With the launch of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S right around the corner, people want to know what the launch lineup looks like for each system. As many have already discovered for themselves, the list of launch titles for both next-gen consoles is not exactly strong when it comes to new releases, but there is more to consider for these new consoles.That is because Microsoft and Sony have taken new approaches to make this console transition much smoother and more seamless than before, thanks to backwards compatibility and free upgrade programs. For Microsoft specifically, it has also instigated a change in business practices to place less emphasis on exclusives and more of a focus on meeting customers wherever they are.Backwards CompatibilityStarting with backwards compatibility, each next-generation platform will play thousands of games from the back catalog, and in many cases, older titles will perform better on the new machines thanks to their improved horsepower without any extra effort on the developer's part. Simply put, many games will look and perform better by virtue of being on the new machines.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Pikmin 3 Deluxe is bringing Nintendo's take on real-time strategy to the Nintendo Switch today. The port brings brand-new side story missions, quality-of-life improvements, and additional achievements to the third installment in the cartoony series about plant-based little minions.A lot of people missed Pikmin 3 when it originally landed on Wii U in 2013, so this version of the game gives them the chance to kill a burrowing snagret with nothing but these knockoff little green men. Fans of the Pikmin series have been clamoring for Pikmin 4, especially as Miyamoto has said that the game is "still happening" back in 2016. This remake could be a sign that the long-awaited sequel is on its way to the Nintendo Switch soon.Game: Pikmin 3 DeluxePlatforms: Nintendo SwitchDeveloper: NintendoRelease date: October 30Price: $60GameSpot -- 8/10"Although the side story missions are the biggest selling point, Pikmin 3 has actually received a fair number of other tweaks in its move to Switch as well. There are new difficulty options, a hint system that helpfully nudges wayward players in the right direction, and other additions like badges--unlockable achievements that are doled out upon completing specific tasks or reaching certain milestones. These nips and tucks don't radically alter the experience for returning players, but they do help make the game more inviting for newcomers, especially those who may not already be familiar with the series." -- Kevin Knezevic [Full Review]Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

The PlayStation 5 begins its global rollout on November 12, and as that date approaches we're finding out more and more about Sony's next-gen system. Now, Sony has given us some insight into the system's in-build accessibility features, and how they'll make the system easier to use for disabled players.While the PS4 had text to speech, the PS5 also has a voice dictation system, which allows you to convert speech to text. There's also a Screen Reader function, which lets users hear on-screen text that they might not be able to read, and deaf users will have the option of typing out text messages that will then be spoken out loud for other players in multiplayer.These features will also support multiple languages, Sony has announced, so they'll be part of the system's global feature set.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

The Mandalorian Season 2 has arrived on Disney+, and we have some news about the premiere episode: It features plenty of Baby Yoda.That may not actually be news, but Mando fans who took to Twitter tonight to tweet about the show got a nice surprise when interacting with tweets about the show: In addition to seeing an emoji of Din Djarin's helmet alongside the hashtag #TheMandalorian, users will see a tiny, animated "The Child" (AKA Baby Yoda) pop up every time they like a tweet featuring said hashtag.You might have noticed this organically if, like us, you stayed up past your bedtime tonight to watch The Mandalorian's Season 2 premiere. But it was also brought to our attention on Twitter by Brandon San Giovanni, who, according to his bio, works on Disney+. "In case anyone was wondering, you bet your ass we made it so that the heart turns into baby Yoda when you like a tweet with #TheMandalorian hashtag," he wrote in response to a fan.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

There were reports that it would be happening sometime in The Mandalorian Season 2, but we didn't expect it so quickly. A major character from the Star Wars franchise made a surprise appearance in the first episode of Season 2, "Chapter 9." That, of course, wasn't the only surprise of the night. In addition to a long list of Easter eggs and references that could be found throughout the episode, Twitter integrated a bit of Baby Yoda into its interface to celebrate the premiere.Warning: The following contains major spoilers for the Season 2 premiere of The Mandalorian. If you've yet to watch the episode, stop reading now.Early on in "Chapter 9," Mando (Pedro Pascal) meets Cobb Vanth (Timothy Olyphant), the marshal of Mos Pelgo on Tatooine. Vanth is wearing Mandalorian armor that looks suspiciously exactly like Boba Fett's and reveals he traded for it with a group of Jawas. How the Jawas got it remains a mystery, but regardless, the Boba Fett-related surprises weren't done yet.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Newegg is once again hosting its annual Black November sale, which promises Black Friday deals throughout the entire month. This sale is entering its 12th year in a row, but for the first time ever, Newegg is guaranteeing its customers the lowest price with its Black Friday Price Protection promotion. The Black November sale kicks off at 12 AM PT / 3 AM ET on November 1 and runs until December, with a special gaming sale running from November 4-8.Newegg Black Friday 2020 scheduleBlack November starts with a three-day kick-off sale that Newegg says will feature some of its most aggressive deals across PC gaming, smart home, hardware components, and more. After that, we'll see the debut of Newegg's Black November Gaming Edition sale, which starts on November 4 and runs through November 8. This sale will focus solely on PC gaming components and storage as well as pre-built gaming PC desktops and gaming laptops.November 9 marks the start of Newegg's two-week Black Friday Start Early sale, which will consist of early Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals. During this period, new deals will be revealed daily. Finally, Newegg ends the month with its week-long Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales, which will discount products in all of the categories across its site.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

The PS5 doesn't arrive until November 12, but some players are already getting their hands on accessories. They'll have nearly two weeks of holding a DualSense controller and pretending they're enjoying its haptic feedback and adaptive triggers, and if you placed an order for an extra controller, you can likely pick yours up, too. Though scheduled to arrive today, October 30, according to Sony's website, the DualSense appears to have released even earlier at certain retailers. One member of the GameSpot team had his order delivered by Target the day before, and Best Buy orders are also available for pickup today. Oddly, this isn't universal for all retailers, with GameStop still listing them as preorders, and not every accessory released on the same day. The charging station for the DualSense isn't releasing for another week, for instance.The DualSense can be recognized by a PlayStation 4 if you're curious to connect it, but you can't actually use it for any games. It will be required for playing PS5 games, though the DualShock 4 will still work for playing backwards compatible PS4 games on the new system.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Cooperative ghost-hunting game Phasmophobia has recently become one of the most-played and most-watched games on Steam and Twitch. Last week’s update for Phasmophobia added more cunning ghosts to the game, but this week’s latest patch is focused on dozens of fixes as well as new Halloween additions. Developer Kinetic Games hasn't revealed yet what the Halloween content actually is, but players have reported seeing Jack-o'-lanterns, a scarecrow, and a new type of crawling ghost.Plenty of small issues have been fixed within Phasmophobia, such as disappearing ghost orbs, loading level timeouts, and dead players being able to use the walkie talkie. New changes to the game include ghost-writing now counting as photographic evidence, upgraded server code to fix most voice chat issues, and removing the Australian server from the region selection options as those players will instead be matched up according to their best ping results.Ghost events will also be more forgiving on your dwindling sanity resource and the EMF Reader will also generate less noise. You can read the full patch notes below:Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Just like the original Spider-Man, Miles Morales will have plenty of costumes to try out and wear in his own solo game on PS5. Miles Morales: Spider-Man has already shown off the regular costume that the young hero will wear, the TRACK suit designed by artist Javiar Garron, and the Crimson Cowl suit which gives Miles a fashionable hoodie.Insomniac Games revealed yet another superhero suit for Miles, which will be instantly familiar to anyone who saw the hero's big-screen debut in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Not just a faithful reproduction of that costume, donning this outfit will actually replicate the look and feel of that film, emulating the 12 FPS animation style that Miles was rendered in for most of that film. Fortunately, for those with accessibility concerns, this animation style can be disabled, as the effect is a suit mod you can deactivate, according to Insomniac's James Stevenson.Insomniac also tweeted that the Spider-Verse costume can be unlocked in the game by anyone and won't be a preorder exclusive. Preordering Miles Morales simply gets you quicker access to the suit. Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

The US anime-streaming site Crunchyroll may be acquired by Sony in the near future, according to a report by Nikkei. The price? $957 million--or 100 billion yen, depending on how you look at it.Sony's popular movie and music studio Aniplex produces a variety of anime content, but uses overseas companies in order to distribute it. If this deal goes through, Sony would be cutting out the distributor middleman and gaining Crunchyroll's 70 million members from around the globe.This isn't the first time Sony has made a major investment in anime. In 2017, Sony acquired Funimation and gained 1 million paying subscribers, mainly in the U.S. However, it came up against obstacles expanding this customer base. According to The Association of Japanese Animations, the global anime market in 2018 was worth about $21 billion, which has grown almost double in the last five years.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Borderlands 3 is getting even more content for its second season pass, and a recent Borderlands Show stream laid out the plans in detail. A newly revealed Borderlands 3 Ultimate Edition will include all the content from both season passes, along with some new cosmetics.The first addition is coming on November 10 with the new Arms Race mode, part of the Designer's Cut expansion. That expansion also includes a new set of skill trees for all four Vault Hunters. Both the Designer's Cut and another expansion coming next spring, the Director's Cut, is included with Season Pass 2.To sweeten the pot, Gearbox is adding a new set of cosmetics called the Multiverse Final Form cosmetic packs. Rather than mere recolors, these are entirely different character models. Like your regular character models, they can be customized with the usual bodies, heads, and skins. The new cosmetics are included if you already own the Borderlands 3 Super Deluxe Edition or the original Season Pass.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

On this week's bittersweet episode of GameSpot After Dark, Jake and Kallie are joined by GameSpot Australia's Edmond Tran and Jess McDonell for their last day at GameSpot. Though they're leaving the team, they're not leaving our hearts and minds--and yes, we got the sappy stuff out of the way early so we could have a laugh and talk about new games, old games, and very new consoles.CRPG expert Jess gives her impressions of Baldur's Gate 3, then Kallie and Jess talk about how incredible Persona 5 Royal is before Ed and Jake give their thoughts on the newly released Watch Dogs: Legion. Oh, and Cyberpunk 2077 was delayed again. We don't spend too much time on that one.The main event this episode is, of course, that we can now talk a little bit about PS5 and Xbox Series X|S! Jake has a Series X, Kallie has a PS5, Jess' roommate has a Series S, and Ed wins with hands-on time with all three. While we still can't talk about too much, Ed shares his early impressions of PS5 pack-in Astro's Playroom.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Apex Legends Season 7: Ascension begins on November 4 and introduces a brand-new map (Olympus) as well as a playable legend called Horizon. After getting hands-on time with both, we finally know what Horizon's abilities are.Horizon's passive ability, Spacewalk, increases her air control and prevents her from being stunned upon falling from great heights. Her tactical ability, Gravity Lift, throws out a device that temporarily reverses gravity, allowing her to send herself, allies, enemies, or the new Trident vehicles flying into the air. Finally, Horizon's ultimate ability, Black Hole, sees her create a micro black hole that sucks in all nearby players.Horizon isn't the only thing mixing up Apex Legends in Season 7 either--far from it. I sat down with Apex Legends game director Chad Grenier to talk about how Horizon fits into the in-match meta, as well as the new in-game clubs, Trident vehicle, and character balancing changes coming in Season 7.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

The huge success of Get Out and Us has made Jordan Peele one of the hottest filmmakers in horror, enabling him to produce movies for other directors too. The Peele-produced Candyman reboot is set for release next year, and it's been reported that he's developing a remake of Wes Craven's The People Under The Stairs.According to Collider, Peele will produce a new version of Craven's movie for Universal, through his company Monkeypaw Productions. As with Candyman, which is helmed by Nia DaCosta, Peele won't direct. However, it's possible he and co-producer Win Rosenfeld might have input into the script, as they did with Candyman.The original People Under The Stairs was also written by Craven and released in 1991. It combined horror with a dark social satire, and focused on a young man who breaks into the house of his married landlords when he learns he is being evicted. He discovers that the couple are keeping dozens of disfigured children in the basement of their house. The movie starred Everett McGill and Wendy Robie, best known for their roles as Big Ed and Nadine Hurley in Twin Peaks, plus A.J. Langer and Ving Rhames. Craven himself was reportedly working on a new TV version of the film before his death in 2015.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

In early October, there were numerous reports that WWE would be taking ownership and control of wrestlers' Twitch accounts. On October 29, Saraya Knight, also known as Paige, opened up about the situation as others announced they are no longer streaming.Over the course of an almost 10-hour stream, Saraya spoke out about the situation. PWUnlimited posted numerous clips cut together featuring the WWE superstar--and former wrestler--who is visibly upset with WWE's control over its contractors' personal lives. Below is one of the four videos PWUnlimited posted.Paige on Twitch after finding out while she is live that some in the company have had to suspend their Twitch accounts today. FULL VIDEO: https://t.co/neNlVoyzkfPART 1 pic.twitter.com/86jFd7niWM — PWUnlimited (@PWUnlimited) October 30, 2020"I've honestly have got to the point. I cannot deal with this company anymore," Saraya explained during the stream. "I broke my f***ing neck twice for this company... They don't realize that this community isn't just about f***ing subs dude. We build such a wonderful community, a wonderful f***ing family where this is an escape for a lot of people, including myself. I can't wrestle anymore. I was worked so hard in WWE that I can't wrestle anymore. My neck is f***ed. My whole f***ing dreams got taken away from me, dude, and I had to have something that fulfilled that huge f***ing void that I lost with wrestling...Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com