Gaming - Page 327

The European Commission has approved the Microsoft-Activision merger under specific conditions, and the agreement seems like great news for gamers and cloud gaming providers.

In order to get the Activision merger cleared in Europe, Microsoft has made substantial wide-sweeping promises that could help catalyze the un-profitable cloud gaming segment. Microsoft has made commitments to bring all current and future Activision-Blizzard games that are available on PC and consoles to cloud game streaming services if the merger closes.

This essentially means that every Activision-Blizzard game sold on consoles and PC will also be streamable via cloud gaming services like NVIDIA GeForce, Boosteroid, and of course Xbox Game Pass Ultimate's xCloud platform.

The European Commission has approved the Microsoft-Activision merger.

Today regulators at the European Commission have decided to clear and approve the Microsoft-Activision merger, with the EC saying that the deal "represents a significant improvement for cloud gaminga s compared to the current situation."

Regulators require Microsoft to uphold its specific 10-year remedies, which offer a free license to all consumers in the European Economic Area to stream all current and future Activision Blizzard PC and console games across any cloud game streaming service of their choice.

Fallout, the post-apocalyptic role-playing series, is one of the most popular gaming franchises under the Bethesda and Xbox stable. Although we don't have confirmation on when the next game is set to arrive, there's a high-profile television series for Prime Video coming in the not-too-distant future.

Looking at the past, though, Fallout began in 1997 as an isometric single-player RPG for PC from Interplay. Before that, Fallout co-creator Tim Cain started working on the game in 1994 as a spiritual successor to a 1988 game called Wasteland. Fallout's history dates back to the rise of complex and iconic PC RPGs from the 1990s, where it found immediate critical acclaim.

Today, Tim Cain drops little nuggets of RPG lore gold on YouTube, covering his storied and celebrated career. The latest covers the original concept behind Fallout's mysterious Vaults - underground facilities and shelters created by the Vault-Tec Corporation that often hide some dark and unsettling truth.

The new ASUS ROG Ally gaming handheld is right around the corner, with the higher-powered Ryzen Z1 Extreme model set to debut on June 13 with a price point of USD 699. We know it can handle playing modern titles across Steam, the Xbox app, and more, but what about emulation?

The ROG Ally's Z1 Extreme CPU is an 8-core (16-thread) processor, boasting 8.6 Teraflops of GPU performance via integrated RDNA 3 graphics. The lower-tier Ryzen Z1 (non Extreme) model features a 6-core (12-thread) chip and 2.8 Teraflops of GPU performance. This model is set to debut later, sometime in July at this stage, with a price point of USD 599.

With prices that put the ASUS ROG Ally gaming handheld in the same category as the larger-storage-spec Steam Deck variants, we've also seen the ROG Ally get into the hands of several reviewers - including those that specialize in retro gaming.

Nintendo and Sony have both updated their hardware sales figures, so we decided to take a closer look at how these two gaming titans compare in console and handheld sales.

The Nintendo Switch just passed 125 million shipments, and Sony's PlayStation 5 has now reached 38.4 million shipments worldwide. This pushes both platform-holder's respective hardware sales up a smidgen over last quarter, but it's still interesting to put the numbers up against each other. We would include Xbox hardware sales, however that data is spotty, and we're instead relying on information provided by Sony and Nintendo.

There's some big context points that we need to go over beforehand. First, Nintendo hardware pre-dates PlayStation by 11 years. And second, this data is in sell-in, or shipments made to retailers, and does not reflect the full sell-through figures that represent the actual units sold to consumers.

Unlike its competitors at PlayStation and Xbox, Nintendo has made most of its software revenues from first-party games.

Surprising no one, earnings reports clearly show that people buy Nintendo hardware to play Nintendo games. What is surprising, however, is just how much money that the company makes from first-party games versus third-party titles.

According to data published by the Japanese games firm and analyzed by TweakTown, Nintendo has made over $34.5 billion from software in the past 7 years since the Switch's release. Revenues from first-party games represent 81% of Nintendo's total software revenues, or $27.9 billion of the total. On the other hand, third-party game revenues were 19% or about $6.6 billion across the Switch's current lifespan.

The Switch's new sales milestone has pushed total Nintendo hardware shipments to 836.65 million, and we take a closer look at the breakdown between console and handheld numbers.

Every quarter, Nintendo and the rest of the games industry updates and refreshes key performance metrics. One of the most interesting bits of info concerns hardware and software sales, especially when comparing new systems that benefit from advancements like digital delivery and subscriptions against historical legacy platforms.

On this note, we see the Nintendo Switch has quickly become the star of Nintendo's core games business. It helps that the Switch family encompasses 3 devices, but more than that, the Switch is an evolution of all of Nintendo's past consoles and handhelds. So how does the Switch stack up against other platforms insofar as hardware sales, and how much has it affected total HW sell-in?

It's official: The Nintendo Switch has now sold over 1 billion games, and the Switch now accounts for over 18% of all software that Nintendo has ever sold on its platforms.

The Nintendo Switch just entered its 7th year on the market and the handheld-console ecosystem is still breaking new barriers. The Switch recently broke the 125 million shipments milestone and has also now sold a total of 1036.15 (or 1.036 billion) million games. The Switch family, which includes the base Switch from 2017, the Switch Lite introduced in 2019, and the premium Switch OLED in 2021, is currently #1 in total Nintendo software sales and #2 in hardware sales, just behind the classic DS.

Taking a closer look at software sales and we can highlight some interesting trends. To date, Nintendo has sold 5.592 billion games across all of its console and handheld systems, and the Switch makes up about 18.5% of these total sales.

From launch to present, Nintendo has generated over $69 billion from its Switch family of products.

The Switch has had a remarkable 7-year run, and the hardware is only just now starting to slow down. The Switch handheld-console ecosystem just broke the 125 million shipment milestone, and has now sold more software than any other platform in Nintendo history. It could also beat the Nintendo DS by 2025.

Based on data provided by Nintendo and collected by us, the Switch family of hardware has made about $69.043 billion for Nintendo in the last 7 years on the market (March 2017 - March 2023). The company has made over $74 billion in total net sales since the Switch's launch, with the remaining $5 billion being generated from other platforms and segments, including the 3DS handheld.

Popular belief is that Sony led to the creation to a market designation that removed Nintendo from the Big 3. Is that the case? We investigate further in an attempt to discover answers.

The Federal Trade Commission turned heads when it created the High-Performance Console Market in an effort to narrow its focus to PlayStation vs Xbox in the Microsoft-Activision merger antitrust case. This is a common practice for regulators, who often recognize what are called "relevant markets," or areas of competition that could be affected by a merger. In so doing, the FTC effectively removes Nintendo, one of the most powerful forces in gaming history, from the equation altogether.

The FTC has determined three areas where the Microsoft-Activision merger could cause anti-competitive effects: Consoles, multi-game subscriptions, and cloud gaming subscription services. "The Proposed Acquisition is reasonably likely to substantially lessen competition or tend to create a monopoly in the Relevant Markets for High-Performance Consoles, MultiGame Content Library Subscription Services, and Cloud Gaming Subscription Services," the FTC wrote in its December-filed Complaint.

FTC Chain Lina Khan denies allegations of potential collusion between the FTC and overseas agencies, and directly responds to comments from former SEC chair and NEC director.

The FTC's decision to sue to block the Microsoft-Activision merger has been met with widespread scrutiny. The FTC was the first to take legal action against the merger, and UK regulators at the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) also chose to block the merger in late April. Activision CEO Bobby Kotick, who stands to gain about $185 million in share value if the merger goes through, went so far as to say the CMA has been "used as a tool by the FTC," and that the British agency has been "co-opted by FTC ideology."

Other officials have expressed similar sentiments, with former SEC chair Jay Clayton and NEC director Gary Cohn outlining their thoughts in a New York Times op-ed piece entitled The Microsoft-Activision Mess is a Blow to American Sovereignty. In this op-ed, both Clayton and Cohn say that the FTC seems to be 'outsourcing U.S. regulatory policy to Europe:

Nintendo's handheld-console hybrid just entered its 7th year on the market, but that hasn't stopped the platform from shipping over 125 million units.

The Nintendo Switch is understandably cooling down as it enters Year 7, however total cumulative worldwide shipments have broken 125.62 million as of March 30, 2023. The Switch could very well become Nintendo's best-selling hardware ecosystem of all time and dethrone the DS. How likely is that to happen, though?

Before we celebrate the Switch's milestone, we need to take a closer look at the system's overall shipment trends. FY23 shipments were actually down a considerable 5 million units year-over-year to 17.97 million. Nintendo also missed its shipment target by over 1 million units for the year. Nintendo says Switch production has been affected by the shortage of semiconductors in the first half of FY23.

Nintendo will not release new next-gen hardware until April 2024 at the earliest, sources tell Nikkei Asia, however that point was made starkly clear in Nintendo's latest financials.

Nintendo has no plans to launch a new Switch model in 2023 or early 2024. While sources have re-affirmed this point to Japanese publication Nikkei Asia, saying that "a [new] product launch won't happen before next spring at the earliest," only glance at Nintendo's financials tells us everything we need to know.

First let's take a look at Nintendo's forecasts. The company saw a steep $3 billion+ decline in net sales revenue, driven by decreased hardware and software sales. Switch shipments also declined by 5 million units, and while shipments do not equal sell-through, Nintendo has confirmed sell-through also declined, leading to a drop of $1.7 billion hardware earnings.

UK competition regulators at the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) have been informed about Microsoft's next-generation Xbox hardware, the agency's final report indicates.

The CMA's final decision report on the Microsoft-Activision merger is filled with lots of interesting information. In a section outlining the future of the cloud gaming market, the CMA asserts that it has seen Microsoft's internal discussions about new Xbox console hardware.

According to page 200 of the report, Microsoft had outlined its strategies for next-gen Xbox consoles as early as September 2022, and the CMA was made familiar with these plans.

FTC Chair Lina Khan reiterates the Commission's scrutiny of the $68.7 billion Microsoft-Activision merger.

In a recent interview with CNBC, Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan talks briefly about the agency's decision to sue to block the Microsoft-Activision merger, asserting that U.S. antitrust regulators have a responsibility to prevent big tech firms from stifling competition and innovation.

The FTC has faced strong pushback for its decision to stand in the way of the Microsoft-Activision combination, with the FTC's lawsuit bringing the merger to an adjudicative process within its own administrative court. The FTC's Complaint Counsel has been thorough and diligent in its discovery phase, gathering millions of documents from Microsoft and Activision, as well as various third-party games industry companies like Sony Interactive Entertainment, Valve, Take-Two Interactive, and Nintendo, who was just ordered to provide key details on the 10-year Call of Duty deal that it signed with Microsoft.

Electronics-maker Sharp Corp. tells investors that it plans to manufacture LCD screens for "new game consoles," hinting at handheld systems.

Sharp recently posted a new earnings brief that mentions the company is supplying LCD panels for new consoles. Bloomberg's Takashi Mochizuki caught the reference, and Sharp actually removed the comment shortly after the report went live.

Popular consensus is that Sharp's LCD panels will be used in the next-gen Switch that's currently in development at Nintendo. This new model is expected to built on NVIDIA's new Orin 8nm architecture, with significantly higher performance capabilities, including 4K gaming through built-in DLSS support. Nintendo may have chose an LCD panel for the initial wave of next-gen Switch handhelds to keep MSRP as low as possible; Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa commented on rising costs of chip fabrication, manufacturing, and component assembly in the company's recent FY23 Q&A report.

Elden Ring is a smash success with 20.5 million lifetime sales as of March 2023.

FromSoftware's Elden Ring was a lightning in a bottle moment that happens once every generation. The game offered an incredibly robust open world filled with mysteries that sent players on a kind of massive interactive scavenger hunt. The collective gaming world came together to share their findings in a fun social experience. Judging by the review scores, this year's equivalent could be Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.

Elden Ring's significant popularity led to incredible sales for Bandai Namco, FromSoftware, and the developer's parent company Kadokawa Group. Charted data shows that Elden Ring managed to sell some 500,000 copies since its one-year anniversary in February 2023.

NetherRealm is manipulating time once again, and has rewinded the clock back to the early days of Mortal Kombat.

New leaks indicate that Mortal Kombat 12 will actually be a series reboot called Mortal Kombat 1. Now we know exactly what Ed Boon's recent tease was referring to when it showed a clock whose second hand skipped 12 and wouldn't move past 1.

The info was leaked by Twitter insider @billbil-kun, who has a great track record with pre-emptive reveals and unreleased info. Mortal Kombat 1 is to be exclusive to current-gen consoles like the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S, and it will be priced at the new $70 MSRP of these systems. Mortal Kombat 1 is also coming to the Nintendo Switch at a $59.99 price point.

This year's Call of Duty game will be called Modern Warfare III, sources tell Insider Gaming's Tom Henderson.

Reports indicate that Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 is the next premium COD release, and the game is set to launch in November 10, 2023. MW3 is expected to have all the content that players expect from a mainline Call of Duty title, including a gripping campaign that leverages the franchise's new IW 9.0 games engine, a full suite of multiplayer modes, a PvE zombies survival mode, and new Warzone 2 seasonal content.

Sledgehammer Games, the devs behind Advanced Warfare and Call of Duty WWII, is leading principal development of Modern Warfare 3, with the full suite of Activision's other studios also assisting development.

ASUS has just launched its ROG Ally gaming handheld, and we've found out that the rumor mill has been pretty much spot-on in terms of spec leaks and the pricing of the devices.

ASUS confirmed that the Steam Deck rival will cost $599 for the base ROG Ally with AMD's Z1 processor, and the higher-tier model - with the Z1 Extreme CPU - is going to carry a price of $699.

You can now pre-order the ROG Ally of your choice, and we're told that shipping will start next month, on June 13, for the Ryzen Z1 Extreme model. The vanilla spin of the handheld will be out later, in Q3 of 2023 (so technically, that could be July).