Gaming - Page 946

Blizzard has announced Hearthstone's online community has grown to 70 million players worldwide.

Blizzard Entertainment's free-to-play card game Hearthstone is one of the company's key money-making pillars. Thanks to its blind booster-pack style microtransactions (which mimic Overwatch's loot boxes), the game rakes in earnings hand over fist, and is a key facet to the company's digital earnings.

In fact, Activision reported that in 2016 total digital in-game revenues doubled year-over-year and represented over half of the company's $6.6 billion total yearly revenues. As a result, Activision raked in an incredible $3.6 billion from player purchases in games like Hearthstone.

Nintendo's new Switch hybrid gaming system is in extreme demand right now, and constantly flies off shelves as soon as stores resupply stock. The Japanese console-maker is betting big on Switch sales in 2017, especially during the holiday season, but if the consoles are rare now what hope do consumers have for Christmas?

In a recent investors Q&A session, Nintendo President Tatsumi Kimishima assures investors that stock of its new $299 Switch handheld-console will be ample for the holiday season. Mr. Kimishima recently confirmed the Kyoto-based games company expects to sell 10 million Nintendo Switch systems in its current fiscal year, and now Mr. Kimishima iterates that Nintendo plans to ramp up Switch hardware production to ensure a hardware stock surplus that exceeds its 10 million sales forecast.

In fact, shortly before the Switch console's launch Nintendo exercised its manufacturing facilities to produce 700,000 extra Switch consoles to meet excessive demand--culminating in 2.74 million hardware sales in just 29 days.

After 12 years of instrumental work on Half-Life, Steam, and Vive VR, Chet Faliszek says goodbye to Valve

Chat Faliszek is the latest of Valve's key talent to say goodbye to the gaming giant. In his 12-year tenure Faliszek helped shape some of Valve's most notorious work: he co-wrote Half-Life 2's episodic expansions, the beloved Portal games, and the grisly co-op shooters in the Left 4 Dead series. The famed writer also helped build Valve's Vive VR platform and served as a public intermediary for VR developers across the globe. But now Faliszek seeks new horizons outside of Valve's pipeline.

"[It was]Nothing exciting or drama filled," ex-Valve writer Chet Faliszek told Games Industry Biz. "I worked there 12 years, shipped a bunch of great games and some amazing hardware and wanted to change things up. There's no news on what's next etc, I will let you know when that happens."

Bandai Namco just released the first trailer for its new Dark Souls-esque action RPG Code Vein, and we're very, very impressed.

Code Vein seems to be a delicious cocktail of some of the best JRPGs: we have Dark Souls combat with tons of rolling, hacking and slashing, infused with Dragon's Dogma's co-op pawn system, a fresh style straight out of an anime series, dark gothic storyline, and a dungeon-delving mechanic to top it all off. The game is being developed by the team that makes God Eater games, but Code Vein is a completely new IP.

Although Code Vein is a"dramatic dungeon-exploring action RPG," it certainly reminds us of Dark Souls in many different ways. The in-game world of Vein is dark, macabre and infused with mystery, and the combat itself looks to satisfy the bloodlust of ravenous Bloodborne and Souls fanatics everywhere.

UPDATE: For some reason, THQ Nordic let IGN announce Darksiders 3 with an IGN First reveal. The trailer can be found below along with info from the official Darksiders 3 press release.

Amazon has prematurely revealed Darksiders 3, a sequel in THQ Nordic's fan-favorite series.

Thanks to strong sales of Team Ninja's celebrated game Nioh, Japanese games publisher Koei Tecmo has reported boosted yearly earnings.

According to Koei Tecmo's FY2016 briefings, Nioh, Team Ninja's fresh new IP, sold 1 million copies worldwide in its first two weeks. This was in spite of the title being a PS4 exclusive, but Sony's PlayStation 4 reigns over the market with 60 million consoles sold to date.

Nioh spearheaded the publisher's games segment earnings, and the Japanese games-maker even said Nioh was its "most successful title in the west." I for one absolutely love Nioh and frankly think it's one of the best games ever made--if you own a PS4 do yourself a favor and pick it up.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild's first DLC is called The Master Trials, and features a new mode, new armor sets, and more.

The Master Trials features five major pieces of content that range from modes to equipment and new ways to play the game.

First we have the new mode called Trials of the Sword, which is an arena-style combat mode that pits players against spawning waves of enemies--but with a catch: they have to use armor and weapons found on enemies.

15 years ago today, Bethesda created one of the best games in its entire career: The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind.

I've gone on record many times saying that Morrowind is the best Elder Scrolls ever made, and I'll do the same today. If you haven't played it yet, then remedy that right away. Morrowind is a true RPG, a game that plunges you head-first into a world replete with magic, fantasy, and more importantly, absolutely no hand-holding.

There's no compass, or waypoints: you have to find your way with a journal, and NPCs are absolutely vital. You actually have to take notes and pay attention, and it's all too easy to get lost in Vvardenfell's massive sub-continent. But that's the magic of Morrowind, and it's a place I'll always love to get lost in.

Mario Kart 8: Deluxe has smashed sales milestones and explodes onto the U.S. market with almost 500K sales in its first day.

Nintendo today announced that Nintendo Switch's new Mario Kart 8: Deluxe sold a total 459,000 digital and physical sales in a single day within the United States alone. The new racer is now recognized as the "fastest-selling game in the long-running Mario Kart series." The game has a high attach rate of 45%, which means that almost half of Nintendo Switch owners bought the game at launch.

A bit of quick math shows Nintendo made about $27.5 million in a single day's sales of Mario Kart 8: Deluxe in the United States. Remember that the Nintendo Switch's first-party market was sparse before Mario Kart 8 launched on the handheld-console, so it certainly makes sense why so many gamers purchased the title. It's absolutely one of the must-have games for the system, and Nintendo is gearing up its other first-party games like ARMS and Splatoon 2 to be system-sellers as well.

Ex-Ubisoft creative director and Assassin's Creed designer Patrice Desilets has always wanted to make an open-city game centered around the devil causing havoc in 17th century Netherlands. In a recent interview, the Canadian dev says his vision will come to light...some day.

"Eventually I will make 1666: Amsterdam," Patrice Desilets said in a recent interview with Gameology. A quick primer about Amsterdam: 1666: Desilets was making the rather interesting-looking game under THQ Montreal's label, but THQ went defunct and Ubisoft scooped up the Montreal studio and the IP. Desilets left Ubisoft and spent years wrestling with Ubisoft for control over the IP he had created, and eventually won the creative rights to it back in April 2016.

We had hopes that Desilets would one day make the game, and he hasn't forgotten about his original vision. He says that his smaller dev team, Panache, will make the game "eventually": "[Amsterdam 1666] is my game about the devil in us; we are all good guys, but sometimes we're not. But why are we evil sometimes? It's an international subject matter also, and in our culture the devil symbol is there so I want to attack that. Eventually we're going to make it here at Panache," Desilets said during the interview.

Most of a game's concept art is never used, but we can only imagine how awesome Mass Effect: Andromeda would look and feel if BioWare had used more of it in the final game.

As a gamer, I really like concept art. These drawings are a window into a game that never was, the purest form of imagination running wild, and visuals that give developers much-needed ideas to mold their game around. Eric Bellefeuille, Presentation Director at Eidos Montreal, worked on Mass Effect: Andromeda's UI, and just released some fresh concept art that frankly puts the actual game to shame.

One of the most stark differences between the concept art and the final game is how great the characters look. Cora looks fantastic, and Peebee looks much, much better. The character models are for the lack of a better word quite beautiful and barely resemble the grotesque half-finished mockeries found in the retail game.

Half-Life launched 19 years ago now, but when it first arrived in Germany, it was a censored version of the game that has right up until now, been the only version German gamers could play - unless they pirated it, of course.

The censored version of Half-Life saw robots instead of soldiers, barnacles spewing nuts and bolts instead of blood and gore, and sad looks from scientists if you shot them - instead of them dying. Germany has a history of strict limitations on gaming content, with Half-Life being a very big example of that censorship.

Schnittberichte reports that "it is now possible for the publisher to release the uncensored versions again in Germany officially".

Despite near-universal unavailability, Nintendo has sold over 2 million NES Classic Edition consoles across the globe.

In a recent interview with TIME, Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime confirmed the famously unattainable retro NES micro-console has sold 2.3 million units worldwide. In fact, the mini NES and its 30 classic games was only meant to be a holiday product but Nintendo extended its lifespan due to popularity.

"We had originally planned for this to be a product for last holiday. We just didn't anticipate how incredible the response would be. Once we saw that response, we added shipments and extended the product for as long as we could to meet more of that consumer demand," the NoA President told TIME in the interview.

Following stellar launch-month sales, Nintendo forecasts its new handheld-console hybrid Switch system will hit 10 million sales.

Nintendo's new unique Switch system sold 2.74 million in just 29 days and pulled in $822 million in global sales, offering a significant boost to the company's fourth-quarter financials. Now the Japanese console-maker plans to keep the console's strong sales momentum going throughout its 2017 fiscal year.

Nintendo President Tatsumi Kimishima said in the latest financial results briefing that the company expects to sell 10 million Nintendo Switch consoles from April 1, 2017 to March 31, 2018. "We are planning to ship 10 million units of Nintendo Switch hardware in the fiscal year ending March 2018. The cumulative total for units shipped through the fiscal year ending March 2018 will be 12.7 million units," Mr. Kimishima said in the briefing.

Capcom just reported its yearly earnings, and they're positive.

As with any company's financials, Capcom's latest Fiscal Year 2016 earnings give us a good idea on its current position and its plans for 2017. Capcom recorded increases across the board in net sales, operating income, and bottom-line profits. From April 1, 2017 to March 31, 2017 Capcom earned 87.1 billion yen ($781.68 million) in net sales representing a 13.2% increase year-over-year. Operating income was boosted by 13.5% YoY to 13.65 billion yen ($122.4 million). Finally we have Capcom's bottom-line profits, which boosted by 14.6% YoY to 8.87 billion yen ($79.6 million).

Capcom's Digital Contents division--games across all platforms--is by far the company's most lucrative segment, and also enjoyed boosts in net sales, but losses in operating income. The division's net sales increased by 11.7% year-over-year to 58.7 billion yen ($526.4 million) due to strong sales of key IPs like Resident Evil 7 and Monster Hunter XX as well as other online titles. Operating income was down by 8.8% YoY to 11 billion yen ($99.5 million).

Sony has shipped about 60 million PlayStation 4 consoles across the globe, pushing it farther ahead of its competitors.

While Sony hasn't officially announced the console's huge sales milestone, a bit of simple math reveals the number. In its recent fiscal year earnings report Sony confirmed it shipped 20 million PS4 consoles from April 2016 to March 2017. Back in May 2016 Sony revealed the PS4 has shipped 40 million consoles to date. So combining the two figures we get 60 million...but that figure isn't 100% exact. Sony's fiscal year ends in March, so May 2016 is part of its Fiscal Year 2016, meaning we're not sure how many of those 40 million PS4s overlap with Sony's total 20 million FY16 sales.

Sony's fiscal data only goes back to FY14 and doesn't include how many PS4 consoles were sold in its Q3-Q4 FY13 (November 2013 onwards) timeframe, so until Sony announces the data, we're not exactly sure how many consoles have been sold globally.

On the heels of its new 4K-ready PlayStation 4 Pro console, Sony is expected to launch a third top-tier PlayStation console to counter Microsoft's premium native 4K Project Scorpio console.

Macquarie Capital Securities analyst Damien Thong predicts that Sony will release a next-gen PlayStation console by the second half of 2018, according to reports from The Wall Street Journal's Takashi Mochizuki. Sony's new PlayStation systemwould coincide with the company's Fiscal Year 2018.

The Japanese games and entertainment titan recently released its Fiscal Year 2016 earnings, showing its Games and Network Services sector is once again its most valuable branch. Furthermore, Sony just hit its 60 million PS4 sales milestone.

I fervently believe Halo 5: Guardians is the worst Halo game ever made, and that 343 Industries doesn't know what it's doing with the franchise. Now the developers say they've learned a lot from their terrible decisions with Halo 5, and promise to do better with future games.

One of the biggest disappointments about Halo 5 was its truly awful storyline. It started out with so much promise; with the help of his beloved Blue Team (and some of the most deadly Spartans alive), Master Chief goes "rogue" to find Cortana. Then 343i decided to throw in Osiris Team, a group of throwaway "heroes" led by one of the most one-dimensional characters in video games history. So instead of playing as Master Chief and his esteemed Blue Team, who haven't ever been in a Halo game before Halo 5, we spend half of the game chasing after Chief as Osiris Team. Most gamers--myself included--didn't care about Locke and Osiris, we wanted the Chief.

In a recent interview with GamesTM, 343 Industries executive producer Kiki Wolfkill they've heard our feedback...but in the same breath she proves she doesn't really understand Halo--or what Master Chief means to gamers and the franchise. "We took some digs for storytelling in Halo 5, but they were absolutely merited. We very much realized that people wanted Master Chief's story of Halo 5. For some fans and certainly fans of Master Chief, it was a huge disappointment because they wanted more Chief," Wolfkill said.

Nintendo has a long tradition skipping E3 pressers, and this year will be no different.

(Photo: Techno Buffalo)

Nintendo President Tatsumi Kimishima confirms that the Japanese console-maker won't be holding a press conference at E3 2017 in June. "The video game tradeshow E3 will be held in Los Angeles this June. Again this year, we will not be hosting a large-scale press conference for institutional investors, analysts and the media," Mr. Kimishima said in the latest investor relations report.

Unikrn is making big moves into Las Vegas by acquiring LEET, a tournament organizer that works with casinos run events, and recently working with Downtown Grand to become the first casino in Vegas with eSports betting, setting a new trend leading into Luxor, and other casinos.

I reached out to Unikrn boss Rahul Sood, who said: "Far and away the biggest threat to casino operators is their complete lack of understanding and empathy to their future customer. This is a pretty big issue, and I believe alot of it stems from trying to protect old business models". He continued: "So the best way to start is with some smaller, less risky changes".

"So the best way to start is with some smaller, less risky changes. Over time those smaller changes become bigger cultural changes. I think this is what LEET does really well. The Downtown Grand is a good example of how a casino client started out with an idea and a vision, and they have now turned it into a money making business. Granted these changes were driven from the top, and Seth Shorr should be credited for making esports a "thing" in Las Vegas casinos".