Microsoft has announced that they will be launching an Xbox Mastercard towards the end of this month in the US. Gamers can display their gaming tags on the card, which comes in 5 different sleeves. While using the card in a variety of ways, users can earn points that can be used to make purchases at the Microsoft Store for Xbox and Windows, among other places. 
 

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Xbox Mastercard Set To Launch On September 21

In partnership with Barclays US, Xbox is launching their brand new Xbox Mastercard at the end of this month for their members of Xbox Insider Program. The Xbox Insider Program is a feedback program from Microsoft that lets gamers share their thoughts on Xbox updates, features, and games. This service might be extended to a bigger audience by 2024. Every time a purchase is made with this credit card, points are earned by the players. These card points can then be redeemed at xbox.com for games and add-ons. Some of its main features are:

1. For every $1 spent on purchases, including streaming services (like Netflix and Disney+) and dining delivery services (like Grubhub and DoorDash), players can earn card points.
2. A bonus of 5,000 card points (a $50 value) after their first purchase. 
3. Xbox Game Pass Ultimate for three months for new Game Pass subscribers following their first purchase. They can easily give it to a friend to play with if they already have a Game Pass subscription. 
4. They can select one of five famous designs for their card and add their Gamertag to make it uniquely theirs. 
5. Flexibility of use with digital wallets and contactless payments. 
6. Users can monitor their credit scores and receive notifications when their scores change thanks to free online access to cardmembers' FICO credit ratings. 
7. $0 Fraud Protection from liability, so cardholders are not liable for charges they did not approve.
    

Dave McCarthy, CVP of Xbox player services explains the idea of Xbox Mastercard:

With the Xbox Mastercard credit card, players can earn card points with everyday purchases to redeem on games and add-ons at xbox.com, the Xbox Mastercard will be available exclusively to Xbox Insiders in the 50 United States beginning on September 21, with availability to all Xbox players in the 50 United States coming in 2024.

Sega’s popular Virtua Fighter series is set to make a return, the publisher has confirmed, some 18 years after the launch of its most recent numbered installment, Virtua Fighter 5.

Since then, there’ve been numerous updated releases of Virtua Fighter 5 with 2021’s Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown, itself a remaster of the earlier Final Showdown, alongside mobile installments, and even an arcade update for Virtual Fighter 3. What’s missing from the series, though, is a brand-new game.

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What To Expect From Sega’s New Virtua Game

Sega’s new global head of transmedia, Justin Scarpone, has offered some hope in an interview with VGC. "So we have a suite of titles in development right now that fall into that legacy bucket," he explained, "which we announced last year at The Game Awards; Crazy Taxi, Jet Set Radio, Streets of Rage, Shinobi."

"And we have another Virtua Fighter being developed," Scrapone added, before covering over the revelation completely, "And then in certain instances, we're also doing animation series, or live-action films to augment that and be part of those roadmaps."

Despite announcing a plethora of legacy game revivals last year - including Crazy Taxi, Jet Set Radio, Streets of Rage, Shinobi, Golden Axe, “and more” - details remain limited. Sega has shared a little about its Crazy Taxi update -- calling it an open-world, massively multiplayer game that’s “AAA” in scope.

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Sega Teases Shadow The Hedgehog Design In New Sketches

One of the best parts of Sonic x Shadow Generations, released last week, is the wealth of music, stories, and art in the game’s Collection. Acquired hidden emblems throughout each stage can be used as keys to unlock treasure chests throughout the White Space central hub zone and, with a quick shift of location, Shadow can check out his history through some wonderful artwork.

Earlier, Hoshino worked as an artist and character designer on several games such as Sonic the Hedgehog CD, Sonic Adventure, and Sonic Heroes. Shadow the Hedgehog as a character was first launched in 2001’s Sonic Adventure 2 as the ‘Ultimate Lifeform,’ before appearing in his own standalone game in 2005 where he wields a gun. Hoshino worked as an art director on both projects. With further details provided by Hoshino, the sketches reveal early concepts for not only Shadow’s design, but the proposed weaponry, and bad guy Black Doom.

"I wanted to create a deep, mature story suited to backstory. Shadow was created with the idea of him being a lead character and not just part of a cast of characters," Hoshino tells Eurogamer of working on the Shadow the Hedgehog game, where that promise was fulfilled.

The recent Silent Hill 2 remake will be enhanced for PS5 Pro. Released for PS5 and PC in October, Silent Hill 2 sold over a million copies in its first three days, instantly becoming a huge hit. Soon, PS5 Pro users will be able to enjoy the new version of this classic title.

While some gamers were skeptical of Bloober Team’s ability to remake the classic Silent Hill 2, the game was praised for its combat and atmosphere. With Silent Hill 2 receiving mostly positive reviews from critics, it obtained an average score of 87 on the review aggregate site OpenCritic.

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Bloober Team and Konami Improving The Game

Now, the Silent Hill 2 remake has been tagged as “PS5 Pro Enhanced” on the PS Store, indicating that Bloober Team and Konami have decided to upgrade the game for the launch of Sony’s new console model. Sadly, there are currently no details on how exactly the upgraded version will work.

The current version of Silent Hill 2 for PS5 has both Performance Mode and Quality Mode, enabling gamers to run the game at 1440p with 30fps, or 1080p with 6-FPS, respectively.

Given the scenario, it’s likely that the PS5 Pro Update will make way for greater resolutions and frame rates at the same time. It’s also likely that the Bloober Team will unveil a new Silent Hill 2 update soon to implement these changes.

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When Is The Game Coming To PS5 Pro

What’s surprising about the PS5 Pro Enhanced version of Silent Hill 2 is that it was not properly announced before. Recently, Sony released a list of games confirmed to get PS5 upgrades. While the list included popular titles such as Alan Wake 2, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, Dragon’s Dogma 2, Final Fantasy 7, Rebirth, Horizon Forbidden West, and others, it did not include the remake of Konami’s classic horror game.

The PS5 Pro will break cover on November 7, and it has been a very controversial topic since its original announcement. The console is being released at a hefty price of $700 in the US, and it may be even more expensive in other countries.

Despite the new model offering a 45% faster GPU and advanced ray tracing, the high price prompted a discussion about whether the console was worth it, as a normal PS5 would still run the same games and be considerably less expensive.

Steam Game Recording is officially out of beta and available to all users, giving PC, Mac, and Steam Deck players a built-in way to record and share audio and video from their gaming sessions.

The console joins many other ways PC gamers have been able to record their highlights, including as a feature of tools like the Xbox Game bar, Nvidia GeForce, and AMD’s Adrenalin.

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Valve Updates Steam Game Recording

The version of the Steam client is also the first to drop support for Windows 7 and 8 machines, as well as Macs running macOS 10.13 and 10.14 after the company announced the move at the beginning of this year.

After an automatic update, players can start recording manually using a hotkey or set it to trigger automatically, with options to restrict the length, quality, and storage space that Steam can use. Valve says it works with any game, including now-Steam games that enable Steam Overlay to run. The recording is off by default -- users will find its settings in a new Game Recording tab in Steam’s settings.

The company has updated Steam Game Recording with a handful of new features that weren’t there when the beta period began in June, including adding “advanced” export options and the ability to configure game-specific settings. Valve also added Session View, which includes a “Recordings & Screenshots manager with game-specific tags and data.”

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Valve To Stop Releasing New Steam Deck Models Yearly

The Steam Deck will not be getting yearly updates. At least that’s what one of its designers has suggested. But a Steam Deck 2 will likely happen at some point. During an interview with Reviews.org (via The Verge), Steam Deck designer Lawrence Yang said, "We’re not going to do a bump every year. There’s no reason to do that."

He explained that he thought it wasn’t fair to users to provide only incremental improvements each year. He said, "...we do want to wait for a generational leap in computing without sacrificing battery life before we ship the real second generation of Steam Deck." This aligns with previous statements from Valve. On many occasions in 2023, Valve employees stated that a more powerful Steam Deck would be years away-- late 2025 at the earliest.

Valve engineer Pierre-Loup Griffais explained that part of the Steam Deck brand is that every model can play the same games; Valve doesn’t want to change that until Steam Deck performance gets a significant jump without compromising on the battery life. During the interview, Yang did note that the company is working on a Steam Deck successor.

Users don’t have to take great pains to preserve their Switch to make sure they can still play their favorite games on it years and years from now. Nintendo has revealed in its earnings report that the upcoming successor to the Switch will have backward compatibility and will be able to run games made for the current console.

Moreover, Switch Online will also be available on the Switch 2, which means their saves stored on the cloud will be carried over and they will be able to play NES, SNES, and Game Boy games on the new console.

The company explained that it’s making Switch Online available on the upcoming console because it thinks it’s important for Nintendo’s future to "carry over the good relationship" it has built with its more than 100 million annual playing users to the new device.

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How Will Current Games Work On Nintendo Switch 2

The main way to do this is to make use of the Nintendo Account, which ties a user’s history to one account and allows the company to "maintain a continuous relationship" with them across console generations.

Before the Nintendo Account was introduced, Nintendo had no easy way to carry a user’s history and purchase the next console. "As a result, our relationship with the consumers was interrupted when a new system was purchased," it said.

The company assured to give out more information about the Switch 2 "at a later date," though it didn’t say when exactly. In a recent event where we thought the new console could be launched, Nintendo introduced an alarm clock instead.

Considering its earnings results, it looks like people could choose to wait for the new console instead of buying the current Switch. The company had to downgrade its sales forecast for the fiscal year due to a big decline in console sales compared to the same periods last year.

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Nintendo Switch 2 Launch “Very Unlikely” Before 2025

Nintendo is now “very unlikely” to launch its highly-anticipated Switch 2 hardware this year, a games industry analyst has told Eurogamer. The recent financial results from Nintendo revealed a larger-than-expected drop in hardware and software sales for the current Switch, as the console ages and its release calendar quietens.

The results also passed by without even talking about Switch 2 being shown - and perhaps with Nintendo’s new hardware not due to arrive until sometime in 2025 - for good reason.

During an interaction with Eurogamer, industry analyst Serkan Toto, CEO of Japanese game industry consultancy Kantan Games, said any mention of the anticipated Switch 2 now would only further hamper Switch 1 sales during the console’s last holiday season.

Almost a year ago, Rockstar Games released the first trailer for GTA 6, which marks the franchise’s first sequel since Grand Theft Auto 5 in 2013. Fans had been hoping that today’s fiscal report for Rockstar’s parent company, Take-Two Interactive, would include a new GTA 6 trailer.

While that did not happen, Take-Two did confirm that the GTA sequel is still on track for a fall 2025 release. While speaking with CNBC, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick acknowledged that some of the company’s old games have slipped from their planned release dates.

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Rockstar Confident About GTA 6 Launch Timeline

However, Zelnick expressed his confidence that GTA 6 would make its release window. Zelnick also emphasized that the extended development of the game is more centered on enhancing the experience rather than removing out.

"In the case of an extraordinary title, for which there are extraordinary expectations, it's not really about bugs, it's about creating an experience that no one's seen before, and Rockstar Games seeks perfection in what they do," explained Zelnick. "And perfection is indeed hard to measure, it is more subjective than objective."

The company noted in this year’s fiscal statements that GTA 5 has sold 205 million copies to date across all platforms, while Red Dead Redemption 2 had 67 million copies to its name.

Take-Two also revealed that Borderlands 4 and Mafia: the Old Country is set to be released during the company’s fiscal 2026, which should fall between April 1, 2025, and March 31, 2026. The other upcoming games mentioned by name, CSR Racing 3 and Judas, have no specific release window yet.

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Former Developer Claims GTA 6 Will ‘Blow People Away’

Game designer Ben Hinchliffe has worked at Rockstar Games for over 10 years, and he contributed to games like Grand Theft Auto V, Read Dear Redemption II, and Grand Theft Auto VI before parting ways with the company in 2022. During a recent interview, Hinchliffe briefly discussed GTA VI, saying he believes the game will “blow people away” and be a smashing success when it comes to sales.

"It will sell an absolute ton, as it always does. People will be talking about it for ages afterward, just like they do with GTA 5," Hinchliffe told GTA VI O'clock. "I think they've raised the bar again. They always do, and they have done again with GTA 6."

When asked about what he’s most excited about GTA VI, Hinchliffe said he’s keen on seeing how the game has evolved since he left in 2022. He did not give out any information, as it is expected to be a secretive project. Hinchliffe now works at Sniper Elite VR studio Just Add Water.