PlayStation
- H1Z1 was supposed to be a big deal, yet even with Brendan “PlayerUnknown” Greene helping the studio convert the game’s main mode to battle royale back in 2016, the game has been a fart in the wind compared to PUBG and Fortnite. As a result, the game’s eSports league has shut down completely after it’s first season was cancelled midway and before the second season starts.
Nintendo
- Love amiibo? Do you love Smash Bros? If you said yes to both of these things, then I have something you may want to put on your Christmas Import List. Amazon Japan revealed they will be selling a special amiibo set that will contain 63 different Smash figures in a unique box along with a poster. Pre-orders start December 7, so mark it on your calendars if you’re interested.
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If you’re like Tris and I, then you ended up springing for the Poké Ball Plus with your copy of Pokémon. That’s all well and good, and I’m really enjoying the heightened experience from using the device (minus a few little weird control quirks) but just make sure to never ever delete your game save. I mean, this should go without saying, but Nintendo gives you no way to back up your save file, even to it’s cloud service, for fear of rampant cheating and Pokémon hacking. The Poké Ball is the only way to get Mew and the transfer can only be done once, so if you lose your save you’re shit out of luck.
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Pokémon Let’s Go Pikachu and Eevee have sold over 3M copies worldwide during it’s launch week.
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Super Mario Odyssey added two new costumes, a Santa hat for 500 coins and an 8-bit Mario cap for 1K coins.
Xbox
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Microsoft has patented what looks to be an Elite controller successor with fully customizable buttons, including face buttons.
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SteamWorld Dig 2 has stealth launched on Xbox One. We definitely loved it and recommend you pick it up.
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Ray Cox, also known as Stallion83, previously held the world record for being the first person to reach a Xbox Gamerscore of 1M. Yesterday, he beat his own record by being the first person to push his Gamerscore to 2 million.
Industry News
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Well here’s something I didn’t think I’d ever write, according to multiple reports and Kingdom Hearts director Tetsuya Nomura himself, Kingdom Hearts III is complete after roughly five years in development.
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Speaking of long development cycles, after 14 years the fan remake of Half-Life titled Black Mesa: Xen is nearing release.
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After Telltale Games’ abrupt closure and Skybound’s hiring of former Telltale staff, the final season of The Walking Dead is back in development. The first two episodes have been released, so the final two are currently being worked on.
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The Spyro Reignited trilogy has received universal praise from most outlets with our very own Daney (unsurprisingly) in love with the remake. There’s one perplexing omission though and that’s a lack of subtitles for main story cutscenes. When reached for comment, Activision skirted around the issue by stating that it’s something they’ll look into for future titles and that the video game industry doesn’t have a standard for these kinds of things. I call bullshit. Scripts had to be written and when the entire trilogy is completely remade in a new engint there’s zero excuses as to why something as simple as subtitles couldn’t be implemented.
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In a move that isn’t all that surprising, Valve has discontinued and pulled stock of the Steam Link—a tiny HDMI box that allowed PC games to be streamed to a separate TV within the home. If this makes you sad, reach out via our contact page with your name and address and I’d be happy to mail you mine since I never use it.
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I’ve said it before, but say what you will about the launch of No Man’s Sky and the radio silence from Hello Games, but damn it if they didn’t knock it out of the fucking park with the Atlas update. Now the team is communicative and the game has become one that I’ve personally been enjoying. A few weeks ago I reported on the underwater update called The Abyss and now, here I am again, reporting on another massive update titled “Visions”. The latest expansion, like all the others, is free to all players on all platforms and is another step towards Sean Murray and his team’s ambitious beautiful vision. Visions makes planet surfaces more varied, adds new worlds to explore, includes artifacts that can be collected and added to your base as mementos, includes more bizarre creatures to encounter, and much more like unearthing the remains of alien skeletons or finding and salvaging old alien technology. One thing is for sure, Red Dead 2 has bored me and this is just what I needed to pop back into NMS on Xbox.
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According to a report from the BBC, the UK’s Gambling Commission has determined that in-game loot boxes are a gateway drug to gambling problems.
The Gambling Commission takes the view that the ability to convert in-game items to cash, or to trade them (for other items of value) means they attain a real-world value and become articles of money or money’s worth. Where gambling facilities are offered to British consumers, including with the use of in-game items that can be converted into cash or traded (for items of value), a gambling license is required.
Word on the Street
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According to industry murmurs, Sony will reveal the release dates for two highly anticipated PlayStation exclusive titles at this year’s Game Awards—Death Stranding and Ghost of Tsushima.
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Another industry rumor floating around is a little more bizarre. According to people familiar with the matter (as always) Microsoft is planning on releasing a disc-less Xbox One, meaning the console would be all digital. The report goes on to suggest a Spring 2019 release and that the model is meant to save production costs which would be passed down to the consumer in the form of a cheaper Xbox One S SKU. Considering all physical games have to be downloaded to the hard drives of current generation consoles anyway, this idea doesn’t seem that far fetched to me. It also gives Microsoft a way to dip their toe in the water before the next generation of Xbox and see how the media and the industry reacts.
