Daily Briefing: Monday 25th April

Apologies for the lack of briefing last week, Patrons! A quick break leading to the Dragonflight announcement week left us a little bit overwhelmed - back to usual from now on though. As always, we appreciate your patronage, and much more to come.

Diablo Immortal Coming To PC & Releases June 2nd

On a Monday morning, which is unusual fro gaming news, Blizzard announced that Diablo Immortal has a release date of June 2nd, and will have an open beta on PC on the same date - with full cross-play and full cross-progression, as well as full M+KB and controller support, even including WASD movement for the first time in a Diablo title. Wyatt Cheng, game director, alluded to his infamous “Don’t you guys have phones?” from Blizzcon 2018, showing that there’s at least some self-awareness of how much they screwed up that time.

• Blizzard are doing things that sound, on paper, very focused on the actual player. Perhaps, after a long, long period of nothing but blunders, they can finally secure a win - but that’s only if Immortal releases and Diablo fans enjoy it. Here’s hoping. Also, they're down to 22 million MAUs according to their earnings call.... so the 30m pre-registrations from Immortal will give that statistic a much-needed boost.

A New Warzone Revealed This Year, Activision Say

In their earnings call, they announced that this year’s COD will be a sequel to Modern Warfare 2019, and will be “most advanced experience in franchise history.”.... whatever that means. The Warzone sequel is being built from the ground up and features “groundbreaking innovations”. It seems like Activision plan to go very hard after the comparative failure of Vanguard last year.

• Activision really just don’t stop - hopefully they’ve given the franchise developers enough time to truly innovate and not release a yearly game just for the sake of catching those Holiday sales.

Xbox Seeking More Mergers & Acquisitions

Microsoft, as per a job ad, is on the lookout for a manager for their “Gaming Strategy & Development” team, whose responsibilities including leading the mergers & acquisitions crusade across gaming. The ad mentions Activision Blizzard, Zenimax and Double Fine by name, so it’s clear Phil Spencer has a lot of budget to burn through.

• This really doesn’t mean anything right now, but it’s more evidence we’re heading towards a heavily consolidated future. Tencent, Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, Take-Two and Embracer Group may eventually be the only 6 companies left in mainstream gaming.