It’s the weekend, which means two things: 1) Both next-gen systems have launched across the pond in the UK (who got one, which system and why?) and 2) another exciting entry of the Weekly Wrap-Up is coming your way. Below, you’ll find brief summaries of our top 5 stories from this week, as well as a few stories that were interesting, but weren’t quite that big to make the cut. As always, if you want to read the full story, simply click on the link hidden in the titles. If you have suggestions for future entries, feel free to email me at jeremy.tyler@bagogames.com.
Here we go.
Number 5
Digital Retail Games Cheaper On Xbox One Than PS4
EA has caused controversy across the internet when it came to light that its digital version of retail games emerged to be more expensive on the PS4 than on the Xbox One, and we are not just talking a couple of pennies!
The titles under the spotlight include:
- FIFA 14
- Battlefield 4
- Need for Speed Rivals
- NBA Live 14
- Madden 25
Each of the titles, when the story originally broke, cost £62.99 on Sony’s digital store but cost only £54.99 on Microsoft’s digital store. That’s a huge £8.00 difference depending on which console you decided to purchase!
Although EA has addressed the pricing of its titles since complaints starting pouring in from across news outlets, community forums and social networks, it is still £5.00 more expensive to purchase a title on PS4 than it is on the Xbox One.
Number 4
Xbox Live’s Free December Games are Gears of War and Shoot Many Robots
The next pair of free games to be offered to Xbox Live Gold members next month have been announced.
Gears of War, the third-person, cover-based shooter from Epic Games, will be free from December 1st to December 15th. It usually runs for $19.99. After the 15th, Shoot Many Robots will be the new free game until the end of the month and is normally $9.99.
For those of you in Germany or Japan, however, you’ll get Halo Wars in place of Gears of War. Why? Dunno, but you still get something with ‘War’ in it.
Number 3
World of Warcraft Movie Pushed Back to Early 2016
The upcoming World of Warcraft movie, originally scheduled for release in late 2015 has been pushed back to 2016, as confirmed by the game’s official Twitter account:
Release date for WARCRAFT from @Legendary Pictures released by @UniversalPics is moving from December 18, 2015, to March 11, 2016.
— World of Warcraft (@Warcraft) November 27, 2013
The movie, entitled ‘Warcraft’ was officially made known in 2006 with an announcement and was meant to have Sam Raimi directing. However, this has changed and Duncan Jones will now be directing. Blizzard confirmed the original release date (Dec 18) last month but well, that’s changed too now.
Number 2
Issue With Your Xbox One Disc Drive? Microsoft Has A Gift To Say Sorry
Number 1We know that you BagoGames readers are intelligent people so we are assuming that you have already heard about the issues some customers are experiencing with their newly purchased Xbox One consoles, Microsoft’s newest console which started the next generation battle with Sony’s PS4 late last week.
Many gamers have been reporting that their disc drives are making strange noises and are not reading discs properly, an issue which the current Xbox 360 console has when the lens has worn out after a long period of use in the majority of cases. As the Xbox One console has just been released, this shouldn’t be happening and many people want to know how Microsoft are dealing with this situation.
Not only are Microsoft offering to replace the console entirely by sending what has become known online as a ‘coffin’ (a prepaid shipment box to return your console to the company) they are also doing so whilst offering those customers who have been effected a choice of one of four exclusive titles.
Number 1
Xbox One Outsells 360 Launch Two-To-One In UK
It appears that Microsoft is off to a great start in the UK where the sales of their newly released next generation console, the Xbox One, has outsold the Xbox 360′s launch two-to-one at the time of writing.
Accounting for 80% of all home console sales this week, the highly anticipated Xbox One console launched on November 22nd in the UK with ten of the sixteen launch titles debuting in the UK All Format Charts (top 40) which is the same figure as the Xbox 360 launch!
It isn’t just Microsoft who will be out celebrating this news however, EA is likely to be tagging along for the ride as sales showed a 328% increase in sales for FIFA 14, returning to the top position after seven weeks!
Honorable Mentions
This week had a lot of big news and the news staff and I found it hard to narrow it down to the usual five stories:
- Activision Still Holds Rights to Crash Bandicoot
- Assassin’s Creed Liberation HD Releasing Through XBLA on January 15th
If you missed out on the big news items this week, you can check out our weekly podcast and get an audio update of this week’s madness from our podcasting team. Listen to us as we talk about some things seriously and a few other things not so much. We guarantee this episode will make you shake your fist at times and nod your head at others.
