Big news for the future of professional baseball video games today, as Major League Baseball has announced a new deal that will see the MLB The Show series extend beyond PlayStation systems. For the first time in the history of the series, MLB The Show won’t be a PlayStation-exclusive, but it’ll be a while before that happens.

MLB, the Major League Baseball Players Association, Sony, and Sony’s San Diego Studio announced the new, multi-year agreement on Monday.

The MLB The Show series will come to “additional console platforms beyond PlayStation” starting as early as 2021. That’s all that was said, but MLB said more details will be confirmed “at a later date.”

It remains to be seen what those “additional console platforms” might be. Nintendo of America’s Twitter accounted retweeted the news with the baseball emoji. Xbox boss Phil Spencer responded as well, saying, “Great to see the game is coming to more players.”

This is not total confirmation that MLB The Show is coming to Switch and Xbox, but it seems something is indeed brewing.

Sony remains the publisher of the MLB The Show series, but it remains to be seen if this would continue to be the case if/when the franchise comes to new platforms. Specific terms of the deal between MLB and PlayStation were not disclosed.

NPD analyst Mat Piscatella remarked in a tweet that he sees the upcoming decade as being about “ecosystems and player choice, not locking people to one specific piece of hardware.”

It wouldn’t be unheard of for a publisher to publish one of its titles for a rival platform. Microsoft publishes the Minecraft series on competing platforms, including Switch and PS4. In fact, Spencer has said Microsoft is one of the biggest publishers on PlayStation already thanks to Minecraft.

MLB The Show 20 is launching in March for PlayStation 4, and it features Chicago Clubs standout Javier Baez on the cover. 2020 marks the 15th anniversary of the MLB The Show series.

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/sonys-mlb-the-show-series-is-ending-its-playstatio/1100-6472054/

Oculus Quest has received a surprise update that has added a feature that was not expected until 2020. The Quest is now capable of hand tracking as of update v12, which will allow you to handle applications and eventually games without the need for controllers–instead it’ll follow the movement of your hands.

The Oculus Quest, which does not require a powerful PC to run, is now capable of some more advanced VR immersion. A video in the tweet that announced the new hand tracking update showing off how you can easily control a video playing in VR without a controller now–all you need to do is turn on hand tracking in the Experimental Features menu.

In an announcement post on the Oculus Blog, Oculus has also promised a new developer SDK, so that this technology can move beyond the first-party apps that currently make use of the new function. This will allow developers to modify their games for hand tracked controls. “We’ll continue to add new features and functionality to improve the experience of hand tracking on Quest in 2020,” the post promises.

“We hope hand tracking will make VR more approachable for newcomers to try by removing the need to learn controller functions. And for those who own Quest, when the hardware melts away you can be fully immersed in the magic of VR while connecting with others in a seamless, intuitive way.”

This makes the Oculus Quest the first commercial VR headset with native hand tracking on the market. Hopefully developers will find interesting ways to use this in their games in 2020.

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/oculus-quests-surprise-update-has-added-hand-track/1100-6472047/

It’s been quite some time since BioShock Infinite, and although publisher Take-Two Interactive, the parent company of 2K, has previously said that there’s life in the franchise yet, fans have had little reason to believe in this statement. That’s no longer the case, however, as 2K has established Cloud Chamber, a two-studio team that will be developing a new BioShock game.

Details on what this BioShock game is were not provided and, having spoken to Kelley Gilmore, it seemed that those details may not be clear to the team making it yet either. Since the new BioShock will be in development “for the next several years” so it could be some time before we get more concrete details, but in the meantime, we had a very brief opportunity to ask Gilmore: why Cloud Chamber and why now?

GameSpot: What makes Cloud Chamber the right studio to tackle a new BioShock project?

Kelley Gilmore: Well, that’s a great question. And none of us take lightly the responsibility of taking this great franchise forward and we’re really excited about it. The team we’ve assembled so far, it’s a small team of people, but we have several folks on the leadership team who actually have come from prior BioShock games.

Hogarth de la Plante is our creative director and he’s worked on a couple of the BioShock games previously. Scott Sinclair is our art director who also has been with BioShock for quite a bit, and Jonathan Pelling has worked on BioShock games in the past. So, with those three–and we have a few others throughout the team–but with those three in leadership positions, we feel like we have pretty solid BioShock DNA in this group. [Editor’s note: Shawn Elliot, who previously worked at Irrational Games on BioShock, has confirmed he returned to the franchise to serve as lead game designer on the new game.]

And then along with them, we’ve hired veterans from other great gaming franchises around the industry like Call of Duty and Assassin’s Creed and Star Wars. So we’ve got people with experience from all kinds of other games as well, and I think together that group is a pretty strong creative force.

You said it was a small team. BioShock games traditionally have been quite large projects. Do you expect this to remain a small team as a kind of skunkworks project or do you expect to grow as a studio to accommodate the ambition for this game?

Yeah, we expect to grow. And so, obviously, we’re new because we’re just announcing now, but we have a studio in Novato, California, and we’re just opening a studio in Montreal and we are hiring. So we definitely intend to grow and we’re going to grow, you know, as the game gets to a stage where we’re ready to add more people to the team.

A lot of people are going to ask: why now? Why is this the right time to do BioShock and bring the franchise back?

Well, I mean, 2K has been kind of thinking about the idea of bringing BioShock back for a while and you know they have a stable of great development studios within the 2K umbrella, but everybody’s busy working on their own things. So when the decision was made to actually move forward to make the next game in the BioShock franchise, they decided to just develop a team from the ground up to do that.

There’s an ongoing discussion about narrative single-player games and their place within the industry as it currently stands. The BioShock franchise has always had strong narrative-driven, single-player experiences. But in an age of persistent lifestyle games, there are some questions about whether those kinds of games can be successful or even sustainable. What your take on the single-player [games]? Do you see that three-, four-, five-, however long it takes you to develop- years in the future that single-player games will still have a place within the medium?

Cloud Chamber is based in California and Québec

If only I could predict that, I would be a very wealthy woman. You know, look, we’re still creating the vision for this game and certainly, we’re aware of all of that’s going on in the industry currently and whether or not that indicates what people are going to want when this game comes out. It’s very hard to know that for sure, but we do understand what has made the BioShock franchise great in the past, and we certainly want to uphold that so that this delivers on the promise of the brand. What we do from there, we just don’t know yet.

So just to be clear, ideas like multiplayer in BioShock 2 aren’t necessarily off the table. It’s just, fundamentally, it will be a single-player game and from there on you’re open to ideas.

I mean, honestly, I don’t want to commit to any details like that right now. So I don’t want to say anything definitive about what we’re thinking because it’s still just such an open creative process at the moment. So I’m going to stay away from confirming any of that.

You mentioned the heart of the BioShock brand. What do you think, as someone who’s in a leadership role at the studio that is working with this franchise now, are the core pillars of a BioShock game and how does that match with your vision for a studio and the expertise that you have?

Well, I mean, certainly a compelling narrative, as you’ve already mentioned, is one of the cornerstones of this game. So that’s something that we’re very excited about, and we’ve got a team of pretty talented people who understand story and how to deliver it. So that’s part of it. Of course, creating these immersive worlds that are fascinating for people to be in and experience is another piece to this that we understand is really important.

How beholden do you want to be to the legacy of BioShock? Thematically there’s always been things that connect the BioShock games together, even if they’re distinct in other ways. Is that something that you want to take and carry forward, to have this kind of the essence of BioShock’s themes still be there? Or is it a case of, “We’re starting fresh and we’re bringing wholly new narrative ideas to this game?”

Well, again, it’s too early for me to talk about things that specifically in terms of what we’re thinking for the vision. So I’m going to keep that for a later conversation.

Longtime fans of BioShock will want to know: Was there any input from Ken Levine on the project? Do you intend to consult him given that he is kind of intrinsically linked to that franchise? You can’t think of BioShock without thinking of him. Is he involved in any capacity?

Ken has his new company called Ghost Story Games. From what I understand, they’re pretty immersed in creating whatever great thing they’re working on, which we all know something will come out of there that’s amazing as usual. So he’s involved with that and he’s not involved with this project.

For the sake of clarity, can you kind of break down what stage of development the game is at?

No. Other than, you know, clearly we’re just announcing so we’re at the beginning stages.

Now that the excitement has been stoked, do you have any kind of thoughts or plans on the cadence of news and the type of conversation that you’ll have with fans? Is it going to be a case of you’ve announced it and now it’s going to go dark for three years, or do you expect to be a little more open with your development progress and communicate with your fan base regularly with updates on the project?

Well, that is a plan I will leave in the capable hands of our 2K PR team because they put that whole plan together and I don’t know what that is yet, so I don’t have the answer for that.

That growth you mentioned earlier, is that expected for both Cloud Chamber studios or is it a case of the Canada team is what it is now and the California team will be the one that grows?

No, both studios will grow.

How is that dynamic going to work and how do you expect both studios to feed into this greater project?

We know that’s challenging and we know lots of other studios who have multiple locations for their teams and so we’re talking to a lot of them and trying to learn best practices. But from our perspective, we’re viewing it as one team in two locations. So we’ll have, you know, leadership in both studios and both studios will be working on core parts of the game. And that’s how we’re approaching it.

And communication will be key to that. And figuring out how to be able to communicate with people on a day-to-day basis through whatever equipment and technology we have that will work when we need it, we’ll do that. But it definitely will be a challenge. We have a team working in Montreal now and we’re finding that it’s working. We have great relationships with them. We have people flying back and forth quite a bit so that we have face time with each other. And so communication will be the key and also making sure that people do feel like we’re all one team and there’s not one group just being a support to the other.

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/new-bioshock-devs-studio-head-on-bringing-the-fran/1100-6472048/

Sony’s next big news event, the State of Play briefing scheduled for Tuesday, December 10, will bring multiple game reveals and new gameplay footage, making it a can’t-miss event for PlayStation 4 fans. But one thing it will not have are any new details on Sony’s next-generation console plans.

As a reminder, Sony has said, “Don’t expect any updates related to our next-gen plans” during the State of Play. This means we won’t hear about the PlayStation 5 or any of Sony’s strategy plans surrounding the console and the wider ecosystem.

Unless there is some news about the PS5 at The Game Awards on December 12, it appears fans will be waiting until 2020 to find out more about the next-generation console. The system is scheduled to go on sale in Holiday 2020.

As for what viewers can expect from Tuesday’s State of Play, Sony said the briefing will deliver about 20 minutes worth of “new game reveals, release date announcements, new gameplay footage, PlayStation Worldwide Studios updates, and more.”

Artwork for a Resident Evil 3 Remake recently leaked on the PlayStation Network, so this could be one of the reveals scheduled for the State of Play event, though this is not confirmed. GameSpot will have a full rundown of the news and reveals as they’re announced.

The show begins on December 10 at 6 AM PT / 9 AM ET. That works out to 2 PM in London and 1 AM on December 11 in Sydney. You can watch the briefing live on GameSpot.

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/psa-there-wont-be-any-ps5-news-during-sonys-state-/1100-6472046/

The Division 2‘s next major update, 6.1, is coming this week and will bring the promised Christmas content and Hardcore Mode beta. The PC, PS4, and Xbox One game will go down for maintenance on December 10 at 12:30AM PT / 3:30AM ET for approximately four hours, and when it comes back there will be new content to enjoy, plus many bug fixes aimed to improve the player experience. The update is expected to weigh in at 3 GB. Read on for a look at the full patch notes.

Title update 6.1 introduces a new in-game event, Situation: Snowball, which will add some holiday cheer to the game. The agent login screen will receive a festive makeover, and players can receive a Holiday Supplies pack featuring three Standard Apparel Keys, three pieces of equipment, and a “Holiday hat.” It’s not clear if that Holiday hat is distinct from the Santa hats that Ambusher Hoarders will be wearing after the update. They’ll also drop the snowball-firing Sleigher weapon when you take them down.

This update will also kick off the latest Apparel Event. Players will be able to nab “four new outfits, five emotes, nine weapon skins, and a new mask,” according to Ubisoft. As previously detailed, 35 items of clothing will be added over time.

The beta for Hardcore Mode, which only gives you one life to live, is also coming. It’s extremely hard to avoid death entirely in The Division 2, so only the absolute most hardcore players need apply for this appropriately named mode.

Gameplay and talent changes are also coming. Cassie Mendoza, a vendor who sells powerful items, will always have two named items and the Shield Splinterer available in her stock after this patch, with the Splinterer being permanent (as long as you have unlocked the Ivory Key lockbox) and the other two items rotating. UI elements are also being added to indicate her availability. The Shield Splinterer is now considered a High-End item, and will always be at least level 30. Similarly, the Emeline’s Guard and Designated Hitter weapons will now always be High-End. The Negotiator’s Dilemma talent is also changing, and grenades will no longer explode on contact with their targets–there’s a two second fuse timer now, which is a subtle but important change.

The full patch list of bug fixes is below. Most importantly, Xbox One players who were unable to install the game from the disc will now find that their issue has been addressed; the others are general quality-of-life improvements meant to prevent player frustration.

The Division 6.1 Update Patch Notes

Gameplay changes

Cassie Mendoza

As pointed out in our forum post, Cassie’s stock is changing with TU6.1.

• Cassie will now always have two named items and the Shield Splinterer available in her stock.
• The two named items will change every rotation, while the Shield Splinterer will always be available.
• To see the Shield Splinterer players must have unlocked the Ivory Key lockbox in the Base of Operations by defeating all Hunters.
• We’ve added UI elements to make it clearer when Cassie is available and when she’s restocking.

Item changes

• Shield Splinterer will now always be a High-End item and at least level 30.
• Emeline’s Guard and Designated Hitter named weapons are now guaranteed to be of High-End quality.
• Added unlock descriptions for Field Research Blueprints.

Talent changes

Negotiator’s Dilemma

• Blowback (Adjustment)
  • Updated the behavior of the launched grenade:
    • The grenade no longer explodes immediately on contact with its target.
    • The grenade now has a fuse timer of 2 seconds from launch before it explodes.
    • The UI warning players of an approaching grenade now appears immediately on launch of the grenade.
    • If the fuse timer has not expired on landing, the grenade will not explode until the fuse timer runs out.

Bug Fixes

Audio

• We made further audio improvements which should mean that instances where audio cutting out or stopping completely should be much rarer now. We will detail the improvements in an upcoming forum post.
• Fixed an issue that caused the selection sound to be played twice when selecting “Collections” from the Spotlight menu in the store.
• Fixed a missing audio feedback when selecting the first outfit from a collection in the store.

General

• Fixed an issue causing Xbox player to be unable to install the game from disc.
• Added clarification that the Manning National Zoo can only be accessed in WT5 when working on the Technician Special Field Research.
• Fixed an issue that caused Apparel items to stop dropping in the world before players had collected all 72 items.
• Fixed an issue that caused the game to crash when selecting the main agent under certain circumstances.
• Fixed an issue that could cause progression in the Manning National Zoo during the step “Locate Emeline” to be blocked.
• Fixed an issue that allowed players to glitch through a wall in DZ East.
• Fixed an issue that allowed players to enter a Dark Zone with more Signature Weapon ammunition than intended.
• Fixed an issue that could cause loot to not be reachable in the Potomac Event Center.
• Fixed an issue that caused players to be unable to send text messages in any chat channel under certain circumstances.
• Fixed an issue that prevented buying a Signature Weapon Skin from being purchased by double-clicking it.
• Fixed an issue that caused Neutral Control Points to stay Neutral for longer than intended.
• Fixed an issue that could cause the “Mounted Gunnery” objective in the Gunner Special Field Research to not progress under certain circumstances.
• Fixed an issue that allowed players to purchase a Signature Weapon skin while not having the Specialization unlocked.
• Fixed an issue that caused the Negotiator’s Dilemma buff icon to not appear after dealing explosive damage.
• Fixed an issue that caused Signature Weapon ammunition to not drop when killing a target that grants more progress for the Signature ammunition bar than needed.
• Fixed an issue that caused the Perpetuation Talent to award an incorrect amount of Turret ammunition in the Dark Zone.
• Fixed an issue that could cause the UI and function of the Perpetuation talent to not work correctly.
• Turned off the alarm sound in the Base of Operations… again…
• Fixed an issue that could cause the Daily and VIP Mission timers to display a remaining time of 114 weeks. We really want you to finish those projects, agent.
• Fixed an issue that could cause the Invaded mission timers to display an incorrect amount of time remaining.
• Fixed an issue that caused the Naked talent to unintendedly reactivate when switching weapons.
• Fixed an issue that could cause the Aces & Eights blueprints to disappear from the Crafting Bench under certain circumstances.
• Fixed an issue that caused some players to be unable to access the Kenly College chapel after finishing all required Investigation Areas.
• Improved the UI when returning to Kenly College to better tell players which Investigation Areas have not been finished during this period.
• Fixed an issue that caused off-site Missions (e.g. Camp White Oak, Pentagon) to disappear from the megamap when leaving a group while being in a DZ Safe House.
• Fixed the bio reactor’s humming being too loud in the Clan Wing of the Base of Operations. Sad, quiet humming noises.
• Fixed an issue that caused some Classified Assignments to not be tracked in the progression menu.
• Fixed missing localization for “Personal Best Time” in the Kenly College Mastery system.
• Fixed an issue that allowed players to fast travel to the Investigation ECHOs in Kenly College.
• Fixed a missing UI element for the “Share” button when using a Dualshock 4 controller.
• Fixed an issue causing a pylon in Kenly College to not have collision. Now you can canon rush again!
• Fixed an issue where NPCs could get stuck while spawning in Kenly College.
• Fixed an issue that could cause the objective “Destroy the Manifold” in Kenly College to not update after the agent died or the time ran out.
• Improved loot UI to hide dropped item details while in combat, so they don’t block the agent’s view.
• Fixed an issue causing players to be unable to swap from a loadout that had the Gunner or Technician Specialization equipped to a loadout that had been created prior to Title Update 6.
• Fixed an issue preventing players to loot items from loot piles while examining them.
• Fixed an issue causing party members to receive a long loading screen instead of the cinematic when finishing DARPA Research Labs in a group.
• Fixed missing localization for “Targeted Loot” when players inspected loot piles that contained Skill Attachments.
• Fixed an issue causing cooked grenades to always travel to their end destination and explode there, instead of exploding at the intended timing.
• Fixed an issue that allowed named items to be crafted at an earlier than intended Crafting Bench level.
• Fixed an issue where “Make Project” would be available for unowned Blueprints in the Crafting Bench.
• Fixed a missing variable in the Crafting Bench upgrade UI.
• Fixed missing localization for Control Point resource donations.
• Fixed an issue that allowed Perfectly Insulated and Perfectly Rooted to be active while also having their non-perfect counterparts equipped.
• Fixed an issue that could cause Hard Wired Tech to continue to drop while the player was already capped on the material.
• Fixed an issue that caused the Inspect UI to block players from respawning when killed by another player in the Dark Zone.
• Fixed missing collision for a weird wall in the Dark Zone.
• Fixed an issue that caused some elements of the developer debug UI to be visible in certain areas.
• Fixed an issue that caused the Blueprint for the Tightly Packed Marksman Mag to not be visible in the Crafting Bench.
• Fixed an issue that caused the information that Torrez is available for transpo to Kenly College was repeated too often. Did you know that Dark Zone Perks are available at the Base of Operations though?
• Fixed an issue that caused multiple application of the Opportunistic talent to stack instead of refreshing the duration.
• Fixed an issue that caused Unwavering to immediately go on cooldown when swapping to an item with the talent while it’s off cooldown.
• Fixed an issue that caused the Reformation talent to apply incorrect amounts of healing (now is +150% and 175% for Perfect Reformation).
• Fixed an issue that prevented players using the Technician Specialization to sometimes be unable to restock EMP grenades from enemy NPCs and crates.

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/the-division-2-61-update-patch-notes-detail-christ/1100-6472042/