It’s The State of Gaming Podcast for August 2021, 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 fine world of interactive entertainment.
The Games of August 2021
Cold Iron Studios’ wants Aliens: Fireteam Elite to be the rarest of things: a good Aliens game (which shouldn’t be hard). Sega’s Humankind wants to take world-building to a completely new level. Sony’s Ghost of Tsushima Director’s Cut looks to give the best-selling PS4 game new life – and a graphical upgrade – on the PS5.
Despite being published by Microsoft Game Studios, Double Fine’s Psychonauts 2 should be just the scratch fans of the series have been waiting a long time to itch. Speaking of sequels, look for Grasshopper Manufacture’s No More Heroes 3 to continue the series’ wackiness when it hits the Switch late in the month.
NPD: July 2021
Total spending on new gaming hardware, software, and everything else topped $4.6 billion, a sizable 10 percent increase from last year – as well as the highest revenue for a July in NPD’s long-running reporting. On the hardware side two different platforms “topped” the charts, just differently. Sony’s still hard-to-find PlayStation 5 earned the most revenue while Nintendo’s Switch sold more units.
As always, it’s difficult to gauge where Microsoft’s Xbox Series X / S consoles fit into the sales picture based on NPD reporting alone, but our guests try their best using all available data. You don’t wanna miss it!
On the software side it was an interesting mix of new and returning best-sellers populating the Top Twenty. Highlights include Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD topping the list, a huge improvement over the game’s original showing ten (!) years ago on the Wii. Capcom’s Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin debuted strong in third while Square Enix’s long awaited sequel Neo: The World Ends with You was a surprise showing in sixteenth.
Much of the list was dominated by Nintendo exclusive titles, and even several third-party games like Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2 and Minecraft featured primarily thanks to Switch sales. Our hosts evaluate why this is and what the stunning sales console sales ratio could mean for future indie and marquee titles on the platform.
Everything Else
There’s a new Call of Duty on the way! COD: Vanguard heads back to a sorta-kinda WW2 setting and is being developed by series regular Sledgehammer games. Don’t fret; it should be ready to dominate the latter part of 2021 – and most of 2022.
In other news Intel joins the ranks of Nvidia and AMD as they ready their own gaming-centric GPU with the oddly named Arc series. Are you ready for Alchemist? Also, Microsoft’s Xbox / PC high seas multiplayer smash Sea of Thieves is more popular than ever, thanks to a recent Pirates of the Caribbean update. Is Microsoft’s Game Pass subscription service, ironically, muting their platform’s success in the eyes of gamers and the media?