August 2020

The rumors were right--Microsoft has now confirmed that it is pursuing an acquisition of the viral app TikTok. The Xbox company said in a blog post that it is "committed to acquiring TikTok" pending a review of the "security" of the app.

US President Donald Trump has expressed concerns about TikTok, and in particular its ownership by a Chinese company, ByteDance. Trump has suggested that he may attempt to order ByteDance to divest its US ownership, and that's where Microsoft could come in.

Trump and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella recently spoke about the matter, and Microsoft says it will move to address Trump's issues with the app. Microsoft will continue to work with the US government and Trump during the acquisition discussions, the statement said.

Season 3 of Halo: The Master Chief Collection will be a very big deal for Halo 3 in particular. Design director Max Szlagor said in a new blog post that Season 3 will contain many more customization options across the board, including brand-new content for Halo 3.

Season 3 will add new weapon skins, new visors, and "other content" for Halo 3, Szlagor said. This is a big deal because Halo 3 has never had weapon skins. "This marks the first step in our expansion of Halo 3 customization," Szlagor said.

Before this, 343 added weapon and vehicle skins to Halo: Combat Evolved, marking a first in the game's 19-year history.

Halo: The Master Chief Collection is still getting major new updates and ongoing support, even with the attention on the Halo series turning toward Halo Infinite.

In a new blog post, 343 outlined some of the new features planned for MCC--and it's a lot. In 2020, the studio plans to introduce cross-play between Xbox One and PC along with input-based matchmaking so people can decide who they want to play against. Additionally, 343 will add a custom game browser and give people the ability to choose their server region.

Additionally, mouse and keyboard support for Xbox One is coming, while players will also be able tailor the graphics and audio experiences for each game within MCC.

It's a new month, which means this episode of New Releases is taking an overall look at August. It's got licensed games like Fast & Furious Crossroads and enhanced re-releases like Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Remastered Edition, and many of the games can be played at no extra cost. Both Tell Me Why and Microsoft Flight Simulator will be available on Game Pass day one, and Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout is making its debut on PlayStation Plus.

Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout -- August 4

Available on: PS4, PC

Fall Guys is like a battle royale plus Ninja Warrior: 60 players compete in a series of obstacle courses and party games to reach the top spot. Games range from keep-away to straight-up platforming challenges, and each of the Fall Guys themselves can be customized with your favorite colors and patterns.

A Traveler at the Gates of Wisdom is the latest historical novel from Irish author John Boyne (The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas). Telling tales from across the breadth of human history, it deals with a lot of stuff that was real and actually happened, as well as some stuff that has only happened if you’ve played The…

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Halo: The Master Chief Collection players have been complaining for some time about hit-detection in Halo 3. In short, it doesn't feel right. Developer 343 Industries has now provided a new update on the matter, but unfortunately, a fix isn't coming soon.

In a blog post, the developer said it's aware of some viral videos that have gone around, in which fans suggest that dropping the engine to "30 ticks" would fix the hit-detection issue.

"Upon investigation, this is only half true, and it doesn't solve the actual issue that is causing shot registration to encounter problems when being played at MCC's higher tick rate," 343 said.

No More Heroes III is in the works for Switch, but it looks like it might not be the only game in the series coming to Nintendo's console. The original No More Heroes, which launched on the Wii in 2008, might be receiving a port too, according to a new rating.

As noted by Gematsu, the game has been rated for sale in Taiwan for Switch, and appears to be coming from publisher Marvelous Inc. A rating in Taiwan does not absolutely confirm that the game is coming to Switch worldwide, but it certainly suggests that it's a strong possibility.

Back in 2018, director Goichi Suda expressed a desire to bring both the original No More Heroes and its sequel to Switch, but nothing concrete has ever been announced. Another game starring series protagonist Travis Touchdown, Travis Strikes Again, released for Switch in 2019.

No More Heroes received a PS3 release, subtitles Heroes Paradise. A sequel, No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle. released for the Wii in 2010, and unlike the original game, it was never ported anywhere else.

We caught a tiny glimpse of No More Heroes III gameplay back in June, but there's still a lot we don't know about the game--including whether it will make its projected 2020 release window.

In The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild, it takes apple, spicy pepper, Hylian shroom, sunshroom, ruby, fire keese wing, and a red lizalfos tail to make a red dye for clothes--and according to novelist John Boyne's latest book A Traveller At The Gates Of Wisdom, the exact same ingredients were used for dyeing in the fifth century court of Atilla the Hun.

Reddit user u/NoNoNo_OhHoHo spotted this curiously familiar list of ingredients in The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas author's latest epic, where the dressmaker protagonist plots a poisoning using a red dye. Amidst an otherwise straightforward historical setting, the mention of Octorok and Lizalfos seems a little out of place.

In a Twitter thread, writer Dana Schwartz pointed out that Googling "ingredients red dye clothes" automatically brings up a list from Polygon's Breath of the Wild dyeing guide, which appears in the novel almost verbatim.

Grounded, the newest game from Fallout: New Vegas and The Outer Worlds developer Obsidian, is off to a very strong start, it seems. Obsidian has announced that the game reached more than 1 million players over its first two days across Xbox Game Preview and Steam Early Access.

Obsidian shared the figure in a post on Xbox Wire, where it also confirmed that it will deliver new content for Grounded every month. The first monthly update will arrive on August 27, but the studio hasn't said what it will contain.

As a first-party exclusive from Microsoft, Grounded is included with Xbox Game Pass on Xbox One and PC. Alternatively, it can be purchased outright for $30 USD.

Today Atlus released a gallery with a ton of new screenshots of the upcoming Shin Megami Tensei III Nocturne HD Remaster.

First of all, we get to see a comparison with the PS2 version of the game.

Incidentally, the remaster is based on the Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne Maniax Chronicle Edition released in 2008. This, of course, means that Raidou Kuzunoha from Devil Summoner will appear in the game.

Capcom just provided a shipments update for some of its most relevant recent games including Resident Evil 3 and Monster Hunter World.

The update was provided in the presentation materials of its financial results conference.

We learned that Resident Evil 3 has shipped 2.7 million units, while the original Monster Hunter World has shipped 16 million units. Monster Hunter World: Iceborn is at 5.8 million units.

All of these games are currently available for PS4, Xbox One, and PC.

During the presentation, we also learned that during the past quarter (ending in June 2020), Capcom has shipped 9.2 million units of games of which 8.1 million were shipped outside of Japan, 6.6 million were of games released before the quarter, and a massive 7.35 million were digital.

We also learn that cumulative shipments for Resident Evil games are at 103 million units as of June 30.

Monster Hunter games have shipped 64 million units cumulatively. The Street Fighter series has shipped 45 million units. The Mega Man Series is at 36 million units. The Devil May Cry series is at 22 million units, and the Dead Rising series has shipped 14 million units.

If you’d like to learn more about Capcom’s financial results, you can check out our dedicated article.

The post Resident Evil 3 Shipped 2.7 Million Units; Monster Hunter World at 16 Million & Iceborne at 5.8 Million appeared first on Twinfinite.

Today Koei Tecmo released a new trailer for the Dynasty Warriors series to celebrate a very special day. 

Today is the 20th anniversary of the launch of the first game of the franchise on August 3, 2000. 

Some may think that the series debuted in 1997, but the game named “Dynasty Warriors” in the west (“Sangokumusou” in Japan) actually isn’t really part of the franchise.

The first true Dynasty Warriors game was “Shin Sangokumusou” in 2020. Since there already was a Dynasty Warriors in the west, it was simply called Dynasty Warriors 2.

That’s why the latest game of the franchise is named “Dynasty Warriors 9 in the west and Shin Sangokumusou 8 in Japan. 

If this confuses you, I don’t blame you.

You can check out the trailer below, showing off the history of the franchise and thanking the fans for “two decades of loyalty and support.”

As mentioned above, the latest game of the series is Dynasty Warriors 9, which has been released in 2018. 

Today Capcom announced its financial results for the first quarter of the fiscal year 2020, which is related to the period between April 1 and June 30, 2020.

Below you can see the results for the whole company, which set a record for a first quarter of the fiscal year in both net sales and profit.

Net sales were up 32.2% year-on-year while operating income climbed 39.1% year-on-year.

While overall results soared, the results of the Digital Contents business (which is the company’s console, mobile, and PC business) were even more impressive.

Net sales were 21,476 million yen and operating income was 11,804 yen, up 53.7% and 52.6% respectively.

We learn that Resident Evil 3 enjoyed “solid” sales, while another driver for profit were catalog sales of older games like Monster Hunter World: Iceborne and Resident Evil 2.

So here’s how the Predictive Text Game works. Got your phone ready? Good. Type one of the below starting phrases into your phone (I type it into my note-taking app rather than in a message, in case I accidentally send a friend or family member an extremely confusing text). Then, just tap the central predictive text option until you end up with a sentence.

You can choose when to end the sentence, but otherwise you should be completely hands-off. No cheating, or you miss the point of this wonderful and insightful game. You can learn an awful lot about yourself from your phone’s predictive text. Don’t believe me? Here’s what my phone came up with:

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Sudoku is the game where you have to be certain about things. Your job is to put the numbers from 1-9 into each and every row, column, and 3x3 "house" of a 9x9 grid, and you do this by using the scattering of numbers that are already there. You only write a number down when you are absolutely certain it's right, and you trust the game to parcel out this certainty so there is always progress to be made.

For years I have been stuck at the very base of the great Sudoku tree. I know how to slice and dice, but this only sees me through the very basic puzzles. Now Zach Gage and Jack Schlesigner have created Good Sudoku. It's another Sudoku app for smartphones, of which there are many, but this one is different. It wants to teach you how to get better at Sudoku. It's a sort of Sudoku academy.

I have been playing this for the last few weeks, and it's taken a while for it to click. A central idea here is that you can get hints when you're stuck: the program that made each Sudoku can point out where you should turn your attention to next when you can't see the way ahead. This is neat stuff, but along with auto-noting - the ability to automatically keep track of the possible number options for each square - and a neat thing that lets you highlight a number and see all possible spaces where that number might go, Good Sudoku seemed... well, it seemed to automate a little too much. How could I learn Sudoku from this game that seemed to be able to play Sudoku so well without me? And these handy helpers seemed to enforce their own bad habits - their own reliances - which made me feel that the lessons I learned in the app would not really come across to Sudoku on paper.

Online virtual amusement park, Pokemon Virtual Fest, will open August 12.

The post Online Amusement Park Pokemon Virtual Fest Will Open August 12 appeared first on Siliconera.

The Logitech G915 Lightspeed Wireless is one of my all-time favourite gaming keyboards, and today Amazon UK have knocked £50 off its usual price of £210 to take it to down its lowest-ever price of £159. Having been out of stock for weeks, this is a deal well worth snapping up if you’re on the hunt for the best wireless keyboard around.

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If you’ve been thinking about upgrading your PC with a new gaming CPU recently, then we’re here to help, as we’ve rounded up all of the cheapest CPU deals from around the web. Whatever type of PC you’re looking to build, you’ll find all the best prices for our top gaming CPU recommendations below. From the best Intel CPU deals to the best AMD Ryzen CPU deals, we’ve got you covered.

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With Cyberpunk 2077 having been delayed, I’d be lying if I said I weren’t trying to fill a futuristic-dystopia-shaped hole in my August lineup.  So, when Gamedec’s pre-alpha demo rolled into my PC library last week, I was excited to jump into a new take on one of my favorite genres.

The short version is this: It’s the 2200s in Warsaw City, and society spends what modern doctors would call way too much time online in virtual game worlds accessed with personal VR sets (think Ready Player One but without the infinite marathon of pop-culture references). You play as a Game Detective (colloquially known as ‘Gamedecs’), sort of a digital private eye who’s job is to help folks out of various in-game jams.

[ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2019/09/06/gamedec-reveal-trailer-cyberpunk-theme-rpg"]

While E3 and the Tokyo Game Show have been canceled, China just held its biggest game expo, China Joy, complete with booths, demo stations, and cosplayers.

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Another senior Ubisoft staff member has left the company amid its ongoing investigations into sexual harassment and abuse.

This time, it's Tommy François, who was placed on leave in June after facing multiple claims of misconduct.

Business Insider's Samuel Horti broke the news via Twitter yesterday, after seeing an internal memo announcing François' departure penned by Ubisoft boss Yves Guillemot.

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It's always exciting to guess what Platinum is working on at any given moment, but for now, it seems like a sequel to Wonderful 101 is not in the cards. GameXplain had the chance to speak to Platinum head Atsushi Inaba and the infamous director/producer Hideki Kamiya on a few recent developments, as well as where the future is headed.

After clarifying that Platinum was "nervous that no one would show up" for the Wonderful 101 remaster Kickstarter, Inaba says that a sequel is constantly on his mind. The problem is that it would need to be "bigger and better," and that it would be a huge challenge if Platinum decided to go forward with it.

Clarifying further, Kamiya uses a "volume" analogy, saying that once he starts to create a game it begins at a "10," and then slowly goes up from there. With a Wonderful 101 sequel, he's afraid of how much he'd have to top himself and "pass that original hurdle" for the franchise.

To me, Bayonetta is a much harder hurdle to pass, but Platinum is going for it with Bayonetta 3. While we haven't heard much about it these past few years, Kamiya gave his standard answer of "fine," when asked about it again. You can tell he's kind of over being asked about it (and he clarified as much this past May), but one day we will get some sort of actual update on it: whether that's through a Nintendo Direct or Platinum directly.

GameXplain [YouTube]

The Tales of Crestoria 1 Million Downloads Campaign will let players roll on a x10 Summon banner with a guaranteed SSR.

The post Tales of Crestoria 1 Million Downloads Campaign Will Include 10x Summon With a Guaranteed SSR appeared first on Siliconera.

Dell’s big summer sale may be over, but this weekend saw the start of yet another season of discounts on loads of Alienware and Inspiron gaming laptops and monitors in the UK and US. The UK sale isn’t quite as good as it was before, admittedly, but there are still decent savings of around £170 to be had on Dell’s range of Inspiron gaming laptops, as well as up to £200 of their Alienware monitor line-up, the best of which I’ve highlighted below.

Over in the US, meanwhile, there are buckets worth of deals to be had, particularly if you’ve been eyeing up one of their Alienware m15 or Inspiron G7 15 laptops, which have had between $750 and $1300 shaved off them. So read on for the best UK and US Dell deals you can buy right now.

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I wrote about AI Dungeon 2 when it came out last year, but I really should have been keeping up with it. It’s essentially a messy yet occasionally flabbergasting chat bot that spins up text adventure games, improvised from your prompts and the stupid-big amount of data it’s been trained on. Developers Latitude have updated it loads since I posted about it in December, adding multiplayer and jazzing up its memory.

You can also customise it, so its prompts are all geared around a certain concept and you get more consistency. Creator Nick Walton just released one about giving an AI therapy and it’s a little bit surreal.

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Feudal fighting simulator Mount & Blade 2: Bannerlord has added a gold tier update that I’m going to immediately abuse. No longer will I need to celebrate a victory by grabbing my cat and hoisting her aloft. Instead, there are new in-game emotes that I can deploy after reducing my foe to a pile of corpses.

There are other additions, including Epic Games Store and Steam party play and an in-game clan creation system. Let’s take a look.

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OKAY. This is a thread, but it’s worth it I promise.

Final Fantasy XIV Shadowbringers (PS4) | $12 | Amazon
Final Fantasy XIV Online (PS4) | $14 | Amazon

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The Sega Akihabara 2nd arcade, which was formerly known as Akihabara Gigo, is closing at the end of the month because 2020 sucks.

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Ubisoft editorial vice president Tommy Francois has left the company after being accused of workplace misconduct. ...

The former PS4 exclusive Horizon Zero Dawn finally makes its ways to PC this Friday, and you can save 10% off when you pre-purchase from Green Man Gaming.

This is the complete edition, which includes the Frozen Wilds expansion as well as a host of extra in-game gear and a digital art book. The game may have been out on PS4 for over three years now but this is the definitive version of the game (provided you've got the PC hardware to match), with ultra-widescreen support, unlocked framerates and other visual improvements like dynamic foliage and improved reflections.

While you're over at Green Man Gaming, don't forget they're also having their Summer Sale with discounts for over 2000 titles, and today is the last day to take advantage of the offers.

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Next-gen consoles make a next-gen TV purchase more confusing

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DualShock 4 won’t be supported on PS5 games

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Everyone's favourite hot scoop news outlet, the Taiwan Digital Game Rating Committee, is at it again. The latest release to mysteriously appear on the governing body's website is none other than a Switch port of Suda 51's groundbreaking action-RPG No More Heroes.

Originally released for the Wii in 2007, No More Heroes shook up the action genre with its wild, highly stylised aesthetic, over-the-top action, and painfully cool/uncool characters. Eventually ported to PS3 and Xbox 360 as Heroes' Paradise, the series would receive a sequel - Desperate Struggle - in 2010 and a spin-off title - Travis Strikes Again - in 2019. A third mainline entry is currently in development.

This new rating seems to suggest that Travis Touchdown's original adventure will be headed to Switch at some point in the near future. Given that No More Heroes III has a tentative release date of 2020, it would be snug to assume that the original game will be arriving alongside this new sequel. We will update you should any new info be forthcoming.

No More Heroes rated for Switch in Taiwan [Gematsu]

This is the sort of thing you can only imagine happening on the official Konami Twitter account. Amazingly, a saga unfolded this past weekend involving Silent Hill, and it happened in three acts.

Act one: Konami tweets an audio clip of Silent Hill 2's siren, telling people "close your eyes...always scary." In this era of constant summer announcements, folks understandably assumed that this was a tease for something Silent Hill related. But after a bevy of tweets from fans, the account quickly walked back any hope of a tease.

Act two: Konami tweets "easy there, internet." Evidently the social team was "watching streams of Dead by Daylight" and "thought [they] would share the noise and feel of being hunted." Doubling down, they tweeted out that they "won't take the tweet down and backpedal." Well, that solves that!

Act three: the account changes its tone and apologizes, saying they are "sorry [they] got people fired up." The tweet follows up by saying that "anything official would come from the Silent Hill Twitter or an event," rather than the official Konami Twitter account (what).

While stuff like this happens, whoever was in charge of the account at the time probably wasn't aware of the baggage that Konami is still carrying with P.T. and the unceremonious firing of Kojima. While expectations should always be kept in check, social media can be a testy place, especially right now!

Konami [Twitter]

For over a year now Wargroove has been lacking cross-play on PS4, but that's going to change this week. Chuckle Fish has confirmed to Destructoid that Wargroove's Double Trouble DLC will be coming to PS4 tomorrow, with cross-play.

Why is that last part such a big deal? Well, if you recall, Sony was the last major holdout for cross-platform play, as a Sony exec called "PlayStation the best place to play," implying that you didn't need cross-play. Ironically PS4 was the worst place to play Wargroove, as PC, Xbox One and even Switch owners could all enjoy the benefits of playing together and sharing maps as one giant community, while the PS4 edition was left out of the party for over a year now.

Strangely, by the time Wargroove launched on PS4 last July, Sony's PS4 cross-play program was in "beta," and the CEO of Chucklefish (Finn Brice) decided to call them out on it, saying that Sony was playing favorites with the program: prominently featuring games like Rocket League and Fortnite without focusing on indies.

Brice called them out publicly hard, saying that he made "many requests for cross-play," but Sony did not budge. Obviously it behooves Chucklefish to make that happen, and oddly, Sony was maintaining the stance that the program was available to anyone who wanted it. Where the truth lies is probably buried within heaps of NDAs somewhere, but the good news is that after being the last holdout, Sony is finally playing ball.

Let's hope cross-play and cross-buy are as prolific in the next generation as they are now. Microsoft seems committed to making that happen, at least.