In The News
Apple will pay for your love. Engadget’s Jon Fingas writes that “Financial Times sources claim Apple is spending ‘hundreds of millions’ of dollars, ‘likely’ over $500 million in total, to secure games for the subscription offering. It’s reportedly spending ‘several’ million dollars per game, and is offering perks if developers grant temporary exclusives.”
WinFuture has obtained alleged pictures of the “new Xbox One S All Digital Edition.”
HQ Trivia staff really, really don’t like their boss. “According to multiple sources, over half of the startup’s staff signed an internal petition to depose CEO Rus Yusupov who they saw as mismanaging the company. But Yusupov then fired some core supporters of the mutiny, leading to a downward spiral of morale that mirrors HQ’s plummeting App Store rank,” TechCruch’s Josh Constine reports.
Sony:
Sony filed a patent application “titled ‘Spectator View Into An Interactive Gaming World Showcased In A Live Event Held In A Real-World Venue.’ The patent describes using an array of cameras to make the VR user feel as if they’re attending the tournament,” VentureBeat’s David Heaney reports.
Sony allegedly put the kibosh on “Bungie’s plans to enable the cross-platform transfer of Destiny characters,” Eurogamer’s Vikki Blake reports. “In a discussion about how Destiny 2 will fare following Bungie’s separation from long-term publishing partner Activision, [Kotaku’s Jason] Schreier intimated that while Bungie had been keen to make character transfer a reality, it’s exclusivity partnership with Sony prevented the developer from pressing ahead.”
Interview: Kevin Bruner, formerly of Telltale (Game Informer), Ubisoft’s Yves Guillemot (IGN).
Extra Esports News:
Congratulations Fnatic on winning the Rainbow Six APAC Pro League season nine finals! They defeated PET Nora-Rengo. Xavier Esports came in 3rd and Aerowolf in 4th.
NBA 2K League saw a real-life brawl on stage. Rod “Slasher” Breslau reports that “each player has been fined and suspended one game by the league.”
AI has defeated “a world champion e-sports team. The competition was held in San Francisco today and dubbed the OpenAI Five Finals, ending the organization’s public demonstrations of its Dota-playing technology on a high note,” The Verge’s Nick Statt reports.
Partnerships:
AGO Esports is partnering with “German athletic apparel company Puma and Wrigley Company‘s chewing gum brand Orbit. AGO Esports will debut new its new Puma jersey at DreamHack Open in Rio de Janeiro starting April 19th,” Esports Insider’s Adam Fitch reports.
ESL and MSI extended their partnership, Esports Insider’s Laura Byrne writes.
Interviews: Spacestation Gaming’s Shaun “Shonduras” McBride (Esports Insider).
Happy weekend birthday John “KingCaffeine” Paul Lopez and Monday birthday Bang “TRUE” Tae Soo!