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Out of FashionStreet Fighter 6 players left depressed as yet another battle pass is announced, while character costumes are nowhere to be foundWhile avatars are getting love, players are wondering where main character costumes are.Image credit: Capcom News by Connor Makar Staff Writer Published on Jan. 7, 2025 Street Fighter 6 has just had yet another battle pass announced for it as it enters the 2025 season, filled with cosmetics for player avatars, stickers, and online challenger portraits. However for Street Fighter 6 fans who've been fiending for new costumes for the main cast, the announcement has gone down terribly.If you take a look at the battle pass trailer on YouTube or Twitter, you'll be confronted with hundreds of negative comments and reactions. The pass has been refered to as lame, and abysmal dogshit by some on social media, whereas the YouTube comments can be summed up nicely by one misterbranches4362, who wrote "I'd rather have nothing. Thank you".To see this content please enable targeting cookies. Okay, so how did we get here, and why are people so dissapointed? Well, Street Fighter 6 is Capcom's first proper crack at a modern live service title. It's not free-to-play, but it has been supported by various post-launch battle passes alongside the expected output of new characters and character costumes. The problem is, new characters and new costumes for the whole cast aren't coming out at a pace players expect, while avatar costumes and smaller cosmetics like stickers etc appear to be the priority. While we don't know just how popular avatar battles are, nor the percentile split between the players who hop into an avatar lobby to play online versus those who just boot up ranked and demote at 3AM, it is assumed that at this point in the game's life cycle those playing the game are dedicated, dare I say hardcore players. These types of players aren't hashing it out in avatar battles, instead they're labbing combos for hours on regular Street Fighter characters like Rashid and Ryu. Combos that they're sure to drop at their local tournament regardless of how flashy their in-game avatar looks. To see this content please enable targeting cookies.Here's some extra context. The last time we got character costumes in Street Fighter 6 - the stuff these outraged players want - was in December 2023 with the Outfit 3 pack. This provided new costumes for the launch roster, not any DLC characters. An Outfit 3 pack for the first wave of DLC characters was dropped back in May. That means for the majority of characters, there have been no cosmetics on sale that you'll see on your character, during regular matches, for over a year. Compare that to Street Fighter 5, which had loads of new costumes tied to the Capcom Pro Tour, and you can see why some players who've been around for a while are a a tad frustrated.So there's the controversy in a nutshell. The only large looming question left is, why has Capcom taken this approach to post-game support? The developer, which has long struggled to embrace the live service model comfortably, has clearly identified that the game needs consistant post-launch support, but has chosen cosmetics like Avatar clothing and stickers to do so. Even in collaboration events, like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles crossover, we got Avatar stuff.We don't know the internal data Capcom is working with, maybe there is this silent majority of players who love buying avatar cosmetics, grab every battle pass, and mess around in the in-game arcade lobby all day. Maybe there's real appetite for this stuff, but as of right now, we're not seeing evidence of that online. Perhaps, instead, it's cheaper to create this sort of cosmetic? Rather than remodel an entire character, it could be quicker and cheaper to create clothing for the Avatar rig. Maybe Japan, a country in which Street Fighter 6 remains super popular (in fact, it may even be growing in popularity) is down bad for dressing up freaky human-esque monster men? All possible, but nothing anyone can prove at this point.Ultimately it's something that Capcom will have to confront, and if nothing changes, a reality that Street Fighter 6 players will have to come to terms with. The wildest thing about this whole situation is that there's a clear, powerful voice coming from players who claim they want to spend money on new costumes. It could be that online demand doesn't translate to real sales, but nonetheless it's an interesting outrage to watch from afar, and a case study for other fighting game developers looking to embrace live service.

Batter Up!"It's something that I hope people will be surprised by" - As Matt Reeves teases The Batman: Part 2, the director reaffirms when production is expected to start"We're excited about it."Image credit: DC/ Warner Bros. News by Oisin Kuhnke Contributor Published on Jan. 7, 2025 With The Batman: Part 2 being quite a while away after another delay, director Matt Reeves has reassured everyone that production is still happening soon(ish).Remember when The Batman: Part 2 was meant to be releasing this year? And then it got delayed to October 2026? And then delayed even further to October 2027? Gee, that sure makes October 2025 seem ridiculously optimistic now huh. In anycase, that's obviously left a lot of fans of the first one with questions as to when things are actually going to get going on the whole project. Back in June of last year Alfred himself Andy Serkis said it was slated to start filming in 2025, the year we're now in (even if you don't want to acknowledge the passage of time), and speaking to Deadline while at the Golden Globes, Reeves reaffirmed his intent to shoot this year.To see this content please enable targeting cookies. ""I can tell you we're going to be shooting this year, and that we're excited about it," Reeves told the outlet. "Were doing something that absolutely continues where the story comes, but it's something that I hope people will be surprised by." The director also spoke to The Hollywood Reporter where he was asked about the reason behind the delay, and the answer is still pretty simple: "Because we're still finishing the script, and there's been so many things going on. Next year is very much about getting into production, and getting the movie going, and we're very excited about it."DC Studios co-CEO James Gunn said as much when the second delay was announced, so this isn't exactly much of a surprise, but at least it's as honest an answer as you can get. Reeves was attending the Golden Globes thanks to The Penguin's nominations, and the show even got a win in, with star Colin Farrell taking home the award for best actor in a mini-series or motion picture made for television. Good for him!

As You DoWe are not a military company or supplier, Chinese gaming giant Tencent responds to landing on list of companies that give the US Government the heebie-jeebiesThe American government believes the parent company of League of Legends developer Riot Games could have links to the Chinese military.Image credit: Tencent News by Mark Warren Senior Staff Writer Published on Jan. 7, 2025 Gaming giant Tencent, which you might know as the owner of League of Legends developer Riot Games - or for the numerous other bits of investing and publishing it's done in the gaming space - has been put on a list of businesses the US Government believes have ties to the Chinese military.Tencent, which was reported to be considering acquiring struggling Assassin's Creed developer Ubisoft last year, has denied that it does have the alleged links to the Chinese military machine.To see this content please enable targeting cookies. We are not a military company or supplier, a Tencent spokesperson told The Verge in the aftermath of the listing becoming public knowledge, adding that the company plans to "work with the Department of Defense to address any misunderstanding."As the spokesperson also noted, this listing from the Pentagon doesn't come with any specific sanctions on businesses which are given it. Instead, it's designed to act as a warning to US businesses that working with companies on the it could lead to them potentially not getting any future Pentagon contracts they're in the running for.According to the New York Times, there are currently 134 companies on the list, with battery maker CATL having been added to it around the same time as Tencent, and also having denied that it's engaged in any military-related activities.Tencent shares have taken a hit following the news, dropping as much as 7%, which obviously isn't idea for the company, which has stakes and shares in the likes of Epic Games and Activision Blizzard, in addition to the stuff mentioned earlier.Given the kind of cash and corporate interests at stake in this bit of US/China head-butting, you'll not be surprised to learn that the FT is reporting that both Tencent and CATL will consider resorting to legal action if their attempts to get the designations dropped by chatting to the US Department of Defense don't result in them being taken off of this Pentagon list.If you're after some Tencent related news that's even more wacky that it having some serious words with the American government, it and subsidiary Polaris Quest revealed Light of Motiram, a game that definitely doesn't look a lot like Horizon Zero Dawn, last year.

Subscribe to Nintendo Life on YouTube791kA new trailer for Tails of Iron 2: Whiskers of Winter has been revealed ahead of the game's upcoming launch on 28th January 2025.Boasting the voiceover talents of Doug Cockle (The Witcher III), the new trailer showcases a boatload of gameplay highlighting the glorious violence and stunning 2D visuals. As for the game itself, users will be treated to either a standard digital edition or a deluxe edition, the latter of which will come with two sets of cosmetic DLCs in the form of the Augur of the Draugr set and the Hair to the Throne cosmetic pack,Subscribe to Nintendo Life on YouTube791kWatch on YouTube It's looking pretty sweet, and we're quite fond of the first game, so we've got our fingers crossed that this one turns out to be decent. For now, let's check out the key features:Explore a vast, wintry kingdom: Fully narrated by RPG legend Doug Cockle (The Witcher franchise, Alan Wake 2, Baldurs Gate 3) prepare to embark on an epic adventure across the northern realm and biomes of the Ratdom; an expansive, frost-bitten land on the brink of all-out war.Hunt down giant beasts: Track down and defeat 15 legendary beasts of the Ratdoms northern frontier and be rewarded with rare resources with which to craft devastating equipment. But be warned, these colossal creatures wont go down without a fight... and then some.Unleash the power of gods: Unlock the power of the four deities and unleash their powerful Elementa spells in combat; harness the magics of fire, poison, ice, and electric upon the damned malevolent Dark Wings!Master challenging combat: Face down the Dark Wing threat in deadly battles; let the devilish bats taste steel of blade and spear, or attack at range with bolts and arrows... and set elemental traps against these marauding foes (and adjust the difficulty at any point if its getting *too* much of a challenge we wont judge!)Improved base building: Construct and upgrade the devastated Rat fortress of Winters Edge to gain access to more powerful items from the smithy, tastier meals at the kitchen, a wider range of powerful traps from the shoppe, and more!Images: United LabelTails of Iron II: Whiskers of Winter launches on the Switch eShop on 28th January 2025.What do you make of this one? Is it on your Switch wishlist? Let us know your thoughts with a comment down below.

Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld/Undocked)Way back in 1989, Nihon Falcom released Ys III: Wanderers from Ys for various PC-based platforms and eventually consoles like the Genesis and SNES. This 2D side-scroller was well-respected in the community and eventually acted as the basis for 2005's 3D reimagining, Ys: The Oath in Felghana, though this didnt receive a Western release until a PSP version in 2010. Now, hot off the recent Western release of Ys X: Nordics, Falcom brings this remake to modern platforms as Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana. Sporting a few quality-of-life updates, this throwback to simpler times (which debuted in Japan back in September 2023) offers up an enjoyable and tightly designed action-RPG experience that you shouldn't miss out on.Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana covers one of the earlier adventures of series star Adol Christin, following a journey to longtime companion Dogi's homeland of Felghana. They arrive and are warmly welcomed by Dogis friends and family, but it doesnt take long for Adol to get caught up in a larger struggle. The king of Felghana seeks to claim a series of statues to loosen the seal placed upon a demon he wishes to release. Adol thus sets out to retrieve these statues before the king can, hoping to stop his nefarious plan.Captured on Nintendo Switch (Docked)Its a relatively thin plot, all things considered, but this remake makes the most of it through expanded scenes and voice acting. Sequences where you get to interact with Dogis friends help to give the plot emotional stakes, while the brisk pacing keeps the storytelling tight and not too overindulgentin a world where RPGs frequently go into triple-digit runtimes, Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana is content to tell a modest 10-15-hour tale. Though theres a lingering sense that more couldve been done with the narrative here, Ys games have never really been about the storyline and whats here offers up the perfect mixture of cosiness and intrigue.Gameplay follows the typical Ys formula, mixing dungeon crawling and exploration with riveting combat, and while its obvious this is an older series entry, the gameplay loop has an enjoyably timeless quality. The side-scrolling design of the original release has been swapped out for a 3D isometric engine that creates space for more dynamic fights and complicated dungeon layouts, and though there are still some relics here and there of the old 2D style, it feels like Ys III made a nearly-perfect jump to 3D.Combat is decidedly simpler than in later entries, though thats not to say that it feels worse. Adol has a series of ground combos, a few jump attacks, and a growing list of spells he can spam by burning some regenerating MP, all of which combine for a decent variety of offensive options to pull from.Captured on Nintendo Switch (Docked)Even so, it feels like most fights begin and end in a matter of seconds, and theres a certain scrappiness to encounters that calls to mind old-school beat em ups. You typically get mobbed, mash the A button while occasionally jumping, and watch the fireworks as enemies drop all sorts of goodies that help you build momentum in the fight.Almost every defeated foe will drop some sort of temporary stat-boosting consumable, further buffing your attack and defence as you carve your way through yet another enemy pack. This creates a wonderfully satisfying loop where Adol becomes more formidable as the fight goes on, and in some places we were vaguely reminded of the power trip Dynasty Warriors delivers as you fell foes with overwhelming ease. Naturally, this means that the base difficulty is a bit of a cakewalk, but the boss fights still offer a healthy challenge and there are always harder difficulty options to activate if things feel just a bit too easy.Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld/Undocked)Visually, Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana utilises a basic but wonderfully effective art style that looks great on the Switchs portable screen. The character models all have a squat, chibi-esque look while the 3D environments are compact, but manage to squeeze in a lot of detail. Notably, textures here feature an impressive level of detail, and all the action runs at a silky 60fps that rarely drops a frame.Couple this with the constant bursts of light and collectibles being tossed around like confetti during fights, and youve got a thrilling spectacle to behold and an action RPG that feels right at home on Switch hardware. Falcom has done an excellent job of polishing this nearly 20-year-old game for a new generation.As for its audio, you have a few options for how youd like to experience the soundtrack. You can either listen to the more rock-infused modern iteration or opt instead for something more retro with the X68 or PC-8801 versions from the original Ys III. It can be fun to toggle between them and see how the modern soundtrack built upon and remixed the original tracks, and while the new soundtrack feels like an overall better fit for the modern gameplay, its a nice easter egg that you can listen to the classic tracks too if thats more your speed.Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld/Undocked)Meanwhile, the voice acting perfectly walks that line between being a bit hammy without being too over the topwe greatly enjoyed the performances here and felt that they added a lot to the largely text-based exchanges.Given that the original Oath in Felghana was itself a remake of an earlier game, Falcom made a few relatively minor quality-of-life adjustments to bring it more up to todays standard. The most significant gameplay-affecting feature is a new turbo mode that can be triggered at any time with a click of 'R3' to speed up the entire game. Though the cutscenes are skippable, we appreciated how this turbo feature offers the option to fire through slower-paced segments if youre getting impatient.Otherwise, beyond the obvious audio and visual enhancements, this release also features dual audio giving the option between Japanese and English voice acting.

Of course it does!Rolling Stone has published its list of the top 50 video games of all time, compiling every title that it believes was not only significantly influential upon release, but remains great to play this very day.Naturally, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild has claimed the top spot, and while there are no doubt some Zelda purists who would scoff at its lofty position, we're honestly not that surprised. It's a phenomenal game through and through, and it deserves its place on the throne.Read the full article on nintendolife.com

Nvidia and Uber-backed Serve Robotics has raised $80 million in a direct offering of 4.2 million shares of common stock. This is on top of the $86 million in gross proceeds Serve raised collectively December 2024 through a combination of a previously filed at-the-market facility and exercise of warrants.The sidewalk delivery robot company, which went public earlier this year via a reverse merger, expects the $80 million offering to close on Tuesday, subject to certain closing conditions. Serve wouldnt say what it intends to use the gross proceeds for specifically, only noting it would go towards working capital.The $86 million raised in December will go towards extending Serves operational runway through the end of 2026. The company will use that capital to self-fund equipment investments so that it can eliminate the need for equipment financing and associated servicing costs.This story is developing. Check back for updates.

Rare earth metals are largely unknown to the general public, but are used in a huge variety of products. The elements, including neodymium, and praesodymium, and cerium, themselves arent rare. But theyre concentrated in certain parts of the globe and are very challenging to refine into anything useful. Their unique electric and magnetic properties make them essential for electronics like hard drives and headphones, and some are used as contrast agents for MRI and CT scans. Many sell for tens of thousands of dollars per metric ton.In recent years, China has become the dominant refiner of rare earths, and the Chinese Communist Party uses them as bargaining chips in tit-for-tat trade disputes with the U.S.Typically, theres 330,000 to 350,000 tons of rare earths produced per year. Historically, almost none of them are produced in the U.S., said Nathan Ratledge, co-founder and CEO of Alta Resource Technologies.The U.S. Department of Defense is nervous enough that it has made securing the elements a key part of its industrial strategy.China can very easily weaponize this critical mineral supply, Ratledge said. The potential fallout extends beyond defense applications, too. Theyve already put export restrictions on some stuff thats pretty critical to a lot of real valuable companies like Nvidia and Apple.The U.S. currently has one operating rare earth mine in California, but it has had a rocky history. Ratledge said theres an alternative, though, lurking in the tons of e-waste the country generates every year.Alta claims it has developed a way to extract rare earth elements from low-grade supplies more efficiently than current refining techniques, which tend to rely on toxic chemicals applied over dozens of steps. The company, which until now has operated in stealth, instead uses a series of proteins that are specially designed to latch onto rare earth elements, whether theyre from virgin ore or electronic waste.Its hard for chemicals to differentiate between neighboring elements on the periodic table, Ratledge said. When things are less complex, chemicals can tend to win, because chemicals are cheaper. And when things are more complex, biology tends to shine because of the selectivity. The trick is harnessing biology in the right way.Altas proteins are attached to a resin and loaded into a column through which solutions containing rare earth elements are allowed to percolate. The proteins snatch rare earths out of solution and, when theyre saturated, the column is flushed and washed to release the metals. Ratledge said the proteins have proven to be surprisingly durable.The company is planning to build a pilot-scale plant this year thats about the size of a shipping container. Ratledge said that Alta has reasonable conviction that the federal government will help fund at least part of the cost of the pilot.To help with refining the technology and scaling it up, Alta has raised a $5.1 million seed round, the company exclusively told TechCrunch. The round was led by DCVC and Voyager Ventures with participation from Orion Industrial Ventures, Overture, and WovenEarth Ventures. The startup has also secured about $1 million in grant funding from DARPA and the state of Colorado.Though Alta wont be able to shift rare earth refining back to the U.S. overnight, Ratledge is optimistic that his company can produce enough metal to help the Pentagon breathe easier.To de-risk some of the core national security concerns, you dont need hundreds of thousands of tons. Youre talking single-digit-thousands of tons. Being able to meet those needs for the U.S. government is a near-term opportunity for us and other people like us, he said.

When Valeria Kogan started her Ph.D. program in bioinformatics, the scientific field that uses computation and software to analyze biological data, in 2017, she imagined her career would always be within the fields of mathematics, medicine, or biology. But after the first AI boom in the late 2010s, she got an intriguing opportunity in a sector she hadnt considered: agriculture.Kogan (pictured above in the middle) told TechCrunch that when she was approached by a friend of a friend, a tomato grower looking for someone who understood AI and could help apply the tech to agriculture, she was intrigued. When she heard that they were looking to use AI to monitor plant health, she realized a lot of her bioinformatic background was transferrable.When they started sharing with me the challenges they had, plants have health and their health is important, and how they monitor the health of plants, it was clear that technically the challenge is very similar, Kogan said. You want to see and make the diagnosis as fast as you can.She decided to launch Fermata in 2020. The Tel Aviv- based startup uses computer vision and AI to monitor and diagnose greenhouse crops with diseases or pests. Fermatas software works with any off-the-shelf camera and takes pictures of a greenhouses crops twice a day. Its inhouse AI model analyzes the pictures and sends alerts of infestation or disease to farmers through an app.Kogan acknowledged that companies looking to bring AI to farms have struggled to gain meaningful traction in the past. While she doesnt think her company has garnered meaningful market share just yet, she thinks Fermatas approach has allowed the team to gain traction for a few reasons.For one, she said, they approached the market with genuine curiosity, looking to find out what greenhouse farms needed, as opposed to trying to sell them tech they didnt want.The original idea that I had was lets build the robots that will be moving through the greenhouse, and we even built the first project, Kogan said. We did the first mistake, we built things before talking to anybody, and it still sits in my dads garage. When we started talking to people, it was very clear that no one needs that, the robot is a bad idea.She added that their approach to training their AI model has likely also helped them stand out. Since the beginning, Fermata has kept its data labeling team in-house, as opposed to outsourcing it, which Kogan attributes the companys accuracy to. When they started, they used publicly-available data, but now they train their models on their customers data and have a research and development center where they infect plants with different diseases too.We love customers who have a lot of problems because it brings us a lot of data, especially if they have some deadly diseases, Kogan said, followed by a laugh. Were like, okay, lets look serious on the call, and that were worried because that is bad news for them but for us its amazing news.When Fermata launched, Kogan said they thought it would make sense to partner with companies that were already selling to farms. That approach didnt garner a lot of call backs when Fermata started it in 2020, but when AI started gaining momentum in 2022 that changed. Now, Fermata works directly with farms but also partners with large agriculture enterprises like Bayer and Syngenta. The company declined to share growth metrics but has deployed more than 100 cameras.Fermata also recently raised a $10 million Series A round. The $10 million came entirely from Raw Ventures, a European VC. The firm was an existing investor and Kogan said when they set out to raise this current round, they didnt feel the need to dilute the cap table with more investors.The round will be used to help the company scale and to reach its goal of being profitable by 2026. Kogan said that theyve been able to grow thus far without a sales team, and largely from inbound interest, but are looking to bulk up their sales team. Fermata currently just works with greenhouse-grown tomatoes but is actively working toward expanding into new crops and growing its partnerships.