Gaming - Page 573

Sony's ambitious PS4 backwards compatibility support on the PS5 is going smoothly, SIE boss Jim Ryan says.

Microsoft is the uncontested leader in backwards compatibility, and four generations of Xbox games are playable on the Xbox Series X. But Sony also has big ambitions. Sony plans to support the "overwhelming majority of the PS4's 4,000 games library" on the next-gen PS5, but each game has to be added on a title-to-title basis. Thankfully, progress on this compatibility process is going smoothly.

In a recent interview with CNET, Sony Interactive Entertainment President and CEO Jim Ryan gave a quick update on PS5's backwards compatibility. The console was built with PS4 support in mind, and devs are currently updating their PS4 games to run on PS5.

Today EA announced Star Wars Squadrons, the EA Motive's ambitious spacefighter sim that combines cross-play, online and singleplayer content, and spans multiple Star Wars generations.

Star Wars Squadrons is a lot like Rogue Squadron and Battlefront mixed together. EA Motive's new game is a first-person starfighter that hearkens back to the old Tie Fighter and X-Wing PC games of yore, and lets gamers play both on the Rebel Alliance or Galactic Empire sides. Each side has five pilots, hinting at five ship variants. Below are the confirmed ships in Squadrons:

Star Wars Squadrons has two modes: A fully-fledged singleplayer campaign, and 5v5 online multiplayer. The online component is a live game that'll shift over time--EA refers to it as an "evolving battlefield"--but there's apparently no microtransactions this time. There is a robust level-up and ranking system that'll let you upgrade your ship over time, as well as customize it via cosmetics.

Red Barrels' new Outlast game is a grim, bloody and ultra-frenetic hellfest where you scramble to survive in the dark.

A bit of new Outlast Trials footage dropped during the PC Gamer show that haunts my sleep. It's a kind of hellish mixture of SAW's macabre torturous machinations with Hostel's brutal cruelty, with Manhunt's merciless murdering thrown in. There's not a whole lot of new content or gameplay thrown in here, but we do get the general gist of the game through some grisly scenes.

You're a test subject in a horrifying Cold War experiment to see the limits of human survival and shock trauma. We're not sure if you're an American who's been captured, or a Communist who's being put through the hellish test on American soil. You get special night-vision goggles literally drilled into your head and are set to roam around a black-as-night underground maze full of brutality, similar to The Descent.

The PS5's custom 12-channel PCIe 4.0 SSD has been hyped up to no end, and now we finally see proof of how the new storage tech will revolutionize console gaming.

Sony's PS5 SSD is the kind of storage The Flash would be proud of. It rockets data at 5.5GB/sec speeds, and can hit 9GB/sec compressed data rates and up to 20GB/sec with deeply compressed assets. This kind of speed can shoot data, assets, and content through the system to be processed and rendered on-screen. The practical use-case enables instantaneous, interruption-free gaming. And the new Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart game showcases what the SSD can do.

The latest PS5 event showed off lots of games that the system's new tricks, from the ray-traced visuals in Gran Turismo 7 to the elimination of loading screens in Ratchet and Clank. Thanks to the SSD's efficient pipeline, blazing fast speed, and the PS5's architecture, gamers will seamlessly transition between worlds within less than a second.

According to new data from analyst firm Ampere Analysis, the Nintendo Switch is currently beating the Xbox One's total global hardware sales.

The Xbox One has been on the market for seven years now, and compromises four separate SKUs--the 2013 Xbox One, the Xbox One S, Xbox One S All-Digital Edition, and Xbox One X. But the Switch hardware family--Switch and Switch Lite--has already beaten the Xbox One's sales in just four years on the market. This makes sense considering the Switch is the fastest-selling current-gen console in the US.

According to new figures from Ampere Analysis, which estimates total sales up until Q1'20, the Switch has sold 53 million units compared to the Xbox One's 49 million. Remember Microsoft no longer reports hard console sales figures so this data is an estimate.

Bluepoint and Sony Japan Studios are using PlayStation 5 hardware to breathe new life into an PS3 classic, and the results are incredible.

Demon's Souls is getting a fully-fledged next-gen remake on the PlayStation 5, complete with high-end visuals, smooth frame rates, and incredible ray-traced shadow and dynamic global illumination effects. The world has literally been recreated in stunning detail, creating a kind of visual marvel that not only resurrects the PS3 original, but rebirths it in a way not possible before now.

Sony's next-gen PS5 will outsell the Xbox Series X by over 29 million units by 2024, analyst firm Ampere Analysis predicts.

Ampere Analysis' latest report lays out some pretty hefty sales predictions for next-gen consoles. By 2024, four years into the hardware cycle, the PS5 is expected to hit 66 million sales, achieving over 60% of the PlayStation 4's total 110.4 million lifetime sales in five years on the market (the PS4 sold 80 million units by this period). The Xbox Series X, however, is expected to sell a dramatically less 37 million units.

That means by 2024, the PlayStation 5 is expected to have sold 29 million more units than the Xbox Series X. The PS5 is also expected to beat the Xbox Series X by 1.3 million units at launch. The main reason? Sony's existing platform domination with the PlayStation 4 will carry forward into next-gen thanks to backwards compatibility.

Sony will release two PlayStation 5 consoles in 2020: a standard model that plays 4K UHD Blu-ray XL discs, and a digital-only disc-less model. This latter model could be up to $50 cheaper.

In an effort to reduce prices and give players more options, Sony will kick off its new PS5 generation with a digital-only version. The idea here is two-fold: the disc-less PS5 would be more attractive because it'd be cheaper (Sony will shave off the console's Blu-ray drive, which has been upgraded to support the 4K format BDXL discs that hold up to 100GGB), and Sony wants to lock people to its digital ecosystem where the real money is made.

So how much cheaper could the digital PS5 sell for? Possibly up to $50. Based on manufacturing estimates and historical market data, the PS5 could cost around $500 when it releases, possibly $550. This could put the digital-only PlayStation 5 in the $450-$500 range.

UPDATE: Play Asia's PS5 listing has been updated. Price has been removed, and you can no longer pre-order the console.

A $699 PS5 is very, very unlikely for many reasons, but the biggest one is the system's estimated manufacturing costs.

A new Play Asia pre-order listing prices the PS5 at $699. This is obviously a placeholder, and the console won't cost this much. It's simply too high of a price tag considering the console's estimated $450 manufacturing costs. Back in February 2020, production supply sources told Bloomberg's Takashi Mochizuki the PS5 would cost $450 to manufacture. The expensive GDDR6 RAM and PCIe 4.0 SSD flash memory make up $250 of that cost, or more than half. Given the margin of error and other costs, the PS5 is expected to sell at $500.

If you believed all the marketing and hype you'd think every single PlayStation 5 game was going to be blasting away at 4K 60FPS, 4K 120FPS, or 8K... yeah -- you might want to adjust your hype meters.

The good folks at Digital Foundry have done what they do best: deep dive on the resolution and operating frame rates of the games Sony showed off during its PlayStation event. Digital Foundry provides a kick ass, in-depth commentary on PS5 games including Spider-Man: Miles Morales, and Gran Turismo 7.

The team has a list of what they think the expected frame rates are for some of the games on the PS5. It seems as though there are many more games at 30FPS, which is ultra disappointing given all the hype around the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X consoles.

Capcom has just announced that the Resident Evil franchise is its first to sell over 100 million copies worldwide, with the original Resident Evil launching on the original PlayStation all the way back in 1996.

Interestingly, over 80% of the sales of Resident Evil games have been outside of Japan. This means over 80 million copies were sold overseas, and less than 20 million inside of Japan.

Thanks to the flex Capcom did with Resident Evil 7 and pushing it back in to its survival horror origins, but this time with a first-person perspective -- sprinkled with the awesome Resident Evil 2 and 3 remakes, and the franchise has never been stronger. Now that Resident Evil has topped 100 million sales globally, we're headed into Resident Evil 8: Village.

Sony might have unveiled a few small details about its next-gen PlayStation 5 console, but the most important thing is still a mystery: the price. One particular retailer is teasing a $699 launch price for the PlayStation 5.

A new listing on Play-Asia has been uploaded, listing Sony's new PlayStation 5 console for $699 -- this is $100 more than the PS3 launch price even with its smaller 60GB HDD at the time.

Personally, $699 isn't much for something that will offer 8K video support, 4K 60FPS and 4K 120FPS gaming, and capable of driving the next-gen exclusives that will be powered by the custom AMD chips inside of the PlayStation 5. $599 at the time for the PS3 was too rich for most gamers, as there weren't enough games at launch to jump into a new expensive console over the PlayStation 2 at the time.

Sony unveiled their next-gen PlayStation 5 design and a bunch of games today, and along with it developer IO Interactive unveiled Hitman 3 calling it the "most intimate and professional contract in his entire career". Check out the trailer:

IO Interactive senior community manager Travis Barbour explains: "As long-time Hitman fans will know, our games and locations are always built with unparalleled player choice and replayability in mind. Hitman 3 is no different. In fact, our next game encourages players to explore and interact with the game world in new ways that will reward them in future playthroughs".

He continued: "We want the game to be tactile and we want players to feel that their actions have an impact on what is going on around them and their future playthroughs".

Demon's Souls on the PlayStation 5 will include nifty enhancements like a big graphical upgrade, ray traced visuals, and a new frame rate priority mode.

The new Demon's Souls remake on PS5 will take cues from NiOh by offering two different performance modes: One that maximizes resolution, and another that delivers smooth FPS. Gamers will be able to adjust the setting on-the-fly, and we don't know exact resolution or frame rate targets, but we could see some dazzling new perf like native 4K 60FPS and maybe even 1080p 120FPS or 1440p 60FPS.

Sony also confirms Demon's Souls will use the PlayStation 5's hardware-based ray-tracing effects made possible by the Zen 2 CPU and Navi RDNA 2 GPU. There's mention of next-gen lighting effects thrown in too, complete the amazing global illumination, shadows, and incredible atmospheric effects shown in the trailer.

Move over, Sony. Make way, Microsoft. KFC is coming for your next-gen console audience.

Today KFC announced its own surprising jump into the console market. Introducing the KFConsole, an innovative new system that satisfies both your hunger for high-end enthusiast gaming and your actual hunger.

The real secret sauce to the KFConsole is its patented Chicken Bucket Chamber technology, which keeps your tasty drumsticks warm as you game. Instead of simply whisking away all the heat with a powerful cooling solution, the KFC Console makes good use of the 7nm SoC's toasty thermals to actually cook your food. The Chicken Bucket Chamber also acts as a combo space heater for those cold wintry nights.

Insomniac Games officially confirms the new Spider-Man Miles Morales game on PS5 isn't a sequel, but it's not a re-release either. It will be it's own standalone game, similar to Uncharted: Lost Legacy.

Yesterday's new Spider-Man PS5 announcement confused a lot of people. Was it a sequel? Is it coming to PS4? Sony's misleading words in a Telegraph interview didn't help. "I guess you could call it an expansion and an enhancement to the previous game," SIE Europe exec Simon Rutter said in the interview.

This led everyone to believe the new PS5 Spider-Man would include the base game enhanced on PS5, and Miles Morales' story would be a side expansion. That's not the case. Spider-Man Miles Morales is just a smaller-scale standalone experience that'll leverage the PlayStation 5's higher-end power.

AT&T wants to sell its WB Games division in a massive deal that could be worth $4 billion, sources tell CNBC.

AT&T's management may no longer be wiling to fund huge multi-million dollar games projects, and is trying to find a buyer for its massive Warner Bros. Games division. It's not that WB Games aren't profitable--Mortal Kombat 11 was the best-selling game in April 2019 in the US, and has been on the top 10 list. The WB Games sell off may happen due to a divestiture (when a company sells a subsidiary). A bit ago, Elliott Management laid a huge $2.3 billion stake in AT&T and called for the company to sell off non-vital assets like DirectTV. WB Games may also be seen as a non-vital asset.

Some gaming's biggest publishers want to buy WB Games. Activision-Blizzard, Take-Two Interactive, and EA are all interested in grabbing the division, and for good reason: WB Games has ownership of some of the biggest IPs in the industry. WB Games owns Batman (and all DC games for that matter), Harry Potter, including the lucrative Wizard's Unite mobile game, and of course Mortal Kombat, a titanic franchise that's stood the test of time.

EA today stealth dropped all of its modern Battlefield games on Steam, as well as Mass Effect and both Battlefront games.

EA is doubling down on catalog game sales, and they really want to maximize earnings on old games. Valve in return wants Apex Legends, so expect that to show up on Steam eventually as well. But for now we have some of the best shooters dropping on Steam, including four different Battlefield games, Battlefronts I & II, and a Mass Effect duo that allows Steam gamers to own the full ME series.

All of these games are on sale, too. Prices have been slashed in half because the real money is in monetization. All of these games have online-based microtransaction hooks and push live services.

UPDATE: EA has officially announced Star Wars: Squadrons, and a new trailer will go live on June 15 at 11AM EST.

The Microsoft Store just leaked the next Star Wars game, and it looks like a spiritual successor to the Rogue Squadron series.

According to the leak, the new game is called Star Wars: Squardons, and is likely closely related to the Project Maverick listings we saw a while back. This should be EA Motive's next game. Unlike Rogue Squardon, gamers will be able to play as either the Galactic Empire or the Rebellion in starship battles.

UPDATE: We also found this size comparison that groups together multiple generations of consoles:

If the Xbox Series X is a fridge, then the PS5 is a skyscraper.

According to new size approximations from artist EvilBorisHDR, the PS5 is actually a fair bit taller than the Xbox Series X. But the Xbox Series X is definitely more wide. That's saying a lot because the Series X is an absolute unit of a console.