Gaming - Page 479

Sony is finally releasing a black DualSense controller eight months after the PlayStation 5's release.

Sony recently announced two new color variants for the PS5's DualSense controller: Midnight Black and Cosmic Red. Gamers have been clamoring for an all-black PS5 controller since launch and Sony has taken its time accommodating their requests. The accessories feature a new paint job that's also reflected in the clear D-Pad and face buttons.

Cost wise, the Cosmic Red is actually more expensive than the default white DualSense. The Cosmic Red DualSense controller will cost $74.99 versus the $69.99 MSRP of the Midnight Black and the basic white version.

Following some leaked concept art showing a very John Berkey-esque style, new in-game screenshots for Bethesda's new Starfield IP have leaked out.

New leaked Starfield screenshots give us a sample of the game's rendered environments, including ship interiors and confirmations of both a first-person and third-person view. According to SkulziTV, who found the images, the leaks are from an older build from 2018. These are nowhere near finalized images that represent the release version of the game.

Bethesda has likely made tremendous progress since then.

Demand for gaming hardware is surging and like competitors Microsoft and Sony, Nintendo is having trouble catching up.

COVID-19 has supercharged the games industry. Hardware is flying off the shelves, and Nintendo's Switch system just hit its all-time best sales five years after release. The heavy demands are squeezing chip manufacturers leading to constrained hardware availability. Nintendo boosted its Switch production in 2020, and it hopes to do the same to meet its 25.5 million Switch shipment target, but Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa says this might not happen.

In a recent Q&A session with investors, Furukawa gave a rather transparent response to possible chip shortages. The president reiterates the company's sales target reflects its current production allotment. Reports say Nintendo is planning to release a 4K-ready Switch model that may use a new custom NVIDIA SoC, but Furukawa didn't comment.

Warzone players can grab free double XP tokens on PS4 and PS5 as part of Sony's continuing Play At Home initiative.

A bit ago Sony gave away a bunch of indies and even Horizon Zero Dawn on PS4. Now the Play At Home freebies keep on flowing with a bunch of in-game items for premium and free-to-play titles.

All PS4 and PS5 owners can grab five double XP tokens in Warzone starting May 20th, the same day that 80s action stars John Rambo and Die Hard's John McClane invade Verdansk.

Nintendo is spending more than ever on research and development to help fund new next-gen hardware, games, experimental technologies, and innovative services.

In a recent Q&A session, Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa discussed Nintendo's increased research and development expenses. The condensed version of Furukawa's response is that game development costs are rising, Nintendo is currently doing research and studies on beefing up its digital content and services business, and that early phases of next-gen hardware development is underway.

To give Furukawa's statements more context, I decided to put together a look at the company's historical R&D spend since 2002. The results are pretty illuminating. Nintendo has spent $793 million on R&D in FY2021, more than any other period, and rightly so given the higher costs of game dev during this period. The Switch is in the middle of its lifecycle, but Nintendo wants to keep the console's momentum going with a fusillade of games.

1980s action stars John McClane and John Rambo are coming to Activision's billion-dollar Call of Duty trifecta.

Activision already teased big crossovers from Die Hard and Rambo, but now they've confirmed the classic macho heroes are coming to more games other than Warzone. In a recent Tweet, the company announced guerrilla survivor John Rambo is coming to Warzone, Black Ops Cold War, and Warzone on May 20.

The crossover is complete with a new area set in Die Hard's Nakatomi Plaza. It's also likely that John McClane will show up too (Activision made a fictional website for Nakatomi Duct Cleaning and a fake email account for John M.).

Remedy wants to be in full control over publishing and financing of certain projects, but company CEO Tero Virtala is careful to say it'll still pursue third-party deals.

Like independent developers IO Interactive and Bungie, Remedy too has aspirations to self-publish its own games. In a recent earnings report, Remedy CEO Tero Virtala outlined a tentative plan for this endeavor.

Remedy plans to use portions of the 41.5 million Euros generated from its recent share offering to help fund new projects. Virtala was light on exact details and didn't say which of the companies new games would be self-published or self-financed, but he did say the company will carefully evaluate its options. Being in total control of financing, marketing, and publishing is very risky, and Remedy is intent on balancing these risks, therefore it's pursuing a varied business model.

Remedy has grown tremendously in the last 10 years on the back of strong multi-platform games and partnerships.

In its recent Q1 2021 earnings call, Remedy briefly outlined its growth over the past 10 years. The results are stunning. From 2010 to 2020, Remedy's revenues have grown over 774% and the company has evolved into a leading independent studio capable of working on multiple high-profile projects at the same time. In 2010, Remedy pulled in just 4.1 million Euros in revenues; by 2020, revenues hit an all-time high of 41.1 million Euros.

Here's a few major beats from the last ten years' of Remedy:

Remedy Entertainment is simultaneously working on five projects right now, but one of them is quite far off.

In a recent Q1 2021 earnings report, Remedy CEO Tero Virtala updates investors on the company's release pipeline. The exec affirms Remedy is well-positioned to tackle multiple projects in parallel and has secured "favorable and balanced" publishing deals and partnerships for future games. The slate is pretty busy, and as of 2020, Remedy had 644 internal and external developers working on five games. including:

The last project, the unannounced AAA title outside of the Epic-funded games, is only in pre-production. This game will clearly release after the two Epic-partnered games, both of which are about to enter full-scale production.

Remedy is working on two big games with the help of Epic Games' new publishing arm, and both of them are now in full production.

In a recent Q1 2021 earnings report, Remedy Entertainment CEO Tero Virtala outlines development progress of its new games. Remedy is currently working on five projects including:

Now Remedy says both of the Epic-funded projects are in full swing. "The AAA game we have in development with Epic will soon move into full production mode, and the second smaller-scale project continues to progress well in full production mode," Remedy's CEO said.

Anyone that has been gaming for 20+ years will have lived through so many promises that photorealistic graphics were right around the corner... well, with the advancements of AI and a team of researchers at Intel... we're closer than ever before. Check this out:

A team working out of the Intel Intelligence Systems Lab, which is a division that is wholly dedicated to researching all things artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and robotics at Intel. The authors behind the new piece wrote in their introduction to the research article:

"Photorealism has been the goal for video game graphics for half a century and recent advances in the world of artificial intelligence allow for better".

In its recent earnings report, EA sent clear signals that Dragon Age 4 won't release until at least its FY2023 period.

EA's recent earnings call was firmly focused on the immediate future of FY2022. Battlefield, Apex Legends, EA Sports, and mobile were the stars of the call as EA outlined its new ambitious three-part strategy. BioWare was only mentioned a single time during the call, and the words Dragon Age or Mass Effect weren't said once. This alone telegraphs Dragon Age 4 won't launch any time soon and is still locked to at least FY2023 (March 2022 - April 2023) or even beyond.

In the earnings call, EA CEO Andrew Wilson described the new Dragon Age as an "out year" game. This makes sense as Dragon Age has been rebooted a few times since concept development started in 2016. After a brief reboot towards a live game, BioWare now says Dragon Age 4 will be singleplayer-focused.

Sony's PlayStation Studios stable of developers are currently making more than two dozen new games for PlayStation 5 consoles, the company confirms.

Sony is accelerating PS5 games development to ensure there's enough pipeline content available when console stock stabilizes. In a recent interview with Wired, PlayStation Studios boss Herman Hulst says there are over 25 games in development for the PS5 and nearly half of them are new IPs. "There's an incredible amount of variety originating from different regions. Big, small, different genres." This is a pretty substantial comment that needs context.

How many of these are first-party games? PlayStation Studios consists of 12 worldwide-based teams ranging from Sucker Punch (Ghost of Tsushima) and Naughty Dog (Last of Us) to Sony Bend (Days Gone) and Sony Japan Studio (Demon's Souls). It's highly unlikely that each team is working on two games at once. For instance, Naughty Dog's Evan Wells says the studio isn't yet ready for multi-project game dev just yet.

EA may be gearing up a big new cross-platform live service mode for Battlefield that keeps users playing for extended periods of time.

Battlefield 6 is a big deal for EA. The publisher describes the game as a "re-launch for the franchise," and has more teams working on it than ever before--DICE Stockholm, DICE LA, EA Gothenburg, Criterion (vehicles), and practically the whole Frostbite team are contributing. This kind of collaboration sets Battlefield up to be a kind of entry point to a platform of sorts that makes a big multi-year splash. The premium release will be huge, but that's just the beginning. EA's live service aspirations for the title are even bigger and will carry the experience forward for some time.

In its recent FY2021 earnings call, EA executives Andrew Wilson and Blake Jorgensen make interesting remarks around the new Battlefield. There's talk of new business models (which is part of EA's new three-part strategy) and engagement strategies, which is the kind of language Activision used to describe Call of Duty Warzone, the industry's most transformative cross-game ecosystem to date.

QuakeCon 2021 won't be an in-person event this year, and is instead moving to an all-digital stream showcase.

Bethesda officially confirms QuakeCon 2021 will be an online-only event held from August 19-21, marking the second time in a row the show skips its traditional venue. Not much is known about the all-digital event but it's possible we'll get some new Doom Eternal info (maybe updates on the next-gen version with mouse and keyboard support consoles?) and a bunch of interviews with id Software.

There's rumblings that id will resurrect Quake at some point, but this seems iffy. id is currently assisting a number of Bethesda studios on their respective projects and they're even planning the future of the Doom universe. id says they have "many stories to tell" in the Doom franchise, but official details will probably be light for some time.

Electronic Arts plans to spend big on research and development as it "leans heavily" into its biggest mega-budget franchises.

EA is gearing up for a huge FY2022 with guidance of $7.3 billion net bookings and an all-time high of $6.8 billion in revenues. A slew of live service-powered digital games will spark this growth, including a myriad of annualized EA Sports titles like FIFA, Madde, NHL, and the new PGA Tour, as well as heavy-hitting billion-dollar shooters like Apex Legends and Battlefield.

These new games will also be cross-gen releases that launch on both PS4/Xbox One as well as next-gen PS5 and Series X platforms for maximum exposure, availability, and monetization potential. This acceleration is made possible by higher R&D spending from EA, which reached its highest point in history in FY2021.

Apex Legends has become one of EA's most important moneymakers with over $1 billion in lifetime revenues since February 2019. Now the company doesn't expect the BR to slow down any time soon.

Like most popular digital games, Apex Legends saw a huge revenue surge during COVID-19. Apex's net bookings in FY2021 reached a record high of $600 million on the back of 12 million DAUs. That number is so high that Apex Legends made 13% of EA's total yearly live service earnings ($4.592 billion).

Apex isn't done yet, though. FY2022 will be even bigger. EA expects Apex to rake in $750 million in FY2022 thanks to new seasonal content and the upcoming Apex Legends mobile game, which will be separately monetized with exclusive cosmetics and battle passes.

Electronic Arts won't have any next-gen exclusive games this fiscal year, and all of its FY2022 titles will come to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One as well.

Today EA confirmed that all of its major games in its FY2022 timeline (April 2021 - March 2022) will be cross-gen titles that release on both PS4 and Xbox One as well as next-gen PS5 and Series X. This includes the new Battlefield and all annualized EA Sports releases. EA CEO Andrew Wilson clarifies that while these games will come to PS4 and Xbox One, they will play best on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X.

"All of our EA Sports titles for FY22 are designed for next-gen console platforms, including FIFA, Madden NFL, NHL, and EA Sports PGA Tour," Wilson said.

EA outlines its new three-part plan that will help surge its next-year FY2022 earnings to a record-breaking $7.3 billion in net bookings.

Following record $8 billion+ earnings and thunderous ecosystem engagement in Call of Duty Warzone and COD Mobile, Activision's four-part plan is turning heads. Big-name publishers like EA are taking notice and are currently laying out frameworks for their own long-term plans of sustainable digital profitability.

Instead of four pillars, EA's plan has three main parts:

Nintendo has been very quiet on the next console it will be releasing, but now a financial report from an OLED display manufacturer and developer has seemingly blown up the company's spot.

A financial report from Universal Display Corporation of the company's performance for last quarter cited the existence of a "Nintendo Switch Pro". Additionally, the president of the company, Steven V. Abramson, said, "And in the video game market, here we have our reports: for the first time, Nintendo has chosen an OLED screen for the new Switch Pro given the benefits of higher contrast and faster response time".

As more devices have adopted OLED displays, the price of the displays has dropped, making them more economically viable for future developers. Abramson states, "OLED adoption continues to expand; it's fueling the multi-year OLED growth cycle we're in." Officially, Nintendo hasn't said anything about a Switch Pro, but reports surfacing online point towards 2021 being the year Nintendo will drop a console with 4K support and "better graphics".