Gaming - Page 297

Respawn and EA are currently working on a third chapter of the popular Jedi video game franchise, actor Cameron Monaghan has confirmed.

Given the success of the first two games--Fallen Order and Survivor--it seemed inevitable that EA would greenlight a third chapter in the Jedi series. After all, the Jedi games were originally envisioned as a trilogy. Now it look like a third game is indeed happening.

At the Ocala Comic-Con 2023 show in Florida, Cameron Monaghan, who plays the lead hero Cal Kestis in the Jedi games, said that teams are currently "in the process" of making a third game. Neither EA nor Respawn have made announcements on a third game.

Starfield has a new patch out, but despite the patch notes promising a resolution for issues with upscaling, these are still present we're told.

However, Wccftech reports that an upscaling fix is still required for Starfield.

The tech site acknowledges that the mipmap bias issue has been cured, but that a modder (Doodlez) has put out a new spin on his mod to cope with a different gremlin in the upscaling works, namely the introduction of a moiré effect on some textures.

Xbox Game Pass will likely see another price increase as time goes by, Microsoft gaming CEO Phil Spencer says.

Microsoft recently raised the prices of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and console--a meager $2 and $1 respective increase as compared to Sony's 35% price jump on PS Plus--but this hike might not be the last.

In an interview with Japanese gaming outlet Game Watch, Xbox chief Phil Spencer candidly says that another increase is "inevitable". As inflation increases, games are becoming much more expensive to make, and companies are spending more to develop titles (Horizon Forbidden West, for example, cost over $200 million to bring to market).

Cyberpunk 2077's big 2.0 update has landed, ahead of the launch of the incoming Phantom Liberty expansion (which arrives tomorrow), and there's good news for Steam Deck owners.

While it's true that Cyberpunk 2077 version 2.0 (with DLSS 3.5 on board) does up the system requirements for the game, it still remains perfectly playable on Valve's handheld.

This is according to testing conducted by German tech site Computerbase as flagged up by Tom's Hardware.

Microsoft expects Xbox Game Pass to deliver nearly $8 billion in revenue by 2030.

New leaks from Microsoft reveal ambitious plans for its $16 billion games division. The tech giant not only wants to make Xbox the top gaming console on the market, but it also wants to radically transform Xbox Game Pass into the leading and revenue-dominant gaming subscription available today.

Microsoft estimates that Xbox could by worth $36 billion by 2030, driven primarily by games sales, microtransactions, and purchases made on console, PC, and the cloud--in fact, Microsoft expects Xbox to make $16.9 billion from transactions by 2030, which is more than the total amount that Xbox makes today.

New details from the Xbox leaks show how much revenue that the top 10 biggest video games companies make from all platforms.

A bit ago, Microsoft accidentally leaked a wealth of valuable info about earnings, upcoming console plans, and games. It's the biggest leak in games history, and while Microsoft says that "a lot has changed" since the documents were new and present day, there's still some extremely interesting details that are worth exploring.

One of these details is a ranking of the top video games companies in terms of revenues. Microsoft's findings highlight some of the more cryptic data points in gaming, including both Google's and Apple's mobile gaming revenues. We've already seen how much money that Apple and Google make in 2022 and now we have figures for 2021.

Sony is doing all it can to persuade consumers to buy a PlayStation 5 console.

Sony wants to ship 25 million PlayStation 5 consoles by April 2024. This is the largest console shipment in the history of gaming, and is one of the most ambitious targets that PlayStation could hope to accomplish. There's just one issue: Consumers are paring back their spending due to economic constraints, and Sony isn't selling as many PS5s as it would like.

Sony has responded by pulling out the big guns. We've seen price promotions with the PS5's MSRP dropping down to $449 across multiple stores like Best Buy, Target, and Walmart. That may have not been enough. Sony wants to maximize its chances in hitting that 25 million shipment target, so now all new PlayStation 5 owners will get a free first-party game to complement their new console.

Embracer Group CEO Lars Wingefors tells investors an interesting factoid: The company spends more on paying platform fees than it does to develop its own games.

Now is a pretty challenging time for the Embracer Group. Like most publishers in 2023, Embracer is trying to stave off increased spending costs to offset what CEO Lars Wingefors calls "weaker consumer buying power". Making games is an expensive endeavor in the best of times, but today's economic situation makes things so dire that studios can almost close down soon after a game bombs on the market.

Platform fees are a big part of these higher costs. Publishers must pay specific amounts in order to have their games made available and sold on platforms like PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo, Steam, and the Epic Games Store, as well as the more standardized 30% royalty fee per every game sold on consoles, PC, and mobile (Steam and Epic are flexible on this, with Epic taking a 15% cut, and Steam reducing its cut based on how much revenue is made).

Microsoft's Phil Spencer has issued a statement that responds to the significant Xbox leaks.

Just days ago, Microsoft uploaded a series of documents to the online public FTC v Microsoft trial exhibit folder. Most of these reports were redacted and omitted key information as per usual, but one particular PDF file housed a series of unredacted files attached to the document. These files revealed a trove of highly confidential Xbox plans, secrets, data--everything from how much money Game Pass makes and Xbox's accountability margin to upcoming Xbox console plans and new controller ideas has been revealed.

The Xbox leak is the largest in gaming history, at least when it comes to the variety and sensitivity of the information revealed (the NVIDIA GeForce Now leak in 2021 did reveal more games, though).

Payday 3 has met the ultimate foe for all video games: Controversy.

After many years of development, Payday 3 is finally out. The reception has been fiery to say the least. Gamers are up in arms over Payday 3's controversial always-online requirement, a policy that made the game practically unplayable at launch.

Payday 3, like most live games, had some server issues when it released yesterday. But unlike the original Payday games, Payday 3 can't be played offline, so gamers simply couldn't check out the new heist shooter that they just purchased. The backlash has been quick: Payday 3 is currently sitting on a mostly negative rating on Steam.

Rockstar Games is adding in classic games as part of its GTA+ subscription service.

Rockstar is taking cues from Xbox with its new GTA+ subscription service. GTA+ was introduced in 2022 as a low-cost way to heighten GTA Online play with extra in-game goodies, unlockables, and bonuses. Now the service is adding games.

GTA+ subscribers will soon be able to play a rotating selection of old-school Rockstar Games titles. Note that this is Rockstar titles, not just Grand Theft Auto titles, so it's possible that games like Red Dead Redemption, Bully, Manhunt, and The Warriors could show up. The first games offered on GTA+ are all three titles in the GTA trilogy definitive edition and will be offered on Xbox and PlayStation.

New updates from UK regulators show early signs of approval in the $68.7 billion Microsoft-Activision merger.

Weeks ago, Competition and Markets Authority officially denied Microsoft's original Activision merger proposal. Microsoft then submitted a new deal to the CMA that specifically addressed the anti-competitive concerns outlined in the agency's Final Report. The new proposal is in turn part of a new Phase 1 investigation. Microsoft intends to sell the cloud game streaming rights of Activision's games to Ubisoft, which sees Microsoft effectively divesting, or handing off, the commercial rights to stream some of the biggest games on the market.

The CMA has had time to look over Microsoft's new deal and has found it to be acceptable. Regulators have provisionally approved the merger as a result. In an announcement post, the agency says that Microsoft's Proposed Undertakings of the terms outlined in the Ubisoft Divestment Agreement may be accepted and the merger could be cleared. The case is not at that stage yet, however, and no final decision has yet to been made on whether or not the merger will be allowed to close.

UK regulators at the Competition and Markets Authority have published the proposed terms of Microsoft's new merger deal.

Weeks ago, Microsoft and UK anti-trust agency CMA joined forces to defeat a lengthy and costly appeals process. The reason that the trillion-dollar tech giant and the UK regulators wanted to quash the appeal is simple: Microsoft wants to get the merger passed, and the CMA wants to weigh all options.

Microsoft's new proposal changes the original Activision merger terms so substantially that the CMA has opened a new Phase 1 investigation into the deal. This new merger strategy sees Microsoft selling Activision cloud game streaming rights to Ubisoft, a foreign third-party publisher. Microsoft would not have control over Activision games in the cloud--the CMA had originally been concerned that Microsoft would engage in anti-competitive practices in cloud gaming if it held onto streaming rights of big games like Call of Duty.

The third patch for Baldur's Gate 3 has landed, with some big moves including Mac support for the RPG, and a magic mirror that allows players to change the appearance of their adventurer.

The Mac release will allow players to enjoy Baldur's Gate 3 on an Apple computer, and there are updated recommended specs for the Mac. Larian says an M1 Pro SoC is recommended with FSR enabled to run the game at high settings on a Retina display.

Another nifty new feature is the aforementioned magic mirror, which allows you to change certain elements of your character's looks, but not everything. We're told that you can alter your "appearance, voice, pronouns and nether regions", but you can't change race or body type.

In the past, Valve has made several comments on when a sequel to the popular Steam Deck might turn up, and the company has made it clear in a new statement that a further iteration won't happen until 2025 at the earliest - and it might be more like 2026.

Pierre-Loup Griffais, a coder and designer at Valve who works on the Steam Deck and has commented about the sequel before, shared some new and more specific info with The Verge.

Griffais notes that a Steam Deck 2 won't happen until late 2025, or maybe even later than that, because the performance of the hardware will need to be meaningfully pushed forward - but, crucially, while not taking down the battery life.

Ubisoft has officially confirmed that The Division 3 is in development, and will be lead by the series' original game director.

The Division 3 is on the horizon, but Ubisoft says that the new shooter-looter won't replace The Division 2. Instead, both games will run simultaneously in parallel with one another--a trend we've seen with games like Destiny, Overwatch, and the upcoming Path of Exile 2.

Ubisoft confirms that Julian Gerighty, who acted as game director for the original The Division game, will not only return to the franchise but lead it going forward. "A core focus of Gerighty's is to build a team for Tom Clancy's The Division 3, which will be led by Massive Entertainment, while making sure Tom Clancy's The Division 2 remains well supported," Ubisoft said.

The third big patch for Baldur's Gate 3 was supposed to be arriving today, but that isn't going to happen - it's been subject to a slight delay.

Developer Larian took to X (formerly Twitter) to let us know that patch three wouldn't be coming on September 21 as initially promised, but that it'll be here the following day, on September 22.

As delays go, that's a pretty palatable one, and still means that Baldur's Gate 3 players will get the benefit of the new patch before the weekend rolls around.

Mortal Kombat 1 has been receiving rave reviews from several critics. I've been playing it on PC, which has been a lot of fun. Paired with a GeForce RTX 4070 and a Radeon RX 7800 XT (reviewing GPUs means you can play the same game with different hardware), it looks fantastic - and even a little disturbing when the violence is dialed up to 11.

Playing it on Nintendo Switch, though, and it's an entirely different experience. Over the past week, the Switch version of the game has gained quite the notoriety due to the visual disparity between it and the PS5 version, with characters looking ugly and weird and the overall detail looking like something from the PS2 era.

Many believe that charging the same price for a visually inferior version of the game that performs worse is a bad move by publisher Warner Bros. Games. To make matters worse, the Nintendo Switch trailer for the game showcased higher-quality visuals than the retail release and even included a Steam Achievement popup.

Newly leaked documents reveal our first real look at Xbox's profits.

Microsoft is very selective in what data it releases on its various divisions. This includes gaming, which is now Microsoft's fourth best-earning business in terms of revenue with $15.4 billion earned in FY23. Every quarter, Microsoft will report three metrics on the Xbox business: content & services earnings, hardware revenues, and a finalized Xbox gaming number. Sometimes Microsoft will also release a new Xbox Game Pass figure, but they haven't done that for some time.

This is a big departure from Nintendo and Sony, both of which reveal revenue and profit numbers for their games businesses. Microsoft, however, has never discussed Xbox's profits. Now thanks to a series of documents and files that were accidentally leaked as part of the FTC v Microsoft federal trial, we have an idea of how healthy Xbox actually is.

Bethesda has taken to its social channels to announce Starfield reaching a new player milestone that has made the company reach its own milestone.

Bethesda Games took to its X account to announce that Starfield has reached a staggering 10 million players across all platforms. This monumental achievement that took place just after two weeks of the title being out, as Bethesda released the highly anticipated title on September 19, with players that ordered the Premium Edition getting access on September 1. It was only after two days of being released Bethesda announced that more than 6 million people were playing the game.

The release of Starfield has gained it the title of the fastest-selling new IP of 2023, along with the biggest Xbox launch of this generation in Europe. At the moment its unclear what the split is in terms of platforms player count, and that is information we will likely never find as Microsoft stopped reporting its numbers quite some time ago.