New Game + April 1-7

As we inch closer to E3 most companies start saving their big news for the big show. There are still a few stories that made news this week from a wonderful in depth article from Kotaku about the troubled Bioware development that led to the undercooked release of Anthem. Keeping with the serious tone, GameStop released their Q4 and fiscal year end earnings report and things didn’t look good and finally from another video game retailer comes a rumour from Best Buy regarding a few leaked Nintendo Switch titles.

Nintendo

Well at least this time it wasn’t WalMart Canada. According to internal Best Buy listings there have been a few leaks, with the first leak being that Persona 5 is coming to the Switch. This has always seemed like the perfect fit for the game but being a PlayStation Exclusive it didn’t seem like it was a possibility. It started to seem like it had a much better chance of happening when at The Game Awards last year it was announced that the main character Joker would be a DLC fighter in Super Smash Brothers Ultimate. In my opinion this character doesn’t make sense unless Persona 5 makes its way to the Nintendo console. However, that announcement was back in December and we still hadnt heard any news regarding Persona 5. That is until a few days ago when Atlus announced they are releasing a new version of Persona 5 for the PlayStation called Persona 5 Royal or P5R. Atlus also announced they would be making an announcement regarding P5S on April 25th. This has led to the speculation that the S is regarding Switch. Combine this information with the Super Smash DLC and and the Best Buy leak and this looks to be very real. We only have a few more weeks to wait to see what P5S is all about.

There were also two other leaks that came from Best Buy, this was the news that there would be a Link To The Past and Metroid Prime Trilogy coming to the Nintendo Switch. These two games make a lot of sense coming to the Switch, not just because fans want them badly but because recent information corroborates with this leak. A Link To The Past seems plausible because it seems like a lot of the assets have recently been updated based on a couple recent official Nintendo Announcements. The first is Crypt of The Necrodancer looks to take place in a very similar Hyrule to the one featured in ZLTTP. It has the very 16 bit, top down look to it. The second Nintendo Announcement that helps give authenticity to this rumour was Links Awakening. Its hard not to look at that game and not be reminded of ZLTTP. A large question that arises when talking about the SNES classic is what does this release look like if it turns out to be authentic. Is it a full release or is it a Nintendo Switch Online release. As it seems, we are starting to scrape the barrel for NES titles to be released every month. It is also possible that it could be a hybrid release similar to how Microsoft releases games on GamePass. You can either pay the GamePass subscription and play the game for free or if you want nothing to do with GamePass you can also just buy the game outright. The sad part is that if they released LTTP as a standalone like they are releasing Links Awakening that the game would sell really well, however, it would not be the most pleasing for fans who are tired of being resold the same game over and over every generation. I can’t say I wouldn’t be guilty as I would pick up the game on Day 1 and Nintendo probably knows this.

The other major leak was Metroid Prime Trilogy. With the most recent rebuilding and scrapping of Metroid Prime 4. This rumour also adds up as fans have been asking for this trilogy for a while and the distance between now and the release of MP4 seems like a far away place. Releasing the trilogy would help satiate the fans need for Metroid for the time being. Not featured in the leak but the most recent game from that series Metroid: Samus Returns would help keep the fans happy as well. Basically we just need any Metroid that they will offer us.

Based on the information we have right now there isn’t much in the way of huge first party titles for the switch, especially considering that the 3DS has basically been all but abandoned at the moment. You have to think that most of the people who were working on 3DS are either now working on what Nintendo has next or everyone is now focusing on the hybrid handheld console that is the switch. The current big first party games we know from Nintendo this year are Mario Maker 2, Links Awakening, Pokémon, Animal Crossing, and Luigi’s Mansion 3. In the past Nintendo has tried to have at least one large release per month to generate hype in the game and keep interest in the Switch. There are currently 9 months left in the year with only 5 major Nintendo titles, so you have to imagine that there will be more first party announcements. Bayonetta and Fire Emblem are also making their way in 2019 and although these games have their serious cult followings, they don’t set the charts on fire.

Considering we are only about two months away from E3 this leaks seems to have some credibility to it. We are in roughly the same time frame that retailers should be getting information regarding E3. You need time as a retailer to plan supply chain logistics. If you remember last year and the infamous Walmart Canada leak which revealed many games ahead of E3 including Rage 2, Just Cause 4 and Gears 5 to name a few. These are all the reasons that I think this internal Best Buy Leak might be accurate.

While on the topic of Nintendo, the company has announced its offering for the NSO service. The titles include Super Mario 2 The Lost Levels and Punch Out. This is another month that passes with more games announced with no word of SNES titles. Is it ever coming and are we that close to E3 that our next best chance for SNES is during their direct in June. Also announced for the Switch was the XCOM like game Mutant Year Zero: Road To Eden. This game looked very interesting to me but came out at the start of December, which by that time game backlogs were already piled up. I had high hopes that it would eventually make its way to Switch…..like most other games. It will be making its way to the Switch on June 25.

The other interesting piece of Nintendo news this week was the the Labo VR kit would work with Super Mario Odyssey and Breath of the Wild. This is the kind of news and games that will move the needle for not just labor kits but for Nintendo VR. We don’t know too much about it just yet except for that the Odyssey VR will just be a couple of bite sized experiences bespoke specifically for VR. The much more exciting part of that announcement is that the all of breath of the wild will be playable in VR. This will be something to keep an eye on in the next coming weeks because there are a lot of limitations on LaboVR, including the screen resolution and the lack of comfortable headset.

Anthem Crunch

Last week, Kotaku’s Jason Schrier released an in depth article regarding the troubled development of Anthem. It is a very long and well written article, which I urge you to go and read it all for yourself if you have any interest in Bioware or their games. The article clearly states that the trouble at Bioware clearly existed before Anthem, back into Andromeda and even as far as Dragon Age. A couple top level things I took away from it is that EA is not to blame to the dismay of many fans eager to point fingers. The second is that this article doesn’t point fingers at specific people either, instead its clear that its just an overall lack of leadership which has lead to long, stressful times at BioWare.

It is very clear from my point of view after reading this article that EA was not the problem here. I don’t want to sound like a corporate apologist. I just like to give credit where its due and hold people accountable accordingly. In fact it seems like quite the opposite from how the article came off to me. The article mentions EA a couple of times with the first being whenEA VP Patrick Soderland first tried out a half baked demo that the team had created. The article explains how the team at Bioware never really had any direction so the game was constantly in a state of flux with features being taken out and added all the time. As is customary at Bioware the whole team gets to take home the current build of the game to experience it and after the holidays discuss thoughts and feelings regarding the Christmas build. Well the VP of EA was not happy and reportedly said that the game was unacceptable and was especially disappointed with the graphics of the game. EA is always about trying to make games look amazing and if there is one thing the Frostbite engine can do its make amazing visuals. He told Bioware that this was not the game that he was promised. Firstly based on the sounds of how the game was coming along it probably didn’t play or look like a triple A game. The team at Bioware went back to the drawing board to create build and demo specifically for Patrick Soderlund. It was at this time that the flying was put back into the game without the full approval of the whole team. Once he played the next demo they built for him he was much more pleased and was very much in approval of how the flying felt. If there is one thing that fans of anthem and critics can agree on, its how good the flying feels. Clearly EA did not cause problems with this instance. The second mention of EA in this article is for making Bioware release the game before the end of fiscal year 2018 which would have been March 31, 2019. EA is a publicly traded company so they need to release games and make profits to keep shareholders happy. Bioware clearly knew this when they agreed to the sale. The thing is that Anthem had been in development for nearly seven years at this point and as a business you can’t keep giving extensions. Once again, I don’t fault EA for this decision to get Anthem out the door. Sometimes you need to be taught a tough lesson to finally learn. The final way that EA was mentioned in this story was that it wants all studios to be using the Frostbite engine, which I understand. The reason for this is that they don’t have to pay licensing fees for other engines, which has its pros and cons. On the bright side, they don’t have to pay fees but if the game is buggy and doesn’t ship properly then you won’t be selling many copies of your game ultimately this would negate the savings from licensing. Frostbite is a pretty powerful engine that can run a lot of different game types, as it basically powers all of the EA games including FIFA, Madden, Need For Speed, Battefield, Battlefront and obviously Anthem. The problem is that it is very hard to use from what I understand with fixes that work on other engines not working on Frostbite. According to the article this lead to a lot of bugs that take upwards of a week to fix just one, which ultimately led to Bioware deciding that it wasn’t worth it to fix many bugs and issues before launch. The hope is that it wouldn’t be found and that it could possibly be fixed post launch.

The rest of the article goes on to say that Bioware never really had much direction or vision for Anthem from the beginning, including the name. It was originally supposed to be called beyond but trying to patent that name proved tough. The name Anthem didn’t even mean anything at the start, they decided afterwards to write the story around that. It sounds like a lot of the game was designed this way by basically putting the horse before the cart as the saying goes. The article makes it sound like this is a very common occurrence among Bioware titles and this time it seems like their luck finally ran out. The norm is for the game to be broken and almost not ready for shipping but then at the last minute with a lot of long nights and weekends they always make it right at the last minute and everything works out. From other developers that spoke out after this article this sounds like being broken up until almost the last minute is a common occurrence in the gaming development cycle. Although this strategy will eventually catch up and it did. The success of Dragon Age Inquisition was built in the same method of just in time. Unfortunately, the game did quite well and even won some game of the year awards which led Bioware to believe that no matter what is happening they will always be able to get the job done. This ideology started to fall apart when Mass Effect: Andromeda did poorly. It was very clear that Mass Effect just needed a lot more time to iron out the bugs and to develop a better story. Although with how the article reads, you might just assume that more time wouldn’t have done the game any favours anyways.

Bioware is now at a very important junction in the studios existence. EA has not had problems taking losses and shutting studios down before with the most recent closures of Motive and Visceral. As well as cancelling the unknown Star Wars titles we don’t know much about. With the last two releases, Bioware has given itself a bad reputation, which is unfortunate because they used to be one of those studios that you just knew the game would be good and the story would be well developed. With the releases of Mass Effect Andromeda and now Anthem, not only is Biowares reputation as a top tier studio in jeopardy but the whole future of the studio is in the delicate balance

The true hero of this article was that it didn’t vilify anyone particular person or point the finger at EA which is the easiest thing to do at the moment. Instead it highlighted the term crunch and how it can’t always save a game, no matter how many extra hours people put into it. It seems that the project was in disarray from the beginning and a little extra planning and decisiveness would have made all the difference. Bioware lacked leadership and if the top doesnt know what to do what is expected of the people at the bottom.

On the other side of things you have something along the lines of Team Meat, the makers behind Super Meat Boy and the upcoming Super Meat Boy: Forever. They announced officially on twitter that the game would be delayed. The game originally planned for an April release has been pushed back slightly according to the devleoper. The post states that they feel they have been developing at record speeds but to keep the April 2019 would not be healthy. “We could have sacrificed our minds, bodies and social lives to make April 2019 but thats stupid. Team Meat isn’t owned by an evil asshat corporation that has say over what we do and how we do it. We are fortunate enough to have control over how we work and we choose not to run ourselves into the ground”

The post also went on to say that they new release date would be “after but not too far after April 2019”. This is refreshing in todays gaming state for a few reasons. Sure, some gamers will be pissed and maybe even possibly not buy the game but for the most part everyone will be just fine. Its good that the team is not putting the game out in a state that could be deemed unfinished or have bugs. I don’t consider Team Meat on the same AAA level as Bioware and EA but it is still good to see smaller companies speak out about crunch and at the end of the day mental health means more.

Game End

In keeping with the tone of business, this week GameStop released their fiscal earnings and things do not look good. This is not much of a surprise as the company has been on a downward trend now for a while. The stocks last high of $46 was in November of 2015. Since then it has been a gradual decline to the under $10 per share price that it currently goes for today. Things seemed to have gotten very dire in the last few months as the stock has been down almost 40% since January. There was rumour of a sale which fell through, which hurt the value because a lot of investors thought new management might be able to save them. We are also coming to the end of a console cycle which hurts because people don’t need to purchase hardware this close to the end of the cycle. This also hurts gaming sales as most developers are now planning games for the launch of the next generation which leads to less game releases.

We will take a full deep dive on GameStop in the near future on the site but for now we are just going to take a look at the grim highlights of the Q4 and Fiscal 2018 results. The results weren’t good but according to CFO Rob Lloyd “We are pleased to have delivered fiscal 2018 within our adjusted guidance range”. They also went on to say that they are aware the challenges that are facing the preowned game business and plan to evolve going forward.

Highlights from the 2018 report included that hardware sales were down almost 1.3 percent overall with Switch sales being up. New software sales decreased almost 5 percent and even worse news for the company was that preowned sales decreased around 13 percent. This seems to be a combination of less games coming out at the end of a generation cycle as well as more games becoming services and always updating like Destiny, The Division and many more. A huge bright spot for the company was that accessories were up 22 percent, which was driven by headset and controller sales. Gamers are growing up, getting more disposable income and wanting a premium headset and controller experience. Although i’m not sure if a full focus in this specific area would pay off long term as online retailers such as Amazon have the same wide offerings and are only getting more options and faster shipping with many options available same day.

Gamestop lost 700 million in Q4 alone which is crazy considering they also sold their mobile arm, Spring Mobile a few months back for 700 million. If not for the sale of Spring mobile it would have been a loss over one billion dollars. One of the lone bright spots in the earnings report was that total sales were over 8 billion dollars. This is clearly a company that understands how to move product. Since the increase in digital sales the company has tried to venture out and diversify. A few of these methods have worked out over the years including the increase in accessories which increased 22 percent year on year and the collectibles which increased 11 percent for a total of 707.5 million and that is a lot of funko pops. The mobile venture didn’t prove to be as fruitful as the probably would have hoped and it probably tied up a lot of cash flow but they were able to sell Spring mobile for a good amount. It is unclear if they made a profit on that venture as it was never disclosed how much it was acquired for.

Im not sure what GameStop needs to do to stay relevant in a digital age. However, I don’t see their demise coming for at least a few years. I forsee the company being able to stay afloat at least until the next generation of consoles launches which would help bolster the companies bottom line. There are a lot of places you can purchase your gaming hardware nowadays from Target to Walmart and Amazon to name a few but many people will prefer to purchase from GameStop. After that many developers are reporting every year their digital sales increase which is great news for them as they don’t have to pay retailers a large chunk of the profits. We live in an age of convienience, so it becomes much easier if you don’t have to leave the house to purchase the new game you want or if you want to buy the game at midnight. I am not sure what the future looks like for GameStop but with less reliance on physical media and hardware possibly becoming obsolete it will be interesting to see how things shake up for this Fortune 500 company going forward.