2012 in news: July and the great Gaikai sale
Sony bought Gaikai for $380 million in July, as everyone tried to ignore their E3 hangovers and look forward to gamescom. Head down for the seventh part of our 2012 news retrospective.
OnLive breezily claimed the sale meant all was well in the cloud. And we all know how that turned out.
For every month in our 2012 retrospective, hit this.
As the memory of a weak E3 faded, Sony made good on the rumours and started July off by confirming it had bought Gaikai for $380 million. While we ruminated on the deal's ramifications, Microsoft countered by claiming clouding's been part of the Xbox plan forever, and Dave "Incredibly Rich" Perry looked through doors that hadn't existed ten minutes previously. Sony said Gaikai could spill out of PlayStation to cover other aspects of its business. OnLive breezily claimed the sale meant all was well in the cloud. And we all know how that turned out.
July's biggest release was Funcom's The Secret World. Brenna and I went all gooey over the MMO's first bits, and Funcom was bullish on players paying subs for the right games. Monthly updates were promised.
TSW was entering free-to-play weekends before the end of the month, and SWTOR F2P was confirmed in July for release in the autumn. Michael Pachter joined the dots and claimed subs-based MMOs had had their chips.
Total War: Rome II was announced at the beginning of the month, with Creative Assembly saying the RTS would be a darker take on its predecessor. A console version was quickly ruled out.
Battlefield 4 was also confirmed by EA in July, an odd announcement based on beta access being included in Medal of Honor: Warfighter. Hardly any details accompanied the news, but DICE did give a short list of improvements being looked into for the next game, and assured BF3 wouldn't just be dropped as a result of a new instalment.
Onward to Germany
Gamescom details started dropping in July, despite the daze left by E3. Sony dated its press conference, and the show's organisers were quick to stamp on talk of GTA 5 making an appearance. Ubisoft also confirmed its gamescom line-up.
We were told that Sony's super-slim PS3 wouldn't be announced at the August event, despite rumours surrounding the new shape heating up.
July was pretty slow, in retrospect. THQ managed to avoid being delisted on NASDAQ, and gave the rights to Devil's Third back to Itagaki. The Japanese developer assured the third-person action title would eventually release on a variety of formats.
The sexism theme touched on Aliens and God of War in July, and Rhianna Pratchett was confirmed as Tomb Raider's lead writer.
There wasn't much going on in terms of PR. The most visible pre-release game was Resident Evil 6, with two videos and a demo hitting during the month. It'd have 255 minutes of cut-scene, don't you know.
Splinter Cell: Blacklist and Gears of War: Judgment were both confirmed for March releases in July, and Microsoft said Windows 8 would be out in October. Square said FFVXIII was still in production despite Kotaku saying it wasn't, and PEGI ratings took over from BBFC guidelines in the UK.
And Take-Two's board got trolled in an earnings call.
Next-gen-wise, there was enough going on. PlayStation 4 had been in the works since 2010, said a CV, and Microsoft dropped a few errant hints as to what was to come next. EA's CEO said we were going to get the next boxes in 2013, and both Square and Ubisoft moaned about the over-length of the current generation. Iwata said he didn't care about going first in the next round with Wii U.
Next: August. Go here for the June round-up. For every month in our 2012 retrospective, hit this.