Gaming - Page 551

A new report from French website Gameblog alleges Konami fired Kojima because he was secretly funneling money from Metal Gear Solid V to help fund Silent Hills, but Kojima Productions has squashed the report.

Back in 2015, Konami fired Hideo Kojima and scrubbed his name from Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. Konami also cancelled Silent Hills, a horror sequel Kojima was making alongside Guillermo Del Toro and Norman Reedus.

Ever since then Konami hasn't released a big AAA hit and has mostly focused on mobile, pachinko, and annualized sports games.

New MP and campaign details for Black Ops Cold War, this year's Call of Duty game, have leaked out ahead of the game's big reveal.

Activision has yet to reveal Black Ops Cold War yet, but that hasn't stopped multiple leaks from confirming key details. A recent pre-alpha gameplay clip confirmed the game's Cold War era setting along with various weapons and tanks used in the 80's. Now sources are coming forth with more info.

YouTuber xClusiveAce has some fresh tidbits concerning both multiplayer and campaign. The video has since been made private for obvious reasons, but Charlie Intel made a handy list.

Death Stranding might transform into a brand new IP and Kojima could already be working on a sequel.

Hideo Kojima is currently working with Yohi Shinkawa on early concepts for his next game...and it could be related to Death Stranding. Just yesterday Kojima shared some cryptic and strange sketches on Twitter of a Bridge Baby and a whale/dolphin-shaped ship, igniting speculation on Death Stranding 2.

Closer inspection reveals the Giger-esque craft to be a Landing Ship issued out by BRIDGES, the fictional inter-dimensional government from the ruinous world of Death Stranding. It's possible this ship floats in space or maybe even traverses the inky black oceans of the death stranding.

Microsoft's brick and mortar stores are becoming largely extinct as the company pivots even further into digital.

In a recent press release entitled "Microsoft Store announces new approach to retail," the service titan confirms it'll be closing all stores worldwide and those in in New York City, New York, Redmond, Washington, Sydney, Australia, and London, England will all evolve into Microsoft Experience Centers.

Interestingly enough, Microsoft says it won't fire anyone. MS Store staff will continue on and focus on digital sales, training, and tech support. This can also be done remotely, the company says.

New reports further solidify info on Microsoft's unannounced budget-friendly next-gen Xbox Series S console.

Microsoft may release two next-gen Xbox consoles in 2020: The higher-end and more expensive Xbox Series X (codenamed Anaconda) with a 12TFLOP GPU that targets 4K 120FPS max perf, and a cheaper digital-only Xbox Series S (codenamed Lockhart) that targets 1440p 60FPS perf.

Now we have more info to corroborate these reports. Sources tell The Verge's Tom Warren that the Xbox Series S will have roughly 1/3rd of the Series X's GPU power. Lockhart is expected to ship with a 4TFLOP Navi GPU complemented by 10GB of GDDR6 RAM, of which 7.5GB will be usable for games.

Infinity Ward might have said it wants to shrink the gigantic install sizes of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, especially now that its new battle royale mode Warzone has launched, but it's still a gigantic download -- and now even more so, on the PC.

I've just setup a bunch of new PCs here in my new house and I've gone to install Call of Duty: Modern Warfare on my gaming PC and noticed the install size was 212GB. I remembered it was 199GB last week, but now the game requires over 200GB to install on the PC weighing in at an absolutely gigantic 212GB.

The developer is well aware of the gigantic strain on your internet connection, and the internet connections of the tens of millions of gamers who play Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and its new Warzone mode.

NVIDIA announced back in 2019 that it would have ray tracing technology inside of Cyberpunk 2077 -- but now that CD PROJEKT RED has outed 16 minutes of gorgeous gameplay footage from Cyberpunk 2077 -- NVIDIA has detailed exactly what ray traced effects Cyberpunk 2077 would have.

All of the ray traced visual effects in Cyberpunk 2077 will be powered by DirectX 12 Ultimate and its DXR Raytracing API, which are optimized for GeForce RTX graphics cards and their built-in ray tracing cores. NVIDIA just dropped their new GeForce 451.48 drivers that include support for DirectX 12 Ultimate (and more, you can read about that here). If it looks and runs good right now on the GeForce RTX 20 series cards, imagine what it's going to be like on next-gen Ampere-based GeForce RTX 30 series cards.

As for the ray tracing and DLSS 2.0 technologies being deployed in Cyberpunk 2077, this is what NVIDIA GeForce RTX 20 and next-gen Ampere-based GeForce RTX 30 series cards will be able to enjoy on November 19, 2020:

Ubisoft apparently has a problem with sexual misconduct, and the company is taking disciplinary actions against alleged perpetrators.

Multiple Ubisoft employees have been accused of sexual abuse, misconduct, and infidelity. Victims are speaking up and sharing evidence on Twitter (a quick cursory search of Escoblades, for example, unearths multiple instances). First Assassin's Creed Origins game director Ashraf Ismail was caught cheating on his wife, then rape allegations were made against Ubisoft brand manager Andrien Gbinigie.

Now similar reports of manipulation and abuse are being made against high-ranking Ubisoft executives Maxime Beland and Tommy Francois, who serve as vice presidents in Ubisoft's editorial team, a games development creative roundtable that essentially controls the future of its biggest franchises.

It looks like Doc just performed his last operation: Multiple reports are saying Dr. Disrespect has been perma-banned from Twitch.tv.

Two separate sources say Guy Beahm, aka Dr. Disrespect, has been kicked off of Twitch. Sources tell esports consultant and streaming expert Rod Breslau that Doc has been permanently banned from Twitch, and it's not related to DMCA claims. This followed StreamerBans' live update that Dr. Disrespect had been banned two hours ago.

This marks the Doc's second major infraction following the infamous bathroom E3 stunt that got him temp-banned from Twitch. No one knows exactly why Beahm has been removed and his official Twitter account has yet to make any sort of comments. It's possible his latest stream, which went live today at 1PM EST, was to blame.

The Last of Us 2 is now the fastest-selling first-party PlayStation 4 exclusive of all time, Sony today announced.

Naughty Dog's brutal and dramatic survival-fest has broken sales records right out of the gate, moving more than 4 million copies in three days. This puts The Last of Us 2 above heavy-hitters like Final Fantasy 7 Remake, Spider-Man, and God of War.

The first Last of Us game was likewise as immensely popular on PlayStation 3, moving 8 million copies as of 2014, and sold tremendously well on PlayStation 4 as a remastered port. As of 2018, both games had sold a combined 17 million across both systems.

Microsoft has finally explained exactly what Optimized for Xbox Series X actually means, and it aligns with our older predictions on next-gen enhancements.

Just as we predicted, developers have two ways to approach optimizations on next-gen consoles: Release a next-gen only version of the game that's built from the ground up to leverage the higher-end specs, or roll out enhancement patches that push existing current-gen games past their current perf targets.

The Xbox Series X approach combines both iterative and next-gen strategies together. The upgrades to existing games is similar in practice to the Xbox One X Enhanced program which boosted FPS, resolution, and added HDR. The other half is the pure next-gen exclusive optimizations, which is the kind of thing you'd see in a true hard generational reset.

Despite a tumultuous history making Star Wars games, EA says it will now "double down" on creating new titles in the billion-dollar IP.

Making Star Wars games is hard. Every little decision has to be run through Lucasfilm for approval (like every Star Wars game, the most recent, Jedi: Fallen Order, was built on compromise). And if you're EA, you've already cancelled three big Star Wars games--one from Visceral and two from EA Vancouver.

Now it looks like these cancellations are over. Thanks to Jedi: Fallen Order's success as a singleplayer-only game, EA might finally start embracing Star Wars titles that aren't online experiences. EA is also shifting away from over-monetization. Case in point: the newest Star Wars Squadrons game combines both online and offline play, but it's not monetized.

The global games market is expected to rake in $159 billion in 2020, but 77% of that will be from microtransactions and in-game spending, analyst firm Newzoo reports.

Digital game sales are on the rise, but even those full game purchases are eclipsed by in-game revenues like microtransactions. According to Newzoo, mTX and other digital in-game purchases will make up 74% of 2020's total earnings, or over $117 billion. Free-to-play mobile gaming will predictably make up the lion's share of revenues.

Newzoo predicts the global games market will generate $159.3 billion in 2020, and monetization is expected to grow incrementally over the years. By 2023, mTX is expected to make up 77% of all yearly revenues, or a massive $154 billion. This will ultimately change how games are developed and monetized, whether it be through direct piecemeal microtransaction purchases on a store via cosmetics or convenience items, or through battle pass-style seasonal purchases.

Secretlab teased its new Cyberpunk 2077 Edition gaming chairs a few days ago, where I was the first in the world to spot it on Secretlab's own Twitter page -- minutes after the company contacted me to tell me it was coming. Hype meter set to 9000.

Now it is real: Secretlab announces a new partnership with CD PROJEKT RED on a new Secretlab Cyberpunk 2077 Edition chair. The company is offering the new Cyberpunk 2077 Edition chair on their 2020 TITAN and 2020 OMEGA gaming chairs, providing the ultimate in comfort -- and now dipped that that awesome yellow/black theme of Cyberpunk 2077 style.

Secretlab has upholstered the chairs in their words -- and I agree, a "stunning" neon yellow with bright turquoise stitching along the edges that is just... well, look at the pictures. There are great amounts of detail on the Cyberpunk 2077 Edition chairs, including electrical traces that run down the backrest -- fusing the chair between comfort, high-end technology, and mechanization.

The Tolkien universe is so rich with content that it has spawned several game adaptations, some were extremely successful, and others didn't see the light of day. Today, we have learned of one that never saw the light of day.

According to a new video released on the GameHut YouTube Channel, Jon Burton, the founder of studio Traveller's Tales, who is known for the Lego games, revealed a series of demos that the studio originally made as a pitch for a new Hobbit game. The idea was that the developers were going to use the first Lord of the Rings movie as a template to create a video game movie adaptation.

The developers then would show those playable demos to Peter Jackson and Guillermo Del Toro, and if approved by them and Warner Bros., they would begin creating a Hobbit game that would launch around the same time as the first movie. Burton and his team created some of the most famous moments from the Lord of the Rings franchise, such as Gandalf fighting the Balrog, Frodo and Samwise walking through The Shire and escaping the Ringwraiths, as well as more. According to Burton, these demos cost the studio over $1 million.

I've been gaming my entire 37 years on this planet, and I don't think I'll ever stop -- so when I saw market research firm Newzoo predict gaming will be even bigger by 2023, it piqued my interest.

Newzoo has published their forecast towards 2023 for gaming, expecting to see over 3 billion people playing games within the next 4 years. This is a huge 39% of the entire population of our Pale Blue Dot, but it's not much more than the already huge 2.69 billion gamers mostly thanks to mobile devices like smartphones and tablets.

How about the gaming market? Right now in 2020 it is expected to generate around $159 billion, but by 2023 that is expected to blow past $200 billion. Where will the growth be coming from? Mobile games and gigantic franchises like Fortnite, Pokemon GO, League of Legends, Call of Duty, PUBG, and more.

Valve has kicked off its Steam Summer Sale 2020, with one of our favorite games of the year discounted by a hefty 50% -- and that game is DOOM Eternal.

DOOM Eternal has a regular price of $60, but during the current Steam Summer Sale 2020, it has been reduced by 50% down to just $30. You can get DOOM Eternal Deluxe Edition for $54, down from $90 -- a discount of 40%. Hell, the entire DOOM Franchise Bundle is discounted by a larger 57% dropping it from its original price of $150 down to just $64.75.

You can buy DOOM Eternal from the Steam Store right here.

Whether you're male or female, Cyberpunk 2077 will let you customize your junk in a number of ways.

Like any RPG, Cyberpunk 2077 has lots of character customization. But unlike 99% of RPGs out there, Cyberpunk 2077 lets you customize your genitalia size, type, and color.

According to Kotaku, the game has two different types of penises, various penis size options, one vagina type, and five different types of pubic hairs. Yes, really. You can even turn off all nudity within the game if you so choose and you won't ever actually see your character's naughty bits.

Hands-on previews for Cyberpunk 2077 are going live, revealing fresh gameplay of CD Projekt RED's next magnum opus.

Cyberpunk 2077 has been in development since 2014, and we're only finally getting official hands-on gameplay impressions. Suffice it to say this is a big, big deal. Lots of games outlets got to try out a new four-hour demo of the game that chronicles the initial prologue, complete with V.'s first mission with Jackie.

The general consensus is that Cyberpunk 2077's in-game world is amazingly detailed and could even rival that of Naughty Dog's world-building prowess. Characters feel and look alive with amazingly detailed expressions, eyes, and animations, carry out conversations, interact with the world, and ultimately live up to our expectations of the huge living cities and real-time AI outlined back in 2016.

The new Cyberpunk 2077 trailer is so cinematic and fluid it looks better than a movie.

Today CD Projekt RED revealed lots of new info about Cyberpunk 2077 alongside a brand new prologue trailer. The footage sets up V.'s story arc and establishes the first real mission of the game with some amazing visuals, character exposition, and a true showcase of CDPR's game-making mastery.

The prologue centers around a robbery gig that goes very, very wrong for Jackie and V., kicking off the big sprawling RPG-FPS story of redemption, corruption, revenge, and of course, cybernetic Keanu Reeves.