Daily Briefing: Friday 4th March

Gran Turismo 7’s Microtransactions Are Heavy: Cars Costing $30+

Gran Turismo 7’s microtransaction costs were unavailable during early previews, but now that they’ve gone live, the ‘credit bundles’ are raising eyebrows. Credits are currency earned in-game that can be topped up for real money in the store, and cars can range from tens of thousands all the way up to 3 million. The credit bundles come in between $2.49 for 100,000 and $19.99 for  2 million. For a 3 million credit car, then, it would cost $35 at least. This is a noted downgrade from GT Sport, which offered individual cars as microtransactions as well as selling for credits.

• A full price Aston Martin Vulcan ‘16 cost $4.99 in GT Sport, but now it costs 3.3 million credits - to buy that with cash alone, it would cost at least $37.46.  This from a $70 game should be considered unacceptable.

Quantic Dream is struggling to hire staff - Star Wars Eclipse now aimed for 2027.

In a report from Tom Henderson, he claims that Quantic Dream have had a ton of job offerings go unfulfilled for years now, while they’ve been manually updating their ‘published on’ date to hide that their jobs are not in high demand. That is part of why Star Wars Eclipse was announced many, many years ahead of its potential release - to garner interest from talent, but also allegedly from potential buyers.

• Quantic Dream are in a pretty precarious position here - hopefully, for the sake of games, they can recover and create a great Star Wars entry, but they’ve been mired in enough controversy it’s hard to wish them luck. Don’t get your hopes up.

Microsoft & EA Suspend Sales In Russia

In a blog post this morning, Microsoft haveannounced that they “will suspend all new sales of Microsoft products and services in Russia.” This isn’t gaming-specific, but it does mean that Xbox products will not be available in Russia. EA have also suspended sales in Russia and Belarus, now joining the likes of CD Projekt Group’s GOG and a variety of smaller platforms and developers.

• Hopefully, these sanctions can help draw global attention to the situation further, and ultimately help out.

Elden Ring Is The Biggest UK Non-FIFA or Call Of Duty Launch Since Red Dead Redemption 2

Chris Dring of GamesIndustry.biz has claimed that Elden Ring’s launch could be the biggest new IP launch since Destiny in 2014, and GSD say that across digital and physical, it’s the largest launch since RDR2, excluding FIFA & CoD.

• It’s 2.5x the sales of Forbidden West. That’s how big it is. You go, FromSoft!