Get your wallets ready because Amazon Prime Day 2021 is apparently coming up soon. Bloomberg reported that this year’s sales bonanza will take place June 21-22.
Last year’s Prime Day event took place in October due to the pandemic, but these rumored June dates are more in line with when the event took place in pre-pandemic times. Amazon already confirmed Prime Day 2021 would be held in June, and now Bloomberg has obtained what could be the actual specific dates for the sale period.
GameSpot sister site CNET reported that Amazon is likely to confirm the dates for Prime Day 2021 soon. The company is known to announce the dates for its annual Prime Day event about three weeks before it starts.
When Prime Day 2021’s details are confirmed, you can expect extended, in-depth coverage from GameSpot about the best deals around.
If history is any indication, you can expect deals to cover basically every segment of Amazon’s store, including items you might care about the most–video games and tech deals. Keep checking back with GameSpot for the latest on Prime Day sales. We’re also expecting other retailers to piggyback on the event with their own sale periods, so stay tuned for more information in the days and weeks ahead.
In other Amazon news, the company recently splashed out $8.45 billion to acquire MGM, the movie giant behind film franchises like James Bond and Tomb Raider.
Virtua Fighter 5 is making a comeback next month on PS4, in a new package that has completely remastered the original game using Yakuza studio Ryu ga Gotoku’s Dragon Engine. If you’re wondering what a 14-year glow-up looks like on a more modern console in comparison to the game’s 2007 release on Xbox 360 and PS3, you can watch a new trailer below that highlights the more detailed character models and stages.
These upgrades have been applied to all 19 fighters, arenas, and cinematics ahead of Virtua Fighter 5: Ultimate Showdown’s launch on June 1. Not everyone’s a fan of high-definition visuals though, and if you want to take the game all the way back to its arcade roots, there’s an option available for a 1990s graphics mode:
If this looks like your type of game but funds are a bit tight currently, the good news is that Virtua Fighter 5’s upgraded edition will make its day one debut on PlayStation Plus and will also be available through PlayStation Now. As a PS4 game, it’s presumed that it’ll be fully backward compatible with the PS5 console as well.
“This project started as a part of Sega’s 60th Anniversary Celebration; it was made as a gift for our community,” chief producer Seiji Aoki explained to GameSpot just before the game was revealed. “We want as many people to play it as possible. Launching on both PlayStation Plus and PlayStation Now allows us to offer the definitive Virtua Fighter experience as an essentially ‘free’ game for millions of players around the world, many of whom may just be trying out the series for the first time!”
Nintendo is taking two of its top competitive titles back to school, announcing a partnership with amateur esports organizer PlayVS to bring Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and Splatoon 2 to the high school and college level.
The deal will add Smash Bros. and Splatoon to PlayVS’s growing list of offered esports titles–which already includes EA’s Madden and FIFA franchises, Riot’s League of Legends, and Psyonix’s Rocket League–for the Fall 2021 competitive season. A third Nintendo title, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, will begin competition in Spring 2022.
Qualifying schools will be sent a Nintendo Switch system, as well as the game they register to play and a 12-month Nintendo Switch Online individual membership. According to the official release, schools can “check with their respective state athletic associations to see which games will be available for their state leagues this fall,” and coaches interested in joining the leagues can apply for the waitlist here.
“Partnering with Nintendo and offering our players a selection of titles from its legendary roster of games is something I’ve wanted to do since I started PlayVS,” Delane Parnell, founder and CEO of PlayVS, said in the official release. “This partnership ensures that high school students now have an official path to competitive play for these immensely popular games.”
PlayVS is the only scholastic competitive gameplay platform that qualifies as sanctioned high school athletics in the U.S. and Canada. The organization runs competitive seasons in both fall and spring, with over $600K in scholarships being awarded to the winners this year alone.
The new trailer for Jungle Cruise is here. The movie stars Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt, and it hits theaters and Disney+ Premier Access on July 30.
Johnson plays a riverboat captain named Frank, who specialises in tourist cruises up the Amazon and is hired by an adventurer named Lily (Blunt) to embark on a dangerous mission. As Frank says, “everything you see wants to kill you,” leading to encounters with tigers, murderous cults, weird creatures, and a torpedo-launching submarine captain. It looks like CG-laden mix of Indiana Jones and Pirates of the Caribbean–check the trailer below:
Jungle Cruise also stars Jack Whitehall (Good Omens), Édgar Ramírez (Bright), Jesse Plemons (Game Night), and Paul Giamatti (The Amazing Spider-Man 2). It’s directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, who previously helmed the shark thriller The Shallows.
The movie was originally set for release in July 2020, but was pushed back an entire year. In May, it was announced that Jungle Cruise will hit Disney+ on the same day as theaters. It’s a Premier Access title, which means Disney+ subscribers will have to pay to add it to their accounts. Previous releases such as Mulan and Raya and the Last Dragon have cost an extra $30.
C. Robert Cargill, who co-wrote the script for the first Doctor Strange film, has expanded on the reason why Scott Derrickson and Marvel split for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.
Speaking to CinemaBlend about his new book Day Zero, Cargill addressed the root cause of Derrickon’s decision to step down from directing the Doctor Strange sequel. Cargill explained that Derrickson and Marvel had very different ideas for the movie and Derrickson ultimately didn’t want to compromise his vision to helm that movie in lieu of directing the big-screen adaptation of Joe Hill’s The Black Phone.
“It was creative differences,” Cargill confirmed before elaborating further on why they didn’t creatively align. “[Scott Derrickson] wanted to do one movie, and Marvel wanted to do another movie. So he sat there and said, ‘Well s***, I’ve got this great script that I wrote with Cargill, and I’m really proud of.’ We were actually going to go out to other directors for The Black Phone.
“Scott called me up and said, ‘Dude, I have to make this movie. It’s gotta be my movie, I have to do this. Do you mind waiting until after I’m done with [Doctor Strange 2], and he really wanted to bring me onto Strange as well. But in the event that it didn’t happen, he was like, ‘Do you mind waiting?’ And I was like, ‘You know what, if you feel this passionately about it, no. I’ll wait a couple years to make this movie.'”
While Cargill was willing to wait for Derrickson to join him on The Black Phone adaptation, Derrickson decided to depart Doctor Strange 2 because he and Marvel couldn’t reach an agreement on the direction that the movie should take. Cargill noted that it wasn’t an easy decision for Derrickson, but it did help that he had a project he could refocus his energy on.
“Scott’s like, ‘Well, I can make this movie that I’m compromising what I wanted to do on, or I could make The Black Phone,'” Cargill explained. “It was, as he said publically, it was a hard choice to leave Strange behind; but it made it easier that he had a movie that he was looking forward to. And then the experience was just so great that we’re just are so proud and happy with what we made.”
Derrickson, who directed the first Doctor Strange movie in 2016, issued a joint statement with Marvel Studios in January of last year to announce his “amicable” departure from Doctor Strange 2. By April, Sam Raimi had confirmed he was taking over as the director of the sequel. Derrickson praised his successor, referring to Raimi as “one of the nicest people” he’s known in the business.
The Doctor Strange sequel is scheduled to be released on March 25, 2022, but there’s a lot of MCU to come before that. After the credits rolled on WandaVision and Falcon and the Winter Soldier, many have turned their attention to Loki, which is the next Marvel Studios project to hit Disney Plus. There’s also Black Widow, Shang-Chi, What If…?, Eternals, and Spider-Man: No Way Home starring Tom Holland.
The Fast and the Furious Netflix spin-off Spy Racers is getting its own game, and it looks like a cross between a traditional auto racer and wacky kart combat. Fast & Furious Spy Racers: Rise of Shifter is coming to PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch this November.
The debut trailer shows the kinds of shiny chrome and roaring engines you’d expect from Fast & Furious. But then about midway through, the cars start tossing paintballs and spawning hex shields and it becomes clear that this isn’t a straight-faced take on the racing genre.
That’s probably because while the Fast and the Furious franchise is made for older teens and adults, the Spy Racers show on Netflix is targeted squarely at kids. It stars Dom’s younger cousin, Tony Toretto, as he leads a crew of youths on globe-trotting missions to stop a crime organization called “SH1FT3R” with plans for global domination. It’s had four seasons so far, but given the title, it seems this game will be a prequel.
The only other Fast & Furious game, Crossroads, was notoriously panned by critics. But this is a totally new studio so it may well turn out very differently. Meanwhile, in the main franchise, Fast & Furious 9 is coming to theaters in June, and according to GameSpot’s F9 review, it’s the perfect way to return to the movie theater.
The NPD Group has released its latest monthly sales report, detailing the best-selling games and hardware for April 2021 in the US, as well as providing a snapshot of the overall health of the North American games industry.
Total spending on games in the US–across hardware, content, and accessories–declined 2% to $4.6 billion in April, though spending year-to-date in 2021 jumped by 21% to $19.6 billion.
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The Nintendo Switch was the top-selling home console in the US during April 2021, both for units and dollar sales. Total spending on hardware, however, fell 30% to $296 million compared to April 2020. Year-to-date sales for hardware is up 42% to $1.7 billion.
Moving to game sales, Sony’s MLB The Show 21 was the best-selling game of April 2021 and is now the third best-selling game overall in 2021 so far. The game had a particularly strong showing, setting a new record for highest first-month dollar sales in franchise history. That makes sense given the game launched on Xbox this year for the first time ever.
MLB The Show 21 was the top-selling game on PlayStation during April, while it ranked second on Xbox–though digital sales on Xbox are not counted by NPD. MLB The Show 21 launched on Xbox into the Game Pass library, and its strong sales seem to tally with the claim from Microsoft that Game Pass may not materially harm outright game sales.
Another notable new release in April was New Pokemon Snap, which was the top-seller on Switch during April and the third best-selling game overall of the month. Its first-month physical sales were more than double what the original Pokemon Snap achieved in July 1999.
You can see the full list of the 20 best-selling games in the US for April 2021 below.
In terms of accessories, the PS5 DualSense controller was the number one overall best-seller in terms of dollar sales for April 2021 and 2021 overall so far. Total spending on accessories, however, fell 23% year-over-year to $168 million. Year-to-date spending on accessories rose by 22% to $885 million.
The year-over-year declines for hardware, games, and accessories may be attributable to the fact that April 2020 was so strong due to the COVID-19 lockdowns that kept people at home and playing games. The massive results were always going to be difficult to compare against.
Top 20 Best-Selling Games In The US For April 2021 All Platforms
Ghostrunner will add a roguelike-inspired Wave Mode and a more accessible Assist Mode in a free upcoming update later this summer.
The cyberpunk first-person action game has been gradually adding modes since release in October, but Wave Mode promises to be the most outlandish yet, turning the high-speed katana action into a roguelike structure. Wave Mode tasks players with beating 20 waves of increasingly difficult enemies, while being rewarded with randomly-chosen upgrades between each wave.
Of course, Ghostrunner is already a pretty tough experience at the best of times, and the developers make clear that dying doesn’t send you back to the start of Wave Mode – just back to the start of the last wave. Beat all 20 waves and you’ll unlock a brand new sword. You can apply to play a closed beta of the mode right now.
Alongside Wave Mode comes Assist Mode, which aims to offer a slightly easier experience for those who don’t want the stress of Ghostrunner’s normal one-hit-death experience and just want to see the story. Assist Mode offers your character armour, which can absorb a number of hits before sending you to your death.
We awarded the base version of Ghostrunner an 8/10 review, saying that its “lightning-fast gameplay makes for a short-lived but memorable action game with some incredible moments.” If you’re waiting for more Ghostrunner, the developers have teased to IGN that hints about what’s to come in Ghostrunner 2 will be coming later today as part of an Epic stream.
Joe Skrebels is IGN’s Executive Editor of News. Follow him on Twitter. Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to [email protected].
While the signature attractions of Nintendo’s Labo kits were the DIY peripherals you had to fashion out of cardboard, the most intriguing aspect of the software was the Toy-Con Garage. This ancillary mode let you tinker with the programming underpinning each mini-game and even allowed you to create small games of your own. Although Nintendo appears to have quietly retired the Labo line, the company is expanding the Toy-Con Garage into a standalone title called Game Builder Garage. We recently had a chance to see more of the game ahead of its release next month via a virtual preview event, and it looks to be a fairly flexible game creation tool.
Like the aforementioned Toy-Con Garage mode, Game Builder Garage allows you to “program” your own games by stringing together various input and output nodes. These nodes are personified as colorful, quirky characters called Nodon, and each type corresponds to a different aspect of the game; one Nodon represents the B button, for instance, while another controls the timer. By stringing these Nodon together, you can program different elements of your game. Connect a Stick Nodon to a Person Nodon, for example, and the character will walk around when the control stick is tilted.
Whereas the Toy-Con Garage was a freeform side mode, Game Builder Garage includes guided lessons designed by Nintendo’s developers that illustrate what each Nodon does and how to string them together. These lessons effectively serve as Game Builder Garage’s “story” mode. Each is broken into bite-sized, step-by-step tutorials led by a blue dot named Bob, and they’ll ultimately teach you how to create one of the seven pre-made games included in the software.
Nintendo demonstrated the creation process with Alien Blaster, one of the seven aforementioned games. In this mini shoot-’em-up, you must guide a UFO through an autoscrolling course, blasting as many aliens as you can along the way. Each step of this lesson demonstrates how to put together a different aspect of the game; the portion we witnessed taught how to manually program the stage to autoscroll. According to Nintendo, you won’t be able to deviate from these lessons; you’ll need to follow the instructions exactly as they’re presented to complete the lessons, but you’ll have a chance to add your own spin to the games elsewhere in the software.
The aim of the guided lessons is ultimately to inspire you to take the knowledge you learned and employ it in the game’s Free Programming mode. As its name suggests, this mode gives you free rein to program your own creations. Not only can you experiment with programming, but you can also customize other aspects of the game, such as the instrumentation and tempo of the background music. However, you’ll largely rely on a pool of pre-made assets for the games you create, which makes Game Builder Garage more limited than something like, say, PS4’s Dreams. Even so, the software still offers an impressive degree of flexibility and freedom in the kinds of small creations you can make. You can even use the software to create things beyond traditional games; the Nintendo rep brought up an idea to program a digital rattle that will make noise when you shake the Switch Joy-Con.
Alien Blaster, one of seven games you learn to make in Game Builder Garage
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After your creation is complete, you’ll be able to share it with other players either locally or by uploading them online, which will generate a code. To take advantage of the latter, however, you’ll need to have a Nintendo Switch Online subscription, and unlike Super Mario Maker 2, there won’t be an in-game hub (a la Course World) where you can browse all the games other players have uploaded; you’ll need to know a code beforehand to be able to download it. Nintendo says this makes sharing creations feel more personal and encourages players to spread fun games they’ve tried by word of mouth. Not only can you play the games you’ve received from other players, but you can also look at and tinker with their programming, letting you see how the game was created and even add your own twist to them.
While we’ve only gotten a glimpse of Game Builder Garage, we’re eager to try our hand at making our own games with it. Game Builder Garage releases for Nintendo Switch on June 11. The title retails for $30 and is available for preorder on the eShop and at various other retailers.
The Entertainment Software Association has announced 15 more companies that will participate in the all-digital E3 2021 event that’s coming up next month.
The 15 additional companies include Razer, Intellivision, Yooreka Studio, Tastemakers, NetEase, 24 Entertainment, Norton Gaming, GuliKit, and SK Telecom. Six independent game developers have also been added to the list of participants, including Burgos Games, Dreamteck, Ghost Street Games, Hooded Horse, The Sixth Hammer, New Blood Interactive.
These 15 new participants join a list of previously announced companies like Nintendo, Xbox, Capcom, Ubisoft, Take-Two, Warner Bros., Square Enix, Sega, Bandai Namco, and Gearbox.
In other E3 news, it was recently reported that Nintendo will announce a new 4K Nintendo Switch model ahead of the show next month and phase out the existing system.
