Tag: Industry - Page 29
News Google Poised to Announce Potential PlayStation Competitor
A new challenger approaches
Google will make a gaming announcement at the Game Developers Conference tomorrow which could rock the industry to its core. Of course, it could also turn out to be another footnote in the tech giant’s list of failed experiments, but there’s no doubt that the top brass at Sony will be tuning into the organisation’s...
News Sony Says There's No Truth in Take Two Acquisition Rumours
Hostile takeover out of the equation
Sony was apparently in advanced board level discussions to acquire Take Two this week, which would grant it ownership of blockbuster franchises such as Grand Theft Auto, Red Dead Redemption, and BioShock. Of course,
Rumour Sony in Advanced Board Level Discussions to Acquire Take Two
Push square to doubt
There’s eff all happening in the games industry at the minute, so how about a hot rumour to rustle your jimmies this evening. Market Watch is reporting that stock in Take Two interactive is up following speculation that Sony is in “advanced board level discussions to acquire [the publisher] in a mostly cash deal”. This...
News Ex-Uncharted Movie Writer Joe Carnahan Calls Neil Druckmann a 'Jerkoff'
Says he "stole credit" for Naughty Dog series
The history of the Uncharted film is a long, rocky road. The adaptation has been in the works for such a long time, and various people have come and gone from the project. One such person was Joe Carnahan, a Hollywood writer on action flicks like Smokin' Aces and The A-Team. He hopped aboard the...
News Guerrilla Games Has Doubled Its Women Workforce in a Year
Aloy's influence
Guerrilla Games has doubled the number of women under its employment since last year’s International Women’s Day, meaning that there are more talented ladies within the Amsterdam studio’s ranks than ever before. Managing Director Hermen Hulst revealed the tidbit on Twitter, alongside a photograph of some of its team members...
News Sony Spotlights Some of Its Top Talent on International Women's Day
A look behind the curtain at Worldwide Studios
As part of International Women’s Day, Sony has released a pretty cool trailer peeking behind the curtain at several of its first-party teams. The inspirational clip, which naturally focuses on ladies, spotlights employees from a variety of different disciplines, including programmers, artists,...
News God of War Was Almost Called Something Totally Different, Says Creator David Jaffe
Title was luck of the draw
Say what you want about outspoken game designer David Jaffe, but he was one of the key creators behind what is now a series synonymous with PlayStation. God of War was a hit from the very start, with gorgeous visuals, a larger than life story, and blood-soaked gameplay. The latest game in the series, the PS4 exclusive...
News THQ Nordic Issues Apology for Asinine AMA with 8chan
Publisher regrets ridiculous incident
It’s been almost a week since THQ Nordic bafflingly hosted an AMA on ethically questionable website 8chan, prompting an unprecedented backlash due to the forum's connections with racism, hate speech, and, unthinkably, child pornography. The organisation apologised at the time, claiming that it was unaware of...
News THQ Nordic Did Something Crazy, And It Didn't Involve an Acquisition
Publisher hosts AMA on site banned from Google
Just when you thought the games industry couldn’t possibly get any dumber, THQ Nordic hosted an AMA (or Ask Me Anything) on infamous website 8chan. For those of you who don’t know, the site’s “infamous” because it’s been delisted by Google due to its suspected inclusion of child pornography...
The game... Is fun
Reggie Fils-Aimé, one of the most well known figures in modern gaming, has announced his retirement. Reggie has been at Nintendo since 2003, working his way up to the position of President of Nintendo of America. He may be leaving, but we'll always remember the memes. Jokes aside, Reggie has long been an inspiration to just...
News Former EA Boss Details New Studio, Gives Early Look at Co-Op, Free-to-Play Sci-Fi Title
Embark on something new
Patrick Söderlund, former EA executive who left the publisher last year, has dropped some details on what he's doing right now -- and they make for quite an interesting read. Upon leaving his position at EA, Söderlund created a new studio based in Stockholm, Sweden. The developer is named Embark, and since its inception...
News THQ Nordic's Studio and IP Buying Spree Won't Be Slowing Down any Time Soon
Publisher raises huge money for future acquisitions
Nordic Games merged with THQ in 2013 as a result of a mass buyout of the deceased publisher and its games, and the company has gone from strength to strength ever since. Over the years, it's slowly been amassing an enormous catalogue of intellectual properties and development teams, but the...
News Sony: Nintendo's Doing Wonderful Things with the Switch
Platform holder doesn't subscribe to the console war
Shawn Layden may be underfire in the media for his comments on console cross-play this week, but he’s got nothing but good things to say about PlayStation’s competition. Asked about both Microsoft and Nintendo during his DICE keynote, the Worldwide Studios chairman was refreshingly...
News THQ Nordic's Spending Spree Continues with Kingdom Come: Deliverance Dev
Also acquires Australian publishing partner
THQ Nordic’s making Xbox boss Phil Spencer look like a cheapskate, as it continues to flash its chequebook in the general direction of, well, anyone it sets its eyes on. A bit like Unicron from Transformers: The Movie, the publisher has been gobbling up independent developers like there’s no tomorrow...
News Enormous Lay Offs Leave Hundreds at Activision Blizzard Out of Work
Entire organisation struck
Activision Blizzard has notified hundreds of employees that their services will no longer be required today. The cull is rumoured to affect around eight per cent of the organisation’s enormous 9,600 workforce, so will render hundreds of staffers redundant. The cuts span the entire organisation, including Activision,...
News Sony Says Devs Only Have to Ask for Console Cross-Play, Studios Say It's Lying
This is getting spicy
A couple of studios, including Gaijin Entertainment and Hi-Rez Studios, recently suggested that Sony was blocking it from joining the PlayStation 4’s ongoing console cross-play beta – but speaking with Game Informer this week, Worldwide Studios chairman Shawn Layden said that’s absol
News Sonic Mania Developers Form New Game Studio, Evening Star
Star light zone
After the success of Sonic Mania, many have been wondering what the team behind the game would do next. Using Christian Whitehead's Retro Engine technology and years of cumulative experience with the character, the fellows who brought 2D Sonic back are surely making a follow up, right? Well, there's still a question mark over that,...
All change at the top
He’s best known for a
News German Retailers Continue Purge of Fallout 76 Stock, Giving It Away with PS4 Hard Drives
Please take it
You may recall the recent discovery that GameStop Germany is giving away copies of botched online shooter Fallout 76 with purchases of second-hand controllers. Well, it seems that's not the only way the country's retailers are ridding themselves of unwanted stock. A new Reddit post shows a copy of Bethesda'
News More Studios Call Out Sony's Console Cross-Play Beta
"Stop playing favourites"
Sony may have thought that its console cross-play beta – which currently supports Fortnite and Rocket League – would buy it some time, but it looks like that’s running out. Hot on the heels of War Thunder developer Gaijin Entertainment – who says it’s in regular contact with the Japanese giant about adding console...
News Insomniac Games Celebrates 25 Years of Great Games
Still awake
If we asked you to list your five favourite game developers, we suspect Insomniac would pop up a lot. The studio launched Marvel’s Spider-Man to critical acclaim last year, but we think everyone expected it to be good the moment it was announced – that’s what past pedigree does for a team. Whether it’s Ratchet & Clank,...
News CD Projekt Red Set to Compensate The Witcher Author Following Legal Dispute
He's not getting $16 million, though
Back in October of last year, we reported on a bit of a kerfuffle between The Witcher video game developer CD Projekt Red and author of The Witcher books Andrzej Sapkowski. Basically, Sapkowski wasn't happy with how much money he'd received from the studio in order to use his work as the basis for its games. A...
News Disney Happy with EA's Work on Star Wars
Companies have a good relationship
If we’re all honest with ourselves, EA’s done a terrible job with Star Wars to date. The first game in its mammoth contract with Disney, the multiplayer-only Star Wars Battlefront, was perfectly adequate but felt undercooked. Its successor, though, Star Wars Battlefront 2, prompted one of the biggest backlashes...
News Microsoft Plans to Bring Xbox Live Support to All Other Platforms Except PlayStation
Sony missing from new Xbox initiative
This is an interesting story. As reported by GamesIndustry, Microsoft has scheduled in a talk at GDC 2019, set to take place next month, and it highlights the corporation's plans to spread Xbox Live beyond its own platforms. The talk is titled 'Xbox Live: Growing & Engaging Your Gaming Comm
News There Are 36.3 Million PlayStation Plus Subscribers
You do the maths
Sony’s making more revenue from the PlayStation Network than Nintendo is in its entirety, which demonstrates the scale of the juggernaut that the Japanese giant has created. Of course, a huge hunk of change can be attributed to PlayStation Plus, the subscription service which allows PlayStation 4 owners to download a selection of...
News Sony Doesn't Believe Cloud-Based Gaming Will Render Consoles Obsolete Yet
Not in the near-future anyway
There’s a lot of talk about cloud gaming at the moment, and despite Sony being the only platform holder to offer an online-based streaming service in the form of PlayStation Now, the perennial underdog is commonly considered to be behind the curve. But speaking during a financial call about threats to the immediate...
News PSN Alone Generated More Revenue Than the Entirety of Nintendo in 2018
Online network also bigger than Microsoft's entire gaming division
How big is the PlayStation Network these days? The answer: very big. Sony’s online storefront generated an eye-watering ¥1,373 billion yen (~$12.5 billion) of revenue in 2018, which is more than the entirety of Nintendo during the same period. To put this in perspective: the...
News PS4 Was the World's Best-Selling Console in 2018
Sony edges out Switch in fifth year
Contrary to common opinion, the PlayStation 4 was once again the world’s best-selling console in 2018 – despite it celebrating its fifth anniversary in November. Sony shipped 8.1 million consoles globally during the three month period ending 31st December, bringing its overall total for the calendar year up to...
News Sony Enjoys Record Quarter As Entertainment Divisions Boom
The only way is up
Sony, best known for its electronics, is gradually becoming an entertainment organisation – and its record third quarter results, spanning the three month period ending 31st December, reflect that. The company registered operating income of ¥377 billion (~$3.5 billion), with PlayStation once again leading the charge – despite...
News Metacritic Dubs Capcom the Best Publisher of 2018
Sony at number 6
Aggregate site Metacritic doesn't just average out review scores -- it holds a lot of interesting information across various types of media. Each year, the site crunches the numbers to determine which game publisher performed the best in terms of the number of games released and how they fared critically. For 2018, it's Capcom that...
News Sony First-Party Studios Now Mostly Focused on PS5
The future's happening
It comes as no real surprise to hear, but most of Sony's first-party studios have now shifted their focus to the PS5. This is according to industry analyst Daniel Ahmad, also known as ZhugeEX. Ahmad's been a reliable source of inside information for years now, so we've got little reason to doubt his claims over on
News Quantic Dream Focusing on PS5 After Investment from NetEase
But going multiformat
Chinese giant NetEase has purchased a minority stake in French developer Quantic Dream, as the Detroit: Become Human maker turns its attention to the “development and creation of next-gen games”. The independent Parisian outfit has been a close partner of PlayStation for over a decade now, but
News EA Buckles Under Microtransaction Pressure in Belgium
Someone call Jim Sterling
Put the publisher under enough pressure and it seems that EA will buckle eventually. The company has announced that it plans to stop selling FIFA Points in Belgium, after the government declared loot boxes to be a form of gambling last year. For those of you who don’t know, FIFA Ultimate Team is an extremely popular mode...
News Cyberpunk 2077 Creative Director Leaves for Blizzard, Sparks Speculation
But of course
After spending six years working on Cyberpunk 2077 -- and almost 13 years at developer CD Projekt Red -- creative, narrative, and setting director Sebastian Stepien has moved on to pastures new. The veteran has left the company to join Blizzard in order to work on a currently unspecified project. It goes without saying that this...
News Sony's Not-So Secret Unannounced Studio Attracts More Talent
Team yet to be confirmed
Sony’s not-so secret San Diego studio – which is expected to be continuing the Uncharted series – has been bulking up for a good few months now, and Senior Game Designer Quentin Cobb tweeted about a new addition this week. James Martinchek is joining the team as Lead Animator, having previously worked on Uncharted 4: A...
News EA: 'We're Fully Committed to Making More Star Wars Games'
Just not that open world one
Yesterday, Kotaku reported that EA Vancouver's open world Star Wars title had been cancelled by the infamous publisher. Three sources claimed this to be true, and the project, codenamed Orca, has apparently been shelved in favour of something on a smaller scale. In response to these reports, EA has sent out a statement...
News Hitman Developer IO Interactive Opening New Studio in Malmö
Zlatan approves
Hitman 2 may not have set cash registers on fire, but Danish developer IO Interactive is expanding to Sweden with a new studio. Based in Malmö – the birthplace of LA Galaxy striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic – the fresh team will “strengthen IO Interactive’s commitment to deliver exceptional content to the Hitman franchise,...
News Indie Studio Behind Underrated Aer: Memories of Old Set to Shutdown
Old to new
Forgotten Key, the small indie developer behind 2017's Aer: Memories of Old is sadly shutting up shop in the very near future unless there's a "dramatic turn of events". "It’s with a heavy heart we have decided to prepare a shutdown of Forgotten Key, the place we have called home for the last 7 years," studio head Robin Hjelte writes...
News Rockstar and Real World Pinkerton Agency in Legal Dispute over Red Dead Redemption 2
Detective mode
In case you weren't aware, Pinkerton Consulting & Investigations is a real life detective agency, founded all the way back in 1850. Then known as Pinkerton National Detective Agency, the company was apparently very active in tracking down real outlaws at the time, and the name has become more or less synonymous with Western media...
News PS4 Has a Very High Software Attach Rate, Average Player Owns Around Ten Games
That's a lot
About a week ago, Sony posted a press release containing a whole bunch of impressive numbers. The PS4 has sold 91.6 million units as of 31st December 2018, while Marvel's Spider-Man has sold a staggering 9 million copies since its September launch. However, something that passed us by was the overall situ
Talking Point Could Sony Lease Out Its Dormant Franchises?
Want you back
Unlike its competitors, Sony reinvents itself with each subsequent generation. There are franchises that have stood the test of time, but generally we see the platform holder evolve as it transitions from console to console. Aloy, for example, will very likely be the poster child of the PlayStation 5 – a household name who only got...
News Destiny Devs 'Cheered and Popped Champagne' as Bungie Announced Break Up with Activision
Light without dark?
Bungie's broken up with Activision, if you haven't already heard. Coming to the conclusion that it was in the best interest of both parties not to continue their agreed contract over Destiny -- which saw Activision publish the property -- it's Bungie who now owns the sci-fi shooter. In other words, when it comes to Destiny,...
News Bungie Splits from Activision, Takes the Rights to Destiny
The light returns?
Destiny's ups and downs have been well documented, and judging from this breaking news, neither Activision nor Bungie were happy with how things were going. The publisher and developer have decided to put an end to their contract, with the rights to the Destiny property being transferred over to Bungie. Wow. "We have enjoyed a...
News THQ Nordic's Buying Spree Continues, Purchases Outcast IP
Not an outcast anymore
THQ Nordic spent a lot of time last year buying up studios and intellectual properties, and that trend looks set to continue in 2019. The latest purchase by the relentless publisher is Outcast, a cult hit adventure game that saw a PS4 remake a couple of years ago, named Outcast: Second Contact. The company acquired the...
News Gran Turismo Sport Shown at 8K on New Sony TV at CES 2019
4K is so 2018
Television manufacturers often play a demo reel on their brand new displays in order to best show off their products to the public. You know the ones -- there's usually footage of glitzy cityscapes, swimming polar bears, and fields of flowers, all of it beautifully crisp to entice shoppers. Well, Sony has been using Gran Turismo Sport...
News Sony Acquires Audio Engineering Firm Behind Multiformat Middleware Wwise
A Wwise decision?
Sony is purchasing Audiokinetic, the company behind the multiformat middleware technology Wwise. While you’re unlikely to have heard of this software, you will have seen its logo when booting up games before as it’s very popular. Despite the buyout – which will be completed by 31st January – the company will continue to...
News Sony: We'll Bring More Enhanced Experiences and Highly Anticipated Games in 2019
Company will continue to evolve
Sony’s plans for 2019 are pretty much shrouded in secrecy so far. We know that the company won’t be attending E3 2019 and we also know that it’s got Days Gone coming out in the near future, but beyond that – well, your guess is as good as ours. Among various pieces of corporate backslapping overnight, new...
News PSN's Monthly Active Users Increase to Eye Watering 90 Million
The biggest gaming network in the world
More people than ever are using the PlayStation Network, with monthly active users topping 90 million in November 2018 according to Sony. This means that almost 100 million accounts connected to the PSN at the tail-end of last year, and while the figure is bloated by multiple users from the same console or...
News Sony Wants Music, Gaming, and Movies to Collaborate
From consumer electronics to creative company
What kind of company is Sony? Historically, there was no debate over this question: the Japanese giant made consumer electronics. These days, with 47 per cent of its revenue driven by entertainment products, the answer is less obvious. Speaking at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, chief...
News It Sounds Like Persona 5 Was a Bit of a Nightmare to Localise
Put your heart into it
Persona 5 has a lot of text, and obviously, all of it had to be translated from Japanese by a localisation team -- not the kind of job that we envy. The role-playing title was incredibly well received when it launched in 2017, but there were some criticisms made over its localisation, which is a little shaky in places. Again,...
