Ubisoft cancels three games and delays ‘Skull and Bones’ yet again

Things aren’t exactly going smoothly over at Ubisoft. The publisher has canceled another three games, following the four titles it killed last summer. Not only that, the company has announced yet another delay for Skull and Bones — a game we first tried all the way back at E3 2017. The pirate sim was supposed to finally emerge on March 9th, but Ubisoft has delayed it until the early part of its 2023-24 fiscal year, which starts in April. This is the sixth publicly announced delay of Skull and Bones.

“Players will be able to discover the beauty of Skull and Bones in the upcoming beta phase. The additional time has already paid off and brought impressive improvements to its quality, which has been confirmed by recent playtests,” Ubisoft said in a financial statement. “We believe players will be positively surprised by its evolution. We have decided to postpone its release in order to have more time to showcase a much more polished and balanced experience and to build awareness.”

Meanwhile, the company lowered its financial projections target for the October-December quarter from around €830 million ($891 million) to approximately €725 million ($779 million). Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope and Just Dance 2023 didn’t perform as well as the company expected. “We are facing contrasted market dynamics as the industry continues to shift towards mega-brands and everlasting live games, in the context of worsening economic conditions affecting consumer spending,” CEO Yves Guillemot said.

Ubisoft expects its net bookings to fall by 10 percent for the year. Previously, the company expected that those revenues would increase by 10 percent. All told, Ubisoft has reduced its estimated operating income for this year by around $1 billion.

Going forward, Ubisoft is tightening its belt and will focus on fewer games. The company is depreciating €500 million ($538 million) in research and development on the canceled games, as well as its upcoming premium and free-to-play titles. It’s also aiming to reduce costs by over €200 million ($215 million) in the next two years through “targeted restructuring, divesting some non-core assets and usual natural attrition.” However, it plans to keep hiring “highly talented people” for its major projects.

Aside from Skull and Bones, perhaps the biggest title Ubisoft currently has on the docket for this year is Assassin’s Creed Mirage. Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is slated to arrive by the end of March 2024 as well. Other unannounced premium games are in the pipeline for the next fiscal year, including “a large one.” Free-to-play titles for some of Ubisoft’s biggest brands are in the works too. Given its current state of affairs, the company will need most, if not all of those, to be hits. 

The Webb Telescope’s first confirmed exoplanet is 99 percent the diameter of Earth

Having already returned visually stunning and scientifically spectacular results from its first six months in operation, the James Webb Space Telescope has recorded another inaugural milestone: its first exoplanet discovery confirmation. It peered 41 light years into the cosmos and found a planet in the Octans constellation with a diameter 99 percent that of Earth itself — say hello to LHS 475 b.

Specifically a team of astronomers from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, led by Kevin Stevenson and Jacob Lustig-Yaeger, first spotted evidence of the candidate exoplanet while digging through data generated from NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). However it was Webb’s Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) that confirmed the planets existence by observing two transits in front of its parent star. “There is no question that the planet is there. Webb’s pristine data validate it,” Lustig-Yaeger declared in a NASA press release. 

As the space agency notes, among telescopes in operation today (both terrestrial and orbital), only the JWST possesses the resolving capabilities to accurately characterize the atmospheres of Earth-sized exoplanets. The research team is still working to determine what, if any, sort of atmosphere is sitting atop the rocky mass using by analyzing its transmission spectrum. 

There is a chance that the planet will be devoid of its critical gaseous insulation but at these distances, it could simply be hiding a very small atmo close to the surface. “Counterintuitively, a 100% carbon dioxide atmosphere is so much more compact that it becomes very challenging to detect,” said Lustig-Yaeger. 

They are confident that it does not possess an oppressive atmosphere similar to that of Saturn’s moon Titan, however. “There are some terrestrial-type atmospheres that we can rule out,” he said. “It can’t have a thick methane-dominated atmosphere.” 

That said, the surface of the planet does appear to be around 300 Celsius, several hundred degrees warmer than here on Earth. If cloud cover is discovered in subsequent studies, it could suggest a greenhouse world climate closer to Venus. The researchers have also confirmed that LHS 475 b maintains a tidal-locked orbit with its star of just two days — far too close to attempt with Sol but, because LHS circles a red dwarf that’s producing less than half of our sun’s energy, can theoretically maintain an atmosphere.

Google decouples some Android accessibility features from OS updates

Google has broken out some Android accessibility features into a separate app. Switch Access has graduated from the Android Accessibility Suite and it’s now available through the Play Store. Offering Switch Access features via a separate app could allow Google to roll out more frequent updates instead of having to do so at the OS level. 

The move could also let Google offer Switch Access features on older devices too. The app is available on 2017’s Android 8 (aka Android Oreo) and later. 

Switch Access enables users to operate their phone or tablet using means other than the touchscreen, as Android Police notes. They can use the front-facing camera to control the phone with face gestures or external devices such as a keyboard or buttons connected via USB or Bluetooth. The on-board volume buttons can be used to control other aspects of your phone too.

Users can set up one or more switches (i.e. the front-facing camera and/or other devices) through the app. They’ll be able to define how the app scans their screen for actions they’re able to carry out. The app can move between all items one at a time, scan a single row at a time or select a location on the screen using moving lines.

Switch Access can also assign groups of actions to different switches. Press the corresponding switch for the color around the action you want to access, then keep narrowing things down until you get to the correct element. As 9To5 Google points out, once you select an item, several interaction options will be available, such as select, scroll, copy and paste. A menu at the top of the screen provides access to system-wide settings, notifications, the home screen and a way to record shortcuts for frequent and more complex actions.

To get started with Switch Access, go to the titular menu in the device’s accessibility settings. The Switch Access app is free to download from the Play Store too.

Apple finally lets businesses customize their listings in Maps

Apple Maps still isn’t likely to replace Google Maps for some users (it only got multi-stop routes last year), but Apple thinks it has another way to shrink the feature gap: give stores more control over what you see. The company has launched a free Ap…

Apple finally lets businesses customize their listings in Maps

Apple Maps still isn’t likely to replace Google Maps for some users (it only got multi-stop routes last year), but Apple thinks it has another way to shrink the feature gap: give stores more control over what you see. The company has launched a free Ap…

Xbox test feature shuts down your console during scheduled hours to save energy

The sleep mode on modern consoles lets them wake up quickly, but it also consumes a significant amount of energy as the system never really shuts off. Microsoft thinks it can offer a compromise, however. It’s releasing an Insider test that gives Xbox Series X, Series S and One owners an “active hours” sleep option. Choose that and your console will shut down at times when you aren’t likely to use it, cutting your energy use. You can manually schedule the hours if you know when you play, but an automatic option is available if you want the console to adapt to your habits.

The feature will be automatically enabled and scheduled on Xbox Series X/S systems. The Xbox One will default to always active, and you’ll have to configure the hours yourself.

The company is also introducing a “shutdown (energy saving)” option that reportedly uses up to 20 times less power than sleep while still allowing overnight updates to your Xbox and its games. If you don’t mind the longer startup times and the absence of remote wake, you can reduce your energy footprint and potentially shrink your bills. The update will be automatic for Xbox Series X/S users in the Insider program, and it should be available as early as today for One models.

The Xbox is also borrowing “carbon aware” downloads from Windows 11. If carbon intensity data is available in your region, the machine will schedule OS and game updates for those times when it’s most likely to rely on local renewable energy, rather than simply grabbing files in the early morning. Insiders will have this perk right away if the Xbox Series X/S is configured for automatic updates, while the One will have multiple test options to help with feedback.

It’s unclear how much energy these features might save in the real world. Microsoft estimates that two Xbox consoles using the eco-friendly shutdown feature will save carbon equivalent to that a tree removes in a decade, but that also assumes your device is powered down for 20 hours per day. Carbon aware downloads only matter if renewables have a significant presence in your area, we’d add. Combined with Apple’s Clean Energy Charging, though, it’s evident tech brands now see software as a way to advance their environmental goals.

An Xbox and Bethesda showcase is set for January 25th

The first major gaming showcase of the year (unless another one emerges in the meantime) is on the calendar. Xbox and Bethesda are hosting an event on January 25th at 3PM ET. You’ll be able to watch it on both brands’ Twitch and YouTube channels.

The so-called Developer_Direct will be presented by creatives from various studios and it will center on major features, gameplay and more details on titles coming to Xbox, PC and Game Pass in the next few months. It’s unclear whether any third-party studios will be involved.

Turn 10 Studios will provide more Forza Motorsport details and gameplay, while there will be some info on the player vs. player experience in Minecraft Legends. Both of those games will arrive this spring. Expect to see more single-player and multiplayer vampire slaying in Redfall too, along with updates on the combat, customization, bosses and open world. Hopefully, we’ll get firm release dates for all these games too.

You’ll get a look at this year’s major chapter update for The Elder Scrolls Online as well. Immediately following the Developer_Direct, Zenimax Online Studios will host an ESO Chapter Reveal Event to provide fans with more details.

Don’t expect to see much, if any, of Starfield during the Developer_Direct, though. Xbox says a standalone show for that game is in the works in order “to dedicate the proper amount of time for a deep dive.” Bethesda’s hotly anticipated space RPG is slated to arrive by the summer.

After a fairly quiet 2022 for first-party Xbox games, Microsoft is looking to come racing out of the traps this year. Several other games are expected to debut on Game Pass in the first half of 2023, including Cocoon (from the lead designer of Limbo) and a little project called Hollow Knight: Silksong.