Tag: wordle

Nintendo News
This week Nintendo had several announcements with president Shuntaro Furukawa saying the Switch was in the middle of its lifecycle. With the Switch selling more units than all previous generations of Nintendo’s home consoles, with over 100 million units sold so far, the Switch, Switch Lite, and the new OLED version that released last year, it seems the Switch is closing in on Game Boy’s near 120 million console total. Despite this, year-to-year sales in 2021 dropped by 6% and profits were down 9.3% compared to 2020, after Animal Crossing: New Horizons’ exceptional release. Shuntaro Furukawa also announced they would not be participating in the consolidation wars of Microsoft and Sony, and are instead focussing on strengthening their own company. In better news for Nintendo, Pokémon Legends: Arceus has sold 6.5 million copies in its first week, outselling Sword and Shield which sold 6 million collectively in its release week.
The announcements of today’s Nintendo Direct was packed with sports and ports. In Sports, Mario Strikers Battle League, a Mario soccer game utilising items, skills, and strategy is coming June 10. Nintendo Switch Sport, a new Wii-like sports game including Bowling (with survival mode), Tennis, Chambara, Badminton, Volleyball, and Soccer complete with leg strap, as well as a future Golf game to come. This comes to Switch April 29 with a playtest for Switch Online members February 18 through 20. Baseball game The Show 22 announced cross play to take your game on the go. Disney Speedstorm, a free-to-play cross platform Disney and Pixar action racer to come midyear.
Taiko no Tatsujin: Rhythm Festival, a rhythm drum game with 76 songs and a future in-game subscription that will give access to over 500 songs is coming this year.

In DLC announcements, Mario Kart 8 is getting a paid DLC with 48 remastered courses to be released over time named Booster Course Pack. This will be included in the Online Expansion Pack or may be purchased separately. And Cuphead – The Delicious Last Course DLC will be available June 30.

In Ports, Star Wars: Force Unleashed is available from today in the online store, also EarthBound and Earthbound Beginnings have been added to Nintendo Switch Online. Assassin’s Creed Enzio Collection is coming Feb 17, Triangle Strategy March 4, Chrono Cross: The Radican Dreamers Addition, a remake with enhanced soundtrack, is coming April 7, Advance Wars 1 + 2: Re-Boot Camp April 8, Klonoa Phantasy Reverie Series July 8, and Live A Live July 22. No Man’s Sky and Front Mission 1st: Remake are coming to the Switch midyear, and SD Gundam Battle Alliance, and Portal: Companion Collection have been announced for 2022.

Surprising Grand Theft Auto News
On February 4^th Rockstar surprised fans by announcing in a blog post that they are “actively developing[sic] the next entry in the Grand Theft Auto series [and] is well underway.” This same post also confirmed the release date for GTA V and GTA Online coming to PS5 and Xbox series S & X on March 15.
In other surprising news, CEO Strauss Zelnick claimed GTA Trilogy, with a user score of 0.6 on metacritic, “significantly exceeded” expectations. In an investor presentation Take Two-claimed they have sold up to an estimated 10 million copies of the game.

Now in some Gaming Bytes:

Mobile Warcraft
In 2021’s financial report Activision Blizzard shared that they are planning the release of a Warcraft franchised mobile “content” to be released this year. There is no indication as to what form this may take.

Wordle Madness
With the popularity of Wordle and its sale to the New York Times last week, several spinoffs have started to pop-up online. There are both word based options for the Wordle connoisseur with Semantle – a word meaning match, Dordle – a double word match puzzle, Lewdle a humorous addition where only lewd words are allowed, and Gameboy Rom and Wordle Archive for those wanting to take it on the go or check it out historically. For those sick of the word based wordles, Globle has you guessing countries, Squirdle is all Pokémon, and Nerdle is for those math fans.
But for those OG Wordle fans… it seems everything is right there on the webpage. So, before the New York Times takes over, don’t forget to right click and save your way to years of offline Wordle.
If you have another Wordle spinoff we need to know about, leave a comment on our Facebook news post.

Now for some upcoming games:
Friday the 11^th free-to-play MMORPG Lost Ark is coming to PC
Pixelated action RPG where your choices matter Infernax is coming to PC, Xbox, PS4 and Switch just in time for Valentine’s Day. On Thursday 17^th, King of Fighters 15 comes to PC, Xbox Series S/X and PlayStation 4 & 5, and Total War: Warhammer 3 comes to PC and Game Pass.

And that’s all this week in gaming news.

It’s Time To Vote For GDCA

Online voting is now open for the 2022 Game Developers Choice Awards and the Independent Games Festival Awards. You have until Friday, February 11th at 5.59pm AEST to submit your vote.

All finalists are eligible for the awards, and casting your vote can determine the winning games, with the winners being announced at the Game Developers Conference in March.

Local game Unpacking by Witch Beam is on the finalist list for GDCA and Unpacking and another local game, Webbed by Sbug Games are both on the list for IGF. These games join the ranks with Sable by Shedworks, Halo Infinite by 343 Industries, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart by Insomniac Games, and so much more.

You can check out our Facebook page @ZedGamesAu for links to vote!

Sony Buys Bungie With More Acquisitions On The Way

Sony has announced a deal to acquire Bungie for $3.6 billion, making it yet another large consolidation deal in the games industry. Bungie will be ‘an independent subsidiary’ of Sony Interactive Entertainment, and will remain a multiplatform studio. They promise that Bungie will have the option to self-publish and reach players wherever they choose to play, which may come as a relief to current players who have already had to migrate their accounts in the past.

But Sony isn’t stopping there! Jim Ryan has said that we should expect more studio acquisitions in the future, with Sony aiming to expand beyond the PlayStation console, although the timing of the Bungie acquisition has many suggesting it is in response to Microsoft’s recent acquisitions of Activision, although the Bungie deal has been in the works for over 5 months.

New York Times Now Has Wordle

The popular word game that has taken the internet by storm has been acquired by the New York Times for an undisclosed price in ‘the low seven figures’. Wordle’s creator, Josh Wardle, says the game will continue to be free to play, however the New York Times statement seems to imply otherwise, stating that Wordle will “initially remain free to new and existing players”.

The New York Times does promise that Wordle will have an interesting future ahead, with a team of designers and engineers to further the user experience.

It’s unclear exactly what this means at this point, but many are cautious for the future of this little world game.

Ubisoft Complains That Players Don’t Get NFTs

After Ubisoft announced Quartz in December 2021, an NFT platform that would allow players to buy and sell virtual goods for real-world cash, they had been met with a wave of concern as to the potential environmental impact such a platform could cause, and what NFTs in video games actually mean for players.

The publisher answers critics by explaining that Quartz would use the Tezos blockchain to circumvent the energy-hungry algorithms, so that a single transaction would use roughly the same amount of energy as a video stream. However, this hasn’t stopped criticism, with many asking ‘what’s the point?’.

“I think gamers don’t get what a digital secondary market can bring to them. For now, because of the current situation and context of NFTs, gamers really believe it’s first destroying the planet, and second just a tool for speculation”, said Nicolar Pouard, VP at Ubisoft’s Strategic Innovations Lab.

“But what we [at Ubisoft] are seeing first is the end game. The end game is about giving players the opportunity to resell their items once they’re finished with them or they’re finished playing the game itself. So, it’s really for them. It’s really beneficial. But they don’t get it for now.”

And now for some upcoming game releases!

February 4

• Cheftastic!: Buffet Blast (PC)
• Dying Light 2 Stay Human (PC, PS5, XSX, PS4, XBO)

February 8

• Apex Legends: Defiance (PC, PS5, XSX, PS4, XBO, Switch)
• Model Builder (PC)
• OlliOlli World (PC, PS5, XSX, PS4, XBO, Switch)
• Rumbleverse (PC, PS5, XSX, PS4, XBO)
• Sifu (PC, PS5, PS4)

February 9

• Unbound: Worlds Apart (PS5, PS4)