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Sony said Wednesday it won’t launch any new blockbuster first-party PlayStation exclusives until at least early 2025. “While major projects are currently under development, we do not plan to release any new major existing franchise titles next fiscal year like God of War Ragnarök and Marvelʼs Spider-Man,” Sony President Hiroki Totoki wrote (via Polygon) in the company’s Q3 2023 financial results. Sony’s 2024 fiscal year begins on April 1 and ends on March 31, 2025.

The PlayStation division will instead focus on third-party software sales, which Totoki expects to grow gradually. Square Enix’s upcoming Final Fantasy VII Rebirth launches as a PS5 exclusive on February 29. Konami’s Silent Hill 2 remake, a console exclusive on the PS5 that will also launch on PC, is scheduled to arrive later this year. Other upcoming third-party tentpoles include Stellar Blade and Rise of the Ronin.

Meanwhile, the platform’s first-party exclusive Wolverine game may not arrive until 2026 if leaked documents from a hack are any indication.

“We expect third-party software sales to continue to expand gradually due to the expansion of the PS5 installed base and the high level of user engagement,” Totoki wrote. Totoki will replace Jim Ryan as Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO in April.

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As for why PlayStation ended up with such a long gap between first-party flagship games — Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 launched in October 2023, leaving a roughly 18-month gap or more — VGC reports that Totoki said in an earnings call (through a translator) that the company’s creative teams can can improve their development turnarounds.

“When it comes to the business, I think there is room for improvement,” Totoki said of its first-party studios after complimenting their creativity and vision. “And that’s to do with how to use money, the schedule of development, and how to fulfill one’s accountability towards development — those are my frank impressions. I will continue to engage in dialogue with the people so that we can find the right way to proceed.”

PS5 console sales, which reached 8.2 million units in Q3 2023, missed their target in the quarter. The company has adjusted its fiscal year projections of PS5 sales from 25 million units sold to 21 million. Sony expects a gradual decline to continue. “Regarding the PS5 hardware, which will enter its fifth year since launch, partially due to its entering the latter half of the console cycle, we aim to optimize sales with a greater emphasis on the balance with profits, so we anticipate a gradual decline in unit sales from next fiscal year onwards,” he wrote.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-ps5-wont-be-getting-any-big-first-party-sequels-for-at-least-a-year-180016231.html?src=rss

The dinner plate of the future might include some beefy rice. No, not beef and rice. Beef rice. In a new study, researchers in Korea say they’ve created rice infused with muscle and fat cells from cows. The hybrid grain purportedly contains more protein and fat than typical rice, and the team argues that it should be…

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Retail giant Walmart is reportedly in talks to acquire budget TV maker Vizio, according to The Wall Street Journal. The $2 billion deal would make Vizio a house brand for Walmart and would allow the company to directly compete in the affordable smart TV space currently dominated by Amazon and Roku.

It would also give Walmart access to all of that sweet, sweet customer data collected by Vizio’s smart TV platform throughout the years, which would open up another revenue stream in the form of personalized ads. The company would also be able to sell user data collected by Vizio boxes. Finally, it could use Vizio TVs as ad space in the showrooms of its nearly 11,000 retail locations. The company’s already doing this with display televisions via its current in-house brand Onn.

However, Roku and Amazon have had years to shore up the budget-friendly TV market. Roku started with streaming devices, but transitioned to smart TVs last year, and there’s even a more expensive line of Mini LED TVs coming in a few months. Amazon Fire TVs are just about everywhere, with more than 200 million sales as of ten months ago. So Walmart has a fairly steep hill to climb, should this deal go through.

Speaking of deals going through, this isn’t Vizio’s first acquisition rodeo. The company’s been looking for a buyer for years. Vizio was nearly purchased by Chinese media conglomerate LeEco back in 2016, which was another $2 billion deal, but things went south quickly. LeEco, once called the “Netflix of China,” ran into serious financial troubles and backed out of the deal, leaving Vizio in the lurch. This caused Vizio to sue LeEco for $100 million, which was eventually settled for $60 million. Shortly after that, Vizio went public with an IPO.

If the deal goes off without a hitch, Vizio will join other tech companies under Walmart’s global umbrella. These include content delivery platform Vudu, AR optical tech company Memomi, banking app ONE and a whole bunch of digital retailers, like Shoes.com and Bare Necessities.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/walmart-might-buy-budget-tv-maker-vizio-170034017.html?src=rss

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Meta has taken down a network of fake accounts that posed as US military families and anti-war activists. The fake accounts on Facebook and Instagram originated in China and targeted US audiences, according to the company’s security researchers.

Meta detailed the takedowns in its latest report on coordinated inauthentic behavior (CIB). The cluster of fake accounts was relatively small — 33 Facebook accounts, four Instagram profiles, six pages and six groups on Facebook. The accounts posted about US aircraft carriers and other “military themes,” as well as “criticism of US foreign policy towards Taiwan and Israel and its support of Ukraine,” Meta wrote in its report.

The group also ran accounts on YouTube and Medium and shared an online petition “claiming to have been written by Americans to criticize US support for Taiwan.” The company’s researchers said the fake accounts originated in China, but didn’t attribute the effort to a specific entity or group. During a call with reporters, Meta’s global threat intelligence lead Ben Nimmo said that there has been a rise in China-based influence operations over the last year.

“The greatest change in the threat landscape,” Nimmo said, “has been this emergence of Chinese influence operations.” Nimmo said. He noted that Meta has taken down 10 CIB networks originating in China since 2017, but that six of those takedowns came in the last year. Last summer, Meta discovered and removed an especially large network of thousands of fake accounts that attempted to spread pro-China propaganda messages on the platform.

In both cases, the fake accounts were apparently unsuccessful at spreading their message. The latest network only managed to reach about 3,000 Facebook accounts, according to Meta, and the two Instagram pages had no followers at the time they were discovered.

Still, Meta’s researchers note that attempts like this will likely continue ahead of the 2024 election and that people with large audiences should be wary of resharing unverified information. “Our threat research shows that, historically, the main way that CIB networks get through to authentic communities is when they manage to co-opt real people — politicians, journalists or influencers — and tap into their audiences,” the report says. “Reputable opinion-makers represent an attractive target and should exercise caution before amplifying information from unverified sources, particularly ahead of major elections.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/meta-takes-down-chinese-facebook-accounts-posing-as-us-military-families-160059602.html?src=rss