Hello, my name is Benjamin Le. I am an avid gamer whose passion resides in Marketing for the Video Game Industry. This site is for people to read about gaming news and how the industry works. Please feel free to reach out to me at lebenjaminj@gmail.com for any questions.
Amongst the Gaming VR headsets, PlayStation VR is the most popular due to its accessibility. The PlayStation 4 has sold more than 80 million units and the VR unit is an add-on to the system. It also cost less space to set up compared to stronger VR headsets such as the HTC Vive or the Oculus Rift. Today, Sony announced that the PlayStation VR has sold more than 3 million units. In terms of games, they have nearly sold 22 million VR games. Below is the growth of the PlayStation VR.
To celebrate, they announced the release date for two new PSVR games: Creed: Rise to Glory (Sept. 25) and Evasion (Oct. 9).
While the PSVR isn’t the most impressive headset out on the market, the high sales numbers can be attributed to the popularity of the console. PSVR is still relatively new compared to the Vive or the Oculus. Hopefully the future generation PSVR will be able to match its competitors while remaining accessible.
The dream of free online services for consoles games has reached the end. The Nintendo Switch’s online service will launch in the second half of September. Below are the pricing plans.
The plans are considerably cheaper than the Xbox One and PlayStation 4. Their yearly plans are $60 but they have more games with online features than Nintendo. Their online service will include online play for their titles, save cloud data backup, special deals, and their mobile app for in-game communications. They will also have some free online games. It will launch with 20 NES games with online play features which allow you to play with others.
As long as you have the paid service, you can play the games whenever. It is interesting to see Nintendo have a huge price difference. If Nintendo Switch Online does extremely well and more players move to Nintendo to play online, it may lead to PlayStation and Xbox to reduce their rates. I don’t play any of my Nintendo games online but it will be interesting to see how the market reacts.
Discord, the popular chat, video, and communications app, will begin offering video games with their Nitro services. Nitro is a subscription platform for $4.99/month that offers users more abilities for chat such as gif uploads and custom tags. The price will still be $4.99 per month or $49.99 a year but will soon involve video games! Discord Nitro will have its own library of games available to stream or purchase. The beta will launch to 50,000 Canadians soon but expects to go to more regions at a later date.
How do they compete?
This is direct competition against Steam and Twitch. Twitch is becoming a PC game streaming service and has monthly free games. Discord is trying to differentiate itself by connecting it with their chat platform and community. Discord has always been greatly enjoyed by users because easy to set up and its developers are gamers too. They interact with fans and have a better social media presence than Steam or Twitch. Games are catered to you based on your interest but Discord employees can leave small recommendations about the game.
Hope they didn’t steal this review
While they can’t compete with Steam’s library, Discord will have partnerships with THQ and Deep Silver. Having Nitro will also give you access to games without paying such as Saints Row: The Third, Darksiders: Warmastered Edition, Super Meat Boy and Metro: Last Light Redux. You can buy games at their online stores.
They will start their own exclusives called “First on Discord.” They will be indie games that “pushes the boundary of creative game design and is important to innovation and the long-term health of the industry.” They will also have games from Blizzard (World of Warcraft, Overwatch) and Epic (Fortnite). The split between Discord and game is 30 – 70 which is similar to all platforms.
They won’t have every game out but if you’re looking to have a smaller library, perhaps this is an option for you! Steam is very cluttered in comparison but is widely used by all PC gamers. Whether Nitro can compete with them or Twitch will be interesting as game streaming becomes more popular.
The Gaming News Corner 