Gaming - Page 461

Netflix has opened a new games development division and hired ex-Zynga and EA mobile expert Mike Verdu to lead its new gaming initiative.

The reports were right: Netflix is getting into gaming, but we shouldn't expect the streaming giant to overpromise like Google or Amazon. Instead, Netflix plans to offer games within the Netflix ecosystem.

Bloomberg reports that Netflix will offer its games within its app and browsers for no extra charge, complete with a dedicated section. This could telegraph quite a bit about the company's gaming ambitions.

What is the future of Netflix? And how will the company retain its viewer-base with so many new streaming platforms popping up?

Netflix is looking ahead and thinking of new ways to keep customers on its platform, and now we have an idea of where the company is heading. Netflix has confirmed to IGN that it has hired ex-EA and Facebook executive Mark Verdu to lead its new game development department. Verdu was previously in charge of bringing new games and developers over to the Oculus VR at Facebook. At EA, Verdu oversaw mobile games such as SimCity, Plants vs. Zombies 2, and more.

At the moment, there has been no official word from Netflix on what the new game development department will be creating, or how the company plans on distributing the games on its platform. It isn't clear if Netflix plans on developing its own in-house games, or plans to license games from third-parties that can then be played by subscribers to its platform.

Elon Musk is a big gamer and seems interested in the gaming chair market, at least with sharing memes about comparisons between toddler car seats and gaming chairs.

The meme shared by Musk had the attention of Razer CEO Min-Liang Tan almost instantly, within minutes the Razer CEO and fellow gamer and enthusiast said "maybe we should make a toddler car seat too?". Funnily enough, I mentioned noblechairs in my post, which was up and online minutes after Elon's tweet.

In my post, I mentioned the noblechairs Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team - 2021 Edition gaming chair, and then a mockup of a noblechairs x Tesla gaming chair was tweeted to Elon. Man, it looks so good -- so good, that noblechairs themselves replied, tweeting "What an EPIC look!" adding that a Tesla gaming chair is "certainly doable".

Diablo II Resurrected is shipping with a bunch of quality of life improvements to make things a lot better for die-hard players, especially those that want to collect, trade, and make progress in their Holy Grail.

Storage space has always been an issue in Diablo II, and the best mods offer practically infinite stash tabs to ensure you simply never run out of room for all the uniques, gems, charms, and whatever else you find.

While Diablo II Resurrected won't offer infinite stash space, it will offer a lot more than Lord of Destruction--four times the storage, to be exact. Vicarious Visions confirms that D2R's new shared stash will have 3 pages with 300 slots for your best findings. That's 400 slots total including your personal stash.

Black Ops Cold War's new Season 4 Reloaded update will include high-resolution multiplayer texture packs on PlayStation 5.

Treyarch plans to release a big 30GB pack with high-res 4K textures for Black Ops Cold War's multiplayer modes. The packs will be split up into three parts: multiplayer (17.7GB), zombies (8GB), and Dead Ops (3.76GB). The devs have confirmed the packs on their official Trello roadmap board and the game's official patch notes.

"And on PlayStation 5, players will be prompted to download new High Resolution Texture Packs at the start of Season Four Reloaded for the best visual experience going forward. These will no longer be installed by default on PlayStation 5 and will need to be downloaded manually for Multiplayer, Zombies, and Dead Ops Arcade 3. If you skip the download upon boot-up, these packs will be available for later download via the in-game Store," Treyarch says.

Following controversy, revenue woes, and internal restructuring, Crysis and Cryengine games developer Crytek might be looking to sell itself to the highest bidder.

Crytek is reportedly in discussions with third parties on a possible acquisition sale. According to German website Bild, Tencent has made an offer of 300 million euros for Crytek. However many have questioned the source's veracity due to its tabloid-style reporting.

The reality is that Crytek has been looking into possible buyout deals for a bit now, industry sources like Niko Partners senior analyst Daniel Ahmad say. Over the years, Crytek has closed all but three branches due to restructuring and revenue losses--its headquarters in Coburg, Germany, and two subsidiaries in Kyiv, Ukraine, and Istanbul, Turkey.

Battlefield 2042's chaotic 128-player multiplayer (64v64) might be skipping last-gen consoles, but major innovations like map-smashing weather effects will still be available on PS4 and Xbox One.

Today DICE revealed a bunch of new info about what last-gen players can expect from Battlefield 2042. Apart from next-gen graphics, fast loading times, and haptics, and map/player size, the experiences apparently won't be dramatically different--at least content-wise. We won't know how the performance of each system differs until release time.

DICE says the last-gen flavor of Battlefield 2042 will still have the crazy world-breaking storms and weather, which includes EMP storms, massive dust storms, and tornadoes. The devs say that map sizes have been reduced to accommodate the 32v32 player cap on PS4 and Xbox One.

Halo Infinite will borrow one of Apex Legends' most useful features for team play.

343i is updating the Halo franchise with modern FPS features including a ping system. According to a 343i spotlight post, Halo Infinite will utilize ping similar to Apex Legends for team communication. This will allow gamers to instantly and easily relay visual on-screen information without having to type or voice chat via a waypoint. Users can mark a specific location like a weapon, vehicle, sniper roost, or even chokepoint to add more tactical strategy to Infinite's multiplayer.

Oddly enough 343i hasn't really mentioned this feature before. This is definitely something that changes the playing field. Halo does have on-screen indicators including where teammates died, if a bomb has been armed or your flag has been stolen, but this is a new level of interaction.

DICE confirms Battlefield 2042's cross-play is separated across console generations and PC.

Battlefield 2042 will not support cross-gen cross-play at launch, DICE has confirmed. The game's cross-platform multiplayer won't allow PS4 or Xbox One players to play with PS5, Xbox Series X/S, or PC players.

The reason is quite simple: Last-gen only supports 32v32 multiplayer with maps with reduced sizes. Next-gen consoles and PC support the chaotic 128-player (64v64) action in Battlefield 2042's All Out Warfare modes (Hazard Zone and Conquest). DICE says that PC and console players can both avoid playing against one another.

As promised, Rockstar Games has pushed out the new Red Dead Redemption 2 update that adds support for NVIDIA's DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling) technology.

Red Dead Redemption 2's new v1.27 update doesn't just offer NVIDIA DLSS support but also new features and content for RDR2 and Red Dead Online. The new Blood Money update offers some huge performance gains, even on lower-end GeForce RTX GPUs.

NVIDIA's new flagship GeForce RTX 3080 Ti graphics card was hitting just under 60FPS average in Red Dead Redemption 2 with everything maxed out at 4K -- but with DLSS enabled and turned onto Performance Mode we're looking at 85FPS average -- a massive improvement, free performance and better graphics... what more could you ask for?

The Evil Within developer Tango Gameworks has delayed its new thriller to next year.

Supernatural first-person action game Ghostwire: Tokyo has been delayed from its 2021 launch to early 2022 on PlayStation 5 and PC, Tango Gameworks today announced.

"We've made the decision to delay the launch of Ghostwire: Tokyo to early 2022," the devs wrote on Twitter.

Stadia's new terms offer an attractive 85-15 revenue split in favor of developers.

Google today announced new revenue sharing policies for Stadia games that let developers keep 85% of sales. The new 85-15 split will give devs 85% of sales revenues until the game hits $3 million in earnings. After the $3 million cap, the revenue split reverts back to the previous 70-30 split. Stadia mentions this is for sales, not in-game purchases across the myriad of monetized games on the service.

"Starting in Q4 this calendar year, we're launching a limited time incentive program to adjust our revenue share for newly signed games to an 85-15 split for game sales up to a $3 million threshold. This will apply to all games launching in Q4 this year and in 2022, and in 2023. That means you as a Stadia partner will earn 85% of your title sales and Google will earn 15%. Once your title's total sales reach a $3 million threshold, the revenue share will revert back to the current split," said Careen Yap of Stadia's Strategic Business Development team.

Square Enix is releasing a new patch for NieR: Automata on Steam that boosts cinematics to 60FPS, but there's no mention of uncapped frame rates.

After many years, NieR: Automata is finally getting updated on PC to add a bunch of new features and bug fixes. The biggest update is full 60FPS support for cutscenes (previously locked to 30FPS) and a default frame rate stabilization of 60FPS as well. HDR has been tweaked, too. Sadly it looks like the frame cap is still in place so don't expect to hit 144Hz just yet.

The devs are also adding in FidelityFX CAS for improved visuals alongside a new global illumination system for environment lighting effects. The patch notes are somewhat vague on some points including "adjustments to anti-aliasing functionality" and "other stability-related fixes".

Sony Corp has filed a new Form 6-K outlining the progress for its annual share repurchase plan worth $1.8 billion.

Sony's board of directors recently approved a buyback of up to 25 million common stock in an effort to help bolster stock value and boost shareholder returns. Sony plans to spend 200 billion yen ($1.8 billion) on stock throughout its Fiscal Year 2021 timeline (April 2021-2022). This marks the second and major repurchase program since 2019, and a recent filing shows the current status of the initiative.

The tech giant repurchased 722,800 common stock in June 2021 for 7.4 billion yen ($66.8 million), which comprises less than 3% of the total share repurchases. Sony currently has a total of 1.28 billion shares issued in both common and treasury stocks.

RTS fans rejoice: Today SEGA and Relic Entertainment announced Company of Heroes 3, a new sequel set in the Mediterranean Theater of World War II with a bunch of new enhancements.

With Company of Heroes 3, Relic promises to deliver the "ultimate package of action, tactics and strategy." The chaotic RTS is due out in the second half of 2022 on PC and features a dynamic campaign map that reacts to your decisions in and outside of battle, with a shifting narrative that will change based on your actions. Relic says this new campaign map also features a new layer of verticality with mountainous regions and stacked environments set across Italy to allow for height advantages in battle.

One of the biggest new features is the Tactical Pause system, which allows players to freeze frame the action and plan their next moves. Relic has also updated its AI features to make battles more challenging and the game is specifically optimized for DirectX 12 as well as multi-core CPUs.

Elon Musk has just tweeted out a meme that shows a toddler car seat and a traditional, cheap racing car-inspired gaming seat saying that they are all the same.

Instantly, the price of DOGE went up with bots buying up Dogecoin with Musk's tweet -- secondly, within a single minute Razer CEO Min-Liang Tan tweeted, saying "Right - maybe we should make a toddler car seat too". We all know how it goes, Razer says or unveils something that we all think is stupidly overkill or insane -- like a Razer toaster, and then they do it.

So I guess we now live in a timeline where Razer could eventually release a toddler car seat... and maybe Musk will collaborate with Razer on a Tesla-inspired gaming chair? I mean, that would be freaking awesome and it's not something too out of the question.

Cooler Master has just unveiled the ultimate gaming setup with the introduction of the multi-purpose, semi-enclosed workstation for gamers and professionals... and I need it in my life, ASAP.

The new Cooler Master ORB X GamePod was built through community-driven innovation and collaboration, with a futuristic design, hardware and software integration, and supports next-gen VR, AR and haptics that'll deliver gaming experiences unlike anything else you've experienced in your home.

Cooler Master supports up to 3 x 27-inch monitors, or a single huge 49-inch monitor depending on your taste. There's built-in 2.1-channel sound with spatial audio support, a hidden compartment with a built-in sliding tray to easily install and house your gaming PC or next-gen console.

EA has adjusted its Dual Entitlement program to only cover $99.99 versions of its games, not its standard $59.99 versions.

Last year, EA announced Dual Entitlement, an alternative to Xbox's Smart Delivery program that offered free next-gen upgrades. If you bought the standard $59.99 versions of Madden NFL 21 or FIFA 21 on PS4 or Xbox One, you could download a copy of the next-gen version for free.

Now EA is adjusting its Dual Entitlement program to be exclusive to the $99.99 SKUs of its new games. FIFA 22, Madden NFL 22, and Battlefield 2042 all have $99.99 cross-gen bundles. Dual Entitlement is no longer offered with the base $59.99 standard editions.

With FIFA 22, Electronic Arts has sent a clear message that free next-gen upgrades are over, and $69.99 is the new pricing of its mainline games.

FIFA 22 is the latest EA game to cost $69.99 on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S consoles, solidifying the publisher's move towards a more premium pricing scheme. Like Madden NFL 22 and Battlefield 2042, the annual soccer game won't have a free next-gen upgrade. Instead, gamers can get both the PS4 and PS5 version for $99.99, which has become par for the course ever since NBA 2K21's release.

Next-gen versions will also have exclusive features, modes, and content not available on PS4 or Xbox One to help justify the price hike. Battlefield 2042, for example, has a 128-player Conquest/Breakout mode that's exclusive to newer hardware, whereas PS4 and Xbox One are locked to 32v32 play. Madden NFL 22's new dynamic gameplay is also locked behind new systems, and FIFA 22's advanced machine learning-powered animations can only be utilized on PS5 and Series X/S thanks to their ML capabilities.

EA's years-long AI and machine learning research is starting to push its games to the next level.

EA is using advanced AI and ML in all of its new games, including Battlefield 2042 with its 128-player multiplayer and AI lobbies, Madden 22's new dynamic gameplay features, and now with FIFA 22.

The publisher recently announced FIFA 22 will use a powerful ML Flow algorithm that trains 8.7 million frames of real-time motion capture footage. 22 soccer pros wore high-end Xsens motion suits to completely and totally capture every movement in FIFA 22's new 11v11 mode. The footage is then uploaded to a server and trained by ML Flow and sent back to the Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5 as inferenced data.