PlayStation
- PS4 worldwide sales have reached 53.4 million with over 400 million software sales. That equates to about 7.5 games per console which is impressive when you consider that the PlayStation 2 and the Wii – the two best-selling consoles of all time – sold less games when they hit 50 million hardware sales: 308 million and 353 million game sales respectively.
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Sony has announced a new PS4 bundle will be available starting March 1. This time, it’s for Guerrilla Games’ Horizon Zero Dawn and includes a copy of Horizon, a three month PlayStation Plus membership, and a 1TB PS4 Slim.
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Xbox
- Microsoft announced on their blog that the Creator’s Update has started to roll out to select preview members. One of the big focuses is on the UI (still) in hopes of making it easier to navigate with fewer steps.
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Nintendo
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A Pikachu themed new 3DS XL is launching in North America on February 24 for $199.
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Mario Sports Superstar launches March 24 in North America along with all new amiibo cards which will be sold in blind packs of five for $4.99.
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Kirby Triple Deluxe and Mario & Luigi: Dream will both be dropped to $20 in mid February when they join the Nintendo Selects line.
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Tank Troopers is slated for February 16 while Pikmin 3DS has been reconfirmed for 2017.
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According to series producer Eiji Aonuma, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild has a secret ending that players will b able to see when certain criteria are met.
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Quite a few new games have been confirmed for Switch’s launch, including I Am Setsuna, World of Goo, Human Resource Machine, and Little Inferno. I doubt this is the end of the list and I’m sure we’ll hear a lot more indie titles announced before the console’s March 3 release.
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Both Pokémon Bank (ver 1.3) and Poké Transporter (ver 1.2) apps have been updated to add compatibility for Pokémon Sun/Moon. Also, for Poké Transporter, creatures from Pokemon Red, Blue, and Yellow on the 3DS Virtual Console can be now be transferred into Sun/Moon. Daney has a writeup if you want more info.
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Industry News
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A new update has rolled out across all platforms for Dishonored 2. The update brings 20+ new ways to customize your difficulty setting with sliders for things like “how quickly Sleep Darts take effect” or “how many active enemies are likely to attack you at once.” If you say “Fuck difficulty settings!”, then perhaps the newly added Iron Mode is what you seek. Say goodbye to manual saves and loads and say hello to permadeath.
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According to the PlayStation Blog, Tekken 7 will release June 2 instead of the previously announced early 2017. The delay is reportedly in order to avoid user criticism for lack of content.
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Warner Brothers has reopened the previously Disney owned Avalanche Software and, in an ironic twist, has tasked them with finishing a video game adaptation of Disney’s Cars 3. The studio was closed with work already underway on the title, but I’d imagine it may leave some workers feeling bitter.
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Pearl, a VR short film, has been the first to ever be nominated for an Academy Award. It was produced and animated by Google Spotlight Stories and Evil Eye Pictures. You can watch the movie here on any headset that supports 360 videos on YouTube, including PSVR with the recent YouTube app update applied.
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The big update for Overwatch’s Chinese New Year is now live. You can read all about it on the game’s official blog, or listen to Daney, Tristan, and Will let all the details lose in our upcoming podcast episode.
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Stoic are trying to crowdfund Banner Saga 3 through Kickstarter, and you can read all the details on the campaign’s page. If you’re interested and have never played the previous two titles or want them again, you can add an extra $20 to any pledge in order to receive them. As of writing the studio has reached a little over half of it’s $200k goal.
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Bethesda’s Prey reboot has a firm release date of May 5, 2017 along with a new gameplay trailer.
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Sega has made a big catalogue of game soundtracks available to stream for free on Spotify. You can check them out here.
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To celebrate the release of Kingdom Hearts 2.8, Square Enix has released Sora as a playable character in World of Final Fantasy for free until March 31. If you ever plan on grabbing the title I’d download Sora now, because after the 31 you won’t be able to even buy him—he’ll be removed from PSN completely! You can download him for free on PS4 here and PS Vita here.
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Square Enix and Marvel announced a partnership for a string of unannounced titles, the first of which is currently known as The Avengers Project. Check out the announcement trailer.
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Obsidian Entertainment put up a funding page on fig for Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire.
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Rockstar veteran and GTA series producer Leslie Benzies formed a new unnamed studio with two former Rockstar-North leads. They announced their first project titled Everywhere, being built on Amazon’s free Lumberyard game engine. Benzies goes over the main goal with their first game by saying “Our goal is to create a platform where players can be entertained, and also entertain others while blurring the lines between reality, and a simulated world.”
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Bandai Namco announced that Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom, which is still slated for a PS4 release later this year, will also be getting a PC port as well. Check out the trailer to get an idea of what to expect.
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Third party peripheral maker Mad Catz is in danger of getting kicked off of the New York Stock Exchange due to a low stock price. Currently their shares sell at 15¢ per stock.
