This year,Sony announced that PlayStation Plus would not include free PS3 and PS Vita games. Fans criticized the decision because it limited players exposure to potential games they may have missed. It also made players less likely to play their older generation consoles. Recently, a tweet from PlayStation Spain announced they had stopped production of the PlayStation Vita.
While rumors speculated the Sony would stop manufacturing the Vita last year, it seems like Spain is the only region currently that has stopped for the Vita. Whether new Vitas will be manufactured world-wide remains to be seen. The PlayStation 3 stopped production on January 7, 2013 globally. The PlayStation Vita struggled to compete with Nintendo’s 3DS. Now that the Nintendo Switch is out, the Sony handheld looks deader than ever. A lack of third party support, popular game titles, and marketing led to the inevitable failure of the Vita.
Billy Mitchell is an infamous video game player known for his record-breaking scores in classic Donkey Kong and his bullying attitude. His greatest achievements are obtaining the highest scores in Pac-Man and Donkey Kong. His scores and rivalries are so famous that there’s an actual documentary about it called King of Kongs. Billy Mitchell has been on Guinness Book of World Records several times. Well, it turns out Billy Mitchel was cheating to obtain his high scores and was stripped of his title and banned from Twin Galaxies.
Billy Mitchel – David Greedy via Getty Images
Twin Galaxies is a gaming website and forum dedicated to professional gaming recognition and support. They have a relationship with the Guinness Book of World Records that helps record gaming achievements. Billy had recently broken the world record in Donkey Kong by achieving a score of a 1,062,800-point performance on July 31, 2010. This raised many suspicions from the community. Jeremy Young, a prominent member of the Donkey Kong Forum, accused Billy of achieving his high score on an emulated version of Donkey Kong rather than a legitimate arcade board. It was noticed after a frame by frame analysis of the footage that Billy sent in was displaying an incorrect sequence in the level transitions that never occurs on an arcade board.
Frame by frame analysis of the footage from Billy Mitchel
Usually, a member from Twin Galaxies must be physically present to view an attempt at breaking a world record but new management had changed. Twin Galaxies accepted the footage from Billy as proof of his achievement.
For his gaming crime, all of his high scores have been removed from records in Twin Galaxies and Donkey Kong Forum. This also includes his record-breaking score in Pac-Mana – a score of 3,333,360, the maximum before Pac-Man reaches its “kill screen” and becomes unplayable. His player page on Twin Galaxies is now blank.
With his score removed, the new world record holder is Steve Weibe who was Billy’s rival shown in the King of Kongs documentary in 2007. Steve is now the first world record breaker million-point scorer in Donkey Kong history and is recognized by Twin Galaxies. Twin Galaxies’ statement is below regarding their ruling.
With this ruling Twin Galaxies can no longer recognize Billy Mitchell as the 1st million point Donkey Kong record holder. According to our findings, Steve Wiebe would be the official 1st million point record holder.
Nintendo will be hosting a tournament at E3 for Splatoon 2 and Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo Switch. The tournaments will be hosted at E3 2018 in Los Angeles on June 11th and 12th. There will be two different formats for both games. Nintendo has announced they will continue to release E3 announcements next month.
Splatoon 2:
Splatoon 2 will be 4 way round robin tournament with 4 teams at E3. One form Japan, the U.S./Can, Europe, and Australia/New Zealand. Winning the Splatoon 2US/Canada Inkling Open 2018 online qualifiers will qualify your team for a spot. Qualifiers begin April 21, 11 a.m. PT, and finals will take place on April 28 at 8 a.m. This will be Splatoon 2‘s first World Championship. There is no entry fee and rules are in the link below. You can register online via this link http://e3.nintendo.com/splatoon-2-inkling-open
Super Smash Bros:
Nintendo has announced that the Smash game will be for Nintendo Switch. It will be a invitational with a non-disclosed amount of players invited by Nintendo. Details on whether its a new Smash game or a port of Smash 4for the Wii U is still undetermined. The tournament will appeal to casual and competitive Smash players. Bill Trinen, Nintendo’s senior product marketing manager, said it will be similar in structure to the E3 2014 Super Smash Bros.invitational. Top players from the Smash community such as Mango, Hungrybox and ZeRo won in E3 2014 for the Super Smash Bros for Wii U.
Despite creating amazing games and long-lasting franchises, you would be surprised to hear Ubisoft was trying to avoid a hostile takeover of their company for several years from Vivendi. Vivendi is a French multimedia company. They are active in music, television, film, and video games. They were the previous owners of the most shares for Blizzard Entertainment (World of Warcraft, OverWatch) before they became Activision Blizzard. Vivendi began to purchase shares of Gameloft and Ubisoft to own the companies. CEO of Ubisoft, Yves Guillemot and Michel Guillemot, viewed their acquirement as a hostile takeover and worked together to prevent Vivendi from purchasing more stocks.
What do Shareholders do?
Investors can purchase a majority of shares than others to have influence on the Board of Directors (BoD). The Board of Directors vote to determine which direction a company should move and they represent the shareholders. Depending on how much a person invests into shares determine the amount of power within their votes. Vivendi attempt to buy more shares was to own Ubisoft just like they bought most of the shares for Gameloft. Vivendidenied the accusations on December 2016. They had owned 27.5% prior to the current news. France laws states if a person owns more than 30%, they are obligated to offer to buy the company.
Tencent’s portfolio in 2014
Yves worked with individuals to prevent Vivendi from purchasing more shares. Vivendi is now selling its 27% shares for 2 billion euros. Ubisoft and the Guillemot Brothers C.E. (Representative company of Ubisoft‘s founders Guillemot family) will acquire 15% of Vivendi‘s shares. Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan — an independent organization that administers pensions for about 318,000 teachers in Canada’s most populous province- and Tencent (League of Legends, PUBG China), a Chinese conglomerate will purchase the 3.4% and 5% of the remaining stock but won’t have seat on the BoD. The rest will be sold through accelerated book building.
Why is this important?
The Board of Directors have huge influence on companies but they may not follow the same views as the CEO or how people want the company to act. Their biggest focus is on the companies to earn as much money as possible. With Ubisoft owning most of the shares and already setting plans for 2018 – 2020, they can choose their own business practice. Shareholders won’t have the influence to force Ubisoft to use “dirty” business strategies such as releasing more DLC, releasing unpolished games or creating more mobile games. We want gaming companies to choose their own business goals without compromising their principles because of the shareholders.
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/10638747/06RAEUu.gif)
The Gaming News Corner 