News Mash-Up - Week # 36

Top News Items

• • Judge Gonzalez-Rogers has ruled in the Epic v Apple trial. The judge has ruled that Apple is not in violation of anti-trust laws nor did it demonstrate it as being a monopoly. “Apple enjoys considerable market share of over 55% and extraordinary high profit margins … these factors alone do not show antitrust conduct. Success is not illegal." The judge ruled that Apple cannot prevent app developers from creating links to external sites for payment purposes. Third party payments services within an app (which is what Epic wanted) were not granted in the U.S., something the South Korean government has granted just last week. Apple has the legal right to continue to ban any app from the iOS Store since it owns the App Store, as it has done for all Unreal games.

  • In a statement to Bloomberg, Shawn Layden, the former CEO of PlayStation has predicted that the budgets for some PS5 games will reach $200 million or higher. Layden’s expression of concern is that publishers will be risk-averse and will only be interested in making sequels to existing franchises. Layden comments come at the same week Sony held its latest Showcases (see below) which showed off 5 new IPs.

  • Sony released a 42-minute showcase video that featured many games slated for release in the next calendar year. Five games were new IPs including an interesting hack-and-slash Project EVE, Tiny Tina's Wonderlands, Forspoken, Tchia and Ghostwire: Tokyo. Two major sequels got billing, God of War: Ragnarok and Marvel's Spider-Man 2. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic Remake was announced for PS5 as a console launch exclusive, expected on Xbox sometime later. Uncharted 4: A Thief's End and Lost Legacy are both getting remastered editions for PS5 and PC.

  • Focus Home Interactive has launched the “Focus Entertainment” brand that will cover all Focus' activities. Recently Focus Home Interactive acquired studios Deck13 Interactive, StreumOn Studio, and Dotemu to broaden its game output.

  • Sony has acquired the game studio Firesprite for the PlayStation. The UK company recently produced PS5 built-in launch title, The Playroom and the sci-fi horror, The Persistence VR. Firesprite marks the fourteenth developer to officially onboard as a PlayStation Studio.

  • FIFA 22, expected 1st October 2021, has secured 14 exclusively licensed Italian Serie A teams. EA has confirmed the new teams will be incorporated into FUT and into FIFA Ultimate Team's “Team of the Week”.

  • Microsoft will roll out a patch for the Xbox One controller, enabling Bluetooth pairing with PCs and Android devices. The update will also add DLI (Dynamic Latency Input), which aims to reduce console input latency on older controllers when used with Xbox Series X and S.

  • GameStop in the US released their financials for Q2’21 calendar. The company reported revenue of $1.2 billion, an increase of +26% compared to last year, mostly due to hardware spending. The company still made a loss of $62 million, a situation that is better than the $111 million loss in Q2’20.

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New games

Week commencing Monday 13 Sept. 2021