Community Chronicle: 27/04/14

It’s been a good week of gaming news, with plenty to be heard about upcoming games. It could be announcements of new titles, updates on games still a long way out or a continuing stream of information on something that is getting very, very close to release. We’ve had a mixture of it all!

The week started off with the surprise announcement of GRID Autosport, a new title coming just a year after the last entry and with a renewed focus on touring cars. Sounds like everything racing game fans could want, with the only problem being that it’s only coming to PS3, 360 and PC.

It’s a move that surprised many, with Greg Turner positing, “Perhaps this is a stop gap and we’ll get a fully fledged GRID 3 for PS4 next year?” But Freezebug was all about the here and now, saying, “I’ll be all over those Touring cars, hoping it’s BTTC rather than WTCC and that the license has returned home to Codies.”

If you were a fan of the first GRID though, Tomhlord sums it up quite well, saying, “Well, this is odd. It’s GRID 1 in the GRID 2 engine, with GRID 1 handling and cars from both games. Ish.”

Though GRID Autosport is set for release quite soon, we finally heard that the PS4’s Firmware Update 1.70 is coming next week. We also saw more of some of the upcoming features, with a tour of SHAREfactory.

Yet there’s still some dissent and dissatisfaction at the progress that Sony are making. Youles snarkily commented, “I’ll tell you what would be really cool, is if the record function actually worked properly before adding this feature.” Apparently it’s something that’s being looked into by Sony, at least.

Pidge, meanwhile, was much more critical:

I’m sorry, it is just more rubbish before they have the initial stuff in place!

Unless 1.7 has 3D BR and CD playback along with all the other PS3 features that were great but are missing, then it is pointless!

Unfortunately, it was comparatively bad news for the Xbox One, as the latest financial results revealed that just 1.2 million new Xbox Ones had been shipped to retailers in the first three months of this year. With 3 million consoles sold by the end of 2013, this paints a picture of around 4 million Xbox Ones in gamers’ homes, compared to the 7 million PS4s.

Though a regular written suggestion, JR. thinks that dropping the Kinect would be a bad idea for the console. “If MS ditch Kinect,” he said, “they’ll need to have some pretty phenomenal exclusives lined up if they want to catch up to PS4 because that’s the only benefit they’ll have. At this point I don’t think it’s even possible for them to catch up.”

Beeje13 added his thoughts on the Kinect’s inclusion:

I’ve said before, they are stuck between a rock and a hard place. they are stuck between a rock and a hard place.

They can keep Kinect and keep the price cut as it is, albeit ‘unofficially’. Lose money, no guarantee that it will turn things around.

They can drop Kinect and not lose money. Potential backlash from customers and some developers. I for one would be happier to buy an X1 knowing I’m not paying ~£50 extra for an accessory that I’m not keen on.

Of course, there’s a few sensible heads reading, with TSBonyman making a similar point to gazzagb, who said, “4 million consoles in 5 months is actually quite good, but of course that sounds bad compared to Sony’s 7 million.”

It’s already a sizeable deficit, though. Do you think Microsoft can catch up?

You guys are really making me work, to try and find things to write in this section! A combination of good weather, terribly difficult games like Trials and a fairly quiet release schedule mean there aren’t too many platinum trophies be earnt.

Youles is always dependable though, as he restores his 100% completion on LittleBigPlanet Vita. He’s in a little group of people playing, with AIR and BRY joining him on Vita and Crazy_Del going for trophies on that and the PS3 original.

Youles is now planning on getting back to 100% on BioShock Infinite, a game which hornet1990 is getting close to completing for the first time… he thinks. Crazy_Del, meanwhile, is on the cusp of getting the Rayman Legends PS4 platinum.

We do have a fastest platinum record this week, as parryman has posted a date and time for Moto GP on Vita.

Unfortunately, DividSmythe has had his hopes of a Sly Cooper 4 double platinum dashed, as bugs make this impossible for him to do.

Trophies aren’t necessarily something that will bother Steelhead, though, who has just finished Half Life 2, but is planning on taking a break before playing the two episodes.

Lyts1985 seems to be ending his miniature drought of sorts, as he claims that he’s getting close to the Final Fantasy X platinum, having played it for the past three weeks.

But we’ll finish with Sucker Punch, who TSBonyman says have earnt a trophy of their own, the “Make TSBonyman want to complete an inFamous game” trophy. He, meanwhile, has completed the game with heroic karma.

This page is done and dusted, barring the usual submissions form below, but head over to page two for the latest refresh of the Trophy Leaderboard.

If people want to send photos in of their gaming rigs, I’ll be happy to post them. Just use the submission form below, get in touch with me on Twitter at @teflon, or just send me an email out of the blue to [email protected].