PlayStation
- The Bartlet Jones Supernatural Detective Agency, the studio founded in 2013 by David Jaffe and Nick Kononelos, laid off “the vast majority” of its staff, according to a tweet from its co-founder. Jaffe, who helped create and direct the Twisted Metal and God of War series revealed that his studio recently had an unannounced project canceled which forced the studio to lay off most of its gaming division. The San Diego-based studio’s only project to date has been Drawn to Death, the third-person, arena-style shooter that was released on PlayStation 4 last year to little fanfare.
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Santa Monica Studios announced the upcoming God of War game will release on April 20 aka 420. Or, as the kids would say, “Yolo, swag, 420, blaze it!”. Tristan and I are hoping this game is as awesome as it’s new trailer makes it seem.
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You know amiibo? Well it seems a new line of PlayStation inspired figurines are making their way to market courtesy of the Totaku Collection. It’s worth pointing out that these are not manufactured by Sony and have no NFC capabilities. But let’s be honest, your amiibo are just for show and you know it.
Nintendo
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ACA Neo Geo developer HAMPSTER has revealed that the Arcade Archives series has surpassed 1M in sales across all titles for Switch. The company had games available on Nintendo’s eShop since the launch of Switch and it appears to have paid off. I have no doubt that Super Mario Versus sold a significant amount of copies.
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The end is near for Miitomo, Nintendo’s debut smartphone app. On May 9 at 12 a.m. PT, Nintendo will terminate the Miitomo social network and all of its features, the company announced on the app’s website.
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Online retailer and media juggernaut Amazon has launched an on-demand Pokémon channel for Prime subscribers. The channel currently hosts seasons 2-5 and seasons 10-16 of the series. There are also four classic movies available for viewing: Pokemon 2000, Pokemon The Movie 3, Lucario and the Mystery of Mew and Pokemon Ranger and the Temple of the Sea.
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Breath of the Wild has done remarkably well in Japan. It’s the second-highest-selling Zelda game the territory since Ocarina of Time, which released in 1998. All other entries that have released over the past 18 years have been outsold.
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Canadian developer Over The Moon has announced that its latest project The Fall Part 2: Unbound will be launching on Nintendo Switch on February 13th. As a sequel to The Fall, which was originally released on Wii U, this game combines haunting metroidvania exploration with brain teasing point-and-click adventure puzzles. I loved it in my review. We also have a great interview with the developer’s CEO John Warner .
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According to reports, four times as many developers are making games for Switch in 2018 compared to last year. Now let’s hope for better spotlighting and curation! The eShop is in desperate need of a UI overhaul.
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The Pokémon Company is preparing to launch an e-Sport called ‘P-Sport’. How clever.
Xbox
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The Xbox Game Pass has kind of been flying under the radar. It’s a $10 a month service (which you can cancel at any time) that grants players access to a library of games, including first and third party releases. In other words, if you want to play Sea of Thieves (or Crackdown 3, or the next Gears or the next Forza) but don’t want to buy it, you can pay $10 to “rent” it for an entire month, or gain access to it in addition to the other bits of the Game Pass library. Microsoft also revealed that all Play Anywhere titles (most first party titles) will be playable via Game Pass on PC as well.
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Today Mixer co-founder James Boehm wrote a blog post looking back at the past year for his company and it’s acquisition and rebranding from Beam to Mixer. He is also looking ahead by investing in new ways for Mixer partners to build successful communities with new features like Direct Purchase. This would enable Mixer stream viewers to purchase digital games and DLC directly through the Mixer streaming platform – without leaving the stream they are watching. Once launched, streamers can enable the feature, and will earn a percentage of all purchases made through their stream.
Industry News
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At the latest GDC almost 4k developers were polled, of which 36 percent listed Switch as the platform they are most interested in creating content for. The Xbox One managed 28 percent, while PS4 grabbed 39 percent, and PC 59 percent.
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Overwatch League still doesn’t have it’s code of conduct posted anywhere. When asked why, leave commissioner Nate Nanzer told the Telegraph
“We just haven’t gotten around to it. I don’t know the exact timeline, but it’s something that we’re working on, and I think we’ll have it published within the next few months.”
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You may have noticed it’s been difficult to buy a decent or top-of-the-line Nvidia or AMD graphics card at the asking MSRP. You can thank the masses of people trying to build rigs in hopes of gaining financial success mining Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. It’s gotten to the point where Nvidia is reportedly asking retailers to do what they can when it comes to selling GPUs to gamers instead of miners. “Gamers come first for Nvidia,” said Boris Böhles, PR manager for Nvidia in the German region, in an interview with the German publication ComputerBase. “All activities around our GeForce products are for our core audience. We recommend our trading partners make arrangements to ensure that gamers’ needs are still met in the current climate.” Good luck out there.
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Blizzard Entertainment released a new update for Overwatch this week that adds a new map, the theme park-inspired Blizzard World, and a bunch of cosmetic items, including skins, emotes, sprays and highlight intro animations. Unlike a lot of other Overwatch content drops, this one’s not a seasonal, limited-time event. Players can earn those new legendary and epic skins for Overwatch from regular loot boxes.
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You’ve probably heard of Atari. They used to be thee big shot developer and publisher back in the day…..you know, before they helped crash the North American games market in the 80’s. Needless to say, they haven’t been the same juggernaut since and recent projects like the announcement of the Ataribox with no clear vision have lead to consumer confusion, prompting the company to ultimately cancel the system’s preorder. The company is back at it, this time asking gamers to invest and help fund a new Rollercoaster Tycoon game specifically for Switch. While the company doesn’t presently make their bread and butter off of publishing games, Atari boss Todd Shallbetter proudly proclaimed in his video pitch that Atari franchises have generated a whopping $2B in revenue, leading many to wonder just why the company needs anyone’s help. Perhaps the most concerning finding, however, is in the project’s fine print of what falls under “Irregular Use of Proceeds”.
We might incur Irregular Use of Proceeds that may include but are not limited to the following over $10,000: Vendor payments and salary made to one's self, a friend or relative; Any expense labeled "Administration Expenses" that is not strictly for administrative purposes; Any expense labeled "Travel and Entertainment; Any expense that is for the purposes of inter-company debt or back payments."
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Yuji Naka, co-creator of the first Sonic The Hedgehog has joined Square Enix to work on a new project, according to his Twitter.
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If you didn’t keep P.T. after downloading it to your PS4 in 2014, and if you didn’t snag it thanks to this complicated hack later, there may be hope for you yet. A fan-made Silent Hills P.T. remake is in the works and is currently in an alpha state. Even in it’s early state, the game is downloadable and playable with Modder SmoggyChips leading the project created in Unreal Engine 4.
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Integral has announced a 512gb microSD card that will go on sale in February which will be compatible with Switch. It’s worth noting the write speed tops out at 80MB/s compared to SanDisk’s current 400GB version which maxes out at 100MB/s. Either way it’s sure to be as expensive, if not more, than a Nintendo Switch itself.
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Bioware delayed Anthem to 2019, which isn’t surprising considering the studio is in desperate need of for it to be a success.
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Image & Form and Zoink, two of the most successful developers in the Swedish gaming industry, have joined forces to form Thunderful. The new company has now become one of the most important players on the European gaming circuit to date. We wish them all the best of luck!
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Sega have announced, via the official Sonic the Hedgehog Twitter, that the Super Sonic DLC for gotta-go-fast platformer Sonic Forces will remain a free download forever
