Daily Briefing: Thursday 28th January

AMD Supply Issues Until H2 2021

AMD's CEO Lisa Su revealed in their Q4 earnings call that supply constraints in semiconductors are liable to continue until the second half of this year. This means supply issues with the PS5 and Xbox consoles will continue, and the same for PC hardware in general. The entire industry can't yet make enough to keep up with the ever-growing demand from consumers.

• This is sad to hear, and no doubt frustrating for customers, especially with the prevalence of scalpers. Hopefully, retailers can get their act together so the limited availability can actually get to waiting customers at RRP.

Skate 4 In Dev At New Studio

EA have fairly quietly announced a new studio, built to work on a next-gen Skate. Full Circle, the Vancouver-based studio, has two apparently important staff from the original games - Deran Chun and Chris Parry. They've only started a huge hiring spree now, so a new Skate is likely 2+ years out. Good news for Skate fans!

• Skate 4 was confirmed in June last year, so we can't attribute this revival to the THPS1+2 success. However, THPS set a benchmark for modern skate games, and there are more than just Skate in the works - like Skate Story. EA will have to put the work in.

Tencent Invest €30M In DONTNOD

Tencent picked up a minor stake in DONTNOD, developers of Life Is Strange and Tell Me Why, amongst other narrative adventure games. This continues Tencent's massive wave of investment across the entire industry, following their purchase of Klei Entertainment and Leyou Technologies.

• Soon they'll have a stake in every genre of game - and probably every actual game, before long. Their investment is more about business holdings and operations than creative control, so DONTNOD serve almost only to gain from this investment by expanding their self-publishing in general and specifically into the Chinese market.

EU Investigating Joy-Con Drift

The EU Consumer Organisation is asking for an investigation into Joy-Con drift after received over 25,000 complaints. They say that the controllers broke within 2 years in a whopping 88% of cases, and Nintendo are only to blame - especially since the issue persists on newer models of Switch and Joy-Con, proving they continue to knowingly sell faulty goods.

• Nintendo's  hesitance in addressing or solving the problem is deserving of consumer ire. Even if it's proving difficult to solve internally, or if they're waiting until a Switch Pro release, the lack of clear communication on the known issue is decidedly anti-consumer.