According to Comcast's Q3 earnings, young-buck streaming platform Peacock currently boasts nearly 22 million users since launching six months ago in April. However, as with all earning reports, there is always some chicanery to pad numbers that must be squinted at and scrutinized: 22 million is certainly a large user base, but the report does not indicate how many of those signups were for Peacock's free, ad-supported plan and how many were for its more premium paid tiers.Still, those numbers--and the accompanying $6.7 billion from NBCUniversal in the same quarter--are nothing to sneeze at. NBC Universal Chief Jeff Shell reportedly said in an accompanying Comcast earnings call, "The fact that we have such a deep library of family stuff, it's kind of the opposite of Quibi." It's a timely bit of corporate shade aimed at the recent high-profile shuttering of an ostensible and now-ousted competitor: Quibi shut down last week.Elsewhere in the report, the company indicated that theater closures due to COVID has resulted in a 25% revenue decline "which more than offset higher content licensing and home entertainment revenue." Theme parks were also down, unsurprisingly, 80.9%. However, Comcast seems poised to offset these downturns due to a forward-thinking (though long embattled) new deal with AMC that was reached over the summer that allows its films to hit streaming services just 17 days after they've been released in theaters.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

With Cyberpunk 2077 suffering a 21-day delay possibly due to the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One ports, issues with crunch have become a hot-button topic at Polish studio CD Projekt Red. On a recent investor's call, joint CEO Adam Kicinski said the extra crunch period is "not that bad--and never was." Kicinski has since walked this sentiment back in an email to staff.On the investor's call, Kicinski said that some members of the development team have been "crunching heavily," but most have finished their work. Kicinski also noted that the issue of crunch is "not that bad" because some employees are happy with the extra three weeks."Regarding crunch. Actually, it's not that bad--and never was," Kicinski said. "Of course it's a story that has been picked up by the media, and some people have been crunching heavily, but a large part of the team is not crunching at all since they have finished their work; it's mostly about Q&A and engineers, programmers--but it's not that heavy. Of course, it will be extended a bit, but we have feedback from the team; they're happy about the extra three weeks, so we don't see any threats regarding crunch."Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Niantic has announced another new event for Pokemon Go. The Animation Week event kicks off next Friday, November 6, and it features Pokemon and other content based on the current Pokemon anime series, Pokemon Journeys.Throughout the Animation Week event, Pokemon that have featured prominently in the anime will appear in the wild. This includes World Cap Pikachu, which is making its debut in Pokemon Go, as well as Bulbasaur, Exeggcute, Cubone, Scyther, Dratini, and Cyndaquil. Players will also have a chance to encounter Shiny Cubone during the event.The Animation Week 2020 event is coming soon!https://t.co/5BZfwq8mVd pic.twitter.com/ZJQvPArJEt — Pokémon GO (@PokemonGoApp) October 26, 2020 Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Ubisoft has pushed two of its biggest games, Far Cry 6 and Rainbow Six Quarantine, out of the current fiscal year and into FY 2021-2022. That means we'll see them coming sometime between April 2021 and March 2022. During an earnings call, CFO Frédérick Duguet narrowed that timeline slightly, saying the company expects both to hit in the first half of the fiscal year.The company announced the delays as part of its recent financial earnings statement. It also updated its expectations to reflect the delays of these two "high-contribution titles," which it says were delayed "due to production challenges related to work from home."The Far Cry team explained the delay in a statement posted to Twitter:Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

The Michael Bay-produced pandemic thriller Songbird debuted its first trailer. It was filmed over the summer and hit a small snag along the way, but production was able to be completed. Directed and co-written by Adam Mason, the film stars KJ Apa (Riverdale), Jenna Ortega (Scream 5), Craig Robinson (The Office), Sofia Carson (Descendents), Alexandra Daddario (San Andreas), Bradley Whitford (West Wing), and Demi Moore (GJ Jane). Originally speculated as a found footage film, Songbird takes a look into the future as COVID-19 has mutated each year, becoming more and more deadly, eventually attacking the brain tissue.Hollywood and entertainment companies have adapted the best they could with the spread of COVID-19, shutting down productions and reopening them when they were considered safe. These lengthy procedures have pushed back the production of several tentpole features, including Matthew Reeves' The Batman, as well as delay release blockbusters like No Time To Die, Wonder Woman 1984, and several others. Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Horror movie studio Blumhouse has kicked off its virtual convention BlumFest with some huge news: Insidious 5 is happening. Patrick Wilson will return to the series; in addition to starring, he'll be in the director's chair this time around.Both Jason Blum and Wilson discussed the upcoming horror movie--which is one of the most notable series from the early days of Blumhouse. "Honestly, if you [asked] me a few years ago, 'Do you want your directorial debut to be a horror movie?' I'd say, 'No, it's not me,'" Wilson explained. "And a lot of that was out of fear, because I've been sitting next to James Wan for a long time now."Wilson went on to say it's about telling the right story, which this film is for the actor and director. Thinking about the characters of Josh Lambert and his young son Dalton--played by Ty Simpkins, who started in the franchise at 8 years old and is now an adult--Wilson wanted to explore how being hypnotized and astral projecting has affected their family 10 years later. "I thought about the bones of it," Wilson continued. "I just latched on to watching Dalton go to college and what does that do, watching a young man go to college and all the new experiences and feeling like an outsider and trying to fit in? And he's got this ability that he doesn't even know he has of being an astral projectors--being a traveler. Are we still hypnotized? Is there still that trend so what does that do to your life? What does that do to your marriage? And then what does that do from a father and son relationship?"Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

World of Warcraft: Shadowlands was previously scheduled to release on October 27, meaning it was intended to be out earlier this week. However, the game was delayed, and we now know fans won't have to wait too much longer: Shadowlands releases on November 23.Enter the #Shadowlands on November 23. pic.twitter.com/tukjOpODP1 — World of Warcraft (@Warcraft) October 29, 2020In a note posted on the series' official Twitter, executive producer John Hight said the extra time is being used to add polish as well as improve the endgame content in the expansion, change the combat, and rework Covenant systems and certain rewards.The game's pre-patch already went live, which is essentially the first step in any World of Warcraft expansion's full release. A pre-launch event begins November 10, as well, which will feature the Scourge, and the first raid will begin on December 8. This raid, Castle Nathria, will also mark the beginning of the game's Season 1 content.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Valorant's update 1.11 went live earlier in the week, but was then subsequently rolled back by Riot Games after causing a number of issues. According to Riot, the patch has been a "technical nightmare" and will be delayed until the team can identify a fix. The update was supposed to send Valorant's newest agent Skye live following the launch of Act 3 with patch 1.10 earlier this month.According to Valorant game director Joseph Ziegler on Twitter, any progress you made before the patch was rolled back will remain on your account. It's unclear whether this is specifically referring to progress made on Skye's contract, but Riot does confirm you won't be able to make additional progress with the character until the patch has been redeployed.Real talk: 1.11 has been a technical nightmare. In 30 minutes, we'll be rolling back the patch for North America, Brazil, and LATAM (one at a time). We're also delaying all other regions until we get a fix. We know we've said this every patch, but thanks for sticking by. [1/2] — VALORANT (@PlayVALORANT) October 27, 2020 Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

In preparation for the release of Watch Dogs: Legion and the launch of its RTX 3070 GPUs, Nvidia has released the latest Game-Ready Driver for its range of graphics cards on PC.The driver ensures you have the best possible performance for Ubisoft's latest open-world titles, which should work well with a patch that is set to launch for Legion tomorrow to improve performance issues experienced by reviewers on PC. In addition to Watch Dogs, the latest driver also adds optimizations for Ghostrunner, Dirt 5, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit Remastered, and Xuan-Yuan Sword VII.The RTX 3070 is also meant to benefit from the new driver on its launch day, but with stock almost instantly selling out as soon as the card hit shelves it might just serve as a reminder of the purchase you couldn't make.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Everwild creative director Simon Woodroffe has resigned from Rare, VGC reports. In a statement shared with VGC, Rare studio head Craig Duncan thanked Woodroffe for his work and assured that the Everwild development team would be "in good hands":"We thank Simon for all his hard work on Everwild and wish him the very best of luck for the future. The Everwild team are in good hands and passionate about building a game that will give players unforgettable experiences in a natural and magical world."Woodroffe's resignation marks the second recent high-profile departure from a Microsoft Game Studios project. Earlier this week, Halo Infinite director Chris Lee announced he had "stepped back" from his role on that title, although Microsoft says Lee remains employed at the company. Lee's departure from Halo Infinite came just a few months after the game was delayed into 2021.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Black Friday is still a month away at this point, but that hasn't stopped Best Buy from pushing its deals a little early. The retailer has kicked off its early Black Friday sale, discounting hundreds of items across its entire store. Best Buy has discounted Nintendo Switch memory cards as well, including a 128GB microSDXC card for $20, down from $68, and a 400GB microSDXC card for $60, down from $180. Nintendo Switch memory cards 128GB: $20 (was $68) | 400GB: $60 (was $180) Both SanDisk memory cards are licensed specifically for the Nintendo Switch, though they will work with any device that utilizes microSDXC cards. The 128GB card features the iconic Mario mushroom, while the 400GB one dons the dreaded blue shell from Mario Kart. See 128GB at Best Buy See 400GB at Best Buy If you're looking to expand your storage space, the 400GB is more than enough to hold all of your Nintendo Switch games--unless your Switch library is truly huge. With games like Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, Super Mario 3D World, and Monster Hunter Rise on the horizon, it's an excellent time to pack your Switch full of GBs.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War players on PC can now find out whether their rig can handle Activision's upcoming first-person shooter. The full system requirements are outlined below.There are five settings levels outlined by developer Treyarch,, ranging from minimum and recommended settings to competitive and ultra ray tracing capabilities.Nvidia's new line of GeForce RTX 30 series graphics cards are not required across the board. However, they are recommended if you want to play on higher settings with ray tracing enabled or ultra ray tracing capabilities turned on. Otherwise, players will older graphics cards--like the Nvidia GeForce GTX 670 or Radeon HD 7950--can get by on minimum settings.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

While we won't get to see the next Halloween movie, Halloween Kills, for a year thanks to delays related to the COVID-19 pandemic, horror studio Blumhouse has released a look at the upcoming film that will see Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) battling Michael Myers (James Hude Courtney and Nick Castle) once again. At the first-ever BlumFest virtual event, new footage from the movie was revealed."Next Halloween, when the sun sets and someone is alone, he kills," Laurie can be heard saying as Michael picks up his iconic mask. From there, what is shown is a series of quick shots of vicious murders at the hands of Michael, the Strode family gearing up for war against this masked menace, and a number of other characters being terrorized. You can take a look at the footage below.When asked to describe the movie, director and co-writer David Gordon Green claimed, "The way we look at it is that our 2018 film was just the setup. So, with Halloween kills it's twice the thrills, it's 10 times the kills, it's ghosts from the past and skeletons in the closet, and all the allure of Halloween amplified. So I'm really excited. I look at it like it's our Empire Strikes Back." Referring to the second Star Wars film certainly makes it sound like Halloween Kills is going to end with a victory for evil--Michael Myers himself. That said, this is just the second film in a new trilogy of Halloween movies, with Halloween Ends arriving in October 2022.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

AMD is just over a week away from launching its highly anticipated Ryzen 5000 series of CPUs, but its closest competitor Intel still has a few months to go before it releases its own new generation of CPUs, dubbed Rocket Lake-S.Announced earlier this year, Rocket Lake is presumably another generation of processors built on Intel's 14nm process, which it has clung to for multiple years. That means core counts on Rocket Lake aren't changing drastically, with a maximum of 8 cores and 16 threads. But like AMD, Intel is hoping that optimizations to instructions-per-cycle (IPC) is how it will achieve more performance with the same high clock speeds the company has touted over its competitor.Intel is still the best choice for pure gaming performance thanks to its slight lead in single-core performance, and with Rocket Lake, an improvement to IPC might widen the gap. While Intel isn't ready to get specific with numbers, it does say that it expects double-digit percentage improvements when it comes to IPC, allowing for higher framerates in CPU-limited scenarios and less latency in.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

The COVID-19 pandemic has made 2020 a strange and unprecedented year in every way, leading to countless event cancellations, delays, and closings across everything from sports and politics to education and gaming. The logistical disruptions led to stock shortages in the spring and summer, which resulted in one of the biggest annual sales, Amazon Prime Day, being delayed to October--one month before Black Friday. Now that Amazon Prime Day is behind us and Black Friday deals are starting to roll in, one thing is becoming abundantly clear: Black Friday 2020 game deals are going to blow Prime Day's deals out of the water.The Best Buy Black Friday 2020 ad dropped this morning, and though no start dates or times were shared, it's packed with some of the best game deals we've seen all year. The ad includes record-low prices for games like Fire Emblem: Three Houses ($35), Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2 ($30), and Resident Evil 3 ($15). First-party Nintendo games were $40 during Prime Day (as they have been regularly for most of the year), but Best Buy's Black Friday sale has them for $35, and you can expect other retailers to follow suit. Games that aren't even out yet are featured, like The Dark Pictures: Little Hope (which releases tomorrow, October 30) for $20 and Just Dance 2021 (releasing November 12) for $30.We're seeing incredibly low prices on this year's huge PS4 releases as well, including Final Fantasy VII Remake for $30, The Last of Us Part II for $30, and the most recent exclusive, Ghost of Tsushima, for $40. Persona 5 Royal, the definitive expanded edition of the JRPG classic, will be down to $20, while Marvel's Avengers will be slashed to $30. Meanwhile, Xbox players will be able to snag Star Wars Squadrons--which just released this month--for 50% off at $20, and the new Xbox wireless controllers releasing for Xbox Series X and S will be $20 off. Game Pass Ultimate three-month memberships will also be $23 (about 50% off), letting you add time to your current membership for about as cheap as it gets.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com