September 27th: This Week in Esports
Playstation Will Now Allow Cross-play With Xbox One and Nintendo Switch
The pressure from fans has finally pushed Sony to allow cross-play through the Playstation 4. This is a monumental step for all gamers as this is will be the first time players across all three major consoles can play cohesively. Sony will begin exclusively with Fortnite for a testing phase to make sure everything goes as planned. Sony Interactive Entertainment’s John Kodera released a statement in a blog post encapsulating why in the past they shied away from this and why they’re changing their position on the matter, “For 24 years, we have strived to deliver the best gaming experience to our fans by providing a uniquely PlayStation perspective. Today, the communities around some games have evolved to the point where cross-platform experiences add significant value to players.” Cross platform is certainly the new standard we are moving into in esports & video gaming.
PUBG Mobile Star Challenge to Feature $600K Prize Pool
Tencent Games and PUBG Corp. announce new PLAYERUNKNOWN’S BATTLEGROUNDS Mobile tournament, PUBG Mobile Star Challenge. The tournament will feature teams from 6 regions (Europe, Asia, North America, South America, Japan/Korea, and China) competing for a $600K prize pool. Tencent and PUBG have faced issues in China, but the PUBG Mobile Star Challenge is a step towards growing the esport. The event will be sponsored by Samsung Galaxy Note9 and host its finals in Dubai at the end of 2018. The first stop of the global tournament circuit will be the European region final in Kiev from Sept. 29–30. The top prize will be $200K, second $100k,and third $50k.
Oculus Quest Will Have 50 Games at Release
At Oculus Connect 5, most of the focus was on the Oculus Quest, the standalone VR headset that will be released in the Spring. As many people know, Oculus hype has slowed down since their original Kickstarter campaign in 2012 when they raised $2,437,429 on a $250k goal. A lot of this can be attributed to a lack of compelling games, because without the games, Oculus headsets don’t serve their ultimate purpose — to be the window into an immersive VR landscape. This spring, when the Oculus Quest is released, there will be 50 VR apps in the launch library.
Discord Releases PC Game Store to Compete with Steam
The gaming based chat-app, Discord, has decided to finally break into the video game marketplace. They believe that a marketplace based with games specifically chosen games by Discord, and in the future the community, will drive even more traffic to their app. Discord CMO, Eros Resmini, said they want to create “almost a local boutique bookstore experience that’s highly curated.” As of now, Steam dominates the PC market. They currently have around 23,000 games available and have added 6,000 in 2018. Steam has already begun to curate a compelling selection of recommendations based on a users preferences, and allows users to follow specific developers and publishers to keep up with titles they’re interested in. Discord hopes that centering this process around community recommendations will push more users to their platform that already harbors over 150 million users.
Universities Continue To Adopt Esports and Gaming
DeSales University and Ohio State have both increased their engagement with their gaming communities. DeSales will be starting an esports team in the Spring of 2019 and will will compete as a member of the National Association of Collegiate Esports (NACE) as well as in the ECAC’s Intercollegiate Esports competitions. They will start out with League of Legends and move to Overwatch as their second competitive esports game. Ohio State University has begun discussions to create favorable gaming environments for both BuckeyeLAN and The Esports Initiative(ESI). When they began, there was an internal rivalry between the two because BuckeyeLAN was for casual gaming and The Esports Initiative was more competitive in nature. The two groups have decided to welcome a wider range of gamers into their clubs in the future. BuckeyeLAN will begin to offer competitive events while ESI will allow players of all skill levels a chance to compete.
If you have any questions, please reach out to our team:
general@konvoy.co
