Latest news with #Piscatella
NDTV
20-05-2025
- General
- NDTV
At 112, World's Oldest Living Nun Has 4 Words Of Advice
Sister Francis Dominici Piscatella of Long Island, New York, is the world's oldest living nun. At 112, she has only four words of advice for anyone hoping to live as long as she did. Ms Piscatella has been enjoying her senior years on the South Shore of Long Island and has served in the Catholic Church for 94 years. She has advised people to follow the virtues they have witnessed in their loved ones. Sharing her advice, Ms Piscatella told The New York Post, "Teach until you die," before adding, "You have to be a saint before you get to heaven." Ms Piscatella currently resides in the Queen of the Rosary Motherhouse in Amityville and has had a long journey of faith and fate over the years. Her life changed when she was two years old and was involved in an accident with a speeding train in Central Islip. The accident resulted in the loss of her left forearm. She claimed not to have let her siblings help her. "My mother refused to let them assist me because 'you're not going to have your sisters forever, so you better just shape up and do things for yourself,'" Ms Piscatella told The Post. Her calling to Catholicism stemmed from the love she witnessed her family show for one another and the community. However, Ms Piscatella had to physically demonstrate that her disability would not prevent her from serving. It was difficult to find a convent in 1931 that would admit her with only one arm. Ms Piscatella said that the convent was not a place for handicapped people, and one has to "drive work" when they go to the convent. "It's not a vacation area," she said. It was not until another nun, who was looking for a change and had a teaching job open, that Ms Piscatella got into the Dominicans. Ms Piscatella worked in administrative positions from the age of 17 to 84, teaching from the heart on an array of subjects, including maths, history and arithmetic. Nowadays, Ms Piscatella is loved by the Catholic community on Long Island, with whom she celebrated her 112th birthday. She enjoys praying and spending time with them.
New York Post
19-05-2025
- General
- New York Post
Long Island nun — the world's oldest at 112 — shares four words of advice after a lifetime of service
There ain't nun older than her. Sister Francis Dominici Piscatella, the world's oldest nun at 112, has four words of advice for anyone who wants to match her longevity 'Teach until you die,' Piscatella, who celebrated her birthday in late April, told The Post. Advertisement 5 Sister Francis Dominici Piscatella, 112, is the world's oldest nun. Heather Khalifa for the NY Post Piscatella, who is enjoying her golden years on the South Shore of Long Island in her 94th year of service to the Catholic Church, said people should follow the good they've've seen from their loved ones. 'You have to be a saint before you get to heaven.' Advertisement Now living in Amityville's Queen of the Rosary Motherhouse, Piscatella had a long journey of faith and fate throughout her years. 'For some reason, God doesn't want me yet,' the longstanding member of the Dominican order said. 'I feel normal. I never gave my age a thought, it just happened to be.' When she was just 2-years old and living in Central Islip, she lost her left forearm in an accident with a passing train — a life-altering event that Piscatella made the most of. 5 Piscatella celebrating her 112th birthday at the Queen of the Rosary Motherhouse in Amityville. Sisters of St. Dominic Advertisement 5 An old family photo on the desk in Piscatella's room. Heather Khalifa for the NY Post 'I was the second oldest of seven children. My mother wouldn't let them help me because 'you're not always going to have your sisters, so you better just shape up and do things for yourself,'' she said. 'That's what I did. Nobody really ever had to help with anything,' the centenarian added. A blessed life Advertisement Growing up in a large family of Italian immigrants, the calling to Catholicism came from the love she saw her family extend to the family and community. Her father, a foreman with the Long Island Railroad, brought daily sandwiches his wife made for a worker who showed up routinely empty-handed at lunch, and her mother was known to frequently cook 'a big Italian meal' for the nuns in town. Growing up in that environment, it became an easy call for Piscatella to join the order right out of high school, she said. 'It was normal for me to help people, and I liked helping them,' the super senior said. However, finding a convent that would accept her with only one arm in 1931 proved challenging, and Piscatella had to physically show that her disability would not be a hindrance to service. She only found her way into the Dominicans thanks to another nun seeking a change of scenery and leaving a teaching position in the void. 5 Piscatella with her close friend Sister Francis Daniel Kammer. Heather Khalifa for the NY Post 'The priest said, 'Well, can she teach?' And the sister said, 'Oh, she's a great teacher,' said Sister Francis Kammer, Piscatella's close friend, former student and roommate for 45 years. Advertisement 'And he said, 'Then she stays.' And she never looked back.' Piscatella taught from her heart on all sorts of subjects, from math to history and arithmetic, while working in administrative roles since that fateful day at age 17 — until she was 84. 'Well, I don't want to brag, but I was a pretty good student in everything. I was a good teacher because I was teaching myself too. I was knocking it into my own head,' said Piscatella, who spent much of her tenure at Dominican Commercial High School in Queens and Molloy College in Rockville Center, along with several New York City schools. 5 Piscatella told The Post her advice to people looking to live a long life is to 'teach until you die.' Heather Khalifa for the NY Post Advertisement Nowadays, Piscatella enjoys deep prayer and connection with God while setting an example that's being adored by the Catholic community on Long Island — many of whom she celebrated turning 112 with. 'She accepts the will of God. Her whole life, I never heard her complain about anything,' Kammer said. 'She had a brain bleed 11 years ago, and they thought she was never going to walk again and never going to talk again. She accepted it, and here she is walking and talking.' Advertisement Piscatella — said she is happy she 'can still think' at her advanced age. 'I could still teach, or at least I think so,' Piscatella said.
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
$80 Switch 2 and now Xbox games aren't a big shock, analyst says, and games haven't really been $70 for a while: "The average price people are paying ... is much higher"
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. One gaming analyst reckons $80 games aren't too much of a shocker because gamers have typically been paying more than the base $60 or $70 price tag for a while. Nintendo made headlines with the Switch 2 reveal, partly because of the console itself but also because of its decision to launch Mario Kart World at $80, well above the $70 standard that most publishers had transitioned to during this console generation. It didn't take long for other companies to follow, either. Xbox just announced that at least "some" of its first-party games will also adopt the new $80 norm, which will potentially affect this year's Call of Duty, next year's Fable, or any number of upcoming releases from Xbox Game Studios. Circana's games executive director, Mat Piscatella, isn't hugely surprised. "The big games have not been 60 or 70 bucks for some time at launch," he said in an interview with GamesRadar+. "With all of the Collector's Editions and Gold Editions and Silver Editions and all these other things, the average price people are paying for a new video game on average is much higher than that base price, and has been for years, and keeps inching up. So I'm not as kerfuffled about the $80 price point as a lot of other people are, because, realistically, people have already been kind of spending that, whether they want to admit it to themselves or not." Publishers sure can charge whatever they like, but will people accept the change? Piscatella reckons the "the same kind of pushback" has always come for these types of price hikes, though it doesn't usually work. "Ultimately, if someone thinks a game is really cool, they want to play it, they're going to buy it at whatever price they need to buy it at," he explained. "That's just kind of the nature of the price-insensitive video game fan that wants to play the game they want to play." And if these $80 games sell well, then there's nothing stopping other publishers from adopting the same pricing: "Is $80 for that game gonna fly in the holiday window? And if it does, then we'll see people follow. And if it doesn't, maybe they don't." "It's up to that video game buyer whether or not they want to make that purchase, and generally, if a game's good enough, they will, and if a game is not good enough, or they're not excited enough about it, they won't," he continued. "And prices come down really fast. It's just the nature of the price sensitivity and the enthusiasm of the audience. So we'll have to see. I think [Mario Kart World] will be fine at launch. We'll see what it does in holiday." Commenting on the broader shape of today's industry, Piscatella points out that there's a much greater range of price points at different levels of the industry, from premium $80 games to topical hits like the $50 Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and down to many free-to-play games. "Back in the physical-only days you had 50 bucks. That was it. That was the only game you got," he says. "Now, games of all sizes, all kinds, are priced in all kinds of different ways, and more free-to-play than ever. I know everyone's kind of focused on that top level, and sure, I get it, but in terms of the available options, there's so many all over the board, and it's more diverse than it's ever been. Publishers are much smarter about discounting and pacing, pulsing of the promotional pricing and how to keep that demand going. So, yeah, it's nothing new. This is nothing new that we haven't been through as an industry, over and over again for years and years and years. A day after our interview, Piscatella reacted to the fresh Xbox price bumps on social media: "This is going to eventually happen across all gaming products which are subject to 'market conditions' (ie tariffs). Was expected to happen. Is now happening. Will be happening more." Check out the new games of 2025 and beyond to see what might be affected. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
02-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
"We're in kind of unprecedented territory": Analyst says there's hope for a Switch 2 and GTA 6 bump, but "are you going to pick food, or are you going to pick a new game?"
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. The base price of the Nintendo Switch 2 remains $449.99 in the US despite the Trump administration's ongoing and chaotic tariff rollout, but those tariffs have already sparked US price hikes on a range of Switch 2 peripherals. Analysts expect the Switch 2's core US price to hold for now, but veteran games analyst Mat Piscatella of Circana reasons that the US games industry is largely caught in "contingency planning" as it enters "unprecedented territory," despite big hitters like a new Nintendo console and a new GTA on the horizon. "I think folks want to be optimistic about things like Switch 2 and GTA 6 coming into the market," Piscatella tells GamesRadar+, "but this looming cloud of tariffs and the impact and what's happening on the trade side of things, and how that might impact products like accessories and hardware and that type of thing, it's just, no matter what industry you're looking at, you're looking at this stuff going, okay, what happens next?" A common refrain in the games industry last year was: "Survive 2024." After post-covid downturns, many developers hoped to simply get through the year, get to the Switch 2, get to GTA 6, let them bring a whole bunch of people and spending and investment and opportunity back to the industry, and then reassess. Piscatella said he'd heard the same from many publishers and retailers. In the US, these new tariffs have complicated those hopes a fair bit. Today, there's a lot of "contingency planning, trying to read the tea leaves," Piscatella says, and "trying to figure out the best way to move forward when the layout of the tariffs has been a little bit chaotic and hard to predict, to say the least. People are just kind of waiting and seeing what's happening and trying to plan accordingly, but hopeful that, with Switch 2, with GTA 6, when it comes to the tariffs, the increased presence of digital – which wouldn't be subject to those tariffs, at least not at this stage – lessens those kinds of burns a little bit. But everyone's still nervous, right?" Piscatella said just last December that the combo of GTA 6 and Nintendo Switch 2 is almost unprecedented in the games industry's history, and as interesting as these mega-releases are, at this point I selfishly find myself hoping to one day speak to him during quite precedented times. These tariffs have affected much more than just games, of course, and resulting economic knock-on effects can directly impact game spending as well if they reach daily essentials. Piscatella dismisses the old theory that games are especially resistant to inflation or other financial hardships – "I don't think that's right at all, I don't think the data even supports that idea," he says – and stresses that when life gets more costly, games can face pressure just like any other non-essential. "If things like groceries get a lot more expensive, or other everyday, essential categories get more expensive, then consumers are really going to have to pick and choose," he says. "And you know, are you going to pick food, or are you going to pick a new game? For most people, they'll pick the food. But you know, we have some dedicated players that could pick a game and eat Top Ramen. Who the hell knows? But anyways, long-winded answer, I think everyone's just kind of waiting and seeing and trying to prepare for what may come next." Even if people do choose to game through a recession, or shrinkflation, or what-have-you, Piscatella says we can still see "more people kind of shifting to free-to-play, to easily accessible products, to kind of offset what they're experiencing in other parts of their world." Piscatella regularly emphasizes the power of today's biggest live service games – the Minecraft, Fortnite, and Roblox of the world – being "the majority of what the mass market plays." As ever, "there's immense pressure on the market. And if you throw in things like a recession or higher prices on groceries and all this other stuff, I think it gets nasty." "People talk about the competition thing and what's the biggest competition for Switch 2," he adds. "And I don't know, I think the biggest competition for Switch 2 is going to be Switch 2 supply and the tariffs, but we'll see what happens." Former Rockstar dev says we've seen enough GTA 6 trailers: "The element of surprise is going to make the release only bigger as an event." Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
04-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
The Mario Kart World price of $80 could be the "new normal," but sales won't be impacted at first: "The true test will come in year 2"
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Nintendo is charging $80 for Mario Kart World - easily the Switch 2's biggest launch game and the publisher's most expensive game ever - and some analysts reckon it might set a new standard for video game prices. Yesterday's Nintendo Switch 2 Direct gave us some gorgeous looks at really exciting games, but all that hype was slightly dampened when the internet learned about how damn expensive some games (and Switch 1 upgrades) were going to be come June 5. Mario Kart World specifically is $80/€80/£67 if you want a digital copy and even more for a physical cart in most territories. In the EU, for example, snagging a boxed Mario Kart World will put a whopping €90 dent in your wallet. Needless to say, Nintendo's gone well above the now-industry standard of charging $70 for standard editions of AAA games, but it might even be setting an all-new standard altogether. Circana's video game business analyst Mat Piscatella reacted to the inflated prices on social media, writing that we might be seeing a "new normal of pricing... but instead of a slow increase over time like we've seen in grocery over the past few years, we're going to start seeing things happen all at once." That certainly implies we could see non-Nintendo AAA games retailing for $80 by the end of the year, and my bank account is especially scared about what Take-Two might do with GTA 6. Speaking to IGN, Piscatella reckons the company is unlikely to course correct on its new and inflated price tags for a while, partly because Nintendo "super enthusiasts" will drop the cash no matter what. "Based on what we're seeing across the market, sales to higher-income or more affluent households likely won't be impacted by this pricing," Piscatella said. "And, of course, we have the price-insensitive super enthusiasts that will do and pay whatever it takes to acquire the Switch 2 at launch. Therefore, because of the limited quantities that will be available during the launch year, I do not anticipate this pricing to hinder year one sales volumes." Essentially, Nintendo's going to have no trouble in making the Switch 2 sell out for months after its release. Scalpers, super fans, and anyone who can't resist the pull of racing as Moo Moo Meadows' Cow will keep it that way. "The true test will come in year two, as supply is likely to become more readily available, and the addressable market will be forced to widen. So, we'll have to see what happens over the next 9-12 months." A sudden price drop isn't absolutely unprecedented for the Big N. In 2011, Nintendo slashed 40% off of the 3DS price just four months after the handheld's lukewarm launch. Though, that's somewhat unlikely to happen again since the console is coming out swinging with a far more exciting lineup of upcoming Switch 2 games and Nintendo, overall, is in a much more dominant position than it was in the Wii U era. Here are the retailers to keep an eye on for when Switch 2 pre-orders open.
