Alas, Capitalism!

Welcome to “Siliconera Speaks Up,” our newsletter for the site! This’ll be a summary of the past week’s anime or gaming news, a little reminder of things to come, and our insight on what games you should pick up next. Without further ado, let’s get into it!

Top 10 Stories From the Past Week

1. Genshin Impact Updates Will No Longer Be Announced on Twitter

2. 2025 Feels Like Sword Art Online’s Last Chance at a New Season

3. The Top 30 Best Early Black Friday Walmart Deals 2024

4. The Best Early Black Friday Gaming PC Deals

5. Inugami Korone Will Appear in Okayu Nyumu

6. Aglaea Will Be First Remembrance Character in Honkai: Star Rail

7. Aka Akasaka Planned Oshi no Ko Ending From the Start

8. New Metaphor: ReFantazio Story Trailer Comes Out a Month After Game’s Release

9. Xenoblade Chronicles 2 Siren Model Kit Will Return in May 2025

10. Pokemon Gold and Silver 25th Anniversary Goods Appear

Notable Mentions

1. Penny Blood Director Files Lawsuit Over Unpaid Kickstarter Funds

2. Twisted Wonderland Anime Will Air in October 2025

3. Sony in Talks to buy FromSoftware Parent Company Kadokawa

4. Hello Kitty Island Adventure Fall Event Involves Pompompurin

5. The Game Awards 2024 Nominations Include Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, Astro Bot, Metaphor: ReFantazio

Speak Up Sesh

This week seems like it went by so fast, and yet so slow! I hope everyone who celebrates Thanksgiving in the States had a good one, and if you don’t, then I hope you had a great day regardless. Now that it’s Black Friday, the time to get things on sale (especially before the New Year and Christmas) is starting to run out! Aside from the links above to our Black Friday stories, you can also check out the deals on Amazon, Target, GOG, and Best Buy. If there’s a specific platform you’re interested in sales for, you can check out our guides for the Switch and the Xbox.

We’re still a ways off from The Game Awards 2024, which will take place on December 12, 2024, but there have been a lot of discussions online about this year’s nominations. If you’ve spent any time on sites like Twitter, you’ve probably seen them as well. Arguments about Balatro’s nomination because some people wanted to see games like Stellar Blade potentially win instead. Criticism of the change to the rules to allow the Elden Ring DLC to receive a nomination. Things like that.

Honestly, the idea of a DLC receiving a nomination for GAME OF THE YEAR is kind of ridiculous… It’s not even a full game? You’d need to buy the main Elden Ring in order to play the DLC and Elden Ring didn’t come out in 2024. I’d say it sets a pretty bad precedent, except I’m part of the conspiracy theorists who believe that the rules were only bent for this year specifically because of Shadow of the Erdtree, and no DLC will ever be allowed to become nominees in the future.

Speaking of Elden Ring, the news of Kadokawa’s potential acquisition by Sony have been rather unsettling indeed. This would be a huge deal, considering how large Kadokawa is. It’s not as if Sony would simply be purchasing FromSoftware. It would be the entire conglomerate, including its multiple group companies. Such a large corner of the anime, manga, and gaming market under the control of a single corporation can only mean bad things for consumers in the future. Hopefully, the deal falls through, but the track record for “I sure hope the outcome of this situation isn’t the worst possible one!” in 2024 hasn’t been very good so far…

In any case, as November winds down, I hope you enjoy your last few days of freedom from Christmas music in the malls and carolling on the streets. (Now that I think about it, I’m belatedly surprised that I heard people carolling the other day… We’re still in November!)

Upcoming Releases

• Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp Complete (iOS, Android) - December 2

• Fantasian Neo Dimension (PS4, PS5) - December 5

• Infinity Nikki (PS5, Windows PC, iOS, Android) - December 5

• Marvel Rivals (PS5, Xbox Series X, Windows PC) - December 6

• Fairy Tail 2 (Windows PC) - December 11