Gaming - Page 305

It's unclear whether or not Sony is still selling the PlayStation 5 console at a profit, or whether or not the console will be completely profitable throughout the current Fiscal Year 2023 timeline.

Sony's latest financial report indicates that PS5 profitability may be in jeopardy. The Games & Network Services' new revised operating income forecast indicates that the costs of console production may be outweighing sales by some degree.

In the report, Sony mentions that its flat 270 billion gaming operating income target (about $1.862 billion) is due in part to a "deterioration in profitability of PlayStation 5 hardware mainly due to changes in promotions by geographic region and the sales channel mix". It's unknown as to what extent PS5 profitability has been reduced, and whether or not the system is still sold at a profit.

Sony kicks off its new fiscal year with a new PlayStation 5 sales record.

Sony's latest Q1 Fiscal Year 2023 earnings report gives key updates on its gaming business, including hardware sales and overall revenues. The PlayStation 5 achieved its best-ever Q1 period by delivering 3.3 million shipments to all markets, bringing total cumulative lifetime shipments to 41.7 million.

The PS5 has yet to beat PS4 sales, with aligned shipments between the two systems tallying up to the PS5's shipments of 41.7 million against the PS4's sell-in of 43.7 million. Sony expects the PS5 to beat the PS4 in all relevant aligned metrics by the end of Fiscal Year 2023, including sales numbers.

Sony executive management explains the rationale behind the recent steep PlayStation 5 discounts.

A bit ago, Sony and multiple retailers decided to reduce the PlayStation 5's price tag by at least $50. This led to some pretty surprising deals with both consoles and accessories, with the base disc-based PlayStation 5 model selling for as low as $420.

Now in its latest Q1 Fiscal Year 2023 earnings report, Sony outlines the reasons for the sales. Apart from unconfirmed reports that a new PS5 model is believed to launch sometime this year, Sony Corp. essentially says that it hasn't sold as many PS5 consoles as it would have liked and the company is willing to take "necessary measures" to hit its lofty sales target of 25 million PS5s sold throughout the fiscal year.

With the passing of the late Lance Reddick in March, Bungie has chosen the perfect person to carry forward Commander Zavala's legacy.

The sudden passing of beloved actor Lance Reddick hit the entertainment world pretty hard, with millions of Destiny (and Fringe) fans mourning Reddick and celebrating his iconic performances. Reddick gave life to some of the most interesting and stoic characters including (but not limited to) Destiny's Commander Zavala, agent Broyles from Fringe, and Daniels from the Wire, and while his performances can't be replaced, Bungie has now announced who will be playing Zavala from here on out.

That choice is none other than Keith David, who has one of the most recognizable voices in entertainment history. David has lent his voice to countless shows and films, from HBO's older Spawn animated series to the 1990s to the Saints Row games and even Rick and Morty.

Video footage of Sony's new PlayStation 5 "slim" model has leaked out, showing a new console case redesign that accomodates the detachable drive.

We've seen multiple reports of a so-called PS5 slim pop up over recent months. Sources have told insider Tom Henderson that the new PlayStation 5 model will be a disc-less digital-only system by default--instead of having two PS5 models on the market, Sony wants to eliminate weight and streamline production efficiency with a singular PS5 model. Consumers would buy the base model at a certain price, and then buy a disc drive separately for an added fee.

Now we have reportedly leaked footage of this so-called PlayStation 5 slim (model number CFI-2016). Overall, it doesn't look all that much different than the existing models outside of a new segmented case redesign. The new PS5 features segmented base plates, presumably so that consumers can easily snap off the bottom part of the plate and easily attach a disc drive to the system.

Rockstar has announced a partnership with Cfx.re team, the creators behind popular modding tools FiveM and RedM, to bring official support to thousands of gamers enjoying these mods.

Rockstar is now bringing official support to modding tools that are used by thousands of Grand Theft Auto V and Red Dead Redemption 2 players. In a new press release, the company stated that Cfx.re is "now officially a part of Rockstar Games," but unfortunately, it didn't provide in-depth details on what the partnership consists of.

Heading over to Cfx.re's official forum, it states that this new partnership ushers in the opportunity to expand and advance the FireM platform, along with the creative modding community surrounding it. Rockstar released its own press release about the partnership, writing that it expanded its modding policy to allow for more diverse mods, in particular with its stance on roleplaying servers. Cfx.re writes in its forum post that it has no knowledge of future Rockstar products, in particular Grand Theft Auto V.

It's official: Baldur's Gate 3 is better than Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, at least if you go by Metacritic's rankings for average review scores.

As it stands at the time of writing, Baldur's Gate 3 has now achieved an average rating of 97 on Metacritic, which just sneaks past Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom on 96.

That said, it is still relatively early days for Larian's RPG, as the Baldur's Gate 3 average is based off 18 reviews, whereas Tears of the Kingdom's average takes into account a huge slab of 140 reviews (5 of which were 'mixed' - with Baldur's Gate 3 reviews all remaining 'positive' at this point).

Baldur's Gate 3 just got another hotfix, and it's an important one as it mitigates a potential scenario where your saved game might become corrupted.

Corrupt saves are a nightmare bug, of course, and in this case with Baldur's Gate 3, the corruption occurs due to the save file becoming too large.

In short, the developer didn't anticipate just how much some players would do, filling up their save file with a ton of stuff relating to their character progression.

Roblox has announced a new virtual career center that allows gamers to participate in various events and even job interviews.

An introduction to the Roblox Career Center was posted to the official Roblox YouTube channel, where it explained that the career center is a place where Roblox players can learn about Roblox on Roblox. Additionally, players will be able to learn what it's like to work at the company while also having the ability to engage directly with recruiters and hiring managers.

The Roblox Career Center also offers live events where players can learn about the technical challenges developers are attempting to overcome. The features don't stop there, as the Roblox Career Center has its own in-game library where players will be able to learn more about how to be successful during an interview. There are also assessments, which the above video states will include practice problem-solving sessions.

Overwatch 2 has been released on Steam, and gamers have absolutely review-bombed the title resulting in it being deemed "Overwhelmingly Negative".

Within just 24 hours, Overwatch 2 has received more than 27,000 reviews, with just 14% of those reviews being positive. So, what were these criticisms? If you have been involved in the gaming space, you already know that microtransactions are a touchy topic, especially if the game leans far too close to money-making being the clear motivation. Steam reviewers certainly brought up this point, writing that Overwatch 2's is too microtransaction-centric and that the prices for skins is so bad its deemed "predatory behavior".

Other reviews criticized Blizzard's decision to lock new heroes behind the game's premium battle pass subscription service, while also honed in on the developers releasing the title without the promised free-to-play PvE missions, which are also locked behind a paywall. Even the reviews under the "helpful" section of the Steam listing have negative sentiments, with the top helpful review at the time of writing, saying, "downloaded the game. connected Steam to blizzard account. run the game. received some achievements. close the game"

As part of the return of QuakeCon, which is one of the world's largest in-person PC LAN gaming events, Bethesda and id Software announced that Quake II has been remastered and enhanced and is available now on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S and Nintendo Switch, in addition to Xbox Game Pass. So yeah, id Software's classic first-person shooter from 1997 is playable on all platforms.

And it's packed with goodies, with the original campaign and its two expansions (The Reckoning and Ground Zero), plus the addition of a brand-new expansion from MachineGames aptly titled Call of the Machine and a remastered Quake II 64 port for the Nintendo 64 version of the game included as a nice little freebie.

As far as re-releases go, this is up there, as Bethesda and id Software confirm that this enhanced edition includes improvements to gameplay, enhanced AI, plus improved visuals in the form of more dynamic shadows and lighting.

Sony's operating profit for its PlayStation video games business drops again as the company continues paying towards the $3.6 billion acquisition of Bungie, as well as costs of games development.

Sony Corp's latest fiscal year earnings report shows record growth in PlayStation's Q1 net sales, but operating profit has slid -7% in to 3.6 billion yen. Based on foreign exchange conversion rates provided by Sony, this represents a -35% decrease on a USD basis to $263 million and marks the lowest quarterly operating income since Fiscal Year 2017.

PlayStation's operating income has dropped significantly partly because of the Bungie acquisition. In 2022, Sony acquired Bungie for $3.6 billion, but instead of being paid all at once, the purchase price is being expensed over multiple quarters.

Sony expects the PlayStation games division to generate a record-breaking 4.170 trillion yen in net sales for the fiscal year 2023, a new all-time high for the video games industry's top platform-holder.

On the heels of new record earnings of $5.63 billion for its Games & Network Services segment, Sony has upwardly revised its total-year earnings for the PlayStation business. According to its Q1'FY23 earnings report, Sony now expects its gaming branch to generate 4.170 trillion yen in net sales, which equates to about $32 billion in today's yen to USD conversion rates.

While it's worth noting this value will likely fluctuate and change over time as foreign exchange rates ebb and flow on a quarterly basis, Sony does still expect Fiscal Year 2023 to handily beat previous record, which was set in Fiscal Year 2022 with 3.644 trillion yen, by some 526 billion yen. On a USD basis, Sony's PlayStation gaming division made about $26.917 billion in Fiscal Year 2022.

Sony's PlayStation games division kicks off a new fiscal year by breaking a new sales milestone.

Sony just reported its Q1 FY23 earnings results, and PlayStation gaming has grown to new record levels. The company managed to set a new all-time Q1 sales record by delivering $5.634 billion in sales revenues for the period on a converted yen to USD basis. Q1'23 does not make an exceptionally high record, though, and only beats the previous high Q1 periods (Q1'20 and Q1'21) by about $6-10 million.

The Q1 growth was much more pronounced in yen, where Sony recorded a +28% increase in net sales (thanks partly to a +40.6 billion yen impact).

Activision's dev teams have outlined what Modern Warfare 2 content will carry forward to Modern Warfare 3.

MW3 will be an extension of MW2, indicating a potential cross-game future for the Call of Duty franchise. Reports indicate that MW3 was originally envisioned as a kind of expansion lacking a premium experience, but morphed into a fully-fledged $69.99 premium game as Treyarch and Infinity Ward were conscripted to assist Sledgehammer Games with MW3's development.

Although MW3 is technically it's own separate game, there will be a lot of carry-over. Well, carry-forward is more apt. This is a great win for gamers, who won't have to re-buy content or start from scratch in MW3.

Humble Bundle's latest Decades of Horror bundle packs in some must-have Resident Evil games for a low price.

Humble is bringing the savings on legacy catalog titles from Capcom, packing some great action-packed Resident Evil games. The deal offers 12 games total, split into four different pricing tiers. Depending on how much Resident Evil you want, the best deal seems to be the $20 bundle that packs in greats like Resident Evil 2 REmake alongside Resident Evil 7.

There's also a the $35 bundle which includes everything in the $20 bundle with the addition of the excellent and super entertaining Resident Evil Village, a game that stands as one of the best Halloween games you could possibly play.

Rockstar's best-selling Grand Theft Auto franchise has now generated over $8.4 billion in revenues since GTA V's release.

Take-Two Interactive's latest Q1'24 financials give key updates on the company's performance, including refreshed figures for the Grand Theft Auto series. According to the data, the GTA franchise has made over $8.4 billion in total revenues since Grand Theft Auto V's launch in September 2013, driven primarily by GTA V game sales and in-game spending on GTA Online microtransactions.

In Q1 Fiscal Year 2024, the GTA series made $175 million, primarily driven by GTA V and GTA Online. While this is on the lower side of earnings and represents the lowest GTA revenues for a Q1 period in the last 4 years, Take-Two executives still believe the earnings beat their expectations.

Microsoft has halved its Xbox Game Pass promotion to just 14 days, the newly updated subscription website has confirmed.

Shortly before the FTC lost its federal case against the Microsoft-Activision merger, Microsoft increased the price of its Game Pass subscription; Game Pass Ultimate was raised $2 to $16.99/month, whereas Game Pass on console was raised to $10.99. The price hike skewed the Xbox LIVE Gold conversion ratios, and also brought back the popular $1 trial of Game Pass Ultimate.

Now a few weeks after the introduction of the promo, Microsoft has quietly changed the promotional period for the $1 trial. Users can now only get 14 days of Xbox Game Pass for $1 instead of the full 30 days that was previously offered.

Fancy an Assassin's Creed marathon later this week? There'll be more than enough to keep you busy this coming weekend as Ubisoft is offering free access to five games from the franchise.

They are as follows: Assassin's Creed Valhalla, Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, Assassin's Creed II, Assassin's Creed Brotherhood, and Assassin's Creed Revelations (available in The Ezio Collection on consoles).

Those games will be free to play from August 10 to August 14, on PC, Xbox, and PlayStation, although the exact availability will vary depending on what platform you're using.

The latest NVIDIA GeForce Game Ready Driver 536.99 release is here, adding DLSS 2 support to Baldur's Gate 3 to deliver impressive performance gains on GeForce GPUs. The worldwide RPG phenomenon from developer Larian Studios is one of the biggest PC releases 2023, hitting an all-time peak concurrent player count on Steam of over 800,000.

NVIDIA notes that GeForce driver support for the game has been there since the game first hit Early Access three years ago, with the latest GeForce Game Ready Driver featuring "additional optimizations and enhancements" to improve performance. Baldur's Gate supports NVIDIA DLAA and DLSS 2, with the latter delivering some impressive 4K results - up to a 93% boost on average for the GeForce RTX 40 Series.

To showcase Baldur's Gate 3 with DLSS 2 enabled, NVIDIA provided a 4K benchmark graph of the game running with max settings using the DLSS 'Performance' mode. And we see every GPU from the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti and up getting a sizable boost, with the mid-range and lower-tier GeForce RTX 40 Series cards seeing the biggest benefit.