February 9, 2016

Mad Catz Laying Off 37% of Their Workforce Shows What’s Wrong With AAA Publishers

Posted on February 9, 2016 by Rae Michelle Richards

Bad news for Mad Catz the folks behind last Fall’s Rock Band 4 peripherals as well as the Heavy Precision Control System which was aimed at the hardcore Farming Simulator crowd. President / CEO Darren Ridchardson resigned ahead of the company reporting a profit of $1.2million for the last quarter of 2014.

This quarter was reportedly one of the best that the company has seen with sales jumping 114% over the previous year. Despite these sales increases and profits the new board has decided to layoff 37% of their total worldwide work force amidst the board restructuring.  This massive reduction in workers will cost the company a $3 million “restructuring charge”.

The situation at Mad Catz perfectly encapsulates what is wrong with AAA publishers, despite making more money than their initial costs for new products like Rock Band 4 those steering the company have decided that because the game had a lower sell-through rate than initially expected reducing their workforce is the only recourse.  That’s bigtime gaming in 2016 folks, massive corporations can generate one of their biggest quarters in their history and then fire more than a quarter of their workforce as if it was nothing. How is this sustainable. again?

Regarding todays developments new CEO Karen McGinnis had this to say:

“These changes will allow us to operate more effectively and help create an organization that is more agile, able to pursue growth and regain share in our core markets by simplifying our processes and reducing our operating costs, thus increasing our competitiveness and profitability without compromising the quality of our product offering. This realignment of our resources will also enable us to better support strategic initiatives that will make our product slate more competitive, help us gain added consumer interest, and create sustainable shareholder value.”

[Source]

0

Gravity Rush Remastered Impressions

Posted on February 9, 2016 by Erika

Gravity Rush

Remastered and ported over by BluePoint Games, Gravity Rush Remastered (also known as Gravity Daze in Japan) is a very faithful port of the original 2012 PSVita Game. For those not familiar with the game, the player finds themselves dropped into the world of a character that has no memories and is able to control the gravity around her. Kat, the name eventually given to her, must now explore a world that she’s not familiar with as she tries to figure out who she is. Story is beautiful told though graphic novel-like sequences that are decently short, which pushes story progression along quite well. During the game, Kat is able to alter gravity around her to where she can fly though the air, defy gravity so she can walk on vertical services or even upside down, and use those powers to launch special attacks. Those abilities are limited only by a meter that drains on ability use, but  after a short time of inactive use, it’ll quickly recover to full.  As Kat journeys though this mysterious world, she’ll be able to collect crystals to upgrade things like her health, reduce gravity meter drain, or strengthen attacks.Read More

0

Far Cry Primal Gets New “101 Trailer”

Posted on February 9, 2016 by Broken Joysticks

Far Cry Primal Trailer

A new  for Far Cry Primal trailer has been released by Ubisoft. For those of you already familiar with all the details that have been floating around the news these past few months, this trailer has little to no new info. For those who have not been following the game’s release to closely however, this trailer is an excellent rundown of some of the most important features, concepts, and changes in the new entry to the Far Cry series. It is worth mentioning the trailer contains brief nudity for those reading this from work.Read More

0

New Details emerge from Overwatch Beta

Posted on February 9, 2016 by Fionna Schweit

Some new details have emerged about the Overwatch Beta that will be back up later today.

Overview:

-For the new progression system, you have an infinite global level-up system that works like Paragon Levels in Diablo 3. Playing any hero puts experience into the same level-up bar.
-As you level up, you unlock things like portrait borders and character portraits, and you also get loot crates.
-Each loot crate has at least four cosmetic items in it. These include skins, emotes, new voice-over lines, sprays, and more.
-You can crunch duplicate loot items for credits which you can use to buy more loot crates.
-All loot crate items are purely cosmetic.
-Eventually you’ll be able to buy loot crates for real money, but at launch that system most likely won’t be ready.
-The new mode is a King of the Hill type game mode, but modified to fit Overwatch better. It’s a best of three system where there is only one control point at a time, and whoever gets to two first wins.
-There are two new maps for this mode.
-You can also have custom games where you can change all sorts of settings either for competitive-minded events (think character limits) or just to make the game more unusual (think an All Genji mode).
-There is also now a Versus AI mode.
-There are a bunch of other beta improvements like the spectator camera and balancing and etc.
-They’re working on things like ranked play, but they might not be in for launch.
-As is probably obvious, it’s a service game and will be updated continually based on fan feedback and their own objectives.

[Source]Read More

0

Ubisoft Announced Open Beta For The Division

Posted on February 9, 2016 by Rae Michelle Richards

We’ve got one last chance to try out Tom Clancy’s The Division before the game’s official launch on March 8. The open beta will be available to all PlayStation Network and Xbox Live. In the past Ubisoft has said that some game modes will be locked out for agents who do not subscribe to PlayStation Plus or Xbox Live.

All of the content from the closed beta – which included the Madison Square Gardens Field Hospital single player mission and the Dark Zone multiplayer component up to level six. Agents will also get to try out a second single player mission in the open beta that hasn’t been included in any previous closed test.

Here are the dates for the Open Beta:

Xbox One – Feb 18th

PS4 / PC – Feb 19th

All servers will close at the end of February 21st

For more information make sure to check out the official Division website.

TCTD_OPENBETA_DATES_238127

0

Development Halts On Spiritual Successor To Final Fantasy Tactics, Unsung Story

Posted on February 9, 2016 by Rae Michelle Richards

Today it was announced that PlayDeck the developers behind Yasumi Matsuno’s spiritual successor to the PlayStation classic Final Fantasy Tactics, Unsung Story, has ceased active development. This shocking revelation that the once promising strategy RPG would see no further development came in the form of an update to KickStarter backers who helped fund development efforts.

Several key staff members left the developer after their last update to backers in October 2015. PlayDeck released a short statement about the financial viability of continuing work on Unsung Story and that in time they may be able to get a third party to finish work on the game.

In part their statement read:

“After we posted our latest development progress, we unfortunately lost a few key staff members that were part of Unsung Story development, and that has had an impact on any progress since then, as well as our product focus”

Unsung Story launched their KickStarter campaign in 2014 to much fanfare. Playdeck originally pitched the game as a immersive single player strategy RPG that would explore the history of the world that Matsuno envisioned.  In the fall of this year development priorities appeared to suddenly shift with PlayDeck announcing that they would be rolling out a PVP online combat mode prior to releasing any single player content.

0

Get the latest articles and news from BrokenJoysticks and a selection of excellent articles from other sources.

Simply fill out the form below and you’ll be on your way to getting our upcoming newsletter.