Gaming - Page 255

On the heels of multiple back-to-back hack-and-slash RPGs, Yoshi-P would like to see Square Enix conquer the action genre.

Square Enix has come a long way from its turn-based roots. Starting with Final Fantasy XV in 2016, the publisher has released multiple new modern Final Fantasy games with action-oriented combat including Final Fantasy VII Remake, Final Fantasy Origins: Stranger of Paradise, and the most recent medieval epic Final Fantasy XVI.

So...where does Square Enix go from here? If Naoki "Yoshi-P" Yoshida, the savior of Square Enix's MMORPG cash crop, has his way, the Japanese games-maker will hone its craft on action.

Now that FFXVI has been released and that new FFXIV content like Dawntrail is on the way, it sounds like Yoshi-P may not return to help direct Final Fantasy XVII.

Unlike its misleading name, the Final Fantasy franchise shows no signs of stopping. Nor should it: the series has sold over 140 million copies, proving to be a cash crop for developer Square Enix. But there's just one question: Where does Final Fantasy go from here? FFXV fused modern tech with magic, FFXVI brought us back to grim medieval fantasy. Where will Final Fantasy XVII take us?

In a recent interview with Sony Interactive Entertainment's Shuhei Yoshida for the Game Maker's Notebook, Square Enix's Naoki "Yoshi-P" Yoshida gives us clues on what's next for the series.

Hogwarts Legacy has become the top-selling game of 2023, beating out usual suspects like Call of Duty.

2023 was one of the best years in gaming in terms of AAA variety. Publishers flooded the market with a multitude of must-have games, but one title had a huge advantage: It leveraged the might of the multi-billion-dollar Harry Potter franchise. Potterverse fans everywhere flocked to buy Hogwarts Legacy when it came out in February of 2023, and by the end of the year, the action RPG had sold 22 million copies on all platforms.

The demand is clearly there (Harry Potter fanatics have been wanting a modern authentic interactive game for a while now) and WB Games knows what it's sitting on. IP has always been at the core of the Warner Bros. business, and gaming offers an interesting opportunity to attract new users in an interactive and monetized way.

While we were at CES 2024 in Las Vegas, Nevada, MSI showed off a new product in their product stack, a gaming handheld device dubbed the Claw.

The MSI Claw has an Intel Core Ultra 7 155H processor with Intel AI Boost. This processor has 6 P cores, 8 E cores, and 2 low-power cores. It runs on an FHD (1920x1080) IPS-level display measuring in at 7", which also runs at 120hz with 500 nits of brightness. Graphics are handled by an Intel Arc GPU along with LPDDR5-6400 RAM. A 53WHr battery keeps the games flowing for around 50% longer than the competition.

The ergonomic design of the Claw allows it to be comfortable in the user's hands for hours thanks to the weight and grip. MSI has thousands of samples of data collected from around the world. The Claw is ergonomically tailored for comfort and precision. Designed to fit the natural contours of your grip, it provides an intuitive gaming experience for hands of all sizes.

The Apple Arcade subscription gaming service allows people to pay a single monthly fee and gain access to a ton of games that can be played on multiple devices. Many games are available on the iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple TV or some subset of those devices, and there are titles from some big names as well as many indy developers as well. And while Apple might not be known for having its finger on the pulse of the gaming world, a new report suggests that it might be doing much better than you might think.

That report comes via research outfit MIDiA, with a lengthy report into the newer entries into the gaming market suggesting that Apple Arcade isn't alone. Netflix is another company making waves in the world of gaming, and the report suggests that it's now time to start taking them both more seriously.

To back that up the research team shared details that suggest Apple Arcade is proving popular. According to its Q4 2023 consumer research survey, 10% of US consumers use Apple Arcade weekly. To put that into perspective, only 11% of people use Steam or Nintendo Switch Online according to the figures shared

Chat-provider Discord has slashed 17% of its workforce to help buoy its margins and reduce costs.

The games industry is going through a great culling right now. Armed by years of record-breaking earnings during the Pandemic, game developers and publishers invested heavily into content production. Those games and projects were released into the market in 2023, leading to a congested release slate. Consumers had trouble keeping up with the glut of titles, content was in total free supply, and the competition was amplified as a result.

This led to some publishers like Nacon saying 2023 just had 'too many games.' Combined with rising costs driven by inflation, the competitive market has forced companies to cut costs wherever possible in order to maintain profit--or in Discord's case, to improve the path towards profit.

Amazon has slashed even more jobs at its streaming subsidiary Twitch.

After the latest round of layoffs announced by Twitch CEO Dan Clancy, the streamer will have laid off nearly 1,000 workers. Amazon is cutting costs where it can and Twitch, which apparently may not be profitable, is a prime cut.

The news was confirmed with an official announcement by Clancy shortly after a Bloomberg report about the layoffs had been published.

Too many games--that's one of the current problems that the interactive entertainment industry is facing, according to Nacon's Benoit Clerc.

2023 was one of the best years in gaming in terms of diversity, selection, and back-to-back heavy hitting releases, but it wasn't such a great year for the companies behind the games. Following record-breaking earnings during COVID lockdowns, the gaming economy has now corrected itself and led to significant reconstruction of talent pools. Publishers and parent companies around the world are slashing budgets, cutting headcount, cancelling projects, and even shutting down studios.

The congested market has squeezed consumer choice during a time when discretionary income is already low. Current inflation conditions have driven up the prices of basic needs and games themselves have likewise become more expensive--all major AAA games now sell for $69.99, a $10 increase over the previous $59.99 MSRP of video games.

Altec Lansing and GameShark's resurrected company are under fire for haphazardly mentioning the Nintendo Switch 2's release timing.

Remember GameShark? If you grew up in the PS1 era, odds are that you do. Back then there were all sorts of cheat devices and accessories you could buy, but none were as popular as GameShark. Now that classic brand is coming back with a line of AI-powered software and peripherals.

There's just one issue: This announcement was overshadowed by an entirely different product. According to a public press release from AI Shark, the new reincarnation of classic GameShark brand, the Nintendo Switch 2 will launch sometime in September 2024. This revelation seems quite random as the PR had nothing to do with Nintendo or its new rumored Switch handheld--the press release was about the partnership of audio expert Altec Lansing with AI Shark to make new AI headsets.

NVIDIA has just revealed the latest batch of games that are arriving for its GeForce Now streaming service, and there are 10 of them - plus the company has recapped its big CES 2024 news regarding the cloud gaming platform.

All this is part of the GFN Thursday revelations for this week. So, what are those 10 new games first of all? GeForce Now subscribers will be able to play this little lot:

Of course, the most notable additions here are Assassin's Creed: Valhalla and also War Hospital, the latter being a fresh take on a war-themed game where, as the name suggests, you manage a field hospital (in World War I). Going by the reviews, it seems to benefit from some interesting and in-depth game mechanics, but it still needs polishing.

If you're someone who plays their PS5 and wishes that they didn't have to charge their DualSense controller quite so often, you might be in for a very good time indeed. That's after what appears to be an updated DualSense controller leaked on the Canadian Best Buy website, a product that is yet to be officially confirmed but could be outed as part of Sony's ongoing CES 2024 announcements.

The controller is listed as a PS5 v2 DualSense Wireless Controller and appears to have the same features and functions as the controller that is already on sale and ships with existing PS5 consoles. However, things really start to differ when you look at the battery life of the new controller with its 12 hours of juice being labeled as "exceptional."

And exceptional, it really is. To put the 12-hour figure into perspective the current DualSense only lasts for six hours at best and most people are likely to have to reach for the controller after just three hours, depending on the game that they are playing and how heavily the rumble feature is used.

Forza Motorsport players have some bones to pick with the developer in terms of complaints with the game, but Turn 10 Studios is listening - and acting on this feedback.

Indeed, Turn 10 says it's committed to publishing quarterly updates on feedback and prominent issues with the game - which came out in October 2023 - starting from right now.

In a blog post, the developer touches on three major issues and how they are currently being addressed.

Hidden and parked outside, this year's CES event was one of the wildest cars you'll ever see. Razer and Lexus have teamed up to create an RGB decked-out gaming car full of gaming goodies, but is a car like this even street-legal? Possibly not.

The car is a 2024 Lexus TX that has had a massive Razer makeover tricked out in the latest Razer gear, and according to a press release from December, the added gaming features may void the warranty, negatively impact safety, and not be street legal but does that matter when it looks as cool as it does?!

The car on display was a black Lexus TX with default green Razer lighting on the exterior, maintaining a sleek appearance while also catching attention. The Razer Lexus TX includes three rows of seating, and this version of the vehicle shown has replaced the seats in the back two rows with Razer's very own gaming chairs. Each seat also includes a widescreen gaming monitor, and one of the seats even includes a desk and keyboard for PC gaming.

As part of the latest AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 23.40.01.10 Preview Driver for AMD Fluid Motion Frames Release, the company has added Radeon 700M graphics to the GPUs supported by driver-based frame generation. AMD Fluid Motion Frames, or AFMF, allows PC gamers to enable frame-gen at the driver level for any DirectX 11 or 12 game.

AFMF differs from AMD's FSR Frame Generation and NVIDIA's DLSS 3 Frame Generation because it doesn't use motion vectors or game-specific data acquired when DLSS or FSR is integrated into a title. This means there's a noticeable trade-off in visual quality and additional latency (mitigated somewhat by Anti-Lag). So it's recommended for games where you're already getting close to 60fps in performance.

Okay, with that out of the way, the additional support for Radeon 700M graphics is exciting because this applies to the integrated graphics found in mobile Ryzen 7040 and 8040 APUs, the brand-new desktop Ryzen 8000G Series announced at CES 2024, and the Ryzen Z1 chips found in PC gaming handhelds like the ROG Ally from ASUS and Legion GO from Lenovo.

Hyperkin takes us back to the early 2000s with its new Xbox controller.

I've long thought that Xbox has the best controllers in gaming. From the get-go in 2001, Microsoft broke onto the gaming market with innovative and stylish game controllers, including the massive and unwieldy OG Duke controller with its uniquely-designed joysticks and hulking frame. It turns out that the most popular Xbox controller wasn't even meant for the U.S.

If you grew up with the OG Xbox, odds are that you fell into two camps: Either you handled the oversized Duke, or you opted for the S controller with its uniform joysticks and more comfortable user-friendly casing (there was probably a Mad Catz controller or two in there but no one really wanted to use those all that much). Having already resurrected the Duke, peripheral-maker Hyperkin is now bringing back the S controller.

Sony has set a new record for monthly active users (MAUs) that beats any other period in PlayStation history.

A bit ago, Sony Interactive Entertainment management said that 2023 would deliver record-breaking success. Whether it be in revenues and/or PlayStation 5 console sales, SIE expects big things from its Q3 FY23 period. While Sony has yet to publish official Q3 earnings, the company is still setting new gaming milestones.

During Sony's CES 2024 showcase, Sony Group Corp. President Kenichiro Yoshida announced that the PlayStation Network surpassed 123 million monthly active users throughout December 2023. Comparing this with previous quarterly periods, we see that this is an astronomically high number. Not only is this a new high water mark for PlayStation MAUs, but the data suggests that Holiday 2023 could be the most prolific period in PlayStation's 30 years on the market.

More popular first-party Xbox games could launch on competing platforms like the Nintendo Switch and Sony PlayStation. This move is consistent with the core Xbox business model and makes a lot of sense.

Unlike PlayStation and Nintendo, Xbox has marched to the beat of a different drum. Since unifying PCs and Xbox consoles in 2015 via the Windows OS, Microsoft has broken the chains of content exclusivity and released its games on both platforms. This strategy was accelerated greatly with the introduction of Xbox Game Pass in 2017, which brought hundreds of games to both Xbox and Windows PCs.

Microsoft's game plan has done nothing but evolve over time. The company still emphasizes exclusive content--Starfield, for instance, was kept off PlayStation--but the core of the Xbox brand is a wide ecosystem of products, content, and services that bridges all consoles and gaming platforms. Xbox wants to deliver spending opportunities to all consumer endpoints, whether it's Xbox consoles, competing systems like the Nintendo Switch and Sony PlayStation, the cloud, mobile devices, and PC.

The first day of CES 2024 has kicked off with some fantastic new and interesting technology in various forms, but that is not all.

Sony Pictures CEO Kenichiro Yoshida has hit the stage to deliver some surprising news to fans about an upcoming video game adaptation that's set to hit the big screen. Strangely enough, this update was on Nintendo's "The Legend of Zelda" film.

President of Sony Pictures Television Studio, Katherine Pope, had also announced earlier in the conference that Sony also has a God of War series in the works with Amazon. In addition to this, streaming giant Netflix will be picking up the adaptation for another popular Sony title, Horizon Zero Dawn.

Technology designed in enhance your gaming experience through haptic sensations has made its way from the headphones all the way down the cushion you are sitting on.

Razer has announced at CES 2024 the world's first HD haptics gaming cushion, dubbed Project Esther, which is powered by Razer Sensa HD Haptics, providing gamers with "lifelike tactile sensations that envelop your whole body." This latest release by Razer is another step forward in giving gamers as much immersion as possible, and as pointed out by Engadget, would be particularly effective at increasing immersion levels when paired with virtual reality headset.

Project Esther includes 16 haptic actuators, comes with multiple device integration, multi-actuator experiences, manual control over the haptic directionality, and physical compatibility with most office chairs, per Razer. Notably, Razer's journey down the haptics road began to gain some traction in 2018 when the company unveiled HyperSense haptics within its Nari Ultimate headphones.

Blizzard's Diablo IV launched on PC with DLSS 3 Frame Generation support, boosting performance for all GeForce RTX 40 Series owners. At the time, both NVIDIA and Blizzard mentioned that ray-tracing was coming to the game at some point, and at CES 2024, we finally got confirmation that ray-tracing is headed to Diablo 4 this March.

Hot off the heels of a well-received Season of Blood that fixed many of the game's launch and end-game criticisms, 2024 for Diablo 4 will see the arrival of new seasons, an itemization and loot overhaul, new end-game ladder activities, and the first story-based expansion called Vessel of Hatred coming later in the year.

As for going RTX On, Diablo 4's real-time ray-tracing effects cover ray-traced reflections, ray-traced transparent reflections, and enhanced ray-traced shadows.