Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth’s PC performance and modernised settings make it a mostly smooth trip

Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth isn’t exactly spawned from the most hardware-bothering of game series. Most previous LADs, be they Kiryu’s Adventures in Punching or the more turn-based reboot have all been technically gentle affairs, and Infinite Wealth is ultimately another one. At the same time, it shares with Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name a newfound interest in PC-specific tricks. That means a full selection of DLSS, FSR and XeSS upscalers, plus DLSS 3 frame generation. Real yakuza might use a gamepad, but it seems real fuzz-haired RPG fantasists use graphics cards.

Let’s take a closer look, then, at how RGG’s latest crime caper performs on PC. We’ll also work out its best settings, to keep it running smoother than a legally distinct Segway.

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Microsoft Lays Off 1,900 Xbox, Bethesda And Activision Blizzard Employees

It’s been a rough start for the industry in 2024.

Some more industry news has broken this week, and this time it relates to Microsoft’s Xbox division, which last year finalised its acquisition of Activision Blizzard and has in recent times reiterated its support for Nintendo platforms.

In a message from the Xbox and Microsoft gaming boss Phil Spencer (via IGN), it’s been revealed 1,900 roles out of 22,000 in total across the team have been axed.

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

‘Switch 2’ Launching This Year With 8-Inch LCD Screen, According To New Analyst Rumour

Just imagine.

Another analyst has reportedly shared new information about the rumoured system dubbed ‘Switch 2’, claiming Nintendo’s next device will come with an 8-inch LCD screen and will arrive at some point in 2024.

This information was shared in a new story by Bloomberg, with the source being Omdia analyst Hiroshi Hayase, an individual who conducts research based on company supply chains of “small and medium displays”.

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

Pokémon Scarlet And Violet New Tera Raid Battle & Mass Outbreak Now Live

Here are the featured Pokémon.

If you’re still enjoying Pokémon Scarlet & Violet on a regular basis there’s been an update to Tera Raid Battles and mass outbreaks in the game.

Starting this week, Flutter Mane and Iron Jugulis are now appearing Tera Raid Battles through the Paldea region. You can check out more details about the Pokémon in this new event raid on Serebii.net. These are 5 Star Raids and both Pokémon start at Level 75, can drop a bunch of different items and have varied Tera Types.

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

Pick Up a 1TB Nintendo Switch Memory Card for Only $53.99 on Amazon

Amazon currently has a TEAMGROUP GO 1TB Micro SDXC card for only $53.99. This is currently least expensive 1TB Micro SDXC card available from a well-known retailer, and it’s fully compatible with the Nintendo Switch, Steam Deck, and ASUS ROG Ally portable handhelds.

1TB Micro SDXC Card (Switch Compatible) for $53.99

If you’ve started compiling a collection of digital games, you probably already know just how limited the Switch’s base storage capacity. The Switch and Switch OLED consoles have 32GB and 64GB of internal storage, respectively, with some of it reserved for the OS. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom uses up 16GB and Breath of the Wild about 13.5GB. If bought digitally, those two games alone would take up all of your internal storage on the OG Switch console. There’s only one expansion slot in the Switch console so you want to make sure you get the biggest card you can afford.

The TEAMGROUP Micro SDXC card is compatible with virtually any device that accepts the Micro SDXC card standard. That includes the Nintendo Switch, Steam Deck, ASUS ROG Ally, any recently released smartphone that supports expandable memory, GoPros, cameras and much more.

Despite its low price, the TEAMGROUP is faster than your average Micro SDXC card. It has a U3 A1 rating and boasts transfer speeds of up to 100MB/s read and 50MB/s write.

Need a faster speed? There’s another Micro SDXC card for you.

The TEAMGROUP PRO PLUS 1TB Micro SDXC card is rated U3 A2 with transfer speeds up to 160MB/s read and 110MB/s write. This extra speed can’t be exploited in a Nintendo Switch, but this is a better Micro SDXC card for mobile electronics that often handle bitrate heavy files like GoPros, smartphones with 4K video recording, DSLR cameras, and PCs with an available Micro SD or SD card slot (an adapter is included).

Microsoft Becomes the Second-Ever $3 Trillion-Dollar Company After Laying Off 1900 People

Microsoft has become the second company ever to achieve a $3 trillion market valuation, closing at the market cap for the first time today just after it laid of 1900 workers from its gaming divisions.

It first crossed the $3 trillion mark yesterday, but dipped back below before close of markets before climbing again and closing at $3.01 trillion today, or $404.87 per share. It’s the second company ever to reach this milestone, after Apple, which achieved it in December of last year and has since been vying with Microsoft for the moniker of most valuable company on Wall Street. As The Verge notes, much of the hype around Microsoft stock has come from a recent dedication to AI announcements, with numerous new product announcements bolstering the stock significantly from week to week.

This triumph of stock occurs on the same day that Microsoft laid off 1900 workers from its gaming division, in some ways a massive ripple effect from the company’s $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard closing last year. Many of the impacted workers came from Activision Blizzard divisions, including a number from a now-canceled survival game. Gaming head Phil Spencer described the layoffs as part of “a strategy and an execution plan with a sustainable cost structure that will support the whole of our growing business.” Blizzard Entertainment president Mike Ybarra also announced he would be departing the company.

Almost exactly one year ago, Microsoft laid off 10,000 people across all its divisions, including a number from its gaming divisions. In its most recent earnings (released in October of 2023, covering the quarter ending September 2023) Microsoft reported $56.5 billion in revenue up 13% year over year, and Xbox content and services revenue up 13% year-over-year. The company is expected to release its full-year earnings for 2023 next week.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.

Balatro Is A Roguelike Deck-Builder All About Cheating At Poker

Upping the ante.

A deck-builder that uses a real deck of cards? Colour us surprised. But Balatro, from developer LocalThunk, does just that.

Launching on Nintendo Switch on 20th February, Balatro throws all other fantasy decks out of the window and has settled on the good ol’ deck of 52 for its roguelike deck-building shenanigans. Yet, despite the psychedelic, fuzzy pixel art visuals, your goal is simple — win at poker using the most underhand, illegal tactics possible.

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

Xbox Insider Release Notes – Xbox App [2401.1001.9.0]

Hey Xbox Insiders! We are releasing a new Xbox App for Windows build to Xbox Insiders who are enrolled in the PC Gaming Insiders preview! Thank you all for being Xbox Insiders. Continue read to learn about fixes and known issues. Make sure that you update the Xbox app, and Gaming Services to ensure you get all of the fixes!

New Versions of PC Gaming prerelease products:

Xbox App version: 2401.1001.9.0

  • Available: 5:00 p.m. PT – January 25th, 2024    

Current versions of Windows Gaming prerelease products:

Game Bar version: 6.123.11012.0

  • Released: 5:00 p.m. PT – November 3rd, 2023

Xbox App Bug Fixes:

  • Fixed an issue that caused certain parts of a bundle not appearing correctly when trying to install a title
  • Fixed an issue where “last played” not updating properly on game pages
  • Fixed an issue where earned achievements are sometimes not properly appearing in notifications
  • Fixed an issue where “What’s your next game?” improperly shows the results once you complete the quiz
  • Fixed various UI and font issues

How to Get Xbox Insider Support

Don’t forget! If you encounter any issues, you can leave feedback by navigating to the feedback option on your profile menu.

You can also provide feedback, as well as interact with the community, on the Xbox Insiders Subreddit. Please be as specific as possible when providing feedback.

When posting to the subreddit, please look through most recent posts to see if your issue has already been posted or addressed. We always recommend adding to threads with the same issue before posting a brand new one. This helps us support you the best we can!

For more information regarding the Xbox Insider Program follow us on Twitter. Keep an eye on future Xbox Insider Release Notes for more information!

Thank you to everyone who participates in the Xbox Insider Program! Your feedback helps us continue to build a great gaming experience in the Xbox app on PC. 

The post Xbox Insider Release Notes – Xbox App [2401.1001.9.0] appeared first on Xbox Wire.

Palworld Early Access Review – Xbox/PC Game Pass Version

Note: This review is specifically for the version of Palworld available on Xbox and through the Microsoft Store on PC. If you haven’t seen our review of the Steam version, go check that out first! Nearly everything we said there still applies to this review, which will instead focus specifically on what’s different with this version.

Palworld has taken the world by storm! And with good reason: shooting cartoon animals with assault weapons then forcing them to mine ore for you all day is alarmingly fun. But those playing on the Xbox and Microsoft Store versions that are widely accessible through Game Pass have been treated to a noticeably different experience – one I’ve seen firsthand after playing over 50 hours on Xbox since wrapping up my time with the far more polished Steam version. Unfortunately the Xbox build has quite a few additional bugs and performance issues, a missing feature here and there, and multiplayer that’s limited to just four players with no option for dedicated servers. Those blemishes are expected from an Early Access game that’s still very much under development, but it definitely feels like a significantly less complete package.

The most immediately noticeable way this version of Palworld differs is that it consistently performs worse. While graphical bugs, pop-in, and framerate dips are certainly present on Steam, they’re much more glaring on Xbox, and flying around the world for any length of time is bound to lead to extremely blurry textures that sometimes never fully load even when you get really close to them. In a few instances, a weird lightning-like light started flickering and didn’t go away until I went back to the main menu. The worst among these discrepancies, though, are the sound effects on Xbox, which are all over the place in terms of quality. Some noises are extremely low quality and sound like you’re listening through an old walkie talkie, while other sound effects are just missing altogether. None of these issues were enough of a problem to significantly deter me from playing way too much Palworld, but they certainly made that marathon less enjoyable.

There are also some especially nasty bugs present in the Xbox version that I didn’t encounter on Steam. The most painful of these is that, when flying around on the back of a Pal (especially in higher level areas like the snowy mountains or fiery volcanoes where lots of stuff is going on) sometimes parts of the world don’t load correctly and become intangible, which means you’ll fly right through them and land under the terrain. On more than one occasion I actually found myself stuck under the level flying around to look for pockets where I could float through the ground again to get on the right side of the map. This happened enough times that I started to take note when certain surfaces had blurry textures, since it seemed to indicate I could go right through them. That level of jank can be really hard to bear, and isn’t something I experienced at all on Steam where the map and its textures loaded a lot faster.

There are also some small features on Steam that aren’t available on Xbox, like the fact that you can’t name your character or give any of your Pals a nickname. That becomes a little confusing when your characters are named “Player 916” instead of your Gamertag and makes communication with your friends a bit touch and go. Missing details like this didn’t ruin my fun, (after all, I didn’t want to name any of these poor animals I was about to treat very poorly anyway, given I was likely about to harvest their organs), but they definitely contribute to a decidedly less premium feel.

All of these issues are cause for some concern, but collectively they only impacted my enjoyment a small amount. There’s still dozens of interesting Pals to chase, hilarious hijinks to get up to in the open world, and some truly mesmerizing survival mechanics to get completely lost in. That’s all very much the case even with a lower framerate and the occasional game crash, but it does at least make my recommendation a little less enthusiastic for now. If you aren’t one to tolerate a few rough edges and some grime with your survival games, it might be best to wait it out a bit before jumping in.

Fortnite Will Return to iOS, But Only in Europe

Almost four years after being removed from the App Store, Epic Games has announced it is bringing back the iOS version of Fortnite, but this will only be available for countries in the European Union (EU).

A new post on the official Fortnite X/Twitter account reveals that the popular free-to-play battle royale will be released on iOS via the Epic Games Store. This will be made possible for two reasons: Apple announced today that it has updated its App Store policies to appease EU regulators. Most notably, iPhone users in that region can download apps from third-party app stores under the revised EU app store policy. Apple partly revised these app store policies thanks to the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA).

Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney previously mentioned in his post today that his company plans to launch the Epic Games Store on Android and iOS with the company’s ultimate goal to become the “#1 multi-platform software store, on the foundation of payment competition, 0%-12% fees, and exclusive games like Fortnite.”

Fortnite was removed from the App Store and Google Play in August 2020 after Apple Epic rolled out a direct-pay system into the game. Epic then pursued legal action against both Apple and Google with varying outcomes. Prior to Fortnite being re-launched on iOS, those who wanted to play it on a smartphone or tablet had to stream the game on either Xbox Cloud Gaming or Nvidia GeForce Now.

Of course, those not in the European Union will still be limited to this until further notice. But with Apple also changing its app store policies to make it easier for game streaming services like Microsoft and Nvidia’s products, perhaps one or both of these companies will soon launch a native iOS app in other countries, similar to what the Google Play Store offers.

Taylor is a Reporter at IGN. You can follow her on Twitter @TayNixster.