How will the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X affect the sales of the Nintendo Switch when they launch in Holiday 2020? According to Nintendo, not that much, actually.
This is what Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa said during the Japanese Q&A section (translated by VGC) of the investors meeting the company held last week.
“We will explain the specific figures for the next fiscal year in our next fiscal year announcement, but I think there will certainly be a change in the environment as new products of our competitors appear,” Furukawa said.
He then explained the reason for this thinking is that there isn’t much audience crossover between those two next-gen consoles and the Nintendo Switch, saying “we do not believe that the business trends of other companies will have a significant impact on our business.”
In another response, Furukawa said that the Nintendo Switch is about halfway through its life cycle. As the Switch was released in March 2017, what Furukawa says here could indicate that Nintendo don’t plan on releasing a new console until 2023.
Considering that the Switch has now reached over 50 million sales, surpassing the Super Nintendo’s lifetime sales, there’s plenty of reason for Nintendo to be confident in its latest console.
The winners of the 2020 British Academy of Film and Television Awards have been announced, with 1917 coming out on top with seven wins.
1917, a World War I epic chronicling the harrowing journey of two young British soldiers sent on a high-stakes mission, directed by Sam Mendes and starring Dean-Charles Chapman, George MacKay and Daniel Mays, won Outstanding British Film, along with Best Film, Director, Cinematography, Production Design, Sound and Special Visual Effects.
Meanwhile, Joker picked up three awards including Best Original Score, Casting and Leading Actor for Joaquin Phoenix, while Renée Zellweger picked up the Leading Actress gong for her portrayal as Judy Garland in the namesake biopic. Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite won two prizes in total, one for Original Screenplay and another for Film not in the English Language.
A full list of the BAFTA Film Award 2020 winners can be found below…
Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto has explained why he wanted to make another movie based on Nintendo’s most famous mascot. He also revealed that he wants Nintendo to turn more of its games into movies.
Nintendo held an investor’s meeting last week, in which it confirmed that the Super Mario Bros. movie being made in collaboration with animation studio Illumination, is still on track to be released in 2022.
However, the Japanese version of Nintendo’s Q&A session during the investor’s meeting has now been released. Siliconera translated Miyamoto’s response to a question asking about how Nintendo approaches bringing the Mario IP to different mediums, such as smartphones, theme parks, and movies.
“We do not do something like separating our IP development strategy depending on the touchpoint,” Miyamoto said. “For example, regarding IP development into movies, I was originally against Nintendo expanding into video-making, but am currently involved personally in using our company’s IP in film production; and the background behind this change is because Nintendo has re-released many games via Virtual Console.”
Virtual Console is a service Nintendo provides for the Wii, Wii U, and 3DS that makes older games playable on newer hardware. It was not brought across to the Nintendo Switch but some NES and SNES games are still playable with a Switch Online subscription.
Miyamoto goes on to explain that Nintendo’s games are its biggest assets, so it’s important to port older games to newer hardware, hence it’s something he’s still actively involved in. But after doing this process several times, he thought it’d be a good idea to give those games more longevity by turning them into movies.
“Basically, it’s not that ‘I want to make a Mario movie’, but that I began to consider that ‘we should bring more Nintendo content into the field of video-making’,” he explained. “With films, the amount of people who would contact our IP would widen, and increase the amount of people engaging with our IP. Then, we’d be able to further increase the spread of our media via video.”
Hopefully this new Mario movie will be much better than the poorly received live-action Super Mario Bros. film released back in 1993. It will have to be good if it wants to compete with the Sonic the Hedgehog movie, which is predicted to have a big opening week when it comes out later this month.
DICE recently gave an overview of the new Battlefield 5 update, Into the Jungle. Now as the day approaches, the studio has given more detailed patch notes. The 6.0 update will be available to download starting on February 4 (exact times for PS4, Xbox One, and PC below), but the new content will go live on Thursday,February 6. It adds a new map, several new weapons, and a new elite commander.
As previously detailed, the new map is the jungle of Solomon Islands. It’s full of choke points, connected by a river that runs the entire length of the map. It will also add the Type-11 LMB, Model 37 Shotgun, and M2 Carbine, along with the M1A1 Bazooka and Lunge Mine. Those will unlock through the Chapter Rank rewards, and if you hit Rank 40 you’ll also get the Elite commander Misaki Yamashiro.
Two more elites, Steve Fisher and Akira Sakamoto, are coming later in the chapter. The studio teased that “many more” changes and fixes are coming in update 6.2, which will include a big change to weapon balance. We also know that tank customization, a long-requested feature, is finally on the way.
Battlefield 5 – 6.0 Update Availability
PC: 1 AM PT / 4 AM ET / 9 AM GMT / 10 AM CET
PS4: 2 AM PT / 5 AM ET / 10 AM GMT / 11 AM CET
Xbox: 3 AM PT / 6 AM ET / 11 AM GMT / 12 PM CET
You can check out the patch notes below, but take note that these are not yet fully comprehensive.
Battlefield 5 – 6.0 Patch Notes
What’s New?
New Map: Solomon Islands, available on Conquest, Breakthrough, Squad Conquest, and Team Deathmatch
New Weapons: Type 11 LMG, Model 37, M2 Carbine (available via Chapter Rank Rewards)
New Gadgets: Lunge Mine, M1A1 Bazooka, (available via Chapter Rank Rewards)
Vehicles
Removed the impact of track disable on initial acceleration. This allows for tanks with disabled tracks to escape; however, medium and high speed performance are still heavily impacted.
Increased the critical angle from 10 to 20 degrees to better match the visual feedback of having a good angle on an opponent. It was too difficult to tell if you were going to get a critical hit, this increases the margin.
Increased the range of the AA and AT HMGs to match the coax.
Fixed Panzer 4 AT round only having 4 shells.
Maps and modes
Mercury – Players spawning on tanks will no longer unintentionally end up on foot.
Operation Underground – Fixed a rare bug that could stop the attacking team from spawning on Breakthrough.
Outpost – The player no longer remains stuck if the tower is destroyed while the player plants it.
Wake Island – Decreased the number of tanks to improve map balance on Breakthrough.
Wake Island – Players will now be able to deploy even if their squad gets wiped during the last sector on Breakthrough, while playing as the US.
Weapons & Gadgets
Grease gun – We’ve made some subtle tweaks to the Suppressor audio to better separate it from the experience when firing the weapon unsuppressed.
AP Mine – Fixed an issue that was causing the AP mine to not do damage to infantry in Firestorm.
Weapon Balance
The following changes have been applied to the bolt action rifles muzzle velocity on the Recon class:
We’ll be performing a more substantive pass on our Weapon Balance in our next update for Assault, Medic, and Support. Thank you for all of your feedback on this topic.
UI & Others
Spotted enemies are no longer represented as arrows on the minimap and do not show the direction (they’re now back to diamond shapes).
An option to modify the strength of snap zoom has been added for players on Console.
Fixed a bug that was causing the “Vehicle Buster” combat role to not unlock for some players.
Fixed a bug that would show the Deploy screen visible on squad screen after leaving pre-round.
Fixed the incorrect wording in the Type 2A Mastery IV assignment.
The 1.4.1 hotfix patch for Total War: Three Kingdoms is now live. The latest update fixes numerous issues, makes some important adjustments, and rebalances unit costs in multiplayer.
Among the bug fixes, Cao Song has been giving a personality change so that he’s no longer identified as an Incompetent Leader (good for him). An issue where generals and heroes were not spawning at full strength has also been fixed, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei will no longer spawn twice in Liu Bei’s campaign, and Guo Jia’s spawning age has been corrected. Crashes are now less likely to happen in existing save games for the new court feature, too, but it’s still recommended that players start a new campaign.
Particular attention has also been paid to Liu Hong’s campaign, including fixing a bug that reduced fervour rather than increasing it when the Tax Collector building was constructed, reducing the starting strength of the Imperial Army, and helping to rebalance the amount of money available in the campaign by unlocking trade agreements at half the previous rate, among others.
1.4.1 hotfix full patch notes:
General
Factions can now only Request Aid from their court once per turn
Changed Cao Song’s personality so he no longer identified as an Incompetent Leader
Fixed a bug where Guan Yu and Zhang Fei could spawn twice in Liu Bei’s campaign
Fixed issues around Guan Yu and Zhang Fei spawning when Liu Bei’s army is on rivers
The new court added into the game for when the player became an Emperor was causing some crashes in existing save games, these crashes are now less likely to happen, but we still recommend players start a new campaign
Preventing armies that spawn for a mission in Liu Bei’s campaign immediately running away, thus making it difficult to complete the mission. We have now made these armies more aggressive and less likely to run away
Xiahou Dun’s portrait, which inaccurately shows him with an eye missing, has been fixed to show the two eyes he definitely still had during this period
Corrected the Chosen of the Eight Immortals description which was showing some incorrect descriptions
Corrected Guo Jia’s spawning age, and made changes to prevent Sun Ren spawning as a middle-aged woman instead of a baby
Zhang Jue had maxed out his abilities, so we have given him some new skills that give him bonuses rather than new abilities
Fixed a very convenient bug that allowed players to use Deployables beyond the deployment zone
The annex settlement option no longer appears for Emperors who aren’t Liu Hong
Changed Lü Bu event so he gets the Red Hare ancillary after joining your faction
Have fixed an issue where generals and heroes were not spawning at full strength
Liu Hong’s Campaign
We’ve paid particular attention to Liu Hong’s campaign and made some important adjustments:
Fixed a bug that reduced fervour rather than increased it when the Tax Collector building was constructed
Moved He Yi to a safer spawning location, as he was dying on us a little too soon
Fixed issue where subjects of empires were incorrectly showing some income sources. This was just a display issue and not affecting their economy
Made changes that mean when playing as Liu Hong the player cannot leave the war to other members of the empire, as the AI has now been modified so that you are less likely to win the war if you do nothing
To reduce the starting strength of the Imperial Army, the army units now start at half strength
To help rebalance the amount of money available in this campaign, we have employed a fix that means trade agreements are unlocked at half the previous rate
Reduced starting number of assignments available to Liu Hong
Increased the release/banish cost from 25 to 80 influence and the first mission reward has been increased from 25 influence to 80 to partly compensate for this
Rebalancing Unit Costs In Multiplayer
We’ve made some changes to the cost of different units in multiplayer to keep things a little more balanced. All these changes are listed below:
Chen Peacekeepers: +75
Imperial Household Cavalry: +345
Jiazi Raiders: +70
Messengers of Heaven: +20
Mounted Sabre Defectors: -45
Destroyer of Traitors: -55
Imperial Lancer Cavalry: +260
Mounted Lancer Defectors: +30
Righteous Vanguards: +10
Tyrant Slayers: +20
Bringers of Peace: +150
Chosen of the Eight Immortals: +200
Exemplars of the Tao: +70
Huanglao’s Paragons: +75
Imperial Guard Captain: +765
Imperial Sword Guard: +765
Peasant Volunteers: +118
Redeemed Outlaws: +27
Sabre Defectors: +40
Archer Defectors: +45
Archer Gang: +50
Chen Royal Guard: +210
Imperial Palace Cavalry: +360
Imperial Palace Crossbowmen: +370
Poachers: -40
Qiang Archers: -20
Territorial Archer: +15
The Land’s Chosen: -90
Yaoguai Hunters: +95
Ascetics of The Way: +95
Defenders of the Empire: +75
Fervent Defenders: +35
Gallants of the People: +105
Imperial Gate Guards: +280
Ji Defectors: +75
Qiang Polearms: +100
Spearmen Gang: +80
Stalwart Shields : -110
Territorial Spearmen: +115
Zealots of the Way: +60
Future Fixes
We’ve been keeping a close eye on the various threads and reports from the community about issues and quirks with the 1.4.0 patch, and some of the issues are taking a little longer to resolve than anticipated. A few standout issues that we’ll be getting to grips with in the future include:
Emperors being able to invite other emperors into their empire
Broken Achievements for completing Liu Chong’s Trophy collection and Lu Zhi’s great Library
Issues with AI siege behaviour on multiplayer campaign
iPads come in a wide range of sizes, but many people prefer the more compact form factor of the iPad Mini. If that’s you, you’re in luck: today Amazon has all configurations of the iPad Mini on sale for their lowest prices ever. Of all the iPads on the market, the price of the Mini has been the least likely to budge since it launced. So if you’ve had your eye on Apple’s tiniest tablet, now’s a great time to buy.
All of these iPad Minis are the newest model from 2019. They sport a 7.9-inch Retina display with True Tone to match color temperature of the light around you. In fact, the resolution is the same as the 9.7-inch iPad, which means each pixel is ultra-small and densely packed into the display, making images look incredibly sharp.
These Minis are powered by the beastly A12 Bionic chip. They have TouchID and high megapixel cameras in front and back. They’re even compatible with Apple Pencil, which makes them great for things like making art, marking up documents, or taking notes by hand. This is a great iPad for students, artists, or anyone who doesn’t want a bulky tablet.
The biggest selling point of these newest iPad Minis, though, is that they’re full-featured, full-power iPads in a small size with zero compromises compared to their larger siblings. They’re super portable and light enough to hold with one hand, just like a Kindle. All previous iPad Minis had older chips or outdated displays. This one, however, is the real deal.
As if finding the lowest-ever price on iPad Mini isn’t enough, many of its accessories are also on sale right now. You can save $10 off the Apple Pencil, so you can get to jotting or drawing things on that display. Or, you can grab a terrific deal on all of the latest models of AirPods, Apple’s extremely popular wireless earbuds.
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Chris Reed is IGN’s shopping and commerce editor. You can follow him on Twitter @_chrislreed.
Last week Halo Infinite developer 343 Industries released a recruitment video that had eagle-eyed fans pouring over for clues regarding the anticipated sequel. The video featured some off-screen footage of the what is presumably Halo Infinite, but didn’t seem to initially be noteworthy.
That is, at least until some fans cross-referenced the footage with a screenshot of Halo Infinite that leaked almost a month ago. The screenshot in question was notable because of a single UI icon it featured, suggesting that Master Chief would have a grappling hook to navigate the new open-world that Infinite is introducing. Fans speculated on ResetEra that the UI in 343’s new recruitment video matched that of the leak, lending it credibility.
343 Industries’ franchise development director Frank O’Connor was following the speculation, even going as far to cheekily link to a now infamous Halo 4 leak when responding to a question over why Halo leaks always have terrible quality. Addressing the speculation directly, however, O’Connor replied on Twitter, saying that 343 combs through all footage that they put out, and that no gameplay footage in the recruitment video is of any importance.
You know we scrub these for accidental leaks right? (Thanks for nothing 4k!) gray box/forge thing you’re looking at doesn’t show anything meaningful and isn’t even necessarily content from Infinite. Sometimes they’re just test environments or cut outs of H5 prototyping work… pic.twitter.com/uVS2LTwO34
Most of this speculation is down to 343 Industries having kept very tight-lipped about the gameplay aspects of Halo Infinite, which is expected to change the standard Halo formula. Only a short in-game cinematic was shown at E3 2019, leaving many unanswered questions ahead of Infinite’s 2020 launch date for both Xbox One and Xbox Series X.
Did you catch that just a couple of weeks ago, Valve came out and said that in no uncertain terms that there will absolutely not be a Left 4 Dead 3 anytime soon? Well, what’s terrible news for many is awesome for Zombie Army 4: Dead War, which couldn’t have hoped for better timing. It’s here to follow in those four-player co-op footsteps – except its zombies are also Nazis, and sometimes when you kill them you get a super-gross slow-mo kill. It definitely scratches the itch, though the handful of new ideas it injects don’t really reinvigorate the genre that Bill, Coach, Zoey, and Francis built.
It may feel overall familiar, but Zombie Army 4 does manage to separate itself from the already sizable horde of cooperative zombie shooters in a few enjoyable ways. For starters, the story is delightfully absurd, with occult forces bringing the Nazi army back from the dead, seemingly from the literal bowels of Hell. Its roughly eight-hour campaign ends with a ridiculous and surprising final confrontation that is worth seeing unspoiled. A simplified Horde mode exists as well, if you just want to stick to one location and see how many waves you can take on while experimenting with different weapons. I prefer the variety and forward momentum of playing the full campaign, but Horde offers plenty of opportunity for intense shootouts and last-second victories.
The alternate-WW2 setting is disgusting and full of gore, but in a creative way where I was eager to see what I would be fighting next. I enjoyed confronting powerful enemies like flamethrower zombies with explosive gas tanks on their backs, zombie Nazi generals whose hearts must be removed in order to prevent them from spawning more enemies, and bosses like tanks that reveal giant ribcages when their armored sides are blown off. And it’s made all the more exciting by an excellent soundtrack that feels like it comes straight out of the 1985 George A. Romero zombie film classic, Day of the Dead – my only complaint about the music being I wish it were mixed louder and piped in more often.
[poilib element=”quoteBox” parameters=”excerpt=There’s%20a%20layer%20of%20strategic%20dismemberment%20to%20the%20mindless%20slaughter.”]There’s a little more to it than running and gunning because the way you shoot zombies encourages you to confront the walking dead in a more nuanced way: Getting a certain number of kills unlocks special abilities, like overpowered sniper shots or hyper-fast shotgun reloading, but you also get a chance to recover health by pulling off up-close kills. Killing a certain number of zombies from a distance to earn the right to run in and recover some health adds a layer of strategic dismemberment to the mindless slaughter.
On top of that, there’s clearly some Doom inspiration here that helps keep the action moving, with certain zombies offering up ammo, grenades, or health packs if you stomp them after they’ve been defeated. This led to some great moments where I recovered from being cornered by taking out a huge wave, healed myself with up-close fatalities, and then stomped enemies on the ground to recover ammo before rushing toward the next objective. Where it had seemed like I was done for just moments earlier, I found myself maxed out and ready for whatever came next without so much as an ammo cache pitstop.
The layouts of Zombie Army 4’s eight levels (and the smaller, final confrontation) are designed well and do a good job of contextualizing why you need to make it from point A to point B beyond basic survival. Sometimes you’re exploring an abandoned zoo, other times you’re getting fuel for a boat so it can make its way down a canal, or you’re gathering up pieces of a bomb to combine at the end of the stage. The levels don’t look radically different, but they all have interesting layouts that are fun to explore and are creepy and unsettling in their own way. The objectives are simple enough where you and your friends will never be confused about what to do next, but interesting and varied enough that it doesn’t quite feel like you’re always doing the same thing. There are never moments where co-op play is required – you could easily play through solo if that’s how you roll – but the more players join the action the higher the difficulty automatically scales and the more important teamwork becomes.
[poilib element=”quoteBox” parameters=”excerpt=You%20could%20easily%20play%20through%20solo%20if%20that%E2%80%99s%20how%20you%20roll.”]I like the mad sprint to complete those kinds of objectives, but was less excited about the areas where you have to hold your ground for a certain period of time. These defensive scenarios aren’t all that common, but oddly Zombie Army 4 is constantly offering you landmines and electric tripwires that aren’t all that useful when you’re on the run instead of preparing for an onslaught. And even during holdout objectives when you have time to lay out traps, they’re all pretty much gone after the first wave and it’s back to standard shooting anyway.
The upgrade system is also rewarding – up to a certain point. The persistent character progression lets you level up across the board, so whether you’re in Horde mode, playing the campaign alone, or with friends, you can add new abilities like better defense or faster landmine placing, among others. There aren’t enough options to allow you and your friends to branch off and occupy classes with wildly different and synergistic abilities, but growing your abilities level to level is still worthwhile.
[poilib element=”quoteBox” parameters=”excerpt=Why%20would%20I%20use%20a%20machine%20gun%20when%20my%20shotgun%20electrocutes%20zombies%3F”]The gun upgrade system, however, is initially exciting but can hit a wall. The Trench Gun is a personal favorite: by the end of the campaign I had sped up my reloading, boosted damage output, and added bonus electricity damage. I added similar upgrades to my sniper rifle, but after awhile I ended up with a load of gun upgrades for weapons I had no intention of using. Why would I take two steps backward and start using a machine gun when my shotgun electrocutes zombies? Because there aren’t any classes, I didn’t feel a reason to return to square one and change things up.
It’s a nice touch, though, that when you die you turn into a zombie and watch, with no control, as your character ambles into the crowd and becomes another obstacle for your friends to overcome. Once they kill you, you can respawn (as long as they don’t die before then), so it works as a fun handicap to prevent instant respawning – and let’s face it, it’s also fun to kill the zombie versions of your friends.
On the technical side, I didn’t run into any connection issues, but I did have some general bugs. On more than one occasion I ran into a scenario where zombies were arriving endlessly, even though the goal had been completed, forcing us to restart. I also had a couple of times where big black bars would appear, obscuring my view of ammo reserves and when my special abilities would be available. It was pretty annoying.
Netflix has been around for decades as the company was formed in 1997–let that sink in for a minute. While originally the service delivered DVDs directly to your home, it’s now become the most popular streaming service.
In 2007, Netflix debuted its streaming side of the company, originally titled “Watch Now.” This would become the future of the service and the aspect of it that people would fall in love with. Since the streaming element of Netflix has been around for over a decade, most people have probably completely forgotten what they first watched when “Watch Now” debuted. Luckily, the Netflix Twitter account reminded us how to check that all out.
Find out what the first thing you *ever* watched on Netflix was in 4 easy steps: 1) Log in on desktop 2) Click “account” in the dropdown list 3) Scroll down to “viewing activity” 4) Either scroll down your list forever or just hit “download all”
So what’s the first thing you watched on Netflix? I’ve been a subscriber back from the DVD-only days, where I’d get three movies at once, watch them all in one night, then send them all back. I had a lot of free time during college, and I watched a lot of weird movies. Right around that time is when streaming came along as well.
After downloading all my info, I found I have–to this date–streamed 6,169 (nice) items, and the first thing I ever streamed on Netflix, back in 2008, was the movie Street Fighter Alpha. That’s something I never would have guessed. The second item was the 1973 movie Westworld, followed by a lot of 30 Rock episodes and Troma movies I’m too embarrassed to discuss.
It’s fun to look back and see your first dip into the streaming pool. Now, we don’t even think twice about what the first thing we streamed on a specific service because there are multiple ones, and they are a normal part of life. So, I ask you. What’s the first thing you streamed on Netflix? Let us know.
Disclosure: ViacomCBS is GameSpot’s parent company.
When Dark Souls II was shown off at E3 2013, one of the main takeaways from the trailer was its impressive lighting system. Dark areas were intended to be a major component of Dark Souls II’s gameplay, forcing players to equip a torch just to be able to navigate through their pitch-black passages.
The graphics engine was designed with the then next-gen PlayStation 4 and Xbox One consoles in mind, but when Dark Souls II was released on PS3 and Xbox 360 back in 2014, the hardware limitations meant that the ambitious lighting system was scrapped. Now, modder Stayd is working on replicating that original lighting model using Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin on PC.
The original game on the left, and the modded version on the right.
Stayd is an artist and graphics programmer, and has been sharing work-in-progress screenshots of their Flames of Old graphics mod on Twitter. The mod adds some striking updates to the game’s lighting that fundamentally changes how Dark Souls II looks. Notable areas like Heide’s Tower of Flame and Shrine of Amana look much improved, but the Shaded Woods catches the eye in particular.
The original game on the left, and the modded version on the right.
The lighting is much more natural, especially with the green filter removed, and this allows the texture work in the environment and on the character model to stand out. Stayd has also made some other tweaks, such as removing the trees in the upper left corner to reveal the Shrine of Winter, which adds a sense of scale to the area, and adding more ruins and foliage.
Stayd plans to mod the whole game in this way, and you can keep up with the whole process on their Twitch channel.
