Gaming News - Page 135

Federal judge Jaqueline Scott Corley has granted the FTC's request for a temporary restraining order in the Microsoft-Activision merger case, but the most important order has yet to be issued.

In a bid to stall (and ultimately prevent) the Microsoft-Activision merger from closing, the Federal Trade Commission sought two court orders from federal courts: a temporary restraining order (TRO), which would prohibit Microsoft and Activision from merging for a specified period of time, and the more important preliminary injunction (PI), an order that would restrict the merger from closing until after the FTC's internal administrative lawsuit is complete. The tech firms have indicated they would "close-over," or merge together despite the ongoing FTC admin lawsuit, at any time after June 15. This pressured the FTC to file for emergency intervention from federal courts.

Northern California District Judge Jaqueline Corley has approved the FTC's request for a TRO. This order temporarily restrains Microsoft and Activision from merging. The two billion-dollar games companies cannot join together until five days after the court decides whether or not to issue the preliminary injunction order. The PI order remains the FTC's main goal with seeking federal intervention.

Blizzard has taken to its social channels to reveal some statistics that have been accumulated over the week Diablo IV has released.

Blizzard took to its Diablo Twitter account to share a graphic that showcases a bunch of interesting stats, one of which is particularly humorous, and that's the fact that of the 316,991,632 player deaths, 5,792,063 of them can be awarded to The Butcher. According to Blizzard's stats, The Butcher is responsible for 1.6% of all player deaths over the first week of Diablo IV being released.

Diablo IV fans were quick to comment on the hilarious stat, with one writing, "I have added to that stat many times", and another writing, "He is a damn sponge and hits like a truck. I leave the dungeon and re-enter. He has no business being that tough." Another gamer wrote, "The one time I've even seen him was after joining a buddy's game whilst hearing him scream, "THE BUTCHER IS HERREEE".

Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty is the big story expansion for CD Projekt Red's visually stunning first-person action RPG, and it's out this September. In addition to presenting a new cinematic story with more Keanu Reeves as Johnny Silverhand and Idris Elba as Solomon Reed, it will take players to a new section of Night City called Dogtown with the overall tone described as a "spy thriller."

And with the base game being on the absolute bleeding edge regarding in-game visuals and real-time ray-tracing, NVIDIA has confirmed that the expansion will support DLSS 3 at launch alongside the Technology Preview of the Ray Tracing: Overdrive Mode, which is a fully path-traced version of the game that requires the use of DLSS 3 to ensure a playable frame-rate on account of, well, ray-tracing for just about everything you see.

And with that, we've got the full PC requirements for the Phantom Liberty expansion covering everything from the minimum specs to the non-RT Ultra requirements and the fact that you'll need a GeForce RTX 4080 to play with the Ray Tracing: Overdrive Mode enabled in 4K at 60 frames-per-second.

Blizzard's Diablo IV is currently one of the most talked about and played games on PC and console, breaking both sales and revenue records for the studio. On PC, the game makes full use of GeForce RTX technologies like DLSS 2, DLSS 3's Frame Generation, and NVIDIA Reflex for low-latency performance, not to mention it runs great on a variety of hardware that includes Valve's Steam Deck.

But, with new mainline entries in the Diablo franchise being few and far between, this means that the very first title in the series dates back to 1997 - when the presentation was 2D and a far cry from the massive open world Sanctuary seen in the latest release.

As part of a reminder that Diablo IV supports the GeForce RTX 40 Series exclusive DLSS 3 feature - which uses AI to generate frames and boost perceived performance - NVIDIA and the GeForce team have released a cool little video showcasing the various NVIDIA GPUs that have been used to play each Diablo game over the years. Starting with the RIVA TNT 128, which put NVIDIA on the map regarding 2D and 3D acceleration.

Ubisoft's new Star Wars game came out of nowhere, and it looks to be one of the most visually authentic franchise games ever made.

Ubisoft's Massive Entertainment turned heads with its surprise new Star Wars Outlaws game. The project is a more gritty take on the universe and dispels the myth and magic associated with the Jedi, instead focusing on the dire straits of the galaxy's most-wanted accidental criminal. It's a unique take that's more like Han Solo and Luke Skywalker.

Apart from the storyline, the most captivating part of Star Wars Outlaws is just how well Ubisoft Massive has captured the look and feel of the universe. Star Wars is an eclectic mix of high-tech futurism with low-end analog tech. The Empire has gleaming star-cruisers, but the poorest worlds have lots of junky, broken down rustbucket ships where everything is just held together by shoestrings.

Microsoft's first-party game support teams have been engaged with Starfield's development since early 2022, Xbox Game Studios boss Matt Booty says.

Starfield is one of the most important Xbox games in years. Xbox management feels that Starfield will be a catalyst for growth for Xbox Game Pass and the brand as a whole, and that confidence is partly a result of how stable Starfield currently is.

Xbox execs say that Starfield may ship with the least bugs out of any Bethesda game due to the intense testing from quality assurance teams, and partly because of the support Microsoft has offered with its internal groups, including the console-centric Advanced Technology Group, who has helped Bethesda better streamline its new Creation Engine on Xbox Series X/S platforms. We've actually known about the ATG's involvement in Starfield since May. Bethesda has also made the decision to target 30FPS on consoles to ensure that in-game performance matches their vision for Starfield.

The Federal Trade Commission asks federal courts to intervene by issuing orders that would halt and temporarily prevent the Microsoft-Activision merger from closing.

Microsoft wants to buy Activision for $68.7 billion and acquire some of the most profitable video games on the planet. The Federal Trade Commission is wary of the merger, and has scrutinized the deal in a heavy Phase 2 investigation of millions of business documents and submissions. During its investigation, the FTC identified antitrust concerns and determined that the merger would harm competition. The Commission then opened an administrative lawsuit against Microsoft and is now challenging the merger in its internal courts.

Although the deal is currently in active litigation with the FTC, Microsoft and Activision can still merge in an action known as a "close over". The FTC notes that Microsoft and Activision intend to close the merger after June 15.

Bethesda certainly is known for rolling out games that can be plagued with bugs, and sometimes these bugs are hilarious, while other times they can be so severe that it ruins the experience within game.

According to Microsoft Game Studios head Matt Booty and Xbox Game Studios CEO Phil Spencer, who sat down for a podcast with Giant Bomb, Bethesda has ironed out most of the bugs in Starfield, as the title is expected to be the most bug-free game Bethesda has ever released. During the podcast, Booty says that even if the game was shipped today it would have "the fewest bugs that any game from Bethesda has ever shipped with."

This point was backed up by Spencer, who said that Bethesda has many titles under their belt such as Fallout, Skyrim and the Elder Scrolls. Throughout developing the aforementioned games Spencer believes the team at Bethesda has matured, leading to a much more polished Starfield. Additionally, Spencer said that every QA person at the company is currently play-testing Starfield, looking for bugs within the game and attempting to determine the overall quality of the title.

The mighty decentralized video games company the Embracer Group today announced a restructuring plan that will more closely centralize and solidify its games empire and lead to layoffs and cancellations.

Following the eleventh-hour cancellation of a lucrative $2 billion deal, the Embracer Group today announced that it is enacting a new restructuring strategy that will affect its workforce and content pipeline. This restructuring plan will lead to layoffs, studio closures, and project cancellations. As of March 2023, Embracer Group had 16,601 employees, with 5,175 non-game developers, 138 internal studios, and a total of 221 video game projects in development with 165 of these being unannounced.

"The program presented today will transform us from our current heavy-investment-mode to a highly cash-flow generative business this year," Embracer Group CEO Lars Wingefors writes in an open letter.

Xbox Game Pass across console and PC represents one of the best deals in gaming, with access to over 100 titles to download and install, including the full library of first-party titles from Xbox Game Studios and Bethesda. It also features a cloud gaming component for a number of its game, opening the door to countless devices, from phones to tablets to smart TVs, that can stream Xbox games.

As part of a new report on the future of Xbox, Microsoft's vision for the future, and opening the platform up to more gamers, we've got word that PC Game Pass is coming to NVIDIA GeForce NOW later this year.

Now, you might think that doubling up on cloud gaming is a little redundant. It's worth stating that GeForce NOW is on the cutting edge in terms of visual fidelity while receiving critical acclaim for delivering low-latency performance with its streaming tech. Compared to playing games on an Xbox console blade, you can access up-to GeForce RTX 4080 performance with real-time ray-tracing and other visually intensive settings.