Gaming - Page 578

Activision has just announced that it has delayed the Season 4 release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Warzone, as well as Season 7 of Call of Duty: Mobile because of the on-going unrest in the United States.

Sony and EA have both stopped big events from taking place this week, and I'm sure these companies won't be the first -- nor will they be the last. Activision tweeted: "Right now it's time for those speaking up for equality, justice, and change to be seen and heard. We stand alongside you".

The ofciail Activision Blizzard Twitter account tweeted: "Today, and always, we support all those who stand against racism and inequality. There is no place for it in our society - or any society. Black lives matter".

Here we are again, folks, at another article detailing why Microsoft isn't buying another billion-dollar company. In this coverage we'll be detailing why Microsoft isn't buying SEGA, and why the Xbox Series X isn't going to be rebranded with SEGA's name in Japan.

Rumor has it Microsoft is buying SEGA. Another rumor says Microsoft will release the Xbox Series X as the "SEGA Series X" in Japan. Neither of these things are true. To really understand why the rumors aren't true we have to take a look at how both Microsoft and SEGA operate their businesses, and then briefly go over why the Xbox brand is so much more than just hardware.

First, let's start off with the obvious one: Microsoft isn't going to buy SEGA simply because it'd cost too much. There's no reason for Microsoft to buy, and more importantly, there's absolutely no reason for SEGA to sell. This is the same argument we made with the preposterous "Microsoft is buying CD Projekt RED" rumors, and the more recent "Sony is buying Metal Gear Solid" rumors.

The PS5 reveal event set for June 4 will be postponed to a later date due to civil unrest, Sony today confirmed.

Like most of the games industry, Sony has spoken out in support for the Black Lives Matter movement amid civil unrest in the United States. Now the company is delaying one of the most important events of the year so it doesn't take the spotlight away from America's societal issues.

"We have decided to postpone the PlayStation 5 event scheduled for June 4," Sony said in a statement.

Half-Life: Alyx was one of the hands down best gaming experiences of my life, and while I played it in VR (and I think you should, too) it doesn't mean you can't check it out without a VR headset -- and this handy mod. Check it out:

This new mod is called the "Pancake FPS Starter Kit" which can be downloaded right here, and is showcased in the video above. YouTuber 'Goutrial' posted the video, explaining: "This is a mod for Half-Life: Alyx called "Pancake FPS Starter Kit" that makes it so you can play without VR".

He continues: "It also adds the ability to add custom weapon scripts. In this video, I am using the base mod so there are only the weapons from Half-Life 2. The weapons you see in this video are from Half-Life 2: MMod".

You would think that any game that the legendary Hideo Kojima wanted to make, you'd just let him make -- but that's nto the case at all.

In a recent interview with Japanese site Livedoor (and then translated by VGC), Kojima talks about his new game, where he said: "It's still in the early planning stages so I can't say much, but on the down-low, I'm actively working on it". He added that he had a recent project cancelled, too.

Kojima added: "Recently a major project of mine got cancelled so I'm pretty pissed, but that's the games industry for you".

Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa reiterates the Switch is still in the middle of its life cycle, hinting the console will last at least four more years before a new iteration arrives.

In a recent Nintendo Q&A session from its FY2020 financials, Nintendo President Shuntaro confirms the Switch is halfway through its lifespan. The Switch turned four years old and managed to move over 55 million units to date, so the Switch hardware family should continue on for another four more years.

"Nintendo Switch has just entered the middle of its life cycle, and there are two system versions in the family - Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch Lite - so we have not changed our view that it is possible to aim for growth that is unlike the life cycle of any other hardware to date," Mr. Furukawa said, strongly hinting more Switch hardware iterations are on the way.

EA Motive just made its debut on Twitter, hinting that it's big new Star Wars game could be revealed soon.

EA Motive has been working on a new Star Wars project for years now. The Montreal-based studio first started out by assisting DICE with Battlefront II. Then it moved on to help Visceral Games on its cancelled Project Ragtag game, then it did the same with EA Vancouver's cancelled Project Orca. Since then, EA Motive has moved onto its own Star Wars game, one that's described as 'very unique.'

Read Also: EA Motive's new Star Wars game could be a monetized live game

At the time of writing this, the SpaceX launch spacecraft recently launched will reach the International Space Station.

Above, you can find a link to the Crew Demo-2 livestream on the official SpaceX YouTube Channel. The video showcases a direct link to inside the Dragon spacecraft where we can see both astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley, who will be landing docking with the International Space Station in about an hour from now.

Throughout the livestream, it was mentioned by the commentators that the astronauts were traveling at 17,500 miles per hour. As the Dragon capsule closes in on the ISS, the astronauts will perform a test on the directional controls and will then approach extremely slowly, slowing down to a tenth of a meter per second. The provided image showcases the waypoints the capsule will go through when it enters its docking process. It's estimated that the docking complete call will be at 7:30 AM PT.

The PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X might have similar specs and both use 7nm SoCs from AMD, but their next-gen business models are very different. We thought it prudent to discuss how Microsoft and Sony are approaching the new generation of console gaming.

Microsoft and Sony handle gaming very differently. To really understand the big differences between the PlayStation 5's and Xbox Series X's game plans, we have to take a quick look at each of the two company's business segments.

Sony cares a lot more about gaming than Microsoft does. Sony made $17 billion from PlayStation in FY2019 versus Microsoft's $10 billion from Xbox. The Japanese titan is locked to the PlayStation hardware and services ecosystem, and as a result, it's more laser-targeted on system-selling exclusives that've helped the PS4 move 110.4 million units worldwide.

Sony's cross-gen plans have leaked out, confirming newer PS4 games will also need to be compatible with the PS5 as well.

Unlike the Xbox Series X, the PS5 will have exclusives at launch. Sony is clearly delineating the PS4 and PS5 hardware generations right out of the gate. This means we'll see two versions of third-party games releasing in 2020 and beyond: a PS4 SKU, and a separate PS5 SKU with enhanced performance like faster loading times, ray tracing, enhanced frame rates and resolution.

Sony has established a mandate to ensure the cross-gen dual game release strategy rolls out as smooth as possible. PS4 games submitted to Sony for certification on or after July 13 must also run on the next-gen PS5. The info comes from internal development slides provided to Eurogamer, and confirms its forward-compatibility plans.

Making games for and porting games onto Sony's next-gen PS5 might end up being easier than any other console ever released.

Although the PS5 is a huge leap in power over the PS4, complete with next-gen exclusives that aren't held back by the PS4, Sony isn't over-complicating things for developers. Game devs are pretty happy with the PS5's new streamlined x86 architectural design and toolsets. We still don't know what kind of new features the PS5 OS and software stack offers devs, but that hasn't stop games-makers from praising the system behind the scenes.

The positive reactions started back in 2019 under Sony's PR megaphone. SIE president Jim Ryan said devs are getting code up on the PS5 with tremendous speed and ease. Then Sony's Shuhei Yoshida echoed the same thing a month later.

You might remember the trailer to Scorn from earlier this month, where it is an exclusive to the Microsoft Xbox Series X console and to the PC. It's from developer Ebb Software and as Derek explains it, it's an "ultra-bizarre horror fest" that is like "stepping into an HR Giger painting".

Well, that 4K 60FPS goodness we all thought was an Xbox Series X console? Yeah nah -- that was a PC. In a recent interview with Wccftech, Ebb Software's Game Director Ljubomir Peklar talked about the game -- you can read the full interview here -- but more importantly what hardware the team used to show us that "in-engine footage representative of expected Xbox Series X visual quality".

Peklar explained: "Now, this is a tricky question as for some reason a lot of people feel that it should be quite easy to get 4K 60FPS on the PC even with this graphical fidelity, and that really isn't the case. For the showcase we used 2080Ti and a Ryzen processor just because there was no reason not to use it, but a 2070 Super with a mixture of settings is adequate to run the game at 4K 60FPS".

The PS4 will live on for years after the PS5 launches in Holiday 2020, complete with games, hardware updates, and more.

When the PS5 arrives in 2020, Sony will have two consoles running in parallel that also intersect in the same ecosystem. We already know the PS4 and PS5 generations will overlap for multiple years as Sony builds up the next-gen install base and eventually hands off the torch to the newer hardware.

That being said, the PS5 is a reset button for the PlayStation brand. Today Sony's Jim Ryan confirmed the PS5 will have next-gen exclusives not available on the PS4. But that doesn't mean Sony is ready to shut the door in the current-gen's massive 110.4 million install base and the billions of revenue that hardware platform generates.

The global games market will make $159.3 billion in 2020, analyst firm Newzoo predicts.

Newzoo has recently released their forecast for 2020's games earnings, and the growth is pretty substantial. The total games industry is expected to make over $159 billion this year across all segments--digital, physical, hardware and accessories--up 9.3% YoY and driven primarily by mobile gaming microtransactions revenue.

According to the report, this approximately 2.7 billion gamers will generate these revenues throughout 2020. Mobile will rake in $77.8 billion, or 48% of the total, dominated by smartphone games like Honor of Kings, Fortnite, and PUBG Mobile.

Sony confirms it won't force developers to make PS5 games run on older last-gen PS4 hardware.

Unlike Microsoft, who has mandated first-party studios can't make next-gen exclusives, Sony says some PS5 games won't be available on the PS4. Microsoft plans to merge the Xbox One and Xbox Series X generations together for a few years, but Sony wants to jump headlong into the new gen and make firm separations between the PS4 and PS5.

Sony will allow no-compromise next-gen performance. Devs can make PS5 exclusives that're built from the ground up for the higher-end 2.23GHz 10.3TFLOP Navi RDNA 2 GPU, 3.5GHz 8-core Zen 2 CPU, ultra-fast 5.5GB/sec PCIe 4.0 SSD, and 16GB of GDDR6 unified RAM.

This is it, folks. Sony today announced a new PS5 showcase centered around next-gen games, and it's coming next week.

The new digital-only PlayStation 5 stream is dedicated to the next generation of games across first- and third-party studios that push the hardware to its limits with ultra-fast loading, 4K and even 8K gaming, high frame rates, and ray traced visuals.

The selection will focus on PS5 launch games that're releasing alongside the console in Holiday 2020. Don't expect to see titles like Battlefield 6 or Dragon Age 4 running on the machine.

Bloomberg writer Takashi Mochizuki just brought up a good point: Sony is likely to reveal the PS5 so it can curb any leaked pictures that surface from production plants.

Sony's next-gen PS5 has just entered mass production. Both Sony and Microsoft are ordering huge quantities of 7nm SoCs from AMD to ensure their next-gen consoles are ready for Holiday 2020. We already know what the Xbox Series X looks like, but Sony has been secretive about the PlayStation 5's final console design. That should change quite soon.

The idea is that Sony wants to be the one that reveals the PS5, not an overseas plant worker who leaks fuzzy picture or makes a drawing of a production line console. The company has put in lots of investment in the next-gen console, and rightly so as it's the future of the billion-dollar PlayStation brand. This time it's different, though. The PS5 represents a true generational leap beyond anything we've seen before thanks to its highly-customized SoC, RAM memory, and PCIe 4.0 SSD synergy.

Square Enix will reveal Final Fantasy 16 this summer, a new rumor claims. This seems unlikely, but the company's financials do indicate a ramp-up for new projects.

Right now Square Enix has a lot on its plate. There's Outriders, the new game from People Can Fly, Babylon's Fall, the mysterious RPG from Platinum Games, and its main bread-and-butter franchises like Dragon's Quest and Final Fantasy. The company is currently developing major titles like Final Fantasy 7 Remake chapter 2 and Crystal Dynamics' Avengers, the first game in its big multi-year deal with Marvel.

So where does Final Fantasy 16 fit in? In 2019, Square Enix confirmed Final Fantasy 14 game director Yoshi-P was taking the helm of a new project. The new unannounced game is a next-gen title, and has been in full production since April 2019. Many speculate Yoshi-P is working on the next mainline Final Fantasy game while Tetsuya Nomura and Yoshinori Kitase work on Final Fantasy 7 Remake.

PlayStation 5 news is finally coming and Sony has prepared its PS Blog with a special section for the next-gen system.

Sony has added a dedicated PS5 section to the PS Blog's categories list, allowing users to isolate stories and news on the upcoming 10TFLOP system. Right now the section is somewhat sparse and contains three games--Dirt 5, Outriders, and Godfall--alongside the handful of PS5 announcements Sony has made.

This comes days after Sony adjusted the PlayStation 5's official website with simplified buzzword descriptors like "lightning speed," "stunning games," and "breathtaking immersion."

I can't believe the day is finally here, but the System Shock Remastered demo is finally here. You can download it from Steam and GOG right now.

Nightdive Studios first announced the news of System Shock Remastered back in 2016, where it hit Kickstarter on May 29, 2016. The game had its name changed from "System Shock Remastered" to "System Shock" as they considered the effort the team is putting into the game making it more of a reboot of the original game, versus just a remaster.

The developer has promised that there is "much more System Shock news coming in June", which is right around the corner.