Gaming - Page 263

Helldivers 2 studio boss Johan Pilestedt has been open and vocal on social media, with the Arrowhead CEO recently responding to why the game shipped on PC without DLSS and FSR upscaling support. The answer is straightforward and simple: the team focused on core gameplay "as it's what is most important for a game to be successful."

Of course, he prefaced by saying that while DLSS is cool tech, it's "not necessary" when launching a PC game. Naturally, many people took offense to this and misread it, as DLSS won't be coming to Helldivers 2 - at all. This isn't the case, with Johan Pilestedt stating in a follow-up, "That's not what I said!" implying that upscaling tech will be coming to the game at some point.

Helldivers 2, a riff on Starship Troopers, is a co-op action game that has reportedly sold over 3 million copies across PC and PlayStation 5 - making it the most popular first-party PlayStation launch on PC to date.

Nintendo of America has filed a lawsuit against the developers of the Nintendo Switch emulator Yuzu for "facilitating piracy at a colossal scale," aiming to shut development down and destroy all copies.

As an emulator, Yuzu allows users to play Switch games on a Windows PC or similar device, which makes it (according to Nintendo) a tool for "massive intellectual property infringement of Nintendo and others' copyrighted works." The lawsuit claims that the developers of Yuzu 'unlawfully' bypassed its hardware encryption and, by doing so, allowed games to run on other hardware.

With the release of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom in 2023 (check out our full review of this masterpiece here), the game leaked ahead of its launch - with many running the game at full speed with the Yuzu emulator ahead of its official console launch.

Star Wars: Dark Forces is a first-person shooter set in the iconic Star Wars universe developed by LucasArts and released for MS-DOS computers in 1995. It launched at a time when every release in the genre was labeled a 'Doom-clone'; however, the development team at LucasArts managed to inject the game with plenty of stories, cutting-edge multi-level stages, and incredible visuals and sound design (for the time).

This week, the game is getting a remaster courtesy of the retro gaming wizards at Nightdive Studios, collaborating with Lucasfilm Games, for the release of Star Wars: Dark Forces Remaster for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch.

Nightdive, who recently remastered Quake II and Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion Remastered, once again ports a classic to use its versatile KEX engine, allowing for up to 4K 120 FPS on current-gen consoles and PC hardware, with fully remastered artwork, including the cinematic sequences (or cut-scenes), presenting and preserving this classic for a new generation.

NVIDIA's GeForce NOW cloud gaming service allows users and PC gamers to stream and play over 1800 titles they own (plus free-to-play games) across a broad range of services. Paying GeForce Now Ultimate subscribers get access to a cloud-based GeForce RTX 4080 rig with priority access and even support for G-SYNC. Today's news, however, concerns GeForce NOW's free tier, which provides access to a 'Basic Rig' and one-hour sessions.

NVIDIA has informed free-tier users that as of March 5, 2024, they will begin showing up to two minutes of ads (or 'video sponsorship messaging') before each one-hour gaming session. The new ads will help pay for the free tier, with NVIDIA claiming that the change will "reduce average wait times for free users over time," though it's unclear how.

The change doesn't affect paying GeForce NOW customers, who get access to more powerful GeForce RTX hardware and longer gaming sessions. The 'Priority' tier offers up to 1080p 60 FPS gaming, while the 'Ultimate' tier offers up to 4K 120 FPS gaming on an RTX 4080 rig.

I think we've seen it all, folks... with the release of the new GameScent being a "fully immersive" AI-powered scent release system that's designed to make gamers' worlds even more immersive. Check it out:

The new GameScent AI device is compatible with all systems and consoles, automatically releasing scents based on the gameplay that's happening in real-time "without the need for any specific game development." Game developers don't need to make anything separately in order for the GameScent to work its smelly magic.

The new GameScent product is a patent-pending adapter that uses and captures real-time audio, processed by the GameScent's "innovative AI to release scents that correspond with the on-screen action". You can use it with your PC, game console, your TV with regular video content, or even a VR headset.

Sony's refreshed PlayStation 5 Pro console will launch later this year, with rumors that it will feature AI-powered upscaling technology that was dubbed an "NVIDIA DLSS competitor" that saw some tweets flying on X.

Leaker "Kepler" posted on X saying, "Why on earth are people thinking the PS5 Pro will support DLSS?" after headlines that Sony was working on a "DLSS competitor" for its upcoming PlayStation 5 Pro console. AMD makes the semi-custom SoC inside the PS5, PS5 Pro, and upcoming PS6, so any AI upscaling would be done through AMD technology like FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) and NOT something from their GPU competitor.

Tylor Sweeney replied to Kepler, saying: "I could see them having AMD build a custom NPU-like chip using RDNA GPU cores (kinda like the sound chip in PS5) for AI/neural processing and then custom build an AI-enhanced FSR alternative, a la DLSS".

Mass layoffs hit Sony's video games division and some 900 people are believed to be affected.

Just yesterday I published an in-depth look at PlayStation's profit margins across the last 7 quarters, and as I was writing, I came to a sobering conclusion: More cost-cutting is coming. The profit margins are just too low. Sadly, that was confirmed today by PlayStation's soon-to-be-gone CEO Jim Ryan.

Sony Interactive Entertainment today announced that it will lay off 900 people, or 8% of its global workforce. The London Studio will close down completely, suffering the same fate as Sony's Japan Studio. All-star teams responsible for billion-dollar franchises aren't immune to the cuts, either: Insomniac Games, Naughty Dog, and Guerrilla Games are all being hit by layoffs, with the Horizon developer Guerrilla cutting about 10% of its staff, or 40 people.

The Pokemon Company today announced a new game, Pokemon Z-A.

It's official: The next big Pokemon game isn't coming until 2025. It's called Pokemon Z-A (it's been 3,000 years!), and while official details are light, it sounds like the game could have some sort of building and/or crafting functionality to keep players engaged.

"An exciting adventure awaits players in Lumiose City as it transforms into a place for both people and Pokémon," reads the official description. That's not a lot to go on, but players have pieced some things together.

Husqvarna is planning "one hell of an update" to its Automower NERA robotic lawnmower models in April, which will let product owners play the 1993 game DOOM.

The new DOOM x Husqvarna lawnmowers were recently shown att the gaming event DreamHack Winter 2023, with an update coming exclusively for owners of Husqvarna Automower NERA models, where you can sign up to play now, between April 9 and September 9, 2024.

Husqvarna explains on their own website: "Prepare your robotic Lawn mower for an adrenaline-fueled experience filled with dark corridors and hell-spawned demons. The legendary 1993 video game DOOM® will be playable on Husqvarna Automower® NERA robotic lawnmower models from April this year".

Helldivers 2 continues to spread democracy throughout the galaxy, with the smash hit new game pulling in 1 million sales in just 4 days after it launched on February 8. But now, the game has reportedly exploded to over 3 million sales in just over two weeks since its release.

In a new report by Chris Dring from GamesIndustry, we know that Helldivers 2 improved its European sales by 40% from the first week to the second week. Normally, this doesn't happen, as games start their strong sales in the launch weeks and then fall off, but that's not happening with Helldivers 2; it has been getting more popular.

As more and more people are playing the game -- myself included -- you start to spread democracy, uh, the word, about Helldivers 2. Or gamers are reading news about the game like this, or seeing the gameplay videos popping up on social media, or seeing it on YouTube. It's everywhere right now. Dring also said that 60% of those sales are on PC, leaving 40% to the PlayStation 5.

'It runs Doom' is a meme you're doubtless familiar with (as well as 'Can it run Crysis?') and the latest weird and wonderful device Doom runs on is a lawnmower.

Confused? We don't blame you, but it's true. Some enterprising souls (or perhaps, more accurately, damned ones) have managed to port the 1993 shooter to a robot lawnmower.

This is a Husqvarna Automower (NERA) with a small integrated display, which the game can be rendered on, and then played using a control knob below. The latter can be used to turn the player left or right, you can press the Start button of the mower to move forward, and press in the control knob to fire.

A known industry insider has revealed that third-party publishers have received the PlayStation 5 Pro specifications ahead of the release of Sony's highly anticipated console.

The rumors come from the latest episode of the Sacred Symbols podcast, where host and well-known industry insider Colin Moriarty said that a medium-sized third-party publisher told him that the company received the PlayStation 5 Pro specification sheet.

Additionally, Moriarty said first and second-party developers have already received the specification sheet, leading assumptions to there being a good chance that leaks will happen more frequently regarding the capabilities of the PS5 Pro, considering multiple publishers and developers purportedly have the specifications sheet.

It was only last week that multiple outlets reported Nintendo's next-generation console wasn't going to be released this year and is scheduled for release in early 2025.

Those multiple outlets were Bloomberg, VGC, Eurogamer, and more, and each cited individual sources that referred to an internal document that was sent to third-party developers informing them about the delayed launch of the next-generation console. Notably, last week's reports stated the delay of the presumably Nintendo Switch 2 was to give developers enough time to gather a stronger launch line-up.

Now, VideoCardz is reporting that the purported Nintendo Switch 2 won't be released earlier than March 2025, which coincides with the release of the Nintendo Switch (March 2017). The publication sources Japanese website Nikkei, which states the successor to the Nintendo Switch will feature both a "stationary and portable version", a larger screen than the Switch at 6.2-inches, and will be able to run games that feature a "higher-definition image quality".

Helldivers 2 has quickly become one of the most popular games on both PC and PlayStation 5, but due to its popularity many gamers are left waiting in queues as servers have reached their peak capacity.

The wait might just be a little shorter now that Arrowhead Game Studios' CEO and Helldivers 2's creative director Johan Pilestedt confirmed the maximum capacity cap has been increased over the weekend. The studio of just 100 developers have been working around the clock to keep the game afloat under the weight of its popularity, with Pilestedt writing on his personal X account that the team has already hit an amazing achievement as the servers handled all players this weekend "without a problem".

Pilestedt wrote that Helldivers 2 servers concurrent player cap has been raised to 800,000 players, which up from the 700,000 cap that was quickly reached. In response to the 700,000 concurrent player cap being reached Arrowhead Game Studios decided to temporarily restrict the player cap to 450,000 while the developers implemented on-the-fly fixes. Pilestedt stated in his X post that "There might be light queues to get in at peak".

Microsoft has something new to show off at the upcoming Game Developer Conference (GDC 2024), which starts on March 21, with the introduction of DirectSR (or Direct Super Resolution) technology.

We don't know what DirectSR will be doing exactly, but we can expect Microsoft's new super resolution technology to be something you simply enable in Windows and would support Intel, AMD, and NVIDIA graphics cards. This means standardizing super resolution technology at a software level, helped by GPU-accelerated cores.

Microsoft hasn't been clear on the GPU cores or architectures, but I'm sure we'll see details at GDC 2024 next month. This is important to game developers, which need to add each upscaling technology individually -- Intel with XeSS, AMD with FSR, and NVIDIA with DLSS -- DirectSR could solve a lot of this, offering some kind of super resolution support by default.

Sony's PlayStation games division sets a new high watermark for quarterly holiday revenues.

Holiday 2023 was supposed to be a stellar period for PlayStation. Sony hoped to ship 25 million PlayStation 5's during FY23 and finally push the PS5 past its predecessor for the first time. While Sony did fall short of this lofty target with 16.2 million PS5s shipped during Q3, the company did break another big record with its sales performance.

According to data provided by Sony and analyzed by TweakTown, the PlayStation gaming segment generated $9.766 billion revenue during the holiday quarter running from October - December 2023. This is a new all-time high for Sony's Game & Network Services division in both total quarterly revenues and holiday Q3 period revenues.

Helldivers 2 has burst onto the scene on PC and PlayStation 5, racking up 700,000+ concurrent players and overloading Arrowhead servers... with its engine discontinued back in 2018.

Say what? Helldivers 2 was created on the Autodesk Stingray engine, which was discontinued in 2018. This means the engine hasn't had any updates over the last six years, leaving developer Arrowhead needing to put in some considerable work to squeeze everything they could -- and wanted -- from Helldivers 2.

Arrowhead CEO Johan Pilestedt confirmed the news in a post on X that explained: "This is true. Our crazy engineers had to do everything, with no support to build the game to parity with other engines. And yes. The project started before it was discontinued".

Helldivers 2 has come out of nowhere and is lighting up PC gamers and PlayStation 5 gamers, with the unstoppable popularity of the game seeing the developers having their servers needing to handle an insane 700,000 concurrent players at once.

The studio was forced to temporarily reduce the concurrent player count to a capped 450,000 players, as there were server issues for Helldivers 2 players. The developer had way more gamers wanting to play Helldivers 2 than they thought, with developer Arrowhead needing to iron out issues on-the-fly, which they've done amazingly well, I might add, to handle an influx of close to a million concurrent Helldivers 2 players.

Helldivers 2 is so popular it's the second most-played game on Steam right now, losing only to Counter-Strike 2; Helldivers 2 is beating Dota 2, PUBG, Palword, Apex Legends, and even Grand Theft Auto V. PlayStation 5 gamers are also jumping down and spreading some democracy in Helldivers 2, leaving soured Xbox gamers who are begging Arrowhead to release it on Xbox Series X/S consoles.

Rocksteady's new live service game appears to be a miss for WB Games.

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League's performance hasn't lived up to the internal expectations set by its parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery. That's according to Warner Bros. Discovery Chief Financial Officer Gunnar Wiedenfels, who didn't elaborate on sales figures or overall performance for the game outside of the quick assertion.

"Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, one of our key releases in 2024 has fallen short of our expectations since its release earlier in the quarter, setting our games business up for a tough year-over-year comp in Q1," Wiedenfels said in the earnings call.

Sony plans to expand access to its first-party software in an effort to boost sales and resurrect profit margins.

PlayStation isn't doing so hot right now. Revenue is at an all-time high, with Sony generating a record-breaking $9.76 billion over the holidays. But operating profit is quite low. PlayStation only made $582 million in operating profit during Q3FY23, the lowest period since 2019 and a represented 6% profit margin. Costs are the main reason for the lower operating profit, including the $3.7 billion Bungie buyout alongside rising game budgets. (Transparency: PlayStation's Q3 operating profit also reflects $200 million+ in PS5 console inventory that was shifted to Q4).

In a bid to increase operating profits, Sony could follow Microsoft's game plan and break exclusivity for select first-party PlayStation games. Microsoft has announced plans to bring 4 first-party Xbox games to PlayStation and Switch, including Hi-Fi Rush, Pentiment, Grounded, and Sea of Thieves. What if Sony does the same thing, bringing heavy-hitters like Spider-Man to Xbox? Sony wants to boost profits, and a good way to do that is to increase software sales, hence why a lot of first-party PS4 and PS5 games are now also available on PC.