Gaming News - Page 1

Atari's hardware revenues crash by 91% as the company suspends manufacturing of its VCS console.

Atari recently published its half-year earnings for the fiscal year ending March 2023, and the results show a substantial increase in total losses.

The once-mighty gaming giant reported a heavy 91% reduction in hardware and "cartridge" sales (a curious term that isn't defined in the document), with this segment generating only 200,000 Euros (about $197,174). Atari notes the drop is because of the underperformance of the VCS console in the retail sector as well, and it should be noted that Atari has suspended production of the consoles and is expected to resume manufacturing in 2023.

In an internal memo to employees, Sony Interactive Entertainment President Jim Ryan appears to say he is not worried or fazed by Xbox Game Pass...but the competitor should be worried about Microsoft's value-oriented subscription.

The games industry is rife with disruptive trends that ultimately end up defining an entire generation. We've seen this happen with microtransactions, live services, battle passes, and free-to-play that wraps all of these things together. Now the latest trend is subscription services, and it's all thanks to Xbox Game Pass, a model that is largely seen as the major value-oriented force in the industry.

Xbox Game Pass cannot and should not be ignored. Sony has responded to Xbox Game Pass by making their own PlayStation Plus service more like Game Pass and mimicking the popular and profitable business model--adding value through access to tons of video games for a monthly, quarterly, and yearly fee.

Final Fantasy 16 should be a true next-gen spectacle that leverages the full power of the PlayStation 5's higher-end capabilities.

First-party games usually look the best on any console, whether it's games like Gears of War 5 on the Xbox Series X or Horizon Forbidden West on the PS5. Square Enix is promising to make Final Fantasy XVI shine on PS5 and based on the screenshots and footage we've seen, it could be one of the best-looking third-party games on the platform.

During a recent Final Fantasy XIV livestream, Yoshi-P had some interesting things to say about the development of Final Fantasy XVI and how it will look and play on the PS5. The producer says that FF16 will essentially be a testament to the PlayStation 5's enthusiast-grade performance.

To make a point to the FTC, Microsoft punctuates Xbox's small console market presence by revealing interesting sales data for its gaming hardware.

A bit ago, the Federal Trade Commission announced that it plans to block Microsoft's proposed $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision-Blizzard. Now Microsoft has officially responded to the FTC's claims with a lengthy 37-page document that dissects the regulator's comments.

Nestled in this document is a curious pie chart with console sales percentages. The data lists how many consoles the Big 3--Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft--sold throughout 2021. Since both Sony and Nintendo publish their respective hardware shipments we are potentially able to extrapolate how many Xbox consoles that Microsoft shipped in 2021.

Polyphony Digital has updated total Gran Turismo game sales, and we've charted that against other major first-party PlayStation franchises.

Sony has some of the most enduring franchises in gaming, but many of its new PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5-era titles have helped supercharge these game series with tens of millions of copies sold across the world.

Looking at sales figures provided by Sony though a series of blog posts, developer updates, and earnings reports, we have a good idea of what PlayStation's top-selling franchises currently are.

From the PlayStation 1 to the PlayStation 5, the Gran Turismo is officially Sony's best-selling first-party franchise.

Gran Turismo has topped Sony's charts as PlayStation's most popular video game series. The franchise has sold a whopping 90 million units worldwide since it was first released a quarter of a century ago, developer Polyphony Digital has confirmed.

"In the last 25 years, the cumulative sales total of the series have reached over 90 million copies as of November 16, 2022."

FromSoftware still doesn't understand why everyone loves Elden Ring so much, but the studio is afraid to analyze the game's success and wants to move forward with new projects.

As we said in our review, Elden Ring is one of the best games of 2022 and is actually one of the best open-world RPGs ever made. Apparently many other people thought the same thing because Elden Ring has won multiple game of the year awards, including GOTY at The Game Awards and was voted as the best game by Sony and users during the official PlayStation partners awards in Japan.

When asked if FromSoftware will try to recreate Elden Ring with a new game, FromSoftware's Hidetaka Miyazaki says the team isn't interested in even attempting to capture lightning in a bottle again.

It's official: Hideo Kojima is making a film, and it's a big deal for the creator...and for gaming as a whole.

Hideo Kojima is a sponge for pop culture entertainment and is always soaking up both mainline and obscure media. The auteur is known for his love of film and music--longtime fans will see shades of iconic movies in Kojima's work, from the obvious Snake Pliskin influences in Metal Gear to the more subtle and somber horror-thriller themes in Death Stranding. Now after many years, Kojima gets to live his dreams by creating his own feature-length film.

Kojima Productions is currently working with Hammerstone Studios (Barbarian) to develop and produce a film based on Death Stranding. Interestingly enough, PlayStation Productions may not be involved in the film, despite Sony's close involvement the production and distribution of both Death Stranding 1 and 2 on PlayStation consoles.

A devkit for Sony's PlayStation 4 Pro has been torn down publicly for the first time, revealing a substantial heat pipe, 16GB of GDDR5 memory, and a 16nm APU design.

Gamers Nexus just got a hold of one of the most elusive pieces of tech and tore it down for everyone to see. The PlayStation 4 Pro's devkit has been discussed in private forums and there are various photos of the Neo devkit floating around, but now we have a near 30-minute dissection of the system itself in a public YouTube video.

Sony's PlayStation 4 Pro devkit is meant to be top secret and no one besides developers are supposed to discuss features of the higher-end console platform, but the teardown reveals some interesting things. For one, the Neo devkit has 16GB of unified GDDR5 RAM in an array of 16x 1GB GDDR5 chips, presumably to mimic the PS4/PS4 Pro's 8GB system memory while also having extra memory for debugging and testing.

The Federal Trade Commission orders Epic Games to pay $520 million in fines for violating children's privacy and deploying deceptive practices to "trick" children and teens into making purchases.

"The FTC's action against Epic involves two separate record-breaking settlements. As part of a proposed federal court order filed by the Department of Justice on behalf of the FTC, Epic will pay a $275 million monetary penalty for violating the COPPA Rule-the largest penalty ever obtained for violating an FTC rule."

Fortnite developer Epic games is hot water right now in the United States. The company, who maintains one of the most popular video games ever made, has been ordered by the FTC to pay over half a billion dollars in relief for two major penalties. The first is a violation of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). The FTC finds that Epic Games collected personal information from children playing Fortnite without parental consent or notification, and that Fortnite's real-time voice and text chat was also a violation of COPPA.