Category: Gamespot

Earlier this month, entertainment giant Vivendi purchased a 6.6 percent stake in Ubisoft. Now, the French publisher behind mammoth franchises like Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry, has vowed that it will “fight to preserve our independence” in the wake of this new and unwanted investment.

In an internal email obtained by GamesIndustry International, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot said Vivendi’s investment into Ubisoft was “unsolicited and unwelcome.”

“Our intention is and has always been to remain independent, a value which, for 30 years, has allowed us to innovate, take risks, create beloved franchises for players around the world, and which has helped the company grow into the leader it is today,” Guillemot explained.

He also pointed out in his memo that Vivendi has a history of “aggressively pursuing companies within the entertainment sector.”

Guillemot added: “We’re going to fight to preserve our independence. We should not let this situation–nor any future actions by Vivendi or others–distract us from our goals. Our best defense is to stay focused on what we have always done best–deliver the most original and memorable gaming experiences.”

In another email, Guillemot said a Vivendi takeover of Ubisoft could hurt the company’s brand. If this were to happen, it would mean that Ubisoft would be “managed by people who don’t understand our expertise and what it takes to succeed in this industry.”

Vivendi, whose assets include Universal Music Group and many others, is also the former owner of Activision Blizzard. The Call of Duty and World of Warcraft company, however, separated itself from Vivendi in 2013 as part of a buyback process that CEO Bobby Kotick heralded as a “new chapter” for Activision.

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To prepare for the public release of the New Xbox One Experience dashboard update, Microsoft is again expanding the pool of testers for it. While Microsoft is not opening it up to everyone just yet, the company has announced that all Preview Program members will soon be invited to check out the update.

An Xbox Live message sent to Preview Program members on October 20 reads: “The New Xbox One Experience (NXOE) is on the horizon! In preparation, we’ll soon begin moving all Preview consoles over to the NXOE. If you do not wish to move, please opt out of Preview from the Registration tile in the Xbox Preview Dashboard app.”

The NXOE preview opened in September, at which time Microsoft invited select Preview Program members to try it out. Microsoft has regularly expanded the availability of the preview since then.

Included with the NXOE is a long list of changes and new features, perhaps the most notable of which is backwards compatibility for Xbox 360 games. The update also completely overhauls the Home screen to make it “faster and easier.”

In addition, there is a new Community section to help make the console “more social.” It also comes with a “revamped OneGuide” that aims to be the one destination you need for TV, movies, and video apps. On top of that, the update introduces Xbox One button-mapping support for all controllers.

The NXOE is scheduled to be released publicly in November, though Microsoft has not yet announced an exact release date. For more,check out this overview video.

Are you part of the NXOE testing program? How are you finding it? Let us know in the comments below.

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Grammy-winning rock band Linkin Park will perform at BlizzCon 2015 in November to close out the developer’s annual two-day gaming event in southern California. Tickets to the show itself are sold out, but you can still buy a $40 BlizzCon Virtual Ticket, which includes an HD stream of the concert.

“Playing BlizzCon will be one hell of a first for us,” lead singer Chester Bennington said in a statement. “We’re looking forward to giving all the gamers out there a killer rock show.”

This is Linkin Park’s first performance at BlizzCon, but the band is no stranger to video games. Earlier this month, the band’s subsidiary Machine Shop Ventures was part of the investment group that purchased League of Legends squad Team-8. Before that, the band made its own video game to promote an album.

BlizzCon 2015 runs November 6-7 at the Anaheim Convention Center. GameSpot will have a team on the ground to bring you all the news as it happens.

The Linkin Park concert will take place the evening of November 7. In past years, the Saturday evening concert has included some huge names, including Foo Fighters, The Offspring, and Ozzy Osbourne.

Linkin Park’s landmark album, Hybrid Theory, celebrates its 15th anniversary this week. Bet that makes you feel old. The band is currently in the studio recording its seventh album.

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While DC Comics are best known for their high-profile superheroes, there are plenty of darker, more unusual DC titles for potential film adaptations, many under the Vertigo banner. In June, parent company Warner made the decision to move the film development of Vertigo properties over to its subsidiary New Line Cinema, and now some news has emerged about the progress of one of the most popular Vertigo titles, Neil Gaiman’s fantasy series Sandman.

David Goyer is the co-producer of the adaptation, and he spoke this week to Collider about its status. “We’re just about to do a new draft,” he confirmed. “We’re just starting a re-write with a really fantastic writer that’s coming aboard, but I can’t quite announce it yet.

“I think that the Vertigo properties are a bit more quirky and off-center than kind of the mainstream superhero stuff at Warners. But I understand the decision because we’re not having to fight for release dates with the Vertigo stuff like we would have been having to do over at Warner Bros.

“I feel confident that film will go into production hopefully next year.”

Goyer is producing with Dark Knight Rises star Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who has also been tipped to star as lead character Morpheus and possibly even direct. In June, Gordon-Levitt spoke to MTV about how he and Goyer were approaching the complex source material.

“It’s a really complicated adaptation because those comics, they’re brilliant. But they’re not written as a whole,” he said. “It’s not like Watchmen, which is a graphic novel that has a beginning, middle and end. To try and take [the entire Sandman series] and make it into something that’s a feature film–a movie that has a beginning, middle and end–is complicated.

“It’s going to be like a grand, spectacular action film, but that relies on none of those same old ordinary cliches.”

The original run of Sandman lasted for 75 issues, plus one special, between 1989 and 1996. Gaiman has returned to the title a number of times since, including a novella and a six-part prequel series. The comic has won over 26 prestigious Eisner Awards, and by the end of its run was DC’s most popular title, outselling the likes Batman and Superman.

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It’s nearly four years since the last Underworld movie was released, but the action horror series is gearing up once more, with the news that Underworld 5 has started production.

As Slashfilm reports, the movie is filming in and around Prague for ten weeks. The film stars Kate Beckinsale once again as vengeful vampire Selene, with Charles Dance and Theo James returning from 2012’s Underworld: Awakening. There was an earlier suggestion that film would be titled Underworld: Next Generation, but the film has not officially been given this title as yet.

The previous movies, which started with 2003’s Underworld, have grossed more than $500 million worldwide. Last year, it was reported that director Len Wiseman was developing two separate Underworld films, as well as a potential TV show.

“There’s some characters that we really like that [will be in] more of a spinoff of some of the characters, like we did with Rise of the Lycans,” Wiseman told IGN. “And then another film is also being developed in the works with Kate possibly as well. And then there’s a television series as well. So it’s all kind of expanding that universe in many ways.”

Underworld 5 is set for release on October 21, 2016. It is directed by Anna Foerster and co-stars Tobias Menzies, Lara Pulver, and James Faulkner.

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Capcom has announced the complete schedule for Street Fighter V‘s upcoming second beta, which will for the first time test the fighting game’s cross-platform functionality. The publisher had already disclosed the beta would run October 21-25, but now it has provided more granular details about when servers will go up, when they’ll come down, what characters will be available, and when cross-platform play will be unlocked.

As announced previously, the beta will begin first on PS4 starting October 21 with a roster of characters including Ken, Necalli, Vega, and R.Mike. PC players can jump in on October 23 (a day earlier than previously announced), and cross-platform play will be available through October 25.

You can check out the game’s minimum and recommended specs here.

The complete Street Fighter V beta schedule is below.

• 10/21/15 18:00 PST (10/22 02:00 BST/10:00 JST) – The second SFV beta begins for PS4 users. Characters available: Ken, Necalli, Vega, R. Mika
• 10/22/15 14:00 PST (22:00 BST/ 10/23 06:00 JST) – Servers down for scheduled maintenance for 12 hours.
• 10/23/15 02:00 PST (10:00 BST/18:00 JST) – Servers back online. Rashid unlocked.
• 10/23/15 09:00 PST (17:00 BST/ 10/24 01:00 JST) – The second SFV beta begins for both PC and PS4 users (cross-platform play).
• 10/23/15 17:00 PST (10/24 01:00 BST/09:00 JST) – Karin unlocked.
• 10/24/15 04:00 PST (12:00 BST/20:00 JST) – Servers down for scheduled maintenance for 10 hours.
• 10/24/15 14:00 PST (22:00 BST/ 10/25 06:00 JST) – Servers back online.
• 10/25/15 16:00 PST (10/26 0:00 BST/ 08:00 JST) – Beta 2 concludes.

The Street Fighter V beta will include ranked matchmaking, leaderboards that combine PS4 and PC players, and the ability to search for players and see their profiles. What’s more, Capcom is adding new items to unlock with Fight Money currency. Everything you acquire in the beta, as well as your leaderboard status, however, will be wiped clean after the trial period ends.

The only way to get into the Street Fighter V beta is to preorder the game.

Capcom also reminded players that, because it’s a beta, they might encounter bugs and other issues. The publisher said it will use this information to “help ensure the final product is as optimized as possible.”

Players will surely hope this beta runs more smoothly than the first one in July, which faced server problems so serious it had to be delayed. That beta was held only on PS4.

Street Fighter V does not currently have a confirmed release date, but Capcom has said that the game will be out during its current fiscal year, which ends on March 31, 2016. The game is never coming to Xbox One.

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