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Overwatch Update Makes Changes To Doomfist, Mei, Sombra, And More Tweaks

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Everyone is buzzing about the new hero in Overwatch, Brigitte, but the game also rolled out a brand new patch that is impacting a number of heroes and adding more tweaks.

Doomfist, Mei and Sombra were the primary focus of the new patch but the game made other tweaks as well to round out what has been a pretty intense week for the team at Blizzard.

Here is the breakdown via Blizzard:

HERO UPDATES

Doomfist

  • Hand Cannon
    • Ammo recovery rate increased from 0.8 seconds to 0.65 seconds per bullet
    • Developer Comments: This change will help Doomfist more consistently be able to use his weapon as part of his combos.

Mei

  • Endothermic Blaster
    • Freeze (slow) duration increased from 1 second to 1.5 seconds
    • Weapon alternate fire ammo cost reduced from 25 to 20
  • Developer Comment: Increasing Mei’s slow duration helps her freeze targets that are particularly elusive such as Genji or Lúcio. Lowering her alternate fire ammo cost allows her to more safely use it without costing her the ability to freeze enemies.

Sombra

  • EMP
    • No longer blocked by small objects (e.g. sign posts)
  • Hack
    • No longer gains ultimate charge from health pack healing
    • Cast time reduced from 0.8 seconds to 0.65 seconds
    • Now disables the following abilities:
      • Genji—Cyber-agility
      • Hanzo—Wall Climb
      • Pharah—Hover Jets
      • Lúcio—Healing Boost and Speed Boost (turns off current song entirely), Wall Ride
      • Mercy—Angelic Descent
    • Machine Pistol
      • Machine Pistol spread reduced from 3 to 2.7
    • Opportunist
      • Enemy health bars are now visible when health drops below 100% (formerly 50%)
        • Her ability to detect enemies through walls at 50% or less remains unchanged
      • Translocator
        • Duration increased from 15 seconds to 20 seconds
  • Developer Comment: The goal of these changes for Sombra is to remove the necessity for her teammates to take damage and heal themselves with her hacked heath packs to try to get her ultimate charged up quickly. Her ultimate will now come up less often, but there are more abilities that are disabled by Hack so it is more effective when used. Previously, Opportunist would only activate when an enemy’s health bar dipped below 50% but now the passive will reveal all damaged enemies which should help Sombra identify targets in her line of sight to pick off. Overall these changes should make her more effective and less reliant on her ultimate.

MAP UPDATES

Blizzard World

  • Some health pack sizes have been reduced
  • Some health pack locations have been changed
  • Additional health packs have been added
  • Developer Comments: Health packs are a valuable resource in Overwatch and positioning around them is key to holding ground on defense or keeping up momentum on offense. We have moved the location of some health packs and included additional ones to improve game play on Blizzard World.

USER INTERFACE UPDATES

Mercy

  • Valkyrie
    • No longer shows enemies’ health bars unless they have taken damage
  • Developer Comment: This helps remove some clutter from Mercy players’ screens when they use her ultimate

BUG FIXES

  • General
    • Fixed a bug that prevented Capture the Flag statistics from displaying on the Career Profile if the match was played on Ayuttheya in the Arcade
  • Maps
    • Fixed a bug that sometimes prevented announcement voice lines from triggering on Blizzard World
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Patreon Hires Twitch’s Adiya Taylor as New Corporate Communications Lead

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Content creation platform Patreon has officially tabbed Adiya Taylor as their new corporate communications lead, effective in February, according to an official announcement.

Taylor worked for Amazon’s video game streaming platform Twitch for three years in a variety of roles, most recently serving as the company’s senior monetization communications manager prior to her departure.

Taylor’s hiring comes after Patreon brought on Brielle Villablanca as Vice President of communications and creator advocacy back in November 2023.

“I’m thrilled to begin crafting and implementing a communications strategy around policy, trust and safety, product and more,” Taylor said during an official post on the networking platform LinkedIn, adding that she believes Patreon is a “true advocate” for creators.

“I’m looking forward to more storytelling around how we’re fostering fandom so that creators own long-lasting businesses built around their artistry,” Taylor added.

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Microsoft Bringing Four Games to Rival Consoles

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Microsoft has responded to recent reports that there will be changes to it’s first-party strategy and has confirmed that four game titles will be released on rival consoles.

More specifically, Xbox head Phil Spencer said that ‘Starfield’ and ‘Indiana Jones’ will not be among the four titles heading to other platforms. Both games had a number of candidate platforms, per reports, adding that this is “not a change to our fundamental exclusive strategy.”

“We don’t damage Xbox and we can grow our business using what other platforms have to help us with that,” Spencer said, according to GamesIndustry.biz.  “Looking forward, I think there is an interesting story for us of introducing Xbox franchises to players on other platforms to get them more interested in Xbox. We think there’s a good brand value for Xbox there.”

Xbox president Sarah Bond announced that Activision Blizzard games would begin to be added into Game Pass offerings, starting with Diablo 4, which will be added on March 28th.

Additionally, Bond said that Microsoft is still working on hardware for the future and that their focus regarding the future is “delivering the largest technical leap you will ever have seen in a hardware generation.”

 

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Sega’s Revenue See Rise to $27 Billion

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Sega

Sega Sammy has released its financial report for the nine-month period that officially concluded on December 31st, 2023, and that report that demonstrated a rise in overall sales and profit despite a decrease in sales for Sega’s new titles.

That decline was offset by growth in pachislot and pachinko machines, however Sega had lowered its sales forecasts for the full financial year.

Here is a breakdown, courtesy of GamesIndustry.biz.

  • Net sales: ¥349.9 billion ($2.3 billion, up 28.7% year-on-year)
  • Operating income: ¥54.4 billion ($364 million, up 42.4% year-on-year)
  • Ordinary income: ¥57.2 billion ($383 million, up 42.7% year-on-year)
  • Net sales were up 130.3% to ¥120.2 billion ($805 million) in this segment
  • Ordinary income increased by 521.3% at ¥45.7 billion ($306 million).
  • Entertainment Contents segment, which includes video games, net sales were up 4.2% at ¥219.3 billion
  • Profit decreased by 52.5% to ¥19.7 billion ($131.8 million) as a result of weak game sales

You can read a breakdown of the entire report at GamesIndustry.biz here.

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