Weekly Retro – 6.25 – 6.29

PlayStation

• PlayStation Plus’s lineup for July has been revealed
  PlayStation 4
  – Heavy Rain
  – Absolver
  PlayStation 3
  – Rayman 3 HD
  – Deception IV: The Nightmare Princess
  PlayStation Vita
  – Space Overlords
  – Zero Escape: Zero Time Dilemma

• Sony has commented that they are looking into various possibilities for cross-platform online play. The sticking point is Sony doesn’t allow content purchased on other platforms to be used in the PlayStation ecosystem.

Nintendo

• Shuntaro Furukawa has now replaced Tatsumi Kimishima as Nintendo’s next president. Furukawa had the following to say

  I will now be taking office as president and will serve as such at all future Board of Directors meetings. As a company, we will continue to change with the times, but no matter what we will continue to be a company that incorporates flexibility and ingenuity into the entertainment we produce – and continue to be devoted to making people smile.

• Pokémon Quest, the free-to-play title based on Pokémon, is now available on iOS and Android.

• Starting next month, Nintendo is running a contest for people to design their own Labo creations, with prizes including custom Labo-themed Switch units.

• Nintendo Switch piracy tool, SX OS, has been released as a paid download. The irony? If the software catches you reverse-engineering it to pirate it, the software locks down read/write access to your console’s eMMC (it’s internal memory) essentially bricking the unit and rendering it useless.

• Mario Kart 8 has been patched with Labo support via the motorcycle handlebars.

• The NES Classic Edition is being restocked on June 29, more than a year after Nintendo halted production on its retro mini-console. If you’ve been waiting to get your hands on one of these bad boys, be prepared to act quickly.

Xbox

• Xbox Games Pass is adding the following titles:
  – DiRT 4 (July 1)
  – Zombie Army Trilogy (July 1)
  – Abzu (July 1)
  – Shadow Complex Remastered (July 1)
  – Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (July 1)
  – Fallout 3 (July 1)
  – Human Fall Flat (July 1)
  – Bomber Crew (July 10)
  – Warhammer: Vermintide 2 (July 11)

• Xbox One Games with Gold for July have also been announced:
  – Assault Android Cactus
  – Death Squared
  – Splinter Cell Conviction
  – Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown

• Halo is getting a live-action television show on Showtime. The show will run for a 10-episode season with each episode being an hour long. Production is set for early 2019. According to Showtime, the series will “take place in the universe that first came to be in 2001, dramatizing an epic 26th-century conflict between humanity and an alien threat known as the Covenant.”

Industry News

• I love the Life is Strange series, and so do a lot of other people as well! Square Enix is looking to cash in on the franchise by doubling the asking price from $20 to $40. To be fair, it looks like the production values are much higher this time around now that the publisher knows the series has some staying power.

• Do you have Metal Gear Rising on Mac? Have you tried playing it lately only to be given the middle finger? That’s because the game utilized an always-on internet connection based DRM by a company called TransGaming, which is no more. So, sorry. That sucks.

• Overwatch’s next hero is Hammond. Hammond is a hamster.

• The Binding of Isaac is getting a card game thanks to a wildly successful Kickstarter campaign. Called The Binding of Isaac: Four Souls, the premise has 2-4 players taking turns playing loot cards and using items to kill monsters that yield more items, loot, and sometimes souls. The first player to end their turn with four souls is the winner. According to the crowdfunding page, “cooperation, barter, and betrayal is encouraged”.

• The creator of PUBG has dropped their ridiculous lawsuit against Epic Games for Fortnite after initially citing copyright infringement.

• A former employee of Epic Games is reportedly being sued by the company for leaking details surrounding Fortnite’s fourth season and sharing information on themes and plot points before their official release.

• Valve has technically made a new Portal game – but it’s solely a demo for developers using a new virtual reality controller. ‘Moondust’ is on Steam, though doesn’t appear in the main listings, instead being accessible only through a dedicated link . It’s arguable whether it’s actually a game, with perhaps a more accurate description being a ‘sandbox experience’.

• GameStop, in a move of absolute desperation, announced they will soon be entering the comic book business.

• If you happened to grab the Far Cry 5 season pass, then you also received Far Cry 3 Classic Edition. Many gamers noticed the title didn’t quite control well, but now a patch has been released to fix the game’s dead zone issue regarding movement and aiming.

• Towards the end of last year, the creators of ToeJam & Earl: Back in the Groove informed Kickstarter backers that the project had unfortunately been delayed. Thankfully, the game now seems to be much closer to a release, with a new aim of “fall” being put in place.

• EA has put it’s new Star Wars game on hold as Uncharted creator Amy Hennig has left the company.

Word on the Street

• Xbox may be significantly behind this generation, but there’s no denying the platform holder’s commitment to gamers with features like backwards compatibility spanning the life of the Xbox brand, game controllers and avatars for gamers with disabilities, and more. Now we’re hearing that Microsoft is teaming up with Razer for keyboard and mice specifically for Xbox One.

• Dragon Quest XI Switch release is a ways out, however, gamers who hold out will reportedly receive extra content for their troubles.