Latest News - Page 1877

Sensor Tower Store Intelligence has reported that Mixi's Monster Strike has surpassed the worldwide gross revenue of $7.2 billion. Making it the highest grossing app of all time.

Sensor Tower has reported that Monster Strike has become the most earning mobile app on both the App Store and the Google Play Store, beating once leader Puzzles & Dragons from GungHo Online Entertainment. Puzzles and Dragons amassed around $7 billion since its release back in 2012, while Monster Strike has already surpassed that figure with $7.2 billion since its release in 2013.

The report also touches on Monster Strikes year-over-year percentage in Q3, the increase was up 6 percent. The apps audience is primarily focused in Japan, and total downloads have reached over 45 million to date.

A new report has come out by a French publication website regarding some unrelease Blizzard titles, Diablo 4 and Overwatch 2. The report says that both of the titles have been shown to a select amount of Blizzard employees.

The report was published by Le Monde, and concentrates on the struggle Blizzard Europe has had by laying off 30% of their employees. As the article goes on, more of Blizzard current situation was revealed and according to the following translation the "Teams at Blizzard Entertainment have already been presented with the long-awaited Diablo 4 and know that a new Overwatch game is in development".

The translation continues and says that "neither of these two games will be released before 2020, at the very best, and employees at Versailles have no idea if they will still be around when they eventually release. Activision Blizzard will be making less of a profit, but this will still amount to a lot of profit , says a veteran employee." It seems that the BlizzCon this year will be quite eventful as we could certainly get some teasers for both of these titles.

Ever wondered what it would be like if Super Mario went battle royale? Well, now that curiosity can be fulfilled with DMCA Royale, a Super Mario parody battle royale game.

InfernoPlus, the developer behind DMCA Royale released his parody game sometime last week and it allows players to join a 75-player race where players could eliminate each others progress. DMCA Royale when it was first released was originally called Mario Royale, that was before Nintendo's lawyers got involved. The game then re-released as DMCA Royale and all of Nintendo's assets were replaced with seal team six's original content.

DMCA Royale now features the characters Infringio and his brother Copyright Infringo, instead of Mario. DMCA Royale is quite popular as well, at the time of writing this I was getting full lobbies of players and there was about 1,000 people online battling for first place. If you are interested in some battle royale action in your web browser, check out DMCA Royale here.

Cloud streaming games is going to be a massive part of gaming future and SEGA has said they are more than excited for the arrival of new platforms such as Google Stadia and Project xCloud.

In an interview with GamesIndustry, COO/President, Gary Dale and Executive VP of Publishing, John Clark sat down to discuss why SEGA has an interest in the coming cloud streaming platforms. Clark said "The thought of people on low-end laptops being able to play games like Football Manager and Total War is something we really embrace and support, so we're really interested to see how all the players push forward with significant streaming announcements and services."

Clark continued and said that "bandwidth is a very important thing, just to see how the services function. So we'll look at Google Stadia's rollout with a lot of interest to see how that maps out. And for the future, we're all interested to see how economies of streaming are going to work, the business models, etc." Clark reiterates that streaming and cloud have been around for quite some time, but now it seems that the technology is picking up to the point where the platforms can be more utilized.

Nintendo showcased some more of Luigi's Mansion 3 at this years E3 but didn't give a solid release date and for good reason. Luigi's Mansion 3 is in careful and not rushed development.

We saw some Luigi's Mansion 3 gameplay at the Nintendo Treehouse livestream (located above), where we got to see Luigi turn from Goo Luigi to normal Luigi and some ghost busting action. Luigi's Mansion 3 is being developed by Next Level Games and in an interview with Polygon, Nintendo's product marketing manager, Bill Trinen said that Next Level Games is "putting a lot of care into the game".

The development process seems to be a meticulous, and that Nintendo isn't pressuring Next Level Games to rush the game out. Trinen continued and said "We want to let them put the care into it they want, so we're waiting on them to let us know and we'll solidify the release date." This is simply great to hear, gamers love when development studios decide to take their time with a title rather then release a game that is half-baked and full of issues.

Huawei isn't the only one in trouble when it comes to 5G technology and its various troubles over the last dew months, as the Trump administration is reportedly looking into requiring 5G hardware and products being designed, and made outside of China.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting the story, adding fuel to the fire by writing the move could "reshape global manufacturing and further fan tensions between the countries". A recent executive order from the White House saw restrictions put in place to restrict some networking hardware and services from other countries coming into, and being available in the US.

All of the concerns of cybersecurity in the US led to a huge 150-day review of the entire US telecommunications supply chain, with one part of that seeing US officials asking telco-equipment manufacturers if they can design and produce the hardware and software that is coming into the US, outside of China. Right now, the US is the epicenter of technology, but no major telecommunications equipment is made in the United States. Most of it, is made in China.

Blizzard has just lost its global esports director after 13 years on the job, with Kim Phan leaving the Warcraft, Starcraft and Overwatch developer in pursuit of a "new endeavor" in the gaming industry.

Phan's resignation was effective as of June 14, with the news coming in less than a month after Overwatch League Commissioner Nate Nanzer departed Blizzard, taking a job with competitor Epic Games. In her departure post, Phan said: "As I hang up my sword and shield, I look forward to a bright future and wish all my Blizzard friends and family the very best".

With both Phan and Nanzer leaving Blizzard in the middle of rumors of low morale and mounting resignations from Blizzard, it seems the company and its future in esports is being questioned.

Fortnite is still making oodles of money with analyst group SuperData showing us that Epic Games made a swift $203 million from Fortnite across all platforms (PC, console, mobile) which is up from April but "down 38% from May 2018".

SuperData notes that the console version of Fortnite "continues to contribute the largest share of players and revenue".

But it is PUBG that continues to shine with SuperData showing in its Top Grossing Titles by Category, with the game absent from the top 10 on all platforms but the analyst firm notes that PUBG "quietly continues to sell millions of units". SuperData notes: "We estimate that PUBG has sold 4.7 million digital units across PC and console year-to-date through May, maintaining its position as one of the best selling shooter titles on any platform despite losing much of the spotlight to EA's Apex Legends and Fortnite".

A few months ago I wrote a story about ray tracing-style effects through the use of path tracing in Minecraft with incredible results, but I feel like the game has taken another gigantic leap in the graphics department with a new video below combining the Stratum 2048x2048 textures, 'ray tracing' at 4K, realistic graphics mods and oh-so-much more. Check it out:

Modder 'Hodi' has a Patreon page where he concentrates on making textures only, and to goo effect - I mean, that video above sells the entire thing easily, right?! Powered with an Intel Core i7-6700K, 16GB of RAM and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti we have the results above, a glorious-looking Minecraft that seems out-of-this-world good.

Hodi used the following mods, textures, and tweaks:

I caused quite the flurry when I first reported that Intel was reacting to the impending launch of AMD's new Ryzen CPUs over two years ago now, and fast forwarding to now has seen the entire CPU market change. AMD is about to launch the world's first consumer 7nm CPU, with a range of actually very kick ass Ryzen 3000 processors based on the new Zen 2 architecture.

Well, now it seems Intel is going to reportedly drop the price of its desktop CPUs by 15% in a response to AMD's new Ryzen 3000 series CPUs that are launching on 7/7. DigitTimes is reporting that the new 9th-gen Intel Core CPUs would see a 10-15% price drop which would see somewhere between $25 and $75 being shaved off of CPUs like the Core i9-9900K, Core i7-9700K, and Core i5-9600K.

At one point Cyberpunk 2077 was envisioned with some sort of online multiplayer in mind, but CD Projekt RED says singleplayer comes first.

Cyberpunk 2077 could get a multiplayer mode at some point, but lead quest designer Pawel Sasko says the sci-fi FPS RPG will be 100% singleplayer when it releases in April 2020.

"Yes, 100 per cent [Cyberpunk 2077 will be singleplayer at launch]. We're not really working on multiplayer, our sole focus is single-player. We'll do that, then we'll see. We're not saying no but we're not saying yes. If something does happen it will definitely be post-launch and that's as much as I can say right now," Sasko told Eurogamer.

Developers like PlatinumGames may not be impressed by next-gen consoles, but Ubisoft sure is.

Ubisoft is making one of the most ambitious games in the entire industry right now. Watch Dogs Legion is a fully-fledged RPG that merges GTA-level cityscape mechanics with an insanely in-depth party-management system, coupled with the added bonus of being able to play as anyone in the entire realm of futuristic London. Making a game like that is quite taxing on current-gen hardware, and will likely squeeze out every last drop of the PS4 Pro's and Xbox One X's power. So it's no wonder that Ubisoft is quite excited about the new duo of next-gen consoles with their beastly specs.

In a recent interview with The Telegraph, Ubisoft's EMEA director Alain Corre expressed strong enthusiasm for the PlayStation 5 and Project Scarlett systems.

The United States will become the best-earning country in the global games market in 2019, analyst firm Newzoo predicts.

China, which typically reigns in games revenue charts, will soon be usurped by the United States. Analyst firm Newzoo forecasts the U.S. to earn $36.9 billion in 2019, beating China by some $400 million. These figures show a 11% uptick for U.S. earnings and will make up 26% of total global games revenues in the year, compared to China's 24%. The firm says China's recent game approval freeze has stunted growth and will have a major impact on yearly cashflows.

Total global games revenues will rise to $152.1 billion, up a strong 9.6% year-over-year, driven mostly by free-to-play mobile titles with microtransactions.

Square Enix caters to gamers on a tight schedule with shortcuts in Final Fantasy 8's upcoming remaster.

Final Fantasy games are huge, sprawling affairs with tons of unlockables that can take 100+ hours to attain. But not everyone can or will spend that kind of time on an RPG, so Square Enix is embedding cheats, shortcuts, and convenience features in Final Fantasy 8 Remastered to speed things up.

Yoshinori Kitase, who directed the original PS1 classic back in 1999, confirmed Squall's adventure comes with time-saving options like triple speed for movement and battles, full HP and ATB gauges for easy combat, and a no-encounter option that was previously only unlockable with Diablos' No Encounter ability.

Breath of the Wild is getting a sequel because all of Nintendo's ideas wouldn't fit into the small parameters of DLC.

Breath of the Wild's upcoming sequel should be pretty ambitious, or at least ambitious compared to the 2017 epic RPG. We don't know much about the game, but we do know Nintendo's plans simply didn't fit in the realm of possibility for DLC. These ideas were too grand, too big to be defined by the base game itself. So rather than do post-launch DLC, Nintendo consolidated most of its ideas into a Breath of the Wild sequel that expands on the first game.

In a recent interview with Kotaku, Zelda producer Eiji Aonuma confirmed that substantial changes to Breath of the Wild wouldn't really fit in the tight boundaries of DLC. To achieve their vision, Nintendo would need to make a whole new game.

We're another day closer to the launch of AMD's next-gen Ryzen 3000 series CPUs and today brings yet another leak on multi-threaded benchmark performance with a new listing in the Geekbench database on the Ryzen 7 3800X.

AMD's new Ryzen 7 3800X spits out a multi-core score off 34,059 which is much higher than the 25,092 by the Ryzen 7 2700X, and it easily beats both the Intel Core i7-9700K and its 28,404 and even the flagship Core i9-9900K with 31,471. In the single-core tests Intel reigns supreme with its 9900K scoring 6236 and the 9700K with 6155, while the 3800X snags 5406 and the 2700X with 4860.

A refresher for what AMD is promising in terms of gaming performance with the Ryzen 7 3800X versus the Core i9-9900K from their recent Next Horizon Gaming event in LA.

Renowned fantasy writer George R.R. Martin, the man behind the Red Wedding, Ramsay Bolton, and a myriad of other grim and twisted events in literary history, is writing the grand sweeping lore for FromSoftware's big new RPG.

FromSoftware's ambitious new darkly enchanting RPG, Elden Ring, has some serious power behind it. Hidetaka Miyazaki and George R.R. Martin represent the dream team of macabre fantasy weirdness, combining their bizarre powers to craft a new open-world Souls-like with an all-original story arc. But Martin didn't actually craft Elden Ring's story, just the mythology behind the magic-infused world.

In a recent interview with IGN, Miyazaki confirms George R.R. Martin was responsible for Elden Ring's deep arcane lore and crafting the ruined world's history.

Microsoft has an idea of how much Project Scarlett will cost, but the system's price tag hasn't been locked in just yet.

Although it's slated to release Holiday 2020, Project Scarlett is still in early phases of development. Announced at E3 2019 with explosive specs, the system that "eats monsters for breakfast" sports a custom AMD SoC outfitted with next-gen Zen 2 CPU and Navi GPU architecture, allowing for 8K resolution and 120 FPS. Right now Microsoft is working on the foundational silicon with AMD and the finer details like design, form factor, and price are a ways off. Microsoft has a ball park figure, but that price could inflate thanks to U.S. President Donald Trump's proposed tariffs on China-imported goods.

Whatever Scarlett will cost, these higher-end specs could put it firmly in the Xbox One X's $499 range. Scarlett is 4 times as powerful as the Xbox One X and could even cost $549 or thereabouts. In a recent interview with Xbox On, Xbox VP of Gaming Phil Spencer says there's still unknowns with Scarlett's retail price tag.

Despite what gamers and fans think, Tifa Lockhart's breasts haven't been reduced in the Final Fantasy VII: Remake.

Recent erroneous reports say Square Enix's ethics board forced the developers to shrink Tifa's boobs, but this info was based on bad translations. The reality is Square Enix simply added a sports bra under Tifa's shirt to compress her bust to make her movements and actions more realistic and fluid. Rather than change her body, Nomura and his team used different-sized garments to accentuate Tifa's physique and create a more kinetic-friendly outfit.

Translations from Kotaku's Brian Ashcraft reveal what Tetsuya Nomura actually said about Tifa's body:

AMD is about to usher in the PCIe 4.0 era with its new X570 chipset (and the purported even higher X590 chipset) alongside its next-gen Zen 2 CPU architecture and Navi-powered Radeon RX 5700/RX 5700 XT graphics cards, and now we're hearing about PCIe 6.0.

Yes, PCIe 6.0 - the successor to PCIe 5.0 which we should see Intel adopt in late-2020 and more 2021 and beyond, will roll out with an incredible amount of bandwidth. PCI-SIC, the group behind the PCIe standard said that PCIe 6.0 will have up to 64GT/s of bandwidth providing a PCIe 6.0 x16 slot up to an incredible 256GB/sec of bandwidth.

This is double PCIe 5.0 x16 with 128GB, and 4x the speed of PCIe 4.0 x16 which will provide 64GB/sec. PCIe 6.0 is a gigantic upgrade on our current-gen PCIe 3.0 x16 slot with just 32GB/sec of bandwidth in comparison, to the upcoming 256GB/sec on PCIe 6.0 x16. We most likely won't see consumer graphics cards taking advantage of this, but storage eats up a lot of those PCIe lands and future networking technology and AI accelerators will definitely chew it up.