TWIG Aug 14 - Germany lifts ban on Swastikas in gaming, Pokemon 2019 delayed by a few months

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It's time yet again, for another roundup of the latest gaming, technology, and scene news! We'll be taking a look at the success of the NES Classic, A Hat in Time's secret announcement, and more! Let's check out this week in gaming.
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.

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Microsoft'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.

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Nintendo 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.

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NES 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.

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Emulation 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.

The Dolphin Emulator team has officially released Dolphin on the Google Play Store again. This means you can now get automatic updates with Dolphin and the peace of mind that you're always getting Dolphin from a reliable source.
  • Android 5.0 or higher
  • A 64-bit processor
  • A version of Android that supports 64-bit applications
  • A graphics processor that supports OpenGL ES 3.0 or higher.

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.

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RPCS3 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.

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General 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.

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A 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?

:arrow: Source

Europe 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.

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Dragon 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.

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EA 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.

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Cyber 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.

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Trailers






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)
 

x65943

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Nintendo is going to sell more switches and pokemon games with the push to holiday 2019.

Good decision. And now I won't be tempted to slack off at school when this game comes out :P
 
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The Catboy

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Technically swastikas were allowed so long as they weren't being used to glorify Nazism and were used as art or historical reference. Video games actually could have fallen under art, but no one ever pushed and just censored them to avoid possible legal issues. All Germany really did was say, "Video games fall under art, thus that rule applies here too."
 

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A 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?
Given their attitude towards it before... Naaaah.
 

sarkwalvein

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Yey! I hope they rolled back the restriction for already released games.
I would be glad if I could get Wolfenstein II in actual fucking English on steam, and not to be forced to get that censored version (I don't really care that much about the censored parts) that forces you to play in the horrible German language.
 

Joe88

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A 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?

:arrow: Source
I'm guessing its a switch port and finally the 2 extra worlds they promised for like a year now
but knowing the team, its going to be a vita port instead
 
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Chary

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Given their attitude towards it before... Naaaah.
I know they were kinda inflammatory towards a Switch port, but if they get it working, they could probably double their sales #s and they now see that. What else could a huge announcement be? They already announced DLC levels coming soon...so that doesn't leave much as to what it could be, unless they're overhyping
 
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Viri

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Wewt, I wonder if HOI4 will stop censoring the Swastika. I know there are mods to use, and yes, I use them. But, when they remove shit like that from a WW2 simulator game, it kills the immersion.
 

CeeDee

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I know they were kinda inflammatory towards a Switch port, but if they get it working, they could probably double their sales #s and they now see that. What else could a huge announcement be? They already announced DLC levels coming soon...so that doesn't leave much as to what it could be, unless they're overhyping
Absolutely, AHiT on Switch would do well, but the devs seem stubborn on it. It might be special in the sense of AHiT, like DLC stuff or a physical release for PS4/XB1. But I can't see them changing their minds easily.
 

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