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Google Unveiling Their Gaming Plans Next Month at Game Developer’s Conference (GDC)
The Google announcement is taking place in San Francisco during the beginning of the Game Developer’s Conference, a gathering of game developers from around the world. It is expected that Google will announce their own gaming platform at the event, likely leveraging the Google Stream service that went into, and left, beta in the months since announcement in October. In 2018, former Xbox and PlayStation executive Phil Harrison joined the company to head up a then-unknown initiative. Soon after, it was reported that Google was prototyping hardware codenamed Yeti for release, but it wasn’t clear if the hardware would ever come out. Google even picked up one of the key engineers behind PlayStation VR, as well.
Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aimé to Retire, Succeeded by Doug Bowser
When Reggie Fils-Aimé took the stage at Nintendo’s E3 2004 press conference to announce that he was there to “kick a** and take names,” he instantly became a household name himself. During his 13 year tenure, Fils-Aimé was a larger than life figure at Nintendo, often said to be one of the loudest voices at Nintendo board meetings. As president of Nintendo of America, Fils-Aimé was the first American to hold the title, and was often consulted by Nintendo’s Kyoto headquarters for his thoughts on appealing to the western market.
Loot Boxes Sneak into Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 Under a New Name
Activision and Treyarch began a season’s worth of new content for their military shooter Call of Duty: Black Ops 4. The event, Operation Grand Heist, will drip-feed bits and pieces into BO 4’s various modes over the coming weeks, but also sees the stealth return of everyone’s favorite feature: loot boxes rebranded as “Reserve Crates.” The boxes can be earned by in-game grinding which will result in a single mystery item, or players can purchase special Reserve Crates that feature three items for 200 Itchy & Scratchy money, or roughly $2 USD.
Overwatch’s Paris Map Now Live for All Players
Blizzard has announced that the newest map for Overwatch is now live for all players, having ventured from the public test realm onto every other server. Players can now play on Paris, the city of love and a tall, pointy tower.