Gaming News - Page 1

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.

Xbox LIVE Gold pricing is going up by 50%, and will now cost $10 a month regardless of what option you buy.

Today Microsoft announced a substantial price hike for Xbox LIVE Gold. 6 months of Xbox LIVE Gold now costs $59.99, the old cost of the 12-month membership. This is a 50% price jump that doesn't include Xbox's most popular Game Pass service--only multiplayer and an allotment of free monthly games are included.

Here are the new pricing tiers for Xbox LIVE Gold:

• 1-month - $10.99 ($9.99 previously, +10% price hike
• 3-month - $29.99 ($24.99 previously, +20% price hike)
• 6-month - $59.99 ($39.99 previously, +50% price hike)
• 12-month - Now removed? ($59.99 previously)

Capcom finally reveals Resident Evil VIII's release date, and it's a ways away.

Today Capcom confirmed a bunch of Resident Evil Village details that fans will appreciate. The game will release on May 7, 2021 on PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X, Xbox One, and PC, complete with next-gen upgrades. Anyone who buys a PS4 copy will also get a free PS5 copy, and the game will feature Smart Delivery on the Xbox One/Series platforms. This is well after Capcom's FY2020 period ends in March.

Resident Evil 8 will also be the first mainline RE game to utilize Capcom's new next-gen RE Engine upgrades. The game will be optimized to harness the power of the PS5 and Xbox SeriesX/S systems, complete with ray-traced visuals, ultra-fast loading, 3D audio support, smoother frame rates, and "hyper-detailed" graphics. Expect the game to hit native 4K on both machines.

With the new REVIII Maiden demo, gamers will finally get to see Capcom's new RE Engine technology shine in the Resident Evil series.

Capcom just surprise released a playable gameplay demo for Resident Evil VIIlage on the PlayStation 5. It's called Maiden, and it's a standalone experience with it's own story that doesn't follow Ethan's arc in the main game. Maiden takes place in the gothic nightmarish halls of Dimitrescu Castle (named after the tall vampire woman, Lady Dimitrescu) and was originally made as a visual demo. Capcom then tweaked it to be a playable puzzler with story elements.

Sadly the demo is exclusive to the PS5 and can't be played on the PS4, but it does give a sampling of the developer's next-gen games engine, complete with ray-traced lighting, 3D audio, and ultra-fast loading on the PS5's SSD. Think of Maiden as a playable tech demo of sorts.

Gabe Newell really likes New Zealand--and why not? There's a lot to like. New Zealand was one of the most successful countries in curbing coronavirus spread and no longer has to practice social distancing. Life has returned to some state of normalcy in the country, and now GabeN plans to stay there for good. Some Valve employees could follow him.

In a recent interview with New Zealand network TVNZ, Newell said that Valve developers want to join their boss and help develop games overseas. That doesn't mean the entire company will uproot from its Kirkland, Washington HQ and move to New Zealand, though.

"There's a lot of interest at a grassroots level inside of the company to have some people move," Newell said.

While some games-makers like SEGA and Square Enix are on shaky grounds, Capcom has massive confidence in its 2020-2021 earnings and just upwardly revised its forecast to new heights.

Capcom today announced it has raised its Fiscal Year 2020 earnings forecast by as much as 17%. Below is a quick breakdown of the revision, and the yen to USD conversions are based on the going rate for December 31, 2020, which represent Capcom's Q3 period. Note that these conversions do not reflect the actual future exchange rates:

Revised FY2020 forecast:

• Net Sales - 92 billion yen ($891.12 million), up 8.2% over previous forecast
• Operating Income - 30.5 billion yen ($295.42 million), up 19.6% over previous forecast
• Net Income (Profits) - 21 billion yen ($203.49 million), up 16.7% over previous forecast

Valve's Gabe Newell says new games are in development, but how many of them will actually release?

We've known since 2018 that Valve has numerous unannounced games in development. One of these projects was Half-Life Alyx, the preeminent VR experience. Before Alyx, though, Valve had a handful of projects that fizzled out, including a Half-Life 3 prototype with procedural generation and even Left 4 Dead 3. These projects were cancelled because Source 2 wasn't ready yet.

"Valve has many projects in various stages of production at all times," read a job listing from 2018.

PUBG will soon evolve from a singular battle royale game into a fully-fledged franchise with multiple releases...including a horror title called The Callisto Protocol.

Krafton, the parent company of PUBG developer Bluehole, has lofty ambitions for the BR franchise. Soon the billion-dollar FPS will transcend into other genres and even other mediums. The South Korean giant plans to release a PUBG animated television series, live action films, and a number of new games--in short, they're going for the transmedia approach that Capcom, Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony have embraced for long time.

Krafton CEO Kim Chang-han says there's a bunch of new PUBG games in development--at least three, in fact.