Weekend News Recap – 29 February: Pokemon, WhatsApp and Street Fighter V

It’s Monday, in case you didn’t know. And while that six-letter noun might strike fear into the hearts of even the toughest CEOs of the world, it really doesn’t have to. At least not anymore. Relive the weekend in our new Monday morning segment — the Weekend News Recap: 20-21 February Edition.

Most read articles last week:

• Will Microsoft release Office on the Xbox One?
• MWC 2016 live blog: the best MWC ever?
• March Xbox Games with Gold games include Supreme Commander 2, Borderlands

If you’re sick of smartphone news, you’re in luck, because Gabe Newell has been caught shouting at a few people again. The head of Valve has fired James “2GD” Harding — the presenter of the Dota 2 The Shanghai Major tournament — and his production team. This effectively means that there are no direct English broadcast streams currently available for the tournament.

“We’ve had issues with James at previous events, “Newell explained on Reddit. “Some Valve people lobbied to bring him back for Shanghai, feeling that he deserved another chance. That was a mistake. James is an ass, and we won’t be working with him again”.

And the reason? Well, Harding really did enjoy using the length and breadth of the English language.

BlackBerry and Nokia users were handed terrible news this weekend. WhatsApp has announced that the company will cease support for Nokia and BlackBerry smartphones from 2017.

These abandoned platforms include: Nokia’s S40, Symbian S60, BlackBerry OS 7 and even BlackBerry OS 10 — a system that was alive and well just a few months ago. Android 2.2 and lower is also getting the boot, alongside Windows Phone 7.1.

“As we look ahead to our next seven years, we want to focus our efforts on the mobile platforms the vast majority of people use,” WhatsApp noted in a blog post. “This was a tough decision for us to make, but the right one in order to give people better ways to keep in touch with friends, family, and loved ones using WhatsApp.”

Read more: WhatsApp will no longer support BlackBerry, Nokia S40, Windows 7.1, earlier Android versions

Ash, Misty and Brock are getting old. Pokemon turned 20 this weekend, and the company celebrated on Twitter. If you happened to send a tweet over the weekend with the hashtag #GottaCatchEmAll, the official @Pokemon account would reply with the Pokemon you just caught.

For Pokémon Day, we’ve released 20 Pokémon into the tall grass! Tweet #GottaCatchEmAll and see what you catch! pic.twitter.com/K9Q3boyEnH

— Pokémon (@Pokemon) February 27, 2016

The tweet was favourited over 17 000 times, with over 11 000 retweets to boot. Oh, and we caught a Charmander.

And finally, a game that has tongues wagging is at it again, largely thanks to its community. Street Fighter V rage-quitters are under the spotlight, and Capcom wants you to catch them in the act.

Rage-quitting is the digital equivalent of throwing a tantrum, and you controller, your competitor is winning. Players getting pwned suddenly disconnect to retain a high win percentage unfairly, which betters their league positions and lengthens their winning streaks. More importantly though, it’s just bad etiquette and poor sportsmanship.

Capcom noted that its aware of the problem, and announced in its blog that it promises to “to take direct action starting next week to punish those players who are abusing the system.” The company also wants you (yes, you) to help catch the offenders:

[O]ver the weekend, please record every instance of rage quitting you encounter. The best way to do this is to use the SHARE function on the PlayStation 4 after the match has concluded, though any video evidence will suffice (Twitch archives, local recordings etc.).

Feature image: Kate Haskell via Flickr