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Xbox revealed a ton of exciting news at the Xbox & Bethesda Game Showcase, ranging from a longer look at Starfield to news about Overwatch 2 and Diablo IV.
For this event, Xbox only focused on games available to play within the next 12 months. So at least you won’t have to wait too long. In case you missed it, here’s a roundup of the biggest announcements and trailers.
Hollow Knight: Silk Songthe highly-anticipated sequel to the popular Hollow Knight indie title, is set to launch on day one for Xbox Game Pass subscribers. The trailer shows off the platformer’s beautiful artwork and gameplay, but there isn’t an official release date just yet.
It’s official: Overwatch 2 will be free to play and early access is set to come on October 4th. The game will also feature a new tank hero called Junker Queen. Blizzard will reveal more information about the game during an event on June 16th.
Bethesda has finally given us a longer look at character creation and ship-building capabilities in Starfield, a game that has been in the works since 2018. The highly-anticipated space exploration role-playing game looks pretty promising from the trailer. Though the human characters still look like they were made by Bethesda.
Xbox is partnering with Persona developer Atlus to bring Persona 3 Portable, Persona 4 Golden, Persona 5 Royal to Xbox consoles and PCs. Persona 5 Royl will be the first to arrive on October 21st.
Diablo
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May 15 (Reuters) – Donerrail Group is close to reaching a settlement with Turtle Beach Corp (HEAR.O) that will give the activist investment firm representatives on the US gaming gear company’s board of directors, people familiar with the matter said on Sunday.
Donerrail, which has beneficial ownership of 7.4% of Turtle Beach’s outstanding shares, has criticized the maker of gaming headsets and controllers for operational missteps and has been pushing the company to sell itself. Turtle Beach maintains it has been doing its best to find a buyer at an attractive price.
Turtle Beach has agreed to add three Donerrail nominees to its board, expanding it from six to nine directors, the sources said. One director is expected to retire at the annual meeting next month.
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This comes after major Turtle Beach shareholders informed the company they planned to back Donerrail’s board director nominees at June’s meeting, the sources added. Donerrail in March said it planned to replace the entire board, including Chief Executive Juergen Stark, with its own candidates. The settlement will spare Turtle Beach this board challenge. read more
Turtle Beach’s board has formed a strategic review committee handling the process to sell the company and it will have four members, including two
America’s space agency, NASA has accused China of stealing unclassified American technology, ranging from military secrets to medical research.
America’s space agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has accused China of stealing unclassified American technology, ranging from military secrets to medical research.
During a United States House Appropriations Committee hearing on May 17, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson accused the Chinese Communist Party of stealing the United States’ most vital technological secrets, The Singapore Post reported.
“Yeah, they’re pretty good at stealing, And I think that’s incumbent upon us to take cybersecurity very, very seriously,” Nelson said.
This comes as a response to the questions raised by the US representative and committee member, Robert Aderholt who noted that the space vehicles being developed between private US companies and state-run Chinese organizations have similarities.
“We simply cannot ignore the threat from China and our adversaries who are making technological, manufacturing, and exploration advancements daily,” The Singapore Post quoted Aderholt as saying.
“For far too long, we have allowed China and other adversaries to challenge our space dominance and their ambitions only continue to grow,” he said adding, “The US needs a clear vision that could last across administrations to dictate its space policy more effectively , as a matter of national defense,” the report further quoted Aderholt as saying.
Notably, the US government has advised the private industry that China is engaged in a committed effort to illicitly
Digital freight startup Convoy confirmed Friday that it is cutting 7% of its workforce in an effort to slash operating costs amid concerns about a downturn in the economy and its potential impact on the company’s customers’ businesses.
Seattle-based Convoy, which is valued at $3.8 billion, raised $260 million in new funding in mid-April with $160 million coming from a series E preferred equity round led by current investors Baillie Gifford and T. Rowe Price and $100 million in venture- debt investment coming from Hercules Capital Inc.
“The market is not behaving normally,” a Convoy source familiar with the layoffs told FreightWaves.
The source said the layoffs were necessary amid growing concerns about the macroeconomic conditions, including high inflation and surging energy prices.
The layoffs were first reported by GeekWire and confirmed by FreightWaves.
FreightWaves CEO Craig Fuller said many companies are going to be slashing costs where they can as freight is slowing and rates are dropping.
“I think everyone’s just going into a risk-off environment because nobody knows how long and how deep a potential recession could be,” Fuller said. “Everyone’s just getting cautious.”
Since entering the freight market in 2017, Convoy works with a network of more than 400,000 trucking companies.
Convoy expanded its business significantly during COVID when the freight market was hot, but a source said the company had to right-size
Despite contemporary gaming consoles sharing similar hardware designs to PCs, there’s one major reason why individuals pick sides between Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo. Performance specs and feature-set aside, exclusives have been the defining choice for gamers without deep pockets to go multiplatform.
Besides the hybrid form factor of the Nintendo Switch, the console is the only place to play the latest Zelda, Mario, Metroid, and Kirby games. Sony continuously sets the bar for their cinematic single-player titles on PlayStation consoles like Last of Us Part II and Ratchet and Clank that are developed on multi-million dollar budgets.
Though the Japanese electronics manufacturer has recently dabbled in PC releases, newer releases like Gran Turismo 7 and Horizon Forbidden West can only be played on Sony’s latest console.
Meanwhile, Microsoft has turned their Xbox brand into an ecosystem that stretches consoles, video game streaming, and PC. This means first-party releases like Halo Infinite and Forza Horizon 5 get Day-One releases across all of its platforms. This makes sense considering the best PC games are mainly a Windows-only affair (though the best Mac games have a lot to offer as well), and let’s not forget that the Xbox itset was named after the Microsoft Direct X API used by PC game developers.
Games made exclusively for PCs still technically exist, and some of the best free games out there are PC exclusives, including many of the hottest esports titles. However, big tentpole AAA exclusives are definitely rarer than they’ve ever been.
In 2020,