Gaming - Page 915

Project CARS 2 will be sliding onto the market this week, with more details now out on the PS4 Pro version of the game, as it has more hardware at its disposal.

Slightly Mad Studios has said that Project CARS 2 will render at 2560x1440, and then upscale "beautifully" to 4K, which should be made possible through checkerboard rendering. Not just that, but the PS4 Pro will be capable of better-looking graphics quality on everything from cars, track objects, grass, and more.

The PS4 Pro has the additional power to provide improved track detail, increased detail and resolution with shadow rendering, as well as more detail and resolution with reflection rendering, too.

Divinity: Original Sin 2 is apparently quite popular among RPG fans, and has amassed nearly 500,000 sales in total.

In a recent interview with Eurogamer, Larian Studios owner Sven Vincke confirmed that Divinity: Original Sin 2, the developer's latest deep and sprawling cRPG sequel, has sold almost 500,000 copies.

"It is fantastic but it is also way beyond what we expected," Mr. Vincke told Eurogamer. "We're close to hitting 500K units sold which is a number I believe took us two or three months with Divinity: Original Sin 1."

Video games aren't cheap. Games like Grand Theft Auto V and Destiny command $100 million dollar budgets, with recurring franchises like NBA 2K, Madden, and Call of Duty all costing significant amounts to make. But how do publishers plan these numbers?

In his latest book Blood, Sweat and Pixels, Kotaku's Jason Schreier reveals an interesting rule of thumb that developers and publishers use to estimate the budget for a game project: $10,000 per person per month. Of course this is just a "ballpark figure" and the actual budgets are lost in the shadowy depths of NDA territory, but it does give gamers an idea of just how much these games cost to develop and bring to market.

"That's a good ballpark number," Obsidian Entertainment's Adam Brennecke told Mr. Schreier in the book. "Based on the average salary for a developer plus overhead, it costs about $10,000 per person at the studio. Some are more expensive. And that's how you usually do budgets with publishers too."

Atari, one of the most influential names in the entire world, today announced a partnership with crowdfunding platform Fig to develop and release two new games.

Atari is teaming up with Fig, a crowdsourcing program that treats funders as stakeholders and delivers a portion of a game's proceeds, to help develop and publish two new games: a reboot of a beloved Atari game, and a brand new IP from the once-mighty games-maker. Exact details of the two new games were undisclosed.

"Fig is providing a model where gamers not only help to get the titles they are most passionate about funded, but also have the opportunity to share in the financial returns with developers and publishers," Fred Chesnais, CEO of Atari, said in a press release announcement. "We're excited that Fig has opened up the vast potential of crowdfunding to IP holder and publisher alike by changing the narrative and allowing us to partner with our fans."

Japanese games-maker Square Enix, who's best known for titles like Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts, is apparently preparing the launch of a unified online digital storefront to sell its games.

Back in May I reported that Square Enix plans to launch a "Square Enix digital sales global website" that will "create a libraty of catalog titles and eliminate backward compatibility issues." Now the company appears to be laying the groundwork for such a service.

The publisher recently sent an email informing users that the Square Enix Online Store will be merged with the Square Enix Members registration system, essentially combining both accounts with a single sign-in. This will allow users to browse the storefront--which should be updated to a new and improved digital store that's unified for global users, among other services--while signed into their main Square Enix Members account.

I feel like we need to hire a dedicated news writer for all things PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, with the first-person Battle Royale game hitting headlines daily. Battlegrounds

The latest milestone that PUBG has hit is a new peak concurrent player number, with an absolutely flipping huge 1,348,374 gamers at once - completely demolishing any other game right now. This means that Battlegrounds has officially beaten Dota 2's all-time concurrent players record of 1,291,328.

Bluehole recently announced that there have been over 10 million copies of Battlegrounds sold so far, but I'm sure that we'll see the game hit 11 million sometime this week... with sales not slowing down at all, and if anything, they're speeding up.

Now that the Nintendo Switch's OS kernel has been cracked, hackers are finding interesting goodies hidden onto the system's files including a built-in NES emulator and a ROM file for NES Golf.

According to a homebrewers who have hacked the Nintendo Switch, every single console-handheld hybrid comes with a NES emulator baked in, presumably as a foundation for the console's paid subscription service. This Switch Online service, which costs $20 annually and is slated to release in 2018, will give users access to a pool of classic NES games with added online play.

Hackers have also found that every Switch features a copy of NES Golf that runs on the built-in emulator, complete with local two-player and JoyCon support. This game is undoubtedly a test run for the Switch Online's service and likely doesn't indicate traditional VirtualConsole support for the Switch, much to the dismay of many fans--including myself.

If Final Fantasy XV Hajime Tabata reprises his role for the next chapter in the series, the next Final Fantasy game could take big cues from Nintendo's mangum opus Breath of the Wild.

Zelda: Breath of the Wild has had a tremendous affect on the games industry. Gamers everywhere are in awe of the title's living, breathing open world, and developers have taken notice too: in fact, Final Fantasy XV's game director is quite impressed with the game. Mr. Tabata says that his next game will emulate Breath of the Wild's open world scope and experience--but it's not necessarily going to be the next mainline Final Fantasy game.

"It's hard to say at this point if the entire game is going to be based on an open world," Mr. Tabata said in a recent interview with Gamespot at PAX West. "But I would say that the overall experience that users get from playing in a massive area, that overall game experience is something that we're going make sure is in the next project as well."

Final Fantasy XV has now sold 6.5 million copies worldwide, game director Hajime Tabata revealed.

Square Enix's recent efforts to make Final Fantasy XV the center of a new universe-within-an-IP business model have apparently paid off. The game, which sits at the core of a galaxy of ports, re-releases, and transmedia products, has transformed significantly since its launch in 2016. The Japanese publisher has updated the action RPG with a smattering of free new content updates to expand the game that dramatically change it from its launch state, coupled with a stream of premium paid content to boot. The game is even getting its own MMO-like online mode.

This new business model has been quite fruitful for Square Enix, and the publisher hopes to reap even more success by bringing Final Fantasy XV to all platforms, including mobiles and PC. According to game director Hajime Tabata, the landmark RPG has sold 6.5 million units to date, up 500,000 units from the original figure announced in January.

After the upcoming fall update, Battleborn's development team will no longer add new content to the shooter and shift their focus to a brand new 2K Games project.

Although Battleborn's PVP has transitioned towards a free-to-play model and premium microtransactions following a disastrous flop for the 2K Games label, the game will no longer be updated with significant content updates and is essentially being put on hiatus similar to Mass Effect: Andromeda. The Battleborn team is shifting their focus on Gearbox's new "highly anticipated project" which is very likely to be Borderlands 3.

"As of this week, there will be no more Battleplans and there is currently no planned content after the Fall Update," Creative Director Randy Varnell said in a forum post. Mr. Varnell says the game will stay online, but it won't receive any major story or content updates, similar to Andromeda's fate.

Turn10 Studios confirms that Forza 7 will clock in at a huge 95GB on Xbox One, but that huge install size is split between the game disc and a 50GB download.

Microsoft's first-party games are often juggernaut-sized leviathans that quickly eat up your internal data--Halo 5, Gears of War, Forza, you name it--and Turn10's racing opus Forza 7 is no different. Xbox One owners can look forward to almost 100GB of data being taken up by the game: the racer takes up 95GB of space, but the Blu-ray disc only holds 45GB and users will have to download the remaining 50GB on their own time. Luckily, that 50GB update is purely optional (for game disc owners anyway) and isn't required to play the game, but you'll need to download it if you want the definitive Forza 7 experience. Xbox One X owners can expect yet another big update for the 4K assets and performance tweaks.

"Ever since we announced Forza 7, we've called this our biggest game, and the numbers bear it out: more than 700 cars at launch, 32 of the world's greatest tracks (our largest lineup ever), a massive career in the Forza Driver's Cup, and of course a huge list of ever-changing multiplayer and competitive modes that will keep players busy no matter their skill level or driving preferences," Turn10 said on its official blog.

Destiny 2's masterfully-crafted--and super addicting--engagement strategy is paying off big time.

Activision today announced that Destiny 2 has surpassed the original game's player engagement and concurrent player count since the sequel launched on September 6. "We hit some great milestones this week with our community," said Bungie CEO Pete Parsons. "We are blown away that we've had eight days in a row in Destiny 2 where we've seen more than one-million concurrent players grace our worlds. It's equal parts inspiring and humbling, and we're looking forward to showing everyone what's coming next!"

"With franchise pre-order records broken, and record day-one performance on PlayStation Store, it's exciting to see engagement at the highest ever week-one concurrency for the franchise. Destiny 2 is off to a strong start as the #1 console gaming launch week of the year to date," said Eric Hirshberg, CEO of Activision.

Nintendo's new Switch handheld-console hybrid system has enjoyed tremendous success in its first six months of availability, dominating sales charts off and on since its launch in March.

The Nintendo Switch is immensely popular. The machine, which allows users to play games both on-the-go and on a television at home, is selling at retails across the globe as demand quickly outpaces supply. This hot demand for the Switch has had a direct impact on the system's performance on hardware sales charts, which sees the hybrid dethroning Sony's titanic PlayStation 4 for many months since the handheld's launch in March of this year. We've already reported how the Switch has re-vitalized Japan's console hardware market, but the system is doing exceedingly well in Nintendo's biggest market: North America.

Analyst tracking firm NPD Group reports the Nintendo Switch was the best-selling console for August 2017 in the United States, beating out Sony's PlayStation 4 and Microsoft's Xbox One. This marks the second month in a row the Switch has beaten the PS4. In fact the Switch has dominated sales charts for four out of the six months of the system's availability, NPD Group analyst Mat Piscatella said.

Xur, that shadowy Santa Claus from the cosmos with a Cthulu-ian face, has made his first appearance in Destiny 2. Here's an in-depth look at what he's selling.

Xur's appearance in Destiny 2 is much like the original game: the mysterious merchant is still selling four exotics: one weapon and three armor-based items each for a Titan, Warlock, and Hunter. Unlike the original Destiny, however, Xur is actually found in the open world this time around and not in a safe space like a town. Also he's not exactly hidden this time, but marked with a "IX" indicator on a planet's map.

For Week 1 users can find Xur on Nessus near the Watcher's Grave region to the northernmost section of the planet. If you can't find him right away be sure to look up--Xur is conspicuously tucked away on an autumnal tree branch next to the crumpled corpse of a Hezen Collective Vex.

One thing that can kill a multiplayer focused game is cheaters. PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds has sold over 10 million copies and is a prime target for cheaters to employ hacks to gain chicken dinners, this is something game developer Bluehole has addressed and appear to be well on top of.

Mr. PlayerUknown, Brendan Greene, took to Twitter to inform us that PUBG's anti-cheat system BattlEye has banned over 150,000 cheaters, 8,000 of them in the last 24 hours.

Console gamers recently had the pleasure of accessing the multiplayer beta for latest entry into the Call of Duty series, Call of Duty: WW2. Now, PC gamers will be given the chance to access the multiplayer open beta on September 29 through to October 2.

The PC beta, accessible via Steam, will be open to the entire PC platform with no pre-order required. This wasn't the case for the console beta as access was limited to pre-ordered editions only. Developer Sledgehammer explains this is due to "Stress test core gameplay systems and online backend infrastructure at scale."

The minimum requirements for the beta are below and are quite reasonable.

There's no better way of capturing consumers that haven't already purchased a Nintendo Switch than by offering up a bundle with Nintendo's upcoming Super Mario Odyssey.

Nintendo is working on a new Switch bundle that will include Super Mario Odyssey, something the company teased during its recent Nintendo Direct stream. The new Nintendo Switch bundle will include the console itself (duh), and a digital copy of Super Mario Odyssey. Not only that, but the Switch + Super Mario Odyssey bundle will also include a pair of Joy-Con controllers in red, with a special edition carrying case that charges the console.

Nintendo will offer up the Switch + SMO bundle on October 27 at $379.99.

Microsoft isn't far away from releasing its upcoming Xbox One X console, so Sony is nailing the praise of its beefier PS4 Pro and CCP's upcoming release with EVE: Valkyrie Warzone.

CCP's Lead Game Designer Andrew Willans explained some of the technical specs behind the PS4, PS4 Pro and PC versions of the game under traditional 2D modes recently, where he said: "On PS4 we use a dynamic resolution technique developed by Alex Vlachos at Valve where you change your resolution based on what's getting rendered on the screen or VR Headset".

He continued: "This is to render the game at high resolution when you're flying around the map and fallback to a lower resolution when you're in the heat of battle, where explosions and other effects slow down rendering. On PSVR we render between 1920×1080 and 2880×1620 at 60 frames-per-second, this is true for both the PS4 and the PS4 Pro. The PS4 Pro has extra graphics features like dynamic shadows and improved effects we can't run on the original PS4".

Microsoft is rolling out a new feature called Intelligent Delivery across the family of Xbox One consoles in an effort to keep game installs and downloads as low as possible.

Xbox games are huge, and Microsoft's own games typically reach--or break--the 100GB barrier. One of my biggest worries about the Xbox One X was games becoming too big; these titles are already huge, but with 4K HDR assets added in, your included 1TB hard drive would be filled in no time. So how will Microsoft combat this? With the new Intelligent Delivery system. According to Digital Foundry, who acquired developer notes for the new ID system, Intelligent Delivery will give developers the power to carve up key portions of their games into "chunks". This allows developers to, say, have users install only a single audio language pack, and even allows multi-disc support for the Xbox One family of systems.

But that's not it: Intelligent Delivery automatically detects your console type and the resources you need to download. For Xbox One S or Xbox One users, ID will avoid the native 4K textures that Xbox One X can utilize, thereby reducing the file sizes. Since all three Xbox One consoles vary in power and efficacy, Intelligent Delivery is a tool that dictates and manages games, resources and assets across the family of machines on the consumer side, effectively allowing users to download "shrunken" games. On the developer side, however, ID can do some interesting things that may very well revolutionize console gaming--if, of course, devs and publishers opt to use it.

Bethesda has officially confirmed that Skyrim's anticipated Switch port is indeed the remastered flavor, but we won't be getting mods at launch--and possibly never.

Bethesda Softworks is going all-in on the Nintendo Switch: the company is bringing three of its biggest games to the platform, including the perennial Skyrim as well as two ultra-violent and very-mature shooters: 2016's excellent Doom reboot and MachineGames' new Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus. Up until now gamers weren't sure if the Skyrim port was indeed Special Edition, but Bethesda themselves explicitly referred to Switch flavor as "Special Edition" in a new update.

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