Gaming - Page 556

Sony confirms the DualShock 4 won't work with next-gen PlayStation 5 games. But it will work with next-gen Xbox games.

As it gears up for a big PS5 price reveal and console teardown, Sony today announced the DualShock 4 won't be compatible with PS5 games. The DualShock 4 can still be used on PS5, but only to play PS4 games. Some peripherals like headsets, the PSVR HMD, cameras, and legacy controllers can be used on PS5, but not all are compatible with next-gen games.

Oddly enough, Microsoft will carry the DualShock 4's legacy forward into its next-gen games. Not on consoles, of course, but with Game Pass and Project xCloud streaming. The PS4's DualShock 4 is one of the controllers supported by Project xCloud, Microsoft's new game streaming service. It's also compatible with PC games via Game Pass.

The PlayStation 5 is the start of a new generation, and that includes accessories too. Today Sony confirmed a few accessories that will and won't be compatible on the PS4 and PS5 and vice-versa.

Sony is allowing cross-gen support for a number of games and accessories--the PS5 will play thousands of PS4 games at launch, for example--and some peripherals are both backward and forward compatible.

Sony confirms that official products like headsets, racing wheels, arcade sticks, and flight sticks are all usable on both PS4 and PS5. The PS4 Platinum and Gold audio headsets will work on PS5, as well as a bunch of third-party headsets that use USB/audio jacks (remember, the DualSense has an audio jack).

American Gaming Network had planned to host a Call of Duty: Modern Warfare LAN event in the US, but ended up cancelling the event. If it had gone through with it, it would've been the first American organizer to host a LAN during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The LAN event would've had 40 teams of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare players, each with 5 people per team. AGN would've made it mandatory for the 200+ gamers to wear face masks, with the esports tournament organizer also providing hand sanitizer.

The organizer would've reportedly completed temperature checks at the door, limited the amount of people being there at once, required everyone in attendance to be over 18 years or more, and required the competitors to sign a liability waiver.

Obsidian launched its new game Grounded into the world of Xbox Game Preview and Steam Early Access just a few days ago, with the game seeing success quickly.

The official Xbox blog has a new article that thanks Xbox and PC gamers for their support in the early release of Grounded, which racked up over 1 million players in its first 48 hours of release. Quite the achievement.

The post reads: "We want to thank the community for showing support for the recent release of Grounded on Xbox Game Preview and Steam Early Access. In its first two days of availability, we've had over one million players explore the mysterious backyard, battle giant spiders, and gather tons of useful materials -- which has absolutely blown away our small team of 13 here at Obsidian!"

In its game of cat and mouse with Microsoft, Sony seems to be prepping for the big PlayStation 5 pricing and pre-order event... which could happen real soon.

According to PS5 leaker 'IronManPS5' on Twitter, we have some new teases that Sony will be revealing more details on the PlayStation 5 during a State of Play event on August 6. After the first tweet, he shared some more screenshots from 4chan where someone said the event would happen on August 10.

At this event, it's expected that Sony will unleash pretty much an avalanche of stuff on gamers that will include a "console overview trailer", a "backwards compatibility trailer", "reveal trailer", and then a "PlayStation 5 trailer".

Microsoft has been doing better on the PC over the last couple of years, but we can definitely have the company doing more for PC gamers. This is something that is coming, and Xbox boss Phil Spencer is now re-confirming their stance.

Spencer tweeted: "I wanted to thank the community for the support on PC. We made statements like this a few times over the years and the skeptical responses were earned".

He added that he knows the team has "more work to do", but said that the success they're seeing from Xbox Game Pass and the Steam teams are "really great, thanks".

In an effort to maximize sales, exposure, and access, EA just brought a ton of its games onto Steam. Now those games are at the top of Steam's charts.

EA is hitting it big in the PC market right now. According to Valve, EA games hold 8 of the top 20 best-selling game slots for Steam's June sales right now. This follows EA's big jump back to PC gaming's biggest sales platform.

EA also noted a huge spike in its quarterly PC gaming revenues. Total game sales are up an astronomical 202% year-over-year to $1.39 billion, and PC game earnings are up a massive 74% to $340 million. It turns out putting your games on Steam is big for business.

Sony filed a new patent that suggests a higher-end PS5 Pro console with dual GPUs (as well as a myriad of other possibilities).

A new Sony patent hints at some ambitious things with the PlayStation 5 and the PS business as a whole. The patent, which was filed in January 2019 and published just days ago, outlines a number of different possibilities. The most exciting one is mention of dual-GPU (or even dual APU) consoles for massively increased performance. Sony could be setting itself up for a PS5 refresh or PS5 Pro with multi-GPU support. This patent isn't that simple, though. There's mention of cloud gaming thrown in the mix so it's not all just based around local hardware.

Before we dive in, I want to remind everyone that this is a patent and not finalized information, meaning nothing's been confirmed or announced. There's no guarantee Sony is actually developing this technology. There's no confirmation that the PS5 Pro is even real or that it will have multiple GPUs, and most importantly, the tech/info outlined herein may not ever be created or released for--or in--a commercially-available system. It's not our intention to mislead anyone, and our interpretations of the patents could be wrong.

Battletoads is one of those legendary games that had to be played at the time of it release, which is something my brother and I did for countless hours sitting in front of our TV playing on the original NES. Well, it's coming back.

The new Battletoads is dropping on both the PC and Xbox One on August 20, developed by Dlala Studios in a partnership with developer Rare. Rare was the developer of the original Battletoads in the 90s.

The developer explains: "The Battletoads are back! Join Rash, Zitz and Pimple as they smash, stomp, drill, turbo bike, leap, shoot and generally be toadally awesome in their all-new, action-packed, multi-genre adventure of choreographed chaos! Battletoads launches on Xbox, Windows 10, Xbox Game Pass and Steam on August 20th".

Since its release in June 2017, Xbox Game Pass has radically transformed Microsoft's gaming business model. Now it's boosted Xbox revenues to an all-time high of $11.57 billion.

Xbox is no longer a console, but a vast webwork of cross-platform services, subscriptions, game sales, and monetization. Microsoft's digital empire orbits services, and so too does its Xbox division. Before, Xbox LIVE was at the epicenter of the Xbox ecosystem. Now Xbox Game Pass has taken over, redefining the brand's scope with game streaming to mobiles, instant-access on-demand gaming, and access to all first-party Xbox games. There's just no competition for Game Pass, and Microsoft's recent earnings reflect that.

Game Pass has consistently raised Xbox revenues every year since it was released and has tremendously boosted Xbox services earnings. We took a look at Microsoft's historical 10-K earnings reports to show how the brand has grown since the Xbox One's original launch in FY2014 to Game Pass' launch in FY2017, all the way to the present day of FY2020.

Bethesda is giving away free copies of Quake to everyone who tunes into Quakecon 2020 next weekend.

Quakecon 2020 kicks off next weekend on August 7, and to celebrate Bethesda is giving away id's classic brutal FPS Quake during the event. To grab your free copy, simply log into Bethesda.net and add it to your account. This version of Quake will be exclusive to the Bethesda.net launcher of course.

The publisher also plans to give out Quake II for free if a $10,000 charity donation threshold is reached during the weekend show. This will be a nice bonus to anyone with RTX cards thanks to the new Quake II raytracing update. There's various other freebies like an ESO pet, a special Quakecon skin for Doom Eternal, a new Quake Champions weapon skin, and a Fallout 76 outfit.

Halo: Infinite could have as many as three monetization paths that all weave together and reflect Microsoft's emphasis on services, engagement, and recurring revenues.

Halo: Infinite isn't just a game. It's a platform that'll span the next 10 years of Halo games. More importantly, it's a gateway to monetization that's explicitly tied to Xbox Game Pass. Infinite has been built from the ground up to monetized engagement in a number of ways.

It's an open-world FPS with RPG elements that're designed to keep you playing for a long time. It also has replayable multiplayer. Both have been built to incentivize continued Game Pass subscriptions, but just in case you don't buy Game Pass, 343i and Microsoft have lots of other opportunities to monetize you.

343 Industries hasn't outright said it, but Halo: infinite is pretty much a live service game with two big components: A reactive, sprawling open-world campaign mode that'll change with new updates, and free-to-play PVP multiplayer.

Back in August 2019, I said that Halo: Infinite sounds a lot like a live game. Now we know that's exactly what's happening. Halo: Infinite is a platform, not just a game (something else we predicted), and will be the centerpiece for the next 10 years of Halo.

There won't be any more Halo sequels; Infinite is quite simply the Halo Waypoint of Halo games. Infinite is basically Destiny 2's base game.

It's finally happening: Kunitmitsu is coming to Tekken 7 alongside a ton of new moves and optimizations.

Today Bandai Namco announced Tekken 7's new fourth season pass update, which includes a bunch of new moves for every single playable character (even DLC fighters), tightened online play with server P2P optimizations, and a tease for a classic fighter. While the publisher didn't confirm who's joining the roster, the tease can only be the ultra-fast Kunimitsu, the Manji clan thief who made a splash in Tekken 2.

Read Also: Tekken 7 Review: King of the Iron Fist

Obsidian's hilarious Fallout New Vegas in space game is getting two major new expansions as well as optimizations for the next-gen Xbox Series X.

Read Also: The Outer Worlds Review: Out of this World

The devs at Obsidian just made good on their promise of new The Outer Worlds DLC. Two new expansions are planned, first Peril on Gorgon on September 9, then Murder on Eridanos in 2021. Both expansions are priced at $14.99 each but you can buy the season pass for $24.99 to bundle them together.

Microsoft has just provided two new nuggets on information from Flight Simulator, which is about to make its descent onto gamers' systems on August 18 -- now, also on Steam.

In a new update, Microsoft explained that Flight Simulator "heralds a new era of data-driven flight simulation". In the update, Microsoft continued: "One of the exciting implications of this is that the data that makes up the world is always improving, and players can look forward to a simulator that evolves over time".

The post continued: "Thanks to our partnership with Bing, players will enjoy new, even better terrain, and an ever evolving, machine learning-fueled simulator that grows over time".

Activision and Infinity Ward struck gold with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and the massively popular Warzone and its battle royale greatness.

There are big changes brewing in Warzone's upcoming Season 5, which could see the entire map of the fictional city of Verdansk changed -- it could be nuked, flooded, invaded by aliens (which Elon Musk just confirmed built the pyramids, and I'm not joking) or something completely new.

We have no idea, and that is exciting -- because it'll be the first map change since Warzone launched.

Microsoft has just revealed that Flight Simulator will be coming to Steam after all, releasing on August 18. Flight Simulator will be dropping on Windows 10 and Xbox Game Pass on the same day, with Steam pre-orders for the Standard, Deluxe, and Premium Deluxe now up for grabs.

Not only that, but the developer has surprised PC gamers with support for TrackIR and VR support. The company is happy to announce it will have day one support for TrackIR while VR support will begin later this year when HP launches its Reverb G2 headset.

Microsoft details both TrackIR and the HP Reverb G2 on their website, adding:

Outriders isn't even out yet, and People Can Fly is already working on a new AAA IP for next-gen consoles at its newly expanded studio.

People Can Fly, the devs behind Square Enix's new interesting-looking multiplayer shoot-and-loot game Outriders, is making a brand new AAA IP for the new PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X generation of consoles. The new project will be led by People Can Fly's fresh New York-based studio, which will work with its other UK and main Polish branches.

The studio also says that its different branches will work on different games. While People Can Fly Rezszow and UK will assist in the game, the main studio in Poland will be mostly focused on Outriders.

id devs Marty Stratton and Hugo Martin will talk about Doom Eternal at the digital Quakecon 2020 event, and we could get some info on next-gen optimizations for the game.

A bit ago, we predicted Doom Eternal could be among the first games to hit rock-solid 120FPS on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. This was predicated on the id Tech 7 engine, which runs buttery-smooth on PC and is able to even maintain 60FPS on the older (and rather weak) 2013 launch Xbox One console.

The engine should easily be scalable on the PS5's and Xbox Series X's 7nm AMD SoC tech, which sports a Zen 2 CPU and Navi RDNA 2 GPU. But nothing has been announced so far. That could change in early August at Quakecon 2020.