SOLD OUT SALES & MARKETING - это компания, специализирующаяся на продажах и маркетинге видеоигр. Они помогают разработчикам и издателям донести свои игры до широкой аудитории, предоставляя услуги по дистрибуции, маркетингу и PR. Наиболее известной игрой, с которой они работали, является Big Crown: Showdown. Компания занимается продвижением игр на различных платформах и рынках. Подробная история компании и ее основание мне, к сожалению, неизвестны.
To anyone listening closely to what Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has been saying over the past couple of years, this week felt like the clearest sign yet that AI is about to fundamentally change the size of Microsoft’s workforce. Microsoft is now offering voluntary buyouts to around 60,000 employees across the US, UK, Canada, and India. Microsoft now employs around 223,000 people as of June 30th, 5,000 fewer than the 228,000 people it employed in 2025. Xbox hardware and content and services were also down, but a whole third of Microsoft’s revenue came from Azure ($33.17 billion of the $92.3 billion).
Can the SideWinder Game Pad, Microsoft's first game controller, work on modern PCs? I bought three of them to find out The past and fiddly present of the Xbox controller's ancestor 1996 gave us two incredible gifts. The second, arguably more impactful on the course of human civilisation, was the Microsoft SideWinder Game Pad 1.0. Launched in 1995 with the 3D Pro and Standard joysticks, the hardware family would eventually comprise gamepads, racing wheels, a game voice device to talk with friends and vocally control your game, and a massive mouse with more buttons than my nana’s vest.
Multiple new reports claim that the budget for Gears of War: E-Day was $500 million. Both Kotaku and Chris Dring of The Game Business reported today, with Kotaku's report saying the number does not include marketing costs. Jez Corden of Windows Central added that the $500 million figure is not wrong, but his own sources aren't able to say definitively if that number covers the game's budget alone, or the game's budget plus additional costs related to running the development studio, The Coalition. A $500 million development budget for E-Day would represent 10% of that annual revenue from Game Pass.
No publishers wanted Outlast because they'd 'rather invest $50,000 in 10 mobile games' so Red Barrels relied on public investment programs and their own savings instead "Everything was on the line" during Outlast's development. Morin explains how many of the publishers they approached would “rather invest $50,000 in 10 mobile games than $500,000 in [Outlast].” This was likely equal parts because of how obsessed everyone was with mobile games back then and thanks to how niche the horror genre was perceived as. So we had to learn on the fly.” Red Barrel finally had to turn to a publicly funded investment program, the Canada Media Fund (CMF) to finance Outlast, with a whopping $1 million dollar investment. Outlast would go on to sell 15 million copies as of 2018 and spawn three other games, the final being the recent multiplayer horror game The Outlast Trials which achieved an all-time concurrent player count peak just 11-days ago of 147,955.
Poll 100 people on the scariest game they've ever played. Morin remembered potential partners telling him that they'd "rather invest $50,000 in 10 mobile games than $500,000 in [Outlast]." Ultimately, the Canada Media Fund (CMF), a publicly funded investment program meant to support homegrown media projects across Canada, helped bring Outlast to fruition. We were in a sprint to release the game before running out of money." Morin remembered potential partners telling him that they'd "rather invest $50,000 in 10 mobile games than $500,000 in [Outlast]." No publisher materialized, but the work continued, and eventually the team felt it could get the game to the finish line without an outside publisher, so Red Barrels did exactly that, though Morin admitted the team had no experience with that side of making video games. Once you have people coming for the food, then you can maybe hope to sell them $200 bottles of wine." Recently, The Outlast Trials quadrupled its personal-best Steam concurrent-player record , exceeding 120,000 players thanks to a hefty Steam discount, players' desire for scary games to play around Halloween , and a surge in China specifically.
After years of development and perhaps more hype than for any game, GTA 6 is set for release on November 19 for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. So to sum up, here are the records that GTA 6 is expected to surpass: GTA 5: $800 million in 24 hours and $1 billion in three days Red Dead Redemption II: $725 million over its first weekend Fallout 4: $750 million on launch day GTA 6 has enormous shoes to fill to match and surpass Rockstar's previous games and Fallout 4. The group estimates that this works out to $594 million in revenue so far, with a split of 74% for PlayStation 5 and 26% for Xbox Series X|S. Sensor Tower's Karl Kontus said in an interview that reorders for GTA 6 could be in the area of 25 million when the game releases, which would amount to “unprecedented preorder performance.” At 25 million, that would work out to about $2 billion in revenue, which would cover the game's development budget and the majority of the marketing spend, he said.
Ghost of Yōtei sales appear to be trailing behind Ghost of Tsushima, but that doesn't mean it's not still pulling big numbers on PlayStation 5. That's according to Alinea Analytics head of marketing analysis Rhys Elliott, who shared data related to Sucker Punch Productions' 2025 sequel on X/Twitter. Alinea's analysis puts Ghost of Yōtei sales at about 5.4 million units, generating $407 million in revenue so far. At this point, launch-aligned, Ghost of Tsushima had made $418M, so about 3% more.
While the phrase "console war" tends to conjure up images of, you know, consoles, don't think the battle between handhelds was any less contentious back in the day. The mid-'00s battle between Sony's PlayStation Portable and Nintendo's DS seems pretty one-sided in retrospect, but it certainly didn't seem that way at the time. Former PlayStation boss Shawn Layden certainly remembers how threatening his company's entry into the handheld market felt. 2003, '04, '05, something like that," Layden recalls in an interview with The Expansion Pass.
"Why should we just give up the entire month of November?" – The indie games going head to head with GTA 6 Fairy Mount and Devolver Digital explain why they are releasing their titles against what could be the biggest game launch of all time, and analysts weigh in on whether it's a good idea Grand Theft Auto 6 is set to launch on November 19, and it's a fairly safe bet that it will be the biggest game launch of all time. The "extended look" preview of GTA 6 in August was viewed over 31 million times on Netflix in four days, and Sensor Tower reports that the game has already been pre-ordered by more than 5.6 million people, with the vast majority plumping for the pricey $100 ultimate edition. The firm estimates GTA 6 has already generated more than $550 million in revenue, even though the game's actual launch is still well over a month away. GTA 6 and FFF are catering to very different audiences, on different platforms, with different aesthetics and sensibilities." The Fairy Mount boss says that launching alongside GTA 6 is about "making a stance for the small gamedev scene", adding that he isn't phased that GTA 6's budget – which is reportedly well over $1 billion – is "literally 40,000 times bigger" than his title's.
Insomniac has released an update for Marvel’s Wolverine that nerfs the “fart gas” that had become such a talking point even before the game’s release. The debate around this was rekindled following the publication of Marvel’s Wolverine reviews earlier this month, with The Washington Post journalist Gene Park calling the scent trail “fart gas” because of the way it appears behind characters Logan follows. Sony has yet to announce an official sales figure for Marvel’s Wolverine, but early data suggests the PlayStation 5 exclusive sold 1.9 million copies in three days, generating around $130 million in revenue. We’ve got 17 Essential Tips and Tricks to help you get started in Marvel’s Wolverine, plus our recommendations for the 10 Best Adaptations, and a guide on How to Farm XP Quickly.
For the quickest way to join, simply enter your email below and get access. We will send a confirmation and sign you up to our newsletter to keep you updated on all your gaming news. When Sony revealed the PS5 lineup in a 2020 event promising the 'Future Of Gaming', the very first title it showed was GTA 5 – a game that had first released on PS3. The tale of Niko Bellic, with his regrets and tragic backstory, was an early step towards the kind of more mature, prestige storytelling that characterised The Last Of Us, GTA 5's 2013 contemporary, and then the Red Dead Redemption series.
This is an IGN opinion piece from Matt Purslow, who has been there from day one for every PlayStation generation since the PS2. He loves the style of narrative single-player adventures that Sony's studios have historically championed. First announced during a Sony State of Play in early 2024, Physint was described as “a completely new 'Action Espionage' for the next-generation.” That specific wording, of course, is intended to evoke Metal Gear Solid, which sports the tagline “Tactical Espionage Action” across each of the series’ logos. Four of this generation’s major first-party exclusives – Ghost of Yotei, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, God of War Ragnarok, and Horizon Forbidden West – are almost indistinguishable from their PS4 predecessors when it comes to how they play.
"We probably need a few more Expedition 33s to just prove them wrong" – the maker of Valor Mortis on why publishers should have faith in AA Polish studio One More Level struggled on after losing its funding, but found a saviour in the form of a film company spin-off Over the past 12 years, Polish studio One More Level has carved out a niche in the world of AA games with projects whose production values often approach those of AAA titles. Its eye-catching 2020 cyberpunk action platformer Ghostrunner launched to critical acclaim and commercial success, selling 5.6 million units according to Video Game Insights estimates, and it was followed by a sequel in 2023. Over the past few years, investment has dried up at the same time as competition has increased, so smaller publishers have tended to prefer betting on games with smaller budgets of $1 million or less, while the big players have gone all in on evergreen titles. But for Valor Mortis, One More Level initially signed up with the indie label Private Division, only for parent Take-Two to begin scaling back the publisher in 2024, with Take-Two head Strauss Zelnick saying that the firm wanted to focus on AAA: "We're in the business of making great big hits." (Private Division's catalogue was sold and the company reemerged as Fictions in 2025; the publisher is behind the recently released Beast of Reincarnation from Pokémon studio Game Freak.) Ratusznik says One More Level was considering self-publishing Valor Mortis after the Private Division deal fell through.
When it drastically increased the price of Game Pass Ultimate on October 1, 2025, Xbox made a promise in a now-deleted Xbox Wire post: “Ultimate subscribers now get access to over 75 day-one releases a year.” In the year since, a lot has changed at Xbox. This promotional image from October 2025 promotes "75+ day one games a year" as an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate benefit October 2025: 9 Games Added Sopa: The Tale of the Stolen Potato Little Rocket Lab Ball X Pit Keeper Ninja Gaiden 4 The Outer Worlds 2 Powerwash Simulator 2 Bounty Star: Super Fantasy Kingdom Following the price-increase announcement and 75+ game commitment, Xbox came out swinging in October. November 2025: 12 Games Added Football Manager 26 Dead Static Drive Egging On Whiskerwood Pigeon Simulator Winter Burrow Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 Moonlighter 2 Total Chaos Young Suns Monsters Are Coming More day-one games would come to Game Pass Ultimate in November 2025 than any other month. Kiln (Double Fine) May 2026: 11 Games Added Mixtape Motorslice Forza Horizon 6 Outbound Black Jacket Call of the Elder Gods Subnautica 2 Luna Abyss Echo Generation 2 Crashout Crew Kabuto Park May 2026 was the most chaotic month for Game Pass within the past year.
According to a third-party research company, GTA 6 has already brought in more than $400 million in revenue from preorders. Sensor Tower's sales tracker for GTA 6 states that Rockstar sold 4.38 million copies, including any returns, through August 18, generating $429 million. The research firm said the sales mix is 77% PS5 and 23% Xbox Series X|S. Preorders began on June 25 for the $80 standard edition and $100 Ultimate Edition.
For the quickest way to join, simply enter your email below and get access. The $90 / £85 backpack was priced pretty similarly to other brand-new Loungeflys, so buying for myself felt like a no-brainer. Well, surprised in the context of Loungefly pricing, as their usual $80 / £80 MSRP has never sat well with me. I own a Loungefly Mini Backpack Bag Organizer Insert ($29.99 at Amazon) as it fits without issue in the main section of the bag.
Strauss Zelnick: Netflix debut is merely "one of the hors d'oeuvres" for full GTA 6 launch; pre-order numbers are "unprecedented and astonishing" Take-Two CEO on the potential for streaming, avoiding post-release layoffs, and staying as a public company Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick tells GamesIndustry.biz that the forthcoming Netflix gameplay premiere of GTA 6, which will air on August 27th, is merely "one of the hors d'oeuvres," for the game's marketing campaign. He will not be drawn on the details of the arrangement and if Netflix had paid for the privilege, saying only that Netflix is "a great marketing partner for us, and distribution partner" - the firm having previously released GTA games through the Netflix platform - and that the deal is "a groundbreaking partnership that Rockstar arranged." He won't share any details of pre-order levels, either, following the announcement of an $80 price point for the basic version and $100 for an Ultimate Edition containing additional digital content, saying only that "we are very encouraged by the results that we've seen so far." He described the level of pre-orders as "unprecedented and astonishing" but that "they are also so unprecedented that we just don't know how it'll translate into sales." "Nobody's ever seen anything like this before, at Take-Two or in the industry," he told analysts. "20 years ago, on a console release that was available on PC at launch, PC would represent 1-2% of overall sales Today that can be 40% or 50% in a similar situation, and I believe that's going to grow." He's bullish on the potential of streaming, too, seeing current technological trends leading to a near future in which "machines that weren't game machines before, will become game machines," meaning that despite console pricing concerns "we see the install base, as a practical matter, growing materially." He expects low-latency streaming to arrive within three years "and potentially 10x the install base". Those are opportunities that a public company can pursue, that a private company would have more difficulty with." Read this next - Rockstar hit with more leaks as GTA 6 gameplay and assets appear to circulate on social media - Sensor Tower: 89% of GTA6 preorders are for the $100 ultimate edition - Take-Two Q1 results include net bookings ahead of guidance, a slight increase in revenue, and cancellation of unannounced "new core IP" game
For the quickest way to join, simply enter your email below and get access. We will send a confirmation and sign you up to our newsletter to keep you updated on all your gaming news. Join the GamesRadar community for quick access. He previously served as Senior Anime Writer at Dexerto and News Editor at The Digital Fix, on top of providing work for Variety, IGN, Den of Geek, PC Gamer, and many more.
"Across the industry, we don't think enough about how we match the scope to what we're making" – Mike Bithell on why the world needs an im-slim After the layoffs of last year, Bithell Games is taking a sensible approach to immersive sims with Vampirium 1997 2025 was a very bad year for Mike Bithell. In August, he announced that the majority of full-time staff were being let go from Bithell Games, with 11 jobs being made redundant. Bithell rose to prominence as one of the wave of outspoken indie creators in the early 2010s, releasing his breakout hit Thomas Was Alone in 2012. But then Bithell Games started to take on bigger, licensed properties, beginning with John Wick Hex in 2019 and followed by a collaboration with Disney on Tron: Identity and Tron: Catalyst, released in 2023 and 2025, respectively.
Resident Evil Requiem shows how sequels can drive sales of previous releases Analyst data indicates targeted promotions following sequel announcements can bolster performance of catalogue titles Capcom's latest financial results highlight a recurring trend: announcing a new franchise title can boost sales and player engagement with previous games. The announcement of Resident Evil Requiem at Summer Game Fest last June, supported by extensive marketing, led to higher sales of Resident Evil 4 and Resident Evil Village. Remedy saw a similar uplift for its 2019 title Control after announcing its sequel, Control: Resonant. Regarding pricing, Piscatella notes that Village followed a "classic high-low pricing pattern" on Steam before Requiem's reveal, retailing between $39.99 and just under $20.