Before revealing gameplay footage for Halo: Infinite, 343i and Microsoft have announced NERF guns and plans to help bolster the franchise's ailing esports league.

343 Industries has big plans for Halo: Infinite's esports presence, a presence that's currently lacking a smidgen of the billion-dollar might of the Call of Duty League. The devs are teaming up with pro gaming company esports Engine to manage Halo: Infinite's competitive scene. This is an odd move on the surface, especially since the studio has yet to actually reveal any gameplay footage. The only two Halo: Infinite trailers we've been shown are a game engine demonstration at E3 2018, and a video of in-engine footage at E3 2019, not actual gameplay.

This pretty much underlines Microsoft's main goal for gaming: Engagement. The company is all-in on live services, online multiplayer, and engagement strategies that sell digital games, subscriptions, and of course microtransactions (and yes, Halo: Infinite will be monetized). Microsoft wants esports to be a part of this engagement strategy. Esports is a potent mechanism for exposure, events, and streaming viewership, all of which will tie into Microsoft's Mixer platform and make money via ad revenue and the tip system.

Sony today announced it won't be attending PAX East, and all of its plans for the show have been cancelled.

Sony is skipping PAX East to play it safe against the spreading coronavirus, which is spreading fast across the globe. The games-maker previously planned to show off key first-party games like Ghosts of Tsushima and even have a hands-on The Last of Us Part II demo, but those showcases have been scrapped. This is the second major event Sony has missed in February; first with Taipei Game Show's mandatory cancellation, and now the elective withdrawal from PAX East.

Sony gave a statement on the situation: "Today, Sony Interactive Entertainment made the decision to cancel its participation at PAX East in Boston this year due to increasing concerns related to the coronavirus. We felt this was the safest option as the situation is changing daily. We are disappointed to cancel our participation in this event, but the health and safety of our global workforce is our highest concern."

Gamestop is in trouble. It's been in trouble for a long time now as it bleeds money due to lower hardware and game sales. But the company isn't exactly making things better; higher-ups are panicking, leading to bizarre business decisions that restrict earnings in the long run.

In a new expose from Polygon, a number of Gamestop employees paint a bleak picture for the company's future. The retailer is endemic with strange business decisions that verge on the edge of mismanagement.

Store managers are tasked with lumbering responsibilities that don't actually equate to sales, like pushing phone-trade ins, many of which pester and bombard guests with offers and information. It's like going into a store for a product and only getting bombarded for advertisements for other products, but from an exasperated human who's needlessly stressed. Gamestop has been using its workforce as reverse door-to-door salesman for a while now, but the pressure has apparently gotten worse as Gamestop earnings slip, putting even more weight on managerial shoulders.

Saber Interactive is now part of THQ Nordic's massive stable of studios and game subsidiaries, which includes Deep Silver's umbrella of devs, Tarsier Studios, and indie devs like Coffee Stain.

The Embracer Group (formerly THQ Nordic) just bought Saber Interactive for $525 million in mixed cash and company shares, making it a wholly-owned subsidiary of the company. Saber, who is mostly known for World War Z, Halo: The Master Chief Collection, the Ghostbusters remaster, Killing Floor 2, and Switch ports of games like The Witcher 3 and Vampyr, was an attractive prospect because they not only have their own proprietary games engine tech but pulled in a sizable $105 million in revenues in 2019.

Saber currently employs 630 workers across 5 teams around the world and will continue as a work-for-hire studio that gleans royalty-based revenues from its projects. In fact, that's another major reason why Embracer bought the company. The parent company wants to grow Saber to 1,500 employees to take on more contracts and work on new games.

Elon Musk's SpaceX is checking off milestones as it moves towards making commercial space travel a real thing. Now, we are hearing about when SpaceX will be taking its first tourists.

TheNextWeb has reported that SpaceX will begin to send tourists to orbit as soon as 2021, but the costs it won't be like a international flight -- they will be much higher than that. Space Adventures is the company that will be handling the bookings for SpaceX's orbital experience, and they also handled the brokering deal of tourists going into orbit throughout 2001 and 2009.

According to Quartz, the last space tourism flight by Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberte cost a whopping $30 million. Space Adventures expects that SpaceX will be taking four passengers on their first flight to space "late 2021 and mid-2022", but that won't happen until the Crew Dragon Capsule completes its first manned flight in just a couple of months. Once that is complete, SpaceX has set the runway for tourists entering space.

The upcoming Uncharted Movie has experienced several directors leaving, and at the moment, the film doesn't have an officially announced director, but it will begin filming anyway.

Star of the upcoming Uncharted Movie, Tom Holland spoke to IGN and revealed some details about the delayed movie. According to Holland, the movie will begin filming in the next four weeks, which slates it for sometime in March. Holland also mentions that the stunt team has already begun planning action sequences for shooting in Berlin.

Holland also teases that the movie will portray a young Nathan Drake that will give a fresh take on the character. The movie will also take heavy inspiration from the extremely successful game franchise, but more specifically, the last game -- Uncharted 4: A Thief's End. Here's a quote from Holland, "We didn't get to meet [Drake] all that much when he was younger," he said. "But it's a pretty awesome movie. It's global. We travel the world. We see some amazing place. And Mark Wahlberg and I are going to have a great summer together."

Back in late April 1986, a nuclear accident happened that shook the planet. This disaster was none other than Chernobyl, and the nuclear fallout was devastating.

Since the Chernobyl nuclear explosion, the radioactive site has become more of a real-life research site for scientists. Researchers have since sent in several robots to examine the site and how the nuclear fallout has affected both plant and animal life. In 1991, a team found that black-spotted fungi were growing on the walls of one of the nuclear reactors. The team also found that this fungi was slowly breaking down the radioactive graphite from the core, and was growing more strongly towards the center of the zone.

In 2007 a follow-up study was conducted by researchers at the University of Saskatchewan, and found that certain types of fungi were "attracted" to radiation and actually grew more rapidly in radioactive conditions. The three fungi species were Cladosporium sphaerospermum, Cryptococcus neoformans, and Wangiella dermatitidis. These species of fungi and five others were then sent to the International Space Station in 2016 to be exposed to further radiation.

A new listing on the Steam Store has revealed that Grand Theft Auto IV will be returning back to Valve's platform under the new name of "Grand Theft Auto IV: Complete Edition".

According to the listing, the resurfaced game won't pack all of its features it had before. The listing says that starting on the 19th of March 2020, "Grand Theft Auto IV: Complete Edition will replace both Grand Theft Auto IV and Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City wherever it is currently digitally available." It also mentions that the Complete Edition will also be playable via the Rockstar Games Launcher.

Potential buyers should also note that the game will be arriving with no multiplayer mode, no leaderboards, and no Games for Windows Live. The game will also be coming back to Steam with some in-game radio stations being "temporarily disabled". Those radio stations are; RamJam FM, Self-Actualization FM, and Vice City FM. If you are interested in any more information regarding what Grand Theft Auto IV: Complete Edition will or will not have, I've provided dot points in the entirety of this post. A link to the Steam listing can also be found here.

The Witcher TV show was undoubtedly a massive success for Netflix, but is that success still going even into the new year?

In short, yes, yes, it is. According to BusinessInsider, who received some more statistics from data firm Parrot Analytics, in regards to how the show was doing from January 14th to February 12th, The Witcher is still the most in-demand series globally across all platforms. The Witcher has remained the most in-demand show since it took first place from Disney Plus' 'The Mandalorian'.

So how did Parrot Analytics come to this conclusion? Well, they measure viewership, demand expressions, engagement, and the impact of the show. Netflix really wants to keep that ball rolling, so they have already greenlit season two of The Witcher, more on that can be found here. If you are after anymore Witcher news, check out this link here.

Corsair has just taken to their social media's to announce a new gaming mouse, this time around they are aiming it directly at MOBA and MMO gamers.

The new mouse is called the Scimitar RGB Elite, and it comes jam-packed with a bunch of programmable keys. Corsair is offering 17 programmable keys on the Scimitar RGB Elite, and it's mostly designed for gamers that are playing both MOBA/MMO games, but they can be used for whatever your heart desires.

The Scimitar RGB Elite also comes with Corsair's Key Slider control system that allows users to reposition the button cluster forwards or backward to a degree of 8mm. The mouse sports an 18,000 DPI optical sensor, Omron switches that have a click-rate of 50 million, as well as 4 RGB lighting zones that can be customized with Corsair's iCUE software. The Corsair Scimitar RGB Elite gaming mouse is priced at $79.99 USD, and if you are interested in more information, check out this link here.