Tag: reckons
Zoom reckons it’s going to be around for years to come
PlayStation fans rejoice! Even Xbox reckons PS exclusives are better
There’s been a big development in the on-going drama around Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard today. The merger (that kicked off back in January 2022 this year) has been the source of much chagrin for Sony, and there’s been something of a back and forth between the companies as the deal approaches its completion.
There are a variety of government bodies currently scrutinising the the deal, and one of them is the UK’s department of Competition and Markets Authority. As part of the case studying whether the anticipated acquisition by Microsoft Corporation of Activision Blizzard is all above board and healthy for the overall video game market, the government body has published both Sony and Microsoft’s responses to its findings.
The results are very telling. As well as some choice lines about how many players or games each platform has (“there were over 280 exclusive first- and third-party titles on PlayStation in 2021, nearly five times as many as on Xbox”, says Microsoft in its reply), there are some insightful looks at how each company regards its own games.
‘Last man standing’ for floppy disks reckons it’s four years ’till bust
Square Enix knows you’ve got ‘open world fatigue’, reckons Forspoken can be a tonic for your blues
Open world games are good and everything, but sometimes they’re just too much. Whether you’re 100 hours into Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and only about 30% through the game, or chasing around Far Cry 6 clearing all the icons off your map, there’s just something about open world games that’s getting tiresome these days. Maybe it’s the proliferation of them – open world games are pretty much the biggest genre out there, right now – or maybe it’s the dwindling nature of our collective attention span. Either way, we’re finding it harder and harder to care.
And Square Enix knows that. More specifically, Square Enix’s in-house development studio, Luminous Productions knows that. Coming off the back of Final Fantasy 15 (which, let’s face it, wasn’t really an open world game, now was it?), the studio has been keeping a close ear to the ground when it comes to player sentiment about open world games. And – though you may have only laughed at it because of a poorly-delivered trailer – Forspoken wants to do something a bit different with the open world genre to keep you more invested.
“Obviously, from our side, we’re keeping an eye on what people are saying about open worlds and what the general feelings are in the industry right now,” says Forspoken co-director Takefumi Terada via Square Enix interpreter. “And so we are aware of the sentiment people feel towards [the genre].”