InXile’s FPS RPG, UK hit £4 Billion in 2020

UK game sales broke £4 billion in 2020

2020 was a good year for videogames and set a new sales record in the UK, reaching revenues of just over £4.2 billion.

Not many industries have enjoyed an upswing thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic and the flurry of lockdowns and other measures imposed to combat it, but the videogames industry has had a massive upswing as millions have been stuck at home with little else to do than play. Nintendo has been the biggest winner.

Not just big in Japan: Games sold more than both music and video, which earned £1.5 billion and £3.3 billion respectively. Nintendo Switch was the uncontested sales champion, despite PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S launching late last year.

Nintendo's world: Switch sold 312,121 units in Japan last week, compared to 17,876 PlayStation 4 units; 10,632 PlayStation 5 units and just 98 Xbox Series X units. GamesIndustry.biz believes Switch sold roughly as much as all the other consoles combined in the UK.

Which game did Maxima from The King of Fighters 99 star in?

a) Robo Army
b) Gururin
c) Street Slam
d) Savage Reign

The answer will be revealed at the bottom of today's issue. Join up with our community on Twitter and Facebook to discuss what the answer could be.

An un-sportsman like gesture for some

Nintendo was forced to make a change to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe since one of Inkling Girl’s gestures – an arm-pumping celebration move — could be considered offensive in some cultures.

If a race or time trial reaches the 10 minute mark, the session will end even if not all the drivers have reached the finish. If you pay close attention on the Ribbon Road course, you might spot a movie poster for Dragon Driftway the Movie, which is a reference to the Kung Fu Panda series.

Join our community on Twitter and Facebook to discuss today's fact.

Pokémon GO’s Sinnoh Celebration Event

The Pokémon Go Sinnoh Celebration Event starts next week, and will last until January 17th while a new Max Raid Battle is coming to Pokémon Sword & Shield.

If you're not afraid to be eaten while you sleep, you can buy a Gengar Sleeping Companion, roll out its tongue and sleep on it while using his mouth as a cozy pillow and enclosure combo. The slightly cursed giga-plushie is recommended for ages 15+ and is available for ¥25,950 from Premium Bandai.

Pokémon GO

• Sinnoh Celebration Event
  • Lasts from January 12th-17th
  • Increased wild spawns of Sinnoh region Pokémon
  • Shiny Buizel introduced with event
  • 5km Eggs: Kricketot, Budew, Cranidos, Shieldon, Bronzor, Bonsly, Hippopotas, Croagunk
  • Field Research tasks for Stardust or Turtwig, Chimchar, Piplup, Cranidos, Shieldon or Buizel
  • 1 Star Raids: Turtwig, Chimchar, Piplup, Shinx, Buizel and Gible
  • 3 Star Raids: Lopunny, Hippowdon, Toxicroak, and Lumineon
  • 5 Star Raids: Heatran
  • Collection Challenge rewarding Stardust, Magnetic Lure and 15 Ultra Balls
• Hoenn Celebration Event between January 19th-24th
• Snover Spotlight Hour will repeat on January 11th
• Genesect Burn Drive Raid Hour Makeup event on January 8th

Pokémon Masters EX

• Electric and Steel-type Egg Event
  • Sync Pairs of Main Character and Pichu, Elekid, Magnemite or Voltorb
  • Shiny variants of Pichu and Elekid
• Battle Villa returns until January 21st

Pokémon Sword & Shield

• Wild Area Event shift
  • Normal & Dragon-type Pokémon leave raids
  • Max Raid Battle event featuring Skwovet
  • Shiny Skwovet and Greedent
  • Spawn increases for Cherubi, Amoonguss, and Shiinotic

Next inXile RPG ‘a first-person shooter’

inXile Studios is bulking up ahead of its next major project, and looks like the Wasteland developers will make a first-person shooter next.

Job listings reveal that their next project is a next-generation role-playing game built using Unreal Engine 5. Details for a senior gameplay designer listing says the project features “powerful, tactile first-person weapons and unique combat abilities”.

First-person expert: The ideal candidate for the role can “understand the moment-to-moment gameplay loops of first-person shooters and RPGs”. Another advert for a lead gameplay engineer calls the project “the studio’s next-generation action role-playing game” with “first-person shooter gameplay features”.

First-party: Microsoft has bulked up Xbox Game Studios considerably in the last few years, and seems to be investing heavily in role-playing games. Obsidian Entertainment is working on a new first-person game set in the Pillars of Eternity universe, and a new Fable game is on the way from Playground Games.

• Housemarque talks about its next game in the latest HouseCast episode, featuring 9 minutes about PS5's Returnal
• Footage from cancelled Tomb Raider 10th Anniversary has leaked, showing off 40 minutes from the Egypt level
• SNK is finally showing off The King of Fighters XV with a new trailer after delays and promising more announcements soon
• Treyarch is adjusting game balance in Black Ops Cold War and DMR 14 is getting increased recoil and reduced damage
• Jeff Steitzer nostalgia bombs multiplayer Halo fans by reciting some of his well-known match announcements

Which game did Maxima from The King of Fighters 99 star in?

ANSWER: Robo Army!

Maxima might stand out in the King of Fighters line-up because he’s a cyborg, but he’s also the star of his own game: Robo Army for the Neo Geo arcade system. It was a classic beat’em-up where you saved hostages from a band of evil robots called Hell Jeed as either Maxima or his buddy Rocky, who appears in Maxima’s story in King of Fighters.

Robo Army wasn’t a great success, but it’s got a couple of stand-out features, such as the ability to turn into a car. Yup, that’s right: One of Maxima’s special abilities is to sprout four wheels. If that sounds fun or you just main Maxima and need to know more about him, Robo Army is out for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Switch.

Today's issue of DailyBits was written by Gavin Herman, Erlend Grefsrud, Simon Priest, and Jamie Davey.