Gaming News - Page 1

The job cuts aren't over for Xbox, and new reports say that Microsoft is poised to make even more layoffs.

There's turmoil at Xbox, and the global games industry, as costs continue to rise exponentially. Companies are shrinking budgets and reducing spending in an effort to stabilize budgets and create some semblance of growth--or, at the very least, reduced losses. Xbox took a hit with its Q2 results, with hardware revenues dropping to the lowest point of the Xbox Series generation. Overall revenues are flat without Activision's contribution.

Market trends and economic conditions have triggered mass layoffs at Xbox, with Activision Blizzard King shedding 1,900 workers. Then this month, Xbox made one of the most controversial decisions in recent memory by closing three Bethesda Softworks studios: Arkane Austin, Tango Gameworks, and Alpha Dog. This isn't the end, though.

Why did Xbox just close down 3 studios? The reason is a combination of economics and strategic trajectory.

Days ago, Xbox surprised fans by closing down numerous first-party studios. Tango Gameworks, who had just released the mega-popular Hi-Fi Rush, was shut down alongside Arkane Austin, the team behind Dishonored and Prey. Alpha Dog, the team behind the Doom mobile game, was also shut down. The news comes 3 years after Microsoft purchased ZeniMax for $7.5 billion.

So, why would Microsoft eliminate these teams? The decision is a combination of many factors, but it mostly comes down to money. More specifically the game development budgets for new projects. Xbox wanted to re-allocate the budgets of these studios to other "high-impact" and "priority" games under the ZeniMax umbrella--your Elder Scrolls and Fallouts and Dooms, in other words. IGN recently posted the full internal memo from Xbox content and studios president Matt Booty, who describes the move as a "reprioritization of titles and resources."

The head of Xbox Game Studios has shared internal remarks that highlight Microsoft's goal to obtain more smaller games that give Xbox "prestige and awards".

It was only a few days ago that Xbox Game Studios announced it was letting go four development studios under its Bethesda brand. The move to close the development studio was done under Xbox's goal of "reprioritization of titles and resources," according to an internal email sent to studios by Matt Booty, the head of Xbox Game Studios. Now, The Verge has reported Booty told listeners in a call, "We need smaller games that give us prestige and awards".

The publication writes that some listeners in the call were surprised by the remarks as one of the developer studios closed by Microsoft was Tango Gameworks, the creators of the critically acclaimed Hi-Fi Rush. The title by Tango is a rhythm action game that features music by The Black Keys and Nine Inch Nails, while having an art style that was reminiscent of old PS2 games.

Only days after Nintendo officially announced when it was going to unveil the successor to the Nintendo Switch, we may have another leak about what the next-generation console has under the hood.

According to recently leaked shipments and customs data between NVIDIA and Nintendo, the successor to the Nintendo Switch, presumably called the Nintendo Switch 2, will feature 12GB of RAM, which is three times more than the 4GB of RAM in the standard Switch. WCCF reports, Famiboards tracked a website that publicly logged shipment data that they linked to NVIDIA and the Nintendo Switch 2.

The report also states that Famiboards has been tracking the data for weeks and was able to identify 12GB of RAM within the Nintendo Switch 2, which will arrive in two 6GB of 7500 MT/s LPDDR5 modules. Additionally, the next-generation console purportedly will have 256GB of Universal Flash Storage (UFS 3.1). It should be noted that none of the above information is verified and that all Nintendo has officially said about a next-generation console is that it will be unveiled in fiscal year 2024.

The Helldivers 2 fiasco has simmered down since Sony Interactive Entertainment announced it wasn't going to go ahead with the PSN account linking with Steam.

For those that don't know, Helldivers 2 had a turbulent weekend after Sony Interactive Entertainment announced it was going to force new and current PC players to link their Steam account to a PSN account.

At first it was simply an annoying thing PC gamers complained about, but it quickly turned into hundreds of thousands of players review bombing the game when they realized some regions where Helldivers 2 was being sold didn't have access to the PSN network, meaning players in those areas would lose access to the game they paid for after the change went through.

Nintendo has taken to its website to announce its cutting ties with X, the social media platform formerly named Twitter.

Nintendo's announcement found on its website states as of June 10, players will no longer be able to post screens or videos directly from their Nintendo Switch's Album to X. Additionally, they send friend requests to social media users via the Friend Suggestions feature will be removed. Nintendo notes that posting screenshots and videos to Facebook "will continue to be available," but it will remain a service that "may also be discontinued at a later date."

Nintendo goes on to target three games specifically; Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Splatoon 3, and Splatoon 2. The company explains the ability to post Smash Ultimate screenshots from the Album in the Nintendo Switch Home Menu to Smash World, within the Nintendo Switch Online smart device app, will also become unavailable. As for Splatoon 3, posting to X via mailboxes in Splatsville, Inkopolis Plaza, or Inkolpolis Square will be removed, along with posting to Facebook. The same change applies to Splatoon 2's mailboxes.

During a recent earnings call, EA CEO Andrew Wilson said that the publisher's developers and studios have a "real hunger" for generative AI. The company is looking to use the new technology to make game development more efficient and to deliver big and complex games quickly.

"As a company, we've been deeply tied to AI since our inception," Andrew Wilson said. "It has been the very center of all of the games that we create, replicating human intelligence in the context of a gameplay experience. But certainly, as we think about the wave of generative AI today and as it merges into artificial general intelligence, broadly, we're still very early."

Citing FIFA as an example, using the game's animation and run cycles - this grew from 36 run cycles in FIFA 23 to 1,200 run cycles in EA Sports FC 24. The result is a more realistic-looking depiction of football/soccer and one that feels closer to watching the sport live on TV than the series has ever been.

Rumors have been circulating for a while, indicating that ASUS planned to release a new version of its ROG Ally gaming handheld this year. This led to people speculating that it could be a full-blown sequin or laptop-style refresh with new Ryzen hardware or possibly even a new OLED display, ala the Steam Deck refresh.

Recent speculation and rumor have pointed to the 2024 ROG Ally refresh being nothing more than a minor hardware update that would fix the SD Card Reader issues that have plagued some units since ASUS launched the Windows 11-based PC gaming handheld in 2023. It's a minor but very welcome fix that would sort out one of the only real faults with the hardware and something that wouldn't warrant a special presentation.

That said, ASUS is teasing a special stream set to broadcast tomorrow with the title 'The Next ROG Ally.' This indicates that there's a lot more coming to the ROG Ally 2024 refresh than a fix to the SD Card Reader.

Upscaling tech is such a big part of PC gaming that NVIDIA announces which titles are adding support for DLSS Super Resolution and DLSS 3 Frame Generation every week. However, with that said, only a handful of PC games are adding support this week - limited to DLSS Super Resolution or DLSS 2. There's no Frame Generation, but hey, there's always next week.

The big one is the long-awaited Homeworld 3 from Blackbird Interactive and Gearbox, which launches on May 14. This strategic sci-fi RTS takes place in beautifully rendered 3D spaces, and for all GeForce RTX owners, DLSS 2 will boost performance while maintaining the game's impressive visual fidelity. Homeworld 3 is the latest installment in a long-running and beloved PC franchise, so there's definite hype surrounding its launch.

The second game getting DLSS 2 support is a little more unknown. It's an Early Access RPG available to play on Steam and already sitting on a 'Mostly Positive' user review rating. With survival mechanics, exploration, action, resource and town management, story, and armies to command in a medieval setting, Bellwright is worth checking out.

Sony now once again has more games on the PlayStation Store's best-sellers list than Microsoft does.

Once Microsoft purchased Activision for $70 billion, Xbox became an overnight powerhouse. Microsoft now owns Activision Blizzard King, Bethesda/ZeniMax, and the myriad of teams under its Xbox Game Studios banner. That's a lot of IPs and franchises--Microsoft now casts one of the widest nets in gaming.

Buying ABK wasn't enough--Microsoft also needed to break exclusivity and bring its first-party games to competing platforms so it can "use what Sony has" to sell games. As a result of these expansion efforts, Microsoft took over the U.S. PlayStation Store top-sellers charts simply by virtue of its size.