Month: September 2020

Early last year, Samsung announced the original Samsung Galaxy Z Fold with an eye-watering $1980 price tag. Now that the Fold 2 has been announced, Samsung has rounded up, selling the second edition of its folding phone for an even $2000 (well, $1999 to be precise).

The device was revealed at the recent Unpacked Part 2 event, as detailed by GameSpot sister site CNET, after first being announced at last month’s event alongside the Galaxy Note 20 and Note 20 Ultra. The new phone includes a number of improvements on its predecessor, including an improved hinge design and display, as well as the addition of 5G functionality.

While $2000 is a lot for a phone, rivaling the price of a decent gaming PC, it’s not as bad as it could be, as CNET points out. When compared to the price of last year’s Galaxy Z Fold, the new edition is only $20 more expensive, and includes some decent upgrades. The Fold 2 is a refinement on the original, addressing most of the concerns raised by early adopters of the first model.

Still, it seems like the Fold 2 is still destined to be a novelty for those few who can afford it, between its high price tag and dubious functionality. The more traditional phones just announced by Samsung include the Galaxy Note 20, which retails for $1000, and the $1300 Galaxy Note 20 Ultra–still a high price for a piece of tech, but far more reasonable.

The Galaxy Z Fold 2 is available to pre-order now if you have $2000 to drop on a phone, while the Note 20 and Note 20 Ultra are already available for sale.

Black Panther director Ryan Coogler has written a tribute to his friend Chadwick Boseman, who passed away last Friday after a private battle with cancer. In a statement posted on Marvel.com, Coogler reminisces on his work with Boseman, and how the T’Challa actor brought so much to the film above and beyond what would be expected.

In particular, Coogler reveals that one of the film’s most striking lines was suggested by Boseman–not for his own character, but for Michael B. Jordan’s Killmonger. “In early drafts of the script, [Erik] Killmonger’s character would ask T’Challa to be buried in Wakanda,” Coogler explained. “Chad challenged that and asked, ‘What if Killmonger asked to be buried somewhere else?'” In the finished film, Killmonger says “just bury me in the ocean with my ancestors who jumped from ships, ’cause they knew death was better than bondage.”

Throughout the whole process, Boseman put a lot of thought and effort into the film, not just for what it was, but for what it would come to represent. “We would often speak about heritage and what it means to be African,” Coogler said. “When preparing for the film, he would ponder every decision, every choice, not just for how it would reflect on himself, but how those choices could reverberate.”

“We talked costumes, military practices,” Coogler added. “He said to me, ‘Wakandans have to dance during the coronations. If they just stand there with spears, what separates them from Romans?'”

Every step of the way, Boseman put the time in–including on Captain America: Civil War, before Coogler even came on the scene. Boseman even turned up for auditions for the film’s supporting roles, something Coogler reveals is “not common for lead actors in big budget movies.”

Tributes to Chadwick Boseman have flooded in since his sudden passing last week, including by his Black Panther co-star Michael B. Jordan, the developers of Marvel’s Avengers, and even Fortnite players have gathered to remember him.

The Sims 4 is getting a new Star Wars expansion, Journey to Batuu, which will take your Sims to a galaxy far, far away. We’ve already seen many of the additions coming with the expansion, including lightsabers, droids, and Stormtroopers, but now a new trailer has shown off how it’ll play, and what will make the experience unique beyond the aesthetics.

The trailer below shows off the game’s Star Wars-style missions, where you pick a side (there’s the resistance, the First Order, and the “scoundrels”) and complete tasks. The trailer shows the player meeting an informant at a catina, but compared to, say, The Mandalorian’s equivalent scenes, it’s pretty light.

The trailer also shows how you can choose and build a droid, and gives us a preview of some remixed versions of various pieces of Star Wars music.

Both Rey and Kylo Ren will feature in the expansion–and, of course, you can make and use your own lightsaber. Your reputation can grow, and you can meet other Star Wars characters along the way.

The Sims 4 Star Wars: Journey to Batuu is available September 8. You can pre-order it now.

GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers.

The Seattle-based mobile and social game developer Big Fish has laid off 250 people just one day after courts ordered the studio to pay $155 million from multiple class-action suits. The two matters are not connected, management says.

Geekwire obtained a memo from Big Fish’s co-president Andrew Pedersen and Jason Willig, who said the cuts were part of the company’s ambition to “strengthen our business and position Big Fish for long-term success.” The executives said they are making the cuts as Big Fish enjoys a “position of financial strength,” adding that cost-cutting is “the primary driver behind the changes.”

Pedersen and Willig said in their memo to say that succeeding as a multiplatform publisher of mobile games at scale “requires greater agility and different operating and creative capabilities.”

With the job cuts, Big Fish is “pivoting how we operate and sharpening focus.” They added: “We will gain increased flexibility to engage players more effectively today and invest more for the future.”

Big Fish is said to employ around 600 people, so the job losses affect close to half of staffers. It’s not immediately clear which departments were impacted, but Geekwire said the majority of the job losses came at the company’s main headquarters in Seattle, and not the second studio in Oakland, California.

The site also reported that these substantial job losses are not related to the class-action lawsuits that Big Fish is facing regarding claims of violating Washington state laws about online gambling. As mentioned, Big Fish was recently preliminarily ordered to pay $155 million as part of the lawsuits, which remain ongoing and not yet finalized.

The lawsuits are related to the game Big Fish Casino, which is alleged to represent illegal online gambling based on Washington state’s laws.

Churchill Downs, the horseracing company that operates the Kentucky Derby, acquired Big Fish in 2014 for $885 million, before selling the studio to Australian gambling company Aristocrat in 2018. Geekwire reports that Churchill is on the hook to pay $124 million in the settlement, with Aristocrat picking up the balance of $31 million.

Big Fish Games is perhaps best known for Big Fish Casino, but the company makes numerous games across a variety of genres such as match-three, adventure, puzzle, and strategy. The company partnered with Disney for the game Toy Story Drop, a free-to-play match-three puzzle game.

A new policy change for the Nintendo Switch Eshop means that players now have the option of cancelling pre-orders. As Vooks points out, the previous rule was that Eshop pre-orders would be charged right away, and there was no way to recover those funds if you changed your mind. Now, pre-orders do not charge until shortly before release.

An update to the Nintendo support page details the change, linking to a guide on how to cancel pre-orders. This can be done through your browser or the Switch itself, and can be done up until the game is available for preload–typically seven days before the game is released.

This seems to be a change made internationally, affecting the Eshop in every country.

When pre-ordering a game, you’ll be told the planned preload date, on which you’ll be charged.

As Vooks points out, your pre-orders will also be cancelled if you change the region of the account you pre-ordered through before the game’s release. Existing pre-orders also will not be refunded, so this is the plan going forward, but not retroactively.

The next major title from Nintendo for Switch is Pikmin 3 Deluxe. You can pre-order it now.

Disney’s next big movie is Mulan, a live-action take on the 1998 animated classic. The film was initially expected to premiere in theatres earlier this year, but the COVID-19 pandemic uprooted those plans. Now, the movie will screen in some theatres and more widely through Disney Plus as a paid movie. The hybrid model for the film’s release is not unprecedented, as other studios are experimenting with that, too, but Mulan is a $200 million blockbuster. As such, many will be watching to see if its unique release model proves successful.

Producer Jason Reed, a former Disney boss who now produces films through his own business, spoke with Deadline about this. He confirmed he was not directly involved with the decision to bring Mulan to Disney Plus, and it was Disney that ultimately made the call.

That being said, Reed had a lot to say on the matter and what it could mean for the future of film. These are “extraordinary times,” and you shouldn’t necessarily expect that the new distribution models that movie studios like Disney are trying to stick around in the long term, he said. Reed foresees a future where studios decide business models and release strategies on a per-movie basis.

“I don’t think that anything that is happening during the pandemic is setting a precedent for what has to happen in the future,” he said. “However, I do think that the pandemic has accelerated plans that we were already seeing. In our industry, as well as every other industries, my sense is that what we were seeing and what we’ve been seeing is a more dynamic distribution model evolving, one that tailors the distribution for the creative content as much as it does for the actual business model that’s preexisting; whether that’s day and date theatrical and streaming or whether it’s a hybrid approach like this is going to be, where some territories are theatrical and some territories are streaming only.”

All of the options will become “arrows in the quiver,” Reed said. Gone are the days of rigidly defined distribution models for movies, the executive added.

“It’s not going to fall back into the old model of, well, here’s the windows that we have and here’s the order in which we go, and here’s how long each one is if we’re going to individually sell off those windows where we have a big movie and it’s going to do X, and then we’re going to put it in the drive-ins and second-run theaters, and then we’re going to put it out in premium, and then we’re going to put it here, and then it’ll run on television,” Reed said. “I don’t think that’s going to continue as a set-in-stone model, but what I think what we will see is exhibition and distribution having to figure out how to best optimize each unit.”

Reed said a small indie film with a specific audience might elect to go with a streaming-only model, while a tentpole film might go to theatres before shifting to video-on-demand later.

“I think that everything is open, and everything is going to change,” he said.

Personally, Reed said he believes movie theatres are here to stay because he thinks people get value out of watching films together in the same room. “The experience is enhanced by sitting with an audience,” Reed said.

Overall, Reed said he sees a bright future for the movie business, even if the distribution models are changing.

“I don’t see any reason to think that this pandemic is going to cause any long-term harm to the business, and in fact, I think there’s a lot of indication that it will position the business in a much better place going forward,” he said.

Mulan releases on Disney Plus this Friday, September 4. For more, check out GameSpot’s explainer for how to watch it, “How To Watch Mulan On Disney Plus This Week.”

GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers.

GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers.