Gaming - Page 79

Sony has been slowly becoming more PC-focused with the release of its first- and second-party PlayStation Studios titles on Steam, and it's not hard to see why. According to a new report by Alinea Analytics, PlayStation Studios games released on Steam (PC gaming's number one platform) have generated $1.5 billion in revenue for Sony.

And even when you take out Valve's cut, that's still around $1.2 billion for Sony. With over 43 million games sold, the biggest seller for Sony isn't Marvel's Spider-Man, God of War, or Horizon Zero Dawn; it's Helldivers 2. And it's not even close, with Helldivers 2 reportedly selling 12.7 million copies on Steam, making it the most popular PlayStation Studios release on PC, with second-place going to Horizon Zero Dawn, which has sold 4.5 million copies.

Alinea Analytics notes that Helldiver 2's success on PC is Sony's first "megahit," with it selling over double the amount of copies on Steam as it did on PS5. Other big sellers on PC for Sony include God of War and Days Gone, which sold 4.2 million and 3.4 million copies, respectively.

If you grew up playing PC games on DOS and operating systems like Windows 95 and Windows 98, then here's an early present for the holiday season - eXoWin9x Vol. 1. A single pack available to download that includes 662 fully emulated games from 1994 through to 1996, released during the era where Windows went 32-bit and became the go-to operating system for PC.

The list of games included in the 263GB package includes well-known classics like DOOM II, MechWarrior 2, Myst, SimCity 2000, Heroes of Might and Magic, Quake, Wing Commander IV, and the original Diablo. Still, it's chock-full of forgotten classics and lesser-known games you might recall from the era. Titles like Spycraft - The Great Game, SimGolf, Rally Racers, Phantasmagoria, and several other multimedia-enhanced games from the CD-ROM era, as well as rare releases no longer available on any platform.

It's an impressive collection with a detailed front-end that includes information and goodies for each game, including cover art, manuals, soundtracks, and other materials. Everything is pre-configured with a simple setup process, and every game runs in a virtual machine from a single launcher, so there's no need to configure or modify your existing system.

Microsoft's Xbox Full Screen Experience (or FSE) for Windows 11 debuted with the ROG Xbox Ally gaming handhelds last month, marking the first time the OS delivers a console-like, controller-friendly experience for gamers. With XBE now rolling out to more Windows 11 gaming handhelds, Microsoft is also making it available to Windows 11 Insiders to test out and use on any laptop or PC.

The big feature is the ability to boot straight into the Xbox app and interface for a smoother, faster gaming experience. By booting straight into the Xbox app, which still gives you access to other storefronts like Steam and the Epic Game Store, the FSE also disables unneeded non-essential and non-gaming Windows 11 processes to free up system resources and memory.

"Designed for controller-first navigation, it provides a gaming-first, full-screen environment where players can easily browse and launch titles from across their game libraries- including most popular PC storefronts," Microsoft explains, "A powerful Task Switcher enables quick movement between games and apps, delivering a seamless experience."

While EA, Ubisoft, and Microsoft all tout artificial intelligence, Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser has a more down-to-earth assessment of the new technology.

AI is all the rage right now. We've seen major video game companies invest billions into artificial intelligence in the hopes of streamlining content production and eliminating wasteful spending. Almost every video games company in existence has laid off workers while simultaneously embracing AI, some in the tune of thousands of job eliminations. But one pretty high-ranking games industry creative isn't convinced that AI will be the savior of the games industry that it's hyped up to be.

Rockstar Games co-founder Dan Houser was recently on Channel 4's Sunday Brunch show, and he had some interesting things to say about what AI can and can't do.

Valve wants to deliver a Steam Deck successor that has next-gen performance with current-gen battery life.

The Steam Deck 2 will happen at some point, but for now Valve says the technology to do what they want simply doesn't exist yet. The priorities remain the same for a new Steam Deck handheld with a careful balance between capability and longevity. Valve aims to deliver higher-end performance and power befit of a next-generation machine with a similar power and battery profile to Steam Deck OLED.

In a recent interview with Skill Up, Valve designer Lawrence Yang and software engineer Pierre-Loup Griffais briefly discuss what kinds of hurdles they're navigating while thinking about the Steam Deck 2. Essentially, the chip technology doesn't exist yet, but Valve is carefully watching the market and assessing the needs of the Steam community.

Valve is open to a Steam Machine Pro in the future, but the company has more than enough on its plate with the current hardware spec.

The Steam Machine isn't an enthusiast device. Valve is instead targeting the mid-range user who wants a more complete package that delivers plug-and-play compatibility, kind of like a console. Price will determine whether or not it becomes a mass-market machine, and right now RAM costs are through the roof. Given Valve's focus, and the current market trends, a higher-spec Steam Machine Pro may not happen for a while--if at all. But Valve is still receptive to the idea of beefier Steam Machines, maybe even from third-party OEMs.

"Potentially yeah, I think we're open to anything," Valve software engineer Pierre-Loup Griffais said in a recent interview with Skill Up. "For now we're focusing on this level of spec because we think it's a good trade-off between affordability and the level of power that we get."

The world's largest tech companies are embracing AI in the hope of streamlining workflows and eliminating waste, but the move might be backfiring for the games industry.

Just days ago, Ubisoft confirmed that generative AI is now being used organization-wide, with every office and development team incorporating gen AI. The entire tech sector is betting big on AI, especially in gaming. Microsoft created gen AI tools like MUSE that eliminate the need for game dev coding, and EA is creating a ChatGPT-like chatbotthat can change gameplay in real time.

The widespread use of AI comes with some drawbacks and growing pains, though. Recent reports say AI is causing problems for EA, leading to extra work as developers have to come in and clean up critical mistakes made by the tech. Despite the presentations and assurances, dev teams aren't really showing how AI is used in their games, perhaps to avoid controversy. Or perhaps, as Bloomberg's Jason Schreier suggests, AI is causing more harm than good for game developers.

Valve is making around $50 million per employee based on recent data which sees the company making an incredible $16.2 billion in revenue from its Steam platform alone this year so far, and should easily tip over $17-18 billion by the end of 2025.

This data comes from a recent report from Alinea Analytics, with Valve itself making over $4 billion this year from Steam itself, while each of the 350+ employees of the company creating $50 million each for Valve. We must remember that Valve is a private company, so we don't know exactly how many people work for the company, nor do we know their exact revenues and profits.

If we compare these numbers to the likes of Apple which reportedly makes around $2.4 million per employee, and Facebook parent company, Meta, which makes $1.9 million per year, it's an impressive feat for Valve. Valve knows about this, where back in 2012 the company made its "Handbook for New Employees" available, where it stated: "Our profitability per employee is higher than that of Google or Amazon or Microsoft, and we believe strongly that the right thing to do in that case is to put a maximum amount of money back into each employee's pocket".

We know most of what we need to know about Valve's upcoming Steam Machine, but we're missing one key detail: its price, especially with suggestions that it'll cost $499... and there is NO subsidizing its price and Valve selling its new Steam Machine at a loss, says Valve.

Valve has now confirmed that it will not be subsidizing the Steam Machine, unlike many generations ago where Microsoft and Sony heavily subsidized -- sold at a loss -- for their consoles, even if the real money for Valve is in games on Steam being sold.

There have been rumors from LinusTechTips commenting to Valve that the Steam Machine could be priced at $499, but said that the "energy wasn't great" when he said that. In earlier interviews with Wccftech, Valve Hardware Engineer, Yazan Aldehayyat, said that the Steam Machine pricing would be "really competitive" to the price of building your own PC at home.

Lines of communication briefly became crossed, leading to rumblings that Naughty Dog's new game could launch sometime in 2026. But that's not the case, and Sony has no plans to release the game next year, Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier says.

Despite recent social media buzz, Naughty Dog's new third-person action game Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet won't release in 2026, and it won't be shown off at The Game Awards. The confusion stems from a recent episode of the Dan Allen Gaming podcast, where PlayStation-centric reporter and personality Colin Moriarty speculated about Intergalactic's release date. Despite his saying "I think" multiple times, fans mistook Moriarty's speculation for actual info, and the rumor mill starting belting out erroneous reports.

Now it's been clarified by Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier that these manufactured reports are false. "I can assure you that Intergalactic isn't coming out in 2026 because people familiar with the game's development timeline have told me that it is not coming out in 2026," Schreier said on Reddit, then adding: "The game is not scheduled to come out in 2026."

Valve says it is working closely with developers to get anti-cheat solutions on the Steam Machine, but ultimately it will be up to the individual third-party teams to make it happen.

The lack of anti-cheat support is one of the biggest disadvantages of the Steam Machine. Not being able to play big online games like Call of Duty or Battlefield 6 on the Steam Machine will inhibit its mass-market appeal and impact sales potential. Valve is hopeful that developers and publishers will opt to build their anti-cheat systems on SteamOS, but there's no guarantee. That's not stopping Valve from trying to accelerate the process from the backend, though.

In a recent interview with SkillUp, Valve engineer Pierre-Loup Griffais gives an update on the current status of how anti-cheat will work on Steam Machine.

The Steam Machine was mostly inspired by gamers who hooked up their Steam Decks to TV sets, showing an interesting hardware innovation crossover.

While Nintendo created consoles first, handhelds, second, and then finally a unified handheld-console, Valve's own hardware journey has been a bit different. Valve tried Steam Machines in 2015, which failed due to lack of content. Then Valve pushed the Steam Deck, leading to major learnings, and now 10 years later after their first introduction, the Steam Machine is back in the limelight.

This time around, Valve has taken everything it's learned from the Steam Deck, most notably the significant SteamOS advancements and Deck Verified software spec. The current Steam Machine was ultimately informed by a specific part of the Steam Deck userbase--those that ended up using their Decks as makeshift PC consoles.

Estimates from analyst firm GSD indicate that launch sales of Black Ops 7 have been halved in Europe.

European consumers are buying far fewer copies of Activision's latest Call of Duty game. According to GSD data that was shared with The Games Business, sales of Call of Duty Black Ops 7 are down roughly 50% compared to last year's Black Ops 6. It's worth mentioning that at one point, a Microsoft employee described Black Ops 6 as the highest-grossing Call of Duty game from Activision. This was later removed, however Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella had said that Black Ops 6 was "the biggest Call of Duty release ever."

Black Ops 7 is a different story, at least in Europe. According to the data, Black Ops 7's full game sales are down when compared to both previous Call of Duty games as well as major competitors like Battlefield 6. Estimates indicate Black Ops 7 sold 63% fewer copies than Battlefield 6 in Europe (side note: EA has confirmed that Battlefield 6 sold 7 million copies globally in 3 days).

Microsoft's first-party game studios are happy about the decision to break exclusivity and start selling games on PlayStation, Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier says.

Last year, Xbox made the decision to break exclusivity and bring four games to PlayStation. This was a Pandora's Box moment, and soon it was confirmed that any Xbox game could cross-over to rival platforms. This move has proven to be popular for both executives and game developers, as Microsoft is making more money now than it ever has before--sometimes even dominating the PS Store's top charts.

Now in a recent interview with 404 Media, Bloomberg's Jason Schreier says that Xbox's first-party teams are excited about launching their games on PlayStation. After all, this means more revenue for individual studios, all of which balance their own books. Elated teams include Halo Studios, who recently confirmed that all future Halo games would come to PlayStation.

Assassin's Creed Shadows and Mirage both outperformed for Ubisoft in Q2, resulting in strong player engagement across the brand.

Ubisoft's latest Q2 results seem to dispel worries about Assassin's Creed Shadows' performance on the market. According to Ubisoft's CFO Frederick Duguet, Assassin's Creed Mirage doubled its player count throughout the period from 5 million to 10 million players. Duguet attributes this rise in players to Mirage's recent Valley of Memory update.

Combined with Assassin's Creed Shadows, gamers have played 211 million "session days" in the franchise throughout 2025. These metrics are more important for long-term goals, as playtime is a macro measurement that represents potential monetization as long as content can be sustained.

Ubisoft management says that big things are in the pipeline for future years, including a "significant" amount of content that will roll out through the next two years.

Ubisoft's latest financial report is out, giving a look at where the company currently is and where it's going. The French games-maker has closed its $1.3 billion investment deal with Tencent, and Ubisoft plans to use this funding to pay back debt and transform its games business. The biggest change is that Ubisoft is splitting up its games and divisions into Creative Houses, and the first will lead Ubisoft's three largest franchises--Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, and Rainbow Six.

In the earnings report, executives promise that some pretty substantial high-level games will release in FY27 and FY28, which means we'll see more high-profile AAA games in 2026 and 2027. The slate is potent enough that Ubisoft expects the games to help drive them to positive free cash flow throughout next year.

Sony's Black Friday offers on all its PS5 models are now live, and if you've been thinking about picking up a variant of the console, it might not be wise to pass up these deals.

The deals consist of $100 off all PS5 models, which means that the PS5 Pro is down from $749 to $649, and the PS5 Digital Edition is reduced from $499 to $399, with the PS5 disc model chopped from $549 to $449.

Are we likely to see a PS5 at $399 next year? That's somewhat doubtful, as there are unfortunate component headwinds with price hikes on memory - RAM and storage alike - which are very likely to push up pricing for all devices, consoles included.

Ubisoft is going all-in on generative AI and will use the technology to build new games and experiences in a paradigm shift that hearkens back to the late 90s days of 3D gaming, company CEO Yves Guillemot confirms.

In a recent earnings call, Ubisoft has confirmed that it will be using gen AI in future games and content. CEO Yves Guillemot is particularly evangelistic about gen AI, saying that all of Ubisoft's studios are using AI tools, and that gen AI is as transformational for the modern age of gaming as the monumental shift from console 2D sprites to 3D polygonal graphics in the late 90s.

"On the innovation side now, we are making great strides in applying gen AI to high-value use cases that bring tangible benefits to our players and teams. It's as big as a revolution on our industry as the shift to 3D, and we have everything to lead on this front," Guillemot said in the call.

Ubisoft is about to make some big organizational changes as it nears the completion of a substantial $1.3 billion deal with Tencent.

Armed with a mighty billion-dollar investment from Tencent, Ubisoft is ready to restructure its business. Tencent invested $1.3 billion into Ubisoft, acquiring a 25% stake in a new subsidiary called Vantage Studios. This deal is about to close, and a recent earnings report gives an update on what's next for its major brands.

Ubisoft will split its creative game-making organizational structure into what it calls Creative Houses. Each of these units will oversee various franchises. It's been confirmed that Vantage Studios is the first of these Creative Houses, which indicates that each house unit will not be limited to a single franchise. Vantage will be in creative control over all of Ubisoft's most valuable franchises--Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, and Rainbow Six Siege will be managed by the Vantage-led Creative House.

Ubisoft explains that an accounting error led to its 1HFY26 earnings being delayed by a few days.

A bit ago, Ubisoft made a confusing announcement to delay its half-year earnings report. Speculation ran rampant, with many believing that Ubisoft could have been acquired, perhaps by overseas giants like Saudi Arabia's Savvy Games Group or China's Tencent. Now it's been revealed that the first-half earnings report was pushed back because Ubisoft made a mistake in its books.

In its now-published first-half FY26 results, Ubisoft expands on exactly what happened. Basically, the company made an accounting error on their report, which was spotted by an auditor (an outside accounting firm) and then reported it. As per regulation, Ubisoft had to delay its 1H report and de-list its stock because it was found in non-compliance.