PlayStation
- Sony has renewed a new patent for digital game trading. Let’s hope that Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo make digital trade-ins the norm starting with next generation. The patent reads as follows:
At a later date, the user (e.g., owner) is free to give away, sell or trade the digital copy to another party in transaction with terms based on, for example, the determined value of the digital copy.
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Kaz Hirai is retiring. The 58-year-old has been the director and chairman of Sony for roughly a year, after stepping down as CEO back in April 2018. Perhaps most commonly known for all the internet memes—something that Hirai himself acknowledged during a press conference in 2016—it’s very likely that Sony wouldn’t be the company that it is today without Kaz. Spanning a career that’s lasted over 35 years, Hirai was made president of Sony Computer Entertainment shortly after the PS3 launched in 2006. Needless to say, he came in at a reasonably rough time for PlayStation and Sony as a whole. Over the next few years, the company’s struggles would become clear, and so after he had set PlayStation back on the right track as CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment Interactive, he climbed the ladder again and brought the company back to profitability.
Nintendo
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It looks like Level-5’s video game and television series The Snack World is still receiving a western release in the near future, with the help of the New York-based localization company 3Beep. The company’s website reveals the following information: 3Beep is working with Level-5 to create the English language versions of the television series and video game.
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Both Eurogamer and the Wall Street Journal, citing “sources close to Nintendo” are claiming the company is working on two new Switch SKU’s. The first is a budget version said to be a smaller more rugged single unit that cuts a lot of features like removable Joy-Cons, HD Rumble, and more. The second SKU is going be aimed at more hardcore gamers with faster internals.
Xbox
- April’s Games With Gold have been revealed:
- The Technomancer
- Outcast: Second Contact
- Star Wars: Battlefront II (the original Xbox title)
- Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter 2
Industry News
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Yacht Club Games revealed their next title, Cyber Shadow, which is a new 8-bit style ninja platformer like The Messenger. The title will be priced at $14.99 and has no release date as of writing.
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In somewhat surprising news, Monolith Soft—the developer behind the Xenoblade series—has revealed it is currently hiring development staff for The Legend of Zelda series.
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The latest Minecraft update makes a few changes to the decade-old phenomenon, none more notable than the fact the game’s splash screens have removed all mention of Minecraft’s creator Markus “Notch” Persson. Previously, the game’s splash screens—the yellow text you see when the Minecraft boots up—would display random messages, and some of them referenced Persson with stuff like “Made by Notch!” and “The Work Of Notch!”. As of the 19w13a snapshot for v1.14, released earlier today, those are all gone now.
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Ubisoft announced Beyond Medusa’s Gate, a new virtual reality Escape Room experience which is coming to the US and Europe May 7.
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A new patch is live for Anthem which adds Legendary missions, more cosmetics to unlock, and more.
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WayForward announced Shantae 5 for current gen systems. We don’t have any more details beyond that other than it will release later this year.
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If you love Warcraft and love GOG then I have good news: Warcraft and Warcraft 2 are now available on the service.
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On Thursday at PAX East, Gearbox revealed Borderlands 3 to much fanfare. The title looks crisp and beautiful. We have no word on a release date yet.
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The company also revealed the original Borderlands is getting remastered for PC, PS4, and Xbox One. Unlike Borderlands 3, we have a release date of April 3. Personally, I would have rathered see Borderlands 2 come to Switch, but I guess this is kind of neat too…..kind of?
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The team who created Netflix’s Castlevania series revealed they’re working on a new TV series based on Hyper Light Drifter. The project is still in its early stages, so we don’t have much more info beyond that.
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According to reports, the next generation PlayStation and Xbox are both looking to beat out Google Stadia’s 10.7 Teraflop GPU. When you consider Microsoft was able to squeeze 6 Teraflops out of the Xbox One X last year, the prospect of next gen hitting 10.7 seems achievable.
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There’s a rumor doing the rounds that Dark Souls developer From Software is working on a new game in collaboration with A Song of Ice and Fire series author George R.R. Martin. Yes, you read that correctly.
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Apple had a lot of underwhelming announcements at their keynote event this past week ranging from a news subscription that doesn’t seem sustainable all the way to their very own credit card. In the gaming realm, the company announced Apple Arcade, a subscription service that will offer 100 games “exclusive to Apple Arcade” which are playable across iOS devices, macOS devices, and Apple TV with cloud save support. There’s no word on a price but the service will go live later this year.
