Gaming - Page 60

Sony has revealed its Black Friday deals for PlayStation 5 consoles, accessories and games, with the headline discount being $100 off all PS5 models in the US.

That means the base PS5 and PS5 Digital Edition consoles, and the PS5 Pro, are all knocked down by $100 from November 21 next week, when Sony's sale kicks off.

So, instead of paying $750 for a PS5 Pro, you'll be looking at an outlay of $650. The base PS5 price is reduced from $550 to $450, and the PS5 Digital Edition is reduced from $500 to $400 (yes, we're rounding up the cent here).

Xbox president Sarah Bond comments further on Microsoft's next-gen hardware plans, reiterating previous statements about openness of games libraries and storefronts.

Microsoft isn't giving up on consoles...but the new Xbox will break the mold. Reports indicate that the next Microsoft gaming hardware will essentially be an Xbox PC hybrid, with the device running Windows 11 and containing an "Xbox experience." In theory, the new melded system should be a major evolution of the Xbox Full Screen Experience (FSE) on the Xbox Ally and Ally X handhelds.

While Microsoft won't officially confirm or deny the rumors, the public comments from top executive management, including those from CEO Satya Nadella, seem to align with the Xbox PC reports. Now in a recent interview with Fortune, Xbox president Sarah Bond reiterates some of her previous assertions about new hardware.

The nominees for The Game Awards 2025 were announced earlier today, with indie hit Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 leading the pack with 12 nominations, including Game of the Year, Best Game Direction, and Best RPG. Other big winners, nomination-wise, include Hideo Kojima's Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, PlayStation's Ghost of Yōtei, and Hades 2 - all receiving nominations in multiple categories.

When it comes to the big award of the night, Game of the Year, it's going to be a highly contested category thanks to it being stacked with critically acclaimed and fan-favorite titles. The aforementioned Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, and Hades II are all there, with Donkey Kong Bananza, Hollow Knight: Silksong, and Kingdom Come: Deliverance II all vying for the top award.

The Best Multiplayer game is also set to be highly contested, as it will see ARC Raiders go up against Battlefield 6 on the competitive side, with co-op titles Elden Ring Nightreign, Peak, and Split Fiction also nominated.

Steam has reportedly generated over $16.2 billion in sales this year so far, and Valve founder Gabe Newell is celebrating with a super-expensive $500 million superyacht.

Valve has been going from stride to stride recently with Steam hitting a record concurrent player count of 41.6 million users online all at the same time, but in a new report by Rhys Elliott from Alinea Analytics, Steam has reportedly pulled $16.5 billion in sales so far -- and we haven't even reached the holidays and its Steam Holiday Sales -- representing a 5.7% increase from 2024's estimated $15.33 billion in sales.

But remember that Valve takes a 30% in each sale until the product passes $10 million in revenue, a 25% slice between $10 million and $50 million, and a smaller 20% cut once the product passes $10 million in revenue. Steam competitors in the Epic Games Store and Microsoft Store have the company taking a smaller cut -- in order to get developers to their platforms and away from Steam -- with Epic and Microsoft only taking a 12% fee, giving developers 88% of the sale.

Fortune interviews Xbox president Sarah Bond, revealing some interesting potential connections between her words and what's happening with Xbox.

Xbox is changing. First there was Game Pass, then came Play Anywhere, and Xbox has further changed by fully breaking exclusivity to sell its first-party games on rival platforms. The biggest shift, though, is Microsoft's reported move to meld Windows and Xbox together to make an Xbox PC-console hybrid.

In a recent interview with Fortune, Xbox president Sarah Bond gives a candid response that could underline some of the thinking around Xbox and its future. Bond mentions how people in general "spend most of their lives trying to hold on to what's known right now," and that the world itself is constantly changing.

Rockstar recently announced a remaster for the first Red Dead Redemption game, which caused confusion among Red Dead Redemption fans, as rumors circulating for quite some time indicated that work was underway on a remaster for Red Dead Redemption 2.

The announcement of the remaster led many fans to believe the rumors of a Red Dead Redemption 2 enhanced edition development were misguided, and that it was actually for the first game. However, industry insider NateTheHate, who has quite a solid track record when it comes to knowing the happenings of the gaming industry, particularly with upcoming games, has put those fears to bed.

In a recent X post, the insider wrote, "This doesn't negate RDR2 happening," in response to an X user pointing out that RD1 has received the enhanced version, not RDR2. Notably, when asked about the timeline for the current-gen upgrade to RDR2, NateTheHate wrote that he was informed it would arrive "a few months after" the release of the Nintendo Switch 2. However, this information was given to him at the start of 2025. Since then, Grand Theft Auto 6 has been delayed, altering the release timeline.

Valve recently unveiled the Steam Machine, a new dedicated PC gaming system in the shape of a console, and on the heels of the announcement a Valve hardware engineer has revealed what the company was considering when designing the device.

In an interview, Yazan Aldehayyat, a hardware engineer at Valve, explained that one of the things Valve looked at when choosing the components for the Steam Machine was the Steam Hardware Survey. For those who don't know, the Steam Hardware Survey is an opt-in survey that Valve conducts on all Steam users, which amounts to approximately 147 million monthly active users.

The survey involves Steam scanning the hardware and software of the system it's installed on and sending the results back to Valve, which then turns them into data for public viewing. Valve updates the Steam Hardware & Software Survey every month. With it, the public can see interesting information such as which operating system the majority of Steam users are running, average RAM size, average CPU speed, most common GPU, primary display resolution, and much more.

Remedy's Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne, released in 2003, saw the studio deliver a masterpiece of noir, crime, and bullet-time action. On PC, the game debuted with cutting-edge visuals that still look great in 2025, but are taken to the next level with full ray tracing or path-traced lighting thanks to NVIDIA's RTX Remix modding toolkit.

Currently in development by Darko9.13, Max Payne 2 RTX Remix is playable and available for download on Moddb; however, performance takes a massive hit, even when running on one of the most powerful GPUs on the market. Path tracing is incredibly hardware-intensive (as seen in Half-Life 2 RTX), and here we see performance in one area drop from around 1250 FPS in one scene down to around 40 FPS on a GeForce RTX 5080.

This figure comes from a Max Payne 2 RTX Remix visual showcase and performance video created by MxBenchmarkPC. The 40 FPS path tracing figure is obtained with DLSS 4's 'Performance' preset enabled, which means the game's internally rendered resolution is 1080p. Yes, this makes Max Payne 2 RTX Remix one of the most visually demanding mods currently available; however, the transition to realistic lighting, physically based materials, improved textures, and some updated geometry is impressive to see.

The rumors surrounding Half-Life 3 have hit fever pitch since Valve announced its new selection of hardware, with many fans of the franchise expecting the company to unveil the title sometime soon, as multiple industry experts have leaked information regarding its development. But, when will the reveal be?

Industry insider and Valve leaker "GabeFollower" said in an X post that, according to their source, Valve is aiming to launch Half-Life 3 sometime this year. This rumor was somewhat corroborated by Insider Gaming's Mike Straw, who reported Valve is planning on another big announcement, and it won't be at The Game Awards, which is scheduled for December 11, 2025. Adding more fuel to the Half-Life 3 before the end of the year fire is data miner Tyler McVicker, who stated he expects there will be another big announcement from Valve within the next two to three weeks.

In the same vein as Half Life 3 rumors, but not pointing to an unveiling by the end of the year, is Insider Gaming's Tom Henderson, who said he has heard about a big game launching in March 2026, and that it makes sense it will be a title exclusive to the Steam Machine. Other small pieces of information that circle back to Valve still having a big announcement up its sleeve are the company's own listing on the Steam Marketplace, specifically under the "Upcoming Release" category.

Valve recently unveiled the Steam Machine, a mini gaming PC shaped like a console, scheduled to launch early next year. With the exact price of the device still unknown, many potential buyers want to know what the announced hardware specifications will be able to achieve in games and whether the performance they deliver can be improved through upgrades if they are unhappy with the result.

Gamers Nexus visited Valve and spoke with engineers about the design of the upcoming gaming PC/console, during which they showcased the Steam Machine without its shell. The interview with the engineer revealed that Valve actually began designing the Steam Machine with its thermals, specifically the fan. A Steam Machine system engineer explained they designed the fan first, as the laws of thermodynamics are "not flexible".

When discussing the design, Gamers Nexus shows that, by disassembling the Steam Machine, users can upgrade the system memory to SO-DIMM RAM sticks. However, they will likely be quite difficult to access, as SO-DIMM (laptop memory) sits flat on the motherboard and is likely located beneath the large heat sink. Additionally, Gamers Nexus said they aren't sure if it's one or two RAM sticks, but they can verify the RAM isn't soldered to the board.

Valve recently announced the Steam Machine, and on the heels of that announcement, we have caught some news about the Steam Deck 2, or rather, what Valve needs to release one.

The Steam Deck was released in February 2022, and then we got the Steam Deck OLED in November 2023. Since then, Valve has been quiet on when it plans on releasing the Steam Deck 2, but recently Valve revealed in a conversation with IGN that it intends the next Steam Deck to be a big step up from the original, and that it won't be releasing the second iteration of the console until hardware becomes available that makes it possible to enable a massive upgrade.

On the back of the announcement of the Steam Machine, Valve has said that it's "really interested" in what is next for the Steam Deck, but it won't be releasing an iterative model that is simply more powerful and has more battery life, as Valve wants something that truly differentiates it from the original handheld. Additionally, Valve said that it has been scanning the System-On-Chip (SoC) market for hardware that will enable it to create the new handheld it has in mind, but right now "there's no offering in that landscape".

Despite being one of the best-selling single-player franchises in Sony's lineup, the Horizon franchise had always been envisioned as a multiplayer project.

The surprise announcement of the new Horizon: Steel Frontiers MMORPG caught fans off guard. It's a new free-to-play MMO set in the Horizon franchise, and it's not coming to Sony's PlayStation 5. This has prompted lots of discussions among gamers about what's going on with the series, and now Guerrilla Games' art director Jan-Bart van Beek steps in to clarify that Horizon was always supposed to have multiplayer.

"From the first moment we imagined Horizon, we always thought about it as a multiplayer game," van Beek said on Twitter.

Call of Duty Black Ops 7 can't be paused, and its campaign is online-only, making it a kind of hybridized multiplayer-campaign mashup.

The new Black Ops 7's campaign is ruffling some feathers, and for good reason: It completely breaks tradition, blurring the line between what's considered multiplayer and singleplayer content. It's a kind of experimental mix of DMZ and zombies in the guise of a campaign, but with frictional choices like having no checkpoints during missions.

Enemy health bars, forced multiplayer, no pausing, and having to stay online in order to play. These are all hallmarks of Call of Duty Black Ops 7, the latest from Microsoft's $68.7 billion gem, Activision. From the sound of it, players aren't particularly happy about these features, even if they are required by design. Gamers didn't seem to like it much when Modern Warfare 3's campaign also did something similar by breaking linear missions.

Valve's resurrected Steam Machine continues to fascinate this week, and another smart aspect of this mini PC that aims to rule your living room is custom front covers, with an E-ink solution just coming to light.

Notebookcheck.net noticed (via VideoCardz) that Gamers Nexus talked about the front cover - which attaches magnetically to the cube chassis of the Steam Machine - and how owners will be able to 3D print their own covers.

See the above YouTube video, but the idea is to jazz up the Steam Machine with a striking piece of artwork, or maybe a cover with better airflow, or Valve has even been testing a model which is an E-ink display (with bezel).

After rumors swirled that Rockstar was planning to release a remaster of Red Dead Redemption, the Grand Theft Auto developer put out a new trailer confirming that, in December, the remaster will launch on every major platform.

In a new video shared to Rockstar Games' social media channels, the developer has confirmed that Red Dead Redemption will be launching on the PS5, Xbox Series X|S, iOS, Android, Nintendo Switch 2, and Netflix Games. The confirmation comes after the ESRB gave an official rating for the title just yesterday, indicating that an announcement was right around the corner.

Additionally, rumors were circulating that a remaster for Red Dead Redemption 2 was in the works, but for now, those rumors seem misguided and were instead about the newly announced Red Dead Redemption remaster, not the second title in the franchise. However, that doesn't mean an RDR2 remaster is impossible, or isn't currently being worked on. As for the newly announced remaster, Red Dead Redemption is coming to the PS5 and Xbox Series X|S with 60FPS support, enhanced image quality, HDR support, and up to 4K resolution.

Valve could take all of the thunder away from release of Grand Theft Auto 6 with a surprise system-selling release of Half-Life 3, ready to rock on its new Steam Machine, Steam Frame VR headset, Steam Controllers, and the PC.

It was just a couple of days before Valve unleashed its new Steam hardware that super-hot rumors teased Half-Life 3 would be unveiled alongside a new VR headset and controllers this week. Fast-forward a couple of days, and Valve indeed unveils not only the new Steam Frame VR headset and Steam Controller, but a brand-new Steam Machine system.

Valve could've had a strategy of unveiling its new Steam hardware first, and then have Half-Life 3 unveiled in its own -- and probably even bigger -- event, with an imminent release on PC and VR, while being included for free with each Steam Machine and Steam Frame VR headset. Now that, would cause shockwaves for the gaming industry, and rival the future Grand Theft Auto 6 release from Rockstar... a lot of thunder stolen, especially if Valve pushes huge boundaries in Half-Life 3.

ASUS says demand for the ROG Xbox Ally X exceeds expectations--the handheld is doing so well that it could make up to $160 million revenue in the quarter.

ASUS' latest Q3 results show that Xbox's handheld aspirations are off to a good start. The Xbox ROG Ally and Ally X gaming handhelds launched in October to strong consumer demand, ASUS says, with the higher-priced $999 Xbox Ally X being surprisingly popular. ASUS believes there's a growing market for gaming handhelds and says the Ally will remain a core part of the ROG lineup.

As far as sales go, ASUS didn't give out unit sales but the company did say it expects to make anywhere from 3-5 billion TWD ($96-160 million) from ROG Ally sales during the holiday quarter. ASUS actually expects the bottom-line sales revenue to grow to roughly $130 million as the market continues to grow and mature. Remember that this is just ASUS' share, and Xbox also gets a cut, meaning actual sales revenue for each device is higher than what's outlined here.

Valve just unleashed an entire Steam hardware platform including the new Steam Frame VR headset, with rumors that the developer is working on a native Linux-based version of Half-Life: Alyx, and optimized for the Steam Frame.

In its unveiling of the Steam Machine, Steam Frame VR headset, and new Steam Controller, Valve told Digital Foundry that: "Half-Life: Alyx is a great experience when streamed from a PC to Steam Frame, and we are looking into making it a good standalone experience as well".

Half-Life: Alyx should work on the Steam Frame when it launches, but it's an x86 game, but Valve is using an Arm-based Snapdragon processor inside of its new VR headset, unless you're streaming from your PC to the Steam Frame, using Valve's new VR headset in standalone runs the game using its on-board Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen3 chip, which is an Arm-based solution.

Ubisoft rings alarm bells by mysteriously delaying its earnings report and temporarily de-listing its stock.

Today, Ubisoft was supposed to reveal the results for the first half of FY2025, but the French publisher has decided to push the report back a few days.

The company issued the following announcement on its investor page: "Ubisoft announces the postponement of the release of its results for the first half of fiscal year 2025-26. Ubisoft has requested Euronext to halt trading of its shares and its bonds from the market opening on November 14, 2025, until the publication of its first-half 2025-26 results in the coming days. Ubisoft will inform the market of the date on which trading will restart."

Valve's new hardware lineup didn't include a Steam Deck 2, and that's because the tech doesn't really exist yet.

Valve is working on a next-gen Steam Deck. That's already been confirmed. What we don't know, however, is when the Steam Deck 2 will come out. Just yesterday, Valve announced a new fleet of hardware coming in 2026, including a new Steam Machine that packs PC power in a console box. The Steam Deck 2 was missing from the new announcements because Valve isn't satisfied with the chips that are currently available--they want more horsepower for a Steam Deck successor.

In a recent interview with IGN, Valve engineer Pierre-Loup Griffais says that the company simply wants to make a true next-gen device that one-ups the Steam Deck. So far, no current chips or technologies have been able to make that happen, but that hasn't stopped Valve from experimenting to figure out what their targets are.