Sony Talks PS5 VR, Retro Studios Expanding

Activision Blizzard made $1.95bn in the third quarter of 2020

Activision Blizzard has been doing brisk business this last quarter, and they have hauled in around $1.95 billion in revenue.

Call of Duty remains the jewel in the crown, and Call of Duty Warzone has actually increased its revenue year-on-year, largely because the COVID-19 lockdowns brought in lots of new players. According to CEO Bobby Kotick, the Call of Duty development studios will be bolstered with another 2,000 hires to meet production demands.

Nostalgia: Other big hits in the last quarter includes the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2 remakes alongside Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time, both of which opened strong and Activision Blizzard expect them to keep doing good numbers for Christmas.

Busy holiday: Call of Duty: Black Ops – Cold War is launching across multiple platforms on November 13th, followed by the World of WarCraft expansion Shadowlands. Then, somewhere over the horizon, Diablo IV is lurking.

Which animation studio worked alongside Blizzard to work on the scrapped Warcraft Adventures: Lord of the Clans?

a) Animation Magic
b) Nickelodeon Studios
c) Turner Feature Animation
d) Amblimation

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.

No underwater adventures in Croc 2

Early trailers for Croc 2 featured an underwater level, but the swimming stages didn’t make it into the final game. As a matter of fact, Croc can’t swim underwater at all.

There were plans to bring the game to Dreamcast, but it didn't happen – probably because the Dreamcast showed signs of struggling very early on. Nonetheless, Fox Interactive had a lot of faith in Croc 2, and marketed it heavily. There was even a cross-promotion with Gummi Savers candy in the United States.

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

Sony believes in VR, but isn’t banking on it

Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan says that Sony believes virtual reality is a growth market, but we’re “more than a few minutes” from it being a core part of the business.

“We definitely believe at some point in the future, VR will represent a meaningful component of interactive entertainment. Will it be this year? No. Will it be next year? No,” said Ryan. Virtual reality still needs time to grow and earn mainstream mindshare.

Not yet time: Still, Sony is “very pleased with all the experience that we've gained with PlayStation VR, and we look forward to seeing where that takes us in the future." However, the PlayStation 5 will not support PlayStation VR at launch.

Adaptable: You can order a camera adapter to use the PlayStation 4 camera on PlayStation 5 and keep using your old PlayStation VR headset on the new console, but Sony has not announced plans for a next-gen headset.

Retro Studios is growing quickly again

Retro Studios is expanding their team and moving offices as development of Metroid Prime 4 ramps up.

The Texan studio has steadily been hiring for the last 18 months, after Nintendo completely rebooted the project last year. The game was originally in development at one of Bandai Namco's studios, but Nintendo decided to hand the reins back to Retro after two years.

Hungry for talent: Retro has hired developers with experience from major brands like like Grand Theft Auto, Call of Duty, Halo, Warhawk and EA DICE. Their new offices will occupy 40,000 square feet and they expect to have moved in by next summer.

Prime reboot: Retro's last major release was Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze in 2010, and their last big project ended up cancelled. About half of the team that worked on Metroid Prime 3 is still at Retro, and is now working on the fourth game.

• CD Projekt RED’s Adam Kicinski apologizes for claiming the crunch on Cyberpunk 2077 is “not that bad – and never was”
• Sony is about to acquire anime streaming service Crunchyroll and their 70 million users, which is valued at over $950m
• Far Cry 6 and Rainbow Six: Quarantine has been delayed into the next financial year and will not be out before April next year
• World of Warcraft: Shadowlands is launching on November 23rd although it will pre-launch on November 10th
• Get yourself a Pikachu with World Cap in Pokémon Sword & Shield by entering the password K1NP1KA1855

To celebrate the start of a new generation of console gaming we are giving away a new PlayStation 5 to one lucky DailyBits reader. You can find out more about this giveaway on our dedicated page.

Here's the Giveaway Code for Week 43: 3434

Which animation studio worked alongside Blizzard to work on the scrapped Warcraft Adventures: Lord of the Clans?

ANSWER: Animation Magic!

Blizzard worked with the American and Russian animation studio Animation Magic on the ill-fated WarCraft Adventures: Lord of the Clans. You have probably not heard about Animation Magic, but you probably know their work: They worked on the infamous CD-i titles Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon and Link: The Faces of Evil.

WarCraft Adventures was scrapped in 1998, but a prototype leaked in 2016 showed that the game was very close to completion. The animation was a lot better than the weird and awkward work in the CD-i games, so Animation Magic was probably not to blame for the project's demise. Nonetheless, Animation Magic closed their doors in 2001. Imagine if they had become close partners with Blizzard instead!

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

We hope you've enjoyed today's issue DailyBits! Please feel free to send any feedback over to [email protected]. Thank You!