Console Club

[Xander RO]

Cred ca cifrele sunt influentate de cei cu mobile, teoretic daca ai downloadat un joc pe telefon si il butonezi in metrou, figurezi in statisticile lor.
Sunt de acord a nu este 100% accurate, doar orientativ.

[JohnConstantine]

Pai e gamer aici oricine pune mana pe un joc indiferent de platforma. Ma uitam pe o statistica autohtona si pe langa PC si consola, erau si telefon, tableta si browser.

Totusi 14 milioane mi se pare mult si in aceste conditii. Or fi luat o persoana de 2 ori? Gen joaca pe PC dar mai baga si un Fortnite pe telefon. Plus, in tara nu mai suntem de mult 20 milioane.

[Xander RO]

Or fi luat o persoana de 2 ori? Gen joaca pe PC dar mai baga si un Fortnite pe telefon.

Si asta este posibil, da. Sau PC-PS5, sau PC-Xbox, etc..

[paul]

AVALANCHE STUDIOS FOUNDER AND FORMER CHIEF CREATIVE OFFICER ANNOUNCES NEW SUPER STUDIO

STOCKHOLM, 2nd December 2020 − Christofer Sundberg, founder of Avalanche Studios, former Chief Creative Officer, creator of the Just Cause franchise and industry veteran, announced today the formation of a brand new studio − LIQUID SWORDS.

Headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden, Liquid Swords AB is a game development studio focused on open world action, explosions, shareable experiences and memorable game moments for next-generation consoles, streaming platforms and PC.

“I’ve taken a one year break from the games business and it was a very much needed break indeed. It has given me time to think about what I really want to create with a new studio. What remains identical to my way of building and running Avalanche Studios over the last 17 years is a no-nonsense, game development-focused approach,” said Sundberg.

“The games we create at Liquid Swords are focused on high action and giant spectacle. After living and breathing the Just Cause franchise from the day I started Avalanche Studios to the eventual sale of the company, I am excited to come back and create spectacular experiences for players to explore, share and enjoy. We have no intention of reshaping the world of storytelling as we know it. Our road to leaving our mark and making a difference in the industry is built first and foremost on games that are immediately accessible and consistently rewarding. I have loved player freedom and creativity ever since I first started making games and with Liquid Swords, I am confident we’ll provide the go-to games for fun entertainment for decades to come.”

“The ultimate goal of Liquid Swords is to bring back game development to where it should be: intensely creative and fun while at the same time bringing game development forward with a strong focus on building innovative action experiences rather than business plans and spreadsheets. That said, Liquid Swords is a business, not a playground for aimless ideas. Our swords are sharpened, our mission is set and we could not be more excited about what the future holds,” Sundberg continued.

Liquid Swords’ Stockholm HQ will provide the management and technological foundation for the evolution of multiple studios around the world in Liquid Swords’ semi-distributed development approach. Liquid Swords’ founding partners, studio locations and technology will be announced in early 2021.

Please visit Liquid Swords Game Studio for future updates.

About Liquid Swords AB:
Established in 2020, Liquid Swords AB is a global game development studio focused on the creation of AAA open world action games for consoles, streaming platforms and PC. Liquid Swords’ founding partner, Christofer Sundberg, previously founded Avalanche Studios in 2003, growing the studio from his kitchen to a company that encompasses four studios on two continents with over 400 staff. Sundberg’s creation of the Just Cause franchise inspired and innovated the genre of open world sandbox games. In May 2018, Avalanche Studios was wholly acquired by Nordisk Film for $114 million.

Liquid Swords - AVALANCHE STUDIOS FOUNDER AND FORMER CHIEF... | Facebook

[paul]

Smash.gg has been acquired by Microsoft!

Since we started in 2015, our goal has been to build active esports scenes around the games people love to play. Today we’re excited to take the next step in that journey by joining Microsoft to help strengthen our existing relationships and explore new opportunities. Smash.gg will continue as a self-service esports platform available to tournament organizers from all game communities. If you have any questions about existing tournaments please reach out to [email protected].

​​smash.gg | Empowering esports communities

Keiichiro Toyama, creator of the Silent Hill, Siren, and Gravity Rush series, left Sony Interactive Entertainment Japan Studio and established the independent Bokeh Game Studio on August 13.

Kazunobu Sato and Junya Okura, who have worked alongside Toyama for many years, also left Japan Studio and joined Toyama as core members of the new studio. Toyama is the chief executive officer (CEO), while Sato is the chief operating officer (COO) and Okura the chief technology officer (CTO).

The studio’s name, “Bokeh,” is an English term originated from the Japanese word “bo-ke,” which refers to the camera blur technique. This Japanese method of expression has grown to be used worldwide.

Bokeh Game Studio defines its business as “development of software for console and PC,” and aims to “take on many challenges in the future, regardless of platform.”

Siren and Gravity Rush creator Keiichiro Toyama leaves Sony Interactive Entertainment Japan Studio, establishes Bokeh Game Studio - Gematsu

Arrowhead Game Studios is working on a Next-Generation 3rd Person Cooperative Shooter

STOCKHOLM – December 03, 2020 – Arrowhead Game Studios today announced that they are working on a next generation 3rd person cooperative game.

The Stockholm-based studio, known for their uncompromising game mechanics and intense cooperative gameplay, are well underway on their next project: a 3rd person shooter featuring next-gen graphics, innovative co-op and agency for the community to alter the course of the game. This AAA game will share the satirical humor that fans of the studio’s previous games know and love.

This is Arrowhead Game Studios’ fifth game and the studio is looking to expand beyond the team of 65 developers that are currently working on the project.

“We are incredibly excited to create a new, next-gen, co-op experience for our fans and community. We are looking for talented developers to join us on this journey and are looking forward to sharing more details about the project at a later date.” said Johan Pilestedt, Game Director and CEO

Arrowhead Game Studios has previously launched the co-op games Magicka, Gauntlet and Helldivers, as well as the multiplayer game The Showdown Effect. Last year the studio released the fifth free expansion for Helldivers, Helldivers: Dive Harder.

Arrowhead Game Studios is working on a Next-Generation 3rd Person Cooperative Shooter | Arrowhead

[paul]

JJ Abrams’ film company Bad Robot has launched its own game development studio, Bad Robot Games Studio. The entertainment company run by the Star Wars filmmaker has hired Michael Booth, a veteran game creator behind titles such as Valve’s Left 4 Dead.

Booth will be the general manager of the internal studio, and he will report to former Valve and Oculus leader Anna Sweet, who was recently hired as the CEO of Bad Robot Games.

Santa Monica, California-based Bad Robot Games will now have two different businesses that Sweet will manage. It will work on co-development deals with external game partners, and it will also make its own games under the studio headed by Booth, who previously worked at Valve, Blizzard Entertainment, Facebook, and Electronic Arts.

Sweet said that Booth, who was most recently director of social VR at Facebook, is leading a team that will produce an original game for Bad Robot. That game will be a triple-A title for the PC and consoles, Sweet said. It will immerse both players and streaming audiences into a co-op cinematic experience.

Sweet said she met the Bad Robot team when she worked for Valve a while ago, as they were at the beginning of their process of understanding and exploring games as a storytelling medium.

JJ Abrams' Bad Robot launches internal game studio headed with Left 4 Dead creator | VentureBeat

[paul]

Executives at Polish video game publisher CD Projekt SA took responsibility for the buggy release of the highly-anticipated title Cyberpunk 2077 this week, telling staff on Friday in an email obtained by Bloomberg that they will receive their full bonuses no matter how the game is reviewed. Previously, CD Projekt developers were told they would receive extra pay based on the game’s critical performance.

Cyberpunk 2077, which came out Thursday, is one of the year’s biggest games and a monumental release for the Polish publisher, which only makes new titles every few years. The sci-fi role-playing game sold more than 8 million copies in pre-orders before launch and has been acclaimed for its mechanics and story, but slammed for the number of glitches and bugs. As of Friday, Cyberpunk 2077 had a 90 out of 100 on the review aggregation website Metacritic -- a strong score that has nonetheless disappointed shareholders. If that score dips below 90, it may no longer meet the threshold that CD Projekt had originally set for bonus payouts.

“We initially had a bonus system that was focused on the game’s ratings and the release date, but after consideration, we believe that measure is simply not fair under the circumstances,” wrote Adam Badowski, studio head and creative director for Cyberpunk 2077, in the email to staff. “We underestimated the lengths and complexity involved to make this a reality, and still you did everything you could to deliver an ambitious, special game.”

A representative for CD Projekt did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The bonus system CD Projekt used for developers working on Cyberpunk 2077 was complicated. Every month, team leaders at the company gave out tokens styled after the studio’s logo, a red bird, to members of their team they felt deserved honors, according to three current and former employees. Those tokens would have then been transferred into bonuses if the game met certain criteria, like critical acclaim and a timely release. Under the new system, those payouts will be guaranteed even though Cyberpunk 2077 was delayed and the review score has been mixed. This performance bonus comes on top of regular annual profit-sharing payouts.

Although the structure will reward some employees financially, there has been concern that it pushed them to work longer hours. In September, Bloomberg reported that developers at CD Projekt had been working excessive overtime, or crunch, on and off since 2018. The company asked all of its staff to work six-day workweeks in the months leading up to release. Developers who are critical of the bonus system have said that it implicitly encourages employees to put in nights and weekends to show that they’re working the hardest.

CD Projekt Changes Developer Bonus Structure After Buggy Release - Bloomberg

[paul]

Tencent cumpara Leyou Technologies Holdings pentru $1.5 miliarde, adica:
- Digital Extremes - Warframe - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digita...ames_developed
- Splash Damage - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splash...ames_developed
- Athlon Games - publisher
- 20% Certain Affinity - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Certain_Affinity#Games
- Kingmaker
- Radiance Games
Subsidiaries - Leyou Technologies Holdings Limited

[parazitu86]

Uhhhh îmi pare rău pentru Splash damage, sper să nu se aleagă praful de ei, sunt printre puținele companii care mai sunt PC oriented.

[dronology]

EA is buying Codemasters for $1.2 billion to take lead in racing game market.

Need for Speed, F1, Grid, Project Cars, and Dirt all under the same roof.


https://www.theverge.com/2020/12/14/...for-speed-dirt

[parazitu86]

https://www.theverge.com/platform/am...for-speed-dirt
Dep Rip Codemasters, să curgă microtranzactiile si după 5 ani închidem prăvălia.

[dronology]

Our Shared Commitment to Safer Gaming

by Dave McCarthy, Corporate Vice President, Xbox Operations

At Xbox, we are aligned with both Nintendo, on behalf of the community of Nintendo Switch players, and PlayStation in our belief that protecting players online requires a multidisciplinary approach – one that combines the benefits of advanced technology, a supportive community, and skilled human oversight. We can accomplish more when we work toward the same goal, and so we will each continue investing in, evolving, and amplifying our approaches to user safety. As we continue this work, we will prioritize protecting the safety of our players, especially those most vulnerable.

https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2020/12/...ty-principles/

[paul]

INTRODUCING... THE KFCONSOLE

POWER YOUR HUNGER
The KFConsole has arrived. Forged from the fires of the KFC ovens and built by Cooler Master from the ground up, there has never been a tastier way to experience the latest titles in stunning 4k, 240fps.

WORLD FIRST BUILT IN CHICKEN CHAMBER
Never risk letting your chicken go cold again thanks to the patented Chicken Chamber. Utilising the systems natural heat and airflow system you can now focus on your gameplay and enjoy hot, crispy chicken between rounds.

BUILT AND DESIGNED BY COOLER MASTER
At Cooler Master, we’re wired different, see outside of the box and go beyond to deliver cutting edge performance with a touch of class. Our expert Mod team lead by the legendary Swedish craftsman Timpelay set about building this awesome beast and boy did he deliver!

ONLY THE BEST
Housed in a custom Cooler Master NC100 chassis, we needed something small but mighty and that’s just what we got! At the heart of this beast of a machine is the Intel Nuc 9 extreme compute element, keeping space down and driving performance that mere mortals could only dream of.

NEVER MISS A SHOT
Discover a level of gameplay you didn’t know possible with Asus powered graphics that runs buttery smooth, keeping tearing and frame drop a thing of the past. With a first of its kind hot swappable GPU slot, the KFC console will stay the most powerful console for generations to come.

NEVER RUN OUT OF SPACE FOR GAMES
Unleashing the performance of PCIe NVMe speeds that are 6× faster. Booting games up in seconds and instantly access data while loading games. We’ve taken your data to the next level of performance, reliability, and efficiency with two Seagate® BarraCuda® 1TB SSD.

VR READY

Get on your feet and enjoy the world of Virtual Reality while the smell of fresh chicken captures your senses.

RAY TRACING

Rays of light individually simulated creating true to life shadows and reflections that will immerse you in selected games more than ever before.

240FPS WITH UP TO 240HZ OUTPUT

Enjoy smooth and fluid high-frame-rate gameplay at up to 240fps for ALL games, with support for 240Hz output on 4k displays

4K-TV GAMING

Enjoy your favourite games in Finger Clickin' Good 4K quality on supported devices.

KFC | Cooler Master

KFC partnered up with Cooler Master, Intel, ASUS, and Seagate to make a new gaming PC enclosed in a bucket-shaped chassis.

The KFConsole features Intel NUC 9 Extreme compute element paired with an ASUS graphics card. According to CoolerMaster who are promoting the new console, the GPU will be capable of 4K gaming and will support up to 240 Hz displays. More importantly, this console will support raytracing, which implies that the graphics card is based on NVIDIA Turing architecture (we know this since the GPU pictured has a DVI port and that is no longer available on Ampere cards).

The console is also equipped with Seagate’s 1TB NVMe SSD. KFC claims that this console ‘runs better than any other console’. The company has not specified if this product will ever go on sale, and if it does, how much would it cost. It is a great marketing campaign, that’s for sure.

KFC unveils KFConsole powered by Intel CPU, features 'Chicken Chamber', supports ray tracing - VideoCardz.com

[paul]

​​Siren and Gravity Rush creator Keiichiro Toyama leaves Sony Interactive Entertainment Japan Studio, establishes Bokeh Game Studio - Gematsu

Update:

Silent Hill and Gravity Rush creator Keiichiro Toyama has shared some details of the upcoming debut game from his new studio, which will be a horror-themed action-adventure, aiming for a 2023 release, that will appeal to Toyama's fans.

Toyama's Bokeh Game Studio was founded on August 13 and announced publicly in December. Speaking with IGN Japan, the acclaimed developer explained that he is working on “an action-adventure game that will appeal to fans of my previous work”. He explained that the game will include “battles and story elements” in the kind of richly authored worlds you might recognize from his games at Sony’s Japan Studio and Konami.

When pressed on whether this new title will lean more toward the horror themes of Silent Hill and Siren or the cuter anime-styled paranormal setting of Gravity Rush, he explained, “If anything, this will be more of a horror-oriented game. But we will focus on making this a broader entertainment experience, rather than a hardcore horror game.”

While Toyama has been a first-party Sony developer for the past 20 years or so, he said that this new game will be a multi-platform release. “We are developing with PC as the lead platform, but we hope to release the game on as many console platforms as possible,” he said.

Silent Hill and Gravity Rush Creator's New Project Will Be a Horror Action-Adventure Game, Aiming for 2023 - IGN

[paul]

Tez2 and Yan2295 are two former Rockstar Games insiders that tend to leak some details about the company’s future or previous plans every now and then. In a recent comment by Tez2, he claimed that the pre-production phase for Grand Theft Auto VI started in 2015, and then slowed down in 2017 due to the big load of work that was required for Red Dead Redemption 2 and Bully 2. However, the team somehow decides to cancel Bully 2 and share the focus on Grand Theft Auto VI and Red Dead Redemption 2 one year prior to its launch in 2018. It’s worth noting that Yan2295 confirmed Tez2’s claim in a comment on Reddit.

If it turns out to be true, it’s sad that Bully 2 has been sacrificed for working on two giant projects. Apparently, the game had been canceled in 2009 and 2013 as well, due to similar problems.

Bully 2 Was Apparently Canceled in 2017 to Focus on Grand Theft Auto 6

[paul]

Nintendo cumpara micul studio canadian Next Level Games, cei care au facut Luigi's Mansion 3: https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/pdf/2021/210105e.pdf.

[paul]

In a post published on his Facebook page, the designer revealed he’s established Itagaki Games, a new studio unrelated to his former employers Tecmo and Valhalla.

“For the past four years, I’ve been teaching job to foster juniors, but now I feel like I want to make a game again and just established a company for that purpose,” he wrote.

The 53-year-old designer and his Ninja Gaiden team were behind Tecmo’s biggest games for nearly two decades, including the Dead or Alive series and the Xbox reboot of Ninja Gaiden.

However, Itagaki had a very public falling out with his employer following the release of Ninja Gaiden II in 2008, which saw him leave the company and file a $1 million lawsuit alleging unpaid bonuses and “disingenuous statements”.

After the split, Itagaki founded Valhalla Game Studios, the developer behind the critically-panned Wii U title Devil’s Third. In 2017, he resigned from his director position and took on an advisory role.

Devil’s Third was a rare deviation from Xbox platforms for Itagaki, but even that game was originally intended to be an Xbox 360 exclusive, according to the designer, with Microsoft said to have partially funded the formation of Valhalla. Due to the company’s shift to focus on Kinect, Devil’s Third eventually switched to THQ (and later, Nintendo).

Thanks to original Xbox hits Dead or Alive 3 and Ninja Gaiden, Itagaki remains a key figure in the history of the platform and recently contributed to a Bloomberg feature marking Xbox’s 20th anniversary.

Itagaki’s Facebook comments came from an unedited interview he originally submitted for the feature, which the designer said he wouldn’t have contributed if weren’t for the large number of Xbox fans anticipating his next game.

Asked if he would consider working with Microsoft again in the future, Itagaki said he’d be “honoured” to join up with his old partner.

“I would start again with questions that I made to [original Xbox designer] Seamus [Blackley] two decades ago,” he wrote. “Back then, I asked him, ‘are you confident that you will beat PS2?’ and he said, ‘Yes. Xbox is called Project Midway and I’ll gain the supremacy with it.’

“That’s why I trusted him and actually created Xbox-exclusive games for about ten years. 20 years have passed since then, and I established my own company, Itagaki Games, which is not Tecmo, nor Valhalla. I know Microsoft is still aggressive. If they reach out to me, it will be an honor for me.”[

Ninja Gaiden’s Itagaki has a new studio and would be ‘honoured’ to work with Xbox | VGC

[paul]

Previously-unseen concept art from cancelled BioWare project Revolver has been posted online by artist Matt Rhodes.

Revolver, a spiritual successor to Jade Empire, was never officially announced. Bits and pieces about it surfaced over the years, before BioWare finally went into detail on the game in its recent 25th anniversary book.

Set in the near-future, the project was designed to spread BioWare's trademark narrative and character-driven efforts across a more open-world and action-heavy setting. Huh, sounds familiar.

"Beginning its life as a sequel to Jade Empire, Revolver evolved and changed course many times throughout its development," Rhodes wrote. "It was recently revealed in more detail in the book 'Bioware: Stories and Secrets from 25 Years of Game Development'. To celebrate, I sifted through the archives and blew 15 years of dust off some of my favourite pieces from that project."

In development for PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 from around 2005 to 2008, Revolver had lofty plans to make the BioWare formula work in a sandbox environment you could parkour through and explore at will. Characters and quests were designed to be encountered in a non-linear narrative.

As the scope of the project became clear, BioWare roped in help from Big Sandwich Games, a studio filled by former Rockstar Vancouver staff, to work on the game's open-world elements. But eventually the project was quietly cancelled, and BioWare focused its efforts on the imminent release of Dragon Age: Origins and, a year after that, Mass Effect 2.

Cancelled BioWare project Revolver shown in concept art • Eurogamer.net

Toate pozele, pe ArtStation - Matt Rhodes sau Matt Rhodes (@mattrhodesart) - Instagram.

[dronology]

Plex Arcade announced: Plex gets into the game subscription business

Plex has announced a move into the game subscription arena with its Plex Arcade service. The company has teamed up with streaming app provider Parsec to let users stream retro titles from a host Windows or Mac computer to a variety of platforms. These supported platforms include Amazon Fire TV, Android, Android TV, Apple TV, iOS, MacOS, Chrome/Chromium browsers, and Windows.


As for the actual games, Plex has teamed up with Atari to offer 27 titles at launch. You can check out the full list below.

• 3D Tic-Tac-Toe
• Adventure
• Aquaventure
• Avalanche
• Basketbrawl
• Centipede
• Combat
• Dark Chambers
• Desert Falcon
• Fatal Run
• Food Fight
• Gravitar
• Haunted House
• Human Canonball

• Lunar Lander
• Major Havoc
• Milipede
• Missile Command
• Motor Psycho
• Ninja Golf
• Outlaw Gunslinger
• Planet Smashers
• Radar Lock
• Sky Diver
• Sky Raider
• Solaris
• Super Breakout

Fortunately, Plex Arcade also allows you to stream your own collection of retro games from your computer’s library. It currently supports showing metadata for arcade, Atari, Sega (Genesis, Game Gear, Master System, 32X), and Nintendo (GB/GBC/GBA, NES, SNES, N64) platforms. Thankfully, Plex confirmed that it’s working to support more platforms.

Plex Arcade is available for $4.99 a month, or $2.99 a month if you’re a Plex Pass subscriber already. It certainly sounds like an interesting proposition, especially on TV streaming devices where storage space for ROMs can be an issue.

https://www.androidauthority.com/plex-arcade-1196039/

[paul]

- Launch of approximately €40 million capital increase through an accelerated bookbuilding process, including the acquisition of a minority stake by Tencent through an investment of €30 million

- Business cooperation agreement signed between Tencent and DONTNOD

DONTNOD ENTERTAINMENT - DONTNOD ANNOUNCES A BUSINESS COOPERATION AGREEMENT WITH TENCENT AND THE SIMULTANEOUS LAUNCH OF APPROXIMATELY EUR 40 MILLION CAPITAL INCREASE TO FINANCE ITS EXPANSION INTO MORE SELF-PUBLISHED GAMES - 27/01/2021 - 17H50 - Actusnews Wire