Gaming News - Page 139

Today's Xbox Games showcase went off with a bang, giving players updates on some massively-anticipated first-party games that have been quietly in the works for years now.

It's been a few years since we last heard about the Fable reboot, but Playground Games came out swinging with a new in-game trailer that perfectly captures the humorous spirit of the franchise. The trailer had a surprise cameo from The IT Crowd's Richard Ayoade, who played Dave, a simple man who finds pleasure in vegetable gardening. Oh, and Dave is actually a giant living in a house in a sky, straight out of a dry British modern-day retelling of Jack and Beanstalk.

The footage shows off the rendering capabilities of Playground's tech as it pertains to human modeling and interior environments, along with the animations from the fighting sequences and general performance capture. Ayoade's mannerisms were captured perfectly alongside his voice and signature facial expressions.

Microsoft is giving the Xbox Series S a much-needed storage upgrade with a new higher-priced model.

Today at the Xbox showcase, Microsoft announced a new Xbox Series S model that effectively doubles the onboard SSD capacity and sports a new paint job that matches its much more powerful older sibling. The updated Xbox Series S Carbon Black SKU retails for $349, meaning gamers are spending about $50 extra on 500GB or so of PCIe 4.0 SSD tech. Also remember that 1TB isn't the full capacity and the SSD will typically drop to around 931GB after formatting.

The new edition is exactly the same in terms of specifications, though, with the limited 4TFLOPs of GPU power on the 7nm+ SoC and a much more limited 20 CUs of RDNA Navi 2.0 power, coupled with 10GB of GDDR6 RAM that runs at a slower rate. These lower-end chips see the Series S targeting a range of 1080p - 1440p resolution at 60-120FPS with variable dynamic performance.

The 10-year licensing agreement between Microsoft and NVIDIA may extend to Xbox Game Pass and allow users to stream PC Game Pass Ultimate titles on GeForce Now-enabled devices, including PCs and NVIDIA's Shield TV set top boxes.

Microsoft has announced that consumers will soon be able to play games available on PC Game Pass Ultimate through NVIDIA's GeForce Now game streaming service. This effectively extends the Game Pass subscription to one of the most powerful PC-oriented game streaming services on the planet, with NVIDIA's GeForce Now servers able to tap RTX 4080 GPUs to deliver high-end 4K gaming performance remotely to subscribers.

In an Xbox Wire blog post the company says that only select games from the PC Game Pass service will be streamable on NVIDIA's GeForce Now service:

In a closed-door meeting with journalists and analysts, Microsoft gaming CEO Phil Spencer says that the Xbox gaming brand is expected to make over $1 billion from PC throughout 2023.

Microsoft's expansion efforts onto PC will pay off big this year--at least that's what Xbox's Phil Spencer has told the media. In a private on-stage meeting with press and games industry experts, Spencer had some very interesting things to say about the state of modern Xbox gaming.

According to Spencer, PC's influence in the Xbox games business is growing, and is forecasted to make over $1 billion in revenues throughout 2023. We've known for a while now that Xbox is doing very well, having achieved a record-breaking $16.22 billion in Fiscal Year 2022. So far in FY23, which ends at the end of this month in June 2023, Xbox has generated $11.977 billion revenues.

Bethesda Game Studios unveiled a ton of new Starfield details during its special direct showcase today, including confirmation of a photo mode on day one.

It's official: Starfield is set to launch on September 6, 2023 exclusively on Xbox Series X/S and PC, and it'll include a photo mode at launch. Bethesda has put an incredible amount of work into their new upgraded Creation Engine tech, including global illumination for planet-wide lighting effects that change with suns in real-time. It's only natural that the studio would want to offer every opportunity to show off those effects with a fully-fledged photo mode so that all spacefarers could share their favorite shots.

In the Starfield Direct, the developers confirmed the game will have over 1,000 planets and worlds, complete with their own unique biomes, lighting effects based on proximity to the nearest sun, as well as gravitational properties that will alter traversal, exploration, and gameplay. There's also a mix of eclectic and bizarre wildlife to capture throughout the environments.

It's completely official this time: Starfield is set to launch this year on September 6, 2023 exclusively on Xbox Series X/S and PC.

Bethesda Game Studios has officially re-confirmed that Starfield will release in 2023. For real this time. Bethesda and Xbox have set a firm September 6 release date for the space sim while also showcasing new gameplay sequences and a massive amount of updates in the official Starfield Direct showcase.

The studio promises that Starfield is their biggest game yet, complete with new overhauled lighting systems, a procedural generation system that makes all planets and worlds unique, and tons of customization options for ships, weapons, and much more.

Ubisoft and Massive Entertainment today announced Star Wars Outlaws, its new game within the iconic franchise.

Star Wars Outlaws features a Han Solo-esque scoundrel adventure where you take the role of Kay, an outlaw trying to survive while being hunted down. Kay is a wanted criminal and Outlaws will deliver a kind of Wild West-in-Space journey where players have to rely on their wits to survive, complete with cinematic sequences befit of a Star Wars film.

Ubisoft has not revealed very many details about the game, but we did see what appears to be Han Solo in carbonite, so expect this to take place between Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. There's distinct overtones of Star Wars 1313 in this game--the cancelled Boba Fett bounty hunter game--but with a fast-talking, smart-aleck outlaw instead of a quiet and stoic hunter.

The Microsoft-Activision merger may not ultimately be allowed to close, a key securities analyst tells investors.

In a recent note, Jefferies analyst Andrew Uerkwitz outlines the firm's thoughts on the Microsoft-Activision merger to investors. Uerkwitz believes that the $68.7 billion mega-merger between Microsoft and Activision has a less than 50% chance in being approved by key worldwide regulators like the FTC and CMA on a final basis.

"There is likely still a less than half probability this deal ultimately gets approved, but it's definitely more than zero which is where we believe the stock is pricing in," Uerkwitz writes, as detailed by Seeking Alpha.

Tomorrow's Xbox showcase could help turn the tide in Microsoft's favor and help course-correct some of the controversy surrounding the gaming brand.

Following the big Redfall kerfuffle, Xbox needs a win right now. Tomorrow's gaming show could be a big touchdown moment that helps turn the tide of Xbox's public image in the enthusiast gaming sector. Here's a few things that I personally hope to see at the showcase alongside some predictions.

The Xbox Games Showcase and Starfield Direct show begin tomorrow, Sunday, June 11 at 10am PST / 1pm EST, and can be live streamed on Twitch, Facebook, and YouTube.

Activision-Blizzard's investor relations VP Chris Hickey updates shareholders on its current negotiations with unions formed by company employees.

In a recent SEC filing, Activision management outlines how bargaining talks are going with the unions inside of its games business. The billion-dollar publisher has recognized two unionized groups: a team of quality assurance testers at Raven Software, and developers at Blizzard Albany, formerly Vicarious Visions, a team that worked on Diablo II Resurrected and Tony Hawk games. Collectively these groups form the Game Workers Alliance.

In the filing, Activision is advising shareholders to vote against a specific proposal that would require it to create a pro-union policy and continually update shareholders on its progress.