Blizzard boss says ‘Warcraft’, ‘Overwatch’, and ‘Diablo’ news is coming soon

Kanye West and Kim Kardashian's relationship since parting ways has grown more complicated over the last few weeks, with Kanye - now known as Ye - posting public messages to his estranged wife. Kanye, 44, has been embroiled in an ongoing feud with Kim over the last few weeks as the former couple have attempted to navigate coparenting their children North, eight, Saint, six, Chicago, four, and Psalm two, and relationships in the public eye. The rapper had been vocal about Kim's reported new boyfriend, Pete Davidson, in a series of Instagram posts, including calling him a "d***head" and mocking his Hilary Clinton tattoo.

Microsoft purchase of Activision Blizzard is causing concern for smaller game developersLast month it was announced that Microsoft was acquiring Activision Blizzard for around £50billion, followed by news at the end of January that Sony would buy Bungie for £2.6billion.Now multiple indie developers have spoken to the BBC about their concerns with the Microsoft acquisition, and what it could mean for them.Director at Kitfox Games Tanya Short – the developer of Boyfriend Dungeon – said: “This Activision acquisition strikes fear in us because it makes it so much more obvious – maybe they could dominate the rest of the year and then what do we do?”“Conceivably, indie games outside of these services might lose engagement as subscribers focus most of their attention on games they can access for free within the service,” adds Yura Zhdanovich, founder and director at Sad Cat Studios.The Federal Trade Commission is set to investigate the deal and whether or not it would harm the competition. FTC Chair Lina Khan is an advocate for a more assertive approach when handling deals.

Ed Sheeran has confirmed that his latest collaboration with Taylor Swift will be released on Friday (February 11).The track has been the subject of speculation in recent weeks, with Swift’s fans theorising that she will feature on a reworked version of Sheeran’s 2021 song ‘The Joker And The Queen’.Speaking at last night’s BRIT Awards (February 8), Sheeran told LADbible that his next single “comes out on Friday and it’s with Taylor Swift”.“We’re literally announcing that in like an hour,” Sheeran added, although the single has still not been officially announced by either Sheeran or Swift.The pair last collaborated on ‘Run’, taken from ‘Red (Taylor’s Version)’, and have previously performed duets on 2012’s ‘Everything Has Changed‘ and 2017’s ‘End Game‘.

Niecy Nash is taking the lead for a potential Rookie spinoff.The actress will be introduced as Simone Clark in two episodes of for a potential standalone series on ABC, the network announced Tuesday. Her multi-episode guest appearance on the police procedural is meant to serve as a potential table-setter for an untitled spinoff that would air during the 2022-23 television season, if ABC were to greenlight it to series.Clark is described as «a force of nature, the living embodiment of a dream deferred — and the oldest rookie in the FBI Academy,» per the network's description.In Nash's debut episode on, Officer John Nolan (Nathan Fillion) and the Los Angeles division of the FBI enlist the help of FBI trainee Clark when one of her former students is suspected of terrorism following an explosion at a local power station.“I’m so excited to guest star on  and bring Simone Clark to life! She is a spirited and spicy fish out of water,” Nash said in a statement.

EXCLUSIVE: ABC is looking to recruit another Rookie. The network is exploring a spinoff of its popular police procedural starring Nathan Fillon with another bonafide TV star, Niecy Nash, and a new setting, the FBI. The potential new series for next season will be introduced in a two-episode arc of the current fourth season of The Rookie. It will serve as a backdoor pilot for the yet-untitled project, which comes from The Rookie creator/executive producer Alexi Hawley, executive producer Mark Gordon and studios eOne and ABC Signature.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterNational Geographic announced a slate of more than a dozen upcoming original programs Monday, all of which are produced by the brand but will debut exclusively on Disney Plus — not on the Nat Geo cable channel. But despite the shift, Nat Geo content president Courteney Monroe promised that it’s not a sign that the Disney-owned brand has completely moved away from linear content.“I realize that all of my announcements today were for Disney Plus originals, but that in no way diminishes our focus and investment in National Geographic programming for the linear channel,” Monroe told reporters Monday during Nat Geo’s virtual presentation at the Television Critics Association winter press tour.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has said that he doesn’t believe its acquisition of Activision Blizzard should be blocked by the US Federal Trade Commission.The deal, worth around £50billion, was announced on January 18 but earlier this week it was announced that the US Federal Trade Commission would be conducting an antitrust investigation after fears the acquisition would harm competition.Talking to the Financial Times, Nadella said that the deal would only place Microsoft as the third largest player in the video games industry behind Sony and Tencent. He also believes the fragmentation of the market would prevent it from ever gaining a monopoly.“At the end of the day, all the analysis here has to be done through a lens of what’s the category we’re talking about, and what about the market structure?” said Nadella.“Even post-this acquisition, we will be number three with a low teens (market) share, where even the highest player is also in the teens (for market) share.

Activision Blizzard has announced more Warcraft and World Of Warcraft is coming, some of which in the form of mobile content.As part of the company’s fourth quarter earnings results, a handful of Warcraft announcements were made. This included news that “Blizzard is planning substantial new content for the Warcraft franchise in 2022, including new experiences in World Of Warcraft and Hearthstone, and getting all-new mobile Warcraft content into players’ hands for the first time.”There has been no other mention of what this content will be as of yet, but according to Activision Blizzard the franchise was going strong in 2021 thanks to the inclusion of both the modern and classic game.The company does also note that it “continued to increase our developer headcount in the fourth quarter and added hundreds of talented professionals in 2021,” despite the fact that major layoffs to the Raven Software quality assurance department took place at the end of last year.This led to a strike lasting over a month and the formation of a new union, the Game Workers Alliance, which Activision Blizzard appears to be actively attempting to quash at every turn.

Spotify CEO Daniel Ek has defended the streaming platform, saying “it’s too early to know” the impact of the recent Joe Rogan row on the company’s future.Earlier this month, hundreds of scientists and medical professionals asked Spotify to address COVID misinformation on its platform, sparked by comments made on The Joe Rogan Experience.More than 270 members of the science and medical community signed the open letter, which called Rogan’s actions “not only objectionable and offensive but also medically and culturally dangerous”.The situation then made headline news, with Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Crazy Horse member Nils Lofgren and more pulling their music from the service after Young sparked a protest against the misinformation being spread about the virus on Rogan’s Spotify original podcast.Other public figures also weighed in on the debate, with Catherine Mayer – the widow of Gang Of Four‘s Andy Gill – criticising Spotify for platforming anti-vax sentiments. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, meanwhile, said in a statement that they had expressed concerns about misinformation to Spotify last year.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorDavid Crosby and Stephen Stills have joined Neil Young and Graham Nash in asking their labels to remove their collective recordings from Spotify.According to the announcement, in support of stopping harmful misinformation about Covid-19 on Joe Rogan’s Spotify-hosted podcast, the musicians have decided to remove their records from the streaming platform including the recordings of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young; Crosby, Stills & Nash and Crosby-Nash, as well as Crosby’s and Stills’ solo projects. Nash has already begun the process to take down his solo recordings.In a unified statement, the band members commented, “We support Neil and we agree with him that there is dangerous disinformation being aired on Spotify’s Joe Rogan podcast. While we always value alternate points of view, knowingly spreading disinformation during this global pandemic has deadly consequences. Until real action is taken to show that a concern for humanity must be balanced with commerce, we don’t want our music – or the music we made together – to be on the same platform.” Reps for Spotify did not immediately respond to Variety‘s request for comment.Following a similar request by Joni Mitchell, the move reunites the five artists, who have been friends and collaborators since the 1960s, in a stance that they certainly could not have imagined 50 years ago.

David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash have issued a statement supporting former bandmate Neil Young in seeking the removal of their music from Spotify in protest of podcaster Joe Rogan.

Zack Sharf Graham Nash and India Arie are the latest music artists to announce they are following in the footsteps of Neil Young and Joni Mitchell by removing their music from Spotify. Nash said in a statement that he “completely agrees” with his Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young bandmate Neil Young after “having heard the COVID disinformation spread by Joe Rogan on Spotify.” Nash added, “I am requesting that my solo recordings be removed from the service.”While Young, Mitchell and Nash exited Spotify because of Joe Rogan’s podcast spreading COVID misinformation, India Arie noted on Instagram that she is leaving Spotify because of Rogan’s “language about race.”“Neil Young opened a door that I must walk through,” Arie wrote on Instagram.

Microsoft is to be investigated by the Federal Trade Commission over their proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard.News broke last month that Call of Duty and Overwatch developers Activision Blizzard were being acquired by Microsoft. But the deal isn’t actually set in stone yet, and now according to Bloomberg, the deal will see the FTC conduct an antitrust investigation over the Activision Blizzard acquisition.

Rihanna's dad has reacted to the news that his singer daughter is set to welcome her first child with boyfriend A$AP Rocky.The 33 year old, who recently starred in a Savage X Fenty lingerie campaign with Madonna's daughter Lourdes, was snapped showing off her blossoming baby bump in New York City over the weekend. Celebrities and fans of the couple both went wild over the news, taking to social media to share their congratulations to them both. Now, the Umbrella hitmaker's dad Ronald, 68, has broken his silence over the photos as he told Page Six he's "ecstatic" to be a grandfather.

Blizzard studio head, Mike Ybarra, has told fans to “stay tuned” for more news on Warcraft, Overwatch and Diablo.The news came via Twitter. When a Twitter user suggested that Blizzard should dedicate more of its time on existing products, Ybarra revealed more.In a tweet, Ybarra explained that “Blizzard is a big studio [with] talented and growing teams”. He continued by adding that “you’ll be hearing more on that from Warcraft and Overwatch“.