The main thing for the weekend (March 30-31)

CD PROJEKT spoke about microtransactions, the creators of Dredge donated $ 100,000 to protect whales and dolphins, Jim Ryan said that the PlayStation 5 is moving towards becoming Sony's most successful console — we tell you what happened in the gaming industry over the weekend.

Dredge

• CD PROJEKT executives held a presentation for investors. During the Q&A session, the topic of the possible appearance of microtransactions in the company's games was raised. According to Piotr Nielubowicz, CFO, microtransactions have no place in CD PROJEKT's single projects, but the company does not say a categorical "no" to them. "We do not exclude that we will use microtransactions in the future in multiplayer games," said Nelyubovich.
• On March 30, Dredge's gloomy fishing simulator celebrated its first birthday. In honor of the anniversary, Black Salt Games Studio donated $100,000 to the NZ Whale & Dolphin Trust, a New Zealand organization that studies dolphins and whales and is looking for ways to preserve the population of these animals.
• Senior screenwriter Stephen Rooney has left Larian Studios. He worked in the studio for nine years and participated in the creation of Divinity: Original Sin II and Baldur's Gate 3. In particular, he was responsible for the story of Astarion from Baldur's Gate 3. Rooney wrote in X that he was glad to work at Larian Studios, but now he wants to work on "his own stupid projects" a little and figure out what to do next.
• The head of Sony's gaming division, Jim Ryan, became a guest of the latest release of the official PlayStation podcast. During the conversation, he stated that the PlayStation 5 is on its way to becoming Sony's most successful console by a number of indicators. He pointed out that the number of PlayStation 5 games released at the current stage of the life cycle far exceeds the results of previous generations. In addition, Ryan considers PlayStation 5 games — especially those developed by PlayStation Studios — to be the best that have ever been released on the company's consoles.
• Also, as part of the podcast, Ryan shared new information about PlayStation 2 sales. According to him, over the entire time of its existence, the console has sold over 160 million devices. Note that Sony's website has a smaller circulation of 155 million devices. However, this data is as of March 31, 2012, whereas PlayStation 2 production ceased nine months later in January 2013.