Back in July, it was announced that Universal Studios was calling off its Halloween Horror Nights celebrations at both the Florida and California parks. While Universal Orlando Resort is open at limited capacity, Universal Studios Hollywood remains closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, though, it seems the Orlando parks do have something in the works for Halloween.This coming weekend, September 19 and 20, the park is holding an event dubbed "Halloween seasonal experience testing." Universal Orlando Resort tells GameSpot that currently, these are the only two days scheduled for the event. Given that the word "testing" is in the name, though, it would not be a surprise if this is expanded in the weeks to come.Included in the weekend event is access to two new haunted mazes--Universal Monsters: The Bride of Frankenstein Lives and Revenge of the Tooth Fairy, both of which are not recommended for guests under age 13. You can check out descriptions of the mazes, from Universal's website, below.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Microsoft recently announced the prices of the Xbox Series S ($300) and Xbox Series X ($500), and they came in lower than some might have imagined, especially the lower-spec S model. The consoles were intentionally priced low, and Microsoft is launching the phone-style subscription plan, to make it easier to get people into the Xbox ecosystem and then start spending money on games, according to Xbox CFO Tim Stuart.Stuart told Barron's that the aggressive pricing for the Series S/X consoles will help Microsoft "kick-start" the new generation."Our goal was to increase that top-of-funnel as fast as possible, get people into the ecosystem, get people into that next-gen experience, and frankly kind of kick-start this generation as fast as we can," Stuart said. "If you can get that install base as big as you can up front, you have customers enjoying the next-gen experiences we have to offer. And from a business side, we start to monetize and build a customer lifetime value much faster than a slow build over time."Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

A familiar face from Captain America's past is making his way to the Disney+ series Falcon and the Winter Soldier, if new photos from the show's set are to be believed. According to new images from JustJared, filming has resumed on the series, after being halted due to the COVID-19 pandemic earlier this year. What's more, one of the stars of Captain America: The Winter Soldier has been seen on set--in costume.In the photos, you can see actor/former UFC fighter Georges St-Pierre in costume as Georges Batroc, the mercenary Cap and the team did battle with at the beginning of The Winter Soldier. The character, known as Batroc the Leaper in the comics, is a master of savate (French kickboxing) and has yet to appear anywhere else in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It looks like that will be changing soon.Also seen on set was Emily VamCamp, who appeared in both The Winter Soldier and Captain America: Civil War as Sharon Carter/Agent 13. You might remember her as not only Steve Rogers' (Chris Evans) love interest, but also the niece of his other love interest--it's complicated.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

The state of New York has recruited Ant-Man star Paul Rudd for a new public health campaign to help raise awareness about wearing masks.The video begins in a silly fashion, as Rudd pretends to be a young person. "Yo, listen hype-beasts, masks protect you and your dank squad. Because caring about other people is the new not caring about other people. We gotta yeet this virus."It gets serious at the end, with Rudd breaking from character and staring into the camera as he delivers his message:Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Troubling allegations continue to surface about the alleged abusive and unprofessional behavior of Joss Whedon on the set of Justice League, a controversy first brought to light by Cyborg actor Ray Fisher back in July.Since then, Fisher's co-star, Aquaman actor Jason Momoa has taken to social media to proclaim his support for his colleague--first in an Instagram story where Momoa used the hashtag "IStandWithRayFisher" and now in a full Instagram post.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

The Mario franchise celebrates its 35th anniversary this year, and Nintendo is celebrating with a number of exciting projects like an All-Stars bundle for Switch. To promote the anniversary, Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto spoke to CNN about the legacy of the character. One interesting tidbit that came out of the interview was the advice that Miyamoto would give to Mario if he was a 35-year-old man.In reality, Nintendo claims Mario is 26, and that's the age he will always be in the game universe. But if he was 35, Miyamoto says he would tell the portly plumber to live in peace and harmony--and also don't let your facial hair get out of control.Miyamoto said he would tell Mario to keep "living in a way that's true to yourself is more enjoyable than being in competition with others. You'll be keeping plenty busy, so don't forget to work out and keep your mustache well groomed."Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Cloud Gaming with Xbox Game Pass Ultimate is launching on September 15 in multiple markets, including the US, and it'll let you stream your Game Pass titles to an Android phone or tablet. For most games, you'll still want to sync up a controller with your phone for play, but if you're deep into Minecraft Dungeons, that won't be necessary.In a post to Xbox Wire, Microsoft's corporate vice president of cloud gaming Kareem Choudhry outlined how the Minecraft spin-off has been adapted for mobile players who stream the game through Game Pass Ultimate. The UI and controls have been optimized for touch screens, they explain, with on-screen buttons being used for all the functions usually assigned to a controller.UI changes will be made to your inventory and the menu screens, too, making them easy to navigate through touch controls. Choudhry says that it's received the same attention that the mobile version of Minecraft has. You can see this in action in the video below.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

A new report from Bloomberg has shed some light on changes Sony is reportedly making to the production of the PlayStation 5 this year. The site states that Sony is cutting production by 4 million units due to issues related to the components--specifically the SoC (system on a chip).Sony was reportedly originally planning to make 15 million PS5 consoles available around the world by March 31, 2021, but that has been reduced to 11 million.Niko Partners analyst Daniel Ahmad clarified on Twitter that production yield issues like this are normal and expected for new console launches, but he noted that "this does seem more severe than expected."Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

The next generation of Xbox, including the Xbox Series X and Series S, is going all-in on subscriptions and payment plans, with both Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and Xbox All Access providing customers with over a hundred games, and potentially a whole new console, for a nominal fee each month. Xbox's revenue is on the rise, and many developers seem very happy with the deals they've made with Microsoft, but not everyone is convinced.Speaking to Barron's for a piece about Microsoft's strategy with the next Xbox models, Strauss Zelnick, who is the CEO of Take-Two Interactive Software (the parent company that owns Grand Theft Auto V developer Rockstar Games), has expressed some caution towards this strategy."I think it may be somewhat hard to do in the interactive entertainment business," Zelnick said. He cites the fact that TV and movie subscription services make more sense because, on average, people watch far more content than they play--150 hours a month of TV and film against 45 hours of gameplay. This makes something like Netflix far more attractive than Game Pass, he argues.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

The latest firmware update for the Nintendo Switch has landed, but as usual, you should not expect much from it. Version 10.2.0, which was released on September 14, is another general stability patch.The single-sentence patch notes state that the update provides "general system stability improvements to enhance the user's experience."As usual, it's possible there are other, unnoted changes that the community will have to discover. But for the time being, you should not expect anything major.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Sony has announced a new PlayStation 5 showcase scheduled for Wednesday, September 16 at 1 PM PT / 4 PM ET. The event will focus on the console's upcoming games. It will include a look at games coming at launch as well as those available in the future. If you haven't made up your mind on purchasing the PS5 yet, this could be your chance. It's possible we also could get information on some things we really need to know before purchasing the console: the price and release date. The event will be shown on both Twitch and YouTube, and will last about 40 minutes. It's games-focused rather than hardware-focused, and will feature updates on first-party and third-party games. We know that Spider-Man: Miles Morales and Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart are both scheduled to release near the system's launch. Neither has a firm release date. Other games, such as the Demon's Souls remake, don't have release windows yet. There also isn't an official date for the PS5 version of Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, but it releases three days after Microsoft's systems. Having that available as a launch title for the PS5 would certainly be a big deal. However, it will also be one of players' first introductions to the new $70 price we'll see for certain next-gen games. Take-Two is similarily pricing games at this level, while other companies such as Ubisoft have not done so yet.Sony has still not revealed the release date or price for the PS5, but it may have no choice now that Microsoft has revealed the Xbox Series X/S is set to release on November 10. While the Series X will cost $500, the less-powerful Series S will cost $300. This strategy is different from Sony's, where the only difference between the PS5 and PS5 Digital systems is a disc drive. Because of this, it's unlikely there will be an enormous price difference between the two. We'll know for sure soon. Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Polybius is one of the greatest urban legends in video games, and it has persisted for decades despite no evidence of the arcade cabinet ever existing ... aside from an homage bearing the same name. As the story goes, a machine from a company called Sinneslöschen was placed in a single arcade in Portland, Oregon in the early '80s, but it was quickly removed after putting players into a hypnotic trance. Despite the game not being real, Numskull Designs took it upon itself to create a quarter-scale Polybius arcade cabinet to honor the mythos.Created by the same company behind other quarter-scale arcade cabinets such as Galaga, Pac-Man, and Space Invaders, the Polybius cabinet's design is based on internet images and rumors that have been swirling for years. The bubble-like lettering can be seen in "leaked" images, and its simple and imposing design seems like something a government agency would create when looking to brainwash people into becoming sleeper agents or whatever else conspiracy theorists have dreamed up.Numskull Designs didn't create a game from scratch for the Polybius cabinet. Instead, it displays a startup screen bearing the Sinneslöschen name and then plays a series of mesmerizing images and sounds. It also sports 10 USB ports on the back so that you can use it to power any other quarter-arcade machines you have in your collection.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Releasing into a movie market where many theatres remain closed and in regions where they are open, people are choosing to stay home, the box office results for Christopher Christopher Nolan’s new movie Tenet was always going to face an uphill struggle at the box office.The financial fortunes of the mind-bending action movie continue to come into focus, with Deadline reporting that the film has now crossed $200 million worldwide at the global box office.The film made a further $6.7 million in the US over the weekend, which is down compared to the Labor Day opening weekend in America. Across all regions in the world, Tenet made $37.3 million this weekend to push its global haul past $200 million.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

It's a great time to be a fan of platformers, thanks to Super Mario 3D All-Stars and Spelunky 2 both launching this week. It's also a really action-packed week, with Crysis Remastered and WWE 2K Battlegrounds on the horizon, too. If you prefer to play something at a slower pace, you can also check out narrative adventure game Welcome to Elk. Here are some of the hottest games launching this week.Spelunky 2 -- September 15Available on: PS4The long-anticipated roguelike sequel has arrived. Spelunky 2 has you take control of new characters exploring randomly generated levels on the moon, which is full of new enemies to beat, traps to dodge, and treasures to collect. There's a base camp where the explorers can hang out between runs, too. This week's launch is for PS4 players only: PC gamers will have to wait until the 29th for the Steam version.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Microsoft will not acquire TikTok's US operations. The Xbox company announced on Sunday evening that TikTok owner ByteDance has rejected Microsoft's offer.Microsoft said it believes its proposal was a good one, but the two companies ultimately could not come to terms. The Wall Street Journal reported that Oracle has emerged victorious in the discussions, though it's not an outright sale. Instead, Oracle will become TikTok's "trusted tech parter" in the US.Microsoft's statement follows below.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com