Microsoft Makes History... Again
Video Credit: Spawn Wave
As the oldest independent third-party video game publisher, most of you know Activision from one generation to another. Founded in 1979 by disgruntled Atari workers, it brought great games to the Atari 2600. It wasn’t until 2008 that Activision and Vivendi Games came together as one company, Activision-Blizzard. Their biggest success, Call of Duty, is the most played FPS in the world. In 2011, they started the toys-to-life era with Skylanders, a great way to milk the players for more money by making them purchase toy characters to bring them to life in the game. It was a great time. While their games became hit-or-miss in later years, they still reigned supreme with Call of Duty, until old habits came back to bite them.The California Department of Fair Employment and Housing sued Activision-Blizzard for the “frat boy” culture within the company. The game company tried in vain to dismiss the suit and accusations as false. Many employees walked out in protest while gamers also stopped playing their games. Even their CEO, Bobby Kotick, had some unpleasant things said about him. In the most shocking plot twist, Microsoft stepped in and announced their intent to acquire Activision-Blizzard for a whopping $68.7 million in an all-cash deal! It’s insane! Technically, the deal is ongoing, but once it’s completed (possibly between July 2022 and July 2023), Microsoft will have access to heavy-hitters Call of Duty, Warcraft and Overwatch, including old titles. Not only will the Xbox Game Pass become more attractive than ever (not that it isn’t at the moment, but great games from Activision could attract even more players), but place Microsoft as the third largest gaming company in the world. This attracts a lot of opinions, with journalists believing this acquisition is Microsoft’s bid to compete against Meta Platforms, formerly Facebook. But for now, it’s business as usual for Microsoft and Activision-Blizzard. Even Sony is shaken, which will be covered today.
I’ve heard of Activision for a long time, from Skylanders, Transformers games and publishing Rovio’s Angry Birds Trilogy. Aside from Diablo III, I never felt the need to play anything else Activision has, especially with their shady practices. I mean, they put microtransactions on Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled despite promising not to implement them. And then after hearing of Microsoft planning to acquire the company, I feel it’s a good thing. As a Game Pass subscriber, I can finally try Activision games and choose which to purchase if they’re good. It’s a great time to be an Xbox player.
Sony's Response to the Inevitable
Video Credit: IGN Now
When Microsoft announced their intentions to acquire Activision-Blizzard for almost $75 billion, Sony felt this the most: the company lost 13% of shares last week. Here’s a statement from Sony: “We expect that Microsoft will abide by contractual agreements and continue to ensure Activision games are multiplatform.” Seems like a way for Sony to stop losing more shares. And here’s the response from Xbox’s Phil Spencer: “I’ll just say to players out there who are playing Activision Blizzard games on Sony’s platform: It’s not our intent to pull communities away from that platform and we remained committed to that.” Now, Sony and Activision have a deal to ensure games also become available on PlayStation, although the terms remain ambiguous. While it’s unlikely Microsoft will mess with the PlayStation community by making Overwatch and/or Warzone exclusive to Xbox, it doesn’t mean all of Activision-Blizzard’s future games will be multiplatform after the acquisition ends. Once those terms expire, COD will very much likely be exclusive to Xbox and PC. Just look at Starfield and The Elder Scrolls 6: they will be Xbox-exclusive. Sony will have to rely on other publishers and their games to stay afloat. Or just buy other developers, like Bungie.
While I do feel bad for PlayStation users who still refuse to try Xbox, they should also understand the reality that Xbox may do better games than Sony. Xbox will have the one thing Sony is losing: variety. One of the successes of the Xbox Game Pass is having a variety of games from different areas, alongside Microsoft’s own games. With thirty studios under Microsoft and flexible management, they won’t repeat Activision-Blizzard’s mistakes and only rely on Call of Duty. Phil Spencer himself expressed interest in reviving old Activision IPs, like Hexen. Once Call of Duty takes a breather, other IPs will have the chance to shine!
The End of February is the Beginning of the Steam Deck
Video Credit: Fan The Deck
Valve officially announced that the Steam Deck, a portable Linux-based gaming PC, will launch on February 28th, with the first batch of order emails going out three days early. Recipients have three days to complete the purchase, after which the reservation will be passed on to the next person on the queue. The units will ship on February 28th, so you better not have wasted the money on the Lunar Year sale! After launch, Valve plans to follow up with new order email batches on a weekly basis. Valve will even send some Decks to press outlets in short order, with full hardware reviews going out on February 25th, but we’ll get preview coverage and impressions earlier, so keep an eye out!
I really don’t have anything else to say that I haven’t already said. But I’ll list the reasons why I want the Steam Deck:
Portability - Even if battery life won’t be great, at least I won’t be tied to the desk for an entire day!
Variety - Steam has types of games neither Xbox, PlayStation or Nintendo have; with games from Microsoft and Sony on the same platform, who needs to hunt down a PS5/Xbox Series X?!
Open Platform - The greatest advantage the Deck has is being a PC; it can do anything a Linux PC can do. Hell, you can use Windows instead of Linux! It’ll also serve as a powerful emulator for any platform.
Some will argue the Steam Deck will be outdated by the time it launches or that Valve won’t actually keep the Deck for very long. The thing is, Valve has enough money to sell the Deck at a loss, since they’ll get back the money they lose from Steam. As another bonus, Valve only has to produce the Deck demand, rather than make millions of units to sell at retail. One way or another, the Steam Deck will succeed.
Cloud Saving on Steam Deck
Video Credit: The Verge
Valve announced the most unique feature the Steam and the Steam Deck will get: Dynamic Cloud Sync. What’s so dynamic about it? When you play a game on the Steam Deck and choose to suspend it, you can resume the session on your home PC. It can be used by two Steam Decks! It works by Steam automatically uploading a save state to the cloud before the Deck enters sleep mode. When you return to playing the game on the Steam Deck, Steam will download any save data changes once the device wakes up. While it sounds great, not every game will take advantage unless the developer works it in.
This would work great for games like Sega Mega Drive Classics and Freedom Planet (which are available on both Windows and Linux): when I’m done playing those games on PC, I can resume on the Steam Deck without issue. Though admittedly, I’ll barely use this feature since my PC isn’t the best at playing modern games. Those with PC rigs can use this feature to extend their play session even further! When I want to get into PC gaming, the Steam Deck is a great starter.
The Latest Yu-Gi-Oh Game: Good?
Video Credit: YuGiOhCardEU
Yu-Gi-Oh Master Duel, a recent video game based on the Yu-Gi-Oh franchise, landed a great home run on Steam. 262,333 players logged in and with mostly positive reviews, it really seems like a great potential as a foundation for a digital Yu-Gi-Oh game. Now, there are still some complaints like the timer between each player’s turn (too high), meta decks and of course, in-game currency (the most powerful card on a player’s deck? The credit card). It’s currently just focused on PvP without casual modes, though there are many solo story modes. It boasts 100,000+ cards to pick from, so you need some basic knowledge on Yu-Gi-Oh. While the game kind of came out of nowhere, it’s still an excellent version of the most-known card game, with decades of history and a devoted fanbase. That’s really impressive of Konami.
I can’t say anything special about this game, as I am unlikely to ever play it (I’m not versed on card games in general). But I am surprised that Konami, of all companies, managed to make such an impressive game, which is free-to-play no less! This game is certainly a game for true fans of Yu-Gi-Oh… as long as you don’t play with your credit card. This game is free-to-play and available on all current and previous generations of consoles (and PC through Steam).
Favorite Game - LEGO Marvel Super Heroes 2
Kang the Conqueror, with a powerful crystal in hand, shapes the Marvel Universe to his whim, cobbling together different realities. The only hope the heroes have is to locate Nexus fragments and create a powerful device to go toe-to-toe with Kang. Many heroes come together against the many villains that threaten to do as they please with Kang’s “assistance”. And thankfully, the Guardians of the Galaxy are here to assist.
As the first modern Lego game I played, this game is the most lucrative of them all. It didn’t annoy me as much with hints as the first title did and has more intricate puzzles. The Marvel Heroes also benefit with the same improved powers as Lego Marvel’s Avengers, such as Hulk’s Super Jump, Spider-Man’s wall-crawling and Black Bolt’s scream. The only thing that hampers the game a bit is voice acting: since this game was released amidst an SAG strike, all the characters (sans Stan Lee) were recast with British talent. They more-or-less fit the characters they’re portraying, to the dismay of many fans. Anyway this is a great game and I cannot wait to acquire Stan Lee! This game is available on PC (through Steam), Nintendo Switch, PS4 and Xbox One.
Comments
Post a Comment