Gaming - Page 924

Project CARS 2 will be one of the best looking games of the year, but I think we all knew it would be superior on Microsoft's refreshed Xbox One X console over Sony's limp release of the PS4 Pro.

Stephen Viljoen, Project CARS 2's Game Director, recently spoke with TrustedReviews where he said that the Xbox One X will be the best-looking console version of the game. He said: "I can't tell you exactly what all the various sliders will be at when you're on Xbox One X versus on PS4 Pro, but obviously they'll be higher [on Xbox One X], so there will be a significant, a noticeable improvement, because you have better hardware".

The PC version of Project CARS 2 will be the absolute peak of graphics and performance, but you'll need the GPU and CPU horsepower to drive it. Viljoen said that the Xbox One X is a "great piece of hardware", and the team is going to be "making the most of it".

Square Enix's MMO segment is enjoying landmark success thanks to Final Fantasy 14's new Stormblood expansion.

In its latest quarterly earnings filings, Japanese games-maker Square Enix confirmed that Stormblood is having a big effect on earnings. Stormblood was only on the market for 10 days before the company's fiscal Q1'18 quarter ended on June 30, and in that time the expansion managed to help surge MMO segment revenues by 67% year-over-year and 58% quarter-over-quarter.

While Square Enix didn't reveal exact sales numbers or revenues for Stormblood, it did announce figures for the MMO segment: in that 10-day period, Stormblood helped earn 9.3 billion yen ($84.304 million) in net sales, which is roughly 21% of the total Digital Entertainment revenues for the quarter. The company notes that Stormblood helped surge physical and digital sales as well as active paid subscriptions for Final Fantasy XIV.

Square Enix today announced that its landmark MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV has amassed 10 million players since its revival in 2013.

Shortly following the release of the new Stormblood content expansion, Japanese games-maker Square Enix has hit a major milestone with its lucrative and popular Final Fantasy XIV MMO. The company reports that FFXIV has breached 10 million cummulative players worldwide, including free trials and paid subscriptions.

Interestingly enough, Square Enix notes that Stormblood significantly contributed to the company's first quarter earnings. In just ten days of availability, Stormblood helped the MMO segment amass 9.3 billion yen ($84.304 million) in net sales revenue, representing a mighty 67% year-over-year. Square Enix says net sales were raised from both Stormblood digital and physical purchases, as well as a surge in active paid subscriptions.

Ubisoft has confirmed that its massively popular shooter Rainbow Six: Siege has broken yet another userbase milestone.

Rainbow Six: Siege is almost two years old, and the shooter is still engaging a core userbase of 2.3 million gamers every day. In a recent blog post, Ubisoft announced that Rainbow Six: Siege has amassed 20 million users milestone, echoing the statements made by company president and CEO Yves Guillemot in recent quarterly earnings. "Rainbow Six Siege recently hit the 20 million registered player mark, with more than 2.3 million players signing on every day," the blog post confirmed.

While the userbase metric is quite impressive, what's even more interesting is that Ubisoft is successfully monetizing this strong engagement with microtransactions and Rainbow Six: Siege's new loot box system, which allows users to spend real money on Renown to unlock in-game items.

Rainway developer Andrew Sampson has teased some footage of Half-Life 2 running on his Nintendo Switch, using PCs to stream the game to his Nintendo Switch through the Rainway app.

This is not the first time Sampson has shown off HL2 running on the Switch, but it is definitely the first time the Joy-Con controllers have worked with Rainway. There's no ETA on the Rainway app, but you can register for the beta on the official website, with beta testing kicking off on November 25.

Games titan Activision promises more remasters after big success of recent Crash Bandicoot remaster trilogy.

The massively successful sales performance of Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy on PS4 has caught the attention of Activision, but the trend isn't exactly new for the company. In a recent earnings call Activision CEO Eric Hirshberg discusses the game's huge reception and what the future holds for remasters.

"We knew there was a passionate audience out there for Crash, but we had no idea...it's hard to tell if that's a vocal minority or a mass audience until we put something out there. Crash has surpassed all of our expectations by a pretty wide margin," the CEO said.

Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime confirms the studio is incubating a number of new IPs and ideas, as well as plans for new titles in existing IPs.

Activision's second quarter 2017 earnings call was full of great news for Blizzard. Not only is the company bringing in tons of revenue from Blizzard games like Overwatch and Hearthstone, the company is working on a handful of new IP to fill out its future slate of releases.

During the earnings call, Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime teased the new IP slate by saying the current pipeline of games and ideas is better now than in the company's entire history--and considering Blizzard made gems like Warcraft, Starcraft, and Diablo, that's saying a lot.

Activision continues its fiscal year with another strong quarter driven by consoles and digital content.

Activision recently reported its Q2'17 and second-half earnings for 2017, and the results have yet again beaten corporate guidance.

For the second quarter ending June 30, Activision pulled in a total of $1.631 billion, outpacing guidance by $206 million, or 14.5%. The company attributes this growth to successful engagement and monetization strategies across its entire slate of games, with Blizzard's key franchises earning the lion's share of revenues during the quarter thanks to Overwatch's landmark seasonal and anniversary events as well as World of Warcraft's latest expansion and new Hearthstone content.

Ubisoft is pushing out a gigantic patch for Rainbow Six: Siege, with the non-4K update coming in at 26GB, while the 4K update is a massive 42GB.

The team has said that the new patch includes a new baseline that will be the foundation for all future RS:S patches, with the development team replacing countless data forges (the compressed archives that include all of the other files). Future patches shouldn't be as big, but up to 42GB is just MAMMOTH.

Ubisoft is including multiple texture optimizations for Rainbow Six: Siege on the PC, with tweaks made to the texture quality of each level of graphics setting. There's also improved character textures and environmental texture quality, too. The team explains: "Environment textures take up ~60% of available VRAM, and without making the Ultra HD pack unusable by anyone but those with the most powerful builds, the upgraded environment textures did not fit into the Ultra HD pack. Now that we have streamlined the way data and textures are handled, we are able to include these upgrades in the Ultra HD pack, and make it accessible by players that meet the 6GB VRAM minimum requirement".

Steam is riding a huge wave of PC gaming, especially with Battlegrounds just eating up the Steam charts, but over the last 18 months the company has added 27 million new gamers to Steam... or 1.5 million gamers per month.

GeekWire is reporting that one of Valve's slides at a presentation showed that Steam has 33 million daily active players, and 67 million monthly active players. Since January 2016, Valve has added 27 million new gamers to Steam, or 1.5 million per month for 18 months. Steam has also reached a huge 14 million concurrent users, up from 8.4 million in 2015 - while 125 million registered users in total.

Breaking the numbers into region, the US scoops up 34% of Steam gamers, while Europe is home to 29%. Asia continues to get bigger for Steam, hitting 17% of all users spread across Korea, China, and Japan.

UPDATE: Monolith community manager Steve Rabago reportedly confirmed Shadow of War can be played offline "at the moment", countering his quotes on the official forums. Mr. Rabago reportedly said "at the moment you can play offline" in a Discord chat session. Original article is as follows.

Warner Bros. Games recently confirmed that Middle-earth: Shadow of War can't be played offline and will need an internet connection, however it appears that stipulation may change in the future.

"At the moment, we require an internet connection," Monolith Productions Community Specialist Steve Rabago said in a recent thread on the community forums, hinting the studio could enable offline play.

Blizzard games were the top earners for Activision's second quarter, outperforming core IPs like Call of Duty and King's popular mobile games.

The company's Blizzard games segment, which includes massively popular breadwinners like Overwatch, World of Warcraft, and Hearthstone, pulled in $556 million in net revenues in the second quarter period from April through June, up an incredible 175% year-over-year and accounting for 42% of Activision's total segment net revenues of $1.362 billion.

Activision attributes these strong earnings to efficient monetization of the record engagement and MAU growth Blizzard saw during the quarter. Blizzard enjoyed the "biggest quarterly online player community in its history" with a record 46 million monthly active users (MAUs), up 38% year-over-year, with Overwatch and Hearthstone responsible for the bulk of this growth.

Major games-makers like Activision are pushing towards the digital landscape for stronger revenue growth via recurring monetization and direct consumer sales, and Activision has made big strides in its digital strategy.

Activision reported its second quarter financials for the fiscal year ending December 2017, which beat forecasts and pulled in a record $1.631 billion in net revenue. Digital online, which includes full game downloads and sales from all channels and platforms as well as monetization from DLC and add-ons, accounted for 80% of Activision's second quarter net revenues, or $1.309 billion. Not only is digital segment revenue up by 15% year-over-year, but the percentage share is up by 7%, as digital accounted for 73% in Q2'16.

Digital also had a tremendous impact on Activision's 2H'17 earnings, which includes revenue earned in the six-month period from January to June. Digital accounted for 80% of 2H'17 net revenues, or $2.694 billion, up a big 12% in total YoY percentage share and a tremendous 30.3% in year-over-yer revenues.

Activision is arguably the king of monetization, and the company's recent earnings filings add more jewels to the company's crown.

Games industry giant Activision recently announced its second quarter earnings for the fiscal year ending December 2017, highlighting record quarterly earnings growth and MAUs. The reports underline the company's core digital revenue streams and give key insight on how Activision has managed to stay on top for so long with its massively lucrative monetization strategies.

As the games industry shifts towards the GaaS model (Games-as-a-Service), video games now have recurring revenue opportunities baked in via live services that facilitate online play mixed with in-game purchases via DLC, add-ons, and microtransactions. Activision is one of the major drivers to this new push, and the company makes most of its quarterly earnings by far from digital thanks to its profitable live services.

PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds continues to take over the gaming world, with the game hitting yet another milestone: 500,000+ concurrent players on Steam.

If we consider that global FPS juggarnaut CS:GO sits at 'just' 511,768 concurrent players and a peak of 546,789 - while Battlegrounds reached 519,478 - PUBG's new peak. Dota 2 is still king with a huge 772,822 concurrent players and a peak of 774,396 - while #4 goes to H1Z1: King of the Kill with a peak of 141,789 players.

SteamSpy reports that over 6.2 million copies of Battlegrounds have been sold so far, and that's before the big July update was delayed until this week - another driver in players, I'm sure. There's also the cosmetic DLC upgrade coming, but hasn't been met with total positivity.

2K Games parent company Take-Two Interactive continues to tease a 2018-2019 release for Borderlands 3.

In its quarterly earnings call for fiscal Q1'18, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick once again teased Borderlands 3 may be a part of the company's upcoming fiscal year release slate. "Looking ahead to Fiscal Year 2019, we expect to deliver both record net sales and operating income led by the launches of Rockstar Games' Read Dead Redemption 2, and a highly anticipated new title from one of 2K's biggest franchises," Mr. Zelnick said during the call. The Borderlands series of games is the second most popular of 2K's biggest non-sports series, with the now-defunct BioShock series taking the top spot with 25 million lifetime sales.

Last April Gearbox Software confirmed Borderlands 3 is in development, and company CEO Randy Pitchford showcased in-engine footage of the game at GDC 2017. Mr. Pitchford also confirmed that Borderlands 3 will run on Unreal Engine 4 and will feature a number of new technologies.

Grand Theft Auto Online appears to be an unstoppable juggernaut, and Rockstar Games parent company Take-Two Interactive is making revenues hand-over-fist as a result.

In its fiscal Q3'18 earnings report, Take-Two Interactive announces that Grand Theft Auto Online has just enjoyed its biggest quarter yet. The massively lucrative online mode broke two records in the three-month period ended June 30: most earnings in a single quarter, and most monthly active users (MAUs), both of which were driven by massive engagement from new content updates like the Gunrunning DLC.

GTA Online contributed to Take-Two's quarterly performance across the board, from the $418.2 million in net revenues (up 34% YoY) earned during the period to the $348.3 million in net sales (up 28% YoY) gleaned in fiscal Q1'18. Bear in mind the company earned these revenues without releasing a new game, and 94% of earnings were from catalog titles. Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick confirms GTA Online was the single most largest contributor to the $171.468 million earned from recurring consumer spending during the period, which was boosted by a massive 71% year-over-year.

Take-Two Interactive starts its new fiscal year with big earnings across the board thanks to Grand Theft Auto Online and NBA 2K.

Despite not releasing any major games during the three month period ended June 30, Take-Two Interactive has recorded impressive earnings from recurring consumer spending and purchases of its catalog titles slate. In its fiscal Q1'18 period the company pulled in a total of to $418.2 million in net revenues, up 34% year-over-year from fiscal Q1'17, driven by NBA 2K17, GTA Online and GTA V, WWE 2K17 and WWE SuperCard, and Mafia III. As we reported earlier, 82% of Take-Two's first quarter net revenue was made on consoles.

The Grand Theft Auto parent company pulled in $348.3 million in net sales during the quarter, up 28% year-over-year, with catalog making up 94% of net sales for the period. Operating income was up a huge 255.92% year-over-year to $60.276 million, versus the loss of $38.657 million from fiscal Q1'17.

Take-Two Interactive continues to earn most of its revenues from consoles as digital becomes the dominant medium.

Rockstar Games parent company Take-Two Interactive's recent fiscal Q1'18 earnings show strong growth in net revenues primarily driven by Grand Theft Auto Online's strong monetization. These trends show that Take-Two's games are evolving well past their purchase point with additional content, which significantly builds digital revenues. The earnings report showed that Take-Two is continuing to make most of its money from digital distribution, and that consoles are the most lucrative platform.

Out of the $418.216 million Take-Two earned in fiscal Q1'18 net revenues, consoles accounted for 82% of that value, or $344.917 million, up 35.78% year-over-year from fiscal Q1'17. This marks the sixth consecutive year in a row that consoles have pulled in the bulk of Take-Two's net revenues.

Warner Bros. Interactive's new upcoming Middle-earth: Shadow of War game will have loot box-based microtransactions that players can buy with premium currency.

Monolith and WB Games has confirmed Shadow of War, the sequel to the hit Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, will be monetized with in-game purchases via a new Market system. In the Market players can spend two forms of currencies--Mirian, which can be earned naturally in the game, and Gold, which is also doled out to users as they play but can also be purchased with real money as a premium currency on the Xbox Store, PlayStation Store, or Steam--on randomized loot boxes.

Loot Chests, War Chests, XP Boosts and Bundles are the different types of items purchasable on the in-game Market, and all have randomized rewards depending on the chest's tier. The chests and boxes themselves will be segregated into varying tiers of quality; ie higher level chests can deliver rewards of greater rarity and efficacy. Loot Chests contain randomized weapons and armor, War Chests include Orc followers of randomized rarity to fill out the in-game army, XP Boosts are consumables that level up Talion more quickly, and Bundles package Loot Chests, War Chests, and Boosts together.