Tag: games

Sony Doubles Down on Entertainment, Expects to Sell 25 Million PS5 Consoles This Financial Year

Sony Group on Thursday said it is examining a partial spin-off of its financial business just three years after taking full control, as the conglomerate doubles down on entertainment and image sensors.

Sony said it is considering a time frame of two to three years to spin off Sony Financial Group — whose operations include life insurance and banking — with an eye to listing the business and retaining a stake of slightly under 20 percent.

Given the capital the business requires, “it is a challenge to balance this with our investment in other growth areas such as entertainment and image sensors,” Sony Chief Financial Officer Hiroki Totoki told a strategy briefing.

The conglomerate is pursuing synergies between its business lines, which include video games, music and movies. It said hit drama The Last of Us on television network HBO drove uptake of the game franchise on which it is based and the music used.

A partial spin-off of Sony Financial, which the group said was made possible by changes in tax rules, would allow the newly listed business to retain Sony branding.

“It doesn’t change anything drastically in terms of the outlook for Sony but it does make it a more pure play entertainment company which the market generally likes,” said Mio Kato, an analyst at LightStream Research who publishes on Smartkarma.

The finance business reported a 5 percent fall in revenue to YEN 1.45 trillion (nearly Rs. 87,190 crore) in the year ended March. Operating profit rose 49 percent helped by a one-off gain from a real estate sale.

In the current financial year, Sony expects a 40 percent drop in revenue at the unit due to an accounting change, and a 20 percent drop in profit due to the absence of the year prior’s one-off gains.

Sony share price was up 6 percent in Tokyo trade, a day after the group said it would buy back up to 2.03 percent of its stock.

Loveable Characters

Sony has said it expects to sell 25 million PlayStation 5 consoles this financial year as supply chain snarls ease. That would be a record for any PlayStation device.

However it has also forecast a slide in first-party software sales, reflecting weakness in the games pipeline.

A sequel to Sony’s hit Marvel’s Spider-Man is among games due for release this year.

Rival Nintendo, whose Switch console has an install base of more than 125 million units, sold over 10 million copies of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom during the first three days from launch.

It has also scored a monster hit with The Super Mario Bros. Movie.

Sony CEO Kenichiro Yoshida said he recently watched the movie in Tokyo and used to play Super Mario too.

“Loveable characters and intellectual property (IP) can live for 30, 50 or 100 years,” he said.

“That’s something we want to make investment in for sustainable growth,” Yoshida said.

© Thomson Reuters 2023 
 

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Apple Arcade Gets 20 New Games, Including an Exclusive TMNT Splintered Fate

Apple’s subscription-based gaming service Arcade has now reached more than 200 total games on iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple TV with the addition of 20 new games. The 20 fresh titles added on Thursday include What the Car?, Disney SpellStruck, and Cityscapes: Sim Builder. The latest update also covers the exclusive launch of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles co-op title TMNT Splintered Fate. The other new games coming to the platform include popular App Store titles like Temple Run+, Playdead’s LIMBO+, PPKP+, and more. Apple Arcade offers access for up to six family members without ads and in-app purchases.

The iPhone maker on Thursday announced the addition of 20 new titles to Apple Arcade’s games library via a post on its newsroom site. With the latest update, the gaming subscription service is getting an exclusive TMNT Splintered Fate title from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles universe. This game by Paramount Global involves Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello, and Raphael in a co-op roguelike adventure.

Another popular release will be the all-new What the Car? from the creators of What the Golf and What the Bat. Apple has also bulked up the Apple Arcade games library with multiple Disney titles like Disney SpellStruck, Disney Coloring World+, and Disney Getaway Blast+.

TMNT Splintered Fate is a co-op roguelike adventure
Photo Credit: Apple

The other new games include Cityscapes: Sim Builder by Magic Fuel Games, Chess Universe+ by Tilting Point, Getting Over It+ by Bennett Foddy, and Hill Climb Racing+ by Fingersoft. There’s also Iron Marines+ by Ironhide Game Studio, Kingdom Two Crowns+ (Raw Fury), Playdead’s LIMBO+ (Playdead), My Town Home – Family Games+ (My Town Games LTD), and Octodad: Dadliest Catch+ (Young Horses).

PPKP+ developed by Shimada Thoshishiro, the minimalist shooter game Time Locker+ by Sotaro Otsuka, and a puzzle adventure game Very Little Nightmares+ by Bandai Namco Entertainment are the other latest titles.

Apple Arcade subscribers now have access to Temple Run by Imangi Studios, Snake.io+, and Farming Simulator 20+. Readers can see the full list of games coming to Apple Arcade here.

Apple Arcade game subscription service costs Rs. 99 per month in India. Customers can avail one-month free trial as well. The service allows up to six family members to share the same subscription. Apple Arcade can also be purchased bundled with the Apple One Individual (Rs. 195) and Apple One Family (Rs. 365) subscription plans. It offers unlimited access to more than 200 games from the App Store, all without ads or in-app purchases. You can play Apple Arcade games on iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple TV.

Apple launched the iPad Pro (2022) and the iPad (2022) alongside the new Apple TV this week. We discuss the company’s latest products, along with our review of the iPhone 14 Pro on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.
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Catan board game creator, Klaus Teuber, dies at 70

Klaus Teuber, creator of the hugely popular Catan board game in which players compete to build settlements on a fictional island, has died after a brief illness, according to a family statement.

He was 70.

The board game, originally called The Settlers of Catan when introduced in 1995 and based on a set of hexagonal tiles, has sold tens of millions of copies and is available in more than 40 languages.

It has spawned dozens of spinoffs and new editions, including electronic versions, not to mention products related to the game.

“It is with great sadness and a heavy heart that the Teuber family announces their beloved husband and father Klaus Teuber passed away at the age of 70 on April 1, 2023 after a short and serious illness,” said the statement posted on the Germran-language Catan website. The family requested privacy.


Klaus Teuber, creator of the Catan board game, passed away at the age of 70 on April 1, 2023, his family said.
AP

A statement from the Catan studio team on social media noted that “While Klaus’ contributions to the board gaming industry are immeasurable, we will remember him most as a kind and selfless human being, an inspirational leader, and most importantly, as a friend.”

Teuber was born in June 1952 in the German town of Rai-Breitenbach.

He was working as a dental technician in the 1980s outside the industrial city of Darmstadt when he took up designing board games in his basement, he told The New Yorker magazine in 2014.

“I had many problems with the company and the profession,” he said. “I developed games to escape. This was my own world I created.”

In the multi-player game, competitors use five resources to build their colonies, or settlements: wool, grain, lumber, brick, and ore.

Teuber never thought his game would become so successful; he finally left his dental technician job in 1998 “when I felt like Catan could feed me and my family,” he told the New Yorker. The game became a family business.

In the first five months of the pandemic in 2020, sales skyrocketed as people played games in quarantine, the company told NPR.

The Catan studio team urged those mourning Teuber to “honor Klaus’ memory by being kind to one another, pursuing your creative passions fearlessly, and enjoying a game with your loved ones.”

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Machine Learning Program for Games Helps Develop Algorithm for Molecular Modelling

Machine learning programs have paved way for several research frontiers and development. These programs work in a similar way as a human, by learning new techniques and skills using trial and error methods. The process involves repetitions and reinforming learning, where the good part is selected for future use and the bad outcomes are avoided. Based on reinforcement learning, scientists at the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory have developed an algorithm that will help in modeling the properties of materials at the atomic and molecular level.

In a January 2022 article published in Nature Communications, scientists at Argonne’s Center for Nanoscale Materials at DOE briefed about the development of a reinforcement learning algorithm that can help speed up the process of discovery of materials. Through the machine learning algorithm, the team aims to reduce the time of discovery while yielding higher quality data.

“Our inspiration was AlphaGo,” stated Sukriti Manna, a research assistant in Argonne’s Center for Nanoscale Materials (CNM), adding, ​“It is the first computer program to defeat a world champion Go player.”

To test the algorithm, the team experimented with 54 elements in the periodic table. The algorithm learned the calculation of force fields of nanosized clusters for each element, and gave a successful demonstration within record time. The experimental calculations were also repeated on alloys of two elements. The complexity of these nanoclusters makes it difficult for scientists to use traditional methods for modelling them accurately.

“This is something akin to completing the calculations for several Ph.D. theses in a matter of days each, instead of years,” said Rohit Batra, a CNM expert on data-driven and machine learning tools. Troy Loeffler, a computational and theoretical chemist in CNM, believes that this algorithm should help researchers tackle grand challenges in many areas of materials science.

Previously, many such artificial intelligence-based algorithms have been designed that uses reinforcement learning. These algorithms help to play games like chess and Go, automate chemical synthesis, and are even used for drug discovery.

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