Did you have a car company producing an anime series on your Friday afternoon bingo card? I sure didn’t. But the show is real and it’s called GRIP, will have five episodes released weekly starting February 26th, and is described as “a battle between the human spirit and computer control.” If we’re lucky, it’ll be something like an animated spiritual successor to The Hire series.
You can read all of the news right here, but if you want to check out the podcast where Xbox leadership discussed everything from platform exclusives to the state of Game Pass to some vague talk of new hardware, the whole thing is embedded below.
Later today Microsoft will be sharing “updates on the Xbox business” in an episode of the Xbox podcast that will feature Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer, head of Xbox game studios Matt Booty, and Xbox president Sarah Bond. If rumors are to be believed, we’ll be hearing about multiplatform games and possibly even new hardware. It’ll be available at 3PM ET and you can check it out on the Xbox YouTube channel — and, of course, stay tuned to The Verge for all the news.
The Game Developers Conference kicks off next month, and once again Epic will be holding its State of Unreal keynote. Last year the company showed off more of its metahumans, the Unreal Editor for Fortnite, and more; afterwards I had a nice, long chat with Tim Sweeney about the metaverse. You’ll be able to watch the keynote on March 20th on both Twitch and YouTube.
The horror movie sequel has been delayed by a few months, and will now come out on May 16th, 2025 (it was previously slated for a January premiere). Hopefully that’s enough time to work out whatever murderous bugs are afflicting the AI bot. I’m sure things will go much smoother this time around.
Nintendo just dropped a new trailer for Princess Peach: Showtime, and it includes four new versions of the Mushroom Kingdom royal: mermaid, figure skater, thief, and superhero. Basically, she has range, and the game looks like it’s going to be a lot of fun as Nintendo continues to send off the original Switch on a high note. Showtime launches on March 22nd.
One of my favorite movies at TIFF last year was The Beast, an era-spanning romance starring Léa Seydoux and George MacKay as star-crossed lovers who keep meeting in different time periods, one of which is a near-future dystopia in which AI runs basically every facet of human life. It’s coming to theaters in select cities on April 5th.
