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Daily Briefing: Tuesday 6th April
🕑 Added 2021-04-06 13:01:02 +0000 UTCNext Xbox news event is apparently happening soon
That's according to ZDnet's Mary Jo Foley, who has claimed that the next all-digital games event will take place "in the coming weeks" alongside Microsoft's annual Build Conference, which is set to run from May 25th to May 27th.
- While these plans are technically still speculation, another show would make sense given Microsoft's ongoing news strategy. Various higher-ups at Xbox have teased news and feature reveals over the past few months, so it'll be interesting to see a) what these actually are and b) when Microsoft will decide to show them off.
Outriders devs are considering expansions, but are wary of liveservice trappings
Outriders is certainly the big thing at the minute and developers People Can Fly are considering ways to support the game after launch but, considering Outriders was never intended to be a liveservice game, they're treading carefully to avoid the usual drip-feed monetisation strategy.
- These statements actually come from a Gamesradar interview last year with Outriders' creative director and lead game designer, but they're very relevant now that Outriders is so popular its servers are crashing. A more recent interview with Forbes confirmed that the studio are only really interested in "significant expansions with self-contained stories." So no fancy hats just yet, then.
Tencent's Timi Studios could now be the world's biggest developer
According to a new report from Reuters the studio, which develops hit tiles like Honour of Kings and Call of Duty Mobile, brought in over $10bn in revenue in 2020. If this figure is correct, Reuters say that this would make Timi "the world's largest developer", and would provide the studio with "a hefty basis" to pursue ambitions outside of mobile gaming.
- The report comes shortly after Tencent proper confirmed that they had generated a massive $23.4bn in revenue from their gaming businesses. While they didn't reveal figures for each individual studio, Reuters' figures would mean Timi alone account for around 40% of all gaming revenue. Those are some numbers, alright.
Cancelled Dreamcast Castlevania title surfaces after...quite a while
Footage of a playable version of the cancelled Castlevania: Resurrection was shared online by preservationists earlier this week. The prototype build appears to predate E3 1999 when Castlevania: Resurrection received a closed-door press demonstration.
- It's heartening to see Resurrection after all these years. In 2007 the game's art director stated that the game, which would have been the first Castlevania title to be developed by Konami of America, was internally sabotaged by "some people at Konami who had their own agenda." And the PlayStation 2's release in 2000 put an end to Konami's plans for Dreamcast games.
