For most of the lifetime of the cinema medium, movie studios were not allowed to own movie theaters. A New York judge struck that ruling down in August, but, thus far, studios don't seem to be taking the bait. The CEOs of Warner Bros. and Universal Studios said this past week that they have "no plans" to do so, Deadline reports."We have no plans to do that currently," said Universal chairman Donna Langley when asked if her company was interested in buying up movie theaters in the struggling industry. "We have no plans either," added Warner Bros. chair and CEO Ann Sarnoff. The two were speaking at a Milken Institute Global Conference virtual panel. Sarnoff laughed as she answered, Deadline reports.The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic brought the theater industry to a screeching halt earlier this year, and companies like AMC have only been able to take the smallest of steps to start moving again since. Cineworld's Regal Cinemas are shut down completely for the time being, and AMC says it could run out of cash to keep going by early 2021.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Baldur's Gate 3 is available now in Early Access, and one of the game's selling points has been its huge map. The game also features over 45,000 lines of dialog, and it'll reward players who take their time to see everything. However, it's also possible to do the exact opposite and blast through the game as fast as you can--and one player has already racked up a 7 minute completion.Speedrunner Professor Palmer speeds across the map, skipping every encounter and clicking through cutscenes, and manages to reach the final area thanks to a lucky investigation dice roll on a well leading to the final area.In an email to Kotaku, Professor Palmer notes that he reached the end "having fought nothing, gained no EXP, still level one." Getting their time down to 7 minutes took over 200 attempts.You can watch the complete run below and see how they did it.Of course, this is atypical, and works only for a very specific build. For most players, seven minutes won't be enough time to even read the EULA--which you'll want to do, because it contains a hidden quest.Developer Larian Studios is watching this Early Access period, and how its being played, closely. The studio recently released a heatmap showing how and where players are dying in-game.Info from Gamespot.com

The Star Wars TV show The Mandalorian has been one of the biggest hits on Disney Plus so far, and the second season is due to premiere on the streaming service on October 30. A third season is coming, and executive producer and showrunner Jon Favreau has now confirmed when it should start shooting.He told Variety that the third season is expected to begin filming "before the end of the year." Production will kick off after series star Pedro Pascal finishes his shooting obligations for the wacky Nicolas Cage movie The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent.Whereas other major TV shows and movies have been delayed or shut down entirely due to COVID-19, The Mandalorian is in a unique position due to how many of the characters already wear masks as part of their costumes, while the production uses Fortnite developer Epic's incredible technology to create virtual sets.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

A new patch for Halo: The Master Chief Collection landed this week, and it lays the foundation for cross-generation multiplayer support for Xbox Series X and S when those consoles release in November. Version 1.1871.0.0 is available now on Xbox One and PC. The update makes "improvements to cross-generation play in advance of the upcoming launch of Xbox Series X and Series S hardware."This is seemingly the first confirmation that Halo: MCC will have cross-gen support, but it's not much of a surprise given a game like MCC with six different games and numerous modes and playlists needs a big player base to work well. If there was no cross-gen support, it would seemingly be difficult to find matches for Series X and S players with the consoles having just released and not having a built-in audience yet.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory is a musical spin-off from the main Kingdom Hearts series, and it's due for release on November 13 for Switch, PS4, and Xbox One. Now, ahead of that date, a demo has been released for the game--so you can check it out early and see if it's to your taste.This isn't a traditional Kingdom Hearts experience, and instead plays closer to something like Theatrhythm Final Fantasy. It'll feature plenty of Disney songs and characters--the full game will include over 140 songs.The demo is quite a bit smaller, as you'd expect--it has four field battle music stages and two co-op stages, for a total of six songs. It's free to download.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

When Disney+ launched, several movies carried a disclaimer admitting to outdated depictions of certain cultures and people, with many of the company's older films featuring content that has not held up well in 2020. Now, the advisory messages have been updated, and Disney has established a new website to better address this material.As noted by The Hollywood Reporter, the disclaimers before movies like Peter Pan, The Aristocats, Dumbo, and Swiss Family Robinson now point towards Disney's "Stories Matter" page, which was created in collaboration with a third-party advisory council. The site directly addresses some of the issues in these films."As part of our ongoing commitment to diversity and inclusion, we are in the process of reviewing our library and adding advisories to content that includes negative depictions or mistreatment of people or cultures," the page says. "Rather than removing this content, we see an opportunity to spark conversation and open dialogue on history that affects us all. We also want to acknowledge that some communities have been erased or forgotten altogether, and we're committed to giving voice to their stories as well."The page goes into detail about what, specifically, is wrong with these films, with the examples on the page right now focusing on racist depictions within these four films.Here's the full disclaimer leading into the link:"This program includes negative depictions and/or mistreatment of people or cultures. These stereotypes were wrong then and are wrong now. Rather than remove this content, we want to acknowledge its harmful impact, learn from it and spark conversation to create a more inclusive future together.Disney is committed to creating stories with inspirational and aspirational themes that reflect the rich diversity of the human experience around the globe."In the past, Disney+ has altered and edited some content on its service--most notably, covering up a butt in Splash with weird CGI hair. Pixar's next film, Soul, will release onto Disney+ on Christmas day. Info from Gamespot.com

Grand Theft Auto V Online has announced this week's line-up of bonuses and discounts, and if you want to get a big boost in your RP and GTA$, there are a few playstyles you should focus on this week. The big one is Power Play, which has triple rewards all week.First up, simply logging in this week will earn you a special "Zit" tee, if you want to serve as a walking billboard for the in-game tech company. It's not the nicest shirt, but hey--it's free.Log in to claim a free shirt.This mode, which is a team deathmatch-style mode with wilder weapons and power-ups, will triple all rewards, and it's pretty fun to boot. The End to End Time Trial and Cypress Flats RC Time Trial will also pay out triple this week, and you could potentially earn over GTA$600k if you can hit par on both of them.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

If you were hoping to play a game through Blizzard's Battle.net service today, you could be in for a bit of a wait. By "a bit," we mean more than a month.Players attempting to log in on Battle.net today are finding themselves placed in extremely long queues, with one player estimating that he would be waiting for about 1.2 years if the queue's estimate was accurate. This isn't actually true, but it is about 45 days. Blizzard has not addressed the waits on its support Twitter page yet. Nothing like a 1.2 year queue. Maybe I'll login just in time for Halloween Terror 2021 if I'm lucky!!!! 😂😂😂 pic.twitter.com/tPNOUKvwBw — Stylosa (@Stylosa) October 14, 2020Others had similar struggles, remarking they'd have to miss the launch of Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War in November if they were accurate.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Nearly a month before both the Xbox Series X and Series S launch, Microsoft has released its new UI experience for Xbox One players to try out.As part of the plan to unify all its gaming platforms, Microsoft is standardizing the UI across its consoles. This, it hopes, will make the transition between devices smooth, letting you worry about the games you want to play as opposed to how you're meant to navigate the different devices.The update should be available to you now and comes in at just over 6GB. It changes many visual aspects of the Xbox One UI, including the introduction of profile-specific themes, new colors and accents, animated home screen wallpapers, and rounder edges to titles, and more. The update is also meant to make the entire interface a little snappier, something Microsoft has been chipping away at with each update since the launch of the Xbox One in 2013.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

While all eyes are on Amazon Prime Day 2020, the giant retailer isn't the only one having a sale. Other retailers of note have competing anti-Prime Day sales going on right now, and including GameStop. Right now, they have Rockstar Games' Red Dead Redemption 2 available at a steep discount.As part of GameStop's special 1UP Sale, pre-owned versions of the physical PS4 release of Red Dead Redemption 2 are available for just $20. The standard price is $60, so this is a pretty significant cut from its full price. The overall 1UP Sale expected to end midnight tonight, but this particular flash sale for Red Dead 2 will end in less 3 hours, so act fast. See at GameStop Every four hours, GameStop will cycle in new flash sales for some noteworthy games. In addition to the flash sales, there's also other discounts on Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order for $30, which is another significant discount for one of 2019's more prolific games. GameStop's flash sale has several great games up for sale, so be sure to stick with GameSpot for more updates and details about what's on offer.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate has just added its newest DLC character, the block-breaking Steve from Minecraft. If you have yet to catch up with Nintendo's brawler mash-up, you can pick it up at a discount during the Amazon Prime Day 2020 festivities.This deal is an anti-Prime Day sale offer available through Amazon's competitor, Best Buy. It brings the price of Smash Bros. Ultimate down to $50 from the usual $60. The price is shown in your shopping cart, and you can arrange for pickup at your local store or have it shipped. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate $50 (was $60) See at Best Buy Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Amazon Prime Day 2020 still has several hours to go, and we've seen some great and unexpected video game deals this year. Nintendo isn't typically known for offering large sales on its titles, particularly Nintendo Switch games, but that is exactly what it has done during Prime Day and other stores' anti-Prime Day events.First released on Halloween in 2019, Luigi's Mansion 3 is available for $50 at Amazon right now. Only the physical version of the game is available, but the delivery estimate we saw means it will almost certainly get to you before Halloween arrives this year. There are few better games for horror fans of all ages to enjoy, and it even includes some multiplayer options if the family wants to get involved. Luigi's Mansion 3 $50 (was $60) See at Amazon Like we mentioned, multiple Nintendo games are on sale for Prime Day 2020, both at Amazon and at other retailers. These include Super Mario Odyssey, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe, and several more.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Among Us has a pretty simple ruleset, so it's not difficult to replicate it in other games. One Animal Crossing: New Horizons player created a way to have their own murder mysteries play out in Nintendo's small-town simulator.Redditor micmartperez posted an image with their preferred ruleset. Crewmates must complete their tasks (collecting every type of fruit and returning to base) before Impostors kill them by hitting them with a tool. Here are a few other important rules:Killed players must wear red shirts to show that they are no longer participating.Emergency meetings can be called by returning to base and sending a message that says "EM."A single area must be set up as the meeting area before you start to play.No communicating during the game except while in a meeting.Dress Appropriately While Playing Among Us in Animal CrossingThe fun part of Among Us is communicating, not the tasks or other gameplay mechanics. This New Horizons ruleset is a little janky, but it'll get the job done in replicating how it feels to play InnerSloth's surprise hit.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

According to both the PlayStation Network service status page and DownDetector, PSN is currently experiencing connection issues on PlayStation 4, specifically with its social features and online gaming. PS4 users are unable to access their party list, friends list, and can't play games online. Some are even reporting freezes and crashes."You may have some difficulty launching games, applications, or online features. Our engineers are working to resolve the issue as soon as possible, and we thank you for your patience," reports the official PSN service status tracker.The issues began to arise following the release of firmware update 8.00. It's not clear if the two are related, but some users were encountering a "cannot load" prompt when attempting to open their friends list, along with error code WS-44369-6, after installing the patch.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Amazon Prime Day 2020 is underway, and the event brings with it a slew of sales and deals at other retailers, too. This includes Best Buy, which has Pokemon Sword and Shield on sale for the cheapest we've seen. Amazon is now price-matching this offer as well. Pokemon games hardly, if ever, go on sale at all, so getting a discount this steep is a rare find. Pokemon Sword and Shield $40 each (was $60) Pokemon Sword and Shield mark the eighth generation of Pokemon games. It's a great time to jump in if you haven't already, since the games' second DLC, The Crown Tundra, is just around the corner. See Pokemon Sword at Amazon See Pokemon Shield at Amazon There are plenty of great deals to find during Prime Day 2020. You can check out our full roundup of the best gaming deals, which we continue to update throughout the event, to see what's available. We also have a roundup of all the best Nintendo Switch deals with more discounts on other Switch games--and if you're particularly in the market for more Switch games, be sure to check out our Nintendo Switch gift guide, too. Finally, you can head to our Amazon Prime Day 2020 hub to see all the deals we've found so far.Amazon Prime Day 2020 Coverage Amazon Prime Day's Best Gaming Deals For Switch, PlayStation, Xbox, And More Amazon Prime Day Early Deals: Echo Dot, Fire TV, And More Amazon Prime Day End Time: When Does Prime Day End Tonight? + Show More Amazon Prime Day 2020 Coverage Links (3) 7 Tips For Getting The Best Deals On Amazon Prime Day 2020 Huge Target Sale To Compete With Amazon Prime Day 2020 New Amazon Echo Devices, Cheaper Fire Stick, And More Announced Ahead Of Prime Day Info from Gamespot.com