Daily Briefing: Monday 12th July

Witcher 3 next-gen update detailed

New information on the upcoming next-generation upgrade came courtesy from this weekend's WitcherCon. Developers CD Projekt Red reiterated that the PS5 and Xbox Series X|S version of the 2015 epic will release later this year - though we're still waiting on a concrete date - and it'll be a free upgrade for existing owners of the last-gen version.

• One of the stranger pieces of information to come out of the convention was news that the upgrade will be accompanied by new DLC that includes items related to the Witcher Netflix series. These items won't be exclusive to the next-gen version or anything - they'll also be available to players on PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch.

Final Fantasy XVI probably won't be at Tokyo Game Show

Speaking during a recent livestream the game's producer, Naoki Yoshida, outlined that the team would ideally like to show the game off at TGS but "probably can't mate that deadline." Yoshida says that it would be lovely to show the game but asked "isn't it better if when we do, you're able to play it right after?"

• Part of Yoshida's own reasoning for potentially delaying talking about the game is that he personally doesn't like when games companies release "small bits of info" to "string people along" which is honestly fair enough. Yoshida admits that Square Enix want to show toff the game at TGS, but also said that he wants players to be able to play as soon after the reveal as possible.

Respawn do have a guy or two working on Titanfall's security issues

Titanfall has been suffering for some time now thanks to hackers exploiting vulnerabilities in the game's servers, with Titanfall 2 also being affected in a lesser capacity. Many fans have criticised developers Respawn for seemingly just sitting back and letting this all happen, with one particularly misguided soul even going so far as to hack Apex Legends to give the Titanfall issues greater public attention.

• Well, recently Respawn community coordinator Jason Garza responded to a question from a player claiming that "our community is at our wits end and feel abandoned." Garza reiterated that the community hasn't been abandoned but clarified that, while Respawn are actively still working on a fix for the complex problem, there's only "like one or two people on it because everybody else is on Apex." So, progress is being made, though you have to wonder how much two guys can really achieve.

A copy of Super Mario 64 just became the world's most expensive game

We all know there's big money in retro gaming but things have definitely gotten out of hand. Recently, a pristine copy of the N64 classic Super Mario 64 fetched a ridiculous $1.56m at auction. It's the condition of the game that upped its value. The sealed copy was ranked at a 9.8 A++ on the Wata Scale, which is about as close to perfect as you can get.

• This lofty $1.56m figure shattered the previous record of $870K, which was set by an early production copy of the NES The Legend of Zelda sold at auction just a copy of days prior. The value in old games has really skyrocketed this past year. last November a sealed copy of Super Mario Bros. 3 became the most expensive game ever when it sold for a comparatively paltry $156K at auction. Where do we go from here?