Gaming - Page 284

Capcom will officially introduce its first $69.99 game and solidify the new pricing trend for modern games.

It's official: New AAA games now officially cost $69.99 across the board (well, except for games like Alan Wake II). The new pricing trend was first introduced by Sony, Take-Two Interactive, and Electronic Arts at the early onset of the new PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X generation, and one by one, major publishers and game-makers started moving towards the upped MSRP--even Nintendo, who charged $69.99 for Tears of the Kingdom.

Japanese publishers like SEGA and Capcom used to be among the last big-name publishers to keep their titles the pre-Gen 9 prices, but even they have increased costs. SEGA is charging $69.99 for the new Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth game, and Capcom, well, they're starting off their next fiscal year with their first $69.99 game.

Valve boss Gabe Newell has been ordered by a federal judge to physically appear in U.S. district courts in Seattle and answer questions under oath.

Indie developer Wolfire Games has sued Valve (2:21-cv-00563-JCC Wolfire Games LLC et al v. Valve Corporation) for allegedly breaking antitrust law, and Gabe Newell has been ordered to show up in court to deliver deposition in the case.

Newell's legal counsel had previously asked to deliver remote deposition in the case and not have the Valve president show up in court, citing Newell's health concerns regarding possible COVID-19 exposure as the main reason. U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour has now weighed in on the decision, ordering (Docket #170) Newell to appear in court because Newell did not provide sufficient evidence that he was of particular risk of serious illness over the general public.

Activision Blizzard King's latest innovation may adapt game release pricing to expansions.

According to new reports from Bellular News, Blizzard has sent out surveys to consumers regarding Diablo 4's expansion pricing schemes. Blizzard appears to be exploring Diablo 4 expansion bundles that include the base DLC alongside digital bonuses like premium currency, mounts, and skins.

The survey, which doesn't confirm or disconfirm what will actually happen, lists four price points for Diablo 4's expansion bundles that offer pieces of all points of monetization and features, whether it be early access and skins or battle passes and digital currency.

Rockstar Games catches the interest of millions of consumers with its mega-popular GTA 6 announcement.

Yesterday, Rockstar Games announced that the first Grand Theft Auto 6 trailer would drop on Tuesday, December 5 at 9AM EST. In just a day's time, that simple announcement has become the most-liked gaming Tweet of all time, breaking a previous record that was also set by Rockstar.

The GTA 6 trailer announcement has racked up 1.7 million likes on Twitter, and has been viewed by 135 million people. This proves something that most gamers already know: When Rockstar talks about GTA, everyone listens, especially when its GTA 6. Considering the franchise has sold over 410 million copies with GTA V alone shipping 190 million of that total, these numbers are something we should probably expect.

Xbox gaming CFO Tim Stuart shares how AI could make game development more efficient, but it could also lead to job eliminations in the $185 billion entertainment sector.

A bit ago, Microsoft announced that it was integrating generative AI into its Xbox gaming toolset in an effort to make games more efficient. At a time when the games industry has seen mass layoffs with thousands of people losing work, the news was seen as controversial, with Microsoft claiming that the AI could generate quests, stories and dialog.

Now Xbox gaming CFO Tim Stuart discusses how AI could handle processes like localization, scripting, and dialog sequences via tools that could lead to more game development roles being eliminated through this automation process. Stuart also touches upon how everyday people can become 'citizen creators' through AI, effectively allowing anyone to become a game developer.

According to Microsoft's lawyers, mobile was the main impetus for the $68.7 billion Activision-Blizzard acquisition. Now Microsoft wants to make its own storefront to ensure it maximizes returns for that investment...but the company may not be able to do it alone.

Microsoft is seeking partners to help realize its ambitious vision for a Universal Store. This plan would see games being sold across consoles, PC, and mobile, the last being a critical part of the Activision-Blizzard buyout and a front where Microsoft has traditionally been weak in. In order to pull this off and ensure the mobile fork of the Universal Store doesn't just peter out, Microsoft wants to team up with other developers and publishers to challenge Google's and Apple's mobile stores.

"It's an important part of our strategy and something we are actively working on today not only alone, but talking to other partners who'd also like to see more choice for how they can monetize on the phone,'' Xbox gaming CEO Phil Spencer said at the CCXP23 event in Brazil.

Sony is cooking its beefed-up PlayStation 5 Pro console for 2024 and 2025, but the next-gen PlayStation 6 is definitely in development and will be a powerhouse next-gen console compared to the PS5.

We have some news from leaker RedGamingTech, who reports that the CPU and GPU -- well, the semi-custom APU design -- for the PlayStation 6 console haven't been decided on yet. Sony's upcoming APU for the PS6 is behind Microsoft's next-gen Xbox APU, as the PS6 will be launching after the next-gen Xbox.

Back before the PlayStation 5 was even official, I had an exclusive report that stated AMD and Sony were working together on the Navi-powered GPU for the PS5... and with AMD's next-gen RDNA 4 GPU architecture around the corner, we should expect some newer Zen 5-powered CPU cores, and RDNA 4-powered GPU cores inside of the APU for the PlayStation 6. GDDR7 memory will be out in 2024, so we should also expect some huge improvements in memory bandwidth -- and, more importantly -- power efficiency over the GDDR6 memory inside of the PS5.

NVIDIA has recently been pushing its cloud-based GeForce NOW streaming service into the spotlight, and it's not hard to see why. Subscribing lets you play select games that you already have access to across platforms like PC, Epic Games Store, Ubisoft Connect, and Xbox on a server-side GeForce RTX 4080 rig with access to cutting-edge tech like ray-tracing, DLSS Super Resolution, Frame Generation, and more.

Plus, with Microsoft's recent acquisition of Activision Blizzard, we're starting to see several Xbox and PC Game Pass titles being added to the GeForce NOW library - which is currently stacked. December 2023 sees the arrival of the first Activision game available on GeForce NOW - Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III, joined by Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II and Call of Duty: Warzone.

All three games are accessed via a central Call of Duty location on GeForce NOW, with Ultimate members able to experience all three via a cloud-based GeForce RTX 4080 rig with DLSS 3 and NVIDIA Reflex to boost performance.

Grand Theft Auto is coming to Netflix, which is a strange thing to say until you remember that Netflix offers downloadable games to play as part of its mobile iOS and Android platforms. And on December 14, Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition is coming to Netflix members on said mobile platforms.

Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy includes remastered and 'Definitive Edition' versions of the franchise's first forays into open-world 3D games: Grand Theft Auto III, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. These games first appeared during the PlayStation 2 and original Xbox era of console gaming, with Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition released for PC and consoles in 2021.

As much as this sounds like a big win for Netflix and raising the profile and awareness of Netflix Games (the company is investing in making more games using its franchises and TV properties), we're also reminded that the 2021 release of Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition was an absolute disaster.

Starfield has been a controversial release from Bethesda - as we've seen, the developer has been replying to negative reviews on Steam in an unusual step - and there are still issues with the game.

One of the most common complaints (and there are a few, admittedly) pertains to the AI which is shoddy in many respects, with enemies providing little challenge in combat.

The good news is that there's a fix for this, albeit an unofficial one by way of a mod that has just been released for Starfield.

Electronic Arts is seemingly working on new technology that allows players to input their voice into the game, which is then replicated/adopted by the in-game character.

The patent was discovered by VeryAliGaming and was originally filed back in October 2020, but only became public earlier this month. The patent reveals a rough outline for a new type of technology that's specifically designed to reproduce the speech of a player within a game through a system that includes a synthesizer module, a voice converter module, and a Vocoder module.

According to the patent, the technology is able to generate speech audio in the player's voice, while also capturing elements such as tone, emotions, and emphasis on specific words. It's interesting to consider playing a game such as Cyberpunk 2077, The Witcher 3, or perhaps a more plain RPG, with the main in-game character sounding exactly like you.

CD Projekt Red has revealed through its financial earnings report for Q3 FY2023 that the majority of developers at the studio have transitioned over to the new installment in the Witcher series - Witcher 4.

The most recently released earnings report revealed some key details about the studio's inner workings, along with the distribution of developers across the various projects being worked on. The below graph shows the rough percentage of how many CD Projekt Red developers are working on the following projects from December 2022 to October 2023: Phantom Liberty, the upcoming Ultimate Edition of Cyberpunk 2077, general Cyberpunk 2077 support, project Sirius, GWENT, The Witcher 3 Next-gen, and the Witcher 4 - codenamed Polaris.

For those who don't remember, CD Projekt Red announced that it was working on a new installment into the Witcher series back in March 2022 and that the Witcher 4 will be using Unreal Engine 5. Additionally, CD Projekt Red said back in September last year that it was planning on releasing three new games in the series to match the first Witcher saga, with developers currently working on the first game of the second Witcher saga (Witcher 4).

Rockstar Games' Grand Theft Auto 6 is one of, if not the most anticipated game of all time, and now we are starting to hear rumors of when you will be able to preorder it.

Just a bit of background on how long we have been waiting for Grand Theft Auto 6. Rockstar Games released Grand Theft Auto 5 more than 10 years ago, and it was only earlier this month that the developers behind the iconic title teased that the first trailer for the sequel was going to be released in early December. Notably, The Game Awards is scheduled to take place on December 7, and what better way to round off the show with the full trailer for GTA 6?

But that begs the question - will the trailer actually reveal a release date for the title? Now, we are starting to get into rumor territory. A screenshot went viral last week of an individual reaching out to UK retailer Argos. The screenshot showed chat messages with the user inquiring about when GTA 6 preorders would be going live. The UK retailer revealed that preorders would be available as of December 12, 2023, and that date was "confirmed to us by the distributors".

NVIDIA has just announced its new Play Beyond Fast initiative, with select GeForce RTX 40 series GPU owners getting 3 months of free PC Game Pass and GeForce NOW Priority access.

What do you get with the Xbox PC Game Pass? You'll have access to hundreds of high-quality PC games, new day-one titles, and an EA Play membership. There are hundreds of games right now, with more and more games being added all the time on PC Game Pass. This is now free for a new purchase of a qualifying graphics card. Which ones?

NVIDIA includes its GeForce RTX 4090, GeForce RTX 4080, GeForce RTX 4070 Ti, GeForce RTX 4070, GeForce RTX 4060 Ti, and GeForce RTX 4060 graphics cards. They'll be sold through retailers like Amazon, BestBuy, Microcenter, and Newegg. You'll get access to not just the PC Game Pass but also 3 months of access to GeForce NOW Priority cloud gaming streaming.

Starfield has caught some serious flak on Steam, suffering a number of negative reviews, particularly when the space RPG first emerged - and it seems Bethesda is now responding directly to some critiques from players.

As JuiceHead pointed out on X (formerly Twitter), there are developer responses to some reviews (from 'Bethesda_FalcoYamaoka') defending Starfield.

Okay, so what's the problem here? Well, in fairness to Bethesda, we don't see anything wrong with defending the game as such, not in principle. Yes, it's unusual for a developer to take this step, certainly - in terms of replying to individual reviews, as opposed to a defense crafted via a blog post or similar.

When you think of all the different places and ways that you can play games it's probably a safe bet that you initially think of the various Xbox or PlayStation consoles and maybe the PC. Then there's your phone or tablet, and from there, you're probably left thinking about streaming services like Luna. But we can feel pretty sure that you didn't think of YouTube. Well, now you can.

That's because YouTube has launched what it calls Playables, a collection of small games that can be played via their own corner of the YouTube website. They can also be found in the sidebar on the YouTube website or in your YouTube app of choice, but you'll need to be a YouTube Premium subscriber and have chosen to participate in the test.

YouTube has been giving Premium subscribers the option to do that for a few days now and once you're in on the act you can choose from a handful of games that include Angry Birds Showdown, Brain Out, Daily Solitaire, The Daily Crossword, and 8 Ball Billiards Classic. They're all free, apart from the subscription of course, and YouTube says that you'll be able to play them until March 28, 2024. It's all part of a test to give YouTube the time to figure out whether anyone really wants to play games on its website or in its apps.

Starfield players have been enduring the snap-zoom-in camera movement when speaking to NPCs since the game was released, but thanks to a new mod, they no longer have to experience it.

Starfield would have reminded you a lot of Bethesda's The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, a 2006 game that made the iconic snap-zoom-in camera movement a thing some gamers just can't forget. This camera movement occurs when a player engages in dialogue with an NPC, and in the case of Oblivion, most of the time, it was a city guard sprinting toward your character, asking you to "stop right there!".

Bethesda's newest release, Starfield, has adopted this same camera movement, and while it is certainly nostalgic, it can get a little annoying as players are forced to stare into the lifeless eyes of every NPC they have dialogue options with. Thanks to Antonix35, players can now download "Disable Dialogue Camera", which enables conversations in the third and first-person while also removing the abrupt zoom-in effect.

After releasing more than a decade ago, gamers are still experiencing Bethesda's legendary title Skyrim in different ways, and one player has decided to do something only a few have attempted - slaughter every single NPC within the game.

While it's certainly a peculiar quest one would give themselves, it provides some very satisfying stats if completed. Amelix34 took to the Skyrim subreddit to share his accomplishments, where there were screenshots of their character's general stats. These stats revealed that Amelix34 had killed 3,310 people, 693 animals, 401 creatures, 947 undead enemies, 55 deadra, and 98 Automatons. The total slaughter count added up to more than 5,400 bodies and a whopping lifetime bounty of 267,000 gold.

The Reddit post attracted quite a bit of attention, with some Redditors praising the efforts made by Amelix34, calling them a "true world-eater". Other commentor joked at what the achievement means for the playthrough, "All that's left now is your character". Notably, one commentor noticed that the player's most-used weapon is Dawnbreaker, a weapon that is given to your character to vanquish evil - oh, the irony.

Assassin's Creed Odyssey players on Xbox and PlayStation experienced something strange this past weekend: a full-screen ad for the recently released Assassin's Creed Mirage that popped up during gameplay. Yeah, this was the first we heard of an obtrusive pop-up-style ad appearing on-screen while you're immersed in a digital world. The ad appeared and took over the entire screen as Assassin's Creed Odyssey players tried to open the map.

Redditor Triddell24 captured the moment on Xbox and posted it online. What was the general consensus? People weren't happy, and coming from Ubisoft - the kings of microtransactions - it was widely seen as the publisher testing out a potential new revenue stream on an older title. Worst of all, there's no ad blocker for playing games on Xbox Series X or PlayStation 5.

And now, a few days after the story blew up across various videogame channels and outlets, Ubisoft has released a statement saying that pop-up ads while playing Assassin's Creed games were "the result of a technical error." One that has been addressed.

Emulating hardware on an x86-based Windows PC is normal, whether it's a gaming console from the 1980s or a modern app designed for an Android smartphone. PC emulation is normally the home of gaming, and running an Android game on Windows 11 is straightforward. But what about the other way around? Playing a PC game developed for x86 architecture and Windows on an Android device can be tricky, but it's getting much easier.

The good news is that x86 and Windows emulation on Linux systems with Arm-based processing has improved greatly in recent years thanks to tools like Box86 and Box64. We're now at the point where an app like Winlator allows you to run PC games on an Android device and play them with minimal fuss.

Winaltor uses existing tools and third-party apps like Wine and Box86 to bring Windows and PC gaming to Android users.