Kerbal Space Program 2, the physics-based space explorer sequel, has been delayed out of 2021. In a post to the game’s official forums, creative director Nate Simpson shared the news that the game, initially delayed because of the COVID-19 pandemic, is now further away.
“Kerbal Space Program 2 will release in 2022 instead of fall 2021,” Simpson wrote. “We knew we were taking on an immense technical and creative challenge when we started this project. We’ve heard time and again from this community that quality is paramount, and we feel the same way.” With this in mind, the team has delayed the game to ensure its quality.
“We’re creating a reliable foundation on which players and modders alike can build for another decade or more,” Simpson says. “That involves solving problems that have never been solved before, and that takes time.”
He went on to tease that the game is making “huge leaps,” and that it’s been hard to keep everything they’re working on a secret. “We can’t express how much we’re looking forward to soaking up all your reactions,” he said.
The team is promising new screens, dev diaries, and other videos in the future to keep players informed on the upcoming game.
It’s been a turbulent year for the development team behind Kerbal Space Program 2. Bloomberg uncovered an incident where the game’s publisher, Take-Two, poached the team working on the game for a new team, causing the original studio behind the game to be shuttered. It’s an incredibly strange story.
GameSpot got to check out the sequel at Gamescom 2019–you can read the preview here.
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Take-Two, the company that owns Rockstar Games and 2K Games, released its latest earnings report this week, and in particular, Red Dead Redemption II and Grand Theft Auto V are doing very well.
Red Dead Redemption 2 net bookings–that is, how much money Take-Two made from the game–jumped by 124 percent during the July-September quarter. This include 106 percent growth in full-game sales, Take-Two said. It would appear that, like many other games, Red Dead Redemption II enjoyed a surge in sales as people continued to stay home during COVID-19 lockdowns.
In conjunction with the spike in sales, Take-Two reported that new player growth rose by 47 percent during the period. Additionally, microtransaction sales–which are called “recurrent consumer spending” at Take-Two–rose year-over-year for Red Dead Online by 96 percent, exceeding expectations.
In total, Red Dead Redemption II has sold 34 million copies to date. And more content is coming to Red Dead Online down the track, Take-Two said.
Moving to GTA V and GTA Online, microtransaction spending in GTA Online was ahead of Take-Two’s forecast for the period (which it never disclosed in the first place). This fiscal second quarter was also GTA Online’s best-ever second quarter in its lifetime based on active players and new players.
Despite its age, Take-Two is not expecting GTA Online to slow down soon. In fact, Take-Two said it expects the game to reach a new all-time high for microtransaction spending during the current fiscal year. This will presumably be helped in part by the biggest update yet for GTA Online, which is coming soon. It hasn’t been officially announced, but management said it will include a new area and a new take on the fan-favorite heists experience.
Sony’s PlayStation 5 is days away from launch, but if you haven’t preordered, you’re likely out of luck–even in Japan, the system’s home country. Sony has announced that you won’t be able to buy the system from store shelves on day one.
Video Games Chronicle is reporting that the PS5 launch allotment in Japan is already sold out, warning potential customers that “due to the high interest and many orders from users, the launch is sold out by the reserved amount.”
Sony also said that it will not hold in-store events for the PS5 due to COVID-19, so as to “ensure the safety of customers, retailers, and staff.” The company has asked customers to check with the store they have preordered from to see how their console will be received.
This is not surprising, as the PS5 has been very difficult to buy in many territories, with the system selling through release allocations. Sony has called its shot early, saying that the PS5–like the PS2 and PS4 before it–will sell over 100 million units.
If you haven’t gotten your hands on a PS5 preorder in the US, keep an eye on GameSpot’s preorder guide–and watch in the coming weeks as our launch coverage rolls out.
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Microsoft’s next-generation consoles, the Xbox Series X and S, are finally almost here. We’ve got our hands on both systems, and in a new video, we’re showing off some footage of games you might know running on the digital-only Xbox Series S.
The system is relatively less powerful than the Series X, but it is no slouch. As you can see in the video, games like Doom Eternal, Final Fantasy XV, Forza Horizon 4, Gears 5, The Outer Worlds, and Yakuza: Like A Dragon look very solid running on the miniature console. In particular, the horsepower of the new consoles helps keep the frame rate smooth and steady.
Be sure to watch the full video to catch all the gameplay. GameSpot will have lots more on the Xbox Series S and X consoles in the days ahead, so keep checking back for more!
Animal Crossing: New Horizons is up to 26.04 million sales, up from 22.4 million units last quarter. At that time, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe was on 26.7 million sales, and you might expect the gap to have narrowed significantly–but the kart racer also sold incredibly this quarter, jumping to 28.99 million units. The 2017 Switch port of a 2014 Wii U title (which was also that system’s highest seller, at 8.45 million units) continues to be a huge success.
While Mario Kart Wii is still technically the best-selling Mario Kart game, having sold 37.38 million units, if you combine the sales of Mario Kart 8 on Wii U and Switch you get a total sales figure of 37.44 million units–making it the best-selling game in the series.
There are no new entries from last quarter, although Super Mario 3D All-Stars got off to such a strong start (5.21 million sales in two weeks) that we could see it overtake New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe in the future.
The system now has three games that have sold over 20 million units–and with The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild continuing to sell very well, and Pokemon Sword/Shield being re-released with the DLC season pass bundled in, both games are likely to reach this milestone too. For comparison, the Nintendo DS–still the company’s best-selling console–had just three games that sold 20 million+ in their lifetime. The Wii, meanwhile, had 7 (and 4 titles above 30-million, including the pack-in Wii Sports).
Here’s the full top 10, with previous quarter figures (showing sales figures from just three months earlier), courtesy of Vooks.
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (28.99 million, from 26.74)
Animal Crossing: New Horizons (26.04 million, from 22.4)
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (21.10 million, from 19.99)
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (19.74, from 18.6)
Pokemon Sword/Shield (19.02 million, from 18.22)
Super Mario Odyssey (18.99 million, from 18.06)
Pokemon: Let’s Go, Pikachu/Eevee (12.49 million, from 12.2)
Super Mario Party (12.10 million, from 10.94)
Splatoon 2 (11.27 million, from 10.71)
New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe (8.32 million, from 7.44)
These figures mean that several series, including Animal Crossing, Super Smash Bros., The Legend of Zelda, Mario Party, and Splatoon, have their best-selling entry on Switch.
Other Switch first-party games to sell over 1 million units include:
Luigi’s Mansion 3
Ring Fit Adventure
Super Mario Maker 2
Astral Chain
The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening
Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3
Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics
Paper Mario: The Origami King
Super Mario 3D All-Stars
As Nintendo Life notes, the company has stated that five third-party games have also sold over 1 million units on Switch. However, the company has not revealed which games have achieved this figure. As always, it’s first-party Nintendo games that have enjoyed the most success on the system.
With the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X releasing this month, it’ll be interesting to see how the Switch fares over the holiday period and the months following. An NPD analyst believes that, with new consoles scarce, the Switch will be this holiday’s top seller.
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Some next-generation games, including NBA 2K21 and the Demon’s Souls remake, carry a price tag of $10 USD above current-gen pricing. $70 USD could become the norm for next-gen, and now one of gaming’s biggest publishers has weighed in on the possibility of higher prices.
EA CFO Blake Jorgensen said during an earnings call that it’s premature to discuss price increases, but he noted that games are becoming richer experiences that cost more money to make.
“We’ve always said games are getting more expensive. The experience is getting deeper. The time that people are playing games is getting longer. One might argue that that might require a higher price point over time, but we’ll address that as we get closer to more games coming into the next-gen console transition,” Jorgensen said.
“What I default back to is, let’s stay focused on the excitement of what we can do with new games and price will follow that. We’ll figure that out. I don’t want people to read into that—’we’re going to raise prices or not.’ We don’t know that yet. What we do know is we’re going to be able to do a lot more things with the new consoles,” he added.
Jorgensen is not the first gaming executive to point out that the cost of game development has increased, and thus a price increase for the consumer might be in order. Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick defended NBA 2K21’s $70 price point by saying, “The bottom line is that we haven’t seen a front-line price increase for nearly 15 years, and production costs have gone up 200 to 300%.”
Before that, former PlayStation executive Shawn Layden remarked that the cost of developing games has increased by 10 times, and all the while, the price of new games has stayed steady at $60 USD. “If you don’t have elasticity on the price-point, but you have huge volatility on the cost line, the model becomes more difficult. I think this generation is going to see those two imperatives collide,” Layden said of the new generation of consoles.
EA is presumably working on multiple next-gen games, one of which we know is a new Battlefield game for 2021. These games don’t have prices yet, but it will be interesting to see how it all shakes out.
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The Nintendo Switch continues to gain momentum, according to Nintendo’s Q2 financial report for the fiscal year 2020/2021. The company’s new investor relations information for the quarter has launched, and it has revealed some huge sales figures.
The Switch has now sold 68.30 million units, making it the second highest-selling Nintendo home console ever. This quarter, which stretches from July 1-September 30, saw 6.86 million Switch units sold around the world, judging by their previous report (thanks, Vooks).
The Switch Lite makes up 10.36 million of those sales, meaning that the hybrid system remains the most popular.
The system has now overtaken the NES’ lifetime sales of 61.91 million, a figure that it was just barely under last quarter. If this momentum holds–and that seems likely–it will overtake the 3DS (75.94 million units) within this financial year. The Wii remains Nintendo’s top-selling system, with 101.63 million units sold, but with the Switch expected to have a long life cycle, it stands a good chance of surpassing the motion-controlled system.
Nintendo has adjusted their earnings forecast for this financial year, and is projecting a 50% increase in net profit compared to their previous forecast.
The Switch has also now sold 456.49 million units of software. The big performer of this quarter was Animal Crossing: New Horizons, which has now sold a phenomenal 26.04 million units. It remains the system’s second-highest seller, after Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (28.99 million units).
Nintendo released two first-party titles this quarter, both of which have sold well–one incredibly so. Paper Mario: The Origami King has sold 2.82 million units, while Super Mario 3D All-Stars, released less than two weeks before the end of the quarter, sold a phenomenal 5.21 million units.
High sales of 3D All-Stars might have been driven by the fact that the game will only be available for a limited time.
With the holiday season on the horizon, expect Switch sales to remain high towards the end of the year.
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In another timeline, The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run would’ve hit U.S. theaters on May 22. But then, 2020 happened. SpongeBob saw its theatrical premiere pushed back to August and limited to Canada. Now, SpongeBob’s first all-CGI adventure is finally heading to streaming–everywhere but here in the United States, where it will finally arrive in early 2021. Oh, and it won’t show up on Netflix even then.
After ViacomCBS rescheduled and re-rescheduled the theatrical debut of SpongeBob’s third movie, the studio finally was forced to cancel it entirely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead, the studio announced that the movie would head for streaming services. Netflix picked up international distribution rights for the movie. If you have friends in the UK, Japan, or any other country where Netflix operates, they can already watch Sponge on the Run.
Here in the U.S., though, ViacomCBS is in charge of distributing the Paramount Animation-produced flick. The company plans to put SpongeBob on premium video-on-demand services in early 2021. Once the movie’s PVOD period ends, it’ll move to CBS All Access, recently rebranded as Paramount+.
Talking to Looper last month, SpongeBob director Tim Hill expressed disappointment in the movie’s strange release timeline.
“It’s terrible. I was hoping for a big fanfare and a great premiere and seeing all the people I worked with, and doing a cast and crew screening, being able to at least thank people, which never happened,” said Hill, who also directed the similarly COVID-affected Robert DeNiro family comedy, The War with Grandpa. “It was just what we’re doing now, like, ‘Bye. Movie’s over.’ It didn’t feel natural, for sure.”
While Netflix is promising no COVID-related delays, studios have pushed back countless movies and television shows. Delayed movies include Fast & Furious 9, Marvel’s Black Widow, and the latest 007 movie, No Time To Die. Television has seen just as many shifts, with CW shows like Supergirl, The Flash, and Riverdale ending early. Premieres of shows like Marvel’s The Falcon and the Winter Soldier on Disney+, Lord of the Rings on Amazon Prime, and the Handmaid’s Tale on Hulu have all been pushed into 2021.
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EA has shared a few new tidbits about its next Battlefield game. During the company’s latest investors call, it confirmed that the next Battlefield game is coming to next-generation consoles in holiday 2021, with more details to be revealed in the spring.
“DICE is creating our next Battlefield game with never-before-seen scale,” EA said during the call. “The technical advancements of the new consoles are allowing the team to deliver a truly next-gen vision for the franchise. We have hands-on playtesting underway internally.”
Moreover, EA confirmed that the next Battlefield game “is set to launch in holiday 2021.” Ahead of its release, the studio says it will share “a lot more about the game in the spring.”
EA had previously confirmed that its next Battlefield game would release for PS5 and Xbox Series X and Series S in 2021, but this is the first time the company has narrowed the release window down to the holiday season. It’s one of “at least” six new games the publisher plans to release for next-gen systems in fiscal year 2022 (April 2021 – March 2022), alongside a new Need for Speed that EA says “is bringing some astounding visual leaps.”
Although details about the next Battlefield are scant, EA’s Laura Miele teased the game will turn DICE’s “crazy ambitious ideas” into reality. “Our studios are taking their crazy ambitious ideas and making them real,” Miele said during EA Play 2020. “Every console generation DICE sets the bar for excellence in audio and visual presentation. We are creating epic battles at a scale and fidelity unlike anything you’ve experienced before.”
The most recent Battlefield game was Battlefield V, which originally launched for PS4, Xbox One, and PC back in 2018. Since then, developer DICE has been steadily supporting the shooter with new content and updates. Last month, EA launched a definitive edition of Battlefield V that includes the base game and a ton of other extras, including every weapon, vehicle, gadget, and all of the Elite characters.