Gaming - Page 339

Red Dead Online Stadia players will be able to transfer their saves and progress over to another platform, but only if they meet this requirement.

Stadia is about to close down, but some developers are allowing players to transfer their hard-earned progress over to another platform. Much to the delight of players who have sunk hundreds or thousands of hours into the gamer, Rockstar Games is letting Stadia players migrate their Red Dead Online saves over to PC, PS4, or Xbox One (other examples also include Bethesda migrating Elder Scrolls Online data over as well).

There's just one catch...and it's a pretty big one. There's actually a cut off date to qualify for the migration path. To migrate your saves over to PC, you have to have logged into Red Dead Online 30 days before Google announced the closure of Stadia on September 29, 2022.

1990s PlayStation classic Parasite Eve may be the next Square Enix game to make a comeback.

Square Enix just filed a new trademark for Symbiogenesis in Japan, which could indicate a revival of its Parasite Eve franchise, or at least a spiritual successor. The term itself is defined as the "merging of two separate organisms to form a new single organism" which directly relates to the bio-horror game's central plot.

Originally published in 1998, Parasite Eve saw three releases across multiple PlayStation consoles (the first two games launched on PS1, and the Third Birthday launched on PS3). Interestingly enough, Square Enix may not be able to use the actual Parasite Eve name for this new project even if it is related to the original series.

Valve has expressed interest in bringing Game Pass to Steam, but could the megaton $70 billion Microsoft-Activision merger change things?

Back in February 2022, Valve's head honcho Gabe Newell said he'd like to work with Microsoft to get Xbox Game Pass on Steam. "We'd be more than happy to work with them to get that on Steam," Newell had told PC Gamer at the time.

Interestingly enough, Newell said this a month after Microsoft publicly announced that it wanted to purchase Activision-Blizzard for $70 billion. On the surface, it looks like Newell and Valve as a whole would be okay with integrating Xbox Game Pass onto Steam on a post-merger level, which could include multiple access points to big PC games like Call of Duty, Diablo, and possibly even World of Warcraft.

Steam has set a new concurrent player record, signalling that the PC gaming market is growing rapidly.

There are more gamers currently playing on Steam than there ever have been before. According to new figures from Steam DB and Valve's own Steam Charts database, over 30 million people logged on Steam in the last 24 hours. This is a new concurrent player milestone record that clearly underlines that the PC market is not only growing, but Valve's storefront-platform is more competitive than ever.

So what games are players currently engaged with? The most-played list is made up of the usual suspects. At the time of writing there are nearly 27 million concurrent users on Steam, and the charts see Counter-Strike Global Offensive reigning supreme with over 760,000 players in game, followed up by over 670,000 DOTA 2 players. Lost Ark is high on the list with over 200,000 players, and PUBG is also hitting over 200,000. EA's billion-dollar battle royale Apex Legends is a little under 150,000 on Steam right now.

Microsoft believes that five years is enough time for Sony to prepare for the loss of Call of Duty (and potentially other Activision-Blizzard franchises).

Right now UK regulators at the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) are closely scrutinizing Microsoft's proposed merger with Activision. Following a massive 70-page report from the CMA, Microsoft issued its own 33-page response that contains a treasure trove of data, insights, valuable roadmaps for the future of Xbox, and interesting arguments in favor of the merger.

One of these counterclaims is particularly interesting. Microsoft previously confirmed the existence of the controversial Call of Duty exclusivity contract first revealed by Sony's Jim Ryan. This contract would extend access to Call of Duty on PlayStation for at least the end of 2027. Now Microsoft argues that this timeframe gives Sony ample preparation for what it refers to as possible foreclosure strategies, which could indicate maneuvers like Call of Duty and other Activision franchises being kept off PlayStation platforms.

Uncharted just arrived on PC for the first time ever with the Legacy of Thieves Collection (Steam, Epic Store), but gamers shouldn't expect to see the first three Uncharted games on PC.

Today represents a major milestone for Sony as it brings one of its biggest PlayStation exclusive franchises over to PC. The Uncharted Legacy of Thieves Collection continues Sony's push onto the PC market as it chases compounding, recurring revenues on the $36 billion dollar PC market.

Sony has confirmed some games just won't show up on PC, though. This selection of games includes the original Uncharted trilogy, which apparently would take too much time to port and optimize for PC.

Final Fantasy XVI is practically done and the team is currently making significant progress in finalizing the game for its Summer 2023 launch.

Today Square Enix's Dev III team confirmed that Final Fantasy XVI's development has entered the "home stretch" and the core workforce is now focusing on bug fixes and finishing touches. The game hasn't gone gold yet (meaning it's not totally done) but it is on target for a mid-2023 release on PlayStation 5.

"With regards to development, the team has turned the corner and entered the home stretch, and is currently concentration its efforts on debugging, tweaking, polishing, and optimization," game producer Naoki "Yoshi-P" Yoshida said in a recent update.

Square Enix released a new Final Fantasy XVI trailer that highlights the game's mystical world of Valisthea.

Final Fantasy XVI looks to be the ultimate high-fantasy video game in recent memory. The developers have shifted full-force into the age-old sword and sorcery archetypes that the franchise is known for, and with the use of new advanced tech, Square Enix is crafting one of the most compelling worlds of myth and magic that we've seen in some time.

The mainstays of Final Fantasy are all present in the lore: World riven by political strife and/or chaos, warring nations, huge crystals of power, and chosen one prophecies.

Bungie will reportedly help fill out PlayStation's growing live service plans with a new Tarkov-like extraction shooter set in its classic Marathon universe.

Back in 1994, way before Halo, Bungie got its start in first-person shooters with a PC game called Marathon. The franchise had assembling the building blocks for the Halo franchise and Bungie had often paid homage to Marathon in the Halo games. Now it appears Marathon is coming back.

According to reports from Insider Gaming's Tom Henderson, Bungie plans to revive the Marathon series as a squad-based extraction shooter. The project is expected to be a live game where 3-player squads all compete and vie for control over resources and loot in an expansive space, collecting as much intel and loot as possible before being extracted.

The new Silent Hill 2 remake is being developed with Unreal Engine 5 and will use high-end technologies to deliver high-end effects and visuals.

Konami just announced a new Silent Hill 2 remake that's being built from the ground up for new-gen consoles and PCs, and will leverage UE5 engine tech alongside ultra-fast SSDs and advanced audio engines to deliver a terrifying experience.

Bloober Team has confirmed the game is being crafted in Unreal Engine 5, which presents lots of unique opportunities to inject lifelike realism into the haunted town, whether it's in the form of ultra-creepy atmospheric effects like fog or dense shadow thanks to UE5's global illumination tech Lumen, or adding dazzling visual quality with Nanite, new tech which allows developers to natively import high-resolution megascans and place them directly in scenes.

Bethesda is celebrating Fallout's 25th anniversary with unique retrospectives on the franchise's history, and recollects what it was like to show Fallout 3 to the franchise's original creator Tim Cain.

Back in 2007, Bethesda Softworks bought the Fallout franchise from Interplay for $5.75 million, a paltry sum for what is now assuredly a billion-dollar series. The studio had been knee-deep in development on Fallout 3, which would bring Fallout to the 3D world for the first time ever. A year later Fallout 3 was finished, and Bethesda wanted to know what the original Fallout creators thought of their creation...so they invited Tim Cain to a premiere of the game. Everyone at Bethesda was sweating bullets, nervous about Cain's response and wanting approval for their direction of the series.

"I remember this very vividly, sitting at a table asking Tim Cain what he thought of the demo that we just saw...and the whole time you're just crossing fingers and toes like 'oh please, don't hate it!" Bethesda's Pete Hines said with emphatic emotion, as per usual from Uncle Pete.

PlatinumGames tried earnestly to hire Bayonetta actress Hellena Taylor for the third game, and offered to pay her at least $15,000 in compensation, sources have told Bloomberg's Jason Schreier.

Days ago, Bayonetta voice actress Hellena Taylor published a series of videos that revealed why she was not voicing the heroine witch in the third game. Taylor's videos were emotionally charged, with accusations that PlatinumGames and Nintendo had offered an "immoral" and "lowball" pay offer of $4,000 to voice Bayonetta for the entire game.

Taylor's videos kicked off widespread controversy and garnered significant buzz with many industry figures weighing in, especially as the actress claimed she had suffered mental distress from worries about pay. Now reports indicate that PlatinumGames very much wanted Taylor to reprise her role in the game, and offered to book five sessions at a rate of at least $3,000 and up to $4,000 per session. As per documents seen by Bloomberg, Hellena Taylor would have been paid at least $15,000 to voice Bayonetta in the entire game.

Konami's new Silent Hill 2 remake will be kept off of Xbox and Nintendo platforms for at least 12 months, Sony has confirmed.

Silent Hill is coming back, but not for everyone. Sony has acquired timed exclusivity on the newly announced Silent Hill 2 remake for one year. The remake is releasing on PC, but it won't be available on non-PlayStation consoles for at least 12 months.

"Also available on PC. Not available on other formats for 12 months after release," reads a footnote at the bottom of the official Silent Hill 2 trailer.

Konami today revealed another new Silent Hill game and it could be an episodic-style psychological horror experience.

Following the big Silent Hill 2 remake, Konami also announced Silent Hill Townfall, a new game from Annapurna Interactive (Stray, Twelve Minutes) and horror game dev No Code (Observation, Untold Stories). Not a lot of details were revealed about the project, but given No Code's penchant for unnerving cerebral terror, we're expecting that Townfall will be a real mind-bender.

No release date or platform was revealed for Townfall, however earlier reports suggest the game will be an episodic type of game possibly with multiple chapters. This was not confirmed in the recent stream.

Konami has revealed the official Silent Hill 2 remake from Bloober Team, and it's coming exclusively to PlayStation 5.

Today Konami finally revealed more info on its plans for Silent Hill, a long-dormant franchise. The first project is a remake of Silent Hill 2 from Layers of Fear developer Bloober Team that will only be releasing on PlayStation 5.

Bloober Team says it is working closely with the original creators of Silent Hill including Masahiro Ito and Akira Yamaoka.

Cyberpunk 2077 continues its success streak as millions of players log into the game over the past month.

After tons of updates and a new-gen release, CD Projekt RED has successfully redeemed Cyberpunk 2077. The game was a mega-hit at launch, selling over 13 million copies and helping CDPR make more money than it ever has before, but those earnings came at a controversial cost. Now it looks like CD Projekt has paid those debts.

Today the devs confirmed a big milestone for Cyberpunk 2077. Over 1 million players have logged in every day consecutively over a four-week period. These are huge numbers--1 million daily active users is something you'd expect to see in a live game, not a singleplayer-only RPG-FPS hybrid.

Microsoft confirms that Activision-Blizzard was prohibited from releasing Call of Duty games onto Xbox Game Pass as part of a big multi-year exclusivity contract.

Sony has been secured exclusive Call of Duty content for two ongoing generations of PlayStation consoles through lucrative, multi-year marketing deals with Activision-Blizzard. By our count, PlayStation enjoyed full and/or timed exclusivity to 14 pieces of Call of Duty content between 2015 and March 2020 alone, not including content from games like Black Ops Cold War (2020), Vanguard (2021), and the upcoming Modern Warfare 2 (2022).

According to Microsoft, these contracts also included a clause on competing services. Microsoft states in its response to the Competition Markets Authority that Sony's contract with Activision restricted the publisher from releasing any Call of Duty games onto Game Pass.

Microsoft has officially confirmed that Call of Duty would have remained on PlayStation through the end of 2027 if Sony had accepted a post-merger offer. Sony has officially rejected said offer.

Today Microsoft published a 38-page response to the UK's Competition Markets Authority and made compelling arguments as to why its $70 billion merger should be allowed. Microsoft provided lots of data, figures, and insight on the games industry while also confirming the terms of the controversial Call of Duty deal.

In the report, Microsoft says that Call of Duty would have remained on PlayStation through "at least the end of 2027" if Sony had agreed to the original offer. This confirms two interesting points. First, the statements made by Sony Interactive Entertainment President Jim Ryan, who had publicly revealed the terms of the offer, were factual. Secondly, it strongly implies that Microsoft did indeed have plans to make the Call of Duty franchise exclusive to Xbox to some degree.

Microsoft has officially revealed the Xbox console platform's full install base as of 2021 as part of new arguments against the UK's Competition Markets Authority regulatory body.

The CMA, which is basically the UK's version of the FTC, is directly challenging the Microsoft-Activision merger. Now Microsoft has fired back with an in-depth 38-page document making a case on why the $70 billion merger with Activision should be approved. While most of the information in the filing is redacted, we do get some very interesting data regarding consoles.

According to Microsoft, the Xbox console platform currently has an installed base of 63.7 million systems as of 2021. This excludes PCs and mobiles, which are now part of the Xbox ecosystem. PlayStation is "ahead of Xbox in all relevant metrics," Microsoft says.

Square Enix's new live service game bets aren't paying off very well...and the publisher really needs new hits right now.

Square Enix is a well-diversified business. It makes most of its revenues from browser and mobile games, but Final Fantasy XIV consistently delivers quality revenues and mainline AAA games typically prop up yearly earnings with a fusillade of sales. Things get murky when Square Enix (and other publishers) try to capitalize on multiple segments at once with a single product. As we've seen with failed games like Babylon's Fall, which may be Square Enix's biggest flop to date, this combination is a risky bet that can backfire.

While Square Enix is still doing pretty well for itself and is in no real danger earnings-wise, we have to mention that its new live service bets haven't taken off as much as the company would have liked. Babylon's Fall was disastrous and not only failed to meet expectations, but it ultimately failed in every aspect as both a live game and a commercialized, full-priced product. This may not have been a big deal for Square Enix, though, considering it's a smaller-scale type of game developed by PlatinumGames. Bablyon's Fall was, however, the latest example in Square Enix's multi-faceted business model which attempts to capture multiple games industry segments into one package (in this case a monetized live game and a premium product).