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If you are a PC user and have never heard of VLC Media Player then you must of been hiding under a comfy rock somewhere, this media player is the go-to application for video streaming content in all of the whacky formats you can get.

VLC Media Player recently reached an awesome milestone, the program has been recorded to of been downloaded now over 3 billion times. The above Twitter post from founder of VLC's parent company, VideoLan, Ludovic Fauvet showcases VLC reaching 3 biillion downloads. The President and Lead Developer for VideoLan, Jean-Baptiste Kempf sat down with VentureBeat to discuss the success of VLC and what the developers have in-store for it in the future.

Kempf says that he plans to bring VR support to the application, this will add 3D interactions, stereo sound and add a virtual theatre feature. VLC recently rolled out an update that pushed the version of the program to v3.0.6, included within this update was support for HDR videos in AV1. Kempf says that when update 4.0.0 is ready it will be bringing playback improvements in scaling and video quality of HDR files. Looking towards the future now, Kempf also mentions that he would like to bring the media player to the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4. I don't know how possible this idea would be, but it would be good to see VLC on both of these platforms.

If you are into indie games there is no doubt that you have heard of Motion Twin's Dead Cells. The title released back in 2017 and was a hit success in its genre, a year later it released on the Nintendo Switch and took off sales wise.

Dead Cells came to the Nintendo Switch on August 7th, 2018 and was very well received by the Switch community. So well received that the sales for Dead Cells outsold the PlayStation 4 sales by 4 to 1. Recently the sales numbers have been released by Motion Twin and it reveals that within the first of its release on the Nintendo Switch Dead Cells managed to sell 100,000 copies.

Now this might not sound like a lot of copies when comparing to a AAA title, but for an indie rouge-lite action-platformer this is quite an achievement and Motion Twin should be more than proud of their efforts. To reward all those players that picked up Dead Cells, Motion Twin have said that there will be a free major patch headed fro Dead Cells sometime in the early months of 2019. As more details are released about the content update I will be sure to follow up with another news piece. Want more information on Dead Cells? Check out the official website here.

Nintendo Switch owners are about to be blessed with yet another fantastic game, Titan Forge Games will be debuting SMITE very soon for the handheld console.

Portable gamers will be glad to know that they will be able to go full god mode wherever they in about a week. Hi-Rez Studios and Titan Forge Games will be debuting their title SMITE to the Nintendo Switch on January 24th and to celebrate the launch almost being upon us they have released the above launch trailer.

Nintendo Switch owners can pre-order the 'Founder's Pack' which contains bonus loot for the player, the Foxy Amaterasu skin, 200 gems and much more. I have provided a full dot point list in the entirety of this post. If you are interested in checking out more news to do with SMITE, visit the announcement trailer here. For more information regarding SMITE for the Nintendo Switch, visit the official listing for the title here.

Now that it's broken away from Activision, Bungie is in charge of its own Destiny...and it should be a bright future.

Few studios with stellar AAA power remain independent as long as Bungie has, but the devs have managed to stay in charge of their own future by consistently navigating the industry will skill, luck, and a proven track record. Having split from Activision and gained full control over the Destiny IP, Bungie is looking to a future where it self-publishes its own games--including the next Destiny game.

But there's other things in the works, too: Bungie received a $100 million investment from Nexon to fund a "bold new vision," and is reportedly working on a brand new IP (possibly related to its Matter trademark).

Today WB Games released a ton of new Mortal Kombat XI info, including a spine-tearing gameplay trailer and confirming the sequel's continuing story arc.

Mortal Kombat XI's story is all about time, specifically how its related to the fabric of reality. The fighting series' penchant for big, overarcing sagas will continue with the latest entry and picks up directly where Mortal Kombat X left off. Raiden's actions literally broke time itself, and a mysterious new god-like being has stepped in to restore it. This time around we'll actually be traveling back to the past to fight "shadow" versions of ourselves and eventually take on the game's first-ever female boss, Kronika.

"MK11 picks up right where MKX left off. Raiden had become a dark god. Turns out he's disrupted the balance of good and evil in the universe that was desired by Kronika, a new character in the Mortal Kombat universe who is the keeper of time, the architect of the destiny of the universe," said story director Dominic Cianciolo.

Netherealm shows off new Mortal Kombat XI gameplay footage and it's fluid, slick, and quite brutally sick (just how we like our MK).

As we expected, the official gameplay is pretty damn wicked: there's broken bones, close-ups of tearing faces off, and poor Scorpion even gets exsanguinated and then pincushioned with spears made of his own blood. Apart from amazing visual fidelity, high-end animations, and the grace of Netherealm's updated games engine, not a lot is actually shown off in the footage outside of combos, gore, and overall mayhem. But that's the name of the game after all.

Mortal Kombat XI is full of new tricks, too. The devs at Netherealm added a feature called "crushing blow," which is essentially mini-fatality-like cutscenes interspersed in the fight. The gameplay trailer is full of these little bloody massacres.

Each of Anthem's four mech classes--Ranger, Colossus, Interceptor and Storm--all have their own unique support abilities that can be augmented with loot. It just so happens that the Ranger class, which is the starter javelin with an emphasis on precision, has a nifty bubble shield option straight out of Destiny.

I'm a Defender Titan through and through. I absolutely love my Destiny 1 build and there's nothing that could sway me to other classes or builds. I really enjoy being this walking tank protector that not only shields my allies, but builds them up with helpful buffs. Although Anthem isn't a lot like Destiny, it's taking some nifty queues from Bungie's shared-worlds shooter, namely with specific abilities.

The Nintendo Switch enjoyed a massively successful year of hardware sales, especially in Japan where it's the favored system and conquers the likes of PS4, 3DS, and Xbox One.

The Nintendo Switch handheld-console hybrid has outsold its nearest competitor, the PlayStation 4, by over 2:1 in both system's home country of Japan. According to the latest sales metrics from Famitsu, the Switch sold 3.48 million units throughout 2018 compared to the PlayStation 4's 1.69 million.

These metrics come at an interesting time when global Switch sales crested 22 million as of September, and an incredible run in the US as the fastest-selling console of all time.

Internet privacy has become a big concern for people all around the world. Big companies, ISPs, hackers, the government track users' activity on the Net. Each of them pursues his own goal. However, one cannot but agree that revealing sensitive data on the Internet doesn't seem right. Especially for American and Canadian nations, that have strong feelings towards privacy rights and freedom of speech. In this regard, a VPN for Canada has come to the rescue for the most prudent Internet users. VPN technology has become the number one privacy tool for the US residents as well.

It's not a surprise why VPN technology has established itself as one of the most reliable ways to protect sensitive data on the Internet. The most advanced providers use 256-bit encryption and robust protocols to shield customers' data. A VPN creates a hidden tunnel between two servers, making information that is transferred between them, invisible. But how to know if a VPN service trustworthy or not?

Being a protective measure a VPN provider should guard a user against uncontrolled interference. It means a service should provide customers with cutting-edge protocols such as OpenVPN, L2TP/IPSec, IKEv2 and military-grade encryption.

IGN has released yet another gameplay video of BioWare's upcoming online multiplayer action role-playing game Anthem. This time we get a touch of story, some awesome combat, puzzles and even a boss fight.

At the start of the video we gather that we will be going on a side quest, throughout the side quest viewers will be able to experience a small amount of narrative driven story while also seeing some combat of the Colossus and Interceptor Javelin. The side quest takes us on a retrieval mission for a manuscript, we see the characters pass through enemies and also be required to work out some mildly difficult puzzles.

It should also be mentioned that throughout this side quest we get a great change of landscape and a beautiful showcase of cave flora and fauna within the world of Anthem. Eventually arriving at the destination, we get a great display of combat with all of the javelins working in unison to defeat a Titan. The battle rages for quite some time and all of the players were brought down to very low health, its always good to see some high difficulty boss fights in an MMO. Anthem will be coming to the Xbox One, PS4 and PC on February 22nd.

FoxNext Games, the developers of Alien: Blackout have said that if they were to bring Blackout to consoles the Nintendo Switch would be their console of choice.

Jordan Boyd from DualShockers got to sit down with FoxNext and go hands-on with Alien: Blackout. Throughout his experience, Boyd asked FoxNext Games' Vice President TQ Jefferson a question regarding Black arriving on consoles. In response to this question Jefferson said; "I think Switch is a good one to bring up and we've certainly seen many games go from mobile to console or more likely console to mobile. If I had to pick a platform to put it (Alien: Blackout) on, I'd pick Switch."

Since the announcement of Alien: Blackout, many fans of the Alien franchise are quite upset with the decision to aim the game towards mobile, tablets and consoles. Many fans were hoping for an extension of the Alien: Isolation games, but as Boyd has reported the judgment for Alien: Blackout going to consoles etc may not be fair, as the game hasn't even been released yet. Perhaps patience and a healthy amount of skepticism is key here, and since everyone's expectations for Blackout are low, maybe some fans will be surprised at what FoxNext Games have created. Alien: Blackout releases on iOS and Android on January 24th.

Nintendo has announced their new Spirit Board event for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, this time round we have the Fire Emblem characters making a return for part 2 of their Fire Emblem Fest.

If you remember back to the end of December, the first Fire Emblem Fest was held and featured Legend-class spirits such as Caeda, Azura, Eliwood, Eirika and more. This time round on the Fire Emblem characters second adventure, Caeda and Azura will return for round two but this time with a bunch of Ace-class level spirits.

Players that are unsure about what these spirit events are should note that each week Nintendo release a new Spirit Board event. Each event is usually based around a certain franchise of characters, e.g Fire Emblem for this week. Last week's event was different though and rewarded players double spirit experience and spirit points. If you are collecting spirits in Smash Bros. Ultimate I would advise you to keep on top of Nintendo's weekly Spirit Board events as they can net you some quite exclusive rewards.

We know the sales for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate were legendary, but how legendary exactly? With limited sales figures and only whispers here and there at the success, we now have a better idea where the game is sitting at.

There is no doubt that Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is the most popular Super Smash Bros. game in the franchise. Nintendo has even claimed this themselves, with the announcement that Ultimate is the "Best pre-selling Super Smash Bros. game". How many copies of Ultimate has been moved though? First reports suggested that 3 million copies were sold within the first 11 days of launch.

Now we have some news that is slightly more updated, Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa has spoken to Japanese newspaer Nikkan Kogyo Shimbun and revealed that Super Smash Bros. Ultimate has actually sold 5 million copies just within its first week of release. Furukawa also shined some light on the software sales of the Nintendo Switch, saying that the Switch now holds the record for most software sales of any Nintendo console. We should get a much better idea how Nintendo are doing both console and game-wise on January 31st when they release their earnings release.

Just yesterday we heard about Metal Gear Solid Director, Hideo Kojima bringing his secretive project 'Death Stranding' to Horizon Zero Dawn developers Guerilla Games. More news has unravelled about that event.

Yesterday I reported on the images that was released from the event between Hideo Kojima and Guerilla Games. To give a little quick synopsis of why this has all happened, Kojima decided to develop his Death Stranding on the Horizon Zero Dawn engine, Decima. The decima source code was given to Kojima in the above picture of a box, Kojima returned yesterday to Guerilla with the demo of Death Stranding in the same box.

The story has now deepened as Kojima Studio's Head of Marketing and Communications, Aki Saito tweeted the above image showcasing a close up of the box. The caption to the image reads, "Showed the first 2 hours of gameplay to our Guerrilla brothers. Yes, Hideo was demonstrating it! (The game is not fully completed...yet)" This statement from Saito confirms that the first 2 hours of Death Stranding is complete.

Epic's global sensation Fortnite amasses a new yearly record in global game revenues.

Fortnite continues its skyrocketing success with $2.4 billion earned in 2018 across consoles, mobiles and PC, analyst firm SuperData reports. With these revenues Fortnite towered above all other free-to-play games like League of Legends, Dungeon Fighter Online, and Pokemon GO, and was a substantial driving force in the $87.84 billion free-to-play market. With this numbers Fortnite has grabbed more than 2% of total F2P digital earnings, which is pretty big given the market is typically ruled by Asian dominance.

The game's success hasn't gone unnoticed and major publishers aim to mimic the titan with battle royale games of their own; Call of Duty's new Blackout mode is faring extremely well, and Rockstar even added two BR modes to Red Dead Online. EA's Battlefield V will also get its own 64-player battle royale mode called Firestorm.

Driven by popular games like Fortnite, Dungeon Fighter Online, and League of Legends, the free-to-play sector made a whopping 80% of 2018's total digital game revenues, analyst firm SuperData reports.

Thanks to lucrative monetization, successful engagement strategies, and easy smartphone accessibility, free-to-play continues its long-standing reign on the industry. The F2P segment managed to rake in a whopping $87.84 billion across all platforms in 2018, or 80% of total digital game revenues for the year.

The digital market pulled in $109.8 billion throughout 2018, up a strong 11% year-over-year and sending clear signals to publishers like EA, Activision-Blizzard, Ubisoft, Tencent and Nexon that their live service plans are working. Asian territories fueled these billions and the region generated the lion's share of earnings for the segment. Conversely, areas like North America and Europe prefer bigger buy-to-play games like Red Dead Redemption 2, PUBG, and Black Ops 4.

Danish games dev IO Interactive has opened up a brand new studio in Malmo, Sweden that will help co-ordinate on the studio's projects.

Like any game developer, IO Interactive is likely working on multiple games at the same time. Games development is a collaborative effort that sees multiple teams synergizing and combining their strengths to make new games and big-name companies typically have multiple worldwide branches. Now IO Interactive, who's best known for the Hitman series, has launched a new studio.

According to IO CEO Akan Habrak, the Malmo studio will help the main Copenhagen headquarters develop Hitman games along with new franchises. We've recently reported IO is working on a brand new IP, however details have been light following the studio's split with Square Enix.

The Dragon Ball franchise shows no signs of slowing down and will continue spirit-bombing the industry with a new game in 2019, Bandai Namco confirms.

Today the devs at Bandai Namco announced Project Z, a new action RPG set in the Dragon Ball Z series. Other than the confirmation, official details are light but more information will be announced later this month during the Dragon Ball FighterZ World Tour Finals starting on January 25.

A new DBZ game makes a lot of sense considering Dragon Ball makes a good portion of the publisher's revenues. 2018's big marquee fighter, Dragon Ball FighterZ from ARC System Works, was a big success worldwide and became the fastest-selling franchised game with 2 million units sold in a week's time. No developer details were announced, neither was an actual title for the new action game.

Capcom's Resident Evil 2 Remake demo is one of the best slices of survival horror I've played yet. Here are some quick impressions that underline why I'm excited about the final game.

Any good horror game makes you feel like you're in another dimension. We're transported to the Twilight Zone, the Outer Limits, to a dark pocket of reality where our worst nightmares come true. As players we surrender to the whims of the developers and are taken on a thrill ride where we can experience terror without the real-life ramifications. With their gritty style, claustrophobic environments, and dire feel, Resident Evil games have always done this--well the early ones anyway--and the RE2make brings back those old-school sentiments in droves.

Built on the new proprietary REngine that powered Resident Evil 7, the RE2make looks beautiful in its hallowed glory. High-quality atmospheric and lighting effects bring a new sense of realism and add another layer to that choking fear of impending doom, and the sound direction is absolutely amazing. This brings me to another point: if you play the Resident Evil 2 Remake 1-Shot Demo, make sure you do so with headphones on and in the dead of night. Turn out all the lights, put your headphones on, and be whisked away to a creepy, haunting slice of gameplay.

After many, many long years of waiting, fans of the original Ghostbusters films are finally getting a direct sequel.

Ghostbusters 3 is currently being developed in preparation of a Summer 2020 theatrical release with Jason Reitman, son of original Ghostbusters director Ivan Reitman, directing the third chapter. The movie will take place after Ghostbusters 2 and ignore the hotly-contested 2016 reboot.

A new Ghostbusters 3 teaser trailer dropped today, revealing the original Ecto-1 will be in the movie. The footage also brings back that creepy 1980s vibe with the old-school musical theme and supernatural look and feel. Ghostbusters 3 will also have lots of new characters and "surprises" for old fans, Reitman says.