In The News
Weekend in review:
Happy New Year! Check out game developers’ New Year’s Resolutions compiled by Gamasutra.
Amazon’s best selling game for 2017 was Super Mario Odyssey, Polygon’s Michael McWhertor reports. “Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild for Switch” were 2nd and 3rd, respectively.
Tyler Barriss, 25, has been taken into custody following “a suspected ‘swatting’ hoax 911 call in Kansas that ended in the fatal police shooting of an unarmed man,” NBC News’s Andrew Blankstein reports. “The LAPD took Tyler Barriss of Los Angeles into custody in that city on Friday afternoon … Barriss allegedly made the false report after getting into some kind of dispute with another person in connection with online gaming, and Barriss allegedly gave authorities the address that he believed that person lived at, multiple law enforcement sources told NBC News.”
What does it take to be hired by Shigeru Miyamoto? He told The New York Times’ Simon Parkin. Here’s a snippet: “‘I always look for designers who aren’t super-passionate game fans,’ Mr. Miyamoto said. ‘I make it a point to ensure they’re not…’”
Nintendo Switch has officially outsold PlayStation 4’s first year numbers in Japan. “Nintendo sold 878,063 units of Switch between Nov. 27 and Dec. 24 in Japan,” Wall Street Journal’s Takashi Mochizuki tweeted. “Japan accounts for 25% of Nintendo’s total Switch hardware/software sales.”
Almost 24 million “physical video games were sold in the UK during 2017,” GamesIndustry.biz’s Christopher Dring writes. “In terms of revenue, the amount of money made by physical games has risen slightly by 2.1%.”
The boat sailed, Monumental Sports & Entertainment’s Zach Leonsis says. “He expressed the thought that potential investors are monitoring the esports scene, but don’t know how to make an entry and added that ‘for people who are trying to get into the space, there are probably some opportunities that have been missed by this point because valuations are increasingly higher and higher,’” The Esports Observer’s Angelos Anastasopoulos writes.
Interested in Xbox and Microsoft’s history? VentureBeat’s Dean Takahashi reports Rusel Demaria wrote “800 pages of additional reading. Demaria interviewed scores of former Xbox and PC gaming veterans, and he created a history of Microsoft’s game business, dubbed Game of X.”
Speaking of Xbox, Engadget’s Jon Fingas reports “Microsoft has introduced party chat to the beta Xbox app for iOS. If you’ve been accepted into the program (you have to sign up first), you can keep up with your teammates’ voice conversations from your iPhone or iPad.”
Pokemon Go is coming to China, GamesIndustry.biz’s James Batchelor reports.
Kickstarter’s Luke Crane says money pledged to gaming on the platform was up in 2017, Polygon’s Charlie Hall writes.
PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds hit 3 million concurrent players, Engadget’s Timothy J. Seppala reports.
Evo Japan has some 5,000 registrants, Dot Esports’ Steve Jurek reports.
Call of Duty news:
Congratulations to Rise Nation on winning the Call of Duty World League 2,000 series tournament. They defeated Team Kaliber to take the top spot,” Dot Esports’ Justin Binkowksi reports.
Dot Esports’ Preston Byers reports eRa Eternity “has released its four-man roster and subsequently re-signed ProoFy as the captain of the team, the organization announced via Twitter.”
Binkowski writes that “Anthony ‘Methodz’ Zinni and Peirce ‘Gunless’ Hillman have joined Rise Nation, the organization announced last night.”