Game News 2.0

Retr0gamer

I'm not sure I have the mental fortitude for Civ. I played Civ 2 and I had to stop because my videogame/life balance was thrown out of whack. I mean last night I was plying Deus Ex Invisible War, got past the first major hub and it was the perfect time to stop playing at midnight. But no. I had to have a little look around before bed and it was after 1am that I stopped.

johnny_ultimate

I have 11 hours of Civ 5 recorded on Steam.

I'm pretty sure I only ever played it twice, on two consecutive evenings.

Divide 11 by two, and that is the reason I haven't gone back 😅

nix

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120269430#Comment_120269430

haha i had a non gaming friend recently ask me for a game he could play while he was now working from home. I knew the type of games he liked and used to play. So i recommended Civ 5 (i have never played Civ but know about it), i told him to be careful with it though as it can suck up time pretty quickly i heard. The NEXT DAY he messages me going "jesus i see what you mean, i threw it on after dinner last night and before i knew it the sun was rising" 🤣

It didnt scare him away though, he just had to be careful going forward :D

RedXIV

This is why I think I'm so timid when it comes to starting new games. I get heavily sucked in and would play till all hours until I'm satisfied (leaving me very UNsatisfied with my decisions the next day). On a number of JRPGs now where I know I'm coming up to the home stretch, I'd fallen for "ah I'm nearly there, hang in a little longer"......aaaaaaand it's 4am.

CatInABox

Man, the news out of that MS ABK presser is insane. Nintendo sign the ten year COD on Nintendo consoles contract, then they announce that Nvidia also get the deal, but with all Xbox pc games.

Then they clarify that the Nintendo deal will involve current Xbox games too.

EDIT: Going to have to correct myself here, Eurogamer got it wrong, the Nintendo deal is just for COD after all.

Retr0gamer

It's clever by Microsoft. Makes Sony look like they are being purposefully stubborn.

Calling their bluff in a way.

johnny_ultimate

I dunno, a lot of today was cleverly orchestrated by Microsoft to dominate the headlines on a day when they faced a tough regulatory hearing. It’s hard to tell whether it’ll be enough to tip the scales.

The interesting thing of course is that the CMA’s concerns are a lot, lot deeper than just CoD exclusivity. Feels like they’re the ones who’ll be hardest to win over.

Mr Crispy

Horror film producers Blumhouse are launching their own game development and publishing arm. From Game Informer;

Dubbed Blumhouse Games, it will primarily partner with indie designers to create horror-themed projects. A press release states that the company will target titles with budgets under $10 million to "enable innovation and pushing creative boundaries." The games will target console, PC, and mobile platforms. 

CatInABox

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120272326#Comment_120272326

Yeah, the CMA really focused on the cloud aspect, which is why getting Nvidia on board was a big win. I think that they also mentioned bringing it to other cloud operators if they wanted to, which would surely alleviate some of the issues that the CMA had with it.

As you say though, not sure if it'll be enough.

quokula

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120272326#Comment_120272326

Yeah all these theatrics are just a distraction that will have little influence on the regulators. The regulators are there to protect and represent consumers, not Sony or Nintendo or Nvidia. Microsoft having the power to offer sweetheart deals to some other companies in order to garner their support might actually be seen as a negative.

Mr Crispy

It looks like Shinji Mikami is leaving Tango Gameworks.

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/evil-withins-shinji-mikami-is-leaving-tango-gameworks

johnny_ultimate

I know credit largely goes to John Johanas and his team on the creative side, but credit also to Mikami for helping usher Hi-Fi Rush into the world. Feels like it was the game where Tango finally made the great game they always had in their sights. Even if Mikami is gone, very curious to see what happens next with them.

Retr0gamer

Honestly I don't think Mikami has had much input into the creative aspect in a long time. Any game he has his name against is usually there for marketing and there's always another Director/Planner that is the true creative lead, even as far back as Capcom. He is often credited as director in games but that's more a producer role in japanese credits whereas the creative lead is credited as designer or planner. I think there's some good talent at Tango to keep churning out interesting games.

johnny_ultimate

From what I can gather from interviews Mikami had little role in Hi-Fi Rush beyond supporting the project as a studio lead and being there to speak with the creative team and share ideas. John Johanas was very much the project lead. But still, it was very much Mikami's studio and it's good to see someone build a studio to a successful and hopefully sustainable place. He leaves them in a far better spot than he would've had he left, say, pre Tokyo Ghostwire, at least from a public perspective.

Retr0gamer

Rumours going around about a metal gear solid collection at the state of play tonight.

Hopefully it is and, even though I think the game is complete garbage, hopefully it will include mgs4 as it's stuck on PS3.

Also if it is announced I really hope it's not a Sony exclusive. I'd buy it for Mgs3 on pc.

Grumpypants

Sony releasing a Sony Exclusive after spending months talking about bad it is for MS to make COD Xbox exclusive is the most Sony thing they could do.

Mr Crispy

Come Hither! Or uh, Get Over Here!

https://www.gameinformer.com/2023/02/24/mortal-kombat-12-is-launching-this-year-according-to-warner-bros-earnings-call

Mr Crispy

"Project Dragon", the long-mooted fantasy game from Hitman creators IO Interactive, has been confirmed (although they're currently calling it Project Fantasy). As a kid, I was a big fan of the Fighting Fantasy book series (Ian Livingston, Steve Jackson) that IOI cite as inspiration for the new venture, but this sounds a bit GaaS-esque from the brief blurb/hiring pitch. Still, apart from the unnecessarily convoluted purchase methods, Hitman was great so good luck to 'em (but I'm still more interested in their take on Bond).

https://ioi.dk/project-fantasy

EoinMcLovin

The Wolf Among Us 2 delayed out of 2023

https://www.ign.com/articles/the-wolf-among-us-2-pushed-to-next-year-in-effort-to-avoid-crunch

TitianGerm

https://www.windowscentral.com/gaming/xbox/sony-blasts-microsofts-xbox-activision-deal-in-its-latest-plea-to-uk-regulators

New details released by CMA about most recent responses from Sony and Microsoft.

I especially like this one -

"Microsoft also offered to put Call of Duty on PS+ subscription service, but Sony says in the documentation that it would hurt their $70 retail game business, thus making Call of Duty an Xbox Game Pass exclusive — which would also hurt their $70 retail game business. There is of course no mention of how consumers would benefit from getting Call of Duty in PS+ or Xbox Game Pass, though."

Retr0gamer

The whole nonsense today about Microsoft deliberately launching a buggy version of Call of Duty today is some real next level nonsense from the sony Lawyer brigade. The whole thing is near schoolyard console wars level.

Anyway even if there was a dirty game breaking bug in it it wouldn't stop sony selling it. They were happy to release cyberpunk on PS4 and lets not forget that every Bethesda game on PS3 was fundamentally broken with performance deteriorating as the save file got bigger until the game became unplayable. Still sold them.

The Raging Bile Duct

Windowscentral.com doesn't seem like it's going to be most unbiased of sources.

Retr0gamer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120332929#Comment_120332929

Nope but it's being reported in more neutral sites like Eurogamer as well.

TitianGerm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120332929#Comment_120332929

You can see all the details on the CMA website.

I believe this is an Activision Executive saying that Sony don't want any deal, they just want to block the merger.

https://twitter.com/lulumeservey/status/1633573596911075329?t=FT_V7kiDv8_nF-7jnnLyVg&s=19

Penn

Surely Sony would be better at this stage accepting the deal that COD gets to be on PS+ and earn the revenue from microtransactions rather than the retail of the game, especially considering how much better the F2P Warzone seems to be doing lately compared to the full price releases.

I get that they don't want to risk ever losing COD even 10 years down the line, but if I was a predominantly COD PS5 gamer I'd be starting to look at moving to Xbox regardless, as the deal will likely go through in some shape or form.

TitianGerm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120333551#Comment_120333551

COD is the biggest selling game in Playstation so that's why they don't want it on PS+. They'd lose out on to much money.

For the gamers my a**e.

johnny_ultimate

There are many legitimate antitrust and competition concerns with the deal, so it's frustrating that so much of the argument around it is a bunch of mega-corps pulling a strop over it.

Retr0gamer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120333551#Comment_120333551

Your issue here is you are treating this like a normal rational person. The only thing that is driving this is that if this merger gets approved Sony's share prices are going to take a big hit and Sony will move the earth to protect their shareholders (spoiler; they aren't 'for the player'). There is no scenario where this merger goes through and Sony's share prices don't take a hit so Sony is going to do everything it can to stop it.

Nintendo on the other hand despite being in the same business are protected from this because they are seen as not competing with Sony and Microsoft (makes no sense I know but this merger won't hit their share prices). They're also a japanese company so react a little more rationally than their hyper capitalist american counterparts. You might think Sony is japanese but they're now headquartered and are effectively an american company now.

Company with a monopoly complains that their monopoly could drop from 80% dominance to 79%.

quokula

The actual document can be found here

It's not a corporation throwing a strop, it's lawyers doing their job properly.

The quote in question is taken out of context from section 21 of that document. The previous section very specifically mentions Microsoft could be acting in good faith, rather than implying sabotage like all the sensationalist headlines, but due to the nature of game development and the inevitability of developers focusing on the Xbox as the primary platform, more bugs or performance issues could slip through to the Playstation version. This happens on the secondary platform of different games all the time, mostly with terrible Switch or PC ports.

A platform holder making a legal commitment to put its games on the direct competition which it otherwise wouldn't as a means of getting an acquisition past regulators is kind of unprecedented, but you could easily see the other platform getting the sort of second class treatment the PC often does in that case. The document also doesn't say Microsoft wouldn't make the effort to fix any issues, but that these things simply take time to detect and fix by their nature, and with the majority of sales happening in the very early days of a game being released that could be damaging.

It's always worth looking into what's really being said, rather than the lazy clickbait headlines that come out of it. I would say section 27 and 28 are the most interesting parts of the document, showing precisely why regulators are concerned about the acquisition, but it doesn't make for juicy gossip or get fanboys riled up so it doesn't get reported.

Also that Lulu Cheng Meservey character is regularly embarassing herself on twitter over the last few months with her total desperation for the big payday that will come if the sale goes through, so I wouldn't listen to a word she says. Which I guess is par for the course for an Activision exec.