This’ll be the last Weekender update of the year so enjoy it – the next one will land January 3rd, 2020. This week has been a little bit mixed simply because I’ve been travelling a bit for various company stuff, but I’m glad we got a few updates out. It’s a little sad to think this will be my last GOTY session as Editor, but thankfully there’s still plenty of time until the new people come on board that I don’t have to worry too much about ‘handing over’ just yet.

We’ve got content planned for the Christmas break – got a few op-eds reflecting on the year coming through, and of course the official GOTY post at the end of the month, but other than that, don’t expect a lot of news or reviews from now until we’re back.

Out Now

There’s not actually much I feel warrants special attention this week, but I also don’t want to leave you completely in the lurch so here’s a few games that caught our interest:

Firstly, we have another new board game release, huzzah! This one is called King Tactics – War of the Roses, which despite sounding like F2P trash is actually the digital adaptation of The Rose King, or ‘Rosenkönig’, which is a KOSMOS game created by Dirk Henn. It’s a minimalist strategy game for one or two players, with a couple of game modes and online multiplayer. It’s out on both iOS and Android and isn’t that expensive, although beyond that I’m not really sure how else to describe it. Maybe you’ll get more from the trailer than I did:

The next game is Hoop League Tactics. It’s a turn-based strategy game that mainly revolves around making smart choices as to the placement of your players, focusing on their ability to make shots. Each player on your team can either move, pass or take a shot, and there’s a timer of sorts that acts as your stamina so knowing when to make the shot and when to keep pushing is key. Really, it comes down to positioning so that the right player is in the right place, at the right time.

This game is available on both iOS and Android, and as a free-to-download trial with a full-game unlock that’s currently $2.99 – 40% off the full price during December.

The final one is AI Dungeon – this is a free text-adventure game. There’s nothing much to it, but it boats and AI-driven text engine that’ll allow you essentially play forever? It says it’s a “limitless text adventure” thanks to the AI that powers it. Might be worth checking out just for the concept, although it’s only on iOS.

App Updates & News

The Mario Kart Tour multiplayer beta has finally rolled out, although only Gold Pass subscribers can access it for now. It’ll be running from now until December 26th, and will let people play against each other in actual head-to-head matches, as opposed to whatever it is that happens currently.

Hearthstone Battlegrounds has also received a new update (as well as Hearthstone itself), which removes Nightmare Amalgam from the card pool. This is pretty huge, as Nightmare was pretty key to the meta at large, and one of the most sought after cards in the game. Brann Bronzebeard has also been removed from the pool of minions, and plenty of other minions have had their tiers changed as well.

Apple Arcade has also introduced an Annual Subscription option to their new subscription service. It costs $49.99 ($59.99 in Canada) and £49.99 in the UK, which essentially gets you 12 months for the price of ten and saves you around $10.

Also, if any of you have been missing the Eclipse digital board game app, one of our readers made the bold move to ask the table-top game’s creators about a mobile adaptation, now that the boardgame’s second edition is in the works. You can see an image of the reply here.

But essentially the original version is due to return Q1 2020, with news regarding a digital implementation of the Second edition due sometime in Q2.

We’ve also noticed a slew of other updates, including Minecraft Earth, DOTA Underlords, Santorini and more.

App Sales

I wasn’t expecting so big a sales event so soon after Black Friday, but here we are. It’s Christmas in exactly five days, and everyone is jumping on the bandwagon to offer up some holiday app sales. There’s honestly a bit too many to list out properly as several publishers have just gone all-out, but here’s a hap-hazard summary of games to look out for that are going cheap:

• Seemingly anything currently published by Asmodee Digital. They’re discounts are as high as 75% and this is across iOS and Android.
• ACRAM Digital’s Istanbul, Eight-Minute Empire and Steam: Rails to Riches.
• Battle Chasers: Nightwar
• Star Traders: Frontiers & other Trese Brothers games
• All of the Kingdom Rush games + other Ironhide titles
• The Banner Saga 1 & 2
• One Deck Dungeon & other Handelabra games
• Reigns: Game of Thrones
• FTL
• Holy Potatoes! A Spy Story|?
• Holy Potatoes! We’re in Space!? & the other Holy Potatoes games
• Motorsport Manager Mobile 3 (Free!?)
• Solitairica
• Peninsular War Battles
• Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions
• Galaxy Trucker
• Raiders of the North Sea

There’s probably more, but the tool I use is listing so much from the past 24 hours alone, I’m trying to just skim through for the highlights. I’ve also checked a couple of games that are on both iOS and Android and the majority of sales seem to be on both platforms where applicable, but obviously double-check before you buy.

That’s all for this week’s update, Merry Christmas if you don’t come back to the site much next week, otherwise see the rest of you on Monday!

This week at Bungie, we’re closing out 2019

It’s been quite a year. While we continued to build Destiny 2, we began the journey to publish it as well. Since then, we’ve invited Guardians to master the Menagerie in Season of Opulence. We returned to the Moon to reunite with a familiar friend and confront new Nightmares. We repelled a Vex invasion and set off a chain of events that are currently being discovered by Guardians in Season of Dawn. With the passing of each Season, Destiny 2 has evolved.

On top of all that, we welcomed new Guardians to Destiny 2 and unified the community across all platforms with Cross Save. None of this would have been possible without you—thanks for sticking with us throughout the years. It’s hard to believe we find ourselves in the fifth year of Destiny. We’re celebrating the end of this amazing year with The Dawning, which kicked off this week.

Dawn of Iron

Next week, Lord Saladin will hold the first Iron Banner of Season of Dawn.

Iron Banner and Valor Bonus

Start: 9 a.m. PDT on December 24

End: 9 a.m. PDT on December 31

There will be an Armor 2.0 version of the Iron Truage set available this season. The Seasonal Pursuit to earn this armor will work similar to last Season but we have changed some of the steps and what weapons are required to gain progress.

In case you are just joining us, here is a refresher of how it all works.

If you were paying close attention to the Season of Dawn calendar you may have noticed an Iron Banner-themed Bow. That image will also show up as director dialogue in the game when Iron Banner starts next week. We were hoping to have the new Iron Banner Bow available this Season, but it had to be pushed to Season 10. Sorry about the delay, but we wanted to call it out to avoid any confusion.

We also made a change to the An Arsenal of Tricks bounty. The ability final blow requirements has been reduced by half.

Put on your most powerful gear and go control those zones!

Breaking Dawn and Time

We launched Season of Dawn last week and we scrambled the fighters to shoot down some new bugs this week. Player Support has the details.

This is their report.

A Cold Front

Eva Levante is visiting the Tower once again and has brought The Dawning with her. All players can use her Holiday Oven to gather and combine materials to form gifts for vendors across the solar system. The Dawning began on December 17, 2019, and ends at the weekly reset on January 14, 2020.

Hotfix 2.7.0.1

This past Tuesday, Hotfix 2.7.0.1 was released to the world and resolved several issues found at the launch of Season of Dawn, including:

• Destiny 2 PC settings would not save after quitting the game.
• Dynamo mods granted more Super energy than expected.
• Launching Forsaken Baron adventures would cause a Honeydew error.
• Resonate Stems, Escalation Protocol chests, and other impacted rewards wouldn’t be granted.

Known Issues

• Our Player Support Team has been monitoring player reports in our #Help Forum to find the latest issues impacting gameplay. Below is a summary of the latest reported issues.
• The EDZ Obelisk can sometimes not be accessed.
• The Green With Envy and Heart of the Dragon quests sometimes don’t update while playing and completing Gambit or Crucible matches, respectively.
• Players need to reach Mythic Infamy rank to progress the Gambit “Green With Envy” quest step, not Fabled.
• Warlocks cannot Blink jump after switching weapons or canceling Sprint.
• Players who accept or complete a quest from Osiris will need to back out of his menu entirely and interact with him again to continue picking up other quests. This must be repeated for every quest picked up.
• A flashing notification icon appears constantly above Tess’ head in the Tower.
• For a full list of emergent issues in Destiny 2, players should view our Known Issues article. Players who observe other issues should report them to our #Help forum.

Holiday Support

As the winter season begins and 2019 comes to a close, our Player Support Team will be around throughout the holidays to review player reports and investigate the latest known issues. If you encounter issues over the holidays, be sure to follow @BungieHelp on Twitter or monitor our feed on help.bungie.net.

Players encountering other issues are encouraged to report them to the #Help forum.

Great Dawning Bakeoff

Welcome to another edition of Movie of the Week. This is our ongoing tradition of picking a few of our favorite community created videos and sharing them for all to see. The creators also get a brand-spanking new emblem for being featured. When submitting a video, remember to link your Bungie.net profile in the description of the video so we can give winners their hard-earned digital goods.

Movie of the Week: That’s not how the force works.

Honorable Mention: The Future is now.

This year has been an exciting one and we have a bunch of cool stuff lined up next year too. Thanks for making Destiny the awesome evolving world it’s become.

Happy holidays.

<3 Cozmo

Resident Evil 3 is Now Available for Pre-Purchase on Steam!

Jill Valentine is one of the last remaining people in Raccoon City to witness the atrocities Umbrella performed. To stop her, Umbrella unleashes their ultimate secret weapon: Nemesis! Also includes Resident Evil Resistance, a new 1 vs 4 online multiplayer game set in the Resident Evil universe.

Pre-Purchase now and receive the Classic Costume Pack free!

Update: Miles Jacobson, Managing Director of Football Manager developer, Sports Interactive, has shared a message on Twitter to clear things up. Here’s his full comment:

“Many licenses have cut off dates & sell through dates. And we have to stop selling when the earliest of those runs out. Which was earlier this week. And we tweeted about it to let people know as those on Gamepass could play til 31st, but only buy til 18th”.

Original Article: Last week saw the launch of Football Manager 2020 Touch on Nintendo Switch, giving fans the chance to pick up the latest version from the eShop just in time for Christmas. Strangely, it would appear that the older versions – 2019 and 2018 – have been removed from the digital store to make way for the new title.

The oddity was brought to our attention by Nintendo Life reviewer and all-round good chap Chris Scullion. As you can see below, Chris has spotted that the pages for both the 2019 and 2018 games have been taken down, with the old URLs now taking you to error pages. Here’s the link to what used to be Football Manager 2019, for example.

Now, the reasoning behind the removal isn’t clear at this stage so we don’t want to second guess Sega’s intentions, but we’re hoping that this isn’t simply a way of forcing fans to pick up the latest version. For anyone who’s not too fussed about getting the updated teams and the like, grabbing an older, reduced version makes a lot of sense; as it stands, the only way for new players to enjoy Football Manager is by buying the latest, full price edition.

We’ve contacted Sega for comment on the removal of the two games and will update this story if and when we hear back.

N3twork is taking over development and publishing of NBCUniversal’s free-to-play Funko Pop Blitz after the company made moves to wind down its game business, and support for some current properties, earlier this year.

While the deal sees N3twork acquiring the game as a whole from its previous publisher, a press release notes it will still work collaboratively alongside Funko and NBCUniversal’s Universal Games and Digital Platforms branch as brands and characters from both companies play are an integral part of the game.

Alongside the acquisition, N3twork is hiring “key talent” from Universal Games and Digital Platforms to work on the game in N3twork’s Los Angeles office.

The company notes that the acquisition also gives it an opportunity to leverage its automated UA tech and expertise similarly to how it has in its own Legendary: Game of Heroes and an upcoming Tetris game.

The Tic Toc Games-developed Funko Pop Blitz was originally one of the games in the game publishing branch NBCUniversal announced it was winding down a few months back. After roughly two years in the mobile game space, NBCUniversal said the “increasingly competitive nature of the mobile games landscape” led to the decision and would instead focus on licensing its properties to other teams.

According to PocketGamer, those refocused game publishing plans originally included Funko Pop Blitz (among other titles) going dark for good this week, though N3twork stepping into the deal seems to have the fortunes for this particular game.

Google is expanding its first-party development efforts through the acquisition of Journey to the Savage Planet developer Typhoon Studios, bringing the Montreal-based team under Google’s Stadia Games and Entertainment branch.

The move comes as part of Google’s efforts to develop first-party games for its recently launched cloud gaming platform Google Stadia and aims to, as Stadia Games and Entertainment VP Jade Raymond tells VentureBeat, create Stadia exclusives that will set the platform apart from its competition.

Journey to the Savage Planet, due out next month, is still planned as a multi-platform release but Raymond explains in a blog post that Typhoon will turn its attention toward Stadia-centric titles in the future.

Stadia Games and Entertainment itself was set up in March with the goal of working with internal and external developers alike to bring games to the platform. This marks the first full-fledged studio acquisition the Stadia team has made, though it has made a handful of notable hires since its first debut.

We finally have our hands on Apple’s new Pro Display XDR, the company’s first branded monitor since the cancellation of Thunderbolt Display in 2016. Follow along as we run through the pro-level display’s design and features.

Pro Display XDR

Apple’s new pro-oriented display comes in at 32 inches when measured on the diagonal and sports a 6K resolution of 6,016-by-3,384 pixels for a pixel density of 218 PPI.

Unboxing and setup

The display arrives in a large — yet thin — cardboard box. Opening the box, which boasts an unusual linen-like texture, reveals the display centered above a small box of peripherals.

Included is Apple’s signature polishing cloth, a power cable, and a Thunderbolt 3 cable. Both the Thunderbolt 3 cable and the power cable are black and wrapped in nylon, similar to the braided nylon USB-C to Lightning cable included with the Mac Pro itself. It’s disappointing Apple doesn’t sell this premium Thunderbolt 3 cable as a standalone product.

Moving on to the display itself, after removing both the soft paper shell and adhesive screen protector, we finally get a good look at the Pro Display XDR.

In-person, it feels much thinner than we had originally expected, but it is a very solid-feeling block. There are no curved or beveled edges other than the slightly rounded corners. The back is etched with the same 3D lattice pattern found on the Mac Pro.

Pro Display XDR lattice

This lattice effect is not only eye-catching, but serves a functional aspect as well. With so many openings, it allows maximum airflow for all the components needed to power such a bright and pixel-dense display.

Pro Display XDR ports and stand mount

Also on the back is a single Thunderbolt 3 port, as well as a trio of USB-C ports for connecting additional peripherals.

To use the display, simply connect the Thunderbolt 3 cable to both the monitor and your Mac Pro (or other compatible machine).

Pro Display XDR works in portrait orientation

There is no configuration or setup necessary and it works in both portrait and landscape orientations. As a nice touch, the display automatically detects when it changes orientations and adjusts your resolution to match.

A phenomenal-looking display

Without going into all the specs, the new Pro Display XDR is a very impressive display. With its 6K resolution, it has a maximum sustained brightness of 1000 nits though it can top out at 1600 nits to support HDR content.

Pro Display XDR has great HDR support

Speaking of HDR content, the Pro Display XDR can handle HDR10, Dolby Vision and HLG playback. We watched a few Dolby Vision videos on the Mac Pro and can say whether you are watching or creating high dynamic range content, you will be happy.

The display was exceptionally bright and even with our glossy model did an excellent job of reducing glare. If you prefer a glare-free option, Apple does sell a nano-etched model for an extra $1,000.

Apple’s new Pro Display XDR is available to order now for $4,999. The nano-etched version clocks in at $5,999 and if you want Apple’s Pro Display stand that is an extra $999 at checkout.

TAIPEI — December 20, 2019 — Microsoft Taiwan and Asia’s leading media technology company, KKBOX Group, jointly announced today the launch of a global strategic partnership that will migrate the group’s subsidiary KKBOX’s music streaming services to the Microsoft Azure cloud platform. Additionally, KKBOX Group subsidiary KKStream has joined Microsoft’s global partner network to release BlendVision™, a next-generation commercial video streaming solution that will harness data and AI to effectively reduce operating costs of over-the-top (OTT) platform operators. Microsoft and KKBOX Group will also jointly use data and AI to optimize its music-creation system and explore new music-listening possibilities for consumers. This cooperation is a milestone for KKBOX Group’s internationalization initiative and opens up more possibilities for the digital entertainment industry.

“The media and entertainment industries are going through a transformation as studios, broadcasters and other rich media content creators, such as over-the-top (OTT) service providers, are facing pressure to innovate on how they deliver content to their audiences while getting smarter on using data to their advantage,” said Bob De Haven, general manager, Worldwide Media & Communications Industries, Microsoft. “KKBOX has been at the forefront of the entertainment industry in Asia, providing world-class entertainment to users and continuing to experiment and innovate with technology. We are thrilled that KKBOX has chosen Azure to provide the company with intelligent platforms that unlock creativity and collaboration, bring content to market faster and engage audiences.”

Serving the Asian market for over 15 years, KKBOX Group is now expanding globally. It integrates big data — including music, video, show ticketing and e-commerce — and leverages AI to provide users with better experiences and artists, creators, and concert organizers with business insights.

“KKBOX Group offers consumers a wide range of entertainment experiences in Asia,” said Co-founder and CEO Chris Lin. “We are pleased to partner with Microsoft to migrate KKBOX music to Azure, address streaming technology challenges by co-selling BlendVision globally, and develop AI music creation.”

Key initiatives of the partnership include:

1. KKBOX music streaming service migrates to Microsoft Azure:

By partnering with Microsoft to fully migrate KKBOX music streaming services onto Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform, KKBOX Group is meeting consumer demand for high-speed streaming services and highly differentiated entertainment experiences. The partnership will allow KKBOX to provide faster development, manage resource scheduling and flexibly adjust traffic to develop more meta services, aligned with the digital entertainment industry’s trend of accelerating digital services.

Microsoft Azure has more regions than any other cloud provider, with 55 datacenter regions, to offer the scale needed to deploy services and applications on demand to enterprises around the world. This coverage helps enterprises deploy services on demand. With high-standard information security, KKBOX can rapidly deploy innovative services to international markets while ensuring that data is protected by comprehensive security measures. Microsoft is committed to promoting enterprise digital transformation with front-end technology, assisting customers and partners in various industries to adopt AI and the cloud to optimize enterprise resource deployment and operation processes, and to expand their global business territories through joint sales plans. This strategic cooperation with KKBOX Group is a milestone for Microsoft in the digital entertainment industry.

2. KKStream launches commercial video streaming technology solution — BlendVision:

BlendVision, launched by KKStream, is a next-generation commercial video streaming solution that empowers global streaming platform operators through a software-as-a-service (SaaS) offering, reducing operating costs and improving user experiences while developing services that create new monetization models. BlendVision will launch “BlendVision Video Streaming” combined with “per-title encoding” (PTE) to effectively reduce operating costs of OTT platform operators by using AI to identify different bitrates for video compression and transcoding, greatly reducing transmission bandwidth and saving storage space.

An independently developed image enhancement technology called Perceptual Streaming Engine (PSE) will be added to enhance the visual performance of the original video and double the quality of low-resolution videos into high definition (HD) for optimal streaming image quality. These two technologies (PTE + PSE) together can further reduce platform operator transmission costs by 80% so users get the highest image quality with the lowest traffic. The cooperation between Microsoft and KKStream will be based on the SaaS model, with BlendVision’s service architecture built on Azure, helping to deliver new services to consumers. Meanwhile, Microsoft’s global sales and service teams will assist in implementation. Microsoft and KKBOX already foresee 10 potential customers in the Asian region, symbolizing proof of endless global business opportunities as a result of this strategic alliance.

3. Both parties to jointly develop AI-enabled music production system for producers:

KKBOX will leverage Microsoft AI technology to build an AI-assisted music arrangement system and an AI-assisted lyric generator. In addition, the group will create a predictive model that uses data and AI to forecast the commercial success of a song. KKBOX and Microsoft believe that the digital entertainment industry is facing a transformation and must use technology to make content faster and smoother for users and to use a data-driven approach to create personalized services. AI will become the most important advancement in this transformation. KKBOX is one of the world’s earliest legal music streaming platforms, providing services since 2005. It has successfully changed consumer listening behavior, and the music industry’s business model is changing accordingly. KKBOX Group and Microsoft aim to leverage AI to explore new opportunities, create new trends and transform the entertainment market.

About KKBOX

For more information on KKBOX, visit: https://www.kkbox.com/about/zh-tw

About Microsoft

Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT” @microsoft) enables digital transformation for the era of an intelligent cloud and an intelligent edge. Its mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.

Media contacts

MSFT contact:
angela.chen@microsoft.com

KKBOX contact:
KKBOX Public Relations abbytu@kkbox.com