The World’s Most Advanced Hug Pillow

Technology! It does good things like make our lives better. You know, like making things such as computers, smartphones and talking hug pillows possible. As noted on Japanese site Weekly ASCII, a researcher named Kouchi Uchimura pitched his idea for a talking hug pillow platform called Itasupo on crowd-funding site Makuake (think Kickstarter), with the…

Track: Incense for the Damned | Artist: Electric Wizard | Album: Time To Die Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to – and gaming to – at the moment.

The Sentinels Are Cosplay Vigilantes

They are the ‘boots on the ground’. An accessible, friendly team of specialists trained to assess and deploy anti-harassment tactics at conventions throughout Australia. They are the Cosplay Sentinels: they want to make the con experience better and safer for all cosplayers, photographers, attendees. Everyone. Their goal? To empower every single attendee of every convention…

There will never be another Kotaku ‘Shop Contest ever again until next week. Due to circumstances beyond anyone’s control, this week’s contest has been postponed. Fahey may be convinced to run a new one tomorrow instead should a good enough idea arise. Until then, here’s a picture of a man hugging an aardvark he found…

The Week In Games: Down With Triple A

With big budget retail games resting for the next week, the next seven days shall be dominated by the indie, the budget and the downloadable. I am not complaining. Having played a ton of the $39.99 Screamride this weekend, I’m looking forward to other players getting their hands on the game and creating their own…

Dead Or Alive Community Leaders Soft Ban Sexy Costumes At Tournaments

Acknowledging that the Dead or Alive fighting franchise has a sexy image problem, community leaders at the series’ go-to forum have added an over-sexualized costume soft-ban to their tournament rules. Reactions from the community-at-large have been overwhelmingly negative. With the biggest competitive tournament push in franchise history accompanying the release of Dead or Alive 5:…

Today’s selection of articles from Kotaku‘s reader-run community: A Better Class of Game Criticism: Part 1 • Games People Hate: A Primer • Pre-Cult: Transistor • Assassination Classroom Makes Me Like the Octopus Guy • Elihu’s Four in February 2015: A Journey Through Time and Space [Majora’s Mask & Metroid Prime] TAY Classic—TAY Open Forum—Beginner’s…

Light Trivia Fails To Sap The Scary From Five Night At Freddy’s

Having had nightmares about animatronic animals for most of my life, I’m fine learning about Five Nights At Freddy’s through second-hand sources. Between Patricia’s excellent explainer and Did You Know Gaming‘s latest video, I’m all set. Did you know animatronic animals are terrifying? Robots I can handle, but the moment you start dressing them up…

Maybe We’d Be Better Off Playing Ikea’s Fake Video Games

While browsing his local Ikea for functional furniture at reasonable prices, Redditor voodoocodesnapped a shot of some of the company’s upcoming lineup of fake placeholder video games. I would pay $100 for Grand-ma’s Auto. Ikea is famous for its meatballs. Also it tends to make fake video game consoles, video games, computers, books and more…

Reminder: Claim Your Free Legendary Pokémon This Weekend

Good news, folks who are playing Pokémon Omega Ruby or Alpha Sapphire. There’s a free legendary ‘mon with your name on it right now. All you have to do is start up your game of Pokémon, and select “Mystery Gift” on the main menu. From there, choose “Receive Gift.” You’ll have to connect your 3DS…