For the first time, YouTube is letting users in the US stream thousands of free, ad-supported TV shows like Hell's Kitchen, Heartland and Unsolved Mysteries, it announced. That will put it into competition with OTA (over-the-air) TV and streaming services with ad tiers including Peacock, the Roku Channel, Tubi and others. 

YouTube will offer around 4,000 free TV episodes on top of the 1,500 movies already available. This month, it added a raft of new movie titles including Gone in Sixty Seconds, Runaway Bride and Legally Blonde, now available to stream for free (in the USA only) with ads.

With the new TV offerings, YouTube is no doubt hoping to keep American users glued to its platform. Having dozens of episodes from multiple series will allow users to binge like they do on Netflix and other platforms, though most of the content on offer is not what you'd call prestige TV. One of its biggest rivals in that regard is Roku TV, which had a very public dispute with YouTube that was only recently resolved.

Until last year, YouTube had been trying to fill content holes with its own programming via YouTube Originals. Earlier in 2022, however, it announced that it was largely abandoning those ambitions and would focus strictly on its Black Voices and YouTube Kids Funds. The program had some success with shows like Cobra Kai, but didn't pose much of a threat to services like Amazon Prime Video and Netflix. 

Netflix is now using its growing mobile game collection to support a good cause. The streaming service has launched three Android and iOS games headlined by This Is A True Story, a game meant to raise awareness about the lack of safe drinking water. The team-up between Frosty Pop, Charity:Water and Pantone is a puzzle title that challenges you walk miles in sub-Saharan Africa to find water while dealing with poachers, windstorms and other hazards. It's a frank commentary on a dire state of affairs (771 million people don't have access to clean water), although the hand-painted backdrops might keep you coming back after you understand the message.

The other games are less poignant, but may still be worth a try. Pik Pok has unveiled both Into the Dead 2: Unleashed, a sequel to its endless runner/shooter hybrid, as well as Shatter Remastered, a modernization of its brick-breaker/shoot-em-up crossover for the PS3.

All three games should be available on Android and iOS today (March 22nd) at 1PM Eastern. As with other Netflix games, the latest selection is 'free' once you've signed in with your account. These releases probably won't convince you to sign up for Netflix. However, This Is A True Story might just use Netflix's size to reach a large audience.

Now that pandemic restrictions have started lifting, people are eager to go back to the activities they used to do, such as seeing live music performances. Shazam has launched a new feature meant to make it easier to find shows nearby, so music lovers don't miss events they can easily go to. Starting today, when users Shazam a song or search for it in the app or on the website, they'll also see relevant concert information and tickets on sale for upcoming shows near their location.

If they have a specific artist in mind, though, they can simply launch the new Shazam Artist page on the platform and see the dates, times and locations of upcoming performances. Tapping on any of them will show additional tour or show information, along with the ability to add any event to their calendar. Shazam uses information from concert discovery app Bandsintown for this feature, and musicians who want the service to display their event details will have to make the information available via Bandsintown For Artists.

Shazam's new concert feature is now available on iOS and Android. "Shazam has a long history of innovation in music discovery and connecting artists and fans," Apple VP for Apple Music and Beats Oliver Schusser said. "With the reemergence of live music, we're excited to give Shazam users access to concerts and bring even more discoverability to artists." Apple, which purchased Shazam back in 2018, said last year that the app IDs over a billion songs per month. With this feature, Shazam has taken its music discovery service to another level. 

Having helped bring properties like DotA 2 and Castlevania to TV, Netflix is once again turning to a historic gaming franchise to add to its content library. On Saturday, the streamer announced it would release Tekken: Bloodline, an animated adaption of Bandai Namco’s popular fighting game series, in 2022.

In the trailer Netflix shared alongside the announcement, we’re introduced to protagonist Jin Kazama, who joined the franchise as a playable character in 1996's Tekken 3. In the show, Kazama embarks on a quest for revenge when his mother Jun falls to what she calls a demon. Kazama subsequently turns to his grandfather, Heihachi Mishima, for help. If old man Mishima gives off a sinister vibe, it’s because he’s the main villain of the Tekken franchise. Kazama’s quest eventually leads him to The King of Iron Fist Tournament where we see some familiar faces.

Outside of knowing it will come out later this year, we don’t have an exact release date for Tekken: Bloodline. Netflix’s track record with video game adaptations has mostly depended on the companies it has partnered with to work on those projects. Productions like Arcane and The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf have been a success for the company thanks to the involvement of studios like Fortiche and Studio Mir.

Blizzard Entertainment has finally announced a specific launch date for the Overwatch 2 PvP beta on PC: April 26th. The gaming company previously revealed that the beta for the sequel's 5-on-5 PvP mode will go live in late April. Now, you can mark the 26th on your calendars and block out that weekend to play matches. In addition to 5-on-5 battles — the Overwatch PvP is 6-on-6 — the beta also comes with four fresh maps, the new Push mode and redesigned heroes. In fact, one of those heroes is getting more than just a stats/abilities upgrade or a model makeover.

A few days ago, Blizzard posted a screenshot of the game showing Doomfist as a tank. While the image has since been deleted, the company has eventually confirmed that the character is changing roles to tank from damage hero. 

Blizzard has been testing the role change for Doomfist since last year, hero lead designer Geoff Goodman revealed on Reddit in October. Back then, Goodman explained that the character's kit is "full of crowd control effects and mobility" and that makes him difficult to tune and balance as a damage hero for Overwatch 2. He'll be able to keep those properties as a tank, though he'll obviously lose some damage and gain some defense points. In Overwatch 2, teams can only have one tank, so the player's choice could be they key to their victory. 

Players can now sign up to get access to Overwatch 2's PvP beta on the game's official website.

Humble Bundle has put together a charity game bundle with all proceeds going to humanitarian crisis relief efforts in Ukraine. For a minimum donation of $40, you can pick up more than 120 games, books, apps, game asset packs and other goodies worth a total of over $2,500 through the Stand with Ukraine bundle.

The bundle includes Back 4 Blood, Metro Exodus, Spyro Reignited Trilogy, Max Payne 3, Sunset Overdrive, PGA Tour 2K21, Brothers - A Tale of Two Sons and Superhot. You'll also get rulebooks for Pathfinder and Warhammer, one year of access to GameMaker Studio 2 Creator and a volume of the first six issues of graphic novel series The Boys (which Amazon turned into a Prime Video show).

Creators on Itch.io also rallied to put together a bundle of almost 1,000 games, books, magazines, comics and game dev tools. The Bundle for Ukraine raised $6.3 million from almost 450,000 contributors.

Humble Bundle last week stopped sales in Belarus and Russia, which invaded Ukraine last month. Other notable companies in the gaming space have stopped selling games or shut down services in Russia (and in many cases Belarus). Those include Niantic with Pokémon Go, Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, Bungie, Ubisoft, Take-Two, CD Projekt Red, EA, Activision Blizzard and Epic.

Nine years after it first emerged a live-action Halo TV series was in the works, the show is only a few days away from premiering on Paramount+. To celebrate its debut, Microsoft is giving Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers a free 30-day trial to the streaming service via Perks.

The offer will be available on March 23rd, the day before Halo arrives. There's a catch, though. Given that only one installment of the nine-episode season is scheduled to drop each week, you might need to subscribe to Paramount+ to watch the entire season (unless you activate the offer a bit later). Paramount+ costs $5 per month with ads or $10 per month to go commercial free and gain access to a feed from your local live CBS station.

Earlier this week, Paramount+ released the final trailer for the show, which has a separate plot from the games and is already renewed for a second season. Along with some story beats, the two-minute clip shows an Elite with an Energy Sword and several shots of Master Chief in action.

Some Twitter Spaces hosts are now able to create clips from recorded discussions as part of a test. A small number of hosts on iOS have access to the feature for now, though some Android and web users will be able to try it in the near future.

Hosts will be able to clip up to 30 seconds of audio. They can, of course, tweet out that snippet. All iOS users can check out the clips.

All hosts have been able to record their Spaces since January. Being able to tweet small snippets of their discussions could let them give other Twitter users some insight into what their Spaces are all about, and perhaps expand their audiences.

Clubhouse has offered its own clipping feature since September. Users of that platform have been able to clip shareable 30-second chunks of audio from public rooms.

Twitter might be missing a trick by only allowing hosts to clip audio from Spaces. All Twitch and YouTube users can clip highlights, meaning that viewers can help draw attention to a creator with snippets of their videos. However, given that Twitter's only testing its clipping tool for now, it could open up the feature to listeners in the future.

When Twitter reopened its form for verification requests last year, it also teased upcoming changes to its website. Those changes include a space for pronouns in the profile section, along with your other information. It's been almost a year since we first heard about the project, but now reverse engineer Alessandro Paluzzi has found proof that the company is indeed developing the feature and may have started testing it. Paluzzi has discovered a yet-to-be rolled out section when you edit your profile that lets you add whatever pronoun you want to use.

It's high time for Twitter to give its users the ability to do so. The social network is late to the party, after all: Facebook users have been able to choose their pronouns for years, though their options are limited to three. Instagram started allowing people to display up to four pronouns next to their name in their profile last year. LinkedIn also introduced a dedicated space for pronouns in profiles in 2021. And, after work-from-home arrangements took off due to the pandemic, Zoom and Slack followed suit. The video conferencing apps gives users the option to show their pronouns next to their names in meetings, while the business messaging platform made the space for pronouns a default feature last year. Previously, companies have had to add the option as a customized field for their workers.

That said, Twitter has yet to announce a launch date for the pronoun field.

Hogwarts Legacy will arrive on PC, PlayStation 4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series consoles in holiday 2022. And that's not all — during today's State of Play livestream dedicated to the open-world RPG, WB Games Avalanche dropped a trailer offering the first real look at how this sucker will look and play.

Hogwarts Legacy is a spinoff of the Harry Potter universe, but it takes place long before the events of the books. It's set in the 1800s, and places players in their fifth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, where they'll learn spells, brew potions, grow magical plants, tame wild beasts and attend classes. Players have a unique ability to manipulate ancient magic, and with that, they hold the key to saving the wizarding world from dark forces. 

As familiar as that sounds, this is a game filled with original storylines and Harry Potter author JK Rowling (She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named) isn't directly involved in its development. Hogwarts Legacy features fresh professors, students, villains, mentors and creatures, plus some familiar ghosts. Players will be able to fly on broomsticks, gain friends who will join them on quests and upgrade their abilities based on how they like to play. It's not all contained to Hogwarts, either. The shops at Hogsmeade are also available to explore.

Hogwarts Legacy was announced in late 2020 and it was originally due to come out in 2021, but it was later delayed to 2022. 

"Creating the best possible experience for all of the Wizarding World and gaming fans is paramount to us, so we are giving the game the time it needs," Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment said at the time.