Rather than sell consoles or full games, first-party games like Crackdown 3 are geared towards adding value to Game Pass.

Microsoft's Game Pass subscription has literally changed the game for Xbox. The all-you-can-download subscription comes at a time when Microsoft is focusing on services first and its own games second, and shows how the company has a morphing strategy when it comes to its own titles. Rather than follow the more traditional route of using high-quality first-party AAA games to sell consoles and the games themselves, like Sony is doing with God of War and Spider-Man, Microsoft's new titles are released on Game Pass for no extra charge. That means its own games are now additive to its services the same way the very services are additive to its whole-package ecosystem.

Crackdown 3 is a prime example of this forked business model. The game is described by and large as a mediocre game, and Polygon's Chris Plante said something quite interesting about it: the game seemingly only exists to buffer Game Pass. I think he's right on the money here, and it sets an interesting precedent for future games. Instead of releasing big marquee blockbusters, Microsoft can now get away with making the games good and entertaining enough to spark interest in Game Pass. Once people buy into the service they'll be taken on the ride of engagement and monetization that churns Microsoft's billion-dollar strategy.

Apex Legends is a lot of things starting as a new battle royale game from Titanfall developer Respawn Entertainment, the most popular game right now, mega popular on Twitch and YouTube, and so much more.

Yeah well it's about to get much worse, as a concerned parent is claiming Apex Legends is turning their son trans sexual, because you know - a game can do that.

Anyway, this parent gave the game a one-star review on the Xbox Store and said: "My son has been playing this game recently there is only one problem he keeps using the female characters. I think this game is turning my son transexual. I am not the only one who thinks this everyone in my Facebook group is having the same problem in this game and others".

Yesterday we learned that Ninja Theory's 'Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice' will soon be arriving on the Nintendo Switch, what we didn't know was who was porting the title over and what features would be coming with it.

During the Nintendo Direct that was conducted yesterday, we learned that 'Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice' is planning to arrive on the Nintendo Switch during Spring of 2019. The short reveal of the title was mostly centered around the story of Senua and didn't share any details to what features the game would be coming with, or what developer would be handling the port. Kotaku UK has now reported that Dark Souls Remastered developer, QLOC will be handling the Switch port. The porting company is best-known for their work on the mentioned above Dark Souls Remastered Switch port, Injustice 2, Dark Ball Xenoverse 2, Dragon's Dogma and Rime.

QLOC seems to have a good reputation for game ports and with a solid library of games under their belt we should see the same efficiency with Ninja Theory's Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice. Kotaku also claims that Hellblade will also be arriving on the Switch with optional motion control support. The website says that when 'Focus Mode' is used throughout the game players will be able to use the motion controls to look for symbols, puzzles or clues. Just like all Nintendo Switch ports expect a downscale in graphics as the hand-held console does have hardware limitations that are unavoidable. Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice is planned for release on the Nintendo Switch this Spring.

NetherRealm Studios has confirmed yet another returning fighter for Mortal Kombat 11, this time round we are re-introduced to 'Jade' the ultimate assassin.

Throughout the KombKast live stream, developers NetherRealm Studios revealed a character trailer. This time we meet (not for the first time) 'Jade' and her repertoire of moves and weapons she has at her disposal. Diving into a bit of background on 'Jade' now, we were first introduced to the character back in Mortal Kombat 2 where she was an unplayable character, then she debuted as a playable fighter in the following installment Mortal Kombat 3. |

From the above gameplay video we can see that Jade is very good at spacing out against her opponent. Her long bo staff allows her to deal damage from medium range, and when at extended distances she has her razorrang to throw at her enemy. The video also showcases some brutal combos as well as one of her fatality moves. NetherRealm Studios commented on the announcement, here is what they said; "Now resurrected by an evil sorcerer, she serves the Netherrealm as an undead Revenant. Death hasn't slowed Jade down, though. She still thrashes her enemies with her bo staff, razorrang, and patronizing put-downs."Mortal Kombat 11 will be released on April 23rd for the Xbox One, PC, PS4 and Nintendo Switch.

In the Nintendo Direct that just passed we heard a lot about what Nintendo is bringing to Switch owners throughout 2019, and one of those things was the line-up of new amiibo's that are on the way. Today, Nintendo has begun showcasing three new figures in some newly released images.

Within the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate dedicated section in the Nintendo Direct, Nintendo detailed some new coming Super Smash Bros. Ultimated themed amiibo's. The character the we saw in the Direct were new designs for Snake, Simon Belmont, Squirtle, Pokemon Trainer and Ivysaur. Nintendo instead decided to surprise us today with Ken, Young Link and Daisy. The images were released onto the official Nintendo Twitter account and can be viewed above.

Nintendo have said that the amiibo's mentioned above will be released to the public on April 12th, I'd expect around this time or sooner that we will see some more images released for the rest of the fighters we haven't seen yet. The Direct also teased the coming up 'version 3.0' update headed to Smash Ultimate, they didn't say what the update contained but then reminded fans of the DLC fighter 'Joker' from Persona 5. The update is scheduled to release this Spring and 'Joker' is expected to be released sometime in April.

In a recently reported article from Bloomberg, Apple has reportedly been contacting celebrities to attend the unveiling of their brand new video streaming platform scheduled for March 25th.

Apple are about to jump into the pool of video streaming with a planned platform scheduled to be unveiled to customers on March 25th. The platform will be Apple's very own 'Netflix' in a way and will compete against similar platforms such as Amazon's 'Prime Video', Stan or Netflix themselves. According to sources talking to Bloomberg, Apple has looked for support in the service by the following celebrities attending their premier; "Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon, Jennifer Garner and director JJ Abrams".

It can be assumed that on Apple's new platform will be movies and T.V shows that are specifically funded or purchased by Apple. Apple will also most-likely combine other services such as Apple Music, Apple TV and their news app into one big monthly service for customers, making for a much more uniform purchasing option that can offer a range of different features for Apple users. A more simpler way to think about it would be that Apple's monthly bundle would be very similar to that of Amazon's 'prime' program. Apple will be showcasing deal for their coming streaming service on March 25th.

We all know how Keanu Reeves killed it in The Matrix, he was born for the role... but did you know he wasn't the first choice of The Wachowski bros at the time. I've known this for a while and whenever conversation steers to movie trivia, or The Matrix trivia, I pull this out. Now, Smith himself has talked about it on his vlog.

Will talks about coming off of massive hits in Independence Day and Men in Black, after which he was approached by the Wachowskis about The Matrix. Their pitch to him made him steer clear of it, opting to star in Wild Wild West at the time, and we know how that ended up. I do love that he says Keanu killed it as Neo and Laurence Fishburne as Morpheus, where he says the races would've been switched if he took the starring role of Neo as Val Kilmer would've most likely been Morpheus.

Can you imagine that? Val Kilmer as Morpheus? Yeah, I can't either.

Every gamer knows the conversations that video games cause violence, and many studies have been done backing-up both sides of the debate, but now a new study has published. The study comes from Oxford University and it has shedded some new light onto the subject.

The controversy claims of video games causing violence has been around since the creation of the video games, and really took off after the Columbine High School Massacre. The tragic massacre was conducted by two high school students, Eric David Harris and his friend Dylan Bennet. Harris showed extreme enthusiasm for the Doom series, he owned novels from the game and even pointed out in the videos that the massacre would be much like Doom and even the shotgun used was "straight out of doom". This connection sparked the already present idea that video game use directly correlated to increasing levels of violence.

The new study that has come out of the online Oxford Internet Institute, which comes under the title of 'Royal Society Open Science'. The published study provides substantial evidence towards there being no connection between video games and violence. The method used ensures that bias' were not a variable when conducting the study, this was done through hypothesis' done before the research was completed. Research professor, Andrew Przybylski said; "A cherry-picked result can add undue weight to the moral panic surrounding video games. The registered study approach is a safeguard against this."

Metro Exodus will have a 2GB day-one update that developer 4A Games is blasting out to gamers, with the update fixing up a bunch of stuff on all versions of hte game and a bunch of PC-specific updates as well.

On the PC version of Metro Exodus we have improved DLSS thanks to updated learned data from NVIDIA, RTX improverments and bug fixing, tuned HDR saturation, additional HUD removal options in Ranger Mode, and added Motion Blur options. The full list of updates is after the jump.

I'll be starting my DLSS testing early next week on all GeForce RTX cards, as well as 8K benchmarking of Metro Exodus (and the nearly-released Far Cry New Dawn, too).

Well folks... here we are. We're at a time when I'm writing news about a nude mode for the super-successful Resident Evil 2 remake, with somone wanting to mod Claire Redfield into a nude model running around the horrific world of the RE2 remake.

The new nude mod for Resident Evil 2 remake is available on Nexus Mods, and will be invisible to you if you're a guest. You'll need to make an account on the site to enable the adult-rated mods, such as the nude Resident Evil 2 remake mod.

Claire isn't fully nude in the mod, with just the top half of her being naked and the bottom half of the character covered in pants. It's funny watching the videos of it though, because it even changes the cutscenes with the topless version of Claire crawling and running around. For those who want to check out the chops on Leon Kennedy, yeah well you aren't in luck just yet.