One of world's biggest Legolands opens to tourists in Shanghai
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The Verge
an hour ago
- The Verge
Nintendo wants to keep ‘traditional approach' to development as costs skyrocket
A bigger, more powerful Switch means bigger, more intensive games that take more time and money to make. But as development costs skyrocket across the industry, Nintendo seems to have a plan to keep things in control as it transitions into the Switch 2 era. In response to a question during a recent shareholders meeting about the increased costs of making games for its new console, Nintendo president Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa admitted that 'recent game software development has become larger in scale and longer in duration, resulting in higher development costs. The game business has always been a high-risk business, and we recognize that rising development costs are increasing that risk.' However, he said that Nintendo's development teams are 'currently devising various ways to maintain our traditional approach to creating games amidst the increasing scale and length of development. We believe it is important to make the necessary investments for more efficient development.' 'The game business has always been a high-risk business.' The early lineup of first-party Switch 2 games has already shown Nintendo being more ambitious with its franchises on the enhanced hardware. Mario Kart World introduced an open-world structure to the long-running racing series, while the upcoming Donkey Kong Bananza adds an impressive destructive element to a more traditional 3D platforming experience. This has come with increased costs for consumers; World sells for $79.99, $10 more than most Nintendo games, while the Switch 2 itself is $449.99, a $100 jump over the Switch OLED. (In response to a question about these prices making it harder to reach younger audiences, Furukawa said that 'we are closely monitoring to what degree the price of the system might become a barrier.') Of course, Nintendo is not alone, and the increased scale of game development has been disastrous for many of its competitors. Just last week Microsoft's gaming division was hit hard by layoffs and game cancellations, while high-profile games like Black Panther and Concord were both shut down alongside their development studios. Nintendo has been one of the rare exceptions in the floundering game industry, but keeping that up will become increasingly challenging as games get bigger. Then again, Furukawa offered one concrete way of combatting this: more smaller games. 'We also believe it is possible to develop game software with shorter development periods that still offer consumers a sense of novelty,' Furukawa said. 'We see this as one potential solution to the concern aboutrising development costs and software prices, and we will explore it from various angles within thecompany.'
Forbes
an hour ago
- Forbes
‘Jurassic World Rebirth' HFR With TrueCut Motion Is Exclusive To China
As this screenshot from a video reveals, Cinity is showing 'Jurassic World Rebirth' in 4K at 48 fps ... More with TrueCut Motion. If you're a fan of picture quality and want to watch the most technically advanced version of Jurassic World Rebirth, then it seems as though you'll have to travel to China to see it. As I noted in my round-up of which cinema format to choose to see Jurassic World Rebirth, while the film's director, Gareth Edwards, decided to shoot on 35mm film, it is only being exhibited using digital projection (with a DCP taken from a 4K digital intermediate). You can also choose to see it in RealD 3D, 4DX 3D and Dolby 3D. However, as many find fast action in 3D difficult to follow, I wondered in the previous article why there was no TrueCut Motion version of the film. It turns out, however, that the TrueCut Motion logo can be spotted in the film's credits. This is because a TrueCut Motion version of the film does exist but if you want to see it you'll have to travel to a Cinity screen in China. As can be seen in the poster, Cinity is advertising that Jurassic World Rebirth is being shown exclusively in Cinity theaters in 4K at 48 fps with TrueCut Motion. In contrast to US and Europe, Cinity is happy to push the high frame frame version of the Jurassic ... More World Rebith What Is Cinity? Cinity is China's homegrown premium large format cinema tech that brings together high-brightness, wide-color gamut 4K laser projection (and LED cinema) with high dynamic range (HDR), 3D, and high frame rate capability, along with a proprietary object-based surround sound format. TrueCut Motion is the 'motion grading' technology from Pixelworks used in Avatar: The Way of Water and other movies/remasters to make fast motion in high-frame-rate projection look more natural, or rather, more like 24fps. When high frame rate was used by the likes of Peter Jackson (The Hobbit Trilogy) and Ang Lee (Gemini Man) to make fast motion more discernible, many critics felt that the smoothness of the image looked unnatural. This is where TrueCut Motion comes in. It allows filmmakers to dial in as much smoothness as they wish so that they get the benefit of using high frame rate, but with the look of 24fps. It does so by dealing with visual anomalies that occur in fast motion, such as judder, the impact of which is exacerbated on large, bright screens that underpin the latest, laser-projection-powered premium large format screens. However, it seems that Universal Pictures feels that HFR has received too much of a bad rap to offer an HFR version in the West, even with TrueCut Motion in place. (After writing this piece, I will be heading off to see Jurassic World Rebirth in Dolby 3D, and if it does turn out to be HFR, I will update the article.) With China contributing a significant $41.5 million to the movie's $318 million opening weekend, (the second best of the franchise so far behind Jurassic World (2015), which took $524.4 million), it certainly makes sense that they would use the cutting-edge tech to push the film any way they can in the country. Related Articles: Which Cinema Format Should You Choose For 'Jurassic World Rebirth'? Can Avatar: The Way Of Water's TrueCut Motion Tech Save High Frame Rate Cinema Gemini Man HFR Review: A Bold Failure
Gizmodo
2 hours ago
- Gizmodo
People Hated the ‘Squid Game' Ending, so They're Using AI to Make New Ones
Pissing people off with your series finale is practically a rite of passage for beloved TV shows at this point. Just ask fans of The Sopranos, or Dexter, or Game of Thrones. And if you're feeling butt hurt by your favorite TV show's subpar ending, you may be tempted to imagine a whole new one—an ending where Tony gets whacked, or survives some kind of epic John Wick-style shootout, or, I don't know, assembles all the Infinity Stones and becomes the supreme ruler of mobsters across the universe. Or better yet, if you live in 2025, you can simply just generate a whole new ending with a few words and the click of a button. In case you haven't been paying attention, Squid Game finally dropped its third and final season, and the reaction to the series finale has been… mixed. For several reasons (one being I haven't watched the finale myself), I won't tell you what happens in the end, but it's clear that things go off the rails and not to every fan's satisfaction. In yesteryear, that would mean we're relegated to bitching about the outcome to our friends or on Reddit, or to our poor therapists, but now we have video generators like Google's slop machine, Veo 3, and people are obviously taking full advantage. View this post on InstagramYou can watch Player 456 battle a CGI baby with a knife, or kick a CGI baby into the abyss, or even toss the CGI baby in! Or how about watching Player 222's baby grow up. Yeah… really. The fact that there are so many variations out there—seriously, go look on Instagram or TikTok—is a testament to how easy it is to go from zero to 'here's what I think happened' and then actually sort of see that play out realistically. And yes, most of these are also half-joking, but that doesn't mean that someone with a little more patience and maybe a better understanding of how to prompt AI couldn't make a more serious one. Where are the real AI slop gurus at? I want to see the BAFTA-worthy version of these amateur AI endings, though making that ending may be a lot more effort than most are willing to put in. I've previously covered the amount of prompting that actually goes into making a serviceable AI video, and it's probably a lot more than you think. According to PJ Ace, who recently generated an AI commercial with Veo 3 that aired during the NBA finals, his 30-second ad spot took about '300 to 400' generations with Veo 3, which is hard to equate into hours, I guess, but still sounds like a lot more bullshit than just typing, 'make me an ad inspired by GTA' and then cashing your check. If there's one thing I've noticed in the wild world of video generation, it's that trends tend to catch on quickly and explode way past the ceiling you thought they would, so I'm going to go ahead and guess that we haven't seen the last of AI-generated endings for shows we know and love. And yes, that means a happy ending for Squid Game, a show about desperate people murdering each other for money.
