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

Could it be the very best?

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.

Welcome back to another wonderful week of discounts with the guy who lives and breathes gaming. And not just any games, my friendthe best ones actually worth buying / playing / storing in a shameful pile to probably never be touched again. Personally, I'm all about the surprisingly early 30%+ discounts I'm seeing on Dragon Age Veilguard and Star Wars Outlaws. So maybe start saving there.In retro news, I'm commemorating the 19th anniversary of Resident Evil 4, a port that blew PS2 owner minds like a .223 calibre Semi-Auto Rifle round to the melon. Though I'd already dropped about 60 hours incessantly replaying this via my (better looking and sounding) GameCube version, I recall being instantly re-smitten when I booted this on 'Station. The new big cherry on top? Separate Ways, a roughly 2.5-hour mini adventure that slipped us into the impractical heels of a TMP-packing Ada Wong. Truly, RE4 was in the top 3 games of a console flush with all-time greats. Anybody who skips the Remake is Ganados levels of loco.Happy Bday Resident Evil 4 This Day in Gaming - Age of Mythology (PC) 2002. Redux- Resident Evil 4 (PS2) 2005. Redux- Sonic Colors (DS,Wii) 2010. ReduxTable of ContentsNice Savings for Nintendo SwitchOctopath Traveler IIIf you liked Octopath Traveler (or even any of the Bravely Default games) Octopath Traveler 2 is another good ol' fashioned 80-hour JRPGJoy-Con Pair (-21%) - A$95Lets Sing 2024 2-Mic Bndl (-43%) - A$57Pro Controller (-21%) - A$79Hades (-60%) - A$15Transistor (-80%) - A$4.79Expiring Recent DealsLego Skywalker Saga Galactic (-75%) - A$28.73Mario & Luigi: Brothership (-21%) - A$62.95Detective Pikachu Returns (-23%) - A$53.95West of Loathing (-64%) - A$5.76Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl (-90%) - A$6.99No More Heroes (-70%) - A$8.98Or gift a Nintendo eShop Card.Switch Console PricesHow much to Switch it up?Switch Zelda: $629 $509 | Switch Original: $499 $428 | Switch OLED Black: $539 $489| Switch OLED White: $539 $489 | Switch Lite: $329 $293 | Switch Lite Hyrule: $339 $309See itBack to topPurchase Cheap for PCStar Wars Col.The Force is strong with this one! Get 14 epic games in one massive line-up with the Star Wars Collection.XCOM 2 (-95%) - A$2.99The Division Gold Ed. (-75%) - A$18.73Dead Space [2023] (-70%) - A$26.98Thrustmaster USAF Multiplat headset (-22%) - A$140Far Cry 6 (-75%) - A$22.48Metal Slug Bndl (-80%) - A$4.59Expiring Recent DealsDisney-Pixar Cars (-100%) - FREE w/PrimeDishonored: Definitive Ed. (-100%) - FREE w/PrimeBioShock: The Collection (-80%) - A$15.99Metro 2033 Redux (-90%) - A$2.99Metro Last Light (-90%) - A$2.99Metro Exodus (-90%) - A$4.49Battlefield 2042 (-92%) - A$7.19Or just get a Steam Wallet Card.PC Hardware PricesSlay your pile of shame.Official launch in NovSteam Deck 256GB LCD: $649 | Steam Deck 512GB OLED: $899 | Steam Deck 1TB OLED: $1,049See it at SteamBack to topExciting Bargains for XboxDeath Stranding DirectorsWell, heres a surprise release that nobody saw coming at all. Also, one of the weirdest games Ive played in recent memory. Definitely do some investigation before you pull the trigger on this. A real love it or hate it proposition.Expiring Recent DealsMetaphor: ReFantazio (-14%) - A$99FF XII: The Zodiac Age (-56%) - A$35.53Suicide Squad: KTJL (-69%) - A$36Jedi Survivor (-38%) - A$ 67.99The Quarry (-91%) - A$9The Outer Worlds (-67%) - A$14.95Or just invest in an Xbox Card.Xbox Console PricesHow many bucks for a 'Box?Series S Black: $549 $513 | Series S White:$499 $481 | Series X: $799 | Series S Starter: N/ASee itBack to topPure Scores for PlayStationRed Dead 2Combined with strong writing and direction, the result is a game thats sincere instead of satirical, and funny while remaining capable of some supremely well-earned emotional moments, especially throughout the excellent crescendo and epilogue. 10/10.Hogwarts Legacy (-66%) - A$34Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Complete (-55%) - A$34.95Star Wars Outlaws (-30%) - A$77Marvels Spider-Man 2 (-21%) - A$99FF VII: Rebirth (-33%) - A$79.95Expiring Recent DealsDragon's Dogma 2 (-45%) - A$59Suicide Squad: KTJL (-69%) - A$36NBA 2K24 Kobe Ed. (-87%) - A$15Resi 4 Gold (-40%) - A$41.97Rayman Legends (-80%) - A$4.99Limbo/Inside Bndl (-75%) - A$10.23Or purchase a PS Store Card.PS5 Pro Enhanced BargainNeed a cheap Pro showcase title?Demons Souls - $124.95 / $104Even without a Pro Enhancement, the visuals of this '24 remake of a '09 PS3 classic already knocked my chainmail socks off. That said, there is indeed a vaguely described "PS5 Pro" toggle in the Display Adjustment menu. It seems to be a 4K-like 60fps Fidelity Mode, which, I think, looks noticeably better than the base experience thanks to additional tessellation density and a new contact shadow system that adds finer micro-detail to stonework (which is everywhere). Basically, I'm fixing to replay this all over again now. As a busy reviewer who's always on The Next Thing, I need a bona fide reason to look backwards; PS5 Pro Enhancement feels (and looks) like a worthy one.PlayStation Console PricesWhat you'll pay to 'Station.PS5 Pro $1,199 | PS5 Slim Disc:$799 $795 | PS5 Slim Digital:$679 $639 | PS VR2: $879 | PS VR2 + Horizon: $959 $949 | PS Portal: $329See itBack to topLegit LEGO DealsSonic: Amys Island40 bucks off a 6-character set? Thats worth every ring.Expiring Recent DealsMinecraft The Frog House (-40%) - A$59.97Animal Crossing: Julians Birthday (-40%) - A$12Star Wars C-3PO (-19%) - A$159Back to top Adam Mathew is our Aussie deals wrangler. He plays practically everything, often on YouTube.

This review contains spoilers for The Penguin episode 8.By the end of the eighth and final episode of The Penguin, Sofia has become a very different person. No longer the morally conflicted daughter of mob boss Carmine Falcone, no longer the patsy sentenced to Arkham for her fathers murder of seven women as the Hangman, she has become Sofia Gigante and she appears to have won the gang war against Salvatore Maroni (now dead) and Oz.So, of course, she monologues, telling a story to Oz and his mother Frances about a trio of birds she saw when she was a little girl. According to Sofia, the mother bird doted on the stronger of the two baby birds, at least until she went away one day and came back to find that the weaker bird had pushed the stronger one out of the nest before it could fly.Of course, Sofia tells this story as part of her psychological game with Oz and Frances, referring to the former killing his brothers and the latter ignoring it. But the story also fits a show called The Penguin, and not just because its about a flightless bird. Because The Penguin ended up being a series in which Cristin Milioti, a lesser-known performer playing an unknown character, ended up pushing the Academy Award-nominated Colin Farrell out of the spotlight.To be clear, this is a good thing. A spinoff series from The Batman about the Penguin always reeked of corporate desperation, of the increasingly pathetic Warner Bros. studio trying to milk whatever it can from its hits to prop up its streaming service HBO Go HBO Max Max. While Colin Farrell absolutely popped as Oz in The Batman, he worked in part because the movie did not ask him to do any emotional heavy lifting. He could waddle and shout and call Batman Mr. Vengance, and it provided a comic book break from a heavy film.But after a few clunky opening episodes, it became clear that showrunner Lauren LeFranc had something more in mind than just the continuing adventures of the Penguin. Instead, she used the opportunity given to an HBO superhero show to make a show about the ability or inability of women to change a world ruined by, but still dominated by, patriarchy. Written by LeFranc and directed by Jennifer Getzinger, the finale A Great or Little Thing brings an end to Sofias failed attempt to break from her fathers ways. She gets a bravado sequence in which burns her fathers house and belongings, staring imperiously while a rocking version ofIn the Pines aka Where Did You Sleep Last Night? plays on the soundtrack.Its framed as a moment of triumph for Sofia, even as it raises questions about her ability to actually break from Carmines model, a model that builds power on the backs of destroyed women. How will Sofia Gigante be different than Carmine Falcone?Turns out, she doesnt have to worry about answering that question, because Oz comes back to seize control. While not quite as overt as Roman Sioniss misogynistic rallying cry at the climax of Birds of Prey, Oz gets all the small gangs to work against Sofia in part because shes a crazy woman. And so, the reign of Sofia Gigante comes to an end after shes betrayed by men, including the cops she thought she had bought, and put back in Arkham, once again Julians control.LeFranc pairs this theme with the culmination of Ozs storyline with Frances. As seen in a flashback, Frances made a deal with old school gangster Rex Calabrese, Ozs hero, to kill the boy and rid her of, in her words, the devil in her house. Instead, she changes her mind at the last second, making Oz promise to give her the high life that she always wanted.The Penguin presents Francess final fate as a EC Comics style twist of fate. According to Oz, he did everything he did for her, including all of the backstabbing and murder and manipulation that we see throughout the series. Thus, she earns an ironic punishment, comatose and trapped in Ozs penthouse, for her callous power grabbing.Of course, Oz didnt really want to do anything to Frances. Instead, he wanted a woman he could control, and Frances was the only one available. Theres something haunting in the final scene, when Oz walks out of his mothers room and into the great room of his new digs to find Eve Karlo dressed as younger Francis (she really is Clayface, it turns out). As the two dance together, she says again and again that she loves him and is proud of him. The real Frances would never say those words, so Oz forced Eve to become a version of Frances he could mold.A Great or Little Thing elegantly brings the two storylines together and pairs their themes. But not everything works so well. The episode doesnt really resolve the wreckage of Sofias bombing the Bliss plant, an explosion small enough that Oz and others survive, despite being right next to it, but large enough to blow a giant hole in the center of Gotham. The explosion does give one last chance for Oz to show off his ability to manipulate, but it feels more like a narrative cul-de-sac that preserves the wreckage of Riddlers attack. By not dealing with the explosion, The Penguin lets those who go into The Batman 2 having only seen the previous movie think that theyre just dealing with another Riddler bomb.Speaking of cul-de-sacs, Vics storyline proves to be a big nothing, as hes strangled by Oz just when he thinks that the two have bonded. The show set up Vic as Ozs foil, another boy forced into a violent system that wouldnt give him a fair shake otherwise. But when Oz suffocates the kid, he proves that he was never like Vic at all. He wasnt a good kid forced into a bad situation. He was just evil.Getzinger holds on the shot of Ozs disgusting, twisted face as he strangles the life out of Vic, making sure everyone knows that hes a monster. But heres the thing: we never really doubted that he was a monster. He never seemed sympathetic, even when the show wanted so badly for Vic to add shades to what was clearly a one-note character.In the end, Victor best represents what The Penguin could have been the show, not the person. The series could have been just more Batman content, devoting way too much time to a character who doesnt have enough depth to carry it. And, to be clear, The Penguin sometimes was that empty series. The entire sequence of Ozs men killing the heads of Gotham families feels like a poor cover of the baptism scene from The Godfather.To the credit of LeFranc and her collaborators, The Penguin proved itself much more. The world didnt need another show about a sad-sack, one dimensional Batman villain, but it did need a show about a woman vying for power that could never be hers. In the end, Im grateful that The Penguin became that show, even if it had to push the Penguin out of the nest to do it.All eight episodes of The Penguin are now streaming on Max.Learn more about Den of Geeks review process and why you can trust our recommendationshere.