According to DFC, 2 million units for March and a launch lineup of fewer than 10 titles might impact the console’s ability to have a very strong start. “Demand is expected to be strong and the major issue will be whether the system can attract a broad audience starting in the holiday sales season of 2017,” the DFC report said.
“The Switch is a compelling piece of hardware that could potentially reach a much larger addressable market,” DFC boss David Cold said. “However given the limited software and Nintendo’s poor recent track record of introducing new products we have tempered our forecasts to be conservative.”
Get the full story on DFC’s Nintendo Switch report here at GI.biz.
Not everyone believes the Nintendo Switch will be a big hit; some analysts have questioned whether it is innovative and can appeal to a wide audience.
“Sorry, but is a portable/home console approach really that innovative…? I am most concerned about the target group of the device: who else but die-hard Nintendo fans will buy the Switch?” analyst Dr. Serkan Toto said in 2016.
Welcome to the weekend. If you’re looking to play Halo 5 this weekend, you can play Mythic Warzone Firefight on the winter-themed map, March on Stormbreak.
Halo developer 343 Industries announced this and more across a couple tweets this week. Here is a peek at what the March on Stormbreak map looks like:
It’s time to bust out the hand-warmers. Mythic Warzone Firefight makes its return on the wintry battleground of March on Stormbreak! pic.twitter.com/XIciRR6vku
Additionally, 343 has launched a new Req pack. The Team Allegiance Req pack comes with black, white, and orange weapons skins themed around the competitive gaming squad Team Allegiance. It’s being released presumably to celebrate the ongoing Halo Championship Series.
In other Halo news, an open beta for Halo Wars 2 is going on right now on Xbox One and PC. Check out this post to find out more about the beta and how to get in.
2017 is poised to be a big year for Microsoft and the Xbox brand. This holiday, the company will launch the mega-powerful Xbox console, Project Scorpio. Now, Xbox boss Phil Spencer has provided something of an update about how development is coming along for the system.
Responding to someone on Twitter who asked if Microsoft could show a sneak peek at the system, Spencer said, “Really wish I could, design team is doing their ‘thing’ again.” Though he can’t show anything or talk more specifically about it, Spencer said he is “really happy with what they’ve been able to do.”
Spencer’s comments this week follow what he said earlier this month, when he spoke out to say he is “absolutely” happy with what he’s seeing so far. He added, “great that our first-party teams are getting engines up and tuned, great progress across studios, platform, and [hardware].”
Microsoft has time and again referred to Project Scorpio as the “most powerful console ever made,” so a premium price point is expected. Officially, pricing has not been announced. The console goes on sale in holiday 2017, though a specific release date has not been announced.
In other Scorpio news, Halo boss Frank O’Connor recently said that, while he’s unsure of Project Scorpio’s specifics specs, they are “beefier” than what he expected.
Are you interested in Project Scorpio? Let us know in the comments below!
Another week in the books. Here is a roundup of the week’s big stories and some you might have missed.
THE BIG STUFF:
The NPD Group this week announced the Top 10 best-selling games of 2016 for the United States. Leading the way, of course, was Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare. Battlefield 1 finished in the No. 1 spot, followed by The Division at No. 3 Yep. Shooters are popular. Check out the full Top 10 chart.
Another big story this week was the suggestion that the Xbox One has now sold 26 million units. This information came from a third-party report from SuperData and not Microsoft, so keep that in mind. But whatever the case, the PS4 is the current-generation sales leader, with Sony last disclosing sales of 53.4 million systems worldwide. [Full Story]
We learned even more about the Nintendo Switch this week–but it wasn’t exactly good news. Nintendo confirmed this week that there won’t be any video-streaming services for the console at launch. That means no Netflix, Hulu, or YouTube. The better news is that Microsoft said it could bring video-streaming apps to the Switch sometime after launch. [Full story]
THE OTHER STUFF:
EA’s Patrick Soderlund has spoken to IGN about why his company is backing Nintendo and the Switch and why he believes the system could be a game-changer. Read the interview here.
Gabe Newell, who is reportedly worth $4 billion, did an AMA on Reddit this week. Of course people asked about Half-Life 3, but read the whole thing to see what he actually responded to.
Mass Effect: Andromeda lets you craft weapons and name them. Pretty cool! Get all the details here at Eurogamer.
Waypoint has an awesome interview with Zelda series producer Eiji Aonuma in which he talks about the new game, Breath of the Wild, and a lot more. Read it here.
More details about the new Star Trek show, discovery, have been announced, including its release date and more. Get all the info here at EW.
Here is a cool new clip from the action movie sequel John Wick: Chapter 2. It involves a stare down with a dog, so you know it’s good.
Actor Jared Leto has posted some images of himself as The Joker–is this a tease for something? Maybe! Go to ComicBook to see all the new images.
EA’s beleaguered NBA Live series is coming back…maybe. This is according to a rating for new game that popped up in…South Korea. Pasta Padre has the scoop.
Crytek’s Warface, which has a wonderful name, is changing hands somewhat. Crytek announced this week that the game will be published by My.com going forward. Get all the details here.
Big movie news tonight, as Deadline is reporting that a new Terminator movie is being produced, with Deadpool director Tim Miller being tapped to direct the reboot.
According to the report, James Cameron, who directed the 1984 original The Terminator, will regain the rights to the series in 2019. He is said to be “godfathering” the movie.
“Much the way that Sony used to rush Spider-Man movies to stay ahead of a rights-reversion ticking clock, it was always known that Cameron would regain clout eventually,” Deadline reported.
The latest reboot of the sci-fi action series was summer 2015’s Terminator Genisys, but this proved a critical and commercial disappointment. The movie finished its theatrical run with a worldwide gross of $440 million, with only $90 million of this made in US cinemas.
Despite early claims that the franchise was on hold, in October last year producer Dana Goldberg stated that it was still an “active property”. She told The Wrap at the time: “[We will use] data and research to do a worldwide study and really talk to audiences about what they loved, and what maybe didn’t work for them, so that the next step we take with the franchise is the right one.”
There is no word yet on who might star in the new Terminator movie, but series star Arnold Schwarzenegger, at least as of last year, sounds like he’s interested in coming back.
What are you hoping to see from the next Terminator film? Let us know in the comments below!
The Uncharted movie is finally being made. Maybe. It has a script and a new director in Shawn Levy, who directed Night at the Museum, Real Steel, and episodes of Stranger Things.
In an interview with Collider, Levy shared some more details about how he became attached to the long-in-development project and why he thinks the movie is going to be a hit.
“I’ve been interested in this project for years. It’s as cinematic a game as we’ve had maybe ever, certainly of late,” he said. “And it’s cinematic because it’s not only kind of wildly visual but it’s really rooted in character and a very specific tone and a sense of fun. Like, when is the last great, fun, f**king action, dynamic, treasure-hunting movie?
“So I’ve been interested in it and I’ve been quietly letting people know I’m interested in it. But other people have been involved; I’ve been busy. A moment finally appeared quite recently where I was like [raises hand], ‘Me. Okay? Me.’ And Sony and producers were like, ‘Yeah, that makes perfect sense.’”
Street Fighter series producer Yoshinori Ono has teased some “surprises” for the series coming up this year. Speaking to IGN, Ono said Capcom will celebrate the franchise’s 30th anniversary this year at Comic-Con or E3 with some kind of announcement or reveal.
Asked about how Capcom plans to celebrate the anniversary, Ono said, “Around E3 timing, maybe even San Diego Comic-Con, we have one or two surprises we hope our fans will look forward to.”
The Street Fighter 30th anniversary celebration kicked off with the announcement of Ultra Street Fighter 2 for the Nintendo Switch. Ono didn’t give much away about what the rest of the surprises will be, but teased that, “I’ll let you know that the surprises this year are not going to be Rival Schools.”
Keep checking back with GameSpot for the latest on Street Fighter.
What are you hoping the Street Fighter surprises turn out to be? Let us know in the comments below!
At 343 Industries’ final hands-on event with Halo Wars 2 before the game’s launch on February 21, we had our last opportunity to play both the campaign and new multiplayer modes, Strongholds and Blitz. In addition, we had the chance to sit down with Creative Assembly’s Executive Producer, David Nicholson, to discuss player expectations and highlights from its development.
GameSpot: As Halo Wars 2 is quickly approaching its February 21 release date, we’d love to chat about what players can expect from the game. To begin, what separates Halo Wars 2 from other popular RTS games?
David Nicholson: Several things separate it. One of the things that we want to focus on is this is an RTS for everyone, so it needs to appeal to people who’ve not played RTS in the past. Halo brings a bucket load, fantastic story, fantastic environments, really vivid characters, great units to play with, but it also brings people who are Halo fans who have not played an RTS before. What we’ve had to focus on is providing the depth for people who love RTS. There’s still people playing the original Halo Wars. There are, I can’t share any numbers, but there are large, significant hours still played every week, every month on Halo Wars.
There are a bunch of RTS fans who want to play a really cool, solid RTS, but there are also people who played Halo and said, “Hey, I’ve not played an RTS. They’re a bit difficult, aren’t they? I’ve bounced off a couple in the past.” What we wanted to do is say, “No, RTS are actually really good fun. Let’s just take you by the hand and guide you through it.”
Deathmatch is for those hardcore RTS fans, “Right. This is what I want to do. I know exactly what I want to do with this game.” Deathmatch is spinning lots and lots of different plates. What happens if we take a couple of those plates away from you, for example you don’t need to worry about resources? Don’t worry, we’ve got that covered for you. You’ll have enough resources to do what you want to do. Then it becomes about, “Okay, what units am I going to deploy and when am I going to deploy them?” Then take that to its extreme in Blitz, where you’re not worrying about base, you’re not really worried about resources. You’re just worrying about energy. All of the strategic choice of what units and what combinations you can create, we take out of the combative arena. Then you say, “Okay, I’m building this deck, I’m putting my strategy together on my time, and then I’m deploying the tactics in real time.”
I think that’s what people can kind of expect. They can expect a variety of different modes. If you’re new to RTS, it’s going to be really exciting and engaging with you, but if you’ve been playing RTS for years and years, then you’re going to be satisfied with the depth that we’ve got.
Going off that answer, for new players to the series who will not have access to a PC and only a console, what makes this the standout RTS for console?
I think controls. What we’ve tried to do, and what we feel Creative Assembly is exceptionally good at and proud of, is understanding what makes an RTS fun. We’ve tried to boil that down to its core elements and make sure all of that is accessible on a console controller. Ensemble did a fantastic job with the original, arguably the best RTS on a console, and I think a lot of that came from their understanding of RTS and how they implemented the controls. We’ve maintained and reinforced a lot of those core controls but added things like control groups on the D-pad. The original controls allowed you to do what you wanted to do, but we saw a lot of people selecting “all units”, thus creating a long pinball of death going around the map. Which is good, but more advanced players with maybe slightly higher dexterity could micromanage the units around.
What we wanted to do was make that easily accessible to everybody. It’s now fairly intuitive to be able to assign the groups, add units to them, but also say, “Right, okay. I want all my air units going over here,” or, “I want to combine forces here,” or, “Actually, I don’t want my, Scorpions and my Hornets in the same group because then the Hornets are slowed down by the Scorpions. I want them in two different groups so the Hornets go out there quickly, and then the Scorpions will come over at their own pace and just devastate when they arrive.”
As the developer, what are you most excited for players to experience? Is it a specific feature or specific mode? What is something that you’re really excited for the public to get their hands on?
We’re really excited about the game as a whole, but also really excited about how it moves the Halo story forward. We’re really excited about getting RTS back out there with such a strong franchise. There are loads of parts to the game that we’re really pleased with, but I think all of us are really excited about Blitz Mode and its innovation. It’s not been done before and it’s introducing a way to combine the immediate accessibility and intuition available with RTS. Players can say, “Okay, I’ve got this unit card, I can save it, or I can deploy it there.” It’s fantastic. At events like today’s, you watch people play and you go, “Oh my god, that was fantastic. I’ve never pictured RTS like that before.” The ability to, as I said, take that strategic element to your own time and then have a tactical element out there on the battlefield is fantastic.
How would you respond to players who fear that the purchasable cards and decks create a pay-to-play environment in Blitz Mode?
We’re really excited about the game as a whole, but also really excited about how it moves the Halo story forward.
I don’t think it does. We’ve got the ability for players to earn cards throughout the game. Play through the campaign and we’ll reward your progress with card packs. You can complete the daily challenges, we’ll give you cards packs. You can complete weekly challenges and we’ll give you card packs. By playing the game, you can earn a whole chunk of card packs and you can really satisfy your desires to build compelling decks from that. But some people don’t have the time to continue playing that many matches, but they really want to stay competitive, so there is that opportunity to pop over to the store where you can buy some more card packs. We’ve worked very, very hard on the leveling and the balancing to make sure that you can earn the cards in the game and you’ll still remain very competitive in the matches.
As a player yourself, and your team as a whole, what is everybody most excited to play themselves?
We’ve built a team, quite intentionally, consisting of mixed gamers. I have a bunch of guys on the team who play nothing but Deathmatch. That’s proper RTS, “I’m only really good at an RTS if I can beat you at Deathmatch.” And then we’ve got other people, for instance some of our animators, who make some fantastic animations, but haven’t really played a whole bunch of RTS in the past. They’re getting absolutely addicted to Blitz Mode because it’s, “Okay, I can understand this and I can get my seven to eight minute fix and then I can come back after thinking about it more.” I think as a team we’re just excited about getting a game out, getting Halo onto PC and getting Halo fans into RTS.
What was the most rewarding part of the whole development process for Halo Wars 2?
I think one of the most rewarding, sort of fist pump moments, was when we developed the paper ideas for Blitz. We had played very rapid prototypes by throwing stuff together in our existing code and existing tools to create, what do they call it? “Pre-selected deployment groups”. We would do that, then we’d try a game, and then we’d say, “Okay. The developers have to go here and edit the XML and change this until I can have a deck.” The minute the deck management became reality, so I could play a match and then immediately go back and say, “Right, okay. Drop that, swap that out. Get rid of that Wolverine and bring in some Hellbringers or a Flame Warthog. I can edit that and play again.” That moment was, “Do you know what? Those original paper ideas, we thought it was going to work, but now actually wow, yeah. It really does!” That was a bit of a risk but it was also quite innovative. The beta and the game will tell us whether or not it resonates with players, but we think we’re doing it right. And that is how our ideas evolved into what you see now as Blitz.
Game of Thrones returns for its seventh season this year. Now, Arya Stark actress Maisie Williams has teased that the season is “so exciting,” especially the finale. She also spoke about how she doesn’t know the fate of her character and only speculates like everyone else.
“It’s so exciting, particularly the end of this series. it’s just a great finale. It makes me very excited for the series after,” she told BBC Radio 1 (via GamesRadar). That’s likely a reference to Season 8, which is believed to be the hit fantasy show’s last.
Asked how much she knows about what’s coming up next for Game of Thrones and her character specifically, Williams said, “None.” In fact, Williams said basically none of the actors know what’s going to happen next.
“I make educated guesses and we try and get answers and bits of information and knowledge from writers but they keep it very close to their chest,” she said.
“Cause I’m like one season ahead of everyone else. I get the scripts and it’s all really exciting because it’s all stuff no one’s seen before,” Williams added. “But then as soon as you read it, you’re like, ‘But I want the next season now, and the next one, and the next one.’ People should be very, very excited.”
Williams went on to say that it’s not uncommon for her and her castmates to go out to public places and talk about what they think is going to happen next. But if you happen to overhear her, don’t expect the information to necessarily be accurate. Williams and her co-stars are only “speculating like everybody else,” she said.
Asked if it’s exciting not to know what’s in store for Game of Thrones, Williams said it is, but quickly pointed out that she wonders about her character, “‘Am I gonna die?’”
Game of Thrones Season 7 is supposedly going to premiere this summer, though HBO has not yet announced an official premiere date.
Dwayne Johnson is set to star in a Black Adam movie for DC. Johnson first announced that he would play the villainous role in the forthcoming Shazam film more than two years ago, but it has now been reported that he will instead headline a standalone movie.
According to Deadline, Warner has decided to split the Shazam film into two. Shazam itself is still scheduled for 2019, while the Black Adam movie has no confirmed release date. It is not known if Johnson will also feature in Shazam.
The star first revealed that he would play Black Adam back in September 2014. In a subsequent interview with Digital Spy, he explained that the more complex nature of the role had drawn him to it. “I just felt Black Adam was inherently more interesting to me because I felt there were more layers to [him], starting out as a slave and then ultimately becoming the anti-hero who we enjoy today.”
Black Adam first appeared in 1945 as a one-off villain for a comic book called The Marvel Family, published by Fawcett Comics. He was later licensed by DC, alongside Shazam, and revived in the ’70s as an ongoing character. In more recent years he has been portrayed as a more complex anti-hero than an outright bad guy, who will sometimes use his powers for good as well as evil.
