Monthly Archives: May 2016
Rocket League Going Cross-platform on Xbox / PC Today
Xbox One and PC players of Rocket League will finally be able to play together in perfect harmony later today.
The update will go live at 11pm BST, and will mark the first time a game has been cross-platform between PC and Xbox One.
PC and PlayStation 4 players have been able to play together since launch, but the Xbox One version released later. Microsoft has said it will support cross-play between all platforms, but Sony remained cagey on the matter.
Overwatch Ranked Mode Coming in June
Overwatch's game director Jeff Kaplan has revealed the game's competitive mode will be coming in June.
Ranked mode was cut from the recent beta period, and hasn't made it back in time for launch. However, Kaplan said in a recent Facebook Q&A it will be coming soon.
"Competitive mode is the current focus of the Overwatch team, and it's the most important thing for us to add to the game right now," said Kaplan.
No exact date has been confirmed yet, but we should be seeing an update "sometime towards the end of June."
Sony Expects to Sell 20 Million PlayStation 4s in the Next Year
Sony has predicted that it will sell 20 million PlayStation 4 units by the end of the current financial year.
That number - revealed in a Sony earnings forecast released today - would bring the total number sold to an estimated 60 million units by March 31, 2017.
"We expect FY16 sales to increase 8%," said Sony CFO Kenichiro Yoshida, "and operating income to be 135 billion yen
due to the continued strong momentum of PlayStation 4."
Sony's biggest year for home console sales came in the financial year ending 2003, in which it sold 22.5 million PS2 units.
Sony recently announced that it had sold 18 million PS4s in the last financial year. By comparison, recent estimates put Xbox One sales at 18 million units, lifetime.
I Am Setsuna Is a Love Letter to the 16-bit Days of RPGs
I Am Setsuna takes the familiar pieces of Chrono Trigger – its classic active time battles and awesome tech-based attack system – and builds a much darker world around them. Tokyo RPG Factory’s one-hour demo presents environments full of muted colors, a quaint mountain village setting, and depressing consequences. The heroine Setsuna has a major role to play in this dire narrative, as she sets off on a perilous journey to sacrifice herself in order to save the world from the wrath of monsters. “Setsuna means a type of poignant sorrow in Japanese," director Atsushi Hashimoto told IGN at GDC 2016, as he hinted at the project's overall tone.
The development team have never shied away at name-dropping I Am Setsuna’s inspiration, but it’s difficult not to feel poignant sorrow whenever a spiritual follow-up to Chrono Trigger gets mentioned. Chrono Trigger, a one-of-a-kind product of the mid-‘90s RPG scene, has stood the test of time as one of the greatest video games ever made. The fabled Dream Project collaboration brought together the top-talent of the RPG genre to create an utterly fantastic singular work. But feelings of melancholy don’t come from the game itself per se, rather the sad reality that one of the greatest video games of all time never got a proper follow-up. While the sequel, called Chrono Cross, blazed its own trail on the PlayStation, dozens of the first game’s incredibly well-thought out ideas fell to the wayside over the course of 20 years.
Overwatch Microtransaction Prices Revealed
Now that Overwatch has been released, we know how much the game's loot boxes will cost.
Loot boxes are unlocked through leveling up in-game, and contain cosmetic items such as skins, sprays, and extra voice lines for the characters. However you can also purchase them for real money if you don't want to wait.
There are five options to choose from:
- 2 loot boxes - $2 / £1.69 / €2
- 5 loot boxes - $5 / £4 / €5
- 11 loot boxes - $10 / £8 / €10
- 24 loot boxes - $20 / £16 / €20
- 50 loot boxes - $40 / £33 / €40
In other news, last night a new Clueless Gamer segment aired, where Conan O'Brien played Overwatch with a number of Game of Thrones stars. Meanwhile, in preparation for yesterday's launch, giant Overwatch action figures were unveiled across the world.
Total War: Warhammer Facing Early Server Issues
We're a few hours into the launch of Total War: Warhammer, but its servers are apparently experiencing some teething problems.
"Due to server load the multiplayer server is having trouble keeping up. If you click around it will crash - please have patience and wait," reads a statement from the official Total War Twitter account.
A post on the game's Steam forum also has a possible fix if you're having issues with crashing. You're advised to let the game load for up to 10 minutes the first time you launch the game. If it's still not working, you should take the following steps:
Set Steam to Offline and try running again. If that fails then verify your Steam Cache, and if that fails try updating your graphics drivers.
Nintendo Developing a New Handheld Codenamed MH, Say Reports
A Japanese financial report seems to point to a new Nintendo handheld console codenamed the MH.
Pointed out on NeoGAF, a business analysts at Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley summary (syndicated by Yahoo Japan finance) on Nintendo's current business practices claims to out the existence of the new hardware. The translation reads:
"The driving force up until now has been new business from "health services, theme parks and mobile games etc", but will switch over to the next generation game system (NX) and next-gen handheld game device (MH (temporary name))."
Entertainment Deals of The Day
Welcome to IGN's Entertainment Deals Page where we will scour the web to continuously update our readers about the best Entertainment Deals available in the UK right now, ranging from TV's, Blu-ray's, DVD's and lots more.
We are now on Facebook! Like our page to get the latest deals straight to your news feed and also look out for exclusive codes for our readers.
Daredevil Star Downplays Kingpin in Spider-Man: Homecoming
Vincent D'Onofrio, who stars as Kingpin in Marvel's Daredevil series, has come forward to address the rumors that he may appear in Sony and Marvel's upcoming film Spider-Man: Homecoming.
In a post on Twitter (via Heroic Hollywood), D'Onofrio downplayed the rumblings about a potential Kingpin cameo, saying, "Sorry folks but this is news to me," before adding, "It would be great but I don’t think it will happen."
That said, in a followup post, the actor made it clear he'd love to appear in the film, asking folks who want to see him in Spider-Man: Homecoming to bring their request to Marvel.
John Carpenter to Executive Produce New Halloween Film
Now that Dimension Films no longer has the film rights to Halloween, a new installment in the iconic horror franchise is in the works at Blumhouse, and John Carpenter, the man behind the 1987 original, is on board as executive producer.
According to Blumhouse's announcement, franchise producer Malek Akkad of Trancas International Films is teaming up with Miramax and Blumhouse Productions to bring a brand-new Halloween movie to the silver screen. In addition to executive producing, Carpenter is on board as "Creative Consultant."