Gaming - Page 724

Anything new that comes out Death Stranding related is extremely hot news, as the mystery surrounding Hideo Kojima's upcoming title is one that would very much like to be solved. With that being said, the director has yet again teased his audience.

Earlier today, Kojima took to his personal Twitter account to share an image of a Death Stranding video being played on a PC. The first image that Kojima uploaded featured the run time for the video in the bottom left hand corner of the PC screen. Kojima soon removed that image and uploaded an edited one that didn't feature the run time.

Before Kojima could get away with the edited image, a fan saved the image and uploaded it to his own personal Twitter revealing that whatever Kojima had running on the PC screen would be over 8 minutes long. If this is the next trailer for Death Stranding we can expect that whenever Kojima decides to showcase it that it will feature gameplay of some kind, as 8 minutes of straight cinematic would surely give some story away. At the moment Death Stranding is a PS4 exclusive, but when asked about a PC port for the game Kojima didn't deny one was possible, more on that here.

Following up on yesterdays rumors, Paramount Pictures have indeed released the first trailer for an upcoming live-action movie starring Sonic The Hedgehog and none other than Jim Carrey.

The trailer has been released onto the Paramount Pictures YouTube Channel and reveals to fans that in-fact the design we saw of Sonic back in early March was an accurate one. Now that a trailer has been released and we can see Sonic in action many fans aren't very sold on the design of their favorite blue hedgehog. Sonic doesn't feature his iconic gloves, nor does he have those over sized shoes and for some reason has human shaped eyes.

On a more positive note, Jim Carrey will be taking the reins as Sonic's villain Dr. 'Eggman' Robotnik, and while Carrey doesn't have the roundness that Eggman has in games, he will certainly have the character. Overall, this movie is a strange one and fans are quite on the fence to whether they enjoy it or not, at the moment the 'likes' to 'dislike' ratio on the video is 154,000 down-votes compared to 110,000 up-votes. Sonic The Hedgehog will be rushing onto the big screen sometime this November.

343 Industries and its partners rev up hardware, UI, and control optimizations for Halo: The Master Chief Collection's impending PC release.

Halo: The Master Chief Collection is coming to PC (it's even coming to Steam), and the team wants to harness the full brunt of graphics and processing hardware with the multi-configuration flexibility of the platform to breathe new life into the franchise. Now in a new Halo Waypoint update we get a full list of everything Halo MCC on PC should offer, and it's pretty enticing.

Short-hand optimizations include support for 4K resolution and beyond with HDR visuals, uncapped frame rates in certain games, adaptive sync support, FOV sliders, a plethora of video settings and UI tweaks, and support for multiple aspect ratios like 21:9. But 343i is careful to note that some of these features may not be available on all of the MCC's six games.

Today marks what should be a monumentous occasion for Valve, but ultimately makes the tech titan's job of wrangling users even harder.

With the new account amuseddragonfly, Steam just hit 1 billion registered users, an absolutely huge milestone for any platform. But there's just one problem: 91% of them aren't active PC gamers and are likely bots/scam accounts or even alts.

As of 2018, Steam had about 90 million active monthly users who did normal human things: logged in, bought and played games, and interacted with friends. A quick bit of math shows that Steam's MAUs are just 9% of the massive 1 billion accounts, meaning only 9% of all registered PC users are active on the platform.

Most people thought that the Razer Toaster was a joke, first making its appearance into this realm of existence 5 years from FB page 'Give us the Razer Toaster' asked Razer CEO Min-Liang Tang about the possibilities of a Razer Toaster.

Back in September 2013 the FB group started the Razer Toaster movement with the tease of 'have a slice of ownage' with the Razer logo burned into the bread, and it looked awesome. At the time, Min-Liang Tan said if the page hit 1 million likes he said he would definitely make one. Well, after the video went live the community did what they do best -- rallied together and made it happen.

The hype for the Razer Toaster continued with other content creators getting behind it with their own takes on the gaming toaster, and even Razer itself for April Fools 2016 where it joked about 'Project Breadwinner'. An actual Razer Toaster tease with the marketing slogan of 'It's a little bit... toasty'. From there it gained enough steam that the Give us the Razer Toaster page on Facebook had over 1 million likes, and now Min-Liang is living up to his promise of making the Razer Toaster real.

Stardew Valley developer Eric 'ConcernedApe' Barone has revealed via his personal Twitter a new coming update to Stardew Valley. The update will be adding a brand new map for players to enjoy over multiplayer.

Barone has teased the new update on his personal Twitter account by sharing a screenshot of the new map which has been titled 'Four Corners'. The new update will bring the game up to version 1.4 and according to Barone this update will be "a big one". Barone also touches on the fact that this new farm map is "perfect for the much requested "separate money" option in multiplayer".

At the moment there is no known release date for this coming update, but what we do know is that PC users will be getting 1.4 first before any other platform. After the update has debuted on PC it will then be followed by a debut on the Nintendo Switch and mobile versions of the game. For further information regarding Stardew Valley, visit the official website for the title here.

At the moment Japan is embracing what they call their Golden Week, this is when Japanese workers have about a week off work due to their being a cluster of national holidays. To celebrate this week Valve has discounted many games across the entire Steam Store.

Steam isn't the only store that is being hit with massive sales, Sony have also brought the Golden Week sales to the PSN Store, discounting 500 titles across the PS4, PS4, PS Vita, PSP and DLC content. Microsoft hasn't joined in on the action as of yet but Valve have stepped up to the plate with a HUGE range of discounts across Steams entire breath of library.

Valve has heavily discounted a range of classic Japanese titles such as the Dark Souls series, Devil May Cry, Final Fantasy, Street Fighter, Resident Evil and Nier: Automata. There is also other titles such as Dragon Ball FighterZ, Jump Force, God Eater 3, Frostpunk, Resident Evil 2 and the Nioh: Complete Edition. All of the mentioned titles are discounted by at least 25%, and this is just scratching the surface of all of the games Valve have decided to discount. To see the sales for yourself head on over to the Steam Store here.

It wasn't too long ago that we learned that Kingdom Hearts III would be getting its very own challenge mode, now a new announcement has confirmed that there is a DLC coming for the title.

The announcement comes from the Kingdom Hearts Orchestra: World of Tres concert, where Kingdom Hearts director Tetsuya Nomura confirmed that there is a Kingdom Hearts DLC on its way. The DLC has been titled Kingdom Hearts III ReMIND and will include the following; an additional scenario 'ReMIND', Limit Episode + boss, secret episode + boss and a new keyblade + a new form.

There has been no official release date mentioned for the DLC as of yet, so I will keep my ears pricked for when an official announcement comes out of Square Enix. If you are interested in checking out more Kingdom Hearts III news, check out this gameplay video for the title here. Kingdom Hearts III is currently available on the Xbox One and PS4.

Nintendo's annual earnings show just how important the Switch is to its continued success, and further spells the end of its 3DS handheld.

Nintendo's latest FY2019 financial earnings illustrate one key point: the Switch is far and away the company's biggest cash crop. The handheld-console hybrid made up 85% of Nintendo's $10.8 billion in sales revenue during the period, driven by 16.5 million console shipments and titanic sales in games like Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, which grew to 13.81 million. With these numbers, the Switch made nearly as much as the Xbox's entire segment did in 2018.

Worldwide Switch hardware, software, and Switch Online sales pulled in 1.02 trillion yen ($9.26 billion) in the fiscal year ended March 31, 2019, up 36.4% from last year. The 3DS, whose hardware and software sales were down more than half of last year, only made 5.2% of total sales revenue during the period.

The rift between Microsoft and original Minecraft creator Markus Persson widens as the series' decennial anniversary looms.

In May, Minecraft turns 10 years old. But the voxel sensation's original creator won't be allowed to attend a special anniversary event thrown by Mojang. The company has barred billionaire developer Markus Persson from attending due to his problematic comments on Twitter. Essentially Persson has become a threat to Microsoft's family-oriented vision for Minecraft."His comments and opinions do not reflect those of Microsoft or Mojang and are not representative of 'Minecraft," Microsoft told Variety.

It's been five years since Microsoft bought Minecraft for $2.5 billion, turning Persson into a rare sight: the billionaire game dev. Since then the game has been considerably updated and released on multiple platforms.

SEGA's yearly results see profits drop considerably, but the company is far from in the red.

Japanese games-makers like SEGA and Square Enix aren't doing too well right now. In its latest FY2018 financials, SEGA reported a 70.4% drop in annual profits due to a number of missteps in the digital gaming market. The company asserts its focus on digital, which failed to gain traction due to lack of hit titles on the platform, will shift to a new strategy: full game sales based on proven IPs like Yakuza, Persona, and Sonic.

This drop saw SEGA raking in only $23.82 million in profits last fiscal year. The main driver behind this drop is increased expenditures and spending in certain areas like games development and R&D, accompanied by an office re-location in Tokyo, Japan. SEGA's performance wasn't abysmal, however, and the company isn't in the red. SEGA did record a big drop in total profits, but sales were up 2.5% to $2.99 billion on the heels of successful game sales in retail and on PC.

A new patch is on its way to NetherRealm Studio's Mortal Kombat 11, the patch will be gifting players with bulk currencies as well as a reducing difficulty levels in some game modes.

The coming patch has been detailed on the official sub reddit for Mortal Kombat, a thread has been published by Warner Bros. that reveals players will be getting a whole lot of currencies once the patch goes live. According to the thread, Warner Bros. is "dedicated to bringing you the best experience possible and working to get the latest updates and patches live across all platforms. We're aware of the difficulty issues in Towers of Time, and while we've made some changes, rest assured there are more on the way."

In compensation for the Towers of Time being on the grindy side of things, as well as the community response for Mortal Kombat 11, Warner Bros. has decided to gift players with a bunch of currencies. Once this patch goes live, players will receive 500,000 Koins, 500 Hearts, 1,000 Soul Fragments and 1,000 Time Krystals. It should be noted that these currency additions will allow for players to unlock some chests, more accurately the Hearts are equivalent of $10 in real life money and will allow players to open two of the premium Shao Kahn chests. The entire patch notes have been provided in the entirety of this post.

Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is no doubt one of the best Zelda games released in the series, and now some statistics has come out of Japan regarding the sales of the title.

A new sales thread has been spotted on Reset Era and has revealed the sales statistics for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild in Japan. It is already known that Breath of the Wild has been the best-selling Zelda game in the West, and contributed heavily to the charge of Nintendo Switch sales that is ever-growing.

New sales data has come out from Media Crate and has claimed that Breath of the Wild has finally surpassed The Legend of Zelda on NES in sales. Breath of the Wild has achieved 1,719,401 units in Japan, beating The Legend of Zelda on NES which clocked in with 1,690,000 units. If you are interested in checking out more of the sales data, head on over to the official Media Crate sales thread here.

Mortal Kombat 11 recently released and has copped a considerable amount of flack regarding its monetization aspects. Some of the other aspects of Mortal Kombat 11 that are getting some hate is the PC FPS lock.

The concerns come from the PC version of the game that currently has an in-built FPS lock for menu's, fatal blows, fatalities and Krypto mode. Since PC players have the advantage of creating mods for games to solve issues such as these, modder Endri Lauson has gone ahead and done just that. The mod removes the 30FPS cap on the menus, intros, fatal blows, Fatalities and Krypt. In addition the mod also provides gamers who are using Ultra Wide monitors in 21:9 aspect ratio to remove the black sidebards on their screen, essentially providing support for Ultra Wide gamers.

It should be noted that this mod could be detected by anti-virus software and according to the description of the mod "it reads your key presses on the game (the HotKeys) in order to enable/disable effects. Anti-viruses _may_ not like it and _may_ classify it as a "key logger" (Windows Defender didn't complain). The program also patches the game on-the-fly, so anti-viruses may not like it as well and _may_ classify it as a "hack", a "cheat" engine or a "possible unwanted program", PUP (again, Windows Defender didn't complain). But I assure you the patch is completely clean." If you are interested in this mod for the PC verison of Mortal Kombat 11, you can download it here.

During Tribeca 2019, Death Stranding director Hideo Kojima discussed some aspects of his upcoming title, one of the questions he was asked regarded a PC version of the game.

Hideo Kojima was a guest during Tribeca 2019 film festival in New York and was asked a few questions regarding the mysterious Death Stranding. He danced around many of the questions about Death Stranding not revealing anything too considerable, just teasing fans with replies such as "I think people will cry, yeah".

One of the questions that Kojima was asked was about a possible PC version of the game, according to Michelle Jaworski, Kojima didn't really answer the question. Now that doesn't mean that there is a PC version coming, nor does it confirm that there isn't one coming, it just means that Kojima decided not to answer the question. What should be taken into account though is that Kojima could of easily disproved rumors of a PC version by saying that there isn't one planned at the moment. Perhaps the director is waiting for a better time to reveal the PC version and let the mystery brew over some time.

Some modders have managed to get The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild working on PC in first-person mode in virtual reality using a Nintendo Wii U emulator.

The emulator that is being used to play Breath of the Wild on PC is the Wii U emulator CEMU, and according to BSoD Gaming the game is running at a smooth 60FPS. The mod that is being shown in the above video is a mod that has enabled Breath of the wild to be playable in VR, but in first-person mode. During times such as climbing or fighting multiple opponents the camera can be zoomed out to third-person mode to allow for a better field of view.

If you haven't given Breath of the Wild a go and are curious about the potential of the game and don't want to go out and drop some money on a Nintendo Switch give the game a test run on your PC. The CEMU emulator allows for PC gamers to not miss out on the vastness of the Breath of the Wild world. It should be noted that due to the game being emulated onto PC that it comes with minor bug problems, menus are slightly hard to navigate, there might be some graphical glitches here and but overall is quite an enjoyable experience. If you want to check out the mod, visit this link here.

Amid an earnings slip, SEGA re-focuses development on existing IPs and will bring more of its key franchises and games overseas.

SEGA didn't do too well in its FY2018 earnings. The company's yearly profits plummeted over 70% to $23.82 million, and its Road to 2020 roadmap of games earnings has fallen apart due to market miscalcuations, too many games in development, lack of sales performance, and game delays. As SEGA says, the plan "fell significantly below the initial plan due to deterioration of business environment and lack of hit titles."

But SEGA has a plan: do more of what's actually working. And right now that means doubling-down on popular franchises like Persona, Yakuza, and Sonic and straying away from developing too many new IPs. Instead the games-maker will focus strongly on proven hits while also throwing in a remaster/re-release or two.

Analyst firm Jon Peddie Research predicts that streaming and lower-cost game consoles could attract PC gamers in the next few years.

According to a new market report, 20 million PC gamers will leave their rigs behind by 2022 and instead adopt more accessible, convenient, and cheaper games hardware and services. The official report is paygated, but the timing infers that cloud-based game streaming services like Google's big Stadia platform and Microsoft's Project xCloud will be a motivation for this exodus, alongside next-gen consoles like Sony's PlayStation 5 and Microsoft's Xbox Scarlett family of systems.

Wizards of the Coast hires ex-BioWare dev responsible for beloved RPGs like Dragon Age: Origins and Knights of the Old Republic to lead a new studio.

BioWare veteran James Ohlen has had a storied history. Ohlen served as lead designer on some of BioWare's hallmark RPGs and had a direct role in shaping the kinds of in-depth experiences we just don't get from the studio today; games like DA: Origins, KotoR, Baldur's Gate, and Neverwinter Nights. Now after leaving BioWare during its disastrous pre-Anthem morale crash, Ohlen is back in the game. This time he's teamed up with Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons and Dragons-maker Wizards of the Coast.

Ohlen will lead a new Austin-based studio and work on a brand new IP that sits outside of MtG and D&D, but it's unclear if it'll be a traditional video game, a tabletop experience, of even a CCG. It could even be an intuitive blend of these platforms...but I'm hoping it's an actual game. Wizards hasn't had a really good fantasy RPG video game in a while.

Microsoft chases engagement even harder by doling out free digital items in exchange for stream viewerships

One of the best ways to get consumers to participate in anything is to give out free stuff. Microsoft has a history of this: first they started up a prize lottery you enter by completing in-game objectives, then Xbox Quests on Game Pass that pays you in MS Points for doing things in the service's games. MixPot, which gives you free games or content for watching announcement streams like E3 2019, was another initiative. Now the company is giving out free in-game loot for watching Mixer streams.

The company recently announced Mixer Loot, an initiative that rewards viewers with free digital loot if they happen to catch specific in-game moments. The promo will start with Sea of Thieves, and you'll have to watch 30 arena matches between April 30 and May 5 to get the loot pack. Oh and, there's a "while supplies last" attached to the terms, as if Microsoft can run out of digital items.