Gaming - Page 400

Activision-Blizzard CEO and President Bobby Kotick will leave the company after Microsoft's buyout goes through.

Bobby Kotick will depart Activision once Microsoft's acquisition buyout closes, multiple sources have told The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg. The news comes months after Kotick promised to resign if he couldn't fix the company-wide issues and toxic workplace culture.

Kotick will continue his role as CEO until regulatory approval has been made on the deal, which is expected to be finalized during Microsoft's FY22 period (June 2022 through July 2023).

With over 400 games and counting, it's easy to see why Xbox Game Pass has nearly doubled its subscribers in the last two years.

As part of its announcement on the acquisition of Activision-Blizzard for nearly $70 billion, Microsoft revealed a big jump in Game Pass subscribers. The all-you-can play service has attracted 25 million users as of today, making it one of the most powerful video game subscriptions on the market and representing a 150% jump in total subs in almost two years.

The service has yet to be profitable at Microsoft and is a multi-decade investment that serves as both an entry point and a destination to its gaming ecosystem. Xbox Game Pass is synergistic in that it not only fuels repeated subscriptions, but also monetization via free-to-play live service games and full game sales. The value proposition alone is undeniable: The service offers access to 440 games total across four generations of Xbox that are made available across PC, consoles, and now mobile phones.

Xbox Game Pass has hit a huge new milestone of 25 million active subscribers, Microsoft today announced.

Microsoft is buying Activision-Blizzard for $68.7 billion, the largest acquisition in video games history. Nestled in the press release announcement was an update on Xbox Game Pass subscription numbers. Game Pass is now at 25 million subscribers, up a thunderous 150% over nearly two years.

"The acquisition also bolsters Microsoft's Game Pass portfolio with plans to launch Activision Blizzard games into Game Pass, which has reached a new milestone of over 25 million subscribers," the press release reads.

Microsoft plans to buy Activision-Blizzard in a massive $69 billion deal to bolster the Xbox service ecosystem. But not every Activision game will become an Xbox exclusive.

Today Microsoft shook up the video games industry. Like Bethesda before it, Microsoft is also buying Activision-Blizzard in the largest acquisition in the history of the games market. The deal was made specifically to secure billion-dollar content like Call of Duty, Warcraft, Overwatch, an Diablo as Xbox ramps up towards the multiverse.

According to reports from Bloomberg, not every future Activision-Blizzard game will become an Xbox exclusive. Some games will also release on PlayStation, but a portion of games will indeed be kept off of Nintendo and PlayStation platforms. It's likely that Call of Duty titles will still release on PlayStation platforms--at least existing titles like Warzone and Overwatch will remain the connective free-to-play tissue that binds PlayStation, Xbox, and PC together in a billion-dollar powerhouse synergy.

More Diablo 2 (D2R) runewords revealed! CHECK THEM OUT.

The first new runeword in the last 17 years has been revealed...and it's pretty impressive.

YouTuber Dbrunski125 revealed one of the new runewords coming to Diablo 2 Resurrected and it's actually very powerful. The runeword is called Unbending Will (Fal+Io+Ith+Eld+El+Hel) and it's basically a budget-friendly Breath of the Dying.

Xbox Series S consoles are currently in stock at Amazon for $299.

Microsoft's next-gen consoles have been tremendously rare throughout 2020 and even 2021, but it looks like stock is starting to free up somewhat. Retailer Amazon currently has Xbox Series S systems available for the $299 MSRP. There's no crazy markups or scalper prices here--just the standard consumer costs set by Microsoft.

A big thing to remember is the Series S is a digital-only system and the only way to expand its SSD storage is with second-hand attachments or expensive external storage. It's also a lot less powerful than the $499 Xbox Series X with only 4TFLOPS of GPU power, 10 GB of GDDR6 RAM, and a resolution target of 1440p 60FPS that upscales for 4K UHD TVs and monitors.

Call of Duty's billion-dollar free-to-play sensation Warzone suffers as Q&A testers remain on strike.

Dozens of Activision-Blizzard developers are still on strike and the work stoppage is affecting one of the company's most valuable digital assets: Call of Duty Warzone. Workers initially went on strike as protest against executive decisions to fire key Raven Software contractors. New reports from The Washington Post's Shannon Liao indicate that the strike is still ongoing as Activision has yet to overturn its decision, and the strike is biting into the quality of Warzone itself.

QA testers are among the developers currently on strike. Raven Software's quality assurance testers are vital to the upkeep and maintenance of Call of Duty Warzone because they identify bugs, issues, and in-game glitches. Now that Q&A isn't there to point things out, Warzone is riddled with bugs to the point where gamers call the mode broken. All of Warzone's connected games--Modern Warfare, Cold War, and the latest Vanguard--are affected by the QA strike.

One Activision-Blizzard shareholder is prepared to rid itself of all stocks if certain demands aren't met.

Fidelity International has warned $ATVI that it is prepared to sell $62 million worth of stock if the company doesn't heed specific demands. As per reports from The Wall Street Journal, Fidelity International has sent a list of demands to the controversial video games publisher. If the demands aren't met, sources tell The WSJ, then Fidelity International will not only divest all of its Activision-Blizzard holdings but also "enlist the support of other shareholders."

Fidelity has been a stakeholder for at least 22 years and was once Activision-Blizzard's fourh-largest shareholder. Under the Fidelity Contrafund, it owned over 11 million shares worth $1 billion in March 2021, but sold over 90% of its shares following Activision-Blizzard's sexual abuse controversy.

Reports say that Sony has filed a new patent for backwards compatibility on the PlayStation 5. The patent isn't actually new, but a revised version of older patents that stretch back to 2015.

Loud proclamations have been made about Sony's recently-published backwards compatibility patent and gamers believe it could push Sony one step closer to PS3 emulation on the PS5. The latest patent, which concerns Sony's use of cycle counters matching spoof clocks to adjust CPU and GPU frequencies for error-free backwards compatibility emulation, isn't entirely new.

This is the latest in a long line of patents; Sony has been filing this particular backwards compatibility patent--Backward Compatibility Through Use of Spoof Clock and Fine Grain Frequency Control--since 2015. There are 24 related patents (family members) released in multiple regions like Taiwan, Japan, Europe, and even China. This patent is a continuation of all those old patents (which are in turn continuations of their forebears).

Rockstar Games may have delayed the new next-gen version of GTA V by as much as two months.

A bit ago, Rockstar Games pushed its GTA V Expanded & Enhanced version to March 2022. Now according to Portuguese Rockstar news tracker Matheusvictorbr, it's possible GTA V could be delayed as far as May 2022 on PS5 and Xbox Series X.

"I received some information recently regarding the title: Grand Theft Auto V: Expanded And Enhanced: The development was complicated. At the moment its [release] is still in March, but there are great chances that it will be delayed to April/May," Mathheus said on Twitter.

This impressive Skyrim demo in Unreal Engine 5 shows what The Elder Scrolls VI might look like on next-gen hardware.

The Elder Scrolls 6 is still a far ways off, but we do know the game will be running on Bethesda's new upgraded Creation Engine 2.0 to push new high-end photogrammetrical textures and visuals. We've only seen a brief cinematic snippet from 2018 and a few teases, but modders are using Unreal Engine 5 optimizations to show what could be possible with the new Elder Scrolls.

Environment artist Christian Gomm recently made a stellar demo recreation of Skyrim in UE5 that uses custom assets and Nanite tech, with polygons ranging from 100,000 to 15 million triangles.

Gamers have discovered multiple PS3 games on the PS5 storefront, kicking off mass hype for native PS3 backward compatibility on PS5. However our research indicates that this may not be the case.

PS3 games are reportedly coming to PS5 via Sony's new PlayStation Spartacus subscription. However, the most recent reports from Video Games Chronicle are not connected to this plan.

PS3 games recently showed up on the PS5 storefront with an actual price tag. This kicked off speculation that PS3 games could be coming to PS5 as purchasable, natively backward-compatible games. Sadly, we have evidence that some of the PS3 games that show up on the PS5 store are remnants of PlayStation Now's old rental subscription plan.

Konami's new Castlevania NFTs have been a big success with over $164,000 USD earned so far.

Note: All figures current at the time of writing.

Konami's NFTs are doing much better than Ubisoft's Quartz NFTs. The publisher has sold its limited-edition Castlevania NFTs for a total of 49 WETH, or about $164,535 USD. The data we've collected shows a highly speculative market with the intent of re-selling and collecting. The most expensive NFT was the Castlevania - Dracula's Castle Pixel Art which sold for over $25,000, and the lowest is Castlevania - Dagger VS Frankenstein & Igor that sold for $7,380.

God of War has released on PC with thunderous acclaim and popularity, amassing tens of thousands of players in its first day of sale.

Sony's new God of War release on PC further cements a new cross-platform era for its once-console exclusive games. The gambit appears to be paying off quite well. God of War in particular has peaked at 49,411 players on Steam (as per SteamDB figures). God of War reviews are also overwhelmingly positive with a 97% approval rating.

Sales of God of War on Steam are estimated to be up to 217,000, but also remember the game is being sold on the Epic Games Store as well. We might get official numbers from Sony soon, but God of War 2018 has sold 19.5 million units as of August 2021.

343 Industries will finally starting reducing Halo Infinite's microtransactions to make cosmetics and collectibles more fairly priced.

Halo Infinite has been over-monetized since it released on December 8. There have been $20 bundles that include paltry value with one piece of armor and other meager customizables (some didn't have any armor at all), and 343i was even charging $5 for basic armor colors. Now more than 41 days later, 343i says it will start dropping prices; the store will be adjusted starting this Tuesday, January 18, studio head of design Jerry Hook says.

Anyone that plays Call of Duty: Vanguard, Warzone Pacific (or before it was called that, Call of Duty: Warzone) knows that there are major issues with the game. It's not a mess like Battlefield 2042, but there are fixes that the developers need to do -- and now Activision is addressing that, exactly.

In a new tweet on the official Twitter account for Call of Duty, the developer has a "message to our community" that takes in the criticism gamers have over the franchise, and that the teams have fixes and improvements on the way. Activision said: "We wanted to take a minute to talk about fixing the game. We hear you, and we feel your frustrations. Our teams are hard at work addressing the issues that are being experienced across Vanguard, Warzone, and Modern Warfare".

"Updates are being deployed as quickly as possible. We want everyone to have a seamless experience, no matter which game, game mode or platform you play on. Your feedback is a critical part of our development process to make our games the best they can be. Stay posted for real-time updates" while the company says you should follow Raven Software, Sledgehammer Games, Infinity Ward, and Treyarch on Twitter.

Respawn's new mystery game is reportedly a singleplayer action-adventure FPS...but it is not Titanfall 3.

Respawn is working on a third project alongside ongoing Apex Legends content and Jedi: Fallen Order 2. Our previous coverage indicates the game is in early incubation phases of development, and new reports from GamesBeat say the title will be a singleplayer-driven FPS with an emphasis on fluidity.

The news comes after Respawn creative director Mohammed Alavi left the studio. Alavi was leading the charge on the unannounced game and back in 2021 he described the team as a "small and compact group of specialists that have a lot more freedom to shape a new game".

Digital video game services made the bulk of the global games industry's revenues in 2020.

Game services have far eclipsed product sales as the market continually shifts to a lease-based subscriptions, live games, and engagement-driven business models. According to figures from analyst Joost Van Dreunen, services including the likes of Xbox Game Pass, PlayStation Plus, and free-to-play live titles made up 70% of 2020's global games industry earnings.

The worldwide games market generated $180 billion in 2020 due to stay-at-home measures. Services accounted for roughly $127 billion according to SuperJoost analysis, whereas products--game sales, accessories, etc.--made up $53 billion.

Renowned video games voice actor Troy Baker announces his support for NFTs, and fans aren't happy.

Troy Baker has voiced dozens of characters in gaming, film, and anime; if you've played a video game in the last 10 years there's a good chance he's been in it. Baker portrayed icons like Joel in The Last of Us and Higgs in Death Stranding, and even The Joker in a multitude of animated films.

Now the actor is embracing NFTs. In a controversial Twitter post, Baker says he is working with Voiceverse to make unique voice-based NFTs. "You can hate, or you can create," Baker wrote.

SEGA has filed multiple NFT-related trademarks on the Japan Patent Office, possibly indicating its plans to delve into the digital market.

SEGA has filed two new NFT trademarks on the JPO. One is for a SEGA Classics NFT Collection, which should feature pixellated 8- and 16-bit non-fungible tokens, and the other is simply entitled SEGA NFT. The trademarks were filed in late December 2021.

These developments come days after SEGA's new CEO Haruki Satomi said he would abandon NFT plans if it were "perceived as simple money-making."