TGO Daily | January 28, 2021 | EU Sets Eyes on Joy-Cons
January 28, 2021
I have only one word for the preamble of today’s newsletter:
Stonks.
— Adrian
In The News
EU Called to Investigate Joy-Con Drift
The European Commission (executive branch of the EU) is being called to investigate the issues regarding Nintendo’s infamous Joy-Con thumbstick drift. They were presented with evidence by the European Consumer Organization (BEUC), which is an umbrella consumers’ group across the EU.
The BEUC allege that Nintendo “did not meet the required standard of duty and care,” and acted negligently by:
“bringing its game consoles on the market with game controllers that are likely to be fail before the end of the expected lifespan of the game console, and thus without exercising adequate quality control;
“…by keeping its game consoles on the market without remedying the defect in the game controllers, after these flaws were known to Nintendo;
“…by bringing a revised version of its game console on the market without remedying the defect in the game controllers, after the flaws were known to Nintendo;
They go on to conclude:
“…Nintendo should be held to have acted contrary to professional diligence, by combining the aforementioned practices with a repair and replacement strategy that induced consumers to buying a replacement good prematurely.
“Many consumers were obliged to buy a new set of controllers within two years of purchase, which is clearly not a transactional decision that they would have taken without the unfair commercial practice.
If the European Commission decides to act on this, it will have likely bring some significant change. Though it has been pretty hard to keep track of all the different litigations that Nintendo has been battling about this issue — lawsuits are popping up across the world.
GameStop Stock Soaring
It’s impossible to ignore: GameStop shares are exploding, and it’s because of Reddit. To be clear, the graph you see above is not normal, especially considering GameStop hasn’t done anything themselves to make it happen. Today, the share price closed at $347.51, when it was only $4 a few months ago.
There’s no use in me trying to explain how that’s possible — read this article if you’re interested. What you will want to know is that this is thanks to a subreddit who dedicated themselves to driving the stock up by abusing the system. It’s become so extreme that the US Government has commented that they are monitoring the situation.
Even celebrities are joining in on the hype.
EA Launches Skate 4 Studio
Source: gamesindustry.biz
EA has announced the creation of an entirely new studio dedicated to the development of Skate 4. The studio is called Full Circle, and it’s led by Daniel McCulloch who is the former head of Xbox Live. He is joined by former creative leads on previous Skate games Deran Chung and Cuz Parry. That’s always good to hear when revitalizing a beloved series.
Full Circle is aggressively hiring on their website with a number of remote job postings.
Netflix Goes Tomb Raider…Anime?
Netflix has picked up yet another video game franchise in Tomb Raider, and they’re giving it the anime treatment. It will be a sequel to the rebooted game trilogy, and follows Lara Croft in even more adventures. It will be written by Tasha Huo, who is also working on The Witcher: Blood Origin, a live-action spinoff.
Netflix is all-in on gaming now. They have produced or planned to produce adaptations of Castlevania, Dragon’s Dogma, Sonic the Hedgehog, Devil May Cry, Assassin’s Creed, and Resident Evil. Wild!
The Grab-Bag
Scavengers Studio has suspended co-founder Simon Darveau. This happened thanks to a report by gamesindustry.biz which interviewed employees accusing him of “belittling, screaming at, groping employees.”
Tencent gains a minority stake in Dontnod Entertainment for $36.3 million.
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