Gaming - Page 355

PlayStation's monthly active users (MAUs) have dropped to the lowest point since 2019 as consumers react to new real-world conditions and an inflation market.

Sony's latest Q2 FY2022 report shows clear downward trends in gaming for the quarter ending September 30, 2022. PlayStation's Games & Network Services metrics were down in almost every relevant metric, from overall revenues and operating income (down 11% and 59%, respectively) and overall game unit sales (down 18%) to monthly active users, one of the most important figures for the games division.

According to the data, PlayStation's monthly active users (MAUs) were down to 102 million in Q2'22, representing a drop of 1 million users in a quarter-over-quarter basis, and a reduction of 2 million users on a year-over-year basis. The Q2 period actually had the lowest MAU count in the last three years. Pre-pandemic PlayStation MAUs were 96 million in Q2'19, and then shot up to 106 million during Q3'19 to reflect seasonal holiday boosts.

Forza Horizon 5 is getting a new update that will add in support for NVIDIA DLSS 2.0 and AMD FSR 2.0 upscaling technologies, as well as improved ray tracing for PC gamers.

Playground Games explained on the official Forza Motorsport website that the upcoming "Donut Media" series update will be available on the Microsoft Store and Steam on November 8. The developer explained that they've "enhanced" the DirectX Raytracing on the PC with two new presets: Ultra and Extreme.

The developer explains that the beefed-up ray tracing on the PC will see true-to-life reflections for the player car in both Free Roam and Races, as well as "realistic" Drivatar reflections in Photo Mode. Ray tracing will continue to be available in Forzavista, just like it is now.

Sony reported noticeable drops for PlayStation gaming in Q2 due to a weakening yen and tough comparisons against last year.

Sony's Q2 FY2022 period saw sharp declines in nearly all relevant metrics.

Our analysis is presented in USD based on foreign exchange rates published in Sony's earnings documents. These numbers reflect the weakening yen and other major factors including tough comparisons (Sony's Q2 FY2021 period delivered strong results with record revenues of $5.86 billion).

Sony says that third-party juggernauts like Call of Duty will help prop up its earnings after noticeable Q2 losses.

Sony's latest Q2 earnings report is full of misses for the PlayStation giant. Operating profit was down 59% to $305 million, game sales were down nearly 14 million units, and total segment revenues were down by $647 million over last year. MAUs are down 1 million users, punctuating steep declines in MAUs from Q3 2021's previous high point, and PlayStation Plus subscribers dropped by nearly 2 million.

Company CFO Hiroki Totoki says that content has been sluggish through Q2, and that third-party games like Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 will help buoy the PlayStation brand against these forecast and sales misses. Totoki also expresses confidence in big first-party games like God of War Ragnarok, however these first-party titles have historically sold significantly less than their third-party counterparts.

The PS5's recent price increase has not slowed consumer demand, Sony corporate has said.

To combat inflation and a weaker yen, Sony has raised the PlayStation 5's retail price across all major worldwide regions except in the United States. This cost hike hasn't deterred gamers, though, and Sony indicates that consumers are still very eager to buy PS5 hardware. In fact, Sony highlighted that the PS5 sold 100,000 units in just 17.5 hours in the US, but this region wasn't affected by the price hike.

What about other countries? According to Sony, the PS5's price jump isn't affecting demand. The company says it will have an ample stockpile of 18 million shipments to meet consumer demand over this fiscal year, and that 6.5 million PS5s were produced in Q2 alone.

Capcom has updated its best-selling games list and reveals strong growth for its best-selling video game brands.

As part of its Q2 2022 earnings results, Capcom has refreshed the sales figures for major franchises like Resident Evil, Monster Hunter, and Street Fighter--all of which saw a healthy uptick in combined physical and digital unit sales.

According to the figures, Capcom sold a total of 9.6 million games during the Q2 period, and these top game series made up basically all of the game sales.

Hideo Kojima reiterates that his new game will establish a "new medium," and his words reinforce predictions that we had made years ago.

Metal Gear Solid creator Hideo Kojima is working on multiple new games right now. One of them should be Death Stranding 2. There's also a new project called Overdose that stars Margaret Qualley. Then there's a game that Kojima is making for Xbox, which is sad to be a cloud-based experience. It's unknown if the cloud game and Overdose are one and the same.

Whatever the case, Kojima has been ramping up cryptic marketing teasers for one of these new projects, including images of confirmed actresses that will star in the game. Elle Fanning was previously announced as a star in one of Kojima's new projects, and now Kojima has recently confirmed that Deadpool 2 actress Shioli Kutsuna will also star alongside Fanning.

Ex-Dragon Age and Anthem executive producer Mark Darrah has a particular opinion on the free-to-play microtransaction market--he believes it is "doomed to collapse."

Before departing in 2020, Mark Darrah had spent 23 years with BioWare. In those two decades, Darrah saw EA shift from a game-centric company to a service-first publisher with an eye for billion-dollar microtransactions. Now EA is a behemoth of live services with Apex and Ultimate Team pulling in billions of dollars, however back in the Dragon Age heyday, they were mostly trying to sell games. Over the years, Darrah has also seen microtransactions added into premium games like Mass Effect, Dragon Age, and BioWare's failed Anthem action IP.

But what about the free-to-play market, which is by far the largest sector in the games industry? According to Darrah, the billion-dollar house of cards will eventually tumble down.

Eidos Montreal is now free to make a new Deus Ex game, but it has to keep itself afloat first...and that means work-for-hire jobs.

A new Deus Ex game is in development, but it won't be ready for a long time. Sources have told Bloomberg's Jason Schreier that Eidos Montreal is currently in "very, very early" planning stages for a new Deus Ex project. In the meantime Eidos Montreal will need to pull in revenues in between game releases and that means it has to tackle other projects.

A bit ago Square Enix sold Crystal Dynamics, Eidos Montreal, and Eidos' mobile division to Embracer Group for $300 million. This sale included the studios and popular IPs like Tomb Raider, Deus Ex, and others. Embracer has given both Crystal Dynamics and Eidos Montreal free rein over these IPs and both studios now have freedom over what projects they work on.

Sony's new PlayStation VR2 headset will not play PSVR1 games, which is a pretty big deal for existing VR adopters as well as Sony.

Unlike the PS5, which plays mostly all PS4 games, the new PSVR2 headset will not have backwards compatibility with its forebear. Sony had previously confirmed the PSVR2 would not play any PSVR1 titles and the new headset would flip a reset switch on Sony's sizable virtual reality software market.

A quick glance at the PlayStation Store reveals there are nearly 600 PlayStation VR compatible games, including those that are VR-exclusive and other titles like Tekken and Resident Evil that feature optional PSVR modes. None of these games will be playable on Sony's new headset.

Capcom has confirmed that half of its video game sales for the Q2 period were made on PC.

Today Capcom published an English translation of its Q2 Fiscal Year 2022 Q&A session with investors, which revealed some interesting tidbits about the company's presence on PC. According to Capcom management, game sales on PC made up 50% of its unit sales for the Q2 period (July - September 2022).

Capcom sold a total of 9.6 million games during the Q2 period, with most of those sales being made overseas and from catalog title sales. These proportional shares reveal that Capcom sold approximately 4.8 million games on PC during the period.

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 could end up being the best-earning Call of Duty of all time, and has already broken new records for the franchise.

Today Activision-Blizzard confirmed that Modern Warfare 2 has generated an incredible $800 million in revenues, which will supercharge the company's full-year earnings. Modern Warfare 2 has set a new record for the best opening weekend in digital sales out of any other Call of Duty game.

Activision touts that Modern Warfare 2 beats the combined openings of Top Gun: Maverick and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.

Sony's PlayStation 5 has shipped 25 million units since releasing in 2020, but the console is still shipping slower than the PlayStation 4. That should change this year.

Today Sony announced its Q2 2022 earnings report, revealing tons of new info about the PlayStation business. According to the figures, the PlayStation 5 duo of consoles has shipped 25 million units to date. Compared to the PS4, the PS5 is actually about 4 million units short of being its predecessor's rapid pace.

In its first 8 quarters the PlayStation 4 had shipped 29.4 million units worldwide, beating the PS5's current numbers by some 4.4 million units. Sony is eager to fill the gap between the two generations and is actually making PS5 consoles faster than anticipated--the company produced 6.5 million PlayStation 5's during the Q2 period from July to September 2022.

Sony says it is producing PlayStation 5 consoles faster than expected and it may exceed the 18 million PS5 shipment set for FY2022.

Sony wants to make this year one for the record books. The company wants to sell more PlayStation 5 consoles this year than any other PlayStation in the history of the brand. To hit this goal, it has to create an ample stream of supply...and that means producing a lot of consoles. Luckily that's exactly what Sony is doing.

In its recent Q2 FY2022 earnings report, Sony says it has produced 6.5 million PlayStation 5 consoles from July - September because it is now easier to procure parts and manufacture then in worldwide facilities. However, Sony did just raise the retail price of PS5 consoles in almost all worldwide regions except for the United States.

EA is making a bunch of new games for Disney, including new Star Wars games and three new projects set in the Marvel universe.

Today EA announced that it's making not one, not two, but three action-adventure games for Marvel. The first game is a new Iron Man singleplayer third-person project from EA's Motive studios, the team behind Star Wars Squadrons and the excellent vehicle combat in the newer Star Wars Battlefront titles.

EA says that each of the new projects will have their own original story and be available for consoles and PC. No other details about the remaining two games were discussed, but sources have told Giant Bomb's Jeff Grubb that one of these games will be a Black Panther project targeting a 2025 release.

At $68.7 billion, the Microsoft-Activision merger is 7x bigger than any other major acquisition in the games industry. That kind of weight is enough to keep anyone up at night, even Phil Spencer, who is still confident the deal will go through.

Microsoft apparently isn't getting off easy with its proposed buyout of Activision-Blizzard. Regulators like the FTC, CMA, and European Commission are closely scrutinizing the deal and asking "good, honest questions" while Microsoft lays out its intentions, plans, and data for worldwide regulators. Some, like Saudi Arabia's GAC and Brazil's CADE have already approved the deal.

This is likely a stressful time for Microsoft and the Xbox division, but it's also an exciting point of potential transformation. With the help of Activision's teams, Microsoft hopes to exponentially grow its Xbox gaming division to reach all platforms and significantly boost its overall content value. Even still, it's enough to keep major Xbox executives like Phil Spencer up at night.

Phil Spencer assures frustrated Xbox gamers that 2023 will deliver big new titles as 2022 slips by with very few first-party games.

Both Xbox and PlayStation make most of their money from third-party games (Call of Duty is the best-selling franchise on both platforms, for instance), but Sony has typically released more first-party titles than Microsoft. Team Green usually has a lot of projects in early development or incubation due to the sheer size of its teams, including a wealth of new interesting games like a new Perfect Dark title, a new Indiana Jones project from MachineGames, or The Elder Scrolls VI from Bethesda.

As a result, the first-party lineup for 2022 has been quite sparse. It seems like a lot of the most interesting Xbox experiences are always on the horizon. This has lead to lots of complaints from Xbox gamers that Phil Spencer and Xbox Game Studios execs have heard loud and clear.

Microsoft reiterates its point that it does not intend to take the $30 billion Call of Duty franchise away from PlayStation, and that it wants to continue selling new Call of Duty titles on Sony's platform.

A bit ago, Microsoft told the UK regulators at the CMA that it wants to treat Call of Duty similar to Minecraft. This statement was a bit confusing, especially since Minecraft and Call of Duty are very different games. In a Wall Street Journal interview, Xbox's Phil Spencer adds more clarity to Microsoft's post-merger vision of Call of Duty with affirmations the franchise will be expanded to new screens and platforms; "I'd love to see it on Switch," Spencer even said.

Now fast-forwarding to a new interview with the Same Brain podcast, Spencer confidently says that Microsoft will ship Call of Duty to PlayStation "as long as there's a PlayStation to ship to." These words are certainly more impactful than the previous comments that Microsoft has made on the topic.

Modern Warfare 2 has broken a new sales record on PlayStation and the game made the largest PlayStation debut in Call of Duty history.

Today Sony confirmed that Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 is officially a mega-hit. The game has achieved the "biggest PlayStation Store launch ever for a Call of Duty game," beating out Modern Warfare in 2019 and Black Ops Cold War in 2020, the latter of which released with the introduction of the new PlayStation 5 console.

This reaffirms my predictions that 2022 will be the best-ever year for Call of Duty earnings. The franchise managed to generate $3 billion in 2022, accounting for 42% of Activision-Blizzard's total earnings, thanks to the combination of Call of Duty Mobile, Black Op Cold War's mainline release on two console generations and monetized multiplayer, and the strong introduction of Warzone.

Cloud gaming will be an extension of gaming, but won't ever replace traditional dedicated hardware--at least that's what Xbox's Phil Spencer believes.

Many have tried before it, and Sony was arguably the first to really put muscle into cloud gaming with PlayStation Now, but Microsoft is undoubtedly the leader in the space thanks to its value-oriented business model. Xbox cloud gaming is the most attractive among its peers because consumers can access games they have already purchased or have access to via Game Pass. As such, cloud gaming is complementary to Xbox's core engagement-driven monetization empire, and that's exactly how Microsoft wants it to stay.

While some believe cloud gaming will eventually kill consoles, Xbox CEO Phil Spencer is not among them. According to Spencer, cloud gaming will not be the end-all be-all future for the industry. Instead, cloud access is all about offering customers more choice in how they play games on all platforms.