Prior to CES 2019, HTC tweeted an image of some of the new VR gear that it's bringing to the tech event. All of the products are boxed away in their cases, so it's still a mystery as to what HTC will be announcing.
In the tweet, there are some hints--both in the image and the accompanying text--that shed some light on what might be announced though. The tweet refers to the new announcements as "gear" so HTC is probably focusing on Vive hardware reveals for CES this year. And although HTC blurred the logos on the cases in the image, they're not completely ineligible. CNET believes one of the cases says "Vive Port" and another reads "Vive Gloves" or "Vive Cloud." We'll have to wait for CES to find out for sure, however.
The truck is loaded and we're excited be on our way to #CES2019. The cases are packed with some new gear we can't wait to unbox for you. Keep tuned to @htcvive social media during CES for announcements, news and daily coverage. #HTCVIVE#VIVEPORTpic.twitter.com/lkwKE7plPw
First held in New York City in 1967, CES became an annual Las Vegas event in 1998. Usually a series of presentations for upcoming technological and electronic products, CES covers everything from 3D printing to robotics. As seen at CES 2018, the event has become a great place to try out the latest in PC tech, test VR headsets, and experiment with new ways to play retro games.
While smaller Switch games go on sale all the time on the Nintendo Eshop, the big exclusives tend to stick frustratingly close to their launch price points. That's great news for Nintendo's investors, but it doesn't give deal-hunters much to get excited about. So it's nice to see that this week a number of retailers have dropped prices on a handful of Switch-exclusive games to $42 / £33.
Target has you covered for physical copies, while the Eshops have similar pricing on the digital versions. And if you're going to load up on digital games, you might want to grab a bigger microSD card for your Switch. Amazon is selling 128GB cards for $22 right now, which is a small price to pay for not having to worry about carrying around tiny game cartridges with you.
As for which games are on sale, you've got the unique fighting game Arms, which pits long-limbed characters against one another in zany boxing matches. Also on sale is Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is a terrific single- or multiplayer racer that comes with all the DLC characters and tracks from the Wii U version.
Anyone in the mood for a colorful online shooter can grab Splatoon 2 for cheap, and if retro RPGs have a nostalgic place in your heart, you'll feel right at home in the stylish game Octopath Traveler. And for those of us who want to find catharsis by slashing through hordes of enemies, Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition lets you do so as some of your favorite Legend of Zelda characters. These deals will be gone by January 10, so make your purchases by then.
Sega appears to be using its Steam page for Bayonetta to tease another impending announcement, but what it might be is still a mystery. A bizarre image of a sheep has sparked theories ranging from a crossover with Bayonetta to something new for Catherine, the story-based puzzle game from subsidiary Atlus. Sega has been producing more PC ports, but this teaser only appeared on the Bayonetta page and not a more recent port like Vanquish.
The teaser is just an image of a sheep, paired with the title "Baa." Sheep play an important role in Catherine, as both the name of the Stray Sheep bar that serves as a central location, and as the way the game represents other men besides the protagonist, Vincent.
Catherine uses its puzzle mechanics to tell a relatively adult story about marriage, commitment, and infidelity. The lead character Vincent is facing the decision of whether to marry his longtime girlfriend, Katherine, when he has a chance encounter with a free-spirited woman, Catherine. It features several endings based on the player's choices and a morality meter. A Full Body remake of Catherine was already announced for PS4 and Vita.
"This story-heavy puzzler is mature and occasionally profound, exploring themes like sexual fidelity, personal responsibility, and trust," wrote critic Kevin VanOrd in GameSpot's review. "Catherine doesn't just challenge your hand/eye coordination: It challenges your intellect and your emotions."
January is officially here! While the flow of big releases is slowing down, that doesn't mean there aren't exciting new games coming this month--let alone in 2019 as a whole. There are still a handful of noteworthy games on the way you should keep an eye on.
Headlining January's releases are new installments and re-releases in several classic franchises. The long-awaited Resident Evil 2 remake is set to launch at the end of this month, as well as the climactic conclusion to the Kingdom Hearts series. But if you're in the mood to play older games on current-generation platforms, we're getting remasters/enhanced ports of Tales of Vesperia, Onimusha: Warlords, and New Super Mario Bros. U.
That's only a smattering of this month's releases. You can see all of the biggest games on the way for each platform in January 2019 below. For a look at all of the most notable releases coming in 2019, check out our complete list of game release dates in 2019.
Resident Evil 2 Remake -- January 25 (PS4, Xbox One, PC)
Ever since the outstanding Gamecube remake of Resident Evil 1 in 2002, fans have adamantly requested the same treatment for its much-loved sequel. After years of waiting, Capcom granted this wish when it confirmed development of Resident Evil 2 Remake in August 2015. Resident Evil 2 fans and newcomers, rejoice! We're finally going to be able to play the game this month. It features a host of changes and improvements over the original, such as a new over-the-shoulder camera, revised puzzles, and modernized controls.
Kingdom Hearts III -- January 29 (PS4, Xbox One, PC)
The Kingdom Hearts saga is coming to a close at this end of the month. This much-awaited concluding chapter is looking to wrap up Sora's quest to thwart the evil Xehanort's plan to form a true Organization XIII. Kingdom Hearts III will include new worlds to explore based on Disney and Pixar properties, an expanded party system, mini-games inspired by classic Walt Disney animations, and much more. If you're looking to catch up on previous entries before Kingdom Hearts III releases, we highly recommend the Kingdom Hearts 1.5 + 2.5 Remix on PS4, which collects the majority of the series on a single disc.
New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe -- January 11 (Switch)
The Nintendo Switch is getting a collection containing enhanced ports of both New Super Mario Bros. U and its standalone expansion, New Super Luigi U. While the games remain largely the same, there are a couple new additions. A new character named Toadette is being added, and Nabbit, who you could previously only play in New Super Luigi U, will be playable across both games.
Netflix has confirmed the released date for The Punisher Season 2. Following last week's leak, the streaming giant has confirmed that the Marvel show will return on January 18 and revealed the date announcement in a new teaser trailer.
The teaser doesn't feature any footage from the new season, but instead teases the upcoming confrontation between Frank Castle and Billy Russo--better known as the Punisher's classic nemesis Jigsaw. Actors Jon Bernthal and Ben Barnes provide an intense voiceover that suggest that this will be a fight to the death--check it out above.
While there is much anticipation for The Punisher Season 2, the future of the show is unclear. In recent months, three of Netflix's roster of Marvel shows have been cancelled. While the axing of Iron Fist and Luke Cage weren't necessarily surprising, the cancelation of Daredevil within a few weeks of the acclaimed Season 3 hitting the service suggested that Netflix is looking to drop all of its Marvel shows.
Disney is launching its own streaming platform, named Disney+, later this year and is developing several Marvel series for it. Netflix still officially has The Punisher and Jessica Jones as active shows, and Season 3 of the latter is expected later this year. However, it remains possible that both will be cancelled once these latest seasons have been released.
In terms of new Marvel shows, in November Disney confirmed that Tom Hiddleston will star in a Loki show for Disney+. In addition, it has been reported that a Falcon and Winter Soldier team-up series is in development, and there are also rumors of a Scarlet Witch show.
Fortnite's Season 7, Week 5 is in full swing, and among them there are a couple of tricky challenges. Both of these are exclusive to those that have paid for a Battle Pass, with the first tasking players with searching a specific location for a Battle Star (we've got a guide for that), while the second is a multi-stage quest that involves dancing on towers.
The quest begins by asking players to dance on a Water Tower. Once the first part of the challenge is complete, it'll be updated and direct players to dance on top of a Ranger Tower, and then on top of an Air Traffic Control Tower. So, three in total, and although they're pretty easy to spot, you'll need to be in their general vicinity first.
To make things easier for you, we've put together a map of where you can find each of the towers, as well as listed their locations below. All you've got to do is either land on or build up to the top of the towers and then bust a move.
Fortnite Tower Locations
Water Tower: Can be found at Retail Row
Ranger Tower: Can be found at Lonely Lodge
Air Traffic Control Tower: Can be found at Frosty Flights
With this challenge and the "Search Between" challenge mentioned above completed, you've done all the hard work for the week. All that remains is mopping up the rest, which will just require you to have solid Fortnite fundamentals and put some time into the game.
If you've got outstanding challenges from previous weeks, you can use our comprehensive Fortnite Season 7 challenge guide for a full breakdown on every challenge that has been featured so far, as well as links to guides for the more difficult challenges for each week.
Cult movie star and character actor Bruce Campbell is rebooting the TV series Ripley's Believe It Or Not for The Travel Channel. The channel has ordered 10 episodes, one hour each, that will be hosted by Campbell. He's also serving as executive producer.
The new episodes will be shot on location at the Ripley Warehouse in Florida and will tell "astonishing, real, and one-of-a-kind stories" from around the globe. It's set to premiere in Summer 2019. The launch this year makes it mark the 100-year anniversary of the Ripley's Believe It Or Not brand.
This will be the fifth series in all. The first aired on NBC in 1949 and was hosted by Robert L. Ripley, the namesake of the show. It has since been revived or rebooted by several networks over the years, with hosts like Jack Palance and Dean Cain. It even had an animated series.
Most recently, Campbell has appeared as a series regular on the AMC series Lodge 49, and reprised his iconic role as the monster-hunter in the Starz series Ash vs. Evil Dead.
"Travel Channel fans have an insatiable curiosity about the world and sharing this wonderful and weird series with the next generation of fans is a thrill," said general manager Jane Latman, in the announcement. "This entirely new version of Ripley's is a fresh contemporary approach to the odd and unusual and will be jam-packed with larger-than-life characters, cool facts, history and science."
We're in Week 5 of Fortnite Season 7, and that means there's new challenges to be completed. At this point, the challenges aren't exactly a huge surprise, but that doesn't mean they're all super easy to complete. One of the challenges available to those that have a paid Battle Pass, for example, is a bit of a treasure hunt. We've done the leg work and have the exact location of that Battle Star, so you won't have to spend too much time looking.
The challenge in question says "search between a giant rock man, a crowned tomato, and an encircled tree." If you know your way around the map, you'll know that means you need to head southeast of Tomato Temple, just south of the bridge. Now that you have that specific location, the easiest way to get there is to just start a new match, hop out of the Battle Bus at the right time, and plummet down to the island.
Click image to view in full screen
Of course, you'll need to be careful about other players hanging around in the area, as they will want to take you out to complete challenges or work their way to that precious Victory Royale. When you land, make a beeline for the Battle Star and you should be fine, but be prepared to take a few attempts at it if the landing zone is hot.
Take a look above for a map of the exact location and a screenshot from the area where the Battle Star can be found. You can also watch the video above and see us complete the challenge, which will give you a good indication of where to land to maximize your chances of grabbing the Battle Star before being popped by an enemy.
On January 2, Fortnite developer Epic Games released a new update for the game. You can see all the changes, tweaks, and new additions in the full Fortnite update 7.10.2 patch notes. The headliner for the update is the Boom Box item, which does big damage to any built structures. This is a handy item to keep an eye out for, as one of the other challenges for Week 5 asks players to do 5000 points of damage to structures.
Here's what we know so far about Bayonetta 3: Platinum Games is developing it, and Nintendo will publish it as a Switch exclusive. When it will arrive is anyone's guess at this point, however. We saw a teaser trailer during the Game Awards 2017, but the upcoming action title was a no-show at E3 2018. So far, we find ourselves with more questions than answers. Despite the lack of information, you can already lock in your Bayonetta 3 pre-order, and even get a nice discount from one retailer.
The teaser trailer is the only actual Bayonetta 3-related document that's available so far, and it doesn't show any gameplay footage, so it offers few hints. But it does feature the leather-clad heroine wielding dual pistols, her weapons of choice in the previous installments.
Bayonetta 1 & 2 on Switch
Speaking of previous installments, if you're looking to brush up on the series before Bayonetta 3 comes out, $50 gets you a physical copy of Bayonetta 2 on Switch, which comes with a digital code for the first game. For those who prefer digital Switch games, you can buy both titles from the Nintendo Eshop for a total of $60.
But if it's Bayonetta 3 you're after, you have several pre-order options so far. No pre-order bonuses are available at this time, but we'll add them here if that changes in the future.
Fortnite fans will no doubt want to start 2019 off on the right foot by securing themselves a healthy helping of Battle Stars, and it just so happens that there's another batch of challenges now available for them to complete. We're in Week 5 of Season 7 now, so you should know how this goes, but if you're new to it all here's a quick breakdown.
Challenges come in two varieties, with the first free to everyone playing Fortnite's battle royale mode, and the second available exclusively to those that spend V-Bucks to get a premium Battle Pass. By completing challenges you are rewarded with Battle Stars, which in turn upgrade your Battle Pass and make cosmetic unlocks available. If you've got a premium pass, you get the option of doing more challenges and thus can earn more Battle Stars and get new unlocks faster.
In the free category, Week 5's challenges involve dealing damage to an opponent's structures, eliminating an enemy player from a specific distance, and completing a multi-stage challenge that begins with dancing on top of a water tower.
For those with a premium Battle Pass, you'll need to search a location that can be found between a giant rock man, a crowned tomato, and an encircled tree. There's also a challenge that asks you to get three elims with a silenced weapon, along with another that requires you to search chests in Wailing Woods and Paradise Palms. The final challenge in this section is another multi-stager that is activated by landing at Polar Peak. Take a look at the full list of challenges below.
Free
Stage 1: Land at Polar Peak (1) -- 1 Battle Stars
Deal damage to opponent's structures (5000) -- 5 Battle Star
Stage 1: Dance on top of a Water Tower (1) -- 1 Battle Stars
Search chests at Wailing Woods or Paradise Palms (7) -- 5 Battle Star
Search between a giant rock man, a crowned tomato, and an encircled tree (1) -- 10 Battle Stars
Eliminate an opponent from closer than 5m away (3) -- 10 Battle Stars
If you haven't been keeping up with challenges thus far, we've got a very handy Fortnite Season 7 challenge guide that keeps track of all the weekly challenges and provides links to guides for the more difficult ones. Use that to get any outstanding challenges completed and you'll have the unlocks you want in no time.
Fortnite developer Epic Games released a new update for the game on January 2. Along with various tweaks, it introduced the Boom Box, which is an item that does significant damage to built structures. This item is very handy for removing barriers between you and any enemies you may be gunning for. If you're on the receiving end of its destructive power, you can counter by shooting the Boom Box. Check out the full Fortnite update 7.10.2 patch notes for more on the item and the other changes and tweaks.
The UK's best-selling physical video games of 2018 have been revealed, with the usual suspects leading the charts. FIFA 19 came out on top, selling just under 1.9m units.
Rockstar's Red Dead Redemption 2 was the second-biggest seller, shifting 1.75m copies, while Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 found its way into 1.2m UK homes, placing it at No.3. Sales monitor GfK Chart-Track says the PS4 exclusive Spider-Man--which finished at No.4 in the overall chart--sold more copies than any other exclusive game in 2018. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (No.5), God of War (No.8), and Forza Horizon 4 (No.9) were the other exclusive games to sell well.
Overall, video games now generate more revenue than any other entertainment medium in the UK. The games market has more than doubled in value since 2007, with a large portion of that growth coming from digital sources such as DLC and microtransactions. Digital sales make up over 80% of the UK games market.
"The games industry has been incredibly effective in taking advantage of the potential of digital technology to offer new and compelling forms of entertainment, said CEO of the Entertainment Retailers Association, Kim Bayley. "Despite being the youngest of our three sectors, it is now by far the biggest."
Take a look at the top 20 biggest-selling boxed games of 2018 below. Note this table does not include digital sales data, and so should not be considered representative of all UK game sales.
Lego: The Lord of the Rings and Lego: The Hobbit have been removed from a number of digital storefronts on PC, Xbox, and PlayStation. You can no longer buy the games digitally, and their removal could be tied to the expiration of a licensing deal.
Lego: The Lord of the Rings (2012) and Lego: The Hobbit (2014) seemingly require numerous licenses, from the films, Lego toys, and other rights-holders, so it's not a total surprise to see them leave digital stores. Other Lord of the Rings games, like Middle-earth: Shadow of War, remain available to buy, however.
Reddit user SuperMoonky, who first reported the removal of the games, reckons the Lego games might have been removed because they feature dialogue and music that came straight from the movies, while Shadow of War does not do this.
Outside of games, Amazon is producing a very expensive Lord of the Rings TV show that is set long before the events of the movies. Additionally, a movie about author J.R.R. Tolkien and his wife Edith Bratt is in the works with Nicholas Hoult and Lily Collins.
In a update posted on the game's Kickstarter page, developer Koji Igarashi said the studio made the "tough decision" to cancel the Mac and Linux editions "due to challenges of supporting middleware and online feature support and making sure we deliver on the rest of the scope for the game."
People who backed the game looking for a Mac or Linux version will be given the opportunity to change platforms; you can send an email to request a platform change; be sure to submit the request with the email address association with your pledge.
"We sincerely apologize for this inconvenience and we hope for your understanding," the developer said.
It's unclear if refunds will be available or if the only option is to switch platforms.
Also in the blog post, Igarashi said development on Ritual of the Night has "reached its peak," which sounds like it's nearly finished.
"We are currently checking the performance of Bloodstained on each platform. Overall, we are done with enemy placement and entering the adjustment phase. But there are still many progression-blocking bugs that must be taken care of," he said.
Igarashi worked at Konami for a long time, and there he worked on games like Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. Ritual of the Night is said to be a spiritual successor to that game.
Ritual of the Night is due out sometime in 2019 for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and PC. The game raised more than $5.5 million from its crowdfunding campaign back in 2015.
2018 was a big year for streamer Ninja, whose real name is Tyler Blevins. While he was already an established name in the gaming world having competed as a professional Halo player for years, Ninja entered a new stratosphere of success in 2018 following his record-breaking Fortnite stream with rapper Drake.
He's ridden that wave and prospered financially. He told CNN in an interview that he made nearly $10 million in 2018. He told the site that 70 percent of his revenue came from Twitch and YouTube, through ads and subscriptions, with the remainder coming from his sponsorship deals with companies like Samsung, Uber Eats, and Red Bull.
The $10 million figure cited in the CNN piece is likely pre-tax, so more than likely he did not take home that much at the end of the day. Still, it's an eye-watering figure.
In March, Ninja said he was making around $500,000 every month from his various revenue sources.
Ninja told CNN that he spends around 12 hours each day streaming, and in 2018, he estimates he played around 4,000 hours of Fortnite; that's about 140 days.
He's enjoyed success among mainstream audiences this year through his appearance on Jimmy Fallon's late night TV show and as a cover star of ESPN the Magazine.
Ninja said he thinks Fortnite still has lots of room to grow, but in the event that Fortnite loses steam, the streamer is diversifying through efforts like a Ninja-branded clothing line.
2018 wasn't a blemish-free year for Ninja, as he stirred controversy when he told Polygon that he wouldn't stream games with women to avoid dating rumours.
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