It's been widely reported that Microsoft is planning to release a second next-generation Xbox that is less powerful and lacks a physical media drive. Now, another report says that's not entirely true.

The Verge's Tom Warren, who is known for accurately reporting on unannounced Microsoft products, has stated that the CPU for the less-expensive next-gen Xbox is "the same speed as the Series X." The console will have a different GPU frequency and CU count, however, Warren reported.

The second next-generation Xbox, rumored to be called the Xbox Series S, will have 7.5 GB of usable RAM, according Warren, and this is less than the Series X. Warren went on to say that this second console will target a resolution of up to 1440p, compared to 4K for the Xbox Series X.

Bryan Sola is a Filipino artist who in addition to a ton of Magic cards has also worked for companies like CD Projekt Red and PUBG Corp.

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In The Last of Us Part II, guitars are used as a symbolic tool to show the bond between Joel and Ellie, with several songs popping up in cutscenes. Guitars even appear as playable objects, and it's possible for experienced musicians to recreate songs on Ellie's in-game guitar. But one thing has remained unclear--how is Joel able to perform a song in-game that would have never been released in his world because of the outbreak?

In an early cutscene, Joel performs a cover of Pearl Jam's Future Days, which appeared on the album Lightning Bolt. This album released on October 15, 2013--several weeks after September 26, 2013, which is Outbreak Day in the world of The Last of Us Part II. So how did Joel know a song that never got released?

According to director Neil Druckmann, it's simple--the song was performed live at Wrigley Field in Chicago, Illinois on July 19, and Joel saw a video of it on YouTube.

The final instalment in Microsoft's Halo Infinite behind-the-scenes series of videos about the game's audio and sound has been released, and it's a delight.

The video shows off a cute little pug named Buddy whose owner is a program manager at developer 343 Industries. The very good boy came into the studio where he chomped down on snacks and scruffed around, all of which was captured for sounds to be used in the next-gen Halo game.

A Baki the Grappler collaboration has been announced for Fitness Boxing, and players must punch one million times to achieve the goal.

The post Fitness Boxing Gets Muscular With Baki the Grappler Collaboration appeared first on Siliconera.

Building on an idea he’s had since he was a kid, security software engineer CTurt has developed a way for people to play unofficial games on a PS2 console by burning them onto a DVD alongside an exploit.

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Xbox marketing director Aaron Greenberg has responded to a recent internet discussion around the possibility of Fable 4 and a new Perfect Dark game. Greenberg said on Twitter that he understands people are "hungry for news" in the lead-up to the Xbox Series X first-party games showcase in July, but he acknowledged that you shouldn't get too excited for those unannounced games.

Newly discovered placeholder Twitter accounts for "Fable" and "Perfect Dark Game" are not what they seem to be, Greenberg said. He pointed out that these accounts have been inactive "for years." The executive also mentioned that it's standard operating procedure for Microsoft to register social accounts for its franchises, even if the company has no plans for announcements around them.

The Perfect Dark account was created by a fan. Xbox veteran Ken Lobb, whose name is the inspiration for the Klobb weapon in GoldenEye, followed the account, which led people to believe it might be the genuine article. However, it's only a fan account. The owner said they would give it up to Microsoft if they asked, but that doesn't appear to have happened yet.

The Last of Us Part II is a huge sales success, but developer Naughty Dog won't follow it up with any DLC. Writer-director Neil Druckmann told Kinda Funny that The Last of Us Part II won't have any story DLC. The 2013 original game had story DLC in the very well received Left Behind, which was part of the game's Season Pass, but there are "no plans" for anything similar for the sequel.

"No, with Last of Us I think we had some Season Pass or something that said ahead of time we have some story DLC--no there's no plans for that [with The Last of Us Part II]," Druckmann said.

While The Last of Us Part II seemingly won't have any story DLC, Naughty Dog will expand the game with a multiplayer mode of some kind in the future. Naughty Dog has said the game will get a separate online experience down the road through some kind of standalone title.

At Bitsummit Gaiden, Chinese indie dev ThinkingStars showed off more gameplay for the cyberpunk action game ANNO: Mutationem.

The post 2 Hours of ANNO: Mutationem Gameplay Shown at Bitsummit Gaiden appeared first on Siliconera.

Japanese football side Kawasaki Frontale have released images of their new training kit for the upcoming season, and it has a British theme. In case the plaid didn’t spell that out clearly enough, a sleeve badge reveals the whole thing is actually a homage to Thomas The Tank Engine.

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Fate/Grand Order is one of the most popular mobile games of all time, an Japanese manufacturers continue to deliver more and more figures portraying its characters.

This time around we get two rather gorgeous figures with very different price ranges, Foreigner/Katsushika Hokusai by Phat Company and Rider/Altria Pendragon by Amakuni. Both are currently available for pre-order at Ami Ami.

Altria is priced at 19,800 yen which roughly translates into $185. She’s releasing in a whole year, June 2021.

Katsushika Hokusai will take even longer with a September 2021 release window and a sizable 35,200 yen ($328) price tag.

Both are 1/7 in scale and they measure respectively 25 and 28 cm.

Altria’s prototype is sculpted by Grizzrypanda, while Katsushika Hokusai is sculpted by Yusuke Masaki and painted by Sakura.

Below you can read the official description for both.

“From “Fate/Grand Order” AMAKUNI presents Rider/Altria Pendragon [Alter] looking even more the tyrant maid of summer!
The garage kit produced for and sold at an event by sculptor Grizzrypanda is released now as a complete figure under the complete supervision of TYPE-MOON.

The form for the figure is the Third Ascension.
Even the fine pattern of the water pistol Secace is expressed and weapon Excalibur Morgan she wields are sculpted along with a magnificent pose fit for Servant.

Vanilla and Chocola, the main heroines of the adorable visual novel series Nekopara, have seen a sudden surge of popularity among figure manufacturers as of late.

The latest pair to join the fray comes from Max Factory, part of the popular figma action figure brand.

You can find both Vanilla and Chocola available for pre-order at Ami Ami for 7.300 yen each, roughly translating into $68.

Both figures are going to be released in February 2021, and they’re 130 mm tall, coming with their own bases and accessories, including all you need to sit them at the included table with its own tea and cake sets.

Below you can read an official description of Chocola (Vanilla’s is the same, just swap the cake for “teapot and teacup & saucer”) and take a look at a few images.

Welcome to La Soleil!

From “NEKOPARA” comes a figma of Chocola, one of the two youngest twin sisters of the Minaduki household!

Using the smooth yet posable joints of figma, you can act out a variety of different poses.

A flexible plastic is used for important areas, allowing proportions to be kept without compromising posability.

She comes with three face plates-a smiling face, a blushing face, and a grinning face.

A tray, cake, and fork are included as optional parts.

Additionally, a table & chair set, interchangeable skirt and apron parts for sitting poses, and an interchangeable tail part for sitting poses are all included, allowing you to recreate scenes from inside La Soleil!
An articulated figma stand is included, which allows various poses to be taken.

Good Smile Company has made a new Persona 5 figure available for pre-order, featuring the popular Goro Akechi in his Crow version.

The figure can be found at Ami Ami for 3,900 yen, which translates approximately into a very affordable $31. He’ll release in November 2020.

The price here is important, as this is part of Good Smile’s recently-introduced Pop Up Parade brand. Not only its figures are affordable while retaining a good level of quality, but they also have a pretty short turnaround after their reveal, eliminating the daunting wait after you pre-order, which can oftentimes last a year or more.

Collecting figures tends to be an expensive hobby, unless you actively explore the bargain bins in Akihabara and Nakano Broadway in Tokyo, or stick to prize figures which tend to be pretty cheap both in price and quality.

This is the second Persona 5 Pop Up Parade figure in this price range, following Joker.

Of course, you get what you pay for, so he’s fairly small (170 mm tall). The prototype was sculpted by Design COCO and painted by Hiroto Tanimoto.

Below you can read an official description and check out a few images.

“The second figure from “Persona 5” comes to the POP UP PARADE series!

POP UP PARADE is a new series of figures that are easy to collect with affordable prices and releases planned just four months after preorders begin! Each figure stands around 17-18cm in height and the series features a vast selection of characters from popular anime and game series, with many more to be added soon!

Evan's Remains is the sort of thoughtful game that gets you thinking both about its puzzles and its storyline.

The post Evan’s Remains Gets You Thinking in More Ways Than One appeared first on Siliconera.

Harley Quinn, the devious animated series starring the DC anti-villainess, seems like it will be headed to HBO Max sometime in the near future. Which might mean some consolidation for the Warner Bros. streaming slate.

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You may not know this about your player character in Animal Crossing, but they will never be naked. Never.

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No, Coffee Talk's Xbox One version isn't using your personal data, according to the developers.

The post Developers Explain Why Coffee Talk Xbox One Asks for Personal Data appeared first on Siliconera.

Vault Boy is being added to Super Smash Bros Ultimate. Well, not actually as a full-on new character, but as something called a “Mii Fighter.” I don’t understand what that means, but hey Vault Boy seems like a fun ‘Shop Contest!

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Today Bandai Namco released a new video and a screenshot of the upcoming JRPG Sword Art Online Alicization Lycoris. 

The new assets were shared on the official Twitter account, with the video showing the sub-episode dedicated the Integrity Knights’ commander Bercouli Synthesis One.

On top of that, we also get to see a screenshot featuring fan-favorite heroine Sinon, which is a tease for the video coming next week.

You can check both out below and see if you want to get closer to either of them.

Tencent Games hosted its annual conference, and it announced a new mobile MMORPG titled Noah’s Heart.

The game is developed by Archosaur Games (of which Tencent is a major shareholder) and it’s quite peculiar as its world is a seamless spherical planet with a surface measuring 64,000,000 square meters.

Of course, it’s not as big as a real planet, considering that our earth’s surface measures 510 trillion square meters, but it’s still really, really big.

It’s developed in Unreal Engine 4 and it’s planned for a 2021 release. It already has a Facebook page in English, so I guess we can expect a western release

Below you can check out the trailer and a few images.

Dedicated fans are digitizing an entire Persona card game that was released back in the late ‘90s in Japan and was never released in the West. They’ve already scanned over a thousand cards and all the rule books.

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Your hopes are low – do you have any sources, or facts? This weekend, a very select group of FPS and action-RPG fans were elated to discover that Fable and Perfect Dark – two franchises that have gathered dust under Xbox’s stewardship – may have been preparing for a comeback. Well, sorry team. Microsoft have stepped in to confirm that, no, you can’t believe everything you read on Twitter.

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Read our Romancing SaGa Re univerSe guide if you're curious or confused about Square Enix's latest mobile release, or just want to prepare.

The post How to get Started in Romancing SaGa Re;univerSe appeared first on Siliconera.

Japanese publisher/developer Square Enix has confirmed that despite delays as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, it still has "several" announcements to come in the next couple of months.

In an interview with No Investment, No Life (thanks, Gematsu), the company admitted it would normally announce new games at E3, but it was unable to prepare its own reveal event at the same time as the usual E3 announcements because "assets were not complete".

Asked by shareholders to explain how has coronavirus affected the company's E3 plans, it responded: "We would normally announce new games at E3, yes. We had planned to have a press conference as a replacement event, but were unable to do so since assets were not complete.

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Hello, hello, hello! I’m so happy to have you here today for another open thread. Come on in!

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Tales of Monkey Island is back on sale on Steam and GOG.

As spotted by PC Gamer, the game as been quietly relisted on both PC platforms, with LCG Entertainment marked as the developer and Athlon Games as its publisher.

Telltale Games, the defunct developer behind the likes of The Walking Dead, Tales from the Borderlands, and The Wolf Among Us, returned last year, albeit in a substantially different form. Holding company LCG Entertainment had secured Telltale's name and some of its licenses.

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Whether it’s making honest-to-god computers out of Minecraft redstone or constructing elaborate rube-goldberg machines in Garry’s Mod, it seems unavoidable that any given sandbox game will eventually add complex mechanical systems. Well, now we can add Astroneer to that lineup with this week’s Automation update, which lets you sit back on your space lawnchair and let the game do all the busywork for you.

Assuming, of course, you know how to piece together a fully-automated mining, processing, and power production setup.

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Last week, Cyberpunk 2077 developers CD Projekt Red aired their first Night City Wire segment, acting as a replacement for the lack of an E3 appearance this year. To coincide with the segment airing, outlets were given hands-on demos of the game for impressions. IGN was one such outlet and, while you could read through Miranda Sanchez's impressions in full, I can give you the juiciest piece of information that she uncovered:

We can pet the cats.

Let me say that again.

We can pet the cats!

I was already excited about this game, but now? I'm over the moon. It only makes the recent two-month delay that much more bittersweet. I will now assume that the delay was specifically caused by them adding more cats, and I won't be swayed otherwise.

What I found exploring Night City [IGN]

Apparently, the Japanese arm of Sony Interactive Entertainment has decided to give fans a small daily dose of Ghost of Tsushima.

Following yesterday’s trailer focusing on the story, today we get another 20-second clip.

This time around, the trailer’s title mentions “customization” but the video itself delves more on the concept of choice between fighting as a samurai or as a ghost (which I guess is still part of customization).

The narration helps to make the whole thing quite epic as it talks about the man who was born as a samurai but embraced the darkness, encouraging the listener to choose their own path.

You can check it out below.

Ghost of Tsushima has recently been slightly rescheduled to release on July 17, 2020, exclusively for PS4. That being said, it has already gone gold, so there won’t be any more delays.

Hello! It’s time for Kotaku’s Sunday Comics, your weekly roundup of the best webcomics. The images enlarge if you click on the magnifying glass icon.

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The Boss Revenge Mode and Chroma Wheel free DLC for Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night has been pushed back a bit to address some bugs.

The post Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night Free DLC Delayed By One Week appeared first on Siliconera.

It was only announced a few days ago, but the sequel to Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon - predictably enough entitled Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2 - will release on July 10, 2020.

The digital-only Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2 will cost around $15 (a UK price has yet to be confirmed) and is coming to Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. It also features a two-player co-op mode.

"Classic-style Bloodstained action from Koji Igarashi and Inti Creates is coming July 10th, 2020 to Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Steam with Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2!" states the YouTube video description (thanks, VG24/7). "In this new trailer, allies from the past are revealed with the inclusion of Zangetsu's allies from the original Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon - Miriam, Alfred, and Gebel.

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We're nearing the home stretch for the Borderlands 3 season pass; which I don't believe for a second is the end of Borderlands 3's DLC run, so long as Gearbox has anything to say about it.

We've raided a casino and united two lovers: now it's time to kick back in the old west with Bounty of Blood. Just don't get too comfortable.

Developer Alice in Dissonance revealed the next chapter of the fault visual novel series with fault – milestone two side: below.

The upcoming game was showcased during the Bitsummit Gaiden celebrations and should come within 2020 for PC, PS4, and Nintendo Switch.

We also get to see the first teaser trailer, that you can watch below, no pun intended.

fault – milestone two side: below is the direct continuation of the fault series following fault – milestone two side: above, which was released in 2015. 

In other news from the developer, the prequel Silence the Pendant will be put on hiatus for the time being. Alice in Dissonance will return to it when they have the ability to work on a project of that scale. In the meanwhile, the studio will focus on milestone two side: below. 

Incidentally, the series is heavily discounted as part of the Steam summer sale, so if you’re not familiar with it, you can grab it now on the cheap.

Sundays are for more slacklining, baby. Here’s the best writing about videogames from the past week.

Renata Price blogged about their experiences with both Valorant and gender transitioning, and how they intersected.

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Dr Disrespect, aka Guy Beahm, has broken his silence on the recent deletion of his channel from Twitch and says he has not been informed why he's been banned.

In a new tweet early today - his first communication for several days - Beahm said: "Twitch has not notified me on the specific reason behind their decision... Firm handshakes to all for the support during this difficult time."

Twitch has yet to respond to this fresh allegation, but yesterday a Twitch representative told Polygon: "As is our process, we take appropriate action when we have evidence that a streamer has acted in violation of our Community Guidelines or Terms of Service. These apply to all streamers regardless of status or prominence in the community."

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Screenshot Saturday Sundays! We’ve passed the midpoint of the year, readers, and while I’m sure this hellish 2020 still has plenty of garbage to throw our way, we can always count on this weekly dose of game dev screenshots to keep our spirits high each Sunday. This week: Dodging hoovers, a sickening forest, the cutest cyberpunk and crimes against fashion.

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