Gaming News - Page 132

All the latest gaming news, with everything related to PlayStation releases (PS4 & PS5), Xbox, PC Games, Nintendo Switch & plenty more - Page 132.

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Arkane's Raphael Colantonio briefly worked on Ken Levine's new game Judas

Derek Strickland | Jun 7, 2023 11:02 AM CDT

BioShock creator Ken Levine gives gamers a history lesson on Ghost Story Games and discusses key developments that led to his new game Judas.

Arkane's Raphael Colantonio briefly worked on Ken Levine's new game Judas

Sacred Symbol's latest interview with Ken Levine is a fantastic watch for all BioShock fans, but the podcast is more than that. Not only does it delve into the inner-workings of Irrational Games and the BioShock franchise, but the entire games industry as a whole.

In the interview, Ken Levine shows surprising candor and dispels a fair amount of mystery surrounding his departure from BioShock, the dissolution of Irrational Games, and how he formed his smaller-scale studio. What's most interesting, however, is how Take-Two Interactive and 2K Games actually convinced Levine to do it, and how much faith they had in his small-scale Ghost Story Games studio.

Continue reading: Arkane's Raphael Colantonio briefly worked on Ken Levine's new game Judas (full post)

Here's how and when you get a horse in Diablo 4

Jak Connor | Jun 7, 2023 4:20 AM CDT

Diablo 4 has finally been released and has introduced a fantastic new feature that many players should want to get their hands-on: Mounts

Here's how and when you get a horse in Diablo 4

Many of you may have already seen other players riding their steeds of choice into battle and wondered how you could get one of your own. Thankfully, obtaining a mount in Diablo 4 is quite easy, but it will take you a few hours of glorious demon-slaying first.

To unlock the ability to ride a mount, you will first need to progress through the main campaign enough until you reach the end of Act 3. Once you have progressed enough through the main game, you will be sent back to Kyovashad to speak with Donan at the Cathedral of Light.

Continue reading: Here's how and when you get a horse in Diablo 4 (full post)

Bill Gates says it's okay to start calling him a gamer now

Kosta Andreadis | Jun 7, 2023 1:27 AM CDT

Looking through the annals of Microsoft history and lore, during the early days of the Windows operating system, Bill Gates had to uninstall Minesweeper from his PC because he became addicted and realized that the games were eating up most of his time. It got so bad that one story states that engineers had to fabricate an unattainable Minesweeper high score just to get him to stop playing.

Bill Gates says it's okay to start calling him a gamer now

Bill Gates has a long and complicated history with video games; he's a fan; he dabbles but doesn't really get into them outside of the occasional sports game. He's played Halo but hasn't devoted countless hours to playing multiplayer on Xbox Live.

Then there's his initial skepticism about releasing a dedicated console, the Xbox, which according to reports, felt like an insult to his and Microsoft's legacy.

Continue reading: Bill Gates says it's okay to start calling him a gamer now (full post)

What class is best for you in Diablo IV?

Jak Connor | Jun 7, 2023 12:53 AM CDT

With Diablo 4 featuring five unique classes each with multiple different build paths, you may find yourself wondering what your best option is to take on the legions of hell.

What class is best for you in Diablo IV?

There are five main class options for you to choose from at the beginning of your adventure: Necromancer, Druid, Barbarian, Rogue, and Sorcerer. Each of these options provides unique strengths, weaknesses, and playstyles.

While there is no correct answer to this question, each of these options provide a very different gameplay experience as far as things like mechanical difficulty and combat loops go. In this short guide, you will find a brief gameplay overview of what each class has to offer. Please keep in mind the best choice is always what seems the most fun to you as constant balance patches are always changing the meta and what is "powerful" is always subject to change.

Continue reading: What class is best for you in Diablo IV? (full post)

Xbox hit with a $20 million fine for 'illegally retaining children's personal information'

Kosta Andreadis | Jun 6, 2023 11:36 PM CDT

Microsoft is set to pay the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) $20 million for violating the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). It collected and retained personal information from children signing up to play games on Xbox without notifying parents or obtaining consent. As part of the settlement, Microsoft must also bolster privacy and protection for children on Xbox consoles.

Xbox hit with a $20 million fine for 'illegally retaining children's personal information'

"Our proposed order makes it easier for parents to protect their children's privacy on Xbox and limits what information Microsoft can collect and retain about kids," said Samuel Levine, Director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection. "This action should also make it abundantly clear that kids' avatars, biometric data, and health information are not exempt from COPPA."

According to the report, Xbox users under the age of 13 were treated like anyone else. "Even when a user indicated that they were under 13, they were also asked, until late 2021, to provide additional personal information, including a phone number, and to agree to Microsoft's service agreement and advertising policy," the FTC writes. "Which, until 2019, included a pre-checked box allowing Microsoft to send promotional messages and to share user data with advertisers."

Continue reading: Xbox hit with a $20 million fine for 'illegally retaining children's personal information' (full post)

More games get DLSS 3 support, including former PlayStation 5 exclusive Ratchet & Clank

Kosta Andreadis | Jun 6, 2023 10:27 PM CDT

With Diablo IV now officially out in the wild - breaking Blizzard sales records - if you're rocking a GeForce RTX 40 Series GPU, you've probably checked out its impressive DLSS 3 implementation. Which, even on the new GeForce RTX 4060 Ti, delivers incredible performance with all visual settings maxed out.

More games get DLSS 3 support, including former PlayStation 5 exclusive Ratchet & Clank

Diablo IV scales incredibly well across most PC hardware, it even runs fine on the Steam Deck, but the art and visuals do pop once you dial things up. As per NVIDIA's internal benchmarks playing at 4K with max settings and DLSS 3 enabled everything from the GeForce RTX 4070 to the RTX 4090 hits well over triple-digits.

Firing the game up on the MSI GeForce RTX 4060 Ti Gaming X Trio, I pushed Ultrawide 1440p into the triple-digit region, which was impressive. The good news is that visual fidelity and responsiveness were great, too - thanks partly to NVIDIA Reflex - which makes Diablo IV an excellent example of DLSS 3 gaming.

Continue reading: More games get DLSS 3 support, including former PlayStation 5 exclusive Ratchet & Clank (full post)

Western Digital launches affordably-priced Xbox Series X/S SSD expansion memory cards

Derek Strickland | Jun 6, 2023 2:36 PM CDT

Western Digital enters the next-gen Xbox storage market with its own affordably-priced SSDs.

Western Digital launches affordably-priced Xbox Series X/S SSD expansion memory cards

Western Digital today launched two new Xbox Series X/S expansion SSDs with straightforward pricing: a 500GB SSD for $79.99, and a 1TB SSD for $149.99.

WD's new SSDs actually helped stabilize the expansion storage market for Microsoft's new console. For over 2 years, Seagate was the only company to offer expansion cards for the Series X/S duo, which led to aggressive pricing. Seagate significantly slashed the price of its Xbox SSDs about a month before Western Digital launched its new models, leading to a hefty reduction in MSRP.

Continue reading: Western Digital launches affordably-priced Xbox Series X/S SSD expansion memory cards (full post)

Capcom franchise sales updates: Resident Evil breaks 142 million, Monster Hunter at 92 million

Derek Strickland | Jun 6, 2023 12:57 PM CDT

Capcom has just updated unit sales figures for its best-selling video game franchises, including Resident Evil, Monster Hunter, Street Fighter, Mega Man, and Devil May Cry.

Capcom franchise sales updates: Resident Evil breaks 142 million, Monster Hunter at 92 million

Throughout FY22 (April 2022 - March 2023), Capcom sold a total of 47.1 million games across the entire year. The following top franchises made up nearly half of these sales gains. It's worth noting that some games aren't included in these figures, including Street Fighter 6, which launched earlier this month and will instead be included in Capcom's FY23 numbers.

The franchise that saw the largest gains was Resident Evil, which managed to jump by 15 million units, driven by the stellar release performance of Resident Evil 4 in March 2023 as well as catalog game sales. Below we have a better breakdown of how each of these top 5 best-selling franchises performed throughout the fiscal year:

Continue reading: Capcom franchise sales updates: Resident Evil breaks 142 million, Monster Hunter at 92 million (full post)

Diablo IV sets new record for early access sales, gamers have spent 93 million hours so far

Derek Strickland | Jun 6, 2023 10:42 AM CDT

Blizzard's latest demon-slaying medieval aRPG became a huge success even before it launched.

Diablo IV sets new record for early access sales, gamers have spent 93 million hours so far

Activision has announced that Diablo IV is now Blizzard's fastest-selling game of all time, setting new records for the live service giant. There's some clarification needed with these claims, though. The press release does not have actual sales figures and the "fastest-selling" claim apparently only applies to early access sales, not launch day sales.

"Fastest selling based on more units sold on all platforms before launch (through June 5, 2023). Sell-through figures based on reporting received from digital partners and Blizzard internal reports," reads the press release.

Continue reading: Diablo IV sets new record for early access sales, gamers have spent 93 million hours so far (full post)

Ken Levine reveals why he stopped making BioShock games: 'I trapped myself'

Derek Strickland | Jun 5, 2023 4:29 PM CDT

BioShock creator Ken Levine reveals why he left the franchise and started working on Judas, his new shooter.

Ken Levine reveals why he stopped making BioShock games: 'I trapped myself'

In a recent interview with the Sacred Symbols podcast, BioShock visionary Ken Levine gave key insight as to why he decided to leave the series behind. Levine highlights the compounding stress of major success and how developers and creatives are pressured to continually push out big hits that one-up their previous games.

After BioShock Infinite, which Levine says he wanted to be Irrational's own blockbuster version of Call of Duty, the creator essentially felt trapped by his creations. Levine didn't want to feel like he had to compete against himself and up the ante each time, so he chose to work on a different game--one that took many, many years before it was revealed.

Continue reading: Ken Levine reveals why he stopped making BioShock games: 'I trapped myself' (full post)