Gaming - Page 4

A proposed Linux kernel patch could reduce frame hitches on the Steam Deck and other AMD-based gaming hardware running Linux. In early testing using Civilization VI's benchmark, the patch improved 1% low frame rates by 31.8% and frame generation times at the 99th percentile by 4.1%, without affecting average FPS at all.

The patch comes from David Vernet, a Linux kernel developer at Meta, and targets a specific inefficiency in how AMD's P-State driver handles EPP mode during gaming workloads. When a game's main or render thread pauses briefly while waiting for the GPU, the current driver can misread that short sleep as reduced CPU demand and begin lowering the core's clock speed. When the thread wakes up, it starts back at a lower frequency than it actually needs, causing momentary frame time inflation that shows up as stutters and 1% low spikes.

Switching the processor to full performance mode eliminates the issue. Still, it kills the power efficiency that EPP mode is designed to provide, which is concerning on a handheld where the CPU and GPU share a power budget. Simply raising the minimum performance target permanently also backfires by interfering with the shared CPU and GPU boost management on Steam Deck hardware.

Despite reports to the contrary, BioWare's co-founder believes the studio could technically bring Dragon Age Origins and Dragon Age II back for a remastered duology...but it wouldn't be easy.

Following the reception of Veilguard, EA seems unlikely to resurrect the Dragon Age franchise any time soon, but former BioWare dev and executive producer Mark Darrah says EA probably couldn't do it even if they wanted to. The reason? No one currently at BioWare has enough experience with Dragon Age's old Aurora-based Eclipse Engine to make the project actually happen.

However, BioWare co-founder Trent Oster is optimistic on Dragon Age remasters. "I've seen a fair bit of chatter about the impossibility of remastering Dragon Age. I like to think of myself as someone who talks a bit, but more often lets my work speak for me. In my opinion, it is possible, but by no means a trivial exercise," Oster said on Twitter.

Xbox's layoffs have impacted the team behind Bethesda's popular The Elder Scrolls Online, but the game will continue onward for the foreseeable future. Nonetheless, the team has delayed a few features originally planned with The Thieves Guild release into 2027.

Microsoft recently laid off 1,600 workers across all divisions of Xbox, including ZeniMax/Bethesda. The team behind The Elder Scrolls Online was hit hard, with a substantial portion of staff let go, including senior management and studio leaders. There were rumblings that the team had been reduced so much that those that remained were reportedly unsure how they'd deliver new content.

Now that the dust has settled a little bit, ZeniMax has issued a statement on what's next for ESO after the disruptive layoffs. "ESO is here to stay, and our team is dedicated to the future of this game. Our focus hasn't changed. It is continuing to grow The Elder Scrolls Online and build upon the world millions of players call home," new ZOS studio head Nick Giacomini said. He also affirms that ZOS will focus on "quality experiences over calendar dates."

Microsoft has made a big U-turn on its path to exclusive games and now sees them as a major growth indicator for Xbox.

Microsoft recently posted its FY26 results, showing a $1 billion+ decline in Xbox earnings. The drop in gaming was driven by softening demand for Xbox hardware, increased costs and an overall reduction in subscription and sales. Microsoft's SEC filings also give some clues into how the group is now thinking about Xbox.

Following instrumental shifts from new CEO Asha Sharma, the games division is no longer referred to as "Gaming" in Microsoft's earnings reports, and is now simply called "Xbox." There's also a new definition of how growth will actually be determined at Xbox and exclusive games are quizzically a part of this metric.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella says that Xbox is expected to "return to growth" in FY27, but what does that actually mean?

Microsoft has pulled all the levers to ensure Xbox has a clear runway for growth. The group has held mass layoffs (Xbox let go of over 1,600 people in FY26 alone), cancelled projects, and divested studios, all while laying out new targets to help measure and quantify this so-called growth.

These drastic calls are expected to start paying off this fiscal year, company CEO Satya Nadella says: "When it comes to XBOX, we are making the necessary decisions required across our content portfolio, platform, and operations to reset the business for long-term growth. We have the best IP in the industry, and talented studios around the world, and believe we can bring these strengths together and expect to return the business to growth in fiscal 2027."

Fans of Grand Theft Auto VI are convinced that Rockstar Games is about to drop the next trailer - and the evidence is piling up. Internet sleuths discovered recent activity on the official GTA VI website and the Rockstar Instagram account, sparking a frenzy among fans that GTA 6 marketing season and the highly anticipated next trailer are arriving in the coming weeks.

X user Videotech discovered the GTA VI site was updated with font and layout changes, the first such update in over a month. Then, Rockstar's Instagram account began following new profiles, which some see as an early step in prepping for a large-scale reveal. Industry insider Tom Henderson predicted the trailer will land around August 6, likely tied to Take-Two's investor call schedule and the need for a final marketing push before the November 19 launch.

It was recently confirmed Take-Two will be holding its shareholders' meeting on September 17, which it will hopefully use as an opportunity to showcase how successful the ongoing marketing for GTA 6 is going, and perhaps some pre-order numbers.

Xbox earnings were down -7% year-over-year, representing a decrease of around $1.7 billion as the Xbox Series records its worst sales revenue of the generation.

Microsoft has reportedly its full-year revenues, showing sharp declines in Xbox earnings. Based on company data, Xbox made an estimated $21.76 billion in FY26, compared to $23.45 billion the previous year. Increased costs and a topline revenue reduction were the major culprits.

According to our estimates, FY26 wasn't just the lowest annual earnings for the gen 9 Xbox Series console generation. FY26 represents the lowest year of Xbox console revenues in more than a decade. The last all-time yearly low for Xbox hardware sales was in FY20 with $1.66 billion earned, and in FY26, Microsoft made an estimated $1.51 billion from Xbox Series sales.

One of the biggest advances in the AI space over the past year has come from its ability to speed up development and programming, to the point where "vibe coding" means people can create apps and software without any formal coding experience or background. This is why we've got a story like this, where a developer (Kahris) was able to port the Nintendo 64 classic The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time to iOS and iPadOS.

And it's a native port, too, which means support for touch controls, high-resolution widescreen display, and a smooth 60FPS. Compared to the N64 original's 240p resolution and 20FPS or so gameplay, it's a massive improvement. With porting duties handled by Codex 5.6 Sol, OpenAI's flagship GPT-5.6 model, it's an impressive feat, but also one that sits on the shoulders of existing work by talented human coders.

Although Codex 5.6 Sol impressively rebuilt the game for iOS as a native ARM64 app, rendered by Metal, it's based on the decompiled Ship of Harkinian source port of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, written in the programming language C.

Xbox CEO Asha Sharma has admitted that the platform added over 200 million new players in fiscal year 2026, but despite this increase in players, its business did not grow proportionally.

In a statement posted to X, Sharma acknowledged there is a widening gap between new Xbox users and revenue generation. "We need to close that gap by investing in what players value," she said. "That will take time, but we expect to return to growth by the end of FY27." This statement from Sharma comes on the heels of Xbox publishing its financial results, where it was revealed its earnings are down 10% in FY2026.

The numbers highlight a growing challenge for Microsoft and Xbox: attracting users is one thing - monetizing them is another. Though the platform continues to expand its reach, internal metrics suggest a disconnect between player base growth and financial performance.

Halo: Campaign Evolved launched on PC on July 28 without local split-screen co-op, a feature available on Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5. NexusMods user JPurd123 found that the PC version of the game never had split-screen removed at all.

The feature is technically sitting right there, enabled in the config files. "The PC build never had it stripped out," JPurd123 wrote in the mod description. "It ships with split-screen already enabled in config (bUseSplitscreen=True), and the split-screen HUD layouts, the sign-in UI, the split-screen VFX variants and the audio parameters are all still cooked into the game files. It just isn't exposed in the menus. This mod calls the code that is already sitting there."

In other words, the mod doesn't recreate split-screen or modify the game's executable. It simply calls functionality that's already present, adding a second local player through UE4SS and bypassing the menu restriction that hides the feature.

Sandfall Interactive has confirmed it is interested in bringing Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 to the Nintendo Switch 2. However, the studio is being upfront about why it is not a straightforward port. In an interview with Automaton, the team described it as a "big technical challenge" and made clear that nothing is ready to announce yet.

"It's a big technical challenge because we tried to do something beautiful with the game, but of course, the Switch 2 is not as powerful as the PlayStation or the Xbox Series X," said studio co-founder and CTO Tom Guillermin.

"So, it's an important thing for us to consider, especially given the size of our studio." CEO Guillaume Broche said the studio is genuinely interested in bringing the game to Switch 2, but stressed that it is far too early to announce any concrete plans.

Assassin's Creed Hexe seems to get a new launch window every week. While previous leaks put the launch window right around June 2027, renowned leaker NateTheHate2 has tweeted that Assassin's Creed Hexe will likely launch in late 2027, at the earliest.

This comes right after reports claimed that an official reveal for Assassin's Creed Hexe was imminent, which would normally indicate a release window that was approaching swiftly. Of course, these rumors were compounded by the leak of a DLC, which made fans hopeful that Hexe would launch earlier than many had anticipated.

However, Nate has just advised them to pump the brakes a bit. Assassin's Creed Hexe is still more than a year away from launch, according to the leaker who has a good track record of previous Assassin's Creed leaks. The game has gone through a tumultuous development cycle, and that has naturally pushed the game back from its original launch target, which was right around summer 2027.

Apparently the data keeps backing up an analyst who would rather it didn't. Circana's Mat Piscatella noted on Bluesky that the PS5 has effectively become "the Call of Duty box," with 2012's Black Ops II re-release topping weekly PlayStation Network charts ahead of Fortnite, NBA 2K26, and Marvel Rivals.

He said he wanted the top of these charts mixed up, but was hoping for new games doing the mixing, not decade-old ports. It looks like the general trend agrees with him more than he'd like. Piscatella has floated the idea that gamers are simply happier replaying old favorites in remake form, and while he admits this part is more gut feeling than hard data, the numbers around him are hard to ignore.

Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced is the clearest example. The remake sold 3.5 million copies in 14 days, blowing past Ubisoft's full-year sales target before its first month was even over. Ubisoft's own CFO has since admitted remakes may be more profitable than new entries, since they reuse assets, need less marketing, and sell on nostalgia alone. Resynced also outpaced Assassin's Creed Shadows in day-one revenue by more than double.

Xbox's recent 16-hour service outage shouldn't have disrupted physical disc-based games, but some users reported being locked out of their offline titles, including physical disc copies of games that don't require an online connection to play. Microsoft has confirmed it is now investigating the issue.

In a statement to The Verge, Xbox tech chief Scott Van Vliet confirmed the issue stemmed from an external licensing service, and that entitlement checks for disc-based games should not have caused problems during the outage. "Offline mode is also designed to rely on those saved entitlements," Van Vliet said, while noting a fix is in the works.

For those who missed it, the Xbox outage started on Monday and lasted for approximately 16 hours. Xbox confirmed the outage was caused by an external licensing service failure, leading to widespread issues across its platform, including sign-in, game downloads, game launches, library loading, and more.

Australian players of GTA Online recently discovered that gambling at Diamond Resort Casino, including the Lucky Wheel, has been revoked without any warning or explanation. Australian players are now walking into the casino and up to games such as blackjack, horse betting, and the Lucky Wheel, only to be greeted with the following error message: "This feature is not available for you."

So, why the sudden change, and why just Australia? In Australia, games that simulate gambling need to feature an R18+ classification, which GTA Online does. However, Australia's government is currently cracking down on simulated gambling in video games. For those who don't know, GTA Online players can take real-world money and convert it into GTA$, which they can then use to purchase Casino Chips. Notably, players aren't able to convert the chips back into real-world cash.

The Australian government may now be viewing the gambling practises within GTA Online as a violation, as a GTAForums user pointed out that GTA Online for the Xbox was recently reclassified by Australia's regulatory body, and the new consumer advice doesn't include the previously stated "high impact gambling".

A recent Steam Community announcement confirmed that Valve is working through reservations for the recently released Steam Machine one day at a time, and that everyone who has reserved the new device should get the chance to purchase one.

The company introduced waitlists to streamline access for users eager to get their hands on the upcoming device, but it's proven to be quite a struggle given the ongoing component shortage. The move follows a similar strategy used for the Steam Controller, which saw such high demand upon launch that Valve had to implement a queueing system to prevent scalping and ensure fair access.

The Steam Machine will now operate under the same model, with interested buyers first having to join a waitlist, which, when passed, means a reservation place has become available within your region. The reservation is essentially Valve guaranteeing you a Steam Machine unit, and once your Steam Machine becomes available, Valve will follow up with an option-to-order email.

Xbox's next-gen Project Helix may not deliver the open PC experience fans once hoped for, or were once told they were going to get, and the reasons are as much financial as they are strategic.

Microsoft previously announced that Project Helix will run both Xbox and PC games, mentioning owners will be able to access multiple storefronts as PC gamers do, listing popular marketplaces such as the Epic Games Store and GOG. However, those teasers were under previous Xbox CEO Phil Spencer, and since the new leadership has come in, the gaming industry has shifted substantially, particularly with the cost of hardware, new competitors, and costs of game development increasing. With memory chip costs through the roof and next-gen consoles already priced north of $1,000, an open system like a Steam Machine may not be such an attractive prospect for Microsoft.

Windows Central's Jez Corden has outlined this in a recent report where he states that he has been informed Xbox is losing around $150 per Xbox Series X|S due to the recent memory shortage, and that it expects to continue losing money on every console following the August 2026 price hike. But what does this have to do with Steam potentially being accessible on the Project Helix console?

Rockstar Games has locked Australian players out of GTA Online's Diamond Casino after seven years of it being available, effectively banning all gambling features, meaning Australian GTA Online players can never acquire the rarest vehicle in the game, as it's locked behind playing Diamond Casino games.

The closure, flagged by players on social media and GTA Forums, includes the removal of the daily spin wheel, pokies, blackjack, horse betting, and basically any in-game betting. This means players can no longer obtain the Lost Slamvan, one of the most exclusive cars in GTA Online, as it can only be unlocked by winning it from the Lucky Wheel in The Diamond Casino & Resort.

For those wondering about rarity, if the wheel lands on a Mystery Reward, there's about a 14.3% chance it will drop the player with something from the vehicle category, and another 0.72% chance of it being a Lost Slamvan. This makes the overall probability of winning a Lost Slamvan about 0.005%, or about 1 in 20,000, or if you live in Australia 0%.

Leadership is changing at Wizards of the Coast, the label behind the highly profitable Magic: The Gathering collectible card game.

According to a recent SEC filing spotted by Game Developer, Wizards of the Coast president John Hight will leave his position and take on an advisory role starting in September.

Hight is expected to serve a full year in the advisory role, and will "have such duties and responsibilities as are reasonably assigned by the CEO from time to time, including assisting with transitional efforts and the successful onboarding of a successor President of Wizards of the Coast for the Company."

Valve has officially fixed the issue that was preventing local network game transfers from working properly on Steam, making life easier for an undoubtedly small number of Steam users compared to the entire user base, but those who regularly use local network game transfers are now looking up and thanking Lord Gaben.

The update went live on Monday and fixed errors that prevented users from copying game files between devices over a local area, which is an incredibly handy feature if you have multiple Steam users in the same household and a limited internet connection speed, or total data per month. Additionally, pairing local network game transfers with family sharing makes for an incredibly powerful local setup.

However, prior to this recent update, some users found their local transfers were defaulting to internet downloads instead of using the local network speeds, which are considerably faster, don't cause lag for other network users, and don't chew down on total data allocation. Now, with the latest client update, that shouldn't happen, but only if all devices involved in the transfer are running the same updated version of Steam.