Gaming - Page 218

Legendary Mario and Zelda creator Shigeru Miyamoto reaffirms Nintendo's stance on artificial intelligence.

While companies like Electronic Arts are going all-in on generative AI, planning to use the nascent tech across its full fleet of games, portfolios, and studios, traditional game giants like Nintendo are keeping their roots steadfast and plan to keep actual artists in their employ. The conservative Japanese Mario-maker isn't interested in using gen AI to help create its games, not leaning into disruption for the sake of profits; after all, a big reason why Tears of the Kingdom was even created was because a sizable portion of Breath of the Wild's core dev team stayed together to tackle the sequel.

"It might seem like we are just going the opposite direction for the sake of going in the opposite direction, but it really is trying to find what makes Nintendo special. There is a lot of talk about AI for example. When that happens, everyone starts to go in the same direction, but that is where Nintendo would rather go in a different direction," Miyamoto said in a recent interview with The New York Times.

Palworld developer Pocketpair has delivered a statement regarding Nintendo's recent lawsuit.

Nintendo is officially suing the Japanese team behind Palworld, aka the "Pokemon with guns" indie that took the world by storm in early 2024. But Nintendo isn't suing for likeness rights violations, or any type of copyright issue. Instead, Nintendo is alleging that Pocketpair has somehow violated Nintendo's patent rights.

Official details about the case remain unknown, and the lawsuit has been filed in Japanese courts. Nintendo's statement on the matter is quite clipped and dry, but the company did say that the lawsuit was made only after "careful investigation" of Palworld. Now Pocketpair has responded with a statement of their own:

Only 20 games have been confirmed to have enhanced PS5 Pro patches, but this list should grow over time and lead to a new wave of game sales for publishers and Sony's first-party game developers.

With new PSSR upscaling, RDNA 3.0 Raytracing tech, and a hefty 67% GPU upgrade, Sony's new PS5 Pro offers thunderous power upgrades over the PS5. Depending on the game, developers no longer have to choose between 60FPS performance modes or 30FPS 4K fidelity modes. The line between the age-old FPS vs graphics trade-off is blurring, and game devs can now scale their games in creative ways with the PS5 Pro.

On a business perspective, one of the biggest reasons to release mid-gen upgrade is to re-sell, or to first-time sell, software to buyers of the new system. We've seen this tactic manifest between actual hardware generations, like with the PS4 -> PS5 re-release upgrades, or "director's cuts," as Sony calls them. Most often, though, the PS4-> PS5 upgrade path is more linear and potentially even free. On a mid-gen level, we've seen developers roll out PS4 Pro enhanced upgrades in specific games for free, which can often lead to boosted sales as more consumers opt for the more powerful system.

The PS5 Pro's new hardware leap is so powerful that it can double FPS in select first-party games, Sony Interactive Entertainment teams have confirmed.

A bit ago, Sony announced its new $700 PS5 Pro console, promising big performance and visual upgrades in the right hands. First-party devs may have the best chance of fully optimizing games on the system because their closeness with Sony's console engineers, and in the Pro's tech demo, architect Mark Cerny said that the system could even double frame rates.

That's apparently the case for Horizon Forbidden West. In a recent PlayStation Blog post, Guerrilla Games' studio director Jan-Bart van Beek revealed that Aloy's sequel will run at 60FPS in Quality Mode on the PlayStation 5 Pro. This mode was originally locked to just 30FPS on the base PlayStation 5. This bodes well for gamers who opt for high-FPS performance gaming especially in an action-oriented experience like the Horizon titles.

Ghost of Tsushima 2 is not happening, and Sucker Punch quickly discusses why the team wanted to make a new game rather than a sequel to Jin Sakai's story.

Yesterday, Sony announced Ghost of Yotei, a new entry in Sucker Punch's newly-established samurai Ghost franchise. The reveal reinforced that Sucker Punch wants to try new things and explore fresh stories in their Feudal Japan-based series, and further clarified that the franchise is Ghost, rather than just Ghost of Tsushima.

Ghost of Yotei introduces a new femme fatale samurai named Atsu whose all-original storyline takes place in the year 1603, over over a quarter of a century before Jin Sakai cut a bloody path across his revenge-fueled adventure. While Jin's arc was based around a more centralized samurai clashes on the island of Tsushima, Atsu's will be more wild and free, with the game's moniker referring to Mount Yotei in the modern day region of Hokkaido.

Ubisoft is addressing recent controversies surrounding its games on a corporate level, and is enacting a new executive review on how its games are made.

Today, Ubisoft announced new downward-adjusted fiscal year targets that were by lower-than-expected sales of Star Wars Outlaws. The controversy surrounding Outlaws has apparently influenced consumers' buying habits. Since Ubisoft, like any games company, relies strongly on full game sales as well as microtransaction earnings, the publisher is taking this very seriously and is preparing a big response.

The first response is that Ubisoft will roll out a series of new patches and updates for Star Wars Outlaws that directly address player concerns and complaints. The second response is much larger in scope, and more long-term. Ubisoft now wants to overhaul how its games are made, focusing more a player- and gameplay-first approach. To achieve this, the company is launching a new executive-level review of its games and teams in a bid to improve efficiency. Based on the language, it's possible that this review could lead to further layoffs at Ubisoft.

Star Wars Outlaws did not meet Ubisoft's internal sales expectations, the publisher today confirmed.

The controversy surrounding Star Wars Outlaws seems to have directly impacted sales of the game. The AAA bounty hunter open-world adventure game had a "softer than expected" sales performance on all platforms, Ubisoft said today in its Q2 report, despite Outlaws routinely being in the PlayStation Store's top 10 best-selling games. Outlaws is also coming to Steam in late November.

The sales miss has prompted Ubisoft to make some key changes in Outlaws and teams are "fully mobilized" to deliver updates to the game. It's unknown exactly what these updates will target, however.

Assassin's Creed Shadows has officially been delayed to February 14, 2025, Ubisoft has today announced.

Ubisoft's new Feudal Japan-based action platformer has riled up some controversy lately, but that's not why the publisher is delaying AC Shadows. Or at least that's not the official reason. The game is being pushed back for the usual reasons--so that more polish and refinement can be applied over 3 months of extra work.

The French publisher also recently cancelled all press demos for AC Shadows at the Tokyo Game Show, and now we know why. Ubisoft is also "departing from the traditional season pass model" for AC Shadows, and anyone who pre-orders the game will now get the first expansion for free.

Concord was one of the biggest gaming release fails in recent memory, with the title attracting almost no attention during its first weekend on Steam (697 concurrent players), and ultimately Sony choosing to refund all gamers who purchased the $40 due to the title failing to reach critical mass for it to be viable.

Now, new information in the form of rumors has popped up, and if the rumors are true, the situation at Concord's developers Firewalk Studios will be much worse than initially anticipated. According to Colin Moriarty, a former video game journalist at IGN and now owner of Last Stand Media, sources have informed him Sony spent an astonishing $400 million on developing the game, with $200 million spent to get the game to an alpha in 2023, and another $200 million on outside developers to finish it off by its release.

Moriarty said Sony paid for most of Concord's budget and that it's the biggest budget of any game Sony has released, making the release of Concord Sony's biggest loss ever on a single game. Moriarty said internally Concord was referred to as "The Future of PlayStation" and that Sony believed it was a Star Wars-like project that would generate money for many years to come. An example of this would be episodic releases of the Concord cutscenes.

Over 600 PC games and apps support RTX technologies like DLSS, Frame Generation, and Reflex. This week, NVIDIA announced a slate of new games launching with DLSS support, including the arrival of the RPG sequel GreedFall II: The Dying World, available in Early Access with DLSS Super Resolution support.

The highly-anticipated dark fantasy shooter Witchfire, previously available via the Epic Games Store, is making its way to Steam this week with support for DLSS 3 Frame Generation. The game sports impressive visuals and is the next game from the studio behind the acclaimed The Vanishing of Ethan Carter.

The guns and magic setting remind us of the classic Hexen but with the visual fidelity of a modern AAA shooter like DOOM Eternal. This is another Early Access game, with the developers offering three regions to explore, a complete gameplay loop, and access to a range of guns and spells.

Sony has officially unveiled a new Ghost of Tsushima sequel that will feature a new protagonist and is set 300 years before the events of the popular samurai game.

Sony has just wrapped up its State of Play event, where it unveiled many new titles ahead of the launch of its recently announced PlayStation 5 Pro. What is likely the most impressive announcement of the entire event with the surprise unveiling of a standalone Ghost of Tsushima sequel from developers Sucker Punch, which is officially called "Ghost of Yotei". The new title is set 300 years before the events of Tsushima and is a true sequel to the popular game.

Players will be taking on the role of a new female character protagonist called Atsu, who is hunting something in the surrounding area of Mount Yotei. However, there appears to be a price on the head of the main character as Ronin is aware of her presence and is hunting her. Notably, the protagonist uses two swords and a gun. Unfortunately, there aren't many more details on the upcoming game, other than Ghost of Yotei is Sucker Punch's first game built from the ground up for PlayStation 5 -- Ghost of Tsushima was built for the PlayStation 4.

Ubisoft has officially withdrawn from the Tokyo Game Show following criticisms of its upcoming title, Assassin's Creed Shadows, with the developer citing "various circumstances".

A new report from Insider Gaming cites various sources that informed the publication that Ubisoft canceled all press previews of Assassin's Creed Shadows. These press previews of the title were expected to go out next week along with the embargo date, but now, according to Insider Gaming, that isn't happening. Ubisoft has since touched on the seemingly abrupt pull out of the Tokyo Game Show in a recent X post, writing, "We regret to inform you that due to various circumstances, we have decided to cancel our online participation in Tokyo Game Show 2024, which was scheduled to start at 3:00 PM on September 26."

Why would Ubisoft withdraw from the Tokyo Game Show? Since the announcement of Assassin's Creed Shadows, the title has drawn extreme controversy for its price, lack of showcased gameplay despite pre-orders being open, choppy animations, alleged bot purchasing, characters, and setting. That last point was a particular point of contention as gamers accused Ubisoft of mischaracterizing Japanese culture with its choice of protagonist and the company's exclamation that Shadows was loosely based on history.

Sony's upgraded PlayStation 5 Pro console will be a huge win for Resident Evil Village fans, with Capcom announcing they've added a new 120FPS gameplay mode to the PS5 Pro version of the game.

In a chat with Sony regarding its upcoming PS5 Pro console, Capcom teased: "For Resident Evil Village, we added 120fps gameplay to provide the best possible user experience on PS5 Pro. Thanks to this major performance boost, the unique and memorable cast of characters looks even more realistic, adding greatly to the scare factor, and the action scenes have more punch than ever before. The beautiful and haunting world of Resident Evil Village uses the power of PS5 Pro for ultra-high-resolution technology, painting a vividly realistic picture that allows for the highest sense of immersion".

The developer continued: "Resident Evil 4 is a survival horror game with a ton of gameplay variety, built around the concept "Survival is just the beginning." On PS5 Pro, the game runs at a higher framerate, making the dynamic action even more intense. Resident Evil 4 also uses the power of PS5 Pro for ultra-high-resolution technology, painting vividly realistic imagery brimming with detailed environments and more natural and beautiful visual effects than ever before".

Gran Turismo developer Polyphony Digital has some exciting news, announcing that Gran Turismo 7 will have "experimental support" for 8K 60FPS on the new PS5 Pro console. Yeah... 8K 60FPS!

I discovered the news just now digging through Sony's content unleashed at its State of Play event for the PlayStation 5 Pro as I'm genuinely curious myself, and then I noticed the top comment on Sony's blog covering 'developers share how they're using new tech to enhance their games" on the PS5 Pro. It's a fantastic article with a bunch of great developers giving some insights into what to expect from the wave of PS5 Pro Enhanced games.

Shuichi Takano, Main Programmer at Polyphony Digital said: "While Gran Turismo 7 was already able to render in native 4K, PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution on PS5 Pro is also effective on 4K sources, allowing for even more detail and higher image quality than ever before. Additionally, we are now able to support ray tracing during races, which was previously impossible. This allows not only for car surfaces to show full reflections of other cars, but also for a car to reflect its own parts, greatly enhancing realism and immersion throughout the whole game".

Sony has just announced another 7 games that will get the "PS5 Pro Enhanced" label, ready for the PlayStation 5 Pro console launch on November 7. Check out the new PS5 Pro Enhanced games in the game lineup sizzle that Sony posted during its State of Play event:

The new games to get PS5 Pro Enhanced are Stellar Blade, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, F1 24, Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater, both Resident Evil Village and Resident Evil 4, and Dragon Age: The Veilguard. This joins another 13 games to make a total of 20 games that are PS5 Pro Enhanced so far, ready for the launch of the console on November 7.

Sony expects to see somewhere between 40 and 50 games with PS5 Pro Enhanced goodness by the time the PS5 Pro launches, while other PS5 and PS4 games that haven't been patched capable of running on the faster PS5 Pro hardware, while some of them will run faster through Boost Mode.

Valve is celebrating once again with a new concurrent players record broken on Steam -- reaching a new highest-ever record of 38.3 million gamers on Steam at once -- well, 38,348,144 to be exact.

It was only last month that Steam hit a record at the time of 37.2 million concurrent players, but in the last 36 hours that record has been broken with another 500,000+ players on the platform at once. Steam has been continuously growing this year, but this is the first time -- ever -- that Steam is clocking in close to 30 million players at all times.

Black Myth: Wukong has driven a huge chunk of this growth, with the game racking up around 2.3 million concurrent players at launch, with up to around 500,000+ concurrent players at peak, and over 100,000+ concurrent players on average. Counter-Strike 2 still tops the list, followed by Dota 2, Banana, and then PUBG.

Shirley Curry aka Skyrim Grandma is an 88-year-old game streamer, who has been playing The Elder Scrolls VI: Skyrim since its launch, but has just announced her retirement from releasing videos. You can watch her announcement video below:

Shirley Curry aka Skyrim Grandma posted to her YouTube channel -- which has blown up since the last time we wrote about her, where Skyrim Grandma had over 500,000 subscribers, but now she has an incredible 1.25M+ subscribers -- but announced her retirement as she's having surgery on her eye tomorrow.

She said that she's been getting tired more often -- she's 88 years old after all -- but fans of Skyrim Grandma are t otally on her side. On Reddit, one user responded: "Well deserved. She is 88 years old" while another added that Shirley had been playing Skyrim since it launched: "she would have been playing it for 15%, or about just under a sixth of her life".

Sony has unveiled its new PlayStation 5 Pro console, offering a heavily-beefed up gaming experience in November, but what does Microsoft have to retaliate to the PS5 Pro? Absolutely nothing.

Microsoft is fully focused on the next-generation Xbox, something the company teased would offer the "biggest technological leap ever seen between console generations" but that is so far away: somewhere in the 2026 timeframe, which is when Sony will unleash its next-gen PlayStation 6 console, and a purported PS6 handheld, both powered by semi-custom APUs that AMD won the contract for earlier this year (beating out Intel, which pushed hard to get inside of PS6).

We reported earlier this year that Intel wanted to be inside of Microsoft's next-gen Xbox, which would've seen the company fabbing the next-gen APUs inside of the future Xbox in the USA.

Sony only just announced its new PlayStation 5 Pro console, and then days later announced the PS5 and PS5 Pro "30th Anniversary Limited Edition" bundles... aaaand there's one on eBay for $10,000 already.

Well, technically it's $9,990 but we're not going to split hairs because I'm sure this reseller won't be, with a listing on eBay for the PlayStation 5 Pro "30th Anniversary Edition" bundle. The seller notes that they will "ATTEMPT TO BUY FOR YOU" which basically means they'll try to buy one for you, for the hefty price of $10,000.

Press X for doubt: Be careful of these types of sellers, because the hype around Sony's beefed-up PlayStation 5 Pro console is real, and I think we'll see more and more of these shenanigans up to, and during -- and even after -- the PS5 Pro officially launches in November 2024.

Unity has just shown off a new tech demo it's calling "Time Ghost" and it looks pretty spectacular, check out the 4K trailer below:

The team that worked on the beautiful The Blacksmith, Book of the Dead, and The Heretic videos powered by Unity worked on Time Ghost, with some huge visual upgrades that were made through improvements made in HDRP (High Definition Render Pipeline), a bunch of new lighting options with APVs, Scenario Blending, Smoke Lighting, and a huge focus on performance with Unity's Resident Drawer.

There are individual fibers that you can see on the close-up shots of the cloth, which is damn impressive, and on top of that clothing deforms realistically, even in those high-motion scenes like when the character is running. Unity 6 also uses Machine Learning to create accurate and realistic cloth deformation, with the team using Unity Sentis which was trained with their ML model with 2000 frames of vertex animation. The accurate deformations occur every 0.8ms per frame, which allows for the project to keep the high-quality visuals.