Gaming - Page 9

After rumors of Sony reportedly being in talks to buy the parent company of critically acclaimed video game developer, FromSoftware, a new buyout offer has been confirmed by the parent company's CEO.

Reuters reported a few days ago that Sony was in talks to buy Kadokawa Corporation, the parent company of FromSoftware, the developers behind beloved and critically acclaimed releases such as Elden Ring and the Dark Souls franchise. At the moment Kadokawa owns approximately 70% of FromSoftware, with Sony owning just under 15% of the developer. If Sony acquired Kadokawa, it would become the majority shareholder and, therefore, be able to control the studio.

In a recent statement Kadokawa confirmed it was in talks with Sony about a possible merger, and that a letter of intent has been acquired. However, no final decision has been made "at this time." Essentially where we are at is Sony has put its cards on the table and offered to buy Kadokawa, in legal writing. Kadokawa's board now needs to review the offer and respond.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl is one of the most highly anticipated PC game releases of the year, a sequel to one of the most groundbreaking first-person shooters ever made and a game that has been in development for several years over at GSC Game World. In it, you once again take on the role of a lone stalker, exploring the dangerous 64km-squared radioactive zone of post-apocalyptic Chornobyl.

Powered by Unreal Engine 5, the game's photorealistic seamless open world is set to test even the most high-end rigs. With the game launching with DLSS 3 and Reflex support, NVIDIA has provided internal benchmark results for gaming running on various GeForce RTX 40 Series graphics cards - and it looks like this is one game that requires Frame Generation to run with Max Settings.

At 4K, not even the mighty GeForce RTX 4090 can hit a native 60 FPS - it delivers an average frame rate of 52.4 FPS. However, turn on DLSS 3 (or go RTX On), and this number jumps to an impressive 123.9 FPS. Even the popular GeForce RTX 4070 manages to hit a respectable 73.6 FPS at 4K with DLSS 3.

2024 is almost at its end, which means The Game Awards are getting close, and now the organization has officially unveiled the nominees for Game of the Year.

In a new live stream The Game Awards unveiled the contenders to win Game of the Year 2024, which comes after the organization announced it was changing its rules to recognize DLCs, expansion packs, new game seasons, remakes, and remasters across all categories. The recent announcement unveiled six nominees for Game of the Year, which include Black Myth: Wukong, Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirh, Metaphor: ReFantazio, Balatro, and Astro Bot.

The organization unveiled other nominees in its various other categories, such as Game Direction, Best Ongoing Game, Best Art Direction, Best Mobile Game, Best Narrative, Best Performance, Best Score & Music, Best Audio, Best Adaptation, Best Multiplayer, Best Independent Game, Best Role-Playing Game, and many more. Now the voting begins, with a jury set to select which game wins out of the ones that have been nominated, with fans being able to cast their own vote through to December 11.

Battlefield 6 is currently undergoing the franchise's biggest playtests ever, in order to "prevent another disastrous launch" like EA experienced with Battlefield V, and then even worse with the launch of Battlefield 2042.

EA and DICE have a "lot of making up to do" reports Tom Henderson from Insider Gaming, where Henderson goes over the fact that during a chat with IGN earlier this year, EA DICE boss Vince Zampella confirmed earlier reports from Insider Gaming that the Battlefield franchise was going with a "back to its roots approach".

This means the awesome only-in-Battlefield style 64-players, all-out destruction, but in a modern setting this time. As Henderson notes that "all looks promising on paper, yet the scars of the past still burn today with its community, and fans of the franchise are still apprehensive about the future". But this time... EA and DICE seem to be "all-in on ensuring it doesn't happen a third time" and that excites me.

Sony's next-generation PlayStation 6 console will use AMD's next-generation UDNA GPU architecture, mixed with a Zen 4 or (but probably more so) Zen 5 processor when it drops in 2027.

AMD's next-gen RDNA 4 GPU architecture will be the last one named with RDNA before the company moves to the "UDNA" GPU architecture, so the upcoming Radeon RX 8000 series "RDNA 4" graphics cards. In recent leaks, we've heard that AMD's upcoming Instinct MI400 and Radeon RX 9000 series GPUs will use the same UDNA architecture, with the UDNA architecture using an ALU design similar to GCN (Graphics Core Next).

We should expect UDNA-based gaming GPUs sometime in 2026, with the same GPU architecture finding its way into Sony's next-generation PS6 console. We should expect a newer Zen 4 or hopefully Zen 5 CPU inside of the PlayStation 6, as the PS5 and PS5 Pro are both using older-gen Zen 2-based CPUs.

Sony's latest acquisition target could be a big win for the PlayStation brand, with the Japanese games giant reportedly in talks to buy the parent company who currently owns the iconic developer of Dark Souls.

Sources tell Reuters that Sony is discussing plans to purchase Kadokawa Group, a leader in Japanese multimedia. Kadokawa is a nearly 80-year old entertainment group mostly known for distributing generations' worth of manga, operating video streaming service Niconico, and for its presence in video games. And Kadokawa just so happens to own FromSoftware, the developer of some of the most celebrated games on the planet.

The acquisition rationale is a strong one for Sony, who could neatly wrap up dominance in both anime and manga by purchasing Kadokawa. Sony already owns both Crunchyroll and Funimation. Folding Kadokawa's mighty print media arm into Sony's established streaming, film, and music businesses could be a major cross-media boon.

Over the years, many have scrutinized Nintendo for its handling of 'piracy,' emulation of its classic games, and video game preservation. However, the company's latest ROM and emulator-based lawsuit feels like a case where the Big N has acted accordingly.

You see, a streamer by the name of EveryGameGuru was streaming gameplay and content from Nintendo Switch games before they were released. According to Nintendo's lawsuit, they streamed content from Mario & Luigi: Brothership, Super Mario Party Jamboree, and The Legend of Zelda: Echoes days or weeks before their official release.

Nintendo's response was the usual takedown request or 'stop doing that' first response email, with EveryGameGuru opting to keep streaming across various Discord, YouTube, Twitch, and Kick channels. In addition, the streamer apparently sent Nintendo a letter saying they had "a thousand burner channels" and could "do this all day."

The MSI Claw 8 AI+ is the company's second-generation PC gaming handheld and the first to be powered by Intel's new Lunar Lake processor with integrated Intel Arc Battlemage graphics. We got to go hands-on with a pre-release build of the MSI Claw 8 AI+ at PAX Australia and were impressed with how well it handled games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Forza Horizon 5.

With CES 2025 around the corner, the MSI Claw 8 AI+ has earned a '2025 Honoree in Gaming & eSports' award - with a new listing that confirms one aspect that will set it apart from the competition, outside of going Team Blue for the hardware. The listing confirms that the MSI Claw 8 AI+ will have a massive 82WHr battery, essentially double what you can find in Valve's Steam Deck.

It also has a slightly larger capacity battery than what's inside ASUS's ROG Ally X refresh, and it will provide "4+ hours of gameplay for AAA titles."

If you've bought a PlayStation 5 Pro and aren't happy with how the much talked about PSSR upscaling is doing in some games, then you wouldn't be alone - but there's seemingly a reason for this.

Wccftech noticed a post on the ResetERA forums which was in reply to a raft of complaints agreeing with Digital Foundry's findings that Star Wars Jedi: Survivor actually looks worse on PS5 Pro, not better with the bells and whistles from the new variant of Sony's console.

Notably Star Wars Jedi: Survivor reportedly has 'severe' image quality problems including foliage looking terrible when ray tracing effects hit it, causing a nasty strobing effect.

The Game Awards for 2024 is right around the corner and this year it will be different as DLCs, expansion packs, new game seasons, remakes, and remasters will be officially recognized across all categories, meaning a DLC could win Game of the Year.

The Game Awards will be holding its 2024 live event on December 12 and the nominees are only four hours away from being announced, with voting for each of the games in their respective categories expected to be available shortly after the nominees have been unveiled. The nominees, which will be spread across 29 categories, will also include DLCs such as the incredibly popular, and highly rated Shadow of the Erdtree expansion for FromSoftware GOTY 2022 GOTY winner Elden Ring.

It's likely The Game Awards have decided to open up the rules in 2024 because of the three big publishes, Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony, have had a reasonably light release schedule throughout the year. Additionally, the sheer popularity of Shadow of the Erdtree is hard not to recognize, with it being slated to be nominated across multiple categories.