Gaming - Page 522

Since the Xbox One's disastrous launch in 2013, Microsoft has pivoted away from traditional hardware sales and transformed its gaming business into a service. First, it used Windows 10 to unify PC and Xbox consoles on an OS. Then Xbox LIVE solidified this connection and laid the critical online foundation. Now the transformation is nearly complete thanks to Game Pass, a subscription service duo that is so powerful it's now the heart of the Xbox brand.

In a recent interview with Barron's, Xbox CFO Tim Stuart delivered a statement that boils down the Xbox business to its purest form: "I like to talk about how engagement equals currency. If customers are playing, they're buying more things from our partners, they're buying more things from us, and their enjoyment goes up."

Stuart also says the dual Xbox Series S/X SKU launch bundled with Xbox All Access is a means to ramp up earnings growth. The Xbox All Access credit lease agreement locks consumers to the ecosystem by virtue of continued month-by-month recurring investments, which has become the hallmark of the Xbox business as a whole.

PlayStation 5 production numbers haven't been cut by 4 million units, Sony says.

Sony officially confirms that PlayStation 5 production hasn't been reduced. The PS5's numbers remain unchanged since the console manufacturing began in July 2020. The company assures investors that console production is going smoothly.

"While we do not release details related to manufacturing, the information provided by Bloomberg is false," Sony told GamesIndustry.biz. "We have not changed the production number for PlayStation 5 since the start of mass production."

Microsoft just released finalized next-gen Xbox specs, and we've updated our Series S vs Series X list for a side-by-side look at what's to come.

Microsoft's next-gen Xbox Series S and Series X duo are an exciting evolution for the brand. The consoles feature widespread compatibility and will play games across four generations of hardware--Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Xbox Series. Any game you put into either console will be boosted natively and enjoy increased performance. The Outer Worlds, for example, has a 77% reduction in load times on Series S/X without optimizations.

For the first time ever games consoles are being built from the ground up with parts that synergize. There's no mixing and matching here like with previous gens. The Xbox Series S/X's custom 7nm+ SoC was created specifically to complement the 16GB GDDR6 RAM pool and ultra-fast PCIe 4.0 SSD.

UPDATE: Sony has confirmed the PS5 production cut reports are inaccurate. Read more here.

Sony will only be able to manufacture 11 million PS5s until March 2021, down 26% from its original 15 million projection. If the PS5 enjoys the same production-to-shipment conversion rate as the PS4, Sony could have 8.25 million next-gen PS5s available through the Q3-Q4 period.

Sources tell Bloomberg that PS5 production has been reduced 26% from Sony's internal targets. As of December 31, 2019, Sony had originally planned to produce 10 million PS5s. By the end of FY2019 in March 2020, Sony revised this target to 15 million. Now that number has been reduced again to 11 million to reflect low chip yields.

UPDATE: Sony has confirmed the PS5 production cut reports are inaccurate. Read more here.

Oops... it seems Sony has just hit a major snag with its PlayStation 5 plans over the next 6 months, with new reports suggesting the company has slashed its PlayStation 5 production numbers.

Bloomberg is reporting that Sony has cut its PlayStation 5 production numbers from 15 million units to be made available globally by March 31, 2021 -- down to just 11 million, a cut of 4 million units. The reason? There is reportedly production yield issues with its system-on-a-chip, or SoC.

EA is going through some big changes, where it will be re-branding Origin into just the EA desktop app moving forward.

The shift from EA is because they want to make things more streamlined, with EA SVP, strategic growth Mike Blank explaining: "The EA Desktop app is being designed to deliver a frictionless and socially connected experience that is faster for players to get into their games".

He added: "This move aligns to the strategy, which is to help players play our games more effectively. We had these different names. The reality is that they all align to the same objective, which is to help our players play. If you're delivering a similar game experience across multiple different devices, it's important to be able to let those players play together".

Microsoft's Project xCloud streaming service launches tomorrow on Android and aims to revolutionize Xbox gaming with unfettered access.

Starting tomorrow, all Game Pass Ultimate subscribers can stream 172 Xbox games to their Android devices. Project xCloud goes live tomorrow and takes aim at Google Stadia by delivering a true cross-platform experience with mobile-to-console cross-saves and full cloud integration.

Gamers can start a playthrough of a Game Pass game on console and seamlessly pick up right where they left off while on-the-go. It's kind of like the Switch but only with some intense wireless data crunching. As always, bandwidth and latency are issues with game streaming, so keep that in mind.

Sony plans to ship PlayStation 5 consoles to U.S. retailers by air freight to ensure prompt availability at launch, Niko Partners analyst Daniel Ahmad notes.

Sony is spending extra to prepare U.S. retailers for the PlayStation 5's holiday launch. Instead of shipping new PS5 consoles to U.S. retailers by sea, Sony opted to ship supply by air freight, a much faster, but more expensive, shipping method.

According to Chinese media group Caixin (spotted by analyst Daniel Ahmad), PS5 shipments to the United States will begin in October via Delta Air Cargo. A fleet of Delta 747 planes will make the shipments.

10 years ago today, Bungie said goodbye to the Halo franchise with one of the best PVE shooters ever made.

Halo: Reach released 10 years ago today on the Xbox 360 and changed my life forever. I had been looking forward to it since the classic Reach ViDoc, the one where Marcus Lehto said "every neuron in my head is firing Reach, Reach, Reach." Terms like "Move up the beach, Noble" were permanently etched into my memory. I remember standing in line at Gamestop for the midnight release, and blasting out round after round of Reach Firefight. I was hopelessly addicted: To this day I haven't played a single game of Reach PVP on the original Xbox 360.

Reach is an immortal game for me because of its PVE and campaign. 4-player Firefight survival is my favorite mode ever, and the armor abilities were just made specifically for this gametype. Add in an emotionally-driven campaign full of somber, sobering moments, over the top chaos, and, for the first time ever for Halo, a spaceflight mission, and you have a recipe for one of the most epic Halos ever made.

Although the Xbox Series S' PCIe 4.0 SSD delivers the same 2.4GB/sec speeds as the Series X, its size is cut in half. Microsoft says this storage reduction helped the Series S hit $299 MSRP.

The Xbox Series S has a dramatically smaller 512GB NVMe SSD, and Microsoft confirms this capacity drop also dropped the console's price. What's not apparent is how the SSD helps offset GDDR6 costs, too. The Xbox Series S is effectively cheaper to make on two fronts: The smaller 512GB SSD reduces flash memory costs, and the new Velocity Architecture actually reduces DRAM costs as well.

Here's what Microsoft in a recently leaked press briefing:

Rumor has it Microsoft wanted to buy Bungie and the Destiny IP, but Bungie CEO Pete Parsons says it was false. The rumor actually didn't make sense from the get-go, and here's why.

Bungie isn't going to sell itself and the Destiny franchise over to Microsoft. There's many reasons for this, but the biggest one is that it simply doesn't need to. Bungie is doing great right now, and like literally every other "Microsoft is buying x company" rumor we've dispelled, it has no reason to sell. And it has especially no reason to sell to Microsoft.

First, let's do a quick history lesson.

I'm sure you didn't see this coming but IKEA has just announced it has teamed with the Republic of Gamers (ROG) division of ASUS to develop a "new range of affordable gaming furniture and accessories to bring the gaming experience at home to a new level".

IKEA's new ASUS ROG-powered gaming products will first land in China in February 2021, but later on in the year in October 2021 we'll see them appear in other IKEA stores across the world. IKEA explains that it wants to "combine home furnishing knowledge with ROG's expertise in creating exceptional gaming experience".

The company adds: "Together, we set out to help the many gamers (and their families) welcome gaming home through developing the new range of affordable and ergonomic gaming furniture & accessories, designed to increase performance while also blend in beautifully to homes".

If you've got $500,000+ burning a hole in your pocket, firstly -- I'll give you my bank details, but second if you wanted to buy all of the games on Steam -- and I mean all of htem, then it'll cost you a swift $538,000.

Well, if you want to be down to the dollar we're talking about $537,192.37 at full price, while the games currently discounted (at the time of writing) would cost you $521,909.63. Now remember, we're talking about every single damn game on Steam -- not just 100 or 200, but every single one.

The data is from Buy All Steam Games, which is constantly tracking Steam and all of its games and the entire price of every single one if you were to buy them at once. You can see when the huge Steam sales are on, as the price of the entire Steam library drops by so much -- look at July 2020, it dropped down to around $320,000 for the entire Steam library.

The PS5's price could start at $399 for the digital-only option, and $499 for the disc-based system, new store catalogs hint.

El Corte Ingles, Spain's biggest department store retailer, has reportedly added two mysterious consoles to its internal database: Aurea for $399, and Enigma for $499. These are likely codenames for the PlayStation 5 duo. If accurate, this would put the disc-less PlayStation 5 at $399, which will effectively seal the 9th generation for Sony.

These names seem to align with previous codenames used for Sony PlayStation hardware:

UPDATE: Deep Silver's Senior PR manager Alex Ryan confirms the rumors are totally fake:

Unverified 4Chan rumors may have leaked Saints Row V story and gameplay details. If accurate, Volition is taking the series back to its crime-infested roots.

New 4Chan leaks outline some possibilities for Saints Row V's content and features. We know Volition has been working on the sequel for years now, and THQ Nordic's financials hint the game could release in FY2020 (ending March 31, 2021). The studio has been tight-lipped on key details though.

The new customized PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD in next-gen Xbox consoles can significantly reduce loading times by default without requiring upgrade patches from developers.

The Xbox Series S/X SSD is a game-changer, and can natively boost loading times in games that aren't even optimized for the system. As shown in a recent Series S showcase video, the 2.4GB/sec PCIe 4.0 SSD cuts loading times in games like The Outer Worlds by more than 70%.

The Outer Worlds on a Series S loaded in just 12 seconds, compared to the 53 seconds on Xbox One S. That's a 77% reduction in loading times. The game wasn't optimized for Series S/X and was simply running in backward compatibility mode.

Insomniac teases high-end shadows and lighting on PS5 ahead of Wednesday's big new event.

Complete with ray-traced visuals and next-gen atmospheric fog, shadow, and lighting enhancements, high-end textures, and ultra-fast loading, Spider-Man: Miles Morales should exemplify the PS5's power at launch. While we haven't seen official gameplay footage just yet, Insomniac teases a glimpse at Miles Morales' eye-popping visuals.

The footage is simply a 1-second clip looped over and over in a GIF, but it's enough to get fans riled up. There's real-time fog effects as Miles exhales in the cold city, dynamic lighting bounces off of every surface, motion is smooth and clear, and you can even see how the lighting passes through the car's exhaust as it moves. There's plumes of exhaled breath from the passersby and the characters move so realistically.

Borderlands 3 owners on PS4 and Xbox One are getting free next-gen upgrades on PS5 and Xbox Series S/X, complete with 4K 60FPS in campaign mode.

At PAX, Gearbox announced the perfect way to carry a live game forward into next-gen. Borderlands 3 is getting free next-gen upgrades, and all of your saves, DLC, unlocks, and associated content will carry into next-gen.

There's no need to re-buy the game like with the Control Ultimate Edition, and there's no expensive $100 cross-gen bundle like with 2K Sports' NBA 2K21.

Crysis Remastered is coming to the PC and consoles very soon, with developer Crytek releasing a new video teasing some of the software-based ray tracing on current-gen consoles. Check it out:

The current-gen Xbox One and PlayStation 4 consoles will be enjoying some software-based ray tracing thanks to Crysis Remastered, with the trailer above showing it off in real-time for the first time ever. All before the next-gen consoles have launched.

Crytek captured all of the footage of Crysis Remastered running on the faster PlayStation 4 Pro -- but the Xbox One X console will also do the same thing. PC gamer? You can expect even more graphical bells and whistles.

As retaliation for its anti-trust case, Apple is prepared to keep Epic titles off of iOS for an entire year.

Apple could penalize Epic Games and keep Fortnite off of iOS and Mac devices for a full year, court documents reveal. On August 28, 2020, Apple revoked Epic's developer license and doesn't plan to reinstate it for a full year. That means Fortnite will not be allows on iOS devices until 2021, which cuts off Apple from lucrative millions and denies Epic access to 116 million registered users on the iOS platform.

The info was gleaned from Epic's preliminary injunction filed on September 4, which aimed to convince courts to overturn Apple's decision and forcibly reinstate Epic's developer account. It's noted in Exhibit H in the court documents, which reads: