Gaming - Page 318

Microsoft apparently has no plans to immediately raise the price of its Xbox Game Pass subscription service if the merger with Activision is approved, even with the significant added value of day-and-date Call of Duty games.

In the past, Xbox CEO Phil Spencer has indicated that Microsoft could eventually raise the price of the Xbox Game Pass subscription in an effort to keep up with rising games industry costs. Right now Xbox Game Pass has two tiers: The base tier that costs $10 a month on either console or PC, and then Ultimate for $15 a month, which offers bonuses like EA titles, access to both console and PC, and cloud streaming. So what happens if the Activision merger closes, and a bulk of Activision-Blizzard games arrive on the service?

According to a new court filing, it appears that Microsoft could keep the price of Xbox Game Pass at its current rates on a post-merger basis. This is surprising given the significant added value that big games like Call of Duty and even Diablo IV will add to the service, however the strategy could work in Microsoft's favor and help surge Game Pass signups. This provision is also a means of protection, as regulators and courts may disapprove of an immediate price jump following the merger's closure.

Microsoft has no intention of disruptive Activision Blizzard King's creative operations if the two companies are allowed to merge.

Microsoft's service-first model will disrupt Activision's core business, but to what extent remains unknown. Game Pass subscriptions have been proven to cannibalize and/or reduce sales of premium games. This effect is the exact reason Activision has kept its games off of value-oriented multi-game subscription services like Game Pass--the publisher very strongly relies on full game sales in its annualized Call of Duty franchise, a series that has amassed over 425 million copies and generated over $31 billion in revenues to date. Diablo IV's recent success also underlines this disruption; the game managed to make $666 million in just five days based on game sales alone, a feat that may not have been possible if the game was release on Xbox Game Pass on a day one basis.

While the Microsoft-Activision merger will undoubtedly disrupt Activision's core business model in terms of game sales, Microsoft does not want to shake up the publisher's creative process (unfortunately, this could happen regardless due to the subscription-based business model, which could lead to a change in how games are made, alongside layoffs that are typical after consolidation).

Yoshi-P regrettably announced that Final Fantasy XVI will have a day one patch on PlayStation 5, but the game is still playable fully offline.

Square Enix originally wanted to release Final Fantasy XVI as a complete game that didn't need a day one patch. Now the devs at Creative Business Unit III have announced the game will actually have a day one update that addresses very specific bugs, but this update won't be required to play the base game.

Anyone who owns a disc version can still play Final Fantasy XVI fully offline, as well as gamers who already have FF16 installed onto their PS5. The update is not mandatory in order to start playing the game. The update will be 300MB in size and will release on June 20th, just 2 days before the game's final release.

A Diablo IV player has taken to Reddit to share the total amount of XP required to reach max level 100, revealing that half of that total XP would make the player level 85.

Blizzard Entertainment seems to have taken a page out of Jagex's book when it comes to calculating the total amount of XP required to reach a maximum level. RuneScape is notorious for having long grinds of a specific skill or multiple skills, and for a player to commit to reaching the maximum level in a specific skill, the player must be prepared to spend tens or, more typically, hundreds of hours of grinding.

In OldSchool RuneScape, for a player to hit the maximum level in a skill, they must reach level 99, or earn 13,034,431 XP. For a player to hit level 92 in a skill, they must earn 6,517,253 XP, meaning level 92 is technically halfway to level 99. Diablo IV is similar, with Reddit user Aganod44 pointing out that at level 85, a player will have around 243.5 million total XP, and the maximum level requires 487 million XP.

Ubisoft's new Avatar game may deliver one of the most captivating storylines of the year.

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora has an interesting aim. The game wants to meld first-person Far Cry-like action combat and free-roaming exploration while threading an interesting storyline through the experience. The result could be a compelling interactive journey into one of the most colorful worlds of modern entertainment.

Based on what we know about Frontiers of Pandora, the game will take on classic archetypes and motifs like the traditional Hero's Journey adventure that was first posited by Joseph Campbell. The game will have a distinct fantasy mythos undercurrent that carries the entire storyline; in Frontiers of Pandora, you play as a Na'vi that was specifically trained by humans to kill other Na'vi. Eventually you break away from the RDA and have to discover yourself, your culture, and to truly understand what it means to be Na'vi.

Streaming platform Kick wants to make its mark in the billion-dollar ad market, and has poached one of the biggest names in streaming.

xQc has signed an incredibly lucrative two-year agreement with Kick, a new fledgling streaming platform launched in 2022. The non-exclusive deal is worth nearly $70 million, with incentives that could raise the deal's worth to $100 million. xQc's agent Ryan Morrison tells New York Times reporter Kellen Browning that the deal is bigger than those signed by pro athletes.

"This is more than most professional athletes and megastars. This is one of the highest deals in entertainment, period."

Microsoft legal counsel suggests that the company could abandon the $68.7 billion merger with Activision if federal courts grants the FTC's request for a preliminary injunction.

The fate of the Microsoft-Activision merger may hang in the balance of a decision from Northern California's federal courts. In a recent court filing, Microsoft and Activision lawyers indicate that the acquisition could be terminated if Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley issues a preliminary injunction at the FTC's behest.

The U.S. antitrust Commission wants to stop the merger, and has challenged the deal in its own internal administrative courts instead of in federal court. This is by design: The FTC can effectively kill the merger through years-long process where the Commissioners, not the Administrative Law Judge who oversees the case, have the final say on merger approval. The FTC has been creative in its tactics. In the most recent motion, Microsoft lawyers say that the FTC opted for an 8-month schedule for the admin case rather than a shorter 5-month proceeding, which set the first hearing on August 2, well past the merger's July 18 expiration date.

Sony Interactive Entertainment is still hesitant to disrupt its virtuous cycle business model and follow Microsoft's lead.

Sony has a great thing going right now. The company sells millions of games and makes lots of profit from PlayStation 5 hardware and accessories. While Sony's newer multi-game PlayStation Plus subscription model takes direct inspiration from Xbox Game Pass, the company isn't ready to disrupt its own business and put services and engagement at the forefront of its gaming empire.

Services like PlayStation Plus are additive for Sony. The reverse is true for Xbox, and Game Pass is at the heart of Microsoft's gaming business. This is reflected through the dramatic decision to release first-party Xbox games day-one on Game Pass, a move that lowers the potential full game sales opportunities for these titles. Sony, on the other hand, isn't ready to forgo game sales just yet, and for good reason: Its AAA titles have sold tens of millions of copies.

Three of Twitch's top executives sit down to answer questions about the new Partner Plus program.

Today, Twitch introduced its Partner Plus program. The initiative allows streamers to keep 70% of net revenue generated from subscriptions, provided they meet certain criteria.

These qualifications include:

Gen 8 is finished, and Microsoft is now focusing on the Xbox Series X/S console duo.

Following expanded efforts to preserve backwards compatibility across four generations of consoles, the advent of Smart Delivery, and a 3-year cross-gen transition period, Microsoft is now moving on from the Xbox One generation. The billion-dollar tech giant is now solely focusing its new games for the Gen 9 Xbox Series X and Series S consoles introduced in 2020.

In a recent interview with Axio's Stephen Totilo (via Axios Gaming's newsletter, sign up here), Xbox Game Studios boss Matt Booty confirms that the company's 23 internal studios are no longer making new games for the Xbox One.

Microsoft has revealed new performance measurements that highlight the company's engagement-driven business model.

In some ways, Xbox is a lot different than PlayStation. Microsoft's games division has prioritized services, subscriptions, and digital engagement above all else, and this paradigm shift has helped the Xbox brand stay competitive. Along with cross-platform unification through OS and services, Game Pass is the purest example of this model. The subscription thrives from the breadth of content offered, but also the successful capturing and exploitation of player engagement through key online-driven and replayable experiences.

This model is paying off in terms of players engaged with specific titles, which remains a critical part of today's video games market. The most popular and lucrative games on the planet rely on digital engagement models that monetize players over time directly through in-game purchases, but Xbox Game Pass is another method of indirect monetization through recurring subscriptions. Rather than just relying on full game sales alone, Xbox is diversifying its games to leverage the strongest elements of engagement through steady digital content releases. These ultimately serve both monetization and retention of its Game Pass service.

If you're gaming on a PC, then no doubt most of that time is spent using Valve's Steam client, and today it just got a massive update that overhauls everything from the underlying framework and codebase to the UI elements, in-game overlay, and more.

In fact, if you fire up Steam, you'll notice that even things like font choices and how information and notifications are laid out look different.

This update has been in the works for quite some time, with the big goal being how the client shares code between its various modes - Steam Desktop Client, Big Picture mode, and Steam Deck. This means new features and updates will be easier for Valve to implement going forward. Plus, hardware acceleration has been added to Steam's Mac and Linux versions.

Rather than focusing exclusively on mega-hit AAA blockbusters, Xbox Game Pass helps fuel the development of experimental passion projects like Obsidian's Grounded and Pentiment games, and Xbox management sees the service as a kind of cyclic wheel that helps foster creativity.

Game Pass is one of the most interesting and disruptive parts of the modern video games industry. The service not only packs tremendous value due to sheer volume of content offered, but the real driver is the diversity of the games included in the subscription. Microsoft's day-one first-party releases have created an environment where Xbox Game Studios devs can pitch, fund, and eventually release the games they've always wanted to make, including Minecraft offshoots like the Diablo-like Minecraft Dungeons and Rare's Sea of Thieves.

This has fostered a wide array of unique first-party games that appeal to the full spectrum of gaming, from AA indies to long-lasting service games and heavy-hitting AAA titles like, for instance, the Forza series.

The director of Cyberpunk 2077's new Phantom Liberty expansion will also lead the next game in the franchise.

According to a new Bloomberg feature, Phantom Liberty is more than just post-release content. It's essentially a Cyberpunk 2077 refresh that's been in development for over two years. CD Projekt is using the $30 expansion as a gateway to significantly overhaul the game, including new systems, graphical capabilities, and a forced migration over to SSDs on PC.

Gabe Amatangelo, the director of Phantom Liberty, was essentially given a blank check by CD Projekt RED to fix the game. Amatangelo started first with Patch 1.5, which natively optimized the game to leverage the power of PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S systems. The director has had great success so far, and this gave CD Projekt the confidence to have Amatangelo also direct the big-budget sequel to Cyberpunk 2077.

As of March 2023, People Can Fly still haven't received royalty payments for its Outriders looter-shooter.

Today People Can Fly announced a big new partnership with Microsoft to develop a new Xbox game. The game is codenamed Project Maverick, and could be some sort of first-person or third-person looter shooter that aligns with the Polish game publisher's core action focus.

While scouting the publisher's investor relations page, I noticed something interesting: Outriders, the well-received third-person co-op game released in 2021, has yet to turn a profit. Outriders was financed by Square Enix and People Can Fly were to receive royalties if the game broke even. As of March of this year, Square Enix hasn't sent any royalties to People Can Fly.

People Can Fly, the developers behind Bulletstorm and Outriders, today announced a lucrative multi-year contract to develop a big new Xbox game for Microsoft.

Polish game developer People Can Fly are pretty busy. The team are currently working on a handful of projects, including new 3 self-published games in IPs wholly-owned by PCF, a new game in an IP owned by Square Enix called Project Gemini, and VR content as well as other concepts.

Following the cancellation of a big publishing deal with Take-Two Interactive, the studio has been seeking new opportunities with other companies. Now it's found a new deal with one of the best independent-friendly companies in gaming. People Can Fly has secured a contract to make a new Xbox game with a hefty $30 - 50 million budget.

PlayStation 5 games are coming to PS Plus Premium game streaming, Sony has announced.

Sony Interactive Entertainment is currently testing out PS5 game streaming on its PS Plus Premium service. As it currently stands, the $119/year PS Plus Premium only offers PS4 titles and games in the Classics Catalog section for game streaming.

"We're currently testing cloud streaming for supported PS5 games - this includes PS5 titles from the PlayStation Plus Game Catalog and Game Trials, as well as supported digital PS5 titles that players own," PlayStation services executive Nick Maguire said on the PlayStation Blog.

Federal judge Jaqueline Scott Corley has granted the FTC's request for a temporary restraining order in the Microsoft-Activision merger case, but the most important order has yet to be issued.

In a bid to stall (and ultimately prevent) the Microsoft-Activision merger from closing, the Federal Trade Commission sought two court orders from federal courts: a temporary restraining order (TRO), which would prohibit Microsoft and Activision from merging for a specified period of time, and the more important preliminary injunction (PI), an order that would restrict the merger from closing until after the FTC's internal administrative lawsuit is complete. The tech firms have indicated they would "close-over," or merge together despite the ongoing FTC admin lawsuit, at any time after June 15. This pressured the FTC to file for emergency intervention from federal courts.

Northern California District Judge Jaqueline Corley has approved the FTC's request for a TRO. This order temporarily restrains Microsoft and Activision from merging. The two billion-dollar games companies cannot join together until five days after the court decides whether or not to issue the preliminary injunction order. The PI order remains the FTC's main goal with seeking federal intervention.

Blizzard has taken to its social channels to reveal some statistics that have been accumulated over the week Diablo IV has released.

Blizzard took to its Diablo Twitter account to share a graphic that showcases a bunch of interesting stats, one of which is particularly humorous, and that's the fact that of the 316,991,632 player deaths, 5,792,063 of them can be awarded to The Butcher. According to Blizzard's stats, The Butcher is responsible for 1.6% of all player deaths over the first week of Diablo IV being released.

Diablo IV fans were quick to comment on the hilarious stat, with one writing, "I have added to that stat many times", and another writing, "He is a damn sponge and hits like a truck. I leave the dungeon and re-enter. He has no business being that tough." Another gamer wrote, "The one time I've even seen him was after joining a buddy's game whilst hearing him scream, "THE BUTCHER IS HERREEE".

Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty is the big story expansion for CD Projekt Red's visually stunning first-person action RPG, and it's out this September. In addition to presenting a new cinematic story with more Keanu Reeves as Johnny Silverhand and Idris Elba as Solomon Reed, it will take players to a new section of Night City called Dogtown with the overall tone described as a "spy thriller."

And with the base game being on the absolute bleeding edge regarding in-game visuals and real-time ray-tracing, NVIDIA has confirmed that the expansion will support DLSS 3 at launch alongside the Technology Preview of the Ray Tracing: Overdrive Mode, which is a fully path-traced version of the game that requires the use of DLSS 3 to ensure a playable frame-rate on account of, well, ray-tracing for just about everything you see.

And with that, we've got the full PC requirements for the Phantom Liberty expansion covering everything from the minimum specs to the non-RT Ultra requirements and the fact that you'll need a GeForce RTX 4080 to play with the Ray Tracing: Overdrive Mode enabled in 4K at 60 frames-per-second.