Weekly Retro: 2/4 – 2/8

PlayStation

• Early in the generation, when Microsoft would have chopped off its own arm for a public relations win, EA Access was a big point of conversation. The subscription service – which Sony controversially blocked on the PlayStation 4 – effectively provides access to a vault of older Electronic Arts titles along with unlocking discounts and letting subscribers play select titles prior to release (like Anthem a week early for example). Despite it being a relatively popular option for fans of EA’s games, Sony has been dead against it from the start (like cross-play), suggesting that it represents poor value. It seems like its stance may be softening, however, as EA said it plans to bring the service to “another major platform” this year. Now there’s obviously a possibility it could be talking about the Nintendo Switch here, but with that console only playing host to a handful of EA’s games, the PS4 seems much, much more likely.

Nintendo

• Combined sales of the SNES and NES Classics are set to outsell the total lifetime sales of the Wii U which sits at around 13.5M.

• Nintendo released a statement saying they were unable to find the root cause regarding the Piranha Plant Smash Bros bug, however, folks on Reddit seem to have found the answer: it seems to be due to counterfeit Samsung Evo 256GB microSD cards.

• February’s latest editions to the Switch’s NES app are
  • Super Mario Bros 2
  • Kirby’s Adventure

• Pokémon GO, is still performing incredibly well and is still raking in the cash more than two and half years since launch. According to Sensor Tower’s Store Intelligence data, the app’s year-over-year revenue grew by 84% in the month of January. Last month saw players spend an estimated $68.1 million across iOS and Android devices, compared to an estimated $37 million during the very same month in 2018.

• Last summer, Pikachu entered the Funko Pop line. Next up? A 4-inch vinyl version of Bulbasaur, which will be available on February 27 with more figures expected to launch in the future. The Pokemon Company also announced a licensing agreement to create “A Day with Pikachu” where fans can look forward to a brand-new series of 12 Pokemon figures by Funko on PokemonCenter.com. The Pokemon Company says that the figures “will depict the iconic Pokemon Pikachu celebrating a different season or holiday, with one new figure arriving every month. The first figure will release February 13, 2019, and features Pikachu holding a Luck Incense. Each figure will also come with an insert showing a silhouette sneak peek of the Pikachu figures scheduled for release in the coming months.”

• When Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story + Bowser Jr.’s Journey was released last month, some users encountered a game-breaking bug that occurred if you lost Mario from your party in the Nimble Woods and then went back a screen to save your progress. Upon doing this the game would glitch out and Luigi would be unable to move beyond this section. Fortunately, Nintendo has released a patch for the game, updating it to version 1.1 that resolves the issue even if you’ve already been a victim of the game-breaking bug. The update will automatically fix your save file so you can continue playing from that point in the game.

Xbox

• February’s Xbox Games Pass titles have been revealed
  • Shadow of the Tomb Raider (February 7)
  • The Walking Dead: The Complete First Season (February 7)
  • Pumped BMX Pro (February 7)
  • De Blob (February 14)
  • Crackdown 3 (February 15)
  • Batman: Return to Arkham (February 21)

• Microsoft revealed that players will finally see if Warthogs are really that difficult to drive in person. Halo: Outpost Discovery is a 300,000 square foot, traveling amusement park packed with experiences from Xbox’s pivotal sci-fi series, and it’s set to start touring the US this summer. The show will land in Orlando, Philadelphia, Chicago, Houston and finally Anaheim between July and September.

• A session description from the 2019 Game Developers Conference seems to have blown a big upcoming Microsoft reveal: Xbox Live is heading to iOS, Android, and Switch.

Industry News

• Titanfall developer, Respawn, have released a free-to-play game called Apex Legends for PC, PS4, and Xbox One. Tris seems to like it, so did 1M other players who played it within 8 hours of release. The studio also said they’re looking into adding support for cross-platform play, although cross-save and cross-progression won’t be possible due to the backend technology not being built with that in mind……with that said, we know money talks and if cross-platform means more money spent, EA will gladly pony up the cash to make it happen.

• This isn’t really news per se, but I thought our readers might find what a large AAA dev thinks of as a “successful” launch. According to EA, Battlefield V hasn’t lived up to the company’s expectations with 7.3M units sold. According to EA, the company was expecting at least 1M more units to be sold.

• During its latest quarterly earnings call, EA announced this year will see new entries in the Plants vs Zombies and Need for Speed series of games.

• BioWare revealed that over 40M hours have been spent in Anthem across the two betas.

• Kingdom Hearts III is a great game. It’s a wonderful game. It’s a game fans of the series have been longing to get their hands on for over a decade now. Square Enix revealed KH III is the fastest selling entry in the series at over 5M copies in about two weeks since launch.

• 2K Games has tapped Michael Condrey, whose past credits span Dead Space and Call of Duty, to help establish a brand new game development studio based out of Silicon Valley. As studio president, Condrey will “build and lead a new development team to work on an unannounced project.” The team doesn’t have a publicly-known name yet, but it’s said to “complement 2K’s existing portfolio and development expertise” which includes studios like Firaxis, Hangar 13, and Visual Concepts.

• Last week Machinima’s YouTube content, spanning over 12 years, was abruptly deleted by AT&T and Machinima itself was shuffled over to Otter Media. Now, this week, Machinima has been officially closed down with over 80 people losing their jobs.

• Ubisoft announced that Assassin’s Creed III remastered will be launching on PS4, PC and Xbox One next month. The re-release can be purchased as a standalone title for $40 but it’s also included as part of the Assassin’s Creed Odyssey season pass. There were rumors floating around that this title would make it to Switch, but nothing official from Ubi yet.