TWIG Aug 14 - Germany lifts ban on Swastikas in gaming, Pokemon 2019 delayed by a few months
Industry News
Fire Emblem Heroes reaches $400 million in revenue
Though only a few years ago was the series was on its last legs, Fire Emblem has come back stronger than ever, and that's proven by the massive numbers that the mobile title Fire Emblem Heroes is generating. Since launch, the game has raked in $400 million in pure gacha microtransaction purchases. June 2018 was the most successful month for the game since its release, due to Summer character events. On average, the mobile Fire Emblem game brings in about $20 million a month for Nintendo.
SourceMicrosoft's new studio, The Initiative, is hiring major staff from Rockstar and Sony Santa Monica
Microsoft has been buying up and funding studios at a rapid pace, recently. One of their newer studios, The Initiative, has had an influx of high profile staff members hired on as of late. These new recruits include Brian Westergaard, the lead producer of God of War 2018, the most notable of the group, as well as Christian Cantamessa from Rockstar, Daniel Neuburger from Crystal Dynamics, and Annie Lohr, from Riot Games and EA. Currently, there's no major project being worked on over at The Initiative, but with the amount of new workers hired, it's assumed to be something related to a major IP.
Germany finally removes the ban on using Swastikas in video games
For the longest time, any game with references to Nazis have been instantly banned by Germany's ratings board. Titles like Wolfenstein, or Call of Duty WWII have either been outright denied for release, or heavily censored to be allowed in the country. Now, Germany's USK is beginning to reverse that ideal, as now, they'll be reviewing such games on a case-by-case basis. For the first time, games that refer to swastikas or Hitler can be released in Germany, so long as it's done as an "art form" in gaming.
SourceNintendo reaches 300 million home console sales, 700 million hardware total
With the end of the quarter, many game companies released stats on their sales. Since the NES's original release going all the way up to the Switch, Nintendo has sold 300 million home console systems. The Wii leads the pack at taking up a third of the numbers, at 101.63 million units shifted. If you combine handheld systems, then their sales become a whopping 700 million, with the DS and Game Boy taking up the bulk.
SourceNES Classic outsells both the PS4 and XB1 in the previous month
Nintendo hardware tends to be familiar with topping the charts of monthly sales in the west, but this time, the one leading the pack isn't the Switch. In June 2018, for the first time in over 23 years, the original Nintendo Entertainment System has topped the board of the NPD sales tracking charts. It outsold all of the competition, including the PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch, both of which are selling very well lately on their own.
SourceEmulation News
Dolphin is now back on the Google Play Store
After being removed from the Google Play Store, Dolphin Emulator is back, and now available to download. This version will offer automatic updates, as opposed to the side-loaded APK that users had to download prior. The specs are below.
BlueStacks 4 beta out
BlueStacks is an Android emulator for the PC that can be used to play or use certain mobile applications for those without Android phones. As of today, developer BlueStack has released a beta for BlueStacks 4, with improvements such as better optimization, a cleaner UI, and wider support for games that weren't able to run through the emulator in previous versions. A full release for BlueStacks 4 will be coming sometime in September.
SourceRPCS3 gets another update, makes major improvements
The PlayStation 3 emulator, RPCS3 continues to improve itself with each update, the most recent of which makes changes to the RSX and buffer synchronization. Games like God of War: Ascension are more stable and are more accurately emulated, while Uncharted now runs at a very playable 30FPS. The majorly requested Red Dead Redemption also sees more improvements and tweaks as well.
SourceGeneral News
Pokemon 2019 delayed a handful of months
The new mainline Pokemon game was announced to be in development shortly after the reveal of Pokemon Let's Go, and was given an estimated "mid 2019" release date. Recently, however, the schedule for the game's release was pushed back by a few months to "late/holiday 2019". This was found in Nintendo's own earning's report, published in July.
SourceA Hat in Time developers tease a major announcement
With a multiplayer mode and DLC content coming soon to Gears For Breakfast's indie platformer A Hat in Time, things are looking exciting for the game. That's not all, though, as the developer has tweeted out a teaser stating that there will be a "special" announcement that's slated to take place at this year's Gamescom. Could this potentially be a Switch port?
SourceEurope will be getting the Taiko Drums
While Namco has gone on record saying that North America wouldn't be getting the Taiko drum controllers for the Nintendo Switch version of Drum 'n Fun, that won't be the case for Europe. Bandai Namco EU will be bringing the peripheral to European territories. A tracklist was also uploaded, showing the songs that will be included in the game.
SourceDragon Ball FighterZ has Cooler join as DLC fighter
Announced at EVO 2018 was another DLC roster addition for Arc System Work's Dragon Ball FighterZ. This time, the movie-villain Cooler will join the cast of the game as paid DLC. He'll be playable sometime later this year.
SourceEA axes fanmade Sim City remake
1993's SimCity 2000 is a nostalgic game to many, though, it has become a bit dated in the decades since its release. That's why lone developer Nicholas Ochoa started creating an open-source remake of the game, using the game's assets, but brand new code. It managed to get a release earlier this year on GitHub, but as of last week, it was silently removed. The culprit behind this was Electronic Arts, who had a takedown filed because Ochoa still used SimCity 2000's artwork and assets, which belong to EA. The company also mentioned that it was removed because you can still legally buy the original game through EA's Origin service.
SourceCyber Gadget announces Switch controller with customizable macros
With third party controller support being mildly lacking on the Nintendo Switch, Japanese hardware company Cyber Gadget intends to fill a niche by creating a controller with gyro support, and customizable macros for the face buttons. There are four buttons on the back that you can map to the ABXY buttons, and there will be a wireless and wired version of the gamepad. It'll launch on October 31st in Japan.
SourceTrailers
Review Recap
Official:
clockwork GameShell
Salt and Sanctuary
Octopath Traveler
User:
Mega Man X Legacy Collection
Avantree Leaf DG50
Major Release Calendar
August 21
Shenmue 1 + 2 (PC, XB1, PS4)
Guacamelee 2 (PS4, PC)
August 24
Little Dragon's Cafe (NS, PS4)
August 28
Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate (NS)
De Blob 2: Remastered (NS)
Yakuza Kiwami 2 (PS4)
