PlayStation Is Reportedly Working on an Xbox Game Pass Competitor

Sony is working on a competing Xbox Game Pass service for PlayStation according to a new report.

Bloomberg says sources familiar with Sony’s plans shared details of a new service code named “Spartacus” where PlayStation owners can pay a monthly fee for access to a library of modern and classic games. This is the same model used for Xbox’s popular Game Pass service.

Documents on the project revealed three tiers for the upcoming service. The first includes the same benefits as PlayStation Plus, which is required for online gaming and comes with some free games each month. A higher tier offers access to the gaming catalog like Game Pass, and a third tier will include extended demos, game streaming, and access to a larger library that includes PS1, PS2, PS3, and PSP games.

Given that backward compatibility has been a popular request from PlayStation owners, using a new service to introduce older games to the library could be an enticing move.

The new service is expected to launch in spring 2022 and will merge Sony’s two existing subscription services PlayStation Plus and PlayStation Now — a cloud service that lets users stream games directly to their consoles. According to Bloomberg, the PlayStation Plus name will remain, but PlayStation Now will be phased out as a brand.

Despite beating competitors like Stadia to the market, PlayStation Now has failed to catch on as core PlayStation subscription service, though the company has recently taken steps to add major releases like God of War and The Last of Us 2.

It’s plain to see why PlayStation wants to get in on a service similar to Game Pass. Xbox’s subscription service has been a huge hit for the company and has over 18 million subscribers as of January 2021.

Alongside access to a library of games, Xbox Game Pass also offers users day-one access to first-party Xbox games like Forza Horizon 5 and Halo Infinite. Future titles like Starfield from Bethesda are also coming to Game Pass. Xbox offers Game Pass subscriptions for $10 a month or $15 a month for the Ultimate tier which includes Game Pass for both console and PC plus cloud streaming.

IGN has reached out to PlayStation for comment.

Matt T.M. Kim is IGN's News Editor. You can reach him @lawoftd.

Josef Fares Game It Takes Two Is Hit With Claim from Take-Two Interactive

Grand Theft Auto parent company Take-Two Interactive has hit Hazelight Studio's game, It Takes Two, with a trademark claim. Records indicate that Hazelight has seemingly been forced to abandon ownership of the game's name.

In a statement to Eurogamer, a Hazelight spokesperson told the outlet that the studio cannot comment on ongoing disputes, but hopes that the situation will be resolved. Take-Two has also been filing trademark claims for names that include words like "rockstar," "social club," "mafia," and "civilization." These words all have connections to products or services that Take-Two owns, such as Rockstar Games, Rockstar Social Club, and the Mafia franchise.

Not only is Hazelight affected, but other businesses unrelated to the games industry are as well. A clothing brand "Max Fayne" has been included in Take-Two's trademark claims, presumably due to its closeness to the studio's Max Payne franchise. An axe-throwing company in Florida called "Rockstar Axe Throwing" is trying to oppose Take-Two's trademark claim too, while a music book brand called "Think Like a Rockstar" has abandoned its trademark following Take-Two's claim.

You can see that some companies have chosen to simply abandon their trademarks instead of fighting a company as big as Take-Two, as it is trying to extend the claims. Virtual Legality's Richard Hoeg says, "You can start to see applicants peremptorily limit their own applications to try to avoid getting extended out. As well as plenty of folks with legitimate applications simply choosing not to fight by defaulting on the opposition."

In terms of It Takes Two, Hoeg says that since it isn't a company name and that the phrase is commonly used in goods and services everywhere, "I would suspect they simply wind up going untrademarked and relying on copyright," Hoeg explains.

Take-Two has been on something of a legal kick lately, such as suing reverse-engineered GTA 3 and Vice City creators as well as GTA modders.

It Takes Two creator Josef Fares made a name for himself with an outspoken appearance at the 2018 Game Awards. Perhaps he might have a similar attitude next week during the Game Awards 2021, where It Takes Two is up for Best Game, among other nominations.

George Yang is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @yinyangfooey

Josef Fares Game It Takes Two Is Hit With Claim from Take-Two Interactive

Grand Theft Auto parent company Take-Two Interactive has hit Hazelight Studio's game, It Takes Two, with a trademark claim. Records indicate that Hazelight has seemingly been forced to abandon ownership of the game's name.

In a statement to Eurogamer, a Hazelight spokesperson told the outlet that the studio cannot comment on ongoing disputes, but hopes that the situation will be resolved. Take-Two has also been filing trademark claims for names that include words like "rockstar," "social club," "mafia," and "civilization." These words all have connections to products or services that Take-Two owns, such as Rockstar Games, Rockstar Social Club, and the Mafia franchise.

Not only is Hazelight affected, but other businesses unrelated to the games industry are as well. A clothing brand "Max Fayne" has been included in Take-Two's trademark claims, presumably due to its closeness to the studio's Max Payne franchise. An axe-throwing company in Florida called "Rockstar Axe Throwing" is trying to oppose Take-Two's trademark claim too, while a music book brand called "Think Like a Rockstar" has abandoned its trademark following Take-Two's claim.

You can see that some companies have chosen to simply abandon their trademarks instead of fighting a company as big as Take-Two, as it is trying to extend the claims. Virtual Legality's Richard Hoeg says, "You can start to see applicants peremptorily limit their own applications to try to avoid getting extended out. As well as plenty of folks with legitimate applications simply choosing not to fight by defaulting on the opposition."

In terms of It Takes Two, Hoeg says that since it isn't a company name and that the phrase is commonly used in goods and services everywhere, "I would suspect they simply wind up going untrademarked and relying on copyright," Hoeg explains.

Take-Two has been on something of a legal kick lately, such as suing reverse-engineered GTA 3 and Vice City creators as well as GTA modders.

It Takes Two creator Josef Fares made a name for himself with an outspoken appearance at the 2018 Game Awards. Perhaps he might have a similar attitude next week during the Game Awards 2021, where It Takes Two is up for Best Game, among other nominations.

George Yang is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @yinyangfooey

Netflix Is Making a Movie Based on a Viral Thanksgiving Tweet

Netflix is set to make a movie based on the true story behind a viral Thanksgiving tweet published five years ago.

Back in 2016, Wanda Dench, a grandma in Arizona, accidentally invited a stranger to Thanksgiving dinner after a text message intended for her grandson ended up being received by the wrong number. Now, five years later, their story of friendship is being turned into a feature-length film by the streaming giant.

As shared by Netflix, The Thanksgiving Text will be based on the true story between Wanda Dench and Jamal Hinton that blew up on social media following a viral tweet from the latter published after he'd accepted an accidental offer from Dench to join for Thanksgiving dinner. While the two strangers initially met in 2016, the film will seemingly follow their friendship, which has grown as they have spent each Thanksgiving together since.

“We are excited to share our story with the world," reads a statement from the pair. "We hope it inspires more people to reach out and make connections that they wouldn’t ordinarily make. We are so blessed to find a genuine friendship brought together by God from a mistaken text message.”

The Thanksgiving Text is being written by Abdul Williams (The New Edition Story and The Bobby Brown Story) and produced by Robert Teitel and George Tillman, Jr. for State Street Pictures. As reported by Variety, the film is yet to announce either a director or its cast.

The Thanksgiving Text isn't the only film in recent memory to come from the back of a viral Twitter moment. Earlier this year, the viral Twitter thread known as The Story was turned into a movie called Zola, about a Detroit waitress who took a 48-hour trip that turned into a journey involving some Tampa gangsters, an idiot boyfriend, and more. You can check out our review of Zola, where we awarded it a 7/10.

Jared Moore is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.

Netflix Is Making a Movie Based on a Viral Thanksgiving Tweet

Netflix is set to make a movie based on the true story behind a viral Thanksgiving tweet published five years ago.

Back in 2016, Wanda Dench, a grandma in Arizona, accidentally invited a stranger to Thanksgiving dinner after a text message intended for her grandson ended up being received by the wrong number. Now, five years later, their story of friendship is being turned into a feature-length film by the streaming giant.

As shared by Netflix, The Thanksgiving Text will be based on the true story between Wanda Dench and Jamal Hinton that blew up on social media following a viral tweet from the latter published after he'd accepted an accidental offer from Dench to join for Thanksgiving dinner. While the two strangers initially met in 2016, the film will seemingly follow their friendship, which has grown as they have spent each Thanksgiving together since.

“We are excited to share our story with the world," reads a statement from the pair. "We hope it inspires more people to reach out and make connections that they wouldn’t ordinarily make. We are so blessed to find a genuine friendship brought together by God from a mistaken text message.”

The Thanksgiving Text is being written by Abdul Williams (The New Edition Story and The Bobby Brown Story) and produced by Robert Teitel and George Tillman, Jr. for State Street Pictures. As reported by Variety, the film is yet to announce either a director or its cast.

The Thanksgiving Text isn't the only film in recent memory to come from the back of a viral Twitter moment. Earlier this year, the viral Twitter thread known as The Story was turned into a movie called Zola, about a Detroit waitress who took a 48-hour trip that turned into a journey involving some Tampa gangsters, an idiot boyfriend, and more. You can check out our review of Zola, where we awarded it a 7/10.

Jared Moore is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.

Final Fantasy 14: Endwalker Players Are Queuing to Play… Then Getting Error Codes

Players heading into Final Fantasy 14's recently launched Endwalker expansion are reporting a number of problems with the game, including long queue times, and even error codes sending them back to the end of the line.

As is quite often the case when it comes to content launched for MMOs, FF14's Endwalker expansion is seeing some teething issues when it comes to server wait times. As reported by VG247, the server queue times for the game seem to be causing additional frustration for players due to the fact that they're being mixed in with a number of error codes that seemingly keep pushing players back to the end of the queue.

As per reports from fans, error 2002 appears to be the main code that players are encountering when sitting in server queues. "Error 2002" tends to occur when selecting a character in the selection menu. The code has been known to infuriate fans during periods of high traffic or when a login queue exceeds 17,000 players.

Earlier today, the FF14 Twitter account acknowledged the issues players were facing trying to access the game. "The login server is currently congested and players may see Error 2002 when selecting a character in the Character Selection menu," reads a statement on the social media platform. "Should you encounter Error 2002 when attempting to log in, we apologize for the inconvenience, but ask that you wait a while before trying again."

In a subsequent thread of tweets, the developer stated that a number of worlds are experiencing downtime due to the influx of players joining the game for Endwalker's early access period. "We have confirmed that some Worlds are currently down," reads a follow-up statement on Twitter. "The cause of the downtime is due to the increased traffic load when characters change zones within the World, and we are currently working on adjusting the amount of traffic to prevent further outage."

Prior to the release of Endwalker, Square Enix warned players that there may be server issues with the game due to congestion. This is in part due to the ongoing shortage of semiconductors, which has meant that the studio was unable to add new worlds.

For more on Final Fantasy, make sure to check out this piece detailing how FF14 has surpassed over 24 million players.

Jared Moore is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.

Final Fantasy 14: Endwalker Players Are Queuing to Play… Then Getting Error Codes

Players heading into Final Fantasy 14's recently launched Endwalker expansion are reporting a number of problems with the game, including long queue times, and even error codes sending them back to the end of the line.

As is quite often the case when it comes to content launched for MMOs, FF14's Endwalker expansion is seeing some teething issues when it comes to server wait times. As reported by VG247, the server queue times for the game seem to be causing additional frustration for players due to the fact that they're being mixed in with a number of error codes that seemingly keep pushing players back to the end of the queue.

As per reports from fans, error 2002 appears to be the main code that players are encountering when sitting in server queues. "Error 2002" tends to occur when selecting a character in the selection menu. The code has been known to infuriate fans during periods of high traffic or when a login queue exceeds 17,000 players.

Earlier today, the FF14 Twitter account acknowledged the issues players were facing trying to access the game. "The login server is currently congested and players may see Error 2002 when selecting a character in the Character Selection menu," reads a statement on the social media platform. "Should you encounter Error 2002 when attempting to log in, we apologize for the inconvenience, but ask that you wait a while before trying again."

In a subsequent thread of tweets, the developer stated that a number of worlds are experiencing downtime due to the influx of players joining the game for Endwalker's early access period. "We have confirmed that some Worlds are currently down," reads a follow-up statement on Twitter. "The cause of the downtime is due to the increased traffic load when characters change zones within the World, and we are currently working on adjusting the amount of traffic to prevent further outage."

Prior to the release of Endwalker, Square Enix warned players that there may be server issues with the game due to congestion. This is in part due to the ongoing shortage of semiconductors, which has meant that the studio was unable to add new worlds.

For more on Final Fantasy, make sure to check out this piece detailing how FF14 has surpassed over 24 million players.

Jared Moore is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.

Valve Shows Off the Steam Deck’s Packaging

Valve has shared a number of images showing off the packaging for its upcoming handheld PC, the Steam Deck.

According to a blog post by Valve, the company has recently completed its Design Validation for the handheld which it says is the "final prototype build before production." While this is the newest build to come from the company and offers improvements on its previous prototype (EV2) Valve has said that there will be "additional minor changes in the final product.”

One of the major changes between the current prototype and its predecessor comes through the product's design packaging - which the company says it is now testing before it ships to fans next year. Included within the post are a number of images (as seen above) that Valve has shared in order to give its community "a sneak peek of the final packaging that customers will see in February," ahead of schedule.

The packaging itself is pretty minimalistic. As per the photos, the device will ship in a brown box. Aside from featuring a number of warnings reminding fans (and perhaps more importantly couriers) that they shouldn't use the packaging as an umbrella or launch it into the ground, the outside of the box is pretty unremarkable.

On the inside, things are a little different. As well as the console itself, the packaging contains a number of short statements with different places that you can take and play your Steam Deck. These include notable landmarks such as "on the subway," "on a ferris wheel" and of course "on the moon," should you be making the trip anytime soon.

As well as showing off the Steam Deck's packaging the post also gave us a closer look at the latest Dev kits to be shipped out to developers as well as the device's carry case, which offers a black material outer and fitted padding on the inside.

For more on the Steam Deck, make sure to check out this piece detailing how Valve recently confirmed that there won't be Steam Deck exclusive games.

Jared Moore is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.

Valve Shows Off the Steam Deck’s Packaging

Valve has shared a number of images showing off the packaging for its upcoming handheld PC, the Steam Deck.

According to a blog post by Valve, the company has recently completed its Design Validation for the handheld which it says is the "final prototype build before production." While this is the newest build to come from the company and offers improvements on its previous prototype (EV2) Valve has said that there will be "additional minor changes in the final product.”

One of the major changes between the current prototype and its predecessor comes through the product's design packaging - which the company says it is now testing before it ships to fans next year. Included within the post are a number of images (as seen above) that Valve has shared in order to give its community "a sneak peek of the final packaging that customers will see in February," ahead of schedule.

The packaging itself is pretty minimalistic. As per the photos, the device will ship in a brown box. Aside from featuring a number of warnings reminding fans (and perhaps more importantly couriers) that they shouldn't use the packaging as an umbrella or launch it into the ground, the outside of the box is pretty unremarkable.

On the inside, things are a little different. As well as the console itself, the packaging contains a number of short statements with different places that you can take and play your Steam Deck. These include notable landmarks such as "on the subway," "on a ferris wheel" and of course "on the moon," should you be making the trip anytime soon.

As well as showing off the Steam Deck's packaging the post also gave us a closer look at the latest Dev kits to be shipped out to developers as well as the device's carry case, which offers a black material outer and fitted padding on the inside.

For more on the Steam Deck, make sure to check out this piece detailing how Valve recently confirmed that there won't be Steam Deck exclusive games.

Jared Moore is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.

How Q-Games Got the Rights From Sony to Bring Back Lost PS4 Exclusive The Tomorrow Children

In a piece of rare and exciting news, Kyoto-based developer Q-Games recently announced that it had acquired the rights to its 2016 PlayStation 4 exclusive The Tomorrow Children, which was originally published by Sony Interactive Entertainment as a free-to-play online game, only to be shut down after just over a year. The deal will allow Q-Games to make the game available again for the first time since November 2017.

Now, Q-Games CEO Dylan Cuthbert has opened up about the process of getting his game back from Sony, the details of this unusual new deal, and some of the changes he plans to make ahead of the game’s second launch in 2022.

In a new interview, Cuthbert told IGN Japan that he had enquired about the possibility of acquiring the rights multiple times over the years, beginning back when Allan Becker was still head of Sony Japan Studio. Initially, he said, the response was that Q-Games would likely have to repay the entire development cost of the original game. While this was not a realistic option for Q-Games, the ongoing support from Tomorrow Children fans convinced Cuthbert to persevere.

There were two key changes that led to the successful deal, both of which came down in part to veteran developer Cuthbert’s decades of networking. First of all, in 2019, Double Fine veteran Greg Rice – an old friend of Cuthbert’s – joined SIE as Head of PlayStation Creators, becoming the company’s liaison for independent developers.

“I said to him, ‘Well, I’ve got this IP just sitting there, so can you look into getting it back to us? Because it’s not going to do anything at Sony. If we re-release it then at least Sony gets to earn some royalties, and we get to give the game back to the fans,’” recalled Cuthbert. “I asked him to start pushing, and he said he’d try. But after about three months he hit a wall, and once again I thought it was going to be impossible.”

And then came the next big change. When Hermen Hulst took over as the head of PlayStation Studios (formerly Worldwide Studios), Cuthbert immediately reached out to say hi. Hulst had previously headed Guerrilla Games, with whom Q-Games had once worked on some commemorative artwork for the Killzone series – posters that featured characters from The Tomorrow Children (below). This proved to be the connection that would complete the circuit.

Hulst's Help

“I sent Hermen a message on the day it was announced that he had taken over at PlayStation Studios,” laughed Cuthbert. “That was a busy day for him, and I think he was out celebrating with [PS4 and PS5 lead system architect] Mark Cerny, because Mark mentioned to me a few months later that Hermen had seen the message. Hermen told me he would check into it, but I thought maybe he was just being polite. But a few months later, Greg Rice reached out to say that there had been some movement at the top, and that it may be possible after all.”

From then, Cuthbert and Rice embarked on a year-long puzzle-solving mission to track down the various rights involved with the IP. For example, the rights to the music composition and orchestration were held in the US by SIEA, while the voices had been recorded by actors in the UK via SIEE. The majority of the rights were held in Japan by SIEJA, but many of the original Sony staff who had worked on the game had moved on, which meant many details had to be tracked down afresh. Also, there were third-party software licences pertaining to things like the animation system and the audio system, all of which needed to be traced so that new waivers could be signed.

“NaturalMotion, the company that made the animation system, had been bought up by Zynga, so now I had to find a way to contact the CTO of Zynga to ask for the waivers to let us use the animation system,” Cuthbert told IGN Japan. “It wasn’t as simple as just getting the rights to the IP – there were all these moving parts under the hood. It was like detective work, but we did manage to track down all of these people, and get the waivers we needed to go ahead with the transfer.”

"It was like detective work, but we did manage to track down all of these people."

One of the last puzzle pieces to fall into place was the rights to the voice recordings. The recording sessions had been held at Pinewood Studios in the UK, but Cuthbert discovered that no records remained of who had worked on them. Luckily Cuthbert had been directly involved in directing the sessions, and was able to find the session manager (who had moved on to a new job) on LinkedIn to get hold of the missing information. “It took a long time, but it was exciting to see the pieces coming together,” said Cuthbert.

Without these necessary steps, Q-Games may have been faced with the task of remaking the music, or the voice recordings, or any other unsecured elements from scratch.

With all of the detective work done, it was simply a case of agreeing a royalty rate and other contractual details with SIE. Cuthbert said, “Sony gave us a decent deal that will incentivise us to put the work into re-releasing it, while also giving Sony some income as well. So now everybody’s happy.

“Sony does deserve a royalty – they were there all the way through the four or five years of development, and they helped to define the vision,” Cuthbert said, adding that the team at SIE also helped Q-Games to find key collaborators such as composer Joel Corelitz, whose other credits include music for Halo Infinite and Death Stranding. As anyone who has heard the game’s gorgeously immersive and haunting soundtrack will attest, this was no small addition.

Making Old Into New

The new version of The Tomorrow Children is planned for release sometime in 2022, published directly by Q-Games on PlayStation 4, with backwards compatibility for PS5. Other platforms may follow – Cuthbert says there is no contractual obligation to remain as a PlayStation exclusive title, so the only hurdles are the additional work and resources required to port it.

To distinguish the new version from the old one, Cuthbert says he is considering adding a “Director’s Cut”-style subtitle to the name, although nothing is yet decided.

Players of the original game will not be able to transfer their saved data, as privacy laws make this an impossibility but, since it will partly be a new experience, Cuthbert feels it makes sense to have players start over anyway.

Cuthbert also discussed the changes he plans to make to The Tomorrow Children’s gameplay ahead of its new release. Cuthbert is a master programmer who famously got a 3D game engine running on the Game Boy back in the late 1980s, earning him a job working with Nintendo on Star Fox. He was also a main programmer on the original version of The Tomorrow Children, and currently he is working on the new iteration himself – a process he describes as “fixing” the game.

The Tomorrow Children was originally released as a free-to-play game with microtransactions, a business model that was decided a little over halfway through its development, in line with SIE’s strategy at the time (The Tomorrow Children came soon after 2014’s similarly ill-fated free to play SIE Japan Studio title, Destiny of Spirits).

When it returns, The Tomorrow Children will be a regular premium purchase, with the microtransactions removed – in line with how it was originally conceived.

“In the game, there is a black market, which was our monetization area,” explained Cuthbert. “That was originally in the game, but not as a free-to-play thing. The game is a parody of Marxist vs. Capitalist societies, so the black market was just meant to be a Capitalist option, to show how those two systems can work together. You could get the feeling of altruism by pursuing the Marxist style of thinking, where it’s all for one, and then you have the black market side, where you get the technology you pay for. Because of that, it actually worked well having the black market be monetized with real money in terms of the game’s lore. But it wasn’t originally designed for that.”

The black market will use in-game currency in the new version of The Tomorrow Children, rather than real money, allowing Q-Games to rebalance this feature and improve the game’s progression curve.

Since the monetization element was intended to cover the original game’s running server costs, the new version will be hosted peer to peer, without relying on a central server. One major advantage of this change is that the game is less likely to be rendered unplayable, as the original version currently is, because players will be able to host games for as long as the PlayStation Network exists.

"I’d love to see a modern remake of Jumping Flash or Ape Escape – all kinds of titles."

Other changes are being based on feedback from existing fans of the game, as well as internal playtesting. “We have the great benefit of retrospect, as well a huge fan base who already played it for a year, so we can just ask them what they think,” said Cuthbert. It will also include some brand new content, although the details are still secret.

The Tomorrow Children was one of the only games that used ray tracing on PS4, and its advanced technical backend along with very strong art direction means it still looks striking alongside modern games. Also, its loose social elements were hugely prescient, mirrored later in games like Death Stranding, and now that there is an awareness of “strand” type games, along with an enhanced demand for online co-op play, The Tomorrow Children’s use of drop-in, drop-out live collaboration makes it seem very well suited to the modern age. “I hope we can get the game out to the fans soon, and maybe even reach some new fans too,” Cuthbert told us.

Cuthbert said he hopes that his success acquiring the rights to his game from SIE is a sign of a new openness at Sony. While Sega have been flexible in allowing games such as Rez to return to their creators, or for games like Streets of Rage to be made by smaller studios, just as Bandai Namco and Konami have put their classic IP in the hands of independent developers from time to time, Sony has been notoriously guarded of its games, keeping beloved franchises dormant for years or even decades.

“I’d love to see a modern remake of Jumping Flash or Ape Escape – all kinds of titles,” said Cuthbert. Perhaps his persistence with acquiring The Tomorrow Children will pave the way for other creators to make similar deals with SIE.

Fans who are interested in keeping up to date with The Tomorrow Children’s development can subscribe to a bi-weekly newsletter here, available in multiple languages.

Daniel Robson is Chief Editor at IGN Japan. For full disclosure, he worked at SIE Japan Studio while The Tomorrow Children was under development, but didn't work directly on creating the project. He is also a fan of the game. Follow him on Twitter here.