Today wasn’t the busiest news day, but that doesn’t mean nothing happened. Catch up with some of these smaller stories that all broke throughout the day.
Sega Plans on Porting Their Classics to PC:
Sonic: Lost World is coming to the PC, but Sega isn’t stopping there. Despite already porting a good chunk of their classic games to the PC before, you can’t readily, or cheaply, grab them on Steam like you can with other publishers. Luckily Sega says Lost World is just the beginning and in the “coming months and years” Sega will continue to release “high quality PC ports of past Sega titles.”. This is all apart of an effort within Sega to make better games and cash in on their 90’s reputation. Lost World will be on Steam on November 2nd for $30 and a preorder will nab you Sonic All Star Racing Transformed as well.
Next Street Fighter V Beta Announced:
The next beta for Street Fighter V will be run from October 22nd through the 25th. This is for both PC and PS4 owners and will feature cross platform play. When this one opens Ken, Necalli, Vega and R. Mika will be available with Rashid and Karin added during the beta. Despite the troubles the first two betas had, it’s nice to see a beta actually working our potential problems network code and patches can cause. It’s better to give out a free beta/demo and get things right than publish a broken game. Find out more beta and SFV info over at Capcom Unity.
Sims 4 Expansion Delayed:
Back in August, the Sims 4 team announced a new expansion, called Get Together, that would add a new area, the ability to run your own club, and dancing and DJ skills. It was dated for November but now it’s slipped back to December. It’s not a major delay but announcing a new add on, then delaying it within a month is pretty odd. The reasoning is to “add more polish” to the new content but I’m beginning to wonder if all of Maxis is being affected by EA’s changes.
Voices Actors Vote for Strike:
You may have heard that voice actors with the union SAG-AFTRA were recently holding a vote. SAG is trying to get its members better terms and working conditions when it comes to doing voice-over work on video games. SAG now has a more powerful tool in their pocket when they return to the bargaining table with big publishers like EA and Activision, the power to strike. This allows SAG a better bargaining position to give those actors better pay, better conditions, and hopefully this fight eventually benefits developers and designers who also work a lot when making a game. You can read more into SAG’s negotiations and what they want on their website.
Call of Duty Disappears on Xbox One:
Call of Duty went from Xbox’s closest ally to Sony’s darling last E3. Exclusive early content would show up on Playstation 4 for the first time since the Call of Duty franchise became immensely popular. It’s not too surprising since Call of Duty is such a powerhouse within the industry but nobody assumed there could be or would be bad blood between Activision and Xbox. That is until you go and try and preorder Call of Duty: Black Ops III digitally on Xbox One or Amazon right now. Suddenly and without reason the option has gone and when Kotaku reached out to both parties neither gave a straight answer. Microsoft says they’re trying to restore the option and you can preorder physical copies elsewhere for now. Activision says they didn’t remove anything from anywhere, are ready to launch in November, and don’t comment on anything else. I assume this is some behind the scenes spat and it’s a shame it’s hurting consumers in the end. You shouldn’t preorder but for a lot of people Call of Duty is a no-brainer purchase. Let’s hope both parties put on big boy pants and settle this soon.
