Spooky season is drawing to a close, and it’s almost time to welcome winter and the Christmas period with open arms (or perhaps with reluctance, depending on your feelings).
The seasons may be in revolt, but gaming news is, as they say, evergreen, and so there’s plenty for us to pick over for the last seven days or so.
As usual, then, whether you’re welcoming the cold or shunning it, join us with a hot drink and a comfortable chair as we take a look at the world of gaming news over the last week.
Some of the world’s most popular games go down
If you were hit by this week’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) outage, then you probably already know just how frustrating it was for those who depend on that framework for their work.
Well, it turns out that many are also depending on Amazon for their play, because this week, games like Fortnite and Roblox were hit by the AWS outage, as well as some of the most popular sites on the internet.
Service was eventually resumed, but it was a sobering reminder of just how many games and websites depend on a single service provider to remain available. Perhaps some diversification is in order in future.
The Sims Mobile is shutting down
Bad news if you’re still playing EA’s mobile Sims spinoff: it’s shutting down in January, and since the servers are what sustain the game, you won’t be able to play it offline either.
A number of events are due to take place in the game between now and then, and if you have previously downloaded the game, you can still give it a spin, although you can’t grab it if you’ve never played it before.
On January 6th, all of The Sims Mobile’s content will be unlocked for all players, and two weeks after that, the game will disappear for good. We hardly knew ye, The Sims Mobile.
Palworld’s developer doesn’t like AI
Many studios might be embracing generative AI as a technology, but Palworld studio Pocketpair isn’t one of them, according to a statement made by the developer this week.
Publishing manager John Buckley says his studio doesn’t “believe” in generative AI, and that it won’t be taking on any publishing contracts for games that have utilised the tech during development or elsewhere.
He acknowledges that Palworld itself has been accused of using generative AI, but that the developers didn’t turn to the technology during any stage of the development process.
Hey, Luigi’s Mansion is coming to Switch Online
Nintendo Switch Online is getting another GameCube game this month, and it’s a very appropriate one indeed for the season.
Spooky (but not really that spooky) adventure Luigi’s Mansion is the console’s new addition for October, so if you’re in the mood for something creepy but don’t want to scare yourself too much, it’s the perfect option.
All three Luigi’s Mansion games are now available on modern hardware in some shape or form, so once you’re done with this one, why not give its two sequels a try?
Remedy’s CEO steps down
Tero Virtala, the CEO of Alan Wake developer Remedy, has stepped down from the company with immediate effect following a pretty bad year for the studio (although he is remaining to help with the eventual transition to a new CEO).
For the time being, former board chairman Markus Mäki will be taking on Virtala’s CEO duties, but he won’t be a permanent replacement; he’s simply acting as interim CEO until Remedy can appoint a new person for the position.
Virtala’s departure comes after the failure of multiplayer shooter FBC: Firebreak, which sold disappointingly for Remedy. A recent update aimed at addressing some of the most common criticisms around the game doesn’t seem to have helped much, either.
Microsoft appears to be pushing Xbox pretty hard
According to a new Bloomberg report this week, Microsoft is pushing its Xbox division to achieve profit margins of around 30%, which is practically unheard of in the industry (with profit margins usually sitting between 10 and 20%).
In the report, analyst Neil Barbour tells Bloomberg that a 30% profit margin is “usually reserved for a publisher that is really nailing it”, which we reckon probably doesn’t apply to Xbox at the moment.
If that figure is accurate, though, it would go a long way towards explaining some of Xbox’s recent moves, including game cancellations and major studio shutdowns, as well as the controversial hiking of Game Pass Ultimate’s price.
A Counter-Strike 2 update has completely broken the game’s skin market
If you know anything about Counter-Strike 2, you’ve probably heard about how lucrative the game’s skin trading market can be (and that’s nowhere near as sinister as it sounds).
Well, this week, a “small update” released for the game by developer Valve completely scuppered said market practically overnight by making certain cosmetic items a little easier for players to get.
The market was worth a staggering $6 billion, so there may well have been people dependent on trading Counter-Strike 2 skins for their livelihoods. It remains to be seen whether Valve will roll back the changes or not.
Pokemon Legends: Z-A sales figures are in
Nintendo revealed this week just how many copies Pokemon Legends: Z-A sold during its first week on release, and the game has done fairly well for itself, although not quite as well as some other entries in the series.
As sales analyst Pierre485 points out on social media, Pokemon Legends: Z-A is the fifth fastest-selling entry in the franchise, behind luminaries like Scarlet and Violet and the original Legends game Arceus.
The game has, however, managed to beat both Pokemon X and Y and Pokemon Let’s Go Pikachu and Eevee, so Nintendo and The Pokemon Company can rest assured they have another hit on their hands, it seems.
Halo is coming to PS5
There’s a sentence we never thought we’d type. This week, Microsoft announced that it’s remastering the campaign for the original Halo (again), and that the series is making its PS5 debut.
The aptly-named Halo: Campaign Evolved is billed as a “ground-up remake” of the original Halo’s “genre-defining campaign”, and it’s making its way to PC, Xbox Series, and PS5 next year.
The campaign will feature brand new missions, as well as split-screen co-op and other gameplay improvements that weren’t available as part of the original game.
