Gaming News - Page 43

The future of Xbox hardware may not just grow vertically with more performance and instead could grow horizontally with more devices than ever before.

With the release of OneCore in 2015, Microsoft changed the definition of its Xbox brand. Since then, Xbox evolved from a console into a cross-platform service. Using Windows to unify consoles and PCs was the first step, and the next step was introducing a high-margin subscription service to this new unified ecosystem. Expansion onto competing storefronts followed as Microsoft chased wide-spread game sales.

Now there's reports this business plan could expand even further. Microsoft will reportedly break Xbox ecosystem exclusivity for select games. Titles like Hi-Fi Rush are expected to release on PlayStation, with reports that other games like Gears of War have been brought up in discussions.Sources have also told Verge's Tom Warren that a "surprising" Xbox game is also coming to PlayStation.

Xbox gaming CEO Phil Spencer tells employees that Microsoft isn't giving up on console hardware.

Rumor has it that Microsoft will take select first-party Xbox exclusives to other platforms. Fans think this could kick off a death spiral that eventually gives Microsoft a logical and reasonable exit from the gaming hardware market. Apparently, this isn't true, and Microsoft has no plans to discontinue Xbox consoles.

The news comes from an internal all-hands meeting at the Xbox games division. Sources have told Inverse editor and games reporter Shannon Liao about Xbox's town hall gathering. In the meeting, Microsoft gaming CEO Phil Spencer says that Xbox hardware will "continue to be part of a strategy that involves multiple kinds of devices."

As the video games industry hurtles towards digital, Nintendo has proven to be uniquely resistant to the trend as it uses decades of retail expertise to champion physical game sales.

While physical game distribution is still an important part of the gaming market, most developers and platform-holders prefer digital's higher margins, controlled deployability, and consumer convenience factor. Xbox in particular has made significant strides towards all-digital with its decisions to pull down physical copies of games from store shelves. But Nintendo doesn't want to buck the status quo--there's still billions to be made from physical game sales, provided your operations are efficient enough to handle the costs and flexible enough to bend certain trends.

Nintendo's latest Q3 results show that physical gaming is still a very important part of the industry. The company made $2.036 billion from software in Holiday 2023, down nearly $300 million and reflected by a year-over-year game sales decline of about 10 million.

Nintendo generated $4.2 billion in net sales revenue during Holiday 2023, new earnings reports show.

Nintendo's holiday financials are here, and the results have come full circle to the start of the Switch generation. The company made $4.244 billion in Q3'FY24 (Oct - Dec 2023), down -12.8% year-over-year. These revenues represent the lowest holiday earnings period since the Switch launched in March 2017.

The year-over-year revenue drop is due to lower Switch hardware and software sales; in Q3'24, Nintendo sold about 66.87 million games, down -10 million games from last year. Switch console shipments are also down by 1.32 million units year-over-year (Nintendo shipped 6.9 million Switch consoles in Holiday 2023, as opposed to 8.22 million in Holiday 2022).

The latest PC gaming smash to come out of nowhere (in true Faith No More style) is Helldivers 2, which launched to take pole position on the rankings of top-sellers on Steam.

Helldivers 2, a third-person online co-op shooter, beat out the likes of Palworld, in fact, to grab the number one spot. And it's an especially interesting debut because the sequel - which wasn't a game we were familiar with, at all, until now - is a first for Sony in that it had a combined PS5 and PC launch.

However, as evidenced by the feedback on Steam, the PC version has had a rocky start, with a ton of reviews pouring forth, but a fair few are pretty barbed. Helldivers 2 has an overall 'mixed' rating so far on Valve's gaming platform.

GeForce NOW is NVIDIA's cloud streaming service that allows subscribers and users to play a range of titles, free-to-play and in various PC libraries, across multiple devices on hardware with the power of a GeForce RTX 4080. The service is celebrating its fourth anniversary this month, coming off a big year that included adding support for Xbox Game Pass titles on PC.

Also, in recent weeks, support for Blizzard games like Diablo IV and Overwatch 2 was added with the ability to enable RTX technologies like DLSS over the cloud. NVIDIA notes that depending on the title, GeForce NOW's powerful hardware can stream up to 240 FPS, supporting ultrawide resolutions, and as announced at CES - full VRR or G-Sync support for buttery smooth visuals.

GeForce NOW is not only supported on PC but there are native apps for 4K gaming on Samsung and LG TVs and gaming up to 1440p and 120FPS on Android devices. As part of the anniversary celebration, the first 500 Ultimate and Priority GeForce NOW members can get a 20% discount on the Logitech G Cloud ($349.99) handheld device.

Overwatch 2 is about get pretty much overhauled with its new Season 9 update, with the biggest change being that all heroes will have passive healing... yeah. Check out the Overwatch 2 Season 9 trailer below:

Blizzard posted a new blog post on its Overwatch 2 website, where it teases us that the latest season of the game is right around the corner with the philosophy guiding the team were many of the system changes coming this year. This included making PvP gameplay more rewarding and fun and providing greater transparency for players in-game.

Overwatch 2 is getting massive changes to Competitive this season, with a new progression system and all-new skill tier that sites above Grand Master. There are also major gameplay changes to combat and hero survivability, including the fact that all heroes will now have passive healing. This means tanks and DPS will heal when they're out of the action, not just healers with passive healing abilities.

Sources reportedly familiar with Nintendo's plans are telling publications the company is currently gearing up for a new Nintendo Direct expected to air sometime next week.

For those who don't know, Nintendo typically broadcasts its Nintendo Direct showcase sometime in February each year, and now that month is upon us, we can expect the company to reveal what to expect for the remainder of the year. Nintendo insider "Guarana" has taken to the ResetEra forums to say that they've heard Nintendo is going to drop the Direct showcase on February 15.

As you can probably imagine, Guarana was asked about the date, to which they replied, "I got some info from a friend working on the Brazilian Portuguese localization of some titles, and they said that it's expected for February 15". Backing up the theory that Nintendo is prepping its Direct for next week is a report from Italian outlet Universo Nintendo that states sources have informed the publication that the Direct will take place between February 12 and February 15.

Insomniacs Marvel's Spider-Man 2 was one of the most anticipated games of 2023. Although long-awaited, the game was an absolute hit with fans, selling more than 2.5 million copies within its first 24 hours and breaking the record for the fastest-selling PlayStation Studios game in PlayStation history in a 24-hour period when it launched on October 20th.

However, some fans were disappointed when finishing the game's main story to find it was missing some key features from the first game, such as the ability to change day and night cycles, weather, and, most importantly, New Game+.

It is not unusual these days for studios to not add a New Game+ feature to new triple-A games at launch and instead opt to add it later as an update, usually adding extra features as well. We have seen this in games just in the last year alone, such as God of War Ragnarok and Alan Wake 2, to name a few.

The Last Night, from indie studio Odd Tales, is a visually stunning 2.5D game set in a post-cyberpunk world that blends retro and modern visuals. It's a game we've been waiting to play for years, and even though it's still in development, there's no word on when it might come out. Tim Soret told PCGamer a few years ago that the team was taking its time building the world and tech "brick by brick," but we haven't heard from the team in a while.

Yesterday, we got a new thread by Tim Soret over on X that doesn't so much provide an update on The Last Night as it does showcase how the studio is using its tech stack to remaster original PlayStation games, presenting them in widescreen 4K HDR at 60 FPS. To demonstrate, he presented footage of the original Metal Gear Solid, switching between the original and remastered visuals, and the results were fantastic.

"I'm very unhappy with PSX remasters," Tim Soret writes. "Either lazy (MGS) or disrespectful (Tomb Raider). Changing the art assets is not preservation [and] pure emulation is lazy. PSX aesthetics can look absolutely gorgeous in 4K HDR with special techniques to retain the charm of the era."