Gaming - Page 192

Independent video game launchers have become the bane of many gamers' existence, dating back from the infamous Games with Windows to the current-day Rockstar Games Social Club.

There will be one less headache for those parties in question - as EA has announced that the Origin App will be officially shutting down as of April 17th, 2025. The move is driven by Microsoft ending support for 32-bit software on Windows 11, as users will be transitioned into the newer, fully supported EA app.

The Origin app was originally released in June of 2011 and caused many Battlefield: Bad Company 2 players complained of unresponsive controls, login issues, and needless additional steps to launch into their games. It also became mandatory to purchase major EA titles through the platform. Releases such as Battlefield 3, Mass Effect 3, and Dragon Age: Inquisition were excluded from Steam - and packaged through EA Origin as 'Origin Exclusives'.

Few titles have taken the internet by storm the way Palworld did in January 2024. Dubbed 'Pokemon with Guns', the survival crafter amassed an enormous following. It quickly became the most-played game on Steam and Xbox Game Pass.

While the dust has settled on the Palworld craze, the title still holds a respectable #13 ranking on the Steam charts behind GTA V and Apex Legends. Going into 2025, its developers, Pocketpair, plan to reclaim some of that market share - releasing a roadmap of new content and features for 2025.

Among the key features are co-op crossplay, world transfers for Pals, and a World Tree ending scenario which would allow players to 'complete' the game. There are no dates specified, so it is presumed that the timing will be revealed closer to the launch.

Here we go again: There's talk of another price hike for video games, and that GTA 6 could help introduce a blisteringly-high $100 MSRP for future video games. But these reports have been taken significantly out of context.

Gamers don't want to pay $100 for new games. They don't even want to pay $70 for new games, as our data shows. But the industry isn't growing, and companies want better profits. There's a lot of different ways to grow gaming, but one, raising game prices to $100, has commanded headlines with its shock value.

So where did all this come from? The "AAA games should cost more" discussion was first sparked by commentary from Larian Studios publishing director Michael Douse, who also said that "everyone is waiting for GTA 6" to raise prices first. This was repeated through daily news cycles, reinforcing the idea.

Bloomberg's Jason Schreier recently reported Sony canceled two live-service games that were in development by developed by Bend Studio and Bluepoint Games, and now industry insiders have given the main reason why -- Concord.

Sony undoubtedly shakes in its boots when it hears the name "Concord," as the publisher would more than likely never want to hear it brought up ever again as it would remind the company of the massive hole multi-hundred-million dollar hole in its pocket. However, it appears Concord is yet to be completely dead and buried, as its name has once again popped up, but this time in relation to the reported canceled live-service projects.

Insider Jeff Grubb says the failure of Concord has left Sony shellshocked to the point where it's now having to reevaluate every games-as-service project it has in development under its umbrella. Grubb says that Sony is now putting a lot of scrutiny on the development of any of its live-service games and that Sony as a whole is now pivoting away from live-service titles and moving back to more traditional games.

Microsoft is rumored to bring six of its games over to the Nintendo Switch 2, according to an insider that outlined each of the rumored titles in a new YouTube video.

The insider is eXtas1s, which InsiderGaming has sourced, and according to the YouTube video, Microsoft is planning on releasing Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, Halo: The Master Chief Collection, Diablo IV, a new Call of Duty game, Fallout 4, and Starfiled on Nintendo's successor to the Nintendo Switch 2. Notably, it has already been confirmed that Microsoft plans on releasing Call of Duty on Nintendo platforms as the company entered into a 10-year agreement with Nintendo to bring the same Call of Duty that releases on Xbox, PC, and PlayStation to Nintendo.

But what about the other games? Microsoft has been open for quite some time now been open about bringing down the walls of exclusivity per platform and has even already started releasing once-Xbox-exclusive titles on competing platforms. For example, Microsoft released four titles on PlayStation in a bid to test out the waters, and now it appears the next step in the company's plan to bring its games to as many platforms as possible is in motion.

Jagex has found itself in yet another controversy after the developer sent out a survey to RuneScape 3 and Old School RuneScape players asking for their opinions on potential changes to memberships.

The survey asked players of both games their thoughts on several changes to membership tiers, which were all more expensive than the current membership offerings. Some of the changes included the following: shorter AFK timers, specialized member worlds, the inclusion of in-game ads in both paid memberships and free-to-play, improved account security, character name reservations, and other features that fell upon deaf ears.

What is probably the most egregious offense in the survey is the suggestion of in-game advertisements for paying members, along with a steep price increase to memberships in general, which can be as much as $350 a year. The response from the RuneScape community has been heard by Jagex, with a long statement outlining the purpose changes were for "research" purposes only and in no way are concrete, or even in development.

Grand Theft Auto VI is expected to shatter records when it releases in the fall of this year, and with millions of gamers ready to open their wallets for the highly anticipated title, industry experts are now expecting Rockstar/TakeTwo Interactive to increase the price, which may result in the industry standard for triple-A games to also increase.

Epyllion CEO Matthew Ball published a new report on the current state of the gaming industry, outlining the history for standard prices for triple-A games. Ball writes that triple-A titles increased by $10 with the release of current-generation consoles in 2020, bringing the average price up to $70. Now, Ball anticipates Rockstar will use the release of GTA 6 to further increase the price to $80 to $100, which will mean the $70 barrier has been broken, and games currently priced at the $50 range will be able to move up to $60.

While a price hike certainly won't bode well with gamers, it's unlikely it will make a difference to Rockstar's bottom line of sales, especially given the mass anticipation for GTA 6. Moreover, Ball writes that if Rockstar didn't increase the price of GTA 6, it would make it the "cheapest" GTA game ever released. Accurately adjusting for inflation would put GTA 6 at $91. If Rockstar decides to follow through with the price hike, it will likely cause the average game prices across the industry to also increase, as developers/publishers will see it as an opportunity to begin selling their games at higher prices.

Elon Musk has admitted that he broke the terms of service, or the rules, for both Path of Exile 2 and Diablo IV in order to achieve his world-renowned global top 20 rank.

The Elon Musk gaming controversy began when Musk hosted a live stream on X of him playing the recently released Path of Exile 2, and with thousands of fans tuning into the livestream, it wasn't long before players of the game began to notice some things that were quite peculiar. Musk's character was already 97 at the time of the livestream, making him one of the highest-ranked players in the game.

Gamers found it hard to believe Musk was able to achieve such a high level and also fulfill all his duties at SpaceX, Tesla, X, and his other companies, especially considering the highest-ranked players are sometimes playing for upwards of 40 hours straight in a race to be the first for specific ranks. Other glaring red flags were Musk leaving valuable items on the floor, seemingly not knowing how the UI works, and many others that are outlined here.

Marvel Snap is currently down (at the time of writing), with the game seemingly being an unexpected casualty of the TikTok ban over in the US.

Developer Second Dinner took to X (and other platforms) to announce that Marvel Snap can't be played right now, and that the game can't be found in US app stores either.

However, the dev said that Marvel Snap is only "temporarily unavailable" and that it's working to get the game going again as soon as possible. That was 10 hours ago, as we write this, and we haven't heard anything further yet.

EA has finally pulled the plug (for good) on its Origin games store and launcher, although this isn't a shock, given that the application has been on life support for a long time now, since its replacement by the EA app.

Anyone still running Origin (which first debuted way back in 2011) will have to shift over to the EA app before the April 2025 deadline now set for Origin's demise.

As flagged by Neowin, EA has just confirmed: "On April 17, 2025, Origin will shut down, as Microsoft has stopped supporting 32-bit software. If you use Origin, you need to upgrade to the EA app, which requires a 64-bit version of Windows."

Sony's next-generation PlayStation 6 console is "design complete" according to the latest leaks, meaning the next-gen console is more into the development stage than most think.

In a post on the NeoGAF forums, leaker Kepler_L2 made some fresh comments on the next-gen PS6 console saying that the SoC is "design complete" and in the pre-silicon validation stage with the A0 tapeout scheduled for later this year. The leaker teased: "PS6 is design complete and in pre-si validation already, with A0 tapeout scheduled for late this year".

The leaker also provided some details of the GPU inside of the PlayStation 6 as a fork of "gfx13" which was formerly known as RDNA 5, but it's now known as UDNA. We've been hearing more and more about the UDNA GPU architecture, while more recently we've heard leaks that the PS6 would be featuring X3D cache with its new Zen 5 CPU.

Nintendo finally officially unveiled the successor to the Nintendo Switch, and while the trailer did showcase the physical design of the console, we didn't get any performance details.

However, a data miner has now revealed what appears to be the hardware clock speeds for the Nintendo Switch 2, which gives us an insight into how the console will perform with games. Notably, these speeds are "leaked" and should be taken with a grain of salt. We won't actually know what the Nintendo Switch 2 is capable of until it is officially released. With that being said, let's take a look at what has been discovered.

According to the tech experts at Digital Foundry, which cite the purported leaked speeds, the Nintendo Switch 2 is powered by an 8nm chip, with a GPU clock speed of 561 MHz in handheld mode and 10007.25 MHz docked. As for the CPU, the leak states in handheld mode, the Nintendo Switch 2 will run at 1100.8 MHz, and in docked, it will drop down to 998.4 MHz.

Nintendo just officially unveiled the Nintendo Switch 2, and what was seen by many but likely not observed was a new feature of what appears to be a new Mario Kart game.

The Nintendo Switch 2 reveal trailer finally arrived, and while many of the features of the new console, such as size and overall physical design, weren't surprising to anyone who has been keeping up with the tsunami of leaks, there were a few unexpected details. One of which was the sight of what appears to be a brand new Mario Kart game, which makes sense considering Mario Kart 8 is now more than 10 years old, and given the title is one of Nintendo's best-selling games, it makes sense to debut a new iteration with the next-generation console.

Nintendo didn't reveal any specifics about the new console, such as specifications, performance, confirmed titles, etc. But what fans managed to spot in the few seconds of Mario Kart footage that was displayed during the trailer was an updated Donkey Kong design, giving more credence to the notion this is a new Mario Kart game and support for 24 players. Support for 24 players comes from a quick screen grab of the trailer where it shows a starting line with 24 spots available. If true, this would easily be the most players in a single Mario Kart game out of the entire franchise.

Sony has canceled two live-service games that were being developed by Bend Studio and Bluepoint Games. God of War fans will be saddened to know that one of the live-service games that was in development was reportedly based in the incredible world of God of War.

The news comes from Bloomberg, which reports Sony has confirmed the cancelation of the two live-service games in a statement to the publication. Notably, Sony informed Bloomberg that the studios behind each of the titles aren't being disbanded or shutdown, and that both are working with Sony on what will be their next projects moving forward.

As for the studios specifically, Bend Studio confirmed last year it started working on a new IP, but it remains unclear if that new IP was the one that Sony canned. Additionally, Bend Studio reportedly assisted in the development of God of War Ragnarok between 2020 and 2022, which was before the cancelation of its project.

AMD is reportedly preparing a Zen 5-based CPU with X3D cache for Sony's next-generation PlayStation 6 console.

The GPU inside of Sony's next-gen PS6 console will reportedly be the new UDNA GPU architecture that AMD is cooking behind the scenes, with the last of the RDNA architectures -- RDNA 4 -- powering the company's upcoming Radeon RX 9000 series GPUs on the desktop. The new flagship RDNA 4-based Radeon RX 9070 XT is the last flagship GPU we get under the RDNA architecture, and the PS5 + PS5 Pro are the last Sony consoles that'll use an RDNA-based GPU.

Sony's next-gen PlayStation 6 console will run a next-gen APU from AMD that will combine Zen 5 CPU cores + X3D cache with new rumors + UDNA GPU architecture. In a new post on Chiphell, a leaker has teased that "Sony will also stack 3D on the console" presumably the PlayStation 6, after saying that AMD's next-gen Halo APU will "stack 3D to improve the performance of both CPU and GPU".

It was only last year that Nintendo fired off a barrage of lawsuits against Nintendo Switch emulators such as Yuzu, as the company claimed the emulator was "facilitating piracy at a colossal scale."

Despite Nintendo's actions against popular emulators, the company's patent attorney and deputy general manager of Nintendo's intellectual property department, Koji Nishiura, said at the Tokyo eSports Festa earlier this week that emulators are technically legal. Nishiura gave the statements alongside property leaders from Capcom, Koei, Sega, Konami and others.

While Nintendo's top IP lawyer agrees emulation is technically legal, there are ways for emulators to cross over into illegal territories, such as the circumvention of the Switch's "technical restriction measures," which prevents the console from playing pirated games. Another example of an emulator going too far is when it includes specific programs that are subject to copyright protection. An example of this would be Nintendo's home screen or menus.

Elon Musk has leaked direct messages with YouTuber and streamer Zack Hoyt, who is known as Asmongold after the streamer called Musk out for boosting a Path of Exile 2 (POE 2) character to almost its maximum level.

The leaked messages came after Asmongold posted a 32-minute video reacting to the purported "Elon Musk fraud gamer scandal," in which the SpaceX CEO is accused of having either purchased a high-level Path of Exile 2 character or had someone play his account to reach the, at the current time of the video, level 97. Notably, the accusation video outlines many good points for Elon Musk purchasing a character or having someone else play it up until its high level, or what is called "boosting" in the video game community. One of the most prominent points is the amount of time it takes to reach level 97 in Path of Exile 2.

According to the accusation video by Quin69TV, players attempting to reach the maximum level first will play POE 2 for sometimes 40+ hours in a single sitting, and these players are at the same level as Elon Musk's character, which begs the question as to how Musk was able to hit level 97 in POE 2 and fulfill his multiple duties at SpaceX, Tesla, and X.

Gone are the days of artificial scarcity: Nintendo intends to sell as many Switch 2 consoles as possible, and one analyst believes the Japanese toy-maker could sell 20 million systems in the debut year.

Nintendo could ship up to 20 million Switch 2 consoles in the system's first year of availability. The estimate was provided by AB Bernstein analyst Robin Zhu, who tells Bloomberg that Nintendo has created a substantially robust production/manufacturing and shipment infrastructure specifically for the Switch 2. While not mentioned in the coverage, Nintendo's supply line network could further point towards the Switch 2 using an 8nm Orin Tegra SoC produced at Samsung Foundry.

If accurate, Nintendo could ship up to 7.87 million more Switch 2 consoles than its predecessor in the same time period. This big cache of hardware is good news for consumers, especially if other analysts are correct in their Switch 2 predictions.

Microsoft has responded to recent reports from The Information regarding the Xbox business.

Days ago, The Information posted up a paywalled article discussing the state of the Xbox business. The picture seems dire. Janus Henderson Investors portfolio manager Denny Fish says that Activision "has been disappointing" revenue-wise, and another analysts believes that the majority of the video games market "isn't interested" in an Game Pass-like subscription model.

The reports have since been clarified by Microsoft, and our own data sets based on publicly-released financial info also reinforce some of these findings. The clarifications, which include info from both Microsoft and Activision, were given to Insider Gaming as a response to The Information's article.

Nintendo has finally announced the Switch 2 console, and the upgraded hardware comes with some interesting new upgrades.

The Switch 2 is coming in 2025, Nintendo today revealed. The 2-minute teaser trailer basically confirmed all of the Switch 2 leaks to be accurate, from the secondary top USB-C port right down to the new capabilities and functionalities of the Switch 2's JoyCons.

Luckily, Nintendo still has some surprises in store for us. No one knows what this mysterious new button does on the Switch 2's right JoyCon. This was the C-Button in the Switch 2 leaks, but the button itself remains unlabeled in the official console reveal footage.