The "should Nintendo support a growing Super Smash Bros. pro scene" argument has been raging for some time now. Over a decade actually, if you bring it all the way back to the release and success of Melee.

In recent years though pros are starting to spread to it more and more, including one of the top contenders right now: Juan "Hungrybox" DeBiedma. Just last month he says sounding off on how he wishes Nintendo supported the pro scene directly, and he used a fresh Smash Summit 9 win this past weekend to give his plea another go.

In the following video shared from his personal YouTube channel, Hungrybox states, "if anyone from Nintendo corporate is watching right now, and sees the excitement these sets can get and everything that goes with it. Give Melee a chance. Even if it's just Ultimate, support the Smash scene in general."

Hungrybox continues, noting "we do it all grassroots," and that "Nintendo, you are the only one who isn't putting money in the scene." He goes on to call it a "shot in the dark," but cites Capcom and Epic Games (with Fortnite) as companies that support their own games with tournaments.

Bandai Namco released two new screenshots of its upcoming MMORPG Blue Protocol.

The screenshots have been shared on the game’s official Twitter (sources: 1, 2) with the perspective of more images coming during application period for the closed beta, which will end on March 2.

Incidentally, if you want to enter, you can do so here. There are 50,000 spots up for grabs, even if selection isn’t guaranteed, of course.

The first screenshot showcase a dungeon that did not appear in the past alpha test but will be implemented in the beta.

The second image showcases a “Battle Imagine” which is basically a summon that can help you during combat. There are various different kinds, including massive ones like we see here.

You can check the screenshots out below.

UPDATE 17/2/20: After getting a release date for Netflix's third Castlevania season earlier this month, we now have our first glimpse at the 10 new episodes.

Sink your teeth in ahead of the show's return on 5th March:

ORIGINAL STORY 4/2/20: Last November, Netflix's Nordic division whipped fans of the company's enormously entertaining animated Castlevania series into a miniature frenzy when it announced (erroneously, it later transpired) the show's imminent return. Now, though, it's officially official: Castlevania's third season will begin on 5th March.

Read more

Today Atlus released another video of the upcoming action JRPG Persona 5 Scramble: The Phantom Strikers.

This time around we get to see Morgana as he “infiltrates” Koei Tecmo’s offices and meets president and CEO Kou Shibusawa.

In turn, Shibusawa-san showcases some gameplay of the game, including a look at the storytelling part, Persona fusion in the Velvet Room, and action gameplay in a Jail. We also get to see the recently-introduced Hacking Battle feature.

Incidentally, the version showcased is the PS4 version. 

There has been a long-standing disparity between the quality of Switch Online in Japan and the rest of the world.

Sure, it's mostly subtle. For a while, Japan typically got an extra NES game each month with their subscription. They also periodically get free trials of games with that very same subscription: like this new offer that's debuting in Japan first. Shared this morning on the official Nintendo Twitter account, Dead Cells is now free-to-play for Switch Online subscribers for a limited time.

This is part of the Issei Trial system (which also hosted games like Captain Toad), and will run from February 24 through 18:00 JST on March 1. There is no hour limit on this trial, Nintendo says, and saved data can be transferred to the full version of the game. Dead Cells is also 30% off during this run (now 1,736 yen).

Now, the free Dead Cells move is also calculated. The expansion just launched: so the idea is likely to get people hooked on what is ostensibly a great game, then buy in fully. Smart!

Nintendo [Twitter]

I'll admit, when Yakuza 7 was announced, the first mainline game in the franchise since Kazuma Kiryu's story concluded, I was highly sceptical. Any new protagonist would have big shoes to fill, after all. And then there's the fact that it's turn-based. There's a lot to take in.

Thankfully Yakuza 7 is a lot of fun, and is a loving tribute to JRPGs and many other games besides. It all begins not with new hero Ichiban Kasuga, but with a glimpse into the life of Masumi Arakawa, head of the Arakawa Clan, itself a small family under the Tojo Clan. Arakawa hasn't had it easy - among other things his son was left disabled after Masumi had to hide him in a train station locker (!) as an infant. In typical Yakuza fashion, Arakawa saves teenage Ichiban's life, who then swears fealty to him and later goes to prison in his stead.

When Ichiban gets out of prison in 2019, 18 years after his incarceration, the world has changed rapidly, but the biggest shock is probably that the Arakawa family has joined the Omi Alliance, famously the nemesis of the Tojo Clan Arakawa originally served. When Ichiban tries to demand an explanation from Arakawa, his former saviour shoots him.

Read more

Ah, a shortage of a Nintendo product: it almost feels like the default mode, doesn't it?

While the Switch and the Switch Lite (and all their colors and SKUs) have been relatively easy to procure in most parts of the world as of late, Bloomberg is reporting that there could be a "global shortage" of Switch units by as early as April. Right now the hardware is already hard to come by in Japan (on top of all of the waits and lotteries of the past few years), but it's getting worse.

Bloomberg notes the "limited component supply" from China, which is impacting a partner factory in Vietnam, according to sources. Given how much the Switch is selling they expect the current stock to carry them through April, at which point the shortage could begin if things don't shape up in the area. Nintendo is giving their standard corporate answer, stating, "we do not see any major impact on the shipment to the U.S. currently, but we will remain vigilant and take steps if necessary."

But in a follow-up, they admit things could go wrong: "It’s possible the supply would be affected by the virus if it becomes more widespread and prolonged." Bloomberg reminds us that the US is roughly 43% of Nintendo's business, followed by Europe at 27% and Japan at 21% (the latter is still relatively high, especially given the mobile boom in recent years).

Nintendo Is Likely to Suffer Global Switch Shortages From Virus [Bloomberg]

The Coronavirus's impact on component production will lead to Nintendo Switch shortages in the U.S. and Europe starting this april.

The post Bloomberg: Nintendo Switch Shortages Expected In U.S. And Europe appeared first on Siliconera.

Today Square Enix made two new Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride action figures available for pre-order as part of its Bring Arts brand.

The figures portray heroines Bianca and Nera. You can find both on Ami Ami, priced at 6,390 yen each. That translates into roughly $58.

They will be released respectively in July and August 2020, one month apart.

Each figure comes with a base (Bring Arts really struggle to stand on their own) and a bunch of alternative hands.

Incidentally, they’re not the first Dragon Quest V Bring Arts figures to go up for pre-order as of late. The hero is also available for pre-order at the same price, albeit with a much earlier release window in May.

It’s not surprising to see Square Enix bring Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride back under the spotlight. The Dragon Quest: Your Story movie recently released on Netflix is based on this specific chapter of the saga.

If you’d like to see what both figures look like, you can enjoy a gallery below.

Goro Akechi is certainly a popular character in Persona 5, and soon you’ll be able to have him on your own shelf, posed however you like.

Good Smile company made its new figma portraying Crow (Goro Akechi’s Phantom Thief alter-ego) available for pre-order, and you can find it on Ami Ami. 

The price is 6,390 yen, which translates approximately into $58. Like all figma, he’s fully posable.

The release window is fairly far, October 2020. The sculpting work is by SF345 and Naoki Satou.

“This is what I was waiting for!”

From the anime “PERSONA5 the Animation” comes a figma of Crow in his Phantom Thief outfit!

The smooth yet posable figma joints allow you to act out a variety of different scenes.
A flexible plastic is used in specific areas, allowing proportions to be kept without compromising posability.
He comes with three face plates including a confident face, a smiling face and a sneering face.
His laser saber and ray gun are included, along with a chess piece and an alternate hair part to pose him with his mask.
An articulated figma stand is included, which allows various poses to be taken.”

If you’re curious, you can check out what the figure looks like below.

If you’re interested in Persona 5 figures, you can also check out the recently revealed Kasumi Yoshizawa by MegaHouse.

Azur Lane publisher Yostar is continuing to reveal new content coming to its popular shipgirl-focused game Azur Lane.

First of all, we get two retrofits on the English servers, part of the gradual process of catching up to the Chinese and Japanese servers.

They’re Yuugure and Shigure, whom you can see below in their new forms.

Pokemon Center Mega Tokyo plans to reopen on March 6, 2020 with a dynamic renewal.

The post Pokemon Center Mega Tokyo Reopens in Ikebukuro on March 6 appeared first on Siliconera.

The first season of Siege’s fifth year kicks off very soon. Here’s what’s coming to the game.

Continue reading…

Sonic is racking up millions of Rings this weekend.

The Sonic the Hedgehog movie blasted through the top of the box office with Sonic speed, grossing in $57 million in North America and $100 million globally.

According to Variety, the Sonic movie is expected to earn between $68-70 million through President’s Day, which will give kids who are out of school an excuse to beg their parents to take them to see Sonic.

The Sonic movie made an even bigger sonic boom on the big screen than gamers and everyone else alike expected it to, considering the long history of bad film adaptations of video games. It would’ve joined the ranks of the Super Mario Bros. movie and made at least $54 million less than it did had Jeff Fowler not listened to the Sonic fans’ outrage over the first movie trailer and redesigned Sonic.

The changes to Sonic’s movie design and the three-month delay it took to make it possible, thanks to Tyson Heese, earned the Sonic the Hedgehog movie a solid “A” on CinemaScore and knocked Birds of Prey off its nest. Ben Schwartz lifted Sonic’s super teen spirit with his youthful voice acting and Jim Carrey dipped Dr. Eggman into his manic comedic splendor — the same brand of comedy that launched his career in the ‘90s.

“The consumer always determines what is right and what is wrong. They made their voices clear, and we listened,” Chris Aronson, Paramount’s president of domestic distribution, said. “This movie exceeded [audience’s] expectations. That’s a testament to that reset and terrific performances by Jim Carrey and the entire cast.”

Bandai Spirit's plans to keep fan excited for Animal Crossing: New Horizons with a brand-new Ichiban Kuji lottery in Japan.

The post Start Your Relaxing Island Life with the new Animal Crossing: New Horizons Kuji Lottery appeared first on Siliconera.

Operator Ash gets an elite Tomb Raider skin in Year 5, Season 1

Continue reading…

Earlier this week, the bidding process for the only working Nintendo Play Station prototype began, and has since reached $350,000.

The post The Only Working Nintendo PlayStation Prototype is Currently on Auction appeared first on Siliconera.

Today Ubisoft had a few more reveals to make about the future of Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege.

First of all, we get more details about the plans for the next two years. 

Following the two operators that will be released with Operation Void Edge, there will be two more in the spring from South Africa and Norway. A rework of the House map will also come.

In the summer and fall, Ubisoft will drop the number of new operators per season to one for the time being, even if they’ll ramp up the narrative content for each. 

That being said, the team is still aiming to have a hundred operators at some point, despite the fact that the trickle will slow down.

To make it up, they’ll also start applying core gameplay changes to keep the game fresh. 

Some operators will also be reworked, and every season will come with a major event and we’ll get arcade playlists, with the goal of having multiple per season as time progresses. 

You can see it all in the first video below.

The second video reveals a brand new elite skin, and this time around it’s from Tomb Raider.

Capcom has released new gameplay footage for Monster Hunter Riders' turn-based battle system, as well as info on more appearing monsters.

The post Monster Hunter Riders Shows Off Battles In Preparation for February 19 Release appeared first on Siliconera.

The Bandai Pokemon plastic figure kits are easy to jump into, and the Eevee model kit makes a cute friend.

The post Bandai’s Eevee Model Kit Is an Easy Build That Gives People a Detailed Buddy appeared first on Siliconera.

Surprise leak offers clearest look at StarCraft’s stealth-action game yet

Continue reading…

Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training for Nintendo Switch has added a new challenge for those who reached Brain Score 20, plus online championships.

The post Dr. Kawashima’s Brain Training for Nintendo Switch Holds First World Brain Training Championships appeared first on Siliconera.

Arcana Heart 3 Love Max Six Stars!!!!!! Xtend released early for backers this week, adding new character Pistrix and a new Arcana of Life.

The post Arcana Heart 3 Love Max Six Stars!!!!!! Xtend Releases to Backers with New Character and Arcana appeared first on Siliconera.

Custom Robo director Kouji Kenjo says a release date for Synaptic Drive is coming soon.

The post Synaptic Drive By Custom Robo Director Will Get A Release Date Soon appeared first on Siliconera.

For a long, long time, PlayStation fans from all over the world have gathered on the official community forums to discuss the platform they loved. Unfortunately, this is going to end soon.

With a post by PlyStation Support representative Alkaiser-One (spotted by YouTube user 5ypher, via ChrashLanded), Sony Interactive Entertainment announced that the official forums will be closing down.

The community discussion environment will remain on life support until February 27, when the plug will officially be plugged.

The post does not offer explanations of any sorts, being only a couple of lines long, but encouraging fans to instead follow the official PlayStation Blog, Twitter, and Instagram.

“Beginning 27 February, the PlayStation.com forums will no longer be available. We invite you to continue the conversation via PlayStation.Blog, Twitter, and Instagram.”

This may be a sign of times in which older-fashioned forums have lost popularity to newer forms of social media pretty much like newsgroups were replaced by forums back in the day, but it’s certainly sad to see, and the end of an era for the PlayStation community.

Recently, Sony opened the registration for a newsletter dedicated to the upcoming PS5, even if it isn’t “quite ready” to share more details.

Today Nvidia and CD Projekt RED posted an interaction on Twitter that certainly appears to be the tease of an upcoming Cyberpunk 2077 collaboration.

The official Twitter account of the game tweeted at Nvidia’s GeForce account hinting to the possibility, which initially got a doubtful emoji, followed by a blurry picture of a GPU with a yellow and black chassis.

You can check the exchange out below.

It's taken almost a year, but the group of volunteer developers and modders who have been quietly enhancing and improving the PC release of celebrated psychological horror, Silent Hill 2, have released a new update.

Silent Hill 2: Enhanced Edition is self-described as an ongoing project of enhancement packages that add various visual, audio, and bug improvements for the PC version of the game, such as implementing a modern widescreen camera, improving the display for higher resolutions, and removing several prominent audio bugs.

The most recent version - released earlier this week - sees newly-added features such as "soft shadows, self shadows, restored post-processing effects, continued controller support, and much more".

Read more

The "exclusive worldwide third-party provider" deal for livestreaming between YouTube and Activision Blizzard is reportedly worth $160 million (£122m).

Activision Blizzard announced the deal with YouTube a few weeks ago, saying the "multi-year strategic relationship to power new player experiences" would see Google Cloud serve as the "preferred provider for Activision Blizzard's game hosting infrastructure", and YouTube as its "exclusive streaming partner worldwide", excluding China.

The details of the deal weren't specified at the time, but by comparison, a similar deal Activision struck with Twitch in 2018 was thought to be worth around $90 million.

Read more

The Sonic the Hedgehog movie has generated over $100 million (£76.6m) on its opening weekend.

As reported by Comicbook, the success can be attributed to a number of fortuitous coincidences, not least the fact the movie debuted on Valentine's Day and benefited from a long-weekend as our friends Stateside celebrated Presidents' Day, during which it's thought to have clocked up $68m (£52m) at the box office.

The success can't just be attributed to that, though, as it's also thought to have generated $43m (£33m) worldwide, too. So we're all to blame, really.

Read more

It looks like Catherine: Full Body and XCOM 2 might be coming to the Nintendo Switch.

The post Catherine: Full Body and XCOM 2 Collection Rated For Nintendo Switch In South Korea appeared first on Siliconera.

$57 million at U.S. box offices is best for a video game movie’s debut

Continue reading…

The Marvel's Avengers achievements list has come in to offer new details about the game, including spoilers!

The post Achievement Leak Spoils the Final Boss of Marvel’s Avengers appeared first on Siliconera.

Sales of both the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in the US are declining faster than expected, says an industry report.

In a report by market analysts NPD Group (thanks, VGC), US hardware spending was down 35 per cent in January 2020 when compared with the same period a year ago. Total spending across gaming as a whole - including hardware, software, accessories and game cards - was also lower year-over-year, dropping 26 per cent.

"An interesting takeaway from the US NPD report is that PS4 and XB1 hardware sales in Jan 2020 are considerably lower than PS3 and 360 were in Jan 2013," posited Niko Partners analyst, Daniel Ahmad. "Next-gen consoles are around the corner but both are declining sharper than expected. Switch continues to remain steady."

Read more

Despite a myriad of issues, delays, and personnel changes, actor Tom Holland insists the script for the (hopefully?) upcoming Uncharted movies is "one of the best [he's] ever read".

"I read the newest draft of the script on the way over here and it's one of the best scripts I've ever read," Holland told IGN this week. "It really, really jumps off the page."

As Tom reported last month, Sony's increasingly-unlikely-looking Uncharted film has now lost its sixth director. Travis Knight, who previously helmed Transformers spin-off Bumblebee, was the latest to be named director of the project. That was back in October, after fifth director Dan Tractenberg quit last August.

Read more

Masaaki Yuasa cuts deep into his own industry

Continue reading…

Boy howdy, we've come a very, very long way since that infamously fantastical Rainbow Six Siege demo was first previewed at E3 2014. Since then, Ubisoft's tactical shooter has certainly prospered, as a fairly blah launch has since evolved into one of the most enjoyed multiplayer titles in gaming. This weekend is a perfect example of this, as the best Siege players in the world compete at The Six Invitational tournament in Montreal, in front of an audience of thousands, with many more watching online.

Now entering its fifth year, Rainbow Six Siege is at an important crossroads. 12 months from now, we'll have entered an entirely new generation of gaming, with consoles like the PS5 and the Xbox Series X vying for our attention and wallets. This generation will bring with it a host of new IPs and sequels, all eager to unleash the potential of the powerful new technology on offer.

Ubisoft, however, stated long ago that there are no plans for a Siege sequel. Instead, the development team are will work to simply transition the current game onto the new platforms, taking with it the operators, maps, weapons, gadgets and - hopefully - some 55 million registered players. This pivot to next gen begins now, in 2020, with Siege's incoming content. So let's look at what Years 5 & 6 have in store for Ash, Thermite, Mozzie, Caveira and the rest of the flashbang fanatics.