Gaming - Page 563

Sea of Thieves has been an exclusive to the Windows 10 store until just now, with Rare ready to unleash the Steam version of the game on June 3, 2020 -- for $39.99. Check out the trailer below:

The new Steam version of Sea of Thieves will have cross-play support with the Windows 10 store version of the game, as well as the Xbox version of the game. This means you can jump on the same ship with your friends, no matter the platform, and take to the high seas together.

You will need to sign into your Xbox Live account with the Steam version, linking your Steam game to your Xbox gamer tag, which is a drag. If you purchased the Windows 10 or Xbox version of Sea of Thieves, sorry me hearties -- you'll need to buy the Steam version for $40.

The custom Cyberpunk 2077 Xbox One X console looks pretty damn awesome, but it doesn't look $2000 awesome -- right?

A new listing for the Cyberpunk 2077 Xbox One X console popped up on the Microsoft Store, and people were instantly mad. The reason? The cost was $1999, but was quickly confirmed by Xbox Social Marketing Manager for Consoles and Accessories, Josh Stein, this isn't true.

Stein replied to a tweet from Anthony Rivera, who said "This has to be a typo right?" to which Stein replied: "Not correct at all, stay tuned in June for all the details!"

I still remember buying the original Xbox all the way back in 2001, but it has taken 19 years for the source code for Microsoft's first game console to leak online.

A new report from The Verge says that the original Xbox source code has been leaked, with the leak including the kernel for the operating system, build environments, and the Xbox Development Kit. The original Xbox console ran a custom version of Windows 2000. The Verge spoke with a Microsoft spokesperson, who said: "We're aware of these reports and are investigating".

It wasn't just the original Xbox source code that was leaked, but also the source code for the near-final version of Windows NT 3.5, and that includes all the required build tools thatr will let people tinker with the older OS. Not many places or people use Windows NT 3.5 anymore, with official support ending in December 2001 -- to this day it is run on a very small number of systems.

System Shock 3's ailed development has been saved by billion-dollar Chinese juggernaut Tencent, who has invested an undisclosed amount into the franchise.

Otherside Entertainment just confirmed Tencent is helping fund System Shock 3's development, allowing the troubled dev to breathe easy. Otherside admits they were squeezed for resources and somewhat corroborates the recent rumors of the sequel's troubled creation cycle. This is absolutely huge for the smaller-scale indie dev, and the game itself--with the back of Tencent the project will mature and grow in a way it couldn't before.

"We are happy to announce that Tencent will be taking the System Shock franchise forward. As a smaller Indie studio, it had been challenging for us to carry the project on our own. We believe Tencent's deep capabilities and expertise as a leading game company will bring the franchise to new heights," Otherside said in a blog post.

Take-Two Interactive wasn't kidding when it said its new games slate was the biggest in its history. The company is currently working on 93 new games (yes, ninety-three), but it's careful to say not all of these titles will actually launch.

In its latest FY20 earnings report, Take-Two confirmed a gigantic 93-game slate. It seemed beyond belief. Ideally, GTA parent company wants to launch 93 games in the next 5 years. Obviously this includes the entire spectrum of game type and platform. We'll see re-releases, remasters, streaming-only games, F2P games, mobile games, and the big AAA heavy-hitters like GTA 6 and BioShock 4.

"Across our internally owned labels and outside development studio partners, we currently have 93 titles planned for release over the next five years through fiscal 2025," Take-Two President Karl Slatoff said.

Take-Two's free GTA V giveaway stunt on the Epic Store is expected to help boost Take-Two's microtransactions by 75%.

As soon as I heard about the free GTA V giveaway on the Epic Store, I knew microtransaction spending was about to jump. It wasn't hard to figure out. The idea here is make the game free to everyone, give them a bunch of GTA Online cash, and get them hooked. Once everyone's hooked, they're more likely to keep playing and pay money for more GTAO cash. And it'll work, too. Take-Two is counting on it.

In its recent earnings report, Take-Two says Q1'21 microtransactionss should jump by 75% year-over-year, and guess which game will contribute the most? Take-Two earned $313.78 million from in-game spending in Q1'20. A quick bit of math shows Take-Two expects to make $549.12 million from mTX in Q1'21.

Take-Two's latest yearly earnings jump across the board as it rides a big digital wave of game sales and monetization.

Grand Theft Auto owner Take-Two Interactive just released its Fiscal Year 2020 earnings report, and the results are fantastic. Thanks to heavy-hitters like NBA 2K20 and GTA V as well as the myriad of multi-platform titles, Take-Two generated consistent high earnings like a well-oiled money-making machine.

Take-Two pulled in $3.08 billion in net revenues during the yearly period, driven mostly by sharp upticks in digital game sales and a surge in microtransactions.

Sony is ramping rather quickly into the launch for its next-gen PlayStation 5 console, with some more news nuggets on what could be one of the biggest launch games of all time: Gran Turismo 7.

We've been hearing about Gran Turismo 7 for a while now, with it rumored to be a PlayStation 5 launch title -- and now the Gran Turismo 7 logo has been teased on social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. The post asks: "What racing game are you most looking forward to in 2020?"

It seems like an accidental leak from Australia-based professional racing cockpit manufacturer Next level Racing, which is an official PlayStation licensee... making a rather big boo-boo. The social post includes logos to Automobilista 2, F1 2020, and DiRT 5 -- but the third logo you can see there is for Gran Turismo 7.

Seven years after launch, Grand Theft Auto V shows no signs of slowing down and is still selling millions of copies while raking in hundreds of millions in monetization.

In its latest earnings report, Take-Two Interactive confirmed GTA V has now sold-in more than 130 million units worldwide, making it the second best-selling game of all time (Minecraft takes the lead with over 200 million copies). GTA V grew by 10 million sales in a single quarter from 120 million in February 2020, which was on the heels of another quarterly 5 million sales jump. That's more than some games sell in a lifetime.

The game has far exceeded the company's expectations, and in 2019 alone GTA Online made over $500 million from microtransactions.

The Embracer Group (aka THQ Nordic) has pushed back its AAA game slate for 2021-2022, including Saints Row V.

Today The Embracer Group inadvertently confirmed delays for two of its biggest upcoming games. In the latest financial report, company CEO Lars Wingefors says plans have changed no major AAA game is coming the current year.

"Looking into the next financial year ending March 31, 2022, we expect continued organic growth driven by further increase in the value of completed games including the first AAA games releases since Metro Exodus," Wingefors said.

FromSoftware's ultra-bizarre medieval fantasy Dark Souls series has sold over 27 million copies to date across digital and physical, Bandai Namco today confirmed.

The Dark Souls franchise is a huge success that's notorious in the gaming sphere. Just say it out loud and everyone knows exactly what you're talking about--the IP has tormented many an obsessed masochist through its lifespan. Like a moth to a flame, we can't escape the clutches of Dark Souls' monstrous claws.

As a result of this strange allure, the series has sold 27 million copies on all platforms across the globe. Bandai Namco also announced Dark Souls III has surpassed 10 million sales across all SKUs, platforms, and digital/physical, which is a pretty big milestone for a 4-year-old game.

The original 2002 PlayStation 2 classic Mafia is getting remade for current-gen hardware, complete with massively enhanced visuals and improved effects.

Today 2K Games and Hangar 13 revealed even more tidbits on the Mafia: Definitive Edition, a full-on remake that's launching August 28 on PS4, Xbox One, and PC. The game has been reborn in Mafia 3's refined engine, complete with 4K HDR fidelity upgrades, more dynamic physics systems, and realistic lighting.

All of Hangar 13's major studios collaborated on the Mafia: Definitive Edition remake, and the game will be sold separately for $40 or as part of the new Mafia Trilogy bundle which includes Mafia II remastered alongside Mafia III with all its DLCs.

The PlayStation 5's customized PCIe 4.0 will help revolutionize console gaming by pushing 5.5GB/sec of data, leading to interruption-free gaming.

New SSD tech is one of the most exciting features of next-gen, and it'll empower devs like never before. The PS5's SSD in particular hits blazing fast speeds and can blast uncompressed data, assets, and content through the system's internal pipeline at 5.5GB/sec, and compressed data can hit 9GB/sec. That's 100x faster than the PS4's mechanical HDDs. This will translate to ultra-fast loading times, seamless gameplay without transition points, and pretty much instant access to gameplay.

PS5 architect Mark Cerny went into a deep dive on the PS5's new tech, but now Sony corporate is hyping up the hardware. In a recent corporate strategy meeting brief, Sony CEO Kenichiro Yoshida talked up the console's new PCIe 4.0 M.2 NVMe SSD and how it'll revolutionize PlayStation gaming.

Sony's versatile PlayStation Now offering is the leader in the streaming space, and has grown by over 100% in the last year.

Today Sony confirmed some surprising PlayStation Now numbers, reinforcing the company's trajectory for service-based revenues. PS Now currently has 2.2 million paid subscribers, up an incredible 120% year-over-year. Sadly, this is just 2% of the PS4's current 106.8 million install base.

The service's flexibility is a big adoption point: It allows gamers to stream titles to smartphones, consoles, and PCs, including a number of PS4 games and legacy PS1, PS2, and PS3 titles. Users can also download games for dedicated offline play on PS4.

Sony confirms new PS5 games will be shown "soon", reinforcing rumors of an early June event.

In its new Corporate Strategy Meeting, Sony outlined some important details on the PlayStation 5. Most of the info we already know--DualSense controller info, SSD specs, etc--but there's some new assurances around next-gen game reveals.

"By combining speed, haptics and sound, we can further improve on the wonderful experience available on PS4, making the PS5 a truly next generation console by providing game experiences that were not possible before," Sony CEO Kenichiro Yoshida said in the presentation.

Sony plans to start breaking its silence on PS5 games and hardware in early June, sources tell VentureBeat's Jeff Grubb.

We actually know a lot about the PlayStation 5, including its next-gen DualSense controller, the system's internal specs, how transformative the PCIe 4.0 SSD is, and how the system's SoC has been customized to push more performance at a steady rate of power. But the most important info still remains a mystery: Price, form factor, and the games. Sony will start revealing its hand starting in June.

Sony's June stream will focus on next-gen games, sources tell VentureBeat, but there's no word on whether or not the PS5 will be revealed in earnest.

A random 4Chan rumor laid out an appealing proposition: Daredevil getting the Spider-Man exclusive treatment on Sony's PlayStation 5. Too bad it's not actually happening.

Following big heated anticipation, Marvel has officially squashed the Daredevil PS5 game reports. Marvel's creative VP Bill Rosemann confirms no such game is in active development with Marvel and its partners. Rosemann wants to do it, though.

"From the office of Nelson & Murdock: While Bill greatly admires the Man Without Fear, there is no Daredevil game in development. Bill's tweet to Troy Baker was an acknowledgment of their shared desire about creating said game & he apologizes for any confusion his tweet created," Rosemann said.

Respawn's new Apex Legends studio team is part of Electronic Arts' Vancouver-based offices, and joins teams from EA Motive and EA Vancouver.

Apex Legends is one of the biggest things EA has right now. The BR sensation contributed lots to EA's $2.7 billion earned from live services in FY20, and the company has made comments about carrying Apex across the next decade.

"You'll see us launch true platform games like Apex Legends, which we expect will continue to grow over the next decade," EA CEO Andrew Wilson said in a Q4'20 earnings call. So it makes sense that EA and Respawn are opening a second studio in Vancouver to focus exclusively on the game's continued development.

Microtransactions and monetization drive Activision's business. New games are just gateways to live service earnings. This should be the case for the new Tony Hawk remaster collection, which is a prime avenue for in-game purchases.

The new Tony Hawk remaster collection will have live service hooks via online multiplayer and custom map-making, so it should be monetized. Successfully monetizing engagement is the entire basis for Activison's billion-dollar business (ATVI earned $956 million from mTX in Q1'20 alone), and that even includes some games that don't really need it, including Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled.

The same should be true for the Tony Hawk Pro Skater 1 + 2 collection releasing in September. While Activision and developer Vicarious Visions promise the game won't have microtransactions at launch, that doesn't mean the game will stay mTX free. Crash Team Racing didn't have mTX at launch either--those were added in later. Given Tony Hawk's robust monetization potential, I'm pretty sure the game will have some sort of buyable content.

Square Enix's latest financials show steady earnings and profit resiliency against COVID-19 disruption and weak yen exchange rates, but overall game sales are down year-over-year.

Square Enix just announced its latest earnings report for FY19, and unlike Sony and Konami, the Final Fantasy-maker didn't see a profit slide. In the period ending March 31, 2020, Square Enix earned $196.37 million in profits, up over 10% from last year's strong surge in game releases. Net sales were down 4%, weighted by hefty dips in physical game purchases. Operating income jumped 33% to $301.37 million on the back of strong mobile/browser and MMO segment earnings.

Overall game sales were down 32% from last year and managed to push 18.09 million across both physical and digital. Physical saw the biggest sales drop.