News Picks/Weekly Round-up from Auryn Cox @Ciaran’s Customs

The European Commission may start investigating Nintendo Switch’s Joy Con Drift

After receiving over 25,000 complaints, The European Consumer Organisation (BEUC) called on the European Commission to investigate Nintendo Switch’s Joy con drift.

“According to consumer testimonies, in 88 percent of cases, the game controllers broke within the first two years of use,” said the BEUC statement.

Eurogamer reported that the BEUC called for Nintendo to repair faulty Joy-Con for free - something it had done in the past - and to inform consumers of the "limited lifespan" of Joy-Con at present.

However the matter has been passed into the European Commissions (EC) hands, it will decide how to investigate the issue further.

"Early obsolescence is a growing concern for all consumers," an EC spokesperson told Eurogamer. "The Commission is determined to act against such trends and to empower consumers in the green transition. We are preparing a new legislative initiative aiming to provide consumers with better information on products' sustainability, including durability, and better protection against certain practices, such as early obsolescence."

Joy con drift has been a widely reported issue since the Nintendo Switch launched. In September 2019, a class action lawsuit was filed by switch owners in the US against Nintendo over Joy con Drift. As a result Nintendo agreed to fix the faulty controllers free of charge in America.

Cyberpunk2077 gets official modding tools and support

Modding for Cyberpunk2077 has been made easier thanks to the official modding support tools that were released this week by CD Projekt Red.

The official mod support page for the game explains that it will offer "official tools and resources that will help you modify and create your own experiences in the world of Cyberpunk 2077."

The devs also said that they will be updating the mod tools alongside the games patches to ensure compatibility.

Although the tools are currently limited, so far only offering downloads of the game's metadata, and two utilities for listing game data and settings. However this should pave the way for more advanced features in the future.

Cyberpunk also got its first big update last week, Patch 1.1 which focused mainly on bug fixes and stability.

Resident Evil Village Release Date

Capcom announced this week that the next Resident Evil game will release on 7th May 2021.

The game, Resident Evil Village will be coming to PS5, Xbox Series X/S and PC, as well as PS4 and Xbox One on the same date.

A sequel to Resident Evil 7, Village is set a few years after the events of the previous entry and players will once again play as Ethan Winters, the protagonist of Resident Evil 7 as he searches for answers in a creepy European village.

Details of the game were shared during Capcoms Resident Evil showcase where they dropped a non-combat demo which is set in the Villages castle area. The demo is only available on the PS5 although a different demo will be dropping for other platforms some time in spring.

Microsoft reverses Xbox Live Gold price increase following backlash

Following community backlash Microsoft decided to reverse its decision to increase Xbox Live subscription fees.

The company also decided to make free games free to play on Xbox online.

On Friday, 22nd January, Microsoft announced that it was going to raise the price of Xbox Live Gold. One month would go up from £6.99 to £7.99, three months up from £17.99 to £21.99, and six months up from £29.99 to £42.99.

“We messed up today and you were right to let us know,” Xbox said in a statement on their website. “Connecting and playing with friends is a vital part of gaming and we failed to meet the expectations of players who count on it every day. As a result, we have decided not to change Xbox Live Gold pricing.”

As Eurogamers Wesley Yin-Poole pointed out “It's the most significant U-turn from Microsoft since its infamous decision to backtrack on its controversial Xbox One policies back in 2013. It's a decision that has been welcomed online and is seen as a direct result of the vociferousness of the response.”

Hitman 3 recoups development cost in under a week

Hitman 3 has already turned a profit; its developers IO interactive announced.

The hugely popular stealth game which launched last week is the first game to be self-published by IO interactive.

"We have been really happy with the Hitman 3 journey," says IO Interactive CEO Hakan Abrak.

"It has been a labour of love between our fans and everyone at the studio. As the developer and publisher, we are immensely proud that we can say Hitman 3 is already profitable. We have recouped the total project costs in less than a week. That puts us in a really good place and allows us to confidently move forward with our ambitious plans for future projects."

One such ambitious project is the James bond game the studio is working on. As of yet its simply called Project 007 and according to thegamer.com Io interactive is intending to increase its staff from 200 to 400 to help deal with its development.

AMD warns of continued hardware shortages

AMD predicts that hardware shortages for next gen tech will continue until mid-2021.

The company warn that chip shortages will continue to affect the stock of the PS5, Xbox series X/S and PC chips due to the increased demand for them during the pandemic.

AMD president and CEO Lisa Su mentioned that “overall demand exceeded [the company’s] planning.”

Su also noted that most of the restrictions apply to the low end of the PC market and consoles as being the primarily affected area, meaning that more premium products should in theory be more readily available at retail.

Intel’s 10nm Alder Lake CPU rumoured to be Announced in September

Despite Intel’s 11th gen Rocket Lake architecture not even out yet, Intel’s 12th gen Alder Lake CPU will launch in September in desktop ‘S’ format, complete with a new socket, new chipset, DDR5 support and an upgrade to PCIE 5.

That’s according to a rumour from hardware site Uniko’s Hardware. If true it will mean that the upcoming 11th Gen Rocket Lake architecture, due to arrive in March, will have an extremely short tenure as Intel’s premier technology for desktop PCs.

PC gamer reported that Alder Lake will have both high performance and high efficiency cores due to a new hybrid architecture.

So maybe it’s best to wait a while if you were thinking of upgrading to the intel Rocket lake.

About the Author

Auryn is a student journalist and an avid gamer. He enjoys strategy games as well as all the new releases from 10 years ago. He also has a few hours on Overwatch.

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