Julius

Might be the best news United fans have had in nearly a decade? Ed Woodward has reportedly resigned. And good riddance. While it's great that we and City are stepping away from this, I honestly think it shows a complete lack of backbone. Absolute cowards backing out of an absolute shambles of a league, it's so easy to leave when you're on the back foot. Then again, with the Americans and Perez seemingly at the head of all of this, it does make me wonder if they agreed to join not just for the money, but imagine how much weaker the Prem would be even without the four English clubs still in there. Might have seen it as a "join us or get left behind" situation"; to be clear, there's no excuse, and it's clear greed played a big part in this, but I do wonder if there are more politics at play here too. Guardiola seemed to come the closest to speaking his mind out of all of the press conferences, do wonder if City realised they'd potentially stand to lose the most in demand manager in the world - and the one at the core of their current success - if they went through with it. Do wonder who will be the last to leave in England, it's clear that over here at least the Americans were leading the way, and Daniel Levy is a spineless penny pincher, so it'll be fun to see how it all shakes out. What a crazy 48 hours it's been!

Square Enix president and CEO Yosuke Matsuda has confirmed their presence at E3 2021 in an interview with Nikkei. Courtesy of Gematsu: Good stuff. Don't know if this necessarily means having their own show at E3 or just being part of other conferences, but there are games like Babylon's Fall which we haven't heard about for years, and I imagine we'll be getting our next update on Final Fantasy XVI sooner rather than later (I still think they're aiming for it to be out by the end of March next year, so this would seem the right place to show it off again). There's also, of course, the question of when we'll see some Dragon Quest pop up too, as Yuji Horii teased that we'd be seeing all sorts of announcements this year for the 35th anniversary, and I would have to imagine that means some news on XII. As well as maybe some ports please?

So, there's a 99% chance this is nothing, as I would assume it's just the standard renewed trademark, but Konami just trademarked both Metal Gear Rising and Castlevania in Japan. I know it's in the thread title, but seriously, what the hell is going on? Because they've been especially weird this past year or so. Off the top of my head, they've thrown some MGS games on GOG, handed a sequel to a super niche and Japanese exclusive IP from decades ago to an indie developer, launched a brand new IP in Skelattack, launched an online store, and officially ditched the Fox Engine for PES in favour of Unreal. Weird bunch those Konami guys.

Wow, that is one heck of a 180°. Good for them, that puts a little less pressure on me to hunt down everything for my Vita and PS3! Cynically, I can't help but wonder if sales in recent weeks got them to change that decision, but regardless, this highlights the importance of making your voice heard; the backlash clearly worked here. Now if they could please bring back the web store pages for those systems that would be great, because traversing them through the console just ain't fun, especially on the PS3. And I do sincerely hope this is the first step of many. They now have undeniable evidence - which they didn't before - that there is a passionate fanbase that wants to play legacy titles, and is very willing to do so. Let's see them get to work on PS1 - PS3 emulation and make titles on PS Now available for download. I'm not saying it's easy, but come on, it's almost embarrassing.

Yeah, it's terrific. Scary thing is haven't they massively undersold vs their own expectations, only really down to console limitations due to the production issues that everyone's having at the moment? It's going to be something like 6.5 million shipped worldwide or thereabouts, when their projections were 11 million by the end of their financial year (March 31st), and if I'm remembering right, everyone and their mother was in panic mode because that was already down from a projected 15 million units to be shipped by that time as they'd shared previously. And yeah, their financial year ended at the end of last month, so we should have a solid report and some numbers to point to towards by the middle of May. I love pouring over all of these numbers (it's genuinely the only reason why I was upset Xbox stopped sharing their numbers last generation, and seem to have little interest in doing so this time around too) because it's such an interesting perspective to have on games. Nintendo kills it when it comes to their earnings reports (I mean, Japanese centric companies in general, Capcom's great with theirs too!), every major publisher should be sharing their stats in my eyes. I think a big problem you see sometimes when it comes to people's ideas of a game running away from them is actually because they share so little of the numbers side of things, and would make for some really interesting takeaways...like how obviously if you have a breakout indie hit, your profit margins will put these AAA developers to shame. You basically see what happened with the first Star Wars happen almost every year in this industry from a financial success perspective! I'd love for us to get into game budgets, because outside of some big ones trying to lay claim to records (Shenmue, GTA V), we really do know so little. I feel like that's the next step this industry has to take before we start seeing real change at a workplace level for these developers, because transparency is key at can make it much more accessible to many when we can start comparing things from an objective (financial) perspective. I followed the box office for years and found it absolutely fascinating (also predicting drop-off for films, opening weekends, what their American vs international vs worldwide pull would be, etc.). Got a little sidetracked there, but yeah...give me those numbers Sony

No worries, I was curious anyways as if/when I get around to replaying it before Forbidden West for the rest of the DLC, downloading the Complete Edition would save me the trouble of having to download the base game and DLC separately Yeah I guess that would depend on if you had PS+ and had it updating saves to the cloud when you originally played it through? If so it should be under Cloud Storage in Settings (through Saved Data if I'm remembering right).

I've had a little nose around and it looks like you should be able to. The only obstacle some seem to have had with this is if their versions of the game aren't from the same region, but I doubt that should be an issue for you?

First trailer for Shang-Chi:

Porto have declined an offer to join the European Super League: Fair play to them. I hadn't really thought about who else might be invited outside of the top five leagues in Europe. If they're inviting Porto, I'd have to imagine their countrymen at Sporting and Benfica were also invited, and I'd have to imagine Ajax could be getting an invite too? Also chuffed that Ander Herrera came out and said this: Hopefully we'll hear more from players and managers relatively soon.

Yeah, I think you're right about it being mainly used for diversion. Though now Mou has been sacked, can Sky or someone hurry up and get him on? I'd be interested to hear what he has to say about all of this. And I think that's a great question: what would the fallout of these clubs be leaving the Prem mean for everyone else? I think there'd definitely be an adjustment period of a few years if that were to happen from a financial perspective as things adapt and the power is moved from one set of clubs to the next (if they were indeed to leave the Prem, though at this point I think it's nothing more than posturing by basically leaping onto a table in the middle of a restaurant and declaring yourself the owner). Hell, wouldn't be surprised though if the issue then just went over to the next set of clubs down the line if new owners were brought in that only cared about the bottom line. I think it's a sign that larger reform is needed moving forwards for stable and healthy competition to thrive, which would be no mean feat. This year's Money League by Deloitte showed that the Big Six all fall within the top 11 (trust Arsenal to be the one you have to stretch this out for ) for highest total annual revenue, but again, I come back around to AC Milan and point at this season likely being the first time they've qualified in nearly a decade for the Champions League, because they're the only club in the ESL's 12 Founding Clubs nowhere in the top 20 on Deloitte's list. Surely this would suggest that other than the club's history, perhaps more than any other team in the list of Founding Clubs, that they have no business being part of the ESL, even from a financial perspective based on their own revenue reports? I've grown up on the Champions League in its current format, and while I do think it makes for great competition and memorable nights, it certainly does make it weird at times. We won it a season after coming third and during a season where we finished sixth (!), and Liverpool won two Champions Leagues (in its current format) before they even won the Prem (in its current format). It's bizarre to be the best in Europe in a knockout competition when you aren't winning silverware domestically. And again, even that move to expand out from only having champions compete was a move driven by the neverending hunt for money.

Grassroots and lower level football depends heavily on the money which trickles down from the top of the footballing pyramid, especially here in England, and that's hundreds of millions of pounds per year. It goes without saying that, by and large, that money is generated by the top teams, such as in the Premier League. Clubs cannot enter other competitions without getting the nod from their respective FA's/leagues, I would imagine mainly for two reasons: 1) potential scheduling conflicts, and 2) (much bigger in my eyes) the importance each competition is seen as having. I think we already see this to some extent with the League and FA Cup, because until the last half a decade or so where more money has been pumped in through sponsorship deals than ever before, the former was rarely considered a major trophy, and to most football fans, is overshadowed by the FA Cup. These Founding Clubs have put out a statement stating that they plan to start this league without conferring with their respective FA's/leagues, who obviously would have told them that it was a stupid idea and they weren't allowed to join. I think they're well within their rights to remove them from the competition. It is about greed, I think it's pretty plain and simple, and you just have to look at the names involved; unsurprisingly, the ringleaders are the Americans (FSG/Liverpool and Glazers/United) and apparently Real Madrid too. Current reports are that the involved clubs would be projected to take in some £300 million per year vs the approximate £100 million - £120 million per year in revenue they make now from ticket sales, broadcasting rights, etc., and as @Zell rightly pointed out they'd stand to make a killing from splitting away too because these clubs would own their own broadcasting rights rather than having them lumped in to be part of some big deal with Sky/BT/whoever else. Can you imagine each club having their own subscription deals to watch their games? And let's not mention the other stakeholders in this besides those at the top looking to line their pockets further: the fans, the managers, and the players. A European Super League wouldn't have the history of the Champions League/European Cup behind it, fans would have to travel abroad more frequently, and let's not forget just how tone deaf it is to announce this WHILE STADIUMS ARE ONLY JUST STARTING TO HAVE FANS COME BACK. I think there's also a big chance that something not being shared with us at this point is plans for some (maybe even most?) of these games to take place in Asia or America, as we've seen happen with more and more cup competition finals in recent years, and again, that's more money being spent by the fans. From a manager perspective, they very, very clearly haven't been spoken to about this, which will make today's press conferences even more interesting. I think you're about to see some names rightly dragged through the dirt today, and while I don't think the apparent Mourinho strike has been backed up by anyone yet, ahead of a cup final this weekend, this may potentially have had something to do with his sacking too. From a player perspective, the threat to not play for your country is huge, and one I wouldn't be surprised to see huge players speak out against. Ronaldo isn't too far off from the international goal scoring record, and now there's the potential he might not be allowed to play international football anymore? Right, like he or anyone else is going to take this lying down. For players, football isn't always just about the money - this is a fact. And it's similar for fans. It is about making history, beating records, stories of fantasy and drama. You don't see things like Leicester winning the league as this amazing thing if the best clubs in the country aren't even in the competition to begin with! What's at stake in a competition like this? Is there anything at stake in a competition like this? Feel it's also worth mentioning that they put this out the evening before the new format for the Champions League was due to be ratified, it's clearly a move from these clubs who have been against the new format to make their point loud and clear. And then we see the teams involved and Arsenal and Tottenham are clearly their based on their Big Six status only, because it's not like they've done anything on note on the big stage in the last decade or so. Heck, same goes for Inter Milan and AC Milan before this season too. And now, as Gary Neville rightly put it, these clubs think they have the God given right to be considered amongst Europe's most elite? It's an absolute joke. I've been a Chelsea fan since I was little, but this is the first time where I've seriously questioned if I should continue supporting the club. There is already a lot of money in football, or new owners coming in (to an extent), but the issue isn't just clubs wanting money, it's the unrelenting greed which has grown and grown as they have made more and more money. Yes, this is a business, but it's a business revolving around a sport, not a boardroom. I think of United, where suits and ties just swooped in, drove the club into the ground, and have spent over £1 billion over the last 8 years and have no major silverware to show for it. People are applauding PSG for not joining, but their owners have stakes in beIN Sports, so even their decision to not join is driven by a conflict of interest, otherwise I can guarantee they'd be there! And while Dortmund and Bayern I think are doing well and haven't accepted this, there are still three slots remaining, and that's a lot of money, but I think the obvious pressure from a majority fan-owned club allows for that. England needs to follow suit, or else some of these should be sent to the shadow realm, be it deducting points, relegation, or forcing them out of the competition altogether. It's disgraceful in my eyes.

It blows mind that Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z aren't available over here on any streaming services. Not sure if this is necessarily a sign of that coming to fruition, but I wish they'd get their act together when it comes to some of their distribution rights. But first they can fix the app

Wait, so I shouldn't boycott anything lower than an 80 on a website which puts out the aggregate of something so subjective as opinions and scoring? But yeah, if this is the case (and I mean, I swear it's not the first time we've heard of a big publisher doing this), it sucks. Metacritic and sites like it (MyAnimeList, IMDb, Letterboxd) I feel are useful to get a idea of how something was generally received. While it can make for fun trivia, it's not really something which big companies should be giving a second thought. Unless it's completely crashed and burned (in my mind something like a 60 or lower, but to be honest, you'll probably have heard about it from elsewhere if your MC score is that low, and I say that only because the scoring scale is barely seen below a 7/10), it really shouldn't matter. You know your team and their ambition better than anyone else, would we really have such great games today if everyone cared so much about how it scored? I think of Easy Allies and "Swimming in 7's". There is absolutely a time and a place where a 7 could be what you'll enjoy the most (and likely have more to talk about than a 10), and that's awesome. Personally I find websites like these useful from a user perspective mainly for recommending similar games to ones I've enjoyed, or if I'm split between starting two games, I'll have a poke around to see how they were generally received before diving in, just so that I can temper my expectations somewhat. Again, it's a user-facing website, not an industry-facing one, and there's a reason for that. Especially when PlayStation are focusing on AAA narrative driven experiences, things get even murkier, because how the story is written and executed then becomes another factor which could drag that score down. Now we've got the PS5 patch for God of War and with Ragnarok (I would assume) being released next year at the earliest, I wouldn't be surprised if we heard something about it by the end of this year? Would seem a smart business decision to have that out on PC before the sequel. Also...this has just made me think about the news of The Last of Us remake again, and something I forgot to mention in my post before. I know many in the industry suggested it might be timed with the releases of the HBO series, potentially even use some of their likenesses, etc., but surely porting the original to PC would be the smarter move at some point? Heck, even some Pocket Edition-like remake for mobile, that'd rake it in at £9.99 - £14.99. Maybe they want the remake and Part II bundled so the experience feels consistent (...but surely then you'd have to do that again when a Part III comes out? Just saying), but they're narrowing their market like crazy for a project like that in my eyes. I don't know, just me rambling

Yeah, I do hope that's the case. It's so funny imagining how that conversation would go. Though, while I do agree that I can't see Square Enix wanting to sell either (like I said, they've only really hit their stride in the last few years, unlike Bethesda, who had definitely fallen from grace a bit in recent times), money talks. If Microsoft or Tencent barged in with some crazy offer I have to imagine they'd at least entertain it, even if they didn't accept it. EDIT: Square Enix officially shutting it down. Something could still happen in the future, but yeah, it's wise of them to shut it down now. Rumour-based stock surges are rarely a good thing.

Think I can hear all of us collectively groaning on this one. In my eyes, there are only two potential suitors with the financial backing to get this deal done and a reason to do it: Tencent and Microsoft. Tencent are just buying and investing in everyone, and Microsoft have been trying to break their way into Japan for nearly two decades; this would be a - very aggressive - way of achieving that. It would shore up Game Pass, obviously (I also imagine they're paying a lot more than they perhaps reasonably should be to get Square Enix's games on there now, even years after release), and in my mind at least, would strengthen Xbox much more than the Bethesda deal did, simply because of the diversity it would add to their portfolio. Three of the biggest and most recognisable Japanese non-Nintendo game franchises in Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and Kingdom Hearts, a massive legacy of titles stretching back to the 80's which could pretty much all be dumped onto Game Pass (this isn't the way I wanted us to get a Final Fantasy I - VI Collection...), not to mention the overwhelming success of Final Fantasy XIV Online after it was turned around (I'd imagine that'd be a potential Minecraft situation where you continue to let it be played on everything), and a myriad of other games like NieR, their mobile offerings, etc., as well as the Luminous Engine, which they've put an ungodly amount of time and resources into, and even away from that, in recent years have successfully pivoted many of their biggest projects onto Unreal Engine. I haven't even mentioned Square Enix Europe, who have Tomb Raider, Life is Strange, Just Cause, and the recently published Outriders. Just taking their IP values into account I think this is a potentially bigger deal than the Bethesda one, never mind the fact that if it's Microsoft looking to buy them, Square Enix has ridiculously strong ties with PlayStation across their biggest IP's, and a very healthy relationship with Nintendo too, so the asking price could inflate based purely on that. And let's not forget that their two biggest revealed AAA projects as of right now, Final Fantasy XVI and Forspoken, both already have exclusivity deals with PlayStation. In terms of the other console manufacturers, Nintendo might have the cash hidden away to buy out Square Enix, but this would be very unlike them, not to mention that the Switch wouldn't be able to handle what Square Enix has been doing with Final Fantasy for a while now. PlayStation on the other hand already have strong ties with Square Enix without buying them outright, so while this could be a strong move in terms of consolidation, it makes very little financial sense in my eyes from a game sales perspective, and at this point I even feel the impact on console sales would be somewhat minimal. Add to that PlayStation's hard press to forget Japan exists by killing the Vita later this year and the recent closing of Japan Studio, and it's very hard for me to see them chasing Square Enix. Regarding the sale, I hope it doesn't happen, regardless of who it is that's looking to buy. Towards the latter half of last generation, Square Enix finally managed to climb out of the hole they were in and start consistently developing and releasing AAA games. With Final Fantasy XVI, Forspoken, Final Fantasy VII Remake Part II, and Dragon Quest XII are all in the works - not to mention everything else they have planned too - and it would suck for anyone to potentially get in the way of the development schedule. Yes, I own a PlayStation and use it as my main console, but even as someone with plans to pick up a next-gen Xbox at some point down the road, this would anger me more than it would make me want to buy an Xbox. Again, if it's Microsoft, I come back to what I said when we learned that they were acquiring Bethesda last year, about how big acquisitions like this are much worse for the industry than say Sony acquiring Insomniac, because whereas that's a move to consolidate their portfolio with a developer after already maintaining a healthy and stable relationship across many years, this would be another example of what I would deem unnatural growth, which hinders the potential audience for a game more than anything else. I still can't believe seemingly no-one is interested in Konami. Metal Gear, Silent Hill, Castlevania, Suikoden, Pro Evolution Soccer...they have little interest in resurrecting these IP's themselves, and whereas I feel like Square Enix is already earning as much as they reasonably can across their catalogue of games right now, you have a lot of room for growth here I feel, so long as they would be allowed to grow. Forget all of the other IP's for a second: you have an honest and genuine FIFA competitor being transitioned to Unreal Engine, which unlike Frostbite actually consistently works, so imagine the potential you'd have backed by Microsoft, who in my eyes has the financial might to quite easily swoop in and get all of the necessary rights to effectively kill FIFA. Then you make it a subscription-based model after a couple of years of increasing sales, during which you let it still be a full purchase on other platforms but included as part of Game Pass, and there you have it. Guaranteed money, we've seen the sins of Ultimate Team scrubbed from the world, and we can all be happy. But anyways, back to the topic at hand. Again, if it's Microsoft...at what point would we potentially start seeing "monopolisation" thrown around? Because they can never do something as direct as Disney buying Fox, in that neither one of Nintendo or PlayStation would ever sell to them, but they show no signs of letting up when it comes to these acquisitions (they were in for WB Interactive last year, too, before they took themselves off the market). Worrying times. I selfishly hope Square Enix stays put, as it feels like we're still at the start of a renaissance for them on the Japanese side of things, and two of my three most anticipated games are being developed by them (Final Fantasy XVI and Dragon Quest XII). Again, this is still a very big if. It could easily be something Square Enix swats away as soon as an offer is made, so while the prospect of them being sold is definitely cause for concern, I'm not going to give it too much thought until we learn more. But if it is a console manufacturer, regardless of who it ends up being, then we all lose.

Sky: Children of the Light from thatgamecompany (Journey) is coming to the Switch in June. I know that it's been announced for Switch before, but seems a bit strange to me that this update wasn't part of the Indie World Showcase.

Just caught up on this, and while there are some great looking games, main thing I have to say is: ah yes, GetsuFumaDen: Undying Moon from the up-and-coming indie studio Konami. That gave me a good chuckle. (okay, I know it's being developed by an indie studio, GuruGuru, but still, published by and based on an old Konami IP doesn't exactly scream indie to me)

Lizard brains in search of dopamine. (Name of my new album )

"Switch Pro" Clearly says Game Boy. Yeah that seems about right I don't know who you'd fool with that name or shape, my hands are cramping up just looking at it! Reminds me a lot of that old fake NX leak... Ah, the memories.

Sounds like I got quite lucky with this one, think it was my second trophy unlocked? I did it as part of the game's opening sequence (when you get a couple of waves thrown at you). Probably helped that I had just come off playing the first game on Ultimate difficulty for my NG+ playthrough though! Can certainly empathise with you @bobwhen it comes to the takedowns, it definitely changed the way I played the game quite a bit when trying to get those trophies. It's awkward because it's a high enough amount where you're unlikely to unlock those naturally while playing through the game (especially with how little emphasis I would say there is on highlighting these takedowns), but low enough where it seems achievable if you are going after the Platinum. Far from the most egregious trophies out there (games that demand replays at a higher difficulty which only unlocks after completing the game, and some of those old Naughty Dog ones where you'd have to get X amount of kills with a certain weapon comes to mind when I think of the worst), but it does make me wonder how much QA goes into trophies (if any at all), because some of them here do feel like they weren't given as much consideration and we're tacked on at the end. I think any time where the player has to go out of their way to play in a different way - which isn't necessarily the same in my eyes as trying out different weapons or combat styles, if that's already a focus of your game - is when they should be given a bit more consideration. Because, for example with those takedowns, you just end up in a hideout going up and down in an attempt to do as many as you can.

Well, that clearly went under the radar! Imagine they'll just air that trailer again, but man, that game looks like such a fun time

Official comparison trailer from Bioware: Looks great!

The Yuffie content will be officially titled Episode INTERmission. That's a very Nomura-sounding title Cast, character renders, and some more gameplay details:

Always love me an indie showcase. Silksong? Axiom Verge 2? Bear & Breakfast? Garden Story? Dare I even suggest Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion?!

Damn, some nice stuff in there, particularly what it mentions about pre-downloading updates, customising game library (does this mean I can finally hide FIFA from myself without having to uninstall it? Because that would be an absolute win), and screen zoom. The trophy settings and updates are nice too, as is cross-generation Share Play. Being able to manage storage from the app before you find out you haven't get any space left is also a great win too