Episode 60 – Ghost Recon: Breakpoint, Sony Chairman Shawn Layden Steps Away

recorded on 2019-10-04

Headliners

Ghost Recon: Breakpoint launched today but does not have a critic score up on MetaCritic yet, however, the user score, composed of 229 ratings, is a 3.1………that is bad

SIE Worldwide Studios Chairman Shawn Layden has stepped away from PlayStation along with SIE Asia President Atsushi Morita who is retiring, this comes within 48 hours of each other

Cross-play on PS4 is now available for all developers to use in their games (Wired, IGN)

Little Bits

Sony lowering prices of PlayStation Now to compete with streaming services (Daniel Ahmad)

• US pricing:  $10/month, $25/quarter, $60/year from $20/month, $45/quarter, $100/year
• New games coming to PS Now are God of War, GTAV, inFAMOUS Second Son, Uncharted 4 -> these games are available on the service from now till Jan 2, 2020
• “Each month, the service will add a new selection of marquee games that will be available for a limited period on top of the existing content the service provides.”

Nintendo may be working on a new Switch Lite model per FCC documents (Digital Trends)

• The documents do not show much difference in the two models but fixing the joy-con drift would not show up on the FCC documents so we have to wait and see

Rapid Fire

Cuphead’s birthday was this past Monday and is now discounted on all platforms (PCGamesN)

• Studio MDHR is also celebrating selling over 5 million copies. Nice! Good for Them!

Ubisoft is coming out with a FREE educational “coding” game featuring the Rabbids from Rayman (new.ubisoft.com)

• Part of initiative to prepare youths for a future in an increasingly digitized world
• Does not focus on actual coding language rather, focuses on concepts and logic
• Given different scenarios and let you go (similar to coding class)

Bungie has stated they will release a non Destiny game; a new IP by 2025 (Bungie)

Rocket League to replace loot boxes with blueprints in December (Kotaku)

• The key difference is that you can see what the item or upgrade is before buying it

Bloodborne’s annual Halloween event “Return to Yharnam” starts October 5 ends November 5 

(Bloodborne reddit community)

EA will now be headquartered here in downtown Orlando (ABC News)

• $6 Million property and will be there for at least 15 years

John Kirby, the namesake behind Nintendo’s character, passed away today (resetera, NYT)

• John Kirby was an American lawyer that defended Nintendo in the case of Universal Studios v Nintendo back when Universal sued Nintendo for their use of Donkey Kong saying it infringed on their property of King Kong.
• He was also famous for being special assistant to the head of the Civil Rights Division in the 60s and was influential in forming the basis of the Voting Rights Act of 1965

AlphaDream, dev for Mario & Luigi RPGs has filed for bankruptcy (comicbook.com)

• Comprised of former Square develops and former Square president Tetsuo Mizuno (since 2000)

Blizzard director  is publically gung-ho with having an Overwatch character in Smash Bros (Press ‘X’ to doubt)

Upcoming Releases and Deals

Some new games are coming to Xbox Game Pass for October and they are listed below: (Xbox)

• October 3:  Dishonored 2, World War Z, Yooka Laylee
• October 17:  Fallout: New Vegas, Felix the Rapper, Panzer Dragoon Orta

Get 6 months of Spotify premium with Xbox Game Pass Ultimate for new subscribers with the first 2 months costing $2 (Wario64)

Return of the Obra Dinn comes to PS4, Xbox One, and Switch on October 18

Red Dead 2 comes to PC via Rockstar Games Launcher and Epic Games Store on November 5 and Steam sometime in December (Rockstar Intel, VG24/7)

Call of Duty Mobile launched on October 1st for free and apparently it is really good

Rumor Mill

PS5 codenamed Prospero could have an AI assistant called PlayStation Assistant, powered by voice built into it according to a recent patent found by Daniel Ahmad (wccftech, gamesradar) 

There was a report from GIZMONDO about how Microsoft and Sony both may have high end webcams to attract streamers to their platforms but this is not true so do not believe it

Fallout Legacy Collection was leaked from Amazon Germany. Most likely expect it this month. 

• Price tag approx. $44 -> Includes the whole Fallout series (excluding Fallout 76)

References to a battle royale mode for COD: Modern Warfare have been datamined from the beta and it looks like it may release as a stand alone game for free in early 2020