As anyone who’s shared a room at college knows, privacy isn’t always easy to come by. Even with the availability of headphones, cellphones, and laptops, there are times you might just want to zone out from everyone around you and enjoy your favorite shows on your own. Luckily, HBO has delivered the solution–the HBO Box.
The HBO Box is exactly what the name suggests and nothing more. It’s a big black cardboard box, with the HBO logo on the side. You literally put it over your head, pop your feet through the handy leg-holes, and start watching Watchmen, Game of Thrones, Westworld, or whatever favorite HBO series you like. The company have even released a trailer for this stunning innovation–check it out below:
Before you start checking that it’s not April Fools Day, we should probably clarify that the HBO Box is part of a promotional giveaway, and sadly not something that’s going to be available in stores. It’s in collaboration with “brand activation” company Fooji, which is running the competition on its Twitter account.
In order to try and win this giant box, you need to have a .edu email address and live in an area served by either DoorDash or FedEx–you can check out full details here. But hey, if it proves popular, maybe streaming rivals such as Netflix, Apple, and Disney will develop their own cardboard-based privacy solutions.
In related news, it was reported last week that HBO has decided not to move forward with one of its Game of Thrones spin-off shows. The series was set to star Naomi Watts and the pilot had been shot, but it will no longer happen. However, a full series order has been given for another Game of Thrones spin-off, titled House of the Dragon.
On this week’s episode of IGN’s weekly PlayStation show, Podcast Beyond!, host Jonathon Dornbush is joined by Lucy O’Brien and Brian Altano to discuss what we would like to see from a Horizon Zero Dawn 2. With job listings that suggest Guerrilla Games is working on a Horizon sequel, the cast hypothesizes on what we might see, what we hope changes and stays the same, and factors in some of your suggestions.
Plus, the cast also discusses some of the latest PlayStation news, like Nioh 2’s beta, the PlayStation Plus games for November, and much more before taking a look back at the launch of the PS4 in a new recurring segment.
Yooka-Laylee developers Playtonic Games issued a statement today that flat-out denied that the company was acquired by Microsoft, or that it’s working on a new Banjo-Kazooie game. The statement was issued following a day of online rumors suggesting such.
“Hey everyone! We wanted to address the speculation currently swarming our mentions. We hate to be the bearers of news that isn’t what you want to hear, but we thought it best to come out and say – we aren’t working on a new Banjo-Kazooie game and we remain an independent studio,” Playtonic wrote on Twitter.
A lot of big companies are getting into gaming with their own streaming services, including Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Electronic Arts, and others, but don’t expect Netflix to follow suit.
Speaking at the DealBook 2019 event, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings confirmed that the company has no plans to enter that market. Instead, Netflix is spending its time focusing on highly compelling TV shows and movies that will encourage people to put down the controller and boot up Netflix.
“No,” Hastings said when asked if Netflix might make a game-streaming service. “We’re really focused on doing incredible series and films and unscripted.”
Earlier this year, Netflix said the company competes more with Fortnite than HBO when it comes to entertainment usage. There are a finite number of hours in the day, and even fewer that people can spend consuming entertainment, so Netflix sees Fortnite as a competitor in that regard.
“There are a lot of other things people do to entertain themselves, including Fortnite. And the original quote was that we compete with Fortnite more than we compete with HBO. Fortnite gets a lot more hours of viewing,” he said at the event today. “Ultimately it’s about competing for those hours of viewing. But we don’t compete with Fortnite better by doing something like [a streaming service] because we’re not very good at that. We compete by doing the most amazing TV shows you’ve ever seen so you put down Fortnite and you come to watch our shows.”
In 2011, Netflix announced plans to offer Xbox 360, PS3, and Wii games for rental by mail, though it scuttled these plans not long after announcing them. At the time, the company said it was “still considering” offering games to rent by mail but this never happened.
In the initial Qwikster announcement, Hastings himself spoke about how enthusiastic the Netflix audience was for games. “Members have been asking for video games for many years, and now that DVD-by-mail has its own team, we are finally getting it done,” he said.
The next major new game-streaming service to launch is Google Stadia, which is primed to launch on November 19 in the US.
Dino Patti thinks that 4K gaming is of little consequence to developers, and is just yet another PC and console upgrade being advertised to help sell hardware. Patti is the co-founder and former CEO of Playdead–the developer behind Limbo and Inside–who left the studio in 2016 and went on to start new companies.
“I think [4K gaming] is useless,” Patti said at Reboot Develop, according to VG247. “It’s something that’s being pushed by tech vendors to push the next console.” Both Microsoft and Sony’s next-gen consoles–Project Scorpio and PS5 respectively–will support 4K and have a max output resolution of 8K.
“[Manufacturers] don’t respect the natural evolution of games and you force technology,” he added. “Microsoft with Kinect, they paid studios to make a lot of s***ty games.”
After leaving Playdead, Patti went on to be the co-founder for both Coherence and Jumpship. Coherence is working to create a cloud-based, open-source development platform. Jumpship is in the midst of developing its first game, Somerville, which tells a science fiction story about the lives of people who survive a global catastrophe. In terms of both tone and graphics, it looks a lot like Limbo and Inside–games that don’t necessarily require 4K graphics to convey their unsettlingly eerie atmosphere.
“I want to select a path by myself and not be drawn in by money from tech vendors,” Patti said. “There’s a lot of people that see something shiny and follow that. You can definitely see all the herd walking one way and falling.”
Back at Playdead, the studio is currently in the midst of developing its third game, which is still unannounced. Playdead has been teasing the project since January 2017, when the studio tweeted an image from the new game. Since then, Playdead has included additional images and concept art in tweets and job postings for the new game–the latter of which have also implied that this third title will take place in a 3D space as opposed to the 2D side-scroller format seen in Limbo and Inside.
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Cyberpunk 2077 Has Twice As Much Keanu Reeves – GS News Update
The X-Force franchise has always explored the darker side of mutant life in the Marvel Universe. This is the team that gets its hands dirty so the X-Men don’t have to. And that much remains true even as Marvel’s Dawn of X relaunch ushers in a very different version of X-Force.
Read on to find out how the first issues of the new series challenges the very notion of death in a world where Charles Xavier has managed to make the X-Men immortal. Beware of full spoilers for X-Force #1 ahead!
The products discussed here were independently chosen by our editors. GameSpot may get a share of the revenue if you buy anything featured on our site.
Best Switch Online deals to expect for Black Friday 2019
The best (and only) Nintendo Switch Online subscription deal announced so far is at Target. You will be able to buy a 12-month subscription for $15, five bucks off the list price. That’s a reasonably good deal, and it’d be surprising to see other retailers offer much better considering the relatively low price of the membership to begin with.
If you’re more interested in a Switch Online family plan, which normally go for $35 and support up to eight users, it’s likely we’ll see that discounted as well. Target has a track record of offering Switch Online family memberships for $28 during major sales, so it’s possible that deal will make an appearance at Target or elsewhere during Black Friday weekend.
Target will also have the Overwatch: Legendary Edition on sale for $25, which comes with a three-month subscription of Switch Online. One other game to look out for that could be on sale is the retail edition of Tetris 99 (which comes with the paid DLC). The Switch Online exclusive comes with a 12-month subscription of Switch Online for $30. It’s possible that bundle will get discounted on Black Friday too.
Where to find Switch Online deals during Black Friday
We’ll be updating this article as more Nintendo Switch Online Black Friday deals are announced, but keep an eye on Walmart, Best Buy, GameStop, Amazon, and the Eshop, the Switch’s digital storefront.
In addition to gaining access to online multiplayer, Nintendo Switch Online subscribers can play dozens of classic NES games and 20 SNES games, including Super Mario World, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, and Super Metroid. Switch Online members also get cloud saves for most games, which is an incredibly convenient feature.
Disco Elysium has released to near-universal critical acclaim, delivering a story-driven detective RPG where your character is trying to solve a murder investigation while suffering from alcohol-induced amnesia. One of the game’s more noteworthy features is the Thought Cabinet, an inventory system that allows you to unlock benefits from internalizing certain thoughts. Apparently, it wasn’t always so beneficial.
“The original effects of the Thought Cabinet projects were to be more negative,” Disco Elysium lead writer Robert Kurvitz said, according to VG247. “Oftentimes you would get straight up curses.” Developer ZA/UM shifted gears on the Thought Cabinet in order to inject a little positivity in an otherwise fairly bleak story–redesigning the feature to showcase the thoughts the detective was mulling over, instead of obsessions warping their mind.
Kurvitz believes that humans can sometimes become too preoccupied with the notion that our ability to think is ultimately one of our biggest downfalls. In Disco Elysium, the protagonist’s Thought Cabinet was redesigned to reflect the notion that, though human thoughts can be bad, they can also be a saving grace in dark, difficult times–a lifeline to keep people grounded. “Sometimes when I’m overwhelmed by negative emotions, I like to go on Wikipedia,” Kurvitz said. “Read an article on Sir Francis Younghusband, Pleistocene megafauna, whatever. It’s not only torturous to think–to be the kind of animal us humans are. It is also an absolute pleasure and a privilege.”
Disco Elysium is the 16th game in GameSpot’s history that the website has given a 10/10 review score. In GameSpot’s Disco Elysium review, David Wildgoose wrote, “Disco Elysium is a mad, sprawling detective story where the real case you’ve got to crack isn’t who killed the man strung up on a tree in the middle of town–though that in itself, replete with dozens of unexpected yet intertwined mysteries and wild excursions into the ridiculous, is engrossing enough to sustain the game. Rather, it’s an investigation of ideas, of the way we think, of power and privilege, and of how all of us are shaped, with varying degrees of autonomy, by the society we find ourselves in.”
Though Blizzard lessened Chung “Blitzchung” Ng Wai’s punishment following the overwhelming backlash, some Hearthstone developers thought the company’s handling of the professional player was “too harsh.”
In an interview with Kotaku at BlizzCon 2019, game director Ben Lee wished Blizzard took better care of the Blitzchung situation. “The initial decision was too harsh. Absolutely,” Lee said. “Definitely should have taken more time to consider something more reasonable, but we can’t take that back.”
While creative director Ben Thompson ultimately supports Blitzchung’s right to free speech, the Hearthstone developer felt a professional tournament wasn’t the place to express those views.
“Of course I celebrate–as we all do to some extent or another–free speech. You should be able to say what it is you want to say,” Thompson said. “I also understand what [Blizzard president] J. Allen Brack himself addressed in his own internal communications and later on to the world at large, which is that being able to speak your mind and say how you feel from a personal level is always and should always be a welcome thing. Doing so from a platform very much not your own and done from a voice not your own to take control, so to speak, or on behalf of another is not free speech. That is on behalf of something that’s not yours to do with.”
Blitzchung was initially banned for one year and lost all of his prize winnings after expressing support for democracy in Hong Kong during a post-match Hearthstone Grandmasters interview. Blizzard received widespread criticism online and from protesters, to which the company responded by reducing Blitzchung’s ban to six months and giving back his thousands of dollars in winnings.
“We’ve had a chance to pause, to listen to our community, and to reflect on what we could have done better. In hindsight, our process wasn’t adequate, and we reacted too quickly,” Brack said in a statement. “We want to ensure that we maintain a safe and inclusive environment for all our players, and that our rules and processes are clear. All of this is in service of another important Blizzard value–Play Nice; Play Fair.”
Brack addressed the controversial decision during BlizzCon’s opening ceremony, stating the company failed to adhere to its principles. “We moved too quickly in our decision making, and to make matters worse we were too slow to talk with you,” Brack said. “We didn’t live up to the high standards we really set for ourselves, and second, we failed in our purpose. I’m sorry, and I accept accountability.”
When Disney+ arrives on November 12, there will be plenty of fan-favorite movies and TV series to check out like the Star Wars and Marvel movies. However, there is something else to highlight coming to Disney+ on Day One, and that’s all the Disney and Marvel animated series you grew up with.
From the 1980s to 2000, both Marvel and Disney put out numerous, memorable animated series that shaped the lives of many adults today. From the infectious theme songs from DuckTales and Darkwing Duck to every single moment of Gargoyles, Disney+ has a variety of choices that you haven’t been able to watch in years, unless you own physical copies of these shows.
The same goes for Marvel. The Silver Surfer cartoon will be available Day One, alongside other classic cartoons like Fantastic Four and X-Men: The Animated series. And on top of all that, 30 seasons of The Simpsons will launch on the streaming service as well.
Below, you’ll find the complete list of animated series coming to Disney+ on Day One, November 12. Subscriptions will cost $7–or $13 a month bundled with ESPN+ and an ad-supported version of Hulu. Additionally, select Verizon users can get Disney+ for free.
Classic animated series coming to Disney+ on November 12
