Gaming - Page 395

Internal sources familiar with Bethesda's plans have apparently debunked recent rumors on The Elder Scrolls VI, a new Mandalorian MMORPG, and other in-production games.

YouTuber Skullzi recently posted up a supposed list of Bethesda's latest projects, including new info on The Elder Scrolls VI. The list is pretty eye-opening. Skullzi's sources say ZeniMax Online is working on a new Mandalorian MMORPG, that a Quake reboot could be in early negotiations, the original cRPG Fallout and TES games are getting remastered by inXile, and some details on TES VI.

Sources have told Bloomberg's Jason Schreier that reports are inaccurate--in fact, they're "bullshit".

Starfield's game engine is a "piece of crap," a former Bethesda Game Studios developer has said.

Starfield's new revamped Creation Engine 2 may be having some issues, particularly with flight mechanics. A former Bethesda Game Studios developer actually says the "engine is a piece of crap," saying that space flight isn't all that fun.

The developer has been sharing Starfiled info on forum site ResetERA since 2021. The user has been authenticated by ResetERA's site admins, and Jason Schreier also confirmed the user was legitimate.

Sony's new game demo policy won't interrupt developer's workloads, and will instead be automated by the PlayStation Store group.

Sony has announced a new mandate that all games on the PlayStation Store that cost more than $34 in wholesale pricing need to have a 2-hour game demo. This is a pretty tall order as there are thousands of games on Sony's storefront.

There's been lost of concern that this would overload game devs with extra work (unless, of course, they asked Sony to lower MSRP of their games on the store to get under the $34 threshold). Now sources tell Kotaku's Ethan Gach that game devs won't actually make the demos. Sony's PlayStation Store engineers will do the heavy lifting and create the 2-hour demos themselves.

Blizzard's segment revenues have dropped to an all-time 8-year low as the developer gears up big projects like Diablo 4 and Overwatch 2.

Activision-Blizzard's latest quarterly earnings show declines in key segments including Blizzard, who has reported the lowest revenues in nearly a decade.

According to data provided by the publisher and compiled by us, Blizzard Entertainment made $274 million revenues throughout Q1 2022, a 43% decline from last year.

Microsoft confirms its Xbox division is currently investigating new fledgling tech like NFTs and cryptocurrency.

After microtransactions and live services, NFTs are gaming's latest craze. In fact, it's possible NFTs could radically change the video games business. Major publishers like Square Enix and SEGA are interested in NFTs, whereas Ubisoft and Konami have already released NFTs (to varying success).

Now Microsoft could be experimenting with NFTs and crypto at its Xbox R&D teams. An Xbox representative recently told Bloomberg that the division is "aware and looking into NFTs, cryptocurrency and other emerging technologies, but don't yet have anything to share."

Sony has clarified on exactly how subscription upgrades will work with the new PlayStation Plus 3-tier plans.

Sony plans to merge PS Plus and PS Now on June 13. So what if you're already subscribed to both services? Sony confirms that these users will get access to the higher-end PlayStation Plus Premium tier.

Existing subscribers of both PlayStation Plus and PlayStation Now will migrate to PS Plus Premium at no cost, unlocking access to 740 games across six console generations including PS1, PS2, PS3, PS4, PS5 and PlayStation Portable.

Ubisoft's new video game releases have been delayed and pushed back farther than expected, sources have told Kotaku.

Ubisoft is a big publisher with even bigger value, but the company's long-term vision is potentially in jeopardy. Ubisoft's slate of upcoming premium games has reportedly been set back, with new entries in the Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, and Ghost Recon franchises being farther away than Ubisoft would've hoped.

The absence of big game releases makes Ubisoft decidedly vulnerable. The company's live services aren't necessarily able to sustain long-term revenue growth; unlike Blizzard, who can make hundreds of millions every year from monetization, Ubisoft needs to release full games every so often to 1) make revenues from the sales and 2) establish new entry points for microtransactions and live services.

Activision promises that Call of Duty Modern Warfare II will be a spectacle unlike any other in the history of the franchise.

Call of Duty's last annual release is going out with a bang. Activision recently hyped up this year's Call of Duty and confirmed it was a sequel to 2019's Modern Warfare. Apparently Infinity Ward has been working on true next-gen features, optimizations, and content to help push the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S to new levels of immersion.

"This year's Call of Duty is a sequel to 2019's Modern Warfare, the most successful Call of Duty title to date, and will be the most advanced experience in franchise history," Activision said in its recent Q1 earnings report.

Microsoft expects gaming to drop in Q4 and break Xbox's quarterly growth streak.

Xbox is currently dominating the market. Microsoft took over market share in key territories through January - March 2022. Console revenues are up 14% due to a supply surge, and Xbox Series X/S were the best-selling consoles in March 2022. Xbox just delivered another record-breaking quarter with $3.74 billion in Q3, which was the highest Q3 period in Xbox gaming history. Xbox has actually made record revenues for three straight consecutive quarters in a row.

Q4 2022 is a different story. Microsoft expects Xbox gaming revenues to drop as much as 9% through the quarter from April - June 2022, breaking the three-month growth streak.

Xbox dominated gaming's most important regions from January - March.

Xbox was the market leader in key territories like the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Western Europe through its Q3 period (Jan - Mar 2022), Microsoft has announced. The update aligns with the NPD Group's March 2022 report that Xbox Series X/S consoles were the top-selling systems in the U.S.

"We have taken share quarterly for two quarters in a row, and we are the quarterly market leader in western Europe, UK, US, and Canada," Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said during a Q3 call.

SEGA plans to delist all existing digital versions of classic Sonic games ahead of its new Sonic Origins remaster collection.

Sonic Origins will soon be the only way to buy old-school Sonic games on modern hardware. According to Games Press, SEGA is removing existing standalone digital versions of Sonic, Sonic 2, Sonic 3, Sonic & Knuckles, and Sonic CD from all platforms. Anyone who currently owns these games will still be able to download and play the games, but new users won't be able to buy them.

The games will still be accessible on SEGA Ages and any games released on the Nintendo Switch Online+ Expansion Pak will still be playable.

Microsoft's games division just had its best Q3 of all time, driven by a substantial spike in hardware revenues.

Xbox gaming is bigger than ever. Microsoft sets another new record-breaking quarter for Xbox with $3.74 billion earned in Q3'2022 (January - March 2022), up $207 million year-over-year.

The growth was driven by an uptick in content & services (+6%) and hardware sales (+14%). The Xbox console sales jump coincides with NPD Group's March report that confirms Xbox Series X/S was the top-selling console in the United States.

Activision-Blizzard has lost a total of 63 million monthly active users in one year, signalling that gamers are moving on to other titles.

Activision's latest financials show a significant decrease in active players. According to the company's financials and data compiled by us, Activision-Blizzard had 372 million monthly active users (MAUs) in Q1 2022, down a whopping 63 million users from Q1 2021.

Activision made up most of this loss, which could indicate Call of Duty has lost tens of millions of users since last year.

Valheim is officially one of the most successful indie games ever released.

Iron Gate's Nordic survival sensation Valheim has sold over 10 million copies in little over a year, new data shows. This is a nice 2 million bump in sales from August 2021's figures, which pinpointed 8 million sales.

The milestone puts Valheim firmly in the top echelon of indie games like Stardew Valley (15 million), Rust (12.4 million), and Fall Guys (11 million). Valheim is even hitting AAA numbers, beating out big games like Final Fantasy XV (8.9 million) and brushing shoulders with Resident Evil 7 (10.6 million).

CD Projekt has adjusted the sales figures for Cyberpunk 2077 on all platforms.

Cyberpunk 2077's platform split has been revised following new data from CD Projekt RED. The company previously released figures suggesting that PC game sales were much higher than PS4 and Xbox One, but those numbers were erroneous. A new report filed by CD Projekt reveals updated data.

The numbers are estimated sell-through on PC, PS4, and Xbox One corresponding with 2020 and 2021. Cyberpunk 2077 has sold 18 million+ copies to date, with 13.7 million sold in 2020 and 4.3 million sold in 2021.

Ubisoft officially confirms it's working on Project Q, a wacky battle arena shooter coming to the free-to-play market.

Ubisoft's latest game Project Q was recently leaked by NDA-bound playtesters and inside info from Tom Henderson, and now Ubisoft has made the news official.

"Introducing codename "Project Q", a team battle arena letting players truly own the experience! The game is in early development and we will keep testing," Ubisoft said in a Tweet announcement that prompted players to sign up to playtest.

Sony has established a new game preservation team that will help support and sustain video game projects.

Sony's latest engineering group is future-proofing current PlayStation games to ensure they stand the test of time. The news comes from Garrett Fredley, a software engineer who recently became part of Sony's preservation upstart.

"Today is my first day as a Senior Build Engineer for PlayStation, working as one of their initial hires for the newly created Preservation team! Let's go and ensure our industry's history isn't forgotten!" Fredley wrote on LinkedIn.

The PlayStation 5 will get the long-awaited Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) feature this week, Sony has announced.

It's finally happening: VRR is coming to PS5 and will help tighten up next-gen gameplay even more. The PS5's Variable Refresh Rate can lead to better in-game performance by syncing the PS5's GPU rendering output frame rates with a display's refresh rate. The result is smoother gameplay and a reduction in visual artifacts, input lag, and screen tearing.

Sony notes that PS5's VRR functionality only works with HDMI 2.1-compatible displays, including newer TVs and PC monitors. There's still no mention of native 1440p resolution output.

Activision lost 50 million users in one year and it's possible Call of Duty Vanguard is a main culprit.

Activision-Blizzard's latest earnings report shows a significant decline in earnings and monthly active users. The Activision segment, which serves up Call of Duty games every year, was hit hardest by the player drop.

According to data compiled by us and provided by the publisher's SEC filings, Activision lost 50 million MAUs from Q1 2021 through Q1 2022. This represents a heavy 33% drop in monthly active users. While Activision doesn't mention the reasoning for the player drop, it does say that Vanguard's lower sales and reduced Warzone engagement were key drivers for net bookings drops.

A black PlayStation 5 devkit was spotted at Hideo Kojima's production studio, but that shouldn't be a surprise; it was always obvious he was making a new PS5 game.

Hideo Kojima recently shared a picture that showed a teleconference setup that would make the The Guild of Calamitous Intent jealous. That photo also includes a snapshot of a PS5 devkit in the background, prompting tons of coverage saying "Kojima is making a PS5 game." This is something that has been apparent for years.

Not only is Hideo Kojima using Sony's advanced MADO "telepresence system" to coordinate with KojiPro's new film studio in Los Angeles, and to help guide the motion capture teams that are recording footage at the PlayStation Visual Arts Motion Capture Studio, his team literally just released a PS5 game (Death Stranding Director's Cut). It's likely Kojima is capturing footage for a new film and/or a new game, or perhaps the interactive blend of film/games that he's talked about for years.