Gaming - Page 508

Sony confirms the PS5 currently doesn't have a web browser, one of the basic functions and features of the PS4. But this could changer farther down the line.

The PlayStation 5 makes big improvements over the PS4 in various ways, including faster load times, astronomically more powerful CPU and GPU performance, and a dramatic adjustment in UI features. There's some things the PS5 is missing, though: It won't have a web browser, for one, and for two, it won't let you store PS5 games on regular external hard drives (they can only be stored on the internal SSD).

Why doesn't the PS5 have a web browser? Sony doesn't really think you need it. At least that's the public answer. The real answer might have something to do with web-based vulnerabilities. To wit, the PS4's browser on v1.76 allowed you to access the console's kernel by visiting a web page on the browser.

Like Origins and Odyssey, Assassin's Creed Valhalla has an in-game microtransaction storefront where you can buy items, gear, and content with real money.

Valhalla is a game built around monetization. The new RPG-based Assassin's Creed games (Origins, Odyssey, Valhalla) were created as grindy experiences that are practically never-ending. Ubisoft then sells you shortcuts to reduce the time needed to progress or unlock content. This is the nature of Ubisoft's business models with AC, but the monetization is actually somewhat reasonable.

The Animus Store in Assassin's Creed Valhalla uses premium currency called Helix Credits to acquire items. The more pay-to-win style purchases center around the maps and crafting materials. Users can buy maps that offer tremendous advantages like unlocking the location of all unique gear and all skill tomes, which can be used to level up and unlock more abilities.

Battle Passes might not be enough for Epic Games, and now the company is asking gamers what they want to see in a monthly paid Fortnite subscription.

Fortnite might be free to play, but there's tons of opportunities to spend money. New cosmetics pop up seemingly every week on the microtransaction store, and gamers can also buy into a seasonal battle pass for V-Bucks, cosmetics, and extra goodies. Now Epic could take things a step further to help offset those missing millions from Apple iOS devices.

Epic is currently surveying players on a possible $15.99/month subscription plan for Fortnite. The billion-dollar developer is collecting feedback on what should be included in this kind of month-to-month plan. The selections on the survey range from V-Bucks, battle pass previews, battle pass level skips, or just an included battle pass.

Sony plans to support the PS4 alongside the PS5 for roughly 3 years, meaning first-party games will continue releasing on both platforms.

For Sony, a smooth transition from current- to next-gen is extremely important. Sony has to be careful not to displace its huge 100 million PS4 install base and try to carry these users over to the PS5. That means a period of overlap--a time where both consoles will live alongside each other and share both old and new games. This overlap period could last as long as 2023, Sony says.

In a recent interview with AV Watch, Sony Interactive Entertainment Vice President Hideaki Nishino confirms the PS4-to-PS5 transition period should last around 3 years. During that time Sony will release a mix of next-gen exclusives and cross-gen releases.

Apex Legends is expected to hit $1 billion in total lifetime earnings in 2021. Now EA expects the game to rake in $1 billion per year thanks to its current trajectory.

Apex Legends will soon become EA's latest billion-dollar franchise and join the likes of Madden and FIFA. The BR sensation is expected to hit $1 billion in total revenues just two years after launch, but EA expects Apex to amass serious money-making momentum through next year and beyond. $1 billion is just the start. EA forecasts Apex could start earning a billion dollars every single year from here on out.

The main driver is diversification and access. Apex's mobile version will launch in 2021 and offer a huge new window of spending opportunities to millions of gamers, and the China launch may follow soon after. There's also the launch on Nintendo Switch. EA wants Apex on every storefront, every platform, and everywhere gamers play.

It was only yesterday that we reported that Assassin's Creed Valhalla couldn't reach 4K 60FPS on some of the fastest hardware on the planet... yeah well, it does, I just did it myself.

I've just run Assassin's Creed Valhalla's built-in benchmark with the Ultra preset at 4K and reached 62FPS on the Intel Core i9-10900K processor and MSI GeForce RTX 3090 GAMING X TRIO graphics card. The previous reports were from GameGPU that couldn't reach 60FPS at 4K, and were hitting just 56FPS average.

I'll be running all of the cards I have here (including some other Big Cards that may or may not have just arrived) with Assassin's Creed Valhalla and will have a deeper dive into the performance at 1080p, 1440p, and 4K in the next few days.

Assassin's Creed Valhalla is now here and so we know how the rendering resolutions are on the current-gen consoles, including the Xbox One S, Xbox One X, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 4 Pro.

The folks at VG Tech confirm that the Xbox One X renders Assassin's Creed Valhalla at around 3093 x 1740, while its lowest point is 2432 x 1368 and highest is full 4K at 3840 x 2160. Meanwhile, the PlayStation 4 Pro runs the game at around 2304 x 1296, its lowest point is 1824 x 1026 while its highest is 1440p at 2560 x 1440.

I've compiled it into a list below:

It seems that hackers have gotten their hands-on the Watch Dogs: Legion source code, with ransomware group Egregor claiming they've broken into both Ubisoft and Crytek.

The group threatened the release of the Watch Dogs: Legion source code, saying: "Guys, if the goal of the last mission in your game about hackers was the hack of your company, we've done it". Ubisoft has told RPS that they're aware of the issue and are investigating.

But it looks like the Watch Dogs: Legion source code was leaked out, coming in as a 560GB download. I haven't looked for it, and nor will I look for it -- but I'm sure Ubisoft is working overtime trying to plug the leak -- and I'm sure without success.

EA confirms Apex Legends will hit mobile devices sometime in its FY22 period, which extends from April 1, 2021 through March 31, 2022.

Apex Legends has been huge for EA's digital growth. The F2P BR routinely pulls in hundreds of millions in monetization every year since its 2019 launch, and naturally EA sees the lootbox-monetized live game as a prime candidate to tap the $77 billion mobile market. Now we finally have a release window for Apex's mobile launch.

According to EA CEO Andrew Wilson, Apex will drop on mobiles sometime in 2021--the same year it'll release on Nintendo Switch. Apex is so powerful that EA wants it making money on as many platforms as possible.

Today we posted up an erroneous report stating the Xbox Series X's internal SSD didn't support PCIe 4.0, and that it used a stock WD SN530 SSD. Western Digital has reached out to clarify this is wrong, and the built-in Series X SSD is in fact a customized solution that supports PCIe 4.0.

(Photo credit: Modern Vintage Gamer)

According to Western Digital, the Xbox Series X's WD SN530 SSD isn't a stock OEM drive that's limited to PCIe Gen3 x4 performance. Instead, the drive has been outfitted with a special ASIC that enables both PCIe Gen3 x4 and Gen4 x2 performance, which allows for up to 3.938 GB of max throughput. For reference, the Series X targets 2.4GB/sec in uncompressed data transfers.

Sony's next-gen PS5 won't support 2560 x 1440 video output for 1440p monitors...at least at launch.

PS5 console reviews confirm some frustrating news for 1440p monitor owners: The console won't output at a native 1440p resolution on WQHD displays. Instead, the PS5 will revert back to 1080p 60FPS and upscale the image to 1440p. It's possible that certain monitors could push upscaled 4K if the displays allow it, but again that'll be upscaled.

Apparently the PS5 supports three resolutions at launch: 720p, 1080p, and 4K. The sweet-spot resolution isn't included, likely because the PS5 is targeting HDTVs and UHDTVs, not the kind of enthusiast monitors that PC gamers use.

As publishers like Activision-Blizzard, Take-Two Interactive, and Sony raise next-gen PS5 and Xbox Series X game prices to $69.99, Electronic Arts isn't sure about charging more for its games..

In a recent Q2'21 investor's call, EA dodge questions about a possible price hike for its games. The company is currently working on a number of next-gen titles including Battlefield 6, Dragon Age 4, and a new Mass Effect (other games like FIFA 22, Madden 22, and Jedi: Fallen Order 2 are also coming). These games may or may not be exclusive to next-gen consoles and offer higher-end premium experiences.

Read Also: Sony almost charged more than $70 for PS5 games

UPDATE:PlayStation boss Jim Ryan says these reports are "categorically false."

Original article continues below:

If Sony had their way, next-gen PlayStation 5 games might have cost more than $69.99 at launch.

Sony reveals its future plans for the PlayStation 5's post-launch evolution, and they include ambitious functionalities like 8K resolution gaming.

We've known for a long time the PlayStation 5 would support 8K gaming. But now Sony clarifies how this will actually work. At launch, the PS5 will be compatible with 8K UHDTV displays but won't actually output video signals at 8K resolution. The PS5 will only be able to push 7680 x 4320 signals with a post-launch firmware update. These same updates will allow Sony to dynamically adjust the PS5's cooling solution--including voltages and built-in fan RPM--on a per-game basis.

Another big change that Sony plans to implement is letting gamers store PS5 games onto external HDDs. At launch, PS5 next-gen games can exclusively be stored on the custom SSD. Gamers can't use their beefy external HDDs as cold storage for games. On PS5, players will not be able to store or launch next-gen games from HDDs.

Assassin's Creed Valhalla is right around the corner, and you're going to need quite the gaming PC to run it... not even flagship hardware can hit 4K 60FPS on Ultra graphics.

GameGPU has run the built-in benchmark for Assassins Creed Valhalla on a couple of different setups, the flagship Intel Core i9-10900K processor mixed with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 graphics card. The second setup is powered by an AMD Ryzen 9 3900X processor and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti graphics card.

These tests were run at the 4K resolution and the highest in-game visual settings possible, with the Core i9-10900K and GeForce RTX 3090 not capable of hitting 60FPS.

There's going to be countless gamers who buy NBA 2K21 for the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S consoles, but it looks like the game is going to be huge -- up to 120GB in fact.

The news is coming from a Reddit user who posted a screenshot of the official Xbox Store details for NBA 2K21, which even if it's a pre-release version of the game, should weigh in at over 121.7GB. Even if the developers make it smaller before release, it should still require 100GB+.

Now remember, the Xbox Series S might ship with 512GB of storage but it should only have around 364GB of usable space -- so between NBA 2K21 and Call of Duty, you're probably going to be out of space. The higher-end flagship Xbox Series X console has 1TB of space, so you won't have this issue -- you'll be able to install a few more games yet.

UPDATE: Microsoft has officially confirmed a 30-day free Disney+ trial will be offered to all Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers. Check more details here.

Xbox is teasing a pretty awesome new perk for all Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers.

A recent Tweet from Xbox strongly hints that Disney+ subscriptions will soon be given out to all Xbox Game Pass Ultimate users. The promo will be part of the Xbox Game Pass perk system, which rewards subscribers with various offers like free trials for Spotify Premium, Discord Nitro, and a bunch of in-game cosmetics and extras.

UPDATE: Sony recently confirmed that PS5 games can't be stored on HDDs in a recent FAQ post:

"No, players cannot transfer PS5 games to a USB drive. PS5 games must be stored on the console's internal ultra-high speed SSD for gameplay. Explorations for allowing players to store (but not play) PS5 games on a USB drive in a future update are underway."

Sony's next-gen PlayStation 5 games can only be stored on SSDs, and can't be migrated to or downloaded directly onto HDDs.

Red Dead Redemption 2, Grand Theft Auto V, and a handful of other classics will be playable both on the next-gen PS5 and Xbox Series X.

A bit ago, Rockstar confirmed its most-acclaimed games will be playable on next-gen hardware. Current-gen versions of Red Dead Redemption 2 and GTA V will be playable, but Rockstar plans to re-release a next-gen version of GTA V in 2021. The devs didn't discuss upgrades but you can expect the games to load faster, have tighter FPS, and benefit from improved resolution on 4K displays.

Every Rockstar game that plays on Xbox One consoles will also play on Series X/S systems, including Bully, the original Red Dead Redemption, GTA San Andreas and GTA IV. Old-school PS2 classics that are currently playable on PS4 will also be playable, including GTA III, Vice City, Max Payne, and even Red Dead Revolver. L.A. Noire and the VR-ready L.A. Noire Case Files VR game will also be playable.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons is a sales revenue beast that has moved nearly 1 million copies every week since its release in March 2020.

The newest Animal Crossing game on Switch has broken multiple records for Nintendo. The game moved an astronomical 11.77 million copies in just 11 days on the market--more than some games sell in their entire lifetime. In the next quarter, Q1 of FY2021, New Horizons pushed another 10.63 million copies sold. Now the game is finally slowing down, but sales haven't dried up just yet.

As of Fiscal Year Q2'21, Animal Crossing: New Horizons has sold 26.04 million copies since launch. The cute-and-fuzzy sim is now the second best-selling Switch game of all time despite only being available for a fraction of the system's total lifespan.