Video Games First Quarter 2021 Report Card
Video Games First Quarter 2021 Report Card
With many publicly traded gaming companies recently releasing quarterly earnings reports for the first three months of 2021 and with many outlets doing features that focus on looking ahead for the rest of the year, I thought I would follow Nintendo’s lead and go to the blue ocean. This means that it is time to basically do an earnings report for video gaming as a whole or grade the first quarter.
When trying to figure out the Report Card of Gaming for 2021 there will be many factors that contribute. We have had some fun announcements, there have been some high profile delays, both short and some indefinite and we have seen some great releases giving us great games to play. These are the factors that rose to prominence when trying to decide how to lay out the 2021 first quarter earnings report for video games.
Video Game New Releases First Quarter 2021
When actually living through the first quarter, it certainly seemed like it was a dry period for gaming releases. I know for myself personally, I seemed like a good opportunity to play a few games from my backlog. However, when actually listing out all of the games that were released during the first three months of the year, there are some great games that came out in a period that has traditionally been a little slower.
I can’t spin any yarn for January as that was a very slow month with the exception of Hitman 3, which made waves due to its excellence but also due to the dryness of new games. With news coming late 2020 that IO Interactive was going to be exclusively developing a James Bond game, many were interested to see what kind farewell the studio would give Agent 47 before moving on to 007.
Hitman 3 released on January 20 and after experimenting with the episodic nature of Hitman 2016 and then then changing publishers for Hitman 2, the newly rebooted franchise had gained a cult following and a strong word of mouth. The discussion around the excellence of the Hitman series in addition to a great release window and quarantine still being a major part of everyday life added up to a fantastic launch. Hitman 3 has a 86 review average and despite its early calendar release, Hitman 3 should likely be mentioned in many “Game of the Year” discussions.
Hitman 3 also finally commercially broke through in a major way. Approximately a week after the release of Hitman 3, IOI announced that Hitman 3 had already recouped development costs. Due to the journey of Hitman since 2016, this victory for IOI likely tasted extra sweet.
After the release of Hitman 2016 things fell apart with Square Enix, IOI became independent and somehow retained the rights to the series. In 2018, Hitman 2 was published by WB interactive and due to underperformance ended after the game. This all led to IOI decided to self publish Hitman 3, which meant that the not only was the studio most at risk, but they also were in control of every decision and had the most to gain.
The Nintendo Switch quietly had a strong first quarter with releases for many different gamers. On February 12, one of the last remaining holdouts, and arguably the best from the WiiU ports finally made its way to the Nintendo Switch. Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury came to the hybrid system not only as an improved version of the original but with a open world Mario concept that takes the large levels in Odyssey even farther.
In true Mario nature both games were a blast to play, it was a joy to hop back into 3D World and it was fun to explore Bowser’s Fury and the potential that could come from a fully realized open world Mario. Although there were some things that weren’t ideal, such as Bowser becoming a nuisance pretty quickly and sometimes hard to understand where you should be looking for that fifth star, it was still a great starting point and a natural evolution of Odyssey, should the series go down that path.
The Nintendo Switch also saw a few other big third party releases in the first quarter with Bravely Default 2 in late February and Monster Hunter Rise in late March. Although Bravely Default 2 landed a little divisive based on the reviews, it does currently have a review average of 76.
On the other hand Monster Hunter Rise was a Nintendo Switch exclusive and the first Monster Hunter game to release since the mainstream, breakthrough Monster Hunter World. Rise has been both a critcal and commercial success with a review average of 88 and without spoiling too much from the sales section, Rise was also the second best selling game of March with less than a week of sales and after just a few days on the market is the second best selling game in the series behind only World.
If you are more of a fan of Indies then there was plenty to sink your teeth into during the first quarter. There are always Indies that take over the mainstream, whether that be for a few days, a few weeks or permanently. Recent independent titles that have risen above the rest include Among Us and Hades. This year we have already seen two games come out of nowhere including Valheim, which was released into early access at the start of February and Loop Hero, which came out at the start of March. Both games are PC exclusive at the moment but garnered plenty of attention.
There were also two other independent titles that felt bigger than they were. Disco Elysium: The Final Cut finally arrived on console with plenty of attention after receiving many nominations and awards. It was a little harder for Disco to fly under the radar.
The other quasi-independent game is It Takes Two from Josef Fares and Hazelight Studios and published by EA as part of EA’s Originals. These games aren’t traditional independent games but they are the next best thing. If you are unfamiliar with EA Originals, its an initiative within EA to pick a few independently developed games that they think deserve extra attention due to the quality.
EA has publicly said “beyond our initial investment in bringing the titles to market, all profits go into the hands of the studios that make them” I am not sure why EA chooses to do this, maybe its because they are looking to create more goodwill on the EA brand or maybe its a tax write off somewhere, but if that was the case they would likely publish more than just one or two a year. Josef Fares echoed EA’s statements near the release of A Way Out saying “EA is not making a single dollar”
Back to the topic at hand, It Takes Two was a critical darling out of the gate receiving praise across the board. It Takes Two is currently sitting at a 89 review average. What we didn’t know until just recently is that It Takes Two is a commercial success as well as Hazelight Studios posted the great news on social media. It Takes Two has sold over a million copies in just under a month of availability, which technically means that over 2 million people have played the game since it comes with the friend pass that allows you to play it with someone who doesn’t own the game.
This is great news because in the recently released NPD report, It Takes Two was only the 8th best selling game of March only on the Xbox. It Takes Two didn’t even make the top twenty best selling games of the month, so it was a little worrisome that the critically acclaimed game that was trying to keep full co-op alive didn’t succeed commercially.
Grade: B +
Video Game Delays First Quarter 2021
Video games delays are common place. It may be unfortunate that a game you were anticipating got delayed but based on my research it actually is for the best. I gathered some data based on some high profile delays over the last generation (you can see here), however if you are just looking for the Coles notes on the subject, the average delay is only around 4 months. 8/10 winners of the consensus game of the year have been games that were delayed, the average review score is improved by 15% and the average review score falls between 86% -91%. As you can see, if a game that you are looking forward to gets delayed, its actually a great thing. On top of all of these reasons that show how the game will improve, it also hopefully allows the studio a little respite from working too hard.
Delays fall into a few different categories. You have short delays which would be around 4 months and under, then you have your longer delays which range anywhere over 4 months and under 12 months and then you have very long or indefinite delays, which usually indicate that there is much bigger problems that just working out a few last minute bugs and adding polish.
In the first three months 2021, there has already been a fair amount of delays, which based on everything we heard from last year, there weren’t many delays last year because those games were close to the finish line. The major effects from 2020 are likely to be felt beginning this year and for at least a couple of years until studios fully adapt to the new working environments or things return closer to normal
In terms of very long or indefinite delays we have Gran Turismo 7, which is to be expected from Polyphony who have always been very behind on meeting release dates. Need for Speed got delayed from late 2021 until 2022. This was less about a problem with Need For Speed as Criterion was back in charge of the series which sounded promising. This delay was more about EA shifting Criterion onto Battlefield 6 as they are throwing everything they can at that series to make sure it launches on time and in great shape.
Gotham Knights, the highly anticipated new co-op, superhero game from WB Montreal was delayed out of 2021 into 2022. One of the reasons that this game was highly anticapted is that the last game from WB Montreal was Batman: Arkham Origins for the WiiU, PS3, and Xbox 360 way back in 2013. The game scored in the range from 7’s to 9’s and likely a major reason for the lower scores was that they were in the shadow of RockSteady. This was going to be their first venture since that release that was based on their own design within the DC universe.
Another indefinite release was the remake from Ubisoft of Prince of Persia: Sands of Time. When this game was first revealed back in September of 2020, gamers seemed underwhelmed and the negative feedback was loud. The first release date was scheduled for January 2021 and then it was pushed back until March and then again in early February, Ubisoft announced it was shifting the release to a later date, which doesn’t sound promising that it will be hitting in 2021.
Finally, there are short delays that fall in that under 4 month window. Returnal, the upcoming PS5 exclusives from Housemarque and one of our most anticapted games on the year based on the studios arcade pedigree combined with time loop story and rogue lite mechanics was pushed back from a late March release until April 30th.
Outriders was delayed from early February until April 1st and this seemed to pay dividends for the series as they were able to improve upon the demo based the feedback received and just based on a few days of early pre order releases, Outriders was able to become the third best selling game of March, according to the NPD report and it was available on Game Pass.
Deathloop, the PS5 exclusive from Dishonored developed Arkane Lyon was delayed for just under four months as it will now release in September hopefully as this was the second delay for the anitcapted ultra stylish time loop shooter. Back 4 Blood, the spiritual successor to Left 4 Dead, developed from Turtle Rock Studios, the team behind the original co-op shooter before they left Valve also delayed their game four months from late June until October. The alpha they released was very well received by fans and critics that were able to get access and delaying the game a few months for some last minute tweaks bodes well.
There were a lot of delays that happened in the first three months of the year but there is always a lot of delays that happen, especially after CyberPunk 2077 released the way it did on consoles. Overall most of the games that were delayed only received small delays which will hopefully translate to better sales and higher scores.
Grade: A -
Video Game News/Announcements First Quarter 2021
When trying to figure out a good way to breakdown the news from the first quarter, looking at many of the stories they naturally feel into categories for each major platform. Nintendo, Xbox and PlayStation all had some great stories during the early parts of the year.
Starting with Xbox and every story revolves around Game Pass, which makes sense because we had an article explaining that Microsoft is going to stop at nothing to make Game Pass the Netflix of games.
Late last year Microsoft announced the purchase of ZeniMax Media, which for all intents and purposes meant that they now owned Bethesda and all of its studios. However it wasn’t until the deal finalized in March that we started to see the early implications of how this deal might look moving forward. First, once the ink dried and the deal was finalized, Game Pass saw the addition of 20 Bethesda titles, instantly bolstering an already very strong value proposition. Shortly after the deal finalized and the games were added to Game Pass, The heads of Xbox sat down with many of the heads of Bethesda to talk about the deal moving forward.
Phil Spencer head of Xbox said “With the addition of Bethesda creative teams, gamers should know that Xbox consoles, PC and Game Pass will be the best place to experience new Bethesda games, including some new titles in the future that will be exclusive to Xbox and PC players”. It’s hard to extrapolate exactly what that carefully thought statement means but at the very least there is going to be a lot of Xbox exclusivity of Bethesda titles moving forward.
Game Pass also had a few other surprise tricks up its sleeve early this year. The first was the announcement that Outriders, the early year anticipated third person, loot based, cover shooter that isn’t a live service was going to be coming to Game Pass on day 1. This was a pleasant surprise that came only a few weeks before the release of the game.
It likely helped the game as Outriders felt like it fell in the category of likely wouldn’t play it or try it but since it was on Game Pass, give it a try and by the sounds of it be pleasantly surprised. It didn’t hurt Outriders because despite launching on April 1, Outriders was still the third best selling game on PlayStation and Xbox for the month of March. It even became the tenth best selling game of 2021 in the first quarter, which must be on the sales of pre ordered copies.
The other big Game Pass news was that MLB: The Show 21 was coming to the Microsoft subscription service. We already got the great news earlier in the year that the gold standard for simulation baseball, that has been a PlayStation exclusive was now coming to the Xbox but in addition to that, was now going to be on Game Pass day one. Microsoft likely spent a few dollars to make that deal happen but not only did Microsoft have a baseball game that wasn’t Super Mega Baseball or RBI, they now had the best baseball game on Game Pass.
On the PlayStation front, they announced a new slew of games that would be available completely free as part of the Sony Play at Home initiative. In addition to some of the free games that Sony offered in 2020, they would now be offering games like 2016’s Ratchet and Clank and Horizon Zero Dawn Compete Edition. Both of these titles are very smart additions to the Play at Home due to their hopeful upcoming 2021 new entries. Adding these free games is great goodwill but it should also spark interest in the series for those that are picking them up for the first time.
The PlayStation announcement that got me excited was the news that the next generation of PSVR is officially in development with development kits being sent out. I was a huge fan of PSVR for about the first year or so but quickly felt the limitations of the system including the way it hooked up to the PS4, the amount of wires that attached to the headset and the move controllers put a limit of the immersion. I understand why that in order to keep the cost down on the system and make it mainstream, they had to make some concessions and it worked as PSVR likely is the best selling VR system so far.
The next generation of PSVR that doesn’t have a title yet will now have new controllers built from the ground up for VR that can detect specific individual finger movements. The other great feature is that the new headset will only connect to the PlayStation with one wire. Although they didn’t say just how big the wire would be and it won’t be wireless is a little unfortunate but these are all major improvements from the first iteration and considering the limitations of PSVR, it was a very good product.
Nintendo also made headlines earlier this year with their first Nintendo Direct in 532 days and while we didn’t get everything we wanted, there were still some highlights and something for everyone. Easily the highlight for me was a new Mario Golf game that is due out in June. Some other highlight included the follow up to Project Octopath, Splatoon 3 reveal, Skyward Sword Switch Port and a few other smaller details but nothing on the level many were hoping for. Nonetheless, it was still good to see Nintendo break the dry spell for mainline Nintendo Directs.
Grade A+
Video Game First Quarter 2021 Final Grade
Many have called 2021 the year of the backlog and while that may always be the case, it’s also not always a bad thing to catch up on some hidden gems you may have missed because there were just too many games to play. When putting things into perspective and looking back at the first three months of the year, there was plenty of great games that were released, some great news and the delays weren’t too bad. Most of what we have come to expect this year, still seems like it is on track for this year. Looking at the second quarter, it still looks like a great time to be a gamer.