Today Warner Bros. Games posted a trailer for their upcoming free-to-play fighting game MultiVersus.
The Super Smash Bros. inspired fighting game features a cast of characters from across many Warner Bros. franchises and films. The trailer newly reveals that Taz from Loony Tunes, and the Iron Giant from the 1999 film of the same name will be joining the roster.
The closed beta for the game opens on May 19th and the open beta starts in July.
Nintendo has released their financial report for the 2021 fiscal year which ran from April 1 2021-March 31 2022. Hardware and software sales for the Nintendo Switch continued to be strong throughout the year however there was a slight decrease in net profits from the 2021 fiscal year, likely due factors like the COVID-19 pandemic affecting production, the age of the Nintendo Switch hardware, and the global computer chip shortage issues.
Here’s a breakdown of the figures:
Today the Prince of Persia Twitter account posted that the upcoming title will be changing development teams from Ubisoft’s Mumbai and Ubisoft Pune studios to Ubisoft Montreal. The post notes that Ubisoft Montreal is the studio that worked on the original Prince of Persia: Sands of Time and that the team will “regroup on the scope of the game” indicating that perhaps the Mumbai and Pune studios had hit a wall in the development of the remake.
The game was first revealed in September of 2020 with a release date of January 21st 2021, it was then delayed to March of 2021. The game was then delayed until sometime during before March 2023. While this announcement doesn’t confirm a delay for the game, it is a clear indication that the game is still deep in development and changing development studios like this suggests that the game still has quite a way to go before it is ready.
The Prince of Persia: Sands of Time Remake is currently set to release on PC, Play Station 4, and Xbox One.
Today Netflix released a teaser trailer for the upcoming Sonic Prime animated series starring Sonic the Hedgehog. The trailer shows Sonic zooming through a landscape collecting rings then he stops to give a short quip showing off the character’s voice for the series.
Reports are that Canadian voice actor Deven Mack will be voicing Sonic the Hedgehog in this show. Roger Craig Smith, the voice of Sonic from the video games, confirmed last year that he wouldn’t be voicing sonic in this series. The show is expected to premiere later this year on Netflix. As of yet no exact date has been confirmed.
In a Bloomberg report sources inside the Amazon-owned streaming service Twitch.tv announced plans to restructure the partnership program. The payout split for the top percentage of partnered streamers will be decreased from a 70/30 split down to a 50/50 split. The platform is looking to increase ad revenue by pushing more ads to viewers to that end the partner program is being restructured to incentivize streamers to push more ads to their viewers in order to get a better split of ad revenue. In an attempt to lessen the sting of this move, the platform is also considering removing the exclusivity clause from the partner program allowing Twitch partners to stream on other platforms like Google’s YouTube platform, or Meta’s Facebook.
According to the report, some of these changes could roll out as early as this summer. Ads have always a big issue on the platform due to their intrusive nature interrupting the live broadcast and causing viewers to entirely miss crucial moments on stream. This impacts the creators as well because viewers will often tune or and leave the stream rather that being inundated with ads that take them out of the viewing experience. This new partner partner program arrangement is very likely to hurt both viewers and streamers alike, and could drive many creators and viewers away from the streaming platform.
Today Twitter announced that Tesla owner Elon Musk will be purchasing the company at a price of 44 billion USD. This deal comes after weeks of back and forth starting when Musk purchased a 9% stake in the company. The Twitter board attempted to block Elon’s efforts to buy the platform by activating a poison pill which flooded the market with shares at a lower value in hopes of making the prospect too expensive. Musk overcame this tactic, and purchased Twitter at 54.20 per share in a cash transaction.
This change in ownership will make Twitter a private company, and Musk has already proposed some of the policy he intends to enact such as making the algorithm open source so users can see exactly how it works. In the immediate future this likely won’t have any effect on the site, which has become a pillar in the PR social media strategies of many game companies and games media outlets.
Today the official Nintendo Twitter account posted a message from Shigeru Miyamoto, the creator of Mario and the producer of the upcoming animated Super Mario Bros. movie from Illumination films. The post announced that the film which was originally scheduled to release this fall has been pushed back to Spring of 2021.
The film, which stars Chris Pratt as the voice of Mario, was originally set to release on Decemeber 21st 2022. The film is now scheduled to release on April 7th 2023 in North America and April 28th 2023 in Japan. As of yet a trailer hasn’t been released for the movie, though there has been speculation that a trailer could premier this summer.
The key art to the upcoming game collection Sonic Origins has leaked via the games listing on Play Station Network (PSN). The game which was announced during the Sonic The Hedgehog 30th anniversary stream last year is a collection featuring Sonic The Hedgehog, Sonic The Hedgehog 2, Sonic The Hedgehog 3, Sonic & Knuckles, and Sonic CD. The games in the collection will be in widescreen format, and there will be other content and features.
The game’s rating has been listed on the Australian Ratings board indicating that a release date for the collection may be announced soon.
This week the gamer girl, internet star, and meme queen Belle Delphine made her first posts on social media in over a year.
On April 18th Belle posted to Twitter:
She made another post on April 19th:
The posts showcased Belle still has her signature style, and her ironic wit. The second post was more sincere with the creator saying that she missed the internet and has a lot to catch up on.
The 22-year-old is known for taking extended brakes from the internet seemingly out of nowhere. The last time Belle posted before this week was February 14th 2021 where she posted to her Twitter account promoting a line of gaming PC accessories by Ghost Keyboards who created a Bell Delphine collection.
During the 14-month hiatus many fans wondered where Belle was and why she vanished. Several critics created videos and posts proclaiming the death of Belle’s career as many have done during her previous disappearances. As of this time Belle has offered no explanation for her disappearance, and if she has proven anything with her hiatuses it is that absence does indeed make the heart grow fonder even on the internet.
During SquareEnix’s Kingdom Hearts 20th Anniversary event Kingdom Hearts IV was announced with a gameplay trailer. Kingdom Hearts IV marks the beginning of a new saga called the “The Lost Master Arc”. The trailer shows Sora, who appears to have been transported to a new world called “Quadratum” a place that resembles a city in real-world Japan. A new character is shown and explains that Sora arrived in the world seven days ago suggesting that this game takes place right after the events of Kingdom Hearts III. Suddenly a giant Darkside heartless appears in the middle of the city and Sora goes to fight it.
The combat shows some new gameplay elements such as Sora now having a grappling hook ability that allows him to pull himself towards objects, he is also shown using a keyblade ability that creates an drill made of light energy. Two figures in black hoods are shown to be watching Sora, one of them stating that even if Sora escapes Quadtatum, he won’t find his way back to his home world. The trailer ends with Donald Duck and Goofy searching for someone that they believe can help them with something, presumably finding Sora. A mysterious voice call them from behind and a magical burst appears.
The game is being made in Unreal Engine 5, and the worlds are currently being developed. No release date or platforms have been announced.
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