Gaming - Page 219

It looks like Rockstar Games is cooking up Grand Theft Auto 6, Grand Theft Auto 5 Gen9, and Red Dead Redemption 1 for the PC with some juicy Rockstar Launcher leaks.

Rockstar left some metadata behind in its latest GTA 5 update, with files left over confirming that the game is getting BattleEye anti-cheat support, but there's also some unannounced PC titles in the mix. There are directories for "Americas", "GTA V Gen9", and "Red Dead Redemption".

What is codename "Americas"? The GTA community knows Project Americas as the internal codename for GTA 6, something that was first reported all the way back in 2018. We know that GTA 6 is coming to the PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 5 Pro, but the PC release we're expecting for 2026 or later. But, now we know that Rockstar is working on GTA 6 for the PC under "Project Americas" in the Rockstar Launcher.

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 launches on November 19 and will command a huge 64GB of RAM for the ultra-spec configuration, with a hefty CPU and GPU required, too. Here are the full PC system requirements:

The "Ideal Spec" for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 sees Windows 10 with the latest updates installed, an AMD Ryzen 9 7900X or Intel Core i7-14700K processor, 64GB of RAM (!!!), 50GB of SSD storage, and an AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT or NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 graphics card with 12GB of VRAM or more, and a 100Mbps internet connection.

The Minimum Spec requires an AMD Ryzen 5 2600X or Intel Core i7-6800K processor, a much tamer 16GB of RAM, and an AMD Radeon RX 5700 or NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 graphics card with at least 4GB of VRAM, and a 10Mbps internet connection.

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 is shaping up to be an incredible experience, where the game is a complete overhaul and upgrade of Flight Simulator 2020: but it's so, so much bigger. Check it out:

One of the biggest changes that Flight Simulator 2024 delivers is that the game's computing has been shifted from your PC, to the cloud. There are massive amounts of data -- 2,500,000GB of aerial data to be precise -- that will be streamed from the cloud and onto your PC in real-time.

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 used a hybrid structure that streamed data from the cloud, but also used the local compute resources (PC or Xbox Series X/S) as well, this meant that downloads to your system were up to 500GB, which is a huge cry from the much, much smaller 23GB install for Flight Simulator 2024. That doesn't mean you're going to lose detail, in fact there is 4000x more detail in Flight Simulator 2024, a full-fledged single-player Career mode, and ungodly amounts more.

After "careful investigation," Nintendo is officially suing Palworld developer Pocketpair...but not for copyright infringement.

Palworld, dubbed "Pokemon with guns," exploded onto the games market in 2024 with thunders multi-million sales. The early access game managed to accrue 25 million players in a month's time through a combination of full game sales and access via Xbox Game Pass (at the time, Palworld was confirmed to have sold 15 million copies on Steam).

While the indie hit was quite close to copyrighted pocket monsters used by Nintendo and The Pokemon Company in their collective billion-dollar franchise, no lawsuit was filed alleging any kinds of copyright infringement. But Nintendo is nonetheless suing Pocketpair, just not for copyright--Nintendo is going after the indie studio for alleged patent infringement.

Key members of Xbox's senior leadership team are apparently quite interested in an Xbox handheld, but will corporate greenlight more potentially risky hardware?

Hardware is not Xbox's strong suit. Unlike other members of the Big 3 (Sony and Nintendo), Xbox does not sell its consoles at a profit. In fact, Microsoft has never sold an Xbox at a profit. The company loses up to an estimated $200 per Xbox Series X sold. Yet Microsoft is still making Xbox consoles because they are critical pathways into its $18.5 billion content and services market--the new Xbox Series X/S duo coming this holiday attest to this, especially with their new higher price tags that help offset the losses.

So...that brings us to an interesting crossroads for Xbox. While the division is trying to expand across all vectors and platforms, there's one area Xbox has been relatively absent: Handhelds. Big-name OEMs like Valve, Lenovo, MSI, and ASUS have created a new hardware market segment with their respective handheld PCs, influenced in no small part by the best-selling Nintendo Switch.

Following the largest acquisition in the history of the tech industry, Microsoft's corporate leaders have lofty expectations for Xbox's earnings performance.

In 2023, Microsoft acquired games powerhouse Activision Blizzard King for $70 billion, adding thousands of employees and 8x new billion-dollar IPs to the Xbox brand. This buyout was a major win for Xbox, adding tons of long-term value through mega-hit games like Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, and Candy Crush. The acquisition also came with lots of responsibility for the games division at a time when Xbox was already being pressured to grow in an industry that appeared to be doing anything but.

That pressure has weighed on Xbox as Microsoft's board of directors and top C-suite executives scrutinize quarterly results even more than they had before. So far, the results have been impressive; Xbox may not be growing significantly on its own without Activision, but with Activision, Xbox delivered a record-breaking $21.52 billion revenue in FY24. It's unknown whether or not Xbox is meeting Microsoft's internal projections, but new reports indicate that these metrics are difficult to achieve.

Sony has reportedly got two different PlayStation 6 SoCs in development right now, both are being provided by AMD and made by TSMC, with one of them being for the next-gen PlayStation 6 (PS6) console, and the other for a PS6-style handheld.

In a post on the NeoGAF forums, leaker KeplerL2 said: "There's two SoCs in development for next-gen, idk if it's a Series X/S situation or home console + handheld, but probably one of them will be affordable at least", and then replied to a question from another forum member, with KeplerL2 replying: "Yes the two SoCs I mentioned in that thread are for PS6".

This lines up with rumors we heard from leaker Moore's Law is Dead back in February 2024, where we heard about the "Vita 2" being a "PlayStation 6 Family" handheld that will launch "many years from now". The new PS6 handheld would offer amazing levels of performance in the future, but it won't match the next-gen PS6.

EA is cooking up its next-generation Battlefield game that we're all slowly getting hyped for, with ex-Infinity Ward and Apex Legends boss Vince Zampella heading up the Battlefield team for EA... and man, we're hearing some cool things like the return of the Community Test Environment (CTE) in the new Battlefield.

The new Battlefield is going back to its roots -- at least -- returning to its former Battlefield 3 and Battlefield 4 glory, with EA wanting to move far and away from the clusterfuzz that was Battlefield 2042. Vince Zampella is the head of Respawn Entertainment and EA Studios GM, recently speaking with IGN confirming and teasing some new Battlefield details.

Zampella said that the era of Battlefield 3, which was released 13 years ago in 2011, and Battlefield 4 in 2014 which is now 10 years old, as the series' peak. BF3 and BF4 had a 64-player max per match, which will be the same format for the new Battlefield, as well as its old class system -- see ya later, Specialists -- with a modern-day look that looks to take place in 2025-2030.

Nintendo's next-generation Switch 2 is expected to be unveiled next week, joining the party of Sony's just-announced higher-end PlayStation 5 Pro console. But now we're learning AMD bid "hard" against NVIDIA to win the Switch 2 contract, and lost... but AMD also won the PlayStation 6 contract, so there's that.

In a new video from Moore's Law is Dead, we're learning from Tom's sources inside of NVIDIA that said the T239 SoC inside of the Nintendo Switch 2 was finalized back in 2022. We've heard plenty about the T239 processor since then through leaks and NVIDIA hacks, with the source saying T239 inside of Switch 2 has some efficiency tweaks from the Ada Lovelace GPU architecture, and a "few other goodies" but it's basically a cost-optimized verison of NVIDIA's Orin chip.

MLID talked to some of his sources within NVIDIA, where the first source said: "I'm not that close to the project, but I can say that Samsung 8nm is a perffect match for Nintendo. It's the lowest cost/transistor node on the market, and it's not expected to be as competitive for capacity as more modern nodes over the next few years. Also, remember that with the 128-bit LPDDR5, Nintendo could realistically choose 8GB, 12GB, or 16GB capacities for the SoC we designed for them".

Sony has just announced its new PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 5 Pro "30th Anniversary Limited Edition Bundle" which have some wicked original PlayStation styling throughout the console, controller, and peripherals.

The company is celebrating 30 years since the launch of the original PlayStation, and I remember it fondly: we went to the shopping center near my family at the time (Colonnades, Noarlunga, South Australia for anyone wondering) and picked up the original Resident Evil and Tomb Raider games for the PlayStation.

Man, I remember it fondly... both of those games have spawned into multi-billion-dollar gaming and movie franchises on multiple platforms (and mobile) now.

Sony's PlayStation 5 console may be outselling Microsoft's Xbox Series X/S at a ratio of 3:1, new data estimates indicate.

The Wall Street Journal recently put out a video that discusses Xbox's current state in the games industry. The report included an interesting slide that provided sales estimates for the Xbox Series X/S duo from analyst firm Aldora Intelligence. The group puts Xbox's gen 9 consoles at a combined 28.3 million, compared to the PlayStation 5's confirmed 61.7 million.

If accurate, this represents a substantial 33.4 million gap between the two consoles. The PS5 could be beating the Xbox Series X/S by more units than Microsoft's consoles have actually sold. The figures are meant to underline Microsoft's underdog position in the hardware market--but make no mistake, Xbox is anything but small, and has even repeatedly beat Nintendo on a revenue basis pre-Activision acquisition. After the $70 billion Activision buyout, Xbox generated a record-breaking $21.5 billion in FY24, pushing closer against Sony's earnings dominance.

Most PS5 owners won't use optional 120FPS modes in games that offer them, Sony has said.

Sony just announced its new PS5 Pro console, which features a beefier GPU that can output some serious visual upgrades. Another part of the PS5 Pro's capability is Sony's proprietary PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR), a new secret sauce tech that uses AI to upscale image quality. PSSR can also help boost frame rates in games as well, sometimes doubling them in Fidelity Mode, Mark Cerny says.

This advanced tech is promising for enthusiasts who have, say, HDMI 2.1-enabled displays capable of supporting 120FPS, but everyday gamers are still playing mostly on 60Hz TVs. This was also a hot topic during the PS5's launch as the base model could support up to 120FPS output in specific games like Borderlands 3 and Black Ops Cold War.

Square Enix's latest yearly earnings results reflect the challenging environment of the games market, with multiple big games missing the mark for the Japanese games publisher.

According to the latest FY24 results, Final Fantasy XVI and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth have apparently fallen short of Square Enix's expectations--a phrase that gamers are used to hearing from the publisher. But it's a bit more nuanced than these games just outright failing.

Square Enix's business is separated into multiple segments. Digital Entertainment is one of these segments, which includes HD Games, MMO, and smartphone games. In the report, Square Enix CEO Takashi Kiryu says that the profits from the HD Games segment "did not meet our expectations." This isn't sales, though.

Computer-generated images of the Switch 2's prototypes have reportedly leaked from an overseas assembling plant, and if accurate, the system doesn't look much different than the current Switch model.

Note: The following information has not been confirmed, verified, or announced by Nintendo.

Nintendo's new Switch 2 handheld-console hybrid may have just been leaked. A full spec sheet alongside CG renders of the Switch 2's purported design have popped up on Chinese message boards, showing a similar design as the original Switch model. At least at first glance.

EA has confirmed that the final chapter of Cal Kestis' story is in development with a third Jedi game, while also sharing some impressive metrics for its Star Wars titles.

Publisher Electronic Arts has made a lot of money from its Star Wars games. During today's Investor's Day 2024 stream, President of EA Entertainment Laura Miele announced that the company has made over $5 billion in net bookings from Star Wars. This includes the combined earnings from all games, from The Old Republic MMORPG to Battlefront and the newer Jedi series.

Interestingly enough, Star Wars games actually made an extra $2 billion in about 3 years' time. Back in February 2021, EA CEO Andrew Wilson said that Star Wars titles had accumulated $3 billion in net bookings.

Nintendo's next-generation Switch 2 handheld is expected to be announced next week, but now developer Pathea Games has teased its new game "My Time at Evershine" is coming to "future Nintendo platforms yet to be announced" and we totally know what that unannounced platform is: Switch 2.

In the new reveal of My Time at Evershine, developer Pathea Games said: "Pathea is committed to launching My Time at Evershine on PC, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5 and future Nintendo platforms yet to be announced". This is the first developer to announce a release of a game onto an unreleased Nintendo platform, which is the successor to the super-popular Switch 2.

My Time at Evershine will feature 20-30 unique characters, with 8-10 of them romanceable and some of them will make a return from My Time at Portia and My Time at Sandrock. My Time at Evershine allows for multiplayer with up to 4 players, but only the host will be able to proceed through the main story.

We all know that Sony has destroyed Microsoft with the current generation of consoles, but now we have some fresh numbers from June 2024 for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S console sales.

In a new video released by WSJ, we have a deep dive into why the Xbox has failed on the market, and specifically the current-gen Xbox Series X/S consoles. Up until June 2024, Sony has sold 61.7 million PlayStation 5 consoles compared to Microsoft which has sold 28.3 million combined consoles between the Xbox Series X/S. The PS2 is still out far in the lead, with 155M+ total sales (compared to just 24.7M sales of the original Xbox at the time).

Sony and Microsoft were both neck and neck with the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 consoles, with the PS3 selling 87.4M units against the Xbox 360 with 84.9M consoles sold. The PS4 massively out-sold the Xbox One consoles, with the PS4 selling 117M+ units and the Xbox One consoles selling 57.9M units.

At an Electronic Arts Investor Day, EA confirmed that the next game in the long-running Battlefield series will be playable in early 2025. The company confirmed that a "community testing program coming in early 2025" will allow players to go hands-on with an early build.

This follows an earlier report this week where Battlefield head Vince Zampella confirmed that the next game in the series, the follow-up to Battlefield 2049, will see the franchise return to a modern-day setting. Ditching the futuristic 2049 setting, he name-checked fan favorites Battlefield 3 and Battlefield 4 as the inspiration or launching pad for the next game.

"I mean, if you look back to the peak or the pinnacle of Battlefield, it's that Battlefield 3 [and] Battlefield 4 era where everything was modern," Zampella announced. "And I think we have to get back to the core of what Battlefield is and do that amazingly well, and then we'll see where it goes from there. But I think for me, it's that peak of Battlefield-ness is in that Battlefield 3 and 4 days."

EA has over 100 artificial intelligence projects in the works, including multiple generative AI technologies.

During today's Investor's Day 2024 stream, EA announced that it was going all-in on AI. Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson outlined many of the key ways that the billion-dollar publisher currently is and plans to use AI across its multitude of games, content, and services.

Wilson also hyped up generative AI, saying that it will be instrumental in unlocking EA's long-term value for investors and consumers alike. EA will use its artificial intelligence tools across three key areas: Efficiency, to speed along game development; Expansion, to greatly enhance the worlds available to devs and gamers; and Transformation, which could completely revolutionize the way users create, share, and play custom games content.

Respawn boss and manager of the Battlefield franchise, Vince Zampella, has talked about the $699 pricing on Sony's newly-announced PlayStation 5 Pro console.

Zampella said the higher $699 pricing on the PS5 Pro was a little shocking at first, but ultimately, he makes a good point out of saying that "you're not getting the same performance" out of a $700 PC that you will get from the PlayStation 5 Pro.

He said: "I think it's expected, and anything that gets us better performance for the people that really love it. To me, it's an amazing thing. I was watching something on it where the price... where they look at is it the most expensive. And it really isn't. If you go back, some of the older consoles were just as expensive and probably adjusted for inflation were probably more. So it at first seemed a little shocking, but it's kind of like, it's actually not that bad. And if you get a $700 PC, you're not getting the same performance that you're getting out of it".