Gaming News - Page 286

Bandai Namco had absolutely no clue that Elden Ring would be such a hit, and originally expected the game to sell less than 5 million units. FromSoftware actually smashed that target.

Elden Ring has now sold 13.4 million units worldwide and is a mega-hit franchise for Bandai Namco, FromSoftware, and the dev's parent company Kadokawa Corp. Elden Ring was able to achieve these numbers in little over a month.

The sales number was revealed as part of Bandai Namco's full-year FY2021 earnings report, where the publisher said it expected a modest 4 million sales for Elden Ring. As it turns out, the game beat that forecast by 235% and helped push the company's net digital game sales revenues to $3.1 billion.

Remedy celebrates Alan Wake's 12th anniversary with some new teases on the upcoming sequel.

Thanks to Epic's financing and Remedy's know-how, Alan Wake 2 is currently in development. Details are light, but we do know Alan Wake 2 is a psychological horror game with a new emphasis on survival. Now Remedy has dropped a few more details about the sequel and confirmed the protagonist will be "put through the ringer."

"It feels very familiar but at the same time it feels very fresh. We are breaking new ground. It's a new genre and we are pushing further into the horror aspect, but also exploring the depth of the character," Sam Lake said in the recent anniversary video.

Prey, one of the best video games to release in 2017, is now free on the Epic Games Store.

Bethesda's surreal, mind-bending masterpiece Prey is currently free on the Epic Store. If you haven't played it before, now is the perfect time to jump in especially with all the recent 2022 game delays.

Arkane's first-person shooter weaves an engaging and ultra-weird tale of supernatural sci-horror with impressive visuals, fun gunplay and abilities, and some of the best environmental storytelling in the entire games industry. You'll definitely see shades of Deathloop strewn around Talos-I, complete with that old-school 1970s retro space-age charm.

Today Electronic Arts confirmed the new Dead Space remake is coming January 27, 2023 exclusively on next-gen consoles.

EA's Motive studio is making significant headway with its new Dead Space remake, an ambitious project that completely revitalizes the original Xbox 360 horror experience for modern-day consoles. The game is being completely rebuilt with DICE's powerful Frostbite engine using the base game as a skeleton reference point.

The game is still in pre-alpha phases in development, but the team was recently able to do a full walkthrough of the game where "all content was present." Major effect breakthroughs include real-time global illumination and volumetric lighting thanks to the power upgrade from the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S consoles.

EA's Need for Speed franchise is coming back in a big way with two of gaming's best racing devs at the wheel.

Today EA's games division announced that Codemasters and Criterion Games are co-developing a new Need for Speed Game and are also laying the foundation for the franchise's future. EA has actually merged the Cheshire-based Codemasters team into Criterion for the ambitious plan. EA purchased F1 and Grid developer Codemasters in 2021 for $1.2 billion to help supercharge its racing games, and Criterion is known for its work on Need for Speed, Burnout, and vehicle production in Battlefront and Battlefield games.

Not much is known about the project(s), but they will be dedicated games that are separate from the mobile-based Need for Speed title from Tencent.

Today Bethesda delayed Starfield into the distant galaxy of 2023, and Xbox fans aren't happy.

Starfield went from a set release date of 11/11/22 to a very wide six-month release window in 2023. The delay has considerably affected the sentiment around Xbox hype (yes, the console wars are still alive, but now it's more about platform wars).

Starfield's big push back certainly didn't help dissuade the popular rhetoric that "Xbox has no games," and the delay has impacted the excitement behind Microsoft's E3-style upcoming games showcase scheduled for June 12.

Microsoft Flight Simulator is getting an update later this month, which will be something truly special for Top Gun fans -- the new Top Gun: Maverick movie tie-in expansion -- drops on May 25.

The official Xbox account tweeted: "Attention flight simmers! This is your captain speaking. The Top Gun: Maverick experience is taking off 5/25 in Microsoft Flight Simulator! Don't have your own call sign yet? Create one today!"

We don't know what to expect in the Top Gun: Maverick expansion, but I would dare say that it's going to involve aircraft from the movie... maybe some of the stars of Top Gun like Tom Cruise, and more. Microsoft and developer Asobo Studio said that gamers will be able to "experience first-hand what it's like to be a U.S. Navy Top Gun".

Sony is planning to ship more PlayStation 5 consoles this fiscal year than any other console in PlayStation history.

Sony's plans for a big PS5 sales blitz are still active. The company has announced that it expects to ship 18 million PlayStation 5 consoles through Fiscal Year 2022 (present - March 2023). Sony had originally announced this massive shipment strategy during an investor's meeting in May 2021, where it implied 20 million+ PS5 sales targets.

The PS5 has currently shipped 19.3 million units worldwide. If Sony's plan is successful, total PS5 shipments would skyrocket to 37.3 million by March 2023. This is well below Sony's original implied 45 million PS5 target.

Non-Sony published games dominate sales on the PlayStation Store and retail, with 86% of all games sold in Fiscal Year 2021 being third-party titles.

Sony's recent earnings figures reinforce some key factors of its business, including how the mighty gaming empire relies heavily on games not developed by the platform-holder.

According to the data, Sony sold a total of 303.2 million games on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 across digital and and in-store channels. While Nintendo makes most of its game sales from first-party, Sony is much different; the split is significantly in favor of third-party games. In fact, 86% of games sold in Sony's FY21 period were third-party (259.3 million) and 14% were first-party (43.9 million).

Sony's latest financial report gives an update on PlayStation Plus subscriber counts, revealing a dip as network services revenues increase.

PlayStation Plus subscribers have dropped to 47.4 million as of Q4 FY21, down some 600,000 users from the all-time high of 48 million subscribers set in Q3.

Other key performance indicators from Sony's documents show that most online PlayStation gamers still are not subscribed to PlayStation Plus. Our records show that 55%, or more than half of PlayStation's total monthly active users, aren't subscribed to PS Plus.