PlayStation
- During the latest PlayStation Experience, PlayStation chief Shawn Layden revealed that they hope to enable users to change their PSN names by this time next year as it’s currently being worked on.
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Those who own WipEout Omega Collection for PS4 will be able to play it for free in PSVR with an upcoming update. Players can race in every track, across every game mode, online or off.
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MediEvil, the hack and slash action-adventure for the original PlayStation, is coming to PS4 fully remastered.
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Rick and Morty: Virtual Rick-ality is heading to PSVR in 2018 along with a sequel to Job Simulator called Vacation Simulator and a demo for The Last Guardian VR, the latter of which is available to try now.
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Stardew Valley is still coming to PS Vita, according to it’s developer. The Vita version will be cross-buy with the PS4, meaning it won’t require a second purchase. The bad news is that the Vita port won’t include the multiplayer update that’s coming to Stardew Valley. Speaking of the multiplayer update, the beta has been pushed back to Q1 2018 according to the game’s publisher Chucklefish.
Nintendo
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Animal Crossing Pocket Camp has hit 25M downloads and has raked in $17M for Nintendo.
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Nintendo has had an incredible year this year with the launch of Switch and masterpieces like The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey. So much so, that the big N managed to surpass 10M Switch sales since it launched less than a year ago in March of this year.
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Build-A-Bear has announced a new partnership with Nintendo for a slew of Mario products. Three new Make-Your-Own Super Mario plushies are joining the store, in addition to a pre-stuffed Toad, sound chips, and accessories.
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Super Mario Odyssey, Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, each have been purchased by over 50% of Switch owners, meaning each title passed 5M copies sold to consumers.
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Detective Pikachu is set to release May 10, 2019.
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Animal Crossing New Leaf released a new update which adds gardening and crafting.
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Bayonetta 1 and 2 for Switch will be priced as follows:
- The two-game physical edition will be $60 and include a download code for Bayonetta.
- Bayonetta 2 will cost $50 on the Nintendo Switch eShop. Once you buy the sequel, you’ll then be able to get Bayonetta for $10.
- If you purchase Bayonetta on the Switch eShop first, it’ll cost $30, but you’ll then be able to nab Bayonetta 2 for $30.
In short, just get both of ’em on February 16. I’ve heard they’re fantastic.
- Pokémon Crystal will release on eshop January 28th and will be compatible with Pokémon bank at launch. It will also include the mini event to catch Celebi which was previously only available via retailers during the games original run. Pokémon Crystal will cost $9.99
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Xenoblade Chronicles 2 will receive it’s first update December 21 which includes the following:
- an Easy Mode for Tiger! Tiger!
- improvements to the mini-map
- more items for the Expansion Pass
- various bug fixes and quality-of-life changes.
Xenoblade Chronicles 2 will also be getting another update early next year. It will add New Game+ with the ability to recruit certain Blades, functionality to send story-related blades like Pyra and Dromarch on merc missions, and you’ll be able to unlock certain Blades’ level 4 move.
Xbox
- Uh, here’s your one bit of Xbox news I have. Sea of Thieves is slated for release on March 20th.
Industry News
- For those interested, the Ataribox is now available for preorder. With that said, you should probably pick up a Switch instead because it has Breath of the Wild and Mario Odyssey and Atari doesn’t.
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Just kidding! The countdown to the Ataribox launch on Indiegogo has been officially paused, with Atari saying it’s taking more time to create the platform and ecosystem the Atari community deserves. The company released the following statement:
”An updated launch plan is underway and more detailed information will be available soon. We will be keeping you, our community, informed every step of the way. Thank you again for your support of Ataribox.”
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Take-Two Interactive, home to BioShock, Borderlands and Rockstar Games’ Grand Theft Auto, has a new publishing label focused on games from independent developers called Private Division. The publisher announced Private Division this week as a “developer-focused publisher that empowers independent studios to develop the games that they are passionate about creating, while providing the support that they need to make their titles critically and commercially successful on a global scale.”
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Blizzard has begun its Winter Wonderland 2017 event for Overwatch and that means more skins as well as Mei’s Snowball Offensive from last year and a new mode, Yeti Hunt. The latter pits five Mei players against one “Yeti” Winston.
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Square Enix vowed to give us a character swap feature for months in Final Fantasy XV, and now it’s here in a patch that includes several bug fixes, more music, and daily timed quests with the ability to swap between party members. Now, you can change characters in battle, so long as you’re willing to download the 14GB patch on PS4 (18GB on Xbox One).
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Bandai Namco have recently announced that Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom will miss its intended January launch date after it was initially expected to launch in November of this year, before being pushed to January 19, 2018. Level-5 President Akihiro Hino made the unfortunate announcement that the game is now scheduled for release March 23, 2018.
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Both Life is Strange and FEZ Pocket Edition have launched on iOS with FEZ costing $4.99 and LiS costing $2.99 for episode one with episodes 2-5 priced at $8.99 as an in-app purchase. You can read my reviews for all episodes of Life is Strange here.
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Oddworld New -N- Tasty has also released on iOS and Android for $7.99.
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Overwatch principle designer Scott Mercer announced that competitive mode is in for some big changes when season 8 begins in January. First off, matchmaking won’t toss you into the deep end with players of super low or high skill ratings anymore. While Mercer did not provide exact numbers, he said that soon the gap between the highest and lowest SR on any given team will be much more limited. The most potentially impactful change, however, will (for now) only apply to players who are Diamond and above. In short, the Overwatch team has decided to eliminate individual performance-based SR gains entirely for high-rank players.
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Soul calibur VI was announced at the VGAs and is being developed for PS4, Xbox One, and PC
