Culture

This Week in the Business: $1 Million Worth of Pizza Sold on Xbox Live

STAT | $1 million—Amount of sales that Pizza Hut’s Xbox 360 app has generated in 4 months by allowing people to order pizza from Xbox Live; “It’s been a source of unbelievable growth for us,” said Pizza Hut And elsewhere in the business of video games this past week … QUOTE | “I don’t think…

Incredible Gamer Takes On Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out While Blindfolded

Not only is master gamer Sinister1 playing Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! while blindfolded and crushing it, he’s moving through the game as quickly as possible. I’m speechless. Part one is up top, and here’s the rest of the run, where things get hairy: Sinister1’s full-run attempt happened today during Awesome Games Done Quick 2014, a speedrunning…

Watch Super People Play Super Games Super Fast

If you haven’t been tuning into this year’s Awesome Games Done Quick, you are missing out on some serious rapid-fire video gaming. All week the fine folks at AGDQ have been speedrunning their way through new games like Metal Gear Rising, classics like Super Mario World, and exercises in self-destruction like Battletoads The marathon ends…

The Man Who Helped Change The Look Of Halo

It’s not often that video game artists make the headlines, but Kenneth Scott made a few this week when he left his post as art director at 343 studios. That’s kind of a big deal for fans because he was in charge of shaping the series’ visual identity. It’s far from terrible news – his…

Looking for advice on your love life? Good news! Kotaku is bringing on the one and only Dr. Nerdlove for a recurring column answering your questions about love, life, and dating. He’s taking questions for his first column via email, so send him queries at [email protected] and put the word “Kotaku” in the subject.

Nice Day For A White Wedding

Lukas Esch is an artist at OnePixelBrush, a studio we’ve featuredrecently on Fine Art for their work on games like BioShock Infinite and Ryse. You can see more of Lukas’ work at his personal site and CGHub page To see the larger pics in all their glory (or, if they’re big enough, so you can…

The Dreamcast Wasn’t The First Time Sega Quit A Hardware Business

The day Sega stopped making video game hardware was a sad one, but it’s worth remembering that, like former rivals Nintendo, video game hardware wasn’t the only thing Sega had ever made. Sega’s history is likewise littered with other stuff, from slot machines to photobooths, but one of the coolest has got to be the…

Snacktaku Special Report: Coca-Cola Life Surely Tastes Like Something

While vacationing in Buenos Aires, Kotaku editor-in-chief Stephen Totilo sampled Coca-Cola Life, a special green-canned version of America’s favorite sugar water developed specifically for Argentina and Chile. How does it taste? Not a clue. Stephen was so grateful the beverage inside the can was not green, he neglected to tell us how it tastes. This…

A Game About Boss Fights, Only One Of Your Friends Is The Boss

Falling somewhere between Left 4 Dead and Shadow of the Colossus, Outrise is a game currently in development that centres around co-operative battles against enormous bosses. The catch being that the bosses aren’t AI; they’re controlled by a human as well. Foot soldiers will have access to a range of weapons and vehicles, and can…

Thank You, Mario, but the Princess is in Another Can

Except neither of these look a fucking thing like Mario. Or a princess, for that matter. [via Spaghettios’ Twitter. The Mario version was announced back in September]

Track: Wizard Motor | Album: Les Revenants | Artist: Mogwai Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to—and gaming to—at the moment.

There Are Mountain Dew Cheetos In Japan. I Have Ordered Them.

Today I learned, via Reddit, that Japan contains Mountain Dew flavored Cheetos. As a means of proving my dedication to the Snacktaku cause into the year 2014, I have ordered three packages. “But Fahey,” you say. “Don’t you already have at least three people living in and working from Japan?” I was not aware of…

Adventure Time toys are coming to McDonald’s Happy Meals January 17. Finn, Jake, Ice King and Beemo are excellent reasons to pick up boxed lunches for the homeless in your area. According to HappyMeal.com, these are boys’ toys. Girls will have to deal with Paul Frank’s stupid monkey.

Gamers Are Racing Through Your Favorite Games For Charity

It’s time again for the annual Awesome Games Done Quick charity marathon, where gamers who are experts in a variety of classic games come together and broadcast their best runs for your entertainment and donations. Azureguy wrote more about it on TAY, our reader-run blog. Read that below, and check out the trailer for the…

The Week in Games: 2014’s First Cut

Video gaming new releases are still deep in hibernation but there are a couple of notable titles coming this week. Let’s also look ahead through the next couple of months to see what else is on the way. Here’s the—uh, well, it’s a span of time, in games. Tuesday, Jan. 7 Don’t Starve (PS4) Thursday,…

Sunday Comics: Combat Training

Welcome to Kotaku‘s Sunday Comics, your weekly roundup of the best gaming-themed webcomics. The images enlarge if you click on the magnifying glass icon. Corpse Run by Alex Di Stasi. Published Jan. 2. Read more of Corpse Run Awkward Zombie by Katie Tiedrich. Published Dec. 30. Read more of Awkward Zombie Penny Arcade by Jerry…

This Week in the Business: It (Doesn’t) Print Money …

What’s happened in the business of video games this past week … QUOTE | “Nintendo continues to underperform even our very low expectations. However, it is more of a business failure than a product failure.”—Analyst David Cole of DFC Intelligence, with other analysts, discussing what happened in 2013 and predicting what will happen in 2014…

The Mesmerizing Birth Of A Snack Classic

I cannot stop watching this. Can you guess what is? It’s not Pop-Tarts, as Redditor BigMurph26 suggests. Nor is it Uncrustables, as put forth by commenters in the Reddit thread — there’s no peanut butter in these. Do you hear that? That’s the sounds of criminals all over the world dropping what they were doing,…

The Best Video Game Concept Art Of 2013*

In case you’re asleep when it hits, almost every day here on Kotaku I run a feature called Fine Art. It’s a chance to showcase the work of artists who spend most of their time out of the spotlight, yet who also play a vital role in shaping the way we identify – and fall…

Kotaku’s Favorite Albums from 2013

How is this news? The release this year of Kinja, our new publishing platform, also saw the return of Kotaku Soundtrack, a happy little diversion we sometimes indulge in where we share the music that we’re listening to, whether that be for work, for gaming or, if we’re bold, for pleasure Since the feature is…