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Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot is the best-selling game of January 2020
We’re less than 12 months away from the launch of next-generation consoles from Sony and Microsoft, and consumers have started to react accordingly. According to The NPD Group’s Mat Piscatella (via Twitter), consumers spent $678 million on video games, consoles, and accessories in January 2020, about a 26% drop versus January 2019.
But there were still a few big moneymakers in the first month of the year, starting with Bandai Namco’s Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot, which was the best-selling game of the month. It was followed by some of 2019’s most popular titles, including Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (#2), Madden NFL 20 (#3), and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (#4).
While none of these games are available for the Switch, Nintendo’s newest console held on as the best-selling console platform during the month, besting the aging PS4 and Xbox One.
Another highlight for Nintendo from the January 2020 sales report was Ring Fit Adventure, which broke into the Top 10 for the first time (at #9). That’s impressive, but it’ll be a very long time before it catches Grand Theft Auto V, which continued to sell well in its 196th month of availability (it appeared on the list at #5).
You can find the full list of best-selling games from January 2020 after the break. (more…)
House House’s Untitled Goose Game wins “Game of the Year” at 2020 DICE Awards
I guess The Goose can cross “Win a Few Major Awards” off of its To-Do List. And that’s because House House’s Untitled Goose Game won “Outstanding Achievement for an Independent Game,” “Outstanding Achievement in Character,” and “Game of the Year” at this year’s DICE Awards.
While the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences’s voting body (which is comprised of more than 30,000 members) loves The Goose, it was Remedy’s Control that took home the most statuettes last night. Predictably, the outstanding action game won “Action Game of the Year,” as well as “Outstanding Achievement in Game Direction,” “Outstanding Achievement in Original Music Composition,” and “Outstanding Achievement in Art Direction.” Hideo Kojima’s Death Stranding was the only other game to win multiple awards, with the AIAS honoring it with “Outstanding Technical Achievement” and “Outstanding Achievement in Audio Design.”
A nice array of other games were also big winners at the 2020 DICE Awards, including Sayonara Wild Hearts (“Portable Game of the Year”), Apex Legends (“Online Game of the Year”), Super Mario Maker 2 (“Family Game of the Year”), Mortal Kombat 11 (“Fighting Game of the Year”), Baba Is You (“Outstanding Achievement in Game Design”), and more.
The complete list of winners and nominees for the 2020 DICE Awards can be found after the break. (more…)
Batterystaple Games will release 30XX in 2021
Batterystaple Games’s 20XX launched to rave reviews when it was released in 2017, filling a gap in the roguelike platformer genre (“Mega Man but with procedurally-generated levels”) that most fans didn’t even realize was there.
But rather than rest on their laurels, the developer is travelling 1,000 years into the future to bring a sequel, 30XX, to the PC and consoles in 2021. Once again employing a procedurally-generated structure, 30XX will feature a new “hi-bit art style” from Art Director Glauber Kotaki, as well as eight new worlds to explore:
20XX heroes Nina and Ace return with a myriad of new abilities. No longer merely wielding different primary weapons, in 30XX the powerful pair possess entirely distinct move sets allowing greater freedom of expression for both exploring levels and beating back the machines holding Earth prisoner.
Nina’s new Power Fusion system allows her to meld together abilities earned from vanquishing bosses and tailor them to the situation at hand with 64 separate attacks. Meanwhile, the blade-brandishing Ace boasts a versatile set of Techniques, which can be chained together with standard attacks to unleash fierce combos, adapt to any situation, and reach new heights.
Batterystaple Games will be hitting the road with 30XX very soon. The developer plans to showcase the game at this year’s PAX East expo (February 27 – March 1 in Boston) as part of the Indie Megabooth. In the meantime, an Announcement Trailer for the game has been embedded above.
Posted in News, PC
Tagged PAX East 2020
The only known Nintendo PlayStation prototype is up for auction now through March 6
The failed collaboration between Nintendo and Sony to produce a CD-ROM add-on for the Super NES has become the stuff of legend. The details of the falling out have been documented pretty extensively over the years, and war stories from all the major players have appeared in both David Sheff’s Game Over and Blake Harris’s Console Wars.
While we all know the story, what became of the small batch of prototype consoles produced by the two companies has always been a mystery. More than 200 Nintendo PlayStations were reportedly produced, and it’s assumed that most were destroyed, but one managed to escape the trash heap by hiding out in “a box of junk” previously owned by former Sony Computer Entertainment CEO Olaf Olafsson.
After his stint at Sony, Olafsson would take a job with Advanta Corporation, and this “box of junk” went with him, but when the financial company went bankrupt in 2009, the Nintendo PlayStation was left behind. It was found by Terry Diebold, who worked in Advanta’s maintenance department, and eventually made its way into the hands of his son, Dan.
Now, after game historians have examined and repaired the one-of-a-kind artifact, it’s going up for auction. The Diebolds are selling the prototype through Heritage Auctions, and as of this writing, the current bid is sitting at $145,000. And it’s unlikely to stop there, as proxy bids will continue to be taken until the start of the live auction on March 6.
So what will you get for your money? According to Heritage, the console features a fully-functioning Super Famicom cartridge slot:
We at Heritage can attest the prototype is working, as we’ve played a couple of rounds of Mortal Kombat on it using a Super Famicom cartridge.
The CD drive is also functional, but as no software was produced for the Nintendo PlayStation, all it can do is play music CDs:
Though the CD-ROM drive was not currently working when it was found in 2009, it has since been repaired by Benjamin Heckendorn, a YouTube personality known for his console repair videos. It now has the ability to play music CDs like the commercially produced PlayStation, but there is no proprietary software that’s known to have been made during the prototype’s development.
Heritage refers to the Nintendo PlayStation as “one of the most notorious, mysterious, and controversial artifacts of the video game industry” and it’s hard to argue with that.
Darksburg is now available for PC in Early Access through Steam
Darksburg is a colorful “co-op zombie survival action game” from Shiro Games that is giving off some serious Diablo vibes in its latest trailer. The short video clip was also used to announce that the game is now available to download for the PC (via Steam) as an Early Access title.
Up to four players can team up to trample the undead menace ravaging the titular town in Co-Op Mode, or they can switch sides and take control of an undead Revenant and hunt down the heroes in PvP Mode. Rounding this early version of the game is a wave-based Last Stand mode:
A cooperative action game set in a medieval town overrun by hordes of shambling corpses, Darksburg tasks up to four players to band together, complete objectives across atmospheric maps, and push back against the zombie assault. Choose from one of four Survivors, including Sister Abigail, a holy nun hell-bent on saving her home, and Varag, a wolfman whose ferocity is matched only by his taste for undead flesh.
Coordinate with player or computer-controlled allies, unleashing devastating special skills and unlockable abilities to cut through Darksburg’s zombie invaders while completing objectives in co-op. Alternatively, players can take up arms as Revenants, powerful undead champions dedicated to hunting down the Survivors in a dedicated PvP mode. Then test your skills and see how long you can hold out battling endless waves of monstrosities in Last Stand mode.
Players who take the plunge on Darksburg during its first week of release will receive a 10% discount on the purchase price. According to the developer, they plan to use this Early Access to give the game time to “grow exponentially,” while also “adding content, updating features, iterating, and developing the game in order to align with community expectations throughout the whole process.”
February’s Nintendo Switch Online update includes two SNES games previously-unavailable in US and two NES oddities
Later this month, a pair of Super NES games that were previously-unavailable in the US and a pair of oddball NES titles will be added to the SNES and NES apps available to Nintendo Switch Online subscribers.
Super NES fans will be able to try out Pop’n TwinBee (the sixth game in the colorful shooter series), which never made it to the US after Konami released it in Japan and Europe in 1993. It’ll be joined by Smash Tennis, a tennis simulation that was published by Namco in 1994.
Nintendo fans in North America should be much more familiar with the two NES games coming to the online service, though it’s possible you may have skipped over them in the early 90s. Shadow of the Ninja is a side-scrolling action game that has become something of a cult classic in the last three decades, while Eliminator Boat Duel is an aquatic racing game that a lot of people seem to remember but few played.
More information about all four games can be found right here:
Super NES
Pop’n TwinBee – The sixth game in the TwinBee series, this vertically scrolling shooter takes place in a cute, poppy setting. TwinBee and WinBee hear that the great Dr. Murdock has lost his wits, so they set off to return him to his normal self. This game was originally released in Japan and Europe in 1993, but this will be its first release in the U.S.Smash Tennis – In Smash Tennis, the controls may be simple, but there’s plenty of room for skill! With strong shots, weak shots, lobs and eight different court types, you can develop all sorts of approaches, unlocking the deep strategies of tennis. This game was originally released in Japan in 1993 and Europe in 1994, but this will be its first release in the U.S.
NES
Shadow of the Ninja – In the midst of disorder and oppression, two shadow warriors rise to the people’s cry for help. Choose to play as one of two ninja masters from the Iga clan as they infiltrate enemy front lines. Master tactics of stealth as you acquire additional weapons and power-ups in order to overthrow an evil emperor and destroy his wicked empire, solo or with a friend.Eliminator Boat Duel – In this powerboat racing game, get behind the wheel of one of the fastest machines on the water to earn boatloads of in-game cash. Drivers earn thousands of dollars for competing, and you’ll use your winnings to repair and upgrade your boat to push your competitive edge to its maximum. A little aggression goes a long way – just try not to get sunk yourself, or you’ll be swimming back to dry land.
All four games will be available to download through Nintendo Switch Online’s NES and Super NES apps beginning on February 19.
Activision confirms that Call of Duty 2020 will be released this Fall
As he does every year, Punxsutawney Phil ventured out of his den this past weekend to once again deliver his weather forecast for the next six weeks. It’s a ritual that goes back decades, and while most people know the whole thing is just a put-on, there’s something nice about the ritual of it.
A similar sense of ritual surrounds Activision and their first financial report of the year. As they do every year, executives from the megapublisher have confirmed that a new game in the Call of Duty franchise will be released this Fall, but they didn’t have much more to say than that.
Currently codenamed Call of Duty 2020, Chief Operating Officer Coddy Johnson had this to say about the unannounced game:
So across console, PC, mobile and esports, the Call of Duty franchise has never been better positioned for growth and there is more to come, including entirely new experiences within the Modern Warfare universe, and then, of course, in Q4 of this year, a new premium Call of Duty release, which is already generating excitement in our play tests.
And Chief Financial Officer Dennis Durkin added a few words of his own:
In Q4, we plan to launch the next premium release of Call of Duty. We can’t wait to unveil what our teams have been working on, and we feel great about the content.
Though Activision is excited about the next entry in the Call of Duty franchise, there could be trouble on the horizon. It’s widely believed that Sledgehammer Games is behind Call of Duty 2020, but neither executive had anything to say on that subject. And a rumor report from last year hinted at possible problems with the development of the game, which could now be in the hands of Treyarch.
Like Punxsutawney Phil and the weather, our prognostication powers aren’t able to give a definitive answer on that rumor just yet. Hopefully we’ll learn something more concrete about Call of Duty 2020 soon… but for now, it’s nice to know that it exists.
Posted in News
Tagged Call of Duty 2020
Switch launch for The Outer Worlds has been delayed due to the coronavirus
Private Division has just announced that the upcoming Nintendo Switch debut of The Outer Worlds has been indefinitely delayed due to the coronavirus outbreak in China.
The Outer Worlds was developed by Obsidian Entertainment, and it was originally released for the PC, PS4, and Xbox One in 2019. At the same time, Private Division contracted Virtuos, a Chinese developer that specializes in porting games to new platforms, to bring the game to the Switch sometime this year. But the outbreak has forced a temporary closure of their office, and they’ve been unable to continue work on the game, which means it’ll miss its previously-announced March 6 launch date:
We’re delaying @OuterWorlds on Nintendo Switch due to the coronavirus impacting the Virtuos team working on the port, to provide them enough time to finish development. We’ll now be releasing the physical version on cartridge. Once we have a new launch date, we’ll let you know!
— Private Division (@PrivateDivision) February 6, 2020
According to Private Division, everyone at Virtuos is doing OK, and they plan to announce a new release date soon. In the meantime, the publisher also confirmed that all retail copies of The Outer Worlds for the Switch will ship with a game cartridge in the box instead of the planned download voucher.
Posted in News, Switch
Tagged The Outer Worlds