Daily Briefing: Wednesday 26th May

Sony Announce A Mobile Push & Wants To Make Playstation 'More Social'

Speaking at their corporate strategy meeting, Jim Ryan spoke about convergence of Social and Entertaiment content, citing their Discord investment and its positive fan feedback as an example. He goes on to say they've had 'early success' experimenting with mobile games, and that they're "exploring" mobile to reach "millions of gamers beyond our platforms".

• Playstation franchises on mobile before too long, then! They're also working on 'Game AI Agents' to help players or compete with them. While it sounds a bit Black Mirror, the idea of intelligent human-like opponents in games could be incredible.

Torchlight 3 Developers Leave The Project

After one final update including a new character class, Echtra Games are done with Torchlight 3. After being acquired by Zynga in March, they're "moving on to new (and exciting) things" and "passing the baton" back to Perfect World for continued updated on Torchlight 3. That leaves Torchlight 3 in a fairly poor state, after a troubled announcement as a free-to-play game inspired by mobile monetisation, a hopeful change of direction to a full price title, and a launch that ultimately fell flat for a number of reasons.

• Right now, it's "Mixed" on Steam. While updates over time added content and plenty of fixes, the core game is lacking quite severely in comparison to even its own predecessors, never mind other ARPGs on the market. We'd love to do a video following up on this one, after we covered its turbulence all the way to launch.

Skyrim Is Now Older Than Morrowind Was When Skyrim Came Out

This isn't really news, but it shows some of the timelines we've moved to in the industry, especially with large projects. Skyrim released 3,481 days after Morrowind's launch, and on Sunday, the 23rd, Skyrim hit that milestone itself. As of today, Skyrim has been out for 3,484 days, and there's no Elder Scrolls VI in sight - maybe 2023 at the earliest!

• Games are big projects, but Bethesda also released Fallout 4 and 76 since, while working on Starfield. Elder Scrolls has had the ever-improving ESO to fall back on in the meantime, too. Most dauntingly though, the increased fidelity and standards in games means a Morrowind-sized game seems like an insurmountable challenge.

CDPR Are Still Awaiting Sony's Permission To Sell Cyberpunk 2077

Speaking at a shareholder meeting, CD Projekt Red couldnt't provide upated sales figures, but noted that two major factors would impact its sales this year: The PS5 and Xbox Series X/S releases, and its eventual return to the Playstation Store. Right now, they believe that Sony's removal of the game could be impacting sales across all platforms. In April, they claimed they still have friendly relations with Sony, but it's ultimately up to Sony when they want to relist the game. They also double down on increasing sales by improving the game via patches.

• This is still an precedented event in modern gaming - a hyped game being pulled from sale for releasing in such a poor state. That didn't even happen to Fallout 76, which was reportedly bricking consoles when it launched. Hopefully CDPR can continue the grind and earn back some respect from both the players and Sony, but some bridges are well and truly burned.Daily Briefing: Wednesday 26th May 2021