Sony Confirms Interest in FromSoftware Parent Company Kadokawa Group

Sony has confirmed its interest in aquiring FromSoftware parent company Kadokawa.

The PlayStation manufacturer cleared the air regarding reports that it was looking to pick up the gaming and anime mega company in a recent interview with Yahoo Japan. It’s acknowledgement of what could be a bombshell moment for entertainment fans everywhere, but until a deal is finalized, it is probably best to keep expectations for a potential buyout at a minimum.

“It is true that we have made an initial statement of intent,” Sony said regarding its interest in Kadokawa (translated via DeepL). “We would appreciate it if you would allow us to refrain from further comment.”

Rumors that Sony may soon acquire Kadokawa first emerged from a Reuters report last month. It stated that talks between the two companies were ongoing, with one of its sources adding that, should negotiations proceed in a positive direction, a deal could be signed soon. Today’s confirmation from Sony suggests that talks remain active, though it’s unclear where things sit now.

Kadokawa oversees a number of entities that could no doubt benefit Sony in the long run. One that many gaming fans have their eye on is FromSoftware, which helped launch gaming into the 2010s with its critically acclaimed Dark Souls series. The developer also found tremendous success with 2022’s George R. R. Martin collaboration project, Elden Ring, with its follow-up DLC, Shadow of the Erdtree, launching earlier this year. Kadokawa also owns other gaming studios such as Spike Chunsoft (Danganronpa), Acquire (Octopath Traveler), Gotcha Gotcha Games (RPG Maker), and more.

While some experts believe that bringing the media company under Sony’s wing may prove to be difficult, Ampere Analysis research director Piers Harding-Rolls previously explained to IGN that news of the company’s interest shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. It already owns about 14% of FromSoftware thanks to a deal made in 2022.

“At the time, Sony mentioned a broader interest in cross-media development of anime and games IP to support its other media businesses,” Harding-Rolls said. “So, in that sense any deal for the parent company Kadokawa, which also operates extensively in manga and anime, is a natural extension of this earlier deal. These other areas align nicely with Sony’s anime businesses.”

There’s no telling when or if the deal will proceed for now. While we wait for any updates, you can read about why FromSoftware isn’t currently interested in making Elden Ring 2. You can also learn about the ransomware attack that hit the game developer earlier this year.

Michael Cripe is a freelance contributor with IGN. He started writing in the industry in 2017 and is best known for his work at outlets such as The Pitch, The Escapist, OnlySP, and Gameranx.

Be sure to give him a follow on Twitter @MikeCripe.

The New Xbox Series X All-Digital Console Drops to $398 in Time for Christmas

Amazon has dropped the price on the new Xbox Series X All-Digital Edition. It’s normally $449.99, but you can get it right now for $398, about $52 off. This is the same deal we saw during Black Friday and Cyber Monday with one exception: Best Buy had it very briefly for $374.99. However, that deal is long gone, and this is the best deal you’ll find currently for a fully powered Xbox Series X. If you’re intending this to be a gift, Amazon expects it to be delivered well before December 25.

Xbox Series X All-Digital Edition 1TB Console

The Xbox Series X All-Digital Edition console was released on October 15, 2024. Unlike the Xbox Series S, the All-Digital Edition is just as powerful as the original Series X, just without the disc drive (very much like the PS5 Digital). It comes in Robot White and has the same 1TB storage as the original Series X.

The All-Digital Edition is the right console for you if you plan on signing up for Xbox Game Pass, which is an outstanding membership service that gives you access to a library of hundreds of Xbox titles, including AAA games that are often available immediately on launch day.

3 Months of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate for $28.99

Speaking of Xbox Game Pass, Woot! currently has an excellent deal on it: Get three months of the Game Pass Ultimate Membership, which usually costs $19.99 monthly, for only $28.99 after you apply coupon code “GAMEPASS“. This sale ends on December 13. Besides the previously mentioned library access, other Xbox Game Pass Ultimate perks include access via PC, exclusive membership discounts, Xbox Cloud Gaming, a bonus EA Play subscription, extra in-game content and rewards, and more.

Eric Song is the IGN commerce manager in charge of finding the best gaming and tech deals every day. When Eric isn’t hunting for deals for other people at work, he’s hunting for deals for himself during his free time.

It’s almost Christmas, which means it’s time to play Skeal

Creation is an act of kindness. One person sloughs off a piece of themselves, shapes it, wraps it, and sends it out into the world in the hope that it might mean something to someone else. Other people do this for us all the time and mostly we don’t even notice. The work is unseen and unremarked upon even as, through repetition, we come to depend upon it. Until, one day, that light that they shine can’t be seen. Maybe you left home, or maybe they did, but now it’s your turn to perform such acts of kindness. To carry the tradition forward for others – and for yourself.

Friends, it’s time to play Skeal.

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Curiosmos is a galactic playground of planet creation and creature evolution

Infamous evolutionary flop Spore, for all its flaws, still had a lot of magic to it. It was fun to design your weird creatures, to watch them try to walk, and – in principle – to turn your humble creations into a spacefaring species.

Curiosmos is a very different game, but it has a little of the same appeal. It’s a galactic playground in which you smash meteors together to make planets, then tinker with the ecosystems of those planets to make life and watch that life evolve. All while a hungry black hole lingers nearby, eager to consume everything you have created. There’s an explanatory video below.

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Review: The Thing: Remastered (Switch) – A Great Remaster Of A Half-Great Game

You’re gonna have to sleep sometime (we recommend the second half).

Here’s the thing about The Thing: Remastered; it’s still very much 2002’s The Thing. Which is either a good thing or a bad thing, depending on how much you like your The Thing.

2002’s The Thing, you see, which was developed by Computer Artworks and based on the intensely sexy Kurt Russell movie, The Thing — itself based on a novella that isn’t called The Thing — is a real mixed bag of a game, truth be told. It sets its stall out impressively, digging into the creeping fear and slowly rising paranoia of the classic movie, giving you some light squad control and an intriguing fear/trust system, whilst presenting its tale in environs that, whilst certainly now aged, still absolutely nail the vibe of the thing (didn’t even mean that one). But! It also falls apart quite badly for the second stretch of its slight running time.

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

Day of the Devs 2024 — Indie highlights coming to PlayStation

Thirteen years ago, Day of the Devs came together to celebrate the beauty of indie video games. Since then, we have had the incredible opportunity to shine a light on hundreds of unique and creative games through our in-person events and digital showcases, all for free at no cost to developers or attendees/viewers. This year, we made the transition to being a fully independent 501c3 non-profit, allowing us to continue our passion for supporting game developers and the magical stories they’re telling. 

Today, we hosted our Day of the Devs: The Game Awards Edition showcase, and we’re excited to share some of the wonderful titles from the showcase that are coming to PlayStation.

Bionic Bay


Day of the Devs 2024 — Indie highlights coming to PlayStation

Developed by Mureena & Psychoflow, Bionic Bay features stunning high-detail pixel art, tight and precise platforming, and chaotic physics-based gameplay, tasking players to escape an ancient biomechanical world filled with imaginative technology and deadly traps. 

Bionic Bay features an innovative swap mechanic and realistic physics system that, when combined, offer a new way for players to interact with their environment, from shifting gravity to interchanging positions with objects or adversaries to move, defend, or attack as they make their way through the map. 

Speaking of environments, Bionic Bay features an ancient, biomechanical world teeming with imaginative devices, mysterious technology, and peculiar inhabitants, all while immersing players into the different biomes with gritty, high-density pixel art style and suspenseful sound design.

Bionic Bay announced today during the showcase that it will be released on PlayStation March 13, 2025. 

inKonbini: One Store. Many Stories.

Step into the shoes of Makoto Hayakawa to spend a week behind the counter at an authentic small-town convenience store in this meditative third-person single-player title. Discover joy and wonder hidden behind the daily routine, engage in meaningful conversations with your customers, and see how their stories intertwine in a beautifully rendered early 1990s.

inKonbini: One Store. Many Stories. Features a relaxing, narrative-driven experience focusing on a diverse cast of characters with their distinct personalities, buying habits, and little quirks that make each encounter memorable. Players can experience a deep and conversational branching storyline with multiple dialogue options, with the Japanese concept of ‘ichi-go, ichi-e (one time, one meeting) at the heart of the experience when this moving indie comes to PlayStation in the future. 

Ultimate Sheep Raccoon

Ultimate Sheep Raccoon is a bike-racing party game where you and your friends build a course of ramps, obstacles, and traps! Dodge hazards, do crazy tricks, and use power-ups to get ahead of the competition. Pedal to victory with up to 8 players locally, online, and cross-platform. Race to victory through a mayhem-filled obstacle course of deadly traps you’ve built with friends while pulling off sick tricks! 

Developer Clever Endeavour Games announced during the showcase that this mayhem-filled bike racing party game will be coming to PlayStation in the future.

Day of the Devs: The Game Awards Edition 2024 – Everything Announced

Once again, non-profit Day of the Devs officially returned Wednesday with an indie showcase featuring nearly 20 independent games across multiple genres, platforms, studios, and styles as part of the run-up to The Game Awards. The show featured everything from a stop-motion game that’s entirely made of felt, a game where you engage in medieval warfare with modern guns, the return of an unreleased puzzle game first announced over a decade ago, and something to do with changing channels on a one-bit TV.

You should really go back and watch the whole thing, but if you’re skimming the highlights, here’s a rundown of everything we just saw at Day of the Devs:

Faraway

The presentation opened with Faraway – a single-player, one-button, procedurally generated arcade game about drawing constellations in the night sky. Faraway has been a hot rumor for a long time, having been shown around at indie showcases all the way back in 2011 and initially billed as an iPad game. But it missed its planned release date then, and disappeared for years. Faraway is developed by Steph Thirion of Little Eyes studio, and is being published by Annapurna on PC in 2025.

Ultimate Sheep Raccoon

Ultimate Sheep Raccoon is exactly what it says on the tin. A spiritual successor to Ultimate Chicken Horse from the same team, Clever Endeavor Games, it is a multiplayer competitive platformer where players build wild platforming courses and race through them with friends. This time, everyone’s on bikes. No release date yet, but it’s planned for Steam.

Sleight of Hand

We’ve seen Sleight of Hand, from Riffraff Games, at an Xbox Partner Preview event earlier this year. In it, you play as Lady Luck, a witch detective working to take down her former coven using dark magic via a cursed deck of cards. In Day of the Devs today, we watched a sample of how a gameplay scenario might go, with Lady Luck using a drawn hand of cards to hide, lure her enemies, and ultimately trap them so she can pass by unseen. Sleight of Hand is coming to PC and Xbox at a later date.

Demon Tides

By studio Fabraz, Demon Tides is an open world 3D platformer that gives off “Wind Waker but hip and stylish” vibes. We got a look today at some of the platforming and the player’s ability to customize not just their character’s appearance, but also their abilities, giving them a number of different options for how to cross the same gaps. Demon Tides is planned for release in 2025 on Steam.

Kingmakers

Developers Redemption Road, makers of, uh, Road Redemption, appeared in Day of the Devs to show off Kingmakers, a game we’re already pretty stoked about here at IGN. It’s a game with a concept that’s…kind of delightful? You play as part of a team of fighters with modern weapons – guns, bombs, tanks, and so forth – who go back to medieval England to change the course of history. So you’re fighting in medieval times…but with guns. Kingmakers mixes city simulator elements with first and third-person shooter mechanics and massive, destructible environments. You can blow up anything you can see, or stage a fight on top of it, or drive a car through it. The whole thing looks kind of nuts, and you can play the entire campaign solo or with up to three friends. Kingmakers is coming to early access on Steam and the Epic Games Store next year.

Recur

Recur is a puzzle game from developer Astralogical where you play as an unassuming postman who suddenly finds himself with the ability to pause, rewind, and fast forward time itself. From what we saw, it looks like you’ll be working your way through levels where the postman has to use his time powers to avoid obstacles and danger, such as collapsing platforms, a moving train, attacking dogs, or even a whole car nearly smashing into him. Recur is planned for release on Steam.

Blue Prince

Blue Prince (Get it, like Blueprints?) looks gorgeous and mysterious, an atmospheric “architectural adventure” where you’re exploring an “ever-changing house of shifting rooms.” There seems to be some kind of mystery to solve, where you’re hunting for “Room 46” in a 45-room house, and you’re using the house’s blueprints to shape your exploration and build the structure as you go, day by day. The vibes are kind of like Edith Finch meets Mist, and the whole thing is coming out on PC in spring of 2025 from developer Dogubomb.

Incolatus: Don’t Stop, Girlypop!

It’s right there in the title: don’t stop. Incolatus is a Y2K-style girly-pop movement shooter where you literally cannot stop moving. The more you move and the faster you go, the more damage you do and the more you heal yourself, so you just have to keep going. It’s a first-person arena shooter, where you’re shooting elaborate, colorful, and sometimes massive guns that blast cutesy girly hearts and stars at enemies (an evil mining corporation destroying the environment) to a boppin’ soundtrack. The guns get bigger the faster you go. More scope. More damage. More movement. Oh, and there’s a dress-up megagame where you can dress up your arms and customize your guns. Incolatus: Don’t Stop, Girlypop! is coming to Steam “soon”.

Lok Digital

Lok Digital was born of a fascinating collaboration between a puzzle designer who made a clever physical puzzle book, and a game developer who wanted to digitize it in video game form. The result, Lok Digital, is a puzzle game where you slowly solve world puzzles in the fictional language of Lok, which you learn as you work your way through the puzzles. You start with the word “Lok”, and from there will discover other words, other puzzle rules, and the language of the little Lok creatures the game is named after. If that sounds intriguing, great news, you don’t have to wait. Lok Digital is out today on PC, and it’s coming to mobile next year.

Neon Abyss 2

We didn’t get a ton of info today about Neon Abyss 2, but it’s safe to say it’s a sequel to Neon Abyss from Veoowo Games. A 2D, pixelated, run-and-gun roguelike, Neon Abyss 2 looks to bring back the bright colors, flashy lasers, and bullet hell intensity of the first game for another round. It’s coming in 2025 to Steam, and looks like it will incorporate multiplayer, too.

Crescent County

A sci-fi fantasy motorbike game, Crescent County styles itself as “roller derby but with gay witches” or “Studio Ghibli but with considerably more crop jackets”. You’re a witch, you ride a broom motorbike, and through the day you make deliveries and do other important witch tasks on your broom, earning parts that will make your broom faster, cooler, and more powerful. Then, at night, you go out for broom races. In between it all, there’s plenty of flirting and smooching, as witches do. Crescent County is still fairly early in development, but there’s an early playtest happening now on Steam and itch.io.

PBJ – The Musical

I briefly thought I was looking at a Marcel the Shell short when I glanced at my screen and saw this one, but maybe that was just the googly eye. PBJ – The Musical is…well, a musical, telling a romance story of a berry and a peanut, sweet and salty, and their ultimate creation of the peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Through the musical acts, you’ll be guiding these two characters through paper stop motion cut out from vintage cookbooks and retelling the story of Romeo and Juliet…in sandwich form. All the music is written by Britain’s Got Talent’s Lorraine Bowen. Sadly, no word on when or where this hungry adventure is dropping for now.

Curiosmos

Curiosmos is a cute little space game where you slowly create a solar system, at first by bashing asteroids into one another to create a planet. Once the planet’s created, you can experiment with sunlight, terrain, water, weather, and other elements to see what happens…including whether or not life blossoms and evolves. It seems like a fairly peaceful experience…until a giant black hole starts flying at you and your planets, potentially causing a catastrophe you’ll have to try and avert before it arrives. Curiosmos doesn’t have a release date yet.

Bionic Bay

In the platformer Bionic Bay, you’ll be thinking a lot about gravity, speed, and momentum. You’re a scientist with strange powers over time and space, allowing you to teleport, manipulate time, and flip the environment on its head. Using these abilities, you’ll flip and launch yourself across sci-fi themed environments with realistic physics. Bionic Bay is planned for release on Steam and PS5 in 2025.

inKonbini

I wrote about inKonbini earlier this year after playing it at an Xbox showcase adjacent to the Game Developers Conference. It’s a soothing organizational game about working in a convenience store, stocking the shelves, and interacting with customers who come in and share tidbits from their lives. I found the concept appealing and the execution incredibly relaxing, especially the sound effects of bags and boxes hitting the shelves and the satisfying way everything fell neatly into place on the display. InKonbini is planned for launch on Xbox, PS5, Switch, and Steam sometime in the future.

Feltopia

Feltopia is a stop-motion game that is entirely hand-felted. Every piece of the environment, character, enemy, everything is made by hand, out of felt, recorded, and animated. And the effect is adorable, with fuzzy unicorns, sheep, butterflies, clouds, and more all puffing up out of the world soft as can be. The game itself is a sidescrolling shmup where you ride a unicorn and shoot rainbow beams at shadowy creatures that will transform them back into their true forms. Feltopia is planned for release on Steam in 2026.

Blippo+

I’m not sure what I just watched, but I guess it’s Blippo+. This looks like some sort of game around changing the channel on a one-bit TV and watching all the different, weird programs? Whatever it is, Panic (the Untitled Goose Game and Thank Goodness You’re Here) publisher, so that might convey the vibe. No idea when this is coming out, where, or how. Stay tuned for more Blippo?

Hyper Light Breaker

We’ve already seen a lot of Hyper Light Breaker from Heart Machine, so I won’t belabor it (you can read my preview from earlier this year here), but today the team showed up at Day of the Devs to announce an early access release on Steam on January 14, 2025.

Tankhead

Finally, Day of the Devs closed with Tankhead from Alpha Channel. It’s a sci-fi vehicular adventure where you play as a “sleepwalker” or a person who uploads their consciousness into a machine to explore a dangerous world. Basically, you’re a literal tank (or sometimes a smaller robot) exploring a ruined world, able to travel over tough terrain, shoot stuff, and move fast when you need to. The tank’s customizable, and yes, you drive using tank controls. Tankhead, delightfully, is out today on the Epic Games Store.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on Bluesky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.

Round Up: Day Of The Devs The Game Awards Edition 2024 – Every Announcement, Confirmed Switch Games

Hyper Light Breaker! inKonbini! Demon Tides!

Day of the Devs returns for its second showcase of the year, The Game Awards Edition. Taking place the day before the big ceremony, Double Fine Productions and iam8bit return with their non-profit to show us the very best of the indie game scene.

And what a selection we have this time around, ranging from highly-anticipated sequels, sandwich-based musicals, and shop simulators — no, you didn’t misread that middle one.

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

Xbox Insiders with Game Pass Ultimate – Stream Your Own Game on Xbox Consoles

Hey Xbox Insiders, the holidays are in full swing around here and we couldn’t wait to give you a present. Let’s unwrap it together!

Last month, we announced Game Pass Ultimate members can now stream select games they own through TVs and browser on supported devices like smartphones, PCs, and tablets, in all 28 countries where Xbox Cloud Gaming (Beta) is available. We also said players would be able to stream on Xbox consoles starting next year.

Starting today, Xbox Insiders in the Alpha Skip-Ahead and Alpha rings can preview this feature on Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One consoles.

Stream Your Own Game on Your Xbox Console

Xbox Insiders who are also Game Pass Ultimate members can now stream select games they own beyond the Game Pass catalog on their consoles in the 28 supported countries where Xbox Cloud Gaming (Beta) is available. You can see the full list of games here.

With the “Stream your own game” feature on Xbox consoles, you can stream select games you own on your Xbox console without needing to install them. This allows you to play games through streaming, saving you time and hard drive space, and offers access to your games with Xbox Cloud Gaming (Beta).

To start streaming from your Xbox console, go to My games & apps > Full library > Owned Games.

  • If you own a cloud playable game, you’ll see a cloud badge on the game.
  • You can also use filters to find games quickly. Choose Filter > Ready to play > Cloud gaming.
  • To start playing, select the game and then choose Play with Cloud Gaming.
  • Support for launching directly from the Store app and streaming in the Xbox app on Windows PC will be coming in the future.
The game card shown after selecting a game to play, highlighting the option to play with cloud gaming.

How to Get Xbox Insider Support and Share Your Feedback

We want to thank all the Xbox Insiders for the feedback you share with us. Your feedback is a key part of our process. If you’re an Xbox Insider looking for support, please join our community on the Xbox Insider subreddit. Official Xbox staff, moderators, and fellow Xbox Insiders are there to help. We recommend adding to threads with the same topic before posting a brand new one. This helps us support you the best we can!

If you aren’t part of the Xbox Insider Program yet and want to help create the future of Xbox and get early access to new features, join the Program today by downloading the Xbox Insider Hub for Xbox Series X|S & Xbox One or Windows PC.

For more information on the Xbox Insider Program, follow us on Twitter at @XboxInsider and keep an eye on this blog for all the latest news.

The post Xbox Insiders with Game Pass Ultimate – Stream Your Own Game on Xbox Consoles appeared first on Xbox Wire.