Gaming - Page 566

Mafia's official Twitter account causes tons of buzz with a single line, igniting speculation of a remaster collection or even a new big-budget sequel.

2K Games is teasing something Mafia-related. The series' Twitter account just broke its near two-year silence with a simple one-word Tweet that's the main theme in all Mafia games: Family. So what does it mean? The general consensus is 2K will re-release a Mafia I & II remaster collection on current-gen systems. But it's also possible a new entry is on the way, too.

Take-Two Interactive's current pipeline of games is its biggest ever in the history of the company. There's lots of games on the way from all of its labels and studios. Hangar 13, the dev behind Mafia III, is also working on a new project. Job listings say Hangar 13's new game is set in a fresh IP. So it's more likely the tease isn't for Mafia IV, but a remaster collection. Hangar 13 could assist in the remaster while it works on the new IP.

E3 is toast, and pretty much every games conference is going all-digital. Ubisoft responds with their own event called Ubisoft Forward, which goes live on July 12 at 3PM EST. "Get ready for an E3-style showcase with plenty of exclusive game news, exciting reveals, and much more."

Ubisoft is working on a bunch of big projects right now. The company plans to ship five AAA games in FY2021, this fiscal year. We already know most of the big games: Assassin's Creed Valhalla, Watch Dogs Legion, Rainbow Six Quarantine, and Gods and Monsters. Reports say the last mystery game is a new Far Cry game for next-gen consoles. We might get an official reveal of Far Cry 6 at the July event.

Then again, it's possible these plans have dramatically shifted due to COVID-19. Ubisoft will confirm any changes to the release slate on May 14. The 5-game slate was announced in November 2019 when key games were shifted after Ghost Recon: Breakpoint's disappointing performance. Ubisoft has since changed the main creative design teams responsible for its biggest franchises.

Slegehammer Games is gearing up for some big projects, and plans to expand their forces to 300 developers across two studios.

Back in the day, Call of Duty games rotated between three studios: Sledgehammer Games, Treyarch, and Infinity Ward. Every year each studio released their own Call of Duty game, adding a lot of variety to the lineup. But now that mantle falls to Infinity Ward and Treyarch. Sledgehammer is more of a support team that sits alongside Raven Software and Beenox to help flesh out the experiences, with each team working on different portions of the game. Call of Duty games have always been collaborative efforts, and this time Sledgehammer is more in the trenches.

Now Sledgehammer is massively ramping up headcount across its California and Australia-based studios to prepare for a multi-project slate. Sledgehammer is 200-strong now, but wants to add 100 people to its pool, signifying big things are on the way. It's possible the studio could be reaching outside of the Call of Duty franchise for its own games.

I still remember sitting on the bottom bunk in my room with my brother when I was 13 years old, playing the original Resident Evil on the first-gen PlayStation and almost sh*tting my pants when those damn dogs smashed through the windows in the mansion. But hopefully we're about to get some even darker, more gruesome gameplay.

According to a Capcom insider, Resident Evil 8 will be one of the darkest, much more horror-fueled outings in the long-running franchise. Capcom insider Dusk Golem explained that Capcom is reportedly pushing the boundaries on Resident Evil 8, saying that Resident Evil 8 is "by far the darkest & most gruesome RE yet".

A follow up tweet teased us to "get ready for some of the most disturbing enemy designs" in the Resident Evil series, which will see a slew of new zombies, beastmen, a huge "juggernaut", and a witch-like enemy "stalker" with a hidden face.

Cyberpunk 2077 on its own looks jaw droppingly good, but what about a movie version of the game? There's plenty of movies that Cyberpunk 2077 takes influence from, but now a fan film has been made and there's a 1-minute teaser you just need to check out:

How good does that look? Cyberpunk 2077: Phoenix Program is a fan fiulm made by action movie director Vi-Dan Tran who is an action designer/stuntman with the Jackie Chan Stuntteam. The fan film was made with a bunch of out-of-this-world cosplayers, including actor Ben Bergmann who plays Johnny Silverhand, which in Cyberpunk 2077 is played by The Matrix and John Wick franchise star Keanu Reeves.

Bergmann looks breathtaking in the role of Silverhand, featuring the same hairstyle, glasses, and more. He looks great in the role, and while we only see very quick shots of Phoenix Program, what we see makes me want to watch a hell of a lot more.

The Xbox Series X's high-end specs promise a high price tab. But one analyst thinks Microsoft could take a serious hit on manufacturing costs in an effort to undercut Sony at the start of the new generation. The move isn't very likely, however.

The Xbox Series X is a beastly system with premium components befit of an enthusiast PC. It features a 12TFLOP Navi 2X GPU, a 3.8GHz 8-core 16-thread Zen 2 CPU, 16GB of GDDR6 RAM, and a PCIe 4.0 SSD. That kind of powerful hardware comes with a steep price for consumers, but big companies are able to reduce costs due to mass quantities. Even still, they have to price out their consoles accordingly, but a cheaper price tag could conquer next-gen. So who will take the bigger hit and make their system cheaper?

Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter says Microsoft can afford to take the hit. And honestly, he's right. Microsoft made $30 billion in one quarter alone, and Xbox is less than 10% of total earnings. If Microsoft wanted, they could sell the Xbox Series X for $400. But it doesn't mean they will.

If the coronavirus continues to get worse or lengthens the shut downs in worldwide countries and markets, Nintendo warns that Switch games could get delayed

In its latest FY2020 earnings report, Nintendo outlined a number of risk factors for its business. COVID-19, which has thrown a monkey wrench in the already-chaotic machine of games development, could have a direct impact on Nintendo's upcoming slate.

Devs are forced to work from home and key things like motion capture and voice recording are all hard to come by. The company was lucky enough to dodge significant development impact by releasing Pokemon in 2018 and Animal Crossing before the shutdowns in 2020, but other Switch games might not be so lucky.

Nintendo's recent fiscal year earnings jump across the board thanks to massive software sales surge.

Nintendo just released its FY2020 earnings report, and the results are stellar. The company generated over $12 billion in net revenues during the year, 95% of which was from its gaming branch. Operating income spiked by a staggering 41% thanks to strong game and hardware sales, and profit likewise leaped by 33% year-over-year to a high $2.37 billion.

Nintendo FY2020 Earnings

Nintendo expects to sell less Switch games and hardware this fiscal year, lowering total earnings throughout the year. This could telegraph lower Switch exclusives.

It's possible Nintendo's rumored Mario remasters will be the only major first-party Switch games launched this fiscal year. The company just reported stellar FY2020 earnings thanks to major first-party sales of Animal Crossing: New Horizons and Pokemon: Sword and Shield, both of which surged software sales by 42% . The Switch Lite's strong 6.19 million start also helped push Switch hardware sales to 21.03 million fro the year.

This momentum won't continue for this year--at least Nintendo doesn't think so. For this fiscal year, FY2021, Nintendo laid out conservative forecasts. The company expects net revenues to drop by 8.3% to $11.24 billion, operating income to dip by almost 15% to $2.81 billion, and total profits to plummet by 22% to $1.874 billion.

The new Assassin's Creed Valhalla trailer was absolutely amazing, but there's just one issue: It wasn't really representative of the Xbox Series X gameplay experience. Ubisoft says actual gameplay is coming soon, though.

The latest Inside Xbox show felt rushed and lacked the kind of next-gen magic we were expecting. But we can't fault Xbox too hard, especially with the coronavirus pandemic going on right now. Still, though, it might be too soon to get excited about third-party games on next-gen, especially when we don't see actual gameplay footage from big games like AC: Valhalla. We were hyped quite a bit and did our fair share of hype contribution for Inside Xbox...and it just didn't live up to expectations.

Read Also: Next-gen console hype check: Is it too early to get super excited?

id recently teased a look at Doom Eternal's first major campaign expansion, revealing two locales: Urdak, aka Heaven, and what appears to be Earth.

In Doom Eternal's campaign, we pretty much destroyed Heaven. Not only did we kill its second-in-command archangel (Khan Makyr), we pretty much wrecked Urdak, the celestial capital of the above-world. Doom Slayer left so many damn bodies in his wake of destruction, both angelic and demonic alike. Now he's back for more.

The first expansion will take us back to Urdak for more chaos. The sky-city sure has changed since we saw it last, though. Urdak used to be brilliantly-lit and glowing with a kind of wonder. Now it has all the appeal of a haunted house and is probably filled with ghosts and other horrors.

What would pockets of humanity like Chinatown look like on faraway alien worlds? Gamer and skilled builder THInterloper answers the question with this amazing custom No Man's Sky base.

No Man's Sky has a thriving base-building community. Gamers come together to share their custom creations, offering a more colorful sci-fi vibrance than something like Minecraft or Fallout 4. Many creations, like THInterloper's Chinatown complex, are quite elaborate and capture the neon-lit signs, plentiful eateries, and stores of the real-life square in SoHo. We got in touch with the builder to ask a few questions.

The base was made in Euclid, the game's first starting galaxy, and took two weeks on and off--or about 40 hours--to make. That's pretty impressive. I've spent a lot longer in Fallout 4's base building and my stuff never turned out like this. The build was made possible due to some clever glitches and tricks, which gives creators a lot more freedom.

Nintendo's handheld-only Switch Lite is a huge success right out of the gate, and came close to the original Switch console's massive 2017 debut.

While combing over Nintendo's recent earnings report, I found something interesting: The Switch Lite has sold 6.19 million units in its first six months on the market. But how much is that really? To put things in context, I compared the Switch Lite's figures up against the original Switch's 6-month sales in 2017. The results speak for themselves.

The Switch sold 7.65 million units in its first 6 months on sale, just 1.44 million units higher than the Switch Lite. The cheaper $199 portable shaves off a number of features--no TV docked play, for instance, and a lower-clocked GPU that's locked at 302.7MHz--but the $100 price drop is a huge driver for widespread adoption.

The Xbox Series X has the flexibility, software, and storage hardware to shrink game sizes...but there's no catch-all solution that will reduce every game. It's up to developers to find that compromise.

Games are getting way, way too big. Warzone is over 100GB, Red Dead Redemption 2 is the same, and even Final Fantasy 7 Remake clocks in at 80GB. The Last of Us II could also be 100GB on two Blu-ray discs. Next-gen consoles like the Xbox Series X have the potential to dramatically reduce the size of games through a combination of hardware and software, both of which revolutionize how console data is managed, stored, and processed.

Speed is a big part of how storage will be revolutionized on Xbox Series X. The console's new ultra-fast 1TB PCIe 4.0 SSD can blast compressed data through at 4.8GB/sec to the new SoC-based decompression block, which then rapidly decompresses the data and sends it to the RAM, CPU, and GPU for processing. Once it's decompressed, the SSD can deliver stored uncompressed data at 2.4GB/sec to the rest of the system.

Capcom plans to start leaning out and trimming the fat from its books with a new digital diet.

Capcom just reported its third straight year of record profits, and digital sales helped spark the milestone. Now that Capcom has had a taste of digital, it wants more. The company confirms it will double-down on digital games in an effort to reduce costs.

The plan is simple: Capcom wants to reduce overall expenses by reducing physical media costs. Selling retail games requires manufacturing costs, shipment costs, and warehouse costs--all of which add up fast. Capcom won't stop selling physical games, and retail games won't simply dry up, but it's making a conscious effort to lean into digital.

Capcom just reported its third consecutive year of record profits, raking in a strong $150 million in net income in FY2019.

Although Capcom only released a few games last fiscal year, its total FY2019 earnings have once again beat expectations for the third year running. The Resident Evil maven generated a total of $767.3 million in net sales, down nearly 20% year-over-year. Capcom says this drop was the result of lower packaged sales in the year, which makes sense considering Monster Hunter: World was the only game Capcom released in FY2019. Less games means less purchases in the critical holiday period. Digital sales of key games helped offset the thin slate.

Operating income and total profits both spiked by over 25%, though. Operating income jumped to $214.7 million, up 25.8% YoY, driven by continued strong monetization in Monster Hunter World as well as digital purchases of hits like Resident Evil 2 Remake (remember, RE3 Remake released in April, outside of the fiscal year cutoff period).

Here at TweakTown we've hyped up next-gen consoles quite a bit. With the impressive 8-core Zen 2 CPU specs, high-end RDNA-powered Navi 2 GPUs, ultra-fast PCIe 4.0 SSDs, and 16GB of GDDR6 RAM, it's hard not to get excited. But it could be a while before we see proof of amazing third-party games running on the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X consoles.

Today's Inside Xbox event drove one point home for me: Developers aren't ready to show off their major next-gen game innovations just yet. And until they are, it might be harder to get totally excited about next-gen.

Every single game shown at the event came with a disclaimer warning consumers that hardware hasn't been finalized, and the footage wasn't actually captured on an Xbox Series X console. "Game and console in development, footage representative of expected Xbox Series X gameplay," reads the disclaimer.

Like every other publisher in the games industry, EA is currently ramping up for next-gen with a slate of new games and IPs.

EA is cooking up something special for next-gen. Madden NFL 21 will lead the charge, but Battlefield 6 will be the main spectacle on a newly revamped Frostbite, followed by Dragon Age 4. But there's also lots of new games in the pipeline, including fresh new IPs. This is a big deal for EA, a company that typically makes the bulk of its billions from annualized sports games like FIFA and Madden.

In its recent FY2020 earnings call, EA CEO Andrew Wilson re-confirms new IPs are indeed on the way and that the upcoming slate is more exciting than ever. Bear in mind these new IPs might be wholly-owned titles, and as such, they'll be gateways to live service monetization. That's EA's bread and butter, after all (EA made $2.8 billion from microtransactions last year, or over half of total revenues).

The masters of horror behind Layers of Fear are at it again. This time Bloober Team brings their penchant for strikingly bizarre visuals and mind-bending horror to the spirit realm.

Today Bloober Team announced their new next-gen game The Medium, a new terrorfest that melds otherworldly Zdiszlaw Beksinski weirdness with a distinctly haunting ghost story feel. In the game you play as Marianne, a medium who can see and sense the afterlife, and you're constantly shifting between the ghost plane and the real world--it gets so bad you can't always tell what's real any more. This duality seems to freely ebb and flow, creating a distinct sense of mental disruption that's part of Bloober's signature style. It also reminds a lot of Alan Wake.

The Medium is set in Bloober's home city of Krakow, Poland, and takes place in the late 1990s. Marianne will have flashbacks and time travel to the Communist-ruled Poland in the 1980s via the spirit realm, creating all sorts of unique opportunities for horror. The score is also being composed by Silent Hill's Akira Yamaoka, so expect enticing audio and music.

EA just reported strong FY2020 earnings on the backs of surging monetization revenues, and recorded a substantial 198% spike in year-over-year profits thanks to a tax benefit.

EA's FY2020 earnings report is packed with good news gaming's third-biggest publisher. EA managed to pull in $5.5 billion in total earnings during the year and its primarily digitally-driven business safeguarded it from big COVID-19 disruption.

Microtransactions and digital earnings once again stole the show. EA made 88% of its total revenues from digital, and just 12% from physical game sales. The company generated $4.052 billion in digital net bookings in the year, which is per usual. Live services, which includes microtransactions from big games like Apex Legends and FIFA, made $2.78 billion, roughly 68% of digital net bookings.