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Respawn's new Apex Legends battle royale game helps EA bounce back from a big stock dive.

EA had a bad third quarter. Not bad for a games company, but bad for EA, who expects continual growth and hundreds of millions in earnings every three months. The company missed its forecasts by as much as $116 million on the heels of lower than expected Battlefield V sales, subscriptions, and delayed mobile games. This miss caused EA stock to nosedive by over 16%, dropping from $96.52 per share to $78.79 in a day.

But now the games titan's stock is back up to $97.60 per share, its highest point in the last month. EA likely owes this turnaround to Respawn's new smash hit BR game Apex Legends. The free-to-play game has generated considerable buzz across the industry, amassing 10 million players in just 3 days and pulling in untold monetization.

Nintendo's hand-held console has been rumored to be acquiring the classic purple dragon Spyro. Now, a new big retailer has listed the Switch version of the Spyro Reignited Trilogy and also revealed a release date.

Back in April, we saw a listing for the Spyro Reignited Trilogy on the Nintendo Switch listed by Amazon Mexico. The Amazon leak was soon followed by a leak on from the official Nintendo UK Store who also listed the Trilogy under the title "Spyro The Dragon Remastered". Now, a new listing has surfaced and its from a much larger and what could be seen as a more reliable retailer, GameStop.

GameStop has listed the Spyro Reignited Trilogy on the German website and reveals the supposed release date for game, August 16th. Even though GameSpot may be a large game retailer, the listed date should not be taken as 100% guaranteed. As there has been no word of a Nintendo Switch release for the Reignited Trilogy from either publisher Activision or the titles developer, Toys For Bob. When more information is announced regarding a Switch port, I will be sure to update you.

As we approach the climax for one of the most anticipated and biggest T.V shows of all-time, Game of Thrones star Liam Cunningham has spoken out about the decision to leave the show at eight seasons.

If you have been keeping up with Game of Thrones you would understand the hype there is for the final season to begin airing, as that is when all us fans finally get to see an ending to the monumental battles for the throne and the survival of Westeros itself. Who will sit upon the throne? Who will be left alive after the major battles that are about to occur? and why the hell isn't HBO just mass producing Game of Thrones seasons? Liam Cunningham, who plays Davos Seaworth or 'The Onion Knight' has said in an interview that the show doesn't want to overstay their welcome in the spot light.

Cunningham spoke to IGN and said "I get asked all the time, 'What the hell are you guys thinking? You could run Game of Thrones forever.' If you want to stay cool, and the show is cool, the best way to stay cool is to not overstay your welcome." That is quite a well-thought out decision if you were to ask me, not stretching the show on further than people can manage would certainly create a much more impactful and rewarding ending. Cunningham also adds "[It] would be dishonorable to stay on longer than we should" and that even though he is happy its ending it will still be "dearly" missed, so much that he would like "Game of Thrones' Liam Cunningham" written on his tombstone.

Back in May last year, we heard about Resident Evil's Milla Jovovich being the lead role in an upcoming Monster Hunter movie. Recent news surrounding the Monster Hunter movie has teased a release date.

Jovovich starred in the popular zombie slaying movie series 'Resident Evil' who was written and directed by Paul W.S Anderson. Anderson has also taken the helm for the Monster Hunter movie who will showcase a parallel world with full of powerful monsters that are in a battle with travelers from our world. The lieutenant named Artemis who is played by Jovovich is leading the expedition and will have to fight for her life against the worlds inhabitants.

Anderson has commented on what fans should expect from the movie story wise, saying "Then eventually the parallel world ends up coming to our world. So you have the creatures from the Monster Hunter world invading our world." The new information surrounding the movie is its release date, and according to Deadline who reported that Sony Pictures said the movie is planned for release on September 4th, 2020.

It may have already been expected of Cyberpunk 2077, but it is always good to get an official confirmation from the developers. Cyberpunk 2077 won't be exclusive to the Epic Store, and this makes sense given they have their own storefront Gog.com.

Epic Games has certainly ruffled the feathers of developers and publishers that are deciding what platform to release their games on. With an 88% return to on all revenue sales for titles on the Epic Games Store, many studio's are having quite a hard time deciding whether they should skip Steam's 30% cut and join Epic. Deep Silver recently took that leap of faith with their title Metro Exodus and that caused quite a lot of division within their community, some players now even refuse to play the title due to how the decision was handled.

With that all in mind, we don't have to worry about Cyberpunk 2077's developer quickly changing platforms without any warning, as CD Projekt Red have confirmed through their Twitter account for Cyberpunk that title will not be going exclusive to the Epic Store. In the above artistic Tweet found on the official Cyberpunk 2077 Twitter account page, a fan pleaded "Please please please don't make this game an epic store exclusive." The account simply replied to the fan "Yeaaaaaaaaah.... Pass on that."

Google seem to be experimenting with adding the 'dark mode' feature to Android devices on the Google Chrome app, screenshots have revealed the feature in beta form.

In the latest beta testing for Chrome (Chrome 74 beta), Google seem to have added the start of the extremely popular night mode to Android devices. For users that don't know what 'night mode' is, it's an option that browsers and many websites have picked up recently to ease eye strain for their user-base. Websites such as Twitter and Reddit have already adopted this feature and it has proven quite popular among its users, with some users just leaving the feature on even when its day time.

9to5Google has found that Chrome 73 beta now comes with this feature, but it's still in its quite early stages. The above image shows a side-by-side comparison between the mode being turned off and turned on. According to 9to5Google, this feature is only available when Android Pie's 'night mode' setting in the 'developer options' is set to 'always on'. It should also be noted that this feature has only been spotted in menus, and as shown in the above image is it's lack of completion for the time being, as the text still appears black even though it should be white to contrast the effect.

Intel is looking to ramp up its manufacturing abilities with a massive new 110,000m2 manufacturing plant planned in Co Kildare, Ireland. This new plant will expand an already huge 90,000m2 manufacturing plant.

The huge new facility has a budget of $8 billion, will take 4 years to complete with the help of 3000 construction workers and once its finished it'll hire 1600 people. Intel's new planned facility will be an add-on to its Leixlip campus which houses 4500 employees. Intel's new manufacturing plant will have 8 massive water tanks that will be up to 63m tall, there'll be other facilities that will include backup generators, wastewater treatment plants, and more.

The reasoning behind the wastewater treatment plants is that the new manufacturing facility will use a crazy 37 million liters (or 9.7 million gallons) of water every day.

Fortnite is making a forking lot of cash (who else loves The Good Place) for Epic Games, and especially so on iOS where according to Sensor Tower's new data that has the game pulling in over $500 million in revenue in just 326 days.

This beats the previous records of Clash Royale which took 389 days and Honor of Kings that took 405 days to reach $500 million in revenue. Apple is making a huge chunk of this, with the company taking a large 30% of the cut while Epic Games bypassed the Play Store and pulled in all of the profit on its own that when combined with the iOS revenue sees Epic with around $450 million.

US gamers accounted for 64% of the spending on iPhone and other iOS-based devices with $320 million total. Now that Apex Legends is here, Fortnite might see some competition in iOS revenue, so it'll be interesting to see how many days Apex Legends takes to reach $500 million and with its massive hype whether it'll be less than 300 days or not to break the record here with Fortnite.

Hideo Kojima is still hard at work on PlayStation exclusive 'Death Stranding' and while we've had a reveal trailer and more nuggets dropped on it, we still don't know where we stand in the world, and with the characters of the game.

Well, now someone outside of the Kojima Productions has now played the game and was blown away with Jordan Vogt-Roberts, who just so happens to be the director of the upcoming Metal Gear Solid movie, saying that the "world is next-level immaculate. It's like freebasing pure Kojima & Shinkawa. Remember when FURY ROAD blew you away but also made you (in the best-most-thankful way) ask "wtf" how does this miracle exist? YOU. ARE. NOT. READY!"

If there was a game that will have me buy a PlayStation 5 at launch it would be Death Stranding, especially given that Kojima is free of his shackles and can make anything he wants. It seems he has crafted one of the most hyped games of all time, that shouldn't be too much further away. I'm hoping Sony shows it off during their PlayStation 5 unveil event just after E3 2019. Please, please happen.

Konami is a curious company. Over the past few years the games-maker suffered a PR nightmare that's damaged its reputation in the West. But in its home country of Japan, Konami is still doing quite well for itself and just reported moderate earnings growth.

Konami's new nine-months earnings report shows Konami is far from out of the game. But despite its potential issues, Konami is still earning good money due to its vast multi-faceted business structure. In the nine-month period from April to December 2018, Konami earned 192.6 billion yen (about $1.75 billion in current JPY to USD conversions) in total net revenues across Digital Entertainment, Amusement, Gaming & Systems, and Sports segments. This represents a nice 7.8% year-over-year increase.

Konami's Digital Entertainment sector, which includes full game sales, mobile game, and card game earnings, earned 105.8 billion yen (about $963.4 million in current conversions), up a substantial 18% year-over-year. Total video game profits sit at 32.286 billion yen, or about $294 million in current conversions.

NVIDIA's big reveal of the GeForce RTX family of graphics cards happened close to 6 months ago now, and while Battlefield V was shown off in all its ray tracing glory there hasn't been any updates on a DLSS update until now.

DICE has detailed the upcoming February 12 update for Battlefield V, which will fix a bunch of issues, improve the quality of the game in more ways than one, balances and improves vehicles, and more. We even have added 4-player cooperative play with Combined Arms hitting Battlefield V in the new update. But the news here is definitely the addition of DLSS.

NVIDIA's new Deep Learning Super Sampling technology, or DLSS, will finally reach Battlefield V with the new update. DICE explains: "This update includes further optimizations to DXR ray tracing performance and introduces NVIDIA DLSS to Battlefield V, which uses deep learning to improve game performance while maintaining visual quality".

EA made a chart to explain who gets access to Anthem's demos, trials, and the full game. This trend isn't anything new, and it's probably not going to change any time soon.

EA's confusing and awkward Anthem chart went viral a bit ago, but it's actually not new information. We knew about the paygated demos and trials way back in September of last year. These kinds of staggered releases aren't anything new to the industry. EA did the same thing with Battlefield V (a move that actually backfired), and both Ubisoft and Microsoft do it with uPlay and Xbox Game Pass. So why do it at all then?

The short answer is EA is trying to add more value to its new $15 a month Origin Access Premiere subscription. The service sees all of EA's biggest new games roll out onto the on-demand subscription for no additional charge, similar to how all first-party Xbox games now also come to Game Pass upon release. But that's not enough. EA locks exclusive early access to its biggest games to Origin Access Premiere members, which of course adds another tier to its EA Play First trials available to cheaper EA Access/Origin Access subscription.

In many ways Microsoft is the most fascinating platform-holder on the market today. The company has achieved a tremendous 180 from the disastrous Xbox One 2013 days, creating an interconnected service empire that puts players, games, and recurring revenues at the heart of everything it does. It's here where Microsoft's true strengths lie, and these newly built muscles will lift its first-party slate in a unique way.

Microsoft doesn't play by the rules any more. The company re-defined its playbook to compete on a different level, one that sees Xbox shifting from a console to a service that bridges home consoles, Windows 10 PCs, and even mobiles. Connected via Xbox LIVE, gamers can now interact, play, and spend on all devices. The richly intertwined Xbox service webwork is arranged so that every part compliments one another: Mixer streaming organically feeds into game sales by sparking interest, Game Pass directly leads to full game sales on the Xbox Store as users buy the games they want to keep, and subscriptions propel more playtime with new free content and multiplayer-driven engagement. But there's one part of the pie that Microsoft has been missing: strong first-party games.

This is about to change, too. Microsoft bought up many stellar studios like Obsidian, Ninja Theory, and Playground Games to buffer its first-party slate. The games-maker is growing intensely and investing strongly into new IPs and games development in an effort to deliver stronger and more diverse first-party content. But rather than rely solely on full game sales digitally and in-store, Microsoft's first-party games are neatly folded into is successful subscriptions and provide a dual opportunity for revenues.

Strong sales and monetized engagement pushes Microsoft's gaming earnings up to $4 billion during the holiday quarter.

Holiday shopping sprees typically spike any games maker's earnings. These periods are big opportunities for mass sales and adoption, and Microsoft saw an influx of new users into its unique cross-platform ecosystem during the holidays. The tech titan earned $4.232 billion from gaming during its Fiscal Q2'19 quarter (October - December 2018), representing a healthy 8% year-over-year rise.

These earnings were primarily driven by software like full game sales both in-store and on Xbox LIVE, as well as tremendous growth in online subscriptions like Xbox Game Pass and Xbox LIVE Gold. Microsoft recorded a big 31% jump in software and service revenues, but of course it didn't reveal specifics on the actual numbers. The software growth was primarily driven by a single third-party game (likely Red Dead Redemption 2, which has sold 23 million copies), Microsoft's Amy Hood notes, showing first-party games are still in the backseat on Xbox platforms.

Xbox LIVE active users have jumped past 60 million thanks to strong holiday sales, subscriptions, and engagement strategies, Microsoft confirms in its latest Q2'19 earnings report.

Xbox LIVE adoption has been relatively flat throughout the last few quarters, but subscribers and active users have spiked thanks to a successful holiday season. Microsoft saw 64 million monthly active users on Xbox LIVE in the three-month FYQ3'19 quarter, up about 8.5% year-over-year and nearly 13% quarter-over-quarter. It's worth noting that Xbox LIVE bridges multiple devices and these numbers reflect platforms like Xbox consoles, Windows 10 PCs, and mobiles. This is all according to plan as Xbox LIVE now serves as the connective tissue between various hardware platforms.

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Red Dead Redemption 2's landmark success boosts Take-Two's latest quarterly earnings by upwards of 150%.

Take-Two is an interesting company. Armed with big properties like NBA2K and Grand Theft Auto, the publisher weathers the down periods between game releases with its successful monetization strategies. Rockstar's new outlaw game proved to be worth the wait, earning over $700 million in three days with sales hitting over 23 million copies worldwide to date. The game's success helped the publisher earn over $1 billion in its holiday quarter.

In the three-month quarter from October through December 2018, Take-Two Interactive made $1.249 billion in net revenues, up a tremendous 158% from last year This jump is due to Red Dead Redemption 2's launch as well as strong earnings from NBA 2K19 sales and microtransactions, as well as Social Point mobile games. Recurring consumer spending, or earnings from in-game purchases like microtransactions and DLC, made up $300 million of net revenues, up a mighty 95% year-over-year. NBA 2K19 was the main force in Take-Two's monetization spike.

After a strong quarter of recurring consumer spending earnings, Take-Two plans to continue embedding live services into its biggest games.

Take-Two is among the top publishers earning hundreds of millions every year from live games. This strategy, which sees games like GTA V and Red Dead Redemption 2 get online modes with microtransactions and free updates, is working quite well. Successfully monetizing engagement is a billion-dollar market in the games industry, and Take-Two is adept at the practice. In its Fiscal Year Q3'19 results, the publisher earned about $300 million from recurring consumer spending, which includes microtransactions, subscriptions, DLC, and RDR2 special editions. This monetization represents 24% of Take-Two's total $1.249 billion in net revenues during the period.

According to Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick, live services aren't going anywhere. The company will continue focusing on ways to maximize engagement monetization over time, most notably in its annual sports games like NBA 2K as well as GTA Online and Red Dead Online.

The West's biggest gaming giant prepares to shave off a portion of its workforce to become a leaner game-focused company.

Activision-Blizzard plans to mass-fire up to hundreds of employees, sources say, but it'll take care not to interrupt games development. The layoffs should only affect non-gaming departments like marketing, PR, QA testing, and customer service as Activision-Blizzard ramps up new game projects.

Blizzard currently has a lot of new games in development, including several new IPs. Games like Diablo IV and perhaps even Overwatch 2 are currently in development. This decision is a big milestone for Blizzard since it shifted towards a near-exclusive live service model, which sees previously-released games getting updated in lieu of new releases.

A recent article from Bloomberg has claimed that Activision-Blizzard are planning to get rid of 'hundreds' of employee's next week in wake of the recent declines or flat-lining or their titles.

Bloomberg has reported that Activision-Blizzard employee's that are close to the matter have told Bloomberg that the company is planning on laying-off "hundreds" of jobs next week. The rumored decision is reportedly due to to titles such as Overwatch and Hearthstone having declines or flat-lines in their player-base numbers. Another fact that could contribute to the decision would be that the companies share prices recently dropped 2.5% just last Friday.

According to Bloomberg, analysts have also predicted that Activision-Blizzard's sales will decline a further 2.5% by the end of this year, this will bring the company's net value to $7.513 billion. Activision-Blizzard just recently separated from Destiny developer Bungie, this separation could see the company loosing out on a revenue stream of around $400 million.

It baffles me why people are still using Microsoft's ancient Internet Explorer, and now even Microsoft themselves have kindly asked Explorers users to upgrade and let the browser die.

Microsoft has taken to their official blog to address the issues surrounding the use of Internet Explorer. Microsoft's senior cyber-security architect Chris Jackson has said that the use of Internet Explorer while may be easier compatibility wise in the short term, provides substantial "technical debt" in the long term. According to Jackson, the use of Internet Explorer creates costs do down the line for companies, and also provides difficulties when creating web-pages for future use.

Microsoft has recommended users to try and stay ahead of the curve and transition to new modern browser for not only compatibility improvements but also security reasons as well. It should be noted that Microsoft don't even support Internet Explorer anymore, since the company announced back in 2016 that they will be killing support for Internet Explorer 8, Internet Explorer 9 and Internet Explorer 10. If you happen to be one of the few users that are still cruising about the Internet on Internet Explorer it is highly recommended that you upgrade to a more modern browser such as Edge, Chrome or FireFox.