign CPU cycles for specific tasks like physics and robust worldbuilding.

Polyphony Digital has apologized for Gran Turismo 7's downtime by offering gamers a bunch of free credits.

Today Polyphony Digital president Kazunori Yamauchi has formally apologized for Gran Turismo 7's current issues by giving away 1 million in-game credits with an approximate worth of $9.99. At the time of writing, Gran Turismo 7 is Sony's lowest-rated game on Metacritic by player ratings as major controversy continues surrounding the racing sim.

"Thank you for your continued support and feedback on Gran Turismo 7, your voices have not gone unheard. I would like to apologize for the frustration and confusion caused last week with our patch updates which resulted in, not only a server outage but also adjustments to the in-game economy which were made without a clear explanation to our community.

DirectStorage's IO performance gains will help PC game developers utilize more CPU power in their games.

Microsoft's new DirectStorage API could help revolutionize PC gaming. We already know DirectStorage will lead to faster loading times, but combined with Windows 11 and an NVMe SSD, Microsoft says that DirectStorage can reduce CPU overhead by up to 40%, freeing up the CPU for other vital tasks. This could have a dramatic effect on games, including more populated open worlds with diverse NPCs.

We noted this in an older video on the Xbox Series X/S's Velocity Architecture, but here the performance gains are more pronounced due to the higher NVMe speeds of the drives and the increased optimizations with Windows 11's file stacks. What's interesting to note is that DirectStorage's current version still uses the CPU for decompression and is still able to reduce overhead by 40%.

Polyphony Digital is reversing course on one of Gran Turismo 7's most controversial changes.

Gran Turismo 7 has been a crash course PR nightmare since release. The game has sped into controversy due to unpopular changes like increased microtransactions, reduced credit payouts, always-online requirements, and the strange decision to remove car resales from the game. The last one was particularly frustrating for gamers, who saw it as an attempt to push users towards more grinding or paying outright for in-game credits to buy the cars they wanted.

Now the devs at Polyphony Digital are making some vital course corrections. A new update will allow gamers to sell cars in Gran Turismo 7 alongside a host of new reward adjustments, activities, and races. The changes are coming in a series of updates that are coming soon. Polyphony Digital has also apologized to all GT7 owners by giving out 1 million free credits.