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Apple TV+ will drop every episode of ‘Little America’ on January 17th
Little America, the anthology series based on true stories about immigrants in the US, arrives on Apple TV+ on January 17th. Apple will release all of season one's episodes at once, rather than weekly as it's done with other shows, and more than a month before Little America's debut, Apple has already committed to a second season.
Netflix renews ‘Grace and Frankie’ for a seventh, 16-episode final season
Netflix has renewed Grace and Frankie, the comedy starring Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin, for a seventh and final season. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the show will end with 16 episodes, giving it a total of 94 episodes over its lifetime and making it the longest-running Netflix original in terms of total episode count. While Orange is the New Black also had a seventh season, it had just 91 episodes.
What’s coming to Netflix in June: ‘Black Mirror’ and the final 'Jessica Jones'
Netflix packed May with new movies like Wine Country, the animated series Tuca and Bertie, a Ted Bundy biopic and more. Now, it's bringing just as much new content and star power to June. In just the first half of the month, Netflix will release season five of Black Mirror -- a three episode run, which you can watch trailers for now -- and the third and final season of Jessica Jones.
HBO's 'Silicon Valley' returns for its fifth season on March 25
Silicon Valley is about to return for a fifth season, and as the new trailer shows, things in Pied Piper's world of startup tech are not running smoothly. There's no Erlich Bachman, for a start (although T.J Miller, who played Bachman, has tweeted his praise for the Erlich-free season), hapless CEO Richard Hendricks is struggling to get the new internet off the ground and Jian-Yang has embraced a new badass attitude. Also there's a dead pig for some reason. Startups, eh? Catch the new season on March 25 on HBO.
Star Trek Online celebrates the end of summer with giveaways [Updated]
The days get shorter, the heat diminishes, and students collectively go back to actually studying things. Yes, summer is coming to a close, and the team behind Star Trek Online is pretty happy with how this past summer went. Sure, seasons are kind of a meaningless concept when you're talking about a setting that spans multiple planets with their own annual cycles, but the players are still here on Earth, and they can celebrate the end of the season with free stuff. An as-of-yet undisclosed ship will be going live in the game's cash shop tomorrow, but that's not the really free part. From August 29th to September 1st, around 1:00 p.m. EDT, a new promotional item will be flagged in the store as free. These items are all account-wide unlocks so long as an eligible character is available to claim the item. Who wouldn't like some free stuff for the end of summer? [Update: The team has also today released more information about upgrading tier 5 ships.]
Diablo 2.10 patch releases with week of in-game bonuses
It's time for new challenges in Diablo III, as Patch 2.10 crash-landed today to the delights of players and the screams of frustrated hellbeasts. Why won't you stop slaughtering them already? The big four features that arrive with 2.10 are seasons, greater rifts, leaderboards, and cesspools. Starting today, players can roll up a fresh character for a new season to earn special rewards without assistance from the player's other assets. To celebrate the patch, Diablo III has triggered a week of double gold find and double treasure goblin appearances. The patch notes are so long that, well, they descend into the deep blackness of the website. If you'd rather not go blind reading all of that, you can check out the patch overview video after the jump. Happy gaming!
Vudu makes it a little easier to buy your TV shows by the episode
If you're really dedicated to a la carte TV, then maybe separating by channel isn't enough and it's time to buy only the shows or episodes of shows you really want. The only problem with that? On some services, if you buy a few episodes and then decide to grab the entire season later, that means paying twice for the same shows, but Vudu has added a fix, which it's pitching directly towards cord-cutters. In addition to the Season Pass that lets users buy shows as they're airing on TV, now there are options for Season Complete and Season Upgrade. Complete means just paying the price for the season, minus the price of the episodes you've already purchased, while Upgrade lets you jump from a low-res standard definition copy to HD (720p) or HDX (1080p) by again just paying the difference in price. The iTunes store added a "Complete My Season" option to its TV store back in 2011, but it still isn't there for stores like Amazon and Google Play. Vudu is available on many more devices than Apple's digital store, so if you're building out your TV library episode by episode and season by season, now there's one more option.
Star Trek Online brings Undine up to par
Cryptic Systems Designer Jeff Hamilton is on tap for today's Star Trek Online dev blog, talking about the updates being made in Season 8.5 to one of the game's most fearsome foes: the Undine. Hamilton warns players to expect a more scrappy Undine race when the update lands on January 30th: "We felt that the Undine in Star Trek Online were not on par with the Borg in terms of their toughness and challenge rating –- so we've decided to go back and make them a little bit smarter, a little bit faster, and a little bit tougher." To accomplish this, the team has given Undine ships better AI, faster engines, more weapons, summonable reinforcements, and the preference for strafing attacks during combat. The Undine Vila-class battleship will even have a new ability to open rifts to fluidic space as part of its arsenal.
The wolf is among iOS today
Telltale's The Wolf Among Us is set to launch today on iOS. The game's first episode, titled "Faith," will cost $4.99, while a pass for the game's entire season will be priced at $14.99, Touch Arcade reported. The latest trailer for the game notes that it will also arrive "soon" on PlayStation Vita. The Wolf Among Us' first episode launched in mid-October on Xbox 360 and PC. The series is based on Bill Willingham's Fables comic series, guiding the werewolf-like Sheriff Bigby through a section of New York City known as Fabletown. Our review of the episode found the game to be a "perfect beginning" to Telltale's new series, and it made us "invested in protecting these curious creatures from our storybooks."
Star Trek Online Season 8: The Sphere energizes today
As part of what I'm calling "Mega-Update Tuesday," Star Trek Online has released Season 8: The Sphere for brash and bold captains to explore. Season 8's storyline challenges players to explore a Dyson Sphere that could be pivotal in the politics of the galaxy. The sizable update contains a new adventure zone, a reworked Federation tutorial, a new reputation track, a battlezone, queued events, curved hallways, and more goodies for fleets. For a limited time, Cryptic is giving players a free Solanae Tribble to celebrate the new season. Massively's been to the sphere and back to bring you the trailer and an in-depth preview of Season 8, so consider it your captain's duty to check those out.
SyFy renews Defiance for a second season
The SyFy network has picked up Defiance for a second season. Production on the 13-episode season will begin in August in Toronto, and is expected to air in 2014. The show also has a companion MMO of the same name by Trion Worlds. It's a popular one at that, as it recently saw its millionth user sign up to play. Plus, Defiance will receive five DLC releases this year, so things are looking up for fans of both the game and the show.
App downloads spike over the holiday, though not as high as expected
The Christmas holiday saw a record number of iOS device activations, and as usual, a nice spike in app downloads for developers (thanks to all of those new devices on the market). But Distimo just shared a report that says Christmas might not have been as merry as we thought for app developers this year. While iPhone app sales and downloads did spike, up to 87 percent above the average for December, that spike is nothing compared to last year's 230 percent spike. In other words, the trend of big sales around the holiday season appears to be leveling off just a bit. The iPad fared slightly better, with downloads seeing a 140 percent spike. That's sizable (and it speaks to how popular the iPad mini especially has been this holiday season), but it's not the kind of jump we saw just a few years ago, when all of this holiday commotion started. So what does this all mean for the big picture? I suspect it means that we might not see developers quite so eager to go for big holiday sales in the next year -- there were some incredibly huge sales in the past few weeks, and those were put in place partly because developers expected this big spike in downloads. But if the spike isn't as big, devs might be more convinced to hold to their standard prices, or try other tactics to drum up sales over the holiday season. This trend of big sales and spikes over the Christmas holiday has been growing for a few years now, but this is the first sign we've seen that it may be heading in the other direction. [via BGR]
GameStop offering Halo 4 and AC3 for $40, +50% credit on in-store trade-ins
The stockings have come down and the gifts have been unwrapped, but GameStop hasn't stopped kicking off deals for the season. The retailer's latest deals, which run now through Saturday, have Halo 4 and Assassin's Creed 3 for $39.99 each, and Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 on sale for $49.99.Far Cry 3 is also on sale for $49.99, and you can pick up Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Future Soldier for $29.99, in addition to all of the other deals on recent and popular games. Finally, the company's offering a buy two, get one free sale on all used Wii and Nintendo DS games, and there's an ongoing promotion that will give you an extra 50 percent credit back whenever you trade any used games in. Just in case you didn't spend all your money on this year's previous sales, GameStop will be happy to help take the rest of it.
Daily iPhone App: Boomtime Baseball reaches for baseball's golden age
Honestly, baseball is probably the last thing I want to think about right now, given that my Cubs just finished the season with 101 excruciating losses. But if you still enjoy the crack of the bat against the ball, Boomtime Baseball (free) might work for you. While it has some issues, it will at least provide you with that great feeling of knocking baseballs around in a classic era. Unfortunately, Boomtime Baseball doesn't go for the whole game: It's a series of minigames, most of which just involve you hitting pitches. But the hitting mechanic is rather fun. You swipe down the screen to power up and aim, and then let go to swing hit when the ball comes through. It doesn't really feel much like baseball -- it's more like an arcade game that's themed in baseball memories. But it is fun, and there are a few different types of games to play, including one where you fill up a slugger meter, and another where you bet in "Al's Casino." I have two gripes with Boomtime Baseball. First, the in-app purchases are frustrating. You need to buy everything in the game, and while that's doable just by earning points in the minigames, the game doesn't let you forget at all that you should be spending money on it. Also, the presentation is lacking. You'd think that "Boomtime Baseball" would offer up some official information on old players or teams, but nope. All of the players are just generic. And the game's sounds will probably need to be turned off as well. I could only take so many "oh my"s from the old-timey announcer. All in all, Boomtime Baseball isn't bad, but it's probably only worth picking up if you just really, really need to scratch that ballpark itch now that the real ones are closing up. It's too bad the developers here didn't go further with what started out as an interesting idea.
Plex shows you how to make your TV shows look great with its new Local Media Agent
Out friends at Plex have shuttled out a new Local Media Agent that'll enable you to make your TV shows look great. The updated software lets you add show and season posters, banners, background art, theme music and individual episode thumbnails to your recorded shows to make each one really, really good-looking. It'll happily handle PNG and FLAC files for those lossless enthusiasts and it'll even overlook a messy file structure to get everything looking great. Now, if you'll excuse us, we're going to catalog our Community episodes with thumbnails of Dean Pelton's outfits.
More app sales: King of Dragon Pass, Swords and Soldiers and Crescent Moon RPGs
We'll do one more big app roundup post today before the holiday weekend. The App Store freeze went off as scheduled yesterday, so devs can no longer change their prices or upgrade their apps until next week, but in addition to the sales already covered so far, there are still a few more apps on sale worth pointing out for you: Konami's got the charming Gesundheit on sale, 99 cents on the iPhone and $1.99 on the iPad. The very well-reviewed King of Dragon Pass is 20% off, $7.99. I already mentioned Chillingo having most of their titles on sale, but it's worth mentioning as well that Anomaly: Warzone Earth and Swords and Soldiers are both on sale. Com2Us has put all of its titles on sale as well, including the popular Tower Defense: Lost Earth. Crescent Moon's got Pocket RPG iPhone edition down to a buck, and it's done the same with Rimelands and Aralon, two excellent games. Polarbit also has a bunch of fun titles on sale. And Telltale has big discounts going on its titles as well. As I said yesterday, there's lots more out there, so if there's an app you've been wanting, chances are that it's on sale. Unfortunately for smaller developers, I just checked the top paid apps on the store, and EA has claimed most of the spots already, with Angry Birds and Sega filling out most of the other real estate. It looks like Electronic Arts is all set to ring in the holidays with another huge batch of app sales, as people open up those new iPhones and iPads over the weekend.
Microsoft comments on lack of new season in Full House Poker
Don't be too worried about the lack of new seasons for Full House Poker, card sharks: Microsoft's just making sure everyone has the time to grab all the Achievements in the game's current phase. That's the news Microsoft Product Manger Daniel McConnell reportedly passed down to XBLAFans, who explained that fans thought the last, 66-day-long season didn't give them enough time to pull down all the sweet, sweet 'cheevos therein. That explains why the current, summer season is on day 119, with no announced stop date. Don't think that Microsoft is just letting the title languish -- McConnell added that the season-based Texas Heat mode "is thriving, and we plan to refresh the Texas Heat season in the future." We, for one, can't wait for the autumn season, when the Texas Heat tops off with highs in the mid 70s, rather than in the skin-dissolving low 110s.
iPhone, iPod touch leading product search for Christmas
This is an interesting little statistic, but it could be very telling about what's going on in terms of sales this holiday season. 9to5Mac says that over in the UK, the iPhone and the iPod touch are the current most searched-for products this holiday. iPhone made up 1.75 percent of all product searches last week, and 14% of mobile phone product searches. Meanwhile, the iPod touch was in second place at 1.29 percent, and the iPod nano was actually third, at .5 percent. Over three percent, then, of all product searches in the UK were for Apple's handhelds. Of course, just because one in 34 people are searching for an iPhone or iPod doesn't mean that they'll be huge gifts necessarily -- maybe the searching just means that they want one, not that they'll be getting one. But there's no question that as big as Apple's 4th quarter has been so far, it's going to get even bigger, in the UK and probably everywhere else as well.
Arena Season 6 to end soon
Bornakk has just announced that the end of Season 6 will come as early as Tuesday August 25th. You'll want to be sure that if you're eligible for arena rewards that you don't transfer your character or generally screw with your arena team. Just relax and let the rewards happen.After Season 6 ends, there will be one week of downtime where no rated matches can happen.Season 7 will begin after this week of downtime, at which time all team and personal ratings will be wiped, along with your arena points. According to the announcement matchmaking ratings will remain (as well as honor points). None of this should come as too much of a surprise, as we've known about it all for a while.This roughly places the start date for Season 7 at Tuesday September 1st. However these things can change, so just pay attention to the news and watch out for the exact date.
Happy Fourth of July from WoW.com
It's that time of year again -- Summer is in the air, baseball is well underway (I'm still pulling for the Cubs, even though it's a rollercoaster as usual), and things are grilling on the, um, grill. Here in America, today is Independence Day, and we're celebrating our independence from you EU folks -- don't take it personally, but we'd had it up to here with your taxation without representation, and we just wanted to spend some time on our own for a while. So while most of our bloggers are relaxing and lighting explosives on fire, posting might be a little slim around here today. Just in case you need something to read, you can always catch up on all the amazing Patch 3.2 details, dream about going to BlizzCon (or just ogle the costumes), or finish up your Midsummer Fire Festival achievements.And if the last few years are any indication, there'll be some celebrations in Azeroth this evening as well (yes, even on the EU servers), with fireworks aplenty (we're pretty sure they do them on the hour every hour this evening -- Booty Bay always has a nice display, not to mention that the bruisers are drunk there today), and free beer and food outside the capital cities. So if you're here in America with us, be sure to have a very happy and safe Fourth of July from all of us here at WoW.com!
