Gaming News - Page 1

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Warzone Season 6 is right around the corner, with Activision releasing a new cinematic trailer to tease it. Check it out:

Warzone's exciting Verdansk map will be getting a big change, with an underground network of subway tunnels being inserted into the map which will change Warzone up in a big way. There's also some new operators, with the introduction of Nikolai and Farah.

Bethesda won't be Microsoft's last purchase, company CEO Satya Nadella says.

Thanks to Game Pass and mobile expansion via Project xCloud, Xbox is quite important to Microsoft's service empire. With the service infrastructure established, Microsoft is aggressively investing in content to help spark digital revenues. Whether it comes from subscriber growth, full game sales, or monetization, Microsoft wants more. The main motivation behind the recent $7.5 billion Bethesda acquisition was to add more value to Game Pass.

Including ZeniMax and its eight studios, Xbox now has 23 first-party teams working on projects to boost Game Pass' value. The plan is to flood Game Pass with a multitude of varied content for subscribers, consumers, and gamers to enjoy, play, and pay for. Even with these impressive numbers, Microsoft says that it's always looking to swell its ranks and embolden its billion-dollar service ecosystem.

Ailing retailer GameStop saw a sharp 23% rise in share value on the back of new business restructuring reports.

Chewy.com co-founder Ryan Cohen has a plan to turn around GameStop's retail business. Instead of focusing so strongly on retail, Cohen advises GameStop to pivot towards ecommerce and become more like Amazon. Sources relayed the plan to Bloomberg, which sees GameStop selling most of its wares digitally via its online storefront.

Investors apparently agree with Cohen's plan. GameStop shares were up 23% to $10.65, the highest point since early 2019. Under his firm RC Ventures, Cohen currently owns 10% stake in GameStop and management is currently hearing out his plan.

Microsoft has no plans to disrupt ZeniMax's development teams, and promises it won't cut any jobs or interrupt development.

Microsoft says it has one clear goal with its recent $7.5 billion acquisition: To make ZeniMax the best it can be. After all, what's good for ZeniMax is now good for Microsoft. To make this happen, Microsoft says they will keep the established structure intact. The service giant plans to largely leave ZeniMax alone in this regard.

There won't be any reductions in dev teams, closing of studios, or immediate cancellations of in-development projects (at least at the beginning, but projects get cancelled all the time in the industry). Xbox's Phil Spencer says ZeniMax's 2,300-person workforce will be empowered, and that Microsoft plans to work individually with studios like Bethesda Game Studios, id Software, and MachineGames to garner feedback and open up resources.

Like a good mentor, Microsoft will show Bethesda how to grow and mature its live service business model, which represents its natural evolution as a games-maker.

Microsoft's recent $7.5 billion Bethesda buyout is a match made in heaven. Microsoft gets much-needed content for Xbox Game Pass, the subscription that's not just a service, but the center of Xbox as a whole. Bethesda gets resources, flexibility, and most importantly, access to Microsoft's potent service framework.

Microsoft doesn't just have a service empire--it has the service empire. Few companies on Earth have a better mastery of digital subscriptions, recurring revenues, and services. Xbox has naturally evolved from a console-first business into a service-first business, and now the Xbox brand is starting to mature. The Xbox LIVE online framework, Windows 10 unification, Project xCloud streaming and on-demand Game Pass access across PC, consoles, and mobiles--all of this is a result of a service-first ecosystem.

Microsoft isn't playing by Sony's rules any more, and plans to conquer gaming by saturating the market with content. Now its 23 dev teams are ramping up projects to populate its console, PC, and service offerings.

Today Microsoft made a big move against its competitors. It bought Bethesda for $7.5 billion, acquiring titanic IPs like Fallout, Doom, and Elder Scrolls as well as studios like Bethesda Game Studios, id Software, Arkane, and more. This follows two years' worth of acquisitions for its Xbox Game Studios banner, which now sits at 23 studios compared to Sony's 15.

The idea here is Microsoft is buying up studios to add value to its cross-platform Game Pass service. The subscription is now so powerful it's defining the Xbox brand and has convinced Microsoft to pay triple for Bethesda than it did for Minecraft back in 2014. At the time of writing, Xbox Game Pass has more than 15 million paid active subscriptions, and grew nearly 5 million subscribers since April 2020.

Microsoft just bought Bethesda for $7.5 billion, but that doesn't mean all future games will be Xbox exclusives.

All of Bethesda's games are coming to Xbox Game Pass on Xbox consoles and PC, Microsoft confirms, but PlayStation gamers won't be locked out of future releases. Bethesda plans to honor pre-arranged exclusivity deals like Deathloop on PlayStation 5. Microsoft also confirms that future Bethesda games will be released on other platforms on a title-by-title basis.

When asked about Starfield and other games coming to PlayStation, Xbox's Phil Spencer told Bloomberg: "We'll take other consoles on a case-by-case basis."

Xbox Game Pass subscribers have grown by nearly 50% in just 5 months, showing just how powerful the subscription service is.

Microsoft's Game Pass and Game Pass Ultimate subscriptions are so important they've become the center of Xbox. Consoles are just the delivery mechanism for Game Pass, which has in turn become the premiere delivery avenue for games and content. The value-oriented service now has 15 million subscribers, Microsoft confirmed, up nearly 5 million paid users since April 2020.

This growth is tremendous for the Xbox brand. As we've said before, Microsoft doesn't care all that much about hardware sales. It's doubled-down on services using Windows 10 PC-console cross-connectivity and Xbox LIVE as the bedrock for its business. Game Pass is an evolution of that plan, and it's starting to come to fruition.

Bethesda says it's performed its "largest engine overhaul since Oblivion" to ensure its Creation Engine is in tip-top shape for next-gen hardware.

Today Microsoft bought Bethesda parent company ZeniMax Media for $7.5 billion, and acquired the rights to Fallout, Elder Scrolls, Doom, and everything else ZeniMax owned. It's a big, big deal for Xbox and the future of RPGs. Nestled in Todd Howard's announcement post is mention of new engine optimizations for Bethesda Game Studios' two big new games: Starfield and Elder Scrolls 6.

Howard says both Starfield, its interstellar new singleplayer RPG space epic, and The Elder Scrolls VI will be powered by a new-and-improved version of the Creation Engine. This new engine update is specifically optimized for next-gen console hardware, including the Xbox Series X and Series S duo, Howard says.

"With each new console cycle, we evolved together. From bringing mods to consoles" with Fallout 4, now over a billion downloads, to the latest technologies fueling Xbox Series X/S. These new systems are optimized for the vast worlds we love to create, with generational leaps not just in graphics, but CPU and data streaming as well. It's led to our largest engine overhaul since Oblivion, with all new technologies powering our first new IP in 25 years, Starfield, as well as The Elder Scrolls VI," Howard said in the post.

Microsoft just bought Bethesda Softworks parent company ZeniMax Media for $7.5 billion, and Xbox now owns the rights to Elder Scrolls, Fallout

Microsoft just spent 3x more than it did for Minecraft in 2014 to buy ZeniMax Media, the parent company of the Bethesda Softworks publishing label and Bethesda Game Studios internal development teams. Xbox now owns the 2,300 team at ZeniMax, including all of Bethesda's first-party worldwide studios. And, most of all, Microsoft now owns Fallout, Elder Scrolls, and Doom, along with new franchises like Starfield.

Armed with Microsoft's billions, Bethesda plans to double-down on development of its biggest new games. Xbox's Phil Spencer confirms Bethesda's biggest games are now coming to Game Pass, but there's no word of console exclusivity. This is the single biggest buyout Xbox has ever done and represents decades' worth of value for the cross-platform brand. With Bethesda and Obsidian, Microsoft now has the RPG dream team on its side.