Gaming - Page 356

Microsoft is unlikely to ever lower its royalty fees as long as it ships console hardware.

A while back during the Epic vs Apple trial, Microsoft's Lori Wright said that a 30% commission was required in order to help subsidize console hardware losses. Unlike Nintendo, who has always sold the Switch at a profit, and Sony, who recent hit profitability on the PlayStation 5, Microsoft sells its Xbox Series consoles at a loss. "My justification is that the commission is required for us to even build the console," Wright said during the trial.

Now fast-forwarding to the present we hear Xbox gaming CEO Phil Spencer saying similar things. In a recent Wall Street Journal interview, Spencer said that the Xbox Series consoles are sold at a $100 - $200 loss. Microsoft sells hardware at a loss with the assumption of being able to recoup spending via games, monetization, subscriptions, and accessories.

Microsoft has told investors, consumers, and regulators that it intends to treat Call of Duty similar to Minecraft and presumably make the $30 billion franchise as widespread as possible--including on competing platforms like Sony's PlayStation and Nintendo's Switch.

If the Activision merger should go through, Microsoft has made a public commitment to treat Call of Duty similar to how it has treated Minecraft. The implication is that Call of Duty will be made available practically on every gaming platform on the planet, and not being restricted and closed off on the Xbox ecosystem as the UK's Competition and Markets Authority indicates as a possibility. There's just a few potential issues with this--Minecraft is not Call of Duty, but Microsoft could indeed try to make the mature shooter franchise adhere to Minecraft's overall business model.

In a recent WSJ interview, Phil Spencer echoes Microsoft's sentiment, and says he would personally like to see Call of Duty everywhere--including the Nintendo Switch.

The mainline Call of Duty franchise may have sold 25 million copies last year, but Microsoft sees the most potential in Call of Duty Mobile.

Microsoft says that mobile is their main reason to buy Activision-Blizzard for $68.7 billion. With the mighty ad tech-fueled empire of King, whose digital games reached 240 million players last quarter, and the billion-dollar might of Call of Duty Mobile, Microsoft wants to use these powerful established games to engage a section of the market that it's sorely lacking in: Mobile gaming.

In a recent Wall Street Journal Live event, Xbox boss Phil Spencer shared some interesting insight on Microsoft's rationale for the incoming merger with Activision. According to Spencer, mobile is what Microsoft is really interested in, and rightly so given King's sustainable and stable revenues that are complemented by Activision and Blizzard mobile games that are quickly accelerating.

The Wall Street Journal has finally published its interview with Xbox's Phil Spencer, revealing key details about the Microsoft-Activision merger, Call of Duty exclusivity, and Game Pass revenues.

According to Xbox's Phil Spencer, Microsoft has no plans to pull Call of Duty off of PlayStation in 2-3 years, which implies that even if Sony doesn't sign a partnership deal that Microsoft will still keep the games on the platform.

Spencer also gives a curious statement that Microsoft will continue shipping Call of Duty on PlayStation on a post-merger basis "if it makes sense" to do so. What does this mean exactly? Not a lot of info was given on this particular sentiment.

Diablo 3's auction house, which is arguably the worst thing that Blizzard has ever created, wasn't very successful and it probably won't ever be re-introduced into the series.

If you played Diablo 3 back in 2012 then you know all about the Real Money Auction House (RMAH). Blizzard had created an in-game store where you could buy and sell items for real money, creating a shifting macro-economy that significantly detrimentally affected gameplay. The RMAH fostered an unsatisfying gameplay loop where players were stuck in a kind of hellish limbo of not being able to progress because they were not well-equipped enough to farm specific areas for gear. It was a time where legendary items were incredibly rare, and an era where the smallest of act 2 insects could absolutely destroy most players on Inferno difficulty.

Luckily, this machination didn't make much money. In a recent Diablo panel at PRGE 2022, Diablo 3 game director Jay Wilson talked about the RMAH and revealed that money was never the goal. The auction house was made to secure the game, not monetize it.

Square Enix is eager to reduce risk wherever possible and is open to selling parts of its game development studios in order to share the costs and overall volatility in games

The games industry is a tough market. Making games is very expensive and there's no guaranteed payoff. No one knows which games will sink or swim.Even games set in mega-billion properties like Marvel can bomb on the market; just ask Square Enix, who lost an estimated $200 million on its to Marvel games, Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy (this loss was so big that it led to the outright sale of the studios that made the games, Crystal Dynamics and Eidos Montreal).

Square Enix doesn't want any more unnecessary risk and the company is considering a more "diversified capital structure" of its game studios. Essentially Square Enix wants to take the Tencent approach; instead of taking full ownership of a game or studio, it could sell parts of its studios off to a third-party company such as the aforementioned Tencent, Sony, or even Epic Games. In return, it's assumed that costs like game development funding and marketing would be more split between the two companies.

Years after its failed online-based action shooter Anthem, BioWare's general manager re-confirms the new Mass Effect game will be a singleplayer RPG first and foremost.

It's been a while since we had our last update on Mass Effect 5 (or whatever the project will be called), and BioWare's general manager gives a brief update on the upcoming sci-fi epic. According to Gary McKay, the game is still a singleplayer-driven experience, hinting we may not have to worry about any monetized online multiplayer component getting shoehorned into the experience.

"Of course, Dreadwolf isn't the only thing happening here at BioWare! We have a team hard at work envisioning what the future holds for a new single-player Mass Effect game. And we look forward to celebrating our community on N7 Day next month," BioWare general manager Gary McKay said in a recent blog post.

Square Enix's top 3 big franchises have sold almost 300 million copies combined across multiple decades.

Square Enix has some of the oldest post-80s crash video game franchises, and its most popular series have accumulated tens of millions of sales across decades. According to new data presented in Square Enix's 2022 annual report, its big 3 franchises have sold over a mighty 294 million copies combined.

The publisher's big three includes Final Fantasy, which has shipped and sold 173 million units across a multitude of games spanning 35 years; Dragon Quest, a 36-year old beloved RPG series that has sold 85 million copies on all platforms; and Kingdom Hearts, a relatively newer franchise released in 2002 on the PlayStation 2 that has since moved over 36 million copies on a number of releases across multiple console generations.

CD Projekt's games have sold over 85 million units to date, making the Polish games developer a force to be reckoned with in terms of long-term unit sales.

Cyberpunk 2077 is a monumental success for CD Projekt RED that has sold 20 million units to date, which is as many copies as the original two Witcher games. The studio has now confirmed that all of its four games combined have shipped and sold a mighty 85 million, which puts it ahead of the last-recorded figures for the Monster Hunter franchise (84 million).

"We have delivered four profound and memorable games that continue to appeal to more and more gamers. We are proud to announce that Cyberpunk 2077 has sold over 20 million copies. With this, we have collectively sold over 85 million games of our four flagship games so far," CD Projekt president Adam Kicinski said in a recent strategy meeting.

Nintendo has Mario, Microsoft has Halo, and Sony has...Call of Duty.

Sony has made an interesting claim that all worldwide regulators will want to pay attention to. Call of Duty is the "best-selling franchise on PlayStation," Sony has loudly proclaimed on the back of every retail boxed copy of Modern Warfare 2.

The data is based on full game sales as of April 2022, Sony notes, which coincides with a period where Call of Duty sold 25 million copies in one year.

Dragon Age Dreadwolf, the next Dragon Age game, has entered alpha stages of development and can now be played from start to finish.

It's been many years since the last Dragon Age game--Inquisition was released in 2014, and gaming is due for another major myth-and-magic RPG experience. Luckily for us, BioWare has made significant progress with Dragon Age 4 and the pieces of the game have been put together to create a playable, cohesive game with a narrative story, combat, and character interactions.

"Now, for the first time, we can experience the entire game, from the opening scenes of the first mission to the very end. We can see, hear, feel, and play everything as a cohesive experience," BioWare general manager Gary McKay said in a recent update post.

NVIDIA is reportedly about the slash the price of its "Priority" tier of its GeForce NOW game streaming service, but nothing is official just yet.

The price will be dropping to just $29.99 for the first 6 months for the "Priority" tier of GeForce NOW, which makes it $20 cheaper than it stands right now. NVIDIA's current GeForce NOW "Priotity" tier provides up to 6-hour gaming sessions at 1080p 60FPS, but there are tiers that offer higher resolutions and frame rates than that.

NVIDIA will reportedly also make its "RTX 3080" tier of GeForce NOW cheaper, down to $99.99 for 6 months, or just $19.99 for a single month. The "RTX 3080" tier offers you up to 8-hour gaming sessions, and in the higher-end 1440p 120FPS or 4K 60FPS visual modes.

Microsoft has missed its internal Game Pass subscriber growth projections for the second year in a row.

New SEC filings to shareholders reveal key information about Game Pass' performance over the past few years. This particular document outlines important information for investors, including voting matters, and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella's pay structure. Nestled in this compensation plan are interesting tidbits about Game Pass.

According to the filing, Game Pass missed its internal growth projections by some 44%, representing the second year in a row that it missed growth projections. Microsoft had originally expected to grow Xbox Game Pass subscribers by 72.8% in Fiscal Year 2022, which was a record year for Xbox gaming revenues with a mighty $16.22 billion earned, but only managed to grow subscribers by 28%.

Activision reveals all the bonus rewards that PlayStation gamers will enjoy in Modern Warfare 2.

Years ago, Sony signed a big multi-year marketing deal with Activision to secure exclusive Call of Duty content and rewards. Sony's deal has lasted all throughout the PlayStation 4 generation and will expire in 2024, but PlayStation gamers will still get access to a bunch of goodies in the new Modern Warfare 2 shooter.

Some of these bonuses are pretty big, like double XP events that are exclusive to the PlayStation platform, giving players a potential heads-up over Xbox gamers. Other bonuses include a significant 25% extra weapon upgrade XP when you're partied up with other players (this is great for engagement in multiplayer, which has proven to prompt in-game spending), 5 tier skips in the battle pass bundle, combat packs every seasons, and two extra loadouts.

Xbox gaming head Phil Spencer admits that Microsoft may eventually have to raise prices on its video game products and services, Xbox Game Pass should be the first in line for a cost bump.

Not everyone is ready to charge $69.99 for new-gen games, but how long can the holdout last against rising inflation costs? Companies like Xbox, Nintendo, SEGA and Capcom have resisted charging more for their games. At yesterday's Wall Street Journal Tech Live event, Phil Spencer says that eventually Xbox may have to increase prices of its games, hardware, services and/or content.

The price hike won't happen this year, though. Microsoft doesn't want high prices to impact their critical holiday period--last year Xbox made a record-breaking $5.44 billion during the holiday and Microsoft is eager for more of that growth. So far FY23 is off to a great start with record Q1 highs of $3.61 billion revenues.

Modern Warfare 2's disc is basically an authentication key for a digital copy of the game.

It's been discovered that Call of Duty Modern Warfare's retail PS5 disc is nothing more than a physical installer with 72.23MB worth of files on it. Modern Warfare 2's Blu-ray disc does not include the actual game, and consumers will have to also download 130GB worth of files to experience the full game in its entirety, effectively making the disc itself redundant other than a gift or collectible.

This of course means Modern Warfare 2 can't be played without a day one update...except in this case, the day one update is the actual game. While this seems to be the case for modern Call of Duty games, it certainly isn't a widespread trend in gaming; According to Does it Play?, a tracking site that catalogs whether or not a physical game can be played day one without any sort of patch, 99% of disc-based games still do not require online downloads to play.

Meta's Reality Labs division recorded an all-time high operating loss of $3.67 billion over the last quarter.

Meta's recent Q3 earnings saw a revenue declines and record operating losses for the company's nascent and controversial metaverse. Revenues declined 4.5% to $27.714 billion, and operating losses of Meta's Reality Labs VR division, which is helming its virtual reality hardware and virtual metaverse platform, saw a record-breaking loss of $3.67 billion. These events contributed to Meta's stock diving nearly 20% in after-hours trading.

The metaverse has been under close scrutiny by investors and the media due to its lack of widespread adoption and consumer appeal. Meta shows no signs of slowing down its megaton investment into the fledgling platform, which it hopes to pioneer in order to significantly boost its advertising presence across a new medium. Since Q4 2020, Meta has lost over $21.7 billion on its bet on the metaverse.

Xbox Game Pass makes significantly less revenue than we had previously reported, but the service is still profitable.

Phil Spencer recently confirmed that Xbox Game Pass is not only profitable, but it makes up 10-15% of Xbox content and services revenue. This percentage gives us a baseline range to determine Game Pass revenues, and based on our findings, the earnings are significantly lower than the $2.9 billion figure that Brazilian regulator CADE had included in its report (and that's likely why the figure was removed).

"Game Pass as an overall part of our content and services revenue is probably 15 percent. I don't think it gets bigger than that. I think the overall revenue grows so 15 percent of a bigger number," Phil Spencer said during a Wall Street Journal Tech Live event, as transcribed by The Verge.

Bethesda's Todd Howard absolutely loves making games in the Fallout universe, hints that Fallout 5 will continue the series' penchant for "batshit crazy" ideas.

Fallout is known for its off-the-wall and wacky characters, irreverent storylines, and overall tongue-in-cheek tone that somehow co-exists with a grim world of ghouls and cat-eating hermits. Even back in the early cRPG days Fallout was goofy and outrageously bloody while also capturing that early 90s era mystique of PC gaming.

Bethesda wouldn't have it any other way. The developers love the Fallout world, with Todd Howard even claiming that Fallout is the most fun series to create games around.

Bethesda's Todd Howard reveals that Fallout New Vegas was originally supposed to be an expansion to Fallout 3, but Howard very much wanted it to be its own game.

The Fallout franchise turns 25 this year, and Bethesda is rolling out a series of retrospective videos to celebrate the series. One of these videos discusses Fallout New Vegas and how Obsidian's beloved RPG actually started off as a major game expansion to Fallout 3.

Years after Oblivion's success, Bethesda hit it big with Fallout 3, and the studio was eager to keep that momentum going. That's what led to Fallout New Vegas.