Gaming - Page 126

In a surprise move, Microsoft today abruptly shut down its digital entertainment storefront on Xbox and Windows, meaning users can no longer purchase TV shows and movies from Microsoft's stores. This marks the end of digital non-gaming media purchases on all video games consoles.

Without any warning, Microsoft has ceased sales of TV shows and movies on its storefronts. Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S users can no longer buy or rent digital media--all existing purchases will be retained and can still be watched, however.

"Microsoft has stopped selling new movie and TV content. Existing customers can continue to access their previously purchased content on Windows and Xbox devices. Players can continue to play personal videos on Xbox devices. Windows customers can continue to have access to playback and the download functionality," reads an Xbox support article.

The CEO of Ubisoft has confirmed a new Ghost Recon title is currently in development, and that it will be a first-person shooter.

The confirmation for the long-rumored Ghost Recon game came from Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot, who was answering questions in a shareholder meeting held on July 10. During the meeting, Guillemot discussed the success of Rainbow Six Siege and how that demonstrates the company's expertise in the live-service gaming market.

Yves added that Ubisoft intends to capitalize on its upcoming launches by continuing to "enhance" the experiences it currently offers "such as The Division and Ghost Recon."

FromSoftware currently has quite a lot on its plate at the moment, as the developer is currently working on continuous new updates for the recently released Elden Ring: Nightreign, and the upcoming title The Duskbloods, which is headed exclusively to the Nintendo Switch 2. However, there is reportedly a third title in the works, and the studio is deep into its development.

According to a new report by MP1st, FromSoftware is currently working on a project codenamed "FMC," with the studio reportedly already being deep into the development of the title that, if it continues at this pace, will release sometime in 2026. Unfortunately, the codename doesn't reveal much about what the title could be about, but from previous FromSoftware games, we have learned that codenames starting with "F" typically relate to the Dark Souls or Armored Core series.

Souls series creator and president of FromSoftware, Hidetaka Miyazaki, said in the past that the Souls series was finished, meaning this new project isn't likely to be a sequel. However, that doesn't rule out the possibility of there being one. What is more likely, if this unannounced title is Souls-related, is that it's the long-rumored remaster of Dark Souls 3, as the first and second games within the franchise have already been remastered, so it just makes sense to remaster the third as well.

It seems that employees aren't the only ones at the company being laid off, as Microsoft has fired its movies and TV store on Xbox and Windows platforms.

Reports indicate that Microsoft has discontinued the ability to purchase new movies and TV shows from the Microsoft Store on both Xbox and Windows. Users will still be able to access content they have already purchased, with Microsoft confirming users will still be able to download on Windows and in HD max resolution. However, users wanting to access the content will still need to view it through the Movies & TV app on Windows or Xbox. Additionally, Microsoft isn't offering refunds to users.

The Movies & TV app and store emerged in 2015, following Microsoft's launch of the service with Zune Video Marketplace in 2006, and its subsequent replacement with Xbox Video in 2012. This evolution ultimately led to the current Movies & TV app and store. It appears Microsoft doesn't want to compete with the likes of Amazon, Netflix and, particularly, Apple in the streaming video services market. It remains unclear how long Microsoft will keep the Movies & TV servers online.

Call of Duty 2027 is already being leaked online ahead of the official worldwide reveal of Call of Duty: Black Ops 7. The leaks come from a reputable Call of Duty source and claim the title won't be Advanced Warfare 2 and will be set in a completely new "sub-franchise".

The information comes from none other than @TheGhostOfHope, who recently took to their X account to announce that the Call of Duty releasing two years from now (2027), developed by Sledgehammer Games, "will NOT be Advanced Warfare 2 and will instead be set in a completely new sub-franchise." Adding, the COD 2027 will be set during the "Modern era," but won't feature any jetpacks. Furthermore, Hope added that there will be a big focus on movement, and Zombies aren't currently planned for the game.

Hope also wrote that "Get High" will be returning in COD 2027, which doesn't refer to drug use, but instead to moving or positioning to a high vantage point on the map to gain a tactical advantage over your enemy. This would include climbing on rooftops, ledges, scaffolding, etc. Lastly, Hope writes there may be a focus on martial arts within the gameplay as well, with players being able to perform "karate kicks" and "karate chops" as examples.

Sony's next-generation PlayStation 6 console is expected to feature 24GB of RAM, up from the 16GB of RAM inside of the PS5 and beefed-up PS5 Pro consoles, and it'll be used for advanced ray tracing and machine learning.

In a new video from Digital Foundry, the tech experts surmise that the PlayStation 6 will feature 24GB of RAM, as it is needed for advanced ray tracing and machine learning, as the 16GB inside of the PS5 and PS5 Pro are already hitting limits when it comes to textures and assets.

DRAM hasn't dropped in price recently, but Sony will reportedly not be increasing the cost of the PS6 because of it (and most likely because Sony would be buying SO much DRAM for the PS6 that it would negotiate some rather kick-ass pricing from DRAM manufacturers). As for the rumored PlayStation 6 handheld, it would probably sport 16GB of RAM as it's reportedly capable of backwards compatibility, playing PS5/PS4/PS3/PS2/PS1 games on the go).

Nintendo is suing Pocketpair, the creator of Palworld for allegedly infringing on its Pokémon patents, but its latest moves indicate that Pocketpair may have a stronger defense case than Nintendo initially anticipated.

For those who are out of the loop, the release of Palworld in 2024 was a major success, with the title hitting an all-time peak of 2.1 million players on Steam shortly after its release. Palworld still remains an extremely popular game, with it still regularly sitting in the top 25 games on Valve's platform, and with attention came Nintendo lawyers, who claimed Palworld was infringing on the company's patents.

Nintendo officially sued Palworld's creator Pocketpair, and according to the suit, Nintendo is seeking approximately $66,000 in damages for Pocketpair allegedly infringing on three patents: one for how players can switch between riding different mounts, and two for capturing monsters. Pocketpair responded to Nintendo's claims and pointed to other games that use similar in-game mechanics, which Nintendo hasn't filed lawsuits against. Additionally, Pocketpair demonstrated its mount switching mechanic 6 months before Nintendo filed the patent it alleges Pocketpair is infringing upon.

Virtuos is laying off hundreds of people, and the company has confirmed that "restructuring" is happening.

Virtuos has announced that it will lay off about 7% of its workforce, or about 200 people. This implies that around 3,800 people had worked at Virtuos before the layoffs, and while the company is headquartered in Singapore, it had 25 offices worldwide.

A studio rep tells Eurogamer that the majority of Virtuos' layoffs will affect roles in Asia, with 70 layoffs being planned for Europe. Despite Oblivion Remastered's high-rising success, Virtuos will lay off 10 people from the French team responsible for Oblivion.

A YouTuber who focuses on retro gaming has had his home raided by the authorities, who seized a variety of gaming handheld devices.

That YouTuber is Once Were Nerd, who says Italian customs enforcement officers from the Guardia di Finanza appeared at his home on April 15 with a search warrant to investigate his property for devices that were promoting pirated copyrighted material. The authorities left the home with a total of 30 gaming consoles.

In addition to the confiscated consoles, the YouTuber provided their conversations with the console makers, along with their smartphone, which the authorities said would be returned in a few days, but was returned two months later on June 15.

Donkey Kong Bananza is the latest 3D platformer from the team behind the critically acclaimed Super Mario Odyssey. With reviews now appearing online, it is another hit from Nintendo. With the game sitting on a score of 91 over on Metacritic, reviewers are praising the game's refreshing take on the genre, its presentation, and destructible sandbox environments.

As far as technology goes, the Nintendo Switch 2 console-exclusive makes good use of the advanced NVIDIA hardware to deliver detailed environments, physics-based destruction, and animation. However, as part of Digital Foundry's comprehensive review of the game, which covers its performance and technical achievements, we discover a somewhat surprising fact.

According to Digital Foundry, the game utilizes AMD FSR 1, and not DLSS, for its dynamic 1080p to 1200p resolution when docked (or 1080p presentation when in handheld mode), which is then paired with an older post-processing anti-aliasing technique to smooth out edges.

Ubisoft has named two members of the Guillemot family to lead its new powerhouse subsidiary, the company today announced.

Months ago, Ubisoft announced a billion-dollar deal with Tencent, a Chinese multimedia giant. Ubisoft essentially agreed to take its three biggest franchises--Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, and Rainbow Six--and put them under a new sister company specifically designed to handle the franchises. As part of the deal, Tencent will spend $1.2 billion and acquire a minority 25% stake in the new subsidiary, which has been valued in excess of $4 billion.

Now it's been revealed who will lead Ubisoft's subsidiary. The board has elected to keep management within the Guillemot family, with two of Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot's relatives being appointed as co-CEOs: Charlie Guillemot (son), and Christophe Derennes (cousin) will navigate the subsidiary. Ubisoft says it hopes this subsidiary will help Assassin's Creed, Rainbow Six, and Far Cry earn $1 billion per year.

Final Fantasy 17 could be a turn-based game, recent reports suggest, but Square Enix's Naoki "Yoshi-P" Yoshida clarifies that nothing has been decided yet.

The next mainline Final Fantasy game could be another action-based experience like Final Fantasy 15 and 16, or go for the more traditional ATB turn-based style. While Square Enix is undoubtedly plotting out early details for Final Fantasy 17, the company isn't ready to start talking about anything just yet.

In a recent interview with Anime News Network, Yoshi-P was asked point blank if Final Fantasy could go back to the days of turn-based combat. Yoshi-P's response wasn't straightforward--the overall goals of the game will dictate aspects like battle systems. Yoshida also says he may not be involved in FF17's development.

CD Projekt Red has just wrapped up the REDstreams for the new Cyberpunk 2077 update, slated to add a bunch of new features to the open-world RPG.

The Cyberpunk 2077 update 2.3 arrives tomorrow, and it isn't just a bunch of quality of life improvements, as CD Projekt Red is adding frame-generation support across all major GPU brands. The developer revealed the update will add AMD FSR 4, FSR 3.1 Frame Generation, Intel XeSS 2.0 with XeSS frame generation, along with Intel HDR10+ and VRR support for consoles.

These are extremely welcome updates as now any PC gamer can take advantage of frame-generation technologies for improved gameplay, regardless of what brand of GPU they are running. In addition to better performance for a wide range of gamers, CD Projekt Red is also introducing a bunch of new vehicles for players to enjoy, a new Autodrive system to make cruising from destination to destination much easier, and a Delamain taxi service.

Subnautica 2 is a highly anticipated game that has recently found itself in hot water, as it was discovered that the franchise owners, Krafton, may have had to pay a $250 million bonus payout to its subsidiary company and the developers of the title, Unknown Worlds.

Approximately 40 employees were eligible to share a $25 million bonus that was hinging on the studio hitting a specified amount of revenue by the end of 2025, with the possibility of an extension being given on the bonus duration. Krafton announced at the beginning of the month that it wanted to delay the release of Subnautica 2, resulting in Unknown Worlds employees being concerned that the franchise owner was making it impossible for the bonus targets to be hit.

The issues between Unknown Worlds and Krafton date back to 2021 when Krafton purchased the studio for $500 million with an additional $250 million to be paid in 2026, dependent on the company's performance. Of that $250 million, 10% was pegged to go to studio employees, which around 40 received checks when the deal closed for the studio. However, the employees were slated to receive upwards of $25 million if the company managed to reach those revenue targets. Releasing Subnautica 2 in early access was a big part of hitting those performance targets.

Valve has updated Steam's "Rules and Guidelines" for Steamworks Documentation, which are the rules of the road if a developer wants to upload their game to Steam. The new update adds a new 15th clause that prevents a specific type of game from being listed on the biggest PC gaming storefront.

Before the update Valve listed fourteen clauses that developers have to adhere by to get their game listed on Steam, and now there's a new 15th clause, which states that developers are not allowed to have their game contain any "Content that may violate the rules and standards set forth by Steam's payment processors and related card networks and banks, or internet network providers. In particular, certain kinds of adult-only content."

Following this change, many games and DLCs have been removed from Steam as they are now in violation of Steam's new guidelines. Screenshots have been provided below of a selection of titles removed, and notably, the majority of the titles that have now been deleted from Steam are in violation of the adult content policy.

GTA 6 could make $7.6 billion in revenue just two months after launch, venture capitalist firm Konvoy predicts.

GTA 6 is expected to be so big that it will collectively raise the games industry. Gamers will buy new PS5 and Xbox Series X/S consoles to play GTA 6, Rockstar is expected to sell tens of millions of copies, and the game will boost digital spending across consoles.

But how much will GTA 6 actually make? One gaming VC, Konvoy, has laid out some pretty generous predictions. The firm estimates that GTA 6 will make a combined $7.66 billion in revenue in 60 days after launch, which includes game sales, GTA Online spending, and GTA+ subscription sign-ups. The numbers are staggering to say the least; one expert in the field, Joost van Dreunen, expects GTA 6 to make a more conservative $2.7 billion at launch.

On a recent episode of the BBC's morning show in the UK, a segment explored the growing popularity of the retro gaming market in Britain. Primarily focusing on older console hardware and games from the 1980s and 1990s, retro gaming boasts a vibrant global community centered on nostalgia, community, and video games from a bygone era.

The segment included Nick Poole OBE, the CEO of Ukie, the trade body for the UK's video games and interactive entertainment industry. He was there to discuss retro gaming; however, the online discussion and feedback on the segment were focused squarely on a decision made by the BBC's breakfast team.

As part of a visual display of retro gaming hardware and games for the segment, the BBC thought it would be a good idea to put an NES cartridge for Super Mario Bros. in a Super Nintendo. Can the 16-bit SNES play 8-bit NES games? No, which is why it caused some viewers to call it a crime.

NVIDIA's RTX Remix Mod Contest, which is offering $50,000 in cash prizes to the best RTX Remix mods for classic games, is wrapping up this week. Need for Speed: Underground RTX Remix is one of the mods that we've been following for a while, and as part of the contest, Version 0.5 of the project has been released.

The update introduces over 500 new textures, further enhancing the visuals of this classic racing game from 2003. And as we're talking about a game that is now over two decades old, the update also replaces some of the models found in the game with new, highly detailed versions that add more detail to the world of nighttime racing.

The star of the show is the new path-traced lighting, which adds full ray-tracing to the game, dramatically improving the look and feel of races. It's transformative stuff, and a game-changer for what is widely considered to be one of the best entries in EA's iconic racing franchise.

NVIDIA's latest DLSS 4 weekly round-up is a little light on brand-new titles, but it does feature three popular titles in the PC gaming community. First up is hero shooter Marvel Rivals, which has just kicked off Season 3 with a new map and X-Men's Jean Grey as the latest playable superhero.

Season 3 of Marvel Rivals arrives with DLSS 4 with Multi Frame Generation support, alongside NVIDIA Reflex, which boosts performance by up to 5X at 4K. With DLSS Super Resolution, Multi Frame Generation, and Reflex, everything from the GeForce RTX 5070 and higher can achieve a smooth 230+ FPS in 4K with max settings, with the flagship GeForce RTX 5090 hitting an impressive 451 FPS in NVIDIA's benchmarks.

Drop the resolution to 1440p, and the GeForce RTX 5060 achieves 199 FPS with DLSS 4, with the RTX 5070 now reaching 300 FPS. Interestingly, NVIDIA's charts don't include the recently released entry-level GeForce RTX 5050 - though we expect it to perform just fine at 1080p with DLSS 4.

Nintendo has explained in an "Ask the Developers" interview with the team behind the upcoming Donkey Kong Bananza how the idea for destructible environments came about, and why the game is releasing exclusively on the Nintendo Switch 2 and not the original Switch.

The team behind Bananza is the same team that created Super Mario Odyssey, which introduced destructible environments shortly after its release. The idea was combined with the team being tasked with creating a 3D Donkey Kong game that captured the essence of the character, but also ushered in a new level of innovation for players. The new innovation decided upon by the developers was environmental destruction, which is the core theme of Bananza.

In the interview, the title's game directors explain they decided to combine the work they have done with 3D Mario games with voxel-based destruction, which, for those who don't know, a voxel is a 3D pixel. Here's the difference. Pixel art consists of lots of tiny squares, and when arranged on a flat surface with variations in color, they create a two-dimensional image, or a pixel. Take that same idea and extend it to three dimensions, and you get what is called a voxel, or a 3D pixel.