Author: Trafficblast

Microsoft Trademarks The Xbox Series X Logo, See It Here

Microsoft appears to be setting the stage for another Xbox Series X reveal. On April 16, the company filed a new trademark application for the next-generation console that, among other things, included what appears to be the console’s logo.

The trademark application, which was filed with the United States Patent & Trademark Office–first noticed by users on Reddit–shows a logo that features a stylized X and the world “Series.” It’s possible that this is the logo that we’ll see on packaging or other marketing materials.

However, trademark applications are also known to be almost completely meaningless. For example, Activision trademarked Call of Duty: Secret Warfare and Space Warfare, and those never came to be. The difference here is that we know Xbox Series X is the name of the console, so it appears likely that this is the genuine article.

The trademark application also confirms that it covers all types of things, from a game console to bathrobes and even squeezeable stress balls. That’s common for these types of filings, as this trademark is meant to cover all types of different uses and applications.

Behold
Behold

The Xbox Series X is slated for release this holiday. Xbox boss Phil Spencer recently said the next-generation console remains on track for launch despite concerns about COVID-19. The factories in China are now ramping back up, he pointed out. It’s more likely that games would be delayed rather than hardware, he said. Spencer also confirmed that Microsoft plans to release the Xbox Series X even if some of its games are delayed due to COVID-19.

Halo Infinite has been announced as a launch title for the console. By all accounts, that is still the case, but developer 343 Industries has also cautioned that the COVID-19 situation may get worse before it gets better. The developers are currently working from home.

The Xbox Series X may not be the only next-gen Xbox that Microsoft releases this year. The company is also said to be working on a lower-price next-gen Xbox under the codename Lockhart. Windows Central recently reported that this console is approaching a new development milestone, as workers begin to use the system at home for testing purposes. The same report said Microsoft may be planning to make more next-gen Xbox announcements in May.

Now Playing: Xbox Series X – Quick Resume Tech Demo

Monopoly Plus Is Free To Play This Week

Ubisoft is making Monopoly Plus free to play this week on UPlay. The game will be free to promote people staying inside and having some form of entertainment during the COVID-19 crisis.

“With Monopoly, players will be able to enjoy the game they know and love on three unique 3D living boards. As players progress and invest, cities will live, evolve and prosper in front of their eyes,” said Ubisoft. “At the start of each game, players can choose from one of the six House Rules chosen by Monopoly fans from around the world or keep games short with the new Special Goals.”

Ubisoft has made a number of titles free during the quarantine, with titles like Might & Magic Chess Royal and Rabbids Coding free on UPlay at the moment. A number of free trials for Ubisoft titles like Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 and Trials Rising are also available on the site.

If you’re looking to play some games for free during this quarantine, PlayStation is also giving away two free games to promote the public staying home. If you don’t have a PS4, there are also a bunch of free games from Epic and Steam for PC.

Monopoly Plus will be free on PC from April 21 8PM local time to April 28 4AM local time.

Now Playing: Free Xbox One And Xbox 360 Games With Gold For April 2020 Revealed

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Danganronpa 10th Anniversary Brings Trilogy To Mobile

As part of the celebrations of Danganrompa’s 10th anniversary, developers Spike Chunsoft have announced the release of all three Danganronpa titles on mobile outside of Japan for the very first time. Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair, and Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony will all be heading to both Android and iOS.

While the news of the three ports was announced during the Famitsu and Dengeki Game Awards, the tweet confirms that the ports will be getting new UI and touch controls. There will also be a newly added gallery mode, where players can find concept art and event scenes from the series.

This is only the first announcement of the anniversary celebrations, with more news set to be released on the official website during May 2020. Spike Chunsoft will be hosting a Dangan TV Broadcast on the third Thursday of each month, with the character Megumi Ogata acting as the MC. Each broadcast is going to have a specific theme or tone, with the first broadcast on May 21 set to be themed “How I met Danganronpa”.

The mobile releases have no release date as of yet.

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Mission Impossible Actor Reveals He Was Approached For Aragorn In Lord Of The Rings

Over the years, we’ve learned about a long list of actors who turned down roles in Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings series or had a connection to them, and now another name can be added to the list.

Mission Impossible actor Dougray Scott told NME that he was approached to play Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings, a role that eventually went to Viggo Mortensen.

Dougray said he declined to initiate a conversation about appearing in the movie because, after coming off Mission: Impossible 2, he was not thrilled with the idea of picking up his life and moving to New Zealand to shoot the epic fantasy movie trilogy. Jackson famously shot the three movies back-to-back-to-back over the course of multiple years. Dougray also specified that he was never officially offered the role, but he was sent the script to read and extended an invitation to meet with Jackson.

“They sent [the script] to me,” he said. “They wanted me to go meet Peter Jackson in New Zealand, but to be honest with you I’d just finished doing MI:2 and the idea of spending two years away in New Zealand I just couldn’t quite contemplate. The idea of spending that amount of time away in New Zealand at that particular time, I didn’t want to do.”

Dougray said he enjoyed The Lord of the Rings films, and he praised Mortensen specifically. He’s also not losing sleep at night over the matter. “I don’t have regrets about anything,” he said.

Jackson initially hired Stuart Townsend to play Aragorn in his Lord of the Rings trilogy. Townsend trained for the role and filmed some scenes before Jackson decided to make a change and bring in Mortensen.

Jackson was also said to be looking at Daniel Day-Lewis and Russell Crowe for Aragorn, while Nicolas Cage was offered the role but turned it down.

Amazon is now producing a new Lord of the Rings TV show, but production on the series stopped due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Now Playing: Best Shows And Movies To Stream For April 2020 – Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, Amazon Prime Video

CoD: Warzone Cheaters Are Being Matched Up Together as Punishment

Players who are suspected of cheating in Call of Duty: Warzone will now be forced into the same matches as punishment.

The news was revealed by Call of Duty: Modern Warfare developer Infinity Ward on Twitter, which gave fans an update about its plans for fixing the influx of cheaters into the game’s battle royale mode, Warzone.

Starting this week, the matchmaking system will check and match suspected cheaters into the same lobbies so they can duke it out. May the best aimbot win!

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Additional measures to support this change to the matchmaking system include notifying players when a cheating report results in a successful ban and “increased resources across backend tech, studio, and enforcement teams.”

As well as a set of dedicated security updates, Infinity Ward notes in the statement that there are still some new anti-cheat features on their way to Warzone. Namely, Report-A-Player functionality is coming to Killcam and Spectate modes, meaning players can catch hackers in the act with increased efficiency.

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This follows a report from last week that found Warzone console players were going to great lengths to opt-out of crossplay altogether to get away from the abundance of cheaters running riot in the PC version of the game.

Back in early April, Activision banned over 50,000 Call of Duty: Warzone cheaters, though this clearly hasn’t squashed the issue altogether.

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Jordan Oloman is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow him on Twitter.

Xbox Series X Logo Seemingly Revealed

Microsoft has trademarked what seems to be the logo for Xbox Series X.

Filed on April 16, the treatment follows a similar style to the Xbox One X and S logos. The X, in particular, differs from the title treatments we’ve seen for the upcoming console previously. You can see it below:

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Whether this is Microsoft getting its legal ducks in a row, or a sign that it’s about to reveal more about the console is unknown. What we do know is that Microsoft wants to be able to print this logo on a lot of things – the trademark listing includes not just game consoles, but bags, jewelery, posters, trading cards and, er, “fire extinguishing apparatus”.

Some have been quick to point out that a trademark for ‘Series X’ by itself – rather than the full ‘Xbox Series X’ – leaves open the possibility that we’ll see multiple versions of Xbox, necessitating logos to distinguish between them. That’s fuelled somewhat by rumours that there will be two next-gen Xbox consoles – the Series X, and a less powerful, digital-only console apparently codenamed Lockhart. However, Microsoft has made no similar public filings for any other potential console names in recent weeks.

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For more on Xbox Series X, make sure to check out its full specs, how it compares with PS5, and our best guess at its price.

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Joe Skrebels is IGN’s Executive Editor of News, and he would probably buy a Series X fire extinguisher. Stylish and safe! Follow him on Twitter.

Apex Legends’ Most Annoying Bug On PS4 Is Finally Fixed

Since the launch of the Apex Legends event The Old Ways, PlayStation 4 players have been have been experiencing a bug where the playlist sector would default to Trios after returning from a Ranked game or after switching characters. In response to the community reporting the bug, Respawn has issued the 1.35 update to the PS4.

The bug fix was not the only thing included in the patch, with a number of crash fixes, and a bug that caused controls to not work after picking up loot was also fixed. Network, performance, and stability improvements were all added as well, but the update notes do not detail the specific improvements made.

The full download and installation for this patch is 150MB, so make sure to check for the update before opening the game on your PS4.

These fixes come just in time, as Season 4 is coming to a close, and the next season for Apex Legends will soon be upon us.

Now Playing: Let’s Play Apex Legends’ The Old Ways Event

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Animal Crossing And Super Mario Maker 2 New Content Update Details!

Chastity brings you today’s news roundup of the biggest gaming stories for Tuesday, April 21! This week, Animal Crossing: New Horizons is getting a huge content update and a new event for Earth Day called Nature Day. The update adds both Leif and Jolly Redd into the pool of visiting merchants. In other Nintendo news, Nintendo is investigating reports of Switch account breaches.

In other news, Season 2 of Fortnite has been extended, and Season 3’s start date has been revealed. Death Stranding’s PC release has been delayed. And Super Mario Maker 2’s final update is huge.

PAX West Is Still Happening, For Now

Concerns around COVID-19, and local government orders that prevent people from gathering in large groups, have led to the cancellation or postponement of numerous gaming, tech, and entertainment conferences scheduled for 2020. E3 2020 in June has been canceled outright, while July’s San Diego Comic-Con has also been scrapped. August’s Gamescom event in Germany is transitioning to a digital show. The next major gaming event after that is PAX West in Seattle, and it is planning to go forward in September as scheduled, organizers have announced.

The current plan is for PAX West to take place over the Labor Day weekend of September 4-7.

In a statement on its website, organizers said, “Our first priority is always your safety, and that extends to issues of public health.”

In the lead-up to PAX West in September, the organizers will monitor the COVID-19 situation and heed the advice of the CDC and the WHO. The local government in Seattle, and the Washington State Convention Center, have already taken actions that the PAX organizers said “left us optimistic.”

So far in 2020, PAX has run all of its shows globally. PAX South took place in Texas in January, while PAX East was held in Boston at the end of February before lockdowns and social-distancing began in earnest. After PAX West, the next PAX show is PAX Australia, which is slated for October in Melbourne.

Outside of PAX, the first-ever Gamescom Asia show is scheduled to take place in Singapore this October, immediately after PAX Aus. All of these shows are tracking to go forward.

Even if all of these shows are legally allowed to go forward, whether or not people will want to attend a convention in a crowded hall and using controllers touched by thousands of people is a different story.

Now Playing: Best Shows And Movies To Stream For April 2020 – Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, Amazon Prime Video

How To Catch A Fly In Animal Crossing: New Horizons

Though flies are pretty common in real life, in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, they’re blissfully rare. The fly is one of 80 bugs you can catch in the game, and while it’s not worth much, you have to put some effort in if you want to catch a fly and fill in your museum and Critterpedia. The good news is that flies appear year-round and at any time of day. But oddly enough, the first thing you need to do to catch a fly… is go fishing.

A fly in Animal Crossing: New Horizons' Critterpedia.
A fly in Animal Crossing: New Horizons’ Critterpedia.

How To Catch A Fly

Catching a fly is a multi-step process and can require some patience, but once you know what to do, you’ll be able to get one pretty easily. Here’s what you need to do:

  1. Fish until you catch garbage (a can, tire, or boot)
  2. Drop the garbage somewhere outside
  3. Walk around the island until a fly spawns around the garbage
  4. Pull out your net and catch the fly!

You can also use spoiled turnips to attract a fly (instead of garbage) just like you can do with ants. However, because spoiled turnips are the only way to attract ants–and ants seem to be more common than flies–you’ll likely have to endure a lot of ants before you can find a fly. Using spoiled turnips also costs bells (both when you buy the turnips and then fail to sell them at a profit), whereas garbage only costs a little fishing time. Either way works, though!

Like with many bugs, you should only try to catch a fly when it’s not raining. Keep in mind that it can take some time for a fly to appear, so just be patient. The type of garbage you use doesn’t seem to affect whether a fly will spawn, but it has to be raw garbage, not anything crafted from cans, boots, or tires.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons Fly Sell Price

Once you catch a fly for the first time, it will be registered in your Critterpedia. You can then donate it to Blathers at the museum (recommended) or sell it for bells. You can either sell it at Nook’s Cranny for market price or to the special visitor Flick for 150% of that price. Because the fly is one of the least-valuable bugs in the entire game (second only to the cicada shell, which sells for 10 bells), there isn’t much reason to catch more than one unless you want to commission Flick to make an art piece with three flies.

  • Nook’s Cranny price: 60 bells each
  • Flick price: 90 bells each

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