CNN did a segment on Freddy, the German soccer tourist, and sports analyst Christine Brennan claimed "I saw some conversation, Wolf and Pamela, about how the rest of the world is looking at the United States and feeling that we are—it's a foreboding image and that we are inhospitable...But how wonderful again, that sports can bring people here and show people that the United States and you know, the South is welcoming a German tourist in a way we would never have anticipated" Who is "we"?

It's hard to overstate how much of a good thing the 2011 translation of the Roman Missal was, and how bad the previous ICEL translations were. Younger Catholics may not remember these days.

The US government, citing national security authorities, has issued an export control directive to suspend all access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 by any foreign national, whether inside or outside the United States, including foreign national Anthropic employees. The net effect of this order is that we must abruptly disable Fable 5 and Mythos 5 for all our customers to ensure compliance. Access to all other Claude models is not affected. We apologize for this disruption to our customers. We believe this is a misunderstanding and are working to restore access as soon as possible. Read our full statement: anthropic.com/news/fable-myt…

Here's how PlayStation Studios games from the past year have sold on PS5 (@alineaanalytics estimates) Ghost of Yotei has been a resounding success for Sony since launching exclusively on PS5 back in October. It’s amassed 4.8M copies sold, generated almost $350M in revenue, and is still selling. For the past fortnight (let’s reclaim that word!), Yotei has had its first PlayStation Store discount (down 29% to $49.69), and we’ve seen a clear bump since. In those two weeks, Yotei shifted an extra 250K copies. Players are sinking their teeth in, too. Average playtime overall is 47.7 hours (median 45.5), and around 7% of players have logged more than 100 hours. Fair play. Death Stranding 2: On the Beach has now sold 1.7M copies on PS5, amounting to gross revenue of $116M. Decent result, but you’ve got to imagine Sony and Kojima wanted a bit more. A wrinkle is that two weeks after the Steam port in March (9 months after PS5), DS2 sold 70K copies on PS5, its best two-week stretch since launch on Sony’s platform. There was a price drop to $50, but this was the third time it had hit that price, so the cross-platform marketing was doing work of its own. We saw the same effect with Stellar Blade on PS5 last year when its Steam version landed, and there, no discount was involved. MLB The Show 26 has sold 745K on PS5, generating over $50M, with almost 95% of its audience in North America. Over 30% of MLB players have logged 100-plus hours, and the game has held PS5 daily actives of around 500K since launch. So MLB is sticky with high engagement, but MLB The Show 26 is selling slower on PS5 than last year’s edition, which had moved roughly 1.2M copies by this point. Whether that’s because Americans are eyeing up the FIFA World Cup or something else remains to be seen. Either way, a loyal base that’s quietly shrinking is worth watching (unlike baseball, in my humble Welsh opinion). Saros has sold 406K on PS5, generating $30M. It’s a fantastic game with a committed niche audience (including myself!) But if Saros doesn’t get a PC port, it likely won’t break even. Sony will eventually claw back revenue and value through PS Store discounts and an inevitable PS Plus stint. But if revenue was the priority here, this banger of a game hasn’t succeeded. The Steam-port question hangs over Saros, with a lot at stake given recent studio closures. Marathon has now sold 347K on PS5, with around 75K of those arriving after the free week timed to the Season 2 launch. That’s a decent sign, but the not enough the move the needle. Of those who played Marathon on PS5 this month, almost 12% also played Destiny 2 on PS5, no surprise given Bungie dropped Destiny 2’s final content update two days ago. We’ve got a bigger Bungie/Marathon/Destiny piece coming next week, so subscribe to the newsletter (link in bio) to get that ASAP. God of War Sons of Sparta has sold 132K copies (almost $4M). A tidy result for a shadow-dropped Metroidvania spin-off that mostly underwhelmed critics but has earned a small band of defenders. Most Sons of Sparta players have, predictably, played 2018’s God of War and Ragnarok, but the PS5 hardcore showed up here in a telling way. About 15% of Sons of Sparta players have also played Saros, more than have played Silksong (13%) or Animal Well (9%). In other words, this converted PlayStation and God of War fans more than Metroidvania fans. More on the free Substack. Link in bio.

‘Gears of War: E-Day’ reportedly has a development budget of over $400M (via: @_Tom_Henderson_)

Former Bungie community manager Liana Ruppert discussed criticism of Marathon and comparisons to Destiny 2. She said supporting Marathon is “the only path forward right now” for fans wanting future projects, including a possible Destiny 3. She said people are “comparing apples to oranges” when using Destiny 2’s player numbers to judge Marathon, as it is an extraction shooter for a smaller audience, similar to Escape from Tarkov. Destiny players are mad and said they don't want to buy or play a game just to support Bungie.

Consumer Competition Claims (CCC), through GameClaim, has launched a new class action against Valve in the Netherlands. The group claims Valve controls around 85% of the PC game market and uses rules that make it harder for developers to sell games cheaper on other stores. It also argues that Steam’s 30% cut on game sales is too high and shows anti-competitive behaviour. According to CCC, Dutch gamers have paid more than they should due to these practices, with total damages estimated at over €220 million since 2013.. The group says it will first try to reach a settlement with Valve. If that fails, the case could go to court and may take several years to resolve.

Don’t do it, friends. 🙏

I mean they can approve of socialism while also thinking that the party has become too woke or whatever in terms of winning elections

Cathy is a cynical clout-chasing monster. Wearing fewer clothes than the wrestlers and doing this tumblr/fake lesbian nonsense. Female Autism is the new Men's Mental Health. The old "I have imposter syndrome."

Xbox CEO Asha Sharma says Microsoft may need more third-party exclusive games and could make future acquisitions to help Xbox compete across consoles, PC, mobile, and cloud gaming. “Successful platforms have strong exclusive content, and we’re looking at that very closely,” Sharma said. She also said Microsoft will “look at M&A where it makes sense” Sharma said Xbox is focused on improving its lineup of games and simplifying its technology. Instead of making every game exclusive, Microsoft plans to select certain titles that can make the Xbox ecosystem more attractive.

Love some good old-fashioned shoe-leather reporting from the team at @BusinessInsider, finding that StubHub is experimenting with dynamic pricing of not the tickets, but the fees across different browsers/devices

NEW: Pope Leo has written to priests to mark the feast of the Sacred Heart: Dear priests, renew each day your “Here I am” before Christ’s pierced Heart. Give yourselves entirely to him, so that you may love his people with the same love with which he loves them. And joyfully remember how the saintly Curé of Ars loved to say that “the priesthood is the love of the heart of Jesus”

When we were trying to get married at a Church (TLM) I had attended for 5 years, they wanted a 2,000 fee for "non-parishoners" yet they consistently told us not to register at the parish since we didn't attend the Novus Ordo. Was a clear scam they were running.

Liturgical peace existed until July of 2021 and the mean spirited, poorly written, shabbily argued Traditionis Custodes. Peace will be restored when TC is either in the dustbin or relegated to de facto obsolescence when most people simply ignore it.