Gaming
Microsoft Adds to Its Cloud Gaming Lineup with Bethesda
Microsoft has acquired the owner of video game publisher Bethesda, ZeniMax Media, in a deal worth a reported $7.5 billion. Under the agreement, Microsoft will own a plethora of games, including Doom, Fallout, Wolfenstein, The Elder Scrolls, Starfield, Dishonored, and Prey, among others.
The agreement adds to the company’s cloud offerings and highlights how serious Microsoft is about building a cloud gaming service that is head and shoulders above the rest. In 2014, the tech giant bought Mojang, the studio behind Minecraft, for $2.5 billion, capitalizing on its global popularity.
What Does This Mean for Microsoft?
Microsoft is in a race with its competitors to launch a cloud-based gaming service that will plug a hole in the market and provide players with a less hardware-centric, accessible alternative. While the rest have made strides – Amazon has only recently released Amazon Luna and jumped into the ring – this acquisition marks Microsoft as the industry leaders.
Not only is the selection of games better than Amazon’s, Google’s and Nvidia’s, but it’s easier to move between playing games on the Xbox to an Android mobile device thanks to Microsoft Cloud. Although it’s not available on PC yet, the fact that users can transfer 150 Xbox games to their streaming device is very impressive.
Microsoft even has answers for the glitches that people find in the system, with an upgrade to Xbox Series X hardware due imminently to eliminate the bugs.
Xbox Exclusivity
Games are no longer just about picking the leading console. PC gaming is stronger than ever, with everything from the best casino bonus to a selection of shooter and RPG games available online.
Whether it’s a traditional gamer experience or an advanced UX, Microsoft is aiming to tick every box. The Silicon Valley company is in a battle against Sony that it doesn’t plan on losing. The latest acquisition is evidence of this since all the titles mentioned will be honored concerning their previous arrangements with rival brands. But once the agreement is over, they will only feature on other consoles on a case-by-case basis, and the same goes for future releases too.
It appears Microsoft is leveraging its cloud gaming solution to cement its position in the industry via Xbox Game Pass and releases such as Bethesda’s highly anticipated Starfield. After all, gamers are fiercely loyal and MS may feel that future absorbing titles could help them sway opinion.
Bethesda
Bethesda is set to become part of Microsoft’s 23-strong creative studio teams. However, the publisher won’t stop creating and releasing games independently, confirmed by Pete Hines, Bethesda’s SVP of PR & Marketing.
For Microsoft and Bethesda, this provides a level of flexibility that both are bound to enjoy. The latter will clearly benefit from the technology giant’s knowledge and resources, leading to an even higher quality of games, whereas Microsoft can continue to promote games to boost the brand.
Also, even though they have superior resources, it’s evident that MS’s teams will learn a lot from the publisher that competed against them with limited resources.
The Future
The future is unclear because Amazon, Google and Nvidia are bound to react, and it could lead to a developer battle with lots of twists and turns. Of course, the competition is healthy for the average gamer as it looks set to revolutionize the sector for the better.
Gaming
Ubisoft says that future Assassin’s Creed games will need more time to be made
As Assassin’s Creed Shadows is about to sneak up on people in November, Ubisoft says that the time between developing games needs to be longer to find the “right balance.” Shadows has been in development for four years, longer than any other game in the series up to this point. That includes the huge open-world epics Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla.
Shadows lead producer Karl Onnée (thanks, GamesIndustry.biz) says that the latest AC game took 25% longer to make than Valhalla. He says this is necessary to keep the quality of the series that it is known for: “It’s always a balance between time and costs, but the more time you have, the more you can iterate.” You can speed up a project by adding more people to it, but that doesn’t give you more time to make changes.
Onnée says this has as much to do with immersion and aesthetics as it does with fixing bugs and smoothing out pixels. This is because the development team needs time to learn about each new historical setting: “We are trying to make a game that is as real as possible.” We’re proud of it, and the process took a long time. In feudal Japan, building a house is very different from building a house in France or England in the Middle Ages. As an artist, you need to learn where to put things in a feudal Japanese home. For example, food might not belong there. Get all the information you need and learn it. That process takes a long time.”
You’ll have to wait a little longer for Ubisoft to work on each game. Are you okay with that? In what part of Shadows are you now? Is it interesting to you? Leave a comment below and let us know.
Gaming
You can now pre-order Lollipop Chainsaw RePOP on PS5
You can now pre-order Lollipop Chainsaw RePOP, a remaster that Dragami Games and Capcom both created. You can now pre-order the PS5 game on the PS Store for $44.99 or £39.99. If you have PS Plus, you can get an extra 10% off the price.
The company put out a new trailer with about three minutes of gameplay to mark the start of the pre-order period. Lollipop Chainsaw RePOP is a remaster of Grasshopper Manufacture’s crazy action game from 2012. You play as Juliet, a high school student who fights off waves of zombies.
The remaster adds RePOP mode, an alternative mode that swaps out the blood and gore for fun visual effects. It also adds a bunch of other features and improvements that make the game better overall. You can expect the graphics and sound to be better as well.
The game will now come out on September 12, 2024, instead of September 12, 2024. Are you excited to get back to this? Please cheer us on in the section below.
Gaming
This Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 zombies trailer is way too expensive
Is there really anyone who is following the story of Call of Duty’s zombie mode? We’ve known about the story in a vague way for a while, but we couldn’t tell you anything about it. It looks like the “Dark Aether” story will continue in Black Ops 6, but we don’t really know what that means.
For those of you who care, here is the official blurb with some background: “Requiem, led by the CIA, finally closed the last-dimensional portal, sending its inhabitants back to the nightmare world known as the Dark Aether, after two years of fighting zombie outbreaks around the world during the Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War timeline.”
Wait, there’s more! “Agent Samantha Maxis gave her life to seal this weird dimension from the inside out.” Even worse things were to come: senior staff members of Requiem were arrested without a reason by the Project Director, who turned out to be Edward Richtofen.
Black Ops 6 will take place about five years later, and it looks like it will show more about Richtofen’s goals and motivations. The most important thing is that you will probably be shooting an unimaginable number of zombies in the head. This week, on August 8, there will be a full reveal of the gameplay, so keep an eye out for that.
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