Originally Posted by Destuctoid

Boasting a curated library of full games, Apple Arcade will not just be for games that came out on the App Store in the past, but new games from famous designers such as Will Wright (Sim City), Ken Wong (Monument Valley), and Hironobu Sakaguchi (Final Fantasy) will also be coming to the platform.

Not content to simply be a publisher, Apple is also looking to help fund games that are released through its service. Phil Schiller, Apple's senior VP of worldwide marketing, claims that they are "working with some of the most innovative game developers in the world to create over 100 new and exclusive games to play across iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple TV." It has been confirmed that Apple Arcade will stay exclusive to Apple products which really cements this as Apple's entry to try and stave off Google's Stadia that was recently announced.

Originally Posted by Ruien (Post 5236142)

Always thought it was weird to buy digital games from other sources.

Originally Posted by Destructoid

Electronic Arts has laid off a substantial number of employees, reducing its total workforce by four percent. For the 9,000-employee publishing giant, this amounts to approximately 350 people who are left without jobs. This follows a particularly "difficult quarter" where EA says it "did not perform to [its] expectations."

According to Kotaku, it's mostly the marketing, publishing, operations, and analytics departments that are affected. People in marketing have reportedly expected something along these lines for a while now, as EA had placed a freeze on hiring and travel months ago. Additionally, EA has closed offices in Japan and Russia as it "focus[es] on different ways to serve players in those markets."

Originally Posted by Emperor Smeat (Post 5236305)

EA recently laid off around 4% of its workforce according to a report from Kotaku.

Around 350 people were laid off and the official reason given was their past fiscal quarter "did not perform to [its] expectations." Also shut down several offices and put a freeze on new hirings.



https://kotaku.com/ea-lays-off-350-p...lyt-1833575289

Originally Posted by Big Vic (Post 5236678)

Would be pretty cool if EA folded.

Won't be cool when Disney buys all of its properties.

Originally Posted by Destuctoid

As Siliconera points out, the Kyoto branch of Monolith Soft has worked on Skyward Sword, A Link Between Worlds, and Breath of the Wild proving support for Nintendo.

Originally Posted by Destructoid

For city-builder Anno 1800, Ubisoft has opted to play both sides in a way that should placate everyone -- presuming they act within the next couple of weeks. Anno 1800 can be pre-ordered through Steam up until its April 16 release date. Anyone who does that can launch the game through Steam and will get regular updates through Steam.

However, at launch, Anno 1800 will switch so that it can only be purchased on the Epic Games Store and the Ubisoft Store. That's the Ubisoft and Epic partnership coming into play. Only people who pre-order have the option of launching Anno 1800 from their Steam library; everyone else has to use a different client. Because multiplayer is filtered through Uplay, all PC players (regardless of client) will be able to play together.

Originally Posted by Destuctoid

After partnering with the design conglomerate just several years ago, Valve is poised to enter the VR business in earnest with their own hardware: the "Valve Index." This was announced without warning over the weekend and details are very vague: yep, that's Valve (minus the nebulous "Valve Time," as a May 2019 release date was shared).

As The Verge points out there seems to be several wide-angle cameras to prevent any room-based bumps, as well as a slider for folks who might not adjust to VR as well as others. The longstanding wild rumor is that Half-Life 3 will be a VR experience to help sell Valve's future vision of VR (but not necessarily at launch).

Originally Posted by Destructoid

For instance in 2015 when it was announced, learned that CyberConnect2 (famous for Asura's Wrath and a boat load of Naruto games) was working on the remake in tandem with Square Enix. Then we found out that they were jettisoned as the publisher moved to an in-house strategy. This week, Square Enix has announced by their own recruitment page that Naoki Hamaguchi (who was a programmer for the XIII series and was promoted to project lead for the VII remake) is now co-directing with the veteran Tetsuya Nomura.

Originally Posted by Destuctoid

Players tongues have been set wagging due to a mysterious Easter Egg in Ubisoft's multiplayer shooter Tom Clancy's The Division 2. As first noted by YouTuber JorRaptor, the interior of the in-game Potomac Events Centre sports a range of posters for an upcoming show, titled "Valhalla" and featuring the image of a proud hooded warrior.

Eagle-eyed players have noticed, however, that the Viking appears to be grasping The Apple of Eden, the main plot device - or "MacGuffin," as film wankers say - of the Assassin's Creed series. This has led players to suggest that the follow up to Assassin's Creed Odyssey will be set in The Viking Age, which took place around 1000 A.D.

This find also ties in with a previous report by website Kotaku, in which two independent sources both stated that the horned-helmet berserkers would indeed be making their debut in the Assassin's Creed franchise. Said sequel is supposedly being developed under the working title of "Assassin's Creed Kingdom" and is said to be scheduled for a 2020 release.

Originally Posted by Destuctoid

As Sony subtly reminds us the backend is kind of a mess, so the only games guaranteed to support the ID change are ones published "after April 1, 2018." Anything before that might not work or cause various issues, though Sony says that "most actively played PS4 games" will be fine.

Wild right? Side effects for non-supported titles include (cue soothing music) "a non-visible PSN ID, lost progress, bugged games, and "losing access to content." These issues are plainly explained on the official PlayStation Blog and exist out of the test/staging area, so it's a very much "at your own risk" sort of deal.