Who’s ready to stream the new Zelda movie on Netflix at their in-laws’ in 2027? Why did Sony delete over 1,000 shovelware games from PSN? And just how bad are graphics card prices about to get? Welcome to a special afternoon edition of Morning Checkpoint, Kotaku‘s daily roundup of gaming news, rumors, and culture. Look, I was really busy today.
Here’s your moment of zen for the weekend: local news broadcasters trying to say the names of famous Pokémon.
Sony and Netflix lock in a new mega deal after the success of K-Pop Demon Hunters
“Netflix and Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE) today announced a landmark global Pay-1 licensing deal. In the exclusive multi-year agreement, SPE’s feature films will stream on Netflix worldwide — an industry-first for Pay-1 — following their full theatrical and home entertainment windows,” the companies revealed this week. Netflix cited Nintendo’s upcoming live-action Zelda adaptation as a specific example toward the bottom of its announcement. It hits theaters on March 26, 2027.
“Some of the first SPE feature film titles that will stream on Netflix as part of the new deal include The Nightingale, the highly anticipated adaptation of Kristin Hannah’s global sensation starring Dakota and Elle Fanning together for the first time; Sony Pictures Animation’s Buds; Nintendo’s live-action The Legend of Zelda; Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse, the conclusion to the groundbreaking Spider-Verse trilogy; and Academy Award-winner Sam Mendes’ audacious quartet of Beatles films,” it read.
If a graphics card is still being stocked but no one can get it, does it still matter?
Hardware Unboxed reported earlier this week that the Nvidia RTX 5070 Ti had effectively reached “end-of-life” status and would no longer be supplied by manufacturers. That was sourced in part to comments from Asus, which quickly turned around and said no, no, no, you’ve got it all wrong.
“Current fluctuations in supply for both products are primarily due to memory supply constraints, which have temporarily affected production output and restocking cycles,” it said in a statement. “As a result, availability may appear limited in certain markets, but this should not be interpreted as a production halt or product retirement.”
That means you can still get one, right? Right?? A quick search online shows they’re out of stock at Best Buy, Microcenter, and other retailers, with even cards marked up 50 percent over the $750 MSRP being on back order.
Toy Story Mania and 13 other Disney games just disappeared from Steam
The delistings were spotted by Steamgifts forum member HappyCatEW. Other games removed from Valve’s storefront include Finding Nemo, Disney Fairies: Tinker Bell’s Adventure, and Chicken Little: Ace in Action. It’s unclear if this is part of a larger move on Disney’s part or just someone looking at a particular segment of the gaming division and wondering why it’s still maintaining listings for games that people aren’t really playing. Still, Disney’s Hercules has seven people in-game right now according to SteamDB. Game preservation suffers another blow.
The Grudge 2‘s Teresa Palmer is the God of War TV show’s latest casting addition
She’ll play Sif, Thor’s wife, alongside Ryan Hurst, who played Thor in God of War Ragnarök but is playing leading man Kratos here. Getting confused yet? Notably, Sif doesn’t appear in God of War 2018, suggesting the first season of the Amazon adaptation will be blending characters and events from across the whole Norse saga.
Sony nukes a bunch of PlayStation shovelware
Over 1,000 games, in fact. The mass deletions were spotted by RobThanatos and took aim at ThiGames_DE, which supposedly was ranked 4th for total number of listings across all of PSN. The game titles were things like The Jumping Taco, The Jumping Hot Dog, The Jumping Soda, and The Jumping Taco TURBO. Quick and cheap Platinum trophies, in other words. RIP to some real ones.
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