TODAY: Vacuum up wacky bounties in Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath on Switch — PlatinumGames will start self-publishing thanks to Tencent money — Over 10 million levels created for Super Mario Maker 2

Top Story

Sony presents incredible PS4 sale numbers and reveals PS5 logo at CES

Sony has been the undisputed leader of this console generation ever since the PlayStation 4 was launched back in 2013. At CES, president and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment Jim Ryan revealed that the PlayStation 4 has sold 104 million units, which makes it the second best-selling console behind the PlayStation 2, which sold 158 million units. Sony has sold 5 million PlayStation VR headsets, and no less than 1.15 billion games for the PlayStation 4.

Jim Ryan also introduced the PlayStation 5 logo, which looks exactly like you might expect. The font and logo keeps the style introduced with the PlayStation 3 Slim and used for all models of the PlayStation 4. Considering how well-established the PlayStation name and numbering is and how much ridicule Microsoft recently suffered, Sony's probably smart to play it safe.

PS4 owners on average purchase eleven games throughout the console’s lifespan

Sony has been pretty careful about revealing too much about the PlayStation 5, but we know the core features: GPU featuring hardware ray-tracing, 8K output and SSD storage. The actual CPU and GPU specifications are still under wraps, but it is most likely similar to the next Xbox, since AMD is delivering the chipset for both consoles. All will most likely be revealed over the course of the year.

Time For A Quick Daily Quiz?

Which title is NOT an Oddworld game?

• Oddworld: New 'n' Tasty
• Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee
• Oddworld: Tasty Oddysee
• Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee

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.

News Bits

Oddworld Stranger’s Wrath blasts onto the Nintendo Switch this month

First released for the Xbox in 2005, Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath told the story of a furry bounty hunter and his quest to raise money for life-saving surgery. Almost 15 years later, the genre-bending first/third-person action-adventure is finally hitting the Switch. There's a trailer out right now, and you can pre-order in the Nintendo eShop.

Heatran returns to Pokemon Go

The legendary Lava Dome Pokémon Heatran from Pokémon Diamond & Pearl is returning to Pokémon Go for the first time since December 2018, and this time you will be able to catch a shiny one! Heatran replaces the current legendary Virizion, so better get a move on if you haven't caught one already.

Heatran will appear in 5-star raids from January 7th, and don't forget that the Adventure Sync Hatchaton event is still on until January 16th – it's your best chance to nab an Unova Stone.

Daily Fact

Turning platinum into gold

PlatinumGames is known for their stylish action games, and was co-founded by Hideki Kamiya who rose to fame as the director of Resident Evil 2 before creating Devil May Cry. In the years before PlatinumGames got started, Kamiya was part of the Clover team and directed Viewtiful Joe as well as Okami. He is also famously grumpy on Twitter.

At PlatinumGames he has directed Wonderful 101 and Bayonetta, and was in charge of the sadly cancelled Scalebound. Kamiya is one of the most influential game designers of the last 25 years, but he says Resident Evil 2 is the closest to his heart – and one of his first: He was just 25 years old when he took the reins on the project. Any regrets? Being too ambitious, and not taking the time to slow down and smell the roses.

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

Daily News

Tencent invests in Platinum Games

PlatinumGames has confirmed that the Chinese tech giant Tencent has made a capital investment in the company. According to PlatinumGames President and CEO Kenichi Sato, the money will be used to “strengthen our foundation as a business and expand from game development into exploring self-publishing.” In other words, PlatinumGames will not only remain independent – it will probably grow even more independent.

Perhaps surprisingly for a company with such a strong identity, Platinum hardly owns any IP. Bayonetta belongs to Sega, while Nintendo owns Astral Chain, despite being developed from the ground up by PlatinumGames. The Tencent investment should help the company build its own IP portfolio and pave the road towards much greater creative freedom.

Platinum currently has two new IPs in the works owned entirely by the studio

If you worry about the potentially stifling influence of Chinese capital on game developers thanks to incidents like the Blitzchung controversy, it's worth noting that Tencent is an investor in Activision Blizzard. On the other hand, they also own parts of Nintendo, Ubisoft, Epic Games and Riot Games, so unless you feel like those companies have played it safe to avoid angering their Chinese paymasters, there's probably nothing to worry about.

Nintendo increase the level limit to 100 per user in Super Mario Maker 2

Nintendo has finally increased the course limit in Super Mario Maker 2 from 64 to 100 in the latest update. Over ten million courses have been shared so far, which must be some kind of record for the biggest amount of user-generated content ever for a game – especially considering Super Mario Maker 2 was launched just over six months ago, in June 2019.

Super Mario Maker 2 was a critical darling at release, but the most hardcore fans were not tremendously impressed with the content available at launch. Since then, Nintendo has slowly but surely released new features, building blocks and characters with the Zelda update from December being the biggest change so far, including P Blocks and Dash Blocks and a new power-up that transforms Mario into Link.

Can we have a Kirby power-up too?

What lies in the future? It's hard to tell, since Nintendo's pretty tight-lipped about upcoming updates. There could be more styles on the way, since there's clearly room for more in the UI, and only the Super Mario 3D World style has been introduced since launch. Let's hope there's more updates like the Zelda one coming up. Maybe some Metroid, or Kirby?

News Bits

Official PlayStation Twitter account claims Overwatch 2 will launch in 2020

When Blizzard revealed Overwatch 2 at BlizzCon 2019, the developers were careful to avoid talking about any release date – but it looks like PlayStation Brazil's Twitter account has spoiled their surprise. The tweet was hastily deleted, but said that “2020 will be the year Overwatch 2 arrives on PS4” and linked to an article from 2019 that doesn't say anything about the release date.

The tweet was probably an accident, but could also mean that Blizzard is gearing up to make an announcement and is sharing information with their partners. On the other hand, Overwatch 2 would make a great launch title for Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5, so we could be waiting until next Christmas.

Is Destiny heading to the big screen?

Bungie is independent once again, and is the sole steward of the Destiny franchise. Could they be adapting it for other media?

Bungie creative lead Robbie Stevens and narrative designer Nikko Stevens talked about the potential for a TV or cinema adaptation of Destiny with The Hollywood Reporter: "Anything is possible," says Stevens. "One of the advantages of Bungie fully owning the Destiny IP is that we have the freedom to make those choices whenever we think the time is right. That’s all I can say about it."

Considering the success of The Witcher on Netflix and the positive impact it has had on sales of the games, the time just might be right for a videogame-inspired space opera.

Quiz Answer - Did You Get It Right?

Which of these is NOT the name of an Oddworld game in the series?

Answer: Oddworld: Tasty Oddysee!

The Oddworld series is one of the weirdest and most characteristic game franchises of all time. The series has slowly but surely made its way to nearly every console since the original PlayStation, and now the most ambitious game in the series – Stranger's Wrath – is appearing on Switch. If you haven't played it yet, look out for spoilers! There's a big twist in there.

Weekly Giveaway

Blackmoor 2 on Nintendo Switch

We're kicking off this year's weekly giveaway with some Switch codes for Blackmoor 2, which is releasing on the Nintendo Switch eShop today.

Blackmoor 2 is a beat-em-up platformer that supports 4 player co-op action. Please follow us on Twitter or Facebook to be entered into this giveaway. We will be sending out one code each day this week, and good luck to everyone that enters.

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