Gaming - Page 224

Windows 11 is getting a new layout for its virtual keyboard specifically tailored to allow those with a gamepad to type on it using the peripheral.

The nifty innovation for those of us who like to use an Xbox controller with their PC has been introduced with the latest Windows 11 preview build in beta. Build 22635 actually came out last week, but has just been updated with this additional piece of functionality.

Microsoft tells us:

The Black Myth: Wukong saga continues as Microsoft has issued a new statement on why the Chinese best-selling game has yet to release on Xbox consoles.

Black Myth: Wukong was originally supposed to launch on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC, but has only launched on PS5 and PC. Since its release in late August, the action RPG has become a mega-hit across the globe, selling over 10 million copies on just PS5 and PC combined. So...where's the Xbox version?

Insider reports indicate that Sony had some sort of exclusivity deal with Black Myth: Wukong. The details aren't extensively clear, but the information points to Sony Interactive Entertainment helping assist Wukong's development in an effort to speed up the game's launch on PS5. This may not have been a traditional marketing deal, however, as Sony has not attached any sort of exclusivity disclaimer to Wukong's promo materials on the platform.

Sony has reportedly "locked down marketing rights" to Rockstar's game-changing GTA 6 for its PlayStation 5 and upcoming beefed-up PlayStation 5 Pro consoles.

On the XNC podcast recently, "MAGG" said that we're going to learn during Rockstar's second trailer for GTA 6 that "Sony has locked down marketing rights for GTA 6 for the PS5 and PS5 Pro only". Colt asked what would that mean for Xbox, to which he replied: "nothing, they're still getting it... it's just not going to get the marketing exposure, that's all".

Sony would be silly not to throw whatever money they need to at Rockstar, for what will arguably be the largest entertainment release of all time (not just gaming, but music sales, box office records, etc) with GTA 6. It has been killing it in console sales with the PlayStation 5 demolishing Microsoft's and its weak Xbox sales, and has a beefed-up PlayStation 5 Pro console right around the corner.

Saudi-funded Savvy Games Group plans to make another major buyout or stake acquisition through 2024, but who will it be?

Through the Savvy Games Group, Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund has spent billions of dollars on strategic video games company buyouts and stake purchases. We've seen Savvy buy Scopely for $4.9 billion, which turned out to be an excellent investment--Scopely made the mega-successful Monopoly Go mobile game, which managed to generate over $3 billion in little over a year.

Now Savvy plans to make even more major investments throughout 2024. "On the game development and publishing side, we expect to be able to announce another major investment or acquisition, hopefully in a top team or publisher that can bring another great game to our portfolio," Savvy Games Group CEO Brian Ward told publication Arab News.

Epic's free games initiative has helped drive up users on its proprietary storefront for a fraction of the price of advertising.

In the world of retail, there's few things that are more effective than freebies. Promos, discounts, and of course free bonuses are a powerful motivator to get people into stores, both digital and physical. That's especially true for the Epic Games Store's free games program.

In a recent interview with PC Gamer, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney delivered some interesting comments on how EGS' freebies have helped drive user acquisition. According to Sweeney, securing free games is actually much, much cheaper than placing advertisements on social media and Google search. Epic has spent tens of millions of dollars on these kinds of deals over the years, with $11.6 million spent in the first 9 months alone, but the payoff has been worth it.

Sony is responding to the launch of its failed live service shooter Concord.

In an unprecedented move that's rarely seen since the Cyberpunk 2077 release in 2020, Sony and developer Firewalk Studios have announced plans to pull Concord from sale on the PlayStation Store, Steam, and the Epic Games Store, refund all purchases of the game on PS5 and PC, and take the game completely offline.

Gamers will have until September 6 to play Concord, the announcement says.

Nintendo is no stranger to filing copyright claims against any piece of content depicting its content in a light it doesn't like, in fact, the company has made quite a name for itself and its legal department as it has previously filed complaints against some of its biggest fans producing content about the company's games.

Nintendo has been doing this for quite some time, and as a company has taken stringent measures to protect the way it believes its IP should be viewed by the world. The Mario creator has now updated its Game Content Guidelines for Online Video & Image Sharing Platforms, which the company introduced in 2018 and has since rolled out several changes to.

The guidelines outline all of the rights Nintendo holds when it comes to its IP, and its latest change gives Nintendo the power to ban users forever if they show Nintendo IP in an "unlawful, infringing, inappropriate" manner. Nintendo outlined in an FAQ question asking for further elaboration on the new rules, any content containing Nintendo IP that has been sourced through "data mining or other methods" is now prohibited.

Xbox Game Studios will be releasing Age of Mythology Retold on September 5, and ahead of the public release, gamers should know that to access ranked multiplayer matches, your PC will need to hit a benchmark score of at least 1000.

The release of Age of Mythology Retold is right around the corner, and with review codes being sent out to reviewers we have already gotten a sneak peek at what players of the iconic real-time-strategy (RTS) game can expect out of the revamped version. As I outlined in my "20 minutes of Age of Mythology: Retold gameplay" video, the classic RTS has gotten a fresh coat of paint in the form of Ray Tracing graphics, animation overhauls of units, new maps, new civilizations, automatic economy features, and much more.

However, what hasn't been touched on is the multiplayer side of the game, which is undoubtedly a component of the game that many people are excited about. Age of Mythology: Retold will require players on PC to hit a benchmark score of at least 1000 with the inbuilt benchmark tool to be eligible for ranked multiplayer matches. I ran the benchmark tool with my NVIDIA RTX 4090 with the graphics settings completely maxed and ended with a score of 1713.70.

Funcom's chief product officer Scott Junior is the latest game developer to acknowledge the Xbox Series S' challenging power profile.

Gen 9 consoles introduced an interesting fracture point for Xbox. In a bid to secure more players and fill out console install bases, Microsoft opted to split its new console lineup into two parts: The budget-friendly $299 Xbox Series S, and the powerhouse $499 Xbox Series X. This price disparity also comes with a hefty spec difference, though; the Series S is markedly weaker than the Series X, with 37% less RAM (10GB vs the Series X's 16GB) and a GPU with 60% less Compute Units (CUs).

Despite this disparity in specifications, multiple developers and publishers have gotten big-name games to work on both systems. But it doesn't mean it's necessarily easy. Funcom, who is making the new Dune: Awakening game, acknowledges that the Series S will be a challenge for the team.

From Guitar Hero to Destiny, Xbox gaming CEO Phil Spencer recounts some of the missed opportunities for big publishing and partner deals for the Xbox brand.

Like most hit-based industries, no one knows what games will actually do well. The interactive entertainment space is full of unknowns, but gaming leads to a distinct type of guesswork and hindsight-fueled rumination. Mega-hits can come out of nowhere thanks to viral social media or a unique hook, whether it be Halo with RPG elements (Destiny) or plastic guitars simulating a more complex game of Simon (Guitar Hero).

At PAX 2024, Xbox gaming CEO Phil Spencer gives us a rare look at what it's like to make these kinds of long-reaching decisions that a games executive not only has to make, but live with. Which games do you sign? Which companies do you make deals with? There's wins and then there's misses...and for Phil Spencer, there's been a few misses.

Batman Arkham developer Rocksteady is downsizing its quality assurance teams as it faces the "unfortunate reality" of lower-than-expected game sales.

After a string of hits with the wildly successful Batman Arkham series, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League was a big miss for Rocksteady. The game failed to meet sales expectations, and also did not monetize as well as WB Games would have liked. All-told, WB lost around $200 million on Suicide Squad. The game's soft underperformance led to a -66% reduction in game revenues for WB's Q2'24 period, but of course this is compared to the meteoric sales of Hogwarts Legacy from a year prior.

Even still, there's no denying that Warner Bros. Discovery is not happy with Rocksteady's latest game. In a call to investors, WBD exec JP Parrette said: "In the short period of 12 months, we went from having the record year that we had in 2023 with Hogwarts Legacy, to unfortunately having the opposite side of that spectrum with Suicide Squad."

Diablo 4's first major expansion, Vessel of Hated, arrives in October, adding a new class (the Spiritborn), zone, raid-like dungeons, and story campaign. The expansion is also coming with Diablo 4's massive 2.0 update for Season 6, which Blizzard has outlined in an extended two-plus hour Campfire Chat.

A lot is coming, with the overall sentiment among the community being that Blizzard is leaning into what makes Diablo 4 fun to play while incorporating and expanding on Diablo 3 and Diablo 2 elements. One of the most prominent examples of Blizzard taking aspects from Diablo 3 and Diablo 2 is how this 2.0 update changes how sockets work.

Runewords for Diablo 2 are finally returning to the franchise, while Diablo 4's Glyph system is changing to be more like Diablo 3 Legendary Gems. With new difficulty tiers, max level and Paragon changes, and more, here's a summary of all the fundamental changes coming with Diablo 4's 2.0 overhaul.

Last year, we reported on one of the most iconic releases from the Nintendo 64 era, Perfect Dark, receiving a PC port. With support for keyboard and mouse controls, 4K resolution, and the option to improve texture quality and other features, it was similar to the 'native' PC versions of Super Mario 64 and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

This was possible by decompiling the code from the original games to the more PC-friendly 'C' language. The result is that these games can be run without emulation, with greater support for modern hardware and displays. And now, another classic game from the Nintendo 64 era has been decompiled: the fan-favorite Banjo Kazooie.

Released in 1997, Banjo Kazooie from Rare is a 3D platformer similar to Super Mario 64 set in a stylized and comedic fairy tale world. Many view the game as one of the N64's best, and with its code successfully decompiled, it's only a matter of time before a full PC port arrives.

Concord's sales on PC may be even lower than originally expected, new estimates from Game Discover Co's Simon Carless reveal.

Given the current reception around the game, it seems fair to say that Sony's new shooter Concord has failed to make a dent in the billion-dollar live service market. Metrics from SteamDB estimate that Concord has sold around 17.7K copies on the high end, meaning Concord's sales revenues could be well below $1 million on Valve's platform, which has recently set a new concurrent peak record of 37 million players.

According to estimates from other analysts, Concord's Steam sales could be even lower. Game Discover Co's market expert Simon Carless believes Concord could have sold around 10K copies on Steam, which is a maximum revenue range of $400K - $600K, depending on which version that gamers had purchased.

For Capcom, there may not be room for two big dino-based franchises on the market--at least that's what original series director Shinji Mikami seems to think.

Despite its status as a quadruple-platinum franchise, it could be a long time before Capcom revives the Dino Crisis series. In a recent interview with Eurogamer, Shinji Mikami, who directed both Dino Crisis 1 & 2, said that he believes that the survival franchise could stay on ice a little longer. The reason? The colossal dinosaur-ridden Monster Hunter is the apple of Capcom's eye with over 100 million sales.

"The awesomeness of dinosaurs and the stuff you can do with dinosaurs, that's been kind of really nailed down by Monster Hunter in recent years. So even if I were to decide to make a remake or a new version of Dino Crisis, I don't really feel like there's a whole lot of space for that kind of game right now, just since Monster Hunter has become such a big game," Mikami told Eurogamer at Gamescom 2024.

Comments from Warner Bros. Discovery executives indicate that we could see more F2P games roll out soon, and that WB Games could license out key properties like Batman and Superman to third-party publishers.

WB Discovery has had huge success with its games division. According to company CEO David Zaslav, WB Games has been profitable for the last 15 years. The division has produced multiple best-sellers, including the Batman Arkham titles, and more recently with Hogwarts Legacy, which generated over $1 billion in revenues since release.

Despite these milestones, WB Games has had some big misses. Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League failed to meet expectations, and the game's underperformance actually led to some interesting comments from WBD executives.

One of Capcom's powerhouse creative forces is leaving the company.

Hideaki Itsuno, director of hit franchises like Devil May Cry and Dragon's Dogma, has announced that he is leaving Capcom after more than 30 years with the Japanese video games publisher. Itsuno will start development of a brand new game throughout September, and it has not yet been revealed exactly which company that he will be moving to, or what project he is currently working on.

On Twitter, Itsuno announced his departure from Capcom with the following message:

WB Interactive Entertainment is not developing a new game based on 2022's The Batman, DC has now confirmed.

A bit ago, rumors started circulating about a new Batman game. Following the lower-than-expected sales of the Suicide Squad live game, reports indicated that WB games could be shifting focus back on the Caped Crusader--more specifically the modern rendition of the Dark Knight universe as shown in the 2022 film starring Robert Pattinson. The reports came from news site Puck, which said that a new game based on Matt Reeves' The Batman film was happening, and that it would be based on the Penguin character in some capacity.

These rumors have been proven false, however. There is no game based on The Batman in development at Rocksteady Studios or WB Games. The confirmation comes from DC Studios co-CEO James Gunn, who has taken over a big portion of the company's superhero focus.

At Gamescom, NVIDIA announced that RTX technology, including DLSS, was now available in over 600 games and apps. In 2024, it's unusual for a PC game release not to include support for DLSS upscaling - to the point where no DLSS is potentially a bigger news story than having DLSS. One of the biggest PC gaming stories surrounding Starfield's launch in 2023 was the existence of a mod that replaced FSR in the game with DLSS, as it took a few months for Bethesda to add DLSS to the game officially.

DLSS is NVIDIA's AI-powered upscaler that offers a free performance boost without sacrificing visual fidelity. In the case of newer versions and DLSS 3.5 Ray Reconstruction, it can improve visual fidelity alongside boosting performance.

This is what makes the new open-source DLSS Updater tool so useful. It scans your games across various launchers to update outdated DLSS DLL files with the latest version. And yes, it works with Steam, EA, Ubisoft, Epic Games, GOG, and Battle.net launchers.

With the launch of the Nintendo 64 in 1996, Super Mario 64 presented a seismic shift in how games are played - especially for those considered 'platformers.' It spawned a new genre, the 3D Platformer, which saw an influx of Super Mario 64 clones in much the same way that Software's Doom saw the arrival of countless new first-person shooters.

The list includes games like Banjo-Kazooie (also for the N64)m, Spyro the Dragon, Glover, Sonic Adventure, Gex: Enter the Gecko, and many more. One of the first to arrive on the scene was Croc: Legend of the Gobbos for the original PlayStation from Argonaut Games. The veteran studio had an impressive run throughout the 1990s, which included the developer creating the iconic Star Fox for the Super Nintendo - one of the very first 3D games for the console.

The studio closed in 2004, reportedly due to financial troubles. Fast-forward to 2024, and Argonaut Games is back with new CEOs Gary Sheinwald and Mike Arkin, resurrecting the developer as a "boutique publisher." Its first game is set to be a remaster of Croc: Legend of the Gobbos.