This week has been a rollercoaster in the world of videogames. At the top of the news list? One of the biggest names in the industry will be leaving his post mid-April. Also, BioWare's Anthem is awfully buggy (but hopefully getting better) and the Steam store just got a little smaller. Read the full Replay roundup below to find out what else happened this week in gaming.
Reggie Fils-Aimé, Gaming's Coolest Dad, Is Retiring From Nintendo of America
Ever since 2003, Reggie Fils-Aimé has been the most visible face of Nintendo of America—an affable, authoritative, mildly edgy presence at a gaming company mostly geared toward kids. Now, after 16 years with the company, most of those served as president and COO, Fils-Aimé announced this week he'll be retiring, effective April 15.
For a lot of fans, Reggie was iconic, a symbol of Nintendo just as much as any of its characters were. He'll be missed. NoA's current head of sales, Doug Bowser, is set to replace him. Yes, yes, that's his real name.
Anthem's Day One Patch Dropped Early, Which Is Good, Because It Needed It
BioWare and EA's latest, a multiplayer shooter about heroes in robot suits, comes out tomorrow. For the past week it's been in prerelease, with certain subscribers to EA's Origins service playing it alongside press and developers. It has been, in our experience, a buggy mess. Which isn't necessarily surprising for a prerelease game, but it has made evaluating it difficult.
But, good news: The Day One patch is already out—a little early, in fact. It dropped sometime Wednesday night. The patch promises to fix a whole laundry list of issues, including infinite loading screens, disconnection problems, crashing bugs, and myriad other problems that made playing Anthem kind of stressful. If you're wondering where our Anthem coverage is, there you go.
Steam Will No Longer Sell the Movies No One Bought
Did you know that Steam also sold movies? No, actually, you probably didn't. Because, as it turns out, almost no one bought them, or so Valve said in a press release. "In reviewing what Steam users actually watch, it became clear we should focus our effort on offering content that is either directly related to gaming or is accessory content for games or software sold on Steam," the statement read, affirming that Steam is not the first place people turn to buy films.
As such, the video section of the Steam Store is gone, per Variety. There are still some videos, mind you, but they're now tied more directly to the games they relate to. No more movie store for you, Steam. Not that anyone's really going to mind.
Recommendation of the Week: The Beginner's Guide for PC
Have you ever played The Beginner's Guide? I really think you should. The game, made by Davey Wreden, creator of The Stanley Parable, is a parable, a sort of awkward, messy tale about creative devotion and personal responsibility. If you haven't encountered Beginner's Guide before, I don't want to share much more than that. But know that, on the surface, it's a collage of games supposedly made by a mysterious friend of Wreden's called Coda. In reality, it's something much deeper, stranger, and more beautiful.