2021 In News: First Quarter

In a year, also in a strange one, many things happen. Some good hands, many pulling bad, and almost all likely to be forgotten with the next morning filtration or because of a treacherous delay. Wouldn't you buy them, I do not know who? At the end there was E3? Are new consoles already old? Yes, son, yes. Time does not understand pandemics or semiconductor, so it will be good for all this exercise to review, more or less above, the main news video games of this already agony 2021.

January

With or without sale, the first thing we write this year was that Nintendo had bought Next Level Games. By publishing Luigi's Mansion 2, the Canadian study had already decided to develop only for large n platforms; After Luigi's Mansion 3, Kyoto, they wanted to make sure that was not going to change.

Indeed, twelve months have also been marked by acquisitions of all kinds have been. Tencent, for example, remains without normal medium: A few weeks after being done with Life, another heavyweight in China, announced the purchase of a majority of participation in Klein Entertainment and paid 30 million dollars, little thing, to become Minority Shareholder of Donned.

Creation during the confinements

You can not start a year without taking balance of the previous one. It is what distinguishes us from the rest of the animals. And it turns out that, despite the sorrow (the effects of the coronavirus would continue to be noticed throughout the year; in January the opening of Super Nintendo World), the video game industry grew by 2020 — a 12%, according to Superman, to reach a billing of 140,000 million dollars. Also Steam's statistics reminded us that we had spent many hours locked up at home: sales at the Valve store rose 21%, and we spent 50% more hours there, give it to you with the machining.

Sorry for the delay

We know (too much) well that the game guys have a fat problem the subject of dates; Rare is, since a few years ago, the launch that reaches the stores as initially foreseen. We only lacked, then, this from the Covid-19 and teleworking. It has been more understanding with all these delay, what less, but some do not need to eat sardines to drink water. Do you remember the video published by Sony during CES 2021? That one week later changed, magically, because he had not hit one: Kenya in March, Little Devil insides in July and Ghost wire Tokyo in October, they said, besides that Horizon: Forbidden West looking hollow for that same year.

Warner waited little to send Hogwarts Legacy to 2022 and also The Lord of the Rings: Gollum, which was already starting to smell to wine, he was clear that he would be ready in 2021.

See you soon, Lucas

It was also in January when Disney was surprised by recovering the Lucasfilm Games brand for Star Wars games. What are Star Wars games? As an open world developed by Ubisoft Massive, for example, because the exclusivity agreement with Electronic Arts had stopped making sense for both parties. But not only from the far galaxy lives the good of George: a new adventure of Indiana Jones, from the hand of Machine games and Bethesda (then we knew that Microsoft had bought Animal, but they were still with paperwork), With Todd Howard himself as an executive producer.

Still, of course, we have not seen nor do we know anything about those projects.

Holder of the month: Cotonou Ibaraki founds a new study, Ibaraki Games

February

For those who retained the smell, the second month of 2021 continued to smelling money. They were days of financial reports and, in general, that was a party. Nintendo modified its rising forecasts while Switch, with only four years in stores and 79 million units sold, advanced 3DS on the right. I tell you more: 4.5 million PS5 sold in a month and a half allowed Jim Ryan to talk about the best launch of a console and seemed, he only seemed, that the problems of scarcity were not going to be so serious for Sony. And Ubisoft, believe it or not, closed the best trimester of its history thanks especially to Assassin's Creed: Valhalla.

They also did not keep the checkbook the usual suspects. Embrace Group purchased Gearbox Software and Electronic Arts paid 1,200 million to stay with Code Master. Cheap! A week before the double at Flu Mobile had been spent.

Google Stadia't

I guess it was a matter of time, but I was one of those who thought they would endure a little more. Even a game, at least. What's going: Day two of the two confirmed Phil Harrison, Director General of Stadia, that Google's cloud service would follow himself without internal studies. With the closing of those offices and the cancellation of the projects FIRST Party, Jade Raymond was out of play — a month later announced Haven, a new team financed partly by PlayStation — and the future of the platform, questioned since one-minute one He staggered like never again.

The efforts to pretend a certain level of commitment followed playing joke and, in fact, nobody missed Stadia Connect for a year also marked by digital events — the last one had been issued in July 2020, although nobody carries the account. While it is true that you are still reading some comments from satisfied users with latency or with the catalog of the PRO subscription, it takes much more than that to believe in the comeback; Jump a moment to November to proceed this video, which aims to celebrate the second anniversary of Stadia and is, in every way, a monument to casimuertism.

Things were not much better on Amazon, with a similar vision for the future of the industry. Neither moon, right now matters just as little, nor with a division of games that did not stop burning money and that in February 2021 delayed New World for the third time. There was only one left.

ETR ASOS: RELOADED

Talking about the subject…

Ubisoft was becoming ball the remake of Prince of Persia: the sands of time, which was delayed indefinitely. There he continues. It is also costing Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines 2, which changed Hard suit Labs by a mysterious developer and is no longer dare to get wet with dates. More surprising was the change of plans with great tourism 7, which until that moment was expected for early 2021 — and still had a half year to be able to point out the version for PS4 as guilty of the delay.

Cam bios in PlayStation

It was not that the only surprising movement of Sony. MLB The Show 21 for Xbox -and in Game Pass, Eye — can be seen as something anecdote, a matter of licenses, but the arrival of Days Gone to PC confirmed the bet of PlayStation Studios on other platforms.

The present and the future of the company, in any case, necessarily pass through the hardware. By PS5 and also by its virtual reality system, announced well in advance so that we forget PSV; The controls look good and the specifications sound reasonable, but it seems easy to suppose that the glasses will also come later than expected.

It comes sequel to Castro Bot: Rescue Mission, Sure, but will not take the seal of Japan Studio. After several producers and directors announced their march in social networks, Sony confirmed the dreaded restructuring to yield all the protagonism to Team As obi and its small rob belling.

But that they do not call it E3

That could not afford another summer without E3, so it quickly responded to leaks over the 2021 digital edition; They continued to negotiate with the large companies in the sector, which apparently considered the rental price for virtual spaces very expensive. The thing ended up going regular, we will arrive, but at least we get rid of the payment content that also came to rumored.

Beyond what is reassembled or not in Los Angeles, it is evident that digital events came to stay — until the Epic Games Store had his. Nintendo, who dominates the format for years, saved a desperate Direct with the announcement of PLATOON 3 and The Pokémon Company, which celebrated the 25th anniversary of Pikachu, surprised us with Pokémon legends: Areas.

Holder of the month: BioWare redistributes your efforts and cancels Anthem Next

March

Well, more of the same. Epic Games bought Me diatonic to stay with Fall Guys, yes, okay, but it was also officially completed the acquisition of Bethesda by Microsoft. They had already released the bomb (and the 7.5 billion dollars) in September of last year, but with the green light of the regulatory bodies came the time of staging with the round table and the incorporation to Game Pass.

And a little more

Without Game Developers Conference, which was exceptionally moved to July (at the moment holding the GDC 2022 by the end of March in San Francisco, but sail to know), we stayed a month without great holders. He touched commenting on Bloomberg's rumors about the new switch model with OLED screen and higher resolution, but it is true that the LeBron has no grace when you know the end. At least Miyamoto could, finally, inaugurate the amusement park.

Meanwhile, on CD Project they continued with the Calvary that had touched the roof with the Iberian suffered by the Polish developer; After that, the independent multiplayer from Cyberpunk 2077 was canceled was the least. The game, to all that, had been available for a while at PlayStation Store. Oh, yes, and just Sony returned a bit again with the closure of PS3, PSP and Vita stores — which at the end no, but hey, a little yes. Holder of the month: A very legal blonde will have an adaptation to the video game