Gaming - Page 539

While other publishers like 2K Games are eager to charge $70 for next-gen PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X versions of their games, EA isn't sure on how to proceed.

EA may not charge $70 for next-gen PS5 and Xbox Series X SKUs of its games. In a recent Q1'21 earnings call, EA CEO Andrew Wilson commented on raising prices of next-gen games. EA will offer free next-gen upgrades of Madden 21 and FIFA 21, and is more focused on the smooth cross-generation transition instead of trying to capitalizing on full $70 next-gen titles.

"We start with the player motivations, the expectations the players have around depth and breadth of live service, and we go from there," EA CEO Andrew Wilson said.

Like pretty much every games company, EA is benefiting tremendously from COVID-19 lockdowns, and their recent Q1'21 earnings reflect strong spikes in overall earnings.

Today EA reported record first-quarter results for Fiscal Year Q1'21 that far exceeded the company's expectations. In the quarter ended March 31, 2020, EA generated $1.459 billion in total revenues, up 21% from last year. Net bookings were up tremendously by 78% YoY to $1.390 billion, outperforming EA's forecast by $390 million, driven by astronomical growth in full game sales and live service monetization. Free cash flow is up 286% to $340 million on these strong results.

Full game sales are up triple digit percentage points to $287 million (+202% YoY), which were driven in part by EA's fusillade of re-releases on Steam and strong console purchases. This reflects increased consumer purchases during COVID-19 quarantines. Q1 is typically EA's slowest period for game sales.

Halo: Infinite will run at 4K 60FPS on the Xbox Series X and PC, but will gamers play it if the shadows still look bad?

Right now Halo: Infinite has an issue with visuals, and everyone's noticed. The culprit is the game's new dynamic lighting that blankets the open-world setting. Things look great in the light, but in shadows, we see models lose their definition. The result is textures and models of guns, buildings, and characters look very last-gen.

343 Industries can fix it with global illumination techniques like hardware- or software-based ray tracing, which the Xbox Series X conveniently supports. But this fix comes at a performance hit. Halo: Infinite may not run at the advertised 4K 60FPS with ray tracing enabled; in its present state, with the dynamic lighting and shadows obfuscating details, it could hit a dynamic (or possibly even native) 3840 x 2160 with a steady 60FPS. With ray tracing turned on, it could drop to 1080p 60FPS.

Rocket League is already immensely popular, but now it'll grow even more by going free-to-play. There's a catch, though. It's easy access is gated off by the Epic Games Store.

Psyonix recently confirmed Rocket League is going F2P on PC, but only on the Epic Store. This follows Psyonix's full buyout from Epic in May 2019. New Rocket League PC players will have to download the chaotic auto sport indie from the Epic Store.

When Rocket League goes free-to-play it'll be simultaneously de-listed from Steam. Anyone who already owns the game on Steam will be able to keep playing, and Pysonix is preserving cross-play between Steam and the Epic Store versions as well as PS4 and Xbox One. The game will also support cross-progression on every platform so your unlocks will carry over wherever you go.

STALKER 2 will be dropping in 2021 exclusive to the PC and next-gen Xbox Series X, and now we're hearing reports it might offer an 120FPS option on the Xbox Series X version.

On the Xbox store page for STALKER 2, it says that it was designed to take advantage of the powerful hardware inside of Microsoft's new Xbox Seires X console and it means "frame rates up to 120FPS".

The store page reads: "Games built using the Xbox Series X development kit are designed to take advantage of the unique capabilities of the Xbox Series X. They will showcase unparalleled load-times, visuals, responsiveness, and frame rates up to 120 FPS".

Roblox Corporation has said that its game has over 150 million monthly players, with the company expecting to pull in $250 million this year.

During the COVID-19 pandemic there have been more and more players in Roblox, with the developer announcing the news during its annual developer conference -- held virtually because of the on-going coronavirus pandemic.

David Baszucki, founder and CEO of Roblox Corporation explained: "The accomplishments of our developer community have eclipsed even our loftiest expectations. Our focus is to give developers the tools and resources they need to pursue their vision and create larger, more complex, more realistic experiences and collectively build the Metaverse".

Sony will launch its next-gen PlayStation 5 console in November, but between its launch and the first 5 years on the market the console is expected to sell at least 120 million units.

The news is coming from DigiTimes, which reports it from sources in the "backend supply chain in Taiwan", which explains: "The life cycle for household game consoles may be shortened to five years from 6-7 years, and PS5 shipments may challenge 120-170 million units when its 5-year cycle expires, compared to 110 million units registered to date for PS4 launched in November 2013".

It added: "Sony has recently boosted its PS5 shipment estimate for 2020 to near 10 million units".

Analogue's new $199 Pocket handheld aims to be the king of all retro pocket-consoles by playing tons of old-school cartridges better than ever before.

If you love playing retro handheld games, then the new Analogue Pocket was made just for you. Analogue revealed a bunch of surprising new details around the Pocket, including pre-orders that go live on August 3.

The Pocket's specs are also pretty nice. The display is a 3.6-inch, Gorilla Glass-covered LCD panel with 1600x1440p resolution and 615ppi, which is roughly 10x the resolution of an original Game Boy. It has a 4300mAh battery that allows for 6-10 hours of play, and fully remappable buttons. Here's a quick breakdown of some of the most interesting features:

Atari's new VCS console will be accompanied by a storefront, but the digital marketplace won't copy Steam's catalog of AAA games.

The Atari VCS is a kind of jack-of-all-trades. It's a console-PC hybrid that supports Linux and Windows 10. It's also a console with its own first-party storefront, controllers, and online ecosystem. But unlike Steam or the PlayStation Store, the Atari VCS store won't sell $59.99 AAA games--at least not at launch. Instead, the Atari VCS games will be capped at $25 a pop and will be more like GOG than Steam.

Atari is taking a smaller approach with its store and will exclusively sell remasters, classic version of its old games, and indie games at launch, complete with its vault of 100 Atari classics, Anstream on-demand retro game streaming, and remasters of older games like Missile Command.

Introducing the Aya-Eve, a new gaming PC in a Switch-like handheld form factor.

Handheld PCs are on the way to merge portability with actual PC-quality gaming. First we had the GPD Win 2, then the GPD Win Max, and Alienware's impressive Project UFO handheld with its detachable controllers. Now there's another competitor called the Aya-Eve.

The Aya-Eve has some decent specs including an AMD 4500U notebook APU with 6 cores and 6 threads, 16GB of DDR4-4266 RAM, and 512GB of onboard NVMe flash memory. Other specs are tentative and could change, but right now the team is targeting a 7-inch 1280 x 800 IPS display, which is akin to the Switch's 6.2-inch 1280 x 720 screen.

According to a new survey from analyst firm Experience12, thousands of UK gamers are overwhelming more interested in the PS5 than the Xbox Series X.

Data firm Experience12 surveyed 3,000 gamers in the UK to see which next-gen console they're more interested in. Turns out the PS5 is at the top, which isn't surprising given the console's massive install base. 84% of respondents, or roughly 2,520 people, said they were more excited about the PS5. 16% of them, or just 480 of respondents, preferred the Xbox Series X.

To properly understand this data we need some perspective. The PlayStation 4 has a staggering lead over the Xbox One in global sales, and is handily beating Microsoft's console by over 60 million units. As Ampere Analysis shows, the PS4 is currently at 108 million sales (sell-through, not the 110.4 million sell-in Sony reports) compared to the 49 million Xbox Ones sold worldwide. The PS4 has outsold the Xbox One by 59 million units, or more than the total Xbox One sales across the globe.

Konami, ever the curious company, is joining the likes of Alienware, MSI, and Corsair with custom pre-built gaming PCs.

On the heels of making the Turbo Grafx 16 Mini, Konami has wider hardware ambitions. This time it's making gaming PCs for Japanese consumers. The new Arespear gaming desktops are made for esports and were originally announced in February 2020.

The three-SKU line features somewhat beefy specs and LED lighting, but are dramatically overpriced for the hardware. Konami has just now opened pre-orders for the PCs, which are scheduled to start shipping in September.

Duke Nukem dev 3D Realms is back on the map, and now they're teasing a brand new game.

3D Realms has made a resurgence and released their latest game, Ion Fury, on the original Duke Nukem BUILD Engine. Now they're coming back with a new all-original IP and it looks like a fantasy-based experience. We're not exactly sure what the team is cooking up--fantasy is kind of a weird focus for a FPS-driven studio--but it could feature magic-blasting instead of guns.

Apart from this new IP, 3D Realms is also working on Wrath: Aeon of Fury, a bloody FPS built in the original Quake engine that's due out on 2021. Other 3D Realms published games include Ghostrunner and Kingpin Reloaded.

Games get cancelled all the game in the industry. Some are extremely groundbreaking. Others devolve into chaos. Some, like the new RPG from Mike Laidlaw, get cancelled on a whim by people who have too much power.

Back in 2017, lots of executives left BioWare. The studio was endemic with overwork, ruthless crunch, and had a severe morale problem. Ian Frazier kicked off the exodus in 2017, followed by general manager Aaryn Flynn in July, and then Dragon Age alum Mike Laidlaw in October. Laidlaw had been with BioWare for 14 years and helped shape pivotal RPGs like Mass Effect and Dragon Age.

After leaving BioWare, Laidlaw joined up with Ubisoft on a mysterious new game. The announcement was made in December 2018, but Laidlaw had been working as a creative consultant at Ubisoft Quebec for nine months before the reveal. It was clear Ubisoft was gearing up for something big, a unique new IP to help stand apart from established numerical franchises like Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, and Watch Dogs.

Hitman 3 is coming to PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and current-gen consoles in January 2021, and the PS5's new SSD was a big reason for the sequel's next-gen optimizations.

We've heard lots of developers praise the PlayStation 5's custom high-end 5.5GB/sec PCIe 4.0 SSD for its massive efficiency, data pipeline throughput and streaming capabilities. Coupled with the NVMe M.2 flash over PCIe 4.0 lanes, the 12-channel memory controller and hardware-based decompression block allows for high data flows (up to 8K textures) and incredible compressed data transfer rates of up to 20GB. The result is games loading faster that ever before with instantaneous open-world gaming as data rockets through the GDDR6 RAM, Zen 2 CPU, and 10.1 TFLOP Navi 2 GPU and then rendered on the screen.

This kind of performance will revolutionize console gaming, and early adopters like IO Interactive are eager to jump in. According to the developer, Hitman 3 was designed with the PlayStation 5's SSD in mind. Simply put, faster loading and data streaming means more access and play availability. IO loves this I/O potential and says it meshes perfectly with Hitman's overall goals: Wide experimentation in a sandbox.

Every part of the PlayStation 5 will take advantage of the console's new ultra-fast 5.5GB/sec PCIe 4.0 SSD, especially the UI and operating system.

Sony's next-gen PlayStation 5 will feature a new quick-launch feature that instantly launches a specific gameplay sequence, level, or event directly from the main menu. This functionality will be nestled into the PlayStation 5's new and improved Activities section. Think of it as a shortcut that quickly loads up a specific portion of a game, whether it be a specific race, a certain level (or boss fight), or maybe even a challenging platformer jump.

Developers can tailor-make instant-access events that will shave off minutes of waiting or redundant gaming to reach a certain part of the game.

Valve boss and PC gaming overlord Gabe Newell prefers the Xbox Series X over the PlayStation 5. Why? "Because it's better."

In a recent interview with New Zealand-based TV show The Project, Gabe Newell made some interesting comments on his recent life. It turns out Gabe Newell has been in Aotearoa, New Zealand since March.

Newell was actually on the show to promote a new festival he's throwing called We Love Aotearoa on August 15, which features a number of musical artists, VR demos, and will be free to everyone. It's Gabe's way of saying thank you to his local kiwis.

Although Obisdian's new RPG Avowed is shrouded in mystery, info on modding, next-gen worldbuilding, enemies, and overall scope has leaked out behind the scenes.

Just as the developer promised, Obsidian is making a huge new RPG. It's called Avowed, and it's a next-gen Xbox Series X console exclusive that's set in Eora, the mythical land of the studio's original Pillars of Eternity IP. The trailer also showed first-person Skyrim-esque exploration and combat. But that's really all that's been confirmed so far, and rightly so because the game is years away. Luckily some insiders are spilling the beans on what's next for Avowed.

According to ResetERA's Klobrille, who has inside knowledge of the goings-on of multiple studios and has rightly predicted parts of the recent Xbox stream, Avowed aims to wow gamers.

On the heels of Sony's accidental leak, Cuphead is indeed coming to PlayStation 4 today.

Cuphead, the hard-as-nails platformer/shoot-em-up that's tormented many a gamer's soul, is blasting onto PlayStation 4 today. The game is now up on the PlayStation Store for $19.99, and is compatible with Remote Play on the PS Vita or mobile phones complete with local co-op.

The news was announced in an endearing stop-motion video with clay figures befit of the old vintage 1930s era. The footage was created by the team at Stop Motion Department in Toronto and is complemented by a nice jazz track.

Square Enix president Yousuke Matsuda makes bold claims about the PlayStation 5's capabilities, and promises big things for the publisher's next-gen Project Athia game.

According to Square Enix's president, the PlayStation 5 can deliver visuals and graphics that are similar to today's PC tech. Well, not really similar, but nearly identical. Matsuda says the PS5 is capable of delivering ray-traced lighting effects that're essentially the same as those found in PC games.

In a recent interview with Toyo Keizai Plus, company president Yousuke Matsuda says the PlayStation 5 has the best console technology and discusses how his team is using the tech to build Project Athia, the publisher's only announced PS5 game.