It’s 2008 Again. XBLA is alive and Activision is good.
XBLA is Dead. Long Live XBLA
This week saw the final closure of the digital marketplace for the Xbox 360 and XBLA after 19 years of operation. The service was a major part of the mainstream popularisation of independent digital games. Fans spent the last days trawling for deals and titles that will now become unavailable for purchase. Personally, I nabbed Suda 51’s action baseball game for Kinect, Diabolical Pitch and if hearing that makes you think you’ve missed out the meta critic is 56.
The spirit of the XBLA lives on though and this year particularly is paying quite the tribute to 2008 with the release of the Anniversary addition of Braid, World of Goo 2 got a new release date of… TOMORROW! (That’s August 2nd) and perhaps the most unexpected announcement of all… Castle Crashers is getting new DLC 16 years after launch! Painter Boss Paradise gives the game a new coat of paint, a new official character and officially Steam workshop support which allows for custom content. The DLC will not be available for the original 360 release. For reasons why, see the start of this news story.
Activision… don’t worry it’s good news!!!
Do you dislike Skill Based Matchmaking? Well statistically you’re probably wrong. Activision have release a white paper revealing they have been doing extensive AB testing with Call of Duty’s player base where they would gradually turn down the feature for some of the player base. The results were clear with players without skill based match making playing less and quitting more often.
Activision didn’t stop there however and have also released a huge data set for Call of Duty: Warzone’s Caldera map for academic use. The data includes data on how players move throughout the map giving opportunities for game design research and AI training.
News Bytes
In this week’s layoff news. Bungie will reduce its workforce by 17%.
The International Olympics Committee ended their relationship with Nintendo and Sega for Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games series to explore NFT’s and eSports.
After a 36% price drop PSVR2 sales spiked by 2000%. Additionally, the steam PSVR2 app will be released on August 7th.
Game Release Calendar
World of Goo 2(Switch, PC), Operation: Tango (Switch), Thank Goodness You’re Here! (PlayStation, Switch, PC), Tomba! Special Edition (PlayStation 5, Switch, PC), The Mortuary Assistant (PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, Xbox One) – August 2
Fields of Mistria (PC) – August 6
Pepper Grinder (PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, Xbox One), Volgarr the Viking II (PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S) – August 7
Creatures of Ava (Xbox Series X/S, PC) – August 8
About The Author
Paul
He's old, easily distracted, talks a lot and loves video games of almost all types. Host of the Eight and a Half Bit podcast and various unwanted dreams. Paul's hot takes amuse as well as haunt.