Latest News - Page 1834

Ubisoft thinks Steam's 70-30 revenue split is archaic and fully embraces the Epic Games Store's more attractive 88-12 split.

Ubisoft loves digital dollars, and to make as many as possible it's baked in live services, engagement hooks, and microtransactions into all its games. But there's one fly in the billion-dollar ointment: the revenue share platform-holders like Valve get to keep. For every game sold on Steam, developers and publishers keep 70% and Valve keeps 30% of the earnings (the devs' rate boosts to 75% if you make $10 million, and 80% for $50 million). Despite Steam being more actively used to buy games, Ubisoft finds the store's model unsustainable and moved to a better earnings alternative: the Epic Games Store, which lets them keep 88% of all revenues.

In a recent interview with The New York Times, Ubisoft VP of partnerships and revenue Chris Early made things pretty clear. We shouldn't expect Ubisoft to go back to Steam unless Valve changes the revenue share. "It's unrealistic, the current business model that they have. It doesn't reflect where the world is today in terms of game distribution."

If you didn't know already, Microsoft recently acquired Brutal Legend and Psychonauts studio 'Double Fine', and through this acquisition Microsoft formed a new studio who's role is to purely oversee production on the Age of Empires franchise.

The new studio - which has yet to be named - will be controlled by veteran producer and former Xbox Game Studios general manager, Shannon Loftis. Microsoft's Creative Director, Adam Isgreen confirmed this news with PCGamesInsider.biz, saying "We do have an internal team but we're really providing oversight to our wonderful development partners--our team at Forgotten Empires that made Age of Empires: Definitive Edition and is working on Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition, but we also have a group in Australia--Tantalus Media--that's working on Age of Empires III."

He continued and said "We have Relic up in Vancouver. But they're also helping each other out with all the games, too. Our role at Microsoft is to enable these great developers to make Age products and to be the overseers and the ones making sure that we're on-message and on-brand for delivering what we believe to be great Age of Empires experiences. They're accessible, for all ages and you may learn something about history whether you want to or not."

Facebook is still slowly developing their own crytocurrency and to ensure that its a stable and clean coin once it arrives in the public's hands, the company is offering anyone up to $10,000 to find bugs or errors within it.

For those that don't know why bug testing is crucial before the coin arrives on the market, its extremely difficult to provide fixes once the coin has arrived on the blockchain. Since the company is aiming at squashing all the bugs before they launch the coin, they will be offering anyone up to $10,000 per bug depending on how severe the bug is.

Users that are interested in testing the infrastructure of Libra can do so by accessing it via its official hub page on HackerOne. Users will be required to make a HackerOne account and will be rewarded in either real-world currencies or digital currencies for their findings. Head on over to HackerOne to sign-up and find some of Facebook's flaws, here.

The first Netflix film 'The Irishman' directed by legendary director Martin Scorsese will be arriving on Netflix on November 27th.

The announcement comes from the official 'The Irishman' Twitter account, and says that the film is expected to arrive on the streaming platforming starting from November 27th. The film is originally planned to release in theaters November 1, but according to Deadline this release window of 4 weeks was not enough to convince major theater chains to sign up.

Scorsese's 'The Irishman' stars Robert De Niro as Frank Sheeran and Al Pacino as Jimmy Hoffa. The film will be using groundbreaking VFX "de-aging" technology that will allow for De Niro and Pacino to play younger versions of their characters. If you are after the films trailer, head on over to this article here.

While YouTube is certainly no stranger to controversy, the CEO of the platform, Susan Wojcicki has explained why sometimes the company allows for video's to stay online that are inherently offensive or controversial.

In Wojcicki's quarterly letters, she explains that YouTube is in a continuous struggle with users' content being uploaded to the platform being labeled as 'controversial or even offensive'. She says that sometimes is good for the platform to leave some controversial content online, as it proves that YouTube is and open platform that wants to learn from a range of different perspectives.

Wojcicki says that YouTube's "commitment to openness is not easy" and that "hearing a broad range of perspectives ultimately makes us a stronger and more informed society." Despite the backlash on certain pieces of content being flagged for take down, Wojcicki says that these 'problematic' videos make up "a fraction of one percent" of the content uploaded to YouTube. Therefore, the vast majority of the content on the platform outweighs the potential harmful impact of these purportedly 'controversial' videos.

AORUS has just unveiled its new AORUS 17 gaming laptop, bursting at the seams with features and the latest technology including GeForce RTX graphics and a 240Hz display.

The new AORUS 17 rolls out with Intel's new 8C/16T CPU in the Core i9-9980HK, and more "All Intel Inside" goodies with Intel and GIGABYTE working together to include the 9980HK processor, Intel 760 SSD, Intel-based Killer AX1650 Wi-Fi, and Thunderbolt 3. There's up to 64GB of RAM on offer, with 8GB/16GB/32GB options available.

NVIDIA provides its GeForce RTX graphics (RTX 2060, RTX 2070, and RTX 2080 options), so you should be able to handle hitting 240FPS in esports titles without a problem. You'll also be able to run RTX-powered games like Remedy's recent triumph, Control.

NASA launched their Deep Space Atomic Clock (DSAC) back in June and now the clock is starting its orbit around Earth. NASA will be testing DSAC for over a year.

What is an atomic clock? Well, a traditional clock counts its seconds based on a ticking pendulum, an atomic clock measures the distance between objects by timing how long it takes for a single to travel to the object and make it back to the clock. NASA goal in mind is that having an atomic clock out in space will allow for future space missions to have pinpoint accuracy without the need of transmitting the signal back down to Earth.

Currently, a spacecraft sends and receives signals to Earth, which then people on Earth use to pinpoint its location. This process can take several minutes and sometimes even hours. A spacecraft with its own atomic clock would not have to deal with this transfer time and would be able to calculate what it needs to aboard the ship. With NASA's orbital atomic clock now floating around Earth, spacecrafts can also travel much longer distances as the signal no longer needs to reach Earth's surface. NASA will be conducting a one-year test on this atomic clock.

The SpaceX team are currently celebrating the successful test launch of the human-transporting Starship vehicle, the Starhopper.

The Starhopper is designed to carry humans to different locations on Mars' surface when we arrive there, and today SpaceX has successfully achieved a 150 meter high flight test. The Starhopper lifted off just after 6pm EDT and flew sideways in the air and touched down at a separate landing pad. The flight lasted for just 57 seconds.

SpaceX CEO, Elon Musk took to Twitter to congratulate his team on their achievement, saying "Congrats SpaceX team!!" The Starhopper ship uses one Raptor engine, for a comparison - the 100-passenger 'Starship' rocket that SpaceX is developing has six Raptor Engines and the 'Super Heavy' will have 35. Yesterday SpaceX had to cancel the Starhopper's test flight due to a engine malfunction, its great to see fixes were made in such a short time. Congratulations SpaceX!

If you are a fan of science and space, then you should definitely check out Rick and Morty. An episode in the series tackles the debate of whether or not Pluto should gain its planetary status back or remain as a dwarf-planet.

NASA's Chief Administrator believes that Pluto should re-gain its planetary status and be looked at as if it's a planet. He says "Just so you know, in my view Pluto is a planet and you can write that the NASA Administrator declared Pluto a planet once again, I'm sticking by that, its the way I learned it, I'm committed to it."

Pluto lost its planetary status a little over a decade ago when the International Astronomical Union (IAU) conducted a vote towards whether or not Pluto met the planetary criteria. For a space body to be considered a planet it must orbit the sun, have an almost round shape and "clear its orbital neighborhood". The 2006 vote on Pluto remaining a planet fell short due to it not meeting the last part in the criteria.

Hideo Kojima himself has confirmed that PlayStation 4 exclusive Death Stranding will have a first-person view, but let's hope it's not for when you're taking a leak.

Kojima explained in a tweet: "Since I get this question alot, DEATH STRANDING is different from stealth game. You can enjoy First Person View but not a First Person Shooter game. It's brand new game genre that adapted the concept of strand that we call Action Game, Strand Game (Social Strand System)".

It's interesting that Kojima is making sure we all know that it is a "brand new game genre" that has "adapted the concept of strand" that he calls Action Game, Strand Game (Social Strand System). Maybe Kojima has been drinking (hopefully not pee-infused) kool-aid, but Death Stranding looks interesting nonetheless.

Streaming mega star Tyler "Ninja" Blevins has announced he has teamed with Adidas for a multi-year deal that will see Ninja selling apparel of some kind -- although right now, it's under wraps.

Ninja explained on his Mixer stream: "I can't say specifically what is in the works with Adidas, but use your imagination". Ninja continues on the official Adidas/Ninja page: "It's the hunger. The fire. The burning desire to perform. It's the late nights. It's the grind. It's the never-quit, grit-your-teeth-and-keep-going attitude".

He adds: "It's paying homage to the creators, the innovators and the artists whose work spans the creative gamut and lays the foundation for all those who follow. It's the intangible debt that all creators pay to reach the top of their game. It's the time you put in. There's never been a better time to blur the lines between the cultures of gaming and fashion. Whatever your craft is, we invite you to clock in and stay tuned for big things to come".

Ghost Recon Breakpoint is going to be a tour de force on the PC when it comes to graphics and technology, with Ubisoft supporting 4K and UltraWide monitors, uncapped framerates, and AMD FidelityFX.

You'll need a pretty beefy rig if you want to run the game maxed out at 4K, with Ubisoft releasing the PC requirements for the game and its breakdown into Minimum, Recommended, Ultra, Ultra 2K, and Elite 4K.

Ghost Recon Breakpoint will enjoy a closed beta on September 5, but you'll have needed to pre-order and/or sign up to Uplay+ to get service. The full game launches on October 4 for the PC, Xbox One, and PS4.

If there was one thing gamers have been waiting for, it is a mobile version of Mario Kart -- known as Mario Kart Tour, which will be sliding onto both iOS and Android on September 25.

Nintendo has unveiled pre-registrations for Mario Kart Tour, and while the game is a free-to-play title, Nintendo won't be missing out on any of that microtransaction craziness.

Mario Kart Tour will feature City Courses, which are inspired by real life locations like Tokyo and Paris. There will be special in-game events that will kick off in Mario Kart Tour, with a bunch of customization options to tune your perfect kart to battle your enemies with.

Cyberpunk 2077 won't feature a lot of the open spaces enjoyed in The Witcher 3, making it technically smaller map-wise. But it's a lot more vertical and jam-packed than Geralt's swan song.

Cyberpunk 2077 is shaping to be CD Projekt RED's best game yet. It'll have insane real-time AI, dynamic weather systems with acid rain, next-gen visuals with ray tracing and RTX support, intense FPS combat with deep RPG customization, and a robust living, breathing world full of choice and consequence. But will it be as big as The Witcher 3? Yes and no.

The game's Night City is a high-tech metropolis where crime and mayhem run rampant, and it's not as open-ended as The Witcher 3's sprawling fields and forests. Technically The Witcher 3's in-game map is bigger, but Cyberpunk 2077 takes all that space and bottles it up in a more engaging, vivid, and influential package. Night City reacts and changes as you make decisions and might have the same explorability as, say, Grand Theft Auto.

Capcom brings six handheld Mega Man games to PS4, Xbox One, Switch and PC in 2020, including all four Mega Man Zero titles, Mega Man ZX, and Mega Man ZX: Advent.

Like every Japanese publisher, Capcom loves re-releasing its classic games in collections. We've already seen 10 old-school Mega Man games bundled in the Legacy Collection and now we're getting the Zero and ZX games in a $30 SKU. The new Mega Man Zero/ZX Collection sports six games and will launch both physically and digitally on all platforms, complete with save states, original graphics and HD smoothing options, a global easy mode to soften up the platforming chaos, and a new Z Chaser challenge mode that could allow gamers to share high scores online.

This collection will be a major part of Capcom's rather thin FY2019 games slate. Capcom's only AAA project this fiscal year is the huge Monster Hunter World: Iceborne expansion. The rest should be smaller titles and re-releases like this new Mega Man one as Capcom ramps up its new projects for next-generation consoles.

UPDATE: Disney confirmed the news with a new trailer, and the dual-pack will include save states, upscaled (but not remastered) graphics, full versions of every game on every released platform, and will release on October 29 for $30.

Authentic Game Content with Modern Improvements - Fans old and new can enjoy the original game builds, upscaled graphics, customizable controls, special filters for visual enhancement and more.

● Variety of Game Versions - The collection includes multiple playable platform versions of the games including their Sega Genesis, Game Boy and Super Game Boy releases, as well as The Lion King Super Nintendo Entertainment System version.

With over a dozen game studios now under its Xbox division's belt, Microsoft may stop acquiring new devs for a while.

Microsoft's aggressive studio buyouts are set to slow down as the company gears up for the next-gen Xbox console, Project Scarlett. The company currently has over a dozen separate teams under its new first-party Microsoft Studios Global Publishing banner, including new E3 additions like Double Fine, and all of them are working on new projects. (343 is working on Halo 6, Playground might be making Fable 4, Obsidian is crafting new RPGs, and The Coalition is crafting Gears 5).

There's a lot of cooks in the Xbox kitchen right now and instead of adding more chefs, Microsoft wants to see what kinds of dishes its current teams can bake for its cross-platform gaming brand.

Battlefront II's dreaded lootbox controversy was a teaching moment for DICE, and the studio admits it was their lowest point in history.

Both EA and DICE have learned a lot from Battlefront II's lootbox fiasco. Before Battlefront II's release in 2017 we predicted lootboxes and microtransactions, which came true. The game was massively criticized for its intense over-monetization and pay-to-win mechanics. It even got the attention of Washington, with some legislators calling it an exploitative online casino.

DICE knew they had messed up, and now studio design director Dennis Branvall admits it was their rock-bottom moment. "We hit rock bottom in terms of player sentiment but now it's climbing every month," Branvall told GamesIndustry.biz.

To celebrate the home entertainment release of 'Rocketman', we have ten Blu-ray copies of the film to give away thanks to our friends at Universal Sony Home Entertainment!

Discover how a shy, small-town boy becomes one of the most iconic figures in rock and roll-the international superstar Elton John. As he blazes a trail to the top, Elton creates a larger-than-life persona, while battling his own personal demons and the challenges the world throws at him.

To go into the running to win a prize, post this article to your social media profiles, send your postal address to ben at TweakTown dot com and correctly answer the following question before the competition closes on 31 August.

Remedy has just released Control in what will now be cemented in as the 'new Crysis' when it comes to melting gaming PCs across the world, with NVIDIA releasing new GeForce Game Ready 436.15 WHQL drivers optimized for the new game.

The new GeForce Game Ready 436.15 WHQL drivers can be found here, or download them through GeForce Experience.

NVIDIA walks through just how much RTX is infused in Control in the above video, when compared against just RTX reflections in Battlefield V, RTX shadows in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, and RTX global illumination for Metro Exodus. Control has the entire RTX feature set, including the kitchen sink.