Gaming - Page 153

The Switch 2 could ship 15 million units in its first year, making it the fastest-selling video games console in history.

Nintendo today published its Q4 FY25 results, showing a predictable drop in earnings as consumers gear up for the Switch 2's launch. The company published its sales forecasts for the Switch 2 which see the system shipping 15 million consoles worldwide. Given this time period is only 10 months (Switch 2 launches on June 5, 2025, and Nintendo's FY26 ends on March 31, 2026), the Switch 2 would be the highest-selling system in a such a period, also making it the fastest-selling system in terms of sell-in/shipment volume.

We've put together a quick checklist based on historical data to show how the Switch 2's forecasted results weigh against other historical hardware launches. Bear in mind all of the platforms included in our comparisons are based on 12-month sales except for the Wii U, which achieved 3.61 million shipments in 9 months, and the aforementioned Switch 2, which is expected to ship 15 million units in 10 months.

Grand Theft Auto 6 just got its second trailer - as you doubtless won't have missed - and it racked up almost half a billion views across all platforms (not just YouTube) in the first 24 hours after release.

Rockstar informed The Hollywood Reporter that the trailer scored 475 million views in total in the first day.

As we reported previously, the first trailer managed over 90 million views on YouTube in its initial 24 hours of existence, and this second trailer has still yet to beat that, sitting on 86 million views (or just over) at the time of writing.

Rockstar has rocked the gaming world with the release of the second trailer for Grand Theft Auto VI, and while the graphics are absolutely stunning it has begged the question as to what framerate gamers will experience at launch.

The new trailer was analyzed by the tech experts over at Digital Foundry, widely regarded as the gold standard when it comes to gaming hardware/software analysis, and what they have gathered is that the footage we can see it has a 2560 x 1152p resolution. This strange resolution is due to the letterboxing, bringing the aspect ratio to 20:9. Notably, the letterboxing has been added in the trailer for cinematic effect, meaning the game won't have this strange resolution at launch.

In terms of the overall image quality, the experts suggest Rockstar has used some upscaling technology similar to a level of FSR 1. Other areas highlighted by the tech experts are the inclusion of Ray-Traced Global Illumination (RTGI), ray-traced reflections, assets looking extremely high detail, and the absence of rasterized lighting. Other areas praised by the tech experts were characters receiving the appropriate shading, fine environmental details, and the immaculate rendering of hair.

ConcernedApe, the creator of Stardew Valley, has said during a recent podcast that he may eventually make Stardew Valley 2, but he prefers putting out free updates to the original game.

Eric "ConcernedApe" Barone recently appeared in an episode of Bobby Lee's Tiger Belly podcast, where he said that sometime in the future, he will "eventually make a Stardew Valley 2," but prefers putting out free updates to the original Stardew Valley because it's "easier."

Currently, Barone is taking a break from the farming simulator as he is working on his new game, Haunted Chocolatier, with the developer saying that he will return to Stardew Valley at some point after years of supporting Haunted Chocolatier.

The closed beta preview for Funcom's upcoming Dune: Awakening has ended, during which content creators and media spent time with the game's first 20 hours. However, the large-scale beta weekend is coming right up, providing more opportunities for players to jump into the new MMORPG.

Early impressions of the closed beta skew largely positive, praising the game's "exceptionally well-crafted world" and its faithful adherence to the source material. Gameplay-wise, players also praised the game's PvP, PvE, survival, and politics - "it's all here and it works," a creator said.

Dune: Awakening will be heading into its large-scale beta testing this weekend, running from May 9-12. While not an open beta, Funcom has encouraged players to sign up on the website for the chance to participate. Players can also wishlist and request access to the beta through the game's Steam page to increase the likelihood of acceptance.

Famed video game director Hideo Kojima has sat down for an interview with IGN where he revealed several details about the highly anticipated sequel to Death Stranding, Death Stranding 2: On the Beach.

Kojima was asked how combat has been changed in Death Stranding 2, with a new emphasis on strategic combat versus the first game, where players were encouraged to avoid combat as much as possible. The director of the game responded by saying the developers have "pursued more enjoyable combat," but added this doesn't mean combat is forced or pushed onto players, as "the game is still fundamentally about cargo delivery."

However, combat in Death Stranding 2 has "become more flexible" with players having a choice to detour around enemies or engage with them. The director of the game went on to explain that some of the staff who worked on Death Stranding 2 also worked with him on his Metal Gear series, which sparked internal concern that Death Stranding 2's combat was "getting a little Metal Gear-ish."

The second trailer for Grand Theft Auto VI has been released, and according to a recent report, it has amassed a stunning half a billion views.

Unfortunately, Rockstar won't be taking home another Guinness World Record like they did when the first trailer for the highly anticipated GTA 6 was released, as that earned the developer the crown for the most-viewed YouTube video in a 24-hour period that isn't a music video with its 90,421,491 view count. Within approximately the same period of time, Trailer 2, which was only released a few days ago, raked in about 75 million YouTube views, falling short of the 90.4 million to break the record.

However, according to The Hollywood Reporter, the second trailer for GTA 6 has amassed a stunning 475 million views across all platforms within 24 hours. A notable difference between the two trailers is that Trailer 1 was a YouTube exclusive and not posted elsewhere, meaning those who wanted to watch the trailer had to rush to find it on YouTube, compared to Trailer 2, which had a multi-platform release.

Mobius Digital, the creators of spacefaring RPG Outer Wilds, has confirmed that the team is working on a new game. The announcement was sighted in the Outer Wilds' latest patch notes, with the team quietly confirming that it is allocating resources towards a new title.

Outer Wilds Patch 16 was rolled out on Steam yesterday, introducing a variety of bug fixes and improvements. An otherwise run-of-the-mill update - the team included a brief explanation for why the update wouldn't be coming straight away to the Nintendo Switch:

With that, we've got official confirmation that Mobius Digital is working on a new game.

Rockstar surprise dropped the second trailer for Grand Theft Auto VI, and fans of the franchise have widely expressed their delight and the insane level of visual fidelity, begging the question as to whether what we are seeing here in the trailer is gameplay or cinematic cutscenes.

The developer has since responded to this widely asked question in a new post on X, formerly Twitter, with Rockstar writing that Trailer 2 is comprised of "equal parts gameplay and cutscenes." Additionally, Rockstar says everything seen within the trailer was captured in-engine from a standard PlayStation 5, not even the PS5 Pro. What does this mean for buyers of GTA 6? It means that what we are seeing here is representative of what gamers will see when they open up GTA 6 for the first time on their console.

There are, of course, a few caveats to that statement. Rockstar has clearly hand-selected the best-performing sections of the game to display in the trailer, and has also used a cinematic camera mode to move the camera to a spot that showcases the best level of graphical fidelity the game can display. But regardless of how Rockstar has selected the footage, what we see here will be extremely close to what will be seen in traditional gameplay footage.

The Consumer Technology Association (CTA), the organization behind CES, has posted a summary alongside a new report looking into the potential impact of President Trump's tariffs on technology products. In partnership with Trade Partnership Worldwide LLC (TPW), the report "assesses the impact of his actual tariffs on the technology products purchased every day by Americans."

The report's findings are based on a scenario where the planned reciprocal rates are implemented after the current 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs ends. It factors in the 145% or 45% tariff on imports from China, a tariff increase on lithium-ion batteries, and the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement. It also models its data and findings on the assumption that the U.S.'s trading partners do not retaliate.

The report covers ten of the most popular consumer tech products and predicts that significant price increases will "reduce American consumers' purchasing power by $123 billion." President Trump's tariffs could hit video game consoles the hardest, with consumers paying 69% more for PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo hardware.

The gaming industry is anxiously waiting for the last card in the deck to fall, PlayStation officially raising its prices of its first-party games to a minimum of $80, as it has already happened for Nintendo and Xbox titles.

Judging on the current moves by Nintendo and Xbox, it appears it's only a matter of time before PlayStation also announces the jump to $80 games, and what game is better than to lead that charge than Grand Theft Auto VI? While GTA 6 is developed by Rockstar and published by Take-Two Interactive, which PlayStation or Xbox does not own, Take-Two is known for setting the new standard for AAA game prices, as it has done this in the past, and at the very least the move to $80 games is indicative of higher-budget titles now costing more to make/buy.

Former PlayStation boss and Sony veteran, Shuhei Yoshida, who spent 38 years at the company recent sat down for an interview with PlayStationInside where he commented on the current state of the gaming industry and why games are becoming more expensive. Yoshida said it was only a matter of time before the prices of games increased as gamers are demanding more ambitious games, therefore raising the cost of development, along with inflation being a significant factor.

In a rollercoaster of events, reports announcing the existence of an 'Elden Ring' film adaptation surfaced yesterday - before being immediately retracted by Nexus Point News. Since then, an insider has come forward claiming the reports are true - and that Garland is "in negotiations to direct Elden Ring for A24." - however, the reliability of these reports remains questionable.

The initial report, viewable through Internet Archive, announced the existence of an Elden Ring film adaptation, which was set to be directed by Civil War and Annihlation director Alex Garland. The film was expected to be Garland's next film, and was set to begin shooting in 2026.

The article, framed as an "exclusive" from Nexus Point News, was quickly removed following its publication yesterday. However, this didn't stop it from circulating online, quickly posted to ResetEra and to Wario64's X account in threads that have since been closed or removed.

Footage has been circulating online claiming that a Pakistan fighter jet, JF-17 Thunder, was "shot down by Indian Defence". Closer analysis has confirmed that the footage was, in fact, gameplay taken from the online military simulation game ARMA 3.

The footage, which began circulating on X, reached over 3.4 million viewers, captioned: "Pakistan jet JF-17 thunder shot down by Indian Defence". Users were quick to dispel the claims, with one commenter highlighting "Arma 3.", and another "It's a computer game." The platform's community notes now specify "from a video game ARMA 3", and an AI summary from GROK also reinforcing that the claim was false.

The post accompanies escalating tensions between India and Pakistan. On Wednesday, the Indian military engaged in multiple missile strikes in an attack dubbed Operation Sindoor, during which, over 31 casualties were reported. Pakistan has claimed to have since retaliated, with instability continuing to shake through the region.

Former Rockstar Games animator Mike York has nothing but praise for the second Grand Theft Auto 6 trailer, and his breakdown gives gamers an idea of how the studio put it together behind the scenes.

The new GTA 6 trailer has amassed tons of buzz (and views) for good reason: There's an incredible amount of high-level detail jam-packed into the 3-minute trailer. The footage is a marvel that was captured entirely on a base PlayStation 5, showing that Rockstar may have mastered the PS5 with Grand Theft Auto 6 the same way that they mastered the PS4 with Red Dead Redemption 2.

Ex-Rockstar animator Mike York shares his thoughts on the trailer in a new 34-minute reaction video and gives lots of insight on GTA 6 from a game developer's perspective. According to York, everything in the footage looks hand-placed, which represents an incredible amount of work for Rockstar's dev team.

The world's first Nintendo Switch 2 die shot is here, showing us the semi-custom NVIDIA T239 processor inside of the upcoming gaming handheld.

The NVIDIA T239 processor inside is fabbed on the Samsung 8N process node, with an 8-core Arm-based CPU with 4M of shared L2 cache, and an Ampere GPU with 1536 CUDA cores. In a separate video on YouTube, Geekerwan showed us a look at the motherboard and SoC inside of the Nintendo Switch 2, confirming rumors from a while back.

NVIDIA and Samsung fabbed the T239 chip back in 2021, which is annotated on the die itself, confirming rumors that the T239 chips have been ready for quite some time. We heard about the Tegra T239 processor back in February 2024, and it appears it has all lined up (no surprise given the Switch 2 chips have been ready for many years now).

The source code for the original Fallout cRPGs was never lost--an Interplay founder had backups all along.

It's a common belief that after Fallout creator Tim Cain left Interplay in the 90s, that the original source code for Fallout 1 & 2 also departed with him. Cain was made to destroy all remnants of Fallout source code because it was owned by Interplay. Cain kept impeccable records and notes, and he believed that without his backups, the code had simply been lost to time over the years.

That isn't the case. In a recent interview with VideoGamer, Interplay founder Rebecca Heineman confirmed she had copies of the original Fallout duo's source. In the 90s, Heineman made it a personal goal to preserve Interplay's projects onto CDs.

Elden Ring Tarnished Edition looks to be the definitive way to play FromSoftware's RPG hit, and the devs share new info on what to expect from the Switch 2 version.

Elden Ring is coming to the Switch 2 with a kind of game of the year edition that packs in expansion content and additional updates. It's called the Tarnished Edition, and the definitive Elden Ring SKU is set to launch in 2025 with a host of new features.

At an official Elden Ring event put on by FromSoftware, Japanese publication Famitsu highlighted some of the new features coming in the Tarnished Edition, including two new playable characters--the Heavy Knight and the Knight of Ides.

The Call of Duty franchise has now made at least $35 billion in cumulative lifetime revenue across game sales, microtransactions, and subscription access, data estimates indicate.

Activision's Call of Duty series stands alone insofar as consistent billion-dollar premium game sales and monetization--it's the only franchise on the planet that can simultaneously sell tens of millions of copies a year while simultaneously raking in hundreds of millions of dollars in additional in-game purchases.

Based on our findings, the Call of Duty franchise has made over $35 billion to date--and potentially much more than this.

A partnership between Xbox and ASUS has spawned a new gaming handheld device called Project Kennan, and now leaked photos of the ROG Ally-like device have surfaced, showcasing its interesting design.

In a new report by Windows Central, the publication that first reported on Project Kennan, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) have leaked images of the upcoming device, showcasing two models: one that is likely the ASUS ROG Ally 2 (white), and what is more than likely to be Project Kennan, according to the publication. Windows Central reports that Project Kennan is currently undergoing internal testing at Microsoft HQ, with the device being a somewhat "open secret" at the headquarters.

Project Kennan, along with the ROG Ally 2, will be devices running Windows 10, with Microsoft slated to fully unveil gaming-oriented features at Build 2025, which is set to take place on May 19. As for the unveiling of the devices themselves, it's possible ASUS will showcase the new handheld at Computex 2025, which is scheduled to take place on May 20, 2025. It's possible that Microsoft will hold its own event to showcase the gaming features of its upcoming partnered handheld, while ASUS will unveil the ROG Ally 2 separately, focusing strictly on the hardware the device is running under the hood.

Call of Duty Black Ops 6 earned more money than any other Call of Duty in history, an Activision analytics engineer reveals on LinkedIn.

New information indicates that Black Ops 6 is the best-earning Call of Duty ever, which isn't necessarily a surprise. In October of last year, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella confirmed that Black Ops 6 had the "biggest Call of Duty release ever" and set a record for day one players. This makes sense: Black Ops 6 was accessible via cloud streaming for the first time ever, and was also made available on Xbox Game Pass. That's two extra entry points alongside full game platform sales.

Now we have an update, albeit an indirect one from the LinkedIn profile of an analytics engineer, Rohan Sawant, who writes: "Supported Black Ops 6, Activision's highest-grossing title, with dashboards tracking user engagement trends, completion metrics, and revenue performance." This means