Tag: atari

Nintendo Direct, Game Industry News, and a summary of the week’s gaming headlines

Nintendo Direct.
I’m only going to run down the major headliners of the 40-minute June 18 Nintendo Direct, because if you’re into it you have either watched it or you’ve watched your favourite Youtuber’s summary. If you’re not, you probably don’t want a mega rundown. So here they are:

  • Mario lovers are getting Mario & Luigi: Brothership coming November 7, this year. It looks to be a dual-control platformer. As well as Super Mario Party Jamboree, a massive party game with the ability to host up to 20 players. Play it October 17.
  • Donkey Kong Country Returns HD is coming Jan 16, 2025, with 80 levels plus some from the original 3DS hit.
  • Zelda fans were hit with a Nintendo Switch Online addition of Zelda: A Link to the Past Four Swords (basically multiplayer Link). Then the new title The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom was announced to much fanfare, where you play as Zelda and create echoes in your adventure to save Link. Coming September 26 this year.
  • And finally, in Metroid news, also coming to Nintendo Switch Online Metroid Zero Mission is coming to the collection. And the long-anticipated, after the announcement of it back at E3 2017, Metroid Prime 4 will be gracing our consoles sometime in 2025.

There was a heap more, with the announcement and release dates of Just Dance 2025, Dragon Quest 3, some Marvel vs Capcom collections… lots of stuff.
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Game Industry News
This week saw the closure of Game Industry’s 2022 and 2023 “Best Places to Work in Canada” studio Timbre Games by owner Sumo Group before the release of its first game. This is included in the 15% downsizing Sumo Group, a subsidiary of Chinese giant Tencent, had announced on June 11 (~250 people). Paradox Interactive is closing down their Tectonic Studio, makers of the upcoming life sim Life by You after Deputy CEO reportedly called the early access title “lacking in some key areas” and “the road leading to release… far too long and uncertain.” (24 people)
After sales lagged on Wizard with a Gun, developer Galvanic Games has closed their doors (12 people). Embracer Group also blamed lacklustre sales for this week’s closing of Pieces Interactive, developer of Alone in the Dark released in March (42 people). VRChat has also announced a 30% reduction in staff (~30 people) blaming plateauing sales and a lack of management. And after the announcement in May of Microsoft’s closure of Tango Gameworks, the studio finally closed its doors this week.
In the wake of all the layoffs, the big name companies’ CEOs and shareholders in the industry continue to profit, with EA CEO’s compensation increased by 22% to over USD$25 million. And this after cutting 5% of its workforce in Feb (~670 people) for restructuring.
At least Gearbox has been somewhat released from Embracer Groups failing model with its deal with Take-Two Interactive closing this week. The deal moves most of the IP and studios under Take-Two’s wings. Including hits such as Borderlands, Risk of Rain, Homeworld, and Duke Nukem, but leaving behind the studios and IP of Lost Boys Interactive and Cryptic Studios.
But not all is lost, with staff from layoffs forming advisory companies – such as those from indie studio Modern Wolf forming Secret Sauce – or creating “support studios” like CodeDev: The Unreal Guys who work as a specialist team to help studios work with the Unreal engine.
But the industry is struggling. In an interview with Gamesindustry.biz Tencent advisor and former PlayStation boss Shawn Layden is cautioning the industry to take a more patient approach to game development.

“It’s human nature, right? If you’re at the craps table and someone’s got the hot hand and they’re running the table… you just want to jump on that train and get a piece of that before it goes. That’s why patience is the thing that’s important. The industry is losing patience. It’s ‘we need to find a way to solve this problem in six months’ in an industry where nothing gets done in six months.”

And now for the week in gaming headlines.

And don’t forget – to read more follow the links in our Facebook profile @zedgamesau

And now for the week in gaming releases.
There’s Fallout in you CoD with a bundle dropping today, and the VR title Blade and Sorcery has finally left early access.
Now, on Friday June 21. Visual novel sci-fi detective game Times & Galaxy comes to PC and consoles. And after 25m copies sold since release, the expansion Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree comes to PC, Xbox and PlayStation. Also don’t forget to be a good tarnished if you grab this and “…be mindful of spoilers for those who want to tread into the Realm of Shadow with nothing but their determination and their minds unclouded.”
Saturday June 22 brings us the retro helicopter top-down shooter Megacopter: Blades of the Goddess coming to PC. On Monday June 24, detective sim Uncover the Smoking Gun comes to PC.
Tuesday June 25 brings us Cozy Grove: Camp Spirit, coming to Netflix mobile. Be the ball in Super Monkey Ball: Banana Rumble coming to Switch. For the VR gamers Riven PC MQ Remake is coming to Meta Quest. The DLC A Little to the Left: Seeing Stars is coming to all platforms. And bouncy farm sim Southfield is coming to PC.
On Wednesday June 26, 2D visual novel and narrative adventure Until Then comes to PC and PS5, and PS1-era styled cartoon precision platformer Frogun Encore is coming to PC and Consoles.
And finally on Thursday June 27, the remaster Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD is coming to Switch. Battle Royal MOBA Battle Crush is coming to PC, Switch and mobile. And lastly, the remake of Atari’s “Sprint” NeoSprint is coming to PC and consoles.

Disappearing Games, Fallout Resurgence, Gaming Biz News, and some Bytes for good measure.

Games Getting the Thanos Snap
This week saw a couple of games added to the growing list of paid games ripped from digital libraries and slipped from support and server maintenance. PlayStation has chosen to decommission the servers of LittleBigPlanet 3 following the technological issues which resulted in the servers being shut down in January. The multimedia giant seems to have given up trying to fix the problems and instead has decided to just shut up shop, removing support for core gameplay loop of creating and sharing levels. In worse news, Ubisoft has created a new category in your digital library called “Inactive Games”. This is specifically for owners of the purchased game The Crew. When opening the game through the launcher you are now greeted with the message “You no longer have access to this game. Why not check the Store to pursue your adventures?”. Attempts at bypassing said launcher are met with either game key requests or a limited access demo version of the game launching. Ubisoft claims this was necessary “… due to server infrastructure and licencing constraints.”
This trend has been tipped to continue with a report published that claims 70% of game developers are concerned with the sustainability of live service titles. This is also compounded with the overwhelming majority of those surveyed working in teams dedicated to said live service games.
So, what can we do as gamers? The movement to get political is now in full swing with people calling for the preservation of video games. Personally, you can head to stopkillinggames.com and click the “Take Action Here” and follow the links, perhaps even signing the parliamentary petition EN6080 calling for the government to enforce our ownership of games like I have.

Fallout Resurgence
In more positive news, in the wake of the well-received adaptation of the Amazon Prime Fallout series – which if you didn’t know is all canon to the Fallout lore according to Todd “it just works” Howard – the series has incited gamers to return to the base games with sales of Fallout 4, earlier titles, and even the critically panned Fallout 76 jumping up the charts with player counts hitting new peaks or even breaking old records. And for all those living out their postapocalyptic dream for the first time or returning to the series, the games have either received or scheduled to receive next gen updates as this broadcast goes live (April 25th), and probably with all the trademark issues/glitches/problems we have come to expect from Bethesda.
And for the series fans, you’ll be happy to know that Amazon has confirmed a second season is on the way.

Game Industry Biz News
This week videogame company Embracer Group announced they would be dissolving the company and splitting their assets into three separate companies; the first Asmodee Group to focus on the companies table top assets, the temporarily named “Coffee Stain & Friends” to take over the indi to AA game operations, and the – again temporarily named – “Middle-Earth Enterprises and Friends” to take over the high end AAA assets like Tomb Raider and The Lord of the Rings franchises. The CEO of Embracer Group, Lars Wingefors, is bucking the trend of blaming the volatility of the industry, and is taking responsibility, saying;

“As a leader and an owner, sometimes you need to take the blame and you need to be humble about if you’ve made mistakes and if you could have done something differently.
“I’m sure I deserve a lot of criticism, but I don’t think my team or companies deserve all the criticism.”

Atari is also bucking the trend with the relaunch of Infogrames as a publishing label, with purpose of publishing and acquiring IP outside of the Atari brand, and has already purchased the game Totally Reliable Delivery Services from tinyBuild.
And PlayDate – that niche console you’ve heard about from some of our announcers – the maker Panic has shared that of the 70 thousand shipped, over half of the owners have made purchases on the storefront. Because of this support, Panic has revealed that developers of the 181 games have received a sizable payout of over $500 thousand US dollars.

Now Have We Got Some Time for Some Quick Bytes?
Team Fortress 2 has finally gotten 64-bit support, now boasting up to 20% more frames per second! No updates on the bot issues though, but the game has only been out for a meagre 17 years so…
And there’s a new operating system on the horizon. With Meta announcing its new Meta Horizon OS for the VR ecosystem in partnership with ASUS, Lenovo, and Xbox.

And now for some upcoming games.
On April the 25th the “sah gaa” continues with Square Enix’s SaGa: Emerald Beyond coming to PC, PlayStation and Switch, while Bandai Namco brings the manga SAND LAND to life in … wait for it … SAND LAND (all caps) coming to PC, PlayStation and the Xbox series S & X.
Friday April 26 brings us Manor Lords, a medieval strategy where you can sit on your high horse, coming to PC. Or if you feel like turning into a spandex clad Beyblade with a sword and flashing lights, join the masses with Stellar Blade coming to the PlayStation 5. Or go for a different kind of spin in the tennis sim with some big names in Top Spin 2K25 coming to PC and next gen consoles.
And to round out the month, after hitting 40 million players, Sea of Thieves is finally coming to the PS5 Tuesday April 30.

And that’s all this week, in gaming news.

Starfield Hype, Unity Meltdown, E3 is Dead, Long Live E4, and some extra tasty Gaming Bytes

Starfield Hype
This week marked the launch of Todd “it just works” Howard/Bethesda’s shiny new RPG, Starfield. Starfield went supernova, instantly becoming the biggest Bethesda launch of all time, and since its release it has hoarded over 6 million players, with over a million concurrent players shooting into the stratosphere when counting over all platforms. With official mod support coming next year, PC players have had the hardest time since release, with Intel and Nvidia systems copping the brunt of the issues. Todd Howard’s response for people with PCs?

“You might need to upgrade your PC.”

Unity, no longer for the gamer
Unity, the game engine behind Rust, Hollow Knight, and Pokémon Go, and the controversial Creative AI Unity Muse and Unity Sentis, has introduced a controversial new fee for developers. The Runtime Fee, set to take effect in 2024, is a per-install fee that will apply to games that reach a previously established annual revenue threshold and a lifetime install count. Indie developers are concerned that this new policy will kill smaller games with the new system severely affecting their bottom line, and leading devs of free-to-play games questioning if they’d end up owing hundreds of thousands of dollars or more under the new system. Unity’s attempts to provide clarity have so far only fueled devs’ frustration and spawned more questions from those with both currently active and in-development games using the engine. This has led to warnings from industry professionals such as creative director at Necrosoft Games, Brandon Sheffield, stating in an op-ed for Insert Credit, “But now I can say, unequivocally, if you’re starting a new game project, do not use Unity,” and “If you started a project 4 months ago, it’s worth switching to something else. Unity is quite simply not a company to be trusted.”
After regrouping on the evening of September 12, Unity clarified their previous statement, claiming that they will only charge for the initial installation of a game, reversing their previous stance that multiple charges would be made for reinstalls. Unity also stated that the fee will only apply to monetized titles and that charity games and bundles are exempt; however, the announcement has raised further questions about the impact on the free-to-play genre, as well as demo installs. Further, concerns remain about how installs will be tracked, with the potential for abuse by bad actors, and devs concerned about the need to implement third party DRM (Digital Rights Management) in their games.

E3 is Dead, Long Live E4?
With the earlier announcement this week that PAX organiser Reedpop and E3 had cut ties, it may come as unsurprising news that E3 2024 is in doubt. The Entertainment Software Association or ESA who runs E3 have also informed the longstanding home of E3, the LA Convention Center, they will not be there in 2024. However, according to news site GamesIndustry.biz they are “working on a complete reinvention of the E3 show for 2025.” We live in hope.

And now for some Gaming Bytes.
About to load up Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty DLC? Best check your system with Lead Scene Programmer CD PROJEKT RED Filip Pierściński imploring gamers via tweet to check system stability and to “please check conditions of your cooling systems in PC.”
And feeling old? Well Steam turned 20 on the 12th of September , and 25 year old fansite AtariAge has been acquired by Atari.

Now for some upcoming games.
Friday September 15, Baby Shark: Sing & Swim Party comes to Pc, PlayStation, Xbox, and Switch, and tech themed 3D platformer Boti: Byteland Overclocked comes to PC.
Tuesday September 19, start your week with an open-world high-fantasy strategy RPG Dragonheir: Silent Gods, coming to PC. Or, race to your parking space in You Suck At Parking coming to PS4 and Switch. Can you become a real boy in the Pinocchio soulslike Lies of P, coming to PC, Xbox and PlayStation. And lastly for Tuesday, Mortal Kombat 1 comes to PC, PS5, Xbox Series X and Switch.
Wednesday September 20, kick animal butt in the brawler/party game Party Animals, coming to PC, and Xbox. And, put the shooting or spell slinging in the S of FPS in the dark fantasy roguelite shooter Witchfire, coming to PC.
And finally, Thursday September 21st brings free-to-play medieval warfare PVP Warhaven to PC. Want to release your inner Addams family Thing within to defeat some feet? Then play Super Adventure Hand! coming to PC and Switch. And to finish, Payday 3 is coming to PC and next gen consoles.

Soulja Boy Did What & What Did Snoop Say

Twitch streamers are planning a protest

A group of streamers intend to turn off their channels on September 1st to protest the slow response from Twitch with regards to addressing a spike in bigoted harassment on the platform. This protest has been organised by RekItRaven using the hashtag #ADayOffTwitch. This protest has been brewing for a long time with streamers expressing their frustrations over the last few months. A lot of the harassment issues these streamers appear to be facing involve what is called “hate raids” where users will create a large number of dummy accounts and use bots to spam channels with hateful messages. Twitch promised back in August that it would launch channel-level ban evasion detection as well as improvements to its account verification process, however streamers are still waiting. Streamers have decided to take matters into their own hands by using third party software to attempt to combat the hate raids. Twitch have still yet to respond to the issue.

Germany’s 2021 Gamescom is going off with a bang

Featuring many big announcements from the likes of Nvidia with their games Myst and Guardians of the Galaxy getting ray-tracing support for PC. Xbox brings a new flashy controller to accompany Forza Horizon 5 and another controller for Halo Infinite not to mention what has already sold out the Halo Infinite themed Xbox Series X, The Sims 4 gets a free update the Industrial Loft Kit. Toplitz Productions announces Starsand for you survival game lovers where you must survive the desert dunes from giant sand worms. Destiny 2 reveals The Witch Queen to be launched in February. Broken Roads created by Aussie developers Drop Bear Bytes looks to be releasing in 2022. Another Aussie game that brought you Yonder: The Cloud Catcher announces Grow: Song of the Evertree and shows off a heap of solid gameplay. As well as so many other games such Pets Hotel which is literally a hotel for pampering and taking care of pets to indie watercolour game Torn Away set in WWII. The most recent announcements are Horizon Forbidden West to be released on PS4 & PS5 on the 18th of February 2022 and the Official LEGO Star Wars Skywalker Saga is expected somewhere between March and June next year. Gamescom will run until August 27th with hopefully more awesome drops to come.

Soulja Boy claims to own Atari

You heard me; world famous rapper Soulja Boy posted a video online claiming that he signed two deals with Atari making him the first rapper in history to own a games company. Atari were forced to respond to the matter with a Tweet that says, “We know that CEO of Atari is a dream job, but that honor belongs to Wade Rosen.” We can say with certainty that Soulja Boy does not own Atari.

Speaking of world-famous rappers Snoop Dog loves to stream on Twitch and recently he has moved his gaming set up and has some how accidentally muted himself. It’s so far been three whole streaming sessions and he still hasn’t noticed. You’d think he might by now he would however, unfortunately, Snoop Dog has his Twitch chat disabled and unless someone has his number it doesn’t appear like he is unmuting himself anytime soon.

The week in gaming releases:

August 26th
o Have a Blast [PC, Switch]
o Hotel Life: A Resort Simulator [PC, PS5, XSX, PS4, XBO, Switch]
o The Magnificent Trufflepigs [Switch]
o Spelunky & Spelunky 2 [Switch]
o Spookware [PC]

August  27th
o Baldo [PC, PS4, XBO, Switch]
o No More Heroes 3 [Switch]
o Tormented Souls [PC, PS5, XBX, Switch]

August 30th
o Book Of Travels [PC]

August 31st
o The Big Con [PC, XSX, XBO]
o Crown Trick [PS4, XBO]
o KeyWe [PC, PS5, XSX, PS4, XBO, Switch]
o Maneater: Truth Quest DLC [PC, PS5, XSX, PS4, XBO]
o Monster Harvest [PC, PS4, XBO, Switch
• Rustler [PS5, XSX, PS4, XBO, Switch]
o Train Life: A Railway Simulator [PC]

September 1st
o Lake [PC, XSX]