Author: Trafficblast

PlayStation 4 Lifetime Sales Top 110 Million, And Digital Sales See A Huge Increase

The PlayStation 4 is the second-best selling Sony console (after the PlayStation 2), and the company’s latest earnings report has given the most up-to-date figure on how the console is doing. Although there has been the expected year-on-year decline as the PlayStation 4 nears the end of its life cycle, the console has continued to do well, and has now sold through 110.4 million units over its lifetime.

Daniel Ahmad, a senior analyst at Niko Partners, has compiled data from the latest Sony earnings report to paint a picture of the PS4’s sales over the last financial year, ending March 31, 2020. 13.6 million units were sold over the last financial year, down from 17.8 million the previous year. It’s expected that sales in the current quarter of the 2020 financial year might actually exceed those from a year ago, as COVID-19 means that people are at home and bored.

245 million units of software were sold over the same period. This is down from 257.6 million the previous year, as is to be expected. This also marks the first time that digital sales have exceeded physical–51% of game sales during the financial year were digital. A whopping 66% of sales in the final quarter of the financial year were digital, which is, again, likely due in part to self-isolation and restrictions that came into effect in March 2020.

Overall, this was a good year for Sony’s games and network services–the second best on record, in fact, lagging only behind 2018.

Essentially, despite a slump, the PlayStation 4 is still doing very well. Subscriptions for PlayStation Plus have also gone up, hitting 41.5 million by March 31, 2020 (up from 36.4 million a year earlier).

While COVID-19 has impacted Sony’s revenue, their earnings report also says that there are no plans to delay the PlayStation 5, nor its planned software, at this time. We’re still not entirely sure what games we’ll get on PS5 when it releases, although we know quite a bit else about it.

The PlayStation 4 is now the fourth best-selling console ever, behind the Game Boy/Game Boy Color, which sold 118.69 million units. It remains to be seen if the PlayStation 4 will overtake Nintendo’s handheld; the Nintendo DS (154.02 million) and PlayStation 2 (155 million) are likely out of reach.

Now Playing: The 23 Biggest Upcoming Games Of 2020 (And Beyond)

Josh Gad Will Save Humanity In Next Disaster Movie From Roland Emmerich

Josh Gad has been cast in the next movie from well-known disaster film director Roland Emmerich. Gad, who recently played Olaf in Frozen II, will play a character named KC Houseman, who is described by The Hollywood Reporter as “odd and unkempt.”

The film is called Moonfall (no connection to the video game of the same name) and it has the kind of absurd plot that you’d expect from an Emmerich movie. The moon becomes knocked off its orbit by a “mysterious force” and begins falling toward Earth, threatening to wipe out humanity. Weeks before the moon crashes down on Earth and annihilates humanity, a motley crew is assembled to fly a ship onto the moon and save the day.

Gad’s character is a “genius who correctly predicts that the moon has fallen out of its orbit, thus making the space-obsessed, profoundly unfiltered and eccentric man one of the most important people on Earth.”

Gad is the first actor to be cast in Moonfall. The premise of the film sounds similar to the 1998 Michael Bay movie Armageddon, in which a ragtag team of blue-collar workers are called on to save humanity from a meteor on a collision course with Earth.

Emmerich wrote the script for Moonfall alongside Harald Kloser, who co-wrote Emmerich’s disaster movie 2012, along with Spenser Cohen. Emmerich also directed Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow, as well as the movie that was not related to the annihilation of the planet, The Patriot.

Now Playing: Best Shows And Movies To Stream For May 2020 – Netflix, Hulu, Shudder, Amazon Prime Video

Call Of Duty: Warzone Cheating Update: PC Players Must Now Use 2FA

Call of Duty: Warzone developer Infinity Ward is taking further steps to help stamp out cheaters in the popular battle royale game, at least on PC. The studio has released a new “security update” that adds mandatory two-factor authentication.

According to Infinity Ward, this is “another step to provide an additional layer of security for players.” Note that 2FA is only required for people who are playing the free-to-play client, not those who are accessing Warzone through Modern Warfare. This new 2FA update only applies to PC.

With more than 60 million players, there were always going to be some bad eggs in Warzone. For what it’s worth, other popular battle royale games such as PUBG and Fortnite have also acknowledged cheating issues.

Warzone players who have been identified as cheaters are being placed in matches together as a way to combat the issue. Looking ahead, Infinity Ward is planning to add a player-reporting feature to the Warzone kill cams and spectator modes. Not including Modern Warfare, Infinity Ward has already banned more than 70,000 cheaters from Warzone.

For more on Warzone, check out GameSpot’s recent interview with Raven Software about the Gulag, which is linked below

Now Playing: Call Of Duty: Warzone Video Review

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The Untamed Is A Perfect Quarantine Binge

Now that the passage of time is feeling more imaginary than ever before, finding something to focus on for an extended period is becoming something of an art form. Let’s face it: Re-watching the full series of The Office for the millionth time or speeding through something nostalgic like The X-Files all over again was fun when this all started, but we could use something new to take our minds off things for more than just a few hours at a time–or, better yet, something that is so new it doesn’t immediately become background noise as you zone out and gaze into the void (or tend to your Animal Crossing island).

Enter: The Untamed, or Chén Qíng Lìng (abbreviated CQL–this is a world with lots of alternate titles, abbreviations, and acronyms. Don’t panic, you’ll get used to them).

If you’re on social media at all, there’s a good chance you’ve seen rumblings of this show in some form or another. The Chinese historical-fantasy drama, which originally aired on YouTube back in the summer of 2019, was given official English subtitles and later picked up by Netflix late last year. And while this ease of access certainly played a role in the fan boom, it quickly became apparent that it was more than just the ability to watch for free that made The Untamed so special.

Based on the novel Mó Dào Zǔ Shī (“The Grandmaster Of Demonic Cultivation,” abbreviated MDZS), The Untamed is a sprawling, densely packed story in the Xianxia genre, which essentially means it’s a fantasy story based thoroughly on Chinese mythology, Taoism, and other traditional beliefs. Part of what makes The Untamed so engaging is the fact that it’s steeped in genre traditions that are wholly unique to Xianxia works. These stories typically focus on “cultivators,” or people who are working to cultivate (get it?) their spiritual powers and abilities with the goal of attaining immortality or enlightenment through rigorous study and practice.

It’s not specifically high-fantasy–for example, there are no orcs or elves running around. But it’s certainly not gritty or grounded. In The Untamed, ancient China is populated by various cultivation sects with different worldviews and methodologies, training students who, in turn, venture out into the world and use their spiritual power to help common folk deal with pesky supernatural nuisances. You know, resentful spirits, curses, demons and the like.

Naturally, with different sects all vying for power and influence, the political landscape is a bit of a nightmare. It’ll immediately ping associations to things like Avatar: The Last Airbender and Game Of Thrones, and it’s easy to see why. The sects are often coded onscreen by colors, and they each have their own specific home bases (some with incredibly cool names like “The Unclean Realm” or “The Nightless City”), and there’s enough machiavellian betrayal and political puppeteering to make your head spin.

But that’s just the story at its most macro level. The worldbuilding serves to prop up the most important part–the core characters themselves and their deeply meaningful and outstandingly complicated relationships. If you’re the sort of person who loves novels that come with a glossary of terms and a fold-out family tree, this show is for you.

Reductively, I could tell you that The Untamed is about two cultivators from diametrically opposed worldviews coming together against astronomical odds and falling in love. This is true–but that’s only part of the story. Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji (played by pop idols Xiao Zhan and Wang Yibo, respectively) serve as a sort of narrative throughline and if you’re only interested in heartbreakingly tender romance, then great news: There’s plenty of it. While The Untamed, on paper, was forced to remove the majority of the source material’s textual queer romance (MDZS is what’s known as a BL, or boy’s love, novel, which means exactly what it says on the tin) to appease China’s strict censors, the subtext remains so obvious that if you didn’t know the love story had been truncated, you probably wouldn’t realize it at all. In fact, if anything, the clever ways the romance is communicated in the story just serve to make it hit you directly in the heart even harder.

But if romance isn’t your particular bag, that’s fine too. The Untamed takes place over 50 (yes, 50) hour-long episodes, and when it’s not asking you to wax poetic about the existence of soulmate level bonds, it’s throwing nonstop twists and turns at you. It’s one part murder mystery, one part political thriller, and one part family drama, all with the high-camp, charmingly low-budget feel of your favorite ’90s adventure classics. If you were a fan of Xena: Warrior Princess, or more recently, Netflix’s Witcher TV show, the action and melodrama will feel like comfort food. There are plenty of monsters to fight, evil leaders to assassinate, political coups to execute, and families being torn apart. People carry magic swords and cast spells with enchanted instruments. There’s an entire subplot across three episodes that takes a hard turn into dark, psychological horror and another that makes The Red Wedding look relatively tame.

Best of all, once you’ve completed your 50-hour journey, there’s plenty more to consume. MDZS has been adapted as an animated series, a manhua comic, and an audio drama. And while only the animated series has been officially subtitled in English, fan communities have been hard at work providing unofficial translations for virtually every adaptation. In addition, the live action universe is still, technically, in progress, with spin-off films being released as recently as March of this year, that focus more on the show’s many side characters. With any luck, they’ll soon be made available with English subtitles as well.

As we progress into a summer where more and more events are canceled, keeping yourself occupied is key, and that’s exactly what a head-long dive into The Untamed will help you with. The sheer volume of content to consume, mixed with the level of attention it will ask you to pay to follow its intricate web of stories, characters, and relationships, on top of the thrill of learning the ins-and-outs of a rich genre full of its own conventions and traditions, make it a triple threat. It’s the ideal binge and the perfect gateway to a brand new obsession.

The Untamed is streaming in its entirety on Netflix and YouTube.

Activision Blizzard To Hire 2,000 Employees In The Next Year

It appears Activision Blizzard’s hiring spree at Call of Duty: WWII developer Sledgehammer Games is just one part of the company’s overall ambition to increase its development headcount.

Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick said on Twitter that the company plans to hire more than 2,000 people in the next year. “Over the next year, Activision Blizzard is aiming to hire over 2,000 employees so that our incredibly talented teams can continue making epic entertainment,” Kotick said.

The executive did not provide a breakdown of hiring plans by division, however. Activision Blizzard operates Activision (Call of Duty, Tony Hawk), Blizzard (WoW, Diablo, Overwatch), and King (Candy Crush).

In February 2019, Activision Blizzard announced a round of layoffs that impacted around 800 people across its divisions, including Activision, Blizzard, and King. At the same time as it announced the layoffs, Activision Blizzard stated that it was planning to “increase development investment” on its biggest franchises. To that end, the company announced that the number of developers working on Call of Duty, Candy Crush, Overwatch, Warcraft, Hearthstone, and Diablo in aggregate would increase by around 20 percent in 2019. Now, it appears Activision Blizzard is ramping up even further.

The layoffs were said to impact non-development and administrative positions instead of game development jobs for the most part. The company’s headcount reportedly stood at 10,000 before the layoffs, dropping to around 9,200 after the layoffs. With 2,000 more positions being added in the next year, Activision Blizzard’s total headcount will climb above 11,000.

Sledgehammer Games, the developer of Call of Duty: WWII and co-developer on Call of Duty: Warzone, recently announced it was looking to add 100 positions across its studios in California and Australia. Unlike in the past, the studio is now working on multiple games at the same time.

In other Activision news, the company has announced remasters of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 and 2, which are due for release in September.

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Destiny 2 The Lie Quest Guide: How To Earn Felwinter’s Lie

The weekly reset on May 12 has brought something new to Destiny 2: a quest called The Lie. It starts with a big community event that requires players to band together and complete Seraph Tower events all over the solar system, but according to one dataminer, it should end with the return of the Destiny 1 legendary shotgun, Felwinter’s Lie.

We’ll have to wait for everyone in Destiny 2 to clear enough Seraph Tower events in the EDZ and on Io and the Moon to access the next steps. In the meantime, though, here’s what you can expect from the rest of The Lie, according to Destiny 2 dataminer Ginsor.

The Lie Quest Steps

Warmind Evaluation

The first portion of the quest requires you to visit Ana Bray, who says that the warmind Rasputin has information it wants to give you–but not before the situation with the Almighty, the threat that has loomed over the entire Season of the Worthy, has been satisfactorily dealt with. To get it handled, you and the rest of the Destiny 2 community need to head to the EDZ, Io, and the Moon, and complete Seraph Tower activities.

This one’s going to be a grind, as the datamining info says that, as a community, Guardians need to complete 3 million Seraph Tower events in each location. That’s going to take a while, it seems.

One of Many

After completing “Warmind Evaluation,” you’ll head back to Ana Bray for an update on the situation. It sounds like we could be getting some new story info during this step, based on what Ana said at the start of this mission about Rasputin wanting to talk with the Guardian.

Vostok

The next step will send you to Vostok, the Destiny 2 Crucible map. That map is a portion of Felwinter Peak, where the Iron Lords’ fortress is located. We haven’t visited that location (outside of the Crucible) since Destiny 1. When you head to Vostok, you’ll be investigating “energy signatures” at coordinates given to you by Rasputin. It sounds like the mission will be similar to the Season of Dawn one that took place on the Twilight Gap Crucible map.

Shotgun Telemetry

This one is apparently another grind-heavy step, requiring you to rack up shotgun kills on the road to unlocking Felwinter’s Lie. According to Ginsor, you’ll need 1,000 kills in total to move on from this step.

Lunar Trip

Once the shotgun work is done, you’ll go to Rasputin’s bunker on the moon for a meeting–presumably with more story information.

Warmind Heuristics

The final step sounds like a mission: “Investigate one of Rasputin’s closest-held secrets.” That’ll likely give another bit of lore information before finally awarding players the Felwinter’s Life legendary shotgun. But we won’t know what it entails until we get there.

Now Playing: Destiny 2 – Season Of The Worthy Opening Cinematics

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Twitch Is Now Selling Virtual Gift Cards

Twitch is jumping on the gift card bandwagon, with the online streaming service launching its own gift card service.

The cards come in $25, $50, $100, and $200 denominations. These cards can be sent to your friends on Twitch through email or text message and can be spent on anything included on the platform. Users can use these gift cards to buy subscriptions to their favorite streamers, purchase Turbo to go ad-free each month, or get Bits to spend on streams.

Each card comes with a variety of messages to attribute to the receiver, like “Happy Birthday” and “Thank You”. The cards are purely digital at the moment, but will be coming to Best Buy and GameStop sometime soon, according to Twitch’s announcement blog. The gift cards are also only available to US residents, with Twitch looking to offer them in other countries soon.

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Warframe Nightwave 3 Is Up Now, And It Turns The Game Into A Murder Mystery

The latest update for Warframe adds all new cosmetics, some bug fixes, and a new mystery to solve. Glassmaker is the third installment in the Nightwave series, Warframe’s battle-pass system that adds more story content to the game.

Previous Nightwave stories have included a famous felon and a story about a suspicious cult leader. There seems to be a running theme here, with the latest story adding a new noir styled serial killer storyline to Warframe.

To access the new Glassmaker content, players just need to log in. As players complete in-game challenges they will earn access to a simulated environment showing the crime scenes of a mysterious murder. These sections will work like a sci-fi murder mystery game, where players will need to investigate and find clues at the crime scene.

Players will be able to walk around and observe the scene in the simulated environment, taking in the clues and the shattered victim. It seems that this new serial killer possesses the power to turn others into glass, thus the Glassmaker name.

This update follows the massive “Revised” update that rolled out across PC, PS4, and Xbox One back in March. These content and game updates are all a part of Digital Extremes’ plan to improve Warframe over the course of 2020.

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The Elder Scrolls: Blades Has Left Early Access And Is Likely Coming To Switch This Week

The Elder Scrolls: Blades has left Early Access on mobile as of the latest patch. Update 1.7 brings the game out of Early Access, and anyone who played it up until now will receive a small thank-you gift of 150 gems and a large emblem decoration.

The game, which has grown a great deal since its initial release in April 2019, is also coming to Switch, and while the game’s release was delayed last year it looks like it’s finally going to happen very soon. The Elder Scrolls: Blades is currently listed on the US Nintendo Eshop with a May 14 release date, and like the mobile version it’ll be free-to-play.

Blades will be the second Elder Scrolls title on Switch–Skyrim is also available on Nintendo’s portable console.

Here are the full notes for the Blades 1.7 update.

The Elder Scrolls: Blades 1.7 Update

End of Early Access

  • Everyone who played during Early Access will receive 150 Gems and the large Emblem decoration.

Arena Leaderboard Reset

  • All Arena players will be returned to the Old Arena with 0 trophies.
  • Earn Gems, potions, and a chest according to your Arena at the time of reset.
  • Top 100 players also get the Golden Champion’s Helm.
  • Top 500-101 players get the Silver Hero’s Helm.
  • Top 1000-501 players get the Bronzed Gladiator’s Helm.
  • Climb up the ranks to earn rewards all over again, including Blades gear.
  • Keep track of the best Guilds with the new Guilds Leaderboard.

Massive New Questline

  • Play through an Arena-style gladiatorial questline.
  • Become the Grand Champion to earn the Grand Champion’s Sword and Helm.

More New Quests

  • Take on six other new quests for both low- and high-level players.
  • Earn the Redoran Watchman’s Helm from the Villains quest.
  • Earn the Ring of Dremora from the Trophy Hunting quest.
  • Can you solve the puzzles and find the secrets in The Wizard’s Challenge quest?

Additional Changes

  • Improved how and when enemies choose to conserve Magicka or Stamina to use on more expensive skills.
  • Added new sound effects to weapons enchanted with Haste (increased attack speed).

Bug fixes

  • Fixed a bug that prevented completion of the Resolution quest.
  • Fixed a bug that made abilities hit faster than normal when multiple abilities were performed in quick succession.
  • Fixed a bug that prevented the application of resistances and weakness to elemental damage dealt via Shield Bash with an enchanted shield.
  • Fixed a bug that made critical hits harder to perform while wearing the Warlock’s Ring Artifact.
  • Fixed a bug that let players unequip and reequip certain skills on cooldown to make them available sooner.
  • Fixed a bug in the Arena that displayed all an opponent’s physical resistances as cleaving resistance.
  • Fixed a bug that slowed down Arena combat when both players were equipped with Artifacts dealing continuous damage.
  • Fixed a bug that made high-level Wights hit twice with a single Power Attack.
  • Fixed a bug that prevented enemies from properly deciding when to use their Reflecting Bash ability.
  • Fixed a bug that made enemies unnecessarily stop and restart blocking while the player was casting Consuming Inferno or Frostbite.
  • Fixed a bug that stopped players from equipping a loadout right after the end of combat.
  • Fixed a bug that stopped players from equipping a loadout while certain skills were active.
  • Fixed a bug that prevented players from receiving Guild chat messages.
  • Fixed a bug that unsynced the camera from the player’s shield when performing a Shield Bash.
  • Fixed a bug that made the Fireball spell’s fire effects remain on an enemy indefinitely.
  • Fixed a bug that sped up the waterfalls of the Hircine’s Prize decoration.
  • Fixed a bug that made a deleted loadout return to your loadouts list.
  • Fixed an interface bug that made players choose an unintended tier when tempering, brewing, or enchanting.
  • Fixed an interface bug that incorrectly displayed “You cannot drop your last weapon!” when inspecting a weapon.
  • Fixed a visual bug that made the Stamina bar jump around when attacking with the Volendrung Artifact.
  • Fixed various rare cases of invisible walls or rocks blocking players and preventing the completion of a Job.

Now Playing: Elder Scrolls Blades Switch Trailer | Bethesda Press Conference E3 2019

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F1 2020’s First Gameplay Trailer Shows Off The Game’s Commitment To Detail

F1 2020 is releasing on July 10, 2020, and Codemasters has released a trailer for the game to show off how stunning its latest take on racing is. This first gameplay trailer does not delve too deep into what separates this entry from earlier games, but it sure looks good.

The trailer also shows off the character models for racers like Daniel Ricciardo, Lewis Hamilton, and Carlos Sainz, as well as some scrapes, beautiful turns, pit stops, and all the exciting bits you’d want in a good race.

You can watch it for yourself below.

F1 2020 will integrate F2 cars into career mode after their debut in F1 2019, allowing players to choose between full half, and three-race challenges. At launch, only the 2019 F2 season will be available, but the 2020 season will come as a free update later in the year. It’s also the first F1 game for Stadia.

F1 2020 will also feature 16 classic cars from the sport’s past, so F1 fanatics will be able to enjoy a slice of history. Here’s the complete list.

  • 2010 Red Bull RB6
  • 2010 Ferrari F10
  • 2010 McLaren MP4-25
  • 2009 Brawn BGP 001
  • 2008 McLaren MP4 –23
  • 2007 Ferrari F2007
  • 2006 Renault R26
  • 2004 Ferrari F2004
  • 2003 Williams FW25
  • 2000 Ferrari F1 2000
  • 1998 McLaren MP4-13
  • 1996 Williams FW18
  • 1992 Williams FW14
  • 1991 McLaren MP4/6
  • 1990 Ferrari 641
  • 1990 McLaren MP4/5B

Furthermore, the Deluxe Schumacher Edition of the game, which costs $10 more and grants three days of early access, comes with four more cars:

  • 1991: Jordan 191
  • 1994: Benetton B194
  • 1995: Benetton B195
  • 2000: Ferrari F1-2000

The F1 game series is on a good run, and F1 2019 scored a 9/10 from GameSpot. Hopefully F1 2020 will continue the streak.

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