Morning DLC: Video Games News And Rumors 6/3/14
By Nick Tylwalk
"Sony Corp. is pulling the plug on its hand-held PlayStation Portable video game machine after 10 years.The Japanese electronics and entertainment company has been pushing the successor machine, PlayStation Vita.Tokyo-based Sony said Tuesday that PSP shipments ended in North America in January, will end in Japan this month and later this year in Europe."
"The popularity of watching eSports continues to soar worldwide, with 2.4 billion hours of eSports video viewed during 2013, according to a newly released IHS Technology report.According to the report (via Gamasutra), that figure is up from 1.3 billion hours in 2012 and is only expected to continue growing: By 2018, that number will reach an estimated 6.6 billion hours. 2013 marked the first time that eSports viewing online surpassed that of television, and it did so by a large margin–almost three times as many hours were spent watching eSports online than on television. By 2018, online viewing will represent 90 percent of time spent watching eSports.As you’d expect, given its massive player base, League of Legends was the most popular game among eSports viewers, followed by Dota 2 and StarCraft II."
"If you’ve ever gone online to play any game, then you’ve most likely experienced a sore loser pulling the plug and exiting before recorded defeat. This is a problem that is especially prevalent in racing games. But the folks behind DriveClub want to have less of that when their game arrives.“With DriveClub, if you’re racing online and you make a mistake it’s not game over. You don’t lose everything and you’ve still got dynamic Face-offs to keep playing for,” DriveClub game director Paul Rustchynsky said to the PS Blog.What Rustchynsky just mentioned is a system in the game that issues players with instant challenges, from keeping your speed at a reckless pace on the course through to Tokyo-drifting around highlighted corners. Complete the challenge, and you’ll rack up more ‘Fame’ which are used in lieu of experience points in the game."