Gaming - Page 917

PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds has surpassed 10 million sales, pulling in over $300 million in sales for developer Bluehole, but now PUBG creator Brendan "PlayerUnknown" Greene has talked about the water in his game. This will be done before PUBG reaches 100 million sales, I'd say.

During an interview with GamesIndustry, Greene said that the water technology from Sea of Thieves could be used in Battlegrounds in the near future. Greene said: "There are games like Destiny that really get auto-aim and controllers in an FPS feeling good. And I think that with Microsoft's help it's really going to get it feeling like a good shooter on console. We want to give the same experience. We want to PC and Xbox to be identical in terms of the experience you have playing the game".

He continued: "And another thing is, I was at the Microsoft event last night talking to the Sea of Thieves guys. They said they loved the game, they play it a lot, but, 'Oh, you're water.' I mean, our water is not very good, but Rare has great water tech. They said, 'We should share some knowledge.' That's a great thing about being part of a network of studios. We can get that water tech, essentially for free, and we can share stuff with them. That's just invaluable, because their water is great. Having that would really finish off our world nicely".

Turn 10 has announced that Forza Motorsport 7 has gone gold, celebrating the milestone by releasing an official commercial trailer.

The new trailer for Forza Motorsport 7 features comedian and CarCast host Adam Corolla, pro driver Ken Block, and a bunch of gamers. There are some uber cars in the trailer, including: a Pagani Huarya, Porsche Cayman GT4, Plymouth Barracuda, and Block's own custom-built Ford Mustang "Hoonicorn".

There will also be a PC demo of Forza Motorsport 7 coming soon, and get this: it will include a benchmark utility so that we can test the performance of the game. Expect a bunch of cards to be benchmarked when the demo arrives on September 19.

Nintendo has officially confirmed that some Nintendo Switch games won't fit on the standard Switch GameCard cartridge, strongly indicating key publishers are choosing the more affordable cartridge solutions for their game instead of going with the higher capacity versions.

As per Nintendo's official announcement, some physical cartridge-based will require a microSD card to be installed and force users to download an undisclosed amount of data in order to play a full game. "A microSD card will be needed for certain Nintendo Switch games that contain an especially large amount of content and require additional storage for players to enjoy the full experience," Nintendo told IGN. NBA 2K18 is the first known game to force users to buy microSD cards, but is the game so big it really won't fit on a cartridge?

A PR representative told us that NBA 2K18 is 25GB on the Nintendo Switch. That means it will consume more than the Switch's available built-in 25GB of free memory. But Nintendo Switch GameCards can actually hold up to 32GB of data; as per Eurogamer, GameCards come in 1GB, 2GB, 4GB, 8GB, 16GB and 32GB flavors. The bigger the capacity, the more expensive the cartridges are. So instead of using the 32GB capacity that would hold the full 25GB game, it appears 2K Games has selected the 16GB GameCard, thus forcing users to download up to 9GB of data to their microSD cards.

The Federal Trade Comission today announced that prominent YouTubers TmarTn and Syndicate have settled charges of deceiving fans and viewers in the CS:GO Lotto gambling controversy.

CS:GO Lotto owners Trevor "TmarTn" Martin and Thomas "Syndicate" Cassell, who promoted the skin-gambling website and falsely represented earnings while failing to disclose their ownership, have complied with the FTC's settlement orders. Now the duo must "clearly and conspicuously disclose any material connections with an endorser or between an endorser and any promoted product or service."

Earlier in the year, Microsoft announced that Killer Instinct will be available on Steam. We all expected that Microsoft would only allow cross-play support with Xbox One and Windows 10 platforms, while the minority of Steam users would be left out of the fun.

Well, we were wrong. Revealed on the Killer Instinct forums, Community Manager Rukari "rukizzel" Austin posted "This is your confirmation that Killer Instinct players on Xbox One or Windows 10 will be able to play cross-network with players on Steam, as well, and we're super excited to be able to bring that feature to you when KI launches on Steam in the coming weeks."

Austin further stated. "We will be testing this feature, making sure all the kinks are worked out (as best as we can) in a live environment. What that means for you is that you will see the option for cross play in your menus, but then there will be times where that menu item is turned off, and seemingly missing. Never fear, that is simply us working on things in the background, and your experience will not be affected as we do our work."

Battlegrounds has become one of the best PC gaming success stories of all time, selling over 10 million copies since it launched into Steam Early Access earlier this year, making over $300 million so far.

The success of PUBG isn't stopping, with nearly 1 million concurrent gamers on Steam playing the game to win that coveted chicken dinner. PUBG creator Brendan Greene thinks the game can reach the lofty heights of 100 million gamers, and if it did - it would well and truly be in the history books.

Greene explained: "Our sales curves are just going up. They're not slowing down. I'm still waiting for that plateau, and it's just not happening yet. When you ask about growth on PC, I just look at League of Legends. 100 million active users a month, I think, something stupid like that? If we play our cards right, maybe we can get to that level of users".

Destiny 2 might be out on consoles right now, but PC gamers will have to wait until next month to play the full game - but last week Bungie and Activision unleashed the PC beta, allowing gamers to try it out early.

Bungie has included 21:9 UltraWide monitor support, multi-GPU configuration support, HDR, 200FPS+, customized field of view settings (55-105), customized key mapping, and more. But the performance side of Destiny 2 on the PC is the most important thing, and that appears to be something that Bungie have utterly NAILED.

Digital Foundry has done a great job of putting Destiny 2 through its paces, with a single GeForce GTX 970 and low-end Intel Pentium G4560 @ 3.5GHz running Destiny 2 @ 4K and a "pretty much locked" 30FPS on the High preset.

As PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds continues its meteoric rise--the game has sold 10 million copies to date, pushing 2 million copies in just 2 weeks--the developers at Bluehole are having trouble keeping up with the growing playerbase. Until Bluehole gets more developers and staff, PUBG won't be coming to PlayStation 4 any time soon.

In a recent interview with GamesIndustry.biz, PlayerUnknown himself Brendan Greene said PUBG is expanding too fast for the team to keep up with it. "Oh very much," Mr. Greene said when asked if his battle royale game was accelerating too fast for the dev staff to keep up. "Like, we have to keep reminding people that we've only been on Early Access for five months... The biggest problem we're having at the moment is the server platform, because we're trying to develop it on a production system, which is super hard because you've got millions of players - literally millions - coming through the doors every day."

PlayerUnknown says that Bluehole currently sits at 120 employees, and the studio is shooting for about 300 people. Make no mistake, though, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds is a pure example of the new expanding Games-as-a-Service (GaaS) market that's taken the games industry by storm. "We're really focused on developing this as a service, and that needs a lot of staff," Mr. Greene said.

Bethesda's PR head Pete Hines spoke briefly about the publisher's overwhemingly unpopular Creation Club, asserting that it's something new for the company. And he's not wrong.

Here at TweakTown I've discussed the Creation Club at length, and even highlighted how the marketplace could be beneficial to gamers, mod-makers, and of course Bethesda themselves. But the Creation Club launched with disappointing results, offering paltry content fare that's mostly available for free and is overpriced to boot. But there's still a lot of potential with the service: if you're unfamiliar, Creation Club allows mod-makers to pitch their creations to Bethesda, and if approved, the content is sold for a set price on the storefront and a portion of the proceeds go to the creator--however most of the content sold on the marketplace is made by the publisher.

But what does Bethesda have to say about all of this? I've reached out to my PR contacts for quotes and haven't heard anything back yet, but Bethesda's own VP of Public Relations Pete Hines briefly discussed the service on Twitter. Mr. Hines asserts that Creation Club is the company "trying something new," and yes, it is something new: it's not paid mods--although it resembles paid mods right now, and may continue to do so in the future--the actual business model is indeed something new for Bethesda. Essentially what the company is trying to do is monetize The Elder Scrolls and Fallout, Bethesda Game Studios' most popular franchises, in a way that's feasible and provides recurring value. Bethesda is simply taking a queue from the games industry's shift towards microtransactions and other in-game content purchases that fuel future endeavors and major content updates.

It was reported earlier today, that Oceania players wouldn't get dedicated first-person perspective servers in PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds any-time soon due to the small player base. PUBG developers Bluehole, received quite the backlash from this, but they've clearly listened to their player base and promptly launched FPP Duo servers in the Oceania region.

"We are pleased to announce that first-person only servers for DUO will now be available for players in Oceania. Starting from 3 pm KST / 3:30 pm ACST today, players will be able to enjoy FPP DUO on OCE servers. For SOLO and SQUAD, we plan to introduce FPP at a later stage when we have an increased user pool on OCE servers in order to ensure a pleasant experience for all Oceanic players"- PUBG official announcement.

The announcement also includes some interesting statistics that back up Bluehole's decision to delay FPP servers. "One of our main concerns was the fact that it can affect the other group of players who do not play FPP. It has been proven by the data from other regions that we need at least 500 players for two game modes to ensure a reasonable matchmaking time. Currently, the number of concurrent users on OCE is sometimes lower than the threshold during certain times. "

Final Fantasy XV will be one of the best looking games of this generation, with the new title hitting the PC in a big way, and Microsoft's upcoming Xbox One X console.

We now know that the Xbox One X version of Final Fantasy XV won't be rendering in native 4K, but will be rendering in 3K (1800p) and will be upscaled to 4K with checkerboard rendering. The news is coming directly from the Game Director for the game, Hajime Tabata.

3K rendering is the same resolution that the PS4 Pro version of hte game will render on its "High" performance mode, something that was made available in February for the PS4 Pro, as well as "Lite" performance mode. If you enable the High performance mode the resolution of the render increases, but has been dropping performance.

Much to the envy of triple-A publishers everywhere, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds continues its hurtling sales momentum, smashing through milestone after milestone.

Today PlayerUnknown himself Brendan Greene announced that his enormously popular battle royale shooter has surpassed 10 million copies sold, effectively making it one of--if not the--biggest single platform release of the year. We've previously reported that PUBG surpassed Valve's own DOTA 2 and CS:GO titans on Steam in concurrent players, and now the game has more hours played than CS:GO--that's right, an early access game released in 2017 has been played for more hours than a Counter-Strike game released in 2012. In fact, PUBG just recently dethroned mega-titan League of Legends off Twitch's top-watched spot.

As PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds continues accelerating past its peers on all available metrics, the game is catching the attention of publishers everywhere. Take-Two Interactive recently released a GTA Online mode that closely resembles PUBG's battle royale style, and Ubisoft says it may infuse key elements of PUBG into its games, the most likely of which would be Ghost Recon Wildlands.

At $499, Microsoft's new 4K-ready Xbox One X lacks mass-market appeal, says industry analyst Michael Pachter.

While Microsoft has touted the Xbox One X is the fastest-selling pre-order in Xbox history and assets launch systems may be sold out due to excessive demand, key industry figures are more skeptical on the system's widespread appeal. It's true that Xbox division head Phil Spencer said the new 4K model isn't for everyone, and that he full expects the $250 Xbox One S to outsell the new enthusiast system, and now Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter has delivered some sales predictions to reflect this point.

According to the renowned analyst, the Xbox One X will sell up to 1 million units across the holiday season after the system is launched in November. "My estimate is 1 million global units at holiday. Don't "want" it to fail, think that is the right number. 1 million is not a huge success," Mr. Pachter wrote on Twitter.

French games-maker Ubisoft today announced that it will open its fourth studio in Quebec in 2018 in a bid to double-down on investment in the region and ramp up its online services.

The new Ubisoft studio will be centered in the city of Saguenay, and will be wholly dedicated to bolstering the publisher's live services which will power all of its major games in some form. Ubisoft makes strong recurring revenues from online-based monetization in games such as Rainbow Six: Siege and For Honor. The studio is implicated to have a strong effect on online services: in the same year that Ubisoft Sanguenay launches, the publisher forecasts 25% of its total fiscal year 2019 earnings will be from Player Recurring Investment, or $584.1 million. In contrast, last year Ubisoft pulled in $273.7 million in PRI, or 17% of its total sales earnings of $1.7 billion.

Online services power Ubisoft's digital empire and the new studio will help streamline and monetize the lucrative strategy. Considering all of Ubisoft's future games will have live services in some form the publisher needs as much help as it can get--especially with titanic online-based games like Beyond Good and Evil 2.

Ever get sick of people camping out or hiding in bushes in PUBG? Well H1Z1's developer- Daybreak have announced some interesting changes for H1Z1 that may interest you.

With a clear goal of distancing themselves from the juggernaut that PlayerUnknown's Battleground has become, Daybreak plan to up the tempo and reduce game length by decreasing the time it takes for players to find loot, more vehicle spawns, and plenty of airdropped crates containing fancy items. Daybreak showcase their clear direction they intend to take with H1Z1 below.

"Our vision is for H1Z1 to be the dominant fast-paced, action packed game in the genre. This is what sets H1Z1 apart from its competition. PUBG is very clearly a slow paced, tactical experience. And they have certainly delivered on that vision. But ours has always been and will continue to be based on fast paced & action packed moment to moment gameplay. In the coming months, all of the updates and features we bring to the game will be driving towards fully delivering on this vision."

Finally the wait is nearly over, after Ubisoft previously announced the delay of Operation Blood Orchid Update, the much anticipated update is out tomorrow. Operation Blood Orchid major changes includes the addition of a new map, Theme Park. Along with three new playable characters, Ying and Lesion from Special Duties Unit and Polish Special Forces GROM operator, Ela Bosak. Ubisoft today released another trailer for Operation Blood Orchid below.

Ubisoft recently released patch notes for Operation Blood Orchid that include the previously reported changes to the third season of play, final improvements for Operation Health update, optimization of data, new severs, rework of textures, polished dynamic and static lighting, richer sky domes, new skins and much more.

It's not all good new however, with such a vast update and improvements come big downloads. PC with Ultra-HD textures is set to be a 42GB download, or 26GB without the textures. Console gamers are set to rejoice with their much more manageable 15GB update.

Samsung's new high-end flagship QLED 4K HDR UHDTV displays are now the official partner for Microsoft's new premium $499 Xbox One X console, offering enthusiast console gamers the optimum visual experience.

Xbox division head Phil Spencer has said that its new Xbox One X console, which is capable of rendering in native 4K resolution with HDR support, isn't for everyone: the box is aimed at the high-end segment of gamers who "want the very best console experience available," and the company's recent partnership with Samsung underlines this focus. Samsung's new QLED lineup of 4K televisions leverage Quantum Dot technology for dazzling and vibrant visuals as well as 3-step image processing for low ~20ms input lag, and the sets even allow gamers to quickly switch to Game Mode with a simple voice command.

Don't forget that the Xbox One X also supports FreeSync and FreeSync 2 over the new incoming HDMI 2.1 standard, which will effectively offer variable refresh rates that potentially mimic the frame rate technology used in PC desktops. Armed with FreeSync and FreeSync 2, Xbox One X games may not only look amazing with new HDR optimizations, but also afford a much smoother gameplay experience that leverages the machine's tweaked GPU and CPU for improved frame rates and reduced screen tearing.

Overwatch is one of the biggest eSports games on the market, but a new generation of kids are going to get inspired with the news that US Overwatch pro Overwatch gamer Jay "sinatraa" Won has just landed a huge $150,000 per-year contract. The thing is, sinatraa is only 17 years old and needs his mom to sign off on the contract.

The huge $150K per year wage is $100K higher than the league minimum, with ESPN reporting that there are revenue-sharing options also available to Won. NRG eSports and Cloud9 entered a bidding war to win the hands and brain of Won, with NRG winning the bidding war and with sinatraa's mother signing on his behalf, the deal become a reality.

Won secured himself not just the $150,000 per-year for playing a game he obviously loves, but he will have health insurance and a retirement savings plan, as well as at least 50% of all bonuses from tournaments and events. If we include the bonus pool of $3.5 million in the first season, and at least $1 million for the year's champions, Won could be in for a huge ride for a teenager.

Borderlands 3 has Gearbox's full attention, as it should: the publisher has made lots of risky gambles lately.

After the dismal performance of Battleborn, Gearbox Software needs a hit, and with billions in earnings from GTA V, its label's parent company Take-Two Interactive isn't one to take failure too well. Enter Borderlands 3, which Gearbox has confirmed is currently in development, and uses Unreal Engine 4 and "exciting new technology".

Now Gearbox President Randy Pitchford says the game--which isn't outright named, of course--has most of the company's attention. "90% of Gearbox is working on the thing you want us to be working on," Mr. Pitchford said during a panel at PAX West 2017. Since the game hasn't been formally announced and revealed the president isn't able to name it outright, but as Destructoid so quaintly put it--it's totally Borderlands 3.

Destiny 2 will have microtransactions, and the premium silver currency is coming back--color us surprised.

In my Destiny 2's monetization plan remains unclear article, I posited how Destiny 2 would almost assuredly be monetized with the same premium in-game currency (silver) as the previous game, which allows users to spend real money to buy said currency and unlock in-game items. Now a leaked GameStop advertisement has officially confirmed Destiny 2 will use the silver currency, but we still don't know what content will be officially monetized. I'm guessing that Destiny 2's monetization plan will be quite robust, especially since the game will have a massive array of free post-launch content and updates that serve as the justification for microtransactions in the first place. Even still I expect the microtransactions to be cosmetic in focus.

It's worth noting that neither Activision nor Bungie have officially confirmed or announced Destiny 2 will have microtransactions or silver currency. This information comes by way of a leak. The companies are likely trying to avoid a PR fiasco and keep it as a surprise, but seasoned veterans know better. It's also quite revealing that no major outlets asked about microtransactions or monetization options at E3 or Gamescom, or the other myriad of events Destiny 2 was showcased.