Year 4: March Update

While I like to keep the blog and everything related to it positive, it's difficult to avoid mentioning the coronavirus as it is impacting nearly everyone at this point. It took a while for it to ramp up where I am but now schools are closed for the next few weeks and people are being told to stay home if they can. I hope everyone is doing alright and we can return to a somewhat normal life by the summer but who knows what the future holds. I'm alright and will be working from home so I don't really have any extra free time but will try to keep up on everything here.

E3, like every other convention, has been canceled due to the virus which could impact the 2021 event and all others going forward. It's been on the decline for a while and since this will force game companies to either do nothing or move to an online-focused presentation this year, publishers may find that to be ideal and stick with it in the upcoming years. This happens to be a significant year, however, since PlayStation 5 (Sony was already skipping E3) and Xbox Series X are planned to release at the end of the year though I wouldn't be surprised if those are delayed as well. Many products, such as computer components, are manufactured in China which likely will disrupt the production of consoles. Both could still launch with limited quantities which isn't a bad idea. I expect both to be $500+ and it never hurts to wait a bit until some of the bugs are patched or corrected in later models.

This past week I learned of two video game related books that sound appealing. Admittedly, I don't read often and don't want more stuff so I don't know if I'd get either but I'm still interested. A pop-up book about Sega arcade games is available now from ReadOnlyMemory.vg. It ships from the U.K. and is a bit pricey at $42 + $11 for shipping. The other is Sid Meier's Memoir! that will release September 8th. Sid Meier is my favorite game designer which is probably obvious having recently posted about my favorite game: Sid Meier's Pirates!.

Baseball is another topic I bring up from time-to-time, especially around opening day. Although the season is not going to start on time I'm thinking of putting together a post or two for baseball fans to have something to enjoy while they wait. I'll probably still do some posts the week E3 was supposed to be as well. Also, this month I heard from a game company in relation to the Vault 1541 YouTube channel for the first time. 3DClouds offered a digital code for All-Star Fruit Racing and asked if I would post a video and so I have: Let's Play All-Star Fruit Racing. Lastly, I just posted some activity book and other similar scans to Facebook, many of which have already appeared on the blog. I thought this might be something for people to do if they're stuck at home due to the current events and this puts them all in one location for easy access: Activity Scans.

Be safe and thanks for stopping by,
Jonathan