Gaming - Page 1019

Overwatch continues to expand at a great rate, with Activision Blizzard announcing ahead of its quarterly earnings call that Overwatch is home to over 15 million players.

The game launched in May with around 7 million gamers getting into Overwatch, which means we have a 100% increase since the game launched. Overwatch players have pumped over 500 million hours into the game, which is up from the 119 million hours or so back in early-June.

Activision Blizzard posted a 255% increase in revenue year-over-year, with some of this success courtesy of Overwatch. The company will continue to release new content for the game, with the new Summer Events update already here, and it's quite fun. The soccer mode is beyond addictive, damn it.

Thanks to delayed review copies and an awkward embargo, No Man's Sky review scores likely won't be ready until days after the game launches. We'll have plenty of livestreams though.

Review embargoes for No Man's Sky don't lift until August 8 at 11PM EST, just an hour before its release on PSN and Steam, and publications won't be receiving their review copies until Monday, August 8.

So don't expect anyone to have their review ready by the time the embargo lifts, and it might be as long as two to four days after No Man's Sky launches before we get an official review. Before you get too disappointed, I'm sure we'll see an incredible volume of livestreams to showcase the game in action.

Blizzard will reveal a remastered HD port of StarCraft this September, with details following at Blizzzcon in November, according to reports from Korean news site iNews24.

"Today, multiple sources with knowledge of Blizzard internal plans said that Blizzard will reveal StarCraft HD to the public this September. The StarCraft HD remastered version will retain the original gameplay and is said to have improved graphics resolution and user interface (UI)," says the Korean publication.

This isn't the first time we've heard about HD remasters of classic Blizzard games. An old Blizzard job listing strongly indicated that WarCraft III, StarCraft and Diablo II would be getting HD remasters: "Compelling stories. Intense multiplayer. Endless replayability. Qualities that made StarCraft, Warcraft III, and Diablo II the titans of their day. We're restoring them to glory, and we need your engineering talents, your passion, and your ability to get tough jobs done," reads the now defunct listing.

id Software made a big comeback with the reboot of DOOM, and now Quake Champions is on the way, a new PC-exclusive arena-based first-person shooter due out in 2017.

The company has released the first gameplay trailer to Quake Champions, which is above, and it has plenty of rocking jumping goodness. The gameplay trailer was unveiled by id Software Studio Director Tim Willits during QuakeCon 2016.

Quake Champions has infused the old-school Quake games, while keeping load outs away from Quake Champions. Willits explained: "No loadouts, no limit to the amount of guns you can carry. Time the weapon pickups, or kill your opponents. That's how you get weapons in a Quake game".

Bethesda has launched a new gameplay trailer for Arkane's new re-imagined Prey game, and boy is it creepy.

The new Prey game isn't what you think it is: it's not a reboot, it's not a sequel. It's a total re-imagining of the series from the minds that brought us Dishonored. It's still technically an FPS, but this time around the game takes on a more cerebral bent; Arkane wants to get inside your head and make you question your own identity. I mean listen to the opening line: "I keep having this dream. I'm staring at the black between the stars. There's something there. I know there is. I can't see it, but it sees me. It sees...everything." Just...creepy.

"Prey is not a sequel, it's not a remake, it has no tie with the original. You have to look at it as a re-imagining of the IP," says Raphael Colantonio, president of Arkane Studios and creative director of Prey. "Prey isn't just about shooting aliens. It's more of a hybrid game where narratives mix with action and a little bit of an RPG layer. So you have some weapons, but you have lots of other things too, including powers you can learn from the aliens themselves.

A PC port of Platinum Games' lauded action game Vanquish is looking more likely after a Kotaku interview with company co-founder Atsushi Inaba. Asked if the game might come to PC, Inaba replied, "Hrm. I wonder... If you stop recording, I can talk about that," before laughing.

There are a number of possibilities one could surmise from this reply. Namely, a port is a sure thing but Platinum and its publisher are waiting for the right time to announce it, or they're looking into it now but aren't sure it's technically and/or financially feasible.

Inaba notes he appreciates the success the platform has outside of Japan, and that his studio enjoys hanging out at the Valve offices to look at new technology and talk about "many different things." He also states the only thing that really determines whether Platinum releases a PC title or not is its publisher.

Nintendo's new NX, a transforming handheld/console hybrid, will have strong third-party support with major AAA publishers apparently signing on to port games over to the new platform.

Nintendo is keen on reversing everything about the Wii U, especially its faltering third-party games support. Sources have told MCV that the NX, which is reported to be a powerful handheld whose graphics sit between a PS3 and PS4, will have outstanding third-party games support from leading games publishers like Activision, Square Enix, Ubisoft, Warner Bros., and SEGA.

Nintendo will also put forth major efforts for quality first-party games on the NX, including Zelda Breath of the Wild, and a new Pokemon and Mario game throughout the first six months of the NX's launch.

New reports suggest that the Nintendo NX actually is a transforming handheld hybrid, and its graphics will sit somewhere between the PS3 and PS4.

Sources have told MCV that the rumors behind Nintendo's new NX games system are 100% accurate: the NX will unify handheld and console gaming with a powerful tablet-like handheld that can be docked for living room play. The sources go on to say that the NX's graphics will be "somewhere between a PS3 and PS4," further corroborating our reports that the NX is powered by NVIDIA's new Pascal-based Tegra chip.

At the same time, however, the NX won't appeal traditional console fans who are used to PS4-grade quality--and by extension, PC gamers who expect high-end performance, and at least 1080p 60FPS. "It's a nice bit of kit, a bit of a novelty, but a good one," an unidentified industry exec, who had tried the NX, told MCV. "It won't appeal to PS4 fans. Nintendo seems set on trying to upgrade smartphone gamers. That's going to be a big job for the marketing department."

We know that EA has two of the biggest games coming out shortly, with both Battlefield 1 and Titanfall 2 expected to sell tens of million of copies combined.

During EA's recent conference call for its Q1 earnings, company CEO Andrew Wilson said that there is gigantic excitement surrounding both Battlefield 1 and Titanfall 2. Wilson said: "Looking ahead, there is tremendous excitement for both Battlefield 1 and Titanfall 2, a combination that we believe will bring vitality and innovation to the huge first-person shooter audience. The community has been electrified by Battlefield 1's modern take on World War I, delivering strategy, team play, and epic scale in a completely new setting".

EA's Chief Financial Officer, Blake Jorgensen said that the company expects Battlefield 1's first year performance to be similar to other Battlefield titles, with around 15 million copies sold in 12 months. Jorgensen said: "So, on the guidance, we talked rough numbers with people. We told people that typically a Battlefield title is about [15 million] in a year. Our guidance is slightly under that. And we hope that that excitement builds and it will clearly go through that number, but for right now, it's slightly under that number".

UPDATE: Nintendo being its usual shrewd self has forcibly taken down the Nintendo Power archive. Sorry, folks, but Nintendo has a zero tolerance policy on any kind of fan service and they're still out of touch with reality.

Now you can experience that golden age of gaming splendor all over again.

Remember video game magazines? Yeah, they're all but extinct now. But back in the old nostalgic days of retro gaming, Nintendo Power ruled our childhood. Now that every single issue of Nintendo Power has been published online, you can cruise through all 11 years of iconic gaming awesomeness and timewarp back to those nostalgic days on a whim.

Final Fantasy XV will have a season pass that unlocks access to six pieces of DLC content, three of which will be story-based.

According to Gematsu, who spotted a listing on the JP PlayStation Store, Final Fantasy XV's illustrious season pass will cost $25 includes three story-based episodes that possibly explore the backstory of the game's party members: Ignis, Prompto, and Gladiolus. Considering FF15 already tells the story of Noctis, the player character, it stands to reason Square Enix would love an opportunity to flesh out the other party members. Sony has since taken down the listing.

So far the season pass isn't available for purchase on its own; you have to buy the $84.99 Digital Premium Edition (DLC + main game) or grab the Season Pass Upgrade, which is only available to those who have already pre-ordered the game on PSN. The six DLC packs are as follows:

Rather than shutting down and ceasing all gambling activity as per Valve's orders, a major CS:GO gambling site is applying for a legal gambling license.

CSGO Lounge, one of the biggest players in the Counter-Strike GO skin trade, plans to apply for a legal gambling license so it can keep its lucrative business afloat. The site has put up an age gate to restrict betting to users 18 years or older, and you won't be able to bet unless eSports gambling is legal in your country.

"We have decided to acquire a license to legally operate in most of the countries and be able to accept the esports bets by our community, as if it would be real money," reads an update on CSGO Lounge's site.

iFixit cleaves open the Xbox One S's small skin to reveal its inner guts, showing some decent hardware jumps over the original Xbox One.

We already know that Microsoft's new $299 Xbox One S packs the same GPU/CPU hardware as the original Xbox One, only better: the S model's GPU has been overclocked to 914MHz (from XO's 853MHz) and is now housed on a new ultra-efficient 16nm FinFET SoC chip. But a new Xbox One S teardown from iFixit reveals some other interesting component upgrades that the Xbox slim offers, namely a SATA III 6.0 Gbps hard drive, a 802.11ac wireless chip, and HDMI 2.0a connectivity. Plus it's quite easy to repair!

Here are the particulars:

Microsoft's new $299 Xbox One S technically supports native 4K gaming, but don't expect to see the console run blockbusters like Battlefield 1 in 4K.

Yesterday we reported that the new Xbox One S rocks tweaked hardware to deliver noticeable performance gains across the board, including in-game FPS and power efficiency. Now Xbox exec Albert Penello has confirmed to Eurogamer that the new 40% smaller Xbox One S has an unlocked 4K frame buffer that developers can access to technically enable native 4K gaming--but only for limited games like indies.

Digital Foundry: "Can developers address a 4K framebuffer? Obviously we can't expect native 4K triple-A gaming, but simpler titles and 2D games could potentially work well - plus existing Xbox One owners would get 2x super-sampling."

Microsoft has released its tweaked and refined Xbox One S console, but now that it's here, we know that the GPU inside of the new Xbox One S console is actually faster than the one in the current Xbox One unit.

The new Xbox One S not only features its GPU clocked at 914MHz, compared to the 853MHz on the Xbox One. On a more technical side of things, Microsoft has used a new APU from AMD that is made on the 16nm FinFET process in the Xbox One S, down from the 28nm APU found in the Xbox One.

The new 16nm APU is clocked 7% faster than the 28nm APU inside of the Xbox One, improving the maximum compute performance and with the increased ESRAM bandwidth, we have a slightly faster console. The additional performance from the 7% overclock on the GPU will result in games that feature an unlocked framerate, or GPU-limited games where performance suffers on the Xbox One, the new Xbox One S will have less FPS drops, and a smoother gaming experience.

Hello Games is readying a patch update to fix No Man's Sky's most notorious glitches and wipe away all those pesky bugs outed by the leaked footage.

We've been keeping a close eye on all the leaked No Man's Sky footage that's been trickling onto the web, critiquing our worries and making note of bugs, glitches, and rather worrisome mechanics. The information shown in the leaks has fractured the No Man's Sky fanbase, and for good reason--using Atlas Stones, a gamer was able to reach the center of the universe in less than two days time. There's also some other pretty serious in-game bugs that hint No Man's Sky wasn't entirely finished when it went gold.

As I suspected, these leakers are playing the unfinished, unpatched version of No Man's Sky, and it won't be the version we get on August 9. Sean Murray has just confirmed that Hello Games is finalizing the game's first update which will likely be deployed as the coveted day one update, wiping the slate clean and making all the leaked content particularly moot.

Sony has been limping through the last few years on a crutch it calls its PlayStation division, which according to Sony's Q1 2016 financial report, is still the case. During Q1 2016, Sony's operating profits dropped 42% year-over-year to $546 million with $15.66 billion in sales for the three-month period.

Sony said the "significant decrease" in sales is because of the stronger yen and a 33.7% drop in sales for Sony smartphones. The company notes weak results in its semiconductors business, with a "significant decrease" because of it, with $132 million in expenses after the mid-April earthquake that hit Kumamoto, Japan.

The PlayStation division continues to do good business, with $3.21 billion in sales for Q1 2016 - an increase of 14.5% year-over-year. Sony attributes the "significant increase" in sales of its PlayStation division to the sales of PlayStation games. We've seen the release of Uncharted 4 which sold over 2.7 million copies in its launch week, becoming the fastest-selling first-party PS4 game yet.

It looks like Telltale Games is in for a world of hurt, with their latest game getting completely bagged on Steam. Batman: The Telltale Series is being called by some users as "100 percent broken as of launch".

Surely, gamers could adjust the visual settings and resolution for improved performance in Batman: The Telltale Series, but no - this doesn't help. One review on Steam says: "Resolution is an issue, try to set any [resolution] higher than 720p, your mouse gets held ransom in an invisible box at the top left of the screen".

Other users can't even change the resolution in the game, or have issues trying to save their new visual settings (which requires escaping out of the settings completely, which then asks you to save the settings). Moving to the game itself, Steam reviews say that Batman: The Telltale Series is plagued with framerate issues which bring the game down to an unplayable 10FPS, sound issues, and random crashes.

Final Fantasy XV will officially have DLC content that's bundled together in a season pass.

In a move that surprises no one (partially due to the trends in gaming and the fact that Tabata confirmed it months ago), Square Enix will be offering a season pass for future Final Fantasy XV content. What's a bit strange is that we can't exactly pre-order the season pass just yet: the DLC content is only available to those who pre-ordered the game, or on PSN through a special $84.99 Digital Premium Edition.

Doing a bit of math, we see that the Final Fantasy XV season pass equates to roughly $25, so all in all we probably shouldn't expect too much from the content. Then again, CD Projekt RED jam-packed an incredible amount of content with the Witcher 3's $25 Expansion Pass, and Square Enix has a penchant for high-quality games.

Ubisoft promises to announce more games that support Nintendo's new NX console-handheld hybrid, reinforcing third-party support for the new hardware.

"We announced that we're developing Just Dance for NX and we have other surprises that we will announce later, but we also believe Nintendo has the power to reinvent the way families are playing," Ubisoft exec Alain Corre said in a recent interview with Games Industry.biz. "Nintendo is a fantastic powerhouse of brands that are really cherished by a lot of fans and families... I am still impressed by the re occurrence of success and appetite even today for the Nintendo franchises on the current system."

Corre's ridiculous statements on the Wii U nonwithstanding, the Ubi exec seems to hint that Nintendo's new NX console will continue the company's trend of family-friendly gaming. This is hardly a surprise, especially given that's a core tenant for Nintendo's brand focus, but it might give some clues on the unknowns on the NX--especially when we fold some specific reports and rumors.