Hi, I’m Jeff and welcome to the The Geek Dojo Weekly for the week of May 13th 2021! This is a weekly video games newsletter featuring my top stories of the week.
I’m still experimenting with how I want this set up, so this week will feature 3 stories, plus what I’m playing/impressions.
PS5s are still hard to get? The Yakuza series will be turn-based going forward? A new Donkey Kong game is in the works? Let’s get into the news!
Low stock and scalpers are making it very hard for others to get their hands on the PS5 and it looks like things won’t get better any time soon. Sony Group Corp. recently told an analyst group that the shortage is expected to last into 2022. The company also mentioned that this issue has been a stress point for sales targets.
In a statement to Bloomberg, Chief Financial Officer Hiroki Totoki said, “I don’t think demand is calming down this year and even if we secure a lot more devices and produce many more units of the PlayStation 5 next year, our supply wouldn’t be able to catch up with demand.”
This is very unfortunate as I would love to see everyone who wants one actually get their hands on a PS5 console. I was fortunate enough to get one late last year and was hoping supply would be better by the Summer time. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, that has made things a lot more difficult especially with the semiconductor shortage. With vaccines out in the wild, we can only hope things will improve.
Hi, I’m Jeff and welcome to the The Geek Dojo Weekly for the week of April 22nd 2021! This is a weekly video games newsletter featuring my top 5 stories of the week. This week only features 3 top stories. Next week we will get back to the normal 5.
Jeff Kaplan leaves Blizzard, a new game has been revealed from the developers of Celeste, and we got a a small win in the fight for game preservation. Let’s get to it!
After nearly 20 years, Jeff Kaplan has confirmed his departure from Blizzard Entertainment. No need to be alarmed as Overwatch 2 is still in development. With Kaplan’s exit, Aaron Keller will be stepping in as game director. Aaron Keller has been at Blizzard for 18 years and he is the founding member of the Overwatch team so Overwatch fans shouldn’t have to worry about anything going wrong.
Kaplan’s departure definitely comes as a shock to the video game industry. Blizzard has been a different company after being acquired by Activision in 2008. Recently they have been pushed to get more games out the door and a number of layoffs has rubbed a lot of people in the industry the wrong way. Fortunately, some of it’s those ex-Blizzard employees have gone to start up their own studios like Frost Giant and Dreamhaven. I wonder what exactly happened behind the scenes to make Kaplan want to leave, but we more than likely will never know. I also wonder will we see him join either of the aforementioned studios or start up his own studio. I do know I will miss hearing, “Hi, I’m Jeff from the Overwatch Team.”
Happy trails, Jeff. Can’t wait to see what you do next.
The PS3 and PS Vita Stores Will Not Be Shut Down After All
A couple of weeks ago, Sony dropped the news that the PS3, PS Vita, and PSP stores will be going offline this summer. A lot of consumers, including myself, were pretty upset about this, especially from a game preservation standpoint. It seems like PlayStation’s current CEO Jim Ryan actually heard our frustrations about this move. He released statement on the matter this week:
Recently, we notified players that PlayStation Store for PS3 and PS Vita devices was planned to end this summer. Upon further reflection, however, it’s clear that we made the wrong decision here. So today I’m happy to say that we will be keeping the PlayStation Store operational for PS3 and PS Vita devices. PSP commerce functionality will retire on July 2, 2021 as planned.
Unfortunately the PSP still gets the short end of the stick and support will end this summer as planned, which is understandable. As far as I know, a majority of the PSP library is available in the Vita store. Ryan goes on to mention the decision was based on, “a number of factors, including commerce support challenges for older devices and the ability for us to focus more of our resources on newer devices where a majority of our gamers are playing on.” After the initial announcement of the store closure, they were able to see how passionate we all are about these older products and the storefronts will be open for the foreseeable future.
This was the right move by Sony, but it’s still not a good look, because it seems like it was a way to get people to spend more money. Many still use the PS3 and the PS Vita to this day for older classic games that are not available in the current iteration of the PlayStation Store. I personally think Sony should not think about shutting these stores down until they come up with a viable solution for backwards compatibility. Until then, I will keep my Vita and PS3 close by for some old school video game fun.
Extremely OK Games, the team behind Celeste, Revealed Their Next Title, Earthblade
Extremely OK Games founder Maddy Thorson describes as a, “vibe reveal,” as they, “didn’t want to reveal much about the game or its story yet, but we think that this well establishes the world and the feeling of being in it.” Earthblade has been described by the team as a, “2D explor-action game in a seamless pixel art world.” It’s going to be a long time before we see anything on Earthblade and we can expect it, when it’s ready, in “20XX.”
Check out the teaser poster and a snippet from the game’s soundtrack here!
Noteworthy:
Discord and Microsoft end acquisition talks: Game Informer
On today's festive episode (which features Hashim in the best mood he's possibly ever been in), the guys talk about their initial impressions of Guilty Gear -Strive-, and the first part of the Summer Games Fest for 2021, which includes (but not limited to): Elden Ring, Tiny Tina's Wonderland, Battlefield 2042, the Ubisoft Forward, Devolver Digital, and more! The guys also talk about Overwatch finally getting crossplay, and Back 4 Blood rumors.
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Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/theskilltree/message
I hope you’re not tired of ports, because remakes and ports are not going anywhere anytime soon.
In the latest of video game port news, Capcom has announced this morning that Resident Evil 4, 5, and 6 will be coming to Xbox One and PS4 this year. Check out the trailer above and here is the schedule for all three games:
If you have not played Resident Evil 4 yet, for some reason, I strongly recommend you do.
Capcom stated that Resident Evil 2 is going to be a “from the ground up remake,” not a remaster. This is some pretty exciting news considering all of the remastered video games that come out regularly.
Capcom’s investor report stated RE2 would be remastered, but Stuart Turner, Capcom UK’s senior marketing director, said it was a “mistranslation.”
Seems to be a few people picking up a mistranslation in our own investor report. RE2 will be a full from the ground up remake NOT a remaster
Capcom originally confirmed the remake is August. Considering that I have only played a little bit of Resident Evil 2, this is pretty exciting knowing that I can experience the entire game in a remastered format.
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