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Source: PlayStation / Firewalk Studios / Concord
The writing was on the wall, and PlayStation finally did what everyone knew was coming and closed Firewalk Studios.
Firewalk Studios was on borrowed time following the disastrous launch of its hero shooter, Concord. The time has ended after Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) shuttered the studio, after just acquiring them over a year and a half ago. The PlayStation owner also closed the mobile studio Neon Koi.
“I know none of this is easy news to hear, particularly with colleagues and friends departing SIE,” PlayStation CEO of the studio business group Hermen Hulst said in a memo to staff shared on Tuesday. “Both decisions were given serious thought, and ultimately, we feel they are the right ones to strengthen the organization. Neon Koi and Firewalk were home to many talented individuals, and we will work to find placement for some of those impacted within our global community of studios where possible.”
When PlayStation made the shocking decision to take Concord offline on September 6, the company did leave a sliver of hope that the game could return.
Hermen Hulst Touches On Concord’s Failure
In his memo, Hurst discussed Concord’s failure to meet expectations, writing, “Certain aspects of Concord were exceptional, but others did not attract enough players, and as a result, we took the game offline.”
“We have spent considerable time these past few months exploring all our options,” Hurst continued. “After much thought, we have determined the best path forward is to permanently sunset the game and close the studio. I want to thank all of Firewalk for their craftsmanship, creative spirit, and dedication. The PvP first-person shooter genre is a competitive space that’s continuously evolving, and unfortunately, we did not hit our targets with this title. We will take the lessons learned from ‘Concord’ and continue to advance our live service capabilities to deliver future growth in this area.”
Damn.
The decision to close both studios comes five months after Hulst and Hideaki Nishino took over as PlayStation’s CEOs. This is the latest blow to the video game company after Destiny creator Bungie, which Sony now owns, laid off more than 200 employees in August.
The video game community had plenty to say about the tragic news; those reactions are in the gallery below.
All products and services featured are independently chosen by editors. However, Billboard may receive a commission on orders placed through its retail links, and the retailer may receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes. Vizio wants to expand the way music fans enjoy karaoke. On Tuesday (Oct. 29), the tech company announced the Vizio MicMe, […]
TikTok is reportedly testing a feature that allows fans to pre-save upcoming albums so they will be automatically added to users’ music libraries on Spotify or Apple Music once they’re released. The news of the test was first reported by Music Ally. A rep for the platform declined to comment. Pushing for pre-saves has been […]
Universal Music Group has entered a strategic partnership with AI music company KLAY. To date, KLAY has not yet released any of its products, but the AI start-up is said to be developing what it calls a “Large Music Model,” dubbed “KLayMM” which will “help humans create new music with the help of AI,” says […]
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The arrival of UFC 5 in 2023 sparked celebration among mixed martial arts fans and as the only game of its type on the major consoles, that excitement was understandable. Now out for an entire year, UFC 5 has seen a series of patches and tweaks and we look to see how the game has held up.
To break the fourth wall a bit, I’m a huge fan of mixed martial arts and the UFC has a roster that features many of the world’s best fighters. In some ways, the latest UFC game from EA Sports puts a lot of pressure on the title to deliver every bit of nuance MMA provides in the real world and mostly holds up to that promise with a deep fighting system, several big-name fighters, and patches over the past year that improved the experience for fans.
Source: EA Sports / EA Sports
The game’s predecessor, UFC 4, had its fair share of fans who enjoyed the gritty realism of the standup game and the career mode but others found the ground game to be difficult at times. UFC 5 largely looks the same but now it employs the Frostbite game engine so there are several visual improvements from the former Ignite engine.
The fifth iteration of the fighting series has four main gameplay modes: Fight Week, Fight Now, Career, and Online.
With Fight Week, real-time UFC fights are at the center of the mode. When updated, there will be opportunities to make fight picks before the actual matches and earn valuable UFC Coins for your created fighter and online store. There are also Fight Week Contracts, daily fights where you take on opponents to earn UFC Coins. There are also challenges to earn player emotes and other rewards.
Source: Screengrab/D.L. Chandler
Fight Now is a mode that puts you right in the middle of action against a computer opponent or a pal on the couch. Here, you can select hundreds of fighters from the UFC roster and slug it out. The mode features Main Card fights, which are three-round matches.
Then there are Main Event and Championship fights, both going five rounds. Backyard fights are five 3-minute rounds where the judges score the fight on how much damage is doled out. Then there is the Kumite event, which is one 25-minute and if it goes until the end, the fight will be called a draw.
Also in Fight Now, you can pick between gameplay styles such as Simulation, which is the purest way to play. Knockout style turns off health regeneration and fighters are granted unlimited stamina and combos. Lastly, Stand and Bang keeps the action standing until one drops.
Source: Screengrab/D.L. Chandler
UFC 4’s Career Mode was one of the top features in the last game and the mode is back with Coach Davis returning to guide you along the way into becoming the G.O.A.T. The path to greatness is a difficult one but this gameplay mode is the best way to learn all of the tricks and tips of the game.
Lastly of the main modes is Online, which also has a career mode, ranked championships where you can take on fighters of the same skill level, blitz battles, and quick fights.
Source: Screengrab/D.L. Chandler
To be honest with folks, the only modes I consistently play are Career and practicing against the computer opponent in the game’s Learn section. Trust me, it’s taken me a long time to learn all of the moves and I’m pretty sure I still don’t know everything. This isn’t like some fighting games where button mashing might lead to a lucky knockout. For me, the best place for most new players to go is the Learn section to get some reality checks about your ability and then dive into the Career mode to get into the meat and potatoes of the game.
I also want to give a major salute to the UFC team for simplifying the ground game. In UFC 4, you had to play a mini-game of sorts to gain or block submissions or switch in and out of ground-and-pound positions. It was way too difficult for even the most seasoned video game player but in 5, the streamlined ground game makes for a better all-around experience. However, if you end up on the ground with a fighter who isn’t traditionally great at fighting from their backs, you’re in for a long night.
While UFC 5 has all of the visuals correct, there are still some in the gaming community who felt it didn’t improve much upon the last game. Even with the improved face damage animations, slow-motion knockouts, and other tweaks, fans felt like this was a retread of UFC 4 with a prettier face. I don’t quite agree as the Career mode is far more involved than before and there are notable improvements to make this a pure simulation-style fighting game.
UFC 5 is built for devout fans of combat sports even as the UFC and MMA overall are firmly in the mainstream with major sports network coverage. It helps to come into this game with some knowledge of the sport and an openness to learning the intricacies of the gameplay. If you can embrace the massive landscape of ways to play, this title is worth picking up the sticks for.
Learn more about UFC 5 here.
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Photo: EA Sports
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What’s song matches your current vibe? Facebook wants to make it easier to spark conversations about music and more with its new profile features unveiled during the Facebook IRL event during Austin City Limits earlier this month.
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The social media giant transformed Fair Market in Austin, Texas, into a real-life Facebook account with different stations representing profile features including a hi-fidelity music lounge featuring albums from Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga, The Weeknd, Miley Cyrus and other recording stars. The event also included live performances.
“Whatever you’re into, there are people on Facebook that can help you find and do more of it,” Facebook head Tom Alison explained during Facebook IRL. “Our vision is to make it easy to discover that content and those people. Ultimately, that is what Facebook is for. We’ve been helping people explore their interests and discover new things for many years.”
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“Facebook is building the best technology to help you discover the content and connections that are right for you,” he continued. “We’ve made major investments in building state of the art AI systems that can service the most interesting content to people all across the world.”
Facebook Messenger Hi-Fi Lounge
Aarron Anderson
New features include a Local tab, which collects content from Reels, Marketplace, Groups and Events on Facebook and Facebook Explore, which lets you dive even deeper dive into your interests.
“It’s personalized around your broad set of interests and allows you to learn and do more with them,” Alison said of Facebook Local. “What is unique about Explore is that it gives recommendation algorithms that are less focused on entertaining content and a bit more focused on finding authentic and practical content that’s going to be useful to you.”
Facebook Local is currently testing in Austin, New York City, Los Angeles, Washington D.C., Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Charlotte, Phoenix and San Francisco.
Messenger Communities, another new feature, offers a fresh way for communities to “connect over shared interests and topic-based chats,” according to the company.
Other new features include an upgraded, full-screen Video tab that gives Reels a more prominent position, posts with AI Comment Summaries that you can read instead of scrolling through comments and Matchmaker, a new Facebook Dating feature that you can enact to allow your friends to “swipe for potential matches on your behalf.”
With Facebook’s Weekly and Weekend Digest for Events feature, you can find the best concerts, music festivals and other events in your area and share them with your Facebook friends or groups “to find someone to go with,” noted Alison.
The company also added music and mentions to Notes in Messenger and a new feature that lets you invite your Instagram followers to events that you created on Facebook — regardless of whether they have a Facebook account.
Facebook’s new profile features were announced ahead of the Meta Quest S3 ($299) release on Oct. 15. The Meta Quest S3 is available at major retailers such as Amazon, Walmart, Target and the Meta store.
All products and services featured are independently chosen by editors. However, Billboard may receive a commission on orders placed through its retail links, and the retailer may receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes. Watching NFL games may be the main way to show support for your football team, but collecting merch will put your […]
A new Spanish-language version of Brenda Lee‘s holiday hit “Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree” was released Friday (Oct. 25), using “responsibly-trained” artificial intelligence to make the translation. A perennial hit for 66 years and counting, “Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree” is the biggest song to have been translated into a new language using AI.
Released via MCA Nashville/Universal Music Enterprises (UMe), “Noche Buena y Navidad” was revamped by four-time Latin Grammy award-winning producer Auero Baqueiro. Baqueiro first translated the lyrics from English to Spanish, trying to match the same phonetics and rhyming structure that made sense for Spanish while maintaining the original lyrical themes from the original English version. Then, he enlisted Chile-born, L.A.-based vocalist Leyla Hoyle to sing the vocals in Spanish in a way that would capture Lee’s unique voice patterns, including intricacies like phrasing, tone, and breaths.
Baquiero ultimately kept the original music and background vocals and, once Hoyle recorded the raw Spanish vocals, used AI to map Lee’s voice over Hoyle’s performance. The translation was made possible using SoundLabs AI’s MicDrop technology, a “responsibly-trained” AI audio plugin that allows users to swap their voices out with another voice or instrument.
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The new AI-powered translation arrives just in time for the holiday season. Despite being released back in 1958, Lee’s “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” is more popular than ever. Last year, her song hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for the first time and stayed in the top spot for three straight weeks.
Lee is not the first artist to use AI to translate her work. In May 2023, HYBE debuted a new K-pop artist, MIDNATT, who used AI to release his first single in six different languages. In November 2023, indie-pop artist Lauv released an AI translation of his single “Love U Like That” in Korean as a nod to his strong fanbase in that country. Similarly to “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” a bilingual human songwriter, Kevin Woo, translated the “Love U Like That” lyrics to Korean. After Woo sang through the song, Lauv’s voice was planted on top of his vocals using the AI voice platform Hooky.
Finally, country icon Randy Travis made headlines in May 2024 by using AI voice technology to record a new single, “Where That Came From,” after his vocal abilities were greatly diminished in a near-fatal stroke a decade before.
The Spanish-language version of “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” is the first release from Universal Music Group (UMG) and SoundLabs’ partnership, which was announced in June 2024. The AI company was founded by software developer and electronic artist BT and is said to be “responsibly” trained. The partnership is part of UMG’s “responsible AI initiative,” as laid out by the company’s CEO/chairman Lucian Grainge, which involves “forg[ing] groundbreaking private-sector partnerships with AI technology companies.”
“I am so blown away by this new Spanish version of ‘Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree,’ which was created with the help of AI,” said Lee in a statement. “Throughout my career, I performed and recorded many songs in different languages, but I never recorded ‘Rockin’’ in Spanish, which I would have loved to do. To have this out now is pretty incredible, and I’m happy to introduce the song to fans in a new way.”
“We are thrilled to work with Brenda Lee to making ‘Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree’ the first classic song translated responsibly into another language with the power of AI, added UMe president/CEO Bruce Resnikoff. “We are also very excited about the possibilities of this emerging technology and look forward to harnessing its capabilities to introduce new material created by and approved by our artists.”
“The minute you hear Brenda Lee’s iconic voice on ‘Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree’ you know it’s the official start of Christmas,” said UMG Nashville chair/CEO Cindy Mabe. “The global hit has touched people all over the world and kept this young 13-year-old spirit of Christmas captured in a time capsule. We are all so excited for this new Spanish version created with the help of AI from that legendary voice and approved by Brenda Lee herself to help celebrate this enduring, timeless classic.”
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It’s easy to get lost in the music when you’re wearing comfortable headphones and jamming away to your favorite songs, but your brain could be suffering from burnout.
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Luxury audio brand Master & Dynamic partnered with Neurable, a neurotechnology company specializing in developing AI-powered tools, to introduce an innovation in smart headphones.
The MW75 Neuro headphones measure your brain activity to help boost productivity and avoid burning out by integrating Neurable’s brain-computer interface (BCI) and AI technology. Electroencephalography (EEG) sensors in the ear pads of the headphones track and analyze brain signals and translates them into “detailed brainwave data that offers valuable insights into focus levels and more,” according to a news release.
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Master & Dynamic MW75 Neuro Smart EEG ANC Headphones
Available in onyx and grey, MW75 Neuro headphones are up for pre-order and will be released on Oct. 31. They feature memory foam pads, an anodized aluminum headset, tempered glass and lambskin leather.
On the technical front, the hi-fidelity headphones are powered with 40mm beryllium metal drivers, Bluetooth 5.2, adaptive technology that connects to hi-res Bluetooth audio up to 100 feet and a 22-hour battery.
With the Neurable app, you can access your brainwave data and focus score, track your progress, find tips to enhance productivity and enact the Brain Break feature, which prompts you to pause and refocus.
“The brain serves as the core of our health and well-being, yet we have only scratched the surface of what is possible by understanding and harnessing its power,” said Dr. Ramses Alcaide, co-founder and CEO of Neurable. “In partnership with Master & Dynamic, we are eager to bring the future of neurotechnology to the world with the debut of our groundbreaking MW75 Neuro smart headphones. These headphones mark the beginning of BCI-enabled technology for all, with the development of future use cases already underway.”
Master & Dynamic’s product lineup includes the MW75 ANC Noise–Canceling Headphones ($599), MH40 Wireless Over-Ear Headphones ($399) and the MW09 Wireless Earbuds ($349).
For more tech upgrades, check out the best speakers for music fans and the best vertical record players.
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Recording songs is just one step in the music-making process. Next, emerging artists need to distribute their album, EP or singles on music streaming platforms in order to reach listeners.
Sources like YouTube and TikTok have become a popular method for exposure, but if you’re looking to reach a wider audience, DistroKid can instantly get your music on Spotify — and for as little as $2 a month.
What differentiates the platform from the rest isn’t just its simplicity, but its artist-first mind-set and ability to eliminate having to count tracks and pay royalty fees. In three easy steps, you can get your music quickly released on Spotify in addition to a slew of other benefits. You’ll need to sign up for DistroKid in order to take advantage of everything the service has to offer, but the platform offers a variety of affordable plans to choose from, starting at $1.92 a month (billed annually at $22.99).
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Make the most of your DistroKid access when you pick from the Musician, Musician Plus or Ultimate plan. The Musician plan is the base package for one artist that’s $22.99 a year and includes unlimited song uploads, your lyrics in Google, a Spotify verified checkmark, the ability to create royalty splits and access to the mobile app.
For more creative freedom, you can get Musician Plus for $39.99 a year ($3.33 a month) and utilize it for up to two artists while receiving everything in the Musician plan in addition to synced lyrics in Apple Music and daily streaming stats. You can flex your creativity further when you take advantage of the customizable features for a label name, release date, preorder date and iTunes pricing.
To save up to 40% off, you can go for the Ultimate subscription that’s $89.99 a year and includes everything in the Musician Plus plan in addition to 1 TB of storage, contact info for thousands of playlists and free iPhone app access.
Beyond receiving verification on Spotify, a DistroKid subscription gives you control over your artist profile, allowing you to update your photo, bio and links. You can help your music reach more listeners by pitching songs directly to Spotify playlist curators and even track streaming statistics, including number of streams, saves and engagements. The deep insight into your audience can assist in developing marketing plans — especially since DistroKid lets you view Spotify’s streaming charts.
In terms of getting paid, the platform handles all of that for you with payments distributed twice a week — and you get to keep 100% of the royalties.