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Doublejump Digest: June 30, 2019


This week in gaming: EA Access heads to PS4 next month, Epic Games defends its exclusives, Sony is putting AAA games first, and more!


In the spirit of keeping our readers up to date with what’s happening in the video game industry, the Doublejump Digest is a brief collection of the major news stories from the past week. Keep an eye out for the Digest every Sunday night, and head on into the archive for news from weeks gone by!


FROM DOUBLEJUMP: 


MAJOR NEWS:

EA Access is heading to PlayStation 4 next month:

The publisher announced that its game subscription service is scheduled to go live on Sony’s latest system on July 25 and will include titles such as Battlefield V, FIFA 19, and Unravel Two at launch. As with its Xbox counterpart, the PS4 iteration of the service will give subscribers access to “early trials” of upcoming EA games as well as a ten percent discount on “digital purchases” (i.e. games and downloadable content) made on the system. EA Access on PS4 will cost AU$6.99 per month or AU$39.99 for an annual subscription.

Tim Sweeney talks up the success of Epic Games Store exclusives:

Sweeney made the comments in a series of Tweets defending his company’s strategy of signing exclusive titles for its PC storefront as the best way to change the industry standard of 70/30 percent share of revenue between developers and store owners.

“This question gets to the core of Epic’s strategy for competing with dominant storefronts. We believe exclusives are the only strategy that will change the 70/30 status quo at a large enough scale to permanently affect the whole game industry,” he wrote. 

Sweeney followed by noting how the storefronts run by Activision Blizzard, EA, and Ubisoft have failed to take away significant market share from Valve and its Steam storefront and that the 30 percent cut that Valve takes from most sales “usually exceeds the entire profits of the developer”.

“If the Epic strategy either succeeds in building a second major storefront for PC games with an 88/12 revenue split, or even just leads other stores to significantly improve their terms, the result will be a major wave of reinvestment in game development and a lowering of costs,” he later added.

Respawn Entertainment highlights Apex Legends’ second season:

Early this week, the developer released a pair of trailers highlighting the game’s second season, Battle Charge, which cover the new story content, updated King’s Canyon map, and interface changes coming to the game.

As with Fortnite Battle Royale’s island, Respawn will continually change Apex Legends’ map, with the first major change being the collapse of King’s Canyon’s Repulsor Tower due to sabotage by an, as-yet-unnamed legend (though, fans are speculating that the new legend is a hacker named Crypto).

As you can see below, there is a lot more vegetation spread around parts of the map as well as Leviathans roaming overhead. Furthermore, players will also get to equip new emotes while diving, don new skins, and play as a new character named Wattson.

 

In addition to this, players can expect to get their hands on the fabled L-STAR rifle from the mainline Titanfall games alongside the new seasonal content.

Apex Legends Season 2 – Battle Charge is scheduled to go live worldwide on July 2 on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.

Report: Sony is going AAA-first for the PS5:

The Wall Street Journal has reported that Sony executives told attendees at a recent corporate strategy meeting that the company is focussing more on its major publisher relations because players are more drawn to AAA games due to their graphical fidelity. The WSJ also claimed that several “smaller” companies have been disappointed by Sony’s move away from indie titles and that they have found more support from Nintendo.

Former Sledgehammer Games CEO is developing a new PLAYERUNKNOWN’S BATTLEGROUNDS game:

Glen Schofield, formerly of Sledgehammer Games (Call of Duty) and Visceral Games (Dead Space), has announced that his new studio Striking Distance is working with PUBG Corp. on a new PUBG game. Schofield hinted that this as-yet-untitled project will be a story-focussed title that “explore[s] the PUBG universe”.

 


NOTABLE GAME RELEASES: 

  • Devil May Cry (Switch)
  • F1 2019 (PC, PS4, and Xbox One)
  • Judgment (PS4)
  • Super Mario Maker 2 (Switch)

VIDEOS AND TRAILERS:

Judgment – Launch Trailer:

Finally, we’ve got our hands on Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio’s newest action franchise.

Super Mario Maker 2 – Overview Trailer:

Here’s everything that you need to know to enjoy the game.

F1 2019 – Launch trailer:

Formula 2 sounds like a great addition.

The Surge 2 – Dev Gameplay Walkthrough:

The second sci-fi take on a Souls game looks like another difficult romp.

One Punch Man: A Hero Nobody Knows – Video title:

Saitama ain’t got no time to play around.

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order — Official Gameplay Demo (Extended Cut):

26 minutes of Jedi goodness.


OTHER NEWS:

  • Inside and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night lead next month’s Games With Gold offering: Xbox Wire
  • A new Tetris battle royale game is coming to mobile devices: Game Informer
  • Treyarch has removed splitscreen from Call of Duty: Black Ops 4’s Blackout mode while it fixes “some known issues”: Polygon
  • Rare made sure that Banjo and Kazooie looked like their N64 designs in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate: DualShockers
  • Beenox plans to gift Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled players in-game credits as compensation for the game’s save corruption bug: Eurogamer

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