Gaming - Page 599

DICE is currently experimenting with PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X devkits in prep for its next big mainline Battlefield game, which is still due out in 2021 or early 2022.

In a recent earnings call, EA reiterates its plan to release a new Battlefield game on next-gen consoles by March 31, 2022. The idea is that EA plans to skip the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X console launches in Holiday 2020 and give DICE more time to develop their Frostbite engine for next-gen, and wait until the playerbase and install base matures. This also makes sense as a lot of EA's internal studios use Frostbite.

"We expect live services to continue to drive growth in Fiscal 2021 and for growth to accelerate in Fiscal 2022, led by a new Battlefield," said EA's Blake Jorgensen.

Nintendo earnings soar on the back of strong Switch hardware and software sales, with the Kyoto-based games-maker pulling in over $1 billion profit in the Holiday 2019 quarter.

Today Nintendo announced stellar results for its Fiscal Year Q3'19 period. In the October - December 2019 quarter, Nintendo made $1.23 billion in total profits, up nearly 30% year-over-year, driven by a 10.8 million Switch hardware sales spike. Software also saw a jump with the release of Pokemon Sword and Shield, which generated 16.06 million sales in a single month's time.

The Switch platform makes up the bulk of Nintendo's total earnings (Switch represents 93% of Nintendo's nine-month figures) so the company's results are inextricably tied to the system's performance.

Today the Electronic Software Association made some lofty promises about E3 2020, and pledges to protect that private data of journalists, exhibitors, and attendees this time around.

When you register for E3, the ESA asks you for a lot of info; phone numbers, address, email, and even a scanned copy of your driver's license or ID. Basically stuff you don't want anyone to really access unless there's a good reason. A bit ago the ESA accidentally published the sensitive info of thousands of registered attendees from E3 2004 and 2006. The move was seen as the nail in the annual showcase's coffin and caused a big wave of distrust in the media--the very people responsible for creating E3 buzz ever year.

Now the ESA says things have changed. The company has rebuilt its website from the ground up with new security tools and plans to host any personal info off-site.

The Outer Worlds is coming to Switch on March 6, 2020, but it won't have an actual physical release.

Obsidian's amazing Fallout New Vegas in space RPG is the latest Switch game to ship as a download-only title. If you buy the game at a retail store, you'll get an empty case with a redeemable download code inside. An actual game cartridge isn't included in the box. This makes sense considering it's technically a AAA indie game funded by Private Division, a new indie publishing label of Take-Two Interactive.

Sadly we don't know how big The Outer Worlds will be on Switch. The port is being handled by Virtuos, and apparently runs pretty well on the Tegra X1-powered handheld-console hybrid. Obsidian was actually impressed that the game could run on the Switch at all, and even more surprised at how well the system handled their RPG creation.

Pokemon Sword and Shield is 16-time platinum hit, selling over 16 million copies during the holiday 2019 quarter.

Nintendo is doing tremendously well right now. The Switch selling huge numbers (lifetime Switch sales just broke 52 million) and software is likewise exploding thanks to a particular billion-dollar pocket monster IP. To no one's surprise, the first mainline Pokemon on Switch moved an astronomical number of copies during the holidays and helped propel Switch sales to 10.8 million units.

The new Pokemon Sword and Shield duo managed to sell 16.06 million copies combined worldwide in a single month, putting it instantly onto the Switch's top five best-selling games of all time. In little over a month, the Pokemon duo is almost beating lifetime sales of hits like Zelda Breath of the Wild, Super Mario Odyssey, and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

China's alarming coronavirus outbreak in the Hubei capital is spreading fast, and is impacting the tech world--including video game console production.

At a recent investor's meeting in Japan, Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa confirms that China's coronvirus breakout is somewhat impacting production of Switch hardware. The impact is likely slight, but could grow until the health hazard is quelled.

Nintendo is believed to have moved some of its console production outside of China to avoid the now-cancelled trade tariffs, but we're not sure how much production--if any--was actually relocated.

The Xbox One has been on the market for 73 months now, or roughly six years, but it's already being surpassed by Nintendo's relatively new Switch console-handheld hybrid.

On the heels of today's 52.48 million Switch sales milestone, analysts have chimed in to add more color to these numbers by comparing them to other systems.

According to Niko Partners' Daniel Ahmad, the Switch has now sold-in more units than Microsoft's Xbox One (remember sold-in is shipments to retailers, not full-on sales). There's a few takeaways here. One is the astronomical rate that Nintendo is moving Switch systems; poised in between the lifecycle of the Xbox One and PS4, Nintendo has leveraged the full brunt of its first-party games and a host of third-party re-release and indies to attract gamers to its innovative transforming handheld.

Nearly three years after release and Switch hardware sales show no signs of stopping. The console has now sold over 52 million units worldwide, driven by strong exclusive adoption and two unique hardware choices.

Nintendo is killing it right now. The Switch, which now includes the massively popular new handheld-only Switch Lite, now sits at a mighty 52.48 million lifetime sales to date.

The Mario-maker managed to move an astronomical 10.81 million consoles in the holiday quarter, driven by strong exclusives like Pokemon Sword and Shield. The company moved 17.75 million Switch consoles in Q1-Q3 of Fiscal Year 2019 so far, causing Nintendo to upwardly revise its hardware sales forecasts to over 19 million. This revision doesn't include Switch sales in mainland China--those figures have yet to impact overall global sales.

Even as Xbox console revenues drop, Xbox LIVE users and Game Pass subscribers are at an all-time new high. Microsoft doesn't need to sell consoles to make billions.

Today Microsoft fully illustrated its core strengths and service-based focus. The company's recent Q2'20 financials show a substantially well-rounded business that can weather losses thanks to strong recurring service revenues. In the holiday 2019 quarter, Xbox earned $3.3 billion, down 21% year-over-year, and hardware sales are down 42% as gamers anticipate the Xbox Series X. But tremendous surges in Xbox Game Pass subscribers help offset these dips.

Microsoft's Satya Nadella confirmed Game Pass subscribers are at a record high, and actually doubled from last year's holiday quarter.

Netflix, Hulu, and other big streaming platforms will eventually be looking at famous game franchises to turn them into TV shows.

For the purpose of this article, I will be specifically talking about live-action TV shows like Netflix's The Witcher. Firstly, this idea has already been done, there have been many TV shows created from video game franchises, but none of them have really hit the mark like The Witcher did. Even though The Witcher is based on the book series by Andrzej Sapkowski, a lot of gamers who played the games would have flocked to the show to see Geralt and The Witcher universe in a TV show.

I think this same premise can be used for a lot of popular game franchises whether they are backed by a book series or not, but which ones? For a streaming platform to use to a game franchise as a basis for building a new TV show, the franchise would have to be extremely popular, have a very interesting, unique, and dense world. What springs to my mind first is the following; Bethesda's Fallout/Skyrim, Sony Interactive Entertainment's God of War, Rockstar's Red Dead Redemption, Hideo Kojima's Metal Gear and 2K's BioShock.

EA has pushed out a new update for Need for Speed Heat that not only squashes a bunch of bugs and new functions to the game, but it also adds support for steering wheels.

Need for Speed Heat's new update also lets you drive through gas stations to repair your ride, so if a cop is chasing you and causing too much damage, you can pull into a gas station and get repaired and ready to roll out again. The cops are on you harder at night, so you only get 3 visits to the gas station before they shut down until the next day.

But the big deal here is the steering wheel support, with the following steering wheels now supported in Need for Speed Heat:

System Shock and its sequel System Shock 2 are some of my favorite games of all time, so when Nightdive Studios announced it was making a remake of System Shock, my heart fluttered. It did it again, after watching this glorious 87-minute gameplay video of System Shock remake... check it out:

Nightdive Studios runs us through virtually everything in this 87-minute gameplay video, from checking out the updated graphics (which look far better than the original 1994 graphics), combat system, inventory system, and more. I personally think it looks great, and is a beautiful remake of Looking Glass Technologies' original System Shock.

Back at GDC 2017, developer Nightdive Studios announced it would be shifting development of the System Shock remake from the Unity Engine to Unreal Engine 4. At the time, System Shock remake director Jason Fader explained: "Unity is not a great engine to use if you want to make an FPS on console". Although, hearing the words "System Shock" and "console" together make me throw up in my mouth a little. Still, I'd rather have a remake instead of not having one at all.

Unity Technologies has just released its new Unity 2019.3 which includes real-time ray tracing goodness, and is now available to download from the Unity Store.

Unity 2019.3 is a 'Tech Stream' release which is aimed at creators who want the latest engine tech from Unity, but there will also be a new 'Long-Term Support' version of Unity with Unity 2019.4 coming in the Spring that will be a more stable build. As for Unity 2019.3, Brett Bibby, Vice President of Engineering at Unity Technologies explains: "With the release of Unity 2019.3, we are continuing our focus of giving all creators the power they need to have a more optimized, stable, and pleasant, creative experience".

Bibby continues: "Unity 2019.3 includes more than 260 improvements and new features focused on giving you the confidence that what you're making right now will look and perform beautifully - whether you're targeting the technologies of today or the platforms of tomorrow".

343 Industries plans to overhaul Halo: Reach's lackluster and uninspiring progression system, complete with a nonlinear armor unlock track.

The MCC version of Halo: Reach has a terrible progression system. It's as basic as it gets, a simple seasonal battle pass-style system that gates off the coolest armors behind insane EXP grinds. It's a linear ladder grind that's not creative, unique, or interesting in any way. Compared to the Xbox 360 version, which gives you free access to any armors provided you have the credits to buy them, 343i's armory is kind of embarrassing. That apparently will change, at least in some form.

In a recent blog update, 343 Industries says it's exploring new ways to let people cherry-pick what rewards and armor unlocks they want irregardless of previous unlocks. The team is also adding challenges back into Reach, which are basically little optional bounties that reward you for doing specific things in modes like campaign, firefight, or PVP. It was a way to earn extra credits to buy goods in the original game.

Today Microsoft announced its Q2'20 earnings for the three-month period ended December 31, 2019, showing dips in overall Xbox segment earnings.

Xbox gaming, services, content, and hardware sales generated $3.327 billion in Q2'20, down 21% year-over-year from Q2'19's massive $4.232 billion. This sizable $905 million drop is due to 2018's megaton launch of Red Dead Redemption 2, which generated millions of game sales both at retail and digitally and helped move Xbox console hardware.

Speaking of Xbox consoles, overall hardware sales of the Xbox One family of systems was down 43% YoY in the holiday quarter. Total content and services revenue is also down 11% YoY, or $295 million, due to the absence of a heavy-hitter like RDR2. Subscription growth is healthy though, and services like Xbox LIVE Gold and Xbox Game Pass are doing tremendously well for the company's overall engagement-driven efforts.

Warcraft 3 Reforged seems to ultimately betray everything about its legacy playerbase by carving out some of the best parts of the classic RTS.

Classic Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne apparently doesn't exist any more. Anyone who fires up Warcraft 3 will be forced to upgrade to Warcraft 3 Reforged, the new remaster form of the beloved real-time strategy game. With this forced update comes the elimination of many core fan-favorite features including custom campaigns (yes, really, Blizzard killed this feature), which are user-created RPG campaigns shared across the community for over a decade, as well as a frustrating mess of bugs and aggravating UI changes.

Warcraft 3 Reforged also forces users to the Battle.net 2.0 framework, which eliminates features like profiles, so you can't check anyone's stats (including your own). The chat pane gets in the way of the game searching panes. For some reason clans have been nixed (a big, big mistake), and there's no way to play custom versus against players from other regions.

343 Industries originally wanted Halo 1 PC beta testing to start this month, but that's not going to happen. Neither Halo: Combat Evolved PC testing nor Halo: Reach's major bug fixes have a release date, and 343i warns gamers that it could be some time before the updates are out.

343i confirms it has made "great progress" on patching some of Halo: Reach's most notorious issues--crouch behaviors with M&K, lag, latency drops, audio issues, etc.--but the patches might not roll out for a while. This also goes for Halo 1's incoming PC beta testing. They've been delayed as the studio works on fixes for other games.

The team will actually beta test the updates before they're released, a process 343i calls "flighting". The tests will go through multiple phases before they're released to the public. Reach's update tests haven't actually begun yet, and won't start until it fixes up the current issues with Halo Wars 2. So Halo: Combat Evolved on PC and the Halo: Reach updates are pretty much waiting for testing, but the flights won't open until the team is done shoring up other issues.

Today Sony announced February 2020's free PlayStation Plus games, and they're pretty damn good.

Irrational Games' landmark BioShock trilogy headlines this month's free PS Plus offering. The full BioShock Collection is free starting February 4, complete with all three classics--BioShock, BioShock 2, and BioShock Infinite--with all singleplayer and multiplayer content also included. This is a great opportunity to experience the series before BioShock 4 drops for next-gen consoles.

The other main PS4 game is The Sims 4, EA's mega-popular hit that's generated hundreds of millions of revenue for the publisher. PlayStation VR owners are also getting a nice little bonus. 4v4 FPS multiplayer game Firewall Zero Hour is included to inject some enthralling gameplay for PSVR gamers.

Xbox boss Phil Spencer envisions a world where games feel and look amazing, and the Xbox Series X's new CPU is the key to making it happen.

The new 8-core, 16-thread Zen 2 CPUs found in next-gen consoles might be the biggest leap over current-gen. The new CPUs will enable tighter frame rates when paired with custom Navi GPUs and SSDs that feed textures and assets at a quicker rate. The Xbox Series X has been tooled from the ground up as a highly synergized system whose parts work together to fuel a new era of gaming spec, whether it be 4K 60FPS, 1080p 120FPS, or even 8K.

According to Phil Spencer, this gen is all about making games more streamlined and fluid. Xbox One X was about 4K, but it was missing the CPU headroom needed for near-universal FPS gains. Thanks to its new CPU, the Xbox Series X will do both, and marry high-end visuals with similar high-end frame rates.

The original game ArcheAge was released back in 2014 and quickly rose to success, garnering many loyal fans. However, many players were turned away from the Pay-to-Win aspects of the game, so the developers decided to offer something new and refreshing. With ArcheAge: Unchained there is no longer a subscription model, players simply need to purchase the game and they can play as much as they want!

Players get to experience the fantasy world they know and love but this time on equal ground. If you're looking forward to jumping into the game but you're not sure where to start, then we have you covered.

If you find yourself running low on storage you can buy the Otherworld Storage Chest from the credit shop. This chest is considered furniture and you can put it in your house. The chest comes with 100 slots where you can store all sorts of items that you don't want to carry around. The chest is also only accessible to you so you don't need to worry about another player sneaking into your house behind you, stealing all your gear, and selling it for ArcheAge Unchained gold.