If Microsoft gets to acquire Activision, Call of Duty will be on Nintendo consoles for ten years, various non-game gifts for gamers, and Immortality is a new title from Netflix Games.

Xbox makes deal to put Call of Duty on Nintendo’s consoles

Massive announcement from Xbox head, Phil Spencer, on Tuesday evening.

Should Microsoft’s attempt to acquire Activision Blizzard King be approved, there’s an agreement to deliver Call of Duty for Nintendo gaming consoles. This is in addition to a commitment to selling the military shooter on Valve’s Steam platform.

I'm also pleased to confirm that Microsoft has committed to continue to offer Call of Duty on Steam</a> simultaneously to Xbox after we have closed the merger with Activision Blizzard King. <a href="https://twitter.com/ATVI_AB?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">ATVI_AB ValveSoftware</a></p>&mdash; Phil Spencer (XboxP3) December 7, 2022

This is a great deal for gamers, but it’s also a strategic play to show regulators in the U.S. and Europe that the Microsoft-Activision deal isn’t necessarily anti-competitive, as Sony has argued.

Not all gifts for gamers need to be digital

Gamers love gifts as much as anyone, but if you’ve got someone on your list who already has all the games they want, there are other options.

Many of the biggest franchises have merchandise that fans love.

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned the Call of Duty shop that has clothing and kitchen cleavers.

Ubisoft also has a store with Christmas sweaters poster artwork, and figurines in the Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry series, the Tom Clancy games, and more.

And both Playstation and Xbox have hoodies and mugs and assorted stuff. There’s a set of stoneware branded with Halo’s Master Chief 117, playing cards adorned with art from Pentiment, a replica stop sign from the Last of Us and a 1000 piece puzzle with art from Horizon Forbidden West

Bungie, developer of Destiny, may have the most treasures in its store, including replica weapons, collectible pins and patches, as well as figurines and all the various t-shirts, jackets, and hoodies.

And then there are the books. There’s so much lore and narrative anchoring Destiny, and Bungie collects it all in journals and “grimoire” editions.

They also publish art books collecting images that Bungie artists have used to convey worlds that are then built in the game, and weapons that players wield.

The most recent of these is The Exotic Collection: Volume One which I got a review copy of and which is exquisite.

Who says gamers don’t read?

Immortality is a perfect fit for Netflix Games

Immortality, an independent game from Half Mermaid and game designer Sam Barlow, was first released this summer for Windows and Xbox Series X/S.

A couple of weeks ago, mobile versions were released by Netflix as part of it’s games studio.

As Netflix builds out it’s catalogue of games, Immortality may be the perfect fit so far.

Barlow’s games – Her Story (2015) and Telling Lies (2019) – are interesting interactive experiences where players explore live-action film clips, and through some kind of manipulation, reveal a narrative.

These are shuffle text interactions that present a mystery to be solved. In Immortality, our task is to find out, “What happened to Marissa Marcel?”

The backstory is that Marcel starred in three movies which were never released, and she’s since gone missing. By exploring clips of footage of the films themselves, media appearances by the characters, and looks behind-the-scenes, we’re expected to solve the mystery.
Immortality is available to Netflix subscribers on Android and iOS, as well as on Xbox Series X/S with Game Pass, and on Steam.

This week on The Shift, Shane Hewitt and I talked about Apple’s App Store Award winners, voting for the Game Awards, the Steam Deck giveaway during the Game Awards, amusement park sims, Amazon’s Kindle Scribe, Best Buy’s drone show in Vancouver, and the Volvo EX90 full electric SUV.

You can write on Amazon’s newest Kindle, Best Buy’s hosting a light show with choreographed drones, and Volvo unveils the EX90 full-electric SUV.

Amazon’s Kindle Scribe adds a digital pen to your reading experience

Amazon’s newest e-reader is the Kindle Scribe, which is its biggest digital reading device and also the first to include a stylus.

The stylus is used for data input, of course, which tells you that the Scribe is used for more than just reading books.

Even with a larger, 10.2-inch screen, the Scribe is still a featherweight device, which is important if you’re using it for marathon reading sessions.

And while the Scribe has a stylus, the thing it does best is provide a solid reading experience. The digital ink technology, supported by lights for reading in low light, is the closest you can get to mimicking a book experience.

The addition of the pen adds to the experience, especially if you’re someone who likes to take notes in the margins of your books. With the Scribe you can’t actually write on the book itself, but you can attach a sticky note to any location in the book. You can also use the pen to highlight text.

One drawback to e-ink displays is the slight response lag when turning pages and there’s a lag when you’re writing with the pen, too, but you will acclimatize.

You can opt for a premium pen to get an eraser, which works as expected, and a shortcut button which can be programmed to trigger the action you use most often, like creating a sticky note or highlighting text.

You can also create new documents with the Scribe, and there are a number of templates you can use including schedules and checklists and lined and even music notation.

The other selling point of the Scribe is the ability to annotate PDFs and this feature is great in principle, poor in practice, because it’s just so difficult to get things into and out of the Scribe.

To import or export files, you need to use Amazon’s “send to kindle” service, which is essentially emailing things to yourself. This is a problem easily solved if only Amazon enabled you to log in to a cloud storage account.

The Kindle Scribe starts at $430 (basic pen, 16 GB storage) and goes up to $510 (premium pen, 64 GB storage). You can also get protective covers if you want.

This feels like a great starting point for a nouveau Kindle, but given that you can get a Kindle Paperwhite for $150, it’s difficult to justify the extra expense just to get a stylus.

Drone spectacle comes to Vancouver

Best Buy Canada is bringing some excitement to Vancouver’s Canada Place on December 2 and 3 at 6:00 p.m. in the form of a drone presentation.

Bright Skies is part of Christmas at Canada Place which also includes an “Avenue of Trees”. The 10-minute show will feature more than 300 drones which are choreographed to create holiday-themed animations.

Volvo reveals EX90 full electric SUV

Swedish car manufacturer Volvo has plans to sell only full electric vehicles by 2030, and as part of that amibition is going to reveal a new vehicle each year.

And it started a few weeks ago with the announcement of the Volvo EX90, a seven-seat SUV that the company says will have a 600 kilometre range and the ability to charge to 80% in only 30 minutes.

One of the features that Volvo has built into the EX90 is bi-directional charging. That means it not only pulls electricity into the battery, but it can also push electricity out. Conceivably it could charge another vehicle, or your house.

This isn’t functionality that will be immediately useful and it’s only going to be rolled out in select markets in the beginning. But its inclusion in the EX90 speaks to how the company is looking ahead.

The EX90 is equipped with a host of sensors including cameras, radar, and lidar, and it uses Nvidia’s Drive platform which compiles information from those sensors to “create a real-time, 360-degree view of the world.”

You can vote for your favourite games in the Game Awards, play some other favourites on your iPhone and iPad, and I chase down where amusement park sims have gone.

Apple’s App Store Award winners announced

Every year, Apple’s curators who keep an eye on software in the App Store decide on the best apps of the year.

This year, the list of applications being recognized include the BeReal social app and GoodNotes 5, which is all about using a stylus with an iPad to take notes by hand.

Games making the cut include Apex Legends Mobile, from Electronic Arts, and Inscryption, which is recognized for its Mac computer version. There’s also the intriguing Moncage, which is a puzzle game serving up optical illusions for you to interpret and make sense of.

There’s also Inua: A Story in Ice and Time, a narrative adventure set in Canada’s north which celebrates Inuit culture and features music by Tanya Tagaq.

Game Awards voting is open now

Fan voting for this year’s Game Awards is now open.

And fans get to have a say in the decisions, too, without breaking the system.

Winners of the awards are “deteremined by a blended vote between the voting jury and public fan voting”, with 90% of a score coming from the jury and the remaining 10% coming from fan votes.

Big category nominees include:

Game of the year

• A Plague Tale: Requiem
• Elden Ring
• God of War Ragnarok
• Horizon Forbidden West
• Stray
• Xenoblade Chronicles 3

Best ongoing game

• Apex Legends
• Destiny 2
• Final Fantasy XIV
• Fortnite
• Genshin Impact

Best indie game

• Cult of the Lamb
• Neon White
• Sifu
• Stray
• Tunic

Other categories cover the various genres and there are five awards for esports.

The Game Awards broadcasts live starting at 4:30 p.m. PT, 7:30 p.m. ET on Thursday, December 8. It’s being presented on all platforms including Discord, Twitch, YouTube, and social media channels.

Valve giving away a Steam Deck every minute of the Game Awards live broadcast

This just in: Valve will be giving away dozens of Steam Deck handheld consoles (512 GB edition) during the live broadcast of the Game Awards.

You need to preregister to be eligible and you need to be watching the broadcast on Steam to be a winner.

Rollercoaster sims let you build your own amusement park

A question came in on the Shift last week asking whether there’s been any updates to RollerCoaster Tycoon, which a listener remembers playing on a computer running the Windows XP operating system (circa 2001).

This series of games put players in the role of an amusement park designer and operator. The objective is to design the rides, construct the park, and operate it. Think the Sims go to Disneyland.

The original RollerCoaster Tycoon came from the brain of game designer Chris Sawyer and was released in 1999.

Games in the franchise have appeared regularly, some being received better than others.

The first two original games that Sawyer designed have been ported to Android, iOS, and Windows 10 as Rollercoaster Tycoon Classic.

If you’re interested in a modern console experience, look to Planet Coaster, which is available on PS4, PS5, Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.

This week on The Shift, Shane Hewitt and I talked about Pokemon Scarlet and Pokemon Violet for the Nintendo Switch, the annual Autumn Sale on Steam computer games, the beautiful new Apple Store in Vancouver’s Pacific Centre, live TV on Air Canada flights, and some Black Friday deals.