Gaming News - Page 320

Ubisoft's holiday 2021 earnings have dropped due to a smaller number of game releases.

Today Ubisoft announced its Q3'21 figures, and while respectable, the numbers are substantially lower than last year's period. This led to a 30% drop in sales and a 25% reduction in net bookings. Some vital context is needed.

The main reason for the slip is that Ubisoft released more games in 2020 than it did in 2021. Ubisoft had a stacked holiday 2020 period with multiple heavy-hitting games like Assassin's Creed Valhalla and Watch Dogs Legion launching with next-gen consoles. The Q3 2021 period only really had Far Cry 6 and Just Dance 2022 to prop up holiday sales.

Ubisoft shrugs off direct questions about being acquired by a larger company like Sony or Microsoft.

Having fought off one hostile takeover against Vivendi, Ubisoft wants to remain as free as it can for as long as possible. Billion-dollar giants like Microsoft and Sony are flashing pocketbooks to buy up content IP to power their ecosystems of services and hardware.

Ubisoft is one of the last major games companies that hasn't been purchased...and that's how company executives want it to stay. Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot says the publisher is stable and doesn't technically have a reason to sell.

Embracer Group has over 200 games in development, and most of them remain unannounced.

With its sheer volume of developers, labels, and owned IP, Embracer Group is one biggest games companies on the planet. In updated figures, the multimedia giant says it has an incredible 216 game projects that are currently in development. Most of these games are unannounced; there are 149 mystery titles in the pipeline across Embracer's massive array of developers.

The significant increase in game projects reflects some of Embracer's most recent major buyouts, which include Gearbox Entertainment, 3D Realms, Perfect World Entertainment (nestled under Gearbox), and Aspyr.

EA executive Laura Miele reportedly blames Halo Infinite for setting a positive example and poaching Battlefield 2042's playerbase. This line of thought could easily be applied to another mega-hit shooter that EA's responsible for.

According to recent reports sourced from obtained internal documents, EA execs are trying to figure out where Battlefield 2042 went wrong. The usual suspects apply: Live games are difficult to make, the pandemic, and competitors. EA's Laura Miele reportedly mentioned Halo Infinite by name and suggested Halo's polished state set a high water mark for Battlefield 2042...which is a curious statement for two reasons.

One, Halo Infinite had lots of problems at launch. Monetization, bugs, glitches--Big Team Battle was nigh-unplayable for months and it currently has very serious issues with desync and cheating. Gunplay was polished. Many other things were not.

Metro Exodus has sold 6 million copies to date, the Embracer Group has confirmed.

The Metro franchise remains one of Deep Silver's heavy-hitting tentpole franchises and has contributed strongly to overall quarterly earnings. Metro Exodus has sold more than 6 million units since its release on February 2019, making it one of the most popular in the series. While Embracer hasn't given regular updates on total Metro game or franchise sales, these figures are more than respectable and are responsible in part to Koch Media's $78 million revenues generated in Q3'21.

"Back-catalog sales were also driven by the evergreen title Metro Exodus, which has sold 6 million copies since its launch in February 2019," Embracer said in its recent report.

CD PROJEKT RED has pushed out a rather large patch for Cyberpunk 2077, with the v1.5 patch including a plethora of tweaks, new features, and so much more -- for all platforms -- not just the PC.

Inside of Cyberpunk 2077's new v1.5 update is a built-in benchmark for the PC, but also AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) 1.0 which joins the ranks against NVIDIA and its DLSS technology inside of CDPR's flagship game. Previously, Cyberpunk 2077 had an option for Contrast Adaptive Sharpening (CAS) but now FSR 1.0 has replaced it.

Cyberpunk 2077's new addition of AMD FSR support can be enabled in the "Graphics" menu of the Settings, and then down the bottom under Ray Tracing you'll see "Resolution Scaling" and have the options for NVIDIA DLSS and AMD FSR technologies.

CD PROJEKT RED has pushed out a rather large patch for Cyberpunk 2077, with the v1.5 patch including a plethora of tweaks, new features, and so much more -- for all platforms -- not just the PC.

One of the biggest and surprise additions in the new Cyberpunk 2077 update was the inclusion of a built-in benchmark, which will run a benchmark within a pre-determined path of the game and give you the results you need. You can benchmark with the vanilla version of the game, with DLSS -- or the newly-added AMD FSR upscaling tech option -- as well as ray tracing.

There are a bunch of PC-specific things that CD PROJEKT RED have added into the v1.5 update for Cyberpunk 2077, including a "Toggle walking" button when you're playing with your keyboard. When you're exploring, simply press "G" on your keyboard although this can be rebinded in your settings.

Cyberpunk 2077 doesn't exactly hit next-gen performance on Xbox Series S consoles, but CD Projekt may change that.

Yesterday Cyberpunk 2077 got a huge upgrade on PS5 and Xbox Series X consoles with 4K 60FPS and raytracing modes, improved loading times, and haptic feedback support. The Xbox Series S, however, is locked to 30FPS with dynamically scaled 1440p resolution. That's not great news to anyone with a Series S.

Luckily it looks like CDPR wants to at least try and boost the FPS on Series S systems. "We are also looking into the possibility of [raising FPS cap on Xbox Series S], but at the moment we don't have any details to share," CDPR's Marcin Momot said.

Nintendo plans to permanently remove NES, SNES, Nintendo 64, and other retro classic games from sale starting in 2023.

From 2023 onward, Switch Online service will be the only place gamers can experience retro Nintendo games. Earlier today Nintendo announced it would close the Wii U and 3DS eShops in 2023. Starting next year, gamers will not be able to buy content from either the Wii U or 3DS storefronts, including a wealth of Virtual Console games across legacy systems. This effectively removes these old-school retro hits from the market.

In a now-deleted section of its announcement FAQ, Nintendo said it "currently has no plans to offer classic content in other ways" outside of Switch Online. Just a bit ago we discussed how Nintendo was evolving the Switch Online subscription service with additive value. This particular move sees the company is boosting value with the omission of choice rather than additional content.

Sony receives criticism for using marketing materials to allegedly push gamers into buying a more expensive $69.99 Horizon Forbidden West bundle. But why is that?

Sony is selling two cross-gen bundles for Horizon Forbidden West. One is $69.99 and comes with a PS4 and PS5 copy. The other is $59.99 and comes with a PS4 copy and a digital upgrade to the PS5 version. Functionally, both options are identical. Sony splits cross-gen games into two SKUs, so any bundle that you buy will unlock both a PS4 and a separate PS5 version of the game.

So why does the $69.99 version exist at all? There's a few reasons. One is that the $59.99 version cannot be purchased on the PS5's storefront. Two is that the SKU existed before Sony made the announcement to honor their prior commitment and offer a free next-gen upgrade. Three, it's possible the $69.99 PS4 and PS5 bundle offers a permanent license to both versions of the game, and the $59.99 PS4 version offers a limited-time upgrade to PS5 that could expire.