It’s The State of Gaming Podcast, Popzara’s in-depth look at what’s shaking up the gaming landscape delivered on a monthly basis. Our hosts Cory Galliher and Nate Evans guide you through the best, worst, and everything else making headlines and headway in the world of interactive entertainment.
The Games of April 2022
April was a quiet month for new releases, but it wasn’t without its charms. Games discussed on this episode include: Warner Bros’ LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, which compiles every mainline SW film (both good and bad) into one whimsical package, Nintendo’s Switch Sports, the long-awaited sequel to the system-seller Wii Sports, Maximum Games’ House of the Dead Remake, which does exactly that to Sega’s original lightgun classic, WhisperGames’ stylish Chinatown Detective Agency, and Cellar Door Games’ fresh-out-of early access generational adventure Rogue Legacy 2.
NPD: March 2022: Elden Ring Reigns
NPD remains the gaming industry’s best snapshot of what’s moving and shaking up both physical and digital retail shelves across the country. All stats are for entertainment purposes only. Total sales of new gaming hardware and software topped $4.8 billion, a steep 15 percent decline from last year.
At least the Top Twenty software charts was bustling with new game debuts, with Bandai Namco’s Elden Ring maintaining its dominance over everything else yet again. Sony’s long-awaited Gran Turismo 7 debuted strong in second while Nintendo’s Kirby and the Forgotten Land also landed high at third. Elsewhere, Square-Enix’s Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin debuted in tenth, Take Two Interactive’s Borderlands’ spin-off Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands in eleventh, Microsoft’s aggressively Japanese-themed ghostbusting simulating adventure Ghostwire: Tokyo in twelfth, and finally Nintendo’s Triangle Strategy in sixteenth.
Everything Else
There’s new Pokémon on the way, this time in the form of newly-announced Pokémon Scarlet and Violet! That’s all we know right now! Sonic the Hedgehog 2 becomes the highest-grossing game-to-movie in the United States (sorry Uncharted)! And speaking of Sonic, our hosts talk the strange, complicated pricing strategy behind the upcoming Sonic Origins game, which just might dampen some of the goodwill of the aforementioned movie smash.
Lastly, our hosts dip their toes (and nothing else) into the seedy, murky world of Japanese eroge games on modern gaming consoles, chiefly the often censored (on Sony platforms) and others in all their buxom glory (on Nintendo platforms), especially titles like Labyrinth Life, In the Mood, Neko Secret Room, and several others. It’s quite a ‘switch’ from the usual censorship roles, one we’d love to see less of in the future.
