Gaming - Page 396

Apex Legends will deliver nearly $1 billion in revenues through Fiscal Year 2022, EA confirms.

Since its 2019 debut, Apex Legends has become one of the most profitable franchises in EA's portfolio. The franchise generated over $1 billion in total lifetime revenues in less than two years, and made $600 million alone in FY2021. Now the game is expected to deliver even more in FY2022.

In a recent Q3'22 earnings call, EA CEO Andrew Wilson said Apex will make "close to $1 billion in FY22." This revenue was driven by a sharp 30% spike in players during the holiday period, as well as 540 million accounts worldwide, of which 180 million were MAUs.

EA has seemingly cooled down on its gung-ho plans to support NFTs.

A bit ago, EA CEO Andrew Wilson said NFTs and play-to-earn were "important parts" of gaming's future. Now Wilson's discussion on NFTs is more lukewarm.

In a recent Q3'21 earnings call, Wilson delivered new comments on NFTs that seem to consider the incredibly strong pushback from the controversial speculative business model.

EA says Battlefield 2042's sales were "disappointing," executives say the sales miss will reduce its overall net bookings forecast by $100 million.

EA is aware of the Battlefield 2042 situation and acknowledges that sales have missed their expectations. The publisher says DICE's new shooter delivered "disappointing results," and while no actual sales figures were announced, the company talked up the game in previous calls with extraordinary confidence.

"Battlefield 2042 did not meet our expectations," EA CEO Andrew Wilson said in a Q3 earnings call. "Some of the decision choices that we made did not resonate with our community. We are fully committed to realizing full potential of the game and fully committed to our fans."

Destiny 2's new The Witch Queen expansion might become the most popular post-release DLC in the game's history.

The Witch Queen is already a massive success with over 1 million pre-orders so far, Bungie has announced. A quick bit of math shows Bungie has made at least $40 million from Witch Queen pre-orders so far, assuming every single purchase was the standard $39.99 edition. The mix is likely a lot higher as gamers opt for the more expensive deluxe edition ($79.99) and the 30th anniversary edition ($99.99).

"Thank you to the more than ONE MILLION Destiny players who have pre-ordered Destiny 2: The Witch Queen. With your incredible support, it's on track to be the most pre-ordered expansion in Destiny 2 history," Bungie said.

PlayStation functionality has arrived on Discord. It's pretty basic right now, but it could evolve into a real game-changer for both.

Yesterday PlayStation became integrated into popular chat app Discord. The features are barebones and aren't any different to how Xbox accounts are integrated. As Discord hints, this might be just the beginning, though: "We're excited to continue our partnership with PlayStation and explore how we can collectively create great shared experiences for your friends and communities."'

So what's next? Discord may be a part of the most transformative PlayStation feature introduced to date.

The FTC, not the Justice Department, will examine Microsoft's buyout of Activision-Blizzard for instances of possible anti-trust.

The Federal Trade Commission will be scrutinizing the Microsoft-Activision deal. The convergence of the two tech giants would see Microsoft becoming the third most lucrative video games company in the world behind Sony and Tencent while locking down billion-dollar properties like Call of Duty in the process.

Sources tell Bloomberg that FTC regulators plan to closely investigate whether or not the deal constitutes anti-trust or unfair advantage. If its determined that Microsoft's acquisition of Activision-Blizzard will materially harm competition (for example, Sony could lose over $260 million a year if Call of Duty were kept off of PlayStation platforms), the FTC could sue to block the acquisition similar to how the commission is trying to block NVIDIA's takeover of ARM.

UPDATE:Team17 is ending its NFT worms project.

On the news that Worms developer Team17 is supporting NFTs (much to the dismay of its employees), multiple indie studios stand in solidarity and push back against the speculative platform.

NFTs are a hot unregulated craze that's rife with profit, speculation, and scams. Major games-makers like Ubisoft, EA, and Square Enix have expressed interest. Konami and Ubisoft have actually pulled the trigger and minted NFTs based on Castlevania and Ghost Recon. Now smaller publishers like Team17 are using their brands to do the same.

An old-school gamer has recreated one of the most iconic video games of all time with LEGOs.

YouTuber Ian Roosma has built the entire Legend of Zelda NES overworld map using LEGOs. The huge map took 25,000 LEGOs to make and was created as a wall decoration with significant meaning. The map is a whopping 30 x 85 inches and fully mirrors the feature-complete map of the NES classic, with enemies, trees, and of course the iconic dungeons.

Roosma told Kotaku that he used website Bricklink to secure all the myriad of parts (thousands of green and brown pieces) and the map design took roughly 4 months to outline.

Sony's $3.6 billion buyout of Bungie demonstrates just how much the PlayStation ecosystem will evolve.

Like Microsoft with Xbox, Sony also wants to bring PlayStation outside of consoles. Exclusivity helped propel the PS4 and Xbox One era to new heights, but the new frontier of gaming sees live services dominating traditional sales, and these models require access over exclusivity.

Sony has traditionally been slow to adapt to specific ecosystem trends, but this is rapidly changing. It all started with cross-play coming to PS4s in 2018 and offline downloads on PlayStation Now. Then it made the biggest move of all: Bringing first-party games to PC.

Sony plans to buy Bungie for $3.6 billion, but Destiny and future Bungie games will not be PlayStation exclusive.

Soon Bungie will be owned by Sony. Unlike Microsoft's Activision-Blizzard and ZeniMax buyouts, the Sony x Bungie acquisition wasn't about securing exclusives.

This deal is similar to how Tencent operates studios with a hands-off approach; Sony is transitioning from a platform holder to a service holder. Live services thrive on access and exclusivity only restricts engagement.

Sony plans to buy Destiny and Halo creator Bungie for $3.6 billion, however the studio will remain independently run and continue self-publishing its own games.

Sony's acquisition of Bungie won't instantly lock down everything to PlayStation. This is a lot like a Tencent buyout; Instead of coming in and laying down on rules and mandates, Sony will let Bungie operate, create, and distribute its games independently without managerial oversight.

The clarification is especially important since Bungie received a huge $100 million investment from NetEase to fund its "bold new vision." Bungie has also filed trademarks for something called Matter, and is currently working on another Destiny project as well as a new IP.

Sony is buying Bungie, the creators of Destiny and Halo.

Sony is striking back with a megaton purchase of its own. Sony is buying Bungie, the original developers of Halo and the Destiny franchise for $3.6 billion.

Microsoft recently purchased Activision-Blizzard for $68.7 billion and ZeniMax in 2020 for $7.5 billion. In 2018, Bungie re-purchased the Destiny franchise from Activision-Blizzard and received a massive $100 million investment from Chinese juggernaut NetEase to fund its "bold new vision."

First Sony's PlayStation exclusives came to PC, then games released on Xbox. Now Sony will release its first PlayStation Studios game on Nintendo Switch.

Today the MLB announced that MLB The Show 22 will release on April 15, 2022 on PlayStation, Xbox, and for the first time ever, Nintendo Switch. This is a great business move that will leverage the Switch's mighty 92.87 million install base and also marks a historic occasion as the first-ever PlayStation Studios game to release on the Switch (MLB The Show games are developed by Sony's San Diego Studio, a wholly-owned subsidiary).

MBL The Show 22 will have full cross-platform play with PlayStation and Xbox gamers, alongside cross-progression.

After significant push back from fans, voice actor Troy Baker will no longer get into NFTs.

Troy Baker, who has voiced countless characters from Joel Miller in The Last of Us and The Joker in the Batman Arkham games, is abandoning is plans to support voice-based NFTs.

"Thank you all for your feedback and patience. After careful consideration, I've decided to not continue the partnership with VoiceVerseNFT. Intentions aside, I've heard you and apologize for accusing anyone of "hating" just by simply disagreeing with me," Baker said on Twitter.

FF7 Remake part 2 could be announced sometime in 2022 to coincide with the game's big 25th anniversary.

Final Fantasy 7 Remake is an episodic game that could span console generations. It's been nearly two years since the first game was released, so when does FF7R chapter 2 launch? No one knows yet, but we could get an announcement this year.

In a recent anniversary stream, game producer Yoshinori Kitase said: "...As for the Final Fantasy VII Remake news you've been waiting on, I think I'll be able to share more this year, maybe."

Elden Ring won't be so mercilessly difficult this time and offer players more flexibility to tackle obstacles like bosses, environments, and exploration in different ways.

Hidetaka Miyazaki has some great news for Elden Ring players: The game's non-linear open world gives more freedom in when to fight or avoid bosses. That means players won't have to "bang their head against a wall over and over," as Miyazaki puts it. You can run off and go level up somewhere else, explore another region, or practice against smaller enemies.

In this way, Elden Ring should technically be less difficult that linear games like Dark Souls and Bloodborne.

Square Enix teases even more Final Fantasy 7 projects as the landmark RPG turns 25 years old.

Final Fantasy 7 is so popular that Square Enix is treating as a mini-series. Mainline games will still continue--like Final Fantasy XVI--but the FF7 Series is getting its own galaxy of products too. Final Fantasy 7 Remake is just the beginning, and both Yoshinori Kitase (producer) and Tetsuya Nomura (creative director) tease more FF7 games.

"FF7 has re-emerged as the latest game in the series once again, with titles like Final Fantasy 7 Remake and Final Fantasy 7 The First Soldier, and you can look forward to even more exciting new developments in the future," producer Yoshinori Kitase said in a recent post.

New box art for Cyberpunk 2077 has reportedly been spotted on the PlayStation Store's backend database, hinting at an incoming PS5 version.

Back in October, CD Projekt announced Cyberpunk 2077's next-gen versions would be delayed to Q1 2022. This period is from January thru March 2022 so that means Cyberpunk 2077 on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S should launch sometime in February or March.

Now it looks like the next-gen version is right on track. New icon artwork for Cyberpunk 2077 has been unearthed by dataminers who comb the PlayStation servers for info on upcoming game releases. CD Projekt has not yet uploaded metadata like file size for the PS5 build--once that happens it indicates that progress has been made and some time of build has been uploaded.

Support studio Certain Affinity is reportedly working on a brand new all-original gametype for Halo Infinite that will appeal to recreational players.

Halo Infinite Firefight or some variant of PvPvE game mode could be coming to the budding service game. Sources tell Windows Central's Jez Corden that Certain Affinity is making a new Halo Infinite mode aimed at casual gamers.

The gametype is big enough to have its own codename (Project Tatanka) and may serve as the middle ground between the easy Bot Bootcamp playlist and the more competitive playlists. The mode is meant to onboard new players who may not be familiar with Halo's gameplay and would rather enjoy a more low-stress experience, possibly something like the unranked, non-competitive camaraderie that formed from Halo 3's customs matches years ago.

A new Halo Infinite BTB fix has been playtested and is waiting to be greenlit by Xbox's QA teams.

After 3 months of malfunctioning matchmaking and one failed update, Halo Infinite's Big Team Battle is still having issues. 343i is on the case and says a new patch is currently in certification...but it won't be ready until February 3 at the earliest. For now BTB will still remain broken, but the devs will remove challenges from BTB starting February 1.

"Using the telemetry we received from the hotfix on January 19, we were able to make a new build with an update that we believe should address the core issue impacting the BTB playlist. The studio ran a successful playtest today and plans to send it off for certification on Monday," Halo community manager John Junyszek said in a forum post.