The PlayStation 5 was the best-selling console in the UK in October, according to GfK Entertainment data reported by GamesIndustry. 

The Xbox Series X|S was the second best-selling console for the month, followed by the Nintendo Switch in third. The Xbox Series X|S has also surpassed the Switch in year-to-date sales.

Sales for the PS5 are up 27 percent month-on-month and down 18 percent year-on-year. Sales for the Switch are up 13 percent month-on-month and down 18 percent year-on-year. Sales for the Xbox Series X|S are down seven percent month-on-month and down 17 percent year-on-year. 

Overall, there were just under 144,000 video game consoles sold (NielsenIQ/GfK panel data) in the UK in October 2024. This is down 18 percent year-on-year.

GSD data shows there were 2.9 million games sold in October 2024, which is up 3.2 percent year-on-year. 

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 debuted in first place on the software charts (digital and physical combined). Sales are 11 percent lower than the launch month of 2023's 2023's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III, however, this is most likely due to the number of people playing the game via Xbox Game Pass.

Sales of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 are up 24 percent year-on-year on PlayStation consoles, while sales dropped on Xbox consoles and PC. 75 percent of total sales were on PlayStation consoles, followed by 15 percent on PC, and just under 11 percent on Xbox consoles.

Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero debuted in third place with the first four week of sales up 80 percent compared to 2020's Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot.

Undisputed debuted in fourth place and had the second biggest launch for a sports title in 2024. Only EA Sports FC 24 had a bigger launch.

The remake of Silent Hill 2 debuted in fifth place. Launch sales are 32 percent lower than the remake of Dead Space and 62 percent lower than the remake of Resident Evil 4.

Super Mario Party Jamboree debuted in ninth place. Sales are 11 percent higher than 2018's Super Mario Party, but are four percent lower than 2021's Mario Party Superstar. It should be noted Nintendo doesn't share digital sales with these charts.

Sonic X Shadows Generations debuted in 10th place. Sales for the game are 150 percent compared to 2023's Sonic Superstars, but are down 21 percent compared to 2022's Sonic Frontiers.

Metaphor: Refantazio debuted in 12th place and the new version of Until Dawn debuted in 30th place.

EA Sports FC 25 came in second place with sales down 14 percent year-on-year.

There were over 681,000 accessories and add-on products sold in the UK in October, which is up nearly 16 percent year-over-year, but is down over eight percent month-on-month.

The White DualSense controller was the best-selling accessory, followed by the Midnight Black DualSense controller. The PlayStation Portal Remote Player is up four spots to take fourth place.

Here are the top 10 best-selling games in the UK (Digital + Physical):

A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.

Full Article - https://www.vgchartz.com/article/463042/ps5-best-seller-in-the-uk-in-october-black-ops-6-leads-strong-month-of-new-releases/

Publisher indie.io and developer Maple Powered Games announced G.I. Joe: Wrath of Cobra will launch for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch on November 21.

The game is currently available for PC Steam, Epic Games Store, and GOG.

View the console reveal date trailer below:

Read details on the game below:

Cobra rears its ugly head yet again and it’s up to G.I. Joe to save the world! Embracing the 1980s era of the iconic universe, Wrath of Cobra is a retro side-scrolling beat ’em up. Play as one of the legendary G.I. Joe characters, including Duke, Scarlett, Roadblock, Snake Eyes, and more. Defeat hordes of Cobra troopers, Vipers, Crimson Guards and more of Cobra’s malevolent machinations.

Bring Cobra down, striking back at the likes of Destro, Serpentor, Baroness, and Cobra Commander himself! Fight your own way: Rely on your fists and get up close and personal using each character’s unique combos and special moves or keep your foes at a distance with a variety of weapons!

Retro Gameplay in a Modern Era

Wrath of Cobra takes the classic arcade beat ’em up and brings it into the modern age: Easy to play, hard to master, and smoother than a ride in a H.I.S.S. Want to play with your friends? The game supports local multiplayer (eg. from your couch) and online co-op!

Play as Classic Heroes

Fight Cobra as your favorite G.I. Joe heroes, painstakingly recreated in beautiful pixel art. The differences between characters aren’t just cosmetic: Each hero has different movesets and unique abilities. From the fast and nimble Snake Eyes to the rough and tumble Roadblock, each character is true to form!

Battle Iconic Villains

Cobra isn’t just the Cobra Commander, it’s also its legions! Face hordes of troopers, armored Alley Vipers, artificial B.A.T.s, armed with some of the most iconic weapon systems in the franchise, including the H.I.S.S., C.L.A.W., and the notorious Trubble Bubble.

Retro-Infused Soundtrack

Foil the Commander’s plot to the beat of classic G.I. Joe themes, reimagined by industry veterans at Kid Katana Records, bringing a modern twist to classic arcade music!

Post-Launch Support

Like Destro’s plots, Wrath of Cobra will continue with extensive post-launch support, bringing more G.I. Joe heroes into the fray, adding new game modes, levels, and more to keep the G.I. Joe legacy alive!

A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.

Full Article - https://www.vgchartz.com/article/463047/gi-joe-wrath-of-cobra-releases-november-21-for-ps5-xbox-series-xs-and-switch/

Shift Up in its latest earnings report Q&A stated its goal is to release Stellar Blade for PC sometime in 2025.

"We're aiming for a 2025 release," said the developer when asked about a PC version of Stellar Blade.

"Given recent trends like Steam’s growing presence in the AAA games market and the global success of Black Myth: Wukong, we are expecting the PC version to perform even better than the console version."

The developer revealed sales for the PS5 version of Stellar Blade "have remained steady even as the initial surge has calmed."

Stellar Blade released for the PS5 in April.

Thanks, Gematsu.

A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.

Full Article - https://www.vgchartz.com/article/463049/shift-up-aiming-to-release-stellar-blade-for-pc-in-2025/

I never completed the original Red Dead Redemption, but not for the usual reasons of being terrible at the game, or thinking that open worlds are too big and boring these days and I just want to lie down forever and watch anime. I never finished it because my Xbox 360 version was not, in practice, an open world game, but a lonely farm at the bottom of a vortex of butchered spacetime. In the prologue, reformed outlaw John Marston confronts an old bandit acquaintance and gets himself roundly shot to bits. He’s rescued by local rancher Bonnie MacFarlane, who nurses him back to health and gives him a few odd jobs to warm him up for the next plot point.

Read more

A few months ago, the rumour took root that GTA 6's release date would slip back from 2025 to 2026. An anonymous insider averred that studio heads were "worried" about the new open world game's progress - hence, perhaps, Rockstar's decision to mandate a full return to in-office work. Pshaw, say publishers Take-Two CEO. They announced a fall 2025 launch in March and have just doubled down on it in their latest financial briefing, with CEO Strauss Zelnick subsequently going on the tellybox to say that Take-Two are "highly confident in the timing", though he still has nothing to share about GTA 6 on PC.

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Gary Lineker is the longest-serving Match of the Day host since the BBC first aired the show in 1964.

From Goats to airplanes, Xbox Game Pass has another bumper month in store for subscribers. Here's everything you need to know about what is heading to PC and console this November 2024

Death Stranding, originally launched in 2019, has finally come to Xbox consoles five years after its initial debut as a Director's Cut version from Hideo Kojima.

Overwatch 2 is bringing 6v6 gameplay back from Overwatch 1 - and fans are overjoyed. Here's all we know so far, including when you can finally play the Classic mode

Fortnite fans are going wild after Epic Games announced it's bringing back the original version of its battle royale as Fortnite OG as a permanent addition to the game.

NASA has released the clearest view of Mars seen thus far, with a field of blue rocks seen on the Martian landscape on top of an ancient lake.

Its latest roadmap suggests that if you want white fans, you should wait for an announcement in Q1 2022.

The game will take "full advantage of Apple silicon," CD Projekt Red says.

‘Idli Kadai,’ Dhanush’s fourth directorial project, has music scored by GV Prakash Kumar

Starring Ashika Ranganath as the female lead, the film is directed by N Rajasekar of ‘Maapla Singam’ and ‘Kalathil Sandhippom’ fame

Directed by debutant Sidharth Vishwanath, ‘Sorgavaasal’ also stars Selvaraghavan, Natty, Saniya Iyappan, Sharaf-U-Dheen, Hakkim Shah, Anthonythasan, Ravi Raghavendra, and Samuel Robinson

The 90-second trailer, which was delayed several times before being released, offers minimal details but hints at themes of prophecy, betrayal, and resurrection

Directed by Sukumar and produced by Mythri Movie Makers, the sequel features Allu Arjun, Rashmika Mandanna, and Fahadh Faasil, and is scheduled for a grand release worldwide on December 5, 2024

Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for August 19th, 2024. It’s the beginning of a new week, …

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Earlier this year, Feral Interactive’s superb iOS version of Alien: Isolation (Free) was updated to change the game’s business model …

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Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for August 20th, 2024. In today’s article, I’ve got a couple …

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Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for August 22nd, 2024. In today’s article, we continue to bear …

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HoYoverse’s Honkai Star Rail (Free) version 2.5 update titled “Flying Aureus Shot to Lupine Rue" was just showcased during a …

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Following developer TRAGsoft bringing monster collecting game Coromon to mobile after it debuted on PC and Switch, we are getting …

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As the world turns, so do the console generations. The Nintendo Switch is over seven years old, so it’s due for a refresh. Nintendo Switch 2 rumors have been swirling for years, but now they are really heating up. A sequel to Nintendo's most successful home console ever is coming and it’s likely coming sooner rather than later.

Will it be a straight up sequel to the Switch with updated specs while retaining the same hybrid functionality or will Nintendo get weird with it? Will it even be called the Switch 2, or will the company go with something like the Super Switch or even the New Nintendo Switch? You can never tell with Nintendo. Heck, maybe it’ll call the thing the Switch U.

In any event, recent weeks have brought feverish speculation regarding all aspects of the forthcoming gaming console. It’s important to note, however, that very little information has been confirmed by Nintendo. The company operates on its own timetable. With that said, here are all of the rumors that are most likely to come true, given industry analysis.

When will the Nintendo Switch 2 be announced?

As previously mentioned, Nintendo marches to the beat of its own drum. We don’t exactly know when it’ll hold an event to reveal the console. It likely won't be in 2024, as the tech year is winding down and it's rare to get announcements of new harder in late November and December. 

Even Nintendo has trouble keeping the lid on a major console release, so we could learn something before the official reveal. There are parts that have to be sourced and shipments that have to be made. A senior analyst at MST Financial noted a spike in production equipment spending by Nintendo assembler Hosiden.

When will the Nintendo Switch 2 come out?

Once again, this is more or less a mystery. We aren’t totally in the dark, but it’s mostly rumor and speculation. One thing we know for sure is that Nintendo will announce the Nintendo Switch 2 (or whatever it chooses to call it) by March 2025, as the company confirmed back in May. Some are saying there will be a March release date, which makes sense given the OG Switch came out on March 17, 2017. However, other reports put the console’s release window later in 2025.

We can infer a lot from the announcement date. If the console is announced this year, March would be a safe bet, given that the original Switch was officially confirmed in October of 2016. However, the console likely won't be announced until next year, at this point, so expect a late 2025 release. 

Will it even be a proper Switch sequel?

Nintendo has a weird track record here. The baffling Wii U followed the massive success of the Wii. The Wii itself followed the more traditional GameCube. In other words, it’s possible it’ll be something out of left field and not exactly a true sequel to the Switch. However, this is unlikely this time around. As much as I would love to see wacky VR glasses or a completely bonkers console concept, all points indicate a more traditional approach.

Developers have already seen the hardware, though in a much earlier form, and it seems to be a regular old console. While Nintendo hasn't confirmed hybrid functionality, it’d be a weird omission given the absolute financial firestorm of the Switch. We’ve also heard rumors of a Mini-LED display, which would track for a hybrid console. It’s highly likely this will be a straight-up Switch 2, or something like it, calling to mind the Super Nintendo.

To that end, recent rumors suggest a design that recalls the original Switch. According to reporting by VGC, photos of the console have appeared online and they show an 8-inch screen and magnetic Joy-Con controllers. There looks to be SL/SR buttons and front-facing player LEDs on these controllers. 

Is the Nintendo Switch 2 backwards compatible?

If it’s a sequel to the Switch, the next question has to be about backwards compatibility. The Switch’s library is absolutely massive, and continues to grow, so gamers would be rightfully peeved if they couldn’t play Tears of the Kingdom on their new next-gen console. There’s good news on this front.

The company has officially announced in a recent earnings report that the console will be fully backwards compatible. It will also feature access to Nintendo Online, so users will be able to play all of those old retro titles. 

What about specs?

The rumors regarding specs are all over the place, so it’s tough to pin down. We know one thing for sure: It’ll be more powerful than the ancient Switch hardware, which was already antiquated back in 2017. One analyst allegedly got a hold of a spec sheet from the Korean United Daily News that said the Switch 2 would boast an eight-core Cortex-A78AE processor, 8GB of RAM, and 64GB of internal eMMC storage. This tracks for me, as these specs are about as underpowered in 2024 as the original Switch was in 2017. However, some reports do indicate that the console would include 12GB of RAM. 

Another source suggests that the eight-core CPU will be packaged inside an NVIDIA-produced Tegra239 SoC (system on a chip). Given the current Switch runs on an NVIDIA chip, that makes a lot of sense. The CPU will be more powerful, but it's the Switch 2's new GPU that will be a major differentiator. It's all-but-confirmed that the Switch 2 will support DLSS, NVIDIA's "deep learning supersampling" upscaling tech, which would allow the console to render games at a low resolution internally while outputting a high-resolution image. (Fun fact: We actually wrote about how perfect DLSS was for the Nintendo Switch 2 when the technology was announced alongside the RTX 20 series back in 2018.)

There are still questions about the Switch 2 and DLSS: Will the system support newer DLSS features like frame generation? Will existing games be automatically tidied up by NVIDIA's algorithm? Regardless of the exact implementation, DLSS upscaling will be a huge leap over the rudimentary techniques available to Nintendo Switch developers.

As for the display, there are many conflicting rumors. Early reports from solid sources suggested the Switch 2 would have an 8-inch display LCD display, but there have also been rumors about an 7-inch display with a 120Hz refresh rate. Some analysts have suggested this would be an OLED screen, while others have said it would be a Mini-LED display. A Mini-LED display is basically an LCD display that has a backlight made of (surprise!) mini-LEDs rather than edge lighting. This allows for local dimming, making the blacks more black. I’m hedging my bets here. I think it’ll be a standard LCD, to cut costs, with an OLED or Mini-LED model coming later down the line. However, Mini-LED screens are slightly cheaper than OLED displays, so that’s certainly a possibility at launch.

As for resolution, recent reporting suggests that the console will output 1080p in handheld and 4K when docked. That's much better than the OG Switch. 

How much will the Nintendo Switch 2 cost?

We don't have too much information regarding price but we do have plenty of history to work with. The original Nintendo Switch launched at $300, which is pretty much the "magic number" when it comes to Nintendo console releases in recent years. The Wii U also came in at $300. 

However, there are plenty of rumors circulating that Nintendo could be upping the asking price for the Switch 2. Numerous outlets have reported it'll be $400, or potentially even more expensive. However, the same analysts who say the console will be $400 were also fairly certain it would be out by the end of 2024 and, well, it looks like that ain't happening. 

Dipping back into history, there is some precedence for a price uptick. The GameCube was $200 and the Wii was $250. The Wii U and Switch increased to $300 and, well, numbers like to go up. A $400 price tag would make it nearly as expensive as a PS5 and Xbox Series X. That would also put it at the same price as the 256GB LCD Steam Deck. 

Do we know about any launch games?

Nope! But it’s certainly been a long time since we’ve gotten a proper 3D Mario adventure, right? That would be one heck of a system seller. Other than that, your guess is as good as mine. Past as prologue, we can expect something from Ubisoft and an off-the-wall title like 1-2-Switch. 

If there’s a gimmick or hook involved with the console, we’ll also get a game that takes advantage of that. A dual release of Metroid Prime 4, just like Breath of the Wild and Twilight Princess before that, is also a possibility.

That's everything we know about the Nintendo Switch 2 today. We'll update this article with rumors we trust and with information we gather directly from sources. Any changes made to the article after its initial publishing will be listed below.

Update, November 11, 2024, 9:00 AM ET: This story has been updated with details about the Switch 2's backwards compatibility as well as more details about the current expected announcement and release timeline.

The Directorate General of Trade Remedies (DGTR), under the ministry of commerce and industry, has released a list of registered interested parties regarding the ongoing Second Sunset Review anti─dumping

The Department of Pharmaceuticals (DoP) has released the operational guidelines for the newly announced central sector scheme for Strengthening of Medical Device Industry (SMDI), aiming at providing

The future of an innovative retinal implant and dozens of its users just got brighter, after Science, a bioelectronics startup run by Neuralink’s cofounder, Max Hodak, acquired Pixium’s technology at the last minute.

Pixium Vision, whose Prima system to tackle vision loss is implanted in 47 people across Europe and the United States, was in danger of disappearing completely until Science stepped in to buy the French company’s assets in April, for an undisclosed amount.

Pixium has been developing Prima for a decade, building on work by Daniel Palanker, a professor of ophthalmology at Stanford University. The 2-by-2-millimeter square implant is surgically implanted under the retina, where it turns infrared data from camera-equipped glasses into pulses of electricity. These replace signals generated by photoreceptor rods and cones, which are damaged in people suffering from age-related macular degeneration (AMD).

Early feasibility studies in the E.U. and the United States suggested Prima was safe and potentially effective, but Pixium ran out of money last November before the final results of a larger, multiyear pivotal trial in Europe.

“It’s very important to us to avoid another debacle like Argus II.”

With the financial and legal clock ticking down, the trial data finally arrived in March this year. “And the results from that were just pretty stunning,” says Max Hodak, Science’s founder and CEO, in his first interview since the acquisition.

Although neither Pixium nor Science has yet released the full dataset, Hodak shared with IEEE Spectrum videos of three people using Prima, each of them previously unable to read or recognize faces due to AMD. The videos show them slowly but fluently reading a hardback book, filling in a crossword puzzle, and playing cards.

“This is legit ‘form vision’ that I don’t think any device has ever done,” says Hodak. Form vision is the ability to recognize visual elements as parts of a larger object. “It’s this type of data that convinced us. And from there we were like, this should get to patients.”

As well as buying the Prima technology, Hodak says that Science will hire the majority of Pixium’s 35 engineering and regulatory staff, in a push to get the technology approved in Europe as quickly as possible.

The Prima implant receives visual data and is powered by near-infrared signals beamed from special spectacles.Pixium

Another priority is supporting existing Prima patients, says Lloyd Diamond, Pixium’s outgoing CEO. “It’s very important to us to avoid another debacle like Argus II,” he says, referring to another retinal implant whose manufacturer went out of business in 2022, leaving users literally in the dark.

Diamond is excited to be working with Science, which is based in Silicon Valley with a chip foundry in North Carolina. “They have a very deep workforce in software development, in electronic development, and in biologic research,” he says. “And there are probably only a few foundries in the world that could manufacture an implant such as ours. Being able to internalize part of that process is a very big advantage.”

Hodak hopes that a first-generation Prima product could quickly be upgraded with a wide-angle camera and the latest electronics. “We think that there’s one straight shrink, where we’ll move to smaller pixels and get higher visual acuity,” he says. “After that, we’ll probably move to a 3D electrode design, where we’ll be able to get closer to single-cell resolution.” That could deliver even sharper artificial vision.

In parallel, Science will continue Pixium’s discussions with the FDA in the United States about advancing a clinical trial there.

The success of Prima is critical, says Hodak, who started Science in 2021 after leaving Neuralink, a brain-computer interface company he cofounded with Elon Musk. “Elon can do whatever he wants for as long as he wants, but we need something that can finance future development,” he says. “Prima is big enough in terms of impact to patients and society that it is capable of helping us finance the rest of our ambitions.”

These include a next-generation Prima device, which Hodak says he is already talking about with Palanker, and a second visual prosthesis, currently called the Science Eye. This will tackle retinitis pigmentosa, a condition affecting peripheral vision—the same condition targeted by Second Sight’s ill-fated Argus II device.

“The Argus II just didn’t work that well,” says Hodak. “In the end, it was a pure bridge to nowhere.” Like the Argus II and Prima, the Science Eye relies on camera glasses and an implant, but with the addition of optogenetic therapy. This uses a genetically engineered virus to deliver a gene to specific optic nerve cells in the retina, making them light-sensitive at a particular wavelength. A tiny implanted display with a resolution sharper than an iPhone screen then enables fine control over the newly sensitized cells.

That system is still undergoing animal trials, but Hodak is almost ready to pull the trigger on its first human clinical studies, likely in Australia and New Zealand.

“In the long term, I think precision optogenetics will be more powerful than Prima’s electrical stimulation,” he says. “But we’re agnostic about which approach works to restore vision.”

One thing he does believe vehemently, unlike Musk, is that the retina is the best place to put an implant. Neuralink and Cortigent (the successor company of Second Sight) are both working on prosthetics that target the brain’s visual cortex.

“There’s a lot that you can do in cortex, but vision is not one of them,” says Hodak. He thinks the visual cortex is too complex, too distributed, and too difficult to access surgically to be useful.

“As long as the optic nerve is intact, the retina is the ideal place to think about restoring vision to the brain,” he says. “This is all a question of effect size. If someone has been in darkness for a decade, with no light, no perception, and you can give them any type of visual stimulus, they’re going to be into it. The Pixium patients can intuitively read, and that was really what convinced us that this was worth picking up and pursuing.”

Admitting that they are "facing a tough time in the courts," Asif related that the LHC has asked for the evidence that the Home Department used to extend the detention. "There has never been a case against them," he noted, "and we have no criminal record of these gentlemen."

Benazir Bhutto's public comments that she would grant the IAEA access to Khan were highly controversial in Pakistan. Zardari's options for delivering on Benazir's promise is limited.

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