Gaming - Page 26

The future of gaming might see consumers interacting directly with some sort of generative AI that changes gameplay on-the-fly

Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick has an interesting idea about the future of gaming, and how LLMs could be used to power bustling engagement in online games.

In a recent interview with CNBC, Zelnick shares his thoughts, teasing that such experimental tech is actually in the works. It's hard to tell if Zelnick is referring to this tech being used at one of his own studios--maybe Rockstar Games, or 2K Games?--or if he's nodding to EA's new gen AI chatbot revealed to investors in 2024.

AI, generative or otherwise, hasn't really affected the staggeringly-high video game budgets. The CEO of one of the industry's biggest companies explains why.

Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick has a level-headed take on AI as it pertains to game development budgets. It's an understanding rooted in history, with an emphasis on how advancements tend to create more complexities as new opportunities are opened.

In a recent interview with CNBC, Zelnick says that AI hasn't really helped budgets so much--nor does he expect it to. Instead, he expects AI to drive up costs in order to meet consumer demand.

After months of speculation, it looks like Sega is officially reviving the classic Crazy Taxi franchise. The Crazy Taxi X account just dropped a short teaser hinting that the game may be coming back. Just to put it into context, the Crazy Taxi Twitter account had been dormant for nearly seven years, with its last tweet being in 2019.

The teaser itself is quite short and does not provide much detail. We see a taxi sign lighting up against a dark background, which signifies the series coming back to life. The art style is quite different from what we have come to expect from Crazy Taxi, but that might just be a completely separate video unrelated to the game's design.

The new Crazy Taxi was teased at The Game Awards 2023, and we haven't heard much about the game since. However, it looks like the game is nearing completion, given that Sega is confident enough to drop a teaser. Considering the fact that we are close to State of Play and Summer Game Fest, it wouldn't be out of the question to see Crazy Taxi being revealed at one of those events.

During Championship Sunday at the RLCS Paris Major, Epic Games and Psyonix took the stage and dropped what might be the biggest Rocket League announcement in the game's history: it is making the jump to Unreal Engine 6. The announcement landed just before the semifinal clash between Team Vitality and Karmine Corp, and the crowd inside Paris' La Défense Arena absolutely lost it.

What made it even more surprising was the engine that they chose. For years, fans and pros alike had been anticipating a move to Unreal Engine 5, so when UE6 was announced as the destination instead, it genuinely caught people off guard, including players who were right there on-site at the event.

A trailer came with the announcement, giving fans a look at in-game footage running on the new engine, though no release date was shown. From what people saw, the visuals are borderline photorealistic, which is a pretty wild thing to say about a game that still runs on decade-old technology.

Analysts have lofty estimates for GTA 6 sales, and if they're right, Rockstar's sequel won't just break records--it will define them.

Take-Two Interactive is standing by GTA 6's incoming November 19 launch, and both gamers and investors are watching with anticipation. The game is expected to have an explosive release with megaton sales amounting in the tens of millions of copies, raking in billions in the process--Morgan Stanley in particular believes GTA 6 could become the fastest-selling game of all time.

According to Investor's Business Daily, Morgan Stanley has forecasted GTA 6 to sell 40 million units through FY27: "We continue to believe TTWO remains uniquely well positioned heading into one of the largest entertainment launches in history, with significant operating leverage potential if GTA 6 outperforms our current assumptions of about 40 million units sold in fiscal 2027,"Morgan Stanley analyst Matthew Cost tells investors.

After more than a decade, Bungie is winding down the Destiny franchise...but hopeful fans are nonetheless petitioning Sony to greenlight a sequel.

Fans are calling on Sony to approve Destiny 3 in a rapidly-growing Change.org petition that has reached over 122K signatures at the time of writing. Bungie recently announced that Destiny 2 is going into retirement, and all future expansions have been cancelled. The game will remain online, but new content updates will no longer happen, and Destiny 3 is not in development. Longtime fans are appealing to Sony to allow Bungie to make Destiny 3, as recent reports indicate that Bungie developers are pitching new projects set in the Destiny universe to management, yet none of these projects have yet to be greenlit.

"Our passion and commitment to the Destiny franchise drives us to reach out to Sony and express our collective voice. We believe in the potential of Destiny 3 to inspire new generations of gamers and to keep the fire of the Guardian spirit alive," reads part of the petition, which could very well break over 150K signatures throughout the weekend.

Take-Two's latest earnings results give an update on total Grand Theft Auto franchise revenues, with the series nearing $10.6 billion earned since 2013.

According to Take-Two's latest earnings report, Grand Theft Auto earned $825 million throughout the FY26 financial year, representing around 12.4% of the company's total yearly net revenues.

The results show GTA is actually up +14% from last year's $709 million earned in FY25, likely due to a mix of game sales--GTA V shipped 20 million copies again this year--as well as a healthy influx of new GTA+ subscribers and GTA Online spending. Rockstar also benefited from multiple subscription deals throughout the year, as GTA V appeared on both PS Plus and Xbox Game Pass.

Red Dead Redemption 2 has officially beaten Wii Sports to become the third best-selling video game ever made, and Rockstar has 2 out of the top 5 games on the list.

Rockstar's wild west outlaw opus Red Dead Redemption 2 is now the third best-selling video game of all time by shipments. According to Take-Two's latest FY26 earnings report, the game has shipped more than 85 million units worldwide on consoles and PC combined, beating out the previous third spot-holder, Wii Sports at 82.9 million.

Sales trends show that Arthur Morgan's adventure typically ships anywhere from 2-3 million copies per quarter, including both digital and physical units.

Riot Games has rolled out a major update to its Vanguard anti-cheat system that makes expensive DMA cheat hardware completely useless in its games. The updated system targets DMA-based cheat firmware that uses SATA and NVMe interfaces, widely regarded inside cheating communities as the safest and most "invisible" solutions available.

DMA, short for Direct Memory Access, allows hardware devices to access system memory without routing every operation through the CPU. These cheat devices use specialized FPGA software to hide them from the operating system and Vanguard while appearing to be real NVMe or SATA SSDs. In reality, the DMA device connected through PCIe is also connected to a second computer where the cheats run, making them harder to detect.

To counter this, Riot is strengthening Vanguard's IOMMU enforcement. IOMMU, or Input-Output Memory Management Unit, is a hardware-level component that controls which devices can access which memory regions. IOMMU generates repeated page faults and restarts that interfere with the firmware running on the DMA device's FPGA, corrupting it and rendering both the hardware and the associated SSD unusable.

Some of gaming's most iconic franchises and brands could make a resurgence in gaming form or in other ways.

Embracer Group is splitting up into two companies, and one of them, Fellowship Entertainment, will have a treasure trove of dormant game IPs. Now the organization says they want to activate franchises like Deus Ex and Saints Row for new projects, including games and other opportunities.

The new group is called Fellowship Entertainment, a so-called "steward" that will lead the future of some of the most recognizable video game properties on the market, including Lord of the Rings, Tomb Raider, Metro, Kingdom Come, and Dead Island. There's also what the organization calls "the vault," which includes older brands like Deus Ex, Saints Row, TimeSplitters, Thief, Red Faction, Legacy of Kain--some of which haven't been dusted off for quite some time.

Nintendo has plans to produce tens of millions of Switch 2 consoles throughout this fiscal year as the company faces cost-pressured product margins.

Nintendo intends to manufacture up to 20 million of its new Switch 2 systems in FY27, sources tell Bloomberg's Takashi Mochizuki. Bloomberg had previously reported that Nintendo was cutting its Switch 2 output by 30% from 6 million to 4 million units in a purchase order made in March, and it was said that the reduction would begin in April, coinciding with Nintendo's Q1'FY27 period.

In its recent earnings report, Nintendo tells investors that it expects to ship up to 16.5 million Switch 2s in the year, and if this new estimate is accurate, the company intends for its hardware production to overshoot shipments by 21%. These estimates are known to be safe bets that the company easily beats--Nintendo forecasted 15 million NSW2 sales in FY26, but ended up selling 19.86 million instead, establishing the console's current sales mark.

UPDATE: It's since been confirmed GTA 6 will not have a physical disc SKU at launch. Zelnick's words below were misconstrued and were technically referring to GTA 6's code-in-a-box version as the physical retail presence/product.

Grand Theft Auto VI will indeed have a physical disc version at launch with a large retail presence, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick has re-confirmed.

Rockstar Games won't be opting for a digital-only release for the biggest game in modern history. This rumor has been debunked already, but to squash any lingering suspicion, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick reiterated to CNBC that GTA 6 will still have physical boxed version that is sold on retail shelves.

007 First Light is a keenly awaited release, but the reception around the game just turned stormier with the news that it's going the Denuvo route.

In a last-minute revelation on the game's Steam page - well, technically a last-week revelation, as 007 First Light is out on May 27, but you get the point - the developer IO Interactive added: "Incorporates 3rd-party DRM: Denuvo Anti-Tamper."

To say that hasn't gone down well in some quarters is an understatement, although it's not entirely surprising in that there's been something of a trend of waiting until very near launch before letting gamers know that Denuvo is going to be implemented with a game. (Crimson Desert being a notable example in recent times).

Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced will officially support PlayStation 5 Pro's upgraded PSSR technology, delivering enhanced visuals and performance on the next-gen console.

Ubisoft confirmed the news in a recent statement, with director Richard Knight revealing the team is "definitely" aiming to implement the feature. Knight, in an interview with WCCF Tech, stated that the studio is working to optimize the game for the PS5 Pro's new upscaling tech, PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR) 2.

The team's own PS5 Pro ownership and testing have driven their commitment to pushing the platform's capabilities. Players can expect higher fidelity and visual improvements, though exact details weren't provided during the interview. This move positions Black Flag Resynced as a showcase of what can be achieved with the PS5 Pro's hardware, and Ubisoft's efforts to bring the classic Assassin's Creed game up to modern gaming standards.

Grand Theft Auto VI is set to arrive in November 2026, as recently iterated by Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick at the Take-Two earnings call.

Shortly after the call, rumors began flying that suggest Rockstar Games is preparing to drop a new trailer for GTA 6 on Tuesday next week, and the possibility of a surprise reveal at Sony's State of Play event on June 2nd. If the leaks are true, it could be one of the most hyped reveals of the year.

The trailer speculation comes from insider Graczdari, who claims Rockstar has given Sony a crumb of the GTA 6 marketing, but what it has received is something special. While the source has a solid track record, as they leaked the box version of Oblivion Remastered, the PS5 port of Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, and the Switch 2 port of 007 First Light. However, they are a relatively new leaker.

Since its official reveal, Ubisoft has given a lot of details about Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced. The game is edging closer to launch, and earlier this month, Ubisoft hosted an event to let select members of the community play an early copy of the game. During the event, the directors gave even more details about the game and made it clear that Resynced was much more than a graphical overhaul of the 2013 classic.

According to Kotaku, creative director Paul Fu and game director Richard Knight were adamant that Black Flag Resynced was a completely new game from the ground up. They likened it more to being the next mainline Assassin's Creed game than a remaster of a past one. They also claimed that the game contains "zero code" from the original Black Flag, and the new one uses Ubisoft's Anvil engine, which is also the basis of Assassin's Creed: Shadows.

We have already previously covered several changes that make Black Flag Resynced a proper "remake" rather than a simple remaster. In addition to the new code and modern engine we alluded to earlier, Resynced introduces three new characters, each with unique storylines. Furthermore, the game adds content for Edward's wife, Caroline, and has additional quests attached to Captain Blackbeard and Stede Bonnet. This is just what we have been able to gather from Ubisoft's reveal trailer and associated content.

Bungie is set to hold more job cuts following a decision to dial-back its breadwinning live service game.

Disappointing news for Destiny fans today as Bungie announced that they will be retiring the game from active development, effectively sunsetting the project into maintenance mode and ceasing all future content. This means all upcoming expansions have been cancelled.

There was hope among Bungie faithful that Destiny 3 could be in development, but that's not the works right now, so fans shouldn't expect to see a surprise announcement at Sony's upcoming State of Play. Sources tell Bloomberg's Jason Schreier that the Destiny 2 dev team does not currently have a project lined up, and that these workers are pitching new ideas to management, including new games set in the Destiny series.

If you play Fallout 4 on a Gen 9 Xbox, Bethesda has some good news for you.

Fans have been waiting months for an update on expanded mod support in the recent Fallout 4 Anniversary Edition, and now after months of waiting, Bethesda has dropped some news. The studio says that all platforms are getting a mod storage boost, allowing all console users to download and hold more mods and creations in their digital queue.

A new Fallout 4 update will release on May 27th that drastically increases the mod storage on Xbox Series X/S consoles to a whopping 100GB. That's bigger than some games, which basically allows Fallout 4 gen 9 Xbox users a new kind of freedom that they haven't ever experienced before, and it could be a signal of things to come for new Bethesda titles, maybe even The Elder Scrolls VI and/or Fallout 5.

Grand Theft Auto 6 is expected to help drive Take-Two's record-breaking earnings forecast of up to $8.1 billion revenue for FY27.

Rockstar's incoming GTA 6 is expected to be one of the biggest entertainment launches in history when it releases onto the market this November, and the game is forecasted to do some pretty big numbers on the financial side. Take-Two Interactive just posted its last earnings results, including some eye-opening expectations for this fiscal year, FY27.

According to the slides, Take-Two expects to earn between $7.9 and $8.1 billion in net revenue during FY27, with Grand Theft Auto 6 strongly contributing to the results. Net bookings will be higher at $8 - $8.2 billion, the company predicts, with recurrent consumer spending making up 65% of net bookings for the year, or $5.2 to $5.3 billion.

The devs behind 007 First Light uncovered several new engine upgrades that are being implemented into their upcoming James Bond game. In a video by Digital Foundry, DF's Alex Battaglia sat down with six developers from IO Interactive discussing 007 First Light's graphical upgrades and performance. Some of these features include a new real-time global illumination system, dynamic asset streaming, and a software-based ray tracing solution that is highly optimized and scalable across multiple platforms.

The lighting system in 007 First Light has been significantly upgraded since the engine was used with Hitman 3. IO Interactive has developed a new ray-traced real-time global illumination system that takes advantage of a screen space component to adjust lighting on a per-pixel basis, with a probe-based solution serving as a fallback. By contrast, the Hitman games used an inferior static solution using box reflections.

The ray-tracing system 007 First Light is using is a proprietary software-based solution that does not take advantage of RT cores on NVIDIA, AMD, or Intel GPUs. Despite this, IO Interactive states its RT solution is very well optimized and is not lacking in capability. The switch from hardware-acceleration to software is aimed at providing better scalability across a broad range of platforms. Having one ray-tracing solution for the engine simplifies the rendering pipeline, making the engine run better on various hardware and reducing development time on the development side. IO Interactive also revealed that the ray-tracing pipeline has been almost entirely rewritten to take better advantage of GPU resources.