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2021 marks the 20th anniversary of Xbox, and Microsoft is going big to celebrate with a variety of promotions, events, and activities scheduled to mark the occasion.

The original Xbox launched on November 15, 2001, so its 20th anniversary is right around the corner. As an excellent oral history explained, it was a struggle to get Xbox off the ground inside Microsoft at the start, but now the business is thriving and Xbox has become synonymous with gaming. A new blog post runs down a number of the ways Microsoft is celebrating the milestone, and also dropped some stats, like how 7,000 games have been released across all Xbox platforms over the past 20 years. Additionally, players have collectively tallied nearly 1 trillion in combined Gamerscore.

Halo: Combat Evolved was the so-called killer app for Xbox at the start, and to celebrate, Microsoft created a special piece of artwork that pays homage to the past and looks forward to the future. The next Halo game, Halo Infinite, releases this fall. A release date hasn’t been announced yet, but November 15 would be a pretty special date to launch it.

Microsoft’s celebrations for Xbox’s 20th anniversary are on now through November 15, and they include a number of events and promotions. These include a social media campaign where users can share their favorite memories and stories using the #Xbox20 hashtag.

The Xbox Gear Shop, meanwhile, already has new merchandise to pick up, including T-shirts, mugs, bags, and more. Fans can also now snag free anniversary-themed wallpapers, while registration for the 20th Anniversary Xbox FanFest are now open.

A 20-year gamerpic and “The Original” profile theme are now available on console to help you deck out and customize your console with the anniversary in mind. Those on Xbox Series X|S can get a special dynamic version of The Original.

Additionally, Microsoft has curated a collection of memorable and noteworthy games from Xbox’s 20 years. You can also search “Xbox Anniversary” in the console store to bring up these games.

Additionally, Microsoft will host a livestream today, May 13, on Twitch.tv/Xbox beginning at 11 AM PT / 2 PM ET. The hosts will reminisce about the anniversary while playing Halo: Combat Evolved through The Master Chief Collection.

Microsoft is planning even more anniversary events in the lead-up to the November 15 anniversary date, so keep checking back for more.

He-Man is returning to TV on July 23. The new series, Masters of the Universe: Revelation, will premiere on Netflix on July 23, and finally, the first images are out for the show. If you love the original ’80s cartoon, this will be right up your alley.

The Mattel Television series comes from showrunner Kevin Smith (Clerks), and the show picks up right where the original series left off: a battle between He-Man and Skeletor has left Eternia fractured, and Teela wants to reunite the heroes of the land to help find the missing Sword of Power. Part 1 of the series will consist of five episodes.

There are a lot of familiar voices in Revelation. Mark Hamill (Star Wars) will play Skeletor, Chris Wood (Supergirl) plays He-Man/Prince Adam, and Stephen Root (Office Space) will voice He-Man’s trusty cat Cringer. The show also features Lena Headey, Griffin Newman, Henry Rollins, Tony Todd, and Kevin Conroy. Masters of the Universe: Revelation is produced by Mattel Television, featuring animation from Powerhouse Animation, which also animated Netflix’s Castlevania.

Showrunner Smith has a fondness for the original series, and wants to create something that really follows in the footsteps of it. “Narratively our show is set up as the next episode in the legacy ‘80s animated series that aired from 1983-1985,” Smith said in a press release. “This is a continuation of that story. We’re playing with the original mythology and characters, and revisiting and digging deeper into some of the unresolved storylines. Visually we also made the conscious decision to lean into the MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE line of toys for inspiration as well. Mattel owns this entire vast library of that artwork, so right away we wanted the show to open with classic pieces of that artwork. Mattel has been committed to this look since they first started as a toy line in the ’80s, and now we’re leaning into it and honoring it.”

Additionally, Mattel will be producing a toy line for Revelation arriving at major retailers on June 15, with additional toys coming in the fall.

This week, Grand Theft Auto Online is living up to its name, paying players extra for committing its namesake. After last week’s focus on everything high-end and militaristic, the game is shifting to the streets of Los Santos with bonuses for Special Vehicle Work and more.

The full list of bonuses for Grand Theft Auto Online players can be found below or in a blog post from Rockstar.

More Cash And XP For Vehicle Work

Anyone that likes spending their time in GTA Online driving around in souped-up hotrods or heavily armored machines of destruction will be rewarded a bit more this week. Whether the job is delivering a car or blowing things up, all Special Vehicle Work will earn players twice the usual cash and XP for their efforts.

Big Bonuses For Target Assault Races

If you’re more of a fan of cars with mounted .50 caliber machine guns than the ones with powerful engines, this week has something in store for you. Target Assault Races, which have gunners work with drivers to navigate down a target-filled track, will pay out three times as much money and XP, regardless of what place players end up in.

Double Rewards For Business Battles

If you have a nightclub in GTA Online, you know you have to look out for number one. That’s why Business Battles are rewarding players with twice the usual cash and XP this week. If you see another nightclub owner trying to move product and get ahead, remind them who’s boss.

Triple Rewards For Motor Wars Competitors

If vehicular manslaughter is your game, you can rake in the big bucks for the rest of this month. Motor Wars is rewarding all competitors with three times the usual cash and XP, regardless of how they place.

Free Items Galore

Just for logging in every week, players get their own grab bag of free schwag, and this time around is no different. Every player will get some fresh threads in the form of a white Vom Feuer hoodie. If you’re over level 100 though, you can pick up something extra special. Anyone that’s bought an Anti-Aircraft Trailer can deck it out with a free Galaxy Livery. Just be aware that it will be added to your account within three days of playing after May 24.

If you’re up for a gamble, this week also has a new car on the podium in the Diamond Casino’s Lucky Wheel. This week players that get lucky could walk away from the casino with a new Declasse Drift Yosemite, a souped-up pick-up truck.

Discounts On Offices And Weapons Alike

This week, players can get almost anything they need at a discount. If you’re not in the business of sourcing special vehicles just yet, you can get in on it for 50% less this week. For the executives already out there, improvements to your office are also half off.

Players that are looking for more firepower will also find a ton of savings for the next seven days. Any upgrade to weapons applied in the Weapons Workshop in your Mobile Operations Center will also be 50% off.

Finally, anyone looking to pick up some weaponized vehicles has their best opportunity this week. These rides are usually pricey, so if you’re looking for a drivable drill or a nice truck with a mounted machine gun, now’s the time.

• Jobuilt Phantom Wedge – 40% discount
• Benefactor Turreted Limo – 40% discount
• Anti-Aircraft Trailer – 40% discount
• Karin Technical Aqua – 40% discount
• BF Dune FAV – 30% discount
• Vapid Caracara – 30% discount
• Bravado Gauntlet Hellfire – 30% discount
• HVY Menacer – 40% discount

GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers.

The latest Fortnite Wild Weeks in-game event is now live alongside the Week 9 challenges update. This week’s theme is Fish Fiesta, and to celebrate the pescado party, Epic is altering the way fishing works in Fortnite for one week only.

With Fish Fiesta, players will enjoy several gameplay buffs to fish, both catching and eating them. Fishing spots will now remain present in bodies of water for longer, with a minimum of three catches per spot, up to a maximum of six catches. Normally, they have a chance of disappearing after just one catch, so this should greatly help this week’s Legendary Quest to catch up to 250 fish.

Rare fish will also be more likely to be caught from fishing spots, and any weapons pulled instead will be no worse than Rare (blue). On top of that, Pro Fishing Rods will be more plentiful. The Pro Fishing Rod differs from the usual in that it can also pull items–and even players–outside of the water. It’s also helpful in catching rarer fish. Combined with this week’s boon to rare fish drops, a Pro Fishing Rod may feel like a near-guarantee of catching the game’s rarest fish or higher-rarity weapons.

The Fish Fiesta will remain active until May 20 at 7 AM PT / 10 AM ET. At least two more Wild Weeks are scheduled to occur for subsequent weeks thereafter, which will take us right up to the end of the season. Fortnite Season 6 is currently scheduled to end on June 7, though Epic has been known to move seasons’ start and end times around as needed.

There’s no word yet on whether this season will feature a climactic event like the start of it did with the Zero Point Finale, but it’s been over a year since Epic switched seasons without some sort of spectacle, so we expect word on this soon, be it by official sources or the ever-active datamining community.

For more on Fortnite, don’t miss the full list of Week 9 challenges, including one that asks players to activate a rift by purchasing it from a character.

GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers.

The list of pandemic-inspired movies is growing, as James McAvoy (Split) and Sharon Horgan (Military Wives) will appear in a new film called Together about a struggling couple who become forced into lockdown.

The Crown’s Stephen Daldry is directing the movie, which is written by Utopia’s Dennis Kelly. Together takes place in the UK at the start of the pandemic and its lockdowns in March 2020. The movie will follow McAvoy and Horgan’s characters through until present day.

They play a husband and wife who–like many people in the real world–took time to re-evaluate their relationship and themselves amidst the pandemic and lockdowns. The BBC reported that break-ups and divorces spiked in the UK during the pandemic, so this story is likely to hit home for some people.

“Horgan plays a charity worker who is a co-ordinator for all of Europe at a refugee charity, while McAvoy plays a self-employed man who runs a boutique computing consultancy. He’s been forced to furlough his staff and take up growing vegetables. The couple share a 10-year-old son, who is the one thing that has kept his parents’ relationship together–until lockdown,” reads a line from the BBC Two movie’s description (via Variety).

McAvoy and Horgan’s characters “totally hate each other,” and they were able to manage this before the lockdown by staying physically distant. But the pandemic changed everything.

“It’s about how humans negotiate their shared experiences when they think they have nothing in common other than staying alive, and it’s about how you can hate what you love and love what you hate,” he said.

McAvoy said he’s a fan of Kelly’s writing, and after learning Horgan and Daldry were involved, he said it was a “no-brainer” to sign on. “It’s a hilarious, heartfelt, entertaining, and unconsciously funny exploration of a relationship and a couple facing real tragedy across a year we have all lived through,” he said.

Horgan said she wasn’t keen on doing a COVID drama until she read Kelly’s script. She also revealed that filming took place over 10 days, and she described the process as a “beautifully stressful experience.”

“It also felt like we were making something important. And the fact that it feels like news means that the COVID death toll, the tragedy of so many lives lost unnecessarily, has not been talked about enough,” Horgan said.

It was recently revealed that Phil Lord and Chris Miller are set to direct a pandemic movie, while comedy legend Judd Apatow is making a meta-movie about the pandemic and actors who get stuck in hotel quarantine.

The first image from Monsters at Work has been released. The series is a spin-off from the 2001 Pixar hit Monsters Inc and hits Disney+ on July 2.

The image has been revealed by IGN. It shows the group of all-new monsters who work on the Laugh Floor of Monsters, Incorporated. They are Tylor Tuskmon (Ben Feldman), Fritz (Henry Winkler), Val Little (Mindy Kaling), Cutter (Alanna Ubach), and Duncan (Lucas Neff). Check it out below:

In March, Disney released details about these new characters in a series of tweets. Monsters at Work will also see the return of Billy Crystal and John Goodman as Mike and Sully, the main characters from both Monsters Inc. and its sequel Monsters University.

Disney has also released an official synopsis for the show. It reads, “Monsters At Work takes place the day after the Monsters, Incorporated power plant started harvesting the laughter of children to fuel the city of Monstropolis, thanks to Mike and Sulley’s discovery that laughter generates ten times more energy than screams.

“It follows the story of Tylor Tuskmon, an eager young monster who graduated top of his class at Monsters University and always dreamed of becoming a Scarer until he lands a job at Monsters, Incorporated, and discovers that scaring is out and laughter is in. After Tylor is temporarily reassigned to the Monsters, Inc. Facilities Team (MIFT), he must work alongside a misfit bunch of mechanics while setting his sights on becoming a Jokester.”

Pixar’s latest movie is Luca, and that arrives on Disney+ in June. Check out the latest Luca trailer, and then read why some Pixar employees are reportedly not happy about the decision to send it straight to streaming.

The Kate McKinnon-led series about Carole Baskin and “Tiger King” Joe Exotic is changing its roll-out broadcast plans to now exclusively air on Peacock, according to The Hollywood Reporter. When the new show was first announced back in 2020, it originally had an unusual plan to hit three different NBCUniversal platforms: NBC (a broadcast network), Peacock (a streaming service), and USA (a basic cable network).

“Joe Exotic is shaping up to be a bold and provocative drama and perfectly suited for Peacock, where we can push the envelope and truly bring the story to life in a way that we would be unable to do on broadcast television,” said Susan Rovner, chairman of entertainment content at NBCUniversal Television and Streaming. “Moving Joe Exotic to Peacock exclusively is just one example of the strengths of our new structure, which gives us the ability to let the art dictate the platform and not the other way around.”

This announcement comes on the heels of NBCUniversal indicating it is considering pulling its movies from HBO Max and Netflix and have them live at Peacock instead, in a push to make it a streaming service destination with more exclusive content. That announcement itself continued a trend established with The Office leaving Netflix earlier this year and winding up on Peacock.

Even if NBCUniversal is changing its plans for its Tiger King show–which recently added John Cameron Mitchell (Shrill) in the titular role–with exclusivity in its mind, it will still have some competition. There’s currently also both a Joe Exotic documentary and an Amazon retelling of his story starring Nicolas Cage in the works.

Amazon Studios has announced that director Charlotte Brändström has come aboard the Lord of the Rings TV show to be part of the creative team for the fantasy program. Brändström will direct two episodes of the show.

The other Season 1 directors include JA Bayona (Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom) and Wayne Che Yip (Doctor Who). It remains to be seen if there will be other directors for the first season, which is currently filming in New Zealand.

Brändström was nominated for an International Emmy Award for the TV movie Julie, chevalier de Maupin. In addition to that series, she directed episodes of Amazon’s The Man in the High Castle, as well as Netflix’s The Witcher and Jupiter’s Legacy.

The showrunners for Amazon’s Lord of the Rings show are JD Payne and Patrick McKay. In a statement, Brändström said she feels privileged to be able to work on the show alongside the rest of the creative talent.

“I’m very excited to be guided through Middle-earth by JD’s and Patrick’s vision and immerse myself in the iconic world of J.R.R. Tolkien. It’s a great privilege to be in New Zealand to work with Amazon Studios’ outstanding ensemble of creative talents,” Brändström said.

“There are countless things still to see in Middle-earth, and great works to do,” she went on to say, quoting Gimli.

Amazon Studios boss Jennifer Salke recently responded to the reports of the supposed $465 million budget for The Lord of the Rings season 1. She said the number makes for an eye-catching headline, but people should know whatever the real number is, Amazon is using the budget for the entire series.

Amazon’s Lord of the Rings show is set in the Second Age, but we still don’t know anything about the story or characters. To date, Amazon has not released any footage for the show, nor do we know when it’s scheduled to release. It will be on Amazon Prime.

In other Lord of the Rings news, Amazon recently canceled its Lord of the Rings MMO due in part to a reported contract dispute. Additionally, new details have come to light about the Soviet Lord of the Rings TV movie.

The Lord of the Rings TV show description:

“Amazon Studios’ forthcoming series brings to screens for the very first time the heroic legends of the fabled Second Age of Middle-earth’s history. This epic drama is set thousands of years before the events of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Beginning in a time of relative peace, the series follows an ensemble cast of characters, both familiar and new, as they confront the long-feared re-emergence of evil to Middle-earth. From the darkest depths of the Misty Mountains, to the majestic forests of the elf-capital of Lindon, to the breathtaking island kingdom of Númenor, to the furthest reaches of the map, these kingdoms and characters will carve out legacies that live on long after they are gone.”

3D printers have revolutionized the way we produce materials. Across industries, these powerful printers have overhauled the production of components for everything from electronics to housing construction. Gamers are modding controllers with 3D-printed parts. Now, this incredible technology is changing the way children, or even adults, create and play at home.

The Toybox 3D printer is the world’s first 3D printer designed to be used by children. This printer puts the user in the driver’s seat of their creations, and the limits are only their imagination. Right now, you can pick up the Toybox 3D Deluxe Bundle for only $315, down from $469 (that’s a savings of 32%).

This bundle is perfect for any creatively minded child or young adult. Its durable case protects the device from damage, and its no-knife print retrieval keeps users’ hands safe. Included in the bundle is the Toybox 3D printer, a manual, and eight different colors of filament (printer food). The spools carry enough filament to make anywhere from 100-300 toys, dependent on size and complexity. Also, the filament is made from non-toxic, biodegradable plastic that is safe for homes and the environment.

The Toybox 3D printer is super easy to use and can be set up in just minutes. The companion app allows users to choose from an ever-expanding catalog of hundreds of toys that they can send to their printer over Wi-Fi. Or, users can draw their own schematics directly on the app to have printed up, bringing their imagination to life.

Users love the Toybox 3D printer for its ease of use and versatility. “The Quality of the prints is very good,” writes one customer. “The one thing which sets this apart from other units is that it has a library of toys ready to print and you can do it over WIFI instead of using a SD card.”

Let the creativity of the little ones in your life soar. Give them the gift of wonder, endless possibilities, and the bottomless toy chest found in the Toybox 3d Printer, on sale now for $315.

Prices subject to change.

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Now that Mayans MC Season 3 has come to an end on FX, it’s clear that the show has vastly evolved from its first two seasons. The connections to Sons of Anarchy, the show it’s spun off from, have been reined in. Instead, it now looks to its own characters for ways to explore their individual stories within the world of this outlaw motorcycle club on the border between the United States and Mexico. In doing so, Mayans MC was reborn–and for showrunner Elgin James, it’s finally the show he wanted to make.

Warning: The following contains spoilers for Season 3 of Mayans MC. If you haven’t finished the latest batch of episodes yet, you can check them out on FX on Hulu.

“This is the show that I actually pitched to [co-creator Kurt Sutter] and to the network and studio,” he told GameSpot. “When people would talk about how much they love the show [in the first two seasons], and even episodes I wrote, and I’d be like, ‘Oh, yeah, man, that wasn’t me,'” he admitted. “Like, not in a bad way, because I know I [co-]created these characters, you know? Kurt had the idea, created the characters, he created the world and he is just such a particular and special storyteller. So those are the stories we were telling, right? So when people were saying really nice things… even when I go on set with the actors, even when I direct, and they’d asked me something, I’d be like, ‘Oh, man, I don’t know.’ They’d be like, ‘But your name’s on it.’ And I was like, ‘I know, but I didn’t write it.’ And that’s just how a lot of TV is. That’s not us in particular, that’s just how a lot of television is.”

Now, though, after stepping in as the sole showrunner of the series, James and his cast and crew were able to make the show he’d been hoping to since day one.”With this season, as [star JD Pardo] always says, this was our first season,” he explained. “Not to discount the other seasons at all, it’s just this became the stories that we really wanted to tell.”

One of those stories centered on Coco’s (Richard Cabral) slide into heroin addiction and how it impacted everyone around him. For James, this was a story that demanded to be told. “These characters for nine seasons [between Sons of Anarchy and Mayans MC], I guess, have been selling heroin, and we’ve never seen the repercussions of that,” he explained. “We’d always talk about it in the writers’ room in the first two seasons.”

He continued, “Nevermind that the country has been torn apart by this opiate crisis now for so long. It hit New England, it hit New Hampshire and Massachusetts, South Boston over a decade ago. Where I grew up, that’s been something that’s been happening for a long time, even before it cut off to the rest of the country. And we’ve never shown repercussions. I think so many of us have family members and then there’s people attached to the show that have gone through their own journeys with opiates, so I felt it was so important to tell this story. Then even on a deeper level, it was just, again, about the repercussions of your actions.”

Beyond the clubs trafficking the drug, for Coco, in particular, those repercussions stem back to killing his own mother in Season 1. And while it may have taken until Season 3 for Coco to spiral downward, his struggles are far from over.

“He’s not healed. He survived, but Coco is not healed,” James said. “Where is he going to go from now? And how is he going to find the tools to keep it together [and] make his way back into the only world that’s ever really felt like home?”

Thankfully, fans will get the chance to see where Coco–and the rest of Mayans MC–goes from here. The series has already been renewed for Season 4. And with a creative rebirth like what’s seen in Season 3, there’s no telling what will happen next. Chances are it’s going to be bloody and violent, though.