Sony and Microsoft have been at odds today, with Sony arguing against their acquisition of Activision/Blizzard. Still, that is not Microsoft’s biggest issue, as the Federal Trade Commission might be slapping them with a lawsuit for that same merger.
But not everything is terrible in the land of gaming as both Sony and Nintendo franchises have been breaking sales records, and one of the most popular PC shooters might be coming to consoles.
Read about all of this and more in this week’s gaming news roundup.
Sony is suggesting that Call of Duty is irreplaceable
Sony has been speaking out against Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision/Blizzard by specifically stating that Call of Duty is irreplaceable. They have been reiterating their concern in a response to the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) when they put forward that Sony might not be able to compete against Microsoft if they take Call of Duty away from the platform. This should not really be news to anyone as Call of Duty is one of the highest-selling video game franchises of all time, ahead of both Grand Theft Auto and FIFA (although FIFA’s microtransactions may have pushed it ahead of Call of Duty in terms of profit). This could be seen as quite hypocritical coming from Sony as they have acquired studios and put out exclusives themselves.
In fact, they even recently acquired Bungie, the developers who used to work on the Halo franchise, and who now works on another popular shooter, Destiny. What is even more interesting is that this comes after reports that Microsoft offered Sony a ten-year agreement to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation consoles, with the caveat that they will undoubtedly be offering the game on their Game Pass service, allowing Call of Duty fans to subscribe to the service and play on Xbox or PC, which, in Sony’s view, will draw fans away from their consoles. Ultimately, organizations will undoubtedly be trying to stop the acquisition until it is complete.
Microsoft might be facing a lawsuit for their Activision/Blizzard acquisition
Speaking of organizations attempting to stop the acquisition of Activision/Blizzard, Microsoft might be receiving a lawsuit from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Of course, the FTC is all about protecting consumers, and as Sony has argued above, Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision/Blizzard might not be great for consumers. Sources revealed to Politico that the FTC could be bringing a lawsuit against the company, for soaring too much above its competition as Sony has said regarding the Call of Duty franchise. We might get word of the lawsuit sooner rather than later, as Politico reported that it could be filed as soon as next month.
Both Sony and Nintendo games have been breaking records
Now that we are over with the doom and gloom worlds of law and business, two recent games released by Nintendo and PlayStation have both managed to break records. Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet have managed to sell 10 million copies in just three days, which happens to have taken the record for the best-selling Nintendo game on any console in that amount of time.
Across the bay, God of War Ragnarök has managed to sell more than five million copies in its first week, which happens to be PlayStation’s highest-selling first-party launch of all time. The idea that Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet are breaking records is surprising because the tremendous amount of bugs in the game, and its poor performance in general, has been the focus of most Pokémon fans. On the PlayStation side, it is not as surprising, and you can read our review of God of War Ragnarök here.
Valorant could very well be coming to consoles
The PC-exclusive shooter game, Valorant, could be coming to consoles sometime soon. This was suggested when Riot Games posted two job openings, as reported by Insider Gaming, suggesting that its ‘senior designer’ and ‘design manager’ positions would be for a console title. Even though Riot Games might be known for League of Legends and it undoubtedly works on other games the job descriptions also cite an “understanding of console FPS market,” suggesting that the game they would be working on is their own FPS game, Valorant. We have no word on when the game might be coming to consoles, but it is looking like it might be sometime soon.
The Callisto Protocol is locking death animations behind a season pass
In quite a weird move, the details for the season pass of The Callisto Protocol have been released on Steam and they include several death animations which will not be in the original game. This might make sense if there were some exclusive levels locked behind the season pass of the game, introducing the player to new environments and therefore introducing new ways to die.
There are four main parts to the season pass, one contains skins, while another is story DLC. There are two bundles that seem to add new areas to the game. The Contagion Bundle seems to be a new mode, dubbed Contagion, that has its own difficulty mode and permadeath. It is unclear whether this mode comes with a new area but that would explain the 13 new death animations for your character. What makes this especially unclear is that the next part of the season pass, the Riot Bundle, explicitly mentions a new area of the game, with new enemy death animations.
Glen A. Schofield, the director of the game and the head of the developer Striking Distance, has cleared up the story.
“To be clear: We’re not holding anything back from the main game for the season pass. We haven’t even started work on this content yet. It’s all new stuff that we’ll be working on in the new year. Fans have asked for EVEN MORE deaths, so we’re making it a priority next year.”
But what makes this confusing is that it does not seem to negate the fact that 13 death animations will be present in the season pass that are not in the main game. Fans seem to have had enough of DLC being planned for games before they release, and honestly, you can’t blame them. The Callisto Protocol will be released on Dec. 2, 2022.
Come back tomorrow to check out our next gaming news roundup.
