Nintendo reportedly briefed Activision on its Switch 2 plans last year

Microsoft's $68.7 billion acquisition of Call of Duty and World of Warcraft publisher Activision Blizzard might be coming to a particularly spooky conclusion. Sources close to the deal have told The Verge that the long, knock-down drag-out process might conclude on Friday October 13.

Microsoft's long journey to acquire gaming giant Activision Blizzard is finally nearing an end. According to The Verge, a source familiar with Microsoft's plans indicated that it was aiming for Friday, October 13, as a date to close the deal. Ignoring the infamy of the date (it seems Microsoft and Activision Blizzard executives aren't very superstitious), it's not a surprising day to choose. Back in July, the two parties in the deal jointly agreed to extend the deadline of their agreement to October 18 in order to sort out any further regulatory concerns. At the time of publishing, that date is only twelve days away, so the deal would have to be closed soon.

The Last of Us maker Naughty Dog is reportedly among the latest game studios to be hit with layoffs. As per Kotaku, the first-party PlayStation studio is cutting off at least 25 developers, with the most affected members being quality assurance (QA) testers, whose contracts have been shortened. Affected workers are expected to continue working until the end of October, and they allegedly won't be receiving any severance payments. Turns out, the full-time staff — last recorded headcount being 400+ in July — are not being laid off, with employees in general being ‘pressured' to keep the news internal.

The Shiren series has long been a niche one even among the Mystery Dungeon titles. It’s Spike Chunsoft’s own entirely original take on Mystery Dungeon that isn’t based on existing properties such as Dragon Quest or Pokemon and has long since been popular in Japan but not quite as sought after anywhere else. The last entry we saw localized was a remake in the form of Shiren the Wanderer: The Tower of Fortune and the Dice of Fates which was originally a DS title before it made its way to modern systems. The newest title, Shiren the Wanderer: The Mystery Dungeon of Serpentcoil Island was originally announced as coming to Japan with no word on a localization. Fortunately fans no longer need to worry as we’ve finally gotten our confirmed English release for the title to make a splash onto Nintendo Switch next year. The new art style is no longer sprite based and instead entirely 3D models rather akin to the recent Pokemon Mystery Dungeon remake we had a few years back. This charming new take on Shiren seems absolutely packed full of life and is promising to bring back the classic gameplay and challenge that so many knew and loved it for.

Nintendo will be focusing on the "current" Nintendo Switch business through the end of March 2024 but also pointed out the platform will be supported through Nintendo's next Fiscal Year as well.

It is common for manufacturers like Apple and Samsung to use slightly improved displays on their successive handsets, but as far as the iPhone 15 Pro Max goes, DxOMark found no differences between its panel and the one used on last year’s iPhone 14 Pro Max. Overall, Apple’s latest and greatest obtained the highest score in the ‘Readability’ category but struggled in others, so let us take a look at those details.

Bethesda boss Todd Howard says Starfield was "basically done" by holiday 2022, and to help test the mammoth RPG, virtually everyone on the development team got a build to play on their own Xbox consoles and PCs at home.

After a report claimed a ransomware group had breached all of Sony's systems, the company is now investigating.

British regulators on Friday dropped their objections to Microsoft's attempt to buy video game firm Activision Blizzard, the maker of "Call of Duty", paving the way for the US tech titan to close one of the biggest technology acquisitions ever.

British regulators on Friday dropped their objections to Microsoft's attempt to buy video game firm Activision Blizzard, the maker of "Call of Duty", paving the way for the US tech titan to close one of the biggest technology acquisitions ever.

Saber Interactive has announced it's ending development of last year's Evil Dead: The Game — meaning no new content will be produced and the planned Switch version is now cancelled.

A newly released internal email thread has revealed that Activision met with Nintendo in December 2022 to be briefed on the company’s next Nintendo Switch console, referred to within the exchanges as the “NG Switch”.