Latest News - Page 2020

With Spider-Man, Insomniac Games steals the fastest-selling game milestone from Sony Santa Monica.

Insomniac's new Spider-Man game has now sold over 3.3 million copies in its first three days, Sony today announced, making it the fastest-selling PS4 exclusive of all time. The previous record was held by the latest Norse mythology-based God of War game, which sold 3.1 million copies in three days.

"Marvel's Spider-Man is setting records! It's now the fastest-selling first-party PlayStation title, selling over 3.3 million in its first 3 days," Sony said on Twitter.

Sony's ill-fated PlayStation Vita is winding down its ticker, and the company won't make another one any time soon.

Despite selling quite well in Japan, the PS Vita handheld failed to capture overseas markets, even with PS4 ecosystem integration and cross-platform features. As a result Sony pretty much abandoned the system and plans to stop shipping the device in 2019. Due to a number of conditions--including mobile gaming initiatives--Sony currently has no plans to make a next-gen Vita handheld.

"Right now, I'd like you to consider that there is no PS Vita successor hardware. As for a portable game machine, there is no plans for anything after the PS Vita," Sony Interactive Entertainment Japan's Hiroyuki Oda told Mantan Web (as translated by Kotaku).

PlayStation Now now has a chance of competing with Microsoft's Game Pass service.

The battle of the subscriptions rages on as Sony adds PlayStation Now game downloads to the service, effectively bringing offline play to a large portion of games. Sony has effectively nixed the service's major drawback (it used to be streaming-only) and evens up the playing field against Xbox Game Pass. Users can now download nearly every PS4 game on the catalog along with a smattering of remastered PS2 games. There was no mention of downloading PlayStation games to PC.

But there's a caveat to offline play: you'll have to re-connect to the internet "every few days" to validate your subscription and game licenses. An exact timeframe wasn't given. This is reminiscent of Switch Online's requirement to log in every 7 days to play NES games offline.

The latest release of V-Jump has confirmed that Android 17 is going to be the next DLC character for Bandai Namco's Dragon Ball FighterZ. This won't be the classic Android 17 everyone knows and loves either...

According to Siliconera and more specifically Ryokutya2089, Android 17 will be the next DLC character to come to Dragon Ball FighterZ. This version of Android 17 won't be the classic one from the Android Saga either, this Android 17 will be based off the one from the most recent Dragon Ball series, Dragon Ball Super.

Siliconera also reports that later this month there will be a major update, within this update will be the addition of a new "space arena" stage for PS4, Xbox One and most likely PC. Apparently, Nintendo Switch users will have to wait slightly longer for this update, no surprises there. Android 17 will be available closer to the end of the month, he will be coming in at a price of $5. Dragon Ball FighterZ is available for the PS4, Xbox One and PC. Switch users should note that Dragon Ball FighterZ will be arriving on their handheld consoles on September 28th.

Ahead of the open beta release for Magic: The Gathering Arena, a brand new trailer has been released. Machete star, Danny Trejo and Sean "Day9" Plott walk us through what to expect as a brand new player.

We just passed the 25th anniversary for Magic: The Gathering and as many collectors are gearing up for the next Magic: The Gathering set, Guilds of Ravnica, an online Magic experience is about to go underway. It's titled Magic: The Gathering Arena and it seems to be quite heavily inspired, UI wise, by Blizzard's Hearthstone.

Magic: The Gathering Arena has had a closed beta running since late 2017, now the developers are opening up the beta to the public which will be beginning on September 27th. Closed beta players should note that on September 24, every existing account will be reset. Players that have their accounts reset will be refunded with every gem purchase they have made within the closed beta, and will also receive the following cards: Teferi, Hero of Dominaria, Ral, Izzet Viceroy and Vraska, Golgari Queen. If you are interested in jumping into the open beta to give it a try, you can pre-download it from the official website here.

Months after the release of Dark Souls Remastered on the PS4, Xbox One and PC, developers and publishers FromSoftware and Bandai Namco have announced that there will be a network test for Nintendo Switch players this weekend.

Variety has reported that Nintendo Switch players will have chance to jump into the networking testing this weekend. Originally, the network test was planned for April as the games full release was planned for soon after, unfortunately both of those release dates was heavily delayed due to Bandai Namco wanting to "give the development team the time needed to make sure Nintendo Switch players can fully appreciate the true 'Dark Souls' experience anytime and anywhere, thanks to the unique portable nature of the Nintendo Switch console."

On a positive note, the network test will be available this weekend, beginning on Oct. 19. Dark Souls Remastered will be the first Souls game to come to a Nintendo console and will come in at a price of $40. The game will also be bundled with the Artorias of the Abyss DLC. If you are a FromSoftware fan and want to play Dark Souls wherever you go, visit the official Nintendo eShop listing for the title here.

Platinum Games, the developers behind the well known Bayonetta series have addressed their development progress on the third installment into the series, Bayonetta 3.

While at the Bitsummit Roadshow event in Tokoyo at the Daikanyama Unit, Platinum Games' lead director Hideki Kamiya and head producer, Atsushi Inaba discussed the progress with Bayonetta 3. At the event, both developers said that the game is "on course" and that the developers in the studio are currently completely "in sync."

From the event, we got a quick tease towards the development of Bayonetta 3, here is what was said "It's nice to be able to tell you that everything is going very, very well. We're all very excited about what we're doing on that game." Unfortunately, not many other details were really given, all we know is that Bayonetta 3 is planned exclusively for the Nintendo Switch. For further information, visit the official Bayonetta website here.

Nintendo Switch Online just made its debut to the public and within hours of its release the updated console has already been hacked. Someone has already figured out how to access the NES games folder.

According to the hacker, Nintendo has decided to use a direct port of the NES Classic Edition, which is apparently quite easy to hack. The hacker is under the name 'Kapu' on Twitter and explains that the "Nintendo Switch Online's NES games are plain .nes files GUI appears to be entirely LUA much like the S/NES Classic so people are gonna be able to go to town on this." The hacker continues to explain what he has found after datamining the Switch, he claims that Nintendo should not have advertised this service as big as they did when all they have simply done is "a quick port of an existing emulator packaged with some ROMs."

Kapu says that when looking into the files that the entire patch "feels pretty much like an afterthought. The most work that went into it was likely the UI. There aren't any fancy patches for individual games or anything, the online multiplayer aspect uses the exact same networking code as any other Switch game, such as Splatoon 2 or MK8D." Polygon managed to get into contact with Kapu, they posed a question to him that was based around a user without prior hacking knowledge wanting to add their own ROM's to the file system. This would in turn, allow for custom NES Classic games to be added to the library.

NVIDIA has just unleashed their new GeForce RTX series graphics cards led by the flagship GeForce RTX 2080 Ti (our review here) as well as the new GeForce 411.63 drivers (that you can get here) and now it's AMD's turn for some Radeon news.

AMD has just released their updated Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition 18.9.2 drivers (download them here), which include or add support for games like F1 2018 with up to 3% more performance on the Radeon RX Vega 64 at 1440p. Shadow of the Tomb Raider is one of the latest games out, with the new RSAE 18.9.2 drivers being up to 4% faster on the RX Vega 64 at 1440p.

Even Fortnite receives some optimization under the new drivers, with up to 5% more performance at 1080p on the Vega 64 while Star Control: Origins is up to 14% fastrer on the Vega 64 when on native 4K.

Fortnite is set in a world that is in a constant change, with a mysterious purple cube that has been rolling all over the map for the last few weeks, and has now finally found a home inside of Loot Lake.

For the last few weeks, gamers have been following the mysterious cube around but have been wondering what the hell it is, and what the hell it'll do. Well, now we know that if you shot the cube it would push you away and damage you, but it also helped you if you stood close to it your shields would regenerate. If you jumped on the cube, you'd be flung into the air like you just jumped on super-jelly.

The cube is now sitting in Loot Lake and has lost some of its proximity effects like regenerating your shield, but it has kept one of its traits: it's still bouncy when you jump on it. Mix that in with Loot Lake which is a huge body of shallow water, with the lake post-cube now turning purple just like the cube. If you jump in Loot Lake, you'll fly into the air just like if you jumped onto the mysterious cube before it melted into the lake.

Microsoft is hosting a huge custom-designed Xbox One charity auction, offering up some of the slickest customized Xbox One S and Xbox One X consoles that have been signed by celebrities, athletes, or gaming studios.

Xbox and Make-A-Wish teamed up for the "Consoles for Kids" charity auction that is being hosted on Charitybuzz, with the two companies working with some of the biggest names in the music, movies, TV, sports, game developers, and across the internet. All of this is not just for a great cause, but there are some amazing one-of-a-kid custom Xbox One X consoles that would put a smile on anyones face.

Seriously, this Fallout 76 custom Xbox One X is doing strange things to my body.

NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX series graphics cards are finally here and it did NOT take overclockers very long to get into them and start pushing the new Turing GPU and super-fast GDDR6 memory technology to their (current) limits. I'm sure we'll see more records broken as time goes on, and as more custom cards with custom PCBs and power delivery systems arrive.

Legendary overclocker KINGPIN has used the new GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition with EVGA's Precision X1 overclocking software and pushed the cards to limits that I thought we wouldn't be at for a while. The new Turing TU102 GPU was pushed up to 2415MHz (I could only do 2100MHz on stock cooling) while the 11GB of GDDR6 was ramped up from its already fast stock clocks of 14Gbps up to 17Gbps (I could reach 15-16Gbps stable, depending on the bench). All of this was done with LN2 cooling, so the Turing GPU and GDDR6 is being kept as cool as humanly possible.

KINGPIN volt modded the card himself, passing the voltage limits that NVIDIA put in place, so that he could overclock the hell out of the RTX 2080 Ti. Using LN2, KINGPIN was able to take the #1 spots in all 3DMark benchmarks: TimeSpy Extreme, TimeSpy, FireStrike Ultra, FireStrike Extreme, and FireStrike. The system packed an Intel Core i9-7980XE processor cooled with LN2 and overclocked to 5.5GHz on all 18C/36T, an EVGA X299 Dark motherboard, and 32GB of G.SKILL Trident Z DDR4-3800 RAM.

NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX graphics cards are here and while tech reviewers have been using internal early drivers, the company has now officially unveiled the new GeForce Game Ready 411.63 WHQL drivers which you can download right here.

The new GeForce 411.63 WHQL drivers weigh in at a hefty 517MB but offer support for the new GeForce RTX 2080 and RTX 2080 Ti graphics cards, as well as providing the best optimizations for Assassin's Creed Odyssey, Forza Horizon 4, and FIFA 19. There are some added/update SLI profiles thrown into the new 411.63 drivers, as well as some of the usual bug fixes.

If you haven't read my review on the new NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition, you should check it out - it's choc-full of of benchmarks, breakdowns of the various new Turing technologies, and more. Spoiler alert: it's hella fast, offering beyond 4K 60FPS performance.

The next Halo game apparently won't use the REQ pack lootbox system found in Halo 5.

Yesterday I wrote a lengthy article on why I thought Halo 6 may repeat a lot of Halo 5's mistakes, but now 343 Industries has thankfully proven me wrong. Halo: Infinite (which is officially Halo 6) won't be monetized with seedy lootboxes in a bid to capitalize on engagement and the most addictive live service model.

"We're still working through final plans and will share more when we are ready, but I can definitely say that Halo Infinite will not include real-money loot boxes," 343 Industries' FPS studio head Chris Lee said on Twitter.

If my experience with playing NES games on the Switch is any indicator then Nintendo is going to sell lots of classic NES gamepads.

A month after the Switch launched, I predicted that classic retro games would suffer quite a bit thanks to the console's split D-pad. Platformers that require precision jumps and attacks just don't play nicely with a sliced-up control interface (this is doubly true with old-school NES games). Instead of bringing triumph and cheer, playing NES games on the Switch on-the-go has brought me frustration and bewilderment. Finally, Switch owners get to play their childhood favorites on a new system...but it's not the same as you remembered it--Nintendo has made it needlessly harder.

The problem itself isn't just the JoyCon controller's D-pad, or Nintendo's weird decision to not let us customize button mapping so Super Mario Bros. 3 is actually fun and not a confusing mess. The issue is we have to learn new tricks while our brain constantly tells us to rely on old hardwired responses. Retro gamers are conditioned to be able to rock their thumb on-the-fly and move accordingly to evade attacks and adjust jumps mid-air. Zelda, which is grid-locked, is made needlessly frustrating thanks to the JoyCon D-Pad, but the analog stick isn't much better: I find myself pressing diagonally by accident and completely messing things up.

Nintendo's new Switch Online service lets you play classic NES games on the handheld-console hybrid, and here are some details you need to know.

In order to play the library of 20 NES games on the Switch you first need an active Switch Online subscription. Luckily you can just grab the free 7-day trial, but you'll have to enter credit card/PayPal info to access it. The subscription will bill you every month unless you turn off automatic renewal, too. To do that you'll need to go to the Switch Online hub on the eShop (the service doesn't have its own dedicated square or app on the main page). Also remember to log in every 7 days or else you can't play your library of games.

Here's how to turn off Switch Online's automatic billing renewal:

Red Dead Redemption 2's online mode has been branded as Red Dead Online and is a direct evolution of the first game's live multiplayer.

Today Rockstar announced Red Dead Online, which sounds like it'll be the Western version of GTA Online. The mode is described as a "new online connected experience" that will use the sequel's huge open-ended Western frontier as a playground for mischief and mayhem, similar to how GTA Online is built around Los Santos.

Red Dead Online is essentially a more robust, engaging, and updated version of Red Dead Redemption's original multiplayer action, Rockstar says. But Red Dead Online isn't just about dueling at high noon or robbing banks: it'll feature both co-op and competitive play that span various narrative plot points. Like GTA Online it will continue evolving with content updates, and will be free to anyone who owns Red Dead Redemption 2.

Nintendo Switch users around the world will now have to update their handheld consoles are Nintendo has just rolled out their firmware update 6.0.0 to all systems. Nintendo Switch Online is now live.

The highly anticipated online service has already begun to be rolled out across all Nintendo Switch systems. Nintendo has taken to their website to post an article addressing the now additional functionality that the update comes with. Some of the features include: Save Data Cloud Backup, new user icons, new Nintendo account features, compatibility improvements and more.

For those that missed the recent announcements with Nintendo Switch Online, Nintendo will also be bringing NES games to the Nintendo Switch. Players will have access to 20 NES Classic games that now feature online play with friends and also 2 player local co-op. If you want to check out the full breakdown of Nintendo Switch Online and the coming NES titles to the Switch, visit my article here. If you are interested in the full changes of firmware update 6.0.0 check out the official Nintendo website post here.

Ubisoft has slapped some brand new sales onto their title Ghost Recon Wildlands. The announcement via the titles Twitter page has revealed to players that Ghost Recon Wildlands will be going completely free-to-play this weekend.

In celebration of Ghost Recon Wildlands going free-to-play and also being slapped with some heft discounts, Ubisoft has released a brand new trailer. The trailer showcases to players that they will be able to enjoy a massive open-world completely free from the 23rd to the 26th of September. Players will also have the ability of full customization of different costumes of their choosing, access to 4 player co-op missions and also the Ghost War PVP Mode.

Looking at the discounts now, the standard edition for Ghost Recon Wildlands has been baptized in a huge 60% discount, bringing the price down from $58.25 to a now $23.30. If you are interested in the Gold Year 2, it has been discounted by 30%, which means it's now $57.15, from once a $81.65 price. So you want the whole thing? Well, the Ghost Recon Wildlands - Ultimate Year 2 has been discounted by 30%, originally the bundle was $116.65, it is now $81.65. If you are interested in picking up Ghost Recon Wildlands while it is on sale or just want to jump into the game while it is free, visit the official Steam listing here.

A recent announcement from Behavior Interactive has revealed that Dead by Daylight has reached a new total sales milestone. In celebration of Dead by Daylight reaching 5 million copies sold the title will be going free-to-play for the weekend.

Dead by Daylight the very intense survival-horror title by developer Behavior Interactive has hit a brand a new sales milestone. The developer has announced that the title has reached 5 million units sold, and in celebration of this achievement Dead by Daylight has been blessed with some considerable sales on Steam.

Looking towards the Steam listing, Dead by Daylight has been struck by Steams 'MIDWEEK MADDNESS' and has received a 50% discount on its initial price. This means Dead by Daylight has gone from $19.99 to $9.99 on the standard edition, the deluxe edition has got a 60% discount, bringing the price down from $29.99 to $11.99. If you are after everything Dead by Daylight can offer, the Dead by Daylight: The Saw + Jigsaw Big Bundle is for you. Originally priced at $37.97, the bundle has been discounted by 46% to $20.69. If you are interested in Dead by Daylight, check out the Steam listing here.