Tag: Industry - Page 2
News PUBG and Hi-Fi Rush Owner Krafton Is Spending $70 Million to Become an 'AI-First Company'
"A complete reorganization of the company's operational development system"
South Korean gaming giant Krafton has announced that it is investing almost $70 million to become an "AI-first company". As reported by PC Gamer, the firm – which owns PUGB Studios and Tango Gameworks, creators of Hi-Fi Rush –
News Former Battlefield Boss Says Video Games 'Can't Be Built By An Al'
"I hope they never can. The human aspect is still essential"
Patrick Söderlund has certainly been around the block a few times. The former CEO of Battlefield studio DICE can also list the title of Executive Vice President of Worldwide Studios at Electronic Arts on his CV, so it's fair to say that he knows a little bit about interactive...
News Sony Rules Out Acquiring Batman, Mortal Kombat Maker Warner Bros
Doesn't want a "big Hollywood M&A deal" right now
Sony has ruled itself out as one of the companies interested in acquiring Warner Bros after it essentially put itself up for sale. Last week, Warner Bros revealed it has "initiated a review of strategic alternatives to maximise shareholder value". The quote came after rumours of bids for the firm...
"We're competing more and more against TikTok"
By bringing its signature release Halo: Campaign Evolved to the PS5, Xbox has underlined once and for all that its business is going in a different direction. This was already evident from the success of ports like Gears of War Reloaded and Forza Horizon 5, but Master Chief is so symbolic of...
News New EA Partnership Will 'Reimagine How Games Are Made' with AI
"Would you like me to add some lens flare to that?"
The AI boom has arrived, and it’s infiltrating the video game industry at large. Stability AI, a “leading independent and multi-modal generative AI company”, has announced a strategic partnership with EA to “co-develop transformative generative AI models, tools, and workflows that empower...
News This Is Why Xbox Is Bringing All of Its Games to PS5 Now
Insight into what's been going on at Redmond
Xbox has undoubtedly become one of the biggest publishers on PlayStation – but it may not be entirely through choice. A new article from Bloomberg (paywalled) delves into the business decisions behind Microsoft’s sudden multiformat move, and while little of it will surprise, it does add clarity to...
News Xbox Boss Believes Sony's Strategy of Console Exclusives Is 'Antiquated'
"The biggest games in the world are available everywhere"
Xbox fans against the organisation’s multiformat strategy may want to close their eyes now, as boss Sarah Bond is signalling her company has no plans to explore exclusivity again. In an interview with Mashable, she pointed out that all of the biggest games in the world are available...
News Remedy CEO Out in Aftermath of FBC: Firebreak Disaster
Live (out of) service
Remedy CEO Tero Virtala has stepped down with immediate effect, as the Finnish studio deals with the fallout of its live service disaster. Last week the company revealed that it was effectively writing off the entire development budget of FBC: Firebreak, after the first-person shooter failed to find a foothold in the crowded...
News Former God of War Dev Says Major Studios Should Make Smaller Games to Complement the Big Ones
"Double-A and single-A, and then perhaps indie as well right?"
It's no secret that triple-A game development is becoming unsustainably expensive, so to support major titles, big studios should look to diversify the scale of their productions. That's according to Meghan Morgan Juinio, a producer who worked at Santa Monica Studio for 10 years on the...
News Sony's Increasing Power Over Anime Is Starting to Raise Some Eyebrows
Part of the club
There’s an interesting story about anime on Automaton, and how Sony’s increasing death grip on the medium could be potentially causing issues. The story revolves around Ichiro Yamaguchi, the lead vocalist and guitarist for the band Sakanaction. He noted earlier in the year that he’d like to produce the soundtracks for more...
News Sony's MLB The Show Finally Seems Set to Throw Down on PC
San Diego Studio staffing up
Sony’s San Diego Studio, the makers of the MLB The Show franchise, finally seem set to bring the series to PC. Many of you will know MLB forced PlayStation to launch the franchise on more platforms, which has resulted in recent entries being available on Xbox and Switch. But considering the platform holder launches...
News Ninja Gaiden, Dead or Alive Legend Tomonobu Itagaki Has Passed Away
"I kept winning"
Legendary Ninja Gaiden and Dead or Alive director, the eternally sunglassed Tomonobu Itagaki, has passed away. He was aged just 58. A post on Facebook first broke the news, but it has since been corroborated by James Mielke on Bluesky. The original social media post reads, as translated by Google: “Last Words The light of my...
Stockman syndrome
What does the future of Saints Row actually look like? Well, let's be honest, there probably isn't one at this point — not after the 2022 reboot bombed — but at least the series' original design director is up for giving it another chance. In an especially large interview with Esports Insider, Chris Stockman — who again,...
News Summer Game Fest Will Reveal 'What's Next for Video Games' on 5th June, 2026
Save the date
The hype cycle is underway for next year’s Summer Game Fest, which will stream live from 5th June, 2026. The event will be hosted from a new location this time: the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. Previous broadcasts have been presented from the YouTube Theatre, which has double the audience capacity. While it’s far too early to...
News Assassin's Creed Boss Leaves Ubisoft Just Weeks After Tencent's Development Reshuffle
Everything is permitted
The franchise lead for Assassin's Creed has reportedly stepped away from Ubisoft, just two weeks after the company's new Tencent-led reshuffle came into effect. In case you haven't heard, Assassin's Creed as a whole — along with Far Cry and Rainbow Six — is now being spearheaded by the newly formed Vantage Studios, which...
News As Fans Demand inFAMOUS Remasters, Sucker Punch Says It Can Only Work on One Game at a Time
On the Sly
Ghost of Yotei dev doesn’t anticipate a future where it’s juggling multiple projects at once. The Seattle-based studio has been a PlayStation powerhouse for multiple generations now, but with production lifecycles getting longer, some fans had been hoping the team may be able to take on more than one project at a time. Specifically,...
News Sony's Bluepoint Studio Recruiting for Third-Person Melee Action Game
Back on its feet
It sounds like Sony first-party Bluepoint is staffing up again following the cancellation of its live service God of War game last year. The remaster specialists – who haven’t released a new project since Demon’s Souls, but did help Santa Monica Studio on God of War Ragnarok – are looking for a
News The MindsEye Situation Only Gets Uglier as Devs Accuse Management of Mistreatment
MindsEye of the storm
MindsEye has been an unmitigated disaster for developer Build A Rocket Boy, and somehow, the whole situation just got even worse. Following on from a wave of layoffs and reports that roughly 300 employees' jobs were at risk, the project's management — specifically ex-GTA producer Leslie Benzies and co-CEO Mark Gerhard — is...
News Troubled Hyper Light Drifter Dev Cuts Losses with New Game, Confirms Layoffs
Hyper Light Heart Breaker
Heart Machine, the talented studio behind 2016 indie gem Hyper Light Drifter and the eye-popping Solar Ash, has confirmed that it's making an unspecified number of layoffs. The developer launched its ongoing project, Hyper Light Breaker, into early access on PC at the start of the year. However, the Hyper Light Drifter...
News PS6 Out 'in a Few Years' as Sony, AMD Discuss the Future of Games
"From Project Amethyst to the Future of Play"
Sony and AMD have today released a new video on the PlayStation YouTube channel that provides an update on the two companies' work on Project Amethyst, which sees them exploring the future of technology together. One part of this research shall result in the PS6, to which system architect Mark Cerny...
News People Don't Buy Anywhere Near As Many Games As You Think
"Hyper enthusiasts are keeping things going"
Think about how many games release every single month. And then consider that more than 60% of US players purchase fewer than two new releases per year. It doesn’t really make economical sense, does it? And it’s why we often frown at the idea of publishers making shorter, cheaper software so we can...
News Peter Molyneux Very Nearly Became a First-Party PlayStation Dev
"One of our best kept secrets"
Sony wanted to buy Bullfrog, the legendary UK studio founded by Peter Molyneux. As part of a 30th anniversary piece published by The Game Business, veteran PlayStation producer Martin Alltimes revealed that the platform holder came incredibly close to adding the Theme Park maker to its stable of studios. He revealed:...
News Wolverine PS5 Actor Was Allegedly Paid a 'Hefty Sum' to Star in Xbox's Answer to Uncharted
He'd eventually end up in Gears of War 4
A thoroughly researched video essay from Did You Know Gaming? reveals that Microsoft wanted to create a rival to Uncharted on the Xbox One – and Marvel’s Wolverine star Liam McIntyre was hired to portray the protagonist. The story dates back all the way to the late PS3 days, when Sony found enormous...
News PS6 May Go Uncontested as Rumours of Next-Gen Xbox Cancellation Force Microsoft to Comment
What would that mean for Sony?
The web is, perhaps tediously, once again awash with speculation of Xbox’s unclear future. A tough week for the Redmond firm – in which it raised Game Pass prices by 50%, causing its cancellation website to crash – has culminated in fresh speculation that its next-gen console may be cancelled. The source is not...
"Dominant firms become too-big-to-care"
Everything that ex-FTC chair Lina Khan said would happen is happening. Those of you who followed the drama around Microsoft’s unprecedented near-$70 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard will recall Khan was one of the few voices against the buyout. She argued, at the time, that consolidation would...
News Xbox Squandered Over $300 Million Putting Call of Duty in Game Pass
At launch, 82% of full-price Black Ops 6 sales were on PlayStation
Xbox announced a remarkable 50% price increase to Game Pass this week, underlining an accusation it’s so frequently rebuffed – that the service is simply not sustainable. Now a report from Bloomberg, citing former employees who asked not to be identified, reveals tha
News Ubisoft and Tencent's New Company Stewards Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, More Starting Today
Reportedly named Vantage Studios
Ubisoft's joint venture with Tencent reportedly begins operations today, and its name is Vantage Studios. The company is a subsidiary of the European games publisher, and partially funded/owned by the Chinese conglomerate. According to VGC, Vantage Studios settled on its name by staff vote, and 1st October 2025...
Rumour Mass Effect, Dragon Age Studio BioWare Braced for Layoffs After EA's Buyout Agreement
Big changes ahead
BioWare, the once revered RPG studio, reportedly finds itself in a precarious position following the news of EA's planned acquisition. If you're not quite up to speed on the situation, the publisher, which is BioWare's parent company, has agreed to a $55 billion buyout. An investor consortium made up of the Saudi Arabian Public...
News Sony Is a 'Terrible Company' That's 'Blowing It in the Games Business', Says Michael Pachter
Not another one
Business analyst Michael Pachter seemingly really has it in for Sony, as he's now said it's a "terrible company" that is currently "blowing it in the games business". This has followed on from suggestions he made last month of "clueless" management that doesn't know what it's doing. The latest comments were made during an interview...
News Mega Publisher EA Agrees to $55 Billion Buyout by Saudi Arabia, Silver Lake, Affinity Partners
It's in the game
Electronic Arts — more commonly known as EA — has reached an agreement to be acquired by a group of investors. Said investors are the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund (PIF), Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners. The deal is worth an eye-watering $55 billion. In the most corporate explanation imaginable, the company writes:...
News Publisher EA Poised to Go Private as 'Advanced Talks' of $50 Billion Buyout Emerge
Saudi Arabia's PIF named among potential investors
Battlefield and EA Sports FC maker could be about to go private, as “advanced talks” of a $50 billion buyout have emerged. The Wall Street Journal reports that a group of private investors, including Silver Lake and Saudi Arabia’s Private Investment Fund, are willing to stump up for the...
News Almost 800 People Are Working on Ambitious Anime Open World Ananta
Kitchen sink approach
There are between 700 and 800 people currently working on the wildly ambitious anime open world Ananta. The number won’t come as a huge surprise to anyone who’s seen the latest footage of the title, which blends the best of several different games, including Marvel’s Spider-Man, GTA 5, and Batman: Arkham Asylum. It’s...
News PS5 Is the Most Successful Console in PlayStation History, States Sony
Generational
The PS5 is Sony's most successful ever console. That's according to the company itself, with CEO Hideaki Nishino spreading the word during a Tokyo Game Show 2025 keynote (as reported by the no doubt incredibly busy Geoff Keighley). So what does "most successful" actually mean in this situation? Well, based on the keynote photograph...
News Even More Xbox Price Increases Make PS5 Look Like a Good Deal
$20, $50, and $70 increases for Xbox consoles
More expensive than it was at the launch, the price of a PS5 has been heavily affected by the current climate and tariffs imposed by the USA government. It now costs $550 for a base unit with a disc drive, but hey, it could be worse — what if it was $650? That's apparently the new price of an Xbox...
News Latest Capcom Livestream Will Exclude PS5 Horror Resident Evil Requiem
Pragmata! Mega Man! Monster Hunter! Onimusha! More!
Capcom’s upcoming Tokyo Game Show livestream will skip Resident Evil Requiem entirely, focusing instead on the publisher’s slate of other impending releases. The broadcast, which will air on 24th September 7AM PT / 3PM BST, will include updates on the following games: Pragmata: See the...
News Everyone's Talking About How Little Physical PS5 Games Contribute to Sony's Bottom Line
But some crucial context is required
A new corporate report reveals just 3% of PlayStation’s revenue in its most recent fiscal year came courtesy of physical sales. That means of the ~$31.5 billion the manufacturer made, just ~$945 million could be attributed to boxed PS5 and PS4 software. It’s not a drop in the ocean by any stretch – but it...
News Sony to 'Advance Position as Creative Leader in Single Player Experiences'
A big corporate focus
Much has been made of Sony’s approach to single player games this generation, but the reality is it still very much remains at the forefront of great solo software. Last year it released the runaway Game of the Year winner in Astro Bot, and just next month it’ll deploy Ghost of Yotei. That’s not to mention all of the...
News Sony Removes Multiformat Revenue from Strategic Indicators
It's not a focus
Much has been made of PlayStation and its dalliance with multiformat releases. In a world where Microsoft has started releasing its entire portfolio to PS5, many suspect Sony to be following the same path – especially after unexpectedly porting games like Helldivers 2 to Xbox Series X|S and LEGO Horizon Adventures to the Nintendo...
News Ghost of Yotei Artist Loses 'Dream Job' After Charlie Kirk Comments
"I would do it again"
It should be a time for celebration at developer Sucker Punch, with sequel Ghost of Yotei out in a matter of days. Instead, it looks like it may find itself at the centre of an employment storm, with a Senior Staff Character Artist allegedly let go for making comments about Charlie Kirk’s death. For those of you who don’t...
News Sucker Punch Thinks Only 10% of Studio Would Be Hyped to Make Sly Cooper
"It's been a long time"
Those aching for a return to the PS2 era of PlayStation platformers may want to close this page immediately. In a quick fire interview with Ben Hanson from MinnMax, Sucker Punch creative director Nate Fox has said his team wouldn’t be all that impressed if it was tasked with working on a new Sly Cooper next. Asked...
News Even More Ex-Xbox Executives Speak Out About 'Tension' of Game Pass
"I saw short sighted decision making"
If there’s anyone best placed to speak on the impact of Xbox Game Pass, it’s ex-Bethesda boss Pete Hines, who left the publisher in 2023. Hines enjoyed a wildly successful 24 years at the company, and so he saw first-hand the consequences of Microsoft’s acquisition. And while he admitted that he’s been...
Not what IO Interactive hoped for
You know Build a Rocket Boy as the developer behind MindsEye, but the colossal PS5 flop might never have made it to market without its publishing partner, Hitman and 007 First Light team IO Interactive. MindsEye was the first game published by the studio that it did not make itself, and it's done so badly that IO...
PIF buys out RTS
The fighting game community is currently being rocked by news that Evo — the world's biggest annual fighting game event — is now co-owned by the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund (often referred to as the PIF). To briefly recap, Evo is owned by two organisations: talent management outfit RTS, and Indian entertainment company...
News Xbox's Perfect Dark Was Very Nearly Rescued by a Third-Party Publisher
Double take
With the trajectory Microsoft’s on, there’s a good chance its cancelled Perfect Dark game would have come to the PS5 anyway. But now word has emerged that the project was almost saved by a third-party publisher, which would have effectively guaranteed a PlayStation release. The ever-reliable Jason Schreier reports on Bloomberg that...
News Physint, OD Are Potential Reveals at Kojima Productions 10th Anniversary Show
Looks at "future projects" teased
Kojima Productions will celebrate its 10th anniversary later this month with a livestreamed showcase at TOHO Cinemas Roppongi Hills, featuring special guests and "a glimpse into future projects". The event is called Beyond The Strand, and takes place on 23rd September. Hideo Kojima will host the show, which will...
News Remember Acclaim? Well, It's Back in More Than Just Pog Form
Legendary publisher revived
If you played games in the 90s, then you’ll remember Acclaim. The publisher’s distinctive font and rainbow coloured logo is seared into our memories – it showed in front of literally hundreds of classic games, including the likes of NBA Jam, Mortal Kombat, Turok: Dinosaur Hunter, and so, so many more. Well,...
News 'There's No Real Need for a PS6': Industry Veteran Weighs in on Next-Gen Debate
"Hardware is expensive"
There’s been an uptick in chatter about the PS6 of late, as various hardware specifications have purportedly leaked and Sony has started to openly acknowledge the existence of its next-gen console. This has sparked intense debate within the gaming community, with some arguing it’s too early for new hardware. On a...
News Bandai Namco's Big TGS Booth Includes Code Vein 2, Digimon, More
Time strangers
Bandai Namco has announced its slate of software for the Tokyo Game Show, which is scheduled to start on 25th September at the iconic Makuhari Messe. The lineup will include the following PS5 games: Code Vein 2 Digimon Story: Time Stranger Everybody’s Golf: Hot Shots Little Nightmares 3 Once Upon
News 'The Number of Live Service Games Is Not Important': PS5 Boss Gives Rare Insight into Strategy
Hermen Hulst speaks
Earlier in the generation, Sony famously announced plans to release 10 live service titles, as it looked to diversify its first-party offering and create lucrative recurring revenue streams. But it’s been a year since the disastrous first-person shooter Concord released and was subsequently shuttered, which has prompted the...
News Bungie Boss Pete Parsons Departs as Sony Starts to Take Control of Flagging Dev
Going through changes
Bungie boss Pete Parsons is out as the embattled developer continues to go through a significant shake-up. Sony recently said that it’ll be taking more control of the Marathon maker and will be integrating the studio under its PS Studios umbrella. After its acquisition, Bungie was granted autonomy separate from...
