Tim Willits now works for Saber Interactive, as confirmed by a report by Fortune. As the Chief Creative Officer, he’ll be a major decider in the company’s direction going forward.

Saber Interactive is currently working on the ambitious Switch port of The Witcher 3, as well as Ghostbusters: The Video Game Remastered. They are best known for developing the NBA Playground titles, as well as World War Z, which sold extremely well. The company was founded in 2001, and has expanded dramatically since their 2003 debut game, Will Rock.

According to the report, he’ll be involved in guiding the studio’s over-500 employees as they create new IPs and develop games across their five international studios. Willits is reportedly excited to be able to work with small teams and develop independently. “When someone has a good idea, we jump on it,” he told Fortune. “If it doesn’t work out, we change it quick.”

Willits also says that Saber is currently investigating other sports that they could explore within their Playgrounds series.

Willits left id Software last month following Quakecon, promising to announce his future plans soon. His earliest credit at the company was on The Ultimate Doom, for which he was the level designer on episode 4, ‘Thy Flesh Consumed’, released in 1995. His final credit there, fittingly, will be on Doom Eternal.

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/tim-willits-formerly-of-id-software-is-now-chief-c/1100-6469045/

FIFA 20‘s Career Mode is getting some major changes and updates when the game launches on PS4, Xbox One, and PC. The mode, which has remained largely unchanged for the last two years, is getting dynamic press conferences, updates to player potential, and more. EA recently laid out all the new changes players can expect.

“Our vision was to breathe new life into the Manager Career experience by … [building] a variation of ever-changing stories that would surface to our players through pre- and post-match press conferences and player conversations,” EA said in a blog post.

That manifests itself in dynamic interviews with journalists both before and after big matches, with the journalists asking different questions “depending highly on the outcome, goals scored, opponent, time of season or stage of competition, and more.”

Similarly, managers can converse with players one-on-one through a “messaging app-like interface,” EA said. “The manager will have to deal with a variety of requests from players as well as happy or disgruntled players that are trying to get their thoughts across. The manager will have to find ways, either through direct actions or by communicating his/her stance in order to mitigate and solve these situations.”

Together, the two features contribute to a player’s morale, a system which has been revamped for FIFA 20. As well as conferences and one-on-ones, player morale is affected by playing time, wages, and both individual and team performances. High morale boosts players’ attributes, so picking the right answers and playing the right players are important considerations.

The final big new feature is dynamic player potential, whereby young stars’ potential overall rating will change depending on their performances. If, for example, a young striker is banging in the goals in his debut season, his potential peak rating will increase; similarly, an ageing player who’s still keeping up with modern football will see his stats drop off at a slower-than-expected rate.

Elsewhere, Career Mode contains a number of smaller tweaks and updates on the current iteration. These include:

• Improved manager customization, utilizing the new character creation tool seen in Volta and across FIFA 20–this means you can create female managers for the first time in FIFA.
• Rebranded user interfaces particular to the Premier League, Bundesliga, Ligue 1, La Liga, and the MLS.
• New news screenshots and updates
• Two new environments for dynamic negotiation cutscenes to take place in: the restaurant and the rooftop lounge.

You can see the full list of bug fixes and balance changes in the list below, via EA. For more on this year’s game, check out everything we know about FIFA 20’s Ultimate Team, Pro Clubs, or Volta modes. The game launches for PS4, Xbox One, and PC–with legacy editions coming to Switch and older platforms–on September 27.

FIFA 20: Career Mode Spot Fixes And Balance Changes

General Improvements

• Added an option in the player actions pop-up to add a player to the shortlist and immediately go to the transfer hub with the respective player.
• Redesigned Team Management layout to allow for easier player attribute comparison.
• Added an option to disable international management job offers at the start of a new career.
• Increased the initial Composure attribute values for generated youth players and redistributed weights for player growth between physical, mental and skill attributes to allow for more physical growth.
• Improved distribution of ethnicity within a country when generating youth players.
• Significantly increased the initial amounts for wage budget allocation.
• Increased the player value of defensive players based on the latest transfer market activity.
• Fixed multiple issues with leagues that split into play-offs after the end of the regular season.
• League objectives are now correctly tracking the play-off instead of the regular season standings. Champions celebrations are triggered at the end of the play-offs.
• Improved the algorithm used by AI teams to determine their starting XI. Moving forward you should see far fewer instances in which the opponent isn’t using their prime starting XI in important matches.
• Re-adjusted the number of saves to eight, inside Career Mode, to address the feedback received from our players during the ’19 cycle.

Competition Changes

• Fixed multiple fixture congestion issues. The winter break roll-out this season, as well as the removal of the FA Cup 5th Round Replay, have improved fixture congestion issues in English leagues. We’ve slightly altered the authentic schedule of the English Championship by pushing its completion to a later date. This ensures that schedule conflict situations between Championship rounds and European football nights aren’t possible. A lot of the congestion issues reported by the community were happening with mid-week league rounds happening at the same time as European football, which, although unlikely in the real world, is a common occurrence in Career Mode.
• Added the new format and schedule of the Spanish Supercup.
• Added support to round down the points in leagues that split into play-offs and halve the points such as the Austrian Bundesliga.
• Updated usage of the fourth substitute in extra time to all competitions that support this new law of the game.

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/fifa-20-everything-you-need-to-know-about-whats-ch/1100-6468954/

Madden NFL 20 launched earlier this month, and now published Electronic Arts has revealed some statistics that speak to how people are playing the game and how it’s selling.

EA said in a press release that “well over half” of the game’s first-week sales were digital; that’s a first for the decades-old franchise. It’s expected that digital sales would continue to rise in percentage compared to physical, given the gaming industry overall is moving toward digital.

A digital sale is more lucrative for EA, too, but EA still pays store fees on the Xbox Store and PlayStation Store.

EA also said that Madden 20 set a new franchise record for most pre-orders during in its final week before release; however, no pre-order or sales numbers for Madden 20 were released by EA.

Here are some other Madden 20 statistics:

• Over 70% of players tried the new single-player mode, Face of the Franchise, in the first week; that’s up 80% compared to the number of people who tried Madden 19’s Longshot 2 in its first week.
• The number of games played in Madden 20 in its first week is up by double-digit percentages compared to Madden NFL 19.
• EA says Madden 20 has the “highest positive sentiment ever” on social media, though the company did not say how it recorded this.

In other news, Amazon Prime members can claim one of the greatest NFL players of all time, Jim Brown, in Madden Ultimate Team.

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/madden-20-achieved-a-sales-milestone-no-madden-bef/1100-6469039/

Microsoft would consider allowing some of its studios to release games on competing consoles. Xbox Studios boss Matt Booty told Game Informer that this will be decided on a case-by-case basis. Asked directly if Microsoft would allow its newest studio, Double Fine, to release future titles on platforms that compete with Xbox, Booty replied, “Yeah, I think we would.”

Whatever the case, Booty said the bigger discussion is about what’s right for the game.

“I think the question is less binary about, ‘Should it be on Switch, should it be on PlayStation’ and more, ‘Does it make sense for the franchise?’ In other words, is it a kind of game where it would benefit from the network effect of being on a bunch of different platforms, or is it a game where we can best support it by putting resources and making sure that our platforms, things like xCloud and Game Pass and Xbox Live, are really leaning in to support the game,” Booty said.

Obsidian and Double Fine were acquired by Microsoft after their respective new games, The Outer Worlds and Psychonauts 2, were announced for release across Xbox and PlayStation. Similarly, after Microsoft acquired Minecraft developer Mojang, the company continued to support Minecraft on PlayStation. It’s a potentially lucrative thing to do, as Microsoft’s Phil Spencer has said Microsoft is in fact one of the biggest publishers on PlayStation thanks to Minecraft.

Keeping Minecraft available and updated on PlayStation was a “no-brainer,” according to Booty.

Speaking to GameSpot in a new interview, Spencer recalled the thinking behind keeping Minecraft available on all platforms. “One of the first calls we got after the Minecraft acquisition was from Sony saying, ‘Are you going to pull it off PlayStation?’,” Spencer said. “And I’m like, ‘Why would I do that? People like playing it on PlayStation.'”

As for Microsoft’s older franchises that have never been released on competing consoles, such as Forza, Halo, and Sea of Thieves, those series were designed from the beginning to “exist on Xbox.” Booty said he expects that legacy to continue going forward.

Also in the interview, Booty shared some insight into one of the reasons why why Microsoft acquired Obsidian–the company sees a bright future for The Outer Worlds. He said Microsoft sees the game as one that can build and grow over time. One major question is around a potential sequel and if it would continue to be a multiplatform release. Since The Outer Worlds 1 isn’t even released yet, Booty wouldn’t be drawn into speculation, though his earlier comments suggest that it might be possible for the sequel to release on multiple consoles.

Finally, Booty said he is proud of the way Microsoft is structuring its studio acquisition deals. He mentioned that when Microsoft and Twisted Pixel decided to split up, the terms of the deal were such that Twisted Pixel would be able to continue to thrive.

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/newly-acquired-xbox-studios-could-release-games-fo/1100-6469033/

The Nintendo Switch has a bunch of new colour options coming for its Joy-Cons later this year, but one of them will only be available through Best Buy in the US. Green Joy-Cons are available for pre-order from the retailer now with a release date set for October 27.

Other Joy-Con colours launching this October include a Blue and Neon Yellow pair and a Neon Purple and Neon Orange pair (or as I like to call them the Waluigi and Wario Joy-Cons). They arrive on October 4.

See at Best Buy

One thing that’s important to note about Joy-Cons is that many reports of analog stick drift have been reported in recent weeks. Nintendo has addressed this issue and is currently offering free Joy-Con fixes and refunds to those who have already paid for repairs. I recently sent in a pair of Joy-Cons and was not charged for the service. It’s unclear if Nintendo will take steps to prevent this from happening to new Joy-Con models.

You can also pre-order the Nintendo Switch Lite now. This includes the Gray, Yellow, and Turquoise models, in addition to the Zacian and Zamazenta version. The first three colours release on September 20, while the Zacian and Zamazenta edition releases on November 8, a week before Pokemon Sword / Shield.

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/new-green-nintendo-switch-joy-cons-available-for-p/1100-6469029/