Author: trafficblast

Though this holiday season will be led by the PS5 and Xbox Series X, there are plenty of gamers who also like to look backwards. Nostalgia for classic consoles and arcade hits has grown in recent years with the popularity of official mini consoles and affordable home arcade cabinets. There’s also a growing number of accessories that make gaming on retro consoles better than ever before. If you have a longtime gamer on your shopping list who loves retro games and arcades, we’ve rounded up all of the best gifts you can buy them this holiday season.

From retro consoles like the Sega Genesis Mini and the TurboGrafx-16 Mini to cool Arcade1Up cabinets and classic Nintendo merch, our gift guide for retro gamers has it all. Plus, see our complete guide to retro gaming in 2020 for more gift ideas and inspiration.

Keep in mind prices listed below indicate the products’ regular prices and don’t reflect any discounts you may find when you click through. With Black Friday coming up and retailers like Amazon and Best Buy discounting products regularly, it’s quite possible you can snag a great gift for a loved one for even cheaper.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

Kerbal Space Program 2, the physics-based space explorer sequel, has been delayed out of 2021. In a post to the game’s official forums, creative director Nate Simpson shared the news that the game, initially delayed because of the COVID-19 pandemic, is now further away.

“Kerbal Space Program 2 will release in 2022 instead of fall 2021,” Simpson wrote. “We knew we were taking on an immense technical and creative challenge when we started this project. We’ve heard time and again from this community that quality is paramount, and we feel the same way.” With this in mind, the team has delayed the game to ensure its quality.

“We’re creating a reliable foundation on which players and modders alike can build for another decade or more,” Simpson says. “That involves solving problems that have never been solved before, and that takes time.”

He went on to tease that the game is making “huge leaps,” and that it’s been hard to keep everything they’re working on a secret. “We can’t express how much we’re looking forward to soaking up all your reactions,” he said.

The team is promising new screens, dev diaries, and other videos in the future to keep players informed on the upcoming game.

It’s been a turbulent year for the development team behind Kerbal Space Program 2. Bloomberg uncovered an incident where the game’s publisher, Take-Two, poached the team working on the game for a new team, causing the original studio behind the game to be shuttered. It’s an incredibly strange story.

GameSpot got to check out the sequel at Gamescom 2019–you can read the preview here.

Take-Two, the company that owns Rockstar Games and 2K Games, released its latest earnings report this week, and in particular, Red Dead Redemption II and Grand Theft Auto V are doing very well.

Red Dead Redemption 2 net bookings–that is, how much money Take-Two made from the game–jumped by 124 percent during the July-September quarter. This include 106 percent growth in full-game sales, Take-Two said. It would appear that, like many other games, Red Dead Redemption II enjoyed a surge in sales as people continued to stay home during COVID-19 lockdowns.

In conjunction with the spike in sales, Take-Two reported that new player growth rose by 47 percent during the period. Additionally, microtransaction sales–which are called “recurrent consumer spending” at Take-Two–rose year-over-year for Red Dead Online by 96 percent, exceeding expectations.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

Sony’s PlayStation 5 is days away from launch, but if you haven’t preordered, you’re likely out of luck–even in Japan, the system’s home country. Sony has announced that you won’t be able to buy the system from store shelves on day one.

Video Games Chronicle is reporting that the PS5 launch allotment in Japan is already sold out, warning potential customers that “due to the high interest and many orders from users, the launch is sold out by the reserved amount.”

Sony also said that it will not hold in-store events for the PS5 due to COVID-19, so as to “ensure the safety of customers, retailers, and staff.” The company has asked customers to check with the store they have preordered from to see how their console will be received.

This is not surprising, as the PS5 has been very difficult to buy in many territories, with the system selling through release allocations. Sony has called its shot early, saying that the PS5–like the PS2 and PS4 before it–will sell over 100 million units.

If you haven’t gotten your hands on a PS5 preorder in the US, keep an eye on GameSpot’s preorder guide–and watch in the coming weeks as our launch coverage rolls out.

We set out on the final mission in the Age of Calamity demo on the hardest difficulty and destroy the Guardian in record time.

We play a handful of games on the Xbox Series S. Get a glimpse of Doom Eternal, Final Fantasy XV, Forza Horizon 4, Gears of War 5, The Outer Worlds, and Yakuza: Like A Dragon.

Nintendo has updated their top 10 all-time Switch sellers list after releasing their Switch sales figures, and there’s some amazing numbers in there. Animal Crossing: New Horizons continues to have a blistering first year after six months on sale, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is still selling well, and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate has become the system’s third 20-million seller.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons is up to 26.04 million sales, up from 22.4 million units last quarter. At that time, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe was on 26.7 million sales, and you might expect the gap to have narrowed significantly–but the kart racer also sold incredibly this quarter, jumping to 28.99 million units. The 2017 Switch port of a 2014 Wii U title (which was also that system’s highest seller, at 8.45 million units) continues to be a huge success.

There are no new entries from last quarter, although Super Mario 3D All-Stars got off to such a strong start (5.21 million sales in two weeks) that we could see it overtake New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe in the future.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

Some next-generation games, including NBA 2K21 and the Demon’s Souls remake, carry a price tag of $10 USD above current-gen pricing. $70 USD could become the norm for next-gen, and now one of gaming’s biggest publishers has weighed in on the possibility of higher prices.

EA CFO Blake Jorgensen said during an earnings call that it’s premature to discuss price increases, but he noted that games are becoming richer experiences that cost more money to make.

“We’ve always said games are getting more expensive. The experience is getting deeper. The time that people are playing games is getting longer. One might argue that that might require a higher price point over time, but we’ll address that as we get closer to more games coming into the next-gen console transition,” Jorgensen said.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

The Nintendo Switch continues to gain momentum, according to Nintendo’s Q2 financial report for the fiscal year 2020/2021. The company’s new investor relations information for the quarter has launched, and it has revealed some huge sales figures.

The Switch has now sold 68.30 million units, making it the second highest-selling Nintendo home console ever. This quarter, which stretches from July 1-September 30, saw 6.86 million Switch units sold around the world, judging by their previous report (thanks, Vooks).

The Switch Lite makes up 10.36 million of those sales, meaning that the hybrid system remains the most popular.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

In another timeline, The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run would’ve hit U.S. theaters on May 22. But then, 2020 happened. SpongeBob saw its theatrical premiere pushed back to August and limited to Canada. Now, SpongeBob’s first all-CGI adventure is finally heading to streaming–everywhere but here in the United States, where it will finally arrive in early 2021. Oh, and it won’t show up on Netflix even then.

After ViacomCBS rescheduled and re-rescheduled the theatrical debut of SpongeBob’s third movie, the studio finally was forced to cancel it entirely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead, the studio announced that the movie would head for streaming services. Netflix picked up international distribution rights for the movie. If you have friends in the UK, Japan, or any other country where Netflix operates, they can already watch Sponge on the Run.

Here in the U.S., though, ViacomCBS is in charge of distributing the Paramount Animation-produced flick. The company plans to put SpongeBob on premium video-on-demand services in early 2021. Once the movie’s PVOD period ends, it’ll move to CBS All Access, recently rebranded as Paramount+.

Continue Reading at GameSpot