Infinite minus 2
As reported by windowscentral.com, “Industry and Microsoft veteran Bonnie Ross is announcing her plan to leave the company with an intent to focus on her family.” Bonnie Ross has been the boss at Halo and 343 Industries for the past 15 years working on titles such as Halo 3: ODST, Halo Reach, Halo 4, Halo 5 and Halo Infinite. The timing of her departure coincides with Microsoft restructuring 343’s leadership to better serve its live service future. Head of Production Pierre Hintze will now be the Studio Head while “Bryan Koski will become GM of Franchise and Elizabeth Van Wyck will oversee business and operations,” according to Jez Corden. Ross calls it a career after 27 years at Xbox and additional work on games such as Alan Wake and Gears of War. According to Eurogamer 343 is also losing David Berger, lead developer on Halo Infinite’s Slipspace Engine. Joeseph Staten remains as the live service creative director. To this end, Halo Infinite’s Winter Update remains on track for November. As previously reported it will feature the return of Forge Mode, new maps and online campaign co-op.

Inadequate plus 2
UK watchdog the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) officially expanded its investigation to a second phase due to concerns it has over Microsoft’s pending acquisition of Activision/Blizzard. A Microsoft spokesperson told VGC: “It makes zero business sense for Microsoft to remove Call of Duty from PlayStation given its market leading console position.” Sony however expressed support for the CMA inquiry stating “by giving Microsoft control of Activision games like Call of Duty, this deal would have major negative implications for gamers and the future of the gaming industry. We want to guarantee PlayStation gamers continue to have the highest quality gaming experience, and we appreciate the CMA’s focus on protecting gamers.” As you may remember, Sony CEO Jim Ryan went public stating that MS was only willing to offer up Call of Duty to PlayStation for a few more years. Ryan is seeking a deal in perpetuity, infamously calling the current proposal “inadequate on many levels.”

Showcase trifecta
Nintendo held a Nintendo Direct this week that featured several key announcements including a new Fire Emblem, Fatal Frame, two Front Mission Remakes, Octopath Traveler 2, Atelier Ryza 3 and Pikmin 4 among others. Resident Evil 2, 3, 7 and 8 were announced as upcoming cloud games, former PlayStation console exclusive Sifu was announced as coming to Nintendo Switch on Nov 8. Big news regarding Goldeneye 007 with exclusive online play coming to Switch, as well as a Tales of Symphonia Remaster. The biggest news however was footage and a name reveal for the Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild sequel. To be known going forward as ‘The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom’ it will release on May 12, 2023.

Not to be outdone, Sony held an impromptu PlayStation State of Play which featured the debut of Tekken 8 and two new Yakuza ports including the long-awaited Western release of Ishin. A rebranding, as the series will now be known by its Japanese name, ‘Like a Dragon’. So ‘Like a Dragon: Ishin’ is what we have to look forward to as well as a port of Gaiden. Harry Potter reaffirmed its Feb, 2023 release window while a few new indies emerged as well including Pacific Drive. Project Eve officially became Stellar Blade and a PlayStation console exclusive, as did another title from Team Ninja called Rise of the Ronin, complete with trailer. Wo Long remains multiplatform. The star of this show shone next in the form of a new God of War: Ragnarok trailer, much to the delight of social media. It remains on track for a Nov. 2022 release as well.

Xbox had their showing as part of Tokyo Game Show and had some announcements of their own to share. Courtesy of xbox.com, Game Pass stole the show with several new announcements for the service including Deathloop finally coming to Series X|S/Game Pass on September 20. Other GP titles include Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony, Fuga: Melodies of Steel and for the first time on Xbox…Ni no Kuni Wrath of the White Witch Remastered. Rounding out the announcements were BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle Special Edition and Guilty Gear Strive. Future titles namedropped for the service include Team Ninja’s first follow up to Nioh, Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty. Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes was also mentioned as were a number of Persona games. A demo for Wo Long is currently available on Xbox and PlayStation for a limited time.

Friendly Fire
While in Tokyo, Phil Spencer spoke to CNBC and managed to drop a few bombs of his own. Speaking on the topic of acquisitions, Spencer said “This is such a competitive market, I don’t think we get to press pause on anything. Tencent is the largest gaming company on the planet today and they continue to heavily invest in gaming content and game creators. Sony is a larger business than we are in gaming today and they continue to invest. When you look at the investments that we’ve made, it’s a highly, highly competitive market. We strive to be a major player here. We want to deliver great content for our players and we’re going to remain active, whether that’s investing in our internal teams that are already building great games that people know and love, whether it’s building new partnerships.” Transcription credit to VGC.

The topic of Sony’s PS5 price increase came up, Spencer said “We’re always evaluating our business going forward. So, I don’t think we can ever say on anything that we will never do something. But when we look at our consoles today, and you talked about it – Series X and Series S, we think value is incredibly important. We love the position of Series S in the market, which is our lower-cost console. Over half of our new players that we’re finding are coming in through Series S.” Spencer also addressed the fans by saying he did not feel this was the right time to be raising the price on anything. From VGC “..I can definitely say we have no plans today to raise the price of our consoles. We think in a time when our customers are more economically challenged and uncertain than ever, we don’t think it’s the right move for us at this point to be raising prices on our console.” Consider that a mic’ drop moment. That said, something tells me this matter is still far from over.

Quickdraw
*PSVR2 will not be backwards compatible
*Splatoon 3 sold 3.45 million units in Japan in only 3 days
*COD: MW2 beta begins the weekend of Sept 17th
*Amy Hennig revealed at D23 that her new project is a Captain America X Black Panther game set in WWII
*Happy Batman Day