The Verge’s entertainment section collects the latest news from the worlds of pop culture, music, movies, television, and video games. Whether you want to know what to watch on Netflix or how to make the most of your streaming service budget, the entertainment section acts a reliable source. There’s simply too much to read, watch, hear, and play. Let us be your tour guide.
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The biggest announcements from Meta’s Quest Gaming Showcase
There were some notable games shown at this year’s showcase, including a new look at the Stranger Things VR game.
The best entertainment of 2023
A curated guide to the most interesting games, movies, and TV shows of the year.
Computex 2023: all the news from Taiwan’s big PC show
For one glorious week, PC enthusiasts gathered in Taipei.
If you sort Reddit’s r/all page by top posts of all time, the number one spot is held by an old picture of Rick Astley riding a bicycle... posted by Astley himself.
The post got around 439,000 upvotes. As it hit the 250,000 upvote mark, Astley commented, “Wtf 🤣🙏.” Don’t worry, none of these links is a Rick roll. Technically.
Because it sure was a packed week in the world of entertainment. We’ve got the excellent sequel to Into the Spider-Verse; a brilliant revival of Street Fighter; remakes of the classics games System Shock and Etrian Odyssey; and the season finales for Yellowjackets and Ted Lasso. Oh, and if you pre-ordered Diablo IV, you can dig in a little early.
After yanking dozens of shows and movies from Hulu and Disney Plus on May 26th, a new filing with the SEC indicates that Disney plans on taking down even more content “during the remainder of its third fiscal quarter.”
Disney has already racked up a $1.5 billion impairment charge following last week’s takedowns, but now it estimates an additional $400 million charge as a result of its upcoming content removals.
Sony’s Across the Spider-Verse isn’t just a breathtaking work of art — it’s a seminal piece of Spider-Man storytelling that rightfully establishes Miles Morales as this generation’s definitive webhead. Across the Spider-Verse’s trailers alone have been tremendous, but check out our review to read more about what makes the movie work so, so well.
If you haven’t already got all the controllers you could possibly need for the six year-old Switch (or if you’ve lost any of them to Joy-Con drift), Nintendo has some new controller colors for you. One set comes in pink and yellow, the other comes in purple and green. Both cost $79.99 per pair, which is the same price the controllers launched at back in 2017.
Many people (including yours truly) are having problems with Chromium browsers and other apps flickering after installing the 535.98 driver released May 30th.
The problem seems linked to multiple monitor setups and having G-Sync enabled. A post to Nvidia’s forums says they’ve identified a fix, but until it’s rolled out, you can try an earlier driver or disable hardware acceleration in any apps that are having problems.
[Nvidia GeForce Forums]
You know Myst, but do you remember the CD-ROM’s other killer app? The 7th Guest is now 30 years old, and it’s getting remade in 3D for the first time to sell you on Meta’s Quest 2 (and just-announced Quest 3) headsets. It’ll still have something akin to full-motion video for its actors, too: volumetric video capture.
Timely, given the upcoming launch of Street Fighter 6. Razer hasn’t said how much it will cost or when it will come out, but if you want a new arcade-style fighting game controller for PC or PS5, the Kitsune seems like a promising option.
The pre-show kicks off at 12:45PM ET, with the main show starting at 1PM ET. You can watch it here on YouTube. Here’s hoping Meta sneaks in another look at the just-announced Quest 3 VR headset.
You can hear and watch a recording of the soundtrack on YouTube. This song in particular sounds like something you’d hear in a fantasy movie — which is fitting, given the DLC’s fantasy theme.
The game just came out on Mac, already supports VR, and he tweeted about a surprise in the “VERY near future” and what appears to be a picture of the game’s Steam page with the Windows logo, Apple logo, and the words “VR Supported.”
With Apple’s WWDC keynote in the very near future, it looks like we might see No Man’s Sky as a featured game during the show.
At Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse’s LA premiere this week, producer Amy Pascal teased that Miles Morales is definitely making his live-action debut in the near future, and Sony’s already working on another Spider-Man starring Tom Holland:
“We’re in the process, but the writers strike, nobody is working during the strike. We’re all being supporters and whenever they get themselves together, we’ll get started.”
A new report from Bloomberg has dug into what went wrong with Arkane Studios’ Redfall, which is currently one of the worst-reviewed games of the year. It’s a significant failure after Microsoft acquired Arkane’s parent company for $7.5 billion.
“To the makers of Redfall, the mediocre reception was no big surprise,” Bloomberg writes. “The project suffered from unclear direction, frequent attrition and a perennial lack of staff.”
Yuji Naka, a former Sega and Square Enix developer best known for co-creating Sonic the Hedgehog, could be sentenced to over two years in prison following his arrest for insider trading.
Prosecutors in Tokyo District Court also want to fine Naka ¥170 million (around $1.2 million). I doubt they’ll accept gold rings as payment.
The original $80 Leap gesture controller debuted so long ago that we compared it to the Kinect. However, unlike Microsoft’s Xbox accessory, Leap is still kicking.
Now known as Ultraleap after a 2019 merger, it’s showing off the Leap Motion Control 2 (via RoadtoVR) and retiring the old device. The new $139 unit will begin shipping this summer, and new Gemini software for it is coming to macOS — and with its positioning as a VR accessory, you can probably guess why that’s suddenly a priority.
Key improvements over the original Leap Motion Controller include higher resolution cameras, an increased field of view, and 25% lower power consumption, all in a 30% smaller package for optimum placement and convenience.
It is the most flexible camera ever developed by Ultraleap and is compatible across platforms and complimentary hardware including VR/MR/AR headsets, PCs, and holographic displays.
While Kim Cattrall might still be on the outs with some of her former Sex and the City cast mates, Variety reports that she’s reprising her role as Samantha Jones for Max’s And Just Like That...:
“According to sources, Cattrall shot her dialogue on March 22 in New York City, without seeing or speaking with the stars of the series, including Sarah Jessica Parker, or with “And Just Like That” showrunner Michael Patrick King.”
Apparently, the actors dictated it based on their own personal preferences. That’s according to Mark Mylod, who directed a lot of the episodes and some of the most important ones in the whole show.
I guess this means Matthew McFayden stans Samsung.
That’s right, the first season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is free on YouTube ahead of the June 15th season two premiere — TrekMovie has links to all the episodes.
It’s got goofy episodic heart and a cool season-long arc. You can just watch it right under this post if you want: