Gaming - Page 533

Secretlab has just unveiled their latest line up of gaming chairs, teaming with Riot Games for the world's first official League of Legends Champions gaming chair collection.

It's a big deal as Riot Games is soon celebrating -- if you can even believe it -- the 10th anniversary of League of Legends. Riot Games already uses Secretlab gaming chairs at their premier global tournamnets as well as top-tier pro circuits (including the World Championship and the LCS and LEC).

The new Secretlab Champions range is the first of its kind in the 10-year history of League of Legends, something that saw Riot Games and Secretlab bring to life fan-favorite Ionian champions Akali, Ahri, and Yasuo. Not only that, but a beautiful special edition purple-and-gold K/DA Edition.

Control's "free" next-gen PS5, Xbox Series upgrades are now locked behind a new paywall.

Today 505 Games, the publisher of Remedy's new game Control that has 20 years publishing exclusivity on the franchise, confirmed that existing PS4, Xbox One owners aren't eligible for the promised free next-gen upgrade.

The enhanced next-gen versions are now exclusively available as part of the new Ultimate Edition, a GOTY SKU that packs all expansions with the game. So if you already own Control on current-gen systems and want the enhanced PS5, Xbox Series X version, you have to re-buy the game completely.

Unlike 2K Games, who plans to charge $69.99 for next-gen versions of NBA 2K21, other publishers like Capcom are unsure about raising the price for their PS5, Xbox Series X games.

Capcom joins the likes of Ubisoft in holding back on charging extra for next-gen games. Right now the company has two next-gen games in development: its new IP Pragmata, and Resident Evil VIIIage, which is due out in 2021. Both of those games could be priced at a $59.99 MSRP.

In a recent Q&A session at its Q1'20 earnings report, Capcom confirmed it hasn't set a strict pricing policy for its next-gen games:

We know a new BioShock game is in development, and while we know developers Cloud Chamber Studios is working on it -- we now know some new information on the game.

A new job listing on Cloud Chamber Studios' website that their upcoming game, which is a new BioShock game, will be breathing "life into a new and fantastical world". It will be a narrative and systems-driven experience, giving gamers combat that is "accessible, satisfying, and will allow for a high degree of player expression and experimentation within a highly reactive world".

We now know the new BioShock game will be powered by Unreal Engine 4, which I'm sure the team at Cloud Chamber Studios is going to have fun tweaking to their new game.

Microsoft reportedly planned to reveal Xbox Series X pricing, launch date, and full details of the low-cost Xbox Series S later this month. Now those plans may have shifted.

Today Microsoft made some big moves with its Xbox plans. The company delayed Halo: Infinite in 2021, meaning the Xbox Series X/S won't launch with a huge system-seller. Microsoft also confirmed a November release window for the Series X. This was always obvious given the holiday season. There's still a lot of info missing, though, including price, exact release date, pre-order info, and the formal Xbox Series S reveal.

Now it appears the big August showcase could be moved to September. According to Shinobi602, a well-known figure with close ties to developers, new Xbox Series updates will come a bit later than planned. "Expect news about other Xbox stuff that's been going around recently to come a bit later too," Shinobi said on ResetERA.

EA shareholders have voted against a robust stock compensation package for executives worth tens of millions of dollars.

For the first time in years, EA investors seem to agree that company execs are overpaid. A new SEC form 8K filing confirms EA investors shot down an exorbitant bonus package for the company's top brass in a say-on-pay vote. The existing plan would've awarded EA execs like CEO Andrew Wilson and CFO Blake Jorgensen over $16 million in bonus stock.

The overwhelming majority of active voters were against the plan. 74% of active voters, or 170 million out of the 230.5 million that voted, said no to the compensation payouts. But say-on-pay votes don't actually block the remuneration plans, and the board of directors could still deliver the payouts to EA executives.

That new Alien online shooting game hasn't been cancelled after all, and Cold Iron Studios finds a new home.

Cold Iron's new Alien MMO shooter for consoles and PC is still in development and hasn't been cancelled, the studio today announced. The project is still alive and well, Cold Iron is still at the helm, and the team has found a permanent stable home. The studio now resides at Daybreak Games (formerly Sony Online Entertainment), the publishing banner that unifies games like Planetside, H1Z1, and Everquest.

Daybreak is a great fit for Cold Iron, who has extensive MMO experience, and the online-based Alien game which will be well-guided by the publisher.

The Xbox Series X will launch this November, Microsoft today confirmed. But we don't have an actual release date yet.

Halo: Infinite was just delayed to 2021. The biggest next-gen system-seller will no longer launch with said system in 2020. This prompted Microsoft to remind everyone about the Xbox Series X's massive backwards compatibility that plays thousands of games across four generations of Xbox. It also pushed them to reveal the Xbox Series X's launch window.

The next-gen Xbox will release sometime in November, Microsoft announced, but this was always obvious. Every new Xbox generation has always launched in November, a time period selected to take advantage of the seasonal holiday sales rush. The Xbox launched on November 15, 2001, the Xbox 360 released on November 22, 2005, and the Xbox One launched on November 22, 2013. If history is an indicator, the Xbox Series family of consoles may release in later November as well.

The Xbox Series S could have a similar high-tower design as the Series X model despite being a lot less powerful.

The new leaked Xbox controller has been unboxed in a YouTube video, showing off the fancy Robot White paint job, new share button, and hybrid D-Pad. The setup guide is particularly interesting. The guide only shows a Series X tower, which is interesting because the controller is mainly billed as a next-gen peripheral for both the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S. There's no Series S pictured.

What if the cheaper, digital-only Series S has the same form factor? What if it looks like a white Series X?

Sony just sold more games in Q1 than any other company in the 48-year history of console gaming.

Sony's PlayStation division set new records in Q1'20. Not only did PlayStation make $1 billion in profit in Q1, more revenue than any other platform in the history of gaming, but Sony also sold 91 million games during the period, smashing every competitor and pushing total PlayStation 4 game sales to nearly 1.4 billion. In comparison, Nintendo sold 50.4 million games in Q1.

Out of the 91 million PS4 games sold in Q1, 18.5 million of them, or 20%, were first-party PlayStation exclusives. Hardware, conversely, was down 40% year-over-year to 1.9 million sales. Sony has shipped a total 112.3 million PS4 consoles to date.

UPDATE:New retail package labels reinforce a November 5-6 release date for the Xbox Series X:

The new Xbox controllers have leaked out into the wild and the packaging confirms the Xbox Series S is indeed real. Now the controller's warranty information may hint at a November 5 launch for both Xbox Series systems.

According to info provided by ResetERA, the new Xbox controller has a warranty that expires on November 5, 2021.

Fall Guys is the latest gaming craze. It's taking over Twitch and it even had players than Grand Theft Auto V on Steam. Now Devolver confirms an absolutely massive sales milestone.

Fall Guys has now sold more than 2 million copies on Steam, making it the best launch game in Devolver Digital's history of releases. These are absolutely astronomical sales figures for any game, whether it's AAA or indie. For reference, Final Fantasy 7 Remake sold 3.5 million copies in 3 days. It took Fall Guys less than a week to hit 2 million copies.

Here's how Fall Guys is stacking up against other indies:

AT&T may sell its WB Games division in a bid to significantly lower spending costs and instead license out IPs and properties to third-party studios.

AT&T is currently restructuring its WarnerMedia division, leading to layoffs in sales and marketing divisions and labels like WB Games shifting to different areas. Sources tell Deadline that WarnerMedia is letting go employees across its divisions to reduce company spending. This move will help chip away at AT&T's massive $152 billion debt incurred from the Time Warner buyout and drastic reductions in cable subscriptions.

The layoffs and departures include high-level executives like WB Worldwide Television Distribution president Jeffrey Schlesinger, Worldwide Theater Distribution & Home Entertainment president Ron Sanders, and WB Entertainment Chief Financial Officer Kim Williams.

Verizon has teamed up with Marvel and Square Enix to give out thousands of free Avengers game copies to Verizon subscribers.

Marvel isn't playing favorites with just PlayStation. The new Avengers game's marketing plan goes beyond the Spider-Man exclusivity on PlayStation consoles. Today Verizon announced that it will give away 5,000 copies of Crystal Dynamics' new Avengers live game to wireless and Fios customers.

The freebie goes live on August 10 on the Verizon Up rewards platform. Each ticket includes a special key that must be entered on the PlayAvengers.com/Verizon webpage.

Spider-Man is just the beginning. Marvel's new Avengers game has a galaxy of platform-exclusive content and incentives.

Marvel, Sony, and Crystal Dynamics just caught a lot of flak for making Spider-Man exclusive to the new Avengers game on PS4 and PS5. The decision makes a lot of sense, though; Sony has the movie rights to Spider-Man, and Marvel (aka Disney) cares most about sales and digital revenues, so they're attached to the biggest brand in gaming. Marvel doesn't make its own games, and instead licenses them out, so live games represent the ripest earnings fruit.

Turns out this deal goes a lot farther than Spider-Man. Marvel has signed an exclusivity deal with Sony that includes lots of other PlayStation-first content in the new Avengers live game. Spider-man is a permanent platform-exclusive, but other things like cosmetic skins will be 30-days exclusive on the PlayStation ecosystem.

Final Fantasy 14's new ambitious Patch 5.3 update goes live tomorrow, bringing tons of new content to both free and paid subscribers.

Final Fantasy 14's new Patch 5.3 Reflections in Crystal update is the perfect opportunity to try out the game. Free players can now reach level 60 have access to the Heavensward expansion, including new story missions and the Dark Knight, Machinist, and Astrologian classes. The free trial also includes all content leading up to Patch 3.56, and the Au Ra race.

Paid subscribers will get the best benefit. Heavensward is also free for anyone with an active subscription, and Square Enix is boosting storyline progression to ensure speedy content unlocks. Patch 5.3 wraps up the Shadowbringers expansion and sets the stage for the next major installment.

It turns out Cyberpunk 2077's Nomads aren't desert savages, but country folk with strong communities and values.

In a recent Night City Wire lifestream, CDPR reveals new info about the three lifepath origin stories you can pick for V.: Street Kid, Nomad, and Corpo. The most surprising one was Nomad, which we haven't heard much about. The Nomads live in South California on the outskirts of Night City in tight-knit groups. They're desert-people that live in ramshackle RVs that strongly contrast the hyper-tech world of Night City; in a very real sense, the Nomads are stuck in a different time period.

It's a whole other world in the arid badlands. Makeshift muscle cars roar the roadways, held together with mis-matched parts. There's a genuine Mad Max vibe, but it's offset by strong Southern values and principles. The Nomads have a strong undercurrent of conservatism melded with survival, which connects them into strong-bonded families and groups. But there's also the self-described hunger for freedom, the desire to roam the desert and resist the Corpos that present law and order.

As we've reported since 2018, Microsoft will release two next-gen consoles this holiday: The Xbox Series X, and the cheaper, digital-only Xbox Series S. Now the Series S has been accidentally leaked.

Microsoft's cheaper next-gen Xbox Series S just got confirmed as real from new leaked controller packaging. More leaks are starting to pop up, including physical video of the controller and box that mentions the Series S.

While there's been no official announcement, the budget-friendly Series S (codenamed Lockhart) will reportedly feature a weaker 4TFLOP GPU that targets 1440p 60FPS, instead of the Xbox Series X's 12.15 TFLOP GPU, which is capable of hitting 4K 60FPS. The Series S will apparently feature the same 7nm 8-core, 16-thread Zen 2 CPU clocked at 3.8GHz, though.

Well, it seems Microsoft is going to be forced to confirm and announce its cheaper Xbox Series S console now that a new leak was shown on Twitter.

Twitter user 'Zak S' shows off a new Xbox controller that on the side says it is for the Xbox Series X/S consoles, seemingly confirming Microsoft's cheaper "codename Anaconda" console. Xbox Series S is meant to have 7.5GB of GDDR6 versus the beefier 13.5GB GDDR6 inside of the Xbox Series X.

Microsoft is expected to have performance on the cheaper Xbox Series S much lower than the Xbox Series X, and even under the Xbox One X. We're looking at around 4 TFLOPs for the Xbox Series X, while the flagship Xbox Series X will be pumping away at 12 TFLOPs.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Warzone recently had their Season 5 update, which was a huge installation on the PC as it was -- weighing in at a huge 54.2GB download.

But developer Infinity Ward did say that there would be a "decrease on overall footprint" of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. So it wouldn't turn out to be the already 200GB+ that the game was on the PC, plus the 54.2GB update for Season 5 that would push it over 250GB.

The overall size of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare on the PC is between 200-212GB, my personal installation size on my PC is 198GB while I've seen 212GB on other systems and everything in between.