Sony believes Microsoft buying Call of Duty publisher Activision Blizzard could convince people to buy Xbox consoles instead of PS5 machines.
In a filing to the Brazilian authorities, Sony revealed its thoughts on the pending takeover, claiming Call of Duty is so popular it could “influences users’ choice of console” if only available on Xbox consoles.
Microsoft has, thus far, indicated Call of Duty games will continue to be available on Xbox and PlayStation consoles for the foreseeable future.
Despite the takeover seems to have Sony spooked. In comments spied by ResetEra and translated by Eurogamer’s Portuguese site, Sony intimated it could never hope to rival Call of Duty.
Sony said: “Despite large budgets and resources, no other developer has managed to create a franchise to rival Activision’s Call of Duty, which stands out as a gaming category in its own right.”
“Call of Duty is heavily entrenched, so no rival – no matter how relevant – can achieve it,” the company said, when asked to comment on the transaction. “Call of Duty has been the top-selling game for nearly every year over the past decade, and for its genre, it’s overwhelmingly the best-selling game. It’s synonymous with first-person shooters and essentially defines that category.”
It concludes that Call of Duty “is so popular that it influences users’ choice of console, and its network of loyal users is so ingrained that even if a competitor had the budget to develop a similar product, it wouldn’t be able to rival Item”.
Sony ranks Call of Duty alongside the Star Wars, Game of Thrones and Harry Potter franchises globally and says that the first-person shooter has “no rival.” PlayStation consoles are definitely getting this year’s version of the game, which is a reboot of Modern Warfare 2, and Microsoft has promised to respect the agreement “into the future”
A big-budget drama featuring major characters in the Wagatha Christie case is to join the slew of documentaries already in production, as the race to bring to the small screen the rancorous details of the high court battle that ended on Friday hots up.
The row between two high-profile footballers’ wives, which ended last week when the judge ruled in favor of Coleen Rooney, is to be turned into television serial by one of Britain’s leading screenwriters. Debbie Horsfield, who adapted Poldark for the 2015-19 BBC series, is to write a drama chronicling the notorious public row between Rebekah Vardy, wife of leading Leicester goal scorer Jamie Vardy, and Coleen Rooney, wife of Wayne, the renowned former England player and, until last month, manager of Derby County.
The libel claim famously centered on a trap set for Vardy by her former friend Rooney, who suspected that stories about her personal life and family were being sold to the tabloid press. Restricted access to a private Instagram account that was followed by Vardy appeared to lead directly to items carried by the Sun newspaper. Vardy, 40, claimed she was wrongly publicly identified as the culprit and sued Rooney for libel.
High court judge Mrs Justice Karen Steyn ruled on Friday that Rooney’s accusation had been “substantially true”. Now the makers of A Very English Scandala drama about the Jeremy Thorpe case starring Hugh Grant and Ben Whishaw, and the most recent A Very British Scandalstarring Paul Bettany and Claire Foy as the Duke and Duchess of Argyll, have confirmed to the observer that they are about to take on this high profile modern-day scandal.
Like the previous salacious disputes the production company, Blueprint Pictures, has fictionalized, the Vardy v Rooney scrap became a cause celebre, providing a distraction for many during a turbulent summer and creating a moral debate about the rights and wrongs of an exposing libel action.
Horsfield, who wrote BBC1’s 2018 the hair salon saga Age Before Beautyis working on the new TV drama for Blueprint Pictures alongside her former Poldark producer, Karen Thrussell. Likely key plot points will be the hatching of Rooney’s “Scousetrap” scheme to lure Vardy into revealing herself via Instagram, and the loss at sea of a potentially incriminating mobile phone owned by Vardy’s agent, Caroline Watt, during a voyage around the coast of Scotland . Watt did not give evidence at the high court as she was judged by a forensic psychologist to be in an unfit state of mind.
Blueprint Pictures, the production company behind A Very British Scandal starring Claire Foy as the Duchess of Argyll, is planning to make a drama based on the Wagatha Christie trial. Photograph: TBC/BBC/Blueprint
Rooney, 36, is reportedly making a documentary chronicling her own attempts to turn detective. She is said to have been working with Lorton Entertainment, which also made the football documentary Rooney, on a show about the legal dispute, destined for an unknown broadcast platform. Netflix is thought to be planning to screen a fly-on-the-wall documentary by Dorothy St Pictures, the filmmakers behind a recent Pamela Anderson documentary, which had cameras on Rooney during her court case this spring.
In addition, Channel 4 is working on a reconstruction of the significant courtroom scenes, filmed by production company Chalkboard, using the real court transcripts. Actors will play the parts of the key adversaries and their husbands.
Tom Popay, creative director at Chalkboard, has been quoted justifying the project: “The #WagathaChristie phenomenon has become one of the most talked-about moments in the history of social media. The court case that followed has captivated the entire nation but very few people actually got to see what happened inside the courtroom.”
The BBC is also set to broadcast a documentary, made by Curious Films, telling both sides of Rooney’s attempts at Instagram sleuthing. Reportedly on the point of beginning filming, it is an investigation into the social media warfare conducted by supporters of each faction, and will include testimony from “the Vardy camp” – possibly including Vardy herself.
And yet another production company, Optomen Television, is working on a documentary about the explosive case, although neither of the women is thought to be involved with the research for this programme.
As well as offering human conflict and high emotion, the Wagatha narrative offers a snapshot of British celebrity culture. Several moments in the court case highlighted the generational and educational chasms in wider British society. Rebekah Vardy did not know the phrase “Davy Jones’s locker”, while her barrister appeared to be unsure about how Instagram works.
Blueprint Pictures, behind the Horsfield script, is run by television executives Peter Czernin and Graham Broadbent, who met at university in Bristol. Together they have made the acclaimed and popular films In Bruges, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Alongside their television hits, earning them both Oscars and Baftas. They set up Blueprint Pictures in 2005 and are shortly to bring out The Beautiful Gamewritten by Frank Cottrell Boyce and directed by Thea Sharrock, as well as The Banshees of Inisherinthe latest film from Irish playwright Martin McDonagh.
Australia is leading a group of cycling nations pushing for better safety measures to prevent a repeat of the horror crash at the Commonwealth Games on Sunday, when the English rider Matt Walls was catapulted over the velodrome railings and into the crowd.
The AusCycling performance director, Jesse Korf, who is in Birmingham for the 2022 Games, said he was speaking to a number of his counterparts about presenting a “united front” to the governing body, the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI).
“You’re not going to get to a point where you’re going to eliminate crashes from bike racing,” he said. “But people going over a railing – that’s a different story in my mind.”
During the final lap of a qualifying heat for the men’s scratch race at the Lee Valley VeloPark on Sunday, Walls was involved in a crash with half a dozen riders. The Tokyo 2020 gold medalist was lifted over the railing by his momentum and sent hurtling towards shocked spectators. Walls received medical attention for almost an hour before being taken to hospital, but was subsequently discharged with only minor injuries.
Two other riders were also taken to hospital, while spectators – including a young girl and a man covered in blood – received treatment for injuries. The remainder of the morning session was cancelled.
“It’s not the first rider to go over a railing or the first track where it has happened,” Korf said. The performance director indicated Australia and other nations intended to lodge a proposal with the UCI about mandatory improvements to velodrome safety measures.
“We all feel strongly that from a safety perspective, consideration [is required] around increasing heights of railings or looking at a plexiglass solution or something of that nature,” he said. “[We want to] make a push for something like that to be considered, because it’s not the first time.
“Rules in ice hockey have been set such that there is a plexiglass wall there to protect the athletes and the spectators. So there is some precedent in other sports and it’s certainly a conversation worth having.”
On Sunday, the British cyclist and five-time Olympic champion Laura Kenny urged the sport to do more to prevent such incidents. “I think the crashes are getting worse and it’s because the speeds are getting higher, the positions are getting more extreme,” she said.
“Maybe there should be screens because [Walls] should not have been able to go over the top and into the crowd – that’s pretty damn dangerous.”
Track cycling at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics last year was also marred by a number of crashes, including a high-speed incident for the Australian team pursuit squad after a freak handle-bar snap, and a collision between the Danish and British teams.
England’s Joe Truman (left) and Matthew Glaetzer of Australia (right) are left on the track after a crash in the Keirin on Saturday. Photograph: Justin Setterfield/Getty Images
Korf suggested the sport had to take more steps to protect riders. “Cycling is not too dissimilar to where Formula One was a decade, a decade and a half ago in terms of advancements in equipment, technology, safety, rider welfare,” he said. “There are steps being made, but there is a lot more ground that can get covered and surely will get covered in years to come.”
Australia have endured a number of mishaps in Birmingham. The bid by Matthew Glaetzer, the two-time sprint world champion, to defend his Commonwealth Games keirin crown came undone on Saturday with a high-speed crash that left England’s Joe Truman in hospital. The Tasmanian Josh Duffy was involved in the incident on Sunday, but escaped with minor scrapes.
AusCycling said: “Rider safety is at the heart of everything we do to coach and prepare our riders for competition. “While we are making continuous improvements, these are incredibly powerful athletes moving at high speeds and accidents will sometimes occur.”
Despite these incidents Korf insisted morale in the team was high, helped by the seven gold medals already won by Australia in the velodrome. “The team is doing really well on and off the boards,” he said. “The vibe is generally very good.”
Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., took heat from Wyoming voters during a Friday segment of CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360” when asked about their support for the current congresswoman and the proposition of awarding her a fourth term in office.
“Hell no!” said one self-described Trump supporter, who later went on to defend her response to her by claiming that Cheney did both her constituent of her and the former president “dirty” through her outspoken role of her with the Jan. 6 House committee.
“She’s done us dirty… look at how she’s done Trump. I’m a Trump fan,” she said, adding,”she’s supposed to be supporting him. She’s a Republican, for crying out loud.”
Another voter told correspondent Randi Kaye “absolutely not,” when asked if Cheney could expect to receive his vote, and a third voter said she believed Cheney had already had “three [terms] too many.”
NEW POLL: LIZ CHENEY TRAILING TRUMP-BACKED PRIMARY CHALLENGER BY MORE THAN 20 POINTS
Rep. Liz Cheney speaks during a press conference on Capitol Hill, Oct. 22, 2019. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)
Other voters voiced their disdain with the anti-Trump Republican, also citing her role on the Jan. 6 committee as a major reason.
Kaye noted The Equality State’s overwhelming support for the former president, pointing to the nearly 70 percent of votes he reeled in during the 2020 election, and acknowledged how Cheney’s opposing stance could signal her downfall.
LAURA INGRAHAM: LIZ CHENEY IS ‘SMEARING’ ALL TRUMP VOTERS
Stephen Ayres and Jason Van Tatenhove, an ally of Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes, are sworn in by the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the US Capitol, July 12, 2022. (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post via Getty Images/Pool)
“I find her work on the Jan. 6 committee just repulsive,” another voter told Kaye. Others who responded to Kaye’s questions railed against the committee as a “witch hunt,” a “kangaroo court,” a “hoax,” and “propaganda.”
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One constituent went on to criticize Cheney and the committee as a whole for not allowing former President Trump to have a defense team present to push back against the committee’s claims about his alleged misconduct concerning the 2021 Capitol riot, when a mob of his supporters stormed the building and disrupted certification of the Electoral College count.
“That ain’t the rule of law,” he said, also condemning Cheney’s role in calling out the former president as well by saying ,”That’s not the Wyoming way.”
Cheney will face off against Trump-backed Republican Harriet Hageman in a primary this month. Cheney is seeking a fourth term representing the at-large congressional district of Wyoming, which has only one House seat due to its low population. Cheney won a third term in 2020 by 44 points in the deep-red state.
Taylor Penley is a production assistant with Fox News.
The Reserve Bank is expected to make history today by handing down a fourth consecutive interest rate rise.
The cash rate is predicted to rise by another half a percentage point to 1.85 per cent.
This increase will mean a mortgage holder with a $750,000 loan will face a monthly increase of $211.
Interest rates are set to rise yet again. (A Current Affair)
Since May, that hypothetical homeowner has had an extra $708 tacked on to their repayments.
Another increase would see interest rates rise to the highest level in six years.
And there are fears the RBA could lift rates even higher than predicted.
Experts say the more rate hikes we see and the bigger they are, the more downward pressure it will place on the property market, after national housing prices fell for their third month in a row in July.
RBA Governor Philip Lowe, is facing fresh criticism for remarks he made last year when he said it was likely the cash rate would remain at 0.1 per cent until at least 2024, and the rising cost of living is causing a political fight.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says members of the Coalition are kidding themselves if they argue that rates would not have risen under them.
Buzz Aldrin’s moon mission jacket sells for nearly $4 million
WhatsApp is back in the news for an issue related to security, but in an unusual way, but by statements in which they refuse to weaken the security of the service. This is a threat that is not the first time it has hit the media, but in the United Kingdom it could materialize if a new reform goes ahead and it would not only affect WhatsApp: any encrypted communications software is likely to be harmed.
It all comes down to the new online security law being prepared by the United Kingdom, and which includes provisions to “weaken” the encryption of applications such as WhatsApp. The excuse, of course, is not to spy on its citizens, as they have always liked to do, always in pursuit of security, but to stop certain crimes that are committed under the cover of technology. To unnerve the staff, the example used has been the abuse of minors.
According to the authorities, much of the pedophile material that circulates on the Internet does so, in effect, through communications platforms with end-to-end encryption, the most powerful known. And, of course, only by “weakening” that encryption can this type of crime be combated, one of the most rejected in society. This being the case, who would not agree to collaborate with such a laudable initiative?
Anyone who has half a brain and knows about the desire for surveillance and control of governments around the world, as has been demonstrated since the Internet became popular. Since Edward Snowsen slapped them in the face with the PRISM scandal, nothing has ever been the same.
Responding to questions from the BBC regarding the new security law in the United Kingdom, Will Cathcart, CEO of WhatsApp, could not have been clearer about it: they will not reduce the security of the service to please any government. Or what is the same, they will not “weaken” the encryption in favor of the intervention of the authorities. But for a simple reason, which is why I put the term in quotes: how do you plan to do it?
Of the parties pushing for it, and there are more apart from the government, nobody knows or dares to say how they would do it. Not to mention that it is not the first time that the governments of half the world have the same desire to break the encryption to spy on everything that moves. In this case, the stated intention would be to scan people’s private messages on WhatsApp for pedophile material, but how?
According to Cathcart’s declarations, it is understood that it would be a matter of implementing some method that would carry out this client-side scanning, the only one possible since only the sender and the sender can see the content of the conversation in end-to-end encrypted services. “Client-side scanning may not work in practice,” says Cathcart, without further details.
Until now, all the official initiatives that have taken place in this sense, that of breaking the encryption of communication tools, had revolved around introducing backdoors in the code and sharing them with governments, but, at least on paper, the developers have always refused due to the potential security risks that this implies (without going any further, the exploitation of these vulnerabilities by cybercriminals), let alone discovering the cake.
The complete response of the CEO of WhatsApp, however, is not at all optimistic for the users of the application and their rights: «And it isIf we had to reduce the security of the world, to meet the requirements in one country, that… would be stupid to accept, making our product less desirable to 98% of our users due to the 2% requirementssays Cathcart, who says he is willing to exit the UK market before that happens.
Would they give that much? What if the United States does the same? Would they also leave it aside? And Europe? Then it would no longer be 2% of the WhatsApp user base, but much more. Would all it takes to “weaken” WhatsApp encryption would be for more governments to claim it? It should be remembered that WhatsApp is owned by Facebook (Meta) and we already know how Mark Zuckerberg’s company spends it when it comes to respecting the privacy of its users, among other issues.
Johnny Depp suffers from erectile dysfunction, attorneys for Amber Heard claimed in newly unsealed court documents.
The actress’ legal team argued in a March 28 filing, obtained by Page Sixthat the purported medical malady may have contributed to her ex-husband’s allegedly violent behaviour.
“Though Mr. Depp would rather not disclose his erectile dysfunction condition, such condition absolutely is relevant to sexual violence, including Mr. Depp’s anger and use of a bottle to rape Amber Heard,” the documents alleged.
Depp has consistently denied Heard’s allegations of rape and violence.
Heard’s lawyers went on to claim that Depp’s supposed penile problem would make it “more probable” that he would become “angry or agitated” in encounters with the Aquaman star and cause him to “resort to a bottle.”
In May, Heard, 36, broke down in tears during the former couple’s defamation trial as she testified that the Pirates of the Caribbean star, 59, allegedly raped her with a liquor bottle and threatened to “carve up” her face with it during a March 2015 altercation.
“I didn’t know if the bottle he had inside me was broken,” she said, breathing heavily as she held back tears. “I couldn’t feel it. I couldn’t feel anything.”
According to the court documents, the alleged incident occurred in Australia during the same fight that left Depp with a severed finger — something he claimed on the stand happened when Heard flung a vodka bottle at him. The two had only gotten married a month earlier.
During a cross-examination, Depp’s lawyer grilled Heard about the alleged sexual assault, for which the Justice League star admitted she did not seek medical attention.
“As I have always said, I don’t remember exactly what happened first, or the sequence,” she said.
The unsealed documents also revealed text message exchanges between Depp and Marilyn Manson — who similarly has been accused of and denied sexual abuse — as well as the Edward Scissorhands star’s attempt to bring up his ex-wife’s “brief stint as an exotic dancer” at trial.
The jury ultimately awarded Depp $15 million ($A21.35 million) over claims he was defamed by a 2018 Washington Post op-ed in which Heard made allegations of sexual violence. She was awarded $2 million ($A2.85 million) over her claims that Depp’s lawyer had made false and damaging comments about her.
Depp’s team did not immediately respond to Page Six‘s request for comment on the erectile dysfunction allegation.
This article originally appeared in the New York Post and was reproduced with permission.
Former President Trump leads President Biden and Vice President Harris in hypothetical 2024 presidential match-ups, according to a new Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll survey released exclusively to The Hill on Monday.
The poll found that if the 2024 election were held today, 45 percent of respondents would vote for Trump in a race against Biden, who attracted the support of 41 percent of respondents, while 14 percent were unsure or didn’t know.
In a hypothetical Trump-Harris match-up, Trump’s lead expands to 7 percentage points. Forty-seven percent said they would support Trump, compared to 40 percent for Harris and 13 percent who were unsure or didn’t know.
Mark Penn, the co-director of the Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll survey, noted how Biden would be a weaker candidate in a race against Trump today than he performed in 2020.
“Biden is a very weak Democratic nominee and would lose even the popular vote in a rematch today,” Penn said. “Trump is far from 50 percent support, and there is a high undecided vote despite everyone knowing the candidates, because the public wants new over more of the same.”
The poll comes as Biden’s approval rating remains at roughly the lowest point in his presidency. The poll found his approval rating of him clocked in at 38 percent, which was unchanged from when the pollsters asked the question a month ago.
Biden and White House officials have repeatedly said the president intends to run in 2024 if his health allows.
Trump, meanwhile, has tipped closer to another White House bid, but some Republican lawmakers have publicly suggested Trump should wait to announce until after the midterm elections to avoid shifting the focus away from inflation when voters head to the ballot box in November.
The two presidents’ and Harris’s favorability ratings, however, all remain underwater.
Thirty-seven percent of those surveyed said they had a favorable view of Biden, compared to 44 percent for Trump. Just thirty-six percent of voters said they had a favorable view of Harris.
A majority of respondents indicated they did not want Trump nor Biden to run in 2024.
Nearly 7 in 10 respondents — 69 percent — said Biden should not run for a second term, while 59 percent of respondents said Trump shouldn’t run.
The poll was conducted online on July 27-28 among 1,885 registered voters in a collaboration between the Center for American Political Studies at Harvard University and the Harris Poll.
The survey is weighted to reflect known demographics, and as a representative online sample, it does not report a probability confidence interval.
NieR: Automata spent the last week in the headlines, the result of a secret door that sent the community into a scramble. The mystery itself may have come to a sudden, surprising conclusion, but that doesn’t mean the base game it was part of should drop off your radar. In fact, it’s all the more reason to revisit what many herald as one of the best action-RPGs ever.
That recommendation goes for everyone, by the way, whether you’ve hit the credits a dozen times or have yet to see what’s endeared firsthand NieR: Automata to so many people. Developed by PlatinumGames and first released in 2017, NieR: Automata is an action role-playing game set 9,000 years in the future, wherein you play as a small contingent of battle-trained androids. It mostly focuses on hack-and-slash combat, but there are moments where it’s a straight-up bullet hell.
NieR: Automata‘s main gimmick—and what makes it stand out among a crowded field—is that it has multiple endings. Not just two or three alternatives either. All told, there are 26 different endings. Most of them are semi-serious at best (including one where you unequip an item that specifically says will kill you if you unequip it). But five are legit, which means you have to play through your campaign several times, from different perspectives, to get the whole plot.
NieR: Automata is a narrative tour de force in its own right, which may partially explain its recent cultural resurgence—again, because of that secret door.
For the past two months, dedicated members of NieR: Automata‘s online community were piqued by a player asking about a “church” that didn’t seem to match any known areas of the game. Some people called bullshit, but video evidence of the previously undiscovered area surfaced early last week. The door to the area, though, curiously seemed accessible only to one player.
After a week of frenetic, community-fueled speculation, it turned out the whole thing was a viral campaign for a new, potentially game-changing set of modding tools, whose designers say they’re planning on releasing the tools to the public soon. In other words, NieR: Automata is about to be home to some truly wild community creations.
That’s not all. In February, publisher Square Enix announced it’d produce an anime adaptation of NieR: Automata. (Details are currently scant.) Nier‘s story is branching and emotionally devastating, but it’s also deeply personal in the way only games can be. No matter how you end up at its ultimate conclusion, you probably got there by a different route than someone else. The only way to truly measure the anime against its source material is, y’know, to actually play that source material.
Also, c’mon: Though the release calendar is set to pick up steam soon, it’s dry AF right now. If you’re looking to slot something in the first spot of your backlog, you’d be hard-pressed to do better than NieR: Automata.
Some advice for newcomers, though: Juggle multiple save files, and beware the fish.
Cele Otnes, a US professor of marketing specializing in how the Firm brands itself, predicted there would be lots of press coverage and crowds if the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge were to focus their time State side – now home to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex . She said people in America understood the future King and Queen as the “future of the royal brand” which is “not the case for Meghan Markle and Prince Harry”.
Ms Otnes told Express.co.uk: “I think I can safely say that if they come, there will be no doubt they will be received warmly and there will be lots of press coverage —and crowds where allowed —accompanying their visit.
“People understand them as the future of the royal brand, and that certainly not the case for Meghan and Harry. “
Her comments come after Meghan and Harry’s biographer Omid Scobie said Prince William was set to follow in his brother Harry’s footsteps and ramp up efforts to increase his popularity in the US.
Prince William and Kate will visit Boston in December for the Earthshot Prize, their first trip to the US in eight years.
It’ll be their third time in America – in 2014, they visited New York and in 2011, they visited Los Angeles.
The news prompted speculation the couple would embark on a full blown US tour.
Mr Scobie added: “Sources tell me that preliminary conversations about a fundraising event – similar to the $50,000-a-head dinner the couple hosted during eight years ago in New York – have already taken place.
“Recon, I’m also told, has also been scheduled for a number of royal engagements and activities for the couple in Boston and beyond. Perhaps even a trip to Washington DC.”
Meghan and Prince Harry live in California with their two children, Archie Harrison and Lilibet Diana after their sensational decision to quit as senior members of the Royal Family in 2020.
