What’s up, gamers? Welcome back to another week of tech and gaming news.
This week, Nintendo launches two brand new apps, one letting fans listen to official soundtracks from their favourite games and another allowing fans to collect Pokémon cards on their phones. The Concord saga also officially ends, as Sony announces they’re pulling the plug completely, and closing the studio that developed the game.
Russia also made international news this week announcing that they will be suing Google for a ludicrously high number. I want you to guess a number in your head right now. Odds are, it’s lower than what Google is expected to cough up.
Without further ado, let’s dive into it.
7. Nintendo launches its own music streaming platform
@rhunwords No Wind Waker?? Smh #gaming #gamingontiktok #nintendo #music ♬ original sound – David Smith
Nintendo launched its very own Spotify competitor this week called Nintendo Music, letting Nintendo Switch Online subscribers download an app to listen to official soundtracks from beloved Nintendo games.
This is special, as Nintendo didn’t have official soundtracks on any streaming platform. It meant that if you wanted to listen to the Windwaker soundtrack, you’d have to buy a physical copy or pray someone had uploaded it on YouTube.
While the app has launched with several popular soundtracks from Nintendo, a bunch are still missing. For example, games like Mother, Mario Kart 64, Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, and more have yet to be added to the platform.
Nintendo Switch Online costs $5.95 a month or $29.95 annually. The service unlocks cloud saves and online gaming on the Nintendo Switch, so you can transfer your saves to another Switch and fight Pokémon battles against other trainers.
While it’s cool to see Nintendo add more to the service, making it more worthwhile, it does make me a little nervous to see companies consolidate more of their content behind their own subscription service.
In an era of subscription fatigue, I’m not entirely sure if a Nintendo-centric musical archive is enough to sway anyone to subscribe. Still, I’m happy for the people keen on diving into all the great music Nintendo games have — when they get around to putting all of them on the app, at least.
6. Concord developer Firewalk Studios shut down
Sad news, Concord heads. Sony has announced they are shutting down developer Firewalk Studios, alongside studio Neon Koi. More than 200 developers will be losing their jobs as a result of the closures. Sony has said they will look to find positions in other studios where they can.
While this is incredibly upsetting, it’s hardly a surprise. When Concord was first announced, it was hard to find anyone that was interested beyond “I mean, yeah I’ll check it out if it’s free”. Alas, it wasn’t free, and you’d have to pay the full retail price to try it out. The game also had all too familiar gameplay compared to other live-service shooters and couldn’t drum up enough interest to entice gamers to check it out.
Upon release in September, the game was online for a mere ten days before swiftly being shut down and refunds offered to anyone who had purchased.
However, it’s still upsetting to see all the work the devs put in go to waste. Concord was a competent game at its core, but it couldn’t find an audience in a crowded market of other online live-service shooters like Overwatch 2 or Destiny.
As of now, Concord is still expected to have an episode in Amazon’s new anthology show, Secret Level, which may be the last we ever see or hear of it again.
5. Russia sues Google for 20 decillion dollars
A court in Russia has ruled that Google owes Russian media stations a sum of $20 decillion in fines for blocking their content. If this sounds like a fake number a kid on a playground would say to win an argument about “Whose dad is richer?” you wouldn’t be far off. The World Bank estimates the global GDP to be around $100 trillion. A measly 14 zeroes compared to the 34 zeroes that would make up 20 decillion. To state the obvious, there’s no way Google could ever pay this amount.
This isn’t a random number pulled out of a hat, however. Russia has estimated this figure as an incurring fine that has been growing since 2020 when Russian outlets Tsargrad TV and RIA FAN sued Google for blocking their content. The penalty has continued to grow as 15 other channels won court cases against Google.
The fine is continuing to double every week Google fails to pay, which means that Google may one day owe as much to Russia as you owe the government for your HECS.
4. Crunchyroll drops on Prime Video
This one’s for the anime fans in the chat because Crunchyroll is now available on Prime Video in Australia.
For an add-on subscription, you’ll be able to access Crunchyroll’s enormous library of anime, featuring over 40 titles. While I’m a bit mixed on having to pay more for a subscription service, at least it’s for more content and not for an ad-free tier and more devices.
Prime members can now select from two Crunchyroll monthly memberships: Fan (AUD $10.99) or Mega Fan (AUD $13.99). Both subscription tiers will allow you to stream the entire Crunchyroll library ad-free, while also getting episodes shortly after they release in Japan. Mega fans, however, will get to download episodes to watch offline.
If you’ve been keen to check out more recent anime, this might be a solid add-on to consider.
3. Dragon Age: The Veilguard releases today
In some good news, Dragon Age: The Veilguard from Bioware Studios finally dropped today, and fans are already sinking their teeth in.
It’s the first entry into the franchise in ten years, and thankfully, early reviews seem to be positive. That’s right, fans like me have been waiting for this day for almost a decade, on edge, praying that it’d be good when it finally launched.
Most reviewers agree that the combat is refreshing for the franchise, it runs effortlessly across all platforms, and the story does the world and its characters justice.
For those unaware, developer Bioware studios was under immense pressure to make sure this game was a success. After negative reactions to their previous two games Mass Effect: Andromeda and Anthem, gamers were nervous to see if they could pull off another Dragon Age.
While I’m only ten hours into my current playthrough, I’m feeling extremely positive about it and having a great time. Such a great time, in fact, that I started playing at 6pm yesterday and suddenly looked up to see it was 2am. Make of that what you will.
2. League of Legends Worlds Finals airs tomorrow
Well, folks, it’s time for the e-sports event of the year. The League of Legends World Cup final is tomorrow, and it should hopefully be a banger.
I’ve been following the season all year, and while I’m heartbroken my chosen team isn’t competing in the final (RIP Gen.G), this one will surely be an all-time great.
Korean team T1 will face off against China’s Bilibili Gaming (BLG). These two teams have some of the largest fan bases in the sport, with T1’s Faker himself being one of, if not the most famous, athletes in South Korea.
If you’re keen to catch the match live, I hope you love staying up late because it will be starting at 1am Sunday, November 3rd. If the series goes on for five games as expected, we could be looking at a 4:30am bedtime that night. But it’ll be worth it, because who doesn’t want to watch some quality League of Legends? (Ignore the crickets)
You can catch the matches live for free on lolesports.com or you can grab tickets from Fortress to attend an in-person watch party.
1. Pokémon drops a mobile card game collector
In more Nintendo news, the Pokémon company has just launched Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket, a digital version to collect Pokémon cards. With the app, you can scan your already existing Pokémon cards into the app, or you can start collecting them in-app.
Similar to Magic: The Gathering Arena, you can open booster packs, assemble your deck and challenge other players to battles.
I actually got to play this back in August when I attended the Pokémon World Championship in Hawaii this year. While the brain did tingle a ton opening up those Pokémon packs, it just couldn’t beat the real thing.
What also makes me apprehensive is that if you buy these cards through the app and you lose your account or the app gets deleted, those cards are gone forever. However, if you physically buy the cards, at least you get to keep them forever, depending on how carefully you take care of them.
Regardless, I still think this is a good move by Nintendo to help make the card game side of Pokémon more accessible and bring in some new fans.
If you’d like to check it out, you can download it from the app store on iOS and Android.
Image credit: Nintendo , Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
The post Nintendo’s New Music App & Russia Sues Google: Tech & Gaming News This Week appeared first on PEDESTRIAN.TV .
