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Following the first details about the PlayStation 5 announced last week by system architect Mark Cerny, Sony has now officially confirmed a next-generation console. In the company’s latest earnings report, Sony said its gaming division experience an “increase in development expensed for the next generation console.”

That’s all Sony had to say on the subject of the PS5, however.

According to Kotaku’s Jason Schreier, Sony’s decision to seemingly randomly announce the PS5 last week was not completely random. Schreier says that one reason is because Sony just started to deliver PS5 devkits to third-party studios, and they wanted to get ahead of leaks.

Also in the earnings report, Sony announced that it shipped 17.8 million PS4 consoles during the fiscal year ended March 31. That’s down from 19 million during the year prior. In all, the PS4 has now sold 96.8 million consoles worldwide since its release in 2013.

PS4 sales have been falling annually for years now, which makes sense given the console is so old. For the current fiscal year, Sony expects PS4 sales to drop yet again, falling to 16 million.

It was also confirmed in the earnings report that Sony has 36.4 million paying PlayStation Plus subscribers. Sony’s digital offerings are doing very well. PlayStation Network revenue, including full-game downloads, DLC, PS Now, and PlayStation Plus, amounted to over $12.8 billion for the year, which is a new yearly record.

Sony’s video game division overall, called Game and Network Services, saw revenue of $20.9 billion. PS4 sales dropped, as mentioned, but this decline was partially offset by more PS4 game sales and PlayStation Plus subscriptions. Some of the numbers and analysis here was compiled by Niko Partners senior analyst Daniel Ahmad.

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Madden NFL 20 has been announced with its cover star and a list of exciting-sounding new features, including the return of college football.

Kansas City Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes will be on the cover of Madden NFL 20. Mahomes is a good pick for cover athlete, as he’s one of the most exciting players in the NFL right now. He was the NFL’s Most Valuable Player in 2018.

In terms of new features, Madden 20 brings a few especially noteworthy ones. Starting off, college football will be featured in the game in a limited capacity. A new mode called QB1 will see players creating a quarterback in college and then taking them through the College Football Playoff and eventually to the NFL Combine where they’ll compete for a spot on an NFL roster.

“Last long enough and you just might leave a legacy and even play in a few Pro Bowls. This new and customizable career campaign is all about you, with personalized playable scenarios, events, and dynamic challenges. The choices you make early on will affect how your career pans out,” EA says.

There are 10 colleges to choose from in Madden 20, including Texas, Oregon, Oklahoma, Clemson, Florida, LSU, Miami, Texas Tech, USC, Florida St. It is a big deal that Madden 20 has college football, because EA has been out of the college football game for years amid various lawsuits. You can learn more about the situation here.

Madden 20 also adds new “X-Factor Players.” This new “game-changing” system will allow players to use “unique abilities” to make NFL superstars feel powerful. It appears Mahomes is one of them, and his unique ability is probably his quick feet and ability to escape.

“In total there will be around 50 Superstar X-Factor players and over 30 additional Superstar players,” EA says. “The difference between the two are the Zone abilities and Superstar abilities. Zone abilities are best described as once-a-season moments that only the league’s best can pull off, while Superstar abilities are traits that are unique to some of the most talented players that you see each and every game. In total there are over 20 Zone abilities for the 50 Superstar X-Factor players and over 140 Superstar abilities. Each game you will see and feel the difference because of these special traits.”

Additionally, Madden 20 features the “Urban Symphony,” which is what EA is describing as “a soundtrack that highlights pop culture, hip-hop music, and urban lifestyle trends, while mixing in traditional musical elements of the sport (i.e. marching bands) to create an original soundtrack that truly delivers on the emotion, history and meaning of football.”

Madden 20 launches on August 2, but people who buy the more expensive Superstar Edition can play three days early.

A new month is just around the corner, which means Niantic will soon be rolling out a new set of Field Research tasks for Pokemon Go. The tasks are scheduled to begin appearing starting next Wednesday, May 1, at 1 PM PT / 4 PM ET, and they’ll be available through the end of June. On top of that, they’ll give you another chance to catch a couple of fan-favorite Legendary Pokemon.

Each time you achieve a Research Breakthrough during the next two months, you’ll be rewarded with an encounter with one of four possible Legendaries: Ho-Oh, Lugia, Latios, or Latias. Both Ho-Oh and Lugia were previously available through Research Breakthroughs, but this marks the first time you’ll be able to encounter the Eon Pokemon this way, which is helpful if you missed out on their recent Raid events.

As usual, you’ll be able to receive the new Field Research tasks by spinning the Photo Disc at Poke Stops. You can complete as many Field Research tasks as you’d like daily, but you’ll only earn a stamp for the first one you finish per day. You’ll need to collect a total of seven stamps to achieve a Research Breakthrough and encounter the Legendaries.

Additionally, you’ll be able to hatch new Pokemon from Eggs beginning this week. The Gen 4 Pokemon Turtwig, Chimchar, Piplup, and Bonsly may appear from 2 km Eggs, while Cubone, Combee, Buizel, Glameow, Bronzor, Skorupi, and Croagunk may hatch from 5 km Eggs. Finally, 10 km Eggs may produce Mawile, Absol, Shinx, Cranidos, Shieldon, and Riolu. You can read more details on the Pokemon Go website.

Also on the way in May is a new Pokemon Go Community Day. This time, the event will take place on Sunday, May 19, and the featured Pokemon will be Torchic, one of the three starters from the series’ Gen 3 games, Ruby and Sapphire. You’ll also be able to earn triple the usual amount of Stardust for every Pokemon you catch during the event.

In the meantime, you have another opportunity to catch Shiny Meltan, as the special Mythical Pokemon is appearing again from now until May 5. If you’re unsure of how to find one, check out our guide on how to catch Meltan. This is also your last chance to capture Origin Forme Giratina; the Legendary is scheduled to leave Raid Battles on April 29.

How’s Nintendo doing from a business perspective? Quite well. The company today reported earnings for this fiscal year ended March 31, and times are (mostly) good. Nintendo pulled in ¥1.2 trillion ($10.7 billion USD), which is an increase from ¥1.06 trillion ($9.4 billion USD) for the previous 12-month period. In terms of profit, Nintendo made ¥249.7 billion ($2.2 billion USD) in operating profit, compared to ¥177.5 billion ($1.6 billion USD) the year prior.

Via Engadget, Nintendo sold 2.47 million Switch consoles in the final three months of the fiscal year, boosting the console’s lifetime total to 34.74 million (which exceeds the lifetime sales of the N64). The 2.47 million Switch consoles sold during the final quarter of the fiscal year is down slightly from the 2.93 million consoles Nintendo sold in the same quarter last year. For the full fiscal year, Nintendo sold 16.95 million Switch systems; that’s just under the 17 million that Nintendo forecasted it would sell the year, but it’s up year-on-year.

As for game sales, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate racked up 13.81 million copies sold, while Pokemon Let’s Go: Eevee and Let’s Go Pikachu combined for 10.63 million copies sold. Super Mario Party sold 6.4 million copies, while Mario Kart 8 Deluxe sold 7.47 million copies during the period (for a total of 16.7 million copies lifetime). A total of 23 different games, from Nintendo and others, sold more than 1 million copies on Nintendo Switch during the year.

Another bright spot for Nintendo was its digital business. Sales of digital games grew 95.4 percent to ¥118.8 billion ($1.064B USD); Nintendo called out Switch digital games as showing “especially good growth.”

Sales of the Nintendo 3DS, which is now more than 8 years old, dropped 60.2 percent to 2.55 million units during the year. The NES Classic and SNES Classic combined to sell 5.95 million units.

For more on Nintendo’s earnings report and other related matters, check out the stories below: