Daily Briefing: Friday 2nd July

Hideo Kojima x Xbox collab reportedly takes another step forward

Rumours pointing to a collaborative project between Xbox and Kojima have been swirling around since April, and this week VentureBeat reported that Kojima has signed a letter of intent confirming that his studio will work alongside Microsoft on a new Xbox game. The supposed deal still isn't finalised, but it's reportedly so far along that Microsoft have already begun "preparing for what Kojima will need" to make the game.

• While absolutely nothing has been officially announced or confirmed, the belief is that Kojima's Xbox title will have a major cloud computing component. VentureBeat's report also speculates that Kim Swift, the ex-Valve luminary who recently became Xbox's director of cloud gaming, joined Microsoft specifically to help bring Kojima's title to fruition. That feels like a bit of a stretch, although cloud gaming could certainly do with a big title to show off the tech.

A new Star Wars: The Old Republic expansion is releasing this year

The Legacy of the Sith expansion is intended to celebrate the game's 10th anniversary, and release this coming holiday period. The new content will be free to existing subscribers and will hit the game's public test server "in the near future", which is definitely a nice way to mark an anniversary.

• The actual content of the expansion will include several new storylines for both the Imperial and Republic sides, some of which can be played as both solo and multiplayer experiences, as well as a new R-4 Anomaly Operation. The update will also raise the game's level game from 75 to 80 and introduce a new Combat Styles feature that is intended to give players a wider variety of customisation options.

EA Play Live won't feature Mass Effect 4 or Dragon Age 4

Staying with BioWare for a moment, they also confirmed that they won't be showing anything off at the upcoming EA Play Live. The show, which is set to take place on July 22nd, will last for about 40 minutes and will mainly focus on titles releasing soon - including Battlefield 2042, Lost in Random, and "a couple" of others.

• While it's obviously disappointing that BioWare won't have anything to show off for their two biggest projects, it makes a lot of sense given the fact that both Mass Effect 4 and Dragon Age 4 are likely a long ways off releasing. A new Mass Effect was only confirmed in November 2020 and BioWare were clear that the project was still in the early stages. The same goes for Dragon Age 4 which BioWare say is still "early in production" - although it did get a new trailer at The Game Awards in December so it may be slightly further along than Mass Effect.

Sony acquire PC port specialists Nixxes Software

The Netherlands-based studio has been around since 1999 and has ported a lot of major projects to PC. They've done a lot of work with Square Enix across franchises like Tomb Raider, Thief, Deus Ex, and Hitman - and most recently assisted Crystal Dynamics with Marvel's Avengers. Their acquisition is a major statement of intent from Sony that more PC releases are on the way - which is very good news.

• It's been a big week for PlayStation in terms of acquisitions - with the acquisition of Returnal developer Housemarque and rumours of a subsequent acquisition of Demon's Souls Remake devs Bluepoint Games surfacing in the last few days. SIE CEO Jim Ryan recently highlighted that the company "are beginning [their] journey to take PlayStation first-party IP off console" with PC releases like Death Stranding and Horizon Zero Dawn. Sony are evidently keen to continue this strategy, with Ryan stating that further PC ports are "a fairly straightforward decision for [Sony] to make."