Xbox Showbiz and Celebrity Breaking News

Emmerdale viewers were left fuming on Monday night as Samson Dingle continued to blackmail his cousin Noah, over access to his daughter Esther. Ever since Amelia (Daisy Campbell) welcomed the little girl last year, Samson (Sam Hall) has been adamant he didn’t want to be involved in his daughter’s life - and even previously tried to have her taken into care, so that he wouldn’t have to see her.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Lego’s answer to “Mario Kart” will drive into the video game market in May with the arrival of “Lego 2K Drive.” But the execs behind the title assure Variety this game has way more to it than just racing. The driving adventure game comes from Take-Two Interactive publisher 2K and developer Visual Concepts, and will feature a game play experience “with a vast, open world where players can build any vehicle, drive anywhere and become a Lego racing legend.” “Yes, it is a racing experience but, actually, it’s just about enjoying driving and digging into those things that you can only really get if you’re adding Lego into the mix,” Kate Bryant, head of licensed games at Lego, told Variety. “So the cars transform — that’s super Lego-y, the idea that you can take and remix things and build your own cars.”

The Resident Evil 4 remake has been described as a “masterpiece” as it earns more than 30 perfect scores from its first round of critics reviews. The remake of the hugely successful video game drops on Friday (March 24), and a host of publications have posted their highly anticipated reviews ahead of its release.

Netflix has tapped Academy Award nominee Jon Spaihts (Dune: Part One & Two) to pen its live-action Gears of War film, based on the hit video game series, Deadline can confirm.

It's three o'clock, and school is out.

A pervert who watched horrific sexual abuse images of children who 'appeared to be drugged' has avoided jail.

© Provided by Lancashire Telegraph Alfie James Watson, from Darwen (Image: Courtney Truesdale) Family members have paid tribute to a 14-year-old East Lancashire boy who has died. Alfie James Watson, from Darwen, died suddenly in February and his heartbroken family has left tributes for the teen and say their lives “will never be the same without him. ” The family has since set up a fundraiser, the money of which will be donated to Manchester Children’s Hospital and funeral costs.

Brunch and afternoon tea are perfectly good for Mother’s Day. Who doesn’t like cakes, small sandwiches, fizzy booze, posh teas and eating breakfast food in the afternoon.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Verizon and Netflix — both looking to reel in new subscribers — are relaunching their special promotional offer giving the telco’s customers 12 months free of Netflix’s Premium plan. Starting March 12, Verizon wireless, 5G Home and LTE Home customers can get one year of Netflix’sPremium plan for no extra charge through Verizon’s +play subscription hub. In the U.S., the Premium plan is regularly priced at $19.99/month; it includes up to four simultaneous streams and access to Ultra HD content. The offer, which represents a $240 annual value, will be available for a limited time, according to the telco. Verizon previously launched the same limited-time Netflix deal in December.

Kaare Eriksen Information Editor Note: This article is based on content from Variety Intelligence Platform’s special report “2023 Media & Tech Trend Tracker,” available exclusively to subscribers. Sony Interactive Entertainment in February announced PlayStation Playmakers, a new initiative to partner with names like LeBron James on promoting the console brand. For anyone else in gaming, this move would come across as a plea for consumers to spend at levels not seen since 2021. But for Sony, it’s capping off a return to form.

Xbox Game Pass is losing some beloved titles!

Bad Bunny. In the upcoming WWE 2k23, Bad Bunny will be available as a playable wrestler as a pre-order exclusive character. A pre-order bonus trailer dropped Tuesday, showing how realistic the graphics are! An animated version of the Puerto Rican singer, who recently sparked dating rumors with Kendall Jenner, flies through the air in the trailer while he wears a “2032” long-sleeved all-black look.

Paradox Interactive has confirmed an announcement show, set to air early next week.On Monday (March 6) Paradox will be hosting a livestream presentation where it will unveil details of three new titles and four different expansions.The showcase will be available to watch on Paradox’s YouTube and Twitch channels from 5pm GMT and is presented in collaboration with Xbox.A teaser for the showcase has also been revealed, and is available to see below.“We’ve got big news,” said Paradox before promising “three new games, new expansions, gameplay reveals and updates.”As part of the presentation, Cities: Skylines developer Colossal Order is set to reveal its new title, alongside news from Shadowrun and Battletech developer Harebrained Schemes. Paradox Tectonic and former The Sims boss Rod Humble will also unveil their project during the stream.Updates are also expected for Crusader Kings 3 and Europa Universalis 4.Let’s play some games! Paradox Announcement Show airs on March 6th, 6p.m.

Warner Bros. Games Hogwarts Legacy, the open-world, action role-playing game has sold more than 12 million units and hit $850 million in sales globally and 280 million hours played in its first two weeks of launch, the company said, confirming a major hit as parent Warner Bros. Discovery prepares to release quarterly earnings shortly.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer “Hogwarts Legacy” has wingardium leviosa-ed Warner Bros. Games’ sales, earning $850 million in global sales and moving more than 12 million units in just its first two weeks post-launch on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and PC. That marks the biggest global launch ever for the Warner Bros. Discovery-owned video game company, with the “Harry Potter” action role-playing game also setting the Twitch record for single-player games with 1.28 million peak concurrent viewers at launch. As Variety previously reported, “Hogwarts Legacy” opened with stunning player engagement, topping 267 million hours played from launch on Feb. 10 through Feb. 21. On Thursday, Warner Bros. Games revealed the game had broken company records with 280 million hours played to date.

An American woman has declared she is ‘addcited’ to British foods and spends £250 a month feeding her new obsession. Amy Bristol-Sandvig is paying a high price in the states to buy British foods such as sausage rolls and brown sauce.

Star Wars fans are eating well this year. The hotly anticipated third season of Disney+ series The Mandalorian is set to drop in March, and a brand-new Star Wars video game will follow closely behind.

Microsoft’s proposed $69B acquisition of Activision could bring harm to the UK’s 45M-strong gaming community, the nation’s competition body has ruled.

A Scots man says he has "lost everything again" after his flat went on fire twice in two years, and claims it was caused by an electrical fault he reported to Fife Council five times.

An increasingly aggressive Federal Trade Commission will sue to block a proposed $69 billion merger between Microsoft and leading video game developer Activision Blizzard announced early this year. It said the deal would hand the tech giant and Xbox maker too much control of top videogame franchises, “enabling it to harm competition in high-performance gaming consoles and subscription services by denying or degrading rivals’ access to its popular content.”

Following months of negotiations, Netflix has landed the rights to popular XBox video game Gears of War. The streamer will partner with The Coalition, the video game developer behind the series, and work with them to not only develop a feature film adaptation but also an animated series.

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Jana Kramer "destroyed" Mike Caussin's games consoles and "wrote all over" his tuxedo after they got divorced. The 38-year-old singer-and-actress split from the sportsman in April last year after he was unfaithful to her and she told how she "shattered" the pantry door with a bat in a "real crazy" moment of rage once their divorce was finalised three months later. Recalling how she was "mad as hell", she told 'Red Table Talk': "I shattered so many things in my house.

If you've ever wanted to play your own version of Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, then look no further than Grounded. This survival game sees your character shrunk down to smaller than an ant and left to fend for themselves in the great wilderness that is the backyard.

Electronic Arts (EA) has confirmed that it will close the online services for several titles including Mirror’s Edge and Onrush.Citing the impracticalities of continuing “the behind-the-scenes work” needed to sustain the online services for older games, EA has made the decision to pull such support over the coming months.Other titles that will be affected include Army of Two: The 40th Day and Army of Two: The Devil’s Cartel, the online services of which will both cease on October 20.Online services for Mercenaries 2 (PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360), Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 (PS3 and Xbox 360) and Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars, including the Kane’s Wrath expansion (Xbox 360), will then be closed on November 9.Later, online services for Onrush will shut on November 30. Mirror’s Edge, NBA Jam On Fire Edition, Gatling Gears and Shank 2 will cease on January 19, 2023.EA said in a statement: “The decisions to withdraw particular features or modes of certain EA games, or to retire online services relating to older EA games are never easy.

Despite being the saviour of lockdown, Nintendo announced earlier this year that they would be withdrawing support for Animal Crossing: New Horizons. We've spent hundreds of hours creating the perfect island, making friends with all of our villagers and turning up to KK Slider's weekly concerts as if our life depended on it.

Fortnite is known for its A-list crossovers, with a variety of celebrities coming into the game, to either perform or find themselves used as playable characters. Now, we’re getting a new version of The Rock coming to Fortnite, for the second time!Dwayne Johnson voices the original Fortnite character by the name of The Foundation and he was revealed as the leader of The Seven last December, as Chapter 2 wrapped up. Now, though, we’re getting a fresh version of Rock, who is undoubtedly one of the biggest movie stars in the world.

Deathloop was released in 2021, fans of the game began to speculate that it was somehow connected to Arkane’s previous game series, Dishonored. Now, creative director Dinga Bakaba has confirmed the theories.Speaking during an Xbox podcast, Bakaba confirmed that Deathloop is “one of the futures of the Dishonored world” meaning it’s set in the same universe, at a different time.

Microsoft and Activision Blizzard’s rivals with regards to their proposed £50billion merger.That’s according to a leaked document seen by Reuters, in which the EU is asking developers if Microsoft would be incentivised to block rivals’ access to Activision Blizzard’s biggest titles – most notably Call of Duty, as well as the recently-released Overwatch 2.The questionnaire, which features around 100 questions, also asks developers, publishers and and distributors if the deal would impact their bargaining power with regards to selling console and PC games on the Xbox platform, or via Game Pass.Additionally, the leaked document also asks if, given the enormous popularity of their games, Activision Blizzard’s user data would give Microsoft a competitive advantage in the industry.

Ted Lasso fans soon will be able to take their devotion to a new level: The Emmy-laden Apple TV+ show — or, rather, its fictional English football club AFC Richmond — will be a playable team in EA Sports’ FIFA 23 video game.

“Ted Lasso” is coming to FIFA 23.EA Sports announced on Wednesday that the main characters from the Emmy-winning Apple TV+ series “Ted Lasso” as well as the team of AFC Richmond are all playable in the new game, which comes out Sept. 30 and features their authentic likenesses and voices.Jamie Tartt (Phil Dunster), Dani Rojas (Cristo Fernandez), Sam Obisanya (Toheeb Jimoh), Roy Kent (Brett Goldstein), and Isaac McAdoo (Kola Bokinni) as well as Lasso himself and even Coach Beard (Brendan Hunt) are all authentically integrated into FIFA 23, along with the club’s home ground of Nelson Road.You can select Jason Sudeikis’ Ted Lasso as a playable manager in Career Mode, and you can manage AFC Richmond by swapping them into the Premier League or any other playable Career Mode league, according to EA Sports.AFC Richmond will be playable across Career Mode, Kick-Off, Online Friendlies, and Online Seasons, including The Greyhounds’ Nelson Road home stadium.The news of the “Ted Lasso” cast’s involvement in FIFA 23 comes as the Apple TV+ comedy series just won Emmy awards for Outstanding Comedy Series, Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series (for Sudeikis) and Outstanding Supporting Sctor in a Comedy Series (for Goldstein).FIFA 23 launches worldwide on Sept.

Joseph Morgan (The Originals) and Cristina Rodlo (No One Gets Out Alive) have joined the Season 2 cast of Paramount+’s original series Halo, based on the hugely popular Xbox video game franchise. The announcement Wednesday comes as production on the second season has begun in Iceland. Additional filming is to take place in Budapest, Hungary, later this year.

Sony recently announced that it plans to increase the retail price of the popular PlayStation 5 console across many of its global markets.

Xbox‘s principal product manager Harrison Hoffman has said that streaming games on a TV should be just as easy as watching a Netflix film.During a discussion with GamesIndustry.biz at Gamescom 2022 yesterday (August 24), Hoffman spoke about Xbox’s recent partnership with Samsung which will bring Xbox Game Pass to its Smart TVs without the need for a console.The product manager explained that while bringing Microsoft‘s games to mobile devices is still a focal point for the company, putting emphasis on the fact that cloud gaming is “a core part of our long-term gaming strategy,” TV is just as important.“Different people have different types of behaviour, certain games lend themselves to quick gaming sessions or gaming on a smaller screen,” Hoffman explained.“But one of the reasons I’m particularly excited about the TV app is that our games really shine on the big screen, they’re made for the big screen, so this seems like such a logical next step for us.”Hoffman added that he thinks streaming and playing games through a TV should be just as simple as watching a film through a streaming service.“People have really gotten used to streaming their movies and TV through the Netflix app or Disney+ app. We want to make it as easy for people to stream a game as it is to stream a movie from Netflix.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Morty Smith, the easily distressed teen from hit animated show “Rick and Morty,” has joined Warner Bros. Games’ “MultiVersus” mashup fighting title as a new playable character. Morty — the teenage grandson of a mega-genius scientist Rick Sanchez — arrives as part of “MultiVersus” Season 1 and is a Bruiser-class character with more than a few tricks up his sleeve. According to WB Games, Rick will also be joining “MultiVersus” in the coming months. Morty’s moveset (which you can see in the newly revealed gameplay trailer, below) features a mix of skills and attacks, from his muscle-enhanced left arm Armothy and Plumbus (an all-purpose alien device) to his ability to whip himself at opponents and use various projectiles. “MultiVersus” also features the President Morty character variant, which is available as an in-game purchase.

Brittany Vincent If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Variety may receive an affiliate commission. Getting your hands on one of the new Xbox Series X consoles can feel like winning the lottery.