Nothing will make you feel old like the anniversary of a much loved gaming console. Perhaps none more so than the 40th birthday of the Nintendo Entertainment System (or the Famicom as it was known for its 1983 Japanese debut).

Having launched in the very same year that the games industry crashed, Nintendo faced an uphill battle to make what would become the NES a commercial success. But we all know what happens next. Nintendo, through some shrewd decisions, creative talent and maybe just a dash of luck would become a console gaming right up to this very day. But it all starts with an unassuming beige and red box that two years later would become the retro-futuristic gray box that we all know and love.

Here are seven gaming legacies that Nintendo’s first home console gave to the world.

Bringing the D-pad

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It’s hard to imagine now, but there was a time where game controllers were almost as unique as the console they were connected to. As wild as it might sound, the NES was the first home console that sported the humble D-pad. The cross-style design would become a standard on controllers to this day.

Like all good inventions, it was born out of necessity. Nintendo’s early Game & Watch handhelds needed a control system that was pocket-friendly. A tiny joystick was impractical, plus the company wanted something more reliable than the four directional buttons some systems experimented with. Cue a little bit of design magic and the iconic D-pad as we know it was born.

The design was so effective that it was included on the NES controller along with two input buttons, instantly becoming a winning formula. This format proved so popular that you’ll be hard-pressed to think of a modern console that doesn’t use some form of this layout.

Better third-party games

Today we expect console titles to be of a certain standard, even if that doesn’t always pan out. We can broadly thank Nintendo, and specifically the NES for this. In the early ‘80s, third-party game development was a wild west with few checks and balances — any company could develop and publish games for any system. When the NES came along, it introduced the concept of licensed third-party games thanks to the NES’s 10NES “lockout” chip that prevented just anyone publishing a game for the platform. In turn, this created some form of quality control which would go on to become an industry standard.

It wasn’t all entirely positive (if you weren’t Nintendo that is). The 10NES was the first mass-market use of what we'd now generically call DRM, and it allowed Nintendo to initiate the industry-standard 30 percent licensing fee which, in its evolution, is still a source of contention with developers (and customers). The NES also introduced the idea of “exclusives” which is something else we still see for modern releases (often to the chagrin of gamers).

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That said, Nintendo’s “seal of approval” did a lot to revive the gaming industry after its infamous crash in 1983, and for that we’re eternally thankful. Not to mention, we can’t be sure any amount of Mario would have made the platform what it was without titles like Contra, Mega Man 2 and Dragon Warrior, all made by third-party developers.

Bonus: Nintendo’s “10NES” lock-out chip authentication chip is also the reason why you sometimes had to “blow” into a cartridge, as if the contact between the chip and the console wasn’t perfect it would stop the game from booting. That’s, perhaps, another long-lasting legacy we’re glad to see the back of.

Console game saves

The Legend of Zelda’s legacy speaks for itself, but its debut on the NES came with a feature that changed everything: game saves. This had never been seen on a console in the US before and it changed what was possible for console games across the board, paving the way for bigger, more complex titles. A lot of the NES’ best loved franchises like Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy simply wouldn’t have been possible without battery saves, giving the technology an outsized legacy.

While games on disk-based computers had been deploying saves for a couple of years, consoles didn’t have internal storage, so players were stuck with workarounds like codes or passwords. Unlike a proper save, which would include things like current weapons and power-ups, a password would usually (though not always) just start you off at the beginning of the last level you were on. This was practical for things like racing games or platformers, but problematic for things like RPGs and sims.

The technology wasn’t perfect of course. If the battery died or somehow lost contact, you would lose all your saves. But it was a good enough system to last into the 2000’s with some form of on-cartridge saves being used right up until the 3DS. There was, of course, a free, time-honored alternative way to “save” games, usually when you had to go down for dinner: pause and switch off the TV (and maybe hide the controller from any siblings).

The video game mascot

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It’s hard to talk about anything Nintendo without a nod to the world’s most famous plumber. The NES isn’t where Mario had his first outing of course, not by a long shot. It’s not even the first console to have a Mario Bros. game (that was the Atari 2600). But the NES is arguably where the most important gaming franchise for Nintendo - Super Mario - began.

Super Mario Bros. isn’t just important for Nintendo, the side-scrolling platformer would go on to have an outsized influence that would reach far beyond the walls of Kyoto. The unique gameplay with power ups, secret rooms and a colorful world with a full cast of characters came together to create a formula that would set it on a path to become the best-selling game of all time (a title it no longer holds, alas).

There would of course be two sequels on the NES. Super Mario Bros. 2 (the US version at least) was brighter, bigger and added the ability to throw enemies and objects. Super Mario Bros. 3 ramped things up further with even more hidden bonuses and abilities. All three titles received positive reviews and critical acclaim. Most importantly, Super Mario Bros. would solidify the platformer as a key element of console gaming, directly inspiring Nintendo’s main rival, Sega, to create its own iconic mascot franchise.

The concept of mascot platformers has died away to an extent, but Crash Bandicoot helped sell the PlayStation, and we saw fresh attempts at mascots in the form of Ratchet & Clank, Spyro and Banjo Kazooie through the late '90s and '00s. Today, Master Chief is essentially the face of Xbox, and Sony uses the likes of Nathan Drake, Aloy and Joel in much the same way Nintendo used Mario: To sell consoles and merch.

The video game movie adaptation

Walt Disney Studios

There had been games based on popular films since the 1970’s, but we had to wait two decades before we’d see that concept reversed. In 1993, Super Mario Bros. became the first video game movie adaptation and boy did things get off to a bad start.

Starring Bob Hoskins (The Long Good Friday, Who Framed Roger Rabbit) as Mario and John Leguizamo (Moulin Rouge, Spawn) as Luigi, the movie received tepid reviews at best. The movie follows our plumbing heroes as they travel to another dimension (from Brooklyn!) to rescue, well, you know who. Looking back now, the costumes are a little camp, the effects comedic and the plot about as thin as the film it was shot on - but it was an exciting event for Kooper-stomping kids around the globe to have a movie of their own.

To put it in perspective, Hoskins said it was the worst thing he had ever worked on, and he did a run of commercials for British Telecom. A year later we’d be graced with adaptations of Double Dragon and Street Fighter which both have Rotten Tomatoes scores of less than half of Super Mario Bros. (which is already only 29%). Sadly, things don’t get much better from there on out with it taking until 2019 until a game-based movie would earn a “Certified Fresh” score Tomatometer (and that was… Detective Pikachu with 68%).

The light gun

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You might be surprised to learn that the technology behind the light gun has been around since the 1930s. Nintendo had developed its own version as far back as 1970 for its Laser Clay Shooting System. Old rival Sega had actually beaten Nintendo to the punch with its Periscope game in 1966. But of course, the one that would find its way into juvenile American hands en mass would be the NES Zapper in 1984.

You can’t talk about the Zapper without thinking about Duck Hunt, one of the most iconic titles on the system even if, let’s be real, it wasn’t all that good. But something about that unshootable dog (and the fact it was a pack-in game) has earned it legendary status.

Sega would introduce its own light gun, the much cooler-named Light Phaser, for the Master System two years later. And who could forget the iconic if a little… aggressively designed Super Scope accessory for the SNES? The light gun would live on for a few more generations, notably through Sega’s official accessories for the Saturn and Dreamcast and Namco’s GunCon series for the Playstation and PlayStation 2.

As gamers upgraded their TVs to the fancy new flat kinds we have today, the old-fashioned light guns of the '80s, '90s and '00s stopped working. The Wii and PS3 both used LED sensors to achieve the effect, and there was an official Aim Controller for PSVR, but no one has really figured out a standard way for us to shoot things from the comfort of our couches. (OK, Sinden has figured it out, but until a console supports its camera-based Light Gun system, it's only going to be for real enthusiasts.)

The mega franchise

Nintendo

Did we mention the NES also played games? More than possibly all of the above, the impact of the NES is lived out through the franchises that we still enjoy today. Of course, there’s Mario at the top with over 200 titles featuring the iconic mascot in some form or another. Within that are flagship titles for every console Nintendo has ever made - usually multiple for each.

The NES was the platform that introduced the US to the Zelda, Mega Man, Metroid, Final Fantasy, Castlevania, Dragon Quest, Ninja Gaiden and Kirby series. It was also the first console for many existing arcade franchises like Bionic Commando.

Not all of those series continue to this day, but the ones that do are some of the best known (and loved) franchises out there. In May, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom began emptying pockets and puzzling the minds of kids and adults alike. And just last month, Final Fantasy XVI found its way into the collection of over 3 million people in under a week.

Of course, despite the age of the original games, there are still modern ways to play them. Nintendo's most current console has over 60 NES games available via Switch Online, and the selection includes most of the titles you'd hope for (including the Super Mario Bros trilogy, Legend of Zelda, Punch Out and many, many more).

Hayao Miyazaki’s first film in ten years (and supposedly his last) premiered in Japan today — without any lead-up marketing from Studio Ghibli. Soon after, Gkids announced that it had acquired the animated movie’s North American rights. Called Kimitachi wa Do Ikiruka (translated as “How Do You Live”) in Japan, the international release will use the title The Boy and the Heron. Gkids says it will arrive in North America “later this year.”

Little is known about the new movie, but Gkids describes the hand-drawn animated feature as “an original story written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki.” Studio Ghibli co-founder Toshio Suzuki produces it with a musical score from Joe Hisaishi. It was previously announced that Miyazaki’s next film would have an IMAX release (as well as Dolby Atmos, Dolby Cinema and DTS:X) in Japan. However, it isn’t clear if it will screen in IMAX in the US.

When the film arrives stateside, don’t expect to see any more promotion than it got in Japan. Gkids says it will follow Studio Ghibli’s “unprecedented decision” to premiere the film in Japan without any marketing images, trailers, synopses ads — or any information — ahead of its surprise premiere today. Suzuki attributes the decision to honoring another era while hoping to spark imagination. “A poster and a title — that’s all we got when we were children. I enjoyed trying to imagine what a movie was about, and I wanted to bring that feeling back,” Suzuki reportedly told Japanese broadcaster NHK via The Japan Times and Deadline.

Gkids has distributed the North American versions of previous Miyazaki films, including The Tale of The Princess Kaguya, When Marnie Was There and From Up on Poppy Hill (among others). The 15-year-old producer and distributor has 12 Best Animated Feature Oscar nominations in its short history. “Hayao Miyazaki is a living legend in filmmaking, as evidenced by his Academy Award win for Spirited Away and his two Oscar nominations for Howl’s Moving Castle and The Wind Rises,’” David Jesteadt, president of Gkids, wrote in a press release today. “It’s been ten years since the world has seen a new film from Miyazaki-san, and Gkids is so proud and honored to unveil his latest, highly anticipated masterpiece in North America.”

For almost three decades in the Mission: Impossible franchise, Tom Cruise's Ethan Hunt has gone head to head in high-speed motorcycle battles, climbed Dubai's Burj Khalifa, and hung from the side of a plane during takeoff. Oh, and he also died at one point (following an extended free dive into an underwater data bank). But in the latest film, Dead Reckoning Part 1, Ethan Hunt faces his toughest opponent yet: an omnipotent AI that could reshape geopolitics as we know it. After defying the laws of physics, it only makes sense that he has to defeat a god.

As ludicrous as that may sound, it also fits perfectly within the Mission: Impossible series, a universe where Ethan Hunt has been described as the "living manifestation of destiny," and everyone is well aware that the "Impossible Mission Force" sounds like something pulled out of a comic book. At this point, it's a franchise that exists for Tom Cruise and his collaborators — most recently, writer/director Christopher McQuarrie — to go wild with spy gadgets and death-defying stunt sequences. It's made by spy movie geeks, for spy movie geeks.

That's been true of the series from the start. The original TV show centered on grounded spy craft, albeit in a world where people could easily impersonate others with realistic face masks. Brian de Palma's 1996 film was a throwback to paranoid '70s spy thrillers, but it also made room for gadgets like glasses that wirelessly transmitted crystal clear video. And, of course, there's the nail-bitingly tense infiltration of a CIA server room, a scene that infiltrated pop culture for years.

John Woo's Mission: Impossible 2 is far less cerebral, but it also leans heavily into his operatic Hong Kong action style. It's not a great movie, I'll admit, but as a fan of Woo's action films, I can't help but be thrilled by the car chase meet cute, and the balletic finale which morphs from a motorcycle chase into a hand-to-hand fight on a beach.

Paramount Pictures and Skydance

After a slight hiatus, JJ Abrams rebooted the franchise in 2006 with Mission: Impossible 3, a film that built upon the spy shenanigans from his TV series, Alias. Since then, the franchise has been on a constant quest to one-up itself. 2011's Ghost Protocol goes full on Buster Keaton with every set piece (director Brad Bird essentially turns Ethan Hunt into a character from The Incredibles), culminating in the scene where Cruise himself actually scaled the Burj Khalifa.

Arriving amid Daniel Craig's James Bond run (which is filled with movies I either love or absolutely hate), and the end of the original Jason Bourne trilogy, Ghost Protocol felt like a throwback to everything that made the Mission: ImpossibleTV show so addictive. There's a loyal and highly-skilled team, a nefarious villain and tons of gadgets on display. But crucially, things don't always work out as Hunt and crew expect, which makes the franchise more relatable to all of us with failing gadgets. (Every time my iPhone crashes, I can't help but be grateful I'm not climbing the Burj Khalifa with only a single high-tech gecko glove.)

With the arrival of Christopher McQuarrie, who directed 2015's Rogue Nation and its sequels, Mission: Impossible found a groove that differentiated it from most other modern franchises. Almost like action film jazz, McQuarrie and Cruise frequently came up with ideas for set pieces and built movies around them. Scripts were reworked on the fly. Normally this would spell disaster, but McQuarrie ended up thriving in the chaos. Together with stunt coordinator Scott Eastwood, he also managed to push the series into astounding new practical set pieces (see: Ethan Hunt hanging out of a plane in Rogue Nation, or the extended skydiving sequence in Fallout).

Paramount Pictures and Skydance

Dead Reckoning Part 1 builds on McQuarrie's previous entries. This time, Hunt and a new companion (Hayley Atwell's Grace) are chased through Rome's narrow streets while driving a souped-up, tiny Fiat. He base-jumps off of a mountain using a motorcycle. He fights on a real train speeding along at 60MPH. All the while, he's trying to stop the villainous AI, known only as The Entity.

On the face of it, Dead Reckoning shares plenty with Mrs. Davis, the latest show co-created by Damon Lindelof which also features a tough protagonist against an all-powerful AI. The film also dabbles in similar themes: Surely an omnipotent artificial intelligence would also inspire near-religious devotion. In Dead Reckoning, that's embodied by Gabriel, the angelically named sociopath played by Esai Morales.

While the film rarely slows down to explore the true impact of AI, Hunt and his team — Simon Pegg's Benji, Ving Rhames' Luther — instantly grasp the larger implications. Whoever can control the AI could basically control the world — not merely through physical force, but by defining truth and reality itself. An AI could erase a person from surveillance footage, or turn them into someone else entirely. Nothing can be trusted. As we grapple with the impact of ChatGPT and generative AI in real life, it’s hard not to feel like we’re on a similar path. (It's also funny to see in the midst of the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, which are directly tied to complaints about studios taking advantage of creatives with AI.)

As much as I love other action film franchises – like John Wick’s increasingly elaborate choreography, or the sheer ridiculousness of the Fast and the Furious –Mission: Impossible remains uniquely enjoyable. It’s committed to delivering astonishing practical stunt work. It’s self-aware just enough to poke fun at itself. And a part of me hopes that somehow, a team of geeks can also fight back against the excesses of AI.

Twitter’s ad-revenue sharing program for creators has officially launched — and it’s reportedly already begun paying eligible Blue subscribers. Elon Musk announced the initiative in February, but with scant details about how it would work, nobody knew quite what to expect. However, some high-profile users report today they’ve received notifications about incoming deposits — including one user claiming he’s set to receive over $24,000. The rewards are based on ads in replies to eligible users’ content.

The program incentivizes creators who contribute popular content that drives ads — rewarding accounts that help Twitter make money (while driving new Blue subscriptions). “This means that creators can get a share in ad revenue starting in the replies to their posts,” a Twitter help article published today reads. “This is part of our effort to help people earn a living directly on Twitter.” Musk tweeted today that payouts “will be cumulative from when I first promised to do so in February.”

However, the bar is high to receive a transfer from the Musk-owned social media company. The support post says the revenue-sharing system applies to Twitter Blue or Verified Organizations subscribers with at least five million post impressions in each of the past three months. They’ll also need to pass a human review and adhere to the company’s Creator Subscriptions policies; Twitter will then pay eligible users using a Stripe account. The company says it will soon launch an application process, found under Monetization in account settings.

The move aims to make Twitter a more attractive platform for content creators. It may not be a coincidence that the program arrived about a week after Meta launched its Twitter rival Threads, which didn’t take long to gain traction — gaining over 100 million users in its first five days. That’s higher than previous record-holders ChatGPT and TikTok.

Sony plans to boost R&D spending in gaming and focus that extra money on Fortnite-style live service games and mixed reality, Nikkei has reported. It will invest $2.13 billion for the segment in fiscal 2023, accounting for about 40 percent of R&D spending company wide — over double what it spent in 2020. The aim is to better compete in cloud gaming and VR, particularly if Microsoft's Activision Blizzard acquisition goes through. 

Sony has traditionally relied on relied on story-led blockbuster titles like God of War and Horizon Zero Dawn, but live service games use a different model. Instead of developing one game and moving on to the next, companies build titles that can be updated over time, generating revenue with new content like seasonal maps, skins and weapons. Overwatch and League of Legends are examples of those. 

The company lags behind rivals in that area — it had just one live service game in 2021, but plans to have 12 in its portfolio by March 2026. To that end, it plans to spend 55 percent of PS5 game development on live service games by March 2024, and 60 percent by March 2026. It plans to use its Bungie acquisition to further that aim, according to the report. 

Meanwhile, Microsoft is trying to acquire Activision Blizzard, which would give it access to a powerful portfolio of live service games (World of Warcraft, Call of Duty, Destiny 2, etc.). Microsoft also holds a considerable lead in live-streamed games with Xbox Cloud Gaming, while Sony has only started testing PS5 game streaming. 

At the same time, Sony wants to invest more in the so-called metaverse by boosting development in extended reality (VR, AR, mixed reality etc.). To do so, it aims to combine the resources of nine overseas game studios it owns in whole or in part, including Epic Games, whose Unreal Engine helps power augmented reality apps. That's in light of the upcoming release of Apple's Vision Pro headset, and Sony's recent launch of its own PSVR2 headset. 

The increased investment shows the importance of gaming to Sony's overall portfolio. Its game & network services segment now makes up a large part of the company's earnings, far and above segments like imaging, movies, TVs and more. It also shows Sony recognizing that it must adapt to the reality that game development is shifting away from the traditional model — meaning it will be a lot more dependent on owning game-development studios.

Twitter has published an update on how its "Freedom of Speech Not Reach" moderation approach is working, and according to the company, it has seen some encouraging results. In April, the website started limiting the reach of tweets violating its hateful conduct policy and applying a label to them that reads: "Visibility limited: this tweet may violate Twitter's rules against hateful conduct." Apparently, Twitter has applied the label to more than 700,000 posts since then and has proactively prevented ads from appearing adjacent to those content. 

The company also said that the label reduces the reach of a post by 81 percent, thereby effectively limiting the visibility of posts that potentially exhibit hateful conduct. In addition, Twitter revealed in its update that more than one-third of users choose to delete labeled tweets themselves once they've been notified that they have violated the website's policy and only four percent of authors have appealed labels. 

The company charging for API access means most researchers studying hate speech can't independently verify these claims. But Twitter is clearly claiming that its approach has been effective so far. In fact, the website is pushing through with its plan to expand its labels and include more types of policy violations. According to its announcement, it will now also label and downrank posts that violate its Abusive Behavior and Violent Speech policies. Tweets that will be labeled in the coming weeks include posts with malicious content targeting individuals, those that encourage others to harass an individual or group of people, those that threaten to inflict physical harm on others, and tweets that encourage others to commit acts of violence or harm. 

Microsoft is doing more to tackle toxicity in multiplayer Xbox games. The company is introducing a feature that allows Xbox Series X/S and Xbox One players to capture a 60-second video clip of abusive or inappropriate voice chat and submit it for moderators to review.

"This feature is purpose-built to support the broadest arena of in-game interactions between players and works across thousands of games that offer in-game multiplayer voice chat, including Xbox 360 backward-compatible titles," Xbox Player Services corporate vice-president Dave McCarthy wrote in a blog post.

Microsoft designed the tool for both ease of use and to minimize the impact on gameplay. When you capture a clip for reporting, it will stay on your Xbox for "24 online hours." You'll have the option to submit it right away or wait until you finish your gaming session. You'll get a reminder before the 24 hours are up. If you opt not to report the clip, your Xbox will automatically delete it.

No one else will have access to the clip unless you submit it. "Xbox is not saving or uploading any voice clips without you, the player, choosing to start the reporting process," McCarthy said. Any clips you capture through the tool will not appear in your recent captures and it won't be possible to download, share or modify them. These clips will only be used for moderation purposes. After the safety team has reviewed your report, you'll receive a notification to tell you whether it took action against an abusive player.

An Xbox spokesperson told Engadget the safety team will use "a range of moderation tools that leverage AI and human moderators" to analyze the clips. Moderators will review audio and video to determine if someone has violated the community standards.

At the outset, the reactive voice reporting system allows a player to report up to three individuals at once. "If a moderator cannot determine who was talking at a given time and associate it with the reported Xbox Live player, the report will be closed as unactionable, no enforcement action will be taken and the captured video will be deleted within 90 days," the spokesperson said.

The advent of cross-platform play muddies the waters here too. The safety team won't take any action in cases of inappropriate voice chat from those who are on other platforms. "The announced reactive voice moderation feature is specifically for reporting Xbox players to the Xbox Safety Team," the spokesperson noted.

It's encouraging to see Xbox tackle the problem of toxic voice chat at a platform-wide level. The PlayStation 5 has had a similar feature since it debuted in 2020.

Several studios have adopted similar approaches in their own games. In 2021, Riot said it would record Valorant voice communications but only listen to them when a report was filed. It started testing the system last July.

Ahead of Overwatch 2 going live last October, Blizzard said it would automatically transcribe a recording of a match's voice chat following a report from a player. The company's chat review tools analyze the transcription for signs of abusive behavior and both the recording and text file are deleted. (Of note, Blizzard and Overwatch 2 may soon be Microsoft properties.)

To begin with, Xbox's voice reporting feature will be available for Alpha and Alpha-skip Xbox Insiders in the English-speaking markets of the US, Canada, Great Britain, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. Microsoft hopes that insiders will provide feedback to help improve this feature. It plans to continue investing in voice moderation and to support more languages. Xbox will share data and updates on voice chat moderation in its bi-annual transparency report.

The immensely popular online game creation platform/thingamajig Roblox is coming to VR, thanks to the Meta Quest platform. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg made the announcement, which was followed by an official Roblox blog post. A beta version of the app launches in just a few weeks, according to Zuckerberg, which will be accessible via the Quest platform’s dedicated App Lab.

The beta will be available for the Quest 2 and Quest Pro headsets, so OG Quest owners are out of luck. The recently-announced Quest 3 wasn’t mentioned, but that’s likely because it won’t be out in time for the beta release. A finished version of the game, however, would make for an extremely compelling launch title for the Quest 3, as Roblox boasts more than 66 million daily users across multiple platforms.

To that end, this is going to be a fully cross-platform title, so anything you interact with or make on your phone or console should be accessible in VR, though it depends on the developer. The Roblox team is actively encouraging developers to make experiences in VR with a forthcoming toolset accessible via the Creator Dashboard. You’ll soon see VR as a new device type on this dashboard, along with desktop, mobile, tablet and console.

Meta recently lowered the minimum age to operate a Quest headset from 13 to ten, but this change will not impact Roblox. You have to be at least 13 to use the app in VR. That’s probably for the best, given the addictive nature of the title and associated child safety concerns.

The Academy of Television Arts and Sciences has announced this year's Emmy nominations and there's lots of good news for the team behind The Last of Us. HBO's massively successful series scored 24 nominations, more than any other show this year except Succession (27). The White Lotus (23) and Apple TV+ comedy Ted Lasso (21) followed closely behind.

The Last of Us is the first live-action video game adaptation for film or TV to make a serious dent at a major awards ceremony (League of Legends series Arcanewon the Emmy for Outstanding Animated Program last year). It's up for Outstanding Drama Series alongside Andor, Better Call Saul, House of the Dragon, Succession, The White Lotus and Yellowjackets.

Pedro Pascal (who has three nods in total this year) and Bella Ramsay picked up nominations for their lead roles in The Last of Us. So did guest stars Melanie Lynskey, Storm Reid, Anna Torv, Murray Bartlett, Lamar Johnson, Nick Offerman and Keivonn Montreal Woodard. Craig Mazin, the show's co-creator, and Peter Hoar are, respectively, nominated for writing and directing the show's stellar third episode, "Long, Long Time."

Elsewhere, reigning champ Ted Lasso will compete against Abbott Elementary, Barry, The Bear, Jury Duty, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Only Murders In The Building and Wednesday in the Outstanding Comedy Series category. On the Star Wars front, Andor scooped up eight nominations and The Mandalorian got nine. Obi-Wan Kenobi snagged five, including one for Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series.

Disney+ film Hocus Pocus 2 (three nominations in total) and Roku's Weird: The Al Yankovic Story (eight nods overall) are up for Outstanding Television Movie. Amazon's big-budget The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power landed six nominations, mostly in technical categories. 

Stranger Things, which isn't eligible for top honors this year, also has six nods in down-the-line categories. Meanwhile, Peacock's Poker Face snagged four nominatons, Star Trek: Picard has two in makeup categories and Netflix's brilliant I Think You Should Leave With Tim Robinson snagged a pair of nods.

Perhaps unsurprisingly given how many nominations Succession, The Last of Us and The White Lotus racked up, HBO leads the pack this year with 127 nominations overall. According to Deadline's tally, Netflix has the most of any streaming-only network with 103, followed by Apple (52), Amazon (46 between Prime Video and Freevee), Hulu (42 or 64 if you include FX shows), Disney+ (40), Peacock (eight) and Paramount+ (seven). By contrast, broadcast networks earned 86 nods between them.

This year's Emmy Awards ceremony is scheduled to take place on September 18th. However, amid the WGA writers' strike and pending action by the actors' union, reports suggest it may be delayed until November or even January.

The August premiere date of the highly-anticipated Disney+ Star Wars: Ahsoka series is rapidly approaching and there’s an action-packed new trailer that’s sure to delight fans of the animated Star Wars: Rebels series. It’s filled to the brim with live-action appearances from beloved Rebels characters like Hera Syndula, Sabine Wren, Chopper, Ezra Bridger and even series antagonist Grand Admiral Thrawn.

The show takes place in the same timeline of The Mandalorian, but stars Ahsoka Tano, former apprentice of sand-hating Anakin Skywalker. Tano (Rosario Dawson) never appeared in the prequel films but was a mainstay in the Star Wars: Clone Wars cartoon before moving onto Star Wars: Rebels and, finally, season two of The Mandalorian.

Fans have long-surmised that Ahsoka would follow-up the cliffhanger ending (no spoilers) from Rebels, and they're definitely getting their wish. The trailer's packed with call-backs to the cartoon, even lingering on an animated still that appeared in the series finale back in 2018. For long-time franchise fans, the trailer boasts the very first live action appearance of Grand Admiral Thrawn, played by Lars Mikkelsen.

Thrawn was the primary villain in Timothy Zahn’s Heir to the Empire book trilogy that followed the adventures of Luke Skywalker and the gang after the events of Return of the Jedi. Those books aren’t canon, because Luke went on to become a blue milk-loving hermit or whatever, but Ahsoka looks to be incorporating certain elements from the novels, as have recent seasons of The Mandalorian. Many fans speculate that the juiciest parts of Zahn’s books will make up the basic plot of the forthcoming ‘Filoni-verse’ movie, a crossover event featuring all of the newer TV characters.

Ahsoka premieres on August 23rd, with two episodes dropping at the same time before heading to weekly installments. In addition to Dawson and Mikkelsen, the series stars Natasha Liu Borzizzo, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Eman Esfandi and recently-deceased character actor Ray Stevenson.