Gaming - Page 388

Electronic Arts condemns Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine and has enacted a temporary sales ban in the region.

EA has joined Microsoft in banning the sale of its products in Russia and Belarus. The gaming giant announced the news in a recent update post where it calls the war on Ukraine "shocking" and "deeply troubling."

"We have made the decision to stop sales of our games and content, including virtual currency bundles, in Russia and Belarus while this conflict continues," the post reads.

Nintendo may have enacted a temporary sales ban of games and services in Russia following the invasion of Ukraine.

Russian gamers can no longer purchase content and services on the Nintendo eShop. The regional eShop support page confirms Nintendo's payment processor has temporary restricted the ruble, Russia's currency, as a valid form of payment.

This is likely due to economic sanctions against Russia that have blocked seven major banks from accessing SWIFT, a messaging system that instructs worldwide bank transactions (such as the digital purchases used in the eShop). Nintendo serves Russia as part of its Nintendo of Europe subsidiary.

Microsoft has temporarily suspended sales to Russia following the devastating attacks on Ukraine.

Microsoft today announced a sales ban of its products, goods, and services in Russia. Consumers in Russia will no longer be able to buy or access Microsoft services, including Xbox hardware and games.

"We are announcing today that we will suspend all new sales of Microsoft products and services in Russia," Microsoft President and Vice Chairman Brad Smith said.

Dungeon Siege is back...but many fans would prefer it stay dead.

After ten long years, Square Enix has finally resurrected Dungeon Siege. Well...sort of. Dungeon Siege will be joining metaverse platform The Sandbox complete with NFT real estate and characters.

Here's how it works: The Sandbox is basically a world complete with landmasses and countries. These regions are called LAND and can be purchased as digital NFTs--gamers can buy in-game land. Some countries are owned by, say, Atari, and others are reserved for franchises like The Walking Dead. Square Enix will have its own LAND patch where it will host Dungeon Siege-themed content, including skins, characters, and cosmetics.

Rockstar Games details the new performance modes and features coming to GTA V's next-gen version.

It looks like Rockstar is pushing the PS5 and Xbox Series X to their limits. GTA V Expanded & Enhanced will have a surprising 4K 60FPS raytracing mode on both Navi 2 GPU-powered consoles, which is no small feat. The resolution will indeed by upscaled and not native 4K, but it's still not something that most open-world games support.

GTA V E&E will have three graphics/performance modes:

Gran Turismo 7's microtransactions are up to 1233% more expensive than GT Sport.

Conveniently after reviews went live, Sony has switched on Gran Turismo 7's in-game purchases...and the prices are eye-opening. GT7 allows gamers to buy cars, parts, and accessories with premium currency. It's an online live game, after all, so monetization is a given. Currency prices look like this:

According to findings from Video Game Chronicle, some cars that used to cost £ 5 in GT Sport now cost an incredible £ 40 in GT7. That's a 700% increase (or 7x) over GT Sport for the same cars.

The Nintendo Switch has enjoyed five years of success, and here are the numbers to prove it.

The Switch is the ultimate union of handhelds and consoles, and as such, the system has generated tremendous profits for Nintendo. As the system turns five years old today we're taking a look back at some of the most important milestones the platform has achieved in half a decade.

In the last five years, the Switch has helped Nintendo generate nearly $60 billion in revenues. From March 2017 to December 2021, Nintendo made $59.8 billion in revenues. While those numbers do include 3DS hardware and software sales, the majority of those earnings were from the Switch itself.

Games titan The Pokemon Company is donating hundreds of thousands of dollars to Ukrainian relief efforts, joining other games-makers and publishers providing relief.

The Pokemon Company has publicly lamented the "heartbreaking" Russian invasion in Eastern Europe. The war sees nearly 1 million Ukranians fleeing the war-torn country as refugees, including children.

The Pocket Monster creator has responded with a $200,000 donation to the GlobalGiving foundation to provide humanitarian relief for Ukrainian families and children.

Babylon's Fall may be a flop for Square Enix, a publisher that needs more hit AAA titles.

Based on extremely lower player counts, Babylon's Fall could be the next Square Enix game to deliver "disappointing results." Babylon's Fall, the online-only hack-and-slash RPG developed by PlatinumGames, had less than 1,000 concurrent players on Steam on its launch day. Right now the game has roughly 4,000 Twitch viewers which indicates low curiosity for the game.

There's a few general reasons for this:

CD Projekt RED has cut off Russia and Belarus from its entertainment products.

Polish game developer CD Projekt RED will no longer sell its games, media, and other content to Russia and Belarus following the ongoing war against Ukraine. The sales ban includes games like The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077, and the countries are also restricted from the GOG.com game sales marketplace.

The decision will have a surprising impact on CD Projekt's sales revenues. The company warned investors that Russia and Belarus combined made roughly 9.1% of its total-year 2021 revenues. CDPR has yet to announce its Q4 earnings but based on a quick conversion, these regions may have made $12.8 million in sales--that effectively means CD Projekt will potentially lose millions of revenues a year from the ban.

Doomlord John Romero created its first Doom II level since 1994 to support Ukrainian relief.

John Romero, co-founder of id Software and co-creator of the legendary Doom franchise, is raising money for Ukrainian relief efforts in the best way: With a new custom Doom II level.

The level is called One Humanity, it costs 5 euros, and is available on Romero's official website. The FPS guru tells gamers that 100% of all revenues go directly to the Red Cross and the UN Central Emergency Response Fund to help with the brutal Russian invasion on Ukraine.

Intellivision has enacted a new quiet period as it negotiates with new investors and potential business partners.

Gamers and investors will have to wait for updates on Intellivision's business. Company CEO Phil Adam confirms Intellivision has gone quiet so it can reach an agreement with its new investors, who are presumably interested in the Amiico console platform.

This is a common business practice made by companies who need time compiling data or negotiating contracts. Intellivision has used third-party funding to raise over $39 million on paper (but the real value is lower because not all of those funds were collected) to produce and ship its family-friendly Amiico system. The latest campaign on Start Engine has raised less than $50,000 so far.

A World of Tanks developer is fired for controversial support of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

A bit ago, World of Tanks creative director Sergey Burkatovskiy wrote on Facebook that he agrees with Russia's unprovoked strikes on Ukraine. Shortly afterwards WoT parent company Wargaming terminated Burkatovskiy and confirmed he is no longer working on the game.

The Belarusian developer, who operates multiple war games including World of Tanks, World of Warplanes, and World of Warships, says these aren't the views it has on the escalating conflict. "Sergey Burkatovskiy expressed his personal opinion on social media which categorically does not reflect the position of the company. He has been let go and is no longer at the company," the Wargaming tells PC Gamer.

Netflix has acquired Next Games, the developers behind Walking Dead and Stranger Things mobile games.

Netflix has announce an offer to buy outstanding shares of Finnish game developer Next Games. Under the deal Netflix will pay 65 million euros ($72 million) for Next Games in an effort to bolster its growing video games production arm. The streaming giant has added mobile games into existing Netflix subscriptions free of charge to help boost value and continued engagement.

Next Games is the mobile dev responsible for two Walking Dead games, including The Walking No Man's Land that has generated 131 million euros in revenue across 23 million downloads, as well as a Stranger Things puzzle game.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 developer has halted work on the game as it faces war against Russia.

Ukrainian game dev GSC Game World has paused development of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 due to the Russian invasion. Russia is currently trying to capture the capital city of Kyiv, which is GSC's HQ. The game is set in irradiate Chernobyl, which was captured by the Russian military five days ago.

The developer says work on S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 will continue "after the victory."

Sony's European division has shipped multiple "console prototypes" overseas to the United States, import records show.

Sony Interactive Entertainment has made some interesting shipments lately. The company has sent thousands of development kits from all over the world to Oakland, California. These devkits are presumably modified PS5 systems specifically for software creators. They might also be PSVR2 devkits, or perhaps even early units for a new upgraded PS5 Pro.

Now Sony is apparently shipping prototype units overseas. According to international shipment records, Sony Interactive Entertainment Europe shipped 1,500lbs of video game console prototypes from its London, UK headquarters over to Norfolk, Virginia on November 16, 2021. The shipment was made in 4 CTN (cartons) weighing 694 kg (about 1,532 lbs).

Epic Games has purchased Bandcamp, the independent music marketplace platform.

Bandcamp is now part of Epic Games. The internet music company isn't changing operations and day-to-day business will resume as usual. Bandcamp CEO Ethan Diamond explains:

"Bandcamp will keep operating as a standalone marketplace and music community, and I will continue to lead our team. The products and services you depend on aren't going anywhere, we'll continue to build Bandcamp around our artists-first revenue model (where artists net an average of 82% of every sale), you'll still have the same control over how you offer your music."

United States import records show that Sony has shipped thousands of mysterious software development kits from across the world to its Oakland, California branch.

Sony Interactive Entertainment may be preparing to ship dev kits of new PlayStation hardware to video game makers. According to domestic trade ledgers, the billion-dollar games giant has shipped approximately 2,374 cartons of dev kits from October 2021 to January 2022.

The breakdown looks like this:

Oh man, it just doesn't stop reigning terror for NVIDIA in the last few days -- the company was hacked, with intellectual property, rumored GPU specs, and more -- but it extends now to Nintendo's next-gen Switch handheld.

In the new leaks, NVIDIA would be using its Ampere GPU with ray tracing support as well as DLSS 2.2 technology -- Deep Learning Super Sampling, especially DLSS 2.2 -- would be fantastic for Nintendo's next-gen Super Switch, or Switch 2, or Switch Pro, or whatever the hell Nintendo calls its new handheld.

NVIDIA has "nvn2" in its leaks which points to a graphics API for the Switch Pro, which is based on NVIDIA's current-gen Ampere GPU architecture with ray tracing support and DLSS 2.2 technology. From there, there's also mentions of the T234 and T239 SoCs that would be for the next-gen Nintendo Super Switch (or Switch 2).

Secretlab is expanding its DC Collection of gaming chairs with the introduction of the officially licensed Secretlab "The Batman" Movie Edition chair... and it even has a magnetically detachable Bat emblem... oh man.

The new Secretlab TITAN Evo 2022 "The Batman" Movie Edition gaming chair joins the ranks of the growing Secretlab DC Collection in The Joker Edition, The Flash Edition, the Superman Edition, and the older Dark Knight Edition gaming chairs.

In the usual Secretlab style, the new Batman Movie Edition gaming chair arrives in the Bruce Wayne-ready NEO Hybrid Leatherette with perforated matte leather detailing -- and what I need to see in-person -- a brand-new Bat emblem that magnetically attaches to the backrest. Secretlab teases that "The Batman" Edition gaming chair features "nuanced details inspired by Batman lore to create a statement piece for Super Hero aficionados". Uhhh, yeah Secretlab that's me and you really did nail those details (at least from the pictures).