Author: Trafficblast

One of the key differentiators between Microsoft and Sony for their next-generation strategies is that Microsoft is not releasing exclusives for its Series X console out of the gate, while Sony plans to do that with PlayStation 5. Microsoft’s strategy and messaging is that Xbox is not tied to one device, but rather a wider ecosystem.

The games you buy should be yours to play no matter what console you play on within the Xbox family, or even beyond to mobile devices with the rise of xCloud. Xbox boss Phil Spencer has now reiterated Microsoft’s stance on this front, confirming that Microsoft will not release any first-party games exclusively on the Series X for the “next couple of years.”

“You won’t be forced into the next generation. We want every Xbox player to play all the new games from Xbox Game Studios,” Spencer said in a blog post. “That’s why Xbox Game Studios titles we release in the next couple of years–like Halo Infinite–will be available and play great on Xbox Series X and Xbox One. We won’t force you to upgrade to Xbox Series X at launch to play Xbox exclusives.”

Spencer’s comments line up with what Xbox Game Studios boss Matt Booty said earlier in 2020. “As our content comes out over the next year, two years, all of our games, sort of like PC, will play up and down that family of devices,” Booty said. “We want to make sure that if someone invests in Xbox between now and [Series X] that they feel that they made a good investment and that we’re committed to them with content.”

Microsoft’s approach is more akin to a phone upgrade. Games still release across devices, but you’ll get a better performance with the newer hardware. As Booty alluded to, this has been standard on PC for decades.

While Microsoft does not plan to launch Series X exclusives anytime soon, other developers are. Two titles shown during the Microsoft event in May, Scorn and The Medium, will bypass last-generation consoles and release exclusively on new machines and PC.

Spencer said in an earlier interview that he’s so passionate about his strategy because he wants to make Microsoft’s games available to people no matter what device they have. Forcing people to buy new hardware is against what the spirit of gaming is all about, Spencer said.

“As a player you are the centre of our strategy,” Spencer said. “Our device is not the centre of our strategy, our game is not the centre of the strategy. We want to enable you to play the games you want to play, with the friends you want to play with, on any device. On TV, the Xbox console is going to be the best way to play console games.”

He added: “I find it completely counter to what gaming is about to say that part of that is to lock people away from being able to experience those games. Or to force someone to buy my specific device on the day that I want them to go buy it, in order to partake in what gaming is about.”

NPD analyst Mat Piscatella has been predicting for a long time that gaming in the 2020s will be more focused on ecosystems instead of platforms specifically. “By the end of the decade, I doubt any company will tie content exclusively to one device,” he said. “Particular hardware will be a nice to have, not a need to have.”

Sony is also getting on board with bringing its exclusives beyond the PlayStation family of consoles. The PS4 game Horizon: Zero Dawn is coming to PC in August.

The Danganronpa games, which are intense and well-liked visual novel titles that all debuted on PlayStation systems, will soon be removed from the PlayStation Store. Publisher NIS America has announced that the entire series will be removed from the PlayStation Vita store, and one game is leaving PS4, too.

The games will be leaving gradually, and it’s unclear if or when they will come back. Spike Chunsoft is now the series’ publisher, and they could theoretically re-release the games after they are removed–but whether it is worth doing is unclear. We’ve reached out to Spike Chunsoft for clarification, and will update if we receive any.

The games are about groups of super-talented school students who are trapped in an elaborate “killing game”–whereby the only way to escape is to kill another student and then not be accused during a class trial. They’re extremely intricately plotted, wild games.

Here are the games being removed, and the dates they’ll no longer be available to purchase from.

• Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls (PS Vita): August 31
• Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc (PS Vita): September 4
• Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair (PS Vita): September 4
• Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony (PS Vita): September 25
• Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony (PS4): September 25

The PS4 versions of the first two games and Ultra Despair Girls, which were published by Spike Chunsoft, will remain available.

The trilogy, minus the more action-oriented Ultra Despair Girls, is also coming to mobile. The first game is available now.

GameSpot’s Danganronpa series reviews

GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers.

Jurassic World Dominion is about to start filming again in England, and movie studio Universal is taking extended measures to keep people safe and healthy amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Actor Jeff Goldblum, who reprises his Dr. Ian Malcolm role in the movie, has now shared an update on getting back to shooting.

He told Entertainment Tonight that the movie set will have “protocols galore.”

“They gave us 109 pages,” Goldblum said of the protocols for Dominion. “They invested all their heart and soul, and a lot of money, into making sure that we’re safe. I won’t bore you with the details, but we’re all going to be quarantined in a kind of a bubble, all the crew and all the cast. And testing and everything.”

Goldblum acknowledged that it’s a “risky time” to be filming a movie on the scale of Dominion, but he noted, “We feel it’s good.”

Universal is said to have spent $5 million on new health and safety measures for Dominion, and director Colin Trevorrow previously spoke about how he feels “confident our guidelines will keep us safe.” The challenge, he said, will be to find ways to allow the actors and other key creatives to express themselves in this new environment.

“The hard part will be constructing a creative environment within all the precautions. Once the cameras roll, we have to forget our world and live in the world of the movie. That may take some practice,” he said.

“We’re all fired up to get back to work. This is what we do, and we’re all eager to get back out there and do it,” Trevorrow added.

Before this, star Bryce Dallas Howard spoke about how she feels confident going back to work given the extra precautions that are in place. “They are going above and beyond. We would never go back to work if we didn’t feel safe. And, you know, we’re taking it a day at a time and I’m very grateful to have a job,” she said.

Dominion also brings back Chris Pratt in his starring role. In addition to Goldblum, the other stars of the earlier Jurassic Park movies–Sam Neill and Laura Dern–are returning in major roles as opposed to cameos. In addition, the character Dodgson is returning, but with a new actor.

Another major movie that is shooting again is Sony’s Uncharted film starring Spider-Man actor Tom Holland as Nathan Drake.

Dwayne Johnson’s highly anticipated (and sort of mysterious) Black Adam film with DC Entertainment has added a new cast member in To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before’s Noah Centineo, Entertainment Weekly reports. Centineo will be joining the cast as Atom Smasher, a relatively obscure DC superhero with some comic book history shared with Black Adam himself.

Details about the film are still sparse, but it will be part of DC’s FanDome virtual event, which happens on August 22. So we can expect more information about the plot and its connections to other DC movies–like 2019’s Shazam, which only vaguely referenced Black Adam as an Easter Egg–to be revealed then.

For now, though, the comics offer us some clues about what we might see. Centineo’s character is Albert Rothstein, who was the godson of the original, Golden Age Atom, Al Pratt–not to be confused with the Atom you’re probably much more familiar with thanks to DC’s Legends Of Tomorrow, Ray Palmer. Don’t worry too much about the finer points there–both the Atom and Atom Smasher share very similar abilities, including size manipulation, and both have connections to the Justice Society of America.

Rothstein’s relationship with Black Adam was explored thoroughly during the early-’00s JSA title by Geoff Johns which featured several story arcs about Black Adam’s “reformation” as a superhero rather than a villain (or anti-hero, depending on your own moral compass). A dyed-in-the-wool idealist, Albert was at first entirely resistant to any sort of redemption for Adam, but was eventually swayed as Adam began to pressure Albert to question the JSA’s strict sense of morality. Ultimately, his friendship with Adam forced Albert to some darker, less heroic places–by which we mean war crimes. You know how those pesky things tend to happen when you’re trying to wrangle international diplomacy with superheroes and villains.

It’s unclear whether or not Albert’s story will take a similar turn for the movie, but it seems like a safe bet to start dusting off those old JSA issues in preparation for any future reveals.

Black Adam is slated for release on December 21, 2021.

GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers.