Gaming - Page 776

In an effort to bring vibrance and uniqueness to the PlayStation 4 platform, Sony continues doubling down on new IP creation.

Creating new IPs can be a risky gambit. There's no guarantee a new IP will pay off--many are hit and miss--which is why we see companies throwing out sequels rather than making original projects. But with a huge install base of consoles and a wider focus on smartphones, Sony is all too eager to take that risk with first-party exclusives to drive up software and services revenue. Diversification is key in this business, especially if you're a platform-maker, and Sony wants to make PlayStation a spectrum of new content.

According to new data gleaned by GamesIndustry.biz, almost half of Sony's new releases in 2018 were new IPs. The company released 19 games this year, of which 10 were new IPs. This means Sony released five times more new IPs this year than its competitors Nintendo and Microsoft, who both had two new IPs.

Warframe PC players will be set some new challenges as Digital Extremes has issued out a new update to Fortuna. Introducing the opportunity to take down the FIRST Orb Mother, so there is more than one if this is the first?

The news comes from a recently released press release from Digital Extremes, as well as the above 'Warframe: Fortuna - The Profit-Taker' launch trailer. Players will be embarking on a mission to take down their first Orb Mother, according to the press release the Orb Mother is "perched atop the Enrichment Labs on the outskirts of Fortuna" and is "protected by Sentient overshield technology, making it invulnerable to weapons fire."

Players will have to discover the weak points of the Orb Mother before they will be able to battle her, this will be done by players working with Solaris United to gather intel and the other tools that will be needed for the fight. Obviously some kick-ass weapons will be needed to do some damage on the Orb Mother so, "with the Gravimag, upgrade your Archweapons - previously only available to equip in space - for use in any mission!" This is merely the beginning of the free update, to check out more of the content visit the official Warframe blog post here. Console gamers should note that this update is "coming soon to consoles"

Valve has revealed the start date for the coming Steam Winter Sale that will no doubt take advantage of most PC gamers wallets. To tie us over until the sales are live, Valve has debuted the Steam Award Nominees for each category.

According to the Steam Community announcement from Valve, gamers can expect the commencing of the Steam Winter Sale to start on December 20th, this coming Friday. For those that haven't been lucky enough to experience multiple Steam Winter Sales, it should be noted that each day the client will update with a new batch of sales ranging across a large selection of games. The sales will officially stop on the 3rd of January.

Moving onto the Steam Award Nominees, Valve has categorized each of their contestants into eight different categories, those categories are; Game of the Year, VR Game of the Year, Labor of Love, Best Environment, Better with Friends, Best Alternate History, Most Fun with a Machine and Best Developer. Valve has said that the voting will coincide with the beginning of the Steam Winter Sales (December 20th) and will finalize on January 3rd as well. The winners of each of the categories will be announced early February. For more information, please visit the official Steam Community post here.

Nintendo have announced that since the release of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, the Nintendo Switch has taken first place as the "fastest-selling US console."

The announcement is sourced from Destructoid, as well as the above Twitter post which comes from the Nintendo America Twitter page. According to communication between Nintendo and Destructoid, the Nintendo Switch from March 2017 to November 2018 has sold "more than 8.7 million units" making it the "fastest-selling US console."

Furthermore, Nintendo also say that the Nintendo Switch "outpaces US sales of all other current-generation systems at the same point in their life cycles." Judging by the sales Nintendo are putting out moving closer to the festive season, we can assume these numbers are only going to get better over the course of Christmas and the Boxing Day sales. My curiosity has been spiked with this question I gave to myself, "what first-party Nintendo games will push Switch sales in 2019 as much as Super Smash Bros. Ultimate has? "

It seems that if you were to be working at Nintendo this time of year everything would be going incredibly smoothly, recent announcements from the company have reinforced its expected trajectory.

According to a recent announcement on the Nintendo America Twitter page, Nintendo can confidently say that the recently released Super Smash Bros. Ultimate has managed to move 3 million units just 11 days after being released. Going hand-in-hand with this announcement is Nintendo's "105% growth" in purchases from the Nintendo eShop.

It can be assumed that these numbers will only be going up as we move closer and closer to the festive season. Many gamers are still waiting to get their hands-on their new Nintendo Switch, and a copy of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate but are waiting for Christmas to arrive. Overall, this is quite an achievement for the Big N, they have had quite a successful 2018 and personally I'm excited to see the sales data released by Nintendo for the last quarter of the 2018.

We are now just days away from 2019 so we can expect the hype train for Cyberpunk 2077 to only heat up as we enter the New Year, get closer to E3 2019 in the next 6 months, and then into the final months of hype before CD Projekt Red unleashes the game to us... all without an official release date, remember.

Well, now we have Polish analyst firm StockWatch commenting on Cyberpunk 2077 and that they think it will be released in Q4 2019 and will sell 19 million copies in the three months post-launch. Reddit user 'dr4kun' translated the Polish analyst and his comments on Cyberpunk 2077, where he said: "Cyberpunk 2077 vs Red Dead Redemption 2: We're keeping to the estimate of a debut in Q4 of 2019, with sales of 19 million copies in Q4 alone, and income of 1.9 billion PLN (about 525 million USD). During a conference call, the Board has confirmed that quality remains the absolute highest priority for CD Projekt, and Cyberpunk 2077 will be no less elaborate and polished than Red Dead Redemption 2".

The analyst continued: "For comparison, the sales of Red Dead Redemption 2 (gross) was 725 million USD within the first three days after it shipped, 15 million copies within the first eight days, and 17 million copies within the first twelve days (data from Take Two). The game was released only on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One consoles. With that in mind, our forecasts for Cyberpunk 2077 seem very reserved - remember the game will be simultaneously both on the consoles [PS4 and XBO] and PC. We also believe that the world of Cyberpunk/sci-fi should be more popular among gamers than the Wild West".

Fortnite is in all of the headlines these days because of its phenomenal success, even in legal battles over ripping the Carlton dance from The Fresh Price of Bel-Air and the game recently hitting 8.3 million concurrent players.

But in the mix of this some people have forgotten PUBG is still here and it's kicking ass and taking names on mobile, with news that the game has now amassed over 200 million downloads across iOS and Android. PUBG recently won Best Game, Fan Favorite, and Most Competitive Game at the Google Play Awards. PUBG Corp said in a press release: "The game was included in Apple's 'Game Trend of the Year' category representing the explosive battle royale genre and in its 'Top Games Charts of 2018' as one of the most downloaded games".

With over 200 million downloads for PUBG mobile, 100 million of them are on Android and there are 30 million daily active players across PUBG mobile which is huge. Fortnite is home to just 8.3 million players per day and that is huge, PUBG with over 30 million is mind boggling. These numbers are all without China thrown into the mix, but PUBG mobile was made available to 105 countries in its first week alone.

BioWare's new IP is tailor-made to tap the billion-dollar games-as-a-service market, and that means it'll follow a specific predictable gameplan.

As Bethesda's current blunders with Fallout 76 prove, live service games may be hard to master but they're not exceptionally complicated to understand. Every live game has a specific pattern, a sequence, a cycle that it must follow in order to spin the engagement wheel. Many of these steps are heavily reliant on the online infrastructures of multiplayer and don't play like traditional story-driven singleplayer games. Live games have a strong emphasis on keeping gamers fully engaged and active with new events, content, and customization, all of which are tied deeply into the interactivity of online gaming.

So this ultimately means games like Anthem will be more rewarding when you play with friends or other people, especially given its PVE-only focus. This is by design and is a necessary part of the game's core business model. A recent article from WCCFTech brought up this point, but not in a direct way that expresses what kind of game Anthem is. We thought we'd clarify things a bit, but first we need to take a look at BioWare's quote.

The Nintendo Switch is the fastest-selling current-gen console in the United States, the NPD Group today confirmed.

Nintendo's latest handheld-console hybrid continues making waves across the globe, and its success in the United States is a key driver for hardware sales and growth. From its launch in March 2017, the system has sold over 8.7 million units in the U.S., making it the fastest-selling current generation system in its first 11 month cycle.

As of September 30 the Switch has sold 22.86 million units worldwide, meaning the U.S. represents about 38% of total global sales.

PC gaming continues gaining momentum even as console earnings grow throughout 2018.

Total game revenues are set to grow over time as more and more publishers tap the lucrative live service market, and 2018 is another big year for the industry across all platforms. Total global mobile, console and PC earnings for 2018 sit at $134.9 billion as per GamesIndustry.biz data gleaned from analyst firm Newzoo, up a strong 10.9% year-over-year.

What's interesting is how PC gaming is closing the gap between it and console earnings, the latter of which typically reign as the dedicated home gaming king. PC gaming earned 25% of total 2018 revenues, or $33.4 billion, and represents a rise of 3.2% year-over-year. The bulk of these revenues were from actual full game downloads from stores like Steam and GoG.com, and boxed PC sales ($29.2 billion or 22%) as online browser-based games ($4.3 billion or 3%) continue getting eclipsed by their forebears. This number is likely set to rise as other games-makers launch their own storefronts and kick off the PC gaming revenue split wars.

Fortnite uses many popular dances to make money, and celebrity creators want their piece of Epic's billion-dollar pie.

Thanks to its wildly successful engagement model, Fortnite is the biggest game in the industry right now. But there's just one problem: it's making a lot of money from copying specific dance moves that it doesn't actually own. The game is monetized via optional skins and emotes that can be purchased with real money, and the company isn't paying royalties or splitting the proceeds with the creators of the moves. This has prompted big litigation suits from celebrities like Alfonso Ribiero (Carlton from Fresh Prince), rapper 2 Milly, and Russell Horning (aka The Backpack Kid) who are all seeking damages and cash from unauthorized use of their choreographed dances.

This is just the beginning and many more entertainers will likely jump on the litigation bandwagon to get paid. But do these suits have legs to stand in court? Can you sue someone over a dance? Can you even copyright a dance? Yes, you actually can...but it can be messy. For example, if anyone assisted 2 Milly, Horning, or Ribiero in choreographing the dance itself, they could technically be co-owners of the moves.

Capcom has debuted a brand new trailer for the coming Devil May Cry 5, the new trailer is based around the mysterious character V and his unique abilities.

The new trailer has been released through IGN and gives us a look at the character V and his unique methods of dealing with enemies. V can summon three different types of demons to assist him in battle, the demons take shape of a Griffon, Panther and a giant monstrosity. We also see closer to the end of the trailer that V has a motive of some-sort to kill Dante, more dramatically at the end of the trailer we see V stabbing Dante with giant sword.

The panther like demon has extreme agility and can transform into sharp blade like needs. Griffon resembles something of a bird, it takes from the air with physical attacks as well as lightening and can also can carry V to new heights. The giant demon V has in his arsenal is the strongest and most powerful out of his collection, it seems that V rides this beast and it has the power to take out basically anything in its path. If you are interested in checking out another Devil May Cry 5 trailer, check out the HYDE Collaboration trailer here. Devil May Cry 5 will be released onto the PC, Xbox One and PS4.

The sales statistics for this weeks UK sales charts have been released and we can see that Red Dead Redemption 2 has re-taken 1st place from its original position of No.2. Smash Bros Ultimate has dropped to 4th place.

According to the sales data for the week ending on December 15th, Red Dead Redemption 2 has had a 19% spike in physical sales raising it to the No.1 place. This has caused Super Smash Bros. Ultimate to be pushed down to the 4th position with a 52% drop in physical sales week-on-week. FIFA 19 has seen a 30% raise in physical sales which has brought it up from position No.3 to No.2.

Since Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 had a 10 pound price drop we saw the game rise four whole places to No.3, sales were up a whopping 175%. If you didn't know, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is the fastest-selling Nintendo Switch title so far, check more out about that story here.

It seems we have been blessed with what seems to be the final trailer for Square Enix and Disney's Kingdom Hearts III. The new trailer is titled 'Final Battle' and showcases what could possibly be a grim ending for our heroes.

The new trailer has been released onto the Kingdom Hearts III YouTube Channel and shows us a battle depicted between the Guardians of Light and the Seekers of Darkness. We see pivotal characters such as Lea, Donald, Goofy, Kairi and other members of the Guardians of Light laying defeated, this suggests that maybe the tides have changed and players won't be experiencing a love filled ending.

Last week we saw another trailer released, this one was titled the 'Opening Movie Trailer' and shows a young Xehanort playing chess with each of the pieces representing the characters. To check out that trailer, view it here. Kingdom Hearts III will be released onto the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, January 29th 2019. For more information regarding the coming game from Square Enix and Disney, visit the official website here.

A game breaking bug has been discovered in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate that spawns in infinite amount assist trophies. It can only be activated with Isabelle.

The glitch has been discovered by TheAfrowJow when both players decided to do a mirror match with Isabelle. The glitch occurred when an assist trophy spawned between both players and instead of running over and picking up and activating the trophy traditionally, both players decided to use Isabelle's fishing rod to grab it from afar. One of the players was late on the grab and caught the item while the second Isabelle was activating it. This must of caused a break in the animation and stopped the game from registering that the trophy was used.

From the above video you can see that once the animation is broken, the Isabelle that is activating the assist trophy will infinitely keep spawning and activating that specific trophy. The only way to stop this from happening is for the other Isabelle to hit the Isabelle that is activating the trophy breaking the animation. Since this glitch is so bad and can easily swing the tides of match, I think it is safe to assume that Nintendo will no doubt fix this in the games next update.

Since the release of quite vaguely described last patch, many Super Smash Bros. Ultimate players are searching through the game to see what gameplay was changed for each of the fighters. It appears despite there already being an update that there is game-breaking bugs present in Smash Ultimate.

This bugs is so bad it has even been picked up by GameXplain which is the above video showcasing how it is done and what happens when it occurs. The glitch revolves around Isabelle and Villagers 'pocket' (B) ability which for those that don't know can catch most (if not all) physical objects or projectiles.

Isabelle and Villager begin the glitch by Villager catching a forward air slingshot from Isabelle. Villager then proceeds to throw back the projectile and Isabelle then catches it, after Isabelle throws it back to villager and he catches it again the game soft crashes with an error message "The software was closed because an error occurred". GameXplain can confirm that this glitch only works with Isabelle, Villager and that specific projectile. So, if a player attempts the glitch with two Villagers or two Isabelle's the glitch will be ineffective. Since this glitch is literally breaking the game we should be able to safely assume that it will be mended within the next games update.

EA continues to take punches over the lukewarm reception of Battlefield V, with developer DICE apologizing for the current drama over the time to kill (TTK) and time to death (TTD) rates in the game.

A few days ago, DICE issued a statement of apology for the TTK issues in Battlefield V, the developer said: "[We'd] like to apologize for the silence over the past couple of days on the TTK topic. We've seen it's been a big talking point and causing a divide in the community, which was never our intention. We have been listening closely to what you've all been saying. Changes to the game carrying this kind of weight needs clearer, earlier communication before getting rolled out. We will improve how we roll out updates in the future and respond more quickly when you have questions or concerns".

But then DICE announced they're rolling back TTK changes in Battlefield V, something that will take place on December 18 at 4AM PST. DICE explained: "Our intent with the TTK changes was to see if we could evolve the Battlefield V experience and make it more enjoyable for new players, whilst also making sure the Battlefield vets have a choice with a more 'core' experience suiting their preferred play-style. Clearly we didn't get it right. Veteran players didn't ask for the change, but as game developers, we took it upon ourselves to make those changes based on extensive data and deliberation. It truthfully wasn't an easy decision for us".

Everywhere you look these days you see kids doing the dances from Fortnite in real life, so it should come as no surprise that big name stars, rappers, and entertainers are suing developer Epic Games for the use of their dances, in the game.

The latest is Alfonso Ribiero, who played Carlton in the Will Smith led 'The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air' where he created the iconic, and always hilarious Carlton dance. Ribiero is now suing Epic Games over the use of the dance in Fortnite, accusing the developer of copying his signature dance from the show. Ribiero's attorney told TMZ that Epic copied the "iconic" swaying with its Fresh emote, without asking permission or giving compensation.

The Carlton dance is one of the most memorable parts of teh show, a true highlight in the awesome series that was The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. The lawsuit is coming from Ribiero being in the middle of trying to copyright the dance, and Epic isn't the only one getting sued: 2K is being sued over NBA 2K16 as they've got the Carlton dance in that, too.

DICE and EA plan to support Battlefront II well into 2019 with new updates and content rollouts.

Despite being born in controversy, Battlefront II has enjoyed a long life as a service game and will continue to unfold throughout next year. DICE recently outlined some of the new content coming to Battlefront II, affirming the game isn't going to die out any time soon.

"We're truly excited about our plans for 2019. 2019 will kick off by introducing Count Dooku, Anakin Skywalker, more clone trooper Appearances, and a new mode featuring command posts and capital ship takedowns. Continuing beyond, we're working to bring even more content and experiences to Star Wars Battlefront II," the post reads.

Like the Xbox One ring of hardware, Microsoft's new next-generation Xbox range will belong to a family of systems.

Microsoft is currently developing multiple new Xbox consoles that will be part of the new codenamed Scarlett hardware family. Back at E3 2018, Xbox division head Phil Spencer confirmed more than one system was in the works, and sources say as many as three new Xbox variants may be on the way. According to various rumors and sources, the games-maker will have a staggered tier of Xbox Scarlett systems that essentially mimic the price range and spec ratio of the Xbox One S and Xbox One X systems.

The cheaper and more accessible Xbox One S successor is reportedly built from the Lockhart devkit and has mid-range specifications, whereas the beefier Xbox One X successor's devkit is called Anaconda and may tap AMD's next-generation Zen 2 CPU and Navi GPU architectures for enthusiast-grade console gaming. The hardware itself should be highly customized and utilize Microsoft's full range of services and content, and play existing Xbox One games via backward compatibility--both digital and disc-based.