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Disney is putting an end to their Disney Infinity toy-game line and discontinuing their “self-published console games business,” the company said today. After June, Infinity will stop getting new updates.
Disney is also shutting down Avalanche Software, the Utah-based studio responsible for Infinity. As a result, around 300 people will lose their jobs.
Along with cancellation of “Infinity,” Disney is closing Avalanche studio in Utah. Close to 300 jobs will be cut.
“This was a difficult decision that we did not take lightly given the quality of Disney Infinity and its many passionate fans,” Disney said in a statement.
There will be two new Disney Infinity releases in May and June before the series ends for good: one based on Alice Through The Looking Glass, and a second from Finding Dory.
“Our goal for Disney Infinity was to bring the best of Disney storytelling to life in homes around the world, and with your support we accomplished that,” GM John Blackburn wrote on their blog. “We hope you had as much fun playing the game as we had making it.”
This news comes just two months after Disney announced that there will be no new edition of Infinity this year, as there had been since the series launched in 2013.
Disney says they plan to continue licensing their properties to other video game publishers but will no longer make their own console games.
On a call with investors this afternoon, Disney boss Bob Iger said that “the risk had caught up with” his company and that they were pleased with the success of the first Disney Infinity, but sales went downhill after that. “[The video game] business is a changing business,” Iger said of the company’s pivot out of making games. “We did not have enough confidence in the business in terms of it being stable enough.”
New details have been made public for Rainbow Six Siege’s next bit of free content, Operation Dust Line.
Already known was that it was going to bring the new ‘Border’ map (described as being the most open and destructible map yet) and two new operators that you could play as; Valkyrie with her sticky cameras that anyone on the team can access, and Blackbeard with his rifle-mounted shield to protect from small arms fire.
The update will also come with the ability to customise your operators between rounds to help teams be a bit more reactive to opposition instead of being stuck with a disadvantage all session; and also the ability to disable the placement of gadgets during a match enabling players to get down to just shooting at each other instead of using traps. There will also be a post match screen to show the winning team and highlight the most valuable player in a match.
Of course there’ll be tweaks to existing content too, with side protection being added to Montagne’s shield and Tachanka’s machine gun being made easier to place among other changes.
The new map will release for all players free on May 11th, which is also when Season Pass owners will get instant access to both new characters. Everyone else will have to wait a week for them to unlock on the 18th, and then will have to purchase them through in-game currency Renown or the microtransaction-based R6 Credits.
One of the more… unusual measures of a game’s success has to be how often the game is searched for slightly more adult purposes than just video games. One such game that could be called a success based on that is Overwatch, which is currently running its open beta.
VentureBeat have discovered that since the beta went live, the search terms to do with Overwatch have soared by 817 percent on adult video site Pornhub. Unsurprisingly Tracer is the most popularly searched for character, especially given the controversy over her victory pose a few weeks back.
In case you’re wondering how on earth there can be videos of game characters, well let’s just say character modellers and Valve’s free tool the Source Film Maker have an awful lot to answer for. The viewing figures and uploader numbers all suggest that this is a sort of global thing as well with users being registered from all over Asia, Europe and South America among other places.
Of course, adult works of fictional characters are nothing new – the Internet is for porn after all. The numbers though are fairly impressive.
Outside of this though, Overwatch has had a pretty successful open beta so far with a lot of people playing it and getting hooked. Heck, even as I write my brother is on the other side of the room playing Overwatch on the Playstation 4. He’s pretty good with Reinhardt and his shield.
Rockstar are kicking off another series of events to participate in for GTA V, this time based around time trials.
The event kicked off yesterday and will run through to May 12th, testing players’ speed as they thrash down pre-planned routes to complete them the fastest. There’s seven different trials all with double rewards on offer, even if you’ve already completed them before now.
As part of the event and to help you get those top times, Rockstar have put five of the fastest vehicles available in the game up for sale, with all at half the price – the T20, Zentorno, Pegassi Osiris, Hakuchou, and Akuma are all available; two bikes and three cars. Also on sale are specific vehicles mods, with engines, brakes and suspension all at 30% off. Also, when you inevitably run foul of the law travelling at speeds far above the limit, Lester’s services will be free during this time. What a relief.
The five remaining time trials are:
Sunday May 8 – Mount Gordo
Monday May 9 – Great Ocean Highway
Tuesday May 10 – Sawmill
Wednesday May 11 – Maze Bank Arena
Thursday May 12 – End to End
“There’s also Double RP to be gained in this week’s Playlist on Land Races, with Bike-focused Touch Base (racing from the Galileo Observatory to Fort Zancudo), Sports-geared On the GOH (taking on the Great Ocean Highway) and Off-roading in Turn the Tide (from the Great Ocean Highway to Paleto Cove),” Rockstar wrote.
After a leak earlier this morning, EA has officially confirmed the next Battlefield game, titled Battlefield 1.
The game will be set in World War 1 and will release on October 21 for Playstation 4, Xbox One and PC (via Origin).
As per usual with EA games, there are a mass of pre-order bonuses. The Early Enlister Deluxe Edition will be available for all playforms on October 18 for $79.99. If you pick it up, you’ll be able to play three days early. You’ll also get extra vehicles and emblems including the Lawrence of Arabia Pack, Red Baron Pack and new visual appearance for three vehicles- the Frontline Camouflage train, the Dazzle Camouflage Dreadnought and the Night Raid Airship.
Battlefield 1 will contain dogfighting in biplanes and airships with external manned guns, and all the World War 1 “goodies” you’d expect. Trench warfare French tanks, gas masks and mustard gas were all shown off in the trailer. Melee combat will also have a larger focus with rapiers, trench shovels and spiked batons all available as melee weapons.
Check out EA’s blog post for more info on Battlefield 1.
