Tokyo, Japan (BFN) – Shortly after the unveiling of the PlayStation 5, Sony PlayStation offered to pay for the funeral proceedings for the Xbox Series X.
Is this a kind gesture or just insult to injury? Let us know in the comments section.
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA – A copy of Excellent Software’s oft-forgotten Super Baseball Brawlers 3 – a game so forgotten, so thoroughly obscure, that it lacks a Metacritic score AND a Wikipedia entry – sits in a basket frustrated. The sixth-generation game remains adamant in its desire to one day be bought, even if it’s by complete accident. “I don’t care if it’s a short-sighted relative trying to pawn off a small child,” the game said off the record, “I just need to be bought right now. Like right now, now. I don’t want to be reduced to the status of a copy of The Da Vinci Code or 50 Shades of Grey, or a Fast and the Furious knock-off. I like to think I’m better than that.”
The game takes in a long puff of a stray cigarette. It is quite an impressive feat for any inanimate object to accomplish, especially when it’s a video game disc from the early 2000’s. The interviewee notes the irony with a dry chuckle. “I tell you, you don’t know what you have until it’s gone. When I was fresh off the factory shelf I thought it was all waiting for me. Now look at me – I’m lucky if I’m held for more than a few seconds at a time. All I feel is constant rejection. Not rejection from a games console, the bad kind of rejection.”
Note: The majority of this interview was conducted alongside the bargain bin of a local EB Games, which earned me several odd looks from customers, complaints from staffers and – on one occasion – being arrested by local authorities. If that’s what it takes to bring a human interest story to light then so help me God I will endure the fury of a thousand EB Games employees until the Truth is revealed.
With the monolith that is the Electronic Entertainment Expo (colloquially known as E3 but a gaming journalist’s word count is not going to reach itself now is it) on the horizon hopes are high for another thrilling preview of gaming’s best and brightest. Some however, would say it’s too high. For those people, the very title of “E3” itself has become a shorthand for heightened expectations that are occasionally met, for exciting trailers that sometimes resemble the finished product and for speakers who show infrequent flashes of humanity, maybe.
Even then, not everyone is convinced. “My hopes for E3?” says industry insider and local curmudgeon Dan Aberforth, known by his handle Killscreen69 as well as his legion of sweaty, sweary fans, “You’re using the wrong word there mate. My hopes are so low that they’re seeping through the floor. They’re disrupting the foundation of my mum’s house as we speak. E3 is where hope goes to die.” He drinks from his can of sports drink, its logo obscured by his hairy man-paw. “Or who knows? Maybe it’s just delayed.”
A possible hint at things to come perhaps? When I press Mr Aberforth he remains coy. “I know what I know,” is all he says before returning to his task at hand: providing his followers with the social media of a journalist he doesn’t like. “You know what to do,” he tweets ominously to them, before swigging back the mystery drink held in his bear-like grip.
The idea of hope not making it in time for E3 runs contrary to the affirmations made by several industry bigwigs, who insist it will make its June deadline. Not being ready in time for E3 is nothing new – former Microsoft higher-up Don Mattrick famously misplaced his morals at E3 2013 and has arguably never found them since – but hope is hotly anticipated and there are no other rumours to the contrary. Maybe, for once in this convention’s lifetime, everything will go according to plan.
Sometime this week, President Trump is slated to meet with a number of representatives from the Electronic Software Association, among which will be Donkey Kong.
The purpose of the meeting is to discuss the links between the consumption of video games and its correlation to real-world violence.
It is believed that Donkey Kong will be present at the meeting in order to relate to the President on a more personal level.
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