Gaming - Page 355

The PlayStation 4's lifecycle is ending after 9 years of sales, Sony has indicated.

Sony's latest gaming earnings report revealed a lot of things, including significant drops in operating income and revenues. The corporate document was also the death certificate of the PS4 as Sony has officially stopped reporting sales figures for the console.

Every earnings report from Q3'14 to Q4'21 had a section devoted to PS4 console shipments. The most recent Q1'22 report removed this section and replaced it with PS5 sales, signalling an end to the PS4. The writing was on the wall, though; Sony had only shipped a paltry 1 million PS4s throughout all of last year. PS4 sales have officially topped out at 117.2 million units.

Meta's Mark Zuckerberg explains to investors why the company is sinking billions of dollars into the vague and nascent metaverse.

The metaverse is hard to define, but Meta is a big believer in the new platform--it's the entire reason it changed its name. Meta wants to help define the new web3 platform in an effort to control and pioneer a new interactive realm of ads, social media, games, and shopping.

This plan is very, very costly. Meta's Reality Labs division, which is gearing up tech and hardware to power the metaverse, has lost $18 billion since 2020. Meta says that this spending will increase. The rationale is that Meta is trying to build an entirely new cyberspace that melds digital money-making models together, all wrapped in an interactive social media platform. Zuckerberg believes the metaverse will be worth "hundreds of billions of dollars."

Welcome to hell: Diablo Immortal has redefined Blizzard's mobile business by making $100 million in revenues faster than Fortnite did.

Despite a somewhat weak launch, Diablo Immortal has proven to be a staggering success on iOS and Android. Despite controversy over microtransactions, Diablo Immortal has raked in over $100 million in 8 weeks on the global market across iOS and Android.

Data from SensorTower shows Diablo Immortal actually hit this threshold a whole month before Fortnite did on mobiles; it took Diablo Immortal 8 weeks to hit $100 million, and Fortnite hit the threshold after 12 weeks. Gamers from the United States is spending the most on the game, followed closely by South Korea.

Microsoft will use Activision-Blizzard's arsenal of video games, developers, and network infrastructures to power the Xbox metaverse.

The metaverse represents a big opportunity for billion-dollar monetization; imagine a digital interactive world that merges internet browsers, social media, and gaming platforms into one. It's a dream come true for companies like Microsoft, who make billions every year from advertisements, licenses, and video games.

This potential is why Microsoft is investing in the metaverse. Plans aren't concrete yet, but the company has confirmed it will use its $68.7 billion buyout of Activision-Blizzard to fuel its metaverse strategies. Microsoft also raised its R&D spend in gaming and cloud by $3.6 billion throughout Fiscal Year 2022.

The PlayStation 5 will soon support native 2560x1440 resolution output to compatible displays, Sony today announced.

PS5 1440p output is currently in beta testing alongside a handful of other much-requested features. The PS5's inclusion of 1440p comes nearly 2 years after the console launched, whereas the Xbox Series X/S both support native 1440p output.

"Today, we are rolling out a new PS5 system software beta that includes 1440p support, gamelists, and additional updates to enhance your gaming experiences and make connecting with friends easier on PS5," Sony platform exec Hideaki Nishino said on the PlayStation Blog.

Sony has said repeatedly that it has no plans to make a new PlayStation Vita, and today's announcement really drives home the nail in the handheld's coffin.

Vita might mean life to everyone but Sony. Today the games giant announced a very specific product that really seems to indicate the PS Vita is dead and gone. It's called the Backbone One, and it's basically a PS Vita without a screen. You can learn more about Backbone here.

The PlayStation Backbone One is similar to a Razer Kishi. It's a split PlayStation controller that you slot your phone into, effectively turning your handheld pocket-computer into an on-the-go PS Vita with an arguably worse games library (unless you emulate, of course). It's worth noting that this product isn't officially made and distributed by Sony; the company, Backbone, is a separate product manufacturer that licensed the PlayStation name.

Meta's new Q2 earnings show another consecutive billion-dollar loss for its metaverse division.

Meta's Reality Labs segment has been posted billion-dollar operational losses for many quarters in a row as the social titan ramps up its metaverse endeavors. The division, which includes development of its Oculus VR headsets and its Horizon metaverse platform, is costing Meta big and its digital ecosystem ambitions are very, very expensive.

According to earnings data from Meta that was compiled by us, Reality Labs has lost over $18 billion in operating income since Q4 2020. Remember that Meta bought Oculus back in 2014, and released the first Oculus Rift in 2016, so these billion-dollar losses likely stretch back for many more years before the October - December 2020 period.

Development on the new Knights of the Old Republic remake has been halted as Saber Interactive and Aspyr Media fire key game developers.

The fate of the upcoming KOTOR Remake on PS5 remains uncertain. Sources have told Bloomberg that the KOTOR remake has been put on ice and Aspyr recently fired two high profile developers: Brad Prince, design director on the KOTOR remake who hired 25 level designers and has 20 years of experience in AAA game dev; and art director Jason Minor, who has been with Aspyr for 3 years.

Reports seem to suggest the game's presentation demo (also known as a "vertical slice") may have disappointed partners at Sony and Lucasfilm, leading to Aspyr firing both Prince and Minor and stopping production of the game. The slice may have cost too much money and time, one source suggested to Bloomberg, and full development of the game as presented in the slice would simply be too costly.

Sony has amped PlayStation Plus' value to better compete in the billion-dollar subscription service wars.

Services are the future of gaming. Live service games make platform-holders like Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo billions of dollars every year. One of the most powerful offshoots of live gaming are value-oriented subscription services, which offer on-demand access to games for a monthly fee. Xbox successfully adapted the all-you-can-play Netflix content buffet model, and now Sony has done the same.

The key to having a successful content buffet is the quality and quantity of the content. Subscriptions have to provide value, and Sony is ramping up its efforts with a ton of new games in the PS Plus Essential, Extra, and Premium tiers.

Grand Theft Auto 6 will feature a playable female protagonist and be set in Vice City, sources have told Bloomberg's Jason Schreier.

GTA 6 was originally codenamed Project Americas and was to span across North and South America. That plan has been scrapped, and GTA 6 will now take place in Vice City, a fictional rendition of Miami.

The sequel is set to star two main characters based on a modernized Bonnie and Clyde. One of them, a playable female protagonist, will also be Latina, Bloomberg has learned. Unlike GTA V, whose story was set in stone and hasn't been touched since 2013, GTA 6's story campaign will also evolve over time with new missions and cities as the game shifts towards a service model.

The Xbox Series X/S continues its strong momentum and is still the best-selling Xbox console generation of all time.

Today was a big day for Xbox. Microsoft announced a record-breaking $16.2 billion revenue generated from Xbox gaming in Fiscal Year 2022, which is more money than the games business has made in the history of the brand.

It doesn't stop there. According to Microsoft leadership, the Xbox Series X/S console duo is breaking new sales records since the system released in 2020. "We sold more Xbox Series X/S consoles life to date than any previous generation of Xbox, have been market leader in North America in the last three quarters across next-gen consoles," Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in the company's Fiscal Year 2022 earnings call.

Meta's VR business is losing billions of dollars every quarter, and now the company is raising the price of its Quest 2 VR headset.

Today Meta announced that all Quest 2 models will see a $100 price increase, representing a 33% premium over existing HMD prices. "Starting in August, Meta Quest 2 will cost $399.99 USD and $499.99 USD for the 128GB and 256GB versions respectively," Oculus announced. Quest 2 headsets will include a free copy of Beat Saber for a limited time (but this game should really be included anyway).

Meta explains that production costs have risen and this $100 price jump will help grow its "investment in groundbreaking research and new product development." Meta also says that gamers have spent over $1 billion in Quest apps so far, but this is a paltry sum to the incredibly $12.468 billion that Meta spent on its Reality Labs division. Reality Labs also lost more than $10 billion in operating income in FY21.

Microsoft made more money from Xbox than it ever has before, shattering all previous game revenue records.

Xbox gaming made a staggering $16.2 billion in Microsoft's FY22 period, which is a new all-time record for the video games giant. The growth was driven by content in services across the Xbox, PC, and mobile ecosystem via first-party and third-party game sales and microtransactions, as well as consistent growth in Xbox Game Pass.

Content and services made up 77% of total Xbox gaming earnings for FY22, or $12.5 billion, with hardware (Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S consoles and peripherals) making up 23%, or $3.7 billion.

Capcom's Q1 Fiscal Year 2022 results show significant drops in year-over-year earnings, but that's because Capcom is having a hard time competing against its previous record success.

Companies not only compete with other companies, but they also compete with themselves. Investors, analysts, and companies are always comparing the current periods against past quarters or years for signs of growth.

So when Capcom delivered a record Q1 period in the FY2021 financial year, it set a new milestone that it would have a hard time breaking. This fluctuation between high points and stabilized earnings is typical of any games publisher.

The Xbox Series X/S is getting another big quality-of-life upgrade that will help players get into games faster than ever before.

Microsoft is set to release a new Xbox update that will reduce console boot up times by as much as 5 seconds across both Xbox Series X/S consoles and older Xbox One systems. Xbox's Josh Munsee confirmed that cold startup times from total system shut down have been reduced thanks to a shorter boot animation, meaning gamers will be able to start up their systems much quicker and jump right into a session.

There's one catch, though. Xbox owners have to boot their systems from Energy Saver mode to boot faster. The reduced boot times won't work in Standby Mode, but to be fair, this lets you jump into a game more quickly than a cold boot. The update is even better for Xbox One systems that boot from older HDDs.

Halo Infinite has shaved off another feature that Bungie-era games shipped with, but to be fair, the game doesn't necessarily need it.

343 Industries and Microsoft have confirmed that Halo Infinite will not have online co-op matchmaking. Yes, the game will still have online co-operative play allowing you to connect with up to 3 other friends and play the campaign. But it will not feature the matchmaking system originally introduced in Halo Reach.

To be fair, Halo Infinite doesn't need this feature. Halo Reach's online matchmaking was introduced in an era where players didn't have things like Discord, which recently came to Xbox. Bungie also introduced rotating campaign challenges in Halo Reach allowing you to earn credits to unlock armors and cosmetics. Campaign matchmaking was (and still is) a nice bonus feature, but 343i has a lot more dire issues to worry about in Infinite right now (like the data bug, the massive desync issues, or even monetization).

Ubisoft has officially confirmed that Roller Champions isn't getting cancelled (at least for now).

Recent reports said that Ubisoft might cancel its new free-to-play Roller Champions game despite the game not even being half a year old. Roller Champions released in May 2022, and hasn't even been on the market for a full business quarter. That's hardly enough time to measure the game's full potential or success.

These reports prompted the Roller Champions dev to issue a statement debunking the rumors. "Let's clear it out of the way first. Roller Champions isn't getting cancelled, and Ubisoft fully supports it," the studio said on Twitter.

Sony is changing things up with announcing Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered swinging onto the PC, but now we have some more details on the technical side of things for PC gamers.

Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered will include ray tracing support, NVIDIA DLSS, NVIDIA DLAA, support for UltraWide monitors, and more. We have ray traced reflections on GPUs that support it, where on the PC we have something new: a higher-quality, ray-traced mode that has even more city detail than the PlayStation 5 version of the game.

There's also support for NVIDIA DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling) as well as NVIDIA DLAA (Deep Learning Anti-Aliasing) that will help gamers enjoy more performance, or even higher image quality. Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered lets you choose that, as well as using UltraWide and Panoramic gaming monitors with 16:9 and 21:9 aspect ratio... better yet, there's also NVIDIA Surround multi-monitor support if you want to use 3 monitors. So very cool to see.

Digital Eclipse is putting tremendous effort into making Konami's new TMNT Cowabunga Collection the definitive Turtles experience.

On paper, the Cowabunga Collection is already an incredibly good deal that packs in 13 retro Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles games in one bundle, including beloved favorites like the Turtles in Time beat-em-up.

There's one feature that could completely revolutionize retro re-release collections, though. Digital Eclipse has gone above and beyond with the Cowabunga Collection's new Watch Mode. This basically lets you hand off control to an automated computer assistant based on a pro speed-runner to beat a specific portion of the game--which will come in handy in the devastatingly hard TMNT NES game.

Sony should attempt to acquire Hello Games as part of PlayStation's expanding live service strategy...if the developer wants to sell, of course.

No Man's Sky went from a controversial 2016 release to one of the best live service video games ever made. Hello Games has radically transformed No Man's Sky with a fusillade of free expansions, adding in tons of new features, content, and significant quality of life improvements. No Man's Sky has been upgraded and tweaked with 29 expansions and updates including a PS5/Xbox Series X/S re-release and a VR version.

On a lark, I fired up the original No Man's Sky on PS4 sans updates...and it's absolutely incredible how much the game has changed. Sony should be watching carefully and taking notes.