Gaming - Page 434

Sony Corp's stock is currently at $118.20 per share on the New York Stock Exchange, the highest point in the last five years.

Sony's recent Q2 FY2021 earnings report has caused its stock to jump +4.68% in one day to $118.20, setting a new 52-week and five-year high. The highest Sony Corp. stock has even been is $156.75 on February 29, 2000.

The company reported strong Q2 sales surges of 264 billion yen to 2.369 trillion yen across multiple segments including music, gaming, pictures, image sensors, and electronics partly due to higher FX (foreign exchange) rates, which rose 3.67% with a 1 USD = 110.1 yen rate. Games and Network Services tacked on an extra 20.7 billion yen due to these FX rates.

PlayStation 4 console shipments are plummeting as Sony moves on to shipping and producing PlayStation 5 consoles.

The PS4 era is practically over. It's true that Sony expects the PS4 to make up most of FY21's earnings but that's only because of A) the massive install base that continually makes money over time, and B) there's not enough PS5s on the market yet. Sony is already selling the PS5 at a profit and supply is extremely restricted due to the component shortages. Those shortages are also affecting PS4 production and shipments, but the last-gen console market has already been saturated.

Based on Sony's recent financials it looks like the PS4 has hit its peak. Sony shipped a measly 0.2 million shipments in Q2'21, the lowest in the PS4's entire lifecycle. In fact, PS4 six-month shipments fell below 1 million for the first time ever. From June - September 2020, Sony shipped 3.4 million PS4s. That number fell to just 700,000 in 2021, representing a 79% increase.

The PlayStation 5's one year sales have missed Sony's internal sales target, but only slightly.

Sony's PS5 has now shipped 13.4 million units in its first year on the market, the company today announced. While the milestone is impressive on paper, it falls short of Sony's expectations. The Japanese tech giant had hoped the PS5 would match or exceed the PS4's one-year shipments that amounted to 13.8 million.

Read Also: PlayStation 5 Review: The golden era of console gaming

Apple Music integration is now available on the PlayStation 5, Sony today announced.

Apple Music subscribers can now natively listen to content while playing games on the PlayStation 5. Gamers have been able to listen to music USB or Spotify since 2020 and the new Apple Music service functions the exact same way: Install the app and launch it directly or listen to music natively via the PS5's UI. Users can access Apple Music by hitting the PS button and opening the Control Center, selecting Music, and selecting Apple Music from the source list.

"PS5 offers seamless integration with the Apple Music streaming service with background music and music video playback, so players can listen before, during, or after their gameplay session."

Microsoft is spending more into gaming as it ramps up key services like Xbox Game Pass, Project xCloud game streaming, software development, and new console hardware.

Right now Xbox is bigger than its ever been. The brand is now a service that delivers games, content, engagement, and monetization across consoles, mobile phones, tablets, PCs, and soon directly to television sets via native built-in apps.

Microsoft has spent billions to get Xbox where it is today and these investments are paying off. Xbox just achieved a new historic Q1 earnings record of $3.593 billion. This is just the beginning, and Microsoft has continued its aggressive spending and investment into video games.

Announcing the Xbox 2042, the world's most powerful video games console with over 1 million TFLOPs of compute power.

Microsoft just put out a hilarious promo for Battlefield 2042 that details what kind of crazy next-gen games hardware that might exist in 21 years. Sure the world of Battlefield 2042 has literally crumbled under climate change and obliterating world powers, but at least video games are more advanced than ever, right?

The fake advertisement dives into nascent technologies like quantum computing, neural interfaces, special contacts you can pop into your eyes for controller-less interactions, and a full holographic display. This reminds me of the super Wii console used in that episode of South Park where Cartman freezes himself to go to the future.

EA DICE has announced that Battlefield is receiving its first non-binary character, which will launch with Battlefield 2042 as a new Specialist: Emma "Sundance" Rosier.

Battlefield 2042 fans noticed that descriptions for the character had "they/them" pronouns, so one gamer asked EA DICE what was going on. EA DICE community manager Adam Freeman explained: "Yep. Sundance is non-binary and uses the Pronouns They/Them".

"Sundance" has her their own special traits and abilities, with Emma being from France and is an Assault-class Specialist with a wingsuit that allows for faster entry in objectives and tactical situations. Sundance also has Smart Explosives, which can be used to take down enemy aircraft.

Microsoft makes history with a new all-time record for Xbox's Q1 revenues, driven by a massive spike in console sales.

Microsoft kicked off its Fiscal Year 2022 with a bang. Xbox earnings hit $3.593 billion, up 16% year-over-year and a new high for any Q1 period in the history of Microsoft gaming. Microsoft says this uptick in revenues was driven by a huge 166% jump in Xbox console sales primarily due to significant Xbox Series X/S demand. This Q1 performance follows another record year for Xbox with over $15.37 billion earned through FY21.

"Gaming revenue increased $501 million or 16% driven by growth in Xbox hardware," Microsoft writes in an SEC filing.

Blizzard has cancelled its BlizzCon event in 2022 so it can focus more on games development and "supporting its teams".

Embroiled by multiple legal battles, Blizzard has chosen to nix its plans to hold Blizzcon 2022 in February. The developer says it will instead focus wholeheartedly on company reform and games development:

"Any BlizzCon event takes every single one of us to make happen, an entire-company effort, fueled by our desire to share what we create with the community we care about so much. At this time, we feel the energy it would take to put on a show like this is best directed towards supporting our teams and progressing development of our games and experiences."

A new horror game based on A Quiet Place is in the works from veteran Far Cry and Rainbow Six developers.

Today Paramount announced a new singleplayer game based on the terrifying A Quiet Place franchise is in development. There are three teams involved: the Montreal-based studio iLLOGIKA, who is made up of old-school devs from Behavior Interactive, Ubisoft, and Eidos-Montreal, will handle principle development. Austin, Texas-based studio Ep1tome will also help development. Saber Interactive (World War Z, The Witcher Wild Hunt Switch and PS5/Xbox Series X) will publish the game.

A Quiet Place horror game details:

Housemarque finally addresses Returnal's most problematic and frustrating feature...and it only took them six months to do it.

Returnal was one of the most aggravating PS5 games of 2021, and I actually avoided it based on what people were saying at the time. It's a roguelike without a manual save feature. That's...well, frustrating, but what made it worse is that you had to beat an entire biome, which are levels that can last multiple hours or more to beat--in order for the game to save your progress. You can't save if your in the middle of a biome level, and your progress would be wiped if you turned off your PlayStation 5 or launched another game. So gamers were keeping their PS5s on or in rest mode to preserve their playthrough, not unlike the old-school NES days.

That's all been changed. Gamers can now suspend their Returnal progress and fully turn off their PlayStation 5 consoles and close Returnal. Think of it as a save state in an emulator, but one that vanishes after you resume. Finally!

Today Devolver Digital and Flying Wild Hog delayed Shadow Warrior 3 in the best way possible.

Shadow Warrior 3 has been delayed to sometime in 2022. The announcement was made in a very tongue-in-cheek way with an official delay trailer which somehow made me laugh in real life. We always see announce trailers, teasers, and even those famous pre-release builds that get downgraded before release...but delay trailers? That's a new one.

"The team here at Flying Wild Hog here have been working our flying wild butts off to hit the quality level we all want for Lo Wang's next adventure. The exact date will be announced soon and we'll have a ton more to show," the developers said in the trailer.

Microsoft is testing a new update that adds native Twitch integration into the Xbox UI, allowing gamers to launch streams without opening the Twitch app.

Xbox Insiders in the Alpha and Alpha Skip Ahead tiers can now test out Twitch streaming directly from the Xbox quick bar. The Xbox team is working to natively add Twitch streaming right into the UI to replace the now-defunct Mixer's functionality.

343 Industries have announced that all legacy Halo game servers will go offline January 2022.

Last year 343i confirmed it would shut down online services for older Xbox 360-era Halo games, Now it finally has an end-of-service date: January 13, 2022. After that date the following games will no longer be playable via online matchmaking and no playlists will be accessible:

The reality is that MCC was always meant to take over the mantle and carry the series forward. Soon these old games will be a memory as MCC's custom games, awesome functionalities, and ridiculous seasonal-based rewards take precedence.

Gamers are reporting multiple issues with N64 emulation in Nintendo's new $50 Switch Online Expansion Pack subscription.

It looks like Nintendo is using subpar Nintendo 64 emulation in its new Switch Online service. Subscribers that shelled out the steep $50 cost are reporting lots of problems including random frame rate drops, significant audio issues, and even heavy input lag that makes games like Ocarina of Time a lot harder to play than they should be (Super Mario 64 is also suffering from input lag).

Ocarina of Time is also missing a number of environmental effects including water reflections in the Water Temple and fog throughout the entire game. The beloved N64 classic is getting lampooned pretty badly on Twitter right now. OoT on Switch is apparently worse than the Wii U Virtual Console version, a port that was also criticized for its wonky emulation.

Modders continue doing impressive things with Halo 3's modding tools including injecting new models into the game.

Halo 3's new modding toolset is breathing new life into the old-school shooter. We've seen massive all-out AI war chaos with never-ending UNSC vs Covenant battles, huge 100+ AI sequences that bypass the game's combat NPC limiter, and tons of new models thrown into the mix. Now Halo Infinite's Spartan 117 shows up to finish the fight.

After cursing Halo 3 multiplayer with Five Nights at Freddy's models, modder Glitch has injected Halo Infinite's Master Chief into Halo 3's campaign. Using Fortnite's MC model as a base, Glitch upgraded the textures to match the rough-and-chunky Mjolnir armor from Halo Infinite. The results are pretty impressive and show that Halo 3's graphics were no slouch back then and still look great today.

The new GTA trilogy remaster collection will require extra downloads on the Nintendo Switch.

New listings on Target.com confirm the Nintendo Switch version of the new multi-game Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition remaster bundle will require downloads. The trilogy is listed at 25.4GB on the eShop however, so the game will technically fit on a single cartridge but it isn't being shipped on one.

Right now Switch GameCards only come in 1GB, 2GB, 4GB, 8GB, 16GB and 32GB sizes, with the latter being the most expensive option. It looks like Rockstar, Take-Two, or Nintendo picked the 16GB variant (or possibly smaller) for the GTA trilogy. It's also worth mentioning the overall file size of the Switch version (25.4GB) is a lot less than the Xbox version, which is listed at 49GB.

Guerrilla Games outlines a bunch of new changes in the cross-gen Horizon Forbidden West sequel coming in February 2022.

In many ways, Horizon Forbidden West sees the franchise unleashed and fully realized. Guerrilla Games is making huge fundamental changes that will alter the scope of the game and how players engage with the world. One of the biggest changes is the inclusion of free climbing, which brings Assassin's Creed-style exploration and verticality to combat and gameplay.

While the animations look very Assassin's Creed-ish, the truth is Forbidden West seems closer to Breath of the Wild. The combination of free climbing with the new Shieldwing paraglider gives players unprecedented freedoms to scale tons of areas in the game and fly down them in real-time. This is something that I sorely missed in AC Valhalla, although it wouldn't have made any sense historically.

Sledgehammer Games has created multiple dynamic phases of DualSense trigger actuation in Call of Duty Vanguard.

Like most PS5 gamers, Vanguard will make heavy use of the DualSense controller's new rumble tech. Similar to Black Ops Cold War, which had amazing next-gen tactile feedback, the new WWII-themed Call of Duty has its own multi-phase pressure-sensitive trigger haptics to significantly increase immersion. Guns will pop with recoil and power as you fire them, precision weapons will feel more satisfying, and gunfights will actually feel like lethal do-or-die battles.

There are four stages to a trigger pull in Vanguard:

The new $350 Nintendo Switch OLED isn't any more durable than the base 2017 model, and you really should put a screen protector on it.

YouTuber Jerry Rig Everything answers a simple question: How much abuse can the Switch OLED withstand? Starting with the screen, the outer-most protective layer scratches very easily with a level 3 hardness gradient because the surface is made of plastic. This is an anti-scatter sheet that protects the glass OLED panel underneath--and also protects users from shards of glass should the screen shatter.

Overall the OLED model is structurally sound. It didn't break or crack under pressure and the bezels are made of metal. The YouTuber proceeds to torture the OLED model with 35-seconds of ignited lighter action, multiple scratches from a razor, and even some really rough bending. The Switch OLED bends and flexes a bit but it doesn't break in two.