Month: November 2020

Enlarge / EU Commissioner for Internal Market Thierry Breton talks to media during a press conference in June. (credit: Thierry Monasse | Getty Images)

The chief executive of Google’s parent company Alphabet has apologized to Thierry Breton after an internal document laid out a plan to attack the EU commissioner and promised that such tactics were “not the way we operate.”

In a virtual meeting on Thursday, Sundar Pichai told Mr. Breton, the internal market commissioner, that Google was a very large company and that the document “was never shown to me.” He added that he had not “sanctioned” the plan, according to two people familiar with the conversation.

The document set out Google’s response to landmark new legislation from the EU as the bloc reshapes how it regulates Internet companies.

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  All screens in this article were taken from live-action, 60fps gameplay on PlayStation 5. Go back in time and show these to your teen self in the '90s to break the space-time continuum. [credit: Sony Interactive Entertainment / Bluepoint Games ]

Does the phrase "best graphics of the year" compel you to buy a video game?

Sony likely hopes that bullet point, as applied to this week's Demon's Souls remaster, will put you over the edge to buy not only that new game, but also its required $499 PlayStation 5 console. And while I'm cautious to put graphics over gameplay, there's really no getting around it: Sony made the right bet with this masterpiece as a console-launch showcase.

Super Mario 64 has long stood as the benchmark for a system-selling console exclusive, one that exploits its hardware to incredible effect, and Demon's Souls is the closest we're getting to that lofty mark in 2020—a hair better than March's incredible Half-Life Alyx as a VR system-seller. Crucially, Bluepoint Games' remaster pulls this off while remaining faithful to 11-year-old gameplay, which means the game earns its next-gen stripes entirely through performance and aesthetics.