After more than a year that they could not come to a new agreement and let games being removed from Chinese market (except Diablo Immortal), Blizzard Entertainment will return to China via Xbox consoles. Back in November 2022, when Activision Blizzard were still independent, could not reach a new business agreement beyond the availability of Diablo Immortal (a whole different agreement) and let January 2023 as the official month of most of Blizzard Entertainment games to be retired. This week's announcement is basically a Microsoft Gaming led gaming success in China gaming market, that includes to explore bringing new NetEase games to Xbox consoles and other platforms. NetEase hasn't been in the bench despite losing a powerful partner like Blizzard (which rumors saying that in part, is was due disturbed communication with unpleasant misunderstandings for then CEO Bobby Kotick), as buying and investing in Westerns gaming studios. For immediate effect, Chinese gamers will expect the recovery of access of previous available titles like World of Warcraft, Hearthstone, and other titles in the Warcraft, Overwatch, Diablo and StarCraft franchises. Of course, Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer considers this agreement a new Xbox victory for bringing more games to more players around the world. #Gaming #GameNews #youtubegaming 🕹 🎮

During a big update on expectation for the launch of Senua's Saga #Hellblade2, Ninja Theory co-founder Tameem Antoniades has left the studio, confirmed by Xbox Game Studios acknowledging his unignorable absence on the latest updates of the game. The game has achieved Unreal Engine 5 visual benchmark, regardless being capped at 30 fps for Xbox consoles, it is touted as true next-gen experience & one of the best good-looking games so far as game's realistic FMVs scenes will match movie theater's quality at 24 fps. Hellblade 2's Storyline will be a narrative, linear action experience with very high production values, focus on story and cinematic craft, impactful combat & puzzles, expected to take players between 8 to 9 hours to complete. Combat system was designed to be a one on one only, slow-paced and expect to feel brutal with swinging your sword always feeling heavy & impactful. Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 launches DIGITAL ONLY on Xbox & PC, both for sale & Day One release with Game Pass on May 21, 2024 with no physical version announced (yet maybe?). #Gaming #GameNews #youtubegaming 🕹 🎮

Nintendo announced that #NintendoSwitch have surpassed the 139.36 million unit sold and overtaking DS family as the best-selling video game system of all time in Japan. During their quarterly conference with investor, Nintendo claims that Switch will be main business for 2024 & didn't mention anything about its successor, slated to be released this year and reportedly, key partners are already developing games with dev kits. During the three months until December 31, Nintendo reported an operating profit of ¥184 billion yen, slightly down on the same period last year but still, went better than analyst expected. Analyst are impressed on how Nintendo have a steady business with an aged Nintendo Switch ecosystem & limited hardware compared to PC and gaming consoles, all this without major price cuts. #Gaming #GameNews #youtubegaming 🕹🎮

https://www.twitch.tv/nerdsoftheasylum The "Play a console, and pack it up" Tour Continues with PS2 Night!

https://www.twitch.tv/nerdsoftheasylum The week of console chaos continues with Xbox Night!

Unfortunately for Sony this week, Rhysida hacker group went on their deadline after only 2% of the stolen data on their hack to #Playstation Studios' Insomniac Games was actually sold and the remaining 98% was released on the Dark Web. The loot is actually more than 1.3 million files totaling 1.67 terabytes and includes much more than anticipated than a swift hacking usually manages to copy. As expected in this kind of big stole, future games, and internal HR documents, budgets, more are in the public yes and as well Insomniac’s future projects, including the upcoming Marvel Wolverine game, a publishing agreement with Marvel that promises future games. Of course, the "promised games" is on the stipulation that Sony and Playstation needs to comply with goals set by both Disney and Marvel and maybe isn't just that Sony has strategically held the movies and videogames rights for Spider-man. Along with Wolverine, seems that Sony is ready to answer EA's take on Marvel Iron Man and now Bethesda/Xbox Game Studios's take on Marvel Blade as Insomniac landed a exclusive X-Men game, pending to be announced. As for more Marvel games, the Venom game is slated for a 2025 release, followed by a 2026 release of Wolverine and early estimate for X-Men is at 2030, which probably might see Iron Man and Blade being in this 7 years interval. Other documents reveals that Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart was not a total financial success despite being the flagship game for the launch of PS5 with a miss of 10% below Return Of Investment or in plain language, the game was not profitable at least in normal sales channel. A follow-up Ratchet & Clank main game is currently in development with a target release year of 2029. Finally and honestly I wasn't expecting anything centralized on the Playstation business and much-less being housed on one of Playstation Studios's servers but, here is the bad luck for Sony. Apparently, Insomniac Games had probably copies of documents that appears to be for Sony Interactive Entertainment to actually hold and there was a report on Steam sales of Playstation games brought to PC. Numbers includes: -Horizon Zero Dawn - 3.3 million units -God of War 2018 - 2.5 million units - Days Gone - 1.7 million units -Marvel Spider-Man Remastered 1.3 million units -Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves 483k units -Marvel Spider-Man: Miles Morales 450k units -Sackboy A big adventure - 62.9k units Surprisingly, there are documents related to the Activision Blizzard acquisition by Microsoft and as excepted, concentrate on the Call Of Duty side of thing including the fear that Microsoft could find ways to differentiate Xbox and Playstation versions of COD. Game Pass subscription and the public perception that Xbox has indeed "lost the console war" as a way to transform the gaming business in one that could have Playstation left behind because their premium sale model and pro hardware model as subs are more feasible for gamers The insistence that the Playstation model is outdated is because Sony feels that Activision Blizzard gives Microsoft strategic value in live service, mobile and PC Storefront and Microsoft can supply, console, PC and subscription services. Reminder, currently the main tasks that Activision Blizzard is working along side Xbox is the new Mobile game app store, reportedly being made from the best of Battle Net & Microsoft Store with King leading the project, which Microsoft has said was the main reason to buy ABK. And with this recap.... BE CAREFUL, Wolverine's leaks apparently are in the wild and there is a PROBABILITY of seeing videos of an early version BOOTABLE of the game as well pics and assets for the game. I am not spoiling anything after this post. #Gaming #GamingNews #Gamestr

A rarity, It's a Wednesday Night stream! Gonna be doing another Art+ Console Night, this time for the Gamecube ^_^ https://www.twitch.tv/nerdsoftheasylum

Sony consoles annoy the shit out of me. I have a fully functioning PS3 and physical copies of the Ratchet and Clank games. Can I stream from the console? Of course not! the system's HDCP stops me from capturing anything. I tried multiple different work arounds and nothing pushes past the HDCP unless I use the A/V cables and an HDMI upscaler which looks like I'm playing a snuff film. So I can either hit the high seas and play the games through ROMs or pay for Sony's trash subscription service so I can STREAM the games to my PS4 and rely on their dog water servers.