Sony Interactive Entertainment has announced a deal with NCSoft--known for the MMOs Lineage and Guild Wars--in which the two companies will "collaborate in various global business fields," including mobile.

In a statement, Sony said the two companies are now evaluation "a range of potential opportunities" for "strategic synergy." Specific financial terms of the deal or other particulars of the pact were not disclosed.

NCSoft CEO Taekjin Kim said the deal with SIE will lead to "new and enjoyable" experiences, though no specific projects were named outright. Outgoing SIE CEO Jim Ryan said the deal will help SIE "expand beyond console and broaden PlayStation's reach to a wider audience."

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Instead of Phase 5, one movie director seems to think the MCU should take five. Edgar Wright (Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Baby Driver) has alluded to that point, though he specifically avoided calling out certain Hollywood franchises with his recommendation.

Appearing on the Happy Sad Confused podcast (spotted by IndieWire), Wright talked about overall franchise fatigue on the silver screen. "I think one of the problems with film franchises is sometimes when they announce--I'm not mentioning any names of anything--when they announce like massive slates of films and TV shows […] there's a danger of killing the golden goose," the director said.

He may not be naming names, but the MCU and Star Wars are basically the only two franchises in town in which Disney announces years and years of films alongside TV series. Instead of this, Wright believes the James Bond series with producer Barbara Broccoli has done a better job giving it a breather between new entries.

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Black Friday and Cyber Monday have come and gone, but a few great deals are still lingering around at Amazon. Swing by the retailer right now, and you'll find a variety of Samsung 49-Inch Ultrawide Monitors with steep discounts--including one that's seeing an impressive $500 price cut.

The Samsung 49-Inch Odyssey G9 Gaming Monitor is getting the best discount, as it's just $900 (down from $1,400). That matches its lowest-ever price--so if you're in the market for a beautiful new display, now's the time to pick it up. Along with its gigantic screen, the Odyssey G9 offers 1000R curvature, a 240Hz refresh rate, Nvidia G-Sync and AMD FreeSync for smooth images, and QLED technology for deep blacks and vivid colors.

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The Division Heartland's release date may have been leaked by a ratings board, and it might be coming early next year.

According to Twitter user Kurakasis, the Taiwan Digital Game Rating Committee rated The Division Heartland on November 14. Kurakasis mentioned that games are rated in the Taiwan approximately 2-2.5 months out from a planned release date. This indicates that The Division Heartland could potentially arrive in early 2024, sometime around January or February.

However, Kurakasis pointed out that it's not always accurate. Other Ubisoft games like xDefiant still don't have a release date and has been delayed indefinitely even though, in xDefiant's case, it received a rating back in August. Additionally, The Division Heartland was rated by the ESRB back in November 2022, hinting at a possible release date reveal at the time, but obviously nothing came from it. A rating is just a rating, and companies are free to set their release dates for any time.

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Preorder Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy

$50

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Since debuting in North America on Nintendo DS in 2005, the Ace Attorney series has steadily built up a large and dedicated legion of fans. Many of the games center on Phoenix Wright, but his understudy Apollo Justice is arguably a more compelling character. And now, just like his mentor, Apollo Justice's courtroom battles are being rereleased on modern platforms. Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy releases January 25, 2024, and preorders just went live for Nintendo Switch at Amazon and Best Buy.

Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy Preorder Bonuses

There are currently no preorder bonuses for the upcoming Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy. You'll get a bunch of exclusive content that wasn't present in the original games--but that's just part of this updated trilogy and not exclusive to preorders.

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It seems like Dragon's Dogma II will be released on March 22, 2024, for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S. The game's Steam page has the launch date listed.

Ahead of the Dragon's Dogma II showcase later today, Capcom decided to update the game's Steam page to include its apparent release date. The showcase is a 15-minute livestream featuring gameplay and new details for the game. Yesterday, game director Hideaki Itsuno confirmed that the release date would be revealed, but presumably during the showcase and not by a Steam listing update.

Earlier this month, Dragon's Dogma II's release date was first leaked via a PEGI rating that has since been deleted. However, the ratings page listed the same exact release date: March 22, 2024. The Steam page now seemingly confirms the original ratings leak.

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Ubisoft's new Avatar game, Frontiers of Pandora, releases in December, which is about two years before the next Avatar film comes to theaters in 2025. Fans of the James Cameron sci-fi series might find clues about Avatar 3 inside Frontiers of Pandora, according to Avatar studio Lightstorm's Joshua Izzo.

He told IGN, "I can say that there are going to be some future sequel elements in Frontiers of Pandora that will pay off when the movie comes out, when Avatar 3 comes out in 2025," Izzo said. He added, "Careful Avatar fans who have played the game will want to go back and maybe revisit certain things because it will be revealed to them in '25."

Frontiers of Pandora features three new Na'vi clans never before seen in the movies, and producer Jon Landau said these groups of people might be "a perfect thing to someday try to weave into the movies."

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Curb Your Enthusiasm is one of the best shows on HBO, and right now you can get the 11-season collection for just $20. That's a remarkable deal--in fact, it's so cheap there's a decent chance this is a pricing error. Be sure to check it out soon if you want to nab the best deal we've ever seen for the hilarious TV series.

Curb Your Enthusiasm, Seasons 1-11 $20

This deal is offered on iTunes, and it gives you unlimited access to stream and download all 11 seasons of the hit comedy. All episodes are available in HD, and considering each season retails for $27 on Prime Video, you're literally saving hundreds of dollars. Apple isn't advertising an end date for the deal, though there's a good chance it'll end (or sell out) shortly.

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Curb Your Enthusiasm tells the story of Larry David, the co-creator of Seinfield. He plays an exaggerated version of himself on the show, and it's essentially another show about everything and nothing all at once (though it features more mature themes, thanks to its HBO branding). The series has won several Emmys and Golden Globes, and any comedy fan is bound to get hours of laughs out of the off-the-wall series.

There aren't any good deals for the physical version of the series (the DVD Collection is available on Amazon for $103), making this the best way to catch up on the hijinks. You can also access the entire series by signing up for HBO Max, but seeing as the Ultimate Ad-Free membership costs $20/month, you might as well just buy the entire collection on iTunes for the same price.

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When you think of the Texas Chain Saw Massacre, your mind probably pictures Leatherface. But the mask-wearing cannibal won't be a requirement in matches going forward for the multiplayer horror game.

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre patch notes for today, November 28, specifically state that "we have removed the requirement for Leatherface in every match." Gun Interactive adds that nothing else has changed with this alteration--maps or family spawns, for instance. Instead, this seems like a way to not force players into the Leatherface role.

Another important change for the asymmetrical multiplayer game revolves around addressing valve gameplay on the Slaughterhouse map. It had apparently become too easy of an escape for the victim team.

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Three years after a rough launch, Cyberpunk 2077 is in its best shape thanks to a steady stream of updates, patches, and the launch of the Phantom Liberty expansion that brought sweeping changes to the game. Compared to the version that first launched, Cyberpunk 2077 is almost unrecognizable thanks to all of its upgrades, a lean and mean open-world sci-fi experience that succeeds in making you feel like an Edgerunner with nothing to lose and everything to gain.

But getting to this point required serious introspection from developer CD Projekt Red as it faced negative reviews, player backlash, and a tarnished reputation. No studio wants to let their fans down, and for the developers in the trenches who poured their hearts and souls into the game, they knew that they had a long road ahead of them as they began focusing on improving Cyberpunk 2077.

"I think after the release, we did everything we could. Literally, everything we could," global art director Jakub Knapik explained to GameSpot. "We invested a lot of effort with the 1.5 next-gen release, where it was a massive priority to fix the game. Making the team to work on that game and fix it was really the hardest thing ever. To motivate the team, to put in more effort, was a really hard thing because everyone was devastated after release."

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GameSpot's newest video series, Insider, launches today with a mini-documentary about CD Projekt Red and the development of Cyberpunk 2077. GameSpot traveled to CD Projekt Red's offices in Poland and spoke with members of the development team to hear directly from the people making the game about the RPG's struggles and eventual redemption.

In the video, the developers speak frankly about Cyberpunk 2077's numerous issues at launch in December 2020. These were major issues, and the game was even pulled from sale entirely on PlayStation for a period of time. The team discussed this how they responded to the issues and implemented a plan to help turn things around. This included a massive structural overhaul.

CD Projekt Red no doubt succeeded in getting Cyberpunk 2077 to a better place, with many remarking that the 2.0 launch of the game marked a new era for the role-playing game. The developers also discussed what they learned from Cyberpunk 2077's original issues and how the team applied those lessons to the launch of Cyberpunk 2077's Phantom Liberty expansion.

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Hard to believe that the Fallout franchise is about to turn 30 in a couple of years and it's finally being adapted into a live-action series for Prime Video premiering in April. In the upcoming series, it follows the story told in the games pretty well with nuclear war breaking out across Earth in the year 2077. In this world though, everything from clothes to the preferred types of entertainment, to even the style of vehicles adhere to a 1940s aesthetic.

Fans have been unsure of when the show takes place within the franchises' lore, but that has been clarified: this will be set 219 years after the war, taking place in the year 2296. That's nine years after the events of Fallout 4. Talking to Vanity Fair, game-maker and executive producer Todd Howard explains not only is the show pulling from the game's source material, but it's actually all canon.

"We view what's happening in the show as canon," Howard said. "That's what's great when someone else looks at your work and then translates it in some fashion." He also mentioned that the showrunners and writers added things to the lore that made him envious. "I sort of looked at it like, 'Ah, why didn’t we do that'’"

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Christopher Nolan, outspoken proponent to theatrical experiences second only to Nicole Kidman, has emphasized the significance of owning a physical copy of his latest film, Oppenheimer. According to Variety, at a Los Angeles screening the director criticized streaming services and urged moviegoers to invest in the Blu-ray version, highlighting the meticulous effort put into preserving the film's soundscape.

"Obviously Oppenheimer has been quite a ride for us, and now it is time for me to release a home version of the film. I've been working very hard on it for months," Nolan said. "I'm known for my love of theatrical and put my whole life into that, but, the truth is, the way the film goes out at home is equally important."

"The Dark Knight was one of the first films where we formatted it specially for Blu-ray release because it was a new form at the time," Nolan said. "And in the case of Oppenheimer, we put a lot of care and attention into the Blu-ray version… and trying to translate the photography and the sound, putting that into the digital realm with a version you can buy and own at home and put on a shelf so no evil streaming service can come steal it from you."

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Naughty Dog's Neil Druckmann has responded to the report that the upcoming Last of Us multiplayer game has been put on ice. He told Entertainment Weekly that he had "no update" on what's going on with that game and he wouldn't discuss a potential third Last of Us game either.

"The Last of Us is obviously a world I love deeply and know our studio and fans do as well, but I have no comment at this moment on the series' future beyond our focus on The Last of Us Part II Remastered," he said.

Druckmann went on to say that Naughty Dog has "other projects in the works."

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