Tag Archives: Arts & Entertainment

Netflix is done telling us how many people use Netflix

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Netflix will stop disclosing the number of people who signed up for its service, as well as the revenue it generates from each subscriber from next year, the company announced on Thursday. It will focus, instead, on highlighting revenue growth and the amount of time spent on its platform.

“In our early days, when we had little revenue or profit, membership growth was a strong indicator of our future potential,” the company said in a letter to shareholders. “But now we’re generating very substantial profit and free cash flow.”

Netflix revealed that the service added 9.33 million subscribers over the last few months, bringing the total number of paying households worldwide to nearly 270 million. Despite its decision to stop reporting user numbers each quarter, Netflix said that the company will “announce major subscriber milestones as we cross them,” which means we’ll probably hear about it when it crosses 300 million.

Netflix estimates that more than half a billion people around the world watch TV shows and movies through its service, an audience it is now figuring out how to squeeze even more money out of through new pricing tiers, a crackdown on password-sharing, and showing ads. Over the last few years, it has also steadily added games like the Grand Theft Auto trilogy, Hades, Dead Cells, Braid, and more, to its catalog.

Subscriber metrics are an important signal to Wall Street because they show how quickly a company is growing. But Netflix’s move to stop reporting these is something that we’ve seen from other companies before. In February, Meta announced that it would no longer break out the number of daily and monthly Facebook users each quarter but only reveal how many people collectively used Facebook, WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram. In 2018, Apple, too, stopped reporting the number of iPhones, iPads, and Macs it sold each quarter, choosing to focus, instead, on how much money it made in each category.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/netflix-is-done-telling-us-how-many-people-use-netflix-215149971.html?src=rss

Netflix is done telling us how many people use Netflix

Posted on by

Netflix will stop disclosing the number of people who signed up for its service, as well as the revenue it generates from each subscriber from next year, the company announced on Thursday. It will focus, instead, on highlighting revenue growth and the amount of time spent on its platform.

“In our early days, when we had little revenue or profit, membership growth was a strong indicator of our future potential,” the company said in a letter to shareholders. “But now we’re generating very substantial profit and free cash flow.”

Netflix revealed that the service added 9.33 million subscribers over the last few months, bringing the total number of paying households worldwide to nearly 270 million. Despite its decision to stop reporting user numbers each quarter, Netflix said that the company will “announce major subscriber milestones as we cross them,” which means we’ll probably hear about it when it crosses 300 million.

Netflix estimates that more than half a billion people around the world watch TV shows and movies through its service, an audience it is now figuring out how to squeeze even more money out of through new pricing tiers, a crackdown on password-sharing, and showing ads. Over the last few years, it has also steadily added games like the Grand Theft Auto trilogy, Hades, Dead Cells, Braid, and more, to its catalog.

Subscriber metrics are an important signal to Wall Street because they show how quickly a company is growing. But Netflix’s move to stop reporting these is something that we’ve seen from other companies before. In February, Meta announced that it would no longer break out the number of daily and monthly Facebook users each quarter but only reveal how many people collectively used Facebook, WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram. In 2018, Apple, too, stopped reporting the number of iPhones, iPads, and Macs it sold each quarter, choosing to focus, instead, on how much money it made in each category.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/netflix-is-done-telling-us-how-many-people-use-netflix-215149971.html?src=rss

Netflix will stop tossing coins to The Witcher after season five

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Netflix has renewed The Witcher for a fifth season, but the company says that will bring the series to an end. The final season will be shot back-to-back with the fourth season, which has just started production. The two seasons will cover the events of the last three books in the series: Baptism of Fire, The Tower of the Swallow and Lady of the Lake. The show is a direct adaptation of Andrzej Sapkowski’s novels, but it does occasionally take inspiration from CD Projekt Red's game adaptations (and vice versa).

The fourth season will mark a significant change for The Witcher, as Liam Hemsworth is replacing Henry Cavill in the lead role. This time around, Geralt of Rivia will find a new family in the Hanza, who will help him track down Yennefer and Ciri after the trio is separated. New cast members who are joining for the fourth season include Laurence Fishburne, Sharlto Copley and James Purefoy.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/netflix-will-stop-tossing-coins-to-the-witcher-after-season-five-171500284.html?src=rss

Netflix will stop tossing coins to The Witcher after season five

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Netflix has renewed The Witcher for a fifth season, but the company says that will bring the series to an end. The final season will be shot back-to-back with the fourth season, which has just started production. The two seasons will cover the events of the last three books in the series: Baptism of Fire, The Tower of the Swallow and Lady of the Lake. The show is a direct adaptation of Andrzej Sapkowski’s novels, but it does occasionally take inspiration from CD Projekt Red's game adaptations (and vice versa).

The fourth season will mark a significant change for The Witcher, as Liam Hemsworth is replacing Henry Cavill in the lead role. This time around, Geralt of Rivia will find a new family in the Hanza, who will help him track down Yennefer and Ciri after the trio is separated. New cast members who are joining for the fourth season include Laurence Fishburne, Sharlto Copley and James Purefoy.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/netflix-will-stop-tossing-coins-to-the-witcher-after-season-five-171500284.html?src=rss

Cities: Skylines 2’s embarrassed developers are giving away beachfront property for free

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Cities: Skylines 2 developer Colossal Order is unlisting and refunding purchases of its controversial Beach Properties asset pack less than a month after its release. It’s also significantly delaying the game's future DLC and console port.

Beach Properties was the first paid DLC for Cities: Skylines 2, and has an “Overwhelmingly Negative” rating on Steam, with just 4 percent of user reviews marked as positive. In a note announcing the reverse of course, Colossal Order CEO Mariina Hallikainen said the company had let its community down. 

“We thought we could make up for the shortcomings of the game in a timeframe that was unrealistic, and rushed out a DLC that should not have been published in its current form," Hallikainen said. "For all this, we are truly sorry.”

The asset pack itself worked as advertised, adding a number of zoneable waterfront-style properties to the game, but it was definitely thin for the $9.99 asking price. Most will admit, though, that the content itself wasn’t the problem: The DLC was largely derided because it was released at a time when players were waiting on patches for the base game. Cities: Skylines 2 was released in a poorly optimized state in October 2023, and although it’s in better shape now, many in the community feel there are fundamental issues with the simulation, and there is still work to be done to make the game run better. Mod support — perhaps the reason that the original Cities: Skylines had such a long lifespan — was also slow to arrive, and is still only in beta, with no support for custom assets.

In an FAQ accompanying the announcement, Colossal Order explains how the refund and compensation program will work. Essentially, if you bought the DLC separately, you should be able to get a refund. Those who redeemed a code as part of the game's Deluxe or Ultimate editions will not. Instead, compensation will come in the form of creator asset packs and radio stations which Colossal Order says will "total around $39.99 in added value." The beachfront properties will be added to the base game, free of charge, for all players.

To call Cities: Skylines 2’s launch messy would be kind. Since the game’s release on PC last October, developer Colossal Order has burned through the goodwill it built up over a near-decade of the original game’s lifespan. Things came to a head in late January, when many of the community's loudest and most respected voices broke rank to talk openly about the game's issues.

Another casualty of today's announcement is the game's console release. Cities: Skylines 2 was supposed to launch simultaneously on PC and console, but the PS5 and Xbox versions were pushed back to spring 2024 weeks before release. It has been clear for some time that revised date was not going to happen, and Colossal Order confirmed it's now hoping to have the console ports ready for October.

The final piece of bad news is that Bridges & Ports — the first expansion pack that will go beyond assets — is going to be further delayed to Q1 2025 to allow the developers to "focus on additional free patches and game updates in the coming months." The expansion pack was supposed to be released in Q2 2024, and is included in the game's Ultimate Edition.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cities-skylines-2s-embarrassed-developers-are-giving-away-beachfront-property-for-free-170042260.html?src=rss

Cities: Skylines 2’s embarrassed developers are giving away beachfront property for free

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Cities: Skylines 2 developer Colossal Order is unlisting and refunding purchases of its controversial Beach Properties asset pack less than a month after its release. It’s also significantly delaying the game's future DLC and console port.

Beach Properties was the first paid DLC for Cities: Skylines 2, and has an “Overwhelmingly Negative” rating on Steam, with just 4 percent of user reviews marked as positive. In a note announcing the reverse of course, Colossal Order CEO Mariina Hallikainen said the company had let its community down. 

“We thought we could make up for the shortcomings of the game in a timeframe that was unrealistic, and rushed out a DLC that should not have been published in its current form," Hallikainen said. "For all this, we are truly sorry.”

The asset pack itself worked as advertised, adding a number of zoneable waterfront-style properties to the game, but it was definitely thin for the $9.99 asking price. Most will admit, though, that the content itself wasn’t the problem: The DLC was largely derided because it was released at a time when players were waiting on patches for the base game. Cities: Skylines 2 was released in a poorly optimized state in October 2023, and although it’s in better shape now, many in the community feel there are fundamental issues with the simulation, and there is still work to be done to make the game run better. Mod support — perhaps the reason that the original Cities: Skylines had such a long lifespan — was also slow to arrive, and is still only in beta, with no support for custom assets.

In an FAQ accompanying the announcement, Colossal Order explains how the refund and compensation program will work. Essentially, if you bought the DLC separately, you should be able to get a refund. Those who redeemed a code as part of the game's Deluxe or Ultimate editions will not. Instead, compensation will come in the form of creator asset packs and radio stations which Colossal Order says will "total around $39.99 in added value." The beachfront properties will be added to the base game, free of charge, for all players.

To call Cities: Skylines 2’s launch messy would be kind. Since the game’s release on PC last October, developer Colossal Order has burned through the goodwill it built up over a near-decade of the original game’s lifespan. Things came to a head in late January, when many of the community's loudest and most respected voices broke rank to talk openly about the game's issues.

Another casualty of today's announcement is the game's console release. Cities: Skylines 2 was supposed to launch simultaneously on PC and console, but the PS5 and Xbox versions were pushed back to spring 2024 weeks before release. It has been clear for some time that revised date was not going to happen, and Colossal Order confirmed it's now hoping to have the console ports ready for October.

The final piece of bad news is that Bridges & Ports — the first expansion pack that will go beyond assets — is going to be further delayed to Q1 2025 to allow the developers to "focus on additional free patches and game updates in the coming months." The expansion pack was supposed to be released in Q2 2024, and is included in the game's Ultimate Edition.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cities-skylines-2s-embarrassed-developers-are-giving-away-beachfront-property-for-free-170042260.html?src=rss

Meta rolls out an updated AI assistant, built with the long-awaited Llama 3

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Meta just announced a major update for its AI assistant platform, Meta AI, which has been built using the long-awaited open source Llama 3 large language model (LLM). The company says it's “now the most intelligent AI assistant you can use for free.” As for use case scenarios, the company touts the ability to help users study for tests, plan dinners and schedule nights out. You know the drill. It’s an AI chatbot.

Meta AI, however, has expanded into just about every nook and cranny throughout the company’s entire portfolio, after a test run with Instagram DMs last week. It’s still available with Instagram, but now users can access it on Messenger, Facebook feeds and Whatsapp. The chatbot also has a dedicated web portal at, wait for it, meta.ai. You don’t need a company login to use it this way, though it won’t generate images. Those recently-released Ray-Ban smart glasses also integrate with the bot, with Quest headset integration coming soon.

On the topic of image generation, Meta says it's now much faster and will produce images as you type. It also handles custom animated GIFs, which is pretty cool. Hopefully, it can successfully generate images of different races of people. We found that it struggled with this basic concept a couple of weeks back, as it seemed biased toward creating images of people of the same race, even when prompted otherwise.

Meta’s also expanding global availability along with this update, as Meta AI is coming to more than a dozen countries outside of the US. These include Australia, Canada, Ghana, Jamaica, Pakistan, Uganda and others. However, there’s one major caveat. It’s only in English, which doesn’t seem that useful to a global audience, but whatever.

As for safety and reliability, the company says Llama 3 has been trained on an expanded data set when compared to Llama 2. It also used synthetic data to create lengthy documents to train on and claims it excluded all data sources that are known to contain a “high volume of personal information about private individuals.” Meta says it conducted a series of evaluations to see how the chatbot would handle risk areas like conversations about weapons, cyber attacks and child exploitation, and adjusted as required. In our brief testing with the product, we've already run into hallucinations, as seen below. 

Meta AI makes a mistake on a recipe.
Engadget/Karissa Bell

AI has become one of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg's pet projects, along with raising really expensive cattle for beef in a secluded Hawaiian compound, but the company’s still playing catch up to OpenAI and, to a lesser extent, Google. Meta’s Llama 2 never really wowed users, due to a limited feature set, so maybe this new version of the AI assistant will catch lightning in a bottle. At the very least, it should be able to draw lightning in a bottle, or more accurately, slightly tweak someone else’s drawing of lightning in a bottle.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/meta-rolls-out-an-updated-ai-assistant-built-with-the-long-awaited-llama-3-160053435.html?src=rss

Supergiant shows off Hades II’s gameplay and new god designs

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Supergiant Games just treated Hades fans to an extensive look at the game's upcoming sequel. Seriously — the developer hosted a three-hour livestream that showed off Hades II's gameplay, new features and mechanics, as well as the new designs for its characters based on the gods of Greek mythology. Supergiant's Creative Director Greg Kasavin and Studio Director Amir Rao demonstrated the abilities of the game's new protagonist, Melinoë. While she's the sister of Zagreus, the first title's protagonist, and Hades II is a direct sequel to the original, Kasavin and Rao said players don't need to have prior knowledge of the first game and of Greek mythology to enjoy it. Old fans, however, will catch "delightful references" here and there. 

Melinoë is a witch and assassin, who's adept with her staff and can wield magic, and has a pretty different playstyle from Zagreus, as the gameplay footage showed. Kasavin and Roe also showed off new gods like Apollo, returning ones like Aphrodite and Demeter, new resources and various environments within the game. They played the technical test version of Hades II, however, which means certain environments and elements could still go through some changes before the final product is released. 

The developer is hoping to fix any issues technical test players might find expeditiously so that the game can go into early access, which is expected to take place sometime this spring. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/supergiant-shows-off-hades-iis-gameplay-and-new-god-designs-070033467.html?src=rss

Supergiant shows off Hades II’s gameplay and new god designs

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Supergiant Games just treated Hades fans to an extensive look at the game's upcoming sequel. Seriously — the developer hosted a three-hour livestream that showed off Hades II's gameplay, new features and mechanics, as well as the new designs for its characters based on the gods of Greek mythology. Supergiant's Creative Director Greg Kasavin and Studio Director Amir Rao demonstrated the abilities of the game's new protagonist, Melinoë. While she's the sister of Zagreus, the first title's protagonist, and Hades II is a direct sequel to the original, Kasavin and Rao said players don't need to have prior knowledge of the first game and of Greek mythology to enjoy it. Old fans, however, will catch "delightful references" here and there. 

Melinoë is a witch and assassin, who's adept with her staff and can wield magic, and has a pretty different playstyle from Zagreus, as the gameplay footage showed. Kasavin and Roe also showed off new gods like Apollo, returning ones like Aphrodite and Demeter, new resources and various environments within the game. They played the technical test version of Hades II, however, which means certain environments and elements could still go through some changes before the final product is released. 

The developer is hoping to fix any issues technical test players might find expeditiously so that the game can go into early access, which is expected to take place sometime this spring. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/supergiant-shows-off-hades-iis-gameplay-and-new-god-designs-070033467.html?src=rss

There’s a TV show coming based on Sega’s classic arcade game Golden Axe

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Comedy Central just greenlit a cartoon based on the classic Sega arcade cabinet Golden Axe, further proving we are in something of a gilded age of video game adaptations. The animated show is getting a ten-episode first season and features a voice cast filled with comedic heavy hitters, like Danny Pudi from Community and Carl Tart from Grand Crew (RIP) and the Comedy Bang! Bang! podcast universe.

It also stars Matthew Rhys, from The Americans and Perry Mason, and comedian Lisa Gilroy. The pilot is being written by Mike McMahon, the creator of Star Trek: Lower Decks and Solar Opposites, and Joe Chandler, a regular writer for American Dad. Chandler is the showrunner and McMahon is on board as the executive producer. Interestingly, several big Sega names are also involved with the show, including Haruki Satomi, Shuki Utsumi and Toru Nakahara, the latter being largely responsible for shepherding the Sonic the Hedgehog cinematic universe.

The plot looks appropriately zany, as there wasn’t too much story in those old arcade cabinets. The show bills itself as a “hilarious and loving homage to Sega’s 1989 video game series” and follows several warriors as they attempt to save the realm from franchise antagonist Death Adder. It does look to be doing a deep dive on the franchise, as one of the characters is the panther/man hybrid beast from Golden Axe III. Comedy Central promises “plenty of exciting cameos” from the fictional world. There’s no release date yet and the show is still in the script-writing stage. Animation takes a long time, so hold your horses.

We’ve really gone from zero to sixty when it comes to game adaptations, right? In just the past year, we’ve had shows based on The Last of Us, Fallout, Twisted Metal and more. There’s also a little-known movie about two Italian plumbers that may or may not have set the box office on fire. A TV show based on another Sega property, Knuckles, premieres April 26 on Paramount+. 

As for Golden Axe, there hasn't been a franchise installment since 2008, though that's about to change. Sega recently announced that its rebooting the property, alongside other classics like Crazy Taxi and Jet Set Radio. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/theres-a-tv-show-coming-based-on-segas-classic-arcade-game-golden-axe-185336446.html?src=rss