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When the Coastal Country Jam relaunched Sept. 16 at Marina Green Park in Long Beach, Calif., after a four-year absence, headliner Blake Shelton looked up before he took the stage and saw his name sparkling like a floating marquee in the sky.
Gwen Stefani and her kids cheered the moment, says Activated Events founder and event producer Steve Thacher, but they weren’t just seeing Shelton’s name in lights. They may have seen the future of country festivals. The Coastal Country Jam is one of at least four country gatherings that employed drone shows for the first time in 2023.
“We’re always looking for new, fun, wow factors to incorporate into our event,” Thacher says. “We thought this would be one of them.”
The drone show is a still-developing technology that had its biggest audience during the global broadcast of the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony in 2022, when 1,800 drones were used to create a complex series of images suspended over the stadium. The technology has been utilized in a number of different events since then, including a coronation concert for the United Kingdom’s King Charles III in May and a New Year’s Eve celebration that Keith Urban witnessed in Australia.
Courtesy Southern Entertainment
“It’s surreal what they can do and how many of them can be synchronized or coordinated to do insane things,” says Urban. “It’s really amazing, like a modern version of skywriting.”
Activated Events debuted the drone show at the Coastal Jam after the company worked with several municipalities that were replacing fireworks displays with the new technology. Drones appeared before the headliner both nights during Coastal, presenting a series of images (an American flag, a whale, a surfer and the Queen Mary tourist attraction) before employing a “Next Up” announcement, leading into Shelton’s name on the first night and Tim McGraw’s on the second. The company presented a different version of the show during its Boots in the Park festival in Tempe, Ariz., Sept. 22-23, with Shelton, Sam Hunt and Brooks & Dunn.
Similarly, Southern Entertainment held a drone show one night each at two different East Coast festivals: the Carolina Country Music Fest in Myrtle Beach, S.C., on June 9 and the Barefoot Country Music Festival in Wildwood, N.J., on June 18. They employed their own images — including a patriotic red, white and blue eagle — ahead of the direct-support act, with several visuals that hinted at income-generating possibilities.
At the Carolina event, organizers used the drones to announce one of the 2024 headliners, Morgan Wallen. They also created an in-air QR code for sponsor Selfie.Live, a Lee Brice-affiliated company that enables consumers to get celebrity autographs on their own digital photos. Six thousand of the 35,000 ticket holders downloaded the QR code, a number that impressed Southern Entertainment co-founder Bob Durkin. The QR code holds other possibilities, including guiding fans to the festival website to buy tickets for the next year’s show.
Additionally, the Carolina drone show included two giant beer bottles with Coors emblazoned on their virtual labels. The display was not monetized in 2023, though it’s easy to see how it could evolve into a source of advertising revenue.
“It was sort of an added value for our sponsor,” Durkin says. “They got to see their brand portrayed in a different way, and the greatest part was [Molson Coors chairman] Pete Coors was at the Carolina Country Music Fest. He said, ‘I’ve seen it all, but I haven’t seen that.’”
Drone shows, which Durkin says can range from $25,000 to $100,000, require significant advance work. Both Activated Events and Southern Entertainment booked outside drone production companies roughly nine months ahead of their festivals, allowing time to design the presentation and program each drone. Promoters also have to navigate local regulations, which can vary widely. Drones pose security risks, as well as potential safety problems — imagine a flying object losing its charge and falling out of the sky on top of an unsuspecting patron. That complication is one reason that some promoters are reticent to get involved in the drone business. But three of the four country festivals were held in beach communities, allowing the light display to take place over the water and away from pedestrians.
There’s also a fair amount of give-and-take between the promoter and the drone companies. The concert promoters suggested messages and images they would like to see during the show, and once the production company came back with an initial presentation, the two sides tweaked the lineup and sequence and were able to time out the event. At Activated Events, DJ Luwiss Luxx built a playlist to go with the light show once the display was scheduled out.
The overall mix of sights and sounds won over a captive audience as it marked time between acts, and led to a positive social-media response.
“In every email or text message that I got, it was ‘Oh, my god, that drone show was epic,’ ” Thacher says. “I had random people reach out on LinkedIn, literally saying, ‘Hey, I never do this, but I just have to tell you, not only was the experience great, but that drone show was absolutely amazing.’”
Both Thacher and Durkin plan to do it again next year, and they may get more bang for their programming buck since continued advancements will likely make it possible to incorporate more material in the same time frame.
“I know there’s a few country festivals in 2024 you will definitely see use it,” Durkin predicts. “It’s not a great big industry, so we all kind of know each other. And they’re all like, ‘Holy cow.’ You know, everybody’s trying to one-up one another.”
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Source: picture alliance / Getty / Xbox / Microsoft
Microsoft is cracking down on “unauthorized” controllers and accessories on Xbox consoles.
Xbox console owners were hit with a rude awakening last week.
Posters on Resetera began sharing last week that they were being greeted with a warning informing them their third-party controller would be blocked, with the message “connected accessory is not authorized.”
The Verge reports it is unclear if Xbox’s intention with this move is to target cheaters or push Xbox console owners to use accessories that are a part of its official partner program.
“From the moment you connect an unauthorized accessory and receive error code 0x82d60002, you’ll have two weeks to use the accessory, after which time it will then be blocked from use with the console,” Microsoft said in a support note about the warning message gamers are receiving.
Microsoft continues, “At that time, you’ll receive error code 0x82d60003. We encourage you to contact the store or manufacturer where you obtained the accessory to get help with returning it.”
Specific Devices That Could Be Affected
Third-party accessories that have a “designed for Xbox” label on the box are not affected by the block. Any devices not authorized by Xbox could see the message and be blocked.
Gamers using third-party cheat devices like XIM, Cronus Zen, and ReaSnow S1 could also be affected.
The above devices are used mainly by PC players to imitate controller inputs, allowing mouse and keyboard users to utilize aim assist and reduced recoil from controllers combined with the fast movement mouse and keyboard fans enjoy.
Before Xbox made this move, Activision, Bungie, and Ubisoft had worked diligently to block these devices from being used in first-person shooters like Call of Duty, Destiny 2, and Rainbow Six Siege.
Brooks Gaming, which makes an adapter that allows users to use PlayStation controllers on Xbox, warns of “functional disruptions in the near future” for a number of its products, including the fighting board, steering wheel, and Wingman XB 2 converter in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Reactions From The Gaming Community
Of course, news like this is already getting reactions from the video game community and the implications of who this block will hurt.
Fight video game enthusiast Maximillian Dood directly hit Xbox chief Phil Spencer and Matt Booty on X, begging them to have a change of heart by pointing out how this could be extremely harmful to local fighting game events that use Xbox consoles.
“Heyo @XboxP3 @Xbox @mattbooty This is essentially a death sentence for local fighting game events that run on Xbox, much less, others that can only afford one arcade stick. The @brookgamingfans converters are not cheat devices. They’re a huge boon to the FGC. Please reconsider!” Dood wrote.
Phil Spencer, Matt Booty, or Xbox have yet to issue a statement on the block, but we do expect some comments to arrive very soon.
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Photo: picture alliance / Getty
President Joe Biden on Monday will sign a sweeping executive order to guide the development of artificial intelligence — requiring industry to develop safety and security standards, introducing new consumer protections and giving federal agencies an extensive to-do list to oversee the rapidly progressing technology.
The order reflects the government’s effort to shape how AI evolves in a way that can maximize its possibilities and contain its perils. AI has been a source of deep personal interest for Biden, with its potential to affect the economy and national security.
White House chief of staff Jeff Zients recalled Biden giving his staff a directive to move with urgency on the issue, having considered the technology a top priority.
“We can’t move at a normal government pace,” Zients said the Democratic president told him. “We have to move as fast, if not faster than the technology itself.”
In Biden’s view, the government was late to address the risks of social media and now U.S. youth are grappling with related mental health issues. AI has the positive ability to accelerate cancer research, model the impacts of climate change, boost economic output and improve government services among other benefits. But it could also warp basic notions of truth with false images, deepen racial and social inequalities and provide a tool to scammers and criminals.
The order builds on voluntary commitments already made by technology companies. It’s part of a broader strategy that administration officials say also includes congressional legislation and international diplomacy, a sign of the disruptions already caused by the introduction of new AI tools such as ChatGPT that can generate new text, images and sounds.
Using the Defense Production Act, the order will require leading AI developers to share safety test results and other information with the government. The National Institute of Standards and Technology is to create standards to ensure AI tools are safe and secure before public release.
The Commerce Department is to issue guidance to label and watermark AI-generated content to help differentiate between authentic interactions and those generated by software. The order also touches on matters of privacy, civil rights, consumer protections, scientific research and worker rights.
An administration official who previewed the order on a Sunday call with reporters said the to-do lists within the order will be implemented and fulfilled over the range of 90 days to 365 days, with the safety and security items facing the earliest deadlines. The official briefed reporters on condition of anonymity, as required by the White House.
Last Thursday, Biden gathered his aides in the Oval Office to review and finalize the executive order, a 30-minute meeting that stretched to 70 minutes, despite other pressing matters including the mass shooting in Maine, the Israel-Hamas war and the selection of a new House speaker.
Biden was profoundly curious about the technology in the months of meetings that led up to drafting the order. His science advisory council focused on AI at two meetings and his Cabinet discussed it at two meetings. The president also pressed tech executives and civil society advocates about the technology’s capabilities at multiple gatherings.
“He was as impressed and alarmed as anyone,” deputy White House chief of staff Bruce Reed said in an interview. “He saw fake AI images of himself, of his dog. He saw how it can make bad poetry. And he’s seen and heard the incredible and terrifying technology of voice cloning, which can take three seconds of your voice and turn it into an entire fake conversation.”
The possibility of false images and sounds led the president to prioritize the labeling and watermarking of anything produced by AI. Biden also wanted to thwart the risk of older Americans getting a phone call from someone who sounded like a loved one, only to be scammed by an AI tool.
Meetings could go beyond schedule, with Biden telling civil society advocates in a ballroom of San Francisco’s Fairmont Hotel in June: “This is important. Take as long as you need.”
The president also talked with scientists and saw the upside that AI created if harnessed for good. He listened to a Nobel Prize-winning physicist talk about how AI could explain the origins of the universe. Another scientist showed how AI could model extreme weather like 100-year floods, as the past data used to assess these events has lost its accuracy because of climate change.
The issue of AI was seemingly inescapable for Biden. At Camp David one weekend, he relaxed by watching the Tom Cruise film “Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One.” The film’s villain is a sentient and rogue AI known as “the Entity” that sinks a submarine and kills its crew in the movie’s opening minutes.
“If he hadn’t already been concerned about what could go wrong with AI before that movie, he saw plenty more to worry about,” said Reed, who watched the film with the president.
With Congress still in the early stages of debating AI safeguards, Biden’s order stakes out a U.S. perspective as countries around the world race to establish their own guidelines. After more than two years of deliberation, the European Union is putting the final touches on a comprehensive set of regulations that targets the riskiest applications for the technology. China, a key AI rival to the U.S., has also set some rules.
U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak also hopes to carve out a prominent role for Britain as an AI safety hub at a summit this week that Vice President Kamala Harris plans to attend.
The U.S., particularly its West Coast, is home to many of the leading developers of cutting-edge AI technology, including tech giants Google, Meta and Microsoft and AI-focused startups such as OpenAI, maker of ChatGPT. The White House took advantage of that industry weight earlier this year when it secured commitments from those companies to implement safety mechanisms as they build new AI models.
But the White House also faced significant pressure from Democratic allies, including labor and civil rights groups, to make sure its policies reflected their concerns about AI’s real-world harms.
The American Civil Liberties Union is among the groups that met with the White House to try to ensure “we’re holding the tech industry and tech billionaires accountable” so that algorithmic tools “work for all of us and not just a few,” said ReNika Moore, director of the ACLU’s racial justice program.
Suresh Venkatasubramanian, a former Biden administration official who helped craft principles for approaching AI, said one of the biggest challenges within the federal government has been what to do about law enforcement’s use of AI tools, including at U.S. borders.
“These are all places where we know that the use of automation is very problematic, with facial recognition, drone technology,” Venkatasubramanian said. Facial recognition technology has been shown to perform unevenly across racial groups, and has been tied to mistaken arrests.
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. Samsung is looking to make your “Wildest Dreams” come true with a major TV deal to celebrate Taylor Swift‘s 1989 (Taylor’s […]
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. Black Friday isn’t just happening in November this year — Best Buy is bringing customers major savings on everything from TVs, […]
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Source: NurPhoto / Getty / X / Twitter / Elon Musk
This news should surprise NO ONE. X (formerly known as Twitter) is a hot a** mess; users have bounced, and it is not bringing in any ad revenue.
Spotted on Variety, Elon Musk’s plan to make Twitter, oops, we mean X, and make it the most worthless social media platform on the planet seems to be working.
In only a year after he reluctantly took over the debt-burdened platform that was known as Twitter and made such stupid moves like the 80% reduction in staff, stupidly renaming it to X and making the blue check useless, and turned the platform into a haven for misinformation, it should come as no surprise X is not doing good.
Per Variety:
Millions of users, including several celebrities, have quit in the wake of Musk’s takeover and dramatic refashioning of Twitter. In September 2023, monthly active users for X/Twitter had dropped 15% worldwide (and 18% in the U.S.) year-over-year, according to web analytics provider SimilarWeb. Other third-party measures indicate a roughly similar decline; mobile daily active users dropped 16% on an annual basis in September 2023, to 183 million, according to Sensor Tower. Musk last month claimed that X has 550 million monthly active users, who share up to 200 million posts daily, but it’s unclear how that might compare to past measures.
Advertising On X Is Also On A Downward Spiral
Twitter, damn, we mean X, relied heavily on advertising dollars, but if you have been on there lately, the ads have been lacking, except for numerous Cheech and Chong gummy ads up and down our timelines.
The website reports, via the Wall Street Journal’s reporting, that ad spending from major ad agencies on the platform has dropped to 54%. That’s a significant dip.
Instead of blaming himself, Musk blames groups like ADL for pointing out that his platform has become a haven for hate speech under his ownership, and that is what is keeping advertisers from coming to the platform.
“Our US advertising revenue is still down 60%, primarily due to pressure on advertisers by @ADL (that’s what advertisers tell us), so they almost succeeded in killing X/Twitter!” Bootleg Tony Stark wrote on Sept. 4.
Musk even said he would sue the ADL, but whatever issues between Musk and the ADL seem to have been resolved.
“We appreciate X’s stated intent over the last few weeks to address antisemitism and hate on the platform,” the ADL wrote in a statement released on Oct.4.
X also slapped activist research group, the Center For Countering Digital Hate, with a lawsuit for claiming there is a rise in hate speech on X, which Musk says is false.
Instagram Threads is looking better and better.
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Photo: NurPhoto / Getty
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Source: Kate Green/BAFTA / Getty / Sarah Bond
We are quickly seeing the aftereffects of Xbox’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard King. Xbox is reorganizing its leadership structure, and Sara Bond is rising in the ranks.Following the $69 billion acquisition was FINALLY approved, Microsoft and Xbox have begun moving with way more confidence after walking on eggshells, hoping regulatory agencies would give them the green light.
Now that everything is officially a go, Xbox has reorganized its marketing and leadership less than two weeks after the ABK deal was given the thumbs up.
Microsoft is promoting Matt Booty to president of game content and studios, and he will also oversee ZeniMax. Sarah Bond is now Xbox president and will oversee the Xbox platform and hardware work.
Chris Capossela, who has been with Microsoft for 32 years, is stepping down as chief marketing officer.
In an internal memo obtained by The Verge, Microsoft CEO Phil Spencer explained broke down the reorganization, “ZeniMax will continue to operate as a limited integration entity led by Jamie Leder, President and CEO, reporting to Matt.”
With Booty now overseeing Zenimax and Bethesda, the goal is to avoid another Redfall situation. Redfall was one of the first-party titles Xbox gamers were looking forward to, but when it launched, it was a broken mess, It has since been patched up and is running better.
“Great games are fundamental to everything we do,” Spencer continues in the memo. “We believe that an expanded gaming content organization — one that enables Xbox Game Studios and ZeniMax’s development studios to collaborate effectively together — will empower those world-class studios to do their best work in growing our portfolio of games players love.”
Sara Bond Has Been A Rising Star In Xbox Ranks
It’s been no secret how vital Sara Bond has been to Team Xbox since joining in 2017, and for her brilliant work behind the scenes, she earned a promotion.
She was pivotal in getting the ABK deal done, especially with her explanation of video games and the Xbox business to Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley during her appearance at the FTC v. Microsoft hearing.
Bond will now take over the hardware and software platforms of Xbox.
“To manage the platform of today and build the platform of tomorrow, we are bringing together the teams that will make this possible,” says Spencer. “Sarah Bond will lead this team as President of Xbox — bringing together Devices, Player & Creator Experiences, Platform Engineering, Strategy, Business Planning, Data & Analytics, and Business Development.”
News of Bond’s promotion was celebrated on X (formerly known as Twitter). It’s no secret in the video game space that Black and Brown representation in the world of gaming is still a struggle; to see a Black woman in such a high position is a massive win.
Salute to Sarah Bond.
You can see more reactions in the gallery below.
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Photo: Kate Green/BAFTA / Getty
2. Neccesary reading.
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Gayle has hit the road for her first-ever tour — titled Scared But Trying — and you can still score last-minute tickets to through Ticketmaster and resale sites including StubHub, VividSeats and Seat Geek. What’s unique about this tour (besides it being her first time headlining) is the digital experience she’s providing her fans with through Adobe Express — an AI-first creativity app featuring apps for easier content creation.
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Whether you were able to score travel deals to attend the concert in person or not, the “ABCDEFU” singer is giving fans a behind-the-scenes peek of her tour through a virtual scrapbook. It will be available following the tour through a 3-minute music video highlighting her experiences. Anyone who views it is also encouraged to use Adobe Express templates to tell their own “Scared But Trying” story.
“It was really important to me to try and meet the people who cared to [come to my] shows and really talk about the theme of Scared But Trying, and what it means for them in their lives, and just being more open about our fears and our insecurities and things that we’re scared to do,” Gayle tells Billboard. “Adobe and I wanted to come together to try and create a space for people and create a community to come together and collaborate.”
Rather than have to download Photoshop, Lightroom, Illustrator, Adobe Premiere Pro and more apps onto your laptop, this will be an all-in-one creative app.
Outside of her partnership with Adobe, Gayle also shared insight into it was like for her to tour with artists including Taylor Swift, Pink and My Chemical Romance, as well as her Scared But Trying trek, new music and any essentials she takes on the road.
Read on for our interview with Gayle.
What inspired you to release singles like “Don’t Call Me Pretty,” “Leave Me for Dead” and “I Don’t Sleep As Good As I Used To”?
I was [originally] thinking about making an album because I had put out EPs last year. I was thinking naturally it was developing into an album and I didn’t particularly know what I was doing touring wise. Then, when I had these amazing tour opportunities put in front of me, I obviously wasn’t going to say no because they were really exciting and it was a really big honor — and opening up for Taylor [Swift] and Pink, I had never opened up for a stadium act before.
I’m a perfectionist. I want to try and be great at everything I do and I felt like I couldn’t be great at making my first, like, debut album and be a great touring artist. So I decided to put out singles that I felt captured the energy of my live show and intensities of attitudes that I felt. Then it lead into putting out “Leave Me for Dead” and I was going on tour with Pink and I played that song on the whole Pink tour, and it was a really fun song to play live.
GAYLE performs on The Late Late Show with James Corden airing Tuesday, March 15, 2022.
Terence Patrick/CBS via Getty Images
And the bloody covers for each single — how did the idea come about?
When I was thinking of a single cover, I was just thinking my ears bleeding would kind of fit conceptually with the song. If you just heard “Everybody Hates Me” and then you see a picture of a girl and her ears are bleeding, I felt like metaphorically, it kind of said something and was fitting conceptually with where the song was going. Then, I thought it would be cool if the blood just kept getting more and more dramatic, and at some point I actually pick up a knife.
I [also] have this song called “Don’t Call Me Pretty” and it kind of talks about the objectification that people can feel in their life, where it’s like, oh my gosh, isn’t it a compliment, isn’t it so nice to be pretty, but it’s that feeling of when that’s the only thing a person can see you as, and that feeling of being objectified is so beautiful. It makes you feel so hollow. For me, when I’m covered in blood, it’s like I’ve reached that breaking point where that one last person called me pretty or objectified me and made me feel that way [and] I just lost my mind.
Can we expect a debut album anytime soon?
I’m definitely working on starting the process of creating an album and starting to talk about it. It’s also kind of the conversation of do the songs I put out this year, do they go on the album? Do I write completely new songs? Like … we’re really focusing this year on finishing out the touring and this headlining run and really celebrating what the past two years have been for me. Then starting a new era and my perspective with the album.
You’ve also toured with some big names like Taylor Swift, Pink and My Chemical Romance. What has been the best piece of advice you’ve received?
The overall message from everybody that I’ve toured with (when we’ve had conversations) is that it’s obviously a hard thing to tour, it’s a hard thing to put yourself out there. But if you truly love doing it, you really have to put yourself out there, keep consistently working on your craft, keep doing the things you love and good things will follow from that.
That’s really all you can do, you know, there’s no secret button or secret formula, we’re all scared and we’re all just trying our best.
Do you have a favorite experience so far?
Oh gosh, every tour there’s always a highlight. I remember opening up for [My Chemical Romance] and I threw up for the first time. I remember going up and walking on because I was so scared — so scared. Oh my god, I’d never been that scared before ever, ever, ever in my life. Or the first Taylor [Swift] show, I walked on stage ten seconds late — I missed my first line and that was the most like terrifying thing I’ve ever experienced in my life, and I was asking so many questions that I missed my cue to walk on stage, so I had to run, like, sprint on stage, and I missed my first few words.
But even with Pink there’s so many fun times — and even I’m looking at my room right now and I’m seeing, like, a disco ball necklace that somebody threw on stage for me, or big pink heart sunglasses from from people throwing things from the crowd and being on tour during Pride Month is just the best time to be on tour with Pink, ever. The love and the pride that was at that show and what we got to celebrate was so beautiful.
How do you think it prepared you for going on tour solo?
It really made me understand the stamina that it takes to have a live show. When I’m opening up for somebody and I’m out of breath in 30 minutes, versus I know the hour and a half or even three and a half hour show the artist has to play [after] me. It also made me more comfortable with being on stage, and moving around and talking to people, and interacting — I heard this quote and it really spoke to me where it’s like, you don’t get energy from a crowd, you put energy into the crowd and you hope that they bring it back to you. I don’t walk on stage and I’m like, “OK, everybody else get me hype,” I’m like, OK, I need to try and get everybody excited,” and then we can all hopefully make each other more excited off of that excitement.
Are there any tour essentials that you have to take with you?
Oh gosh, we’re taking so much Vitamin Water Zero Sugar. I always bring a tour diary with me because I think it’s important to try note the way that you were feeling on shows — even though it’s very scary traveling with the diary because you can lose it so quickly. I need my bandmates with me — we’re such a family, so I need all of them with me because we always have such a great time, and they’re great emotional support. And fans because I need the people who like my music, and I like them [and] I want to show up and I want to celebrate them — and that is a tour essential. And two obnoxiously oversized suitcases.
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Source: Nacon / Teyon Games / RoboCop: Rogue City
Xbox has some new pep in its step after finally closing its $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard King. To show its focus is back on what’s essential, games, we got a glimpse of what’s to come during the Xbox Partner Preview.
Like PlayStation’s State of Play presentations, the Xbox Partner Preview spotlighted the games coming to the Xbox Series X and Series S console from third-party studios.
During the 30-minute presentation, we got trailers and gameplay footage from Xbox’s third-party partners like Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio, Remedy Entertainment, Studio Wildcard, Nacon, Konami, and more.
Gamers were happy to see the first in-engine footage from Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater, island activities from Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, more gameplay footage from RoboCop: Rogue City, the first footage from Ark: Survival Ascended, and so much more.
In case you missed the Xbox Partner Preview program, we are here to break it down for you.
Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater
Source: Konami / Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater
Snake is back, and he looks better than ever. No, this isn’t a new game, but a revisit to a game many say is the greatest entry into the Metal Gear Solid franchise, Snake Eater.
Now called Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater, Konami has reimagined the tactical espionage stealth action game using the powerful Unreal Engine 5, giving the game a complete graphics overhaul.
The in-engine look gave us a glimpse of the dense jungle vegetation that will help Snake hide and take out his enemies and the predatory animals that not only pose a danger to Snake but also could be his next meal and help him survive.
Unlike the original game released in 2004, Metal Gear Solid Detla: Snake Eater will not only feature cutting-edge graphics but 3D audio as well when it arrives.
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RoboCop: Rogue City
Source: Nacon/Teyon Games / RoboCop: Rogue City
RoboCop: Rogue City is high on our list of games to play in 2023. While we don’t think this one will be on the level of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 or Diablo IV, it looks fun as hell, dishing out justice and handing out parking tickets as the cyborg.
In the latest look at the game, we get some more story beats, a look at Alex Murphy, aka RoboCop, his partner Lois, some gunplay action, and even a showdown with ED-209.
RoboCop: Rogue City is now available for pre-order—no release word on a release date.
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To see the rest of the announcements from the Xbox Partner Preview, hit the gallery below.
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Photos: Konami / Nacon
1. Alan Wake II Launch Trailer
Per Xbox:
Ritualistic murders in a small town. An FBI agent looking for answers, and a writer looking for an escape from the nightmare he is writing. Who is the victim, and who is the monster? Follow the horror story into the dark when Alan Wake 2 launches on October 27th. Play as the writer, Alan Wake, and the FBI agent, Saga Anderson. Explore two beautiful and terrifying realities, and solve a deadly mystery before it’s too late. Alan Wake 2 is available October 27th on Xbox Series X|S.
For more, head here.
2. ARK: Survival Ascended – Xbox Partner Preview
Per Xbox:
Respawn into a new dinosaur survival experience beyond your wildest dreams… as ARK is reimagined from the ground-up into the next-generation of videogame technology with Unreal Engine 5! You awake on a mysterious island, your senses overwhelmed by the blinding sunlight and brilliant colors bouncing off every surface around you, the azure waters of a verdant Island lapping at your bare feet. A deep roar echoes from the misty jungle, jolting you into action, and you stand up – not afraid, but intrigued. Are you ready to form a tribe, tame and breed hundreds of species of dinosaurs and other primeval creatures, explore, craft, build, and fight your way to the top of the food-chain? Your new world awaits… step through the looking-glass and join it!
For more head, here.
3. LIKE A DRAGON: INFINITE WEALTH | DONDOKO ISLAND REVEAL TRAILER – Xbox Partner Preview
Per Xbox:
Too many street punks getting you down? Time for the getaway you deserve? Dondoko Island is the destination for you. Create the resort of your dreams in Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth when it launches January 26th, 2024.
4. Still Wakes the Deep – Gameplay Reveal – Xbox Partner Preview
Per Xbox:
Still Wakes the deep is an upcoming survival horror game from The Chinese Room. Set on an oil rig, this game pushes you through claustrophobic environments and freezing waters escaping an unthinkable horror. Still Wakes The Deep is coming to XBOX in 2024. Secret Mode are a Video Games publisher under Tencent and Sumo Group. Our goal is to delight and inspire you, and that’s why we are Secret Mode.
5. Manor Lords – Release Date Announcement Trailer – Xbox Partner Preview
Per Xbox:
Manor Lords, the highly anticipated historical city-building game, is coming on day one to PC Game Pass! Manor Lords launches in Game Preview on April 26th, 2024.
6. IKARO: Will Not Die – Announce Teaser – Xbox Partner Preview
Per Xbox:
From Futurlab, the award-winning creators of Powerwash Simulator and Velocity, in partnership with Thunderful, comes IKARO: Will Not Die, a momentum-based, fast-flowing action rogue-lite.
7. Spirit of the North 2 – Announcement Trailer – Xbox Partner Preview
Per Xbox:
Embrace the aurora and save the guardians in Spirit of the North 2, coming to Xbox Series X|S. Unveil the mysteries of a beautiful ancient world in this breathtaking 3rd-Person Adventure, a sequel to the acclaimed ‘Spirit of the North.’ Take on the role of an isolated fox with a raven companion on a quest to restore the lost guardians and return home. In an ancient world left in ruin, embark on the journey of an isolated fox far from home. With the help of a wise Raven companion, seek out the lost legendary guardians and release them from the grasp of the dark shaman Grimnir.
8. Dungeons of Hinterberg Social Gameplay Reveal – Xbox Partner Preview
Per Xbox:
Join us for a deeper dive into the social side to Dungeons of Hinterberg gameplay! In this new trailer, we explore a day in the life of Luisa, what she gets up to and who she meets.
9. THE FINALS – Open Beta Trailer – Xbox Partner Preview
Fight alongside your teammates in the world’s biggest, loudest, and most anticipated combat entertainment game show. Experience destruction in a way you haven’t before. THE FINALS Open Beta kicks off on Xbox Series X|S on October 26 – November 5, 2023.