2020 is the year of Xbox Series X, but Microsoft isn’t forgetting the regular Xbox One just yet.
The latest dashboard update for the console has arrived–for testers at least–and it’s a big one. The Xbox One UI is notorious for being difficult to use, but this update improves things.
Update #2002–which makes me wonder if there have been 2001 updates before this–is now available for people in the Xbox Insider Alpha-Ring, and in this video we’re covering five new features that make the console look and perform even better. You can check out the full blog post on Microsoft’s website to see a rundown of everything new in the update, as it also includes improvements for Mixer and data-storage.
Overall, this new Xbox One dashboard is a welcome improvement on what has historically been a difficult-to-use platform. It still takes more than a few button presses to get where you want to go and see what you want to see, but I like the strides Microsoft has made here. Not only does the update give the Xbox One a facelift, it feels like the dashboard is snappier and more responsive, which means that while you still need a bunch of button presses to get where you’re going, it moves along faster.
This update is expected to roll out for everyone in February, so be on the lookout for these features soon.
Fans around the world are still waiting and hoping for more news on Breath of the Wild 2, Metroid Prime 4, and Bayonetta 3, which Nintendo currently has TBA as a release date for all three.
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Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN who was very sad writing this as all he wants in his life is a Switch Pro and Breath of the Wild 2. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.
As it does every year, EA Sports has now released the results of its Super Bowl simulation that uses the latest Madden game to predict the winner of the big game.
According to the simulation, the Kansas Chief Chiefs will defeat the San Francisco 49ers in a very close game, by a score of 35-31. Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes will earn the Super Bowl MVP award for his performance, according to the simulation. You can watch the announcement video below, which follows a teaser featuring Peyton and Eli Manning.
In previous years, EA posts a detailed breakdown of its Super Bowl simulation–featuring player statistics and other key details–but it’s not clear if that’s happening this year.
Whatever the case, the Madden Super Bowl simulation is often wrong, as it has been for the past few years. So 49ers fans shouldn’t get too upset over this. It would be great for Mahomes, who is also on the cover of Madden NFL 20. Then again, if the Chiefs lose, fans will no doubt blame the Madden Curse.
GameSpot also ran a Super Bowl 54 simulation using Madden 20–and we got some very interesting results. Check out the video embedded above to learn more.
For over a year, rumors have swirled that Nintendo is planning to release an upgraded “Pro” model of the Nintendo Switch, but in a presentation live-tweeted by Tokyo-based David Gibson, Nintendo Japan president Shuntaro Furukawa shot down reports suggesting that Nintendo will release a new hardware revision in 2020.
According to Gibson, Furukawa said clearly that the company has “no intention” of releasing new hardware in 2020, meaning that a Pro model of Switch is not being planned for release this year.
1) have two types of hardware for different lifestyles – Switch/LITE * new customers from LITE, existing buying LITE * in 2019 Switch was similar to 2018 Switch, incremental is LITE * Benefits of LITE not communicated enough * No intention by end of the year to release new hw
The Switch Lite released in 2019, and Furukawa suggested that the benefits of the system were not communicated as clearly as they could be. For now, it sounds like Nintendo is planning on sticking with the two available models.
Furukawa also suggested that the system is entering the middle of its life cycle, and while the impending launches of new consoles will change the landscape somewhat, Nintendo has different “lifestyle and customer” targets. They will be looking to extend the Switch’s life cycle beyond what they have previously achieved. Nintendo previously indicated it intends the Switch’s lifecycle to extend beyond the traditional five to six-year window.
FY2020 – how think about, given PS5/xCloud/5G devices?threats? * Position – yes environment change, new devices * Lifecycle and customer targets are different * What is important – can we maintain momentum for Switch? P1
With the Switch aiming for a long life cycle, it’s possible that we will see further revisions down the track. There is a precedent for this as the Nintendo DSi iterated on the success of the Nintendo DS and made the system slightly more powerful, back in 2009.
The Nintendo Switch is gearing up for a huge 2020– here are our most anticipated games for the year.
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Mary Elizabeth Winstead, who played Ramona Flowers in 2010’s Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, would love to see a sequel to the film that took place 10 years after the events of the original.
Speaking to ComicBook.com at a press junket for Birds of Prey, Winstead, who plays Huntress alongside Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn, shared her thoughts on what a potential sequel should look like.
“You know what, I think that would be so cool. I would be so curious to know what happened to these characters when they’re in their mid 30s as opposed to the sort of 20 slacker thing,” Winstead explained. “So I think it would be really interesting. We always talked about a sequel when we were doing it, but we always imagined it would be like, still like a year later. Where are they? But I think it’s way more fascinating to know where they’d be 10 years later. I’m down for it.”
A sequel with the original cast would also not be the easiest, as it featured such stars as Michael Cera, Anna Kendrick, Chris Evans, Brie Larson, Brandon Routh, Aubrey Plaza, Alison Pill, Jason Schwartzman, Johnny Simmons, and more.
Super Bowl 54 is upon us. The big game takes place at the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami, Florida this Sunday, February 2. The San Francisco 49ers and Kansas City Chiefs are set to do battle in a game that is projected to be an action-packed affair with a lot of excitement.
The game kicks off at at 3:30 PM PT / 6:30 PM ET on Sunday, February 2. You can watch the game on traditional linear TV on Fox or through the streaming site fuboTV, which offers a free trial. The service streams to PC, mobile phones, Google Chromecast, and more.
Outside of the football we’re expecting trailers for the biggest upcoming movies and advertisements for all kinds of products. It’s rumored that Marvel will air a new Black Widow trailer during the big game, while a trailer for Fast 9 is also expected.
Demi Lovato is singing the national anthem at Super Bowl 54, while Shakira and Jennifer Lopez will perform the halftime show.
Here at GameSpot we ran multiple simulations of Super Bowl 54 with Madden 20, and you can check out the results in the video above. EA’s own simulation predicted that the Chiefs will beat the 49ers 35-31, with Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes winning the MVP award.
For lots more on Super Bowl 54, check out GameSpot sister site CBSSports.com.
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In Episode 2 of Star Trek: Picard, we learn about the Tal Shiar from Picard’s friends Laris and Zhaban, who were formerly members of the Romulan intelligence agency. They suspect that a subset of the Tal Shiar, the Zhat Vash, may be behind the attack on Dahj (Isa Briones). Picard turns to Starfleet for help, but they turn him away. Without their support, Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) must lean on others, including Dr. Agnes Jurati (Alison Pill) and Raffi Musiker. Meanwhile, we get a look at Soji’s work on the Borg Cube called The Artifact, which has been separated from the Borg collective.
The Google Stadia has had a bit of a rough launch, with only one exclusive (Tequila Works’ Gylt) and middling reviews from critics. Now, as one owner has pointed out on Reddit, it’s been 40 days since a new game was announced for the service–and when questioned on this, Google has responded.
Google has provided a statement to Gamesindustry.biz about its silence on upcoming releases, and has said that much of this falls on publishers who are gearing up to make their own announcements.
Google has previously said that there are 120 games coming to Stadia in 2020, including at least 10 exclusives in the first half of the year, and in its statement they say that they won’t be announcing all of them directly. “Of course, not all 120 titles will be announced by the Stadia team,” the statement reads, “As we leave it up to the publishers to make the announcement about their IP/games, and which platforms it will appear on–just as we will do with the exclusive content coming to Stadia.”
Google says that there are many reasons why publishers might want to hold off on announcing Stadia games, and that more news is coming. “We continue to work closely with our publishing and developing partners and are here to support them in all areas. We are excited to share more about some of the exclusive games coming to Stadia soon.”
Earlier in January, Gylt creative director Raul Rubio praised Stadia for being very easy to develop for. Google also recently bought Typhoon Studios, the developer of Journey to the Savage Planet. That game, which was published by 505 Games, has not been announced for Stadia as of yet. Stadia also has its own first-party studio that is working on games, although none have been announced yet.
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Kingdom Hearts 3 Re:Mind’s title doesn’t lie. It’s more of an addendum to Kingdom Hearts 3 than a meaningful addition. In some ways, it’s fitting that a franchise as labyrinthine as Kingdom Hearts received such a strange expansion. Re:Mind is a brief but laborious retread of events we already experienced last year, dressed up with new details that only make the already maddeningly elaborate story all the more obtuse. The DLC also brings back Replica Data bosses, which provide a ridiculous challenge that requires inordinate level grinding. [Editor’s note: This review contains spoilers for the ending boss and area in Kingdom Hearts 3.]
Kingdom Hearts 3 ended with Sora going off on his own to search for Kairi. Re:Mind takes you on that quest in typical Kingdom Hearts fashion: neither simply nor cleanly. It runs synchronously with the events at the Keyblade Graveyard, meaning you actually have to replay the climax again from the Keyblade Graveyard maze all the way to the showdown with Xehanort. Though the explanation for how this is possible is very silly, Re:Mind is essentially a director’s cut.
As a reminder, the Keyblade Graveyard doesn’t really feature any exploration. It’s a series of boss fights separated by lengthy cutscenes. Luxord still hides behind a playing card taunting Sora, and cutscenes stop the action in similar spots. Some of the dialogue and cutscenes are reworked while others are new, but the biggest difference is the option to play as Riku, Roxas, Kairi, or Aqua in several fights. Unfortunately, playing as these characters actually makes the slick and stylish combat less fun. All of them feel like weaker versions of Sora with limited movesets, and it also doesn’t help that the Keyblade Graveyard itself is the blandest world in Kingdom Hearts 3, devoid of the colorful and pleasant trappings of the Disney worlds that made the majority of original campaign hum.
Even the new content that’s spliced into the repeated events largely fails to make the journey worthwhile. Scala ad Caelum opens up to reveal a new section before you square off against Xehanort. Though the area is fairly big, it’s desolate and exists only as a space to complete a rather banal fetch quest. It’s filler content in a story filled with recycled fights. There’s a fan service sequence that’s actually pretty enjoyable, however. Without spoiling it, it’s the type of scene that will make fans fondly remember the decades-long journey that brought us to this point. It’s a brief event that doesn’t make up for five hours of deja vu, but it still stands out.
For die-hard fans, the Limit Cut Episode that unlocks after watching the same closing cutscene from the base game is the meat of the package. Those who played Kingdom Hearts 2 Final Mix will be familiar with the mode, which sees Sora in a computer simulation fighting data versions of Organization XIII members like Xigbar, Ansem, and Xehanort. It even features cameos from the long-lost Final Fantasy characters.
Unfortunately, the barrier for entry is extraordinarily high, because Limit Cut bosses are exponentially more challenging than any of the fights in the base game. If you didn’t grind near or all the way to the level 99 cap in the main campaign–and there was no need to–Limit Cut will probably feel like an insurmountable challenge. I’m still working my way through the bosses, and I seriously doubt that I’ll ever actually beat them all. The ocean that exists between the difficulty of the base game and the data bosses is jarring.
It’s of course impossible to separate the DLC from the game it builds off of, and Kingdom Hearts 3’s best moments came in the Disney and Pixar worlds–the individual stories of friendship and love and good conquering evil that could almost be appreciated as self-contained short stories. Re:Mind seeks to tell a very specific story, but along the way it becomes blindingly clear that Kingdom Hearts’ strengths lie in its pieces and parts, not its convoluted sum that threads through and disrupts the franchise’s magical moments.
Even as a longtime fan of the series who adored Kingdom Hearts 3, it’s hard to muster up any sort of enthusiasm for Re:Mind. What’s more, Re:Mind made me understand Kingdom Hearts 3’s story even less, which is a testament to how bonkers it really is. It’s not all that surprising this happened; after all, it’s Kingdom Hearts. Nevertheless, Re:Mind is an incredibly peculiar expansion that simultaneously falls flat and partially obscures the brilliance of Kingdom Hearts 3.
With the final piece of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge slotting into place now that Rise Of The Resistance is finally open on Disneyland and Disney World’s Batuu, we can now start shifting our focus to the next big project on the horizon: Disneyland’s Avenger’s Campus, the new land in California Adventure, themed around Marvel Studios characters and franchises. Last year’s D23 Expo gave us some up-close and personal looks at what we can expect from the new park area, including a preview of the new Spider-Man themed ride and Ant-Man and The Wasp themed eatery–but now, with the opening of Avengers Campus just months away, the nitty-gritty details are starting to be fleshed out.
And, unsurprisingly, given the sort of characters and stories the MCU tends to deal with, they’re getting pretty weird.
The official Disney Parks blog has announced that Avengers Campus will feature a life-sized animatronic Spider-Man that will periodically hurl itself in a fashion that only a spider can over the rooftops of Avengers Campus’s many Marvel-themed buildings. And if you’re having a hard time figuring out exactly what that might entail, they also posted an official clip of the animatronic in action.
An even better look at what can be expected can be found in this clip of the Disney+ original series, Imagineering Story, which features the Imagineers testing the Spidey-Bot by literally hurling it through the air like a Cirque Du Soleil acrobat.
Nothing says “what could possibly go wrong” like watching a very heavy, very expensive animatronic be launched however many feet into the air to perform stunts over a crowded theme park. But all potential dangers (and/or inevitable Westworld-style robot uprisings) aside, we’re pretty excited to see exactly what this not-so-little webhead can do when the land finally opens.
Avenger’s Campus is coming to Disneyland in Anaheim in the summer of 2020.
