I’ve Fallen In Love With The GameCube’s Analog Stick

Last week, I set up a Nintendo GameCube to play Suda 51’s cult classic Killer7 on Kotaku’s Twitch channel. I haven’t held a GameCube controller for years, but one small but important feature immediately stuck out. The GameCube has the most comfortable analog stick I’ve ever used. I’ll start with a confession: I don’t like…

If StarCraft Is Dead, No One Told Scarlett

StarCraft is reportedly dead, though for a corpse the exact time and cause of death are proving difficult to pin down. It’s possible that the StarCraft: Brood War match-fixing scandal of 2010 killed the pioneering real time strategy game a few months before the sequel was even released, but by then it may have already…

Ubisoft Is Making The Division 2 (And Adding Updates To The First Division)

It was a no-brainer given the first game’s success, but Ubisoft is making it official today with the announcement that it is making The Division 2, a sequel to 2016’s hit cover-based shooter. A logo for the sequel appeared on Ubisoft’s servers this morning. “It wasn’t an easy decision,” the game’s creative director, Julian Gerighty,…

The Loot Box Madness May End On Its Own

Is Donald Trump going to take away our video games? Are loot boxes going to go away? Today on Kotaku Splitscreen, let’s discuss. First, Kirk and I talk about Trump, loot boxes, and Diablo for Switch (6:27). Then we dig into some of the games we’ve been playing (41:14), like Dishonored: Death of the Outsider,…

Heroes Of The Storm Streamer Reports Entire Team, Prompts Blizzard To Investigate 

Heroes of the Storm’s game director says Blizzard is looking into one of the game’s streamers frivolously reporting teammates after losing a match. While broadcasting earlier this week, streamer Alexander “Stalk” Melder appeared to issue reports against the other four members of his Heroes of the Storm team after losing. Melder was a pro player…

This Tiny Tokyo Apartment Isn’t So Bad

There are some things going for it: the building is still new, clean and convenient. Big, however, it’s not. Japan’s ANN News visited the building, which is a year and a half old and located in Shibuya. The apartment is tiny, even by Japanese standards. The featured one-room measures 3-jo (畳), which means “three tatami…

Coca-Cola Will Sell Booze In Japan

No longer content with merely being a mixer, Coca-Cola is moving into Japan’s highly competitive canned spirits market. Besides its cola namesake (which actress Haruka Ayase is promoting in the top image), Coca-Cola Japan also sells various types of bottled Japanese tea under different brand names. The move into the country’s lucrative canned chu-hai segment…

A $750 Pokémon Plushie You Will Want To Ride

That’s actually what it’s called in Japanese “Zettai ni Noritai Rapurasu” (絶対にのりたいラプラス) or “A Lapras You’ll Definitely Want To Ride.” While not one-to-one scale (that would be enormous!), this large-sized plush toy from Bandai has a width of over six and a half feet and a height of nearly four feet. It costs 79,400 yen…

You Cannot Separate Dragon Ball‘s Voices From Masako Nozawa

At 81 years of age, Masako Nozawa has been voice acting since the 1960s but is perhaps best known for her Dragon Ball work. She does the Japanese voices of Goku, Gohan and Goten. But how much of her regular voice finds its way into these characters? A lot, apparently! The Japanese TV clip below…

Fun Farm. Luzon, Philippines. By Martin Tan. JPGs is a photo peek into wherever gamers might find interesting. If you’re a photographer and have images you want to share, drop us a line! 

Rough Landing

Daniel Rizea is a concept artist who has worked on everything from Independence Day 2 to White House Down to Crysis 3 to Ryse You can see more of Daniel’s work at his personal site To see the images in their native resolution, click on the “expand” button in the top-left corner. Fine Art is…

Tally ho and what-not! We’re checking out The Order 1886 live now on Twitch. Was is really as bad as people say or can we find a silver lining?

Behold, Japan’s Antique Gaming Chairs

Today, the term “gaming chairs” is synonymous with those gaudy padded monstrosities you see in the background of a Twitch video. But in the late 80s/early 90s, a Japanese company had a much simpler idea. These are Iron Craft’s efforts, which consisted of taking a rather uncomfortable-looking stool and sticking a controller at the front…

All The Witcher’s Witches

This mass cosplay shoot was put together by the very talented Milligan Vick, and features ten members of The Lodge of Sorceresses. You could argue it’s not quite everyone, since Yenn isn’t there, but a) it’s not like she was a willing participant and b) I think we’ve had enough amazing Yenn cosplay already, thanks,…

Final Fantasy XV Is Great In First Person, Unless You’re Fighting

Final Fantasy XV’s Royal Edition update introduces a new first-person mode to the game, allowing players to witness the world of Eos from Noctis’ point of view. Just don’t try fighting with it turned on unless you’ve got a strong stomach. Pressing down the L3 and R3 buttons on the controller (or the N key…