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The Year of Nintendo

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2020, what a year. Also what a year for Nintendo, and when we say Nintendo–we are meaning the Nintendo Switch.

Nintendo has a way of integrating itself through a variety of markets. Children, Adults young and old can all enjoy the simplicity and G-rated fun of it’s systems. Whether you want to take a trip down nostalgia lane with Mario Kart or Zelda, or if your a rambunctious 6-year-old with the attention span of a fly, Nintendo has a game for you.

The Wii U was a bit of a let down, especially when you compare it next to it’s older brother the Wii. This has not been the case for the Nintendo Switch. A powerful system in terms of game library and performance, not to mention handheld capabilities which has really set this system apart. Sure the 2020 pandemic may have aided it’s sales, but it was already a very successful product prior.

The days of competing with the Xbox One and PS4 are now over. The new systems of Sony and Microsoft are on the horizon. Although with that being said, this should not completely take out the Nintendo Switch. It will put a dent into their sales, but they have already established themselves as a formidable company, and their strong sales should continue into 2021, especially with the holidays edging every bit closer.

The Switch operates with two main models, the regular model and the Lite (which can only be used as a handheld) which have now combined for 55 million units sold. What makes this number even more staggering is that this year alone they have sold 20 million of these units. One would imagine how incredible these numbers will expand come holiday season.

With a gaming library that continues to expand and strip away titles from it’s competitors, the Nintendo Switch is a force to be reckoned with. Nintendo has done a wonderful job setting itself apart from it’s competitors by not only having their amazing first-party games, but also adding popular titles that are on Sony and Microsoft consoles, it not only has games for everyone, but games for adults as well. If 2020 was the year of Nintendo, it surely will be interesting to see what they have in store for an encore.

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Rockstar Releases New Grand Theft Auto VI Launch Trailer Ahead of November Release

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GTA 6 [rockstar games]

Rockstar Games has released the official launch trailer for Grand Theft Auto VI, giving fans another look at Jason, Lucia and the sprawling criminal world of Vice City ahead of the game’s November release.

The new trailer arrived on October 15 and continues to build out the story surrounding Jason and Lucia, two criminals who find themselves caught in a conspiracy stretching across the state of Leonida after what should have been an easy score goes wrong.

The footage once again puts the neon soaked streets of Vice City front and center, while also highlighting the relationship between the game’s two lead characters. Rockstar has described Jason and Lucia as being forced to rely on each other more than ever as they try to survive the fallout from the job.

The launch trailer also features the debut of a new song from Justice titled “Flower in a Hurricane,” featuring Tame Impala, SZA and King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard. Justice also composed the original score for the game.

Rockstar has steadily increased promotion for Grand Theft Auto VI over the past several months, including an extended look at the game released in August that was captured entirely from in game footage on PlayStation 5.

The long awaited sequel returns the franchise to Vice City and introduces a much larger version of the surrounding state of Leonida. The game will follow Jason and Lucia as its central protagonists, marking the first time the mainline series has featured a playable female lead alongside a male protagonist.

Grand Theft Auto VI will be released November 19, 2026, for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S.

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EA Motive’s Iron Man Game Leaks Online, Revealing First Look at Gameplay

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After years of relative silence, fans have finally gotten their first substantial look at EA Motive’s upcoming Iron Man game, just not in the way the studio intended.

An unfinished trailer for the highly anticipated Marvel game has leaked online, showing more than two minutes of early footage featuring Iron Man flying through a massive city, battling enemies and seemingly customizing his armor.

And this one appears to be very real.

Following the footage making its way around the internet, the official Marvel’s Iron Man account responded to the leak with its first-ever post.

“Well, that didn’t go as planned,” the account wrote. “But now you know, and we’ve got a lot more to show you. See you when we’re ready.”

The response effectively confirms the footage comes from Motive’s project while also making it clear that what fans are seeing was never intended to serve as the game’s official unveiling.

The leaked footage provides a surprisingly extensive glimpse at what Motive has been building.

Iron Man can be seen launching into the air and flying at high speeds through a large city, with traversal appearing to give players significant control over Tony Stark while airborne. The footage also shows both aerial and ground combat, including repulsor attacks, missiles, melee strikes and Tony grabbing and throwing enemies.

There are also glimpses of what appears to be an armor customization or progression system, suggesting players could have some control over how Iron Man’s suit develops throughout the game.

Iron Man VR

Familiar characters reportedly appearing in the footage include Pepper Potts and James “Rhodey” Rhodes, while a S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier can also be spotted.

Perhaps most importantly, the footage offers an early indication of how Motive plans to handle one of the most important elements of any Iron Man game: flight.

The ability to freely blast across a city in the Iron Man armor appears to be a major part of the experience, and even in its unfinished state, the footage gives fans a much clearer idea of the scale Motive may be targeting.

EA originally announced its collaboration with Marvel Games and Motive Studio on Iron Man in September 2022. The game was described as a third-person, single-player action-adventure featuring an original story designed to tap into Tony Stark’s complexity, charisma and creative genius.

Since then, however, official information has been extremely limited.

That silence became particularly noticeable following EA’s cancellation of its Black Panther game and the closure of developer Cliffhanger Games, raising questions among some fans about the status of Iron Man.

The newly leaked footage and Motive’s subsequent response should put many of those concerns to rest. The project is clearly still alive.

At the same time, fans should remember that this is unfinished development footage. Visuals, environments, combat systems, animations and even major gameplay mechanics could change substantially before release.

Motive also isn’t rushing to turn the leak into an official reveal. Its response makes that pretty clear: the studio will show more when it believes the game is ready.

For now, however, Iron Man fans have finally gotten their first real glimpse at Tony Stark’s next major video game adventure, and after nearly four years of waiting, there is finally something tangible to be excited about.

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GTA 6 Has More Than 600,000 NPC Animations, Over 10 Times GTA 5

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Rockstar Games continues to reveal just how ambitious Grand Theft Auto VI has become, with new details suggesting the developer has taken a massive leap forward when it comes to bringing the citizens of Vice City and Leonida to life.

According to information shared by Rockstar, GTA 6 features well over 600,000 NPC animations. For comparison, Grand Theft Auto V featured roughly 55,000 animations, while Red Dead Redemption 2 reportedly contained around 300,000.

That means GTA 6 has more than ten times the number found in GTA 5 and roughly twice the amount created for Red Dead Redemption 2.

The huge increase isn’t simply about filling the screen with more pedestrians. Rockstar reportedly established an entire Los Angeles-based team of writers, directors and producers dedicated to making the game’s NPCs feel more believable.

GTA 6 [rockstar games]

Rather than relying primarily on procedurally generated characters, Rockstar has individually art-directed the people inhabiting GTA 6’s world. Different locations are designed to feature different types of people and behaviors, meaning crowds hanging around Vice City’s beaches shouldn’t simply behave like pedestrians walking through other areas of Leonida.

Rockstar North co-studio head Aaron Garbut explained just how far the studio has taken that attention to detail.

“Every room in the game, somebody thought about this,” Garbut said. “Who’s sitting where, what they’re drinking, the marks that are left on the table.”

That level of detail reportedly extends to photographs hanging inside buildings, tattoos belonging to characters and even the fictional families surrounding them.

“The whole thing has been made, built, and photographed, and placed in this random room in a random building in a huge city, in a world,” Garbut added.

NPC behavior has also reportedly been dramatically expanded.

Rockstar used a simple example from GTA 5, where an NPC could drop an object and essentially forget that it existed. In GTA 6, characters are designed to remember and react to events around them. NPC personalities can also influence their reactions to the player, including whether someone runs away, confronts the player or potentially pulls out a weapon of their own.

GTA 6 [rockstar games]

The technology has already caught the attention of other developers.

Berkay Dursun, an AI programmer at IO Interactive who worked on the crowd technology behind 007 First Light, recently commented on Rockstar’s approach after footage of GTA 6’s crowds began circulating.

Dursun explained that Rockstar appears to be individually simulating characters rather than using the less complex crowd systems commonly found in other games.

“Achieving simulations on this scale puts them at least 10 years ahead of the industry,” Dursun said.

It’s another indication that Rockstar isn’t simply trying to make GTA 6 bigger than its predecessors. The studio appears focused on making its enormous world feel significantly more reactive.

Red Dead Redemption 2 was already praised for NPCs that remembered previous encounters and reacted dynamically to the player. With more than twice its animation count and an entire development team dedicated specifically to creating believable citizens, GTA 6 could take that concept considerably further.

Grand Theft Auto VI is scheduled to launch November 19, 2026.

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