The Morning After: The new gaming-subscription normal

PlayStation’s game-streaming scheme, at its top tier, is now competing directly with Xbox Game Pass, the service that proved the concept by earning 25 million-plus subscribers over the past five years. It’s now been over a month since PlayStation Plus Premium went live, offering similar cloud gaming services to Microsoft's console.EngadgetHowever, there are some major differences in strategy, however. Sony doesn’t plan on adding big PlayStation-exclusive games like Forspoken or God of War Ragnarök to Plus on day one, meaning subscribers will have to buy these titles separately, at least at launch. On the Xbox side of things, Game Pass Ultimate includes big first-party games like Halo Infinite on release day. But as Engadget’s Jessica Conditt put it, this isn’t about one service being better than the others, but about adjusting to the new normal for video games.For your monthly subscription dues, do you value Game Pass Ultimate over Netflix?— Mat SmithThe biggest stories you might have missedEngadget Podcast: Digging into Samsung's foldables and wearablesHitting the Books: What goes on at a summer camp for YouTube Gaming kidfluencers‘Ring Nation’ is what happens when ‘America's Funniest Home Videos’ meets ‘Black Mirror’Mercedes-EQ's Stoffel Vandoorne wins Formula E world championshipLatest Humble Bundle includes most of the Resident Evil back catalog Recommended Reading: Imogen Heap's far-reaching influence on musicGenshin Impact’s next major update arrives on August... Continue reading at 'Engadget'

[ Engadget | 2022-08-15 11:15:56 UTC ]
News tagged with: #huge loss #soaring costs #hogwarts legacy #february 10th #interactive entertainment #version faces #harry potter

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‘Damn, that fool can write’: how Martin Amis made everyone up their game

He exploded into the tweedy world of literature, a young, pouting and outrageously brash crusader for prose. Our writer remembers her encounters with the novelist, whose smarts and chutzpah confounded his peers‘You’ll be reading me every now and then at least until about 2080, weather... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2023-05-22 05:00:48 UTC ]
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'New York Times' reports slower digital subscription growth and weakening ad revenue

The paper has been a bright spot for digital media despite falling ad revenue and a slowing growth rate for new subscribers Continue reading at Crains New York

[ Crains New York | 2023-05-10 18:44:39 UTC ]
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VIZ Manga subscription service releases English chapters the same time Japan gets them

VIZ Media has launched a new service that will make English versions of the latest chapters of select manga titles available to subscribers as soon as they're released in Japan. The service, called VIZ Manga, features manga published by Shogakugan and Shueisha and costs $2 a month. Its current... Continue reading at Engadget

[ Engadget | 2023-05-09 04:57:23 UTC ]
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The Morning After: What to expect at Google I/O 2023

Google’s annual developer conference not only delivers on the software and web-based announcements but also on whatever hardware it’s been cooking up. In the past, that included smart speakers, phones, Chromebooks and everything else. For I/O 2023, we’re expecting lots of Pixel things. Rumors... Continue reading at Engadget

[ Engadget | 2023-05-08 11:15:42 UTC ]
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‘Hogwarts Legacy’ adds arachnophobia mode for spider-free gaming

Arachnophobic Harry Potter fans, rejoice. Developer Avalanche Software has added a new accessibility feature to Hogwarts Legacy that removes spiders from the game. The update coincides with the title’s arrival on PS4 and Xbox One today.The Hogwarts Legacy update (build 1140773) launched Thursday... Continue reading at Engadget

[ Engadget | 2023-05-05 19:42:15 UTC ]
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B.J. Best, Andrew Ervin, and Brittney Morris on Video Games, Storytelling, and the Importance of Play

Writers B.J. Best, Andrew Ervin, and Brittney Morris join co-hosts V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell live from the Unbound Book Festival in Columbia, Missouri to discuss the narrative realms of video games and the evolving space they inhabit. The group reminisces about their first... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2023-05-04 08:53:59 UTC ]
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On creating a board game that is also a work of literature.

Telling good stories in games is really hard. It’s hard in any medium, of course, but games provide a set of challenges over and above those faced by novelists and screenwriters. Take the question of agency—if the player is allowed to make the primary narrative decisions in the game, then the... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2023-05-01 15:00:45 UTC ]
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Microsoft inks another cloud gaming deal after the UK blocked its Activision takeover

Despite suffering a significant blow this week in its attempt to take over Activision Blizzard, Microsoft still believes it can get the job done. The company has signed a 10-year agreement with Spain-based cloud gaming provider Nware to make PC games it builds in-house available to stream on... Continue reading at Engadget

[ Engadget | 2023-04-28 17:25:18 UTC ]
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WBD Rebrands HBO Max as ‘Max’ With Harry Potter and Game of Thrones Series Coming

Max is coming to market. Following months of streaming rumors and speculation, Warner Bros. Discovery is officially combining its streaming services HBO Max and Discovery+ under one brand: Max. Launching May 23 with a new tagline, color and mission, the upcoming service will drop the iconic HBO... Continue reading at AdWeek

[ AdWeek | 2023-04-12 19:25:11 UTC ]
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The Morning After: Amazon’s Halo Rise sleep tracker is surprisingly helpful

The Halo Rise is also a small but significant piece of Amazon’s ongoing foray into health and wellness. For $140 (on sale now for $100), the Rise uses motion sensing to predict and track your breathing rate and calculate how long you’ve slept.Like Google’s Nest Hub, which also uses motion... Continue reading at Engadget

[ Engadget | 2023-04-06 11:15:05 UTC ]
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The Morning After: Twitter keeps legacy verified blue ticks around, for now

Last week, Twitter said it would start winding down the legacy verified program on April 1st, but over the weekend, that didn't happen, because (according to The Washington Post) unverifying users is a painstaking manual process. Meanwhile, another report indicated around 10,000 of the... Continue reading at Engadget

[ Engadget | 2023-04-04 11:15:47 UTC ]
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Gabrielle Zevin takes us inside her video game-inspired, juggernaut bestseller

Bestselling novelist Gabrielle Zevin joins the L.A. Times Book Club April 22 to discuss 'Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow' at the Festival of Books. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times

[ Los Angeles Times | 2023-03-29 14:00:34 UTC ]
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Nintendo's eShop closures are putting generations of games out of reach

The Nintendo eShop for the Wii U and 3DS game consoles officially closed for business on March 27th, 2023, permanently disabling all new purchases on the platforms. We knew this was coming. Nintendo quietly announced the eShop's closure over a year ago, asserting that it was the "natural life... Continue reading at Engadget

[ Engadget | 2023-03-27 14:00:52 UTC ]
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Meta's VR game publisher is now called 'Oculus Publishing'

Meta's publishing arm for virtual reality games is now officially called Oculus Publishing. It's a completely different division from Oculus Studios, which is the company's label for first-party games. Oculus Publishing will instead support partner developers with conceptualization, funding,... Continue reading at Engadget

[ Engadget | 2023-03-23 08:01:38 UTC ]
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The Morning After: TikTok's parent company reportedly under FBI investigation

In December, ByteDance confirmed it fired four employees who used TikTok to spy on the locations of two journalists. Now, Forbes reports the FBI and the Department of Justice have been investigating the incident. This investigation couldn’t come at a worse time, as ByteDance faces mounting... Continue reading at Engadget

[ Engadget | 2023-03-17 11:30:10 UTC ]
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At AWP23, Programs Celebrate Milestones and New Arrivals Get in the Game

Inclusive programming was one of the hallmarks of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs meeting, which ran March 8-11 in Seattle and drew approximately 9,500 people. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2023-03-13 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Epic lets developers self-publish on the Games Store

It's now much easier for game studios to release their work on the Epic Games Store. Epic has introduced long-awaited self-publishing tools that let anyone release games through its storefront. They'll have to pay $100 per title and meet certain requirements (more on those in a moment), but they... Continue reading at Engadget

[ Engadget | 2023-03-09 16:20:56 UTC ]
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Comics Retailers Navigate a New Normal

Booksellers talk shop about how comics sales—and store management challenges—grew in 2022. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2023-03-03 05:00:00 UTC ]
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Grab this incredible $30 Humble game bundle for charity while you can

The Humble Bundle company is no stranger to either massive groups of PC games or charitable giving, and it’s combining its talents for a deal you don’t want to miss. The Türkiye-Syria Earthquake Relief Bundle is a package of 69 games (plus some TTRPG elements and comics) sold for a minimum... Continue reading at PC World

[ PC World | 2023-03-02 16:28:03 UTC ]
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The Morning After: Welcome to the exciting world of ‘Pokémon Sleep’

Almost four years after it was announced, Pokémon Sleep, a mobile game that tracks your sleep, is finally on the way. According to yesterday's Pokémon Presents event, it’ll arrive sometime this summer, after it was meant to debut in 2020. It features Snorlax (of course) and Professor Neroli, a... Continue reading at Engadget

[ Engadget | 2023-02-28 12:15:44 UTC ]
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