Gaming - Page 554

Nintendo sold more Switch consoles in Q1'21 than in any other first quarter period in the console's history.

Today Nintendo announced record-breaking Fiscal Year Q1'21 earnings on the back of strong hardware adoption. Nintendo managed to sell 5.67 million Switch consoles in the quarter ended June 30, up triple digits (+166%) from last year.

Nintendo's recent quarterly Switch sales are more than twice that of any other Q1 since the system's launch. These numbers also beat any Q2 period since the system's release in March 2017. Nintendo doesn't traditionally break 5 million hardware sales until the critical Q3 holiday period.

Nintendo Switch sales surged by triple digits in Europe during COVID-19 lockdowns, and helped raise overall hardware adoption by 84% in the region.

COVID-19 is surging sales revenues for the games industry. Sony and Microsoft just reported record quarters for games earnings, and Nintnedo is poised to do the same. But not all regions are the same, and analyst firm GSD shows some interesting metrics.

According to GSD, all three major consoles saw a sharp uptick in sales during COVID-19. The Switch in particular grew triple digits by 106%, reflecting the console's scarcity across the globe right now.

Call of Duty: Warzone is now enjoying its Season 5 update, with Activision taking the time to announce that Warzone has now passed 75 million players.

Season 5 of the game just launched, changing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and the free-to-play battle royale mode Warzone. Warzone had racked up 60 million players in May 2020, but the COVID-19 pandemic has surely been fueling Warzone's continuous growth.

The game itself is wicked fun and I'm personally addicted, so I can see why 75 million other players are loving Warzone and how Season 5 has completely changed the game. After a huge Warzone session last night, it's interesting how the meta changes so quickly and the newly-tweaked Stadium is now a huge hot spot of action and I love it.

Sony will be hosting its State of Play event on August 6, where we could be introduced to more details on the PlayStation 5 -- even though Sony has promised "no big PS5 announcements".

But now French retailer Carrefour has teased pricing on the next-gen PlayStation 5, which will reportedly cost $599 at launch. The all-digital PlayStation 5 will cost $499 at launch, but won't come with a 4K UHD Blu-ray player.

The pricing is higher than the previous pricing of $499 for the standard PS5 and $399 for the all-digital PS5 from a few weeks ago, but I think we'll still see a firm November 20, 2020 launch.

We are expecting Sony to have some pretty solid backwards compatibility when it launches its PlayStation 5, which should support the 'overwhelming majority of PS4 games' on the PS5 at launch.

Some exciting news from streamer Lance McDonald who says that an insider of his at Sony says that PlayStation 5 backwards compatibility is solid. He tweeted that the PS5 would play any PS4 game without approval required from Sony by the developer, but quickly deleted the tweet "out of respect for the platform holder".

McDonald said: "There's been some confusion about this in the past and I can clear it up now. The PlayStation 5 can run all PlayStation 4 games without per-game whitelisting. Sony continue[s] to test titles but the system will not prevent you from launching untested games".

Cold Symmetry's brutal action-RPG Mortal Shell releases on August 18, 2020 on PS4, Xbox One and PC, the developer today announced.

The latest Mortal Shell trailer gives an eerie look at the game's decidedly haunted atmosphere, touching upon the Souls-like combat and emphasis on dark medieval fantasy visuals. The footage also showcased Solomon, the new fourth Shell that can be possessed (classes are "shells" in the game), and a bunch of visceral combat against hulking bosses.

The best part of the trailer was the new Ballistazooka, an old-school death-dealing shoulder cannon that dishes out extreme destruction.

UPDATE: New reports from The Verge suggest Apple is to blame for Project xCloud not releasing on iOS. Microsoft is apparently halting xCloud testing due to iOS policy restrictions.

Microsoft has set a firm September beta rollout date for its innovative Project xCloud streaming service.

Starting September 11, every Game Pass Ultimate subscriber will be able to stream games to their mobile phones at no extra cost. Right now this only includes streaming Game Pass games, not games you already own, and is exclusive to Game Pass Ultimate subscribers. Microsoft has made plans to turn every Xbox One console into a remote game streaming platform, but that availability isn't included with this beta test.

Activision and Treyarch confirm the next Call of Duty is on the way, and it could be shown during Sony's new State of Play event tomorrow.

The wait is almost over: Treyarch says it'll show off the new Call of Duty game sometime soon. What better place to show it than Sony's new State of Play event tomorrow, where over 100 million PS4 owners will be tuning in?

Treyarch, Raven Software, and Sledgehammer Games have been working on 2020's premium Call of Duty game for some time. As past reports--and newly leaked promos--say, the new Call of Duty game will take place during the Cold War. The campaign may also span from the Vietnam era up until the Cold War's end in the 1980s.

Sony shares skyrocketed to $81.25 days after the company announced record Q1 PlayStation earnings, and now analysts think PlayStation 5 could surge stocks by another 20%.

Sony just reported a massive $2.17 billion in profits in Q1'20, nearly half of which was generated by the PlayStation brand. Sony's Q1 numbers are the highest in the history of the video games industry, and PlayStation earnings amounted more than 30% of Sony's total revenues. Sony shares have skyrocketed by nearly 50% year-over-year to $81.25 as a result, the highest point since June 2001. This could just be the beginning of the upward trajectory.

This milestone wasn't lost on investors, nor was it lost on analysts, who now predict big things for Sony's FY2020 period. The company expects the PlayStation brand to deliver a record $2.24 billion in profits on $23.4 billion in revenues, driven primarily by the PlayStation 5 and digital software.

Capcom eventually wants 90% of its game sales to be digital, and it's on its way to achieving that goal.

Capcom, like any games company, loves digital storefronts. Digital keeps COGS down tremendously as there's no manufacturing or shipping costs for digital titles. The end goal for all third-party games-makers is release as many games onto digital stores as possible, especially the PlayStation Network with it's massive 110 million+ install base.

Now Capcom says it ultimately wants the highly-coveted 90% digital game sales ratio.

Contrary to popular belief, Microsoft isn't retiring Xbox LIVE Gold, the company today confirmed.

A bit ago Microsoft de-listed 12 month Xbox LIVE Gold subscriptions from the Xbox and PC stores. The industry started buzzing about Xbox LIVE Gold being retired and just folded into Game Pass Ultimate, which would force anyone who wanted to play online multiplayer into buying Game Pass. Big games like Halo: Infinite are going free-to-play and won't require Xbox LIVE Gold, either. And finally, a recent update seemed to rename Xbox LIVE as part of Xbox Services.

Now Microsoft officially confirms Xbox LIVE Gold isn't going away. "This language update is intended to distinguish that underlying service, and the paid Xbox Live Gold subscription. There are no changes being made to the experience of the service or Xbox Live Gold," a Microsoft spokesperson told VideoGameChronicle when specifically asked about the new update's vernacular.

The PS5's new Create button has the potential to change PlayStation gaming forever, and now Sony might be teasing new innovative features.

The PS5's new next-gen DualSense controller is jam-packed with upgrades like haptic feedback sensors, adaptive triggers, a built-in mic, and USB-C charging. But it's the Create button that has us most excited.

Why? A myriad of Sony patents strongly hints the new Create button will be used to create game clips that can not only be watched, but be played by others too. You'll theoretically be able to share snippets of playable game clips with others on the PlayStation Network.

A newly filed and published Sony Interactive Entertainment patent hints PlayStation Now, or perhaps the PlayStation 5, will support save state sharing across the PlayStation Network with new Share Play functionality.

Sony just filed yet another patent for its transformative interactive gameplay sharing feature. While similar to the array of patents we've covered in the past on this topic, this particular patent explicitly mentions click-to-play features, which allows users to share clickable links and instantly launch into a playable gameplay clip or session.

Sony's outlined feature is very similar to Google Stadia's, which allows gamers to send clickable links across email and social media to play with friends. This feature is also planned in Project xCloud, too.

Sony is confident COVID-19 won't interrupt or impact the next-gen PS5's holiday launch, and assures investors that production is going according to plan.

AMD is starting to ship the PS5's 7nm silicon to Sony's global manufacturing facilities in preparation for the console's holiday launch. Sony hasn't revealed specifics about PlayStation 5 hardware production, but the company did confirm console supply will be ready for upcoming release.

"As things stand now, toward the holiday season, production is proceeding smoothly," Sony CFO Hiroki Totoki said in a recent Q1'20 earnings call.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Warzone has its new Season 5 now live, and there is a lot going on with it with new maps for multiplayer, new modes, changes to Warzone map Verdansk, and so much more.

But don't worry, I've got you covered -- I've got about as much information on Season 5 of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Warzone that you need, and have compiled it below. Download sizes, information on the update itself, Infinity Ward comments, details on the new modes and maps, new weapons, and everything in between.

This only adds to the verticality of Warzone, once again massively changing the meta with completely different positioning and tactics at play.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Warzone's new Season 5 update is coming, and while we knew it would be around 36GB on the PlayStation 4 -- we didn't know download sizes on the Xbox and PC. Now we do.

The new update will be rolling out shortly, requiring 90GB of free storage space in order to install. As for the download sizes, with the PC being the largest Season 5 update for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Warzone. The PC download size is 54.2GB, or 47.4GB if its just Warzone.

PlayStation 4 gamers will have to download 33.9GB while Xbox One gamers have it much larger at 49.8GB -- closer to the PC version of the game at pretty much 50GB for Season 5.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and its incredibly popular (and super awesome, and very addictive) Warzone are about to get their Season 5 updates.

It will be taking place on August 5 (today) at 2AM ET on all platforms, which works out into:

The update will be automatic, but if the Season 5 update isn't kicking off on your install of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, reset your PC or console. Once you're back online, try it again and you should see the download starting. It'll be a while, as it's anywhere between 33GB and 50GB depending on your platform, more on that here.

Leisure Suit Larry was one of the first games I have memories of that made me go "ooooh, this is awesome", trying to get into the game answering all those questions -- how far we've come.

Assemble Entertainment and Crazybunch have just announced Leisure Suit Larry - Wet Dreams Dry Twice, will see you playing Larry once again where you'll take control of your self-made boat through beautiful islands. I'm sure you'll be meeting some even more beautiful women, too.

Larry is on a mission though, as he is after his one true love: Faith. You can expect the usual point-and-click controls, puzzles, funny characters, and more.

Quantic Dream has announced that sales of Detroit: Become Human have passed 5 million units across all platforms, but the release of the PC version of Steam helped out in a big way.

The developer tweeted out back in October 2019 that it had sold 3 million copies on the PS4, where its Twitch integration has helped drive the success on PC. An "intuitive Twitch extension" allows streamers and their viewers to "collectively make in-game decisions in real-time".

"The extension pioneers a new form of interactive engagement on Twitch, which has received a substantial amount of positive feedback from fans and has quickly grown in popularity among streamers and their communities. Nearly 500 streamers have already played with the poll-based Twitch overlay which has registered more than 1.5 million votes from viewers to date".

Sony's PlayStation brand made more Q1 revenues than any company in the history of video games.

Today Sony announced its Q1'20 financials and broke a number of records in the process. The PlayStation division made over $1 billion in profits on $5.63 billion in total revenues, becoming the top Q1 earner in the decades-long history of gaming. This is also the first time Sony's gaming branch made over $1 billion in a quarter.

PlayStation pulled in 48% of Sony's total company profits ($2.17 billion) during the period. This is the best operating profit for PlayStation of any quarter ever. PlayStation revenues like software, which spiked tremendously, helped drive Sony's Q1 profits by over 50% year-over-year.