Aisha Malik / TechCrunch:
Snap says its direct revenue business has hit a $1B annualized revenue run rate, driven primarily by Snapchat+ surpassing 25M subscribers since its 2022 launch  —  Snap's direct revenue business has reached a $1 billion annualized revenue run rate, the company announced on Wednesday.

Sonic the Hedgehog is one of the most beloved characters in video games, and the success of his recent trilogy of live-action movies has only further proved that fact. As the franchise has continued, each movie has introduced more characters from Sonic's lore, with a post-credits scene in the latest movie announcing the arrival of Amy Rose. While she's silent in that scene, today, we learned actress Kristen Bell will be portraying her in the upcoming Sonic the Hedgehog 4, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Bell is known for her starring roles in The Good Place, Veronica Mars, and the Frozen movies, though video game fans might also remember her performance as Lucy in the first three Assassin's Creed games. She's performed alongside Sonic's voice actor, Ben Schwartz, many times, with both on the main cast for all five seasons of House of Lies.

Amy Rose in Sonic Dream Team

Amy is one of Sonic's most commonly appearing sidekicks, being featured in just about every modern iteration of the series and being playable in a few, as well. She's loud, passionate, wields a disproportionately massive hammer, and is often depicted as being absolutely in love with Sonic, though he rarely reciprocates. Personality-wise, she's got a lot in common with Miss Piggy and Harley Quinn. We recently encountered her as the Lady of the Lake in our Super Replay of Sonic and the Black Knight, but she's featured in good games too.

Given that this is the first we've heard of Bell's involvement, it will probably be a few months until we see our first trailer. In any case, Sonic the Hedgehog 4 hits theaters in March 19, 2027. Interestingly, that's just seven weeks before Nintendo's live-action Zelda movie is slated to come out – it's going to be a big spring for video game adaptations.

[Source: The Hollywood Reporter]

Denshattack appeared from nowhere in August at Gamescom to become one of the major highlights of the annual show in Germany. In the game, you play as a runaway train rampaging its way through Japan as it pulls off tricks as though it were on a Tony Hawk skateboard. It’s colorful, bombastic, weird, and undeniably enticing.

Join Marcus Stewart and me as we play through the game's demo ahead of its release to get a taste of the frankly insane game in action.

For more on Denshattack, head here. And I hear a rumor that subscribing to Game Informer magazine could lead to even more exclusive details about the game in a future issue! But unfortunately, there is no way of knowing... unless you subscribe.

Despite only a skeleton crew of developers remaining, a Wildlight employee says there are still plans for future updates.

The Keyword:
Google rolls out Lyria 3, a generative music model that can make 30-second tracks with Nano Banana-made cover art, in beta in the Gemini app in eight languages  —  The Gemini app now features our most advanced music generation model Lyria 3, empowering anyone to make 30-second tracks using text or images in beta.