How Gaming Affects the World (And Vice-Versa), Microsoft Has New Competitors, and More of This Week’s Biggest News
My greatest passion is writing about video games that have a positive impact on the world, which I’ve been able to do for the past few months through my Load Save newsletter. But after reading the news this past week, I realized that the relationship between gaming and the world is a two way street. I think you’ll see what I mean after reading the listed articles from this week.
ESA launches Game Generation campaign to highlight positive impact of gaming
My favorite parts of gaming events like E3 and The Game Awards are the segments that are dedicated towards sharing the stories of people who been inspired by gaming. The Entertainment Software Association (ESA), who puts on E3, is launching a campaign to help spread the positivity that gaming brings. What I expect from this is multiple highlight videos and events that show people sharing their stories of how gaming has helped them.
Recently, the ESA had promised that they’re going to implement a lot of new and exciting experiences for this year’s E3. This comes a few months after Sony’s announcement to skip E3 again, which left E3 in a tough spot. I’m almost positive that one of these experiences will be this Game Generation campaign. We can be sure to see it before/after the big keynotes, or we might be able to see a collaboration between Microsoft and the ESA to highlight this campaign. Microsoft is known for its commercials about positivity in gaming, so it would seem like a smart match-up!
Regardless of where we see it, I love that it’s happening. My favorite articles to link are ones that highlight the positive impact of gaming, so we will hopefully see a lot more of them in the future thanks to the ESA.
What’s your favorite positive gaming story? Right now, mine’s the homemade Adaptive controller that let a little girl play Breath of the Wild.
The games industry continues to rally behind Australian bushfire relief
This is a short article, but it’s so incredible to see so many companies and individuals contribute to fighting the Australian fires. You better believe as long as people keep donating, I’ll keep linking articles about it.
Cheers to everyone donating their time, money, and reach to help Australia!
Who are Microsoft’s “real” competitors?
Xbox has a lot on its plate, but you have to respect them for their ambitious goals.
If you missed it, Xbox’s Phil Spencer has said that Amazon and Google are Xbox’s real competitors. This makes Xbox’s game plan for the future a really hard balancing act, as this article aptly puts it. Phil Spencer saying this means that Xbox is trying to make the upcoming Series X a platform that can stand up to PlayStation and Nintendo and be the frontrunner for cloud-related gaming. This cloud concern is the reason why Amazon and Google are seen as competitors. This brings up a few questions for the future of Xbox as a gaming console.
- Does this hint at the Series X’s failure?
Xbox One’s initial fail was their attempt at trying to be too much at once. They wanted the new Xbox to be your cable box, your media player, and your console. That took attention away from their core market, gamers, and made people upset. Is Xbox going to repeat history this Fall? The difference here is that their focus is still gaming related, but it could be too forward looking that it forgets to satisfy fans right now.
- Will Xbox continue to focus on streaming?
Streaming has become such a big part of gaming, will Xbox be able to continue to capitalize on it? They’ve done well with Mixer’s integration in Xbox One, but can they continue to optimize that experience? With talk of PS5 including a camera to encourage streaming, can Xbox provide something similar or better?
Let me know what you think about Phil Spencer’s statement and the new strategy for Xbox. I’ll happily admit that Phil Spencer and the Xbox team is smarter than me, so maybe they will be the forerunner in next-gen with their ambitious goals. I can’t wait to find out!
AbleGamers’ nifty new box lets you play Rocket League with a wheelchair
I tweeted about this when I first saw it on Twitter. This is the kind of stuff that makes me love the video game community. It’s incredible to see people use their skills to help others reach goals that were once thought to be impossible.
Shoutout to AbleGamers. They’re working incredibly hard to get this hardware to as many people as they can while making it as affordable as possible. Right now, this tech is limited, as the article points out, but I bet it’ll be more robust very soon.
Nintendo says delays to Switch production, shipping due to coronavirus ‘unavoidable’
The Coronavirus has made a huge impact on the gaming industry. Production on a lot of Nintendo products, including the Switch console and Joy-Cons, are slowing down because of the dangerous Coronavirus. In order to keep everyone healthy, production workers in China are staying home.
On top of this, the Outer Worlds Switch port has been delayed because of the Coronavirus. There’s been a lot of other businesses shutting down locations because of this disease, and big companies like Microsoft are donating to help fight it.
This disease will probably continue to throw off due dates, so brace yourselves. I hope that everyone is staying safe and that we’ll quickly find a solution to this disease.
Take-Two stock slumps following Dan Houser’s departure from Rockstar
Dan Houser, one of the lead writers on Rockstar’s blockbusters Red Dead Redemption 1 and 2 and all of the GTA games, has left the company. He and his brother, both lead creative, have often been compared to the likes of the Russo Brothers, so his departure has left some worried about the future of Rockstar.
It also shook up Rockstar’s investors. Rockstar’s parent company, Take-Two, had their stock drop about $8 after the Houser news broke. Imagine one of the Russo brothers left during development of the next Avengers movie. Wouldn’t you be worried?
Before this announcement, Houser had been on a year-long “break” from the company. There’s no confirmation on why he was on break or why he’s leaving, but it’s not hard to guess that it’s because of the hard crunch that Rockstar went through during RDR2’s development. That may not be the entire reason, but it’s definitely a factor.
We know that the next GTA game is in development in some way, so Houser leaving is sure to affect it. It’s crazy to think that GTA VI will be the first in the series that Dan Houser will not be apart of. Do you think that it will be noticeable? I can already see the headlines after GTA VI comes out: “Story lacks Dan Houser’s touch.”
The Wonderful 101: Remastered by PlatinumGames Inc. — Kickstarter
The Wonderful 101 is a title I never played because of never owning a Wii U. This seems to be the case for a lot of people, so Platinum Games has decided to Kickstart the remake of it. The support for it was incredible to watch. The game raised over $1 million in the first 24 hours and a ton of stretch goals have already been met. This is a big project for them, will they be able to meet the hype?
Platinum Games has an incredible track record: The Bayonetta series, Nier: Automata, and one of my favorite Switch games of 2019, Astral Chain. So we know that they know how to make awesome games, and we know that Wonderful 101 is an awesome game, but the trouble comes with publishing. I’m no publishing expert, but it makes me nervous that this will be Platinum’s first try at publishing. When you factor in how much money is riding on this, it’s hard to not feel the pressure.
But Platinum seems up to the challenge! They’re putting off total confidence about the project and have expressed interest in self-publishing other titles! This could mean a future where Platinum’s incredible games see the light of day on other platforms.
I wish all the luck to Platinum’s team. I’m excited to try out the critically-acclaimed Wonderful 101 in April! If you backed the Kickstarter, let me know!
Explaining Art’s Dream, the ‘Story Mode’ inside Dreams
Dreams is the spiritual successor to LittleBigPlanet’s creation system and basically Super Mario Maker on PS4. Similar to Super Mario Maker 2, Dreams will offer a single-player game mode that was built by the devs. This entire game was built within Dreams, so it’s acts as a something for players to do when they first get the game and as a testament to the power of Dreams.
The story of the game, called Art’s Dream, piqued my interest from the get-go. It sounds like a small Indie title that I really want to play, except this one offers so much more than just the game. I’ve never been a creator myself, but I’m tempted to pick up Dreams just to play this short story.
These articles and commentary was taken from the Load Save newsletter. If you want to see more of this in your inbox every Saturday afternoon, subscribe here!
