Gaming - Page 749

Thanks to its transforming handheld-console hybrid form factor, the Switch is a two-in-one system that brings huge value to consumers--especially in avid handheld-loving countries like Japan.

According to this week's Media Create Sales, the Nintendo Switch has outsold Sony's PlayStation 4 console in Japan. The Switch currently has a 47,881 sales lead over the PS4, even when combining base and Pro versions.

The sales-tracking firm notes the Switch has sold more than 8.12 million consoles in Japan in 114 weeks, compared to the PS4's 8.07 million generated in 272 weeks. This means the Switch overtook the PS4 despite being available for less than half the time as the PS4.

Blizzard claimed many teenage and adult lives when they released World of Warcraft back in 2004, now the company plans to allow you to re-live those captured years in World of Warcraft Classic on August 27th.

Blizzard will be allowing WoW players to jump back into what has been deemed as the 'vanilla experience' of WoW, and take on not only the classic bosses in raids but the massive amount of nostalgia that will be coursing through players' veins. Blizzard will be celebrating their 15th anniversary by allowing for 25-player raids that will pit players against some of the most iconic bosses in the franchise. Of course there will be rewards, for any player that manages to defeat all of the classic bosses will be rewarded with a new mount called Obsidian Worldbreaker.

World of Warcraft Classic will take players back to the game during the Drums of War update which was patch 1.12. Content wise, World of Warcraft Classic will feature periodically rolled out patches that will arrive in the same original order of 2004. "Re-experience WoW history unfolding as heroes gear up for Blackwing Lair; players battle for PvP Honor and Rank rewards; and entire realms band together to open the gates of Ahn'Qiraj.". Beginning today, players who sign up for the closed beta tests may get the chance to jump into the WoW Classic servers early, it should be noted that not all players who sign up get an invite.

A new announcement has come out of Nintendo regarding their upcoming title Super Mario Maker 2. The announcement gives Nintendo fans a time to view a Nintendo Direct livestream surrounding Super Mario Maker 2.

Back in February, Nintendo announced Super Mario Maker 2, a sequel to the Nintendo Wii U and Nintendo 3DS title Super Mario Maker. The sequel will come jam packed with a bunch of new features in the form of enemies, level creation, obstacles and much more. Now, Nintendo have announced a dedicated live stream to reveal many more aspects of the new title. The live stream will run for 15 minutes and will begin on May 15th at 3 p.m. PT/6 p.m. ET.

After this 15 minute presentation is finished I will be sure to update you with a list of new features that will be included within Super Mario Maker 2. Super Mario Maker 2 will be released on June 28th exclusively for the Nintendo Switch. If you are interested in more information about Super Mario Maker 2, head on over to the official website here.

E3 2019 is shaping up to be one of the biggest E3's in history with AMD to unveil its next-gen Radeon Navi graphics cards at the event with the recently-confirmed Next Horizon Gaming event and now the PC Gaming Show has been announced to be returning to E3 once again.

This year's PC Gaming Show is being sponsored by Epic Games with the Fortnite developer and creator of Unreal Engine to unveil "brand new material for several games" as well as "some exclusives coming to the Epic Game Store". There are a bunch of other game developers that will be at the PC Gaming Show, with more attendees to be announced as we get closer to the show.

For now, these developers have confirmed they'll be at the PC Gaming Show:

Just as I exclusively revealed, AMD will be hosting its Next Horizon Gaming event at E3 2019 where we should be introduced to Radeon Navi and a more public unveiling of its next-gen Zen 2 architecture post-Computex and more gaming-focused at E3.

AMD has now officially confirmed it and dubbed the event 'Next Horizon Gaming' continuing the Next Horizon trend from its unveiling of the world's first 7nm GPU and 7nm CPU last year in San Francisco. The event will be hosted by The Game Awards creator Geoff Keighley at The Novo at LA Live on June 10 at 3PM PDT.

The event will include appearances by some of the leading game developers and we'll also get an exclusive look at some of the upcoming games arriving later in the year. AMD will be livestreaming the event on their YouTube channel and Facebook page, with a replay of the webcast to be made available a few hours after the event.

Terminal Reality's Ghostbusters video game is one of the best last-generation experiences, and it's getting reborn on PS4 and Xbox One.

Ghostbusters games have always been a mixed bag. But in 2009 gamers were treated with the best haunt in the franchise: a big-budget AAA game that used all four original Ghostbusters' voices, likenesses, and personalities, complete with a new story arc that furthered the franchise. For all intents and purposes, Ghostbusters: The Video Game was treated as the never-finished Ghostbusters 3 movie.

Now the beloved fan favorite is getting reborn for current-gen systems. A Ghostbusters remaster has been spotted on the Taiwanese Entertainment Software Registration website. The listing says NBA Playgrounds developer Mad Dog LLC is making the game, but the game has yet to be formally announced.

A new Splinter Cell game is currently in development, Ubisoft creative director Julian Gerighty confirms, and is slated for an E3 2019 reveal.

It's been nearly 10 years since Sam Fisher's last adventure, and fans have been clamoring for another game ever since. In 2017, Ubisoft's Yves Guillemot said the franchise isn't dead, and according to one Ubisoft dev the wait may be over sooner than later. Julian Gerighty, who has worked on big-name games like The Division and The Crew, says he's currently developing a new Splinter Cell at Ubisoft's Ivory Tower studio. Other devs from Ubisoft Montreal are contributing.

"Working on the next Splinter Cell with Dan Hay and Roman Campos Oriola in Lyon," Gerighty said on Twitter. "Can't wait for E3."

Red Dead Redemption 2 has now sold 24 million copies worldwide on PS4 and Xbox One, but those numbers indicate significant slow-down for a Rockstar game.

Today Take-Two announced its Fiscal Year 2019 earnings, reporting huge net sales earnings of $2.66 billion, and confirming Red Dead Redemption 2's monumental 24 million sales. Putting these sales into perspective shows Rockstar's outlaw RPG only sold 1 million copies last quarter, hinting sales are moderating quite soon after launch.

In comparison, the game moved a huge 23 million copies during launch and amassed $725 million in 3 days time. It went on to become the biggest entertainment launch in 2018 despite releasing in the last quarter of the year.

A sequel to Disney's Maleficent has been announced through a brand new teaser trailer that has been released onto the official Walt Disney Studios YouTube Channel.

According to the description of the above video, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil is based "several years" after the events of 2014's first Maleficent. The story that will be told in the upcoming sequel will surround the "complex relationship between the horned fairy and the soon to be Queen as they form new alliances and face new adversaries in their struggle to protect the moors and the magical creatures that reside within."

The movie will be directed by Joachim Ronning, produced by Joe Roth and executive producers include; Angelina Jolie and Duncan Henderson with Matt Smith, Jeff Kirschenbaum and Michael Vieira. Actors wise we are looking at; Angelina Jolie in the lead role, Elle Fanning as Princess Aurora and Michelle Pfeiffer as Queen Ingrith. Maleficent: Mistress of Evil is expected to arrive in theaters in the US on October 18th.

Asobo Studio has released the launch trailer for their upcoming drama filled title A Plague Tale: Innocence. The trailer throws the viewer into lives of Amicia and her little brother Hugo and the plethora of unfortunate situations they have to undergo.

For those that don't know, A Plague Tale: Innocence a deep and emotionally compelling story that surrounds the likes of a brother and sister doing they absolute best to survive in 14th century France. The gameplay players can expect combines both a strategic approach with stealth, alongside emotionally connected brutality and true sense of protection for Amicia's little brother Hugo.

Players will also fear their environment as in every direction Amicia and Hugo are carried they face the horror swarms of black plague rats. A Plague Tale: Innocence will be arriving on PC, Xbox One and PS4 on May 14th. For more information, head on over to the official A Plague Tale: Innocence website here.

A new teaser trailer has been released for Oddworld: Soulstorm and it reveals some of the titles gameplay as well as showing off an awesome new industrial setting.

Oddworld: Soulstorm is a follow-up sequel to Oddworld New 'n' Tasty which was released back in July of 2014. Two years after the release of Oddworld New 'n' Tasty, Oddworld Inhabitants announced Soulstorm. Since then it has basically been radio silence, but now a new trailer has been set loose and it seems the wait has been totally worthwhile.

Oddworld's creator Lorne Lanning originally wanted to tell a single story over five separate games, the Oddworld Quintology. Oddworld: Soulstorm is the second installment in the series and has breathed life back in the original vision of five games. Oddworld: Soulstorm is planned for release in early 2020, for more information visit the official website here.

A hot new press release has revealed that Discord is home to 250 million users across their live chatting service, this number is most impressive considering the service was only founded four years ago.

Discord was founded back in 2015, and since then many gamers and friends alike have taken a liking to the slick new software. Many gamers use the software to communicate in real-time to their fellow gamers, but that isn't all of what Discord is used for. In the above 'Bringing People Together' video, it is detailed that Discord is also home to many people who enjoy the likes of discussing sports, playing tabletop games, music, pets and even news reporting.

Discord is quite a diverse platform and has allowed 250 million users to find a comfortable place to sit down a chat about whatever is on their mind. Over 56 million users are present on the service every month and on average there is 850 million messages sent per day. On a monthly scale that is 25 billion messages. Discord's userbase flourished in the last year when it grew by a staggering 120 million users. If you are interested in joining Discord, the service is completely free and can be used in a web browser if you don't want to download it. If you don't mind downloading it, check out the official website here.

Microsoft is gearing up towards its next-gen Xbox reveal at E3 2019 in just a few weeks time, with news breaking that its newest first-party game studio 'The Initiative' has landed an ex-Naughty Dog game developer.

Robert Ryan has joined The Initiative coming in EA's in-house Motive Studios working on an unannounced title, and before that from Naughty Dog as the game designer for Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception, The Last of Us, Uncharged 4: A Thief's End and the new and yet unreleased The Last of Us: Part II. Ryan joins a team of talented and prolific game directors at The Initiative.

The Initiative is made up of a bunch of developers and staff that Microsoft aims to have the studio build games at the quality of God of War and Uncharted, but exclusive to the Xbox. The team is made up of talent coming in from Sony, Activision, Treyarch, Respawn Entertainment, and Riot Games. Remember that E3 2019 is right around the corner, so we should expect to see a tease of what The Initiative has been working on and hopefully we see it on the next-gen Xbox consoles.

EA and DICE introduced the battle royale mode 'Firestorm' into Battlefield V a little while back now and it hasn't really done much at all, especially against the likes of EA's other battle royale surprise Apex Legends.

But in the land Down Under including New Zealand and other nations in Oceania, have suffered from not just a lack of gamers wanting to play Firestorm, but the low ping range to DICE's own servers sucks pretty bad, too. A new Reddit post from Australian gamer Ciaran Doherty said Firestorm is "essentially impossible to play [Battlefield 5] at any time of day in any mode".

Doherty's comments continue: "For all intents and purposes, there is no such thing as Firestorm in this continent and to EA/DICE, your marketing material should reflect this. Please do not advertise Firestorm here, there are no players, no functional servers and no possibility for anyone buying the game for Firestorm to actually get what they paid for".

Rockstar is reportedly rolling out the red carpet for E3 2019 with a new rumor suggesting the developer will be surprising fans at E3 next month with an announcement or two.

The rumor is coming from Reddit user 'ThirdeyeReddit' who claims they're a Take-Two staffer and that the publisher is working on a "landing page" for an unannounced game that Rockstar will unveil at E3 2019. The anonymous poster said that the announcement will "blindside" gamers who were expecting to see Rockstar working on something else.

If we're going to play around in this scenario, what could Rockstar release that would "blindside" gamers? Well, the most obvious one would be Grand Theft Auto 6 which we've previously reported on other rumors that Sony paid "big money" to have it as a 1-month exclusive to its next-gen PlayStation 5 console. That would blindside gamers as most people aren't expecting it this soon, and more so in 2020-2021.

Amid dismal sales and disastrous profit losses, Starbreeze warns investors that it may have to close down and sell off its core assets to repay debts.

Starbreeze has been in trouble for some time now, but it's not out of the race yet. The company's financial woes have improved slightly in Q1, with profit losses reduced by a sizable 85% since last year ($11 million profit losses compared to $135 million). It's still in the red, but the shade has gotten a bit lighter. But make no mistake: things are still pretty dire for the Payday developer, and Starbreeze CEO Mikael Nermark isn't sure Starbreeze will last through the year.

"Starbreeze and some of its subsidiaries have been in reconstruction since 3 December 2018. The company currently lacks sufficient secured funds to guarantee continued operations for the next 12 months and is expected to have a liquidity shortfall before mid-year 2019 if no additional funds are provided," Nermark said in a recent earnings report. "These conditions indicate that there are significant uncertainties that can lead to significant doubts about the company's ability to continue its business."

With original PC shooters like Doom and Quake, id Software is known far and wide for their FPS mastery. But there's one scrappy up-and-comer who's garnered lots of attention with their Wolfenstein reboots...and the two giants could join forces to make a new Quake game.

My friends and I have wanted a new Quake game for a while. Quake 4 was bizarre and awesome all at the same time, but it's been quite a while since gamers got an explosive, singleplayer-driven gothic-medieval gorefest. When Bethesda took over id Software it delivered Quake Champions...a so-so multiplayer fragfest aimed at engagement and live services. But we need something more...and Quake deserves something meaty.

If MachineGames founder Jerk Gustafsson has his way, the Wolfenstein devs will work with id to make a brand new re-imagining of the Quake series. "Quake is the reason I got into gaming. Discovering WorldCraft and Level Design, making maps for Quake, was one of the best experiences of my life - I even still do it today. Developing a Quake game (a re-imagination of Quake 1) is and will always be on my bucket list, but working with Wolfenstein and getting to work closely with my heroes over at id Software is pretty awesome too," Gustafsson said in a recent Reddit AMA.

Square Enix isn't giving up on new IP curation and investment, and plans to bolster big franchises like Final Fantasy with fresh new endeavors.

All too often big publishers shy away from new IPs to focus on big franchises. Activision-Blizzard is pretty much exclusively making sequels in core IPs, but Japanese games-makers are taking a different tact. Today Square Enix revealed its FY2018 financials, and they weren't too good: operating income was down 35%, and total profits dipped by 28%. But the company's earnings slips aren't inspiring Activision-Blizzard's tunnel vision. The publisher promises to put even more emphasis on new series and franchises to help generate more sales.

"We will aggressively invest in new IP on an ongoing basis to enrich our portfolio and enable sustained growth," Square Enix said in its latest earnings brief.

Square Enix's recent performance shows the publisher is ramping up for a big future...but it probably won't happen this year.

Square Enix today announced its earnings for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2019, showing dips in operating income and profits while total expenditures rose by 20%. Key metrics show a sizable jump in game sales thanks to Kingdom Hearts III's massive acclaim, prompting total net sales revenues to rise 8.2% YoY to 271 billion yen ($2.44 billion). Earnings slips offset this favorable performance, however.

Other metrics failed to rise during the year. Operating income for the FY2018 period dropped a big 35% YoY to 24.5 billion yen ($220.91 million), and Square Enix notes this dip is caused by larger investment in the year's under-performing games. Total profits sit at 18.4 billion yen ($165.91 million), dropping almost 30% from last year's.

Although Square Enix plans to show off more Final Fantasy VII: Remake at E3 2019, the first chapter of the trilogy may not release in 2019.

Square Enix's latest earnings report gives visibility into the publisher's upcoming pipeline and may hint at release timings for some of its biggest games. There's usually telltale signs that accompany any big game's launch year, including earnings spikes and sales jumps. Those indicators aren't found in Square Enix's forecasts for this year, but next year.

The publisher expects earnings to moderate in the current fiscal year ending March 31, 2020. Square Enix predicts it'll make 270 billion yen ($2.43 billion) in net sales, with its gaming branch raking in 200 billion yen ($1.8 billion) across the year, slightly down from last year. Overall sales are also expected to drop this fiscal year, which doesn't really align with the launch of a huge game like Final Fantasy VII: Remake. It expects to sell 18.27 million copies this year, down 31% year-over-year. Last year Square Enix sold 26.55 million copies of games thanks to Kingdom Hearts III's strong performance, so admittedly there's a high threshold to break this year...but the FF7 Remake shouldn't have a problem doing so.