Recap 7.7.17

It appears Jak & Daxter may be leaping onto PS4 sooner than previously thought as all four classic titles have been rated by the ESRB.
The success of Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy could very well determine if a new entry in the IP comes to fruition. Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, Activision CEO Eric Hirshberg said the company is “experimenting” with the N. Sane Trilogy and elaborated with the following:

“We know there’s a vocal fanbase that wanted that to come back. But you never know if that is emblematic of a larger audience or just this niche, nostalgia-based community. So far, we are seeing some real passion for it, so that could lead to other things.”
Sony has changed the way trophies sync on the server side and, according to reports, syncing now takes a mere couple seconds as apposed to the past when it could take upwards of a minute.
Sony has added PS4 games to PlayStation Now, growing the library to 500+ games.
Horizon Zero Dawn got a New Game Plus mode and an ‘Ultra Hard’ difficulty setting in the latest 1.3.0 update.

Nicalis has heard the wishes of those playing Cave Story+ on Switch and will add the ability to toggle the game’s original graphics in an upcoming update.
Say what you will, but Niantic announced Pokémon GO has generated a mind-blowing $1.2B in revenue since launch, making it the most successful mobile game ever. According to app tracker Apptopia, the game still has around 60M which surprised me.
Whoever is in charge of Platinum Games’ Twitter account has been having fun this week by tweeting what appears to be a teaser for both Bayonetta and The Wonderful 101 for Switch.
Nintendo President Tatsumi Kimishima’s approval rating grew 10% this year taking him from 87 to 97%. This is likely due to the launch of Switch and Nintendo entering the mobile market with Super Mario Run and Fire Emblem Heroes.
This year marks the 40th anniversary for Nintendo in the video games business. When most people think of Nintendo, they think of the NES. However, the company’s first piece of gaming hardware was actually a pong clone called the Color TV Game line back in 1977.
In a recent Direct, Nintendo announced a Splatoon 2 multiplayer demo is set for July 15 in the form of a Splatfest with a theme of cake vs ice cream. The company also announced it’s smartphone chat application for Switch dubbed, Nintendo Online App, will release the same day as Splatoon 2 on July 21.

Microsoft and 343 are making the previous four legacy Halo games backwards compatible on Xbox One along with making every map free on the Xbox Store. Those who buy a Xbox One X can also enjoy Halo 5: Guardians in 4K.
According to the folks over at Digital Foundry, Xbox One X has some impressive GPU benchmarks. They found Forza 7 uses roughly 78% of the Xbox One’s GPU at 1080p running at 77fps while on the Xbox One X it can run in 4K at 91fps with only 66% of the GPU being used. Impressive indeed.

Starcraft Remastered is landing on macOS August 14 with updated graphics and 4K support.
Blizzard has launched a new playable character, Doomfist, in Overwatch’s PTR. Unfortunately to the disappointment of many fans, he’s not voiced by Terry Crews.
Those who played Shadow of Mordor will be able to import their arc rivals into Shadow of War through a newly announced system called Shadow Forge. The service will work for PS4, Xbox One, and PC and will be available October 10 when the sequel launches.