Ball News, Tips, Tricks & Ideas

The Nintendo Switch has entered what is likely its final year in the console market, and it appears to be going out in a blaze of glory with some exciting games to make way for its successor, the Nintendo Switch 2. Whether they’re exclusively developed for the Switch or ported over from other platforms, we’ve rounded up the upcoming Switch games that will make the hybrid console’s final year one of the most memorable.

Bandai Namco has unleashed raw gameplay footage for upcoming brawler Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero, and boy does it have potential. A true successor to the Budokai Tenkaichi games gives Dragon Ball FighterZ a run for its money in the visuals department, and it quite clearly captures the insane action of Dragon Ball.

A new Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZERO gameplay showcase was shared today, providing new details on new and returning gameplay mechanics, characters and more.

Hogwarts Legacy is the best Harry Potter game to ever land on consoles and PC, and the title’s open-world setting is one to be reckoned with. You’ll spend hours exploring the fantastical universe, completing an array of inspired side quests and puzzles, all while evolving your character. The Merlin Trials is a particular set of challenges you’ll want to take on, as you’ll earn additional inventory slots when you beat one. And if you’ve ever played an open-world RPG, you’ll know just how vital these extra digital cubbies can be.

Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero is bringing back the Budokai Tenkaichi series after 17 years, and we've got a brand-new gameplay trailer to celebrate. However, there's still no release date.

Why I Love is a series of guest editorials on GamesIndustry.biz intended to showcase the ways in which game developers appreciate each other's work. This entry was contributed by Sigtrap co-founders Gary Lloyd and Luke Thompson, who launched the Time Crisis-inspired Under Cover on Meta Quest earlier this month.

MLB The Show 24 is the latest baseball simulation by PlayStation Studios developer San Diego Studio, inspired and influenced by the 2024 season of Major League Baseball, which will run from 20th March, 2024 through 29th September, 2024. The game is available on the PS5 and PS4, in addition to the Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch.

A demo for Sand Land is out now on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and S, and PC via Steam, publisher Bandai Namco has announced.

Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero, the newest Budokai Tenkaichi, is hosting a gameplay showcase tomorrow at 7am PT (3pm CET / 2pm GMT) that will last around 13 minutes.

Ultra Instinct Sign Goku hasn't been confirmed for Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero after all, despite a new image of Goku bearing a striking resemblance to one of his strongest forms.

A Pokemon fan with a knack for painting has created a cosmetic Poke Ball accessory. After purchasing the design blueprints, he created the item with a 3D printer and then applied a custom paint job to make the final product look like the real thing. This marks another fan-made Pokemon item that is now finished and on display.

A ton of new characters have been announced for Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero, including Ultra Instinct Sign Goku, Kefla, Hit, Ascended Trunks, and Dypso.

Before I saw Dragon Ball on VHS tapes in American flea markets and airing on Toonami, I saw it on TV in Guatemala, crowding around a tiny set with distant cousins I barely knew, in a language I had little command of. I learned to say Goku in Spanish before I did in English — you stress the second syllable a little more, let that last vowel ring out just a bit longer. Go-khoo. I didn’t know it at the time, but Dragon Ball — and Akira Toriyama, its creator — would follow me my whole life.

Everyone loves building gigantic castles and mountain-side lairs in Minecraft. These give you a cozy place to rest between adventures — and if you're a seasoned builder, you'll want to upgrade your home by personalizing it with decorations. Few decorations are as timeless as flowers, which have been available in Minecraft for years and add a nice pop of color to your foreboding fortress or countryside cabin.

Celebrate the legendary crew of Bebop in Overwatch 2! Immerse yourself in the iconic saga of Cowboy Bebop with an array of new skins found exclusively in the Overwatch 2 shop. From now until March 25, you can also tackle in-game challenges to answer the call of the bounty hunter and snatch up your cosmic cosmetic rewards. Keep reading to find out how you can claim these legendary bounties of this limited-time event.

Blizzard Entertainment’s collaboration with anime studio Sunrise to bring the world of Cowboy Bebop to Overwatch 2 was met with great enthusiasm when it was first revealed in its stylized, animated form. But when Blizzard released a full look at the in-game skins for Cassidy, Ashe, Mauga, Sombra, and Wrecking Ball, a dose of reality set in.

Love crossword puzzles but don’t have all day to sit and solve a full-sized puzzle in your daily newspaper? That’s what The Mini is for!

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Connections is the latest puzzle game from the New York Times. The game tasks you with categorizing a pool of 16 words into four secret (for now) groups by figuring out how the words relate to each other. The puzzle resets every night at midnight and each new puzzle has a varying degree of difficulty. Just like Wordle, you can keep track of your winning streak and compare your scores with friends.

Akira Toriyama’s impact on the media of manga and anime, thanks to Dr. Slump and Dragon Ball, was gargantuan. In addition to his expansive fictional worlds and trademark illustrative style, Toriyama was a brilliant character designer — right down to the lowly Dragon Quest Slime, video gaming’s most perfect character design.

Manga icon Akira Toriyama’s untimely passing has led to an outpouring of emotion across the entire Internet, with tributes being paid all over social media. But one particularly poignant post that caught our attention is this clip of Dragon Ball XenoVerse 2, where fans all gathered in a lobby to pay their respects to the legendary artist:

Akira Toriyama, the artist behind iconic manga like Dragon Ball, has passed away aged 68. His death was confirmed by the official Dragon Ball website, which noted that he still had “several works in the middle of creation”. A statement added: “He has left many manga titles and works of art to this world. We hope that Akira Toriyama’s unique world of creation continues to be loved by everyone for a long time to come.”

We lost one of the world's greatest creative minds earlier this month, as Dragon Ball creator and Dragon Quest character designer Akira Toriyama sadly passed away at the age of 68. His work on the likes of Dragon Ball, Dragon Quest, Chrono Trigger, and Blue Dragon has inspired millions across his entire career, and many have been paying their respects to the legend on social media.

It will take decades for the world to fully unpack all the ways Akira Toriyama shaped our culture. The legendary artist and author, whose death was publicly announced Thursday, was a pioneer in manga, comics, anime, and video games, and his work formed a foundation for everyone in those industries who followed him.

The Overwatch 2 team is tweaking "roughly half" of the playable heroes in the upcoming midseason patch.

Late last evening it was sadly announced that Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama had passed away. He was 68. While Toriyama stood as one of the giants of the anime and manga industry, largely due to success of Dragon Ball, as well as lesser-known series like Sand Land and Dr. Slump, his contributions to the world of video games were almost as significant and perhaps even more varied.

Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama has passed away. On Thursday, March 7, a statement published on the official Dragon Ball website announced that Toriyama had passed on March 1 due to an acute subdural hematoma. He was 68 years old.

The creator of Dragon Ball and co-creator of the Dragon Quest series of RPGs, Akira Toriyama, has passed away aged 68.

Influential Japanese manga artist Akira Toriyama, who was best known as the creator of the Dragon Ball series, has passed away.

Legendary artist, manga creator, and character designer Akirya Toriyama has passed away. His passing was announced by his company, Bird Studio, which confirmed that he died on March 1, aged 68, due to acute subdural hematoma.

Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama died on March 1 due to an acute subdural hematoma, Toriyama’s Bird Studio and Capsule Corporation Tokyo announced.

Dragon Ball fans across the globe are currently in mourning, as it's been announced that legendary manga creator Akira Toriyama has passed away at just age 68. According to an official post via the Dragon Ball Twitter account, Toriyama passed away on March 1 earlier this month due to "acute subdural hematoma". It was also explained that a funeral service was held with close family earlier this week, and that flowers and gifts will not be accepted at this time out of respect for Toriyama's family.

Akira Toriyama, the creator of Dragon Ball and the artist behind Dragon Quest, Chrono Trigger, and numerous other works, has died. He was 68.

Akira Toriyama, the legendary creator of the Dragon Ball franchise, has died at age 68 from acute subdural hematoma. Toriyama was one of the most influential artists in history, having made massive contributions to manga, anime, video games, and other media.

Blizzard Entertainment announced that Overwatch 2’s next crossover is with Cowboy Bebop, and a snazzy trailer recreates the anime’s iconic opening with the collaboration’s character skins.

Today, Blizzard revealed a stylish trailer for Overwatch 2's next big crossover collaboration event with none other than the fan-favorite 90's anime series, Cowboy Bebop. The special collaboration will launch as a part of Overwatch 2 Season 9 on March 12.

Watching Netflix’s cosmic philosophy movie Spaceman, the most obvious question is about the plot: Is that giant alien space spider real, or a hallucination? But the second most obvious question might be Why is Adam Sandler starring in this movie? Sandler has taken on a number of increasingly high-profile dramatic roles since he first surprised his fans and dodged his comedy-career typecasting with Paul Thomas Anderson’s Punch-Drunk Love back in 2002. But his roles have always been tinged with comedy, even if it’s dark, wry, or despairing comedy. Spaceman is something new: a grim story that doesn’t crack a smile as it sends Sandler into space as Czech astronaut Jakub, a man whose life, relationship, and maybe psyche are all disintegrating during a long solo journey.

Overwatch 2’s second anime crossover event will bring the characters (and music) of Cowboy Bebop to the team-based hero shooter on March 12, Blizzard Entertainment announced Thursday. The collab will add new Cowboy Bebop-inspired skins, emotes, highlight intros, and more to Overwatch 2, including an Ein skin for Wrecking Ball that all players will be able to unlock for free.

Fortnite really comes through with its collaborations, but surprisingly, One Piece has never been among Epic Games’ team-ups — despite having worked with a few anime in the past. And you know how one thing leads to another — it only takes one anime to get the ball rolling.

Netflix’s new Adam Sandler movie is unique in the Sandman canon: Despite sending the comedic actor to space for an encounter with an oversized alien spider, most of the potentially corny laughs are swapped for melancholic tears. Like Solaris, The Fountain, and Ad Astra before it, director Johan Renck’s Spaceman is a meditative intragalactic drama orbiting around a heartfelt performance from Sandler. It’s not the first movie with the kind of visual effects that demand an actor’s unbridled imagination, but filming Spaceman was a test that took him outside his comfort zone.

Are you ready for the ultimate fusion of racing and golf? Well warm up your engines and polish your golf balls because Hugecalf Studios is proud to announce that Turbo Golf Racing hits PS5 on April 4!

As was announced back in October of last year, a PS5 version of eternally popular action title Dragon Ball XenoVerse 2 is in the works — and now, we have a release date. Bandai Namco has confirmed that the port will drop on the 24th May, and from what we gather, it'll be a free upgrade if you already own the game on PS4.

Turbo Golf Racing has been in early access on PC and Xbox for a good while, but now it finally has a release date for the proper, 1.0 version launch. It's arriving on 4th April 2024, when it will also be making its debut on PS5.

When Dragon Ball FighterZ first released in 2018 for PS4, it was hailed as one of the greatest anime fighting games ever made — and rightfully so. Crafted by the genre experts at Arc System Works, FighterZ was and still is a masterclass in how to adapt an existing franchise. The team-based brawler is both highly accessible on a fundamental level, and deeply technical — to the point where its competitive scene has stood strong for five whole years.

Update: Following the Trophy list posting earlier today on Exophase, Bandai Namco has now confirmed Dragon Ball FighterZ will be treated to a PS5 version as soon as midnight tonight in your local time zone. The game's out tomorrow, 29th February 2024, and the current-gen version will be sporting rollback netcode. It's a free PS4 to PS5 upgrade for anyone who owns the original version.

There’s an obvious question at the heart of Spaceman, Netflix’s science fiction movie where Adam Sandler’s forlorn astronaut character spends half the story talking to a tennis ball communing with a giant alien spider that he names Hanuš. But even without watching the movie, viewers may wonder: Is Hanuš actually real?

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth has been out for five days now, and it's surprisingly taken that long for players to start questioning what the heck happened to Moogles.

One Palworld breeder has created an unholy ball of destruction as a gift to their wife.

A new set of screenshots for Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero seem to have sneakily confirmed that non-canon movie content is going to be appearing in the game.

Dragon Ball Z fans aren't particularly impressed with what we've seen so far of Xenoverse 2's current-gen graphical upgrade for PS5 and Xbox Series.

Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2's current-gen update for PS5 and Xbox Series has been revealed to drop on May 24, with save data transfer also being confirmed.

Dragon Ball FighterZ finally has rollback netcode nearly two years after it was revealed, but the current-gen update hasn't gone as smoothly as many players were hoping.

Even though it has been more than three years since PlayStation and Xbox moved into the next generation of console gaming, the current-gen updates keep coming. Dragon Ball FighterZ, which celebrated its sixth birthday in January, was confirmed to be getting a current-gen update this week. A free current-gen upgrade at that - a rarity at this stage as other studios have been charging $10 - and the cherry on the cake was the additional announcement that the PS5 and Xbox Series X|S versions of FighterZ will be getting a physical release too.

If Sonic The Hedgehog had come out in the era of tilt controls, there’s every chance that it might have looked a bit like Tumble Rush. 

A 25-year-old ongoing mistake in the franchise is finally being corrected, all thanks to the upcoming release of a new game. The special Pokémon Presents event, held on Pokémon Day 2024, served as a stage for several announcements. Many of the live-service games in the series, such as,, and had news shared about incoming additions. On top of that, Nintendo also announced two new titles:, and a new game called .

After some time in development and testing, the Dragon Ball FighterZ rollback netcode update is here to Spirit Bomb the lag away. Those hoping to play some online matches without the delay-based netcode can start doing so, for certain platforms.

The back of English-language Pokemon cards has finally been fixed after 25 years.

It’s a good day to be a Pokémon. For once the streets are relatively quiet and the chances of being stuffed into a tiny ball and forced into brutal fights are low. On the flipside, Pokémon GO players are not enjoying themselves. Many are firing up the app for their daily routine of training, evolving and battling to find that they can’t log on, with any attempt being met with a “failed to authenticate” error.

Though it was a late Valentine's Day gift, a Pokemon fan crocheted an adorable Mudkip doll for their significant other, who then posted a picture of the doll for others to see. The two Pokemon fans received compliments on social media, with a number of them being directed at the doll's creator and the bond that the two trainers have.

New screenshots posted on the Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero Japanese website show that big improvements have already been made to fix the "banana" Super Saiyan hair.

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After Paul Thomas Anderson’s Punch-Drunk Love, after Noah Baumbach’s The Meyerowitz Stories (New And Selected), after Jason Reitman’s Men, Women & Children and the Safdie brothers’ Uncut Gems, film fans must be used to the idea of Adam Sandler as a comedian willing to step into dramatic roles. But they still haven’t seen him give a performance like the one he delivers in Netflix’s new science fiction movie Spaceman. His character, Czech astronaut Jakub Procházka, is painfully introverted, emotionally repressed, and above all, quiet. Sandler’s dramatic roles have mostly been about energy — sometimes restless, barely contained, often aggressive energy. Jakub is so muted and compressed, he seems like a trauma victim.

Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot's End of Z DLC shows us Goku insulting Uub for the first time in decades, only it's now been turned into a bit of a quick-time event.

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When Backerkit’s crowdfunding platform formally launched in mid-2023, the company quickly made strides in the tabletop space, primarily by courting disaffected Kickstarter users. Now co-founder and CEO Maxwell Salzberg tells Polygon that his company already has twice the number of tabletop campaigns committed to the platform in 2024 as it did for all of last year — which isn’t bad for what he calls a “bootstrapped” company. The goal for 2024? Keep the crowdfunding ball rolling while also managing its expansive pledge-management services.

In today’s Nintendo Direct Partner Showcase, we got a peek at what’s to come for the hybrid console. One of the exciting announcements was that Super Monkey Ball is getting a new entry titled Banana Rumble. The game launches on June 25 this year, and pre-orders begin today, February 21.

A brand new Super Monkey Ball game has been announced, and it’s the first all-new console game the series has seen in over a decade. 

Nintendo used its latest Partner Direct showcase to announce a new Super Monkey Ball game for Switch.

Today's just-finished Nintendo Direct included the surprise announcement of Super Monkey Ball: Banana Rumble, a new installment in Sega's spherical simian series.

Upcoming action-RPG Sand Land, which is based on the manga series from Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama, has received a lengthy overview trailer showcasing even more elements that players can look forward to when it launches.

A Pokemon fan has created impressive fusions between Houndoom and Electrode, Gastly and Ditto, and Salamence and Xatu. The Pokemon franchise is famous for its designs, which range from simple ones like Trubbish and Meowth to more complex ones like Zygarde and Eternatus. But the community is always creating even more Pokemon, and a favorite way for fans to do this is by fusing creatures.

I was already on board with Sand Land's beautiful open world, based on the relatively obscure manga from Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama. Cynics might point to Bandai Namco precedent and say Sand Land is on track to be yet another middling adaptation appealing only to hardcore fans, ala Dragon Ball Kakarot, but I personally gravitate to the almost comfortable consistency in the publisher's vibrant worlds and simple but satisfying gameplay.

The latest issue of V-Jump has seemingly confirmed that Super Saiyan Blue Kaioken will be a transformation ability in Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero.

Bandai Namco has released a new gameplay overview trailer for Sand Land, the desert-roaming adventure title that's based on Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama's one-shot manga. The nine-minute video provides what is probably our best look at the game yet, ahead of its release on the 26th April.

Pong is so simple that it feels like there’s no possible way to deconstruct it. The Atari classic is already the most fundamental multiplayer game possible, stripping competition down to a game of digital catch. And yet, developer Graphite Lab has turned the entire idea of Pong on its head with its latest game: qomp2.

The video game industry has never been known for its job security. Game development works in cycles, and when games are released and projects end, people are often laid off. When the next project starts, hiring begins once again only for another potential cut down the line. It was hard for video game developers to feel comfortable in their positions before the most recent period of unprecedented instability. But over the past few years, it’s become a downright crisis.

Gear up for your first look into the gameplay of the sixth DLC of Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot, officially named Goku’s Next Journey. The DLC retraces the steps of the last episode of Dragon Ball Z, which takes place ten years after the victory of the Saiyan warriors over Kid Buu at the hands of Goku and Vegeta. In this episode, the Martial Arts World Tournament is the main event, gathering all the earth’s warriors together.

Bandai Namco has recently revealed that it has canceled five games that were currently in development, along with changing its development structure.

Devolver Digital has announced that Cricket Through the Ages, the absolutely normal take on the sport from Terra Nil and Broforce developer Free Lives, is escaping mobile confinement and releasing on PC and Switch on March 1.

Dragon Ball Z fans have the next DLC release to get excited for when it comes to Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot. This game was launched in 2020, but support is still pressing onward. The developers over at CyberConnect2 have released two season passes so far, and next week, we are getting the last of the DLC for season two. But with it comes an exciting rematch that fans might be eager to see unfold.