HYBE Sells Remaining Stake in K-Pop Rival SM Entertainment for $177 Million
HYBE initially acquired a 14.8% stake in SM from founder Lee Soo Man, and later upped its holding to 15.78% through an unsuccessful takeover bid, being topped by Kakao and its subsidiary Kakao Entertainment, which now holds slightly over 40%. Tencent is now the second-largest shareholder in SM.
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HYBE Latin Launches 'Medellín Music Lab' in Colombia: 'Ready to Make History' (EXCLUSIVE)
K-Pop Group NewJeans to Continue Label Battle Despite Fresh Court Setback
Alan Chikin Chow Launches Casting Call for Co-Ed Pop Group He's Forming With HYBE America That Will Be Featured in a Scripted Series on YouTube (EXCLUSIVE)
According to South Korea's Yonhap news agency, cited in Music Business Worldwide, HYBE stated that I has 'divested non-core assets as part of a choice and concentration strategy,' adding that the 'Secured funds will be used to secure future growth engines.' It noted that SM says that the company plans to 'work more closely with Tencent Music' following the share sale.
MBW notes that China-based Tencent Music's investment in SM, a South Korean music company, coincides with reports that China will be lifting its ban on South Korean cultural and entertainment content imports. That ban was imposed by China in 2017 in response to the deployment of a U.S. missile system in South Korea. With a population of more than 1.4 billion people, China would seem ripe for Korean entertainment.
Tencent Holdings also owns stakes in other K-pop operations, including Kakoa (a 4.61% stake) labels and YG Entertainment.
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38 Beauty Products That Understoof The Assignment
A super pigmented E.l.f. camo liquid blush that's apparently giving Rare Beauty a run for its money *sips tea*. This long-lasting, buildable, easy-to-blend little beauty will have you coming back to purchase more and more cuz of the gorgeous, soft, dewy finish you'll get. And that price definitely isn't bad either. A jar of Brazilian Bum Bum body cream made with a caffeine-rich guarana extract formula to help smooth and tighten skin. People are in loooove with this stuff and some reviewers even just use it as, like, a perfume. Yeah, it smells that good thanks to the gorgeous aroma of pistachio, salted caramel, and vanilla. And a jar of Bum Bum body scrub reviewers are *obsessed* with because in true Sol de Janeiro fashion, it smells AMAZING — with the same pistachio, salted caramel, and vanilla combo as the famous cream. Plus, the crushed cupuacu seeds and sugar crystals will have rough skin (think elbows, knees, and shins) feeling as soft and luxurious as ever while adding a touch of ✨sparkle. ✨ A pretty as heck hydrating lip gloss with ~multidimensional~ sparkles for a lightweight, eye-catching pout. You can also wear it on your eyelids for a perfectly intergalactic look. A pack of nose pore patches that'll banish all the gunk and excess oil as you sleep. Your nose will be smoother than you could have ever dreamed of. Mane Club One Hit Wonder — a 10-in-1 spray that LITERALLY does it all, but won't cost you the price of 10 products. It'll help detangle, condition, take care of frizz, boost shine, hydrate, soften, smooth, prevent breakage, and provide heat protection (up to 445 degrees). A serious multitasker. A so-dang-good Coco & Eve foam self-tanner that'll deliver some jaw-droppingly magical results. 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They come with instructions for how to take proper care of them, and they look beautiful once installed. I wore two packs of the clip-ins for a photoshoot, and whew! They looked stunning! They're perfection, and if you're gonna spend money on clip-ins, I recommend you spend your coins on these ones. I don't think any other company's clip-ins will ever be good enough for me again. I love themmmm, I'm wearing this brand them from Luxy Hair for $235+ (available in three lengths, 35 colors, and two thicknesses). A Cosrx snail mucin serum to help improve skin hydration and soothe damaged skin. Yep, snail mucin is a Korean skincare product made from snail slime. Sounds ick, but your skin will totally fall in love the second you use it. Hmm, wonder if this is why SpongeBob had Gary the pet snail — skincare benefits. A pack of 240 pimple patches because a pimple is NOT ruining our day, babe! These patches use hydrocolloid material to help absorb all the gunk and tea tree oil and salicylic acid to speed up the pimple-healing process without picking or popping. Abracadabra, psh, what pimple? Reviewers are comparing these babies to the ever-so-popular Starface patches. An E.l.f. lip balm that'll have you like *wait, are we sure that this isn't Laneige in disguise?* These hydrating, nourishing balms are packed with ingredients your lips will ~love~ like shea butter and hyaluronic acid, and they'll give you an ever-so-sheer tint. Plus, you could get all five for, like, the same price as ONE of the name-brand ones. And their Glow Reviver melting lip balm, which not only comes in the most stunning shades, but it'll slick your pout DOWN with some deliciously buttery moisture without the sticky feeling. And that shine?! To die for. 😍 Promising review: "Diva, stop letting these influencers sway you into spending your hard-earned (and scarce) beans on $20–$30 subpar lip balms — you're paying for the brand, and the quality is questionable. E.l.f. KNOCKED THEM OUTTA THE PARK WITH THIS! SO BUTTERY, SO YUMMY, SOOOOOOO MUCH PRODUCT!!!!! I wasn't expecting the tube to be so generous in size, by far the biggest amount I've seen from the market. The flavors are divine, the color payoff is even better than Summer Fridays… and it's only $9, you cannot go wrong. I just can't fathom any balm being priced above $12, E.l.f. always hits and barely misses. 🩷💋" —SONIAGet it from Amazon for $9 (available in six colors). A piercing bump solution so you can help stop that little bump on your nose piercing that's tripled in size in two weeks from growing annnnyyyy more. Before you totally ditch your new piercing, let this stuff help heal and reduce the size of your keloid! 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An illuminating moisturizer by L'Oreal to help enhance your skin's natural summer ✨glow.✨ It's a perfect, lightweight alternative to heavy foundations that just make you feel suuuuuper hot on those lovely 95-degree days. Joesoef's sulfur soap that'll help with some of your skincare woes, like acne, blackheads, and clogged pores. Sulfur, *a key ingredient in this lil' miracle bar*, is an antibacterial and anti-fungal that'll help you say hakuna matata to all of your skincare problems. A sulfate-free biotin shampoo with tons of 5-star ratings from people swearing by its effectiveness. It works on all hair types, including dyed hair, and it can help stimulate hair growth and make your hair look thicker with regular use. An Anua heartleaf pore-clearing cleansing oil that's perfect for all skin types and will effectively get rid of makeup residue, blackheads, and sebum while also helping prevent your pores from clogging up. 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Wuchang: Fallen Feathers Review
505 Games Wuchang: Fallen Feathers is the latest high-profile Soulslike game, this time coming from Chinese developer Leenzee Games. Unlike some of the most recent Soulslike releases, Wuchang is more faithful to the formula created by FromSoftware's Demon's Souls and Dark Souls, but the changes it does make might be the game's downfall. Wuchang is an ambitious Soulslike, which helps it stand out in what's one of the newest and most popular subgenres around. What keeps it from being great is that all these new systems are a chore to actually understand and use. I'm sure that if players perfectly grasp a balance of the systems, they could make a character with some amazing capabilities, yet it's hard to reach that sweet spot playing through the game. Just to get it out of the way, Wuchang's story is like a lot of Soulslike games. You play as the titular Bai Wuchang, a pirate warrior suffering from amnesia who has to fight through different areas in ancient China during the Ming dynasty. People have been victims of "feathering," the game's sickness that makes the infected sprout feathers and eventually turn into monsters. Wuchang can harness the power of feathering, making her the ideal warrior to uncover what's going on. Is this a confusing and vague storyline? Yes, because it's a Soulslike and that's practically a requirement. The people you meet speak vaguely about other people and subjects that don't make sense until you piece them together with item descriptions, clues found throughout the areas and environmental story elements. It's hardly a storyline that you could fully figure out in a casual playthrough, so I'll be depending on the lore guys on YouTube to piece the story together in the days and weeks after the game's release. Progression system has too much going on What's important for Wuchang -- and any Soulslike that aims to stand out in the subgenre -- is the gameplay, and it's certainly unique. It's dynamic but almost to a fault, with a lot of complexity getting in the way of combat flow. As Wuchang, you have access to five classes of weapons: axes that do big damage but are slow; longswords that do good damage while allowing for parries; twin swords that allow for quick attacks at the cost of lower damage; one-handed swords that are in the midrange for damage and speed; spears that do solid damage while also being able to poke at a longer distance. Throughout the game, you'll come across different weapons of each type. There's 25 in total, and they all have a unique look, abilities and stats from each other. So you're not as overwhelmed as, say, in Elden Ring, where you have more than 300 weapons to choose from. To make full use of these weapons, however, you have to work your way through the skill tree, and this tree represents a hurdle for the game as it overcomplicates things. 505 Games The skill tree reminds me more of the Sphere Grid from Final Fantasy X. It's split into six paths, one for each weapon and one for general-purpose use with universal upgrades like adding to your healing flasks, being able to do more damage with certain effects, and getting more magic points. Along each path are also various stat improvements like adding an extra point to strength, endurance, agility and so on. When you acquire enough red mercury, the souls or currency in the game, you can gain a level, providing a red essence that unlocks a spot on the grid. You need to go down these paths to power up Wuchang as well as the weapons, as improved attacks and mastery of a weapon also require going down each path. Then, at a certain point of unlocking more spots on the grid, the path extends to give you even more stats, abilities and so on. If you're confused by reading this, it's going to be just as confusing when you try it out for yourself. It's one thing to level up a character and put points into various stats, but it's another to level up and realize that you need to spend skill points unlocking a path to get more healing flasks. Where the leveling system messes with you is when you don't unlock a certain path that you need for a boss. One boss in particular was kicking my ass, as it's the first boss you need to use deflecting, or parrying, to beat (unless you're a Soulslike ace who can play perfectly). I had gone down the axe upgrade path and didn't realize that I was ill-equipped for the fight. While there is a tip message that comes up mentioning deflecting, this was the first time the game even mentioned this capability. After failing to beat this boss for hours, I decided to take a long look at the grid and saw that the deflect ability was a few upgrades into the longsword path. Fortunately, you can respec these points at a shrine for free, which I did, and I defeated the boss after a few more tries. Mind you, I could have beaten the boss the other way -- playing perfectly -- but deflecting and parrying to expose the boss's weakness was far easier. And prior to this, the bosses weren't giving me much trouble, just requiring a few deaths in order to understand their pattern. This upgrade grid is super interesting, but there are far too many abilities and benefits that should be unlocked from the start to help reduce the frustration when playing. Madness is making me mad Another interesting idea in Wuchang is the madness system. This is a play on the Humanity and Kindling found in the original Souls games, with a bit of Insight from Bloodborne -- a sort of passive stat that changes how the game world evolves as you play. As you die or defeat certain enemies, your madness will increase. As your madness increases, you can become more powerful. In that path I mentioned about gaining more healing flasks, there are unlockable traits where, if you have a certain amount of madness, you do more damage or gain some extra ability. Madness is based on your level, so the higher the level you are, the higher the maximum madness increases. If your madness is low, you can even acquire a certain amount of madness to buy an item at a shrine. So what happens when your madness is at max? Well, that's a bad thing for two reasons. The first is that you'll do more damage, but you'll also receive more damage. This is going to be great for the hardcore Soulslike player with perfect dodge and parry timing. I'm sure speedrunners will make use of this trait. However, when you're getting your ass kicked by a boss, the last thing you want is for them to hit you for more damage. 505 Games Arguably the most interesting part of this madness system is that if you die at, or near, max madness, the spot where you died that has some of your leftover red mercury will take the form of an evil doppelganger that you'll have to fight. Defeat it and you'll get an item as well as removing all of your madness. It's an interesting feature, but it's also a pain. To get rid of the madness, you can kill certain humanoid enemies, but sometimes to kill those people, you need to kill non-humanoid enemies, which increases madness. Alternatively, you can find and buy items that will reduce madness at a certain temple, but those aren't widely available. Where madness really causes a problem is with bosses. If you die repeatedly at a boss and your death spot is in the boss arena, the doppelganger won't show up, so you're kind of stuck with max madness unless you decide to go get killed somewhere else, take down the doppelganger and be back to zero madness. Pretty but punishing Wuchang performs as well as any Soulslike game when it comes to the action and graphics. The speed of the gameplay is just a step below Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, FromSoftware's parrying-intensive Soulslike, but also a step above its other popular title, Bloodborne. It's fast-paced, but it's also dynamic. I say it's dynamic because of the Spirit Points system, which is the game's version of mana. Unlike most Soulslike games, you don't have a mana pool to draw from when casting magic or doing special attacks. Instead, you need to acquire Spirit Points, and the easiest way to do this is by dodging. A perfectly timed dodge nets you a point that will let you use one special ability or one basic spell. On the grid, there are spots to unlock more points as well as more ways to get the points from deflecting attacks, doing a certain combo or having a certain amount of madness. 505 Games This system requires players to be more active in fights, so someone can't make a glass cannon magic character right off the bat who fights at a distance, although I'm sure there is a build where that's possible in the late game. You need to really get in there and mix it up with the enemies, which I can appreciate. Then come the visuals, and Wuchang has some great-looking scenes. Bosses in the game are also unique in both their attacks and visuals, something highly prized by Soulslike players. The game's presentation overall is on par with any of the AAA titles out there. The English voice acting is a little weak, but people talk so little in the game that it practically doesn't matter. I played the game on a standard PS5, and there were instances when the PS5 did seem to have some issues with dropped frames. It happened after a certain amount of playing and not due to too much going on-screen. Wuchang is a great effort by Leenzee Games. While the game won't revolutionize the Soulslike genre, it does the next best thing by offering some ideas that they, or maybe another developer, can refine. Maybe it will become a mainstay for the genre in future games. If anything, I believe a Wuchang sequel could be an incredible game if it happens. But right now, the formula just isn't there yet. Wuchang: Fallen Feathers comes out on July 23 for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series consoles for $50. It will be available on Xbox Game Pass on day 1.
