November 2021

Muv-Luv Alternative Anime Episode 4 First Screenshots & Details Revealed

2 years 4 months ago

Today Avex revealed the first screenshots and the synopsis of the fifth episode of the ongoing Muv-Luv Alternative anime series.

The episode will be aired on Wednesday, November 3, and you will be able to watch it on Crunchyroll in many western countries.

Here’s what you can expect:

“November 28, 2001. Miki Tamase’s father, United Nations Under-Secretary-General Tamase, visits Yokohama base.
However, to please her father, whom she rarely sees, she had sent him a letter including a small lie. In order to save Miki, who is tormented by guilt, Takeru Shirogane puts a secret plan in motion.”

Below you can enjoy the first images of the episode.

Author
Giuseppe Nelva

Tags

No further Animal Crossing: New Horizons paid DLC planned

2 years 4 months ago

Animal Crossing: New Horizons' upcoming Happy Home Paradise expansion will be the game's "first and only paid DLC", Nintendo has now clarified.

The Mario maker previously said this week's huge 2.0 update for the game would be its last major free release, marking the end of regular new content for the game. But this still left the door open for future paid offerings.

Read more

Author
Tom Phillips

Tags

Xbox and Sega announce "strategic alliance" for "Super Game" project

2 years 4 months ago

Sega has announced plans to explore a "strategic alliance" with Xbox to produce "large-scale, global" games built using Microsoft's Azure cloud platform.

The Sonic maker said the agreement would form "a key part of Sega's mid to long-term strategy", which it has dubbed "Super Game". This initiative is designed to develop games "where the key focuses are 'global', 'online', 'community' and 'IP utilisation'", it said today.

Read more

Author
Tom Phillips

Tags

Black Friday Graphics Card Deals 2021: Early Offers

2 years 3 months ago

There is no getting around it with PCs, graphics cards are usually the most expensive component for any setup. They also have the biggest impact on your in-game performance, so whether you're building a new PC from scratch or looking to upgrade an existing setup, there's a good reason to invest.

Black Friday is one of the best opportunities to pick up a new graphics card at a discounted price, and with this year's sales event fast approaching, we've rounded up the best Black Friday deals on graphics cards that are currently available.

Read more

Author
Henry Stockdale

Tags

PAX South Has Been Canceled For The Forseeable Future

2 years 4 months ago

Conventions have had a rough time since the start of 2020, as the idea of being crammed shoulder-to-shoulder in a hall while a highly-infectious virus wreaks havoc across the world has seen many an event close its doors. For PAX South, those doors will remain shut for much longer as the Texas-based incarnation of the convention won't be around for the "foreseeable future."

The official PAX Twitter account uploaded a statement confirming the news, while also highlighting that the event hadn't expanded in a meaningful way since it debuted in 2015.

"While each of our other events has flourished, some of them drawing hundreds of thousands of attendees from around the world, PAX South hasn't expanded and to some extent has remained the same show that it was when we opened it in 2015," the PAX organizer ReedPop explained. "Faced with that reality, and compounded by the impact of Covid-19, we have made the difficult decision to bring PAX South to an end for the foreseeable future."

Author
Darryn Bonthuys

Tags

Roblox CEO Explains What Happened In Massive Server Outage

2 years 4 months ago

Roblox is one of the most popular games in the world, and it was offline for more than 60 hours over the Halloween weekend as part of a massive outage. Roblox Corp. founder and CEO David Baszucki has now published a blog post that explains what went wrong.

Issues with Roblox started to appear on Thursday afternoon of October 28, at which time players reported having issues logging in. Baszucki said it was at this time that its teams began "working around the clock" to find the source of the issue and get the game back up and running.

But this was not easy, Baszucki said. In short, the server issues were caused by a "growth in the number of servers" for Roblox's datacenters, caused by a "subtle bug" in the game's backend.

"This was an especially difficult outage in that it involved a combination of several factors. A core system in our infrastructure became overwhelmed, prompted by a subtle bug in our backend service communications while under heavy load," Baszucki said. "This was not due to any peak in external traffic or any particular experience. Rather the failure was caused by the growth in the number of servers in our datacenters. The result was that most services at Roblox were unable to effectively communicate and deploy."

The reason it took the team multiple days to get Roblox back up and running came down to the "difficulty in diagnosing the actual bug," Baszucki said.

"Recovery took longer than any of us would have liked. Upon successfully identifying this root cause, we were able to resolve the issue through performance tuning, re-configuration, and scaling back of some load. We were able to fully restore service as of this afternoon," Baszucki said in the post, dated October 31.

Author
Eddie Makuch

Tags

Microsoft And Sega Working Together On A Deal For A "Super Game"

2 years 4 months ago

Microsoft and Sega have reached a new agreement "in principal" to form a strategic alliance to use Microsoft's Azure servers to power "large-scale, global" games. Sega is just the latest gaming giant to use Microsoft's Azure network, joining Bungie (Destiny), Krafton (PUBG), and more.

Sega said the deal will help it create a "super game," which is a type of large-scale, online title that it's been seeking to create and spending lots of money on.

"With the world now more connected than ever following the widespread deployment of 5G and cloud services in recent years, consumers can more easily enjoy high-quality entertainment content at any time," Sega said. "Within this highly connected environment, the ecosystem surrounding the games industry continues to evolve and expand as more sophisticated tools and technologies become available. As such, video games continue to grow as a major medium for gamers globally, with access to a vast range of gaming experiences and communities becoming more diverse and attainable."

The deal with Microsoft, which isn't final yet and is only "proposed," helps set Sega up for success down the road, the company said.

"By working with Microsoft to anticipate such trends as they accelerate further in future, the goal is to optimize development processes and continue to bring high-quality experiences to players using Azure cloud technologies," it explained.

Sega COO Yukio Sugino said in a statement, "By considering a strategic partnership with Microsoft, we seek to further advance our game development so that our titles can be enjoyed by fans all over the world; in this regard, we aim to build an alliance that utilizes both SEGA's powerful game development capabilities and Microsoft's cutting-edge technology and development environment."

Author
Eddie Makuch

Tags

Nintendo's Switch Online Expansion Pack Trailer Is Its Most Disliked Video Ever

2 years 4 months ago

Nintendo's trailer for its Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack hasn't gone over too well with fans, with the video now holding the record for the most dislikes ever on the company's YouTube channel. The expansion pack trailer's stats which were spotted by VGC--which reveals the tiers and prices necessary to play N64 and Sega games--has almost 120,000 dislikes at the time of writing and a mere 17,000 likes, with a total count of 1.15 million views.

The last time that Nintendo uploaded a video that was so negatively received was in 2015 with its E3 trailer for Metroid: Federation Force, which received over 97,000 thumbs down from 1.5 million views.

Fans have criticized Nintendo's pricing for the individual and family membership packages of the Expansion Pack tier, which costs $50 and $80 respectively for a 12-month subscription. The emulated games on offer lack several features, audio delay is commonplace, and there have even been reports of graphical lag during online sessions.

Author
Darryn Bonthuys

Tags

Fortnite Will Not Be Released In China

2 years 4 months ago

Fortnite will not get an official release in China. After a period of testing for the past two years, it's been announced that Fortnite will not be released in an official capacity in the country.

Analyst Daniel Ahmad, who covers the video game markets for Niko Partners in China, said on Twitter that it's not true that the game is shutting down, per se, because it never officially was released. The version that was available since 2019 did not include any in-app purchase system and was more akin to a test version, Ahmad said. The game was never approved by the Chinese government, and Ahmad believes the cost of any changes it might need to make the game to appease regulators and cover associated licensing payments are not worth it.

"Fortnite never officially launched in China The game has been undergoing testing for the past 2+ years and does not include IAP This is because the game was never approved by the govt and therefore could not officially launch + monetize. Hence the shut down now," Ahmad said.

Ahmad mentioned how battle royale games in particular are "strictly regulated" in China, and games must make significant changes to be approved. As an example, PUBG for PC has not been approved for release in China. The Chinese version of PUBG Mobile is called Game For Peace, and it doesn't have any blood.

Author
Eddie Makuch

Tags

Janina Gavankar Is Involved With New Marvel Game From Uncharted Director

2 years 4 months ago

Janina Gavankar, who played Iden Versio in Star Wars: Battlefront II, has announced that she is involved in some capacity with the new Marvel game coming from Uncharted director Amy Hennig. Posting on Twitter, Gavankar said she is excited to finally be able to talk about the project.

"THIS is what I've been lucky to be a part of," Gavankar said (via GamesRadar), sharing the blog post announcing the new game from Skydance, Hennig, and Marvel.

Author
Eddie Makuch

Tags

Early Black Friday: Get an Xbox Series S for £238, Call of Duty Vanguard for £54

2 years 4 months ago

You can currently get an extra 15% off PS5, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch games at eBay (see here). While shopping with any of the eBay Trusted Sellers, such as our favourite Boss Deals, you can get 15% off by using code FESTIVE 15. This promo code is running until the end of the day on November 4, so don't miss out.

Our favourite deals in this sale include an Xbox Series S for just £237.99, or Call of Duty Vanguard preorders for just £54 on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.

PS5 and PS4 Games on Sale

PS4 Games

Xbox Games on Sale + Xbox Series S just £237.99

Switch Games on Sale

Robert Anderson is a deals expert and Commerce Editor for IGN. You can follow him @robertliam21 on Twitter.

Author
Robert Anderson

Tags

Shin Megami Tensei V for Nintendo Switch Gets New Trailer Showing Cute Poltergeist in Action

2 years 4 months ago

Atlus has released another of its trailers showcasing the 200+ demons of its upcoming JRPG Shin Megami Tensei V one by one.

This time around, the trailer focuses on the Poltergeist, inspired by the supernatural phenomenon of the same name. It debuted in the series with Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei in 1987.

You can watch it in action below.

Author
Giuseppe Nelva

Tags

Sega And Microsoft Forge 'Strategic Alliance' To Create ‘Large-Scale, Global Games’

2 years 4 months ago

Sega has backed the development of some of gaming’s most beloved franchises – Sonic the Hedgehog, Yakuza, Streets of Rage, and Bayonetta, to name a few. It seems as if a “tactical alliance” with Microsoft is in the works to create next-generation experiences using the Azure cloud platform. The partnership hasn’t been solidified yet, but a Sega-Microsoft joint effort could lead to the creation of “large-scale, global games.”

An article on the official Sega website provides more context for the entertainment company’s Microsoft-supported plans. Sega’s chief goal is to develop “Super Game(s),” with the specific focus being on keywords like “Global,” “Online,” “Community,” and “IP utilization.” We might be in for a new era of Sega-published/developed multiplayer games based on the recurring theme. Perhaps, even MMOs. But that’s all speculation. 

Sega Corporation president and COO, Yukio Sugino, chimed in on his excitement for the partnership and the recent announcement as a whole: 

Author
Jason Guisao

Ubisoft Reveals Plans To Develop Blockchain Games And NFTs

2 years 4 months ago

Ubisoft has announced that it plans to develop blockchain games and non-fungible tokens. 

The company will integrate blockchain technology into future games, as reported by the International Business Times. It will also employ play-to-earn techniques that allow players to earn content from playing Ubisoft’s games. 

“As you see, this industry is changing regularly with lots of new revolutions happening,” Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot said during a recent earnings call. “We consider blockchain one of those revolutions. It will imply more play-to-earn that will enable more players to actually earn content, own content, and we think it’s going to grow the industry quite a lot. So we have been working with lots of small companies going on the blockchain, and we’re starting to have a good know-how on how we can impact the industry. We want to be one of the key players there.” 

Ubisoft has been looking into blockchain for years, according to IBT. More specifically, its Strategic Innovation Lab has been investigating its use of since 2018.

Author
Wesley LeBlanc