Julius

Sigh Anywho, guess I'll just drop the most interesting tidbits I can find people talking about here from the Lucasfilm Studio Showcase: • panel opened with a highlights video of previous Celebrations interspersed with cast interview footage from over the years. • Obi-Wan Kenobi introduced following a choir singing Duel of the Fates. Attendees of the Lucasfilm Showcase at Celebration are being invited back later today to watch the premiere of the first two episodes. • Andor is releasing August 31st with a series premiere of the first two episodes; second season filming in the fall. Both seasons will be 12 episodes long, with the show beginning 5 years prior to Rogue One but leading directly into it. Teaser trailer shown, shared with public. • Willow is coming 30th November. • Ahsoka and The Mandalorian S3 are coming in 2023, Mando in February. Exclusive clip of Mando S3 shown at Celebration. Favreau announced a surprise installation at Celebration, where they've brought props and sets from the show. • Jon Watts' and Christopher Ford's new show is called Star Wars: Skeleton Crew, and follows a group of kids from a tiny planet who get lost during the period of Mando/Ahsoka (i.e. post-Jedi) and are trying to find their way back home. It will star Jude Law. Coming in 2023. • John Williams, 90 this year, turned up to conduct a live orchestra (the Pacific Symphony Orchestra) in playing the new Kenobi theme. He then rolled into Indy's theme. Harrison Ford comes to the stage. Indy 5 is still on track for 30th June 2023. Williams returned to the podium to conduct the Imperial March...and that's that. The opening panel closes with everyone singing Happy Birthday to John Williams.

Yeah, I had the same thought about the Kenobi marketing push, but I don't know, it's all very odd. If not livestreamed then maybe we get a condensed and heavily edited, Direct-style version at 12:30/20:30 with the major beats, trailers, etc., for the public to consume? Just missing potential things like the live interviews, clips exclusive to SWC, etc.? Part of me thinks they don't want a repeat of SWC 2016's Rogue One panel, but then...surely they would have changed things before? I think it's the lack of transparency for me which is just doing my head in a bit. Any livestreamed event - be it related to Star Wars or what we're more commonly seeing in games from Nintendo, PlayStation, Xbox et al - should just be crystal clear with their messaging...period. Don't leave room for wild speculation about how stupid you're seemingly being by not livestreaming the biggest panels at the biggest Star Wars event of the last 3 years? I don't know, I look at some of these multi-billioj dollar, multinational companies and can't help but chuckle. In Lucasfilm's case today, not livestreaming the event simply means I'm going to see a crappy version an hour or two later captured by someone on the crowd on their phone (which wasn't great in the case of Mando considering SFX were far from complete for what was shown at SWCC)!

Ray Liotta has passed away at 67.

More news coming next month, probably at Not-E3? starts screaming the Dragon Quest main theme

Yeah, I absolutely agree. The thing tipping me over into thinking it's simply not happening is what the home page of StarWars.com says right now: Feel like the weirdness would be compounded if it's not streamed by the fact that it's the first Celebration back "post"-COVID oh well, hope I don't sound too salty; I definitely understand if there are things they'd want to keep behind closed doors, but this would just seem... unnecessarily excessive? Considering it'll likely leak anyways. It would just be pretty disappointing if the bigger panels weren't streamed! Just seen that David W. Collins seems to think it'll be streamed, so who knows? Oh well, if not, guess I can just go watch AOTC and ROTS back-to-back to prepare for Kenobi tomorrow Hope you're having a great time!

Still not so much as a peep about the Lucasfilm Showcase being streamed, and livestreams for other days at Celebration are set to start at 12:00 too, which would be following the big events of each day which start at 11:00. Even if separate livestreams are being held for these day openers, they've not confirmed as much, so it's hard to blame fans for being a bit on edge -- even if it is streamed in the end, I struggle to see why you wouldn't be more forthcoming with those details. I've booked tomorrow off to stay up late and watch as much Celebration as I can, and I've seen that plenty of others have too. It would be pretty frustrating if the main panels weren't streamed like I said before, could easily be live-tweeted like some Disney Investor's Meetings have been previously. It may also be the case that trailers still drop, or even that the livestream opens with a summary of what they can share from the Lucasfilm Studio Showcase. On the one hand, I suppose it doesn't need as much build-up, so could be happening, but on the other...yeah, we're less than 5 hours away from the first panel starting, and the lack of clarification and response isn't great, any way you cut it. They recently got a new account manager on Twitter who is typically great at clarifying things and interacting with fans, and they've so far not responded to anyone asking about the Lucasfilm Studio Showcase being streamed – it might be unintentional, but it certainly looks like they're dodging those questions. Just have to wait and see I guess would be a huge shame if it wasn't streamed, though. Probably lead some fans down the path of the Dark Side. I decided not to go to Celebration this year due to the lingering COVID risk, figuring it would be safest to watch it all from home as we've been able to before. Beyond that, Celebration is simply nowhere near big enough an event to host the millions of fans worldwide who would want to attend.

Resistance: Retribution rated for PS4 and PS5 in Korea. Yeah, hopefully! The catalog seems to (slowly) be shaping up well, main thing for me out the gate is the potential to go back to games I didn't get to finish as a kid (Toy Story 2), and hopefully getting exacting vengeance on others for how they traumatised me as a kid (Dino Crisis).

Rated in Korea. Further: merch being lined up to launch in September.

Roma have done it about as Mourinho a performance as you'd expect after they scored in the 32nd minute, hoofing the ball upfield and holding it in Feyenoord's corner as early as the 80th minute. Had a chance or two to extend their lead but never managed to, and Feyenoord just didn't click today in front of goal as they had managed to on the way to the final. Champions League final next!

Europa Conference League final tonight! Going to be rooting for Roma. Mou has done a great job since taking over, Tammy has been great for them, fingers crossed for Mou to become the first manager to win trophies at all three European levels. The ECL has been great to watch as we've got into the knockout rounds - essentially just another Europa League in terms of quality - so hoping for a great match to round off the competition's inaugural season!

Looks like Dino Crisis is inbound:

In fairness, they were later than usual (usual meaning compared to pre-COVID times) to announce their E3 Direct last year too: they didn't announce it until 2nd June, 13 days before the Direct was scheduled to be streamed on 15th June. So I imagine we'll hear something by the end of next week (and if not, this year's Not-E3 is likely going to be a total dud if last year's actual E3 and Summer Game Fest is anything to go by)

Oh yeah, I'm positive it'll be streamed, just trying not to tempt fate over here! but I imagine you're right, it's likely just very weird (and honestly, kind of poor) messaging, what with the lack of detail so far about the streaming schedule, especially on the page they've linked to previously on StarWars.com, which talks about prepping to watch from home...but doesn't mention times, panels being streamed, etc., on that page It's the fact that they tweeted out the livestream as starting after the Showcase finishes that I think is rightly giving people pause. Even if there's a separate stream for the Showcase, you'd think their first (and so far only) tweet would read "join us at 11:00am for the Lucasfilm Showcase, followed by our stream from the show floor" (or that they'd be separate tweets). In your analogy, it's basically the equivalent of confirming Treehouse will be streamed but not mentioning the Direct

Well, this has me a little confused and concerned going into Celebration as someone watching from home: the Day 1 livestream isn't scheduled to begin until after the opening event, the Lucasfilm Studio Showcase, has ended. The linked YouTube stream begins at 20:30 BST (12:30 local) when the opening panel begins at 19:00 BST (11:00 local). I mean, I'm hoping that's a mix-up or that maybe the opening panel is getting its own dedicated stream (with this being the stream for the floor). It's a little concerning and I hope it doesn't end up being a VOD and kept exclusively on the grounds while being live-tweeted (which would be weird for the first event back from COVID, when it is a factor which is still somewhat at play), but let's wait and see I guess

That's my bad, meant to say Mandoverse (Mando S1, S2 + BOBF) rather than Mando S3; probably would've been easier to just say it'll be equal point is: we'll get a lot more in a shorter space of time, and I'm curious to see how that plays out. And yeah, certainly sounds like it! Really hoping that we end up seeing some of the Imperial senate.

Per VGC, PlayStation has confirmed that any PS3 or other streamed titles won't support DLC when rolled out as part of this PS+ overhaul:

HUNTER X HUNTER IS COMING BACK (for 4 new chapters) BABY! HIATUS X HIATUS NEARS ITS END! Confirmed by Yusuke Murata and plenty of others: EDIT: Further clarification -- likely completing a volume (note: ~10 chapters mentioned, but worth noting that it could potentially be less based on the fact that not every chapter to date is included in a volume yet).

The Vanity Fair piece centred around Andor, with interviews from Tony Gilroy and Diego Luna, has come out: Pretty much sounds like a two season affair (which, at 12 episodes apiece, would make the show an episode longer than the 23 episode run we'll have had for Mando once the third season drops), and a stacked cast in terms of sheer size too. Think this might be second of the new shows that I'm most excited to see more of (after Kenobi, but only a few days left until that kicks off!), so I'm looking forward to hearing (and hopefully seeing) more come Celebration!

Great overview of what it's looking like right now at the time of launch in Asia from Mystic:

I love the PS2 with all my heart...but this is exactly where my first thought went too. If we're talking about the design aesthetics of a console - which, from other posts, I take it we are, rather than the design function - it's just so damn blocky - and, like you say, clunky - that it almost lacks that feeling of being consciously designed in a weird way; it's strictly functional (and hey, I don't know so maybe someone can correct this thought if I'm off base here, but maybe part of that was keeping costs down to further push the cheapest DVD player on the market angle). It's just a block on another block, kind of like a big book awkwardly balanced on a smaller one, with these ugly ridges across the top block of the console, made only uglier by the contrast with the lack of ridges on the bottom block. Man, this is one I was thinking about too. I never owned a GBA in any form growing up, but did borrow friend's from time to time, and growing up, man, what a practical console for a kid: it's so small and compact. As an adult, my hands cramp a little just thinking about playing on one, and so time and again that's been the thing to dissuade me from picking one up. I always liked to think of the GBA SP being so square as being an inside joke at Nintendo, what with the GameCube being their home console at the time, always seemed a nice little pair. Like "hey, you play your 3D games on your 'Cube, and you (ahem, mostly) play your 2D games on your square GBA!" Anyways, I should probably throw my hat into the ring, so I'm going to call out an entire offshoot line of handhelds: the 2DS line. You know what that is? A door wedge. A door wedge disguised as a console. Shame on you Nintendo. Look, I owned a 2DS from launch, it was the first Nintendo console I bought with my own money and I'm grateful that it was a cheap and accessible means to pick up and play Pokémon X when it launched in October 2013. But it is cheap, probably the cheapest feeling and most toy-like Nintendo anything I've ever owned (I got the Wii U GamePad complaints after getting one, I do, but that's down to lack of heft more than anything else I feel). It's a tough cookie, but not in the premium way; it's a tough cookie in the same way that kid's toys are tough cookies: you can throw it at a wall, cover it in spaghetti, probably brick someone over the head with it, and it'll still be in one piece, in the same way all of your toys from when you were really young are probably still kicking around somewhere on the face of the planet today. And then we have the 2DS XL. Just what we wanted: a clamshell handheld with a neck! So take the stuff I said about the 2DS and basically make it look like this: And you know what, to touch on a home console for a moment: the original Xbox is ugly as sin. It just looks so damn tacky, like a fake console made as a prop for a film. I remember the first time I saw this console - which I think I've seen once in my entire life in-person - at a friend's house (squarely middle class, dad invested in stocks, you know the type) and I can't have been more than 5 years old, and I thought it was ugly as sin then...and I'll double down nearly 20 years later and day it looks ugly as sin now, too. What the hell was in the water of the console designers that generation?!

I have a new favourite from today's session: I laughed so hard that I nearly choked on my facepalm

Worth mentioning that it looks like they might still be in the process of adding stuff, think I've just seen Chocobo's Mystery Dungeon Everybuddy on the site which isn't in the list, and I think Ridge Racer 2 is missing? Could be down to regional variety though. I mean, overall, it's a pretty solid list to start off with, definitely a couple of games I'm interested in playing already from the Classics catalog such as Wild Arms, Syphon Filter, Ape Escape and Toy Story 2. It's the initial rollout so it was always going to be a bit pared back, but they're definitely reaching to stretch out that list of classic titles (...Gravity Rush Remastered, really?). Also worth bearing in mind that there'll be the mid-month refresh next month before it launches over here, and so I imagine there might be a handful of changes/additions by then, but exactly how much of a difference we'll see is anyone's guess Anyways, opening to Ape Escape is looking pretty clean:

Duuuuuuude: Toy Story 2 for PS1?! Another one of those I played with my cousin a lot growing up but never owned, think we'd only ever get as far as Al's Toy Barn which was its own gigantic funhouse. Yeah...this service isn't going to be good for my backlog

Ah cool, thanks! And yeah, not too surprising that's the case after it wasn't mentioned at all in the Blog update we got on Monday, so will definitely be on a game-by-game basis...but it still kind of sucks. I think you're right about no-one out of first party really wanting to mess around with it, only other times I can think of might be potential wider deals for the service (such as if Square Enix ever comes to the service with a slew of freshly emulated titles in a big way).

Oh yeah, I think you're right about that, I'm definitely not expecting much in terms of trophy support from this first wave (I mean, not knowing what the first wave is exactly doesn't really help ) When would those places typically get trophy lists going up? I don't really see much trophy news (outside of some that felt really early) so have no idea what's the norm