Gaming - Page 932

Thanks to RUST developer Garry Newman, everyday gamers get a glimpse into how Steam's refund system can affect sales of any widely popular game.

Newman, who's responsible for popular games such as Garry's Mod and RUST, is one of the thousands of developers and publishers that has to deal with refunds. As PC GamesN rightly puts it, an actual game sale on Steam doesn't mean that money will actually stay in the developer's pocket--there's a chance players will simply refund the game before the allotted limit and get their money back. Newman recently revealed that RUST has been refunded 329,970 times, amounting to a loss of over $4 million.

Months after its release, Ubisoft is still updating Watch Dogs 2 with new content and features. This time the huge open-world hacktivist adventure is getting a four-player party mode for co-op free roam or multiplayer activities.

Watch Dogs 2's new four-player party mode allows gamers to team up with 2-4 players in private or public parties and go carousing across San Francisco. Sadly four-player parties can't actually do any co-op missions since the quests are specifically made for 2 player parties.

The update will go live on July 4th on all platforms, but don't expect any singleplayer fixes or updates/patches this time around.

Bandai Namco today announced that its Namco Museum collection on the Nintendo Switch is coming to the West in late July.

The Namco Museum collection really does exemplify the Nintendo Switch's unique transforming form factor, and shows how old-school classics should use the system. SEGA and Capcom could learn a thing or two from this--so could Nintendo themselves--but in lieu of traditional Virtual Console support, Switch owners have been limited in old-school gaming fare. Now their diets are about to be enriched with a nice helping of arcade games.

The retro collection features 11 classic coin-op arcade games that any 80's kid will recognize, and even sports one of the hardest Turbo Grafix 16 games ever made: Splatterhouse. What's so impressive about Namco Museum collection is that gamers can flip their Switch consoles vertically to simulate a coin-op arcade, adding a splash of authenticity to their experience. This is something that I've wanted to see for a while, and I'm glad Bandai Namco has had the foresight to include something like this--Tabletop Mode's "arcade mode" euphemism really sticks here as gamers are literally turning their Switch consoles into miniature arcade machines.

Nintendo has expressed interest in bringing more of its massively popular mainline IPs like Yoshi to cross-media experiences like anime.

During Nintendo's 77th annual meeting for shareholders and investors, the company answered a number of questions from stakeholders. One of those queries was about the future of Nintendo's cross-media focus and whether or not more key IPs and series will get anime adaptations like Kirby's recent Kirby: Right Back At Ya! and the Super Mario Bros Super Show and Legend of Zelda cartoon series from the 80s.

"We hold the Kirby IP and it's growing in Europe. It's selling in Spain and is watched in places without out game hardware," Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto answered when asked about new non-gaming content such as video and anime. "We want to make anime for Pikmin, Star Fox, Yoshi, etc. and distribute it freely, or integrate into games," he said.

Halo Wars 2 now has multi-GPU support, something that was baked into its rather packed update, alongside a slew of new changes to Halo Wars 2.

The new update will provide an update UI, new AI, art, buildings, and units. The big news is multi-GPU support for Windows 10 users, and owners of NVIDIA GeForce and AMD Radeon graphics cards in either SLI, or CrossFire. We've got the full patch notes below:

Note:

The news of Ubisoft working on a new Splinter Cell game has been floating around for a while now, but Ubisoft boss Yves Guillemot virtually confirmed a next-gen Splinter Cell game is in the works.

At E3 2017 earlier this month, Guillemot was asked about a new Splinter Cell game, where he said: "What we can say is we're receiving a lot of sketches and proposals around the brand and we're going to pick one up. I think you will be able to see something, but you will have to wait for that". It's not confirmation, but if the developer is looking at sketches and proposals, and then says that we'll be able to "see something" but we'll have to "wait for it"... all I can do is get excited.

Splinter Cell was one of the first largely successful Tom Clancy-based games, but a new game with next-gen lighting and shadows alongside a next-gen engine could be truly awesome.

Star Wars Battlefront II is sure to be one of the biggest games of the year, and with so much riding on its success, a massive alpha and beta process is sure to take place.

But the surprise news for Battlefront II fans is that the alpha will be made available to all game platforms, and not just the Xbox One or PC. Star Wars Battlefront Community Manager 'Sledgehammer70' posted on the official Star Wars Battlefront II forums, where he said if you have "a bug or issue to report within the Star Wars Battlefront II Alpha" that you follow a few steps, including which platform you have: PS4, PC, or X1.

The post was quickly removed, but Reddit user 'CaptainPhantasma21' took a screenshot which we've embedded above. If the news of the alpha hitting PS4, Xbox One and PC happens, we'll let you know the second it's announced.

Escape from Tarkov developer Battlestate has confirmed that there will be a closed beta of the game next month, which will be available to anyone who has pre-ordered.

As of next month, you will be able to enjoy Escape from Tarkov's new features, game mechanics, and everything else inside of the FPS. This will include:

New Gameplay Features in the Closed Beta

North American gamers are expected to spend more money on average in per-user mobile game purchases than other worldwide regions throughout 2017.

Mobile gaming is expected to rake in $46 billion in worldwide revenues, and account for 46% in total gaming revenues of $108.9 billion for 2017. Although China is leading in smartphone games revenues with $27.5 billion expected for 2017, North American mobile gamers actually spend more money in mobile games on an average per-user basis.

According to a new infograph published by Newzoo and AppLift, North American mobile game players will spend an average of $108.36 per paying user every year, the highest of all other global regions.

Dragon Age Creative Director Mike Laidlaw affirms that something is indeed happening with Dragon Age, which we've known about for quite some time, but we thought it pertinent to cover all bases any time a BioWare exec teases new info about the game.

I've been reporting on BioWare's new Dragon Age game for over a year now and it sounds like the team is still chipping away at the core framework of the game. In the past we've said the new Dragon Age game could be a spin-off strategy game to help buffer sales as the core Mass Effect Edmonton team works on their new IP, Anthem, but information has also come to light that it could be a mainline AAA sequel as well.

"Something is happening with Dragon Age. That much has been said and I'm totally comfortable with that being out there but I can't talk about what it is. But I will say that one of the things I am doing right now is hiring," Dragon Age series Creative Director Mike Laidlaw said in a recent interview with Josiah Renaudin on the podcast show The 1099.

Crash Bandicoot was one of the most popular games of the original PlayStation consoles, and is receiving the usual remastered treatment with the upcoming Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy... except it has gone N. Sane with the HDD space required.

The upcoming Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy requires a huge 23GB of HDD space, and considering the original games arrived on CDs that used 650-700MB, that's quite the jump. The collection will include remastered episodes of Crash Bandicoot, Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back, Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped, which were all released on the PS1 between 1996 and 1998. The days before DLC, firmware upgrades over the internet, and when games went gold... they were 100% finished.

Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy launches on the PS4 on June 30, so you don't have long to wait!

Gears of War series creator Cliffy "CliffyB" Bleszinski is working on his new game with his new studio, and starting today LawBreakers will be entering its closed beta form on the PC for select GeForce Experience members.

LawBreakers' closed beta will kick off on June 28 and end on July 3, with 20,000 GFE members receiving their LawBreakers closed beta keys. Winners will be notified through the GFE client, if they've got communications from NVIDIA allowed. If you haven't heard of LawBreakers, here's a rundown:

GRAVITY - DEFYING - COMBAT

Based on current industry market trends, analyst firm DFC Intelligence predicts that Microsoft's Xbox One family of consoles will break 63 million units sold in four years.

While Sony's PlayStation 4 family of systems has recently broken the 60 million sales milestone, Microsoft's own Xbox One iterative console trio isn't expected to deliver similar sales performance until 2021. In a new report, DFC Intelligence forecasts that the Xbox One console line--which includes the 2013 Xbox One, the 2016 Xbox One S, and 2017 Xbox One X--will reach cumulative sales of 63 million units by 2021. The $499 Xbox One X is expected to sell 17 million units, or 27% of total console sales, versus 46 million combined sales of the original Xbox One and revamped Xbox One S.

DFC Intelligence also predicts the video games industry will rake in $102 billion total earnings in 2017, up 8% year-over-year. Despite this strong growth, the firm notes the Xbox One has been underperforming.

Ubisoft reveals its fourth Assassin's Creed mobile game, but this one has potential to be its biggest yet.

Mobile games aren't inherently exciting, especially when compared to games like Assassin's Creed: Origins. But mobile games are an important facet of the industry that have a tremendous impact; mobile gaming is expected to rake in $46.1 billion in 2017 and make up 42% of all revenues, according to Newzoo. So when Ubisoft reveals a big mainline free-to-play Assassin's Creed mobile game with the potential to rake in millions in microtransactions, it certainly piques our interest.

The new mobile game is called Assassin's Creed Rebellion, and is a F2P strategy RPG for iOS and Android devices. The game appears to have a very real hook that could pull in strong MAUs and ARPMAUs for Ubisoft.

Ubisoft's founding Guillemot family has increased its stake of claim and voting rights within the company in an attempt to shield against the looming threat of a Vivendi takeover.

Following its latest acquisition, the Guillemot family now holds 13.6% of Ubisoft's share capital and 20.02% of the company's voting rights, Reuters today reported after viewing an AMF stock market regulation filing. Ubisoft, who's best known for making million-dollar blockbuster games like Assassin's Creed, has been embroiled in a battle for against French media giant Vivendi, who owns a considerable stake in the company. Vivendi has forcibly taken over Gameloft, one of the Guillemot family's companies, and the family fears the conglomerate will do the same to Ubisoft.

Vivendi currently holds 27% of Ubisoft's share capital and 24.5% of its voting rights, and experts believe that a hostile takeover could happen this year.

Anthem, BioWare's new IP, is a massively ambitious genre-melded online multiplayer shooter, but don't expect it to be like Mass Effect.

BioWare unveiled Anthem at E3 2017 to global fanfare, kicking off a big turning point for the studio. Known for making mega blockbusters like Mass Effect and Dragon Age, Anthem is a different sort of game than we're used to seeing from the Edmonton-based studio, and BioWare General Manager Aaryn Flynn asserts that Anthem will be more like Star Wars' science fantasy than the high-concept science fiction found in its high-tech Mass Effect series.

"You are part of humanity and you're a member of the Freelancers, who are out there to save and protect humanity on an alien planet far away. It's in a genre we call science fantasy, very much like Star Wars and the Marvel Universe where you see lots of amazing things happen but you don't worry too much about how or why they're happening or the science of it."

Nintendo pledges that its new $80 Super NES Classic Edition will have dramatically increased stock compared to 2016's woefully under-shipped NES microconsole.

Last year Nintendo enraged millions of gamers and retail workers across the globe with its impossible-to-find NES Classic Edition. The mini-console, which was meant to be a special holiday item, was very rare due to Nintendo massively underestimating demand and only shipping 2-5 consoles per store during the holiday season.

Now the Japanese company says it's learned from its mistakes and that its new $80 SNES Classic Edition, which includes 21 Super Nintendo games and two controllers, will have boosted supply shipments.

PC gamers have been able to enjoy 4K gaming for years now, with consoles finally catching up in some ways with the PS4 Pro, and in a bigger way with Xbox One X... but what about Nintendo?

During an interview with The Verge, Nintendo US boss Reggie Fils-Aime said that gamers interested in 4K are still too limited, instead, the company wants to access as many customers as possible. Fils-Aime said: "The Nintendo mission is to reach as many consumers as possible and to have them engage and have fun with our [intellectual property]. That's what we try and do. So inherently, we go for a more mainstream audience. Inherently, we want our products to be affordable. We want our products to be easy to pick up and experience, low learning curve. We want our IP to shine as we deliver these experiences".

He continued: "That's the way we approach it. And so, what that means is, a sweet spot of $300 for the Nintendo Switch, a platform that has Mario and Zelda and Splatoon. Going against a more limited consumer pool, a higher price point, requiring investments in other ways - 4K TVs, what have you - that is a strategy that for us, candidly, is a bit too limited".

Sony's next-gen PlayStation may hearken back to the original console cycle instead of pushing forth the new iterative family of consoles cadence.

The rhythm of the console market has changed. Console-makers like Sony and Microsoft haven't hit the reset button on the current generation, and have instead embraced an iterative cycle of systems which allows for better hardware revisions while ensuring full software compatibility at the cost of newer consoles being held back by parity regulations. But eventually this new cycle could shift back to the old cadence to ensure true next-gen performance. The first shift away from iterative consoles could be Sony's PlayStation 5.

Shawn Layden, President and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment America, told German website Golem.de some interesting new tidbits about the next PlayStation successor, hinting that the system could herald a new console gen and not an iterative system held back by its previous older-generation kin.

Nintendo officially announced the Super NES Classic Edition with a hiked price point of $79.99 and a total of 21 SNES games pre-loaded.

The Super NES Classic Edition includes many golden age classics like Donkey Kong Country, F-Zero, Final Fantasy III, EarthBound, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Mega Man X, Super Metroid, Mario Kart, Secret of Mana, and even the unreleased Star Fox 2 (yes, really). The mini console will cost $79.99, up $20 from last year's NES Classic Edition, and includes less games than its predecessor (21 SNES games versus 30 NES games on the NES Classic Edition). However, the SNES mini-console comes with an extra SNES controller for multiplayer action.

The SNES Classic Edition is slated to release on September 29, 2017 for $79.99. Let's just hope Nintendo has made enough units this time...back in 2016 retail stores only received 2-5 units per store, leading to a widespread catastrophe for brick and mortar retailers.