The popularity of the Nintendo Switch continues to reach new heights, so it was inevitable that a fully-fledged Pokemon game would make its way onto the portable device.
Well now the wait is almost over, and Pokemon Sword and Pokemon Shield are slated for release on November 15, 2019. This new game is set in a region called Galar, and will actually bear some resemblance to UK cities and towns. More details were released during Nintendo Direct recently, including information on new features such as camping, cooking, and character customisation.
Video game retailer GameStop has seen better days. In August, the company announced a huge round of layoffs that impacted more than 100 employees, including some members of the Game Informer staff. The company’s stock price is at a near all-time low, trading around $5 per share compared to more than $46 per share back in 2015. GameStop has a plan to turn thing around, and now the retailer has shared more details.
During an earnings call on September 10, GameStop shared more details on what it called the “GameStop Reboot” initiative. The overall aim of this is to “improve the financial performance of the business and implement a series of initiatives that will support the long-term success of the business and value creation for stakeholders.”
“We are committed to acting with a sense of urgency to address the areas of the business that are critical to achieving long-term success and value creation for all our stakeholders,” GameStop CEO George Sherman said in a statement. “We will set GameStop on the correct strategic path and fully leverage our unique position and brand in the video game industry. Our strategic plan is anchored on four tenets which include, optimizing the core business by driving efficiency and effectiveness, creating the social and cultural hub of gaming within each GameStop, building compelling digital capabilities, and transforming our vendor and partner relationships for an evolving video game industry.
“This is a compelling new strategic vision for the company, and we’ve already started to execute against all four pillars. We also remain committed to returning capital to shareholders and balancing that opportunity against the need to maintain a strong balance sheet to properly run our business and invest in responsible growth.”
The four main pillars of GameStop’s Reboot initiative include the following (descriptions written by GameStop):
Optimize the Core: Optimize the core business by improving efficiency and effectiveness across the organization, including cost restructuring, inventory management optimization, adding and growing high margin product categories, and rationalizing the global store base.
Become the Social / Cultural Hub for Gaming: Create the social and cultural hub of gaming across the GameStop platform by testing and improving existing core assets including the store experience, knowledgeable associates and the PowerUp Rewards loyalty program.
Build Digital Platform: Build compelling digital capabilities, including the recent relaunch of GameStop.com, to reach customers more broadly across the omni-channel platform and give them the full spectrum of content and access to products they desire.
Transform Vendor Partnerships: Transform our vendor and partner relationships to unlock additional high-margin revenue streams and optimize the lifetime value of every customer.
Sherman spoke at length about each of the pillars during the earnings call; you can listen to the webcast here to hear everything that Sherman had to say.
GameStop is already moving on its plan to right the ship. Just recently, the company re-launched its website (now with ThinkGeek incorporated), featuring a more streamlined shopping experience that aims to allow customers to find what they want and buy it more smoothly. Additionally, GameStop is testing new pilot stores in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Some of the store concepts are focused on competitive gaming and “home-grown e-leagues.” While other concept stores will exclusively sell retro games and hardware.
Another part of GameStop’s plan to turn things around is to scale down. The retailer confirmed on the earnings call that it plans to close 180-200 “underperforming” stores by the end of the company’s current fiscal year (ending February 2020). The store has 5,700 stores worldwide, so the impending closures–if they reach 200 stores–amount to around 3.5 percent of its total store base. The company added that it expects a “much larger tranche of closures” to follow in the coming 12 to 24 months, though a specific number wasn’t provided.
Management added that it is “rapidly developing a point of view” on how many more stores it will close in the future. The company is taking a “very specific approach” to looking into specific store closures, the company said. Specifically, the company might look to “de-densify” its store base, which means stores with overlapping trade areas might close. GameStop also pointed out that its average store land lease is two years, so the company isn’t generally financially committed to any particular area for an extended period of time.
Don’t expect GameStop to turn things around overnight, however. Sherman said on the call, “This transition will take time.”
As for GameStop’s latest earnings, for the quarter ended August 3, the company saw its total global sales fall 14.3 percent to $1.3 billion. GameStop posted a net loss of $415.3 million for the quarter, which is far worse than the $24.9 million that the company lost during the same period last year.
Every category except Collectibles saw sales decrease year-over-year.
New hardware sales fell a massive 41.1 percent, a downturn that GameStop attributed to the announcement of next-generation consoles coming in 2020. New game sales fell 5.3 percent overall; Nintendo Switch game sales grew, but it wasn’t enough to offset the “weaker title launches” across all systems relative to the same period last year. Accessory sales, meanwhile, fell 9.5 percent, while pre-owned sales fell 17.5 percent. Digital sales fell 11.2 percent “due to weaker title launches.” Collectible sales, however, jumped by 21.2 percent, proving to be the only big bright spot for the retailer.
“While we experienced sales declines across a number of our categories during the quarter, these trends are consistent with what we have historically observed towards the end of a hardware cycle,” GameStop CFO Jim Bell said. “We will continue to manage the underlying businesses to produce meaningful cash returns, while maintaining a strong balance sheet and investing responsibly in our strategic initiatives.”
Looking ahead, Bell said GameStop expects total sales to continue to be down in multiple consecutive quarters to come, as the industry awaits the launch of next-generation consoles in Holiday 2020. He pointed out that both Xbox Scarlett and the PS5 were announced, at least partially, earlier than in the past. This hurt GameStop, he said, because consumers may hold out on buying systems if they know a new one is coming later, while game releases might slow, too, as developers wait to release titles on the new systems.
To promote the upcoming release of a new, pet-themed update for Sea of Thieves, developer Rare brought a real squirrel monkey onto a livestream. That monkey, whose name is Antonio, threw up and pooped on community video manager Jon McFarlane. Many wondered if the monkey had some kind of sickness, but thankfully, no, Antonio the squirrel monkey is doing just fine.
Rare sent a message on Twitter to let people know. “What’s the saying? Never work with children or animals?… We’d do it again. #Antonio. We’d also like to assure you all that Antonio is fine!,” the studio said.
The developers clarified that Antonio is not sick. Rather, he got food stuck in his throat and needed to barf it up. He disappears from the stream for a bit after the vomit situation and returns with an appetite and appearing to be in good spirits. The throw up and poop part of the Sea of Thieves livestream begins at around 27:48 in the video embedded below, in case you’re interested in watching that. Alternatively, you can watch the sequence play out in the animated gifs below.
“On Monday’s livestream where we provided details on our upcoming Pirate Emporium, we welcomed a squirrel monkey named Antonio to join in the fun,” Neate said. “We can confirm Antonio is doing well and we’d welcome the chance to have him at the studio again anytime.”
Pets come to Sea of Thieves through an update for Xbox One and PC on September 11. Two types of pets are available at launch, including monkeys and parrots. The pets respond to things that happen in the game; for example, your monkey might run for cover during a battle.
Additionally, the new Sea of Thieves update introduces a new premium currency called Ancient Coins, which are a form of microtransactions. These can be spent in the Pirate Emporium to pick up new emotes and various cosmetics, as well as the aforementioned pets.
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Entertainment giant Disney is reportedly taking another big step away from in-house game development. According to sources speaking to financial publication Bloomberg, Disney is planning to sell the game developer/publisher FoxNext, which it picked up through the acquisition of Fox earlier this year.
The site reports that different Disney executives, including direct-to-consumer boss Kevin Mayer, considered keeping FoxNext. However, Disney CEO Bob Iger reportedly shut that down, and it was ultimately decided to sell FoxNext. Officially, Disney had no comment.
FoxNext was founded in 2017 with the aim of handling Fox’s video game, virtual reality, augmented reality, and theme park endeavors. In 2018, FoxNext announced it was working on a new Alien shooter with a team made up of people who worked on BioShock, Borderlands, and Star Trek: Online.
If Disney does decide to sell FoxNext, that would be little surprise given that the House of Mouse has been moving away from internal game development for a long time already. In 2016, Disney shut down the Disney Infinity toys-to-life series and closed developer Avalanche Software in the process.
“Over the years we’ve tried our hand in self-publishing, we’ve bought companies, we’ve sold companies, we’ve bought developers, we’ve closed developers. And we’ve found over the years that we haven’t been particularly good at the self-publishing side, but we’ve been great at the licensing side which obviously doesn’t require that much allocation of capital,” Iger said.
One of Disney’s video game licensees is EA, which signed a 10-year deal with the company to make Star Wars games. Iger said these licensing arrangements have been a positive for EA on the video game side, and you can expect them to continue in the future.
There is no word as of yet regarding potential buyers for FoxNext, if Disney is indeed selling the company. Keep checking back with GameSpot for the latest.
Monster Hunter World’s first paid expansion, Iceborne, is now available on PS4 and Xbox One. Our review has now been finalized after a brief stint as a review in progress. For more, check out our Iceborne tips guide.
Monster Hunter World: Iceborne is more of the same, glorious slog for everyone who’s ever been taken down by a fire-breathing facsimile of a Tyrannosaurus Rex and thought, “I can’t wait to do that 50 times over.” The franchise has always rewarded those willing to put in the hard yards, and Iceborne is no exception. It adds more of what set the base game aside from its predecessors without feeling overcrowded, even if its narrative could have used a little more work.
Monster Hunter World was an exercise in refinement upon its release in early 2018. Not only did it manage to simplify a franchise-wide burgeoning quest system, but it also had a very successful stab at creating an open-world ecosystem absolutely teeming with things to do and colossal monsters who want to hunt you. Best of all, these changes never overwhelmed–the new mission and upgrade systems that were introduced were relatively straightforward to grasp, all whilst leaving room for experienced hunters to master them.
Screenshot provided by Capcom
Since the game’s launch, the game has seen a steady drip-feed of DLC content in the form of in-game events. Many of these follow the formula of transplanting something fearsome into an already familiar environment–the Witcher 3 crossover saw a Leshenn loom large in the Ancient Forest, and the Final Fantasy XIV collaboration had you running for cover when Behemoth reared its head. The design philosophy behind Monster Hunter World: Iceborne takes a similar approach in implementing that sort of content, though on a larger scale; it uses touchstones in the form of storied foes and familiar locations to build upon the robust ecosystem of the base game to deliver an experience that will test your mettle without breaking you.
Iceborne is all about building on existing foundations. This is most evident in the narrative that has been spun out in the wake of the base game’s single-player campaign. Monster Hunter World was notable for introducing a clear-cut, story-based incentive to throw yourself against the biggest and baddest beasts out there. Iceborne takes a slightly crooked step forward by spinning a story that revolves not around you, but around your Handler.
Shortly after the successes of dealing with the base game’s Elder Dragon predicament, a mass migration event shakes the recovering ecosystem of Astera and prompts you to investigate. What comes next is a tale of family legacies, mysterious scales, and your Handler embarking on her own personal quest. To shift the focus of a story from the protagonist to what is essentially a side character is a bold one–for all the aid and assistance that the Handler gives in Monster Hunter World, she’s still fundamentally a living, breathing quest board. Monster Hunter World players will no doubt have become attached to her over the course of their travels, but is that attachment is deep enough to shoulder a full expansion’s narrative conceit? Not quite.
Screenshot provided by Capcom
As soon as you’re introduced to the latest curveball about Iceborne’s new signature location, Hoarfrost Reach, and how that intersects rather conveniently with your Handler’s past, you’re immediately whisked back to lands and territories from the base game to cull a couple of monsters that have gotten too big for their boots. It’s not exactly narrative whiplash, but it’s certainly not as compelling as it would have been had we been the ones to follow the Handler from the first step of her journey to the new lands of Iceborne.
That said, revisiting those familiar locations early on to take down new and improved versions of killer dinosaurs that you’ve faced before is one of the most compelling parts of Monster Hunter World: Iceborne. As with the DLC strategy, the building blocks of the expansion are steeped in elements that existing players are already acquainted with. You’ll cut your teeth on monsters like the Nightshade Paolumu–a variant on the oversized flying squirrel encountered early on in the base game, though this time with the lethal ability to put unsuspecting hunters to sleep. The expansion arguably doesn’t open up until you’ve also vanquished the Viper Tobi-Kadachi–a souped-up version of its cousin from the Ancient Forest, albeit with poisonous projectiles and a bite that’s much more dangerous than its hiss.
The changes that Iceborne makes in the form of these variant breeds has a twofold effect: First, they provide you with a motivation to form new strategies to slice and dice their way to the next story beat. Secondly, they’re just distinct enough in terms of attack patterns and additional elemental considerations that you never really feel like you’re just fighting a reskin of something that you made mincemeat out of 80 hours ago. It’s as if there’s been a concerted effort to balance the difficulty of what many fans might rightfully view as the second coming of the coveted “G-Rank” in this latest iteration of Monster Hunter.
Screenshot provided by Capcom
Despite some focus on iterating established systems, there are innovations introduced in Iceborne that truly set it apart from its predecessor. Brand-new monsters and the implementation of legacy series favourites like Nargacuga look and feel impressive thanks to all the new ways monsters can interact with other beasts and the various locations. But more importantly, there is a library’s worth of new weapon moves for you to take advantage of.
Charge Axe users can now cancel into a particularly fun multi-directional attack when caught unawares, and Gunlance users no longer have to worry about running out of ammo in an emergency before getting to use their new signature move that is, quite literally, explosive. Hunting Horn users have also had their ability to do damage buffed, with the addition of a new move that lets you stick your horn in the ground and spin it like some kind of demented Beyblade to catch whatever’s charging towards you off guard. That’s just a few new examples, but overall these additions seem to be informed by the dual precepts of style and lethality.
However, the biggest quality-of-life addition has been something called the Clutch Claw–every hunter can use this alongside their primary weapon to grapple onto their foe and, depending on what other sharp object is equipped, do anything from steering a rampaging wyvern into a rock face to weakening a specific part of its body that needs to be lopped off.
Screenshot provided by Capcom
Using the Clutch Claw is by no means compulsory, so it fits in that nice niche where it can make your hunts a little bit easier or a little bit more exhilarating in equal turns. But you’re not forced to use it to feel like you’re getting your money’s worth if, say, you’re a veteran player trying to do your own version of Nuzlocke rules but with items. However, having the option and ability to scale up the side of a monster after landing a savvy shot with the Clutch Claw feels ridiculously satisfying, and so does driving a beast to its doom in the many treacherous terrain pitfalls that dot the newest, snow-covered region of Hoarfrost Reach.
That new, frosty landscape is beautiful and treacherous in equal measure. With new foes, more verticality than the Coral Highlands, and frozen terrain that can crack and send you plunging to your death, it really is a sight to behold. More than ever, it feels like the environment can be turned against you; some monsters will uproot trees and throw them at you, while the wrong move on cracked ice can mean certain death.
By that measure, however, there are also more opportunities to get the jump on your enemies, especially with the Clutch Claw giving you the ability to walk them into vine traps, blinding light, and more. Having a grasp of every bit of the map is integral to truly mastering what Iceborne has to throw at you, and it’s incredibly satisfying when everything suddenly clicks and you go from the hunted to the hunter leading their prey to a painful trap that attempts to even the scales.
Screenshot provided by Capcom
Being dropped into this intricately-designed location as a relatively new player may be overwhelming, but no matter your experience level, joining up with other hunters and picking your way through this icy dens of beasts together is incredibly rewarding in its own way. Iceborne benefits from the matchmaking improvements introduced since the release of the base game, which have made it relatively seamless on console to find fellow hunters–no more messing about with PlayStation parties and friends lists–and dropping into a party to help friends tackle these fearsome monsters is easy.
Monster Hunter World: Iceborne is at its best when you’re fighting tooth and nail against something that you know could crush you within its teeth in a second, even though this might feel like it came at the expense of a more interesting narrative. Nothing is quite as good as the biting chill cutting through the furs of your armor, the shrill cry of your Palico as it comes to your aid, and the wind roaring in your ears as you latch onto a beast’s flank and climb up its side while it bucks and roars.
This expansion is rife with moments like that; all of the tweaking and the improvements feel like they were done with the excellent building blocks of Monster Hunter World in mind, which means that getting to the meat of the matter is quicker and more satisfying than ever. There’s no more fussing about with new systems or worrying about ruffling the feathers of hardcore fans with a direction change in the series; those teething problems have already come and gone. Iceborne is a confident step into the future of the franchise, and it’s hard not to think about what might come next.
The products discussed here were independently chosen by our editors. GameSpot may get a share of the revenue if you buy anything featured on our site.
The Xbox One‘s latest set of game deals is a good one, with the likes of Red Dead Redemption 2 and Resident Evil 2 headlining the lot. In fact, many games from the Resident Evil series are discounted, and if you’re a Gold subscriber there are even more deals for you to choose from.
Red Dead Redemption 2 is currently $36 USD / $48 CAD / £36 for Xbox Live Gold subscribers. Unfortunately, there is no discount for non-subscribers. Battlefield 5, on the other hand, is discounted to $19.80 USD / $26.40 CAD / £19.80 for everyone. The Resident Evil series’ deals are also available to all. Resident Evil 2 leads with the discounted price of $36 USD / $48 CAD / £36.
Xbox is also holding a Double Discounts with Gold and Ultimate sale. All of the games included in this sale are discounted for regular Xbox users, but if you’re subscribed to Gold or Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, you’ll be able to save up to 50% more until September 16. This includes games like Cuphead, Rocket League, and Overcooked. You can see all of our favourite deals in the list below. All of the prices shown include the extra discount for Gold members.
