July 2021

Earlier today, the official Pokemon Unite Twitter account announced that the Embrace Pokemon, Gardevoir, will be coming to Pokemon Unite tomorrow (July 28). Gardevoir will be the first Pokemon added to the game since it launched on the Switch just one week ago.

The announcement didn’t say too much about Gardevoir itself, but it was revealed that they’ll be a Ranged Attacked. If you’ve played Pokemon games in the past, then that was to be expected from this creature that mainly uses special Psychic and Fairy attacks.

A short 34-second-long trailer was also released alongside the brief announcement. This short video showed off Gardevoir’s standard attacks as well as two moves. The standard attack is ranged and appears to spawn purple stones above the target and slam them down to the ground. If your opponent is fast enough, they may be able to dodge part of the attack. In the trailer, Pikachu can be seen moving out of the way before the attack lands.

Next, a move is showcased which has many different moving parts. First, Gardevoir fires an orb of energy in a straight line. Then it’s shown that if the attack doesn’t KO an opponent, it will instead temporarily stun them. And the biggest boon of all is that when the move lands, a temporary shield is put around Gardevoir that blocks special attacks. There’s no indication of what happens if the move misses or if the shield will block physical attacks.

The last move shown forms a circle in front of Gardevoir with a ball of energy in the middle. It covers a wide area, but it’s unclear how much damage it deals. It’s also unclear if this is just another one of this creature’s moves or if it’s a Unite move.

Today, Microsoft announced its financial results for the fourth quarter of the fiscal year 2021, related to the period between April 1, 2021, and June 30.

Firstly, the presentation included an update on the performance of the More Personal Computing business, which includes Microsoft’s gaming division and the Xbox brand.

You can find all the relevant figures for the segment in the slides below.

Blizzard has promised to remove content “not appropriate for” World of Warcraft, likely in response to in-game references to creative director Alex Afrasiabi. This announcement comes after a short period of silence following the publication of a California state lawsuit against the company, which alleges Activision…

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A surprise statement from the World of Warcraft team promises both to work for inclusivity in the workplace and promises changes inside the MMORPG starting today. ...

Microsoft's Q4 results are light on game numbers, but the company says that its video game-related revenue rose, while Xbox content and services revenue dropped from 2020. ...

Brad Hart, CTO of version control software at Perforce, explains what he sees are game production's biggest challenges in recent years, and what challenges lie ahead. ...

In a statement released today, Activison Blizzard employees announced plans to stop work from 10am to 2pm on Wednesday in protest against working conditions at the company. The announcement comes after the State Of California filed a lawsuit against Activision Blizzard for alleged harassment and discrimination within the workplace, and after an open letter signed by over 2600 employees was released yesterday which condemned the "abhorrent" corporate response to the allegations.

Today's walkout announcement includes a list of demands that the employees feel would "improve conditions for employees at the company, especially women, and in particular women of color and transgender women, nonbinary people, and other marginalized groups."

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Sure, Dead Space is getting a remake, but there's more than one game about cutting off limbs, and the other one is called Clone Drone In The Danger Zone. After four years in early access, the voxel robot arena battler (with laser swords) has hit 1.0 today.

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Facebook have halted sales of the Oculus Quest 2 after a small number of users reported skin irritation caused by its foam faceplate. They're offering a silicone cover for the faceplate to all existing Quest 2 owners, and the silicone cover will be included with every Quest 2 when sales resume on August 24th.

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Good news, everyone! The Ryzen 5 5600X continues its march to lower prices, with the CPU now available from antonline via Ebay for $269.99. That's $10 cheaper than it was just last month and, critically, about the same price as the Intel Core i5 11400F. The Intel CPU debuted at a much lower price, but low supplies and positive reviews have inflated the price substantially, to the point where the more powerful 5600X is now the better value pick!

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Activision Blizzard employees are planning a walkout tomorrow, 28th July, in protest against the company's response to a recent lawsuit from California's Department of Fair Employment and Housing alleging a "frat boy" work culture that created "a breeding ground for harassment and discrimination against women".

Activision was quick to slam the lawsuit, strongly denying its claims and dismissing it as "irresponsible behaviour from unaccountable State bureaucrats that are driving many of the State's best businesses out of California".

That was a stance repeated in an email reportedly disseminated by Activision Blizzard executive Fran Townsend, who insisted the lawsuit "presented a distorted and untrue picture of our company, including factually incorrect, old, and out of context stories". Townshead continued, "Rest assured that leadership is committed to continuing to maintain a safe, fair, and inclusive workplace. We cannot let egregious actions of others, and a truly meritless and irresponsible lawsuit, damage our culture of respect and equal opportunity for all employees."

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Facebook has temporarily halted sales of its Oculus Quest 2 headset as it takes steps to recall and replace the device's foam insert following reports it has caused facial rashes and skin irritation in some customers.

"As more people started using Quest 2," Facebook explained in its recall notice on the Oculus website, "we received reports that a very small percentage of Quest 2 customers were experiencing skin irritation after using the Quest 2 removable foam facial interface. We've been working hard to address the issue, working with experts and making adjustments to our manufacturing process, and communicating proactively with regulators."

Facebook initially announced it was investigating reports of skin irritation from Quest 2 last December, and provided an update on its findings back in April.

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Netflix has been holding nothing back in terms of taking up as much space in the gaming community as possible. Whether that be by actually offering games or just delivering surprising adaptations, the streaming company has been on a roll, and now it looks like it's rolling towards Thedas with a new rumor. That's right; apparently, there is a Dragon Age TV series in the works over at Netflix, at least if recent rumors are to be believed. 

In a new report from a "trusted source," Giant Freakin Robot has learned that a reported Dragon Age TV series is in the works. No details were offered at this time, but if I were to guess, I would say that it would be in an animated format if this is happening. The reason being is that a Dragon Age adaptation would be massive when retelling the tales of Thedas. That, and any BioWare-related adaptation has usually been animated. Even Dragon Age has had its previous spinoffs with Cassandra's origins story in Dawn of the Seeker. 

Valve announced its own handheld device just a few short days after Nintendo's reveal of the Switch OLED. Called the Steam Deck, Valve's contribution to handheld gaming is literally a small PC in the palm of your hands. If you have huge hands, this thing is not small. Shortly after this announcement, we shared which games you cannot play on the Deck at launch; though Valve is currently working on circumventing that restriction, we thought we should even things up slightly. So, here are the games I can't wait to play and that you should check out when the Steam Deck arrives! 

Pokémon Go developer Niantic has acknowledged that a recent wave of cheating punishments, including account strikes and outright bans, were doled out to players erroneously.

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Facebook is pausing all sales of its Oculus Quest 2 headset over concerns that the foam used between the headset and your face can in some cases cause severe “skin irritation”.

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The Simpsons Arcade Game is one of the most beloved classic arcade cabinets, and finally players will be able to have this iconic Konami game at their homes thanks to Arcade1Up. The company announced pre-orders for their version of the cabinet with four-player support, online co-op, and an included stool will open on Aug. 16. You can put a notification alert to be reminded of it on their official site.

Right now there’s no price confirmed for The Simpsons cabinet, but similar four-player cabinets by Arcade1Up like X-Men: The Arcade Game and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time, both also from Konami, range in price between $649.99 to $699.99.

The Simpsons, as the game was called back in 1991 when it launched, is a simple beat’em up game developed by Konami based on the Simpsons TV Show, which only had 2 seasons at that time. Players can choose between Homer, Marge, Bart, and Lisa to go around Springfield and punch thugs while they try to rescue Maggie from the hands of Mr. Burns and Smithers. Characters could also join forces, unleashing special moves that differed depending on whom each one was playing as.

Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick has issued a public statement addressed to all employees concerning the harassment lawsuit against his company.

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The Katana-wielding, bow-shooting Braver class is coming next week, along with a new side story featuring a melancholic Aina.

The post PSO2 New Genesis Adding New Braver Class appeared first on Siliconera.

Nintendo announced Dr. Mario World will shut down, with the app closing after two years of service.

The post Dr. Mario World Will Shut Down in November appeared first on Siliconera.

Dr. Mario World, the mobile game Nintendo launched in 2019 with the help of LINE, will be shut down in November, the company just announced.

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CuddlyVeedles is an artist from Thailand.

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Activision CEO Bobby Kotick has issued a letter to his employees following the news that a walkout is planned for tomorrow. The walkout is the latest step employees are taking to improve work conditions following details of a lawsuit against Activision Blizzard from the state of California over reported gender discrimination and sexual harassment in the workplace going public. 

Game Informer has obtained a copy of the letter from Kotick to the company as a whole, stating that it has "been a difficult and upsetting week." The letter goes on to denounce the initial Activision Blizzard response, agreeing with the community that the messaging was "tone deaf" and that it is "imperative" that the teams come together and "acknowledge all perspectives and experiences and respect the feelings of those who have been mistreated in any way." He added, "I'm sorry that we did not provide the right empathy and understanding."

The letter continues, saying:

Dr. Mario World, one of Nintendo’s numerous mobile games, will, unfortunately, be shutting down on Nov. 1 of this year. The mobile game originally launched on July 10 all the way back in 2019 and has reached 70,000 downloads worldwide. For players who attempt to open the app after the service ends, they will be greeted by an end-of-service notification and will not be able to play the game at all.

The Dr. Mario World official site states that players will be able to access a website to look at their play history via a new website titled Dr. Mario World Memories that has yet to launch. The website also encourages players to take a look at the in-game notices for further details on what will be taking place in their service termination.

Last year, we wrote an article detailing the overall player spending across all of Nintendo’s most popular mobile apps at the time. Taking a look at the chart provided, Dr. Mario World ranked the lowest in terms of revenue. It wasn’t even close to the second to the last game, Super Mario Run, that was estimated to have made around $78 million. Nintendo may have decided that it was appropriate to pull the plug on Dr. Mario World since it wasn’t doing so hot compared to the rest of their mobile apps.

As an avid fan of Final Fantasy 14, I regularly log in on the evenings and weekends to play the game. But recently I noticed a trend while logging in; queues. It's not too unusual to have a short wait that almost immediately resolves, but this time, the line sat at over 300 players. It took ten minutes to simply get into the game - and all I wanted to do was mull around in the Bojzan Southern Front to grind away for an extremely shiny weapon. Final Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn is coming up to eight years old. So, why are more players than ever logging in to play the smash-hit MMORPG now?

Let's take a look at some of the stats. Final Fantasy 14 keeps breaking its Steam concurrent player records. At the time of writing, it just broke another concurrent record of over 67,019 players. But, that's just a peek behind the curtain for Final Fantasy 14's current player count. Many people still play the game on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 and another native PC launcher, which is much harder to track with public information.

However, what is unusual is for the developers to issue a statement about the explosion of growth, and an apology from the game's director Naoki Yoshida on the recent phenomenon. He detailed immediate actions for Final Fantasy 14 to be able to handle this unprecedented surge in popularity over on the game's official blog. Action has been taken to cull queue times immediately, and a server upgrade originally intended for use at the release of the latest expansion, Final Fantasy 14: Endwalker, has already begun to roll out. But, why is this all happening?

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Though I’d prefer they added an airship, or at least a sofa with birthday balloons attached, I’m still very excited about Microsoft Flight Simulator’s new patch. The update brings some significant performance improvements that should bring higher frame rates, smooth out stuttering, and reduce strain on your whole system. Along with some exploration improvements and world map upgrades, it’s a very helpful patch.

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Krispy Kreme UK has partnered up with Xbox to create a limited edition doughnut.

Called "The Nexus Level,", it's made with "irresistible light and fluffy dough with a rich and gooey brownie batter, dipped in icing and decorated with the iconic Xbox Nexus design.".

To accompany this, the most significant of all game product launches, Krispy Kreme released a video that parodies Microsoft's Xbox One X reveal trailer.

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I'm in Microsoft Flight Simulator for the long haul. I've followed its slow taxi up the runway to yesterday's big Xbox Series X/S take-off. I expected a few bumps. I'm sure it will still stick the landing.

But last night's launch was a little turbulent - even with all pre-flight checks complete. I had the game's base installation and additional offline pack all pre-loaded (102GB, ouch, but still about half a Call of Duty: Warzone). Then along came a surprise 27GB day one update. Well, flights do get delayed.

After sitting through all that, surely, everything was sorted. Well, no. If I want to go see London or New York or various other global attractions in detail, you need their corresponding region's additional free content packs. These are accessible from Flight Sim's already bulging in-game store (alongside dozens of paid-for planes and airports). I couldn't see a way of getting these content packs downloaded via the standard Xbox marketplace. I wish there had been a way of pre-loading these too.

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Hello, my name is Aoife and I like Final Fantasy. A lot. Just ask my long-suffering colleagues at Eurogamer who were lucky(?) enough to attend Sony's E3 conference in 2015 with me and watched as I broke down and cried when the Final Fantasy 7 Remake was officially announced. It was a game I'd dreamed about for years, ever since the first time I'd saved the world with Cloud, Tifa, Red XIII and the rest of the party as a kid. And although the wait was long, the game that launched in April 2020 was worth it. Mostly. The ending is a whole other topic that I've covered (extensively) elsewhere, but Final Fantasy 7 Remake on PlayStation 4 - though beautiful - did suffer from texture issues throughout. For someone who could not wait to relive this adventure with shiny new visuals, it was heartbreaking when key story moments were undermined by a flower bed looking like it had been run over by a truckload of vaseline, or a smeary cityscape prompting me to check whether I'd forgotten to put my glasses on.

Gardevoir will appear as a Ranged Attacker and utilize Fairy and Psychic attacks.

The post Pokemon Unite to add Gardevoir to Roster of Available Pokemon appeared first on Siliconera.

When US representatives Phillip and Ryan Chew played against Japan in the badminton men’s doubles Olympic tournament, their names were shortened for the country’s TV broadcast.

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Professional porters Feral Interactive are no longer working on a native Linux port of A Total War Saga: Troy. Valve’s work on Proton, a game-specific compatibility layer that’ll power their Steam Deck portable, has created “generally less demand for native titles,” according to Feral, meaning the upcoming Steam release will rely on Proton, or other compatibility programs, to run instead.

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Last night, BioWare released a fun infographic with stats about player choices in the Mass Effect Legendary Edition. Most of it is pretty unsurprising, with players mostly choosing to be the good guys, opting into peace and Paragon points. But it also has info about what backgrounds and classes players chose. And I have to know, in a game where you're able to play as techno wizards and space sorcerers, why did 40% of you decide to play the class in which your only special skill is "has several guns"?

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The UK is a weird place, London most of all. For example, Westminster City Council spent £2m commissioning a new hill (no, I'm serious) near Marble Arch that opened on Monday.

For the low price of £8, people with too much money to spend can climb the 25-metre-tall structure to have a prime view of, err, Oxford Street and Hyde Park, I guess.

However, this waste of taxpayer money might just be a money-maker as a Mario-themed attraction. As Nintendo Life points out, people have been comparing the hill for its uncanny resemblance to Super Mario 64's Bob-Omb Battlefield. Others have compared it to Minecraft or a PlayStation One game.

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Dr. Mario World will be shut down by Nintendo this November, after little more than two years of service.

The mobile match-3 puzzler launched in July 2019 and has been kept well updated with new stages and characters. But in-game purchases have now been switched off, and the game will become completely unplayable from 1st November.

After that date, Nintendo says it will memorialise the game and your play history via "Dr. Mario World Memories", a web page it will put up after pulling the game down.

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Halo Infinite's first multiplayer technical preview is confirmed for this weekend.

In emails sent out to those invited to take part, developer 343 said the preview runs from tomorrow, 29th July to 1st August.

Instructions on how to download the pre-release build will be sent in the next few days via email and Waypoint message, the invitation reads.

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Activision Blizzard boss Bobby Kotick has told staff that the company's initial response to the recently-filed discrimination lawsuit was "tone deaf".

"Our initial responses to the issues we face together, and to your concerns, were, quite frankly, tone deaf," Kotick said in an open letter to company staff that was made public last night.

"It is imperative that we acknowledge all perspectives and experiences and respect the feelings of those who have been mistreated in any way. I am sorry that we did not provide the right empathy and understanding."

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Other activities include golf and hanging out at a bar.

The post Lost Judgment Mini-Games to Include Drone Races and Tailing Missions appeared first on Siliconera.

These slippers will let you walk around like a Gundam. Someone tell Setsuna F. Seiei.

The post Premium Bandai Lets You Wear Gundam Feet as Slippers appeared first on Siliconera.