Gaming News - Page 13

First game prices jumped to $70, now game subscriptions are next in line for a price hike.

The games industry is currently going through a universal cost adjustment, and like any publicly-traded companies, video games firms are passing those higher prices down to consumers. Years after the Gen9 console generation introduced the new $70 MSRP for software, we're now seeing game subscriptions hiking up monthly price tags as the services mature (and as the companies aim for more profit).

Over the last few years, we've seen both PlayStation Plus and Xbox Game Pass increase in price across most subscription plans (except for the PC Game Pass tier). Ubisoft splintered its subscription, and Electronic Arts just raised prices of its EA Play Pro sub to a similar monthly price point. All of these services are nose-to-nose with Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, which offers access to hundreds of games for $16.99 a month.

Apple makes a pre-emptive change in its App Store policies in an effort to head off negative effects from the European Union's new Digital Markets Act (DMA) legislation.

The EU's new DMA is changing the face of the digital world as we know it. European lawmakers have used the new act to crack open Apple's ill-favored App Store policies and force some pretty big changes. The biggest shake-up is that Apple must now allow app developers to sell their apps and content on independent third-party stores on iOS, a move that allows developers to circumvent Apple's 30% commission fee.

As part of Apple's DMA-sparked changes, retro game emulators will now be unbanned on the App Store and users are free to download and use them.

Microsoft is 'full speed ahead' on its next-gen Xbox hardware, which is said to be the most technologically-advanced console ever made.

Microsoft has officially made some big decisions around the next Xbox console. FTC vs MSFT court leaks from 2023 showed that Microsoft was thinking about using ARM CPUs and potentially hybrid compute solutions (side note: new Windows Surface tablets are using ARM).

There's also mention of the new Gen10 Xbox potentially having an NPU, or a Neural Processing Unit, which is a dedicated chip used expressly for AI. The idea is that the NPU could handle specific AI-oriented tasks and free up the CPU and GPU for more important tasks like rendering and processing assets.

Microsoft isn't giving up on consoles any time soon.

Xbox's new president Sarah Bond has set up a new team to oversee what is arguably the most important thing for Xbox consoles: Backwards compatibility. The news comes by way of Windows Central's Jez Corden, who was told that the new division would focus on software compatibility between console generations.

The idea is to continue to carry forward the Xbox legacy across multiple hardware generations, where the software can be re-sold/re-packaged to consumers as standalone game sales or within subscriptions. Microsoft's commitment in this space has led to 4 generations of Xbox games being playable on the Series X/S generation, and Gen10 Xboxes could bump that up to that 5 generations of support. Also, let's not forget Microsoft wants to create a Universal Store that sells games and content across all consumer endpoints, including everything from mobile phones to PCs and consoles.

New reports may give clues on what's next for Destiny.

It sounds like a numbered Destiny sequel may be back on the table. New reports say that Bungie was (or may currently be) working on Destiny 3, which was being crafted under the codename Payback. The info comes by way of a mysterious Redditor whose prophetic words proved to be eerily accurate--they predicted Destiny 2's Prism subclass feature a month before it was revealed.

With this proven win under their belt, everyone is now taking the user seriously and looking into what else is being said about Destiny. According to the source of the leaks, Destiny 3 would essentially remove all barriers to character classes. Abilities and powers would no longer be exclusively available to certain classes--at least that's how it was described.

It's Thursday, which means it time for NVIDIA's update on what's going on with GeForce Now, and the hot news - radioactive news, even - is that a pair of Fallout games have been brought into the streaming fold.

They are Fallout 4 and Fallout 76 to be precise. Fallout 4 is a classic action RPG from the best part of a decade ago, but it's getting a next-gen update later in April (two weeks today, in fact). That'll add a bunch of goodies including ultra-widescreen monitor support on PC, and much more besides.

Fallout 76 is, of course, the later online multiplayer take on the franchise which wasn't very well-received back at the time of launch, but has improved considerably since, and actually gets some pretty favorable feedback these days.

Fallout 4's anticipated next-gen update is coming April 25, bringing some welcome optimizations across all platforms.

Fallout is back in a big way. The first season of the Fallout TV show is now streaming on Amazon Prime, and Bethesda just announced more details about Fallout 4's upgrade patch. The nearly-10-year-old post-apocalyptic nuclear war survival sim is getting a boost to 60FPS on consoles alongside some adjustments on PC.

On April 25, Bethesda will release the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S updates for Fallout 4. The console updates bring an FPS priority Performance Mode that can hit up to 60 frames-per-second. Quality Mode will apparently upscale graphics and put more emphasis on visuals. Fallout 4 is also getting tweaked on PC with new "stability improvements and fixes" alongside ultra widescreen support.

Since the release of the Grand Theft Auto VI trailer, fans have been tearing apart every frame to see if they can figure out what to expect in the game when it releases. One of the main aspects fans are looking for is who is behind the main protagonists.

The two main protagonists, Lucia and Jason, have been a topic of the GTA community since Rockstar Games released the trailer back in December, with many fans theorizing the voice behind Jason would be iconic voice actor Troy Baker, who is known for his performances in The Last of Us, Far Cry 4, BioShock Infinite, Borderlands, Uncharted 4, and many more popular titles. Baker is one of, if not the most decorated voice actor in the video game community, which means it's no surprise that GTA fans hoped he was behind one of the main protagonists in the most anticipated game of all time, GTA 6.

However, the theorizing recently came to an end when Baker confirmed he was not playing the male protagonist, leaving fans to re-dive back into the trailer to find more clues. A post on the GTA 6 subreddit showed a resume by a New York-based actor named Gregory Connors. On the resume was a credit for a "lead" role in a Rockstar game set to release in 2025. Notably, after the Reddit post, Connors removed the "lead" credit from his resume, leading fans to believe he is definitely involved in the project somehow.

Owners of certain generations of high-end CPUs are reporting an increasing frequency of game crashes, which are now being investigated by the manufacturers.

Intel has announced it's investigating recent reports of game crashes for owners of Intel's latest 13th and 14th Gen Core i9 desktop processors. The owners of these CPUs are saying that games such as The Finals, Fortnite, Tekken 8, Hogwarts Legacy, Remnant 2, Alan Wake 2, Horizon: Zero Dawn, The Last of Us Part 1, and Outpost: Infinity Siege are crashing unexpectedly. According to reports from The Verge and Ars Technica, Intel initially believed it was an "isolated issue" but now has escalated it to a potentially more widespread problem.

Additionally, CPUs such as the i9-13900KF, i9-14900KF, i9-13900KS, and i9-14900KS may fall victim to the same issues, considering they are all the same basic silicon. Furthermore, user reports indicate that the i7-13700K and i7-14700K series may also be affected.

Blizzard games like World of Warcraft and Diablo have been prominent in China for several years, thanks to a deal made with local publishing and gaming giant NetEase to bring its popular games and franchises to the country. However, the deal between the two expired in 2023, with Blizzard and NetEase pointing the finger at each other - citing the other party as the reason for the agreement not being renewed.

It got so heated that NetEase employees tore down a World of Warcraft statue at its offices, with both companies suing each other. Well, it looks like time heals all wounds - or a change in management does. With Microsoft now in charge of Activision Blizzard and its properties, a new deal has been struck to bring Blizzard Entertainment games like Warcraft, StarCraft, and Diablo back to China this summer.

As part of the new deal, both parties have also agreed to explore bringing NetEase titles to Microsoft Xbox and other gaming platforms in the West.