Welcome to Industry Intel, your weekly guide to everything video games industry. It’s been a relaxed and somewhat positive week in the business with no major controversies, some minor announcements, and just enough leaks to spice things up. Let’s see what video game studios have been up to.
Fall Guys Swims in Cash
Fall Guys sells a whopping 7 million copies on Steam. In addition, the Battle of the Brands initiative that we told you about last time is over with a $1 million donation to charity Special Effect made collectively by Aim Lab, G2 Esports, Ninja, and Mr Beast. Developer Mediatonic promises to give each of the contributors their own skin, so stay tuned to see how those jellybeans look in-game.
Console Leaks
Ubisoft might have accidentally shared that PS5 is not expected to have backward compatibility. A now-deleted FAQ had this information for a while, before being swept under the rug, probably under pressure from Sony. Backward compatibility for the PS5 is widely assumed to be a feature but isn’t officially announced yet.
Xbox Series S has been back in the news, this time leaked by an Xbox controller labled as compatible with Xbox Series X/S. The cheaper alternative to Microsoft’s next-gen machine is not announced yet, but we already know about it, so there’s that.
AAA Shakeup
A couple of shooter games have been making the news this week.
First, Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War will reportedly cost $70 on next-gen and keep the $60 price tag on current consoles. In addition, the PlayStation 4 version of the game will offer a $10 upgrade pack. This is part of some AAA companies’ move to more expensive games in the next generation.
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Second, Halo Infinite has been bringing back key talent from older versions to “help ship the game”. This includes Joseph Staten who worked on the characters and story of Halo in the past, and Pierre Hintze, who’s tasked with the F2P multiplayer campaign. After the recent delay blamed on the coronavirus outbreak, the guys seem to be doing everything they can to finish the game as soon as possible. In other business news, the Monster Energy cross-promotion carries on, so everyone who purchases a can of energy drink between September 1 and December 31 will get a 30-minute Double XP boost… when the game is actually out.
For more business news and games that are already out, keep reading EarlyGame!
