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Press Start: Mad Max, hoop dreams and the return of the cloud

By Owen S. Good
Owen S. Good is a longtime veteran of video games writing, well known for his coverage of sports and racing games.

Frank comments. That's a sentence fragment, not a subject and a verb. Frank comments by a guy named Chris got him fired from Nintendo. They also were offered by a top Electronic Arts executive when questioned about EA Access and PlayStation. They lead the week that was in video gaming.

In between, we saw a ton of news about Disney's plans for Star Wars (and EA's plans for Battlefront). Everybody's Gone to the Rapture discovered a "sprint" button. The mobile hit Fallout Shelter finally arrived for Android, and the storied Gjallarhorn returned to Destiny. How important was that? It was a call-your-son moment.

Welcome to Press Start, a recap of the week in news, original reporting and perspective from Polygon, getting you ready for the seven days to come.

Last Week in Five Stories




  1. Phil Spencer is obliterating the distinction between Xbox and PC, and he's just getting started

    The pieces are still in play, but as we watch them moving around the board, the strategy becomes clear: Microsoft no longer sees a distinction between gaming on Xbox One and Windows PC. And it doesn't want you to see one, either.





  2. NBA Live 16, searching for an identity, takes it outside

    After the NBA Live series endured a three-year salvage operation and stabilized last year with a competent offering, executive producer Sean O'Brien thinks this is the year it will differentiate itself from both the basketball and sports genres, instead of merely establish that it can fulfill their baseline expectations.





  3. Mad Max is the fight club I expected, but I wasn't ready for the wasteland

    Avalanche Studios' Mad Max is the least surprising game I played at Gamescom 2015, and after a long week on the other side of the world, I was happy for a bit of interactive comfort food. The only problem was that I devoured too much too fast, and some of the sweetness soured my stomach.





  4. Years after Newtown shooting, CDC still awaits funds for guns and games research

    For the third year in a row, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is waiting to find out if the approved federal budget will include funds for research into the causes and prevention of gun violence — including any possible link to video game usage.





  5. Crackdown 3 (finally) proves why Microsoft put Xbox One's head in the cloud

    In a persistent, destructible city, I can reduce everything to rubble. It is built around pure, unadulterated destruction. And it is only possible because of a technology that Microsoft once touted whenever it mentioned the Xbox One: cloud-based computing.


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