Daily Briefing: Tuesday 23rd November

Nintendo follow suit in condemning Activision Blizzard

According to a new report from Fanbyte, Nintendo of America president Doug Bowser has followed the earlier leads set by Microsoft's Phil Spencer and Sony's Jim Ryan in actively condemning Activision Blizzard's response to the ongoing sexual harassment allegations. Ryan and Spencer have both sent (presumably very strongly worded) emails to Activision regarding their handling of the situation, and Bowser has now done the same.

• Bowser's email reads, "along with all of you, I’ve been following the latest developments with Activision Blizzard and the ongoing reports of sexual harassment and toxicity at the company. I find these accounts distressing and disturbing. They run counter to my values as well as Nintendo’s beliefs, values and policies." Bowser's email also outlines that Nintendo's own representatives have been "in contact with Activision, have taken action and are assessing others." Bowser doesn't elaborate on what this action might be, but it'll be interesting to see.

Spider-Man won't have story missions when he finally launches in Marvel's Avengers

Spider-Man's long delayed launch in Marvel's Avengers is finally imminent and, contrary to what many fans had expected, it won't include any story missions. Back in December, Avengers senior producer Dan Matlack said "Spider-Man is what we call an 'event' so he will have cut scenes and a story for sure." Many fans took this to mean that Spider-Man would have the same sort of catered story missions that previous new characters have had, like Hawkeye and Black Panther.

• But nope! Speaking to IGN, Avengers gameplay director Philippe Therien outlined that Spider-Man's story will be told through audio logs and illustrated cutscenes rather than through actual new story missions. The reason for this seems to be Spider-Man's exclusivity to Sony platforms, as Therien says that the team wanted to "spend our efforts on content that everyone can enjoy" and so focused on the game's upcoming new raid. It does make some degree of sense in terms of allotting development resources but it's definitely disappointing for a character that's been hyped to the moon and back. It also teaches us all yet another cautionary tale about the dangers of platform exclusivity.

Kojima Productions set up a movie and television wing

Hideo Kojima's love affair with television, movies, and music has been long, storied, and very public if you keep up with his Twitter where his bio reads "Game Creator: 70% of my body is made of movies." The auteur creator has always been very open about what is influencing his projects at any given moment, and it seems that he has finally decided to just throw up his hands and establish his own film division. The new studio will be based in Los Angeles, California and will focus on expanding the studio's games into these varying other media fields.

• The new outfit will be headed by PlayStation veteran Riley Russell who, in a new interview with GI.biz, outlined that "the new division will be tasked with working with creative and talented professionals in television, music and film, as well as the more familiar games industry. The team has as its charter, the goal of expanding the reach and awareness of the properties now under development at Kojima Productions, and to make them even more a part of our popular culture." Kojima Productions' output at the point consists entirely of Death Stranding (though there is potentially something horror-related in the works) so it'll be interesting to see Norman Reedus play Sam Porter Bridges in real life, too.