ChinsawAwesome’s 8 player indie brawler Knight Squad had their own booth at PAX East and we were able to get a guided tour of the mayhem filled multiplayer title from one of the developers. Players take to the arena was one of several colored Knights with the objective of capturing a chalice placed within the arena. Just don’t think it will be easy to capture because every player has access to different power-ups and ability pick-ups placed throughout the map!
Last man standing style death match isn’t the only activity isn’t Knight Squad’s only mode – players can also test the strength of their friendships with Medieval Soccer, Capture the Flag, Capture the Grail and more. Knight Squad also supports up to 8 players for chaotic evil online times!
Knight Squad is currently available on Steam and the Xbox Live Marketplace.
Today Oculus announced further delays on Rift shipments, potentially as long as two months for some customers, sparking outrage amongst VR fans. The company confirmed once again that the delay was due to a component shortage, and that they were shipping units as quickly as possible. Oculus still remains tight-lipped on what component exactly has caused the shortage, but that hasn’t stopped Reddit users from speculating. Multiple theories, ranging from issues with the camera used to track the headset, to a lack of wireless Xbox One dongles, were made. According to a post to Reddit by a supposed Oculus employee, under the alias ‘cvinsider’, it may be due to Microsoft.Read More
The biggest show in gaming, E3, is still almost two months away but we now know when MS will host their Xbox One focused press conference. According to IGN MS will host their live-streamed conference on Monday June 13th at 9:30 AM PST.
We don’t know what Microsoft may reveal at this year’s E3 although a few titles do standout: Gears of War 4, Crackdown 3 and 2017’s Scalebound.
Broken Joysticks staff will be on the ground in LA for this year’s E3. When something huge breaks we will bring it to you.
Xbox just released on their channel a never before seen short film of the upcoming team-based shooter from Blizzard, Overwatch. The short stars two of the playable heroes, Winston and Reaver.
The short animated film is set in Winston’s lab and delves into his past, showing where he got his start as a young ape. It also brings a bit more clarity to why the heroes of Overwatch are active again.
This is the first of four expected Overwatch shorts.
Overwatch is coming to PC, PS4 and Xbox One May 24th.
Yesterday at GDC 2016 Microsoft announced that Xbox One players will finally be able to play online with their friends on other platforms starting this year. Developers will be able to bridge the platform gap between Windows 10 and Xbox One and the first game to support this new functionality is none other than last years’ surprise hit Rocket League.
Potentially the most shocking news is that Microsoft appears open to allowing players on longtime rival Sony’s PlayStation Network to play against one another at some point in the future. In the official blog post on the Xbox.com News Wire, Chris Charles the Director of ID @ Xbox, described the possibility of cross-console online gameplay as an “open invitation”.
Here’s his full section regarding the possibility of cross-platform play:
Cross-Network Play
First, in addition to natively supporting cross-platform play between Xbox One and Windows 10 games that use Xbox Live, we’re enabling developers to support cross-network play as well. This means players on Xbox One and Windows 10 using Xbox Live will be able to play with players on different online multiplayer networks – including other console and PC networks.
Of course, it’s up to game developers to support this feature, and Xbox Live players will always have the option of choosing to play only with other Xbox Live players. We’re thrilled to confirm that Psyonix’s Rocket League will be one of the first games to take advantage of this new capability by enabling cross-network play between Xbox One and PC players, with an open invitation for other networks to participate as well.
Rocket League launched on PlayStation 4 in July of 2015, the Xbox One version went live last month on February 17th. The game across all three platforms (PS4, Xbox One, Windows PC) has sold over 4 million units and earned developer Psyonix over $70 million.
Microsoft dropped a bomb today when they announced that one of their more ambitious studios is proposed to be closed in the near future. Lionhead studios, made popular by the Fable and Black & White series has been working on their next iteration of the Fable franchise “Fable Legends” which recently held a closed beta test which recieved mixed reactions from the player base.
Here it is straight from the horses mouth, “After much consideration we have decided to cease development on Fable Legends, and are in discussions with employees about the proposed closure of Lionhead Studios in the UK. Additionally, we will close Press Play Studios in Denmark, and sunset development on Project Knoxville.”
While this comes as quite the blow, it however wasn’t unexpected due to the less than perfect releases of Fable 2 and 3. While good in their own ways, fans complained that each iteration was more and more watered down than the last and faith in the studio has been diminishing.
We here at Broken Joysticks wish all at Lionhead a successful and lucrative future no matter where they go next. There’s a lot of talent there and I’m excited to see who picks them up.
Microsoft held a behind closed doors press event last week to showcase upcoming games & technologies coming to Windows PC and Xbox One. Among the announcements, set to be unveiled later today at 9PM EST, is the fact that a free version of last year’s Forza: Motorsport 6 will be coming to Windows 10 for free.
In a now removed Seattle Times article which was accidently posted before the event’s embargo reporter Matt Day summarizes Forza Motorsport 6: Apex as a “a slimmed down version of its Xbox cousin, will be released free to users of Windows 10 this spring.” Day continues that Microsoft hopes that Forza Motorsport 6: Apex will be a showcase for what Windows 10 powered gaming rigs can do.
Forza isn’t the only previously Xbox One exclusive franchise to make the jump to Microsoft’s longest running product. Killer Instinct season 3, the third batch of add-on content for the 2013 Xbox One brawler, will make the leap later this month. Developer Iron Galaxy Studios recently unveiled that Halo’s The Arbiter will be playable once Season 3 releases.
Expect more news from the Microsoft press event when the embargo drops in a few short hours.
Last night reports started flooding in that Xbox live was down started flooding Twitter, Facebook, and other social media that Microsofts Xbox live service was down. Since the latest Xbox One requires a connection to live to use apps, stream media, and play and download most games, this effectively rendered the 500$ piece of hardware useless. After over 14 hours (first reports coming in at 5pmEST) the service is still spotty this morning. As of my posting this the live status site for Xbox live says everything is back up.
We thank you for hanging in there as we investigate sign in/accessing content on Xbox One. Stay tuned to: https://t.co/99xfLMWcZW for info!
This latest outage will remind fans of Microsofts paid online gaming service of the last similar outage, almost a year ago, when a massive scale DDoS attack knocked Xbox live offline during the Christmas holidays.
Some may remember the much hyped original Kinect video and how much diffrent actual Kinect games were from what we saw in this trailer. I mean you couldn’t even play the thing sitting down at all, and remember how you had to have a big room? Never mind that the levels of precision shown in the video simply did not exist in the real world. HoloLense (yes the L is capitalized) now has its own video of such caliber, and even another one showing someone actually using it to play a “game” which is more than we ever got for the Kinect.
Ty Taylor of The Quantum Astrophysicists Guild with one of his games, The Bridge.
Today we have the award winning game developer, Ty Taylor, joining us for a question and answer session. Ty is a renowned game designer and developer that leads the Seattle based indie studio, The Quantum Astrophysicists Guild.
His first major game, The Bridge, received critical acclaim and many awards. The Bridge is a 2D puzzle game that requires players to use movement of both their character and of gravity to solve puzzle levels in an M.C. Escher inspired world. More recently, Ty has been developing the game Tumblestone, another puzzle based game that has surprisingly addicting competitive modes. It, too, has been sweeping up the awards, and it will be released later this year.
As we’re closing in on the end of one year and getting ready to start the next, a lot of people are reflecting on the year that’s past and others are looking at the year to come. I’m one of those looking to the future and I’ll tell you why: 2016 and the coming years after are going to be an extremely exciting time for games. While gaming has always been a longtime passion of mine, I do have to admit that it has felt like, in the last couple generations, innovation and creativity had been been steadily decreasing while market saturation has been steadily increasing. It wasn’t looking good as the market was looking stale and things weren’t change. Sure, there were gimmicks that came and went but nothing really stuck. There were few real surprises and the things that jumped aboard the hype train were mostly games we’d been anticipating and asking for, for years. There was a lot of vaporware, a lot of E3s that came and went that left us wanting more and spending more time laughing at the flaws than celebrating the wonders. In my honest opinion, the fifth generation was the last generation that truly brought us wonders we never thought we’d see possible and all the last couple generations did was expand on that. We never saw anything truly groundbreaking and that’s part of why 2016 is going to be an exciting year: we are going to see a lot of broken ground and whether or not it will be truly successful, we finally see companies going out and taking risks and those are the kinds of moves that change gaming for the better. Follow the jump for our preview of the year to come and what to watch for!
Mojang’s smash hit about your struggle to survive the night all while hissing snake creatures try to blow up your home, Minecraft, has already cracked the top ten all time downloads in the Japanese Wii U E Shop.
According to the all time download purchase rankings available on the Nintendo Japan website Microsoft’s latest acquisition already sits among such system sellers as Super Mario Maker, Super Smash Bros for Wii U, Mario Kart 8 and classics like Super Mario World. Perhaps Minecraft players can fashion themselves a ladder to get their favorite game even higher on the charts.
Here’s the full breakdown of the top ten best selling digital Wii U games of all time in Japan as of today:
Joe Waters passed away on the morning of December 23rd. He was a dear friend of mine and of countless others. As someone who was blessed with knowing him well, both within the game industry and as a friend, I would like to share some words about him.
Joe was a self-declared “asshole”. He was blunt and straightforward. You always knew what he was thinking and what he thought of you. Yet his bluntness and tendency to flip off cameras could not hide that he was an extremely caring, kind and passionate person. I joked to him that he was one of the nicest jerks that I ever had the pleasure of knowing. Even his harshest reprimands were intended to help, much like a parent scolding a child for playing with fire.
His intellect was only matched by his compassion for others. Joe took many under his wing, from people at the countless game companies he worked for to someone standing alone at the bar. He was quick to include you and make you feel truly welcomed. His friendship never felt forced, his conversations never consisted of idle small talk. He was interested in your and your stories and helping you become the best person you could be. Wherever he went, he always brought cheer and positive energy. And, despite his almost intimidating appearance, he was quick to drop a goofy face, a joking comment and a big smile.
Joe himself had clawed his way to where he was in the game industry. He decided he wanted to make video games and forced his way into the industry by making his own video game from scratch, some 17 years ago, an extremely rare accomplishment for those times. He made every lick of it himself, from the art to graphics rendering. He would often recalled with a chuckle how, in his first interview, they asked him what parts of the game he had worked on and he responded “I don’t understand the question” because he made them all himself.
In those years since, he has become a core member of the game industry. His intelligent, programming talent and understanding of graphics rendering gave him immense value, but he was always treated everyone else as peers, no matter their background or profession. In these recent years, he has lead Seattle monthly industry nights that helped connect countless developers, from AAA to indie, from programmers to artists. He had a wonderful talent for helping people connect and has brought countless people together. Like his own friendship, the connections he helped established were deeper and more open than they ever would have been without him.
I, among many others, have the honor of considering him both a mentor and a friend. He always had time to grant advice, give a hug or just share a drink. He valued his friends more than anything in the world and it was apparent in everything he did. The blow of his loss is tribute to how well he lived his life.
We will all take our time to mourn his passing, but he was adamant that, upon his death, he wanted his friends to celebrate his life. So let us celebrate this wonderful man, whether you knew him personally or simply had the pleasure of knowing his work. He has accomplished far more in his life than many could ever imagine and has left a lasting impression upon the world. He was happy, he was loved and he will be missed.
In a move that most people would call confusing, Phil Spencer said yesterday that Microsoft will not prevent anyone from using its Azure platform for cloud computing for gaming. DualShockers is reporting that a fan asked on twitter about Titanfall 2 and how they would “hate to see the franchise lose out on Azure Cloud computing and servers.” Spencer replied: “Azure services are available to any game, even other platform’s exclusives. We wouldn’t keep someone from using.”
oh, ok then, so basically what Phil is saying is Azure for all? This is pretty huge. He went on to tweet . “I know people want me to comment on specific 3rd party games, I just can’t. Sorry,” So we don’t know what or when but I think its safe to assume that we are going to be getting some multi-platform games that utilize the Azure cloud computing features, at the very least.
Personally I hope this means that we get a lot of games with destructible worlds like Crackdown which runs part of its multiplayer on the Azure cloud to allow for enhanced destruction.
It was only a matter of time. Mojang have announced this morning that they will be brining their Billion dollar franchise to the Wii U console this month in time for the holidays. In a post on their front page containing a video interview with Jens ‘Jeb’ Bergensten we are treated to a little tongue in cheek press interview where we hear that “whats next for Minecraft” is that “were fixing boats oh and one more thing Minecraft is coming to nintendo Wii U” Honestly im less than surprised, this was about as destined to happen as the sun to rise tomorrow. Mincraft is a huge franchise which already spans mobile, PS4, Xbox One, and PC it was a trivial matter that it would eventaully end up on the Wii U as well.
I may be worth picking up for this option “Minecraft: Wii U Edition will also feature off-TV play, so you can continue playing on the Gamepad when other people want to use the TV for less fun things like movies or other video games.” If you have ever played the mobile version of Minecraft you know that its pretty bare bones compared to the full play options on PC or Xbox. Perhaps this will give gamers their full mobile Minecraft fix. If you want to see the full 43 second video with Jeb click here.
