Gaming - Page 925

As we've reported, Red Dead Redemption 2 isn't currently slated to release on PC when it launches in Spring 2018. That may not change and the massively anticipated Western sequel could be exclusive to consoles.

During a quarterly earnings call, Rockstar Games parent company Take-Two Interactive discussed how important PC is for its business, and the response may give little hope for a Red Dead Redemption 2 release on the platform. During the call Take-Two President Karl Slatoff was asked how important PC is to its major titles, in which he replied:

"The answer to that really depends on the title. Some titles are heavily weighted to PC, for example Civilization an XCOM, and some titles are less weighted to PC. So it's really on a title-by-title basis. The great news is that the PC market is vibrant to us, it's a great market for us and a big market, and a core market," Mr. Slatoff said.

The global interactive media market, which includes video games software, esports, streaming monetization, and virtual reality, is expected to peak at $104.6 billion in 2017, analyst firm SuperData predicts.

In its latest Trends and Insights on Games and Interactive Media report, analyst tracking firm SuperData forecasts the video games market to breach $100 billion in 2017. The report, which only includes digital media like PC, mobile, console and VR game software sales, microtransactions, and earnings from gaming video content such as Twitch, says that the global market revenues will grow by 12% year-over-year in 2017 to $104.6 billion. Contrarily, analyst firm Newzoo predicts the global games market will rake in $108.6 billion, up 7% year-over-year.

Mobile revenue is expected to jump by a mighty $6.7 billion in 2017, and 92.25% or $96.5 billion of total games industry revenues are from digital games, SuperData reports. Digital games are up 10.28% year-over-year, and are expected to make up 73% of revenues in 2020.

It looks like Gran Turismo creator Kazunori Yamauchi is getting his hands dirty on GT Sport, with the assets for the game over-specced for the slightly faster PS4 Pro, right up to 8K.

During a studio tour through Polyphony Digital, Finder.com reports that Yamauchi said that they're creating assets for GT Sport for future releases of PlayStation consoles, our strongest hint of the PS5 yet. Remember that I had an exclusive source tell me that the PS5 will feature a discrete GPU, and not an APU - so this news makes sense.

Yamauchi told Finder.com: "It takes six months to create a single car. It's over-specced for PS4 Pro. So we are building for future versions of the console rather than the one we see today. I think it would be no problem to run it at 8K even".

After months of waiting, Arkane is finally fixing Prey's FPS issues on PS4.

Prey's new 1.05 update will address a the notable frame rate issues on PlayStation 4 and PS4 Pro platforms by introducing "fixes to address screen-tearing/stuttering". Arkane's latest patch will roll out across all platforms--Xbox One, PS4, PC--and aims to squash a number of bugs and issues, including crashes, performance hiccups, and, of course, stamping out specific unintended player exploits.

Arkane hasn't delivered an ETA on the patch, but community forum manager Jurassica affirms it'll release sometime soon. Check below for full patch notes.

Illfonic and Gun Media have confirmed that Friday The 13th: The Game has sold almost 2 million copies since its late May release.

Friday The 13th: The Game is an interesting spectacle in the games industry. Developed by an indie team of only 30 people, many thought the game would be crushed under the insurmountable weight of the movie series, which cast a wide shadow. And at first it looked like Illfonic and Gun Media were in serious trouble: the game launched on PS4, Xbox One and PC with massive server congestion, as well as glitches and bugs on all platforms.

Despite these hurdles, the game went on to sell 1.8 million units in its first two months, Gun Media head and F13 co-creator Wes Keltner told GamesIndustry.biz in a recent interview.

Konami's first quarter earnings show the Japanese games-maker is doing quite well for itself, despite being near-universally disliked among gamers.

Controversial games publisher and developer Konami kicks off its fiscal year with strong overall growth in revenues driven by successful performance of its videogame branch. The company earned total revenues of 55.743 billion yen ($503.303 million) in the quarter ended in June, up 12.8% year-over-year. Total operating profit reported for the quarter was operating profit 12.2 billion yen ($110.129 million), up a strong 34.2% from fiscal Q1'17. Konami's total profits for the three-month period are also up 46.4%, with 8.5 billion yen ($76.729 million) being generated.

Out of Konami's four segments, its Digital Entertainments videogame segment was the biggest contributor to fiscal Q1'18 revenues. Catalyzed by sales of the popular Yu-Gi-Oh! card game series, a PES 2017 soccer mobile game, and Super Bomberman R on Nintendo Switch, Digital Entertainments pulled in 51.87% of total quarterly revenues, or 28.914 billion yen ($261.06 million), up a strong 35.53% year-over-year.

Massive sales of popular fighting game Injustice 2 contributed to Warner Bros. quarterly earnings.

Time Warner today announced its second quarter earnings, showing strong growth in key sectors including its videogame segment Warner Bros. Interactive thanks to massive game sales. In fact, the parent company said that Injustice 2 was the "highest-grossing console game in the second quarter of 2017," falling in line with projections from analyst firms like NPD Group and SuperData.

Injustice 2 topped the digital sales charts in NPD Group's tracking data when it released in May, becoming the best-selling game in America for the month, and dropped to number 2 in June. The massively popular DC fighting game sold 500,000 units in its first month of availability on PS4 and Xbox One's digital storefronts.

Nintendo has officially confirmed that pre-orders for its massively sought-after SNES Classic Edition microconsole will begin later this year.

After Walmart cancelled SNES Classic Edition pre-orders due to accidentally opening them online, many frustrated consumers anxiously waited for an official response from Nintendo. Now the Japanese console-maker has confirmed that SNES mini pre-orders will go live sometime later this month across all retailers, including Best Buy, Amazon, Walmart and Target, and that a substantial amount of additional consoles will be shipped to ensure adequate supply.

"We appreciate the incredible anticipation that exists for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System: Super NES Classic Edition system, and can confirm that it will be made available for pre-order by various retailers late this month," Nintendo wrote in a recent Facebook post.

Atlus today confirmed a new mysterious Persona game is coming to the Nintendo 3DS.

Persona Q2 has been officially announced, but we don't know anything about the game other than it's coming to the Nintendo 3DS and is likely a sequel to 2014's Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth. The new game may also be connected to Persona 5, as the announcement website has the tagline "take your heart", which was used in Atlus' hit Persona 5 release.

These announcements fall in line with SEGA's promise to continue expanding its IPs across all platforms. SEGA publishes Persona games, and Atlus is a subsidiary of Sega Sammy Holdings, the parent company.

Microsoft's new high-end Xbox One X carries with it a hefty $499 price tag, but thanks to Taco Bell you could grab one for the low, low cost of FREE.

Microsoft and Taco Bell are teaming up to give away a bunch of Xbox One X consoles to lucky taco aficionados. The promotion starts at the end of August, and you'll have to shell out $5 for a box of Taco Bell goodies to participate. Winners will get an Xbox One X console, a copy of Forza 7, and 3 months of Xbox Game Pass--all for free. If this promo sounds familiar, it should--it's the exact same taco-gobbling giveaway from 2015 only this time you can win an Xbox One X instead of a PS4.

And of course Taco Bell doesn't spoil the fun by telling you how many Xbox One X consoles are available.

Destiny 2 releases next month, yet Bungie nor the game's publisher Activision have discussed or revealed microtransaction plans for the game. However, the recent Destiny 2 beta gives us some clues.

The games industry is transforming; with the advent of online digital distribution, games are no longer fully-finished titles, but are instead constantly evolving over time with a litany of updates and content. Gamers continue to spend money long after the initial purchase and invest more time--and revenue--into experiences that evolve over time. This is a boon to major industry movers like Activision, EA, Ubisoft and Take-Two who have all made billions from their respective live-service-based games, and gamers in return are fed with a constant stream of content to consume as they see fit. This games-as-a-service (GaaS) initiative has provided many boons for gamers and developers, as players get wave after wave of free content and developers and publishers have continual revenue streams to fund updates, expansions, and future sequels.

Nowadays full AAA games are infused with optional paid cosmetics to fund free updates and content such as map packs, new missions, etc. Destiny, Bungie's shared-worlds shooter, embraced this monetization scheme in late 2015 and has been collecting untold millions since. I've found it quite interesting that Bungie nor Activision have discussed Destiny 2's microtransaction plan despite the game releasing next month.

Sony reports impressive Q1 earnings revenue driven by strong segment sales growth.

Profits surge in Sony Corp's new quarterly financials, with key segments like the company's semiconductor arm which makes its lucrative image sensors, the video cameras segment, and its financial institution all seeing big jumps in net sales revenue of 41.1%, 27.3% and 30.3% year-over-year spikes respectively.

Sony earned 1.858 trillion yen ($16.8 billion) in net sales in the three-month quarter ended June 30, up 15.2% year-over-year from Q1'16.

Japanese games titan Sony Corp today revealed its first quarter financials for the fiscal year ending March 2018, showing strong growth due to increased semiconductor, image sensors, and financial institution segments, along with a highlight at total lifetime-to-date PlayStation 4 shipments.

In its Q1 earnings for Fiscal Year 2017 the Tokyo-based technology giant has revealed new metrics on the PlayStation 4's sell-in figures. According to the data, Sony shipped 3.0 million PS4s in the three-month period ended June 30, 2017, down 14.28% year-over-year from the 3.5 million units shipped in Q1'16. In total, Sony has sold-in 63.3 million units to retailers as of June 30.

Remember this is sell-in, as in shipments to retailers who purchased the consoles in bulk for a discounted rate, not total sales. As of June 13, Sony has sold 60.4 million PlayStation 4 units globally.

On the heels of strong first quarter earnings assisted by Capcom's first Nintendo Switch game, the Japanese games-maker says the console is "very strong" and it'll likely release more games for the machine.

Despite being priced at $39.99, Capcom's newly released Ultra Street Fighter II managed to sell 450,000 units globally across the Nintendo Switch's 4.7 million worldwide install base in a single month, outperforming the company's expectations. "Ultra Street Fighter II (for Nintendo Switch), which was released in May 2017, made an excellent start and proved to be a smash hit," Capcom wrote in its fiscal Q1'18 earnings report.

Capcom asserts that Ultra Street Fighter II was massively popular in Europe and North America where it sold 350,000 copies, and less-so in Japan where it saw 100,000 copies. In comparison, Japanese Switch owners purchased 670,995 copies of Splatoon 2 in three days.

Capcom reports strong growth for the first quarter in Fiscal Year 2018, pushing net sales up by 7.5% year-over-year and an incredible 2,080% earnings spike in digital contents segment operating income.

Capcom has kicked off the fiscal year ending March 2018 with impressive earnings across the board; not only was revenue positive in all gaming sectors, earnings rebounded year-over-year thanks to consistently strong sales of key flagship titles.

The Japanese games-maker reported net sales of 11.746 billion yen ($106.172 million) for the three month quarter ended June 30, 2017, up 7.5% year-over-year. Operating income was 784 million yen ($7.08 million) up an amazing 208% year-over-year from Q1'16's loss of $726 million yen. Ordinary income for the quarter was 772 million yen ($6.97 million), up a big 137% from the substantial 2.08 billion yen ($18.8 million) loss last year. Capcom's total profit was positive this quarter, pulling in 521 million yen ($4.70 million) and up 136% from last year's big 1.41 billion yen loss.

Nintendo's awkward and truly backwards-implemented online voice chatting app is a mess, and a huge portion of Nintendo Switch owners simply aren't using it.

The Nintendo Switch Online smartphone app, which requires Switch owners to use their phone while playing Switch games in order to chat with friends in online multiplayer games like Splatoon 2, has been released as part of a "free, limited test" to arm Nintendo with much-needed feedback on its incoming online service. However, gamers simply aren't using the app: analyst firm Sensor Tower reports that just 17% of the Nintendo Switch's full 4.7 million global install base, or 780,000 users, have downloaded the app on both Google Play and Apple's iOS Store.

The vast majority of Switch Online app downloads were in the United States, and Sensor Tower's data shows just how little Japanese gamers care about voice chatting. This strongly reinforces the believe Nintendo is marketing the Switch for the Japanese market first, as Japanese gamers typically do not use voice-based interactions while playing online games. While it's worth noting the Switch Online app only works with Splatoon 2 right now, the game is massively popular in Japan: in 3 days it sold 670,995 units, meaning one out of every two Switch owners in Japan bought the game.

Modders are bringing Rockstar's massively popular Grand Theft Auto series to space in a move that could counter No Man's Sky or Mass Effect: Andromeda's space exploration.

A consortium of GTA modders are making an ambitious new mod called Grand Theft Space, which will allow gamers to explore the heavens and land on planets throughout--and beyond--the solar system. "I've heard little rumblings in the past of people wanting to make space mods. I've seen map-editor satellites, and space ship looking vehicles, the whole 9 yards," GTA Space modder sollaholla said on the mod's announcement page. "But nobody seems to have ever made it so you can actually go in space. So I said, 'Screw it, I'm gonna make a space mod.'"

The modders want to include a ton of features including a fully-fledged psychics system to emulate the free-floating zero-g of space, as well as planet exploration, gunning down aliens and other unknown intergalactic baddies, joyriding and cruising in vehicles on planet surfaces, and a few missions thrown in to boot.

EA is rolling forward with its plan to integrate the Frostbite engine and the action genre into all of its games.

In May 2016 I predicted that BioWare's then-secret new IP would be action-based. Fast-forwarding to today and Anthem, BioWare's newly announced IP, indeed puts action first above RPG and adventure elements. Before Mass Effect: Andromeda was released, I predicted the game would have heavy action elements instead of the beloved tactical squad-based content the series was known for; lo and behold, the game delivered just that.

In a May 2016 Investor's Day Presentation, Electronic Arts confirmed it would start focusing heavily on the action genre in a bid to leverage an untapped market. Now in 2017 the games giant has reinforced that initiative with confirmations it will continue pushing an action focus for its new games.

Electronic Arts CFO Blake Jorgensen confirms BioWare's Montreal team has been integrated into Jade Raymond's new EA Motive studio.

Two months after Mass Effect: Andromeda launched to dismal critical reception, reports from Kotaku's Jason Schreier indicate EA down-sized BioWare Montreal, the studio that made the game, and put the Mass Effect series on hiatus. The remaining BioWare developers were then spread out across EA Motive and BioWare's core Edmonton division to help work on the latter's new IP, Anthem, the reports continue. Now EA has officially confirmed the fate of its Montreal studio, validating the reports from May of this year.

While discussing R&D spend in a recent quarterly earnings call, EA Chief Financial Officer Blake Jorgensen said BioWare Montreal has been moved into the EA Motive studio to help Jade Raymond's team develop a new IP.

Although BioWare Montreal's massively panned and hugely criticized action-RPG suffered in the long run, EA confirms Mass Effect: Andromeda strongly contributed to revenues and helped the company pull in record first quarter earnings.

Mass Effect: Andromeda is undoubtedly bombed in the public eye, but according to EA's latest fiscal Q1'18 earnings call, the game bolstered its quarterly revenues with strong sales. With a fully-monetized strategy the game helped in a number of ways including live service earnings, digital downloads, and total net sales.

Net sales for fiscal Q1'18 were $775 million, up 13.63% year-over-year from fiscal Q1'17's $682 million, and $25 million (3.33%) above EA's guidance for the quarter. "Year-on-year growth was driven by the Mass Effect: Andromeda sales captured in the quarter and by FIFA," EA Chief Financial Officer Blake Jorgensen said during the company's fiscal Q1'18 earnings call.