Gaming - Page 306

Rockstar Games parent company Take-Two Interactive reiterates that Fiscal Year 2025 will deliver a major upward curve with significantly high earnings results.

A bit ago, Take-Two Interactive gave us clues on when GTA 6 could release. The company potentially telegraphed Grand Theft AUto VI's launch in its earnings forecast for the upcoming fiscal year. Take-Two expects to make an incredible $8 billion in net bookings in Fiscal Year 2025, which is from April 1, 2024 through March 31, 2025.

This represents a massive $2.5 billion+ increase in net bookings over the current-year projections. Analysts speculate that Grand Theft Auto 6 will be the main driver for this spike in revenues, however it's worth noting that Take-Two currently has a 52-game pipeline of titles that it expects to release by the end of Fiscal Year 2026.

Take-Two Interactive management comments on the pros of adding catalog games to subscriptions like PlayStation Plus, saying that these services offer an economic advantage.

While Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick doesn't agree with the Xbox Game Pass day-and-date model, that doesn't mean that the publisher is anti-subscription. Quite the opposite is true: We've seen NBA 2K games regularly show up on PlayStation Plus, and Grand Theft Auto V was just included on Xbox Game Pass for the third time.

Now a recent Q1'24 earnings call, Take-Two Interactive President Karl Slatoff comments on the advantages of adding catalog games into subscription services, saying that the company wouldn't do this unless it offered a "significant economic advantage."

Despite big successes from Nintendo and Sony, Take-Two Interactive will continue to be very selective on adaptations of its hit franchises.

It may be a long time before we ever see a Grand Theft Auto movie. In a recent earnings call, Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick expressed his thoughts on TV shows and films based on video games.

Zelnick is mostly wary about expanding games into new mediums because of the incredibly high risks involved, but that being said, Take-Two has still licensed two franchises to film, including Borderlands and BioShock.

Grand Theft Auto V has now sold-in, or shipped, 185 million copies worldwide, Take-Two Interactive has announced.

Today, Take-Two Interactive announced strong Q1'24 earnings and gave key updates on game sales figures. According to the latest report, Rockstar Games' landmark Grand Theft Auto V has now sold-in over 185 million copies across three console generations--Gen7, Gen8, and more recently on Gen9 with the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S versions.

This milestone has also pushed total Grand Theft Auto franchise sales past 405 million lifetime-to-date.

The new Super Mario Bros. movie caused sales of Nintendo's Mario games to jump.

Following the huge success of the star-studded film, Nintendo has enjoyed a strong rise in Super Mario game sales on its Switch handheld-console hybrid. Not only has the film helped rise Nintendo's IP royalty revenue to an incredibly high $131 million, but the movie is also sparking more game and hardware sales for Nintendo's Switch ecosystem.

According to sales data released by Nintendo, the Switch saw a strong 3.91 million shipments worldwide, with the bulk of consumers opting for the more expensive OLED model. This helped Nintendo reach a new all-time Q1 high in yen earnings. It's especially noteworthy that all of the models in the Nintendo Switch family are sold at a profit.

Valve's Steam Deck comes with 16GB of RAM, and you can't upgrade that - at least not in theory, but where there's a will...

Balázs Triszka achieved this feat just as you'd expect, using a BGA rework station, desoldering and removing the existing RAM modules inside the Steam Deck, and replacing them with beefier ones.

While this is clearly a trickier prospect than simply upgrading the storage on the Steam Deck, the modder notes on Twitter (as spotted by OC3D) that the task isn't that difficult "if you have the skills needed for bga rework" (naturally), adding that "there is no glue under the chips."

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom has amassed nearly 19 million sales in its first quarter on the market.

Tears of the Kingdom is a staggering success on the Switch. According to Nintendo's latest earnings report, the new landmark RPG has sold 18.51 million units in little over a month. To put that number into perspective, that's more than Elden Ring's total sales in its first six months and almost as much as Elden Ring's total-year sales of 20 million.

The new Zelda did so well that it helped Nintendo hit a new Q1 record for first-party game sales, with 15.7 million copies sold in its first weeks on the market. Our figures indicate that The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom made up 35% of Nintendo's total Q1 software sales.

FromSoftware is pulling in stellar revenues and profits on the heels of Elden Ring's breakout success.

According to games industry analyst Serkan Toto, who keeps a close eye on the Japanese games market under his Kantan Games fim, the Dark Souls and Elden Ring developer FromSoftware is doing incredibly well right now.

Kantan Games' Serkan Toto notes that FromSoftware generated $125 million in total sales throughout the last fiscal year, which ran from April 2022 to March 2023. The Japanese game developer apparently managed to keep costs of goods and total expenses on the low side and made $91 million in operating income during the period. This represents an astronomically high 60% operating profit margin--something that we rarely ever see in the video games industry.

Valve could have plans in the works to refurbish Steam Deck portables and sell them, if fresh clues spotted online are anything to go by.

PC Gamer reports that Pavel Djundik, creator of SteamDB, spotted that Valve had concocted some listings for 'Certified Refurbished' Steam Deck models in all sizes (64GB, 256GB, and 512GB).

Those listings in the Steam database have since been removed, as expected with leaks such as this, but it's a pretty solid suggestion that this is Valve's plan in the future. Or at least that the company is exploring this as a possibility.

Diablo 4 has a well-known (at this point) exploit that was facilitated by temporarily disconnecting yourself from the net, but it has now been fixed - and Blizzard is taking action against those who abused the trick.

For the uninitiated, the exploit came in with the new season, and allowed for swapping items or gold from the Eternal Realm to Seasonal Realm.

This could be done by grouping up with a friend on the Seasonal Realm, then briefly unplugging your internet, allowing you to log back in as an Eternal Realm character with all their goodies - which can then be transferred.

Might Baldur's Gate 3 get an expansion? Those hoping to play a further adventure, post-level 12 - the cap for the RPG - might have their fingers crossed, but it sounds like it's unlikely to happen given what we've just heard from the developer.

PC Gamer reports that despite the theoretical potential for an expansion that allows characters to level up beyond the current cap of level 12 in Baldur's Gate 3, Larian founder Swen Vincke very much played down any possible such outing.

As PC Gamer also points out, there are problems not just in the mobs that might be faced, but the kind of spells high-level D&D provides to players, such as the very open-ended 'wish' spell (the kind of thing a DM needs to interpret in context, ideally).

Square Enix's kicks off a new fiscal year with plummeting operating profits and net profits, but there's a good reason for this significant drop.

Square Enix's Q1 FY24 report gives key updates on the status of the Japanese publisher. The company saw a strong uptick in net sales, delivering 85.669 billion yen ($592.619 million) primarily due to the Digital Entertainment segment, which benefited from the performance of Final Fantasy XVI, MMO revenues, and multiple smartphone/PC games. Net sales grew +14.4% year-over-year on a yen basis and +7.7% YoY on a USD basis.

That's where the good news really stops, at least insofar as numbers. Square Enix's Q1 operating income and net profits were down heavily during the quarter. The publisher reported operating income of 3.097 billion yen ($21.423 million), representing a nearly 80% year-over-year decrease, and total net profits were also down by 65.7% to 18.355 billion yen ($43.58 million).

Steam's latest hardware survey for last month (July) showed that Linux has overtaken the Mac as a gaming platform.

In July, the survey shows us that Linux gamers now total 1.96%, which exceeds macOS on 1.84%. The month showed a pretty big increase for Linux, which found itself up 0.52%.

Of course, both are still absolutely miles behind the popularity of Windows with Steam gamers, which holds 96.2% of the available share across its various versions. But it's interesting to see Linux gathering momentum quickly - propelled largely by a single factor.

Rockstar Games today announced that Red Dead Redemption is coming to the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4 later this month, but this apparently is not a big remake and instead a re-release to fill out the platform base for RDR1.

It's official: Red Dead Redemption is getting re-released...but not in remake form. In fact, the game may not have been remastered all that much and may instead rely on the PS4's upscaling tech. There was no mention of graphical upgrades or extra effects on RDR1's website, and the game is being developed by Double Eleven Studios, not Rockstar Games.

Red Dead Redemption will release digitally on August 17, and the game will also be re-released in physical format on October 13. RDR1 will come packed with the Undead Nightmare and costs $49.99 on both Switch and PlayStation 4.

Baldur's Gate 3 has reached 'verified' status for Steam Deck compatibility with the release of the first patch for the RPG.

Previously, the game was rated as 'playable' meaning that it was regarded pretty much as fine, but with some niggles here and there.

As PC Gamer, which spotted this development, points out, those issues mostly revolved around the Larian Launcher (and it being necessary if the Deck wasn't hooked up to a network), and problems with the Deck's keyboard not appearing when it should.

In what seems to be an unexpected appearance in Overwatch 2, Blizzard has showcased the newest edition called The Enigma.

The confirmation of John Cena joining Overwatch 2 came after several popular Twitch streamers such as Shroud, Emongg, Kyedae, and Scump "leaked" the wrestling superstars' reveal. The official confirmation came from the overwatch YouTube account and other social media channels, which posted a trailer for its Invasion Story Missions showcasing "The Enigma" hunched over a computer.

The trailer explains that The Enigma has been working in the shadows while he watches the omic uprising in Rio, Gothenburg, and Toronto. John Cena then begins to connect with former agents of Overwatch to inform them that the invasion has begun. "Answer the call, heroes. It's time to fight back."

EA's Apex Legends franchise is one of the most popular shooters on the market today, but Call of Duty still takes the cake.

Having spawned from the critically acclaimed Titanfall franchise, Apex Legends turned heads and broke into the battle royale genre when it launched in 2019. Since then, Apex made over $2 billion in revenues and had amassed more than 100 million players as of 2021. The latest stats from Electronic Arts highlight even more key figures for the franchise and how it stacks against the competition.

According to EA's Q1'24 earnings call transcript, Apex Legends has about 18 million monthly active users (MAUs). This is a pretty respectable number, but it pales in comparison to some of today's most popular games. Call of Duty, for example, takes up the bulk of Activision's segment MAUs, which were 92 million as of June 30.

Nintendo starts out its new Fiscal Year 2024 period with record-breaking results driven by strong first-party game sales, respectable Switch shipments, and a surge in royalties from the Super Mario Bros movie.

Nintendo's latest Q1 FY24 earnings are quite impressive for a number of reasons. One reason is that even though the Switch is now entering its 7th year on the market, Nintendo managed to ship 3.91 million Switch consoles and generate $1.2 billion from hardware sales.

Another reason is the astronomically high amount of copies that Zelda Tears of the Kingdom managed to sell, capping out at an incredible 18.51 million units. That's a lot of software, especially given the new Zelda sold for $69.99 on Switch. The game was such a big hit that it actually helped drive Switch sales as well.

Retailers are discounting Sony's PlayStation 5 console and accessories to lower-than-ever price points, possibly to make room for a new revised PS5 model.

Reports indicate that Sony will launch a new disc-less PlayStation 5 model in 2023, and it may reduce the base MSRP of all new model PS5 consoles. There are currently two PS5 models on the market: the digital-only, or existing disc-less PS5 for $399, and the disc-based PS5 for $499.

Now retailers are shaving off $50 from the PS5's MSRP in the United States, bringing disc PS5s down to $449. This new price can be found practically everywhere including Best Buy, Target, GameStop, Sam's Club, and even Sony's own PlayStation Direct storefront. In some cases, the reductions are more dramatic, with the NAVY Exchange selling the system for just $429.

36 years ago, Konami changed the interactive entertainment world by introducing one of the most important stealth games of all time.

Despite not having released a new mainline game since 2015's MGSV, Konami's Metal Gear Solid series has managed to consistently sell millions of copies a year. The franchise has now broken 60 million copies as a result of continued sales, likely due to the often-heavy discounts across digital storefronts as well as the game's multi-decade cultural influence.

Konami delivered this new sales milestone in its latest website update. Every quarter, the publisher refreshes sales data for its top franchises and as Q1 FY24, Metal Gear Solid had sold 60 million units worldwide. Using the Internet Archive, I was able to chart the historical Metal Gear Solid franchise revenues from Q3 FY19 (August 2019) through June 30, 2023.