Month: June 2018

E3, the biggest gaming convention on the planet, will kick off soon, and Microsoft is celebrating by putting on what it’s calling “the biggest Xbox sale of the year.” At the Microsoft Store and other participating retailers, you’ll find temporary price drops on Xbox One hardware, services, and games. There’s a lot of money to be saved, so read on to find out what kind of deals you’ll be able to find when the sale begins on Thursday, June 7.

On the hardware side of things, you can save $10 off Xbox One controllers and $50 off any Xbox One console. Here’s the breakdown for the sale prices on the various models of Xbox One.

• 500GB Xbox One S console — $199
• 1TB Xbox One S bundles — $249
• Xbox One X console — $449

You’ll also be able to get discounts on Xbox One services. One month of Xbox Live Gold and Xbox Game Pass will be available for just $1 each. Remember, Xbox Game Pass gives you access to all Microsoft Studios games at launch, meaning you can play the full versions of games like State of Decay 2 and Sea of Thieves all month for just a buck. Not a bad deal.

In terms of games, Microsoft will offer discounts on over 300 titles, including Battlefield 1, FIFA 18, NBA 2K18, Assassin’s Creed Origins, Forza Motorsport 7, Destiny 2, Super Lucky’s Tale, Monster Hunter: World, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, and Sea of Thieves. You’ll also be able to save money on game add-ons and expansions–though which ones, exactly, have yet to be announced.

We’ll have more details like specific sale prices on games once the sale goes live on June 7.

Microsoft has reset its weekly sale, so a whole new batch of Xbox One and Xbox 360 games are available for discounted prices. You’ll need to have an Xbox Live Gold account to qualify for some of the deals (indicated with an asterisk below), but others are available to everyone. Let’s dive in and see what games are on sale this week–but don’t wait too long, because they go back to full price on Monday, June 11.

Rockstar games are the headliners this week, with Red Dead Redemption down to $10 / £8. Now is a good time to play (or re-play) the game, seeing as the sequel is heading our way in October and there seem to be a lot of narrative through-lines between the two games. It also recently got a 4K update for Xbox One X.

In other Rockstar news, starting June 7, you’ll be able to play Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Rockstar Table Tennis, and Midnight Club: Los Angeles Complete on Xbox One thanks to backwards compatibility updates. To encourage fans to pick those games up, Rockstar has put them on sale for $10 / £8 each.

Also discounted this week are the acclaimed RPGs Divinity: Original Sin ($10 / £9) and Torment: Tides of Numenera for ($15 / £12). If you’re feeling in the mood for a fright, you can grab Goosebumps: The Game for $8 / £6. You can find the full list of games on sale here, or see more of our picks below.

Xbox One and Xbox 360 Game Deals

• A Boy and His Blob* — $4 / £3
• Divinity: Original Sin* — $10 / £9
• Goosebumps: The Game — $8 / £6
• Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas* — $10 / £8 (BC on June 7)
• Midnight Club: Los Angeles Complete* — $10 / £8
• R.B.I. Baseball 18 — $25 / £20
• Red Dead Redemption — $10 / £8
• Rockstar Table Tennis* — $6 / £5 (BC on June 7)
• Runbow — $8 / £5
• Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments* — $8 / £5
• Torment: Tides of Numenera* — $15 / £12

A new week means a new set of games has gone on sale on the PlayStation Store. This week’s discounts include deals on a number of games that don’t often go on sale. PS Plus members get an extra 10% off some of the games, sweetening the deal even further. Let’s dig in and see what PS4 games we can save money on this week.

To kick things off, you can buy Destiny 2 + Expansion Pass for $40. That’s a big discount, and it’s a bundle you’ll need if you want to play the newly announced expansion Destiny 2: Forsaken this fall. Forsaken doesn’t come with the bundle, but here’s everything you need to know to pre-order it.

Additionally, the French publisher Focus Home Interactive is having a big sale on the PlayStation Store, with games like Blood Bowl 2 ($5), Farming Simulator 18 ($9), and The Surge ($12) getting big discounts.

Racing fans can grab Need for Speed Payback for $24 (or $20 with a PS Plus membership). The Sims 4 is on sale for $30 ($25 with PS Plus); its many expansions are also discounted this week.

You can find the full list of games and add-ons on sale here, or keep scrolling for more of our picks for the best PS4 deals of the week.

PS4 Games On Sale This Week

• Blood Bowl 2 — $5
• Destiny 2 + Expansion Pass — $40
• Divinity: Original Sin – Enhanced Edition — $10
• Farming Simulator 18 — $9
• Fe — $12 | $10 with PS Plus
• FIFA 18 — $24
• NBA Live 18: The One Edition — $9 | $6 with PS Plus
• Need for Speed Payback — $24 | $20 with PS Plus
• R.B.I. Baseball 18 — $25
• The Sims 4 — $30 | $25 with PS Plus
• The Surge — $12
• The Technomancer — $10

Developers from Bethesda Game Studios have said that Fallout 4’s base building mechanics were almost cut before launch.

In a new documentary from Noclip looking at the history of Bethesda Game Studios, Studio Director Ashley Cheng said that Fallout 4’s ‘workshop’ building and settlement systems almost didn’t make it into the final game. “The Workshop mode in Fallout was on the cutting block for so long,” Cheng said, “we just weren’t sure ‘does anyone even care about this?'”

Lead Producer Jeff Gardiner went on to explain that “Workshop was the easiest thing for us to cut because… it was ancillary to the rest of the game. It was a side thing.” Gardiner said that had they committed to it earlier, it could have potentially been weaved in the main quest line.

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Onrush is the racing game for people that don’t like traditional racing games. It’s the Super Smash Bros. of the racing genre, and after spending several hours slamming into my opponents I can say with confidence it scratches an itch I didn’t know I had.

In Onrush, you’re not competing to finish the course in the fastest time. There are no laps, no passing cars, and no placings at the end – just a winning team and a losing team. Instead, all of the cars during a match are mushed into what’s referred to as the “stampede,” a mob that careens throughout courses causing destruction and explosions with extreme frequency. This bizarre setup is a major shock to the system at first, but once I came to grips with Onrush’s unique flair, I realized that not all change is bad.

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Pokemon Company CEO Tsunekazu Ishihara has shared a few more details regarding the upcoming core Pokemon game due out in 2019 for Nintendo Switch. Speaking with Japanese publication Famitsu, which released an extensive feature on Pokémon Let’s Go Pikachu and Let’s Go Eevee, Ishihara finally shed some light on Pokemon 2019 for Nintendo Switch.

Ishihara has reconfirmed that fans can expect to get their hands on the core title in the second half of 2019, which may not be a big surprise for most fans as the majority of core Pokemon titles typically release in November.

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