The merry month of May began with Warner Bros. running damage control as they announced the rather expensive Batman Arkham Knight season pass, but failed to say what it would include. Sony, meanwhile, had another very good month, announcing sales of over two million units in the UK, the full launch of PlayStation Now in the USA, and a 70% market share of new consoles in Italy.
Ubisoft became the first major player to step away from PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, announcing it would only release games on the latest consoles, but then also delayed The Division until 2016. There were squeals of delight when we spotted Portal figures for LEGO Dimensions, and squeals of terror when everyone took a look at the first screens from Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5.
Konami continued to dominate the news for all the wrong reasons, and this month’s Metal Gear scandal was the announcement of a Quiet figure with squishy boobs. Another report suggested that the company was moving solely to mobile games, and Guillermo Del Toro commented on the cancellation of Silent Hills, saying it “left him reeling”. As the Konami-Kojima saga continued to rumble on, Dom took a look back at Konami’s highs and lows in an excellent feature.
In the run up to E3, the rumour mill predicted Dishonored for PS4 and Xbox One (correct), Assassin’s Creed Syndicate (correct), and Fallout 4 (correct). Adam posted one of the punniest headlines of the year by reporting that GAME’s Splatoon stock had been “squidnapped” before it got to the stores.
Splatoon was one of a handful of big games hitting the shelves of all good and evil game retailers during the month of May, alongside Project CARS and The Witcher III: Wild Hunt.
In the news, every schoolboy’s dream came true when archaeologists in Madagascar discovered some of Captain Kidd’s treasure as a silver ingot was found in a wreck off the coast of Île Sainte-Marie. The UK went to the polls with David Cameron and the conservatives winning by a surprise outright majority, while the Scottish National Party won almost every single seat in Scotland.
Blues legend B.B. King died at the age of 89, Taylor Swift won eight awards at the Billboard Music Awards, and Lewis Hamilton finally signed a new three year contract with Mercedes AMG. Six FIFA officials were arrested and charged with corruption, eleven more are suspended, and Swiss federal prosecutors begin to investigate the procedures used to award the 2018 and 2022 FIFA World Cups.
The UK weather was a bit rubbish, and while the mean temperatures were 0.8C below the long term average for May, rainfall was up 31% and we had 20% less sunshine than a typical May. In other words, it was another good month to stay indoors and play video games! Hurrah!