This Week In Gaming - Nov 11: Despite lawsuit from Nintendo, MariCar keeps using Nintendo characters

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With Winter approaching, we're reaching a time where news tends to slow down as the year comes to a close. However, some exciting and amusing things have continued to happen in the gaming world, despite this. For this week, we have some interesting topics to dive into, such as a company disregarding their lawsuit with Nintendo, SEGA giving us a look at some of their sales numbers, Monolith Soft discussing the potential for XCX on the Switch, and more.

Industry News


Unlicensed real-life Mario Kart company keeps using Nintendo characters, even after lawsuit loss

After Nintendo won a lawsuit against a Tokyo go-kart company MariCar, on the grounds of them using their licensed characters to market their service, MariCar was supposed to stop using anything Nintendo related. However, a lawsuit didn't deter the now newly renamed MariMobility, as they are still allowing their riders to wear Nintendo costumes, as they appeal the decision.

:arrow: Source

The namesake behind Super Mario has passed away

When Nintendo was still considering what to call their plumber mascot, decades ago, they looked to find something memorable and iconic. That's when the president of Nintendo of America met Mario Segale, who was in charge of renting warehouses to Nintendo back in the early 1980s. His first name would later go on to become a household name, being used as inspiration for Nintendo's Mario. Sadly, he has now passed away, at the age of 84.

SEGA reveals sales data, shows that Sonic franchise has sold 800 million games

An updated financial report has been put out for SEGA, giving us a look at just how many games each of the company's franchises have been shifted over the years. Unsurprisingly, mascot Sonic the Hedgehog takes the top spot, with over 800 million copies of games sold from various entries since 1991. Yakuza is showing growth, having just hit 11 million sales, while Puyo Puyo manages to hit 27 million. Subsidiary Atlus's Shin Megami Tensei floats around 12.5 million units, with its spinoff Persona following closely behind at 9.3 million. In regards to the western market, SEGA states that localizations must be of the highest quality possible, in order to achieve high sales. As SEGA has roots in the arcade business, they also report sales for what appears to be a slowed pachinko market. If you want to see the full 151 page report, it's directly below.

:arrow: Source

Out of all the monthly game subscription services, PlayStation Now takes the crown, earning $143 mil this quarter

Subscription-based services for video games are a rising market, full of competitors like EA Access, Xbox Game Pass, PlayStation Now, and others. In the Q3 2018 bracket, a total of $273 million dollars was brought in, with 52% of it belonging to PlayStation Now. This makes Sony's service the most profitable, and the most popular out of all the choices, with the rest of the revenue split between EA Access' 33%, and Xbox Game Pass consisting of 15%. A study of the data also found that those subscribed to these services are more likely to purchase extra content for their games, and buy more games per month on average.

:arrow: Source

Emulation, Fangame, & Hacking News


CEMU 1.14.0 build out

The latest version of Cemu, the Wii U emulator, is out now. This minor update brings new texture and graphical fixes to the table, as well as a handful of sound related tweaks. Cemuhook is also more stable and reliable than it was in the past.

:arrow: Source

Fail0verflow brings potential PS4 exploit to light, could work on "all" current versions of the console

According to hacking team Fail0verflow, they might have just uncovered a major exploit in regards to the PlayStation 4. A lengthy writeup details the findings, which involves overloading the HDMI-CEC code by sending blank data to it, causing a stack buffer overflow. Doing so gives access to writing data to the PlayStation 4's Southbridge (tested) chip.

  1. HDMI must be active, with CEC enabled.
  2. The code runs only in response to some interrupt being generated from the HDMI encoder.
  3. Boards with Belize have a different model of HDMI encoder than the original Aeolia. This could result in the bug being fixed accidentally, the code looking completely different, or even removed altogether.

At this point, this isn't of much use to the regular user, but knowing that such an exploit exists can bring hope to those on current firmware versions that wish to one day hack their PS4s.

This post outlines a way to dump EMC firmware and gain EMC code exec on any hardware revision. While the real root keys (in fuses and ROM) of EMC versions besides the first are still unknown, they could yet be recovered with side channel attacks, if someone really wanted them. Since this method is comparatively much more simple and more generic, it stands on its own as an interesting exploit.

:arrow: Full break down of the exploit
SNES9x updated to 1.57

A sizable new update of SNES9x is available to download. This build makes numerous changes, with the most significant being emulation fixes and a major revision to the libretro port.

Snes9x 1.57
- Various seta010 emulation fixes. (kps501)
- Pass blargg OAM tests with proper write behavior. (BearOso)
- Prevent interlacing in BG modes 1-4. (BearOso)
- Corrected IRQ and NMI emulation to allow more games to
work properly. (BearOso, OV2)
- Use 1 instead of 0 for initial PPU left window coordinate,
fixing garbage in left column of pixels in some games. (turhope)
- Added interpolation option hack for DSP. (kps501, mudlord,
BearOso)
- Added sprite-tile limit disabling hack. (Tatsuya79)
- Added libretro's fast snapshot support. (OV2)
- Add overclocking hack that increases IPC (retrotalker)
- Fix controller initialization issues preventing some games
from using multitap. (retrotalker)
- Proper write behavior for register $2122. (BearOso)
- Fix transparency issue with Star Fox asteroids. (redguy, BearOso)
- Increase SuperFX speed to more accurately represent
hardware, and fix bugs with Stunt Race FX and Yoshi's
Island. (BearOso)
- Resize viewport on state load. (retrotalker)
- Many fixes to variables not saved or saved incorrectly in
save states. (Dwedit)
- Pass decimal tests in blargg's math test ROMs. (BearOso)
- Remove memory leak in loadzip.cpp. (bonimy)
- Fix screen size not reverting when overscan is turned on
then off mid-frame. (BearOso)

Win32:
- Include DirectDraw libraries and compile with DirectDraw
support by default. (OV2)
- Add a link to DirectX installer in error message displayed
when the needed DirectX libraries can't be found. (OV2)
- Save window position when exiting via menu (OV2)
- Make custom ROM dialog resizable. (OV2)
- Fix various cheat dialog issues. (OV2)
- Remove d3d9x DLL dependency by using DirectXMath. (OV2)
- Remove rarely-used HLSL shader option. (OV2)
- Add InitialSnapshotFilename support. (BearOso)
- Disable BG toggle keys by default. (BearOso)
- Proper centering and cropping for overscanned and
regular height modes. (OV2)
- Remove ability to disable the SNES's hires modes. (OV2)
- Added a Super Famicom-style icon resource to the EXE. (BearOso)

MacOS:
- Partial support for new cheats format. (OV2)
- Fix MacOS build. (marconett)
- Set default for new config options. (tmkk)
- Fix compilation on Mac OS Mojave (meepingsnesroms)

libretro:
- Massive update of libretro code to latest downstream. (fr500, kps501,
OV2, twinaphex,
BearOso,
hiddenasbestos,
m4xw, kxyxz,
claudiuslollarius)

GTK+:
- Use datarootdir instead of datadir on install. (orbea)
- Fix --with-system-zip configure flag. (BearOso)
- Draw interlaced fields when ready. (BearOso)
- Initial Wayland support. (remicalixte)
- Allow XV only in X11. (BearOso)
- Add Wayland support via EGL. (BearOso)
- Significant rewrite of OpenGL driver to support newer
standards. This won't work on cards < OpenGL ~1.5. (BearOso)
- Changed frameskip option to speed throttling option with
simpler, but more relevant methods of speed control. (BearOso)
- Add support for relative-style save slots. (ichigo-0, BearOso)
- Remove XML config file format in favor of one more like
Win32. Make joystick bindings and more options human-
readable and editable. (BearOso)
- Try more device nodes when initializing OSS. (BearOso)

:arrow: Source

General News


Monolith Soft talks about the difficulty of potentially bringing Xenoblade Chronicles X to the Switch

The Nintendo Switch has become home to a wealth of ports, including those from the Wii U. With New Super Mario Bros. U making its way over to the system next year, only a couple of Wii U titles haven't made it over yet, one of them being Xenoblade Chronicles X. In an interview with USgamer, the outlet asks Monolith Soft's director, Tetsuya Takahashi just why his game isn't available on the Switch yet. According to Takahashi, "re-creating" the game on Switch hardware would be "really difficult", and would cost a lot of money to do, making hopes for a port of XCX seem bleak. However, with Xenoblade Chronicles 2 having sold so well, X still could very well appear on the platform in the future if the demand is right.

:arrow: Source

EU approves Microsoft buyout of GitHub

Though Microsoft announced its plans to purchase GitHub for a staggering $7.5 billion dollars earlier this year, the EU stepped in, declaring that they needed to ensure that the ensuing buyout wouldn't create a monopoly, or that there would be sufficient competitors in the market. After a unanimous decision, the board approved Microsoft's deal, putting the company a step closer to finalizing the purchase. Satya Nadella, Microsoft's CEO, promises that though GitHub will have a new owner, the site will still remain a free, open platform for developers.


Sonic Colors appears on Steam Sale page, hinting that it may come to PC

SEGA is no stranger to porting their older library of games to the PC platform, with titles like Resonance of Fate, Valkyria Chronicles, Jet Set Radio, and more having been made available on PC years after their initial release. And it seems, thanks to an interesting tease, that we might know which game will soon be coming next. Recently, a Steam sale took place, discounting various SEGA titles. Usually, this isn’t anything major, however, many quickly noticed that the banner picture for the sale included a game that had never been on PC at this point: Sonic Colors. On both Steam and Twitter, the image had been shared officially by SEGA, using the box art from the game front and center in the sale picture. This was swiftly removed, with no word on why it was there in the first place. Either SEGA’s PR had slipped up, and submitted a picture from Sonic Colors and it slipped by unnoticed by the company, or there’s a larger meaning here, indicating that we might see the Wii exclusive come to another platform?

:arrow: Source

Koei Tecmo discusses potential for Xenoblade or Ys Warriors game
Warriors Orochi 4 recently released last month, and the producer of the series Masaki Furusawa discussed his thoughts about the game in an interview with Miketendo64. There, he boasted of the 170 different playable characters in the game, mentioning in an offhand comment that he'd originally considered to request if he could add characters from Hyrule and Fire Emblem Warriors to the game, but decided against it in the end. He also spoke of future plans for the Warriors franchise, saying that out of other series, both Xenoblade and Ys would be very easy to adapt into the Warriors forumla, and would have striking characters that would work well. While this doesn't mean anything definitive, it does offer insight into what Koei Tecmo may do in the future.



Edge of the News


If you've ever wanted your cat to be in Minecraft, now is the time

Minecraft continues to be a popular phenomenon throughout the world, with Microsoft still providing content updates to the game every so often. The latest updated focused on adding new things related to villages and animals, one of which included new cat breeds and colors. This wouldn't be the last thing that fans would hear about Minecraft cats that week, however, as Mojang will be holding a contest for fans to get their own kitty immortalized in Minecraft. All it takes is submitting a picture or video of your feline friend, and uploading it to social media, such as Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook, and tagging it with #MinecraftCatContest. Submissions will be taken until November 12, after which, players will be able to vote on the cutest cat that they think should get its place in the game as a new color option.

Trailers










Review Recap


Official:
Gal Metal (NS)
Call of Cthulhu (Multi)
Multiplayer Pro Case

User:
Castlevania Requiem (PS4)

Release Calendar & Recommendations

Nov. 13
Hitman 2 (PC, PS4, XB1)
Spyro Reignited Trilogy (PS4, XB1)
Nov. 14
Fallout 76 (PC, PS4, XB1)
Nov. 15
Underworld Ascendant (PC)
Nov. 16
Civilization VI (NS)
Pokemon Let's Go: Pikachu/Eevee (NS)
Nov. 20
Battlefield V (PC, PS4, XB1)
Warframe (NS)

All of the early November hard-hitters are out in a small burst. Spyro, Pokemon, and Fallout all release within 3 days of each other. Battlefield comes in a little bit later on the 20th, leaving a variety of different games for those with varying tastes. If the slight changes to the formula in Pokemon Let's Go don't bother you, it could be a good romp in the familiar territory of Kanto. Those that enjoy the atmosphere of modern Fallout titles and being able to play online with friends will likely find fun with nuke-filled antics in Fallout 76. For those that grew up with a PlayStation 1 and loved Insomniac's Spyro games, the upcoming HD remakes should be perfect for that nostalgia fill.
 

bandithedoge

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Sonic Colors is my absolute favorite 3D Sonic game. This is what Sonic should look like. Too bad it's so underrated. Definitely one of the best-looking Wii games. I can't wait to play it fully on PC. It's one of the games I bought a Wii for and, well, my Wii is starting to behave weirdly.
 

raxadian

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Sonic Colors is my absolute favorite 3D Sonic game. This is what Sonic should look like. Too bad it's so underrated. Definitely one of the best-looking Wii games. I can't wait to play it fully on PC. It's one of the games I bought a Wii for and, well, my Wii is starting to behave weirdly.

Then get a used one, they are still cheap.
 
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