GAMING INDUSTRY IN MARCH
Nikolas Pekárek
Business manager at Fanatic Games. At Fanatic we specialize in art outsourcing for both stylized and realistic 3D ?? ??.
PS5 PRO, GTA VI, STALKER
Our monthly gameletter of what happened in the gaming industry is finally here! March was yet another productive month during which new info about PlayStation 5 Pro came out as well as news about a potential Grand Theft Auto VI delay. But before we get into that, let’s take a look at what’s coming out in April!
VIDEO OF THE MONTH
On April 26, Sony will publish Stellar Blade, an action role-playing game developed by Shift Up. Check out its trailer to get ready for this adventure! “Engage in blisteringly fast combat as you slash a path through the remnants of Earth in an all-new action adventure on PS5,” says the official description of the game.
TOP FIVE MARCH NEWS
The fifth entry to the Mass Effect franchise is being worked on by the developers of the original trilogy. It was confirmed by Michael Gamble, the Executive Producer of Bioware. According to him, art director, creative director, and game director are all the trilogy veterans. The new Mass Effect game is still in pre-production, which was revealed in February. It will, unfortunately, take a few years until the fans will get their hands on it.
Grand Theft Auto VI might get delayed until 2026, Kotaku reported. According to the website, Rockstar at one point targeted early 2025 launch, but now the window has been widened to 2025 as a whole. However, the leadership is worried that the game could be possibly pushed as far as to 2026. The game was revealed last December with release date set to 2025. It will come out on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series consoles. PC has not been confirmed but given the Rockstar’s track record, it will eventually come out on this platform.
PlayStation 5 Pro is real and will release in the last months of 2024, Tom Henderson claims. It will feature 45% faster rendering than the original console, two-to-three times better ray-tracing and also the PSSR (PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution Upscaling) upscaling/antialiasing solution. The overall raw power of the Pro version is 33,5 teraflops and Sony’s target with it is to offer higher resolution while maintaining 60 or more FPS.
While the E3 is officially dead, Summer Game Fest is stronger than ever and Geoff Keighley announced it for 2024 as well. It will happen in June 7 and will last several days afterwards. We can expect many conferences, such as Ubisoft Forward, Future Games Show or Day of the Devs, during which the devs will show gameplay from the already announced games and also the reveal of new ones.
In March, Microsoft held a The Xbox Partner Preview broadcast that contained a special surprise. The company announced the Stalker: Legends of the Zone Trilogy which was released right away for Xbox and PlayStation consoles. It features three entries to the Stalker franchise: Shadow of Chernobyl, Clear Sky, and Call of Pripyat. The next entry in the main series, Heart of Chornobyl, releases September 5, 2024 on Xbox Series and PC.
STATISTIC AND CHART OF THE MONTH
In 2023, most of video games subgenres were on decline. In comparison with 2022, the popularity of first-person shooters lowered by 6 % while looter shooters and action-adventures by 11 %. However, there are two exceptions – 3rd person shooters’ popularity skydived by 27 % and action RPGs by 5 %.
The gaming market itself grew in 2023 in comparison with the year before by 2,6 % and it reached $93,5 billion. According to Newzoo, it was thanks to the huge number of game releases. The main contributor, however, were PC downloadable/boxed games which grew by 3,9 % while the console market by 1,7 %.?
QUOTE OF THE MONTH
Dragon’s Dogma 2 was released in the second half of March and it was received very well by both players and the critics. However, the developers made some questionable choices regarding the microtransactions, which brought a severe backslash by the fans. “Dragon’s Dogma going from Game of the Year contender to this in 24 hours is sure something,” said Tom Henderson on the flop with microtransactions.?
NUMBER OF THE MONTH
The souls-like action videogame Lies of P was released in September 2023 and it became quite the success. Just after six months after it came out, the developer Neowiz announced it has been played by over 7 million players.
PHOTO OF THE MONTH
Hood: Outlaws of Legends is a multiplayer action video game played from 3rd person. It was developed by Sumo Digital and released on May 10, 2021. In this game, gamers play as an outlaw who must infiltrate the enemy’s base and steal the treasure hidden in the keep’s vault.
WHAT’S GOING ON AT FANATIC GAMES
After a slower start during January and February, we are back at one hundred percent in March. We are currently working on two major vehicle projects, as well as renewing one of our long-term character cooperations and preparing several more projects to launch.
If you are interested in a consultation, we are available at any time and will be happy to provide you with our professional estimate and prepare the test assignment for you.