Gaming - Page 314

You've heard about Games-as-a-Service...well get ready for Games-as-a-Platform.

Ubisoft has an interesting plan to sell an Assassin's Creed product that will serve as a hub for new games in the series. It's called Assassin's Creed Infinity, and it could end up being a new entry in the video games industry's new nascent Games-as-a-Platform (GaaP) concept. Halo Infinite was the first example of this--343 Industries said that future Halo games would no longer be numbered--but so far the plan has somewhat fizzled. Then EA CEO Andrew Wilson mentioned the Games-as-a-Platform concept in the company's Fiscal Year 2023 earnings call.

But it could be Ubisoft who executes on this idea first, and the company is currently working on what appears Infinity's content pipeline. Ubisoft has referred to the game as the "Infinity Hub," and we could conceptualize it as a full-game client or storefront that's contained in a specific piece of software. Imagine going to the store and buying a disc, but instead of just one game, you're also buying an access point to other games as well as DLC and in-game purchases.

New infographs from an Xbox presentation at Brazil's BIG Festival reveal Xbox console sales figures for both Gen 8 and Gen 9 cycles.

At the Big Festival 2023 event, Leonardo Barros Barreto. Director of Partner Production Management at Xbox delivered a presentation entitled Xbox - Opportunities for Developers ranging from ID@Xbox to Game Pass. In this presentation, Barreto showed a slide deck with interesting figures on Xbox hardware sales across last-gen and the current Xbox Series generation. This presentation was not livestreamed as part of the BIG Festival videos.

According to the figures, the Xbox Series X/S have sold a combined 21 million units. No specificity regarding timing was given--we don't know if that's current numbers, or if it's as of a certain date, and we don't know whether or not this is shipments, installed base, or sell-through figures. Despite the ambiguity around the number, it does still give us an idea of how well the new-gen Xbox duo are performing.

Data revealed in the FTC v Microsoft federal case gives a closer look at Nintendo's dominant lead in the console publishing segment.

Most gamers already know just how big Nintendo is. Microsoft really drove this point home in key witness testimony in the federal case with the intent to undermine the FTC's high-performance relevant market, which omitted Nintendo from the picture. Not only does the Switch have substitution effects with PlayStation and Xbox, but the device is the best-selling console across both Gen 8 and Gen 9 systems.

Testimony from economist Dr. Liz Bailey outlines just how big Nintendo is compared to PlayStation, Xbox, and other third-party publishers in the console gaming market. According to data provided by her in the courtroom, and relayed by mLex reporter Michael Achton, Nintendo has a $3.8 billion lead over Sony's publishing revenues, and a significant $3.8 billion lead over Xbox.

According to economist Dr. Bailey, Nintendo is indeed a competitor in the console market, and her findings poke holes in the FTC's narrowed high-performance market definition.

Economist Dr. Bailey represented defendants Microsoft and Activision in the ongoing FTC v Microsoft federal case. She was examined as a witness, and her testimony poked holes in the Commission's narrow high-performance console market definition, which excluded Nintendo from the Big 3.

In an effort to simplify the console market, the FTC enlisted economist Professor Lee to help identify potential foreclosure risks in a relevant market. This marked was known as the high-performance relevant console market, which removed Nintendo and PCs as competitors against PlayStation and Xbox consoles. This allowed the FTC to isolate their focus on PlayStation vs Xbox with the rationale that these platforms compete more closely with one another than they do with Nintendo, and while that's true on the surface, Dr. Bailey's testimony quickly undermined this assessment.

Activision CEO Bobby Kotick regrets not releasing more games onto the Nintendo Switch, says that his decision not to support the Switch was a mistake.

The Nintendo Switch is currently the best-selling console on the market with over 125 million shipments worldwide. Suffice it to say, the Switch is one of the best places you can release a game apart from the revenue-leading PlayStation. That's a big reason why Activision CEO Bobby Kotick thinks it was a bad judgement call to discount Nintendo's transformative handheld-console hybrid.

In the recent FTC v Microsoft federal case, Kotick gave testimony where he confirmed Activision looked at bringing Call of Duty onto the Switch before Nintendo launched its console in 2017. Kotick says that not releasing Call of Duty on the Switch was "bad judgement." This indicates that Activision did, at first, intend to bring Call of Duty on the Switch at launch, but Kotick decided against it once he saw the prototype. Kotick didn't think the Switch was going to be successful.

In the closing arguments of the FTC v Microsoft federal preliminary injunction case, Federal Trade Commission lawyer James Weingarten summarizes the ways in which the Microsoft-Activision merger could harm consumers.

The FTC believes the $68.7 billion Microsoft-Activision merger would harm competition in the video games market across multiple dimensions, including the high-performance console market and the subscription & cloud gaming market.

Throughout the case, we've heard testimony from key witnesses that reveal the various methods, strategies, and scenarios employed by the Xbox games business to gain a competitive edge across all dimensions of the gaming market, and how Xbox plans to use Activision to further its plans to eventually deliver over $32 billion in revenues and become the market leader by 2030.

Starfield made quite the splash in the Xbox 2023 showcase with its graphics and overall presentation, and Todd Howard says a lot of that was because of the new-and-improved Creation Engine 2.

Bethesda Game Studios has been working on the major Creation Engine 2 overhaul for quite some time. Starfield has been in development for 8 years, and during that time, the studio has been iterating on its existing Creation Engine to upgrade it for the new Xbox Series X/S console generation. While most of Starfield's development has been in-house, Microsoft's ATG (Advanced Technology Group) has been assisting Bethesda Game Studios since early 2022, helping with things like console optimization to ensure Starfield looks and runs great on both the Series S and Series X consoles.

In a recent interview with Kinda Funny Gamescast, Todd Howard shared his thoughts on the enhanced games engine and discussed things like volumetric fog and the new global illumination system.

Activision's CEO is a big believer in native mobile gaming, and thinks that phones will eventually be able to play high-end PlayStation 5 quality games.

Over the past two years, Activision's revenues have become mobile-centric. In 2021 and 2022, Activision Blizzard King made most of its revenues from the mobile segment thanks to big successes like Diablo Immortal, Call of Duty Mobile, and of course King's Candy Crush. This push towards mobile will continue with this year's release of Warzone Mobile in the fall.

It shouldn't be much surprise then that Activision CEO Bobby Kotick is praising mobile tech. In Day 4 of the recent FTC v Microsoft federal court hearing, Kotick was asked specifically about the merits of native mobile gaming versus streaming, especially in the relation of bringing Activision games like Call of Duty to streaming services.

Activision's executive management stands to receive hefty payouts of millions of dollars if the Microsoft-Activision merger goes through, but Activision CEO Bobby Kotick's company stock portfolio could be worth in excess of $400 million.

In order to secure Activision Blizzard King to fund its mobile gaming and Game Pass ambitions, Microsoft has made an offer to buy 100% of Activision stock at a $95 per share premium. This adds up to a $68.7 billion deal, the largest-ever for Microsoft and the biggest acquisition in video games history (over five times the value of Take-Two's $12.7 billion Zynga buyout).

If Microsoft acquires ABK at $95 per share, there are a number of high-profile Activision executives that will receive big payouts. The company's largest executive shareholder is CEO Bobby Kotick, who currently owns 4,296,550 shares as per 2023's notice of annual meeting of shareholders.

Fallout creator and lead programmer Tim Cain raises his concerns about what Fallout 5's character creation system could be like.

Modern Fallout and Elder Scrolls games have strayed away from the integral RPG-based DNA that once defined the franchises. We've seen Bethesda remove key features like traits and skills from modern Fallout games, and Skyrim, released in 2012, got rid of attributes altogether. This has raised some questions on what RPG elements will be pared back in Fallout 5.

Tim Cain, who helped create the original Fallout game in the late 1990s at Interplay, had some interesting thoughts about what could happen in Fallout 5.

Thanks to the FTC v Microsoft federal court case, gamers now have a better idea of when The Elder Scrolls VI could release.

Bethesda announced The Elder Scrolls VI in 2018, way before it was purchased by Microsoft for $7.5 billion. Bethesda's Todd Howard has only let little bits and pieces about Elder Scrolls 6 slip between the cracks, confirming the game is in pre-production and that Starfield is the studio's main focus.

Now Microsoft and Bethesda have inadvertently updated gamers through the recent FTC v Microsoft federal evidentiary hearing. According to transcripts from the hearing, it looks like The Elder Scrolls VI could launch sometime between 2026 and 2028.

Final Fantasy 16 is a big success for Square Enix, but the game hasn't sold as many copies as Final Fantasy 15. There's some very good reasons why this is the case.

Square Enix has recently announced that Final Fantasy 16 has sold 3 million copies worldwide, a figure that represents combined shipments and digital sales. How do we best gauge this data? We're seeing lots of comparisons of this data to the last mainline game in the series, Final Fantasy 15. This isn't the best comparison, though.

The reality is that the launch conditions between these two games are very different. Final Fantasy 16 released on one platform, the PlayStation 5, whereas Final Fantasy 15 simultaneously launched on both PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Not only that, but the games released at distinctly different timeframes, with Final Fantasy 16 launching the summer, and Final Fantasy 15 launching during the holidays in 2016, which is the biggest time of the year for video game sales.

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.