Latest News - Page 1496

Battlefront II was recently free on the Epic Games Store, and was downloaded 19 million times. This is monumental for EA and represents a new way to supercharge monetization potential in years-old games.

EA is a master of monetization and engagement. They make billions every year from live services, microtransactions, and finely-tuned gameplay loops. Sometimes, though, EA breaks new ground with business tactics that elongate a game's earning potential.

That's exactly what happened with the recent Battlefront II freebie. The game was offered free on the Epic Store for a limited time, and 19 million gamers took advantage and downloaded the sequel. These are astronomical figures for any live game and the strategy gives EA another low-risk avenue to spark revenues in older games.

Jagex, the UK-based developer behind the popular MMO Runescape, has been acquired by the world's second-largest investment firm.

The Carlyle Group has acquired Jagex in a sweeping mega-deal that sets up Runescape's future. The news was confirmed in a press release, and although exact terms of the deal haven't been announced, it's implied the group paid more than the $530 million that the previous owner Macarthur Fortune Holding paid for Jagex in 2020.

The Carlyle Group manages over $230 billion of financial assets and will provide substantial funding for Runescape's future, Jagex CEO Phil Mansell affirms the partnership will help fill out Runescape's long-term content roadmaps.

The Skyblivion team gives us a closer look at an actual gameplay quest arc, displaying advancements in animations, environments, exploration and combat.

Modders are trying to do something huge: They want to recreate the entirety of Oblivion using Skyrim's in-game engine, complete with in-game areas, quests, and content. It's an ambitious total-conversion mod called Skyblivion, and the project has been in development for some time. Now the mod is starting to take a more finalized shape. It's not done just yet, but the creators are releasing gameplay footage that showcases the progress they've made.

The latest gameplay clip gives us our first look at a playable questline. It's the smaller Revenge Served Cold questline that takes players into the Exhausted Mine. You're basically killing goblins to avenge a farmer's wife. The mine has some alterations from the vanilla version, though; there's multiple layers and areas to explore, complete with new dotted treasures. The combat looks pretty good, the interior animations are all fluid, and the dialog matches up nicely.

According to a new Dragon Age artbook, the next game in the series, Dragon Age 4, will be set in the Tevinter Imperium.

The new game dev grimoire BioWare: Stories and Secrets from 25 Years of Game Development confirms that the new Dragon Age game is set in a realm of slavery, cruelty, and mythical blood magic. We're talking about the Tevinter Imperium, of course--the ancient Rome-like empire nestled in Theda's northern regions.

The book hints the playable landmass could include the Imperium as well as parts of the bordering Nevarra to the south, and Antiva to the east. For comparison, Dragon Age Inquisition featured areas set in southern Thedas; Orlais, Ferelden, and parts of the Free Marches were explorable and playable.

Technology is beginning to turn reality into science fiction. Valve is working on brain-computer interface (BCI) technology that will be available soon, and Gabe Newell said it would allow you to edit your mood.

If you thought virtual reality and augmented reality were science fiction technologies, wait until you try a BCI system that allows software to interact directly with your brain. If this sounds like science fiction to you, I've got surprising news for you: this technology exists in research laboratories today, and it's not far away from becoming a consumer product.

Gabe Newell recently sat down with 1 News in New Zealand to discuss his company's work in the BCI space, and what he said may shock you. Newell explained that BCI technology would enable you to alter your personality as you see fit. Software developers will be able to create applications that can change your mood to your liking, such as dialling up your motivation when you're having an off day. Newell expects that one of the earliest applications would be a sleep-improvement tool that ensures you get proper REM sleep and that you sleep for set durations.

Konami today announced it has dissolved three production teams in its digital entertainment gaming branch, but it's not closing down total game creation.

Konami is a somewhat confusing company. Today's corporate announcement didn't do much to outline or clarify the company's future plans, but from what we can gather, Konami is consolidating its digital gaming branch into one leaner and more concise group. In theory, this is similar to how Square Enix combined 11 separate teams into four game dev divisions in 2019.

So what does this mean?

Konami's latest internal reports reveal why the company hasn't invested strongly into Metal Gear Solid since 2015's MGSV.

Today Konami announced it's dissolving three of its production divisions in an effort to become more lean, reduce spending, and adapt to the new digital-based COVID-19 market. The truth is Konami has been doing this for a while, and it's a big reason why certain franchises like Metal Gear Solid have lapsed.

Prompted by a post on ResetERA, I took a look at Konami's company profile data and found sales data for the stealth espionage series. So far, Metal Gear Solid has sold 56.5 million copies worldwide since 1987, more than other IPs like Capcom's Street Fighter (which sits at 45 million). Even still, Metal Gear pales in comparison to Konami's real breadwinning IP, the billion-dollar titan Pro Evolution Soccer. To date, PES has sold through 110.4 million in its 25-year span. It's easy to see why Konami is playing favorites.

ASUS is about to launch its slick new ROG RYUJIN II 240 CPU cooler, its new flagship dual-fan cooler for your new Intel or AMD CPU with a gigantic 3.5-inch LCD display.

The new design of the ASUS ROG RYUJIN II 240 CPU cooler was shown off by ASUS Technical Marketing Manager Juan Jose Guerrero III, showing off the new cooler installed into an ASUS Z590 ROG Maximus HERO motherboard. Check it out:

The ASUS ROG RYUJIN II 240 CPU cooler is an upgrade over its predecessor that featured a smaller 1.77-inch LiveDash OLED display, while the ROG RYUJIN II 240 CPU cooler packs a huge 3.5-inch display that as VideoCardz aptly points out... is the same size as the Apple iPhone 4 smartphone display.

NVIDIA has just announced that it will be powering gamers in Australia, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey with GeForce NOW "later this year".

In an announcement on the official NVIDIA blog the company explained that it has signed new telcos into the GeForce NOW Alliance with Turkcell, Zain KSA and Pentanet, these new companies join current GeForce NOW Alliance members in Softbank, KDDI, LG Uplus, Taiwan Mobile and GFN.RU.

NVIDIA reminds us that GeForce NOW brings real-time ray tracing to some of the biggest games in the market to underpowered PCs, Macs, Chromebooks, Android and iOS devices. The company adds: "It also offers an opportunity for the world's leading telecommunications firms to deliver high-quality, low-latency PC gaming to nearly any device from the cloud. These partners form the GeForce NOW Alliance, a partnership of operators using RTX Servers and NVIDIA cloud-gaming software to expand and improve cloud gaming globally".

We are now getting some totally nerdy nudes of the new GALAX GeForce RTX 3090 HOF graphics card, which was first teased at GALAX's virtual expo back in November 2020.

The new GALAX GeForce RTX 3090 HOF graphics card is now posing for the camera in the nude, with its beautiful white PCB and gargantuan VRM design. GALAX is using 26-phase VRMs on the GeForce RTX 3090 HOF graphics card, which is the highest VRM count for any RTX 3090 on the market.

GALAX is hiding the 26-phase VRMs under the heat sink you see in the photo here, but VideoCardz -- who has the scoop on the GALAX GeForce RTX 3090 HOF graphics card says that they were told that the heat sink on the GeForce RTX 3090 HOF graphics card will be changed for the final product.

Intel teased its next-next-gen 12th Gen Core CPUs at the all-virtual CES 2021 not too many days ago now, but it seems the 12th Gen Alder Lake platform could be coming much sooner than anticipated. September 2021, soon.

In a new tweet, Uniko's Hardware said that Intel would be launching its 12th Gen Core CPUs and new 600-series chipset motherboards in September 2021. As to what we should expect here: LGA 1700-based motherboards and the new Intel 600-series chipset that should support DDR5 memory and PCIe 5.0 support.

As for the 12th Gen Core CPUs themselves, the new Alder Lake platform will be built on an "enhanced" 10nm SuperFin architecture, and will tap Intel's Hybrid Technology which will see the pairing of high-efficiency and high-performance cores under a single chip.

We've been hearing about AMD's next-gen Navi 31 design for a while now, but it appears the MCM (multi-chip module) GPU is gearing up for a big 2021 reveal. But how much of a beast is Navi 31? It could be huge.

AMD's next-gen Navi 31 would be an MCM-based design that would see a chiplet-based GPU -- the first ever on desktop -- similar to the chiplet design used in the Zen-based Ryzen CPUs. Rumor has it Navi 31 will pack 80 CUs and the top SKU has 2 of them for a total of 160 CUs which means up to 10240 cores -- 2 x Navi 31 MCM GPUs... that sounds so good.

The new RDNA 3 architecture will be coursing through the veins of Navi 31, which should have a huge injection of power into ray tracing performance over the Radeon RX 6000 series and its new RDNA 2 architecture. It's nowhere near NVIDIA and its ray tracing prowess with the Ampere architecture, but an MCM-based RDNA 3-powered GPU could do the trick.

A new Knights of the Old Republic RPG is reportedly in development, but unnamed sources say neither EA nor BioWare are involved.

Sources tell podcaster Bespin Bulletin that a new KOTOR game is happening, but BioWare won't be making it. The game is instead being crafted by a not-so-obvious studio as part of Lucasfilm Games' new Star Wars initiative.

Bloomberg's Jason Schreier, who has a close ear to the goings-on in the games industry, said in December 2020 that "nobody's going to guess right" about who's developing the sequel.

New reports say Chinese juggernaut Tencent is eyeing a billion-dollar acquisition of a U.S.-based gaming company. Who could it be?

Sources tell TMT Finance that Tencent is raising billions to buy out a new game company. Insiders believe Tencent could force a hostile takeover of Grand Theft Auto parent company Take-Two Interactive, or possibly make a deal to buy out EA.

The more likely scenario sees Tencent buying a South Korean developer, sources say. Targets include NetMarble, South Korea's biggest mobile game maker, and Nexon, the developer behind Dungeon Fighter. Tencent is already the third biggest shareholder in NetMarble with a 17.6% stake and could force a hostile takeover by acquiring more stake in the company. Tencent also has exclusive rights to publish Nexon's Dungeon Fighter in China, showing the giant has existing connections with both firms.

GTA Online's in-game microtransactions once again break the bank, cementing GTA V as one of the best-earning games of all time.

GTA Online's new Cayo Perico heist helped GTA V make more money in December than any other period in the game's 7-year history. The news is from analyst firm SuperData, who says December 2020 delivered record digital revenues for GTA Online that were higher than any other month since the mode's release.

The Skyblivion total conversion mod is making tremendous progress and looks absolutely enchanting in this new dev diary video.

Oblivion, arguably the best-looking Elder Scrolls game ever made, is getting rebuilt in Skyrim's game engine. A team of 50+ talented volunteers are breathing new life into these two beloved fantasy games as part of the hugely ambitious TES Renewal passion project. The Skyblivion mod aims to completely recreate The Elder Scrolls IV using Skyrim Special Edition mod toolsets, complete with custom assets as well as the original questlines intact.

The new dev diary video highlights environments, 3D objects, interiors, and quests, showing marked improvements and big strides in every way. The mod still isn't finished, though, and has some issues with the quests themselves. But according to the team, the end is in sight...yet there's no actual release date for the mod.

Yesterday Microsoft made a big mistake. The company tried to raise Xbox LIVE Gold prices by 50% and removed the 12-month option entirely, bringing Xbox LIVE Gold subscriptions to $120 a year. It failed spectacularly, and now Microsoft has pulled a 180.

Xbox LIVE Gold isn't getting a price hike after all. After severe backlash from an alienated fan base, Microsoft has cancelled its plans to raise Xbox LIVE Gold to $10 a month. Prices will stay the same at $9.99 for 1 month, $24.99 for 3 months, and $39.99 for 6 months. 12-month memberships are only available at retailers.

As an added apology to fans, billion-dollar free-to-play games like Fortnite and Warzone no longer require Xbox LIVE Gold in order to play. It's simultaneously an end of an era and the beginning of a new dawn for the subscription.

As promised, CD Projekt RED released the first major patch for Cyberpunk 2077 that fixes a ton of bugs and major glitches.

Cyberpunk 2077's new Patch 1.1 update is out now and it brings some big changes. The most substantial change is more streamlined memory allocation for consoles, which improves in-game performance on every level. It turns out 8GB of GDDR5 unified memory hamstrings developers in console games.

The update also eliminates any possibility of the save corruption glitch on consoles and PC. The saves will no longer get big enough to become corrupted and CDPR even "trimmed the excess size from already-existing saves." Sadly the saves that are already corrupted can't be fixed and will remain corrupted.

Vicarious Visions used to be an Activision studio, but now it's been absorbed by Blizzard. This actually makes sense; Vicarious Visions has been helping Blizzard with various projects for a while now.

Vicarious Visions, the developer behind Skylanders, the new Crash Bandicoot games, Tony Hawk 1+2 remasters, has been moved over to Blizzard. The studio had been an Activision subsidiary since 2005, but is now a part of Blizzard Entertainment and has been relegated as a support team for Blizzard's projects. This is somewhat likened to Sledgehammer's change from a fully-fledged Call of Duty studio to assisting Treyarch and Infinity Ward on the franchise.

The truth is Vicarious Visions has been working with Blizzard"for some time" and is now "fully dedicated" to future Blizzard projects. Vicarious Visions has been developing a Diablo II remake for some time, having taken over development from Blizzard's own main internal teams. Rumblings of a Diablo II remake/remaster have been heard for years now.

Cyberpunk 2077 was the biggest launch of all time in digital revenues and sales, analyst firm SuperData reports.

Cyberpunk 2077 has sold a whopping 10.2 million units digitally on PS4, Xbox One, and PC after refunds, becoming the biggest digital game launch in history. That's according to SuperData, whose latest report highlights monumental figures for CD Projekt.

"Cyberpunk 2077 had the biggest game launch of all time based on digital revenue and digital units sold (10.2M)," the firm writes. PC Gaming accounted for a whopping 80% of these game sales and revenues, which is to be expected as PC games are primarily sold through digital distribution.