Latest News - Page 900

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor's PC launch has been rocky, with performance issues impacting the player experience. Yesterday we reported that EA and developer Respawn were aware of the problems. An apology of sorts was posted to social media, outlining that the team was working on updates.

The good news is that the PC version has received a patch fixing several issues while also improving performance for playing the game with ray-tracing disabled. The update confirms that the general crashing and other bug fixes will make their way to the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S versions of the game tomorrow, with the team "hard at work on patches that will further improve performance and fix bugs across all platforms."

Having a patch like this arrive within a week of the game's release (and a substantial day one patch) does paint the picture of another major AAA PC release being sent out the door before it was ready. Many deep dives into the game on PC point to it being one of the worst ports of 2023 - which is not great.

PlayStation Studios head Hermen Hulst reveals what gamers can expect from Sony's new ambitious live service games initiative.

In a bid to capture more of the billion-dollar service games market driven by Fortnite, Apex Legends, and Genshin Impact, Sony plans to release 12 live games by 2025. This initiative will start accelerating this fiscal year with the release of 6 live titles across PS5 and possibly PC too, likely including the new Last of Us online game from Naughty Dog. Sony has made three major strategic studio acquisitions to help manifest its plan, including Bungie, who Sony purchased for over $3 billion, as well as Haven Studios and the most recent acquisition of Firewalk Studios.

So what kinds of live service titles will Sony deliver? PlayStation Studios boss Hermen Hults tells GamesIndustry.biz that the service games will include a wide spectrum of genres and overall scopes, indicating we shouldn't expect all of the games to be huge, ever-expanding experiences like Destiny. One thing is being emphasized above all else, though: Preserving the high quality bar that PlayStation's first-party games are known for.

Sony has revised its capital allocation for strategic investments, acquisitions, and share buybacks and freed up more cash for its PlayStation games division and other segments.

Sony just reported its best-ever year for PlayStation, with the games division generating a record-breaking $27 billion in FY22. This landmark success was driven by stellar PS5 console sales and strong growth in its PC-driven gaming segment. In a bid to keep this momentum going, Sony has decided to increase its capital expenditure in part for PlayStation gaming as it gears up for a record 25 million PS5 console production and shipment cycle, as well as major new first-party games across live services and dedicated console gaming.

In its recent FY22 earnings report, Sony confirmed that it has reduced its capital allocation for strategic investment from 2 trillion yen (about $14.6 billion) to a total of 1.8 trillion yen ($13.04 billion). Thanks to previous comments from Sony Corp. President Hiroki Totoki, we can calculate how much of this budget that Sony has left to spend on new company acquisitions, strategic investments, and share buybacks.

PlayStation delivers record-breaking earnings in Fiscal Year 2022, generating nearly $27 billion in total revenues for the period.

Sony has announced triumphant results for FY22 and has set new all-time highs for multiple segments. PlayStation generated eye-opening revenues of $26.9 billion throughout FY22, driven predominantly by PlayStation 5 console sales, which had shipped a strong 19 million units in FY22 and led to 38.4 million total cumulative PS5 sales by March 2023.

Sony made an astronomical $8.297 billion from hardware during the period and console sales revenues made up 31% of total earnings during the year, beating out every other segment including digital software sales as well as add-on content.

With Google very much expected to announce the Pixel 7a during its Google I/O developer event on May 10 it now sounds like this might be the last of the "a" lineup. That's according to a new report, at least.

The Pixel 7a is just the latest in a line of budget-oriented devices that are meant to give customers the chance to get much of the Pixel experience without having to pay for the mid-range or premium options. In the case of the Pixel 7a that means people don't need to pay for the Pixel 7 or Pixel 7 Pro just to get in on the Pixel fun.

But that might not be the case anymore, according to leaker Yogesh Brar. Writing on Twitter Brar said that the Pixel "a" series is coming to an end, with Google choosing to ditch the budget phone to make room for the Pixel Fold. The Pixel Fold is a very different device of course - for starters, it folds, and it'll cost around $1800 if the rumors are true.

Google has been named as the second major company that opposes the Microsoft-Activision merger.

Sony isn't the only one to push back against the proposed $68.7 billion merger between Activision and Microsoft. Multiple companies have told the CMA that the merger could "seriously harm competition." Google, a company that currently doesn't make games but manages to generate billions of dollars in royalties from F2P mobile games on the Play Store, has been identified as one of the principal antagonists of the video games industry's largest-ever deal.

Google was directly mentioned in page 337 of the CMA's final decision report, which reads: "Further, Microsoft submitted that the 'two key complainants' against the deal (SIE and Google) have many reasons to preserve the status quo or undermine the Merger in order to extract higher profits to the detriment of game developers and gamers."

Instant messaging app WhatsApp is going to make it easier for people to post content to their Facebook Stories according to a new report.

The Meta-owned company is getting ready to help people post on another Meta-owned company's Stories feature, with the feature already in testing and available to some people who are using the latest beta version of the app.

That app is now available for Android users so long as they have the new feature enabled on their accounts. Once it is they'll be able to quickly and easily turn their WhatsApp Status into a Facebook Stories posting with the whole thing happening automatically. All they have to do is sign into their Facebook account from within the WhatsApp app and away they go.

There are two options that do not make viable business sense in regards to Activision-Blizzard's operations: Making Call of Duty and a number of other games exclusive to Xbox platforms either on a post-merger or status quo basis, and pulling its games from the United Kingdom.

UK regulators at the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) recently determined the Microsoft-Activision merger should be blocked and prohibited on the grounds of anti-competitive effects in the cloud and multi-game subscription business segments. Both Microsoft and Activision have vowed to fight the decision and appeal to the Competition Tribunal for a hopeful turnaround.

The decision has caused lots of friction between Activision and the UK. An Activision spokesperson went so far as to tell the BBC that the UK is "closed for business," and that the billion-dollar games publisher would "reassess our growth plans for the UK." There's been talks of Activision even pulling its operations out of the United Kingdom due to the decision, however this would be incredibly detrimental to its games business both on a current and post-merger basis.

The Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra already has the best camera setup of any Samsung phone - and possibly any mainstream Android phone - available to buy today. But it's about to get even better according to a new leak by a normally well-connected Twitter account.

That leak claims that Samsung is already working on a new version of the Galaxy S23 Ultra's software and that it improved photography once installed. Specifically, we're told that photos taken at night are better than before, which sure does sound like a good thing to us.

The news comes via Twitter leaker Ice universe who says that they have seen what the WD3 Galaxy S23 Ultra software can do. And that's perhaps the best thing about phones having such great cameras - they continue to be improved upon as new software is released and owners of the phones get better cameras and better photos for free.

Samsung has today given the Galaxy Z Fold 4 a hot new photography feature that will make it even better at taking photos of the night sky.

The feature, called astrophotography mode, comes from the very top of Samsung's phone lineup in the shape of the Galaxy S23 series of phones. It allows devices to take detailed photos of the night sky in a way that isn't normally possible all while creating some truly impressive images. Now, that same feature is available to Galaxy Z Fold 4 owners.

Samsung had previously said that it intended to roll the feature out to people who owned non-Galaxy S23 and Galaxy S22 devices and now it's made good on that promise. The Galaxy Z Fold 4 isn't the only model that's in on the act either, with the Galaxy S20 series, Galaxy Note 20, and Galaxy Note 20 Ultra all also able to enjoy the new astrophotography capabilities. All of the Galaxy Z Fold phones except the very first will also get the same feature, as will the Galaxy S21 which means there are plenty of phones out there that can now take some stunning photos of the moon.

There's so much news relating to foldable phones right now you could absolutely be forgiven for losing track of what's going on and with which phone. But the latest leak relating to Samsung's Galaxy Z Flip 5 is well worth paying attention to because it might be our first proper look at what the phone will look like. And if this is the real deal, it's going to look pretty stunning.

The Galaxy Z Flip 5 isn't expected to launch for a few months yet but it's started to leak in various different ways. This new set of renders from OnLeaks and Media Peanut shows us a black Galaxy Z Flip 5 in all its glory, with both the internal display and the new, larger external one available for us to gawk at.

It's that external display that is sure to capture the attention of a whole lot of people because it's massive compared to the one that we've seen on previous Galaxy flip phones. It now appears to take up almost half of the entire face of the phone which is a big improvement.

Ryzen CPUs burning up has been one of the most talked about things in the PC space in recent weeks, with AMD releasing an official statement noting that excessively high voltages on AM5 motherboards with the new Ryzen 7000X3D chips were damaging both the chip and motherboard.

A catastrophic outcome that has led to several outlets conducting their own tests alongside AMD - with a deep dive from Gamers Nexus dropping on the weekend showcasing that it was able to get an AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D to effectively "explode" and melt the motherboard-side connections.

Even though the issues and voltage spikes are seemingly linked with overclocked memory using EXPO or XMP kits, AMD's root cause does note that the new firmware limiting the SoC voltage to 1.3C won't affect how memory performs.

As with new technology, the transition to DDR5 memory has been slow and gradual. But with most CPUs and motherboards supporting DDR5 in 2023, we're seeing more and more affordable DDR memory kits hit the market - with the latest coming from Lexar, aimed at gamers and content creators.

As per its namesake, the new Lexar ARES RGB DDR5 Desktop Memory features a funky RGB lighting strip, but with quick CL32-36-36-68 / CL34-38-38-76 overclocking timings via Intel XMP 3.0 and AMD EXPO, you've got speeds of up to up to 6000MHz.

The modules also feature built-in Power Management IC (PMIC) to enhance power efficiency and on-die ECC for improved stability and reliability. Plus, an aluminum heat spreader keeps them cool when gaming or alt-tabbing between a dozen different Chrome tabs, which seems to be the main culprit for my main rig's RAM usage.

Apple is very much expected to announce the iOS 17 software update in June and now a new series of renders has shown us what we could perhaps expect when that happens.

We've already been told by various leaks to expect some changes to a number of key apps when iOS 17 rolls around, but these new renders show those changes in action. Specifically, those render show changes to the wallpapers, the Health app, and the Wallet app.

It is, however, important to consider the source of these leaks. They're from Twitter user @analyst941 who has been sharing various tidbits online in recent weeks. The leaker doesn't have a huge track record from which to draw a conclusion, although they did previously share details about the iPhone 14 Pro's Dynamic Island before it was officially unveiled. Keep that in mind, but also remember that we have yet to have any of this confirmed by Apple.

The Apple Watch has been around since 2015 but the watchOS software that powers it hasn't changed all that much. Now, a new report by Bloomberg's Mark Gurman suggests that software is very much about to change later this year.

According to Gurman Apple's upcoming watchOS 10 update will be its biggest yet, suggesting that we can look forward to meaningful changes to the way that we use our wearable for the first time in a long time - perhaps ever.

According to Gurman, who is normally well connected and pretty much on the money about these things, watchOS 10 will be a big one. According to him, we can expect Apple to bring widgets to the Apple Watch for the first time, building on a previous widgets-like experience that was known as Glances before they were removed in a previous release. Gurman also says that Apple is keen to bring more information to the fore, making it more easily accessible without the need to open an app first.

You'd need to have been hiding under a rock or living in a very remote corner of an even more remote country to have missed the fact that Google is getting ready to announce some new hardware. One of those bits of hardware is the budget-friendly Pixel 6a, and now a new series of unboxing videos has leaked ahead of the official unveiling.

That official unveiling is expected to happen during the May 10 Google I/O opening keynote but you don't have to wait that long to see what Google has cooked up. Now, a new set of photos shared by the Twitter leaker SnoopyTech shows the Pixel 7a being unboxed in a couple of different colors.

The two colors leaked here are black and a very pale blue, and while there is still some argument over what the proper marketing names for these two colors will be, there can be no disagreement over the fact that they look pretty great.

It hasn't been a great year for AAA game launches on PC, with several high-profile releases plagued with performance issues, glitches, and a general feeling that they have been pushed out the door weeks or months before they were ready.

We're still getting substantial performance patches and fixes for Sony's The Last of Us Part I, a title we thought would be a slam-dunk easy-win for PlayStation games coming to PC. There are more examples, including Hogwarts Legacy and Forspoken, but last week's debut of the highly anticipated Star Wars Jedi: Survivor hit home the idea that gaming on PC in 2023 hasn't been pretty.

Most reviews covered the game's console versions, with the Metacritic score for the PlayStation version of Star Wars Jedi: Survivor currently sitting at a respectable 86. However, even there, the significant issues revolve around inconsistent performance, with frame rates dipping regularly. On PC, though, it's a different story. The Metacritic score sits at a notably lower 78 (it's worth noting that these reviews also include "all platforms" coverage), with the Steam community reviews currently sitting at "Mixed" due to immersion-breaking performance issues.

As is the case with upcoming GPU launches from NVIDIA, we've had a lot of information and details for the upcoming GeForce RTX 4060 Ti appear from multiple sources. The latest (via Videocardz.com) reaffirms a late May launch and release for the mid-range GeForce RTX 40 Series graphics card, with an embargoed NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Series document outlining the current plans and communication being sent out to its partners.

The document notes that cards will ship to partners on May 5 with the "Product Announcement" and "On-Shelf" listed as "End of May" with a specific date still being finalized. Interestingly the same document simply puts "TBD" under the column for the baseline GeForce RTX 4060, which would put the launch of that affordable mainstream option as no sooner than June 2023.

Another interesting takeaway from the document is that the board for the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti is listed as the PG190, the same as the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti. This means that partners can utilize the same coolers, potentially leading to a budget-conscious price point for the first time this generation.

There's a lot of interest in the upcoming ASUS ROG Ally PC gaming handheld for a good reason; it's set to offer a Windows 11-based alternative to Valve's Steam Deck and takes advantage of AMD's new Ryzen Z1 Series processors. These new CPUs have been designed for the growing PC gaming handheld market, as detailed by AMD in a formal announcement.

The specs for the ASUS ROG Ally point to a powerful gaming handheld that can deliver high frame-rate 1080p gaming performance. Many expect the launch price to be higher than Valve's based on the handheld's capabilities. The Steam Deck is a capable gaming handheld, but its appeal also comes with affordable price tags - USD 399 for the base mode, going up to USD 649 for the 512GB SSD variant.

Following on from word that top-spec ASUS ROG Ally could launch with a USD 699 price tag - with AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme processing, 16GB LPDDR5 memory, and 512GB NVMe M.2 SSD - comes word that a lower specced USD 599 ASUS ROG Ally is also on the way.

Gamers largely disapprove of the new $70 price tag for AAA games on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and now Nintendo platforms, however prices are unlikely to drop any time soon.

A bit ago, we published a report that found that consumers are buying less games but spending more on the titles that they do buy. This has led to a reduction in game units sold, but an increase in revenues generated from software. This also reflects the fundamental principle of supply vs demand economics: consumers buy fewer products when prices are increased.

Curious on how the price increase is affecting purchasing decisions, I decided to run a quick poll to see what consumers and gamers were willing to pay for AAA titles. Results of a Twitter survey with over 25,000 respondents from across the globe shows that the vast majority of respondents feel that $70 is too much for new video games, especially given the current economic climate that is forcing consumers to prioritize spending on necessities instead of entertainment.