As the first entry in the franchise in over a decade, it's no surprise that EA Sports College Football 25 has been popular at launch, but new figures released by EA have revealed just how popular it's been. According to EA's quarterly financial results, CFB 25 saw over 5 million unique players in its first week.EA's quarterly report for Q1 2025, which ended on June 30, encompasses what EA calls the "record-breaking launch of EA Sports College Football 25."CFB 25 was drawing huge player numbers even before the game officially launched, with 2.2 million unique players logged during the game's four-day early-access period. That figure more than doubled in the first week after its full release on July 19, with 5 million unique players trying out the game--and that figure did not include an additional 500,000 players who checked it out via the EA Play trial.Continue Reading at GameSpot

The Xbox Series X and S will be four years old this year, and Microsoft's latest earnings call has revealed that its newest generation of consoles just aren't selling like they used to. While software and service sales have been strong, helped along by the massive Activision acquisition, hardware sales have seen a sharp decline.In its Q4 earnings presentation for the 2024 fiscal year, Microsoft noted that its gaming hardware sales have decreased significantly, with a 42% decline compared to the same period last year. Despite this, the company's overall gaming revenue was up 44%, with a 61% increase in content and services revenue that Microsoft says was "slightly ahead of expectations." Both of these growth figures were positively impacted by the Activision purchase, Microsoft says.The call also suggests that third-party content may not have performed as well as expected for Xbox in Q4, with Microsoft noting that "stronger-than-expected performance in first-party content was partially offset by third-party content performance."Continue Reading at GameSpot

The Game Boy is one of the most-successful gaming systems ever, having sold 118.69 million copies across all its variants (including the Game Boy Color). In Japan and the US, it was the first platform for one of the most-popular games of all time: Tetris. It launched the Pokemon franchise, which has since grown to massive proportions. And all of this combined to start Nintendo's handheld empire. Nevertheless, the Game Boy appeared to have some drawbacks at first. It was small, if bulky. It was deliberately less advanced than its handheld competitors at the time. Its limited color palette and sound board meant it had to lean on careful, deliberate abstraction. In other words, to be legible, exciting, and appealing, the Game Boy had to get weird. It was an outsider. And on the outside, strangeness flourishes.Perhaps the best example of this weirdness is The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening. The game was originally an after-work project to port A Link to the Past to the Game Boy, as there was no intention to create an original Zelda title for the system. Eventually, the project flourished into a full, unique game of its own. Director Takeshi Tezuka even described the game as a "parody" of Zelda games proper.That statement undersells the game's relentless strangeness. One of the game's explicit inspirations was Twin Peaks, which broadcast in Japan in 1991. Twin Peaks co-creator Mark Frost even met with Nintendo to discuss the television show and bringing its sensibilities to video games, something we only discovered this year. Link's Awakening borrows the idea of a small town with a surreal populace, though it cranks the absurdity up from . Link is far away from Hyrule, having crash-landed on the mysterious island of Koholint. The game's initial hours play as a comedy where, in attempting to find a way off the island, Link must help the town's inhabitants live their lives. He walks their pets, shops for them, and does the more regular Zelda activities of solving puzzles, braving dungeons, and fighting bosses.Continue Reading at GameSpot

A new update for Call of Duty: Warzone and Modern Warfare 3 and Warzone addresses a specific issue affecting Xbox Game Pass users amid ongoing concerns about cheating within the franchise. Despite the Call of Duty: Warzone developers' continuous efforts to combat this persistent problem, instances of cheating continue to emerge, affecting gameplay and player experience.

In Shadow of the Erdtree secrets lie around almost every corner, but you might have to travel quite a long way to unlock some of the DLC's wackiest new secret items. One such out-of-the-way, but completely game-changing, hidden item is the Lamenter's Mask , which grants a never-before-seen full body transformation a transformation into an Omen.

Xbox Game Pass is losing A Short Hike and two more highly rated games later today, July 31. These departures will increase the total number of July 2024 Xbox Game Pass removals up to nine.

Smartphones have become essential tools in our everyday lives, offering everything from communication to entertainment. With countless options available, finding a quality phone under $200 can seem overwhelming. This guide reviews the best simple phones under $200, helping you get the most value for your money. From impressive battery life to solid camera performance, there is something for everyone on this list.

Camp clothing in Baldur's Gate 3 takes great strides to handle an issue that many players have faced in Dungeons & Dragons. There are some natural differences between the two based on medium alone, despite their similar rulesets, but Baldur's Gate 3 was able to tackle one area of Dungeons & Dragons that can be an occasional sticking point. More impressively, it did so through the seemingly innocuous use of camp clothing in the game. As a result, Baldur's Gate 3 ended up providing a solution that many players should find satisfying.

As you begin your adventure through Yakuza 0 and expose yourself to the world of many different mini-games, including Pocket Circuit, you will find a world of new friends who love the sport, and want to teach you the ways of the game. However, the best way to improve your chances while playing Pocket Circuit is by upgrading your parts as much as possible.

Driving at over 200 miles per hour in a barely legal street car while struggling to avoid busy traffic is what modern racing games are all about. Racing games of the current generation have evolved substantially since the genre's inception. Players can change gears using manual or automatic transmissions and upgrade the parts of vehicles.