Farewell FIFA

Good Morning. Happy Birthday Google!

As part of its 25th anniversary celebration, Google is breaking down some of the numbers behind the last quarter of a century. To date, Google has mapped 10 million+ miles with their Street View cars, which is apparently the exact amount needed to make sure I can never win in GeoGuessr.

— Tim Rhyne, Derek Neville, Jason Liu

MAIN QUEST: Changing of the Guard

Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) will experience a change of leadership as Jim Ryan, SIE President and CEO, will retire in March 2024 after nearly 30 years with PlayStation. Jim Ryan cited his living situation as a primary reason for his retirement. “I’ve found it increasingly difficult to reconcile living in Europe and working in North America.”

In his place, Hiroki Totoki, Sony Group Corporation President, COO, and CFO, will become Chairman of SIE in October 2023 and Interim CEO from April 1, 2024. Hiroki is “looking forward to creating the exciting future of PlayStation and the game industry together with everyone at SIE and its business partners.”

Step back: Ryan ushered in the PS5 and despite pandemic-era shortages, the console bounced back in 2023 with 40M units sold. Perhaps his most poignant role in the public eye was providing testimony against Microsoft’s bid to acquire Activision Blizzard. Now that the acquisition seems to be a done deal, one can’t help but wonder whether the timing of his retirement announcement is related.

HUD

• 📸 The latest Xbox Update allows for clips and screenshots to be easily saved directly to OneDrive or an external storage device. Any captures left on the Xbox network will be deleted after 90 days.

• ❄️ Blizzard’s Hearthstone development team was affected by a round of layoffs. Blizzard noted organizational changes that made some roles redundant.

• 🔫 Following a suspected teaser last week, Valve officially released Counter-Strike 2 — the highly anticipated sequel has replaced Counter-Strike: Global Offensive on the Steam store.

MAJOR W

• 🪦 Netflix released a first look of its upcoming animated series Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft to its YouTube channel.

• 💪 Remedy Entertainment has confirmed a performance mode for console versions of Alan Wake 2.

• 🏆 Twitch Co-op drops win a 2023 Digiday Award.

F IN THE CHAT

• 🥋 Mortal Kombat 1 bug dubbed the “Player 1 advantage” discovered. Essentially, Player 2 cannot land some combos.

• ⚽ EA removed all FIFA titles without notice from online stores ahead of EAFC 24’s release this week.

• 🙅 A clear Baldur’s Gate 3 ripoff was removed from the App Store very quickly and even got a Judge Judy finger wag from Larian.

CAREER CORNER

• Manager, Public Relations Video Games & Apps — The Pokémon Company International (London, England)

• Program Manager, Talent Management — Nintendo of America (Redmond, WA)

• XDefiant Development Director — Ubisoft (Remote, US)

HIVE MIND

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