Perhaps taking inspiration from blockbuster music experiences in Fortnite, Warner Music Group is creating a performance venue in the metaverse. It's teaming up with The Sandbox to create a "hybrid of musical theme park and concert venue" on the platform.

Some of WMG's vast roster of artists (which includes the likes of Ed Sheeran, Green Day and Dua Lipa) are expected to play shows and take part in music experiences on the virtual stage. At a later date, The Sandbox will offer ardent fans the chance to buy virtual property next to WMG's section of the metaverse.

The deal will result in The Sandbox's first music-themed world. The platform has teamed up with artists including Snoop Dogg, Deadmau5 and Steve Aoki on an individual basis, but this is its biggest music partnership to date. WMG and The Sandbox didn't say when the virtual venue will debut.

Other major music companies have started making moves in the metaverse. Last month, Universal Music Group joined the bandwagon with official metaverse avatars for its artists.

NBCUniversal’s Peacock streaming service ended last year with 9 million paid subscribers. Comcast, the streamer’s parent company, shared the milestone during its Q4 2021 earnings call. The announcement marks the first time either company has disclosed just how many people pay for Peacock.

In a call with analysts, Comcast CEO Brian Roberts said the streaming service has approximately 24.5 million monthly active users, reports Variety. Of those who pay for Peacock, the majority opt for the platform’s $5 ad-supported tier. When you include ads, Roberts said the company generates close to $10 in average revenue per user who subscribes to the service.

In 2022, Comcast CFO Mike Cavanagh said the company plans to spend $3 billion on content for Peacock, doubling its current investment. Moving forward, Comcast could spend as much as $5 billion annually building out Peacock’s media library “over the next couple of years.” Some of that money will come from the company’s linear TV platforms, with Roberts telling analysts Comcast is “committed to reallocating resources and increasing investment” in Peacock due to the platform’s growth.

In practice, Comcast and NBCUniversal are likely to spend at least some of that money on reclaiming content that has ended up on other streaming platforms, including Disney’s Hulu. “Much of our strong NBC content premieres on Hulu, over time we’d like to bring that back to Peacock,” NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell said. The company previously paid $500 million to get The Office back from Netflix.

Warner Bros. and New Line are creating a sequel to the Mortal Kombat film with Moon Knight writer Jeremy Slater onboard, Deadline has reported. It will follow up the original R-rated film that did decent box office numbers ($83 million world wide) considering the pandemic, and was HBO Max's most successful film to date when it launched last April. 

On top of creating Moon Knight (with Oscar Isaac and Ethan Hawke), Slater is working on Stephen King's The Tommyknockers adaptation for Universal and an upcoming Netflix movie directed by Travis Knight. He also developed The Umbrella Academy for Netflix. 

The original film was as gory as you'd expect considering the violence of the game, but screenwriter Greg Russo also tried to inject some humor. It's not known if Mortal Kombat director Simon McQuoid will be involved again, but last year he said a sequel could happen "if the fans want another one." 

The original did seem designed to set up another sequel, though, with one one critic describing it as "the homework you have to do before the fun." It received a middling 54 percent Rotten Tomato critic rating, but was appreciated more by audiences that gave it an 86 percent score. 

Spotify already has an answer to Neil Young's ultimatum following outrage over allegations Joe Rogan is spreading COVID-19 vaccine misinformation. As The Wall Street Journalreports, Spotify is in the midst of removing Young's music from the streaming service worldwide. His (very large) catalog was still available as of this writing, but we'd suggest listening to Harvest one more time just in case.

Young has reportedly been in talks with Spotify and his label Warner Records since posting an open letter threatening to pull his albums. The artist made the formal request on Wednesday (January 26th), and the music is apparently poised to disappear within "several hours."

In a statement to Engadget, Spotify said it "regret[ted]" Young's decision and hoped to have him back "soon." It also defended its anti-misinformation practices, claiming it accepted a "great responsibility" in juggling both listener safety and creator freedom. The company added it had pulled over 20,000 podcast COVID-related episodes since the pandemic began. It didn't say why it was still hosting Joe Rogan Experience episodes that contained misinformation, though, including unsupported claims from Dr. Robert Malone that "psychosis" led people to believe vaccines were effective.

Spotify also didn't offer reasons for its decision. However, the company is believed to have paid over $100 million to land a multi-year distribution deal with Rogan. While the exact terms of the agreement aren't clear, Spotify might suffer financial and legal consequences if it pulls Rogan's episodes.

You can read Spotify's full statement below:

We want all the world’s music and audio content to be available to Spotify users. With that comes great responsibility in balancing both safety for listeners and freedom for creators. We have detailed content policies in place and we’ve removed over 20,000 podcast episodes related to COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic. We regret Neil’s decision to remove his music from Spotify, but hope to welcome him back soon.

You won't have to wait long to see how the creators of Not Tonight tackle American politics. PanicBarn and No More Heroes have revealed their "political dark comedy" title Not Tonight 2 will be available on Steam February 11th, with a console version coming later in 2022. A final PC beta launches January 28th. As teased early on, the game continues that Papers, Please-style focus on checking IDs as a bouncer while throwing in minigames — and, of course, addressing US political issues head-on.

The game centers around Kevin, Malik and Mari as they travel across an 'alternative' US to save their friend Eduardo from deportation. As with the first Not Tonight, the sequel doesn't pull punches – it examines climate change denial, anti-immigration policies, American religious views and the pitfalls of capitalism. While there are certainly silly parts (such as serving poutine in a Canada-controlled Montana), the aim is as much to make you think about sensitive issues as it is having fun.

The series is, in some ways, a criticism of the games industry's aversion to politics. Heavyweights like Ubisoft will claim their games aren't political even when that's clearly not true, and others will simply steer clear of politics altogether. PanicBarn's game effectively challenges developers to embrace political commentary — that is, to risk alienating some customers in the name of making a statement.

EA has announced that Respawn Entertainment is making three more Star Wars games. The studio — also known for Titanfall and Apex Legends — is working on a follow up to its hit 2019 action-adventure title Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, though it’s not clear if the upcoming game is a direct sequel.

A first-person shooter overseen by a former Star Wars Battlefront producer in the pipeline too. In addition, a strategy game produced by Respawn is on the way, with Bit Reactor leading development. The new third-party studio is headed up by Greg Foertsch, who previously worked on the XCOM series.

EA's exclusive license to develop and publish Star Wars games expires next year. An open-world Star Wars game from Ubisoft’s The Division 2 studio Massive Entertainment is already in the works, while Quantic Dream is developing Star Wars: Eclipse. Before those and EA's trifecta of titles even get close to hitting your console or PC, you'll be able to dive into Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, which arrives on April 5th.

The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners is getting a sequel, its developer Skydance Interactive has confirmed. It doesn't come as a surprise — the title quickly became one of the most popular games for the PlayStation VR since it launched in 2020, and it swiftly made its way to other platforms, including the Oculus Quest 2, Viveport and PC. Skydance has also revealed, along with its announcement that a sequel is in development, that the VR survival-horror title has welcomed 2.5 million players and has "far surpassed $60 million in revenue" since it became available on January 23rd, 2020.

The sequel is entitled Chapter 2: Retribution, and Skydance says it will pick up from where the first game left off. It'll continue its predecessor's storyline, which means players will play the Tourist that'll have to survive the zombie-infested remains of New Orleans. That said, it'll be developed as a standalone game for those who don't want to bother playing the first and will feature new characters and new threats.

Chris Busse, head of Skydance Interactive, said in a statement:

"The past two years have been absolutely incredible for The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners, and we’re grateful forthe continued support from the player community who have helped make the game the success it is today. We're excited to announce Chapter 2, and we can't wait to let players explorethe new adventures that await them in the French Quarter and beyond."

Unfortunately, that's the only information Skydance has shared for now, though the company promises to release more details about the sequel later this year. 

With the demise of third-party cookies on the horizon, advertisers and the internet's gatekeepers are scrambling to come up with better ways to serve users relevant ads. Google launched its Privacy Sandbox in 2019 to look into suitable alternatives, announcing FLoC (or Federated Learning of Cohorts) last year. The plan to roll out FLoC was delayed, and Privacy Sandbox faced regulatory scrutiny in the UK and the US. Today, the company announced it's testing out a new approach called Topics API, which will replace FLoC. 

Topics API relies on the Chrome browser to determine a list of top five topics a user is interested in, based on their surfing history. It'll determine what the topics are by comparing known websites (that you visit) against a list of about 350 topics drawn from the Interactive Advertising Bureau and Google's own data. Then, when partner publishers need to know what topics a viewer is into, they can use Topics API to ping the browser for that data and serve relevant ads based on that. 

Say, for example, you've visited a lot of sites for hiking or working out. Chrome will count those towards your top interests for that particular week and share them with participating publishers who can then show you ads for, say, athleisure or camping gear. Topics will select one area of interest from each of the past three weeks to share with each site and its advertising partners. Google says topics are "kept for only three weeks and old topics are deleted." The data and processing happens on your device "without involving any external servers, including Google servers." 

There will also be options in Chrome for users to see the topics assigned to you, remove those you don't like or disable the feature altogether. At the moment, since Google has only just announced Topics and hasn't started user tests, it hasn't shared whether Topics will be opt-in or opt-out for users.  

The list of topics is pre-set, and Google says it "will not include potentially sensitive categories, such as gender or race." This should theoretically prevent unwanted browsing history from counting towards and showing up in your interests. 

Google is targeting the end of the first quarter this year to launch its trial, and after publishing the explainer on how it expects to use Topics API today, it'll be accepting feedback from partners, interest groups and regulatory authorities. Based on that, the company may adjust Topics API before its first trial, and if all goes well it could launch the feature by the third quarter of the year. 

Twitter is still working on a feature that will give you a way to blast tweets that can only be seen by the friends you choose. In July last year, the social network revealed that it's considering letting you designate "trusted friends" so some tweets would only be visible to them. Now, developer and reverse engineer Alessandro Paluzzi has unearthed evidence that the feature is currently in development and that Twitter now calls it "Flock." 

It might be called differently if it gets a wider release, though — the company told The Verge that "Flock" is just a placeholder name. Based on the explanation that Paluzzi found, its current iteration will let you add up to 150 users to your list, and they'll be the only ones who can see and respond to tweets you send to the group. Any tweet you send to your Flock will be come with a notice telling your audience that they can see it because you've added them to the group. You can edit the group anytime, though, and Twitter says it won't notify anyone you remove. 

When the company first revealed that it's considering adding a trusted friends feature, it also presented another concept that would allow you to take on different personas within the same account. It's unclear if that version of the feature is no longer in development. Twitter is also testing a feature called Communities that gives you a dedicated space for groups of people with the same interests. Flock, however, was designed with your real friends in mind, similar to Instagram's Close Friends for Stories. In its statement sent to The Verge, Twitter said it's "always working on new ways to help people engage in healthy conversations, and [it's] currently exploring ways to let people share more privately."

This post contains spoilers for the sixth season of 'Billions.'

Peloton can't quite escape the publicity headaches from TV shows featuring its products. According to The New York Times and The Verge, the premiere episode of Billions season six includes a scene that, like the Sex and the City follow-up And Just Like That, paints Peloton's Bike in a less-than-flattering light — if not quite as dire as before.

The scene depicts Mike "Wags" Wagner (played by David Costabile) having a heart attack while riding his Peloton spin bike. Unlike the And Just Like That scene, however, Wagner survives — he even references the AJLT scene, telling staff that he's "not going out" like that character. Billions' executive producers told The Times the moment was filmed in spring 2021, months before AJLT's debut, and that the team overdubbed the reference to the other show in postproduction to reflect "what Wags would say."

Peloton stressed in a statement that it hadn't provided the Bike or otherwise greenlit the use of its brand for Billions. It even celebrated parts of the episode, noting that the show highlighted the "strong benefits" of a cardio workout. When the AJLT scene caused a panic, Peloton faulted the character's lifestyle and suggested the bike at least delayed the inevitable. It went on to create a promo to defend its products in response, although it pulled that ad soon after when the focus of the promo, actor Chris Noth, faced accusations of sexual assault.

The Billions scene isn't the biggest PR crisis Peloton has faced lately. The company's stock price plunged after a (since-denied) claim it halted production due to slowing sales. However, it does illustrate Peloton's odd position. While its fitness gear is still considered iconic, the company is no longer quite so revered by shoppers or the entertainment business.