Weekly Recap Jan 25th: YouTube Scandals Rock Microsoft, EA, 2014 Release Date Calendar

Out of the brimstone and into the fire, so cast Microsoft their reputation.

Alongside Electronic Arts, Microsoft was outed in a scandalous predicament of Charlie Sheen proportions (just without the cocaine and porn stars... well, there could be porn stars and a line of coke, if you insist). Lots of money exchanged hands in an attempt to pay off YouTubers for positive press for the Xbox One and other EA titles. Things got a little complicated, just like a hair stylist trying to work over Chewbacca at Fantastic Sams, when the FTC got involved... well, about as involved as Clint Eastwood with his estranged kids. I'm sure Machinima is really feeling the heat given that they took the brunt of the bad press, in addition to the new content policies enacted by YouTube that could open them up to a low of copyright hurdles.

On the brighter side of the news spectrum, we have a list of all the big name games you'll want to keep an eye on throughout 2014. If you can make it through watching the winter Olympics (without any terrorist acts) and you still need a game to play, you'll probably want to check the list for new releases. These stories and more in this January 25th, 2014, YouTube-gate edition of the Gaming Blend Weekly Recap.

Sunday

Microsoft and Machinima Xbox One YouTube Promotion May Be Unlawful According To FTC Guidelines The week kicks off in a controversial way regarding the YouTube promotion of the Xbox One.

DayZ Spends Month Being The Top Selling Game on Steam An entire month, and it's the top selling game. This is a real breakthrough.

Battlefield 4 Other Hostile Games Banned in China The console ban being lifted doesn't mean there's a lift on a ban of software in China.

Nintendo Dying? Nintendo 3DS, Wii U Conquer Japan in 2013 The best selling software and hardware in Japan belonged to Nintendo.

Titanfall Needs an Open Beta A look at Respawn needing to hunker down and go ahead and open up the beta for everyone.

Valve Aims To Keep Users Happy, Not Just To Seek Profit, Says Indie Dev Valve isn't all about the money. They're about users first.

DayZ Standalone Patch Adds Berry Picking, Shotguns Sawed-off shotguns... woot!

Microsoft Offers To Pay YouTubers To Positively Promote Xbox One Say some good stuff about the Xbox One and get some coin. What's to lose?

How To Cook Meat In Starbound Need help with the meat cooking in Starbound? We're here to help.

Bravely Default Tips To Help Get You Through The Demo Ryan Winslett offers some useful hints and tips on Bravely Default.

Deception 4 Blood Ties Springs Trap On March 25th For PS3, PS Vita A classic makes its way to Sony's syetms.

Monday

Watch Dogs Release Date Scheduled For March? Ubisoft's AAA title may or may not be ready for the spring.

Banner Saga Review Oregon Trail Meets Game of Thrones Pete hands out a review of one of the most critically acclaimed games of the new year.

Satoru Iwata Will Not Resign From Nintendo The president of the Big 'N' will stay on a bit longer.

Beware: Xbox One YouTube Videos With XB1M13 Tag Means It's Pro-Xbox Yeah so, if you see these videos with these tags, you know what to look out for.

Top 10 Online games Revenue of 2013 The top of the crop surprisingly wasn't League of Legends.

Build It! Miami Beach Resort Free For Mobile For One Week The mobile app will be free for a week so you can test out your simulation building skills.

Mario Will Not Go To Smartphones, Says Nintendo President This is great news for people who feared that Nintendo might start listening to crazy armchair mercenaries or console warriors about what direction Nintendo should take.

Final Fantasy 6 Android Version Currently Unbeatable, Patch Coming Soon Square's re-release of this absolute classic is getting patched very soon.

Vita Play 2014 Promotion Includes Four Games It's a really cool promotion as Sony continues to pimp the poor Vita since it's being murdered in sales by the 3DS like the dolphins being murdered in Taiji.

Tuesday

Dark Souls 2 Achievements List Revealed The official list of achievements have been revealed for Dark Souls 2... and no, the game still isn't coming to next-gen consoles.

PS4 Moves 239,998 Units In France, Outsells Xbox One Two-To-One Whoa, that's more devastating news for the Xbox One as far as the sales charts go.

Dead Rising 3 Operation Broken Eagle DLC Launches 13.4GB worth of data... yeah, that's a brand freaking new game right there.

Microsoft Claims They Weren't Aware of Machinima XB1M13 Contract For the Xbox One Oh, things really heat up after Microsoft backs down on their previous comments.

Xbox One XB1M13 YouTube Participants Listed; 11 Million Viewers Reached Microsoft's collaboration with Machinima reached a potential 11 million viewers.

Disney Infinity Sells 3 Million Starter Packs Disney's risk has paid off.

EA Gets Outed Paying YouTubers For Positive Battlefield 4, Need For Speed Coverage It's not just limited to Battlefield 4 and Need for Speed, though. This stretches across EA's entire fall line-up of games.

Danganronpa Brings Murder Mystery To Vita This February The Japanese title will make its way to Sony's PSV next month.

Blackguards Demo Launches On PC, Mac Check it out for yourself before you decide to commit to the Early Access purchase.

Microsoft, Machinima Respond To XB1M13 YouTube Promotion Both companies address the situation.

To The Death Heads To Kickstarter, Asks For $400,000 The game looks pretty awesome and is a side-scrolling throwback to games like Psikyo's Sol Divide.

PS4 Error CE-34878-0 Corrupting Save Files Sony is going out of their way to try to fix the error that has caused a lot of troubles for some gamers.

Wednesday

Resident Evil 4 HD Coming To PC And It Won't Be Broken This Time This is great news for anyone who doesn't already have the modded version.

Lightning Returns Demo Strikes Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 Grab the demo right now and see if it's worth investing in when the game officially launches.

Hitman Contracts Launches On Steam, Again While that seems like good news, take into account that the awesome soundtrack from Jesper Kyd and the voices have been removed. Yeah.. awesome. “Woo” for that all digital future where games will be like black and white silent films with a bunch of censored content for anything not licensed or copyrighted to the publishers.

Blackguards First Impressions: A Darker Version of Final Fantasy Tactics Daedalic Entertainment's turn-based title gets off to dark but decent start.

Earth Defense Force 2025 Release Date Announced For PS3, Xbox 360 Clamor around the retailer store shelves, as the release date for the game has been set in stone.

PS4 Won't Save PS Vita, Says Analyst The Pach-Man rolls out some unsettling news about the future of the Vita... and it's not good.

Elder Scrolls Online Rated By ESRB, Bethesda Disagrees The dreaded 'M' rating may help or hinder them depending on how it all turns out.

Titanfall Won't Have Microtransactions This is like a huge relief for a lot of people, I'm sure.

2014 Video Game Release Date Calendar Find out all the release dates for the upcoming games due out in 2014.

Thursday

50 Games Greenlit on Steam This includes the PSX-esque JRPG Edge of Eternity, as well as Dawn of Ronin and Aces Wild. Some great games coming to Steam for sure.

Witcher 3 PC, Xbox One, PS4 Versions Won't Have Huge Differences CD Projekt RED makes it known that parity will be very close between all three versions.

EA Issues Response To YouTube Scandal Involving Battlefield 4, Need For Speed Rivals They basically deny that they did anything wrong. How typical.

OlliOlli Impressions: Vita Exclusive Sticks The Landing Gaming Blend's Ryan Winslett has some personal, non-endorsed opinions to share about the latest Vita exclusive.

Tomb Raider Definitive Edition 60fps On PS4, 30fps On Xbox One There's yet another case of the Xbox One failing to live up to the potential of the PS4.

4 Fake Consoles People Took Way Too Seriously Well the dream was bound to end... especially for Sega.

Microsoft Shipped 3.9 Million Xbox Ones Last Quarter, Sold 3 Million There's nearly a million consoles still sitting on store shelves.

Last of Us DLC Gets Sneak Peek Trailer Team Interview The first big and last DLC for The Last of Us gets some detils in a team interview.

Friday

DayZ On SteamOS? Dean Rocket Hall Hopes So There might be a port as soon as they can. That could be huge for Valve's SteamOS.

Xbox One Development Director Says Game Developers Are At Odds With the Needs of Gamers Somehow, Microsoft managed to get everything backwards.

Hearts of Iron 4 Coming Early 2015 The latest game gets announced for an early release in the first quarter of 2015.

Microsoft Changes Their Tune On Xbox One Scandal, FTC Could Investigate Things take an interesting turn in the first big scandal of 2014.

Toukiden Age of Demons Impressions Slicing and Dicing is Fun Gaming Blend's Ryan Winslett gets some hands-on time with the PS Vita title.

Watch Dogs Was Never Canceled For Wii U, Still Available For Pre-Order So all that doom and gloom? Yeah, it wasn't real.

YouTube Scandal Involving EA, Microsoft Isn't Fair To Consumers, Says Boogie2988 A heartfelt video from Francis the nerd rager puts some perspective on the whole YouTube scandal.

Microsoft Says 900,000 Xbox One Skus Being Sold Right Now Nearly a million SKUs shipped and not sold is bad for business and Microsoft wants to get on that right away.

Saturday

Warframe Updates PS4 With New Character, Customizable Controls, Trophies New content, new characters, new control options. What's not to like?

Dark Souls 2 Screenshots Unveil Two Amazing Shields Check out the new screens of the highly anticipated Dark Souls 2 from Namco Bandai.

Xbox One Lower Frame Rate, Lower Resolution Defended By Albert Penello Somehow, costing more and offering less is a good thing in the eyes of Microsoft.

Starbreeze Developing Sci-Fi Payday-Style Co-op Shooter After Payday 2 I'm definitely willing to give the game a try... whatever it may be.

Basement Crawl Blows Up on EU and US By the time you read this the game may not be available just yet, but it'll be getting awfully close to releasing.

That wraps up this edition of the Gaming Blend Weekly Recap. You can check out a brand new trailer for Yoshi's New Island, which looks like a real throwback for fun.