Daily Briefing: Thursday 22nd April

Xbox Live Gold is officially gone for F2P multiplayer games

After a few months of closed testing, Microsoft this week confirmed that an Xbox Live Gold subscription is no longer required to play F2P multiplayer titles like Rocket League or Apex Legends.

• Microsoft announced back in January that they were experimenting with dropping the Gold requirement, and doing so finally brings them in line with competitors Sony and Nintendo. It also finally means that F2P multiplayer titles will be genuinely free to play on Xbox, which is nice.

PlayStation have been "quietly investing" in exclusives

Speaking in a new interview with Nikkei, Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan said that the company has been discreetly investing in new first-party software, and could pursue more acquisitions to bolster these opportunities.

• Ryan told Nikkei that PlayStation have been "quietly but steadily" investing in PS5 exclusive titles, and this year is already looking pretty strong for releases. Returnal, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, and Horizon Forbidden West are all expected out by the end of 2021.

Season 2 of The Witcher will air toward the end of this year

Netflix's Co-CEO and Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos announced in an investor call this week that the much-anticipated series will return during Q4 this year - between October and December.

• Despite release now being confirmed to be just a few months away, we don't know a whole lot about The Witcher's second season. Though showrunner Lauren Hissrich has confirmed that it will deal with the events of The Blood of Elves "and beyond."

400m Call of Duty games have been sold since 2003

Activision have been all about the milestones recently, yesterday claiming that the entire Call of Duty franchise has now shifted over 400m premium games since the first games released in October 2003.

• Activision also reiterated that Warzone has topped 100m players, alongside a few more stats for the battle royale ahead of its new season launch. Apparently, 28.8bn matches have been played, which is a staggering number.