Gamer's Source 4-25-2014

Hello and welcome to the Gamer's Source, your destination for today's gaming conversation. GameStop is refocusing it's business model and Unreal Engine's subscription model will now include consoles. SO, without further ado, the news:



NUMBER One!

GameStop will be shifting it's focus towards mobile, with emphasis on Apple and Android products. Speaking at GameStop 2014 Investor's Day, CEO Paul Raines gave a presentation showing off the new 'GameStop 3.0' plan. The company will also be shutting down 120 stores nationwide.

This is pretty interesting, but necessary for the retailer to matter. As Amazon makes shipping better (games now come to you on launch day) and digital mediums getting more and more efficient (especially on consoles), the company needs to find a way to stay relevant to gamers.  

NUMBER Two!!

EA is still trying to make amends with Battlefield 4. The company has moved the game to 'high-end servers' in order to help fix some of the major issues, including the 'rubber band' issue in which players teleport across the maps due to slow servers. For more details, check out the official Battlefield 4 Blog.

This game is just a mess. It seems like every time things start to look up, another issue arises. Consumers have been given no compensation for the money they spent on a broken game and nor have they been given a fixed game yet. This is such a huge problem and thinking that moving the game to these 'high-end servers' will fix all the problems is just naive. It'll be interesting to see just how many fans stick around for the next iteration considering how terrible this game has been since launch.   

Number THREE!!!

Unreal Engine 4 has received an update. 4.1 will now allow developers to release games using the engine on Xbox One, PS4 and Steam OS. The update also adds a bunch of extra tutorials to show off the new bells and whistles and will allow development on the new platforms completely free to developers who are already enrolled in Sony or Microsoft's development licenses. 

This is pretty straight forward, but exciting none the less. The more people with these tools in hand, the more games that can become available for gamers. And with a small amount of AAA titles available to gamers on both new consoles, that is not a bad thing.  

Number FOUR!!!!

Despite outcry from fans and critics alike, Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes has sold over 1 million copies. Konami announced today that these numbers include all platforms and both digital and retail. To celebrate this achievement, all of the exclusive DLC will be available on all platforms, though no date has been given. 

I wanted to mention this because of how much flack this game received for being a 'glorified demo'. Despite the uproar from many vocal people (including quite a bit of backlash from journalist and reviewers), this game sold over 1 million copies, pretty much on it's name alone. It'll be interesting to see if these sales do transfer to sales of the next game, which is Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, seeing as how there have been quite a bit of players who bought the game and feel burned having played it and beaten it in less than 4 hours. 

NUMBER FIVE!!!!!

It has been over five months and Kinect voice commands are still not available in every launch territory for the Xbox One. The console launched in 13 countries on November 22nd of last year, but out of those areas, only 5 have full 'natural' voice Kinect commands (including "Xbox On") and 3 are still missing any of the commands (Ireland, Austria and New Zealand). 

Microsoft plans to have the Xbox One release in a total of 26 territories by September, including Japan, but taking into account that the company still has to bring promised features to the original launch territories, this is not good. Granted, not many people like Kinect and Microsoft has released some massive updates to bring functionality that players have asked for, it's still extremely disappointing that these promises keep coming from Microsoft and very few have been delivered upon.  

And, despite two slow days of news, there are some other smaller interesting stories. Here's a list:

• Stick it to the Man is coming to Wii U.
• Just Cause 3 may come next May.
• Rise: Son of Rome is getting new DLC.
• The newest PS4 Update will release April 30th.
• A new trailer for Mad Max is out.
• Minecraft saves will transfer from Xbox 360 to Xbox One.
• Sports Friends comes out May 6th on PS3 and PS4.
• Last The Last of Us DLC dated.

And that's all! Please share the news with your friends who love games as much as you. Leave some comments down below so we can talk about games. I have recently worked on some of my Gaming Resolutions of the year, which you can see here. Maybe you want to talk about your own resolutions. And, please, as always, keep the conversation going.