This Week in Games

Bungie Buyout

Hello again! It's February, the month where you feel just a little bit angry knowing that you're still paying full price for all of your recurring monthly bills but getting at least 2 fewer days of value. There are a lot of big game releases this month, too: Elden Ring, Horizon: Forbidden West, the Steam Deck, and Destiny 2: The Witch Queen… we'll discuss that one a little more very shortly.

Even with all these big, shiny next-gen releases, however, Nintendo's still raking in boffo bucks with their big Switch exclusives, particularly in Japan. In fact, we may have a new all-time Japanese bestseller crowned by the end of the month if things keep going well for the Big N.

I don't know if anyone (even Nintendo themselves) expected Animal Crossing: New Horizons to potentially become the best-selling Japanese release of all time. I'm honestly surprised that Nintendo isn't scrambling to create more content for the game, given its continued sales numbers. But that's Nintendo for you: they work in mysterious ways and buck a lot of industry trends. And speaking of industry trends…

BEGUN, THE CONSOLIDATION WARS HAVE

Well, looks like those who saw Microsoft + Activision as an opening volley to a flurry of new acquisitions in the gaming space were right on the money. Not even two weeks after that bombshell, Sony has responded with a major studio acquisition of their own. It's not nearly as gigantic as the ATVI acquisition, but it's still very interesting given the history of the developer involved.

Take a time machine back to 2008 and tell everyone that Sony will be buying Halo developer Bungie years down the line. The reaction will be like Squaresoft abandoning Nintendo in 1996 all over again!

Even though Bungie's been independent for a while now, they're still most strongly associated with Halo, and by extension, Microsoft. Destiny's been slowly changing that, but ask most gamers what comes to mind when you say “Bungie” and you'll probably get “Halo.” (Maybe “Oni” if they're a particular breed of nerd who loves to flaunt their developer catalog knowledge.)

So, what does this mean for Sony and Bungie? Well… not much in the short term. Destiny 2's going to keep chugging along on all platforms, with expansion The Witch Queen releasing later this month. Plans for the game's future remain “unchanged” through 2024. (Destiny 2 has had some PS4-exclusive content in the past, but those deals are long over and aren't coming back.) As for future Bungie productions… well, the jury's still out there, but the official statement is that “We will continue to be self-published, creatively independent, and we will continue to drive one, unified Bungie community.” Sony Interactive Entertainment has actually released games on non-PS, non-PC platforms, though so far it's been sports games like MLB The Show. Perhaps Bungie will change that!

The timing of this announcement suggests a reaction to Microsoft; a shot fired saying that Sony's not afraid to lay out cash for big-name developers and publishers either. But even before last month's bombshell, Sony was making a lot of strategic acquisitions and partnerships: acquiring developers Housemarque and Bluepoint, investing in Discord and indie-publishing darling Devolver Digital, and taking over the troubled EVO fighting game tournament series. The $3.6 billion they paid for Bungie is also a fraction of what Microsoft has laid on the table for ATVI, making me think that they're more interested in smaller, strategic acquisitions than one big, industry-shaking megasale.

I doubt this is the end of 2022's acquisition announcements. Plenty of industry rumormongers, as well as corporate spokespeople, are indicating that more are in various stages of negotiation. Some folks are pretty hyped about this, but, as I've said in this column before, I generally feel anxious about this sort of thing – I'm not keen on the idea of big corporate ownership overtaking the “personalities” that various publishers have built.

While we're on the subject of acquisitions, it looks like the Federal Trade Commission is going to be stepping in to review the Microsoft/ATVI marriage to ensure that it doesn't break any federal antitrust laws – which means there's a slight chance that they might nix the whole thing. I kind of doubt they will step in, seeing as how they rubber-stamped deals like AT&T/Warner and Disney/20^th Century Fox. All of our big entertainment options may soon be in the hands of a very powerful few, and that's more than a little concerning…

CLUB SEGA IS NO MORE

If you're like me, the first thing you do when getting free exploration in one of the Yakuza/Yakuza spinoff games is go straight to the Club Sega arcade for a bit of classic gaming. Sure, beating up a bunch of street punks is nice, but sometimes you just want to play Fantasy Zone for a bit. But while Club Sega may remain in future Yakuza series titles, its real-life counterpart is no more… sort of.

Last year, a company called GENDA bought a large stake in Sega's Japanese arcade operations. (Note that this is not Sega's arcade development division, which makes arcade games – this is the division of Sega that had managed Sega-branded arcades and amusement spaces under various names.) Arcades, as you might have guessed, have been hit hard by COVID in many places around the world. However, even in Japan, a lot of arcades had been shuttering well before the pandemic due to a variety of factors. Sega saw an opportunity to divest a bit, so they did – but still kept a small percentage of the shares and allowed GENDA to continue using the Sega branding for their newly-acquired arcades.

A few days ago, however, GENDA announced that they will be fully acquiring all of Sega's arcade/amusement management operations, taking control of those last remaining shares that Sega was holding onto. This means that Sega is no longer in the business of managing arcades, something they've done for decades. This also means that the Sega branding will be removed from all of GENDA's formerly Sega-owned locations. No longer will you be able to step out from a Japanese train station, walk a block or two, and see that beautiful SEGA signage beckoning you to come in and drop a few hundred yen into an Astro City cabinet.

The arcades won't completely lose their Sega heritage, however. GENDA will be rebranding all of the arcades as GiGO, which stands for “Get into the Gaming Oasis” – a name that Sega also used for its experimental Japanese arcades in the early 90s. While I'm glad that many of these arcades will remain open, it's going to be weird going into them and not seeing a bunch of sky-blue Sega logos and Sonic-themed signage. Sega, meanwhile, continues to make arcade games like Fate/Grand Order Arcade, Chunithm, and Maimai, only now without directly owning any arcades to put them in. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to see if anyone's going to offload some vintage Club Sega signage on Yahoo Japan Auctions so I can get more apartment decorations…

FIGHTING GAME NEWS ROUNDUP: TIME FOR THE DLC TEASES

Just a couple more weeks until the release of King of Fighters XV! With the base roster revealed, it's now high time for SNK to kick into gear by giving us a tease of what to expect with the game's upcoming DLC. Four new teams will be added to the game throughout the rest of 2022, and we've got our first look at the initial two additions: Team Garou and Team Southtown.

Okay, I love the shit out of that B. Jenet super. And Gato's always a cool addition to the roster – this marks his first appearance in a 2.5D King of Fighters game, though he looks more like Garou Gato than KoFXI Gato. Team Southtown doesn't have much to see beyond character renders – those characters are probably still quite early in development – but Real Bout cover Geese is already lookin’ pretty slick.

Meanwhile, hey, remember Phantom Breaker Omnia? It's kind of been lost in a wave of bigger FG releases, but it's due out March 15^th and not looking half bad. It's also got two new characters, Artifactor and Maestra, who weren't in the previous release. (Not that many of you probably played the previous release, but, y'know.) Have a gander at the new trailer!

ASSORTED NEWSBITS

• Final Fantasy VII is 25 years old, and I am turning to dust as we speak. Producer Yoshinori Kitase, on a livestream about the FFVII The First Soldier battle royale game that nobody cares about, hinted that there may be some news about the FFVII game everyone cares about (the next chapter of the remake) sometime this year. Maybe. I, uh, wouldn't get your hopes up for part 2 anytime soon, folks.
• Yacht Club games had their big stream on Tuesday, where they announced an all-new game called Mina the Hollower, a game with world design akin to Castlevania (but furrier) and gameplay that reminds me of the Gameboy/GBC Zelda games, which IMO are some of the best Zelda. It definitely looks more action-oriented than Zelda, though, which might be a good or bad thing depending on your tastes.
  
  Anyhow, there's a Kickstarter for Mina the Hollower… even though Yacht Club kind of admits in the pitch that they don't really need a Kickstarter and just want to make a little backer community like they had with Shovel Knight. Yeah, I think I'm going to wait and buy it on release and put my crowdfunding money elsewhere. I suspect the game will be quite good, but I'd rather support something that couldn't get made otherwise, y'know?
• There's going to be a game featuring hololive VTuber Minato Aqua. That's it, that's all we know. Yay?

Well, that's a fair bit of news, isn't it? As always, I am interested in hearing your takes on the topics of discussion for this week. Or maybe you just want to make KoFXV DLC team predictions, which I'm totally down for. Anyhow, forums are linked below as usual, so sound off there if you've got something to say. Stay safe, stay warm, and please don't do anything risky in hazardous weather – it's so much better to stay home and play video games. See you soon!