Author: dpugh007

Sony Pictures’ controversial comedy The Interview has made more than $31 million through online and video-on-demand revenue through its first week-and-a-half since release on Christmas Day. The film company announced the new revenue milestone this week (via Variety), adding that the Seth Rogen/James Franco movie banked more than $5 million in its limited theatrical release.

That combines for around $36 million in total revenue since release, against a reported $75 million budget that includes production and marketing costs. These figures are accurate as of January 4.

The Interview was originally scheduled for a wide theatrical release on Christmas Day. However, the movie’s subject matter–the assassination attempt of North Korea’s leader–reportedly led to the massive cyberattack against Sony Pictures.

Hackers threatened violence against theaters that showed the movie, leading Sony to cancel its theatrical release. Following criticisms from US President Barack Obama, Sony reversed this decision, and brought the movie to hundreds of independent theatres across the US.

For its digital release, The Interview was initially available only on YouTube, Google Play, and Xbox Video. However, it later rolled out for iTunes, PlayStation Network, and various on-demand providers.

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A federal appeals court judge ruled this week that a lawsuit from a group of retired NFL players over EA’s juggernaut Madden football series can move forward. EA sought to have the case, which has to do with the depiction of former players in the series, tossed out, but the judge rejected this.

From The Associated Press: “The 9th Circuit said EA was not likely to prevail on its argument that its use of the former players’ likenesses was incidental and therefore protected by the First Amendment.”

Judge Raymond Fisher explained his decision thusly: “We hold EA’s use of the former players’ likenesses is not incidental because it is central to EA’s main commercial purpose–to create a realistic virtual simulation of football games involving current and former NFL teams.”

One of the players involved in the lawsuit, former Los Angeles Rams quarterback Vince Ferragamo, claimed that the Madden NFL series featured the exact likenesses, including characteristics, of retired players. However, Ferragamo claims EA did not obtain permission for their use.

EA said it was disappointed by the court’s ruling, explaining that it plans to fight the suit.

“We believe in the First Amendment right to create expressive works–in any form–that relate to real-life people and events, and will seek further court review to protect it,” EA said.

This case is similar to one from 2013, when a court ruled against EA in a suit brought forward by former Arizona State University QB Sam Keller concerning the NCAA Football series. He claimed that EA used college athletes’ likenesses without compensating the players. EA ended up paying out $40 million to settle the case, and the NCAA Football series was put on hold.

As part of this week’s Madden NFL ruling, Judge Fisher said: “Like NCAA Football, Madden NFL replicates players’ physical characteristics and allows users to manipulate them in the performance of the same activity for which they are known in real life–playing football for an NFL team.”

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The next major patch for Xbox One game Halo: The Master Chief Collection will arrive sometime next week, developer 343 Industries has announced. This update will “address UI and a variety of other areas,” the studio said in a post on its website.

Additional details regarding the patch’s specific release date and full notes will come later, after the update makes it through the certification process.

Next week’s Master Chief Collection patch won’t be the game’s last, however. 343 adds that it worked through the holidays to prepare more updates that “improve the existing experience and add new content.” No further details about the patch to follow next week’s patch were divulged.

On the more immediate horizon, 343 went on to say that it will launch a small Master Chief Collection update tomorrow, January 8, that will add more achievements for Spartan Ops. This update will also add more achievements to the game’s general multiplayer, though they were not named outright.

“Improving your experience with Halo: The Master Chief Collection remains our top priority, and we thank you for your continued feedback and reports on community forums and elsewhere as we prioritize updates for each content update,” 343 said.

The Master Chief Collection launched in November, and immediately faced a number of networking issues that made the game near-unplayable for some. 343 has worked consistently since then to fix the game’s online woes, which have now been largely eradicated. In a bid to make it up to fans, Microsoft is giving Master Chief Collection owners a free copy of Halo 3: ODST and more.

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A new custom dock for PlayStation 4, which allows the console to support standard 3.5-inch hard drives, has been revealed by peripherals specialist Nyko.

The Databank is a drive dock that links the PS4’s internal storage to a 3.5-inch bay that sits atop the console. That means players can then slot in common hard drives which will behave as internal storage.

While the PS4 allows for external hard drives, these do not support game installs. And although owners can replace the internal storage, they will need to purchase a 2.5-inch drive, which are not as common and more expensive. Nyko says the Databank circumvents these problems, allowing for straightforward installation of huge and relatively inexpensive hard drives.

Nyko has not revealed any firm release dates or prices, but says the peripheral should arrive in the first half of 2015.

Meanwhile, the company has also announced it is building a QWERTY keypad that can attach to the underbelly of the DualShock 4 controller. No ship dates or prices have been announced for this either.

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Connections are dropping across the PlayStation Network, Sony confirmed on Wednesday following complaints across social media.

Representatives for the corporation wrote on the official PlayStation Twitter account: “We’re aware that some players are seeing drops on PSN. Engineers are on the case and investigating.”

At the time of writing, GameSpot’s internal tests showed no signs of connection problems. Online games were playable, the PlayStation Store was accessible, and downloads persisted with no noticeable hiccups.

Yet other PlayStation users have already expressed displeasure at the downtime across social media, particularly because the latest incident is so close to the major DDoS attack that brought down the network for several days over Xmas.

The official PlayStation support site notes that the network is currently experiencing “Heavy Network Traffic”, and adds that users may experience some latency issues.

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