Jason Schreier

Nintendo of Europe Lays Off 320 People

Around 320 employees at Nintendo of Europe will lose their jobs this week, the company confirmed to Kotaku today. That number includes around 130 full-time Nintendo of Europe employees—as was reported in June—and an additional 190 who worked for the company’s Germany-based localization department by way of a leasing agency. Though technically those 190 people…

Assassin’s Creed Unity Delayed To November

Remember how October was the month of All The Video Games? This is no longer true. Assassin’s Creed Unity will now be out on November 11, Ubisoft said today. That’s a two-week bump for the upcoming action game. Unity, which will be out for current-gen consoles and PC, will now release alongside Assassin’s Creed Rogue,…

Kingdom Hearts 2.5 Has A Ton Of New Stuff

You’ll get to fight Monstro the whale and even, well, [SPOILER] in the upcoming remake of Kingdom Hearts 2, which will be out December 2 for PS3. Square Enix just released this new trailer to show off all the new stuff they’ve packaged into the HD collection, which they’re calling “KINGDOM HEARTS HD 2.5 ReMIX.”…

Stand-Alone Xbox One Kinect Will Cost $150

In June, Microsoft started selling the Xbox One without Kinect. In October, you’ll be able to buy the Kinect on its own—but it’ll cost you $150. Standalone versions of the Xbox One’s Kinect will go on sale October 7, Microsoft said today. The motion-sensing accessory will come with a digital copy of Harmonix’s Dance Central…

GOG To Start Selling Movies And TV Shows

Well this is interesting: GOG.com, the digital retailer best known for selling old games without DRM, is branching out into film and TV. They’re starting small, launching with a handful of independent documentaries for $5.99 a piece in hopes of eventually branching out to studio films and television shows. The folks at GOG are pushing…

Danganronpa, one of the best games of 2014 so far, is on sale today for $20. I strongly recommend it to anyone who’s into good stories. The sequel comes out next week—look out for our review then.

Naughty Dog animator Tal Peleg has written an interesting behind-the-scenes piece about how he made that great Dante’s Inferno short film. You can check it out here

Amazon Buys Twitch For $970 Million [UPDATE]

UPDATE (4:02pm): It’s official: Amazon has purchased Twitch, following months of rumors that Google was looking to buy the video streaming company. Amazon says the exact purchase price will be $970 million in cash. Here’s the press release from Twitch, which also put up a message on their website today: SEATTLE—August 25, 2014—Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:…

Huge Potential Leak May Reveal Full Smash Bros. Roster [UPDATE]

Last week, leakers claimed to have screenshots of the final character and stage rosters for the upcoming Super Smash Bros. games. Today, some rather convincing videos have popped up that appear to confirm the veracity of that leak, showing off some exciting unannounced characters from the highly-anticipated Nintendo fighter. Warning: the following post contains potential…

PSN Back Online, Maintenance Rescheduled After Major Online Attack

Rejoice! Sony says the PlayStation Network is back online following a DDOS attack that had left online PlayStation services—amongother game networks—crippled for the past two days. Given the incident, Sony is rescheduling the PSN maintenance that was originally scheduled for today: UPDATE: The PlayStation Network and Sony Entertainment Network are back online and people can…

Sony Online President’s Flight Diverted After Hacker Bomb Threat

American Airlines has diverted a flight carrying the president of Sony Online Entertainment following what may have been a bomb threat by a group of alleged hackers—the same group that has claimed responsibility for a series of outages across the PlayStation Network and other gaming services this weekend. The FBI is currently investigating the incident,…

Is Robin Williams the reason Sid Meier’s Civilization is called Sid Meier’s Civilization? I was just rereading our profile of the iconic game designer and stumbled upon this anecdote, which seems appropriate to share again now: Stealey has a different take: “We were at dinner at a Software Publishers Association meeting, and [actor] Robin Williams…

Let’s Talk About Star Ocean 2

Welcome to the Summer of Old JRPGs, where we’re playing classic role-playing games and talking about them every week. Check out the full schedule here I have something to tell you, my dear Random Encounters readers. You might not like it, but I think it needs to be said. Star Ocean 2 kinda sucks. I…

Sony Says They’re Looking Into Crippling PS4 Glitch

Sony tells Kotaku they’ve “made progress” toward solving a PS4 glitch that has prevented some users from buying or playing games on their new PlayStation consoles. The “CE-33945-4” glitch, which was reported by PS4 owners on NeoGAF and the PlayStation forums, prevents users from playing games or accessing any other services on the PlayStation Network,…

Here’s A Walking Dead Trailer None Of Us Have Watched Because Spoilers

Telltale just released this trailer for the last episode in The Walking Dead Season Two, the second sequence in their lovely adventure series. “The trailer does NOT SPOIL the finale,” said a Telltale rep. “But it WILL SPOIL each episode before it if you aren’t all caught up!” This is a problem for Team Kotaku’s…

Hey, Final Fantasy Explorers Looks Pretty Good

Fashion modeling agency Square Enix just released a handful of new trailers for Final Fantasy Explorers, which will be out for 3DS in Japan this December. There’s no U.S. release date for Final Fantasy Explorers yet, but it’s looking good so far. Monster Hunter-style gameplay with Final Fantasy classes and beasts. I’m sold.

Watch Every Single Episode Of The Simpsons, In A Row

Here is a PSA for all of you fine Kotaku readers: starting today at 10am Eastern, FXX is broadcasting every single episode of The Simpsons, non-stop. Every single one. Since there are 552 episodes of The Simpsons—plus a movie—this will take around 12 days. You can see the full schedule here So whether you’re a…

Five Visual Novels You Must Play, Even If You Don’t Like Anime

When you think of the term “visual novel,” you probably think of dating simulators stuffed full of anime tropes and hentai scenes. I am here to convince you that this is wrong. See, there are visual novels worth playing even if you’re not a fan of anime. Take it from me, a Person Who Does…

Ray’s The Dead, a neat-looking zombie game we covered last year, is back on Kickstarter after a failed first campaign. This time they want $30,000for the narrative-heavy zombie action adventure. Looks rad!

Sony Doesn’t Understand Just Who The Heck Is Buying All Those PS4s

Sony has sold 10 million PlayStation 4s. They don’t know why. It just kinda happened. Sales appearing from the ether—that sort of thing. Here’s Sony’s Shuhei Yoshida speaking in an extensive Eurogamer interview (emphasis mine): The 10m sell through in the first nine months is well beyond what we had hoped for. As you know,…