Set “64 years before Katniss Everdeen volunteered as tribute, and decades before Coriolanus Snow became the tyrannical President of Panem,” The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes explores the origin story of that future tyrant. After a couple of cryptic teasers, a full trailer has finally arrived.
It’s the bittersweet, powerful end of an era as Guardians of the Galaxy franchise director James Gunn—who’s now the co-head of DC Studios—bows out of Marvel. But he’s leaving on an excellently high note, as the first social media reactions to Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (which opens May 5) suggest.
Now that it’s solved its supply shortages, Sony is seeing a lot of pent-up demand for PlayStation 5 consoles. The company just announced its second consecutive blockbuster quarter, selling 6.3 million PS5s — an impressive figure in a non-holiday period — compared to 2 million last year. That brings its total for fiscal year 2022 to 19.1 million, handily beating its own forecast of 18 million. The company has now sold 38.4 million PS5s since the console was released in late 2020.
The news wasn’t quite as good on the software side. Game sales were down to 68 million from 70.5 million a year ago, and lower for the fiscal year (264.2 million compared to 303.2 million in fiscal 2021). PlayStation Network users dropped to 108 million from 112 million the quarter before, though PS Plus subs were up very slightly.
All of that added up to a fairly large boost in revenue in the Gaming & Network Services division, up to 1.073 trillion yen ($7.9 billion) compared to 665 billion yen ($4.9 billion) the year before. Operating profit was down, though, due to a hit in foreign exchange rates. For the year, Sony hit 3.9 trillion yen in sales ($29 billion), up from 2.7 trillion yen ($19.9 billion) the year prior.
The company is confident that trajectory will continue into next year, forecasting a 7 percent boost in revenue for fiscal 2023. It’s predicting increased hardware sales, including peripherals, though it didn’t say anything about results for the PlayStation VR2 to date.
Sony’s gaming segment still dominates its other divisions, though its chip/sensor and entertainment technologies (TVs, cameras, etc.) were also bright spots. Overall, Sony set a new fiscal year sales record with 11.5 trillion yen in sales ($84.8 billion) and 1.21 trillion yen ($8.9 billion) in profits.
Sony, of course, just scored a major win over its biggest rival as well. Yesterday, the UK blocked Microsoft’s merger with Activision over cloud gaming concerns, though Microsoft has vowed to contest the decision.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/sony-has-sold-over-384-million-ps5s-following-a-record-breaking-year-080509020.html?src=rss
The late-night host responds to the former Fox News star’s bizarre new video rant.
Canada has passed its controversial streaming bill that requires Netflix, Spotify and other companies to pay to support Canadian series, music and other content, the CBC has reported. After clearing a final hurdle in the Senate on Thursday, Bill C-11 imposes the same content laws on streamers as it does on traditional broadcasters. The government has promised that the bill only applies to companies and not individual content creators on YouTube or other platforms.
The new rules give the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) regulator broad powers over streaming companies, which could face fines or other penalties if they don’t comply with the new laws. “Online streaming has changed how we create, discover, and consume our culture, and it’s time we updated our system to reflect that,” a Canadian government press release states.
Critics have said that the bill could cause over-regulation online. “Under this archaic system of censorship, government gatekeepers will now have the power to control which videos, posts and other content Canadians can see online,” Canada’s Conservative opposition wrote on a web page dedicated to C-11. Streaming companies like YouTube and TikTok opposed the bill as well.
The law has also been criticized for being overly broad, with a lack of clarity on how it will apply in some cases. “The bill sets out a revised broadcasting policy for Canada, which includes an expanded list of things the Canadian broadcasting system ‘should’ do,” a Senate page states. “But precisely what this would mean in concrete terms for broadcasters is not yet known.”
Canada is far from the first country to enact local content rules for streaming companies, though. The EU requires a minimum of 30 percent locally produced content for member nations, most of which easily exceed that. Australia also recently announced that content quotas will be placed on Netflix, Disney+, Prime Video and the other international streamers by July of 2024.
Some notable Canadian series include Schitt’s Creek, Letterkenny and M’entends-tu. Numerous US and international shows are also shot in “Hollywood North” in cities like Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver, including The Handmaid’s Tale, The Boys, Riverdale and others.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/canadas-controversal-streaming-bill-just-became-law-065036243.html?src=rss
Corden urged his audience to “remember what America signifies to the rest of the world” in a packed episode featuring Tom Cruise, Harry Styles, Will Ferrell and late-night rivals.
The ex-president ranted against trans athletes during a speech in New Hampshire.
It’s the bittersweet, powerful end of an era as Guardians of the Galaxy franchise director James Gunn—who’s now the co-head of DC Studios—bows out of Marvel. But he’s leaving on an excellently high note, as the first social media reactions to Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (which opens May 5) suggest.
NYC commuters will no longer see service alerts and other informative posts from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) on Twitter. The agency runs several accounts that provide passengers with useful real-time updates, such as whether a particular route or train has been suspended. But now it has posted a farewell message on the website, explaining that Twitter “is no longer reliable for providing the consistent updates riders expect.” While it didn’t elaborate on why it’s leaving the social network, Bloomberg says it was because the company was asking the MTA to fork over $50,000 a month for access to its API.
Twitter shut down its old API, which was completely free, earlier this year. It then launched paid access to the new version of its API, with a $100-per-month tier for hobbyists and a much higher tier for enterprise customers. The company kept pricing for enterprise vague, but Wired had previously reported that API access could run as much as $42,000 a month. Companies and organizations other than the MTA left Twitter as a result, with Microsoft being one of the biggest names. The tech giant recently announced that it was going to remove Twitter from its free social media management tool for advertisers. Microsoft also disabled the option to upload screenshots directly to Twitter from Xbox consoles and from Game Bar on Windows.
Shanifah Rieara, MTA’s acting chief customer officer, told Bloomberg that they don’t think paying Twitter $50,000 a month “would be the best use of resources.” Especially since the MTA has other “internal and homegrown” avenues people could use to check for the latest updates. “We want to communicate with our customers through all platforms, but we need a platform that is reliant and consistent and up to date,” Rieara added.
The official MTA account is now encouraging customers to bookmark the agency’s official website, to download its MYmta and TrainTime apps, to monitor its WhatsApp channel for subway and bus information, as well as to sign up for email and SMS alerts.
For the MTA, Twitter is no longer reliable for providing the consistent updates riders expect.
So as of today, we’re saying goodbye to it for service alerts and information.
But we’re not saying goodbye to you, our customers! There are lots of ways to get real-time updates. ⬇️
— MTA (@MTA) April 27, 2023
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/nycs-transport-authority-will-no-longer-post-service-alerts-on-twitter-051701441.html?src=rss
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