Xbox and Netflix can’t agree on adaptation deal
If you’ve got your ear to the ground, you might’ve known that Netflix was eyeing Xbox’s stable of intellectual property and licking its lips. The exclusive film and TV adaptation rights to Xbox games would surely do the streaming giant well, it thought. Look at how well Halo did. $500 million for seven years of exclusivity oughta do it, right? Wrong, says Xbox, which wanted $800 million, according to this newsletter from Puck.
Netflix has yet to comment on the matter, while Xbox has said it has seen “record-breaking interest” in its properties and regards the streamer as a valued partner. The pair still have two animated series for Minecraft and Diablo, and a Gears of War movie on the way. Now, instead of a massive deal, the new Xbox XP division has been set up to handle acquiring smaller deals with more partners. We doubt this will be the last we hear of the two companies in partnership talks. Hopefully, the fruits of future talks will be better than what Paramount did with Halo. But that’s not really a high bar to set.
Steam’s Personal Calendar has arrived
Valve has finally released the Steam Personal Calendar from its beta prison and out into the world. The feature, now available for everyone on Steam, aims to make it significantly easier to give the gaming giant your money. It tracks recent and upcoming game releases on the platform and recommends titles based on your gaming habits.
Those recommendations will refresh daily, but don’t expect your personal list to change too much. It covers eight weeks of releases, so you won’t need to check in every day. Valve says it places more emphasis on the games you spend the most time with. So that one time you tried Shower With Your Dad Simulator 2015: Do You Still Shower With Your Dad out of curiosity won’t wreck your recommendations entirely.
And since Gabe is such a great guy, you also don’t have to worry about advertisements populating your calendar. The company won’t be taking any money from developers to secure their game’s place on more calendars. Valve says the recommendations are generated algorithmically and personalised for each user. You can find your personal calendar on the Steam Store page or the dedicated Steam Personal Calendar page.
The Yozma IN 11 electric dirt bike will let you zip along at 70km/h
If you’ve never considered adding a stealth dirt bike to your collection of toys, you’ve been thinking too small. The Yozma IN 11 promises to stick 200Nm of torque under your feel, supplemented with a top speed of 72km/h. It’ll keep up that pace for around 90 kilometres before needing a recharge for its 27Ah lithium-ion battery. The company behind it seems to know what the IN 11’s riders want, too. There’s a wheelie-assist button built into the thing that’ll “[a]djust your wheelie angle based on your skill level and riding experience.” It won’t keep you out of hospital, but it should keep you grinning on the ambulance ride there. The really tricky bit is buying one of these R27,000 ($1,600) EV dirt bikes. They’re on sale internationally, but the African continent isn’t one of its delivery regions just yet. If only there were some way to get this little critter over here…
Apple’s OLED MacBook Pro to be joined by an M6 iMac
Apple’s upcoming ‘Pro and Tell’ event will absolutely involve new MacBook Pro models. Bloomberg’s Apple guru Mark Gurman has more details of what we can expect later this week, but the OLED Pro is set to be the headliner. The various rumoured features, including a Dynamic Island interface and touchscreen display, also seem to be confirmed. If you’re more a designer than a video editor, an M6 version of the company’s all-in-one iMac is also on the cards. It’ll dethrone the existing 24in M4 iMac, replacing it with this newer, speedier version. Whether Apple opts to perform other hardware upgrades or just keeps what works remains to be seen. It’ll probably have a range of new colours to select from, if that helps. There’s also a future upgrade to look forward to, which won’t appear at Pro and Tell – Apple is supposedly working on an OLED version of its iMac. Given the gaps between releases for this range, expect it sometime in October 2028.
