Gaming - Page 297

Microsoft has confirmed that Activision will be a limited-integration company if the merger goes through.

Microsoft plans to be mostly hands-off with Activision on a post-merger basis. We've discussed this in previous coverage, but now it's been made official: Activision will have limited integration into Microsoft, meaning the publisher will essentially be its own operational unit outside the purview and control of Xbox Game Studios lead Matt Booty. This is similar to how ZeniMax currently operates.

Microsoft bought ZeniMax in 2021 for $7.5 billion, and the publisher remains in control of specific parts of its business. There's just one decision that no Microsoft-owned developer or publisher can make: Exclusivity. Xbox gaming CEO Phil Spencer has the final call on which games become exclusive to the Xbox platform.

The official word from Blizzard and Diablo franchise general manager Rod Fergusson is that there's no secret Cow Level in Diablo IV. But then again, he would say that, wouldn't he? Ever since players got their hands-on the latest installment in the long-running action RPG, a dedicated part of the community has been actively going through every inch of the game to try and find the secret level.

So far, it hasn't been found. Still, the general idea is that if both Diablo 2 and Diablo 3 had secret Cow Levels (where you fight a horde of armed cows that moo and drop gold and loot), then odds are there is one in Diablo 4, too, primarily when the game draws most of its inspiration from these two entries. There's an entire Wikipedia page on the history of the secret Cow Level, too, if you need to brush up on your bovine lore.

You can also join in on the hunt over at the D4 - Not Finding A Cow Level Discord, though based on Diablo 4's recent sizable patch, the search looks to have hit a roadblock because many were convinced that the Cow Level is tied to the town of Ked Bardu in the Dry Steppes.

Iranian animation studio Kosar3D is pivoting to video games, specifically a militaristic first-person shooter that news outlet RT (Russia Today) calls "Iran's Call of Duty." A bold statement, and the teaser video for Revenge, which is what the game is called, showcases some decent animation and visual fidelity.

The setting of Revenge deals with an alliance between Iran and Russia against NATO and, by that same token, the US. Kosard3D notes that the game is self-funded and not tied to the Iranian government or military, with the announcement stating that, "In this game, an international UAV force led by Iran has been formed that is responsible for the containment of the US army in World War III."

The RT report adds that Revenge is not about all-out war but "pre-emptive strikes launched on the enemy's soil to thwart the enemy's attacks." With Call of Duty's Modern Warfare entries focusing on the US government and military in conflict with Russia and the Middle East, the narratives often dip their toes into what you'd call pro-US military propaganda - so the comparison makes sense.

Microsoft has tried, and failed, to persuade Activision to bring its billion-dollar franchises over to Game Pass.

Yesterday, we learned that Activision doesn't have a zero tolerance policy on video game subscriptions. Actvision CEO Bobby Kotick testified under oath that publisher could be convinced to bring its games to services like Xbox Game Pass and PlayStation Plus Extra/Premium...provided a high enough "commercial incentive" were offered.

In his testimony, Kotick essentially said that companies like Microsoft and Sony would have to pay an exorbitant fee in order to secure Activision games on these services, especially given the often-cited "cannibalistic effects" of Game Pass (users can choose to subscribe for $10 a month instead of buying a game for $70, potentially leaving lots of money on the table).

Minecraft is much, much more popular on Nintendo Switch and PlayStation than it is on Xbox...and rightly so given the sales differences between these platforms.

Microsoft has already confirmed that Minecraft is Xbox's largest game in terms of revenues, and that it delivers significant profits. What's interesting is how much revenue the game actually makes, and where it actually makes those earnings. While we don't know exact dollar values to Minecraft's mega-hit success, we do know that the game earns a lot more money on practically every platform other than Xbox.

In his testimony in the FTC v Microsoft federal case, Xbox gaming Chief Financial Officer Tim Stuart sheds light on Minecraft's success. In Fiscal Year 2021, Minecraft made 4x more revenue on the Nintendo Switch than it does Xbox. The game also made 2x as much revenue on PlayStation than it did on Xbox.

The ZeniMax acquisition, aka Project Atom, used a specific sliding-scale model to assess the possible risks and downsides of making ZeniMax titles exclusive to the Xbox platform.

Exclusivity is a hot topic in the games industry. On one hand, Sony has used exclusivity as a means to pay developers to skip Xbox, which makes Sony, in the words of Phil Spencer, a "hostile and aggressive competitor". On the other hand, exclusives are advantageous to developers and also offer a way for Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo stand apart. Because they're such powerful tools for platforms and developers, exclusives are a big part of the industry and aren't going anywhere anytime soon.

In regards to ZeniMax and Bethesda game exclusivity, today's testimony in the FTC v Microsoft case highlights what that decision-making process was like inside of Xbox. Testimony revealed that all future ZeniMax games, including sequels and new IPs, appear to be exclusive to Xbox. But how did Microsoft come to that decision?

New testimony in the FTC v Microsoft case reveals that all future ZeniMax games may be made exclusive to the Xbox platform.

Today is the last day in the FTC v Microsoft evidentiary hearing case, and we're already hearing some bombshell reveals. According to emails presented in the hearing between Xbox's GLT (Gaming Leadership Team), it appears that all future ZeniMax titles will be made exclusive to Xbox. This would include all new and future titles from operational units like Bethesda Game Studios, id Software, ZeniMax Online, and apply to games like Fallout 5, The Elder Scrolls VI, new Doom games, the upcoming Indiana Jones game, and much more.

During Stuart's witness examination by the FTC, Commission lawyer James Weingarten dissected key parts of the ZeniMax acquisition (codenamed Atom). Weingarten chronicled a series of email chains that included Jamie Lawver, who oversaw the $7.5 billion ZeniMax integration into Xbox's first-party studios division, Matt Booty, the head of Xbox Game Studios.

When earlier this week, AMD announced that it was Bethesda's exclusive partner on PC for Starfield, millions of online voices suddenly cried out in terror, and most definitely weren't suddenly silenced. In fact, the continued noise around DLSS support has been pretty deafening.

But there's good news, of sorts, for those lamenting the possible lack of DLSS in Starfield - there's a mod on the horizon to fix the situation.

Mind you, before we look at the mod, we should underline the fact that it isn't confirmed that NVIDIA's frame rate boosting tech won't be supported in the space RPG. However, it has been very much presumed this is the case, and that only AMD's FSR will be on-board. In fairness, this seems a likely scenario, but it is not for definite yet.

Advertisements may become a larger part of the Xbox gaming business in the long-term future.

Over the past few months, we've talked a lot about how the Xbox business could evolve. At $16 billion dollar in annual revenue, Microsoft's video games unit is clearly able to make strong earnings...but what about profits? Recent testimony from Microsoft CFO Amy Hood discussed Xbox's profit margins but these values were predictably redacted.

How can Xbox continue to grow when it is 3rd place in the console market, spending big on Game Pass, and also invested in costly and unsuccessful attempts like Project xCloud? The games unit will need to find new ways to monetize its platform of 120 million monthly active users, and advertising revenue could be the next big step.

Sony legal counsel and/or the FTC have accidentally uploaded a poorly-redacted document that reveals key insights on PlayStation's business practices.

Sony and Microsoft are known for their third-party exclusivity deals. Sony's agreements in particular have led to big-budget games like Final Fantasy XVI outright skipping Xbox. These deals offer commercial and operational incentives like upfront payments, direct access to console engineers, and the opportunity to release a game more quickly.

What about subscriptions like Game Pass and PlayStation Plus? Microsoft has already revealed the dynamics of its Game Pass deals, with developers receiving things like an initial payout and earnings based on engagement within the title. Sony, on the other hand, has mostly kept quiet on how it handles its PlayStation plus deals.

The FTC v Microsoft federal case gives more insight into how Microsoft eventually got NVIDIA to get on board with the $68.7 billion Activision merger proposal.

When Microsoft announced it was planning to buy Activision for nearly $70 billion, NVIDIA had originally opposed the deal. In today's evidentiary hearing of the FTC v Microsoft case, NVIDIA's SVP of gaming Jeff Fisher gave insight on how Microsoft allayed NVIDIA's concerns about the merger affecting cloud gaming.

In his testimony, Fisher said that a secondary attachment to the main Microsoft-NVIDIA agreement had solved NVIDIA's worries on the merger. The add-on is called the Windows Addendum, and it seems to have significantly lowered the licensing fees that NVIDIA has to pay Microsoft to secure Windows OS licenses (possibly among other things).

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella strongly dislikes video game exclusivity and wants all of Microsoft's software everywhere it can possibly be.

Today Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella gave testimony in the federal FTC v Microsoft court case, and shared his views on one of the most powerful and lucrative business tactics in the interactive entertainment industry: Exclusives.

"If it was up to me I would like to get rid of exclusivity on consoles," Nadella said. "The dominant player has defined market competition using exclusives. I have no love for that world."

During his testimony at the FTC v Microsoft federal hearing, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick says that Activision titles could be made available on content library subscriptions and cloud streaming services if the commercial incentive is large enough.

While Activision currently has no strategy in its long-term plan (which is a 3-year period) to include Activision-Blizzard games like Call of Duty, Diablo, and others on a multi-game content library subscription service like Xbox Game Pass Ultimate or PlayStation Plus Extra/Premium, the executive today indicated that it's not an impossibility.

Microsoft or Sony would just have to make it worth Activision's while and offer up a substantial monetary incentive. In other words, Activision games could show up on subscription services...but the price would be very high.

Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg might be set for a cage fight - or at least some of the gossip from the rumor mill claims - but if you're keen on getting some big-tech-CEO brawling action right now, well, you can simulate the bout in a freshly released browser game.

The freebie Zuck vs Musk 'techbro beatdown' is the brainchild of the designer of Bejeweled, and founder of Blue Wizard, Jason Kapalka (as PC Gamer reports). It's actually a modified spin of an existing Blue Wizard game, WrestleBros, but with Musk and Zuckerberg starring as the wrestlers.

You can partake in a match against the computer, or versus a human opponent (playing against a local player on the same PC, or online), with wins facilitating upgrades.

Rockstar's original Red Dead Redemption has suspiciously been re-rated by Korea's Game Rating and Administrative Committee, hinting at a possible remaster.

It looks like Red Dead Redemption could be getting a remaster. Korea's GRAC ratings board has just published a final decision for Red Dead Redemption, giving it a mature rating. GRAC received the application earlier this month on June 5, 2023, and made a decision on June 16, 2023.

This new rating is separate from the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of the game. The new rating does not list a platform so it's hard to be sure.

Despite opinions of the contrary, data shows that Activision-Blizzard is a unique video games company. The publisher routinely generates multiple billions of dollars every year principally from three major franchises--Call of Duty, Warcraft, and Candy Crush. In my coverage on the Microsoft-Activision merger, there's been one point that I've reiterated over and over: Activision is an absolutely massive force in the video games industry.

Unfortunately, this is something that the FTC's key witness, the economist Dr. Robin Lee, failed to adequately demonstrate to federal judge Jacqueline Scott Corley. Lee was provided with a valuable opportunity to illustrate the full magnitude of Activision Blizzard King's presence in the industry.

Judge Corley had asked Lee specifically what other Activision games are important--much of the focus of today's hearing was on the $31 billion Call of Duty franchise, and rightfully so because that series is one of the consistently best-earning franchises ever created--but there's a lot more to Activision's billion-dollar portfolio.

"AMD is proud to announce that we are Bethesda's exclusive PC partner for the next-generation role-playing game, Starfield," reads the announcement. As one of the biggest PC releases of the year (or decade), the 25-years-in-the-making sci-fi RPG epic from the studio behind Skyrim is out in September.

AMD notes that it has worked closely with the team at Bethesda Game Studios on the release of Starfield across the PC and Xbox versions. This makes sense, as Xbox features AMD hardware for its CPU and GPU.

AMD highlights that optimizations have been made for multi-threaded processing for both PC and Xbox, with added support on PC for the new Ryzen 7000 series of processors and the new Radeon RX 7000 series graphics cards. FSR 2 upscaling will be available in the game across PC and Xbox Series X|S hardware.

Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan tells federal courts that he believes Activision CEO Bobby Kotick wanted to make a separate side deal to ensure Activision games, including Call of Duty, would continue shipping on PlayStation if the $68.7 billion merger with Microsoft fell through.

In 2022, the bosses of some of the most powerful forces in gaming came together in Brussels to share their opinions of the Microsoft-Activision merger with the European Commission. Among them was PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan and Activision CEO Bobby Kotick, two men that have enjoyed a prolonged business relationship that has spiraled upward into a multi-billion dollar arrangement.

In private, Ryan allegedly told Kotick:"I don't want a new Call of Duty deal. I just want to block your merger." Now in today's recent evidentiary hearing in the FTC v Microsoft federal case, Ryan clarifies on what led up to that eye-opening statement.

BioWare is handing off development of its long-running Star Wars The Old Republic MMORPG to another studio so it can narrow its focus on singleplayer RPGs.

After more than a decade of support, BioWare is moving on from its Star Wars MMO. BioWare general manager Gary McKay has confirmed future content development of Star Wars The Old Republic will be handled by Broadsword Online Games, a development team that's handling Ultima Online. This will free BioWare to focus on its core strengths: building singleplayer RPGs.

Sadly, McKay confirms that layoffs will occur as a result of the shift. BioWare's Austin, Texas and Edmonton, Canada-based studios will now be entirely devoted to the company's wholly-owned dual franchises, Dragon Age and Mass Effect. The next Dragon Age game, Dreadwolf, is currently set to launch sometime in 2024 at the earliest, whereas the next Mass Effect game is still in pre-production phases.

Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan gives a timeline of when he started to notice strong red flags in regards to the Microsoft-Activision merger.

Sony's Jim Ryan has had strong convictions about the Microsoft purchasing Activision, and believes that Microsoft will withhold access to specific games in an effort to cause anti-competitive harm against PlayStation. This wasn't always the case, though. Emails show that Ryan originally believed the merger "was not an Xbox exclusivity play," however his view changed after a very particular email exchange from August 2022.

During his testimony in the FTC v Microsoft federal hearing, the Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO said that he believes that Microsoft would use Call of Duty to damage PlayStation either with full foreclosure (withholding Call of Duty completely from PlayStation) or partial foreclosure (timed exclusivity on content and game releases).