Gaming - Page 611

Quantic Dream is now fully in control of its destiny and plans to keep making interactive cinematic experiences under its own terms.

Like Bungie and more recently PlantinumGames, David Cage's studio Quantic Dream now has full independence and doesn't have to rely on partners like Sony to get games funded. The company recently announced that they're now in a position to self-publish their own games, which is huge on a business and creative level.

As IP-holder and publisher, Quantic Dream not only gets to fully control the scope of their games, but also keep the revenues from each sale (outside of distributing deals, of course). The studio says the recent success of Detroit: Become Human on PS4 and PC helped make this possible (the game has sold more than 2 million copies).

Activision-Blizzard's latest earnings give lots of clues on what to expect from its future games, especially its spending habits.

Activision-Blizzard is evolving. The company is doubling-down harder on engagement strategies than ever before with a multi-faceted plan that embraces new games, live services, mobile ports, and lots of things behind the scenes that gamers don't actually see. We've taken a close look at the company's latest 2019 financials for clues on what's next for the company, and the results are pretty interesting.

To really understand what the future holds for its upcoming games, we have to take a look at spending, certain vocabulary from executives, and what's being done to make those games--both developmental and business-based decisions.

At the beginning, BioWare was a fountain of RPG mastery. Then after they got famous they started to focus more on what's popular versus what they actually wanted to make. Ex-BioWare writer Drew Karpyshyn gives a brief but illuminating look at how BioWare has changed over the years.

BioWare isn't what it used to be. The studio used to be known for great RPGs like Knights of the Old Republic, Mass Effect, and Dragon Age: Origins, all games that made you feel and had an impact. But something happened after BioWare got big: The studio started chasing money instead of chasing its passions (likely at the behest of its owner, EA).

BioWare shifted its focus to action games and massively watered down its RPG elements, casualizing everything and betraying its key skills. We've seen this with Mass Effect: Andromeda and Anthem, both of which are heavily action-based and embrace live services. And this erosion of BioWare's RPG talents may not stop here, but only continue with its new projects like Dragon Age 4 and the new Mass Effect--both of which could have live service ecosystems.

Blizzard recently canceled its Overwatch League matches in China because of the coronavirus outbreak, but now the developer has shifted the games over to Seoul, South Korea.

The company said that all of the canceled matches that were to take place in Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Hangzhou, will now see Overwatch players battling it out in a studio in Seoul. The previously canceled and now relocated matches will take place during week 6 and week 7 of the Overwatch League, on the weekends of March 14 and March 21.

Overwatch League matches in Miami and Atlanta that kick off on those weekends won't be affected, but Blizzard added that it will announce match times for those rounds "soon".

Remember the story from a few days ago where NVIDIA's super-fresh game streaming service GeForce NOW lost its library of games from Activision-Blizzard? Well, that was all over a "misunderstanding".

NVIDIA hasn't been super forthcoming about what the "misunderstanding" was exactly, but the company released a statement that makes the situation a little clearer: "Activision Blizzard has been a fantastic partner during the GeForce Now beta, which we took to include the free trial period for our founders' membership. Recognizing the misunderstanding, we removed their games from our service, with hope we can work with them to re-enable these, and more, in the future".

Bloomberg is reporting that Activision-Blizzard wanted to negotiate a new commercial agreement before NVIDIA launched GeForce NOW, but NVIDIA doesn't want commercial agreements with game publishers. NVIDIA wants to let gamers buy their games on the likes of Steam, Epic Games, uPlay, and Battle.net -- and then, play them on GeForce NOW just like they would if they were playing them at home on their gaming PC.

The Division 2 was one of the best-looking games of 2019, but Ubisoft Massive's popular game will most likely not find a new home on the next-gen PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X consoles.

In a recent interview with the Daily Star, Ubisoft Massive Associate Creative Director Yannick Banchereau said: "we are not looking at porting it to new platforms. What I can tell you is that we are not making a specific version for those consoles, we are very much focused on just working on what we have now and making that as good as possible".

We could expect The Division 2 to run on the next-gen PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X consoles, but they might do it through Microsoft and Sony providing backwards compatibility -- and not a newer version of the game tuned specifically for the additional power in the new consoles.

Microsoft and Nike have teamed up for a new Jordan-themed Xbox One X console and controllers, with the iconic red elephant print dopped all over the Xbox One X and two controllers -- it looks slick. Check out an unboxing of one of them below:

Nike is unleashing its new Air Jordan III Retro U sneakers during the upcoming All-Star Weekend in Chicago, with the custom Jordan-themed Xbox One X console and controllers to be given away in a competition during the Microsoft sweepstakes on Twitter. If you want to enter that, follow the official Twitter account for Xbox, retweet the announcement and use the hashtag #Xboxsweepstakes.

The giveaway of the Jordan-themed Xbox One X ends on February 27, with a single winner to be announced. I wouldn't want to touch it if I won it, and would love to keep it in the box forever.

We've been learning a little bit more about Sony's next-gen PlayStation 5 thanks to a new report by Bloomberg, where the site reported that the manufacturing costs of the PlayStation 5 is sitting at around $450.

But in the report we also learn that Sony is putting some serious work into the cooling system for the PlayStation 5, with Bloomberg reporting Sony opted to "lavish more" on the cooling system to make sure "heat dissipation from the powerful chips housed inside the console isn't an issue".

Bloomberg wrote: "Most of the components for the console have been locked down, the people said, including the cooling system, which is unusually expensive at a few dollars per unit", adding that "typically, companies would spend less than a dollar" on the cooling system -- but Sony opted to "lavish more" on the PlayStation 5 cooling system.

Sony is aiming for a December 2020 release for its next-gen PlayStation 5 console according to my industry sources, but now Bloomberg is reporting about the manufacturing costs -- something that gives us a hint towards the final retail pricing of the PS5.

Bloomberg reports from "people with knowledge of the matter" that the PlayStation 5 manufacturing cost is "around $450 per unit" which is forcing Sony into a "difficult price-setting decision" with Microsoft and the next-gen Xbox Series X console. Bloomberg continues in its article saying that the "biggest headache" is making sure they have a reliable supply of DRAM and NAND flash memory.

The issues here is that other companies like AMD, NVIDIA, and Samsung are eating all that up for graphics cards and the just-launched Galaxy S20 family of smartphones which packs 8/12/16GB of RAM and a heap of super-fast flash storage. Sony's Chief Financial Officer Hiroki Totoki recently said at an earnings briefing earlier this month: "We must keep PlayStation 5's bill of materials under our control and we need to make the correct number of units in the initial production".

Disney now sits on the world's biggest treasure trove of franchises and IPs, from Marvel to 20th Century Fox properties and Star Wars. Now it wants developers to make new games based on all of them.

At DICE 2020, Disney sent a clear message to game developers: Its wealth of IPs are now open for new game adaptations. The billion-dollar titan wants to leverage its massive franchise catalog to create interactive entertainment experiences with innovative and re-imagined characters and scenarios. Essentially Disney wants game devs to breathe new life into IPs like Aliens, Predator, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and a lot more.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, who was in attendance at the 2020 DICE Summit, Disney's interactive VP Sean Shoptaw extended a warm welcome to game developers.

Today Square Enix revealed Final Fantasy 7 Remake's opening cinematic sequence, and it's absolutely enchanting.

There's nothing quite like a Final Fantasy cinematic. Square Enix has set the bar to such a high pedigree with its cinematics that few developers hold up, and that's especially true today with the new FF7 Remake footage. The opener brings back all the chills of the 1997 RPG classic, transporting gamers back in time to those days when demo discs still came with magazines and you had to buy guidebooks to unlock all the secrets.

The graphics in the cinematic are just absolutely mesmerizing...and when that logo pops up over the steampunk city of Midgar, complete with the musical score, it hits you right in the feels. The lighting effects, the visuals, the atmospheric wizardry, the colors...everything comes together to blow your mind just as the original game did back in '97.

Today Remedy confirmed its next game is now in the critical pre-production phases, which comes before principal development.

Remedy, like all independent developers, works on many games at once. Even as Control was being made, a small internal team of Remedy devs was working on a new project that may or may not be set in the Control IP. We knew about this additional game as early as 2018 and then Remedy reinforced the news in 2019.

Now in its recent earnings report, the studio says the unannounced game is currently entering pre-production. This means the project isn't quite in full development, but it's gearing up to that point, and should be developed with Remedy's Northlight games engine.

Eric Barone aka ConcernedApe has one of the top-selling indie games of all time, but he's not done yet.

Stardew Valley creator Eric Barone is currently working on two new projects, and one of them is set in the franchise's beloved pixelated universe. But it won't be a farming simulator (exciting news!). The other is still quite a mystery.

"Yes, I'm actually working on a couple of new projects. One takes place in the world of Stardew Valley, but is not a farming game. The other, I'm not 100% sure about the world yet, but it will tie into Stardew Valley in some way," Barone said on Twitter.

Remedy Entertainment may be exploring other platforms for its inventive new game Control (check our our review here), possibly including next-gen systems.

Control could be coming to PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X with a dedicated port or update, Remedy teased in its latest earnings filing. The developer says Control is ripe for expansion to new platforms, which doesn't explicitly confirm next-gen systems, but doesn't rule them out either. It's also possible Control will come to service platforms like Stadia or even Nintendo's fast-growing Switch with its 52 million install base.

Remedy makes it clear the team is currently optimizing and gearing up for next-gen systems. The studio has already tremendously evolved its potent Northlight games engine to support new features like ray tracing, a new transformative environment effect that both the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X's GPUs will support.

Remedy reveals an interesting revenue split for every copy of Control sold, further illustrating what it's like to be an independent developer.

As an indie dev, Remedy has to rely on costly deals with publishers to get their games made. The team's new game Control is a big example of this. To get Control made, Remedy signed a substantial multi-year deal with publisher 505 Games. In exchange for 20 years publishing exclusivity on Control, 505 Games would distribute, market, and inject millions into Control's development. There were other stipulations though, like revenue sharing, and now we know more info.

According to Remedy's latest financial report, the developers keep less than half of the money generated from every purchase of Control. Remedy receives royalties from every game sale, and in 2019, the company earned 17.84 million Euros in revenue, up 63%, driven by these sales royalties.

Square Enix recently showed off a ton of new screenshots for Final Fantasy 7 Remake, but not all of them were awesome. Some were pretty terrifying.

Amid the new wave of awesome high-def FF7 Remake screenshots of Aerith's spellcasting skills, Tifa's boxing prowess, and Cloud's hack-and-slash chaos were two glimpses into what nightmares are made of. The new carbuncle and chocobo chick summon redesigns are just bizarre and should be remedied ASAP.

These new summons are pre-order incentives--you get the chocobo chick from any pre-order, and carbuncle from the digital deluxe on PS Store--that have immensely bizarre foreheads. For some reason, Square Enix has stretched their heads out to freakish proportions that'd make Beldar Conehead proud. Nearly every fan is uncomfortable with the redesigns (myself included).

Closer to the end of last year, we heard about an incredibly rare hybrid console called the "Nintendo PlayStation". The console was manufactured back in the 1980's and is now going on auction for a not-so-surprising amount.

If you don't know about the Nintendo PlayStation, please check out this post here to get some history on it, then head back to this article to read about the auction price. The hybrid console is being sol on Heritage Auctions, and due to its ridiculous rarity (only 200 units), the price is mighty steep. At the time of writing this post, the hybrid console is sitting at $260,000, with the next minimum bid having to be at least $312,000.

When I woke up this morning, I checked the bidding price, and it was sitting at $145,000, now just two hours later while I'm writing this post it has climbed $100,000+. At this rate, the Nintendo PlayStation could be sold for half a million dollars after the bidding closes in 21 days. If you want to sell your house to buy this console, feel free to check it out and bid here. On a personal note, when this console is sold, I hope the owner donates it to the National Videogame Museum, where it can be preserved as an artefact of gaming history.

Facebook Gaming has announced a newly secured gamer to join their platform, and it isn't who you would expect either as she didn't get her name from gaming, but instead fighting on the global stage.

This gamer is Ronda Rousey, who is known for her participation in the UFC and a former WWE world champion. Rousey took to her YouTube Channel to announce that she will be exclusively streaming video games on Facebook as of February 18th. At the moment, Rousey has more than 11.2 million Facebook fans, which answers the question as to why Facebook would want a UFT fighter gaming on its platform.

Rousey's stream is titled "Baddest Stream on The Planet" and her first livestream is scheduled in for February 18th at 3 PM PST. This isn't Rousey's first appearance in the gaming scene either, as she is the voice of Sonya Blade in Mortal Kombat 11. If you want to read up on more of that, check out this article here.

If you haven't yet seen Microsoft's Flight Simulator, then you are in for a treat because it's one of the best looking games out there at the moment.

At the moment, the game is still alpha, which means it's not close to being finished, but yet it still looks incredible. Today, we are going to be looking at a bunch of screenshots that were taken by alpha testers of the game, and boy, does it look next-gen. If you don't know much about Microsoft's Flight Simulator, I'll give you a quick rundown of the game.

In Microsoft's Flight Simulator, players will be able to take control of a range of different aircrafts and soar through the skies in a highly detailed realistic world. Flight Simulator will also use a huge amount of data from Bing Maps, and through Microsoft's cloud, it will be streamlined directly into the game to give you photo-realistic models of Earth in real-time. For more information about Microsoft's Flight Simulator, check out this link here.

Microsoft and Sony will be launching their next-gen consoles in late 2020 with an expected price of $499 each, with Bloomberg publishing a new report saying Sony is struggling with PlayStation 5 pricing over increased manufacturing costs.

According to the new report, manufacturing costs for the PlayStation 5 have reached "around $450 per unit" which is "forcing a difficult price-setting decision in its battle" with Microsoft and its next-gen Xbox Series X console. Normally Sony finalizes the pricing of its new PlayStation console in February (like, around now) and then mass produces it in the spring.

But, according to Bloomberg's sources Sony is taking a "wait-and-see approach". Rewinding back to 2013 and the release of the PS4 which retailed for $399 and cost $381 or so to manufacture (IHS Market estimations) -- a $450 manufacturing cost on the PlayStation 5 would see Sony having to retail it for at least $470 to match the $20-or-so profit per console of the PS4, so we should expect a $499 retail pricing on the PS5.