recorded on 3/22/2019

From Software new IP Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice launch today! The reviews are at an 89 (MetaCritic)

·         Here are some impressions on it with some gameplay in the background

Google had their keynote at GDC on Tuesday and unveiled its game streaming platform Stadia (Google)

·         The datacenter is the platform and is boasting 10.7 TFLOPS which is more than the Xbox One X

·         Features like State Share, Crowd Play, Style Transfer ML, and Stream Connect were highlighted

·         Various console controllers like DualShock, Xbox, and Switch will be compatible with Stadia

·         The Stadia controller has a capture/share and Google Assistant button

o    The Google Assistant button allows players to search for something in game they are stuck on and pull up helpful YouTube videos without leaving the game

o    The controller is connected via Wi-Fi not to the system to reduce lag

·         Google also announced its own 1st party studio in Stadia Games and Entertainment

·         Google has partnered with Unreal and Unity engines and physics engine Havok along with others

·         Google claims that Stadia will support 4K 60 fps gaming at launch with 8K 120 fps in the future

·         Stadia will also implement full cross-platform play as long as platform holders opt into it

·         Stadia will launch later in 2019 in the US, UK, Canada, Europe with more info in the Summer

Little Bits

The Xbox One S All Digital Edition launches May 7, it is the industry’s first discless console (The Verge)

·         The All Digital Edition looks exactly the same but is missing the disc drive and eject button

·         The console will come preloaded with Forza Horizon 3, Sea of Thieves, and Minecraft

·         There is no word on pricing but an ideal price would be between $150-$190

·         RUMOR: Xbox may offer option to pick games to ship with the console upon purchase

Apex Legends Season 1 launched on Tuesday revealing first Battle Pass and new legend Octane  (IGN)

·         All the rewards in the Battle Pass are attainable from playing the game

·         All the rewards from Battle Pass 1 in Season 1 can only be earned while season 1 is live

·         Also some balancing with guns, legends, and legend abilities

Overwatch League is adopting Home-and-away teams for a city based competition

·         In 2020, teams will start playing in their local areas

·         This makes OVerwatch league the first major esports league to feature a city-based model

·         Potential big effect on esports in general. Brings competitive gaming more into the mainstream

Nintendo Nindies Showcase happened on Wednesday and a few highlights are below (Nintendo)

·         Cuphead is shooting his way over to Switch and will be available on April 18 w/ Xbox live support

·         My Friend Pedro comes to Switch as an exclusive in June

·         RAD comes to Switch this Summer and is the new game by Double Fine….could be good for kids

·         Creature in the Well is a pinball inspired action game rele

recorded 2019-03-15

HEADLINERS

 Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 standard edition launches today with the other versions released earlier

·         Reviews are not in yet but early review impressions are pretty positive

 Jade Raymond becomes a VP at Google likely to head future gaming division (Engadget, Polygon)

·         Raymond has been around since the PS1 era when she got her start at Sony in 1998, eventually going on to establish Sony Online's R&D department. 

·         She previously worked at Ubisoft, where she served as executive producer and co-creator of the Assassin’s Creed franchise, and later general manager of Ubisoft Toronto. While at Ubisoft Toronto she oversaw multiple AAA games like Far Cry and Splinter Cell:  Blacklist. Raymond then worked at Electronic Arts, where she oversaw EA’s Motive Studio, PopCap Studio, and Star Wars portfolio. She left EA in October 2018

·         Jade will join other former game executives at Google, including Phil Harrison, formerly of PlayStation and Xbox, and Jack Buser, previously the director of PlayStation Now and PlayStation Home.

LITTLE BITS

 Respawn Entertainment bans 355,000+ players since its launch for cheating on PC (BBC News)

·         Respawn has since put a statement and it reads below:

o    "The service works but the fight against cheaters is an ongoing war that we'll need to continue to adapt to and be very vigilant about fighting," it said.

o    "We take cheating very seriously and care deeply about the health of Apex Legends for all players."

·         Respawn said they would be adding a report button in the next update

·         New character Octane and Battle Pass leaked, Respawn has acknowledged this (GameSpot)

o    Battle Pass possibly priced at 950 Apex Points or about $10

The Master Chief Collection is heading to Steam this year to great fan desire (The Verge)

·         The Master Chief Collection includes Halo: Combat Evolved, Halo 2, Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST (Campaign), Halo 4, and now Halo: Reach.

·         This does mean the collection won’t be available immediately, The collection will appear in stages. Halo: Reach will appear first, followed by the rest in chronological order: Halo: Combat Evolved, Halo 2, Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST (Campaign), and Halo 4.

Google teases gaming entrance w/ retail version of Project Stream and controller to be at GDC

·         Speculate on what this means for gaming and how Google can make a splash

Microsoft now allows PC users to stream games to their Xbox One with updated app (The Verge)

·         Microsoft is now letting Xbox One owners stream their PC games to the console and use a controller to play them. A newly updated app, Wireless Display app, from Microsoft enables the support so you can play Steam games or other titles directly on an Xbox One. You can use a regular Xbox controller to control the remote PC, enabling game play or even the ability to use an Xbox for presentations.

Epic Games has released their plan for the new Epic Games store for the next 6-ish months (PCGAMER)

·         Taken from Trello

·         Add

Devil May Cry 5 releases today to very good reviews scoring an 88 average on MetaCritic (MetaCritic)

·         We have The Gamer Formally Known as Capt Stiffy to give his thoughts on the game

·         Its lit

The latest game to test Steam’s policy “Rape Day” will not be published on Steam said Valve (The Verge)

·         An excerpt from Valve’s statement reads as follows:

·         “Over the past week you may have heard about a game called ‘Rape Day’ coming soon to Steam. Today we’ve decided not to distribute this game on Steam.”

·         “Much of our policy around what we distribute is, and must be, reactionary—we simply have to wait and see what comes to us via Steam Direct. We then have to make a judgement call about any risk it puts to Valve, our developer partners, or our customers. After significant fact-finding and discussion, we think ‘Rape Day’ poses unknown costs and risks and therefore won’t be on Steam.”

Anthem has been crashing in game as well as hard shutting down PS4 consoles (GameSpot)

·         The crash has been turning off the console prematurely similar to when the power goes out

·         EA is aware of this problem and has since put out a statement addressing the problem

·         "We are currently in process of gathering information about the PS4 issues so we can determine the root cause." said EA earlier in the week. (GameSpot)

·         BioWare says it has identified the issues inAnthem that were causing players’ PlayStation 4 systems to crash and will issue a patch to fix that problem in an update expected on March 12.

Lead producer Ben Irving said that BioWare “discovered a bunch of things that were causing crashes, and we’ve addressed them in our patch.” Irving also said that, based on BioWare and Sony’s investigation into the crashes, they haven’t found any consoles were actually “bricked,” or rendered completely unusable, by Anthem crashes.  (Polygon) -said late this past Wednesday

·         This is UNACCEPTABLE and DISGRACEFUL for a high profile high budget AAA game from BioWare and EA that was in development for 6 years.

Little Bits

Activision could be facing legal action in the wake of their split with Bungie (class action lawsuits)

·         Apparently Activision Blizzard wasn't fully transparent with plans with many of their shareholders (according to claims by Kuznicki Law PLLC, the firm representing these investors)

PEGI (ratings board) recently listed ratings for a Modern Warfare 2 Campaign Remaster

·         Rating was taken down shortly after, probably because the game has not been officially annouced

Apex Legends Season 1 changes (Gamesradar)

·         Wingman & Peacekeeper recieve slight nerfs (complaints about being too OP)

·         Energy ammo is now more common

·         Hitboxes for large characters will be altered to be closer to the rest of the roster (big guys easy to hit)

Day Gone, new open-world survival PS4 exclusive, will have around a 30 hour campaign (PSLifestyle)

PUBG Corp confirms remasters of battle royale maps are in the works starting with Erangel (PCGamesN)

Halo Infinite will

recorded on 2019-03-01

Headliners

Nintendo Direct happened on Wednesday and was all about the new Pokemon game (Nintendo)

• Pokemon Sword and Pokemon Shield are the newest Pokemon RPGs
• 3 new starter Pokemon that are Fire, Water, and Grass types
   
   
  • Grookey - grass type
  • Scorbunny - fire type
  • Sobble - water type
     
     
• The Galar Region is the new region in the game and has various landscapes
   
   
  • Snow covered mountain area
  • Wide open plains area
  • Forest areas
  • Industrial city area
  • Vast countrysides
  • Underground and Cave areas
     
     
• Pokemon Sword and Shield releases everywhere in late 2019, most likely November

Cyberpunk 2077 will be shown off at E3 confirmed by the developer CD Projekt Red (CD Projekt Red)

• Also confirmed that the game will not be exclusive to any system or store

Little Bits

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order will be revealed by Respawn on April 13 (PCGamer)

• The game takes place after the execution of Order 66 from a Padawan survivor’s viewpoint
• This is a single player story focused game developed by Respawn and published by EA

Destiny 2 Season of the Drifter begins on March 5 for those still playing Destiny (ShackNews)

• New Vanity rewards, rank rewards, Triumphs and Lore Books
• Power Level Increase, as well as some changes to the Gambit PVP event

The Division 2 open beta starts today and ends March 4 and includes a lot of things to do (GameSpot)

• Open beta includes 3 main 5 side missions, PVP multiplayer, 1 of 3 dark zones, endgame content

Fortnite Season 8 began yesterday with a new pirate theme and ends around May 8 (NewsWeek)

Black Ops 4 Grand Heist update goes to Xbox and PC after being exclusive on PS4 for a week (GameSpot)

Detective Pikachu Trailer 2 dropped on Tuesday and looks super good

Horizon Zero Dawn celebrated 2 year anniversary yesterday with 10 million+ sold to date (Polygon)

PUBG and Horizon Zero Dawn crossover runs from March 5 - April 5 (ComicBook.com)

• Eclipse skins coming to PUBG and other earnables

Overwatch gets a new character in Baptiste who is a support soldier like player (Polygon)

Metro Exodus is getting review bombed positively on Steam…..good for 4A Games (PCGamer)

Dead Cells gets free DLC with huge update planned for this Spring (PCGamer)

Kingdom Hearts III critical mode, free, paid DLC in development and should release this year (gematsu)

Upcoming Releases and Deals

Resident Evil 0, 1 (remake), and 4 coming to the Switch on May 21 (Resident Evil Twitter)....cool

PS Plus games for March are The Witness and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered (Polygon)

Xbox Games with Gold for March are listed below (Xbox)
 

• Adventure Time: Pirates of the Enchiridion
• Plants vs. Zombies Garden Warfare 2
• Star Wars: Republic Commando
• Meta Gear Rising: Revengance
   
   

Playstation deals are live at various online and retail stores (IGN)

• PS4 Slim 1TB - $269 with promo code EMCTVVA36 - at Newegg
• PS4 Slim 1TB with Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 - $299.99 - at Newegg