Today Sony announced its financial results for the second quarter of the fiscal year 2020, which relates to the period between July 1, 2020, and September 30, 2020.

First of all, we get an update on the PS4 units shipped during the latest quarter. 1.5 million units were purchased by retailers worldwide, which means that the grand total as of September 30 is at 113.6 million units (Sony had previously announced 112.1 million as of June 30).

Below you can check out an overview of the performance of the Game & Network Services business (which includes PlayStation and PlayStation Network). 

Sales for the business as a whole showcase a significant increase year-on-year (11%) due to the growth in software and PlayStation Plus sales partly offset by lower PS4 hardware sales.

Operating income shows rather massive growth year-on-year (104.9 billion yen as opposed to 65 billion yen) due to first-party software sales and PlayStation Plus sales partly offset by increased costs.

Techland Games’ 2015 first-person action survival game Dying Light continues to be supported with downloadable content and new events with Valve’s Left 4 Dead 2 being the focus this time.

The Left 4 Dead 2 crossover event offers a slight twist on Dying Light’s Viral Rush mode. Players will still face endless hoards of zombies, but can now set them on fire with incendiary ammo for the shotgun.

The event begins today and ends on Thursday, Oct. 29 at 2 p.m. ET. The event will only be available for the PC version, and can be turned off in the options menu.

Players can also grab free downloadable content that turns them into Bill, one of the main survivors from the original Left 4 Dead, and whack zombies with the two-handed melee weapon Gnome Chompski, a garden gnome that first appeared in Half-Life 2: Episode Two and then Left 4 Dead 2.

The free downloadable content is available now on PC, and will be coming to Xbox One and PlayStation 4 “a few weeks later.”

Ubisoft’s monthly subscription service Uplay+ has been renamed to Ubisoft+, the company announced today.

Similar to Xbox Game Pass and the recently restructured EA Play, the service launched last year and offered access to over 100 of the publisher’s games on PC only for $14.99 per month.

According to the announcement, the name change is the only change to the subscription service itself.

The company also announced that Ubisoft+ will be coming to Amazon’s cloud gaming service Luna on Nov. 10. Amazon Luna launched last month with its own game channel, Luna+, and said it would be partnering with Ubisoft to have their own channel.

The Ubisoft+ channel will launch into beta and existing subscribers can request an invitation and access the channel through the cloud platform for no additional cost during the beta.

The subscription service will also launch on Google Stadia “by the end of the year” and will not require a premium Stadia Pro subscription, only a free Stadia account.

The company said upcoming games Watch Dogs: Legion, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, and Immortals Fenyx Rising will be available on the cloud services and players can even pick up where they left off across devices through cross-platform progression.

Our big “Art Of” features on Fine Art aren’t always about lavish productions like Assassin’s Creed. Sometimes they cover smaller games, like Hades, and sometimes they cover games you may not even expect to see behind the scenes of, like...Fall Guys.

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SNK Allstar is a mobile King of Fighters game. And like any good mobile game, it dropped a doozy of an advertisement earlier today.

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Well it seems Spider-Man the Cat is out of the bag. https://t.co/ZzobA6Gls8

SadSquare Studio's genuinely terrifying PT-inspired first-person psychological horror Visage is finally leaving Steam early access - and getting its remaining two chapters - this Friday, 30th October, and it's coming to Xbox One and PlayStation 4 on the same day.

Visage has been a long time coming, having initially secured Kickstarter funding back in 2016. It made its way to Steam early access in 2018 where, in-between somewhat frustrating bouts of prolonged radio silence from SadSquare, it's grown from a single chapter to two.

Yet despite only accounting for around half the final game, those two early access chapters have been more than enough to establish Visage's substantial horror credentials, amply demonstrating the work of a developer with a real flair for brilliantly conceived chills.

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Size Five Games' point-and-click platform comedy Lair of the Clockwork God is, after a successful launch on PC, Xbox One, and Switch earlier this year, finally making its way to PlayStation 4 next Friday, 6th November.

Lair of the Clockwork God is the third entry in Size Five Games' acclaimed Ben and Dan Adventures series (although knowledge of previous games isn't required), this time sending the hapless duo on a comedic escapade that pits them against all the apocalypses.

Unlike previous series titles, which followed a rather more traditional point-and-click template, Lair of the Clockwork God opts for some genre-hopping pizzazz. Although Ben and Dan explore the world together, Ben adopts a staunchly point-and-click mentality, pilfering items and chatting to NPCs, while Dan's approach is more side-scrolling platform adventure, requiring Ben to pilfer items to unlock abilities can open new areas for exploration.

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Betting on your own games is bad enough. But just for good measure, a high profile Rainbow 6 Siege (R6) team has landed themselves right in the shit for deliberately throwing a game for better competitive seeding.

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For perhaps as long as Twitch has existed, there has been a myth: On exceedingly rare occasions, if the stars align perfectly, the ever-popular “Kappa” chat emote will turn gold. Some have suggested that a single Twitch user receives golden Kappa abilities every 24 hours. Others believe you have to fulfill highly…

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One of the biggest crowdfunding success stories of the year

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Well, that didn’t stick. Earlier today, Valorant began rolling out version 1.11, adding animal-yeeting Aussie hero Skye and a frosty new Icebox map. But following a host of bizarre hiccups, it now looks like Riot have decided to slam the pause button, calling the update a “technical nightmare” and delaying the update’s proper arrival ’til later this week.

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Today Microsoft hosted its quarterly financial conference call for investors and analysts, chief executive officer Satya Nadella and chief financial officer Amy Hood talked about the Xbox business.

Hood spelled Microsoft’s prediction for the current quarter (between October and December) which includes the launch of the Xbox Series X and S, and the Holiday season.

Hood mentioned that the company expects “very strong demand” following the release of the new consoles and 40% growth year-on-year in hardware revenue. This will help driving growth in overall gaming revenue between 26% and 29%.

That being said, she pretty much implicitly confirmed that the new consoles will be sold at a loss.

“In gaming, we expect revenue growth in the high 20% range. We expect very strong demand following the launch of our next-generation Xbox Series X and S consoles driving supply-constrained hardware revenue growth of approximately 40%.

We also expect a negative gross margin impact from console sales this quarter, as we invest against the growing lifetime value of the platform.

Xbox content and services revenue should grow in the low 20% range with strong engagement and continued momentum in Game Pass subscribers.

As a reminder, our outlook does not include Zenimax, which we still expect to close in the second half of the fiscal year. “

Nadella talked about the success of Game Pass and the Zenimax Media/Bethesda acquisition.

He also expressed delight for the early reviews and excitement for the upcoming Xbox Series X and S.

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The new anime from the creators of My Hero Academia and Beastars will debut in 2021.

The post Netflix Anime Previews Godzilla: Singular Point Series appeared first on Siliconera.

Two Community Days? In one month? Unheard of!

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Disco Elysium, one of the games of 2019, is available on most modern platforms, like the PC, Switch, PS4 and Xbox One. It’s also now partly playable, and very stripped back, on the Game Boy, provided you play it in a browser.

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Honey I Shrunk The Kids ’em up Grounded has taken a step into the deep end. The next update for Obsidian’s teeny tiny survival sandbox opens up the Koi Pond, letting you dive into murky puddles while evading dangerous goldfish and submerged spiders. The pool will open for everyone next month – but if you’re feeling antsy, you can dive in right now via the public test server.

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This role is focused on creating gameplay systems and systemic content that result in a fun, imaginative, rewarding experiences for all players. ...

The release of Pokemon Sword and Shield’s second DLC expansion, The Crown Tundra, marks the first time in a long time I felt mildly challenged by a Pokemon game. It returns a little bit of difficulty to a series that really needs it.

For the last few generations, if you know how Pokemon is played, you can essentially sleepwalk your way through nearly everything the main Pokemon games have offered. The Crown Tundra isn’t a shift towards something exciting in terms of difficulty, but it does force you to use your brain, which is a nice change.

Unlike Isle of Armor’s tropical paradise, The Crown Tundra drops you in an icy tundra where one small town of Freezington exists. It’s filled with older people, who are the last of a generation trying to make living in harsh conditions work.

Atlus shared a preview of a special Shin Megami Tensei III Nocturne HD Remaster piano arrangement performance by Pianeet.

The post SMT III Nocturne HD Remaster Piano Arrangement Special Performance by Duke of Pianeet appeared first on Siliconera.

While the Xbox One generation is winding down, the Xbox brand is holding strong and is even listed as a driving force behind year-over-year growth in the †œmore personal computing† as a whole. ...

Or course we are. This sucks - who enjoys letting fans & community down?

Look, it’s been a tough year. You’re stressed, you’re tired, you’ve got a whole lotta pent-up anger – so why not take it out on a few hundred fantasy ratmen? Riotous rodent-smasher Warhammer: Vermintide 2 is currently free to player over on Steam ’til November 1st, with the return of a limited-time anniversary mission sending our hopeless heroes on a pub crawl from hell.

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Today, Microsoft announced its financial results for the first quarter of the fiscal year 2021, related to the period between July 1 and September 30.

Firstly, we get an update on the performance of the More Personal Computing business, which includes Microsoft’s gaming division and the Xbox brand.

You can find all the relevant data in the slides below.

Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord has been in early access for a few months and TaleWorlds Entertainment has continued to update it actively.

Today the developer has released a new video showcasing updates to various areas of the game.

The most relevant is likely a change to how ranged combat works, with the implementation of different aiming and hold times depending on the nature of the weapon used.

We also get to see the new education system, changes to mangonels, and more.

You can watch it below.

Take a look back at this 2013 blog about the unique way the series' AI system fueled the procedural narrative of the classic zombie game. ...

Crash Bandicoot: On the Run won't dash onto mobile devices worldwide anytime soon. It now has a Spring 2021 launch window.

The post Crash Bandicoot Mobile Game Won’t Appear Until 2021 appeared first on Siliconera.

If you’ve been playing NHL 21’s Be A Pro mode, you might have heard a new voice commenting on your rookie season. Newcomer Carrlyn Bathe joins core broadcasters Ray Ferraro and James Cybulski in giving updates on your progress and discussing important milestones. She’s no stranger to hockey: LA Kings fans should recognize her as she’s been covering the team for Fox Sports West, but Bathe also has hockey in her blood: Her father, Frank, played for the Philadelphia Flyers and Detroit Red Wings, and she also grew up playing the sport. Bathe’s role in NHL 21 marks her as the first female broadcasting voice in the franchise’s history. We recently sat down with Bathe to discuss her role, and found out she’s also taken a shine to gaming and streaming. 

Tuesday’s Best Deals | Kinja Deals

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Today, a handful of my colleagues have published PlayStation 5 impressions, detailing where the power button is, how it fits in various spaces, and how those slick-ass Dual Sense controllers feel. But did you also know that this week marks the 20th anniversary of the PlayStation 2? How can we appreciate where the…

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The man who killed our pal Cayde-6 will return to Destiny 2 with Season Of The Hunt, Bungie revealed today. Well, the Guardian reanimated from the corpse of the man who killed Cayde will. It’s complicated. Spacemagic. With the Beyond Light expansion now two weeks away, Bungie today released a new video documentary gabbing about its development and laying out more of their plans for MMOFPS’s next year of content. Look, I’m setting myself up for ridicule after years of Destiny casually setting plot big threads aside to chase distractions but: it sounds like it’s all leading somewhere.

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Kingdom Hearts Melody of Memory is an upcoming rhythm game for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Switch that expands the already convoluted Kingdom Hearts storyline. The game got a demo earlier this month, in which well-known speedrunner and dataminer Kaitlyn “Orcastraw” Molinas discovered what she says is a list of…

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