Activision is one of the richest third party video game developers/publishers in the industry and that says a lot. Cha-Changing in with a net worth of around 30 billion US dollars and the money this company makes off gamers would make you think they would be a more customer friendly with services offered, but not only does activision have extremely poor customer service, they seem to have gone above and beyond what I consider bad service, they’ve removed all but email support and ambassador chat support and I’m not even sure the ambassador chat works anymore, let alone well. Last week Activision’s support handles on Facebook and Twitter announced that they would no longer offer support to customers. Instead those social media pages will pretty much just have announcements like “servers are down, but the team is working on it’ and “servers are back up, go team!” The posts go on to explain that customer support can be reached at the activision website. How useful… Furthermore, live chat support from the website has been removed. There was once a link you could click and get support. Be it live chat or a support phone number to call, but alas, it is gone. Even calling the company is useless. After going through the prompts of getting to the department you need to reach, you will be met with a recording that will instruct you to head to the website and get help there. Not to mention they have made it fairly difficult to even find the phone number. There is no more “contact us” button to click from what I could find. I had to google the number separately and it seems like a company would have a number plainly listed on a website. So, after searching for every possible way to reach support, the only options I could find available were to either use the community forums (which is alright, but not when you need an actual employee of the company to help out), or send an email. A friggin email. I can’t imagine how many emails they must be getting and how much of it is getting lost in translation. Not that Activision has been known for having great customer service, but this is about as bad as it gets. It can typically take up to 10 days for them to respond to your email and I have read reports from customers that have had to wait much longer than that and some have reached the point of just giving up on even trying to get some help from the company. It’s not just disheartening, it’s plain wrong. When you have a franchise that sells more than any other game every friggin year, but you have terrible customer service, that right there is something we as consumers should be complaining about. Games will have issues and that something we accept, but lack of customer support, I just can’t get over it. While we will … Read More
Sony shutting down PlayStation Store for PS4 in 2022
Well, we already knew and expected the PSN stores to close for the PS3 and PS Vita this summer, but at a surprising turn of events, Sony has announced that the PS4 store will close down in January, 2022. This comes as a shock because the PS5 is barely in the hands of consumers right now. I’m no sales marketing expert, but if this is in some way a plan to push PS5 sales, this has gotta be the wrong way to go about it. Right now, everyone I know is buying extra external hard drives and downloading everything they own to try and keep their precious digital content safe. I am at loss for words, other than April Fools! Ahaha! I’m sure you knew this was a farce and I appreciate you reading along! I hope you enjoyed my short April Fools articles today. I tried to spread them about and hopefully everyone had a few good chuckles with me.
PS5 scalpers are showing remorse and want to make it up to Playstation fans?
The PS5 shortage is one thing, but scalpers are a different issue. Those loathsome commanders of bots beating everyday consumers to the digital shopping cart is just awful. Then selling the PS5’s for double, Triple, quadruple the profit if one sells? These guys are the worst! While it’s a fact that less than 10% off all PS5 consoles were purchased by a scalper, that’s around 10% of PlayStation fans that got the shaft. Plenty of people ignore the fact that there is also world wide shortage for console components that are actually dragging down the number of available consoles, but scalpers have happened to come across articles explaining the shortage and they are having a change of heart! Scalpers are taking to the internet to denounce their wicked scalping ways and apologizing globally! That’s right! They see the error in their ways and realize that profiting off of limited consoles during a world wide pandemic is just a crappy thing to do! Moreover, many of these scalpers are now giving away the PS5 consoles they secured, rather than turning them for a profit. On top of that, they are even paying for the shipping! These guys have gone from scalping to going more than $500 (usd) into the hole! Wow! What a change of heart! With so many scalpers listing their PS5 console sales as free, they are sure to disappear quickly, so what are you waiting for? Why are you still reading this? Because… It’s an April Fools article! Damn it!
Sony answers Microsoft’s call to Bethesda with Forced Nintendo acquisition!!
Did you read that right? Yes, you did! While many have been glued to the thought that Microsoft now owns Bethesda, Sony has been making some sneaky moves to force Nintendo into an acquisition! I have seen a lot of crazy moves over the years in the gaming industry. Things that I never expected to see like, Activision buying the rights to Crash Bandicoot! SEGA going out of the console making business, Microsoft entering the gaming biz and tons more! I remember when I first heard about Nintendo suffering from financial woes and possibly filing for bankruptcy. The end of Nintendo seems all but real and the big N made it out of the hole and has some rather well competing with handheld devices. Well, it may have seemed like they were out of the hole, but Sony has gone on to prove otherwise. In a private announcement that only I was privy to for some reason, Sony let me in on a huge secret. They had in fact manipulated Nintendo into a financial agreement that states in the fine print, if Nintendo did pay back a full Ian amount and interest by March 31st, 2021, Nintendo would forfeit all of their licensed properties to Sony and the PlayStation brand! Holy crap, I can’t believe Nintendo fell for that! Sony reps went onto state that the rumored Nintendo Switch Pro is in fact not a hardware upgrade, but it is code named for a major software update that will allow players to download, install and play digital copies of Nintendo’s biggest Switch releases! Not only that, all consoles made by Nintendo will come to a halt on April 1st, 2021! This will free up microchips to help ramp up the production of the PS5! Killing one console market to ensure another is born seems like a monopoly play to me, but what do I know? At least I’m not an exec at Nintendo right now. Am I right? Anyway, thank you for taking a moment to read on my April’s Fools satire this year! This is in fact a joke, but could imagine if Sony did manage to buy Nintendo’s properties? I love Nintendo and their franchises, but I often wish they really would close up the console shop and become a third party developer like SEGA did. That’s just me of course. Happy April Fools Day!
PS5 Chip Shortages Reaching Crisis Levels: How Did it Get This Bad?
The PS5 shortage is an absolute mess and the problem isn’t solely scalpers. Curse you, scalpers! As much as I don’t like scalpers, I have to take note of the real issue. The only reason scalpers are relentlessly trying to beat out the everyday consumer and make double the money back, is because of the massive shortage of next gen consoles. I don’t feel like there is any company to particularly blame, because this shortage was directly caused by the world pandemic, among other industry factors that have been building up for a while now, but we’ll get to that in a moment. While we all expect initial release days to sell out consoles and make them difficult to find, more than 6 months after release we are used to consoles being a little more available and the scalpers would have normally backed off this point. Since you’re here, you know that’s not the case. There is a global semiconductor shortage and that is the real issue here. It doesn’t only affect Sony and Microsoft, it affects just about every technology company out there. When it comes to consoles, cell phones, pc’s, etc, these companies rely on others to create the parts they need to build a device. They need these chips in order to manufacture PS5 consoles, and all manner of other electronics as well. Well, not only has this chip shortage affected the production of PS5 and yes, Xbox Series X/S, but it is looking like the problem won’t be going away anytime soon. We have seen small bursts of the PS5 becoming available here and there, but these waves are miniscule and some analysts are claiming that the shortage is reaching crisis levels. That is just the opinion of some not necessarily the view of others in that part of the industry. From the sounds, AMD seems pretty confident that the company will be on track this year to ramp production and start getting those chips out there. In the meantime, I am guessing that the shortage will in fact turn around for the holiday season in 2021 and therefore leaving consumers with something that will feel like a first release all over again. I’m just guessing, but people that are seemingly experts in the industry seem to think the shortage will reverse in 2022. I’m not trying to raise the alarms here and discourage anyone’s hopes of grabbing a PS5 or any other device for that matter. I’m just trying to be on the level. If Sony could drop more consoles, they definitely would, but it just isn’t that simple. Not when they are competing for more chips against companies like Microsoft, Apple, Samsung, Ford, Tesla and the list goes on and on. More consoles are definitely on the way, so fingers crossed AMD manages to pull it off. Worst case scenario, the shortage ends in time for the PS6! That’s a bad joke and seemed funnier in my head. How … Read More
New PS5 VR Controllers announced, Sony buys Evo Championships and Dying Light 2 news update inside!
The weekend is here and what better time to catch up on this week’s gaming news highlights than on a Friday? I appreciate you taking a moment to catch up with us and that being said, let’s move onto this week’s highlights! To get us started, Sony has announced a new handset for PlayStation VR and I will tell you what, I would use these even if I wasn’t playing a VR title (is that even possible?). While PSVR owners have been using the traditional PS4 controller (DS4) for their VR game sessions, it seems Sony has finally caught up to the likes of controllers that can be used with the Oculus and the HTC something. Many of us have been quietly jealous of these style of controllers as they really free up your hands can things even more immersive. Keep in mind these were announced as PS5 VR controllers, so we don’t know if they’ll have any backward compatibility with PS4. It seems unlikely as the Dual Sense controller for PS5 doesn’t work with PS4. If it does, you can expect the haptic feedback features that are built in, will probably be disabled. Oh, by the way, these PS5VR controllers have haptic feedback built in. Boom! Excited for some Dying Light 2 updates? Yeah, us too! If only Techland could give us some useful info instead of mocking the internet trolls and letting us know the game is currently being developed… I don’t like bashing on developers. They work hard and their jobs are incredibly stressful (especially when working for large companies like Activision, EA, Ubisoft and yes, Techlamd considering they self publish now). But when it comes to announcing that you have an announcement for a game that has been getting the development treatment for what seems like ages now, you kind of expect more than 13 seconds of gameplay and a bunch of nasty tweets being read off by the developers. Thank you for letting us know the game is still being worked on. You could have tweeted that and probably saved a few dollars in the process, Techland. So, yeah… there’s your Dying Light update. I was pretty disappointed too. Sorry. Speaking of developers and publishers, I’m sorry to say that Activision Blizzard has laid off 50 employees and word has it that the number is actually much higher. No idea how much higher, but so far, 50 have been confirmed. The employees laid off were not developers, but they were part of a team that set up and took care of in-person live events. Because the pandemic has created such regulations as social distancing (at least in the U.S.), most of these venues have turned to digital showings instead. Man, that just goes to show you how bad things have been. I hope the laid personnel manage to hang in there and get back to work when and where possible. It is a jungle out there and it seems like … Read More
New PS5 anti-cheat system, new warzone map and much more inside!
Welcome back to another issue of PS Weekly. I am admittedly a little late with this week’s article, but I was holding out for some official news on the upcoming Elden Ring, but it is to my understanding that because of a leak that made it to the internet the other day, official announcements have been postponed into April. I am disappointed by it, but hopefully they will manage to get us some new info soon. I really want a new game by FromSoftware in my life. A little disappointment aside, there is plenty of other news to read within this article, so without further ado, let’s get to it! Yesterday was the 1 year anniversary of Call of Duty: WarZone! After a long year of playing on the same map with little changes, we may finally be seeing a completely new map that is dedicated to the Cold War version of CoD, rather than Modern Warfare. I don’t know if today will be that day, but I am sure hoping so. The developers went on social media to thank everyone for the last year and made mention that the map will never be the same again. Some have speculated that on March 16th, we will see the new map and other rumors point to April, when season 3 begins, but I think April is a little far out. It would make sense if later today we see an update with a new map, but can all be pretty confident a new map is going to drop. Speaking of Call of Duty and Warzone, that reminds me, there is a new anti cheat system for the PS5. The company Denuvo, is hailed as one of the best anti-cheat and anti-tamper tech companies in the world. The company has partnered up with Sony and to bring new tools to developers creating games on the PS5. I think it’s great that Sony is finding ways to keep things as fair as possible, but there is one problem I see here and it has nothing to do with Sony. These new anti-cheat systems won’t cross-over to other platforms. I have seen my share of hackers/modders running on consoles, so yes, I am happy that security is beefing up, but man, those PC players in crossplay that do cheat, they do it with ease. Activision really needs to look at their anti-cheat systems and do more for the community. I know it’s complicated, but we’re talking about a billion dollar company here. They have the ways and means. Naughty Dog is hiring! Yes, Naughty Dog is looking for an economy designer for a live service multiplayer game. Some believe this is a game that will take place in The Last Of US universe and some think it will be catered to the Uncharted universe. If I was to pick one, I would lean toward The Last Of US, so I can see them building a sweet open world survival game that … Read More
E3 canceled, EA pushing more support for Battlefield and PS Plus updates!
Hello and thank you for taking a moment to catch up with another PS Weekly Drop. February is behind us and today being the first Tuesday in March, new PS Plus games drop today in the PSN store. Today’s Plus games cater to not only PS4 and PS5, but PSVR is getting Farpoint included for free this month. PSVR gets its own category outside of the consoles to keep things simple. Farpoint aside, PS4 games also include the amazing Final Fantasy VII remake as well as Remnant: From the ashes. PS5 owners will be treated with Maquette and of course, those PS4 games will also be playable on the PS5 console as well. As a reminder, if you do not have a PS5, but plan to get one at some point, you can always get the PS5 games that are available on PS Plus, but going to the PlayStation store using the mobile app or on a pc and add those titles to your collection and download them at a later date. If you didn’t get a chance to grab Destruction Allstars on PS5 last month, there is a little good news. The game will cost $19.99 USD instead of the original price tag of $69.99. Phew! In other gaming news, E3 has canceled the physical in person show this year. While the show was canceled last year and yet again this year, ESA is still looking into having a physical show next year and working with a production company this year to hold a live online event to take its place. Personally, I think they need to consider keeping E3 solely online for the next few events. Attendance at E3 has been dwindling and the event isn’t as successful as it once was. Maybe taking a break and making a comeback in 2023 would be a wiser choice, but what do I know? I just write about these things. If you’re bummed out about the physical cancellation of E3 and were hoping to make up for it by going to the San Diego Comic Con this year, I have yet another blow to deal you. This event too, has been canceled in regards to physical attendance. While the show will be streamed, fans won’t be able to partake in person. This is probably even harder news to hear than E3, as Comic Cons tend to offer much more in person for attendees. If you end up sitting at home watching, maybe create a watch party with some friends and fulfill your cosplay needs that way? I know it’s not the same, but I’m trying here. For those of us that have been desperately waiting on official news for the Elden Ring, well, I have no official news. Sorry. But I will say this much, a video trailer showed up online the other day and while it was a little blurry, it does appear to be an official trailer that hasn’t been rendered to quality … Read More
PS5 is breaking sales records, but still hard to come by!
Hello and welcome to another issue of PS Weekly! I have compiled some the latest news regarding video games this week. Unfortunately, I’m still waiting for the day I can tell you that PS5 consoles are available to anyone that wants one, but that news is looking grim for now. Sadly, the AMD chip shortage continues to plague console production. AMD expects production of the chip to ramp up in the second half of 2021 and many are hopeful that by the time the holiday season lands at the end of year, there will be plenty of consoles to finally go around. In the meantime, if there are any PS Plus games for the PS5, but you’re still on the PS4, you can use the PlayStation app or go online to the official website and save those titles for later on. In other gaming news, Sony is getting slapped with a lawsuit over the PS5’s Dual Sense controller. Apparently, there are enough PS5 owners out there having an analog stick drift issue to create a class action lawsuit against the company. The complaint is not solely based on the drift issue, but the fact that consumers have to pay for shipping the controller and long turnover times of repair. I don’t think this lawsuit will hold any water in the end as the number of complaints are fairly small and the law firm bringing the lawsuit against Sony wasn’t approached by consumers, but took it upon themselves to find clients to join their suit. Sounds like a typical money grab from your everyday law firm, but we will see what comes of it over time. Speaking of Sony and the PS5, one word always comes to mind when I think of the brand… Scalper! Sure, they’ve always been around, but with the pandemic and shortage of consoles, scalpers are in the spotlight more than ever before. Well, it would seem many scalpers are tired of getting a bad rep. They feel like they’re just doing what everyone else would do, which is try to make a little extra money. One scalper group called The Lab, is claiming they’re just the middleman and feel like the media is simply giving them a bad name. When the world is suffering and so many people are forced to stay home social distance, video games can really help pass the time. I was lucky enough (and still grateful) to snag a preorder and get a PS5 on launch day, but so many people are missing out because scalpers are just trying to make a buck… I get it. We all want to make extra money, but nothing anyone says to me is going to make me feel ok with all the scalping. If you’re scalping a PS5 to make double the profit, that’s not cool. If anything, you should find someone that really wants one, charge them an extra $100 bucks be on your way. Sorry not sorry. That’s just how I … Read More
Destruction AllStars Review
Destruction Allstars… the game that almost released alongside the PS5 with a price tag of $70 USD. Well, luckily it was delayed into February, as a PS Plus title because the outcry from gamers alike would have been heard around the world. Every time I play Destruction Allstars, I think about that initial price and the bullet Sony dodged. Destruction Allstars isn’t a bad game, but it’s not a great game either. It’s mediocre at best and that thanks to the lack of content. I don’t know how long this game was in development for, but it could have used another year in the oven. The gameplay is smooth and the game is fine in regard to graphics. Audio matches up well for this style of game and the announcers add most of the charm as you play through. I feel there is no connection with the characters outside of a little excitement in their voices when you have accomplished something notable like destroying another player’s car. Add in responsive controls and you have the ingredients for what could be a great game, but again, it needed a little more time in the oven. For all of the good mixed in this bag, there is a lot of lackluster. The maps are rather small and it often feels like I am a hamster in a wheel. Not only are the maps small, but there is a lack of numbers. A handful of maps that don’t really look that much different from each other and congestion? Well, the adrenaline from all that destructive combat will surely make up for that, right? Wrong! A lot of people have hoped to see a new Twisted Metal game for a while now and some thought this might live up to the beloved franchise, but Destruction Allstars doesn’t come close. Not even a little bit. Aside from Twisted Metal hosting better maps, the game hosted better weaponry. Twisted Metal features guns, missiles, special weapons and abilities that cater to the character of your choosing. Destruction Allstars doesn’t have guns. It does have special lackluster abilities for characters and their respective vehicles, but the game might as well have been called Bumper Car Allstars, because that’s about what it is, glorified bumper cars. With 4 main modes to choose from, there is very little difference between them. One mode is all about just bumping into each other and destroying cars for points. Another is about bumping into each other, collecting gears as points and depositing them into a bank to score. Another where the floor opens up and your space gets smaller, all while trying to bump your opponents into a KO with limited respawns. Sounds different, feels the same. All in all I give Destruction Allstars a 5 out of 10. It does not matter that game has been placed on the PS Plus list as a free title that will eventually be removed and sold in stores, because … Read More