Gaming - Page 404

Physical retail editions of the new GTA trilogy remaster don't come with actual maps or manuals, Twitter user Vadim M. confirms.

Anyone looking forward to getting old-school maps with their disc copies of Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition will be disappointed. The physical disc versions are like practically every game released in this era and don't come with any manuals, maps, etc. This is the first physical Grand Theft Auto game to ship without a map.

Instead you get a disc copy of the game running the older v1.02 patch. The game is currently on version 1.04 and counting. Sadly there's no reliving those old PS2 days with a map of Liberty City, the tropical Vice City, or the dangerous streets of San Andreas. The maps were actually pretty useful and served as iconic posters to hang up on the wall, and have become collector's items since the early 2000s.

Square Enix wants to jump into blockchain, complete with its own token economies. This isn't the first time the publisher has talked up emerging trends--in fact, it wants to embrace practically every games technology on the market.

Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest publisher Square Enix wants to do it all: cloud gaming, VR, and now play-to-earn. Recent comments from Square Enix's president Yosuke Matsuda regarding NFTs and blockchain have caused lots of buzz in the gaming sphere, but the reality is this is nothing new for the company. Square Enix has a long history of evangelizing new gaming trends.

A quick look at previous Square Enix's letters from the president really underline this point. From 2015 onward, Matsuda's charismatic optimism promises big, bold opportunities for the upcoming year. Matsuda's excitement promises significant disruption and change in the games industry for the year ahead. This is particularly interesting given Square Enix's attempt to pioneer a new $69.99 MSRP for PC games.

Square Enix president says not everyone wants to play video games for fun--some want to play games to earn money. That's why the company will be creating blockchain-based games with token economies.

Games may completely change in 2022 as publishers embrace play-to-earn gaming. It used to be games were built on fun and less on commoditization--well, if you ignore arcades, which were the original slot-machine-like microtransactions--but the advent of digital online gaming introduced lootboxes and micro-monetization. Soon every publisher put some form of repeatedly buyable goods in their game to the point where the games themselves were built with mTX in mind--and whole billion-dollar empires were also built on this all-you-can-buy collect-them-all craze. Right now most games are monetization engines built on live services, but NFTs pay-to-earn blockchain gaming add another layer to the mix. Publishers like Square Enix, the developer and publisher of multi-decade series like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, are eager to bake these new possible revenue streams into already-monetized games.

Square Enix in particular is gung ho on NFTs and blockchain. Dragon Quest, NieR, and Final Fantasy devs are all interested in NFTs. Square Enix's president Yosuke Matsuda just recently started 2022 by kicking the hornet's nest with some controversial NFT comments.

If your hands get sore from gaming too much, Japanese company Bauhutte has just unveiled its new hand massager specifically crafted for gamers.

The Bauhutte MSG-01H-BK hand massager works on both the left and right hand, with a 15-later airbag for each individual finger, and a shiatsu plate for your palm. The company has two main options with the hand massager: Shiatsu mode for your entire hand, or a mode that focuses on stretching your fingers.

You've got some tweaking ability with the Bauhutte MSG-01H-BK hand massager, where you can use it as an optional hand warmer for those cold nights, and it'll also improve your circulation, or at least they say. If you want to massage your thumb, you'll need to slide your hand in sideways to get your thumb massaged.

Top gaming companies see a decline in overall share value as post-pandemic surges start to even out.

2020 was a big year for gaming, with the top games-makers earning record revenues. Xbox, Nintendo, and Sony's PlayStation division all reported new all-time highs. Non-platform holders also say highwater marks from their respective revenues, however 2021 is a different story. Revenues are starting to moderate across big companies like EA and Take-Two Interactive, while scandals and controversies bite into shares of Activision's billion-dollar empire.

According to data collected by video games analyst and consultant Dr. Serkan Toto, various companies have seen share price drops after 2020's stellar performance. NYSE-traded stocks like Take-Two, Activision, EA, Ubisoft, and CD Projekt are all down, and Japanese companies on the Tokyo Stock Exchange aren't faring much better: Nintendo is down 18%, Capcom is also down 18%, and Konami, Square Enix, and Koei Tecmo are down ~4%. Sony, on the other hand, is up 38% on the back of strong PlayStation game segment earnings and semiconductors (as well as other successful business areas).

Diablo is one of the best-known franchises on planet Earth, but it wasn't always that way. Back in the day, Blizzard North wasn't sure if the game would break even...let alone make a profit.

The original Diablo from 1996 was made on a shoestring budget that only required thousands of sales, not millions, in order to recoup its development costs. According to original Diablo developer David Brevik, the old-school action RPG only needed to sell 20,000 copies to break even.

"If we could just sell 20,000 copies of this game we may be able to make a sequel. That'd be really cool. It'd be a dream if we could make that happen. It went on and it sold really well and everything was great," Brevik reminisced in a stream from 2020.

Ex-Call of Duty community manager actively speaks out against Activision's billion-dollar content empire, says gamers need to be treated like community first and not just consumers.

Warzone is the most important evolution of Activision's digital-first business. The gametype is a free-to-play gateway that funnels players into the COD ecosystem while also connecting myriad premium pay-to-play games like Black Ops IIII, Modern Warfare 2019, Black Ops Cold War, and Vanguard. Warzone comes at a cost, though. The compounding load of content is heavy even for the mighty Atlas, and Activision is having trouble lifting the massive weight. As a result, all the games are suffering leading to mass criticism from fans.

Ex-Call of Duty community manager Robert Bowling has an idea how to set things right. It all starts with cessation of commoditizing players into a ring of never-ending monetization and live service hooks. In other words, players should be treated like a community first and consumers second.

Halo Infinite's Big Team Battle playlist is still having significant matchmaking issues that make it very difficult to play.

With 24-player carnage, Big Team Battle is one of the best modes in Halo Infinite--when you can actually play it, that is. The playlist has had lots of connectivity problems since launch and hasn't really improved over the last few weeks. While queuing up for a match I ran into frustrating disconnects, bugged loading screens, and ultimately ended up waiting in a lobby more than I actually played.

On a lark I decided to keep track of how many times the BTB matchmaking failed on Steam. Out of 20 attempts, I was only able to play four matches. The rest were error messages, connection lost pop-ups, and stuck transition screens that required a restart. Halo Infinite's BTB playlist had a 80% failure rate on the attempts we tested--16 failures to 4 matches--and 5 of those failures required a forcible Alt+F4 restart.

A newly published Starfield screenshot shows a golden dome straight out of a NASA space station concept.

New assets from the 2018 Starfield leak have started to trickle out, giving players an idea of the overall style, scope, and feel of the upcoming spacefaring RPG. Bethesda has been very open about Starfield's early golden age space race vibes, taking inspiration from the late 60s and 70s era when high-tech futurism and imaginative concepts merged with science. We've already seen how Starfield borrows from artists and visionaries like John Berkey, Syd Mead, and Ralph McQuarrie, who shaped the Star Wars universe, but it's also grounded in realism too.

The singular new-but-old Starfield asset screenshot shows a golden dome using the real-life multi-layer insulation (MLI) that's found in satellites, stations, and other space vessels. It's admittedly not a whole lot to go on but it does further exemplify the early asset planning visuals that Bethesda was laying out, and it's likely something we'll see gleaming in distant suns as we explore the far reaches of Starfield's universe.

Jack Tretton, who presided over two generations of PlayStation consoles, is heading a new special acquisitions group aimed at the video games industry.

Longtime ex-PlayStation president Jack Tretton is now serving as CEO of PowerUp Acquisitions, a new special purpose acquisitions company (SPAC). According to a new prospectus SEC filing, PowerUp intends to raise $225 million through an IPO with a $10 share price across 22.5 million shares.

PowerUp will use its capital to secure a company in the entertainment space with an emphasis on video games. Considering its management consists of not only Jack Tretton, but also Vivendi and Activision-Blizzard merger veteran Bruce Hack, PowerUp is in a unique position to manage its game-related acquisitions.

Cobra Kai season 4 premieres today, and you know what that means: Fortnite crossover.

Fortnite's latest cosmetic bundle sweeps the leg with a bunch of content inspired from the Karate Kid series. The set has variety of stances and outfits lifted straight from the karate riot universe, including gis from Cobra Kai, Miyagi-Do, and even Eagle Fang Karate (wait, eagles don't have fangs...). There's even a crane kick emote for 300 V-Bucks that would make Mr. Miyagi proud.

The packs cost 2,000 V-Bucks ($14.99) and each piece is also sold individually. Sadly there's no wax on, wax off emote...

Game developers responsible for mega-hit franchises like Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, and NieR are all interested in exploring NFTs.

NFTs and blockchain are gaming's latest craze. Any new multi-million dollar business model turns heads (just look at how microtransactions have grown), and Ubisoft is pioneering NFTs with its widely-unpopular Quartz program. Square Enix is set to expand further into the NFT market following the success of its Shi‐San‐Sei Million Arthur digital collectibles.

In a recent interview with Famitsu, multiple high-profile Square Enix developers have expressed interest in NFTs. While no plans have been set in stone, developers like Yoshinori Kitase (Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger), Yosuke Saito (NieR franchise), and Dragon Quest alum Noriyoshi Fujimoto all want to see what happens in this lucrative million-dollar market.

Koei Tecmo says it will unleash its full power in 2022 with multiple new high-profile games.

The developer behind Dead or Alive, Dynasty Warriors, Hyrule Warriors, and NiOh is teasing big things for 2022 and plans to release a handful of big projects next year. According to a recent interview with Japanese news site 4Gamer, Koei Tecmo's lineup for next year includes games that've been in development for the last few years. 2022 will see these labors come to fruition.

Koei Tecmo is currently working on a number of titles including Nobunaga's Ambition: Rebirth, and three unannounced games. These mystery titles include a new action game set in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms series, a new breakthrough game from Fatal Frame producer Yosuke Kikuchi, and a game from Ninja Gaiden 3 director Fumihiko Yasuda. In the interview, Koei Tecmo EVP Yosuke Hayashi said the games have been finished and in 2022 we'll "feel the full power of Koei Tecmo."

Work-for-hire support studio Mutan Insight Co. is working on a new 'high-profile PS5 remake,' a new job listings says.

Tokyo-based Japanese game studio Mutan Inc. is helping develop a new remake for PlayStation 5 and is hiring new positions for the project including:

The listings directly mention new optimized engines like Unreal Engine 5, hinting that Mutan could be helping Square Enix make the new Final Fantasy 7 Remake chapter 2 game. Mutan has helped Luminous Productions on Final Fantasy XV's myriad of post-launch DLC expansions and content drops, and has also worked on the Atelier franchise of games.

Star Citizen raised nearly $86 million throughout 2021, making it the most successful year of funding since the game's rollout in 2012.

Redditor Mottfield released a new Star Citizen funding chart that chronicles the game's monthly revenues since funding began in 2012. The results are pretty eye-opening and show just how much the space sim has grown throughout the last nine years.

2021 was the biggest year for Star Citizen with over $85.890 million in funding throughout the year, with November being the largest funding month. While most companies like EA, Take-Two, Sony, and Nintendo have all seen pandemic spending even out, RSI has enjoyed a hefty boost from 2020 to 2021. Overall funding was up 10% to $85,890,852 in 2021, as compared to $77,675,457 in 2020.

Cloud Imperium Games is selling a Star Citizen ship bundle that costs $40,000 USD.

The new Legatus pack is up on Star Citizen's storefront, and it's the same price of a brand new car. The Legatus 2951 bundle costs a cool $40,000 and is the successor to the infamous Legatus 2950 pack released earlier this year for $36,000. The Legatus bundles are infamous for their massive price tags and typically include over 100 of the highest-profile ships in the game. CIG originally released the first Legatus pack in 2018 for $27,000.

Not everyone can buy the pack and it's exclusive to high rollers with a "concierge" designation who spent at least $1,000 on the game's funding. Earlier this year, Roberts Space Industries and Cloud Imperium Games had raised over $400 million in funding since Star Citizen's inception in 2012, making it one of the most expensive games of all time--especially one that's continuing development.

AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su has made some fresh comments on the state of the market regarding next-gen console supply, even with the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S consoles still nigh impossible to buy... or super-expensive from its limited supply.

In AMD's recent financial earnings call with investors, Dr. Su was asked an obvious question: about the current supply problems, and the seasonality of them. In reply, Dr. Su said that AMD is ramping up production of the semi-custom chips for the next-gen consoles throughout 2022, and she expects that it'll be yet another strong year for both Sony and Microsoft.

The AMD CEO said that it will be 2023 that will be the "peak year" for Microsoft and Sony's next-gen consoles, Dr. Lisa Su said: "Well, I think -- first of all, I think the console business, this console cycle and all when you look at it in totality, has been amazing. I mean if you think about the strength of the cycle, now we're sort of deep into the second year and the fact that the demand is so high. I mean we've been shipping a lot of product".

Missing from launch, iconic Halo game modes like Grifball, Multi-Team, and King of the Hill are returning to Halo Infinite.

Dataminers have uncovered new medals in Halo Infinite that confirm old-school modes are making a comeback. While Halo Infinite launched without a slayer playlist (that's since been remedied), it's still missing a bunch of gametypes like Grifball, King of the Hill, and the legendary Zombies. Apparently that's going to change, too.

The medals are succinctly named to match their respective gametypes; clash of kings is obviously tailored to King of the Hill, and Undead Hunter can really only mean one thing. Oh, and multi-team was also confirmed by dataminer HaloDotAPI who just today discovered two new teams: Valkyrie and Hades, which join the existing Eagle and Cobra teams.

343 Industries is selling Halo 5's microtransaction mascot in a $20 cosmetic bundle in Halo Infinite.

Halo Infinite's new weekly bundle is causing a stir within the community. Rather than stirring with anger, fans are now being shaken by laughter. It turns out the new monetized cosmetics are actually pretty funny to anyone who's played Halo 5.

The source for the irony-laden guffaws is how Mister Chief, the mascot for Halo 5's controversial (but extremely lucrative) lootbox system, is being sold in a cosmetic bundle worth 2000 Credits ($19.99). The Halo Infinite cosmetic bundle includes a Mister Chief AI who literally says "I'll make victory easier to obtain then a higher level requisition," a special AI skin, and various weapon trinkets and skins.

Path of Exile's big new 3.17 expansion has been delayed to February 2022, developer Grinding Gear Games has announced.

PoE's new v3.17 endgame update won't release in January as originally planned. The expansion has been delayed by "at least two weeks" and is now set to release in February 2022, the devs say. This also means the current Scourge League has been extended.

3.17 is anticipated by gamers and makes some big changes, including removing the Prophecy League and the full completing of the massive overhaul of the endgame Atlas system initiated in v3.16.