Category: Games

Disney has finally, officially closed its $71 billion deal to buy the majority of Fox’s entertainment assets. As part of the acquisition, Disney is expected to cut “thousands” of jobs as it eliminates duplicate jobs as part of the massive the restructuring, according to multiple reports.

Disney CEO Robert Iger sent a memo to staff regarding the Fox deal, and in it he acknowledged that tough times lie ahead. CNBC obtained the memo.

“I wish I could tell you that the hardest part is behind us; that closing the deal was the finish line, rather than just the next milestone,” he said. “What lies ahead is the challenging work of uniting our businesses to create a dynamic, global entertainment company with the content, the platforms, and the reach to deliver industry-defining experiences that will engage consumers around the world for generations to come.”

Iger went on to say that the “integration process” will affect some business units more than others. “We’ve made many critical decisions already, but some areas still require further evaluation. We may not have answers to all of your questions at this moment, but we understand how vital information is, and we’re committed to moving as quickly as possible to provide clarity regarding how your role may be impacted,” Iger said his note to employees.

Iger said he has a “deep appreciation” for how an acquisition like Disney’s impacts people involved both personally and professionally. “I ask for your continued patience in the days to come as we combine this collection of great assets to create the world’s premier entertainment company,” he said.

As part of Disney’s acquisition of Fox, the House of Mouse gets franchises like Deadpool, X-Men, The Simpsons, Family Guy, and numerous others, as well as a series of TV networks and film studios. Indeed, it is one of the biggest mergers in the history of the entertainment business.

As of September 30, The Walt Disney Company reportedly had more than 201,000 employees, and this was before the Fox deal closed.

Fox will live on in a limited capacity, with a new company–Fox Corporation–operating units such as the Fox News Channel, Fox Sports, and other TV networks.

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Google’s announcement of Stadia is a big step towards the future of cloud gaming. The service allows players to stream video games via the cloud across a variety of different devices. Google is still keeping a lot of details about Stadia close to the chest, but during GDC 2019, the company’s VP Phil Harrison sat down with GameSpot to further delve into the service.

During the interview, we asked Harrison about Stadia’s pricing model. We didn’t get too many details, but Harrison did reveal that a pricing model for Sadia already exists. It’s just being revealed at a later date. In an interview with Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot, Guillemot predicted Stadia would launch with a “multitude” of pricing models. “Either you buy full price and you play; or you will be able to also register, possibly, to play either one hour or two hours a day. There will be plenty of ways,” he said.

Harrison was able to talk about the process behind deciding the specific model for Stadia, though. “[It was a lot] of very deep conversations with our developer and publisher partners over many many months, and years in some cases. A lot of deep consumer research. We have had a fantastic user research team as a core part of the Stadia team for two years now. And so, we have our point of view, we then test various hypotheses with consumers and publishing partners, and then get to the right result.”

During the interview, Harrison did confirm that Stadia would not support offline downloads. When asked if Google would consider adding the option down the line, Harrison said it was “not technically possible.” He further clarified that adding offline downloads to Stadia “would be a compromise of our vision.”

During the Google GDC keynote, the company announced that Stadia is scheduled to launch in 2019 in the US, Canada, UK, and “most of” Europe. More details, such as which games are coming to the service, will be revealed at a later time. For now, we know both Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and Doom Eternal are confirmed for the service. If you happened to miss the keynote, we’ve compiled every bit of Google gaming news.

If you’re still confused about how cloud gaming works, be sure to read our in-depth explanation. We’ve also outlined the top companies investing in cloud gaming tech.

2. The episode ignores how ravens work

This issue is arguably even bigger. While the details of a timeline can be “fudged,” the reality of how messenger birds work can’t. And the reality does not match up with events in this episode.

Like real-world carrier pigeons, Game of Thrones’ ravens are raised in one place, brought to another, and then fly home with messages. The Maester or raven-keeper of each keep, hold, or castle cares for and keeps track of a whole rookery full of ravens for various destinations. When Sansa wants to send a raven to Cersei, Maester Wolkan doesn’t grab a random bird and whisper “King’s Landing” in its little bird ears–he selects a raven that is from King’s Landing and sets it loose. The raven then flies home with the message.

Why is this an issue in “Beyond the Wall”? Because there’s no conceivable reason why Eastwatch would have ravens from Dragonstone. Eastwatch is being manned by Jon’s Wildlings, who arrived recently and, besides, have no idea how to keep and use ravens. If there are also still Night’s Watch men there maintaining the ravens, it isn’t established, as Tormund and his wildlings are the only characters we see there–and Jon specifically sent the Wildlings there in Season 7 Episode 1 to “man the castle,” not “reinforce the Night’s Watch.” If there were Night’s Watch there, Tormund wouldn’t be in command.

On the other side of the problem, Dragonstone was abandoned until Dany landed there recently, and abandoned castles tend to not have active rookeries. Even if it did–if the ravens hung out there without anyone feeding them–“Beyond The Wall” gave no indication that Jon brought any north with him. That would have been the smart move, but this is not a smart episode.

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Google is taking its first significant step into gaming with Stadia, its ambitious new cloud platform. Like Microsoft’s xCloud, Stadia will offer players the ability to stream video games across a variety of devices, along with a host of other innovations such as state sharing. And while there are still many questions lingering around the platform, one thing we now know is that it won’t offer offline downloads.

GameSpot got a chance to speak with Google VP Phil Harrison at the Game Developers Conference. We asked Harrison if Google will ever consider giving players the option to download content from Stadia and enjoy it offline, as services such as Spotify and Netflix do. “No, not technically possible,” Harrison replied. “It would be a compromise of our vision if we were to do that.”

This ties into Google’s previous confirmation that it won’t release its own set-top box to run Stadia; rather, all of the games available on the platform will be streamed from the company’s data centers, and they’ll be playable across across desktops, smartphones, laptops, tablets, and TVs–the latter through a Chromecast Ultra HDMI streamer. Google will, however, release a dedicated Stadia controller that features unique buttons to capture/share gameplay and access Google Assistant.

Only a handful of games have been confirmed for Stadia thus far, among them Doom Eternal and Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, which was the game Google used to test the platform last year under the Project Stream moniker. Google also announced it is forming its own first-party studio led by Jade Raymond to develop games exclusively for the platform.

Google Stadia is slated to launch later this year. It will initially be available in the US, Canada, the UK, and “most of” Europe. Google says it will share additional details about the platform and its launch lineup this summer. You can read more about how cloud gaming works and check out all of the Google gaming news from GDC.

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