Xbox Showbiz and Celebrity Breaking News

With Starfield's global release right around the corner, players will be getting ready to sink as much of their free time as possible to explore the cosmos Bethesda created.

Gamers excited to jump straight into Starfield will be happy to know they won't have to wait for the full global release.

It's not much longer until players can finally get their hands on Starfield.

One Piece is one of the most popular anime shows in the world.Based on the original manga of the same name by Eiichiro Oda, the anime follows the adventures of Monkey D. Luffy and his crew of pirates as they search the world for the titular One Piece treasure.Since the show began in October 1999, over 1,000 episodes have aired across twenty seasons.

Microsoft has nixed the Xbox Game Pass offer that introduced new customers to the subscription service for £1, one week before Starfield‘s launch.According to Games Radar, players realised that the offer disappeared over the weekend (August 26) and that the timing appears to be related to the upcoming launch of Starfield.Originally, players were able to get their first month of Xbox Game Pass for £1 in order to see the benefits of the service, such as playable first-party launches on day one, discounts and backwards compatible classics from the Xbox 360 era.In March, Xbox’s head of global communications Kari Perez said that the offer had been killed off as it “[evaluates] different marketing promotions for new members in the future”. The company then rolled out a system where current users could invite five of their friends to free two-week trials of Xbox Game Pass.Following that, the offer was resurrected in July, but it was shortened to 14 days of Xbox Game Pass for £1 for new customers just a month later.Xbox Game Pass is available in three different versions – console, PC and Ultimate.

Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S versions of Baldur’s Gate 3 will not share the same features, but this is an concession that allows Larian Studios to release the role-playing game for the consoles before the end of the year.At the moment, Baldur’s Gate 3 is only playable on PC with a PS5 port arriving next month. Yet, the game has been an enormous success for Larian Studios, snagging enviable review scores and becoming a sensation on social media.Phil Spencer, Microsoft‘s CEO of Gaming, recently stated that the feature parity policy between the two consoles is something that guarantees as much accessibility as possible.

A young dad whose life spiralled following a break-up died after becoming 'addicted' to drugs bought on Manchester's 'Counterfeit Street'. Junior Collins, 27, was found unresponsive in his Salford flat by his older brother Scott the morning after being 'absolutely off his head' on tablets he bought the same day.

Gamescom Opening Night Live 2023 last night (August 22) and there was a slew of announcements, new trailers and release dates. Fortunately, if you missed the live event or if you’re in need of a reminder, here are all of the games that appeared in the showcase.Below, we’ve collected every new trailer that appeared during Opening Night Live 2023.

EXCLUSIVE: With the new animated version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, Paramount has vibrantly revived the near 40-year-old Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird-conceived comic IP for another generation: As the pic barrels toward $100M at the global box office, Deadline hears from sources that the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles brand is heading toward $1 billion+ in global retail sales. 

video games like,, Diablo IV and others are giving us new entertaining ways to stay cool despite the blistering summer heat outside. Regardless of the console wars between the PS4, PS5, Xbox One Xbox Series X/S and the Nintendo Switch, every person who games wants the best living room setting.

Street Fighter 6 has harkened back to its arcade origins with a secret command that turns the commentators of the match into a variety of animals.A player named pika0722chu_ posted the hidden code on Twitter (X), showing that if these buttons are pressed when the two characters are staring at each other on the versus screen, the secret feature is unlocked. Check it out below:#スト6　#ストリートファイター6　#SF6見つけた！！！！！見つけたぞ隠しコマンド！！！！顔芸できるタイミングで下　R　上　L　Y B X Aだった！！！！https://t.co/5uAIUNgRlq pic.twitter.com/ptdo3sbp3q— pika0722chu (@pika0722chu_) July 29, 2023The sequence is “Down, R1, Up, L1, Square, X, Triangle, and Circle” on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 and “Down, RB, Up, LB, X, A, Y, B” on Xbox One and the Xbox Series X|S.If these buttons are inputted successfully, the game will play a short chime sound effect and the commentators will yowl, neigh, bark, crow and more in response to the fight.As GameSpot mentioned in its own Street Fighter 6 coverage, these buttons are the same as the ones that would unlock alternate colours and the ability for both players to select the same character in Street Fighter 2 for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System.Street Fighter 6 offers four English commentators and four Japanese commentators as well as subtitles in 13 languages.

back-to-school shopping season, it's a great time to shop for a new Lenovo laptop. For a limited time, Lenovo's back-to-school sale is offering up to 75% off select laptops and 2-in-1 convertibles that double as a tablet.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Microsoft and Activision Blizzard extended the deadline to close their $69 billion mega-deal by three months as the parties work to get approval from U.K. regulators. Microsoft and Activision Blizzard’s original merger agreement expired July 18, 2023. On Tuesday, the companies entered into an agreement waiving certain rights to terminate the merger if the transaction has not closed prior to Oct. 18, 2023. The agreement also includes amendments to Activision Blizzard’s commercial Xbox arrangements with Microsoft, valued at up to $250 million for each of fiscal years 2023 and 2024. The deal, announced in January 2022, has cleared most regulatory and legal challenges, including U.S. federal courts rejection of the FTC’s bid to block the deal and the Supreme Court’s rejection of a last-minute appeal to stop the deal by a group of gamers opposed to Microsoft’s takeover of Activision.

Amazon Prime Day is officially over, but you still have one final day to shop the Walmart Plus Week sale. Walmart got in on the price-slashing action this week and the sale event is now open to everyone until 7 p.m.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor A federal court nixed the FTC’s request to block Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard, which could pave the way for the $69 billion deal to close as soon as this month. The U.S. District Court of the Northern District of California on Tuesday issued a ruling denying the Federal Trade Commission’s request for a preliminary injunction in its case regarding Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard. Microsoft has signaled it intends to close the takeover of Activision Blizzard — which would be the biggest ever in the gaming sector — by the July 18 deal termination date. In the ruling (available at this link), District Court Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley cited in part Microsoft’s commitment to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation for 10 years, on parity with Xbox, and that Microsoft inked an agreement with Nintendo to bring the game to Nintendo Switch. The judge found that “the FTC has not shown a likelihood it will prevail” on its claim that the merger “may substantially lessen competition,” she wrote. “To the contrary, the record evidence points to more consumer access to Call of Duty and other Activision content.”

Amazon Prime Day 2023 has officially arrived in Canada, and the deals on this year’s roster are seriously impressive. From home goods to clothes and accessories to beauty products, you’ll find almost everything you could ever want on sale today.

Anna Tingley If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Variety may receive an affiliate commission. Gamers are in for a treat today as the highly coveted Xbox Series S console is down to the cheapest price we’ve seen for Prime Day.  A white version of the console is available for $199, $70 less than the upmarked prices seen on retailers for much of the year.

Walmart Plus Week, which starts ahead of Prime Day.Walmart+ Week kicks off today, July 10, but only Walmart Plus members can take advantage of early savings and exclusive discounts. The annual sale event will open to all shoppers tomorrow, July 11 at noon and run through Thursday, July 13 at 7 p.m.

Barbie.” Currently, you can pre-order a Barbie-themed Xbox that you can play in your Barbie painted home (part of the movie’s partnership with Backdrop paint) and sleep in a bed with Barbie pillows (as part of their partnership with online retailer Kitsch). And don’t forget to protect all that with a home insurance policy courtesy of Progressive, whose new commercial takes place in Barbie’s Dreamhouse! And that’s just the few that pop up on TV, Twitter and Instagram feeds in the last 48 hours. It’s not precisely known how many active “Barbie” partnerships are currently out there, but “Barbie” mania is upon us — and it’s impressing everyone in Hollywood.

Annapurna Interactive announced Blade Runner 2033: Labyrinth in its showcase (June 29) with an atmospheric teaser trailer, filling in for a dark era of the franchise’s fictional history.Following the trailer, game director Chelsea Hash spoke with IGN to shed a little more light on the game.Set in 2033, Labyrinth is a narrative-heavy exploration of what it means to be a Blade Runner post-Blackout. The Blackout was an event triggered by two replicant androids, which shut down every electronic device in the city of Los Angeles and deleted all data held in storage.Tyrell Corporation had no choice but to shutter and so all remaining replicants were the last to ever be made.

PUBG Players, a new season is upon us, and with it some major changes to the game! Alongside Season 24 Of PUBG: Battlegrounds every player now drops in with a Tactical Gear Pack. After opening the pack you then get to choose between the following devices. A Blue Chip Detector, Drone, EMT Gear, Repair Kit, Spotter Scope, or a Tactical Pack.

Blizzard has released a new major update for its newest title Diablo 4 for PS5, Xbox, and PC.

Halo have been invited to take part in the “world’s biggest” performance of its now-iconic Gregorian chant, with “no previous singing or gaming experience” required.The original Gregorian chant debuted in 2002, as part of the first Halo game’s theme.  Composed by Marty O’Donnell, the piece went on to become synonymous with the long-running Halo series, with many elements from the first theme turning up in subsequent games.Today (June 28), gamechoir has sent out a call for fans of the game to come together in creating the “world’s biggest” performance of the series’ Gregorian chant.The digital event will begin with a live-streamed vocals lesson on YouTube, which will take place on July 10 at 18:45 BST. From there, singers will be encouraged to practice using a professionally-recorded backing track, before submitting their “high, medium or low voice” performances to gamechoir.Following that, gamechoir will broadcast the final piece on August 17.Marty O’Donnell, the composer behind Halo‘s theme, has encouraged fans — “singer or not” — to take part in the Halo chant, and admitted he “never imagined” people would still be singing the chant over 20 years later.“Video games and video game music have the power to bring people together,” shared O’Donnell.

Xbox leadership wanted Microsoft to make an acquisition bid for Sega, while a “watchlist” also marked the likes of Bungie, IO Interactive, and Niantic as studios to consider buying.Currently, Microsoft is in court to defend its proposed £50billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, which the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is fighting to block.As part of the case, a number of internal emails from Microsoft have been unearthed.

2020 acquisition of ZeniMax was, at least in part, to stop Sony from paying the company to skip Xbox releases of its games, according to a statement by head of Xbox Phil Spencer during the FTC v. Microsoft hearing.“When we acquired ZeniMax one of the impetus for that is that Sony had done a deal for ‘Deathloop’ and ‘Ghostwire’… to pay Bethesda to not ship those games on Xbox,” said Spencer.

Microsoft also revealed Xbox trailed in the share of existing consoles in use with only 21%.In related news, Beth Wilkinson, Microsoft’s lead attorney, said the case was going to determine whether Microsoft’s Activision acquisition happens or sends the companies into a multiyear “administrative nightmare” that sinks the transaction altogether. The company hopes to close the deal by July 18.The hearing also unearthed fresh details on games that have otherwise been extraordinarily light on news, such as Bethesda’s upcoming “Indiana Jones” title.

deposition transcript for the FTC vs Microsoft and Activision Blizzard King case, Sony Interactive Entertainment’s CEO Jim Ryan explained why the company wouldn’t be able to share key info about its upcoming PlayStation console with Activision were Activision to be bought by Microsoft (via Stephen Totilo).“We simply could not run the risk of a company that was owned by a direct competitor having access to that information,” Ryan said, alluding to the possibility that if Sony shared info with Activision to help it craft console-exclusive features for hypothetical PlayStation 6 launch titles, Activision’s (would-be) parent company, Microsoft, would examine the details of the still-in-development PlayStation 6 and have unfair knowledge of what its rival was cooking up. This knowledge would possibly enable Microsoft to integrate its competitor’s console’s benefits into its own next-generation hardware.Ryan also said he believed Activision under Microsoft would not be incentivized to take advantage of unique PlayStation features, as Activision would be focused first and foremost on making its game experiences great on Microsoft’s systems (Xbox and PC).

Watch out Samsung and Sony - Amazon has dropped the price of its new Fire TV and it could be one of the next biggest budget competitors on the market. Amazon's Fire TV 2-Series features a 720p 32-inch screen and gives you quick access to plenty of popular apps include Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney Plus and more.

currently attempting to buy Activision Blizzard, the company formed by the merger of “Call of Duty” powerhouse Activision and “World of Warcraft” and “Diablo” maker Blizzard, in a $69 billion deal. Now that purchase has been put on hold by a federal judge, due to FTC antitrust concerns. Nevertheless, in anticipation of the deal, “Diablo IV, which is also available for video game consoles, can only otherwise be played on PCs that run on Microsoft’s Windows operating system.

Joe Otterson TV Reporter Peacock and AEG have entered into a mutliyear agreement that will see major parts of LA Live in downtown Los Angeles renamed after the NBCUniversal streaming service. Starting July 11, the Microsoft Theater will be known as the Peacock Theater, while the Xbox Plaza outside will be renamed Peacock Place. The deal, which was brokered by AEG Global Partnerships, also makes Peacock the exclusive streaming partner of LA Live. “Like Peacock, L.A. Live is at the epicenter of premium original entertainment, exhilarating sports, one-of-a-kind experiences and extreme fandom,” said Kelly Campbell, president of Peacock and direct-to-consumer for NBCUniversal. “Through Peacock Theater and Peacock Place, we’ll have the opportunity to bring all the elements of our brand to life with the millions of fans who visit L.A. Live each year, while partnering with the incredible team at AEG to further cement Peacock as the ultimate destination for audiences.”

L.A. Live, Anschutz Entertainment Group’s downtown Los Angeles sports and entertainment district, will bear streamer Peacock’s name throughout, starting July 11.   

Anna Tingley If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Variety may receive an affiliate commission. Step aside, Madden: NBA 2K is officially the most popular video game in the U.S., according to new research conducted by OHgamblers. The sports gaming experts analyzed Google searches and search terms related to the games, and found that NBA 2K has become the most-searched game in 31 states over the last 12 months.

Shoppers could get expensive tech products for less than £10 including a PS5, an Xbox Console, Samsung TV or the popular GHD original Hair Straighteners, as Wowcher launches a 'Mystery' tech deal.

Yakuza title, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, has been announced at the Xbox Games Showcase with a trailer that is very reminiscent of Austin Powers.The latest trailer caught up with Like A Dragon protagonist Ichiban Kasuga washing ashore — covered in sand and completely naked — with no memories.Luckily, there were perfectly positioned props like a newspaper, sun cream, a surfboard and an umbrella to stop us from seeing anything that would bump the showcase’s age rating up — as Polygon noted, the whole thing is reminiscent of a few of Austin Powers’ most iconic scenes.The reveal trailer was less than two minutes long so we didn’t get a good sense of why he is stuck on this beach, but it appeared to be Miami Beach due to the American accents and towering skyscrapers close to the coast. Once more, the developer seized the chance to shake things up in the established RPG series, as this will be the first entry to be set outside of Japan.We won’t be waiting long for an answer to at least a few of Ichiban Kasuga’s panicked pleas.

Starfield Direct let fans feast their eyes on a vast range of planets and their odd environments, humorous character traits, flexible skill systems and more — placing an emphasis on Bethesda‘s role-playing systems within the game.Previously, Bethesda’s presentations introduced us to Starfield‘s “NASA punk” aesthetic, where “everything is well used, worn and lived in.”Today (June 11), another look at the game explained that the game’s planets will fall into one of two categories: colonised or barren. The former is where players will meet friends and foes, spurring their quest through the stars onwards, and the latter are resource-heavy and possess risks and rewards.

cinematic trailer on Sunday for “Star Wars: Outlaws,” the first open world “Star Wars” video game which will be launched next year. The trailer, which aired during the Xbox Games Showcase, introduces fans to Kay Vess, a young smuggler desperate for a way out as she is hunted by the criminal syndicates that have prospered under the Galactic Empire’s reign and who are the true power on the backwater planets where Kay struggles to survive.