Month: January 2020

76% Of Japan Console Sales In 2019 Were For Nintendo Switch

The Nintendo Switch had a big 2019, having recently surpassed 41.67 million worldwide sales, including 2 million Switch Lites sold in the first 11 days on sale. Now, thanks to charts provided by Famitsu, we can see just how well the Switch did in Japan in 2019 compared to all other consoles.

These statistics come from French Twitter user Oscar Lemaire, and have been translated by Dualshockers.

They show that the Switch sold 4,493,903 units in Japan last year, up 29% from 2018, which accounts for 76% of console sales in the country for the year. The Switch’s total sales in Japan are now up to 11,383,449. Nintendo also sold 191,173 3DS units in the country during 2019, which means sales of Nintendo’s aging clamshell handheld were down 66%.

The PlayStation 4 managed the second highest sales with 1,196,153 units sold (down 29%), while the PlayStation Vita only sold 37.668 units (down 79%.) Right at the bottom is the Xbox One, which sold a terrible 8315 units in Japan last year, accounting for just 0.1% of total console sales in the region for 2019.

Later in the same Twitter thread, Lemaire says that this was Nintendo’s best year in the entire period Famitsu has tracked, from 1999 until 2019. With the PlayStation 4, 3DS, Vita, and Xbox One all being at the end (or past the end) of their lifecycles, it’s likely that the Nintendo Switch will dominate most of 2020 too–although it remains to be seen how the release of the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 will impact sales.

Now Playing: Nintendo Switch Lite – The Pros And Cons

The Simpsons Will Eventually Go Off The Air, And Fox Is Preparing For That

The Simpsons and Family Guy are two of Fox’s biggest and best-known animated shows, and while they have so far run for decades, they won’t be around forever. Fox, which is now owned by Disney, is preparing for a future where its flagship programs go off the air, which is part of the reason why the company ordered four new animated comedy shows recently.

Fox Entertainment president Michael Thorn told Deadline that none of Fox’s flagship shows are ending soon. The company ordering the new shows is meant to help solidify Fox’s animated lineup. The first of the new shows, Bless the Harts, premiered in September and already has a second season coming up. The other new shows include Duncanville, The Great North, and Housebroken; additionally, Fox recently acquired the animation studio Bento Box.

“It’s twofold–it’s part of our business and programming strategy but also preparing for that day (in which Fox says good-bye to The Simpsons, Family Guy and Bob’s Burgers) whenever it comes,” Thorn said regarding Fox’s decision to start four new animated shows. “We have to prepare for a day when we don’t have some of our flagship animated shows, but there is no immediate plan where next month these shows are going to be off the air. Our ramping up is not tied to the urgency that some may speculate that those shows may go away.”

The Simpsons and Family Guy each have at least one more season coming, with further renewal orders expected, while Thorn teased that Bob’s Burgers “is going to be on Fox for a long time.”

Thorn went on to say that animation is a “key part of our business,” going to say that the network is considering introducing even more animated content beyond what’s been announced. “When they work, they work extremely well financially as well,” Thorn said of Fox’s animated show lineup.

The Simpsons is a special case. Because it’s been on TV for 30 years, it’s very expensive as the show’s stars collect huge paydays. According to Deadline, Fox has been losing money on The Simpsons for “a while” already.

Fox is also reportedly working on a second Simpsons movie and a new Family Guy film. Bob’s Burgers is also receiving a film adaptation.

UK Daily Deals: Over 70% off Xbox Game Pass 3-Month Memberships

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CDKeys Winter Sale: Xbox Game Pass 3-Month Memberships (Save £17.20)

xbox-game-pass-ultimateThere are plenty of great savings on the CDKeys website at the moment, with video games and gaming subscriptions getting up to 90% off in the winter sale. One of the best deals is the discount on Xbox Game Pass, currently down to only £6.79. The 3-month membership is usually £23.99, so you’re saving over £17 with this offer. If you’re currently a Game Pass Ultimate member, this pass will simply stack for 2-months instead.

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AO Tennis 2 Review

2018’s AO Tennis may have been a limp first swing that pinged off the frame and dropped well short of the net, but its second attempt at landing in the service box has been delivered with substantially more power and precision. It’s a better-looking, smoother-playing, and more fully-featured simulation of the sport, one that eradicates the bulk – though not the entirety – of the unforced errors made by its undercooked predecessor. There hasn’t been a transformation this radical in the tennis world since Andre Agassi took off his wig.

Many of these improvements have admittedly come over time; regular post-release patching from developer Big Ant transformed the original AO Tennis from broken mess at launch to a more competent sim some 12 months later, tightening the responsiveness of the controls and adding additional community-focussed features such as a powerful stadium designer. AO Tennis 2 builds upon that restructured foundation, smoothing the on-court experience further with a raft of new player animations and improved ball physics, along with bringing a welcome splash of personality and context to its career mode, a la FIFA’s The Journey.

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Uncharted 2 & 4 Director Talks About “Solving” Ludonarrative Dissonance With The Last Of Us

Bruce Straley, the director of Uncharted 2, Uncharted 4, and The Last of Us, has worked on some of the most iconic action games of the last two console generations. There was a common criticism leveled against the Uncharted series, though–that Drake’s personality was at odds with how easily he was able to kill people. The term for this, where the story or characters of a game do not sync up well with the action, is ludonarrative dissonance.

In an interview with Gamesindustry.biz, Straley has opened up about his work on these games, why they faced this issue, and how they “solved” it with The Last of Us. In Uncharted games, he says, “the threat is a video game threat,” and the bad guys in these games need to be free to throw a lot of enemies at the player to keep the gameplay interesting. “You have to have interesting core mechanics to keep the player invested,” Straley says.

“That’s our problem as designers: in 2007, that’s where the industry was, that’s where we were. We didn’t necessarily have the wherewithal, the clarity so to speak, that we do now.”

As the article points out, Nathan Drake’s personality was much rarer at the time than it is now–most shooters featured silent protagonists, or kept characterization to a minimum, especially when work began on the first game in the series in 2004.

“If you think about game design in that same way you think about your character arc, the character should have an ebb and flow of a roller coaster [matching] the pace of the game,” Straley says. “As a game designer, you’re thinking about the character and storytelling and how the character is feeling.”

Straley says that this was less of an issue for The Last of Us because of the post-apocalyptic setting, which allowed them “to create a threat that applied stakes,” as it made sense that characters in this world would be used to fighting to survive. “They had their own compass of values that they were driven by, or directed by, which meant they were capable of killing you for a bottle of water and a pair of shoes, because that meant another day of survival in that world that we created.”

Straley says that although the games he created are shooters, he believes that it’s possible to capture these emotional beats in other genres, or even non-combat games, citing PlayDead’s Inside as an example. “Can you create a game that’s as interesting and character-driven and compelling as an Uncharted story or Last of Us story without shooting? I think you can. Again the concept has to be… ‘how can I create a rich enough world to allow for interesting core mechanics?'”

In a later Twitter thread, Straley talks more about how his games were designed, and points out that the term “ludonarrative dissonance” was much less common when he was working on Uncharted 2–in fact, he had not heard of it.

Straley left Naughty Dog in 2017, and thus has not been working on The Last of Us Part II. He has said that he left due to the stressful time he had on Uncharted 4. The Last of Us Part II will release for PS4 on May 29, 2020.

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Man Who Stole $48,000 Worth Of Harry Potter Merch is Going To Jail

A UK man is going to jail for stealing £36,935 ($48,000 USD) worth of Harry Potter merchandise and selling it on the popular auction site eBay. 35-year-old Adam Hill, who is a former Warner Bros. Studios employee, was charged with stealing all manner of items from the film company’s stock room, including wands, badges, and key rings. The thefts took place between December 2017 and March 2018, according to a news release from local authorities.

Hill is said to have sold the items through his personal eBay account, and on occasion he used the Warner Bros. franking machine to send the items from within the Warner Bros. mail room.

The report goes on to highlight how brazen Hill was in his thefts. The release says Hill got caught when his colleagues took notice of Harry Potter merch appearing and then vanishing from under Hill’s desk.

In total, Hill is said to have sold 1,040 Harry potter items on eBay. Authorities searched his car and found 12 further items that Hill reportedly planned to sell. A search of Hill’s home in St Neots led to the discovery of even more items that Hill reportedly planned to unload.

“In a significant breach of trust, Adam Hill had the audacity to steal thousands of pounds of merchandise from Warner Bros in plain sight of his work colleagues; but they reported him after growing suspicious of the items constantly piling up under his desk,” Crown Prosecution Service’s Jan Muller said in a statement.

Hill was sentenced to 14 months in prison suspended for 18 months and 250 hours unpaid work.

Patrick Stewart Says Star Trek: Picard Won’t Be As ‘Safe’ As Next Generation

Though it’s adding to the story that spanned seven seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation and continued through four movies, don’t expect Star Trek: Picard to be more of the same adventures in space exploration. According to Patrick Stewart, who plays the titular role in the upcoming CBS All Access show, the world of Star Trek: Picard is not the one fans remember from the series that started in 1987.

In an interview with Variety, Stewart laid out some of the fundamental differences between Star Trek: Picard and its predecessor show. The relatively safe, advanced world of TNG has changed fundamentally over the years between its conclusion and Picard, which picks up years later, he said.

“I think what we’re trying to say is important,” he said. “The world of ‘Next Generation’ doesn’t exist anymore. It’s different. Nothing is really safe. Nothing is really secure.”

“In a way, the world of ‘Next Generation’ had been too perfect and too protected,” Stewart said. “It was the Enterprise. It was a safe world of respect and communication and care and, sometimes, fun.”

Star Trek: Picard is taking a different tack as it revisits the world of the 24th century. It finds the legendary Captain Jean-Luc Picard retired from Starfleet and living out his life on his family’s vineyard in France. It seems there’s some trauma in Picard’s past: 15 years before the start of the series, he took part in a major rescue mission, and it doesn’t seem as though things went all that well. The story of what led to that mission is getting covered in CBS All Access’s Short Treks series, in an episode called “Children of Mars.”

Star Trek: Picard also looks to revisit, and perhaps recontextualize, some of the story points that popped up during TNG. The Borg played a big role on the series and seem to be pretty important in Star Trek: Picard, as well–Captain Picard was famously assimilated by the powerful cyborg race, and we’ll see the return of Hugh (Jonathan Del Arco), a Borg drone the Enterprise saved during TNG, return on Picard. Also slated to show up is Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan), a former Borg drone who regained her humanity on another series, Star Trek: Voyager.

“I explained to them all those elements of ‘Next Generation,’ which belong in ‘Next Generation,’ and why I didn’t want to go near them again,” Stewart said during the interview. “But they talked about it in such an interesting way. And they talked for a long time.”

So while there will be a lot of familiar faces in Star Trek: Picard–TNG characters Will Riker (Jonathan Frakes), Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis), and Data (Brent Spiner) are confirmed to show up on the series–the show won’t be much like the original, it seems. Given how different the real world has become since the end of TNG in 1994, it makes sense.

Disclosure: CBS is GameSpot’s parent company.

Now Playing: 11 Star Trek: Picard Theories – The Borg, Data, and Everything We Know So Far

8 Must-See Anime To Watch For Winter 2020

The winter anime season begins in January and continues through March. This year sees a strong showing of anime–it’s very reminiscent of the Winter 2018 season. Despite the overwhelming number of choices, we dove into the list of upcoming series and movies to determine the ones that seem to be a must-watch.

In the video above, Jordan Ramée details the eight anime from the Winter 2020 season that we’re most looking forward to watching and think you should add to your own queues. Crunchyroll comes out as the heavy hitter this season, streaming five of the eight anime discussed in the video. That said, Amazon Prime Video is continuing its trend of silently dropping incredible-looking anime on its service, and several series and movies that debuted in Japan last year are finally making their way to the US this season.

Though Haikyu: To The Top–the long-awaited fourth season to perhaps the most popular sports anime of all time–is likely to be the crowd favorite this winter, don’t sleep on Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken. It’s difficult to pin down exactly what about this anime makes it seem like this series is going to be a dark horse, but the anime has already managed to create buzz within both the community and industry–and we really like it too.

Perhaps, just like 2018, this year will see the debut of its top contender for Anime of the Year within the very first month. Of course, it’s still way too soon to tell. Regardless, if you watch any anime this season, you might want to make sure it’s Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken. And if you have time for more, well we’ve got seven other recommendations for you. If you want even more recommendations, check out GameSpot’s anime guide videos from 2019.