Can Xbox Game Studios acquire more developers?

The European Commission (EC), that approved Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard, is one of the regulators who has decided to define game markets by genre. As explained by ResetEra user Idas (via Wccftech), in layman’s terms this means that should Microsoft attempt to acquire another shooter or RPG studio despite having acquired a number of them via ZeniMax and Activision Blizzard, it could face opposition from EC.

It’s worth noting that EC previously refused to define the video game market by genre when approving Microsoft’s acquisition of ZeniMax Media. According to Idas, the Chilean regulator has also adopted similar market definitions.

“The Advisory Committee agrees with the conclusions reached by the Commission in the draft decision in relation to the definition of the relevant product markets for development and publishing of video games segmented by platform (PC, console, mobile), by types of video game (AAA games vs. non-AAA games) and by genre (action and adventure, shooter/battle royale, role-playing games, sports, racing, fighting, and strategy),” reads the document in question from EC dated May 2023.

This move may also have implications for Sony. However, PlayStation has not made an acquisition as big as ZeniMax or Activision Blizzard.

The post Microsoft May Have Trouble Acquiring More Shooter and RPG Studios appeared first on PlayStation LifeStyle.

Minecraft bans NFTs to promote a safe environment

Minecraft is built upon its community of players, and the developer’s mantra is that all content must be accessible to everyone. NFTs, on the other hand, are meant to be scarce and unique for players. As such, blockchain technologies can’t be implemented within the Minecraft client, nor can the game’s assets be used to create NFTs based on worlds, skins, persona items, or other mods so that all content remains available to all players.

Another reason for the ban is their pricing. Aside from sales and offers that are available for all players, any content created for Minecraft, like mods, maintains a stable price. NFTs are the opposite of this and the team believes “the speculative pricing and investment mentality around NFTs takes the focus away from playing the game and encourages profiteering, which we think is inconsistent with the long-term joy and success of our players.” There’s also the issue that NFTs can disappear without warning or carry “fraudulently inflated prices,” leaving the marketplace open to abuse.

The team has said they will continue to monitor “how blockchain technology evolves over time” so they can “determine whether it will allow for more secure experiences or other practical and inclusive applications in gaming.” They did add that there are “no plans of implementing blockchain technology into Minecraft right now.”

In other news, the servers are soon to be closed for older Assassin’s Creed games and fans are making sure they get a proper send-off. Elsewhere, Ghost Recon Frontline has been canceled while Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora has been delayed.

The post Minecraft Bans NFTs and Blockchain Technologies So the Game Remains Safe appeared first on PlayStation LifeStyle.

There’s no arguing that Minecraft is a global gaming phenomenon. With the release of the spin-off title Minecraft Dungeons, as well as the success of the recent Caves & Cliffs update, the game is set to continue thriving in the modern gaming landscape.

On October 16, 2021, Mojang held its annual Minecraft Live event and revealed some upcoming updates and content to look forward to, in addition to the aforementioned statistics. One of these was The Wild Update, which will add yet another series of environmental, flora, and fauna revamps that are bound to shake up gameplay. This includes new mud and mangrove swamps, as well as frogs and tadpoles. Furthermore, players will also finally get to put chests on boats (thank god). Notably, Mojang also revealed that both the Bedrock and Java editions of Minecraft would become available for free on Xbox Game Pass.

This means that the Minecraft platform won’t be going away any time soon. According to Mojang’s statistics, players have logged over 1 billion hours on the game’s multiplayer mode. It’s also been racking up some pretty impressive revenue figures too, generating over $350 million for creators in the Minecraft Marketplace; the game’s official source for maps, skins, and texture packs. Minecraft was also the most-watched topic on YouTube in 2020, with over 201 billion hours watched. Impressive, considering it reached only half of that number in the previous year, showing that it is only growing in popularity.

[Source: Windows Central]

The post Minecraft Reaches New Record of Over 141 Million Monthly Active Users appeared first on PlayStation LifeStyle.

The story of Psychonauts 2 continues right where Rhombus of Ruin left off. There’s even a catch up cutscene to bring all players up to speed. The Psychonauts have managed to rescue their Grand Head Truman Zanotto and capture his kidnapper, Dr. Lobato, but they don’t know the mastermind behind it all. They come up with a scheme to interrogate Lobato by entering his mind and sending the recently-recruited Psychonauts cadet Razputin Aquato to follow him. As usual, nothing goes smoothly. What starts off as a seemingly normal office environment turns into a bizarre world full of giant teeth, dental drills, and gangster tooth fairies, something that would strike fear into any dentophobe.

Psychonauts 2 Review – Deep Inside the Brain

Loboto’s interrogation is the first of many brain levels and this is where the game shines. Each level has a unique theme based on that characters mind and is laced with the wacky deprecating humor only Double Fine can produce. There’s a casino crossed with a hospital level in the mind of a doctor turned gambling addict, resplendent with bright neon lights, roulette wheels and games whose impossible odds must be overturned using Raz’s psychic powers. Another example is a level that’s a throwback to hippies of the swinging ’60s; its psychedelic colors seem like the artist sneezed in a rainbow palette and the theme is best witnessed for yourself.

The common factor between the levels is the same basic enemies trying to stop Raz from achieving his goal. For example, angry bespectacled Censors attack thoughts that don’t belong in the brain with a banhamme,r while Regrets, moths weighed down by anvils, will happily use their burden to squish foes. They’re easy to take down, but the challenge comes in the boss fights that end some of the brain levels. These are the most diverse and interesting enemies where players need to work out the right combination of powers to use and when to dodge attacks in a multi-stage battle. The battles always feel balanced and are never a barrier for progression for long.

Raz is armed with a variety of psychic skills to take enemies down and progress through simple platforming puzzles. Familiar abilities like Clairvoyance, Psi-Blast, Levitation, and Telekinesis all return from earlier titles, but there are also new skills Raz will acquire as he makes his way through the game. Pyrokinesis sets fire to most objects within a small surrounding area, while Mental Connection allows Raz to connect to stray thoughts and reach otherwise inaccessible areas. All of these skills can be upgraded as Raz levels up and they’re all fun to use, although only four can be mapped to the shoulder and trigger buttons at once. Remapping the skills can feel a bit clumsy and occasionally frustrating when you forget which button they’re now on or don’t have the right skill ready to go.

The game is an old-school 3D platformer at heart with hundreds of collectibles to find throughout each level. Figments are brightly colored line drawings of anything and everything fitting the mind of the character you are in, and Raz levels up once for every 100 players collect. There are nuggets of wisdom and emotional baggage to be tagged, all of which also contribute to increasing Raz’s skill levels. Finding the comically dancing half-a-minds increases his mental energy, while opening up the memory vaults by force unlocks extra back story to many of the game’s characters. Not all of these can be collected during the first playthrough, as levels often require players to return with new skills to get to all of the areas.

Psychonauts 2 Review – Is That a Giant Eye?

When not invading other characters’ brains, Raz is wandering around one of the game’s hubs. Here he can free roam and explore, testing out his powers and interacting with characters. Some of those characters need help and will give Raz side missions. There are also plenty of different collectibles to find here too, with psi markers and psi cards helping the cadet to level up. Meanwhile, supply chests contain a decent supply of psitanium, the game’s currency used at vending machines to get various upgrades and other useful objects like health items and wallet upgrades.

Completing the storyline will take most players between 10 and 12 hours. However, collecting every single one of those collectibles and completing side missions will easily push that time over 20 hours. Most players will find enough collectibles through natural play to get enough upgrades to get through the story comfortably. An impressive variety of accessibility options also opens the doors for a whole variety of players, whether it’s color-blind options, resizable subtitles, or even just turning off combat for those wanting to enjoy the story. While death will be inevitable on default settings, checkpointing is friendly and deaths offer no real penalty other than a few minutes of lost progress.

The platforming is accurate and incredibly responsive for the most part, although there were the odd moments I got stuck in the map after falling somewhere I wasn’t supposed to be. The camera is never a problem, always offering a perfectly clear view of where Raz needs to go. The only real downside to the PlayStation 4 version is the loading times and occasional stuttering and stalling immediately after, even on PS5. This last-gen version was never going to run as well as its Xbox Series X/S counterpart, and while playing the game on PS5 will go some way to alleviating these issues, it isn’t the same as having a true native PS5 version.

After 16 years of waiting, though, Psychonauts 2 more than makes up for lost time. It’s a glorious return for the franchise, one that should keep existing fans happy while being perfectly welcoming for new players. Let’s just hope we won’t have to wait a similar amount of time for the third game.

Psychonauts 2 review code provided by publisher. For more information, please read our Review Policy.

The post Psychonauts 2 Review – Worth the 16 Year Wait (PS4) appeared first on PlayStation LifeStyle.

The debate surrounding video game difficulty is nothing new, but it flared up after the release of FromSoftware’s Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. In an effort to make their games accessible to a wider audience, a number of developers have since made an effort to add numerous accessibility and difficulty options to cater to all types of players. In response to a tweet from the official Xbox Twitter profile declaring that finishing a game on the lowest difficulty “is still beating the game,” Double Fine wrote:

If you beat Psychonauts 2 with the invincibility toggle on, you still beat P2. https://t.co/OinBv1nuNr

— Double Fine (@DoubleFine) July 9, 2021

“uh, excuse me I beat Sword Guy Serious Time on a no hit hard mode and if didn’t do that I don’t respect you. and like, can you even comment on things if you’re not diamond six rank in shooty mcBlam? I don’t think so”

cool bud. you’re soooo cool!

— Double Fine (@DoubleFine) July 9, 2021

All people should be able to enjoy games. All ages, all possible needs. It’s an ongoing and important process for our industry and a challenge we need to met.

End of the day? We want you to have fun, to laugh, to experience a story that affects you. On whatever terms you want.

— Double Fine (@DoubleFine) July 9, 2021

Psychonauts 2 will release on August 25th for last-gen and current-gen platforms (via backwards compatibility).

The post Pyschonauts 2 Will Come With an Invincibility Toggle Because Double Fine Wants Everyone to Enjoy the Game appeared first on PlayStation LifeStyle.

The goat is a new mob that will spawn in the mountain biome, which is a new location that will feature high peaks and powdery snow that players can sink into. Unfortunately, the mountain biome has not yet been added to the game due to COVID-19 restrictions forcing Mojang to split the update into two separate parts. However, Mojang has stated that it will release the second update later this year, which will feature huge overhauls around how the world generation works.

Axolotls can be found in underground cave biomes, and are amphibious predators that can actually help the player in fights. Players will be able to scoop up the axolotl by using a bucket and deploy the cute little beast later during underwater fights.

Players can also find the new Copper ore resource in veins generated across the world. Just like their real-life counterparts, Copper blocks will also slowly rust over time, turning into a bluish-green hue. If you want to keep them pristine — or conversely, keep them in their rusted form — players can also wax the blocks to seal them in their current state. Additionally, you can aslo craft lighting rods using this new resource, and help keep your wooden structures safe from burning up during lightning storms.

These, of course, are just a few of the dozens of new blocks, mobs, and content that Mojang has added to the game. If you’d like to read more, Mojang has released the entire list of new additions to the game on their official website.

You can also check out the announcement trailer below:

In other Minecraft news, the new Minecraft movie is also planning to release in 2022. Minecraft Dungeons, a dungeon-crawler spinoff title, was also released for the PlayStation 4 in May 2020. The new Caves & Cliffs Part 1 update is immediately available on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5.

[Source: Mojang Official Website, YouTube]

The post Minecraft Caves and Cliffs Part 1 Update Launches, Adds Goats and Dozens of New Blocks appeared first on PlayStation LifeStyle.

Supposedly, Edgar Newman has worked on prominent games for the last 20 years. According to his LinkedIn, he spent nearly a decade with Rockstar, before shifting to a senior role at the now-defunct Lionhead Studios. Newman allegedly went on to work as a Lead Game Designer for Massive Entertainment’s The Division. In the summer of 2017, he found himself at another big studio, Naughty Dog, working as a Senior Game Designer. Now he’s supposedly a design lead for Double Fine, a studio purchased by Microsoft just last summer.

It’s all wildly impressive, particularly given his humble beginnings at the University of Oxford. As mentioned above, though, this all seems rather fabricated, too. According to the title’s game credits, Mathias Karlson served as Massive’s Lead Game Designer on The Division. Meanwhile, Sylvain Jusselme and James Arthur assumed similar roles for support studios Ubisoft Annecy and Reflections, respectively. An Edgar Newman isn’t mentioned among the project’s lengthy credits. In fact, a Google search for Newman fails to yield results beyond the Naughty Dog/Double Fine claims.

What does this mean exactly? Did some internet troll go out of their way to craft a blatantly fake LinkedIn profile, which doesn’t even bother to include a photo or bio, merely to further stoke the fire surrounding Naughty Dog drama? It’s possible. And it seems the most likely answer to this very strange bit of hoopla. Either way, this serves as proof positive that not everything we read is based in fact.

This all comes on the heels of a difficult few months for the Uncharted studio. A report made the rounds in March, sharing claims of poor working conditions at Naughty Dog. Soon thereafter, additional allegations claimed the developer had a high turnover rate, compounded by a bad reputation regarding crunch culture. Of course, Naughty Dog and fans are now reeling from a recent TLoU Part II leak.

The Last of Us Part II launches this summer on June 19th.

[Source: LinkedIn, Reddit via Push Square]

The post That Naughty Dog and Double Fine Employee Story is Rather Strange and Likely Fake appeared first on PlayStation LifeStyle.

Mojang’s latest was originally set for a late April release date. However, the studio’s desire to ensure the health of its employees amid the coronavirus pandemic resulted in a one month delay.

A new title set within the Minecraft universe, Minecraft Dungeons is a dungeon crawler-style adventure. Up to four players in local or online co-op can battle alongside each other one level at a time, all in an effort to seize power from the villainous Arch-Illager and his minions. Players can do this and more while making use of a whole host of artifacts, weapons, and enchantments. Like Minecraft, this new entry will allow players to build their character in whichever manner they prefer. As such, there are no character classes.

Each level will consist of handcrafted elements and those of the procedural variety. All come together to seamlessly mesh with the mission objectives and Minecraft Dungeons‘ overarching narrative. As a result, parts of every mission will go unchanged, but mobs, paths, and treasures will be different each time a player dives into the experience.

For now, the game’s multiplayer options will only work for players on the same platform. Yet, an FAQ section on the Minecraft website notes that Mojang is working on cross-play for all platforms. Should the studio’s attempts prove successful, expect cross-play to go live sometime in the “near future” with a free game update post-launch.

[Source: Minecraft.net]

The post Players Across All Consoles Can Explore Minecraft Dungeons in May appeared first on PlayStation LifeStyle.

Minecraft Dungeons, originally announced during Minecon Earth 2018, is a dungeon crawler set in the world of Minecraft. Everything is made of blocks, something we’ve come to expect with the original game, and you’ll see all the iconic monsters and items from the original game. However, instead of focusing on building and creation, your goal is to destroy monsters and get loot. The game is being developed by Mojang and is the developer’s first retail video game since Minecraft came out in 2011. They’re also getting assistance on the project from Double Eleven, a studio that has assisted with various other games, including the recent PlayStation 4 and Xbox One port of Rust.

If you’d rather just read about the world of Minecraft, a book set in the world of Minecraft Dungeons will be releasing with the game as well. It will be written by game designer and author Matt Forbeck, who has written several Halo books and novels based on the Blood Bowl tabletop game.

This means Minecraft Dungeons will be the first game developed and published by Microsoft coming out on the PlayStation 4. At least, unless you include the original Minecraft, although the PlayStation 4 version was already well underway when Microsoft bought Mojang. It does open up an interesting doorway to other Microsoft titles. Will we see the Halo or Gears of War series on PlayStation? Not likely. But it does lend some hope to a sequel to Obsidian’s The Outer Worlds still coming to PlayStation platforms. This isn’t the first instance of cooperation between Sony and Microsoft either. The two are working together on some cloud gaming initiatives, though we have yet to see the fruits of that partnership.

The post Minecraft Dungeons Coming to PS4 in April Despite Microsoft Publishing appeared first on PlayStation LifeStyle.

Psychonauts 2 will still be coming to *ALL* promised platforms: PC, Mac, Linux, PS4, and of course – Xbox pic.twitter.com/hi5vLCw79Q

— Double Fine (@DoubleFine) June 9, 2019

The news isn’t necessarily surprising, as Psychonauts 2 had long been announced for the PlayStation 4. However, the status of Psychonauts 2 itself has been somewhat up in the air in recent months. It was originally set to be published by Starbreeze, though by now that company’s troubles have been well-documented. In addition to the announcement that Microsoft had acquired Double Fine, it was also revealed that Starbreeze had sold the publishing rights for Psychonauts 2 to Microsoft. Being part of the Xbox Game Studios will give Double Fine much more financial security, allowing the team there to continue to make the quirky titles its known for.

While Psychonauts 2 will be coming to the PlayStation 4, that likely won’t be the case for future Double Fine Games. In a video released after the acquisition announcement, CEO Tim Schafer confirmed Double Fine Productions will be focusing on “Xbox, Game Pass, and PC” moving forward.

The situation is similar to other studios Microsoft has acquired in the past year. While Fallout: New Vegas developer Obsidian Entertainment is also part of the Xbox Game Studios family, its Take-Two-published The Outer Worlds is releasing on the PlayStation 4. And of course, Minecraft is playable on virtually every system under the sun.

While Psychonauts still doesn’t have a release date, we did get a brand new look at gameplay:

Psychonauts 2 will release in 2019 for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.

The post Despite Microsoft Purchase, Psychonauts 2 Is Still Coming to the PlayStation 4 appeared first on PlayStation LifeStyle.