Gaming News - Page 329

Nintendo isn't just shutting down the 3DS and Wii U storefronts, but it's also removing all forms of digital retro game purchases from the market.

Nintendo's unpopular business decisions are catching the ire of gamers and preservationists alike. The Video Game History Foundation, which wants to create the Library of Alexandria for video games, has gone so far to call Nintendo's current tactics "actively destructive" to the slowly-ebbing retro market.

"While it is unfortunate that people won't be able to purchase digital 3DS or Wii U games any more, we understand the business reality that went into this decision.

Nintendo has made nearly $60 billion in dedicated video games revenues since the Switch's release, and a good portion of that is from hardware.

Nintendo's video games business has been rock solid since the Switch's arrival in early 2017. The Mario-maker has generated billions in revenue every year since it unionized handhelds and consoles into one cohesive multi-device ecosystem. Things have certainly turned around since the Wii U days.

According to data provided by Nintendo, the company has made roughly $59.8 billion in total cumulative sales revenues across its video games business unit since the Nintendo Switch released in Q4'17. What's interesting is Nintendo has made more from hardware than it has from software because every Switch is sold at a profit. Hardware made up $33.16 billion or 55% of total dedicated video games revenues, and software made $26.63 billion, or 45% of the total.

Ubisoft plans to release at least 4 AAA games in the fiscal year ending March 2023, including the long-awaited Skull & Bones.

Ubisoft's next FY2023 period should deliver a handful of unique games across a wide spectrum of genres. The company wants to release four big titles from April 2022 - March 2023, including:

The slate is missing heavy-hitters like Assassin's Creed or a Tom Clancy title, however Ubisoft says this year will be the largest ever for Rainbow Six content and features. There's also more Assassin's Creed content planned throughout 2022, but the major new AC title won't launch in FY23.

Ubisoft's holiday 2021 earnings have dropped due to a smaller number of game releases.

Today Ubisoft announced its Q3'21 figures, and while respectable, the numbers are substantially lower than last year's period. This led to a 30% drop in sales and a 25% reduction in net bookings. Some vital context is needed.

The main reason for the slip is that Ubisoft released more games in 2020 than it did in 2021. Ubisoft had a stacked holiday 2020 period with multiple heavy-hitting games like Assassin's Creed Valhalla and Watch Dogs Legion launching with next-gen consoles. The Q3 2021 period only really had Far Cry 6 and Just Dance 2022 to prop up holiday sales.

Ubisoft shrugs off direct questions about being acquired by a larger company like Sony or Microsoft.

Having fought off one hostile takeover against Vivendi, Ubisoft wants to remain as free as it can for as long as possible. Billion-dollar giants like Microsoft and Sony are flashing pocketbooks to buy up content IP to power their ecosystems of services and hardware.

Ubisoft is one of the last major games companies that hasn't been purchased...and that's how company executives want it to stay. Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot says the publisher is stable and doesn't technically have a reason to sell.

Embracer Group has over 200 games in development, and most of them remain unannounced.

With its sheer volume of developers, labels, and owned IP, Embracer Group is one biggest games companies on the planet. In updated figures, the multimedia giant says it has an incredible 216 game projects that are currently in development. Most of these games are unannounced; there are 149 mystery titles in the pipeline across Embracer's massive array of developers.

The significant increase in game projects reflects some of Embracer's most recent major buyouts, which include Gearbox Entertainment, 3D Realms, Perfect World Entertainment (nestled under Gearbox), and Aspyr.

EA executive Laura Miele reportedly blames Halo Infinite for setting a positive example and poaching Battlefield 2042's playerbase. This line of thought could easily be applied to another mega-hit shooter that EA's responsible for.

According to recent reports sourced from obtained internal documents, EA execs are trying to figure out where Battlefield 2042 went wrong. The usual suspects apply: Live games are difficult to make, the pandemic, and competitors. EA's Laura Miele reportedly mentioned Halo Infinite by name and suggested Halo's polished state set a high water mark for Battlefield 2042...which is a curious statement for two reasons.

One, Halo Infinite had lots of problems at launch. Monetization, bugs, glitches--Big Team Battle was nigh-unplayable for months and it currently has very serious issues with desync and cheating. Gunplay was polished. Many other things were not.

Metro Exodus has sold 6 million copies to date, the Embracer Group has confirmed.

The Metro franchise remains one of Deep Silver's heavy-hitting tentpole franchises and has contributed strongly to overall quarterly earnings. Metro Exodus has sold more than 6 million units since its release on February 2019, making it one of the most popular in the series. While Embracer hasn't given regular updates on total Metro game or franchise sales, these figures are more than respectable and are responsible in part to Koch Media's $78 million revenues generated in Q3'21.

"Back-catalog sales were also driven by the evergreen title Metro Exodus, which has sold 6 million copies since its launch in February 2019," Embracer said in its recent report.

CD PROJEKT RED has pushed out a rather large patch for Cyberpunk 2077, with the v1.5 patch including a plethora of tweaks, new features, and so much more -- for all platforms -- not just the PC.

Inside of Cyberpunk 2077's new v1.5 update is a built-in benchmark for the PC, but also AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) 1.0 which joins the ranks against NVIDIA and its DLSS technology inside of CDPR's flagship game. Previously, Cyberpunk 2077 had an option for Contrast Adaptive Sharpening (CAS) but now FSR 1.0 has replaced it.

Cyberpunk 2077's new addition of AMD FSR support can be enabled in the "Graphics" menu of the Settings, and then down the bottom under Ray Tracing you'll see "Resolution Scaling" and have the options for NVIDIA DLSS and AMD FSR technologies.

CD PROJEKT RED has pushed out a rather large patch for Cyberpunk 2077, with the v1.5 patch including a plethora of tweaks, new features, and so much more -- for all platforms -- not just the PC.

One of the biggest and surprise additions in the new Cyberpunk 2077 update was the inclusion of a built-in benchmark, which will run a benchmark within a pre-determined path of the game and give you the results you need. You can benchmark with the vanilla version of the game, with DLSS -- or the newly-added AMD FSR upscaling tech option -- as well as ray tracing.

There are a bunch of PC-specific things that CD PROJEKT RED have added into the v1.5 update for Cyberpunk 2077, including a "Toggle walking" button when you're playing with your keyboard. When you're exploring, simply press "G" on your keyboard although this can be rebinded in your settings.