Nintendo suing streamer for broadcasting ten games ahead of releaseFirm is seeking $152,500 in damages for violations of Copyright ActImage credit: Nintendo News by Sophie McEvoy Staff Writer Published on Nov. 11, 2024 Nintendo has filed a lawsuit against streamer Jesse "Every Game Guru" Keighin for broadcasting gameplay of ten pirated titles prior to release.In a filing submitted to the US District Court for the District of Colorado last Wednesday, Nintendo accused Keighin of obtaining and streaming leaked titles on more than 50 occasions since 2022, most recently Mario & Luigi: Brothership and The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom.The firm alleged that despite issuing dozens of takedown notices on platforms including YouTube, Twitch, and Kick, Keighin continued to stream unreleased games. His YouTube and Twitch channels were recently shut down due to copyright strikes.Nintendo also highlighted that Keighin uses unlawfully modified consoles and emulators to play the leaked titles, and has shared links to emulators such as Yuzu and Ryujinx for viewers to use.According to the filing, Keighin sent a letter to Nintendo in late October "boasting that he has 'a thousand burner channels' to stream" and will continue to use them.Nintendo is seeking $152,500 in damages for alleged violations of the Copyright Act, in addition to violations of anti-circumvention and anti-trafficking provisions. It is also seeking further compensation for "actual damages" to be proven at trial.The firm has asked for the seizure and destruction of emulators and devices in Keighin's possession, including hard drives and other electronic storage devices.A Nintendo spokesperson told Polygon: "We can confirm that we filed a lawsuit against an individual who has engaged and continues to engage in clear infringement of Nintendo's IP rights, as well as violations of our Game Content guidelines."Nintendo is passionate about protecting the creative works of game developers and publishers who expend significant time and effort to create experiences that bring smiles to all."Nintendo has been cracking down on emulators this year. Tropic Haze, the developer of Yuzu, agreed to pay Nintendo $2.4 million in a settlement in March while Ryujinx reportedly ended development after being contacted by Nintendo last month.

NetEase execs arrested for alleged money laundering and briberyCorruption charges reportedly amount to roughly $139m News by Sophie McEvoy Staff Writer Published on Nov. 11, 2024 Nine NetEase employees have reportedly been detained on money laundering and bribery charges amounting to an estimated $139.3 million.As reported by Bloomberg Law, two senior executives were among those allegedly arrested general manager Jin Yuchen and esports division head Xiang Liang.The alleged corruption reportedly occurred within its esports and distribution and marketing sectors, according to Chinese news site Yicai Global.An unknown number of external individuals linked to the anti-corruption charges are also being investigated, with NetEase adding that 27 external companies have been blacklisted due to connections with the conduct of those arrested.According to an internal memo, the nine employees involved have since been fired from NetEase and are no longer listed on the firm's systems.A NetEase spokesperson told Eurogamer that police were "investigating corruption charges but would not disclose more details at this time."As noted by Eurogamer, this is reportedly the second internal anti-corruption investigation launched by NetEase since September 2023.

Chris Kerr, News EditorNovember 11, 20243 Min ReadImage via Nintendo / IlluminationSuper Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda co-creator Shigeru Miyamoto claims that rising development costs are somewhat "inevitable," which is why it's doubly important to champion singular experiences.The Nintendo representative director was responding to a question about the spiralling cost of video game production during a recent investor Q&A, and suggested it's vital developers focus on what they create over how much they spend creating it."Our research and development expenses have been increasing each year. Since our scale of development has grown, a corresponding increase in costs is, in some respects, inevitable. However, our belief is that what we create is more important than the amount spent on development," he said."We continue refining our products until we are confident that we have created something that our consumers will be satisfied with. With that in mind, what is important is to find ideas that are worth honing, and this has not changed since the era of Nintendo Entertainment System."Miyamoto refused to make sweeping statements about what ideas are worth pursuing because "everyone has different interests," but said it's important to explore concepts that feel distinct."The more you polish something that has never existed before, the more value it brings. We believe that it is important to nurture developers who take this unique concept to heart, allocate funds to development if necessary, and release games only after we are confident in the productand repeat this process over and over again," he continued.It's advice that's probably easier to follow if you're a company with Nintendo's resources, but Miyamoto suggested it's absolutely possible to create fun games with small teams and tight budgets, and implored developers "not to lose sight of this perspective."Nintendo corporate director Ko Shiota echoed that sentiment and suggested streamlining development around the Switch has been fundamental to the company's recent success. "From a hardware and system perspective, we believe it is important to provide an environment that enables game developers to work efficiently," added Shiota."As explained in today's presentation, the merging of home consoles and handheld systems allowed us to integrate what previously were two separate software development environments. Because we are already familiar with Nintendo Switch, maintaining a similar basis for development environments in the future will allow us to carry over the experience we have already built, which should lead to a reduction in research and development costs over time."Shiota reiterated that new ideas are priceless and have no relation to the size of a studio's wallet. "Bigger budgets do not necessarily equate to better ideas, so we hope to continue to focus on a process where teams of hardware an and software developers share ideas to create interesting things," he continued.Nintendo recently lowered its fiscal forecast with Switch hardware and software sales in decline, but the console has delivered a mammoth innings with lifetime sales currently standing at over 146 million units worldwide. The Japanese company has confirmed it will reveal its (backwards compatible) Switch successor before the end of the current fiscal year in March 2025.Read more about:[Company] NintendoTop StoriesAbout the AuthorChris KerrNews Editor, GameDeveloper.comGame Developer news editor Chris Kerr is an award-winning journalist and reporter with over a decade of experience in the game industry. His byline has appeared in notable print and digital publications including Edge, Stuff, Wireframe, International Business Times, andPocketGamer.biz. Throughout his career, Chris has covered major industry events including GDC, PAX Australia, Gamescom, Paris Games Week, and Develop Brighton. He has featured on the judging panel at The Develop Star Awards on multiple occasions and appeared on BBC Radio 5 Live to discuss breaking news.See more from Chris KerrDaily news, dev blogs, and stories from Game Developer straight to your inboxStay UpdatedYou May Also Like

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Boost Mobile has announced it is on its way to meeting FCC coverage deadlines by the end of the year and says it has earned the title of MNO Mobile Network Operator rather than MVNO, which is a virtual network operator mainly reselling service from other carriers. Mission... accomplished? Sort of. Its progress, at least.Boost, you will remember, is supposed to be our nations fourth wireless carrier thanks to a wonky deal that allowed T-Mobile to buy Sprint. Dish Network now owned by EchoStar bought the brand as part of the deal and is required by the FCC to hit certain milestones in its 5G network buildout to hold up its part of the bargain. Last June, it was required to cover 70 percent of the US population; by the end of the year, it needs to reach 80 percent. Boosts chief technology officer, Eben Albertyn, told The Verge, We are well on our way to meeting this goal. He says the company has lit up more than 20,000 of the 24,000 cell sites it has promised to deploy by June 2025.Covering 80 percent of the population is one thing; actually providing service to customers on that network is another. While Boosts network has been under construction over the past few years it has mainly offered service through AT&T and T-Mobile as an MVNO. Boost spokespeople werent able to tell me what percentage of customer traffic rides on Boosts own network versus its roaming partners. However, the companys director of communications, Meredith Diers, says it has migrated over half a million customers onto our network and our core since the beginning of this year. New customers in covered areas are also loaded directly on the network, provided they have a phone compatible with its network. Considering that just a couple of years ago, there was just one phone, thats good progress.The effort has certainly come a long way since the days of Project Gene5is, its early pilot program that weirdly had something to do with NFTs. But Boosts subscriber numbers are still small; in its August earnings release the company said it had 7.28 million subscribers. T-Mobile counted 127 million customers in its most recent earnings release. Even if it meets those FCC milestones on time, theres much more work to be done.

Barbie producer Mattel has issued an apology after customers spotted its Wicked edition dolls listed an adult website on the packaging. The toy merchandise mistakenly directed customers to the homepage of the Wicked Pictures pornographic movie studio, instead of the correct WickedMovie.com URL.We deeply regret this unfortunate error and are taking immediate action to remedy this, Mattel said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter. Parents are advised that the misprinted, incorrect website is not appropriate for children.Mattel said that the dolls, which have been released to coincide with Universals film adaptation of the Tony Award-winning musical, are primarily sold in the US and that the error was a misprint. Its unclear how many of the mislabeled toys, which are advertised for children aged four and up, have already been distributed to stores. According to The Hollywood Reporter, impacted products from the toy line are currently being pulled from shelves at various retailers including Walmart. Best Buy, and Amazon.Mattel has advised customers who have already purchased the dolls, which retail between $24.99 to $39.99, to discard the product packaging or obscure the link. Some are taking financial advantage of the blunder, however products advertised to specifically include the printing error are being listed on eBay for hundreds of dollars.Wicked serves as a prequel to The Wizard of Oz thats told from the perspective of the witches Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) and Galinda (Ariana Grande). Part one of Wicked will debut in theaters on November 22nd, with a second film expected to release in November 2025.

Boost Mobile has announced it is on its way to meeting FCC coverage deadlines by the end of the year and says it has earned the title of MNO Mobile Network Operator rather than MVNO, which is a virtual network operator mainly reselling service from other carriers. Mission... accomplished? Sort of. Its progress, at least.Boost, you will remember, is supposed to be our nations fourth wireless carrier thanks to a wonky deal that allowed T-Mobile to buy Sprint. Dish Network now owned by EchoStar bought the brand as part of the deal and is required by the FCC to hit certain milestones in its 5G network buildout to hold up its part of the bargain. Last June, it was required to cover 70 percent of the US population; by the end of the year, it needs to reach 80 percent. Boosts chief technology officer, Eben Albertyn, told The Verge, We are well on our way to meeting this goal. He says the company has lit up more than 20,000 of the 24,000 cell sites it has promised to deploy by June 2025.Covering 80 percent of the population is one thing; actually providing service to customers on that network is another. While Boosts network has been under construction over the past few years it has mainly offered service through AT&T and T-Mobile as an MVNO. Boost spokespeople werent able to tell me what percentage of customer traffic rides on Boosts own network versus its roaming partners. However, the companys director of communications, Meredith Diers, says it has migrated over half a million customers onto our network and our core since the beginning of this year. New customers in covered areas are also loaded directly on the network, provided they have a phone compatible with its network. Considering that just a couple of years ago, there was just one phone, thats good progress.The effort has certainly come a long way since the days of Project Gene5is, its early pilot program that weirdly had something to do with NFTs. But Boosts subscriber numbers are still small; in its August earnings release the company said it had 7.28 million subscribers. T-Mobile counted 127 million customers in its most recent earnings release. Even if it meets those FCC milestones on time, theres much more work to be done.

Barbie producer Mattel has issued an apology after customers spotted its Wicked edition dolls listed an adult website on the packaging. The toy merchandise mistakenly directed customers to the homepage of the Wicked Pictures pornographic movie studio, instead of the correct WickedMovie.com URL.We deeply regret this unfortunate error and are taking immediate action to remedy this, Mattel said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter. Parents are advised that the misprinted, incorrect website is not appropriate for children.Mattel said that the dolls, which have been released to coincide with Universals film adaptation of the Tony Award-winning musical, are primarily sold in the US and that the error was a misprint. Its unclear how many of the mislabeled toys, which are advertised for children aged four and up, have already been distributed to stores. According to The Hollywood Reporter, impacted products from the toy line are currently being pulled from shelves at various retailers including Walmart. Best Buy, and Amazon.Mattel has advised customers who have already purchased the dolls, which retail between $24.99 to $39.99, to discard the product packaging or obscure the link. Some are taking financial advantage of the blunder, however products advertised to specifically include the printing error are being listed on eBay for hundreds of dollars.Wicked serves as a prequel to The Wizard of Oz thats told from the perspective of the witches Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) and Galinda (Ariana Grande). Part one of Wicked will debut in theaters on November 22nd, with a second film expected to release in November 2025.

A critical challenge in Subjective Speech Quality Assessment (SSQA) is enabling models to generalize across diverse and unseen speech domains. General SSQA models evaluate many models in performing poorly outside their training domain, mainly because such a model is often met with cross-domain difficulty in performance, however, due to the quite distinct data characteristics and scoring systems that exist among different types of SSQA tasks including TTS, VC, and speech enhancement, it is equally challenging. Effective generalization of SSQA is necessary to ensure alignment of human perception in these fields, however, many such models remain limited to the data on which they have been trained, thus constraining them in their real-world utility in applications such as automated speech evaluation for TTS and VC systems.Current SSQA approaches include both reference-based and model-based methods. Reference-based models evaluate quality by comparing speech samples with a reference. On the other hand, model-based methods, especially DNNs, learn directly from human-annotated datasets. Model-based SSQA has a strong potential for capturing human perception much more precisely but, at the same time, shows some very significant limitations:Generalization Constraints: SSQA models often break down while tested over new out-of-domain data, resulting in inconsistent performance.Dataset Bias and Corpus Effect: The models then may become too adapted to the characteristics of the dataset with all its peculiarities, such as scoring biases or data types, which might then make them less effective across different datasets.Computational Complexity: The ensemble models increase the robustness of SSQA, but at the same time increase the computational cost compared to the baseline model, reducing it to impractical possibilities for real-time assessment in low-resource settings. The limitations mentioned above collectively hound the development of good SSQA models, with the ability to generalize well across different datasets and application contexts.To address these limitations, researchers introduce MOS-Bench, a benchmark collection that includes seven training datasets and twelve test datasets across varied speech types, languages, and sampling frequencies. In addition to MOS-Bench, SHEET is a toolkit proposed that provides a standardized workflow for training, validation, and testing of SSQA models. Such a combination of MOS-Bench with SHEET allows SSQA models to be evaluated systematically, and those specifically entail the generalization ability of models. MOS-Bench incorporates the multi-dataset approach, combining data across different sources to expand the exposure of the model to varying conditions. Besides that, a best score difference/ratio new performance metric is also introduced to provide a holistic assessment of the SSQA models performance on these datasets. This doesnt just provide a framework for consistent evaluation but generalizes better as the models are brought in agreement with the variability of the real world, which is a pretty notable contribution towards SSQA.The MOS-Bench dataset collection consists of a wide range of datasets that have diversity in their sampling frequencies and listener labels to capture cross-domain variability in SSQA. Major datasets are:BVCC- A dataset for English that comes with samples for TTS and VC.SOMOS: Speech quality data about English TTS models trained on LJSpeech.SingMOS: A singing voice sampling dataset in Chinese and Japanese.NISQA: Noisy speech samples that have undergone communications over networks. Datasets are multilingual, multiple domains, and speech types for widespread training scope. MOS-Bench uses the SSL-MOS model and the modified AlignNet as backbones, utilizing SSL to learn rich feature representations. SHEET takes the SSQA process one step ahead with data processing, training, and evaluation workflows. SHEET also includes retrieval-based scoring non-parametric kNN inference to improve the faithfulness of models. In addition, hyperparameter tuning, such as batch size and optimization strategies, has been included for further improvement of model performance.Using MOS-Bench and SHEET, both make tremendous improvements in the generalization of SSQA across synthetic and non-synthetic test sets to the point where models learn to achieve high ranks and highly faithful quality predictions even for out-of-domain data. Models trained on MOS-Bench datasets, like PSTN and NISQA, are highly robust on synthetic test sets, and the need for synthetic-focused data as previously required for generalization becomes obsolete. Further, this incorporation of visualizations firmly established that models trained on MOS-Bench captured a wide variety of data distributions and reflected better adaptability and consistency. In this regard, the introduction of these results by MOS-Bench further establishes a reliable benchmark, allowing SSQA models to apply accurate performance across different domains with greater effectiveness and applicability of automated speech quality assessment.This methodology, through MOS-Bench and SHEET, was to challenge the generalization problem of SSQA through several datasets as well as by introducing a new metric of evaluation. Providing a reduction in dataset-specific biases and cross-domain applicability, this methodology will move the frontiers of SSQA research to make it possible for models to generalize across applications effectively. An important advancement is that cross-domain datasets have been gathered by MOS-Bench and with its standardized toolkit. Rather excitingly, the resources are now available for researchers to develop SSQA models that are robust in the presence of a variety of speech types and the presence of real-world applications.Check out the Paper. All credit for this research goes to the researchers of this project. Also,dont forget to follow us onTwitter and join ourTelegram Channel andLinkedIn Group. If you like our work, you will love ournewsletter.. Dont Forget to join our55k+ ML SubReddit. Aswin Ak+ postsAswin AK is a consulting intern at MarkTechPost. He is pursuing his Dual Degree at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. He is passionate about data science and machine learning, bringing a strong academic background and hands-on experience in solving real-life cross-domain challenges. Listen to our latest AI podcasts and AI research videos here

Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige has issued a number of somewhat vague but tantalizing updates on various M.I.A. MCU projects and characters at D23 Brazil, the same event that showcased new Thunderbolts and Captain America: Brave New World trailers.Lets start with Marvels troubled Blade film, which Disney recently delayed from its announced November 2025 release date into some TBA release date. The delay to Blade came as little surprise given the behind-the-scenes drama it has suffered. In June, news surfaced that director Yann Demange had left the project, which will see Mahershala Ali portray the titular vampire slayer should it eventually get off the ground and into production.Demange's departure was the second time someone had vacated the director's chair, as Bassam Tariq previously relinquished the role because of a scheduling conflict that came to light before the movie was due to begin shooting. A report at the time claimed that Ali was frustrated with the movie's progress, with production grinding to a halt shortly after. Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige at D23 Brazil. Photo by Ricardo Moreira/Getty Images for Disney.Now, speaking to Brazilian entertainment website Omelete, Feige provided an update on Blade, insisting the character will reach the MCU."We're committed to Blade, Feige said. We love the character, we love Mahershala's version of him. And rest assured: whenever we change direction with a project, or are still trying to figure out how it fits into our schedule, we let the public know. You're up to date on what's going on. But I can tell you that the character will be coming to the MCU.So, according to Feige, Mahershala Alis Blade is still coming out eventually. But what of the future of Elizabeth Olsens Scarlet Witch / Wanda Maximoff?Warning! Spoilers for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and Agatha All Along Season 1 follow.Scarlet Witch apparently died at the end of 2022 MCU film Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and failed to make a dramatic return in Disney+ show Agatha All Along, much to the disappointment of fans. Olsen recently confirmed shed be up for playing Scarlet Witch once again, if theres a good way to use her. So, has Feige worked out a good way to use her?Again, speaking to Omelete, Feige gave fans a tease thats already got Scarlet Witch fans excited.We had Agatha Forever on Disney+ just now, and that series was great for us, he said. Since then, there have been a lot of questions about Wanda on fans' minds... So all I can say is that we're excited to find out when and how the Scarlet Witch might return.Thats not an outright confirmation that Scarlet Witch will return to the MCU, but it certainly sounds like Feige wants to make it work.Who Will Be the New Avengers in the MCU?Moving on to Miles Morales and Feige was more definitive, insisting that shortly after the third Spider-Verse movie, Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse, comes out Miles will make his debut in the live-action MCU."Miles will appear in the third Spider Verse, which is currently in production, Feige told Omelete. I hope that, shortly after that, he can enter the MCU in live-action.Unfortunately, Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse does not have a release date. Indeed some speculate it wont come out until 2027, so it may be a few years before we get to see Miles Morales in live-action. Its worth noting that Tom Hollands Spider-Man 4 comes out on July 24, 2026, just two months after Avengers: Doomsday. Avengers: Secret Wars releases on May 7, 2027.And finally, Feige has hinted that it may also be some time before the X-Men make their long-awaited full-blown entry into the MCU, telling Omelete the X-Men will be an important part of the future following Secret Wars."When we were preparing for Avengers: Endgame years ago, it was a question of getting to the grand finale of our narrative, and then we had to start all over again after that, Feige said. This time, on the road to Secret Wars, we already know very well what the story is going to be until then and afterwards. The X-Men are an important part of that future," he commented.In October, Marvel Studios added three untitled movie projects to its 2028 release schedule: February 18, 2028; May 5, 2028; and November 10, 2028. It seems increasingly likely one of these movies is X-Men.Thats plenty to digest for MCU fans, but in the shorter term Marvel Studios has Captain America: Brave New World out in February 2025, Thunderbolts* out in May 2025, TV shows Daredevil: Born Again out in March and Ironheart out in June. Phase 6 kicks off with The Fantastic Four: First Steps in July.Photo by Ricardo Moreira/Getty Images for Disney.Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.