Gaming News - Page 74

Analyst's general consensus is that Grand Theft Auto 6 could sell tens of millions of copies in its first year of availability and generate nearly $3 billion in revenue.

GTA 6 is gearing up to be the most anticipated game in the last 10 years. Rockstar officially announced the game with an explosive trailer that has broken 122 million views in just 2 days. Gamers want to play now, but they'll have to wait: GTA 6 won't be here until 2025.

Analysts in the interactive entertainment field are busily updating their models for with GTA 6's projected performance and trying to fit their predictions into Take-Two's telegraphed earnings forecast. According to video games industry expert Joost van Dreunen, who cites various reports, analysts expect GTA 6 to sell about 38 million copies in its first 12 months on the market.

As per the $3.7 billion acquisition contract, Sony can take over Bungie and dissolve its internal board of directors if certain earnings targets aren't met.

New investigative reports from IGN's Rebekah Valentine shed more light on the current situation at Bungie. Sources tell IGN that the studio's independence hangs in the balance of ROI targets mandated by Sony. The $3.6 billion acquisition has squeezed Sony Interactive Entertainment's margins--the company has delivered low operating profit margins for the last three consecutive quarters as the games division pays for Bungie's buyout cost.

Bungie remained an independent subsidiary after the acquisition, complete with its game publishing branch. Two Sony executives--Head of Worldwide Studios Hermen Hulst and Sony SVP Eric Lempel--would get seats at Bungie's board of directors, sitting alongside three other Bungie execs. Part of the acquisition contract also included terms that allowed Sony to dissolve Bungie's board and take full control over Bungie's operations should the developer not hit specific earnings requirements.

Overwatch 2 players are struggling on the PlayStation 5 as numerous gamers are reporting framerate drops down to single digits.

The eighth Overwatch 2 season went live on Tuesday, and since then, gamers have been taking to Blizzard's own forums, along with Reddit, to voice their concerns with the performance of the game, specifically on the PlayStation 5. Checking the Blizzard forums, you can see dozens, potentially hundreds of players reporting framerate drops following the update. Some players reported their framerate dropped below 20 fps, rendering the game "unplayable".

Engadget reports they encountered the same issue as it took a few seconds for their character to turn around, which is undoubtedly a critical component in a competitive shooter such as Overwatch 2. Engadget described the framerate drop as "almost like playing GoldenEye 007 at 12 fps all over again." Blizzard seems to be aware of the issue as they released an update on Tuesday that states, "We are investigating reports of performance issues for some platforms."

The first-look trailer for Rockstar Games' sequel to Grand Theft Auto V has been released, and it's already shattered world records, according to Guinness World Records.

Guinness World Records has taken to its website to post an update about the newly released trailer for Grand Theft Auto IV, explaining that the extremely popular trailer, which at the time of writing has gained more than 105 million views, has already become the most liked videogame trailer on YouTube with 8.9 million likes over a 24 hour period.

Additionally, as I reported earlier, the new GTA 6 trailer also took the crown from MrBeast for the most viewed YouTube video in 24 hours (non-music). The new trailer breezed past Mr. Beast's "Every Country On Earth Fights For $250,000," which reached 59.4 million views in 24 hours as Rockstar's sequel landed on a whopping 90,421,491 views in just 24 hours.

Just when we thought CD Project Red was ready to close the book on Cyberpunk 2077, going out on a high note thanks to years of updates and fixes culminating in the release of the excellent Phantom Liberty expansion - comes Update 2.1, and another dose of RTX improvements.

Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition is out this week, and it packs in the base game and the Phantom Expansion. One of the coolest new features to arrive with Update 2.1 is that you can finally take a ride on the Night City metro system, including new, unique subway scenes and interactions. Players can now take the in-game radio system with them on the go, thanks to a new Ripperdoc implant.

Throw in new vehicles and revamped boss fights, and it's a meaty update. And for those playing the game on a high-end GeForce RTX 40 Series GPU, you'll be pleased to know that the game's Ray Tracing: Overdrive Mode has exited preview with the full release, improving visual fidelity and performance for its incredible full path tracing mode.

The first trailer for Rockstar Games' Grand Theft Auto VI didn't break YouTube, but it did break a record - snatching the crown from the biggest YouTuber on the planet, MrBeast.

The new trailer for what is likely to be the most anticipated game of all-time has gained 85 million views in just the first 22 hours of it being live, smashing MrBeast's record of 59.4 million views in just 24 hours. Notably, that ranking has excluded music videos, but that doesn't mean the Grand Theft Auto VI trailer won't beat those records too, as at the current time of writing this the trailer has almost 100 million views.

The views are a reflection of the widespread anticipation for Rockstar Games' biggest franchise, and one of the biggest gaming franchises in the world. The last installment in the series was Grand Theft Auto V, which was released more than 10 years ago, and at the time quickly breaking the record for the "highest revenue generated by an entertainment product in 24 hours," raking in $815.7 million on release day selling 11.21 million copies.

Full ray tracing or path tracing is only available in a handful of titles, but the results are as mind-blowingly impressive as they are taxing on a graphics card. Cyberpunk 2077, Alan Wake II, and Portal with RTX are three examples that offer full ray-tracing modes where you need a GeForce RTX 40 Series GPU with DLSS 3.5 Ray Reconstruction and Frame Generation to achieve a playable frame rate.

As part of the latest GeForce Game Ready Driver WHQL Driver 546.29 release from NVIDIA, which adds day-one support for Ubisoft's Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition, and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III and Warzone Season 1, we got the surprise news that Call of Duty and Warzone are getting full ray tracing and DLSS 3.5 Ray Reconstruction "to enhance the appearance of your loadout, characters and vehicles," with Warzone also finally getting DLSS 3 Frame Generation support.

Now, you might be wondering what sort of impact full ray tracing will have on in-game performance - you don't have to worry about that because the full ray tracing applies to the multiplayer lobbies for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III and Warzone. And not in-game.

The ASUS ROG Ally gaming handheld is a haven for modders, with most of the mods voiding the warranty on your expensive new gaming handheld. Be careful... however, some are doubling the RAM, and increasing its speed through mods.

We've now got memory modifications being applied to the ASUS ROG Ally, with SlickBuys Mods and Repairs changing over the 16GB of LPDDR5 memory inside of the handheld, with 32GB of LPDDR5X memory. Twice the memory, and it's faster: from 6400MT/s to 7500MT/s inside of the ASUS ROG Ally.

Inside, the ROG Ally features 4 memory modules that need to all be removed and swapped over. Once you've taken out and replaced the RAM modules, you'll need to remove and reprogram the BIOS chip so that it recognizes and works with the increased capacity and speed (16GB to 32GB and LPDDR5 to LPDDR5X memory).

Well, Grand Theft Auto 6 has been officially announced, and it looks incredible... Rockstar has been cooking, that's for sure... but we should expect an even better visual treat for the timed console exclusive on the higher-end PlayStation 5 Pro console.

Rockstar will most likely be targeting 1440p 30FPS on the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, and probably a lower rendering resolution for the Xbox Series S at up to 30FPS. I'd like to see Grand Theft Auto 6 feature a 60FPS mode on the PS5 and XSX consoles at a lower rendering resolution (and using upscaling to look better).

But... what about a beefed-up PlayStation 5 Pro console?

Microsoft gaming boss Phil Spencer clarifies that the company has 'no plans' to migrate Xbox Game Pass onto rival consoles like Nintendo or PlayStation, but neither really wants such a service on their platforms anyway.

A bit ago at a Wells Fargo tech conference, Xbox finance officer Tim Stuart said that Microsoft wants to bring Game Pass to "all screens," including competing platforms like PlayStation and Nintendo. This won't be happening.

In a recent interview with Windows Central's Jez Corden, Xbox gaming CEO Phil Spencer confirms that offering Game Pass on PlayStation or Nintendo isn't part of the strategy.