A virtual reality version of a video game scheduled to be released in Japan is really shocking the US gaming and tech press.

Game publisher Koei Tecmo Games is set to release a game for Sony's PlayStation 4 VR headset called "Dead Or Alive Xtreme 3."

It's a member of a series that's basically all about leering at scantily clad women characters on beaches (covered by the guise of beach volleyball).

But the VR version apparently goes so far beyond that that Engadget calls it "basically sexual assault, the game."

Engadget's Sean Buckley explains:

"The game's virtual reality update is slated to launch on the same day as PlayStation VR, and features a handful of experiences designed to let players ogle the female body. A video from Gamer.ne.jp shows that one of these game modes features active harassment -- allowing a player to continually touch a woman who is verbally protesting.... Yes, that's exactly as gross as it sounds."

UploadVR's Jamie Feltham writes that game features controls that lets a player "prod at the women who will apparently jump and squeal in reaction."

Feltham adds:

"I know it’s easy to look at something like this and say 'Well, Japan' but it’s still surprising to see this all on PlayStation VR ... it’ll be interesting to see if the mere existence of this type of content creates controversy for Sony."

The developers may have had some clue as to what kind of controversy the game would give them if they brought it to the US and European markets, so last fall, the company said it wasn't going to release it in either place.

Which is saying something, as the US also has games where women can be treated in despicable ways and even mere critiques of such content has, more than once, blown up into major threats and attacks on the person pointing out a game's sexism.

Bits of this VR game can be seen via promotional videos and even watching those are pretty awful, Buckley says. 

"Watching a grown man grope a bikini model in virtual reality is awkward enough in its own right, but listening to the video's dialogue makes it worse."

Koei Tecmo Games could not be immediately reached for comment.

SEE ALSO: Microsoft is trying harder to silence internet haters

SEE ALSO: This woman chose to go homeless in San Francisco instead of paying high rent

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NOW WATCH: This robot butler is like your own personal R2-D2

When Niantic, the developers of smartphone sensation Pokémon Go, started to ban cheaters from the game, some users who had thought that they were always playing by the rules were surprised to find themselves banned.

In a new blog post, Niantic explains exactly what happened and why, along with a promise to remove the bans for the users in question.

Long story short: Some players were using certain unauthorized, fan-made apps to find nearby Pokémon in Pokémon Go — apps that actually had an effect similar to a coordinated attack on the Pokémon Go servers, whether or not the players knew it.

Most map apps, like the popular Pokévision, were already shut down by Niantic for violating the game's terms of service. But in the wake of those shutdowns, players have flocked to smaller, sometimes sketchier tools to get their Pokémon hunting fix.

Niantic CEO John Hanke explains the problem with that in the blog post:

Some players may not have realized that some add-on map apps do more than just show you nearby Pokémon. Each end-user app can be used as a collection tool by the app creator, invisibly collecting and forwarding data to the app creator with or without the knowledge of the end user.

In other words, certain of these so-called "add-on map apps" were hammering the Pokémon Go servers with way too many requests for information at once, which was putting a real drag on the game's performance.

To Niantic, all of those requests looked like a "distributed denial of service," or DDoS, attack: A common, relatively basic technique where a cyberattacker will try to overwhelm a service with lots of automated traffic, jamming up the works and often resulting in the website or game going down.

In defense, Niantic had banned every account that was using those tools in question as part of its overall campaign to ban cheaters. Users who didn't know they were accidentally attacking the Pokémon Go servers were caught up in those sweeps, hence the confusion over why they got banned.

"This is a small subset of the accounts banned," Hanke writes.

Now, Hanke writes, they've made some upgrades to their infrastructure that can account for the difference between an actual cheater, and someone who was merely using one of those sketchy Pokémon Go apps. Niantic has opted to give those users the benefit of the doubt over whether or not they knew they were breaking the rules, and will be reversing the ban.

But, Hanke warns, this doesn't mean that Niantic is softening on cheaters: Those apps explicitly break Niantic's terms of service for the game, and using them ever again could get you another ban. And they're not lifting the ban on any kind of Pokémon Go cheaters, or the fake accounts that hackers make in order to scrape information.

"Our main priority is to provide a fair, fun, and legitimate experience for all players, so, aggressive banning will continue to occur for players who engage in these kinds of activities," Hanke writes.

SEE ALSO: Microsoft rejected this guy for not showing 'passion' — so he built his own version of Pokémon Go from scratch

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NOW WATCH: A restaurant's serving Pokemon burgers – but there's a twist when you buy one

Tencent, the largest tech giant in China, just got even bigger.

The company acquired the maker of the smash hit mobile game, "Clash of Clans".

Tencent's other holdings include WeChat, QQ Game Platform, and Tencent News. Just recently, Tencent Holdings posted a 47% boost in net profit for the second quarter — a rise attributed to the doubling of the company's revenue in mobile games.

One of the major forces behind the company's soaring prospects is Tencent Senior Executive Vice President, President of Tencent Online Media Group, and Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity's "Media Person of the 2015" SY Lau.

We are very excited to reveal that this media industry veteran will be speaking at the IGNITION conference in December. We believe that SY Lau will have a lot of excellent insight to reveal on the current state and future of digital media at Business Insider's flagship event.

Other IGNITION speakers include AOL CEO Tim Armstrong, Adobe EVP and CMO Ann Lewnes, Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins, and Axel Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner. IGNITION will take place December 5-7 at the Time Warner Center in New York City.

Act now – early-bird tickets are only available till next week!

SEE ALSO: Tencent's SY Lau Tells Us How The Chinese Internet Giant Plans To Get Even Bigger In 2015

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NOW WATCH: This blind gamer says the video game industry is becoming less inclusive

Sling TV CEO Roger Lynch doesn’t think the narrative of "cord-cutters" fleeing cable because of high prices is a myth. He he thinks we’re well into that reality already.

“It’s undeniable that traditional pay TV subscribers are in decline,” he tells Business Insider, highlighting recent losses, which totaled over 800,000 last quarter according to SNL Kagan.

The pitch of Sling has always been that it would help bring those cord-cutters back into the fold.

Since Sling debuted in early 2015, it has led the charge toward a “skinny bundle” of cable channels. The concept is simple: get rid of that bloated package of hundreds of channels and replace it with 20-odd good ones, for around $20. Sling has a few different options now, but the core is still a lean selection of channels, priced low, streaming over the internet, and delivered to whatever device you want.

Sling watches people throw off their $100-plus cable plans, and then sells them on something cleaner, cheaper.

Changes

When Sling started 18 months ago, it was the only company really doing that. That is set to change in a big way, as a ton of players, from Hulu to DirecTV to Amazon, are poised to crash into the market.

But Lynch says that, to him, these new entrants into live streaming seem to be just recreating the big bundle, which misses the point of a shift in what viewers want. “To me, it’s recreating the sins of the past,” Lynch says, speaking about Sony’s Vue service, which starts at over 60 channels and balloons to over 100.

Lynch says he expects Hulu’s offering to be similar to Sony's, given that Hulu’s big TV owners have an understandable interest in maintaining the potency of the big bundle (the rumors coming out of Hulu are that it will be in the ballpark of $30-$40 per month). “It’s not that likely that they end up dumping a bunch of channels out of the base package,” Lynch continues. There’s a lot of institutional pressure to protect the big bundle, he says.

But Lynch doesn’t think that type of service will define the future.

“I don’t think that just recreating that will materially change the trajectory of the industry,” he says. Instead, he thinks that Sling’s skinny bundle is ready to expand its audience. On Tuesday Sling rolled out a new marketing campaign featuring Danny Trejo, its first going after “all active pay TV subscribers,” Lynch says.

“There are 40 million active streaming players [like Roku, Apple TV, etc.] in the US. That’s mass market,” Lynch says. That's the primary way consumers access streaming TV services like Sling. The distribution channel is there, and right on cue, competitors are flooding into the live streaming TV space.

Now it remains to be seen if Sling’s core philosophy is enough to maintain its leadership position in live streaming, and propel it beyond the “more than 600,000” subscribers it hard earlier this year  (though Lynch says its growth has been accelerating).

Here is one of Sling's new spots featuring Danny Trejo, aimed at the mass market:

SEE ALSO: This chart shows how quickly Netflix is widening its lead

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NOW WATCH: The tax strategy that is about to cost Apple billions

Stephen Colbert is excited about the possibility of Bill Clinton as the first male spouse of the US president, and on Monday's "Late Show," he examined how Bill is preparing for the job.

"As America's potential First Ladies' Man, Bill Clinton is already making spousal history," Colbert said, before launching into the various traditional requirements of the First Lady.

The Family Circle First Lady Cookie Contest dates back to Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign, when Hillary controversially said, "I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas, but what I decided to do was to fulfill my profession." The comment was taken by some at the time as a slight against stay-at-home moms.

Nevertheless, Hillary participated in the cookie contest, and now Bill is doing the same — sort of. The contest has actually been renamed the Presidential Cookie Poll.

"Because when you're forcing the spouses of preisdential candidates to be judged on their baking, you don't want to sound sexist," Colbert deadpanned.

Not only that, it turns out Bill Clinton submitted the exact same recipe Hillary had used before, as The Washington Post points out. It won in both 1992 and '96, and will go up against Melania Trump's sugar cookies.

"Cmon, man. Who would've thought Bill Clinton was a cheater?" Colbert joked. "Be careful, Bill. You can't just use all of Hillary's old moves. First of all, you're never going to fit into her inaugural gown."

The cookie exercise aside, which critics have long called retrograde and sexist, Colbert is excited about everything Bill would have to jump into as the first spouse if Hillary is elected.

"I'm excited about Bill Clinton's potential first huband-dom. If I were Hillary, I'd come up with many more traditions for him to be in charge of," the host said. "Really, just anything to keep him busy."

Watch the video below:

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NOW WATCH: This incredibly detailed Batman costume just set a Guinness World Record

The 30th annual Burning Man kicked off over the weekend in the Black Rock Desert, and the pictures already look unreal.

The annual festival/art installation is taking place this year from August 28 to September 5 at its yearly site two hours north of Reno, Nevada.

Tents and RVs already litter the landscape. "Burners" roam between tents and art installations, and first-timers roll naked in the dirt as a Burning Man baptism.

It looks just as crazy as it sounds. Here's the latest on Instagram:

You can see more crazy 'grams by following hashtags like #BurningMan, #BurningMan2016, and #BlackRockCity.

There is also a Burning Man live stream:

Get the latest updates from the official Burning Man Twitter feed.

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Seth Meyers says Donald Trump has a dubious advantage entering the presidential debates against Hillary Clinton: The public has low expectations for the real-estate mogul.

Speaking on Monday's "Late Night," Meyers first showed video of Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor who has advised Trump during his campaign, describing the advantage, which Meyers agreed with.

"Trump's biggest advantage is how low the bar is currently set," Meyers said on Monday's "Late Night." "Basically, as long as he doesn't walk onstage, take a whiz on the side of the podium, and make up a story about how Hillary robbed him at gunpoint, he will exceed expectations."

The host quoted a recent Washington Post article that described the Democratic presidential nominee's debate prep as "methodically preparing for the presidential debates as a veteran lawyer would approach her biggest trial."

"So just your laid-back classic Hillary," Meyers joked.

In contrast, the article describes Trump's debate-prep style in much looser terms. He gathers his advisers "to his New Jersey golf course for Sunday chats," it says. They do so, it adds, over "bacon cheeseburgers, hot dogs, and Coca-Colas." While Clinton studies policy, Trump and his advisers "test out zingers" and "refine" Trump's pitch, according to the article.

And if the low bar isn't enough of an advantage in the debates, Trump has already begun publicly sharing his suspicion that the nonpartisan presidential-debate commission will choose moderators who are looking to derail him, along the lines of the accusations he hurled at Fox News host Megyn Kelly during the Republican primaries.

That has led the committee to push back its announcement of the moderators for the three debates to have more time to test potential moderators for bias. But Meyers thinks that's a waste of time.

"Look, guys, don't bend over backward for Trump," Meyers said. "The only way he won't complain is if he gets to moderate the debate himself."

Watch Meyers take a closer look at the presidential candidates' debate preparation below:

SEE ALSO: Seth Meyers explains why Donald Trump's new immigration stance is a 'sham'

DON'T MISS: Conan O'Brien made a jaw-dropping Donald Trump parody ad 'just for black voters'

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NOW WATCH: ANN COULTER: Here’s why Trump doesn’t have higher favorability ratings

Another day, another reminder that iconic live TV events are in major trouble.

Sunday's TV broadcast of MTV's VMAs (Video Music Awards) drew in a paltry 6.5 million viewers, down 34% from last year's 9.8 million, according to The New York Times.

34%!

And that included the fact that Viacom broadcast it on a whopping 11 channels, and the awards show included appearances by superstars from Kanye West to Rihanna to Beyoncé.

The VMAs drop comes on the heels of NBC's disastrous TV showing at the Olympics, which saw a sharp viewership dip for the first time since 2000. NBC's Olympics primetime broadcast was down 15% versus 2012. The damage was even greater among younger people. Among 18- to 49-year-olds, there was a 25% drop-off for the bulk of the games, according to Bloomberg Intelligence.

The way out

But though both these events show the young people simply aren't tuning into "must-see" TV events in the way they used to, they also show a potential path forward.

MTV told the Times the VMAs got 62.8 million streams on Sunday, up 70%.

This mirrors the Olympics. NBC told The Verge 50 million people watched the Rio games online, up 109% from the previous games. NBC also said the total number of minutes "more than doubled the number from all prior games combined," according to The Verge.

And beyond VMA streams on MTV's own properties, the company also touted the increase in the VMAs distributed presence. MTV told the Times that the VMAs had snagged 45.8 million streams on Facebook, a monster bump from the 4.4 million it got last year, though it's important to remember that Facebook counts a "stream" when the video is played for just three seconds. 

On the Twitter front, Vulture notes that the hashtag #VMA was a top global trending topic for 13 hours.

The money

But the big question is whether companies like NBC and MTV will be able to monetize online video in a meaningful way, especially if it begins to displace traditional TV broadcasts.

NBC was actually able to charge 50% higher ad rates for internet ads than for those on TV because of the younger audience, NBC Sports chairman Mark Lazarus told Bloomberg. But 98% of people still watch the Olympics on TV, the medium that saw its audience tank.

On the other side, MTV drew huge audiences for the VMAs in places like Facebook, but how long they tuned in for, and consequently, the volume of ads that MTV could serve, is uncertain. Being a global trending topic isn't much use to MTV if it can't wring the same kind of revenue out of the event as it used to.

(Side note: The Oscars this year hit an 8-year low in ratings, according to Variety, and September's Emmys saw the worst ratings in its history. We'll see how this year's Emmys do.)

SEE ALSO: NBC's Olympics 'nightmare' has all but come true

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NOW WATCH: Ryan Lochte has been charged with making a false robbery claim

Each month, beyond the most notable album releases, a number of other great LPs inevitably fly under the radar. 

To help you find the slightly more hidden gems, Business Insider has compiled this list of the albums that you might not have heard yet. 

In August, Frank Ocean's visual album was eclipsed one day after its release by his best-selling album "Blonde," and Wu-Tang Clan's RZA put out a collaborative LP with legendary indie rocker Paul Banks from the band Interpol.  

Check out this month's best albums you might have missed:

SEE ALSO: The 5 best new songs you can stream from the week of August 26

Frank Ocean — "Endless"

Frank Ocean reportedly pulled a fast one on his record label Def Jam by fulfilling his contract with "Endless" — a 45-minute visual album that isn't for sale — so that he could reap the lucrative benefits of independently releasing his proper studio album "Blonde" the following day.

Nonetheless, "Endless" stands on its own as a cohesive mood piece and one of the best collections of B-Sides in recent memory. Separated from its tedious visual component — in which Ocean literally builds a staircase — the artist's contemplative project rewards re-listening. 

Listen to it on Apple Music.

Dinosaur Jr. — "Give a Glimpse of What Yer Not"

Dinosaur Jr., one of the most influential bands in alt-rock history, returned from a four-year hiatus this month with their fresh and accessible 11th studio album, "Give a Glimpse of What Yer Not." 

With great songwriting from lead singer J Mascis and excellent, distorted guitar work, the group's new album is one of the best rock releases of the year so far. 

Listen to it below, via Spotify.

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Motion Graphics — "Motion Graphics"

"Motion Graphics," the debut album from New York electronic producer Joe Williams, transfixes the ear with an innovative, mind-bending array of digital sounds.

Williams' steady voice guides the album through its bizarre aural environments, which are alternately pleasant and unsettling. The lead single, "Houzzfunction," is a great highlight. 

Listen to the album below, via Spotify.

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Hollywood was shaken up by the death of the great comedy actor Gene Wilder on Monday.

Wilder, best known for his work on Mel Brooks' comedies "The Producers" and "Young Frankenstein" and the 1971 film "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory," died on Monday at 83 from complications related to Alzheimer's disease.

Brooks was among the many stars who paid tribute to Wilder on social media and elsewhere.

Here are their words of condolence and praise:

SEE ALSO: Gene Wilder, star of 'Willy Wonka,' has died at 83

Mel Brooks

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Gene Wilder-One of the truly great talents of our time. He blessed every film we did with his magic & he blessed me with his friendship.

James Corden

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Jim Carrey

Tweet Embed:
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Gene Wilder was one of the funniest and sweetest energies ever to take a human form. If there's a heaven he has a Golden Ticket. ;^)

It's possible to see the hottest ticket on Broadway now for a relatively reasonable price, but you'll have to be up for standing around.

You used to have to wait a full day, or even up to three days, to try to score cancellation tickets to "Hamilton," the hip-hop musical phenomenon.

But since many of the original core cast members have left — only five remain — the cancellation line for the show has gotten less crowded.

Do your homework and follow the "Hamilton" cancellation line forum on Broadway World for daily updates on how many tickets are released.

I aimed to go on August 6 and started avidly reading the forum the week leading up to that Saturday. I also visited the line on a different day to get a feel for when the first few people in line started to camp out.

A friend and I got there at 5:30 a.m. and managed to make it into the matinee at 2 p.m., getting tickets only 10 minutes beforehand and after an hour-long singalong to the show's soundtrack on the streets. What used to be a three-day wait took just nine hours of my time.

Cancellation tickets cost full price, but that's drastically lower than the thousands they go for via third-party sellers online. Nor do you have to wait until next year to see what everyone has been raving about. I ultimately paid $199 for my orchestra, row-H seat.

Not too bad for the musical of the century.

Watch how we did it above.

SEE ALSO: 12 photos that perfectly sum up the 'Hamilton' craze

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Facebook is a social network. Facebook is a conglomerate (it owns Instagram, WhatsApp, and Oculus VR). Facebook is a hardware company. Facebook is a software company.

Facebook is many things. For instance, it's also a media company.

This is the only description of Facebook, however, that makes CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg bristle. 

"We're a technology company. We're not a media company. When you think about a media company, you know, people are producing content, people are editing content, and that's not us. We're a technology company. We build tools. We do not produce the content. We exist to give you the tools to curate and have the experience that you want, to connect with the people and businesses and institutions in the world that you want."

That's Zuck speaking during a Facebook town hall event held this week, after being asked about Facebook's role in media. 

The actions of Facebook tell a different story. 

• Facebook's 1.7 billion users voraciously consume news through Facebook's social network. It's a major driver of traffic to publications small and large (including this one). 
• Up until last Friday, Facebook paid for a team of over 20 people to curate and maintain its "Trending Topics" section. If that sounds an awful lot like an editorial team, that's because it's an editorial team.
• Facebook makes editorial judgments about what kind of violence it will allow in videos. For instance, when Diamond Reynolds took to Facebook Live, she livestreamed the shooting death of her boyfriend Philando Castile at the hands of police in a routine traffic stop. Facebook initially removed the video, though it was explained as a glitch (the video was back online an hour later).
• Facebook is outright bankrolling media producers like The New York Times, BuzzFeed, Vox, and Business Insider to create content for its Facebook Live video service.
• Facebook changed how its News Feed system works earlier this summer, with the intention of tamping down so-called "clickbait" pieces in favor of more traditional Facebook content (pictures of babies, for instance).

Facebook's reluctance to accept its role as a news company has led to some messy gaffes.

First, there was the report by Gizmodo that the section of Facebook curated by an editorial team had a liberal-leaning slant. That resulted in a reprimand from Congress and Zuck having to make nice with Conservative leaders.

When Facebook fired the staff that ran Trending Topics and revamped the section last week, there was another gaffe pretty much immediately: a top trending topic all weekend was (false) news that Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly was being fired. Because Trending Topics was left to algorithms without any editorial oversight, no one was there to shut down the mass spread of false information before it happened.

And how did Facebook fix the issue? By simply removing it, never mind the hundreds of thousands/millions of people who read it and believed it. Facebook may not think it's a media company, but as a major distributor of news — likely the world's largest — it still faces the same responsibilities that a media company does.

What is a media company in 2016, anyway?

"One traditional definition of a media company is 'a company that delivers information to users and profits by selling ads next to the information.' By that definition, Facebook is a media company," CNN senior media correspondent and "Reliable Sources" host Brian Stelter told Business Insider in an email exchange. "Facebook does not produce the information it distributes, but it is profiting from the ads."

Stelter's been covering media for years, first on his own site, then at The New York Times alongside the late David Carr. Now he runs a CNN show on Sunday mornings named "Reliable Sources," which focuses on media.

"Ethically speaking, Facebook has some of the same obligations that other media companies have," he said. "I believe Facebook has an obligation not to knowingly promote hoax stories as trending topics." 

This is why it's such a big problem that Facebook refuses to acknowledge itself as a media company: it shirks ethical responsibility in doing so. Not just a big problem for me, a guy who works in media, but for you, a Facebook user. Facebook refusing to accept it's a media company means it can, say, perpetuate a false report that a prominent news anchor is being fired when she isn't. 

In November 2014, Rolling Stone published a report titled, "A Rape on Campus." It was discredited in follow-up reporting, and ultimately retracted by the venerable magazine. There was (justifiable) outrage at the false claims in the piece. There was (justifiable) outrage that Rolling Stone had allowed a piece full of false information to be published. How long until Facebook finds itself in the same situation, promoting a false story to billions of people that has the potential to harm? 

"[Facebook] doesn't have the sort of, 'We got it wrong, and here's our method of correcting.' — a Facebook version of an editor's note or a correction. It doesn't exist," Washington Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan told Business Insider in a phone interview. "It would have to rise to an incredibly high level before there would be some sort of action...and I don't even know what that would be. But a note from Mark Zuckerberg about something? That's just not going to happen on a regular basis."

Sullivan knows a thing or two about media criticism. She served as the New York Times Public Editor for four years, a role that's essentially internal critic. Her current job is focused on the larger world of media, and she's written about Facebook's role as a media company before. She said that Facebook has a responsibility when it comes to disseminating information to 1.7 billion people, especially regarding mistakes.

"I do think that there is a responsibility. When you've disseminated that information, there ought to be a way to say, 'Well, we got that wrong. Now it's down and it wasn't true to begin with.' But, from what I can tell, there is no way of communicating with the Facebook audience in that way," Sullivan said.

Indeed, Facebook has no "Public Editor" or "Ombudsman" role, no one to make sure that what you're seeing isn't straight up false. As Stelter put it, "Facebook makes echo chambers louder. But the company doesn't seem motivated to tamp down the noise."

The company prides itself on "getting people the stories that matter to them most," not on getting people stories that are factually accurate. That's a crucial difference, and one that has huge potential impact on what you see.  

So, yes, Facebook is a technology company. It's also a news company, and one that has larger reach than any other news company on the planet. It's time to own that.

SEE ALSO: Facebook is telling the world it's not a media company, but it might be too late

DON'T MISS: A former Facebook news team worker says management basically ignored them

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NOW WATCH: Here’s how to see what Facebook thinks of your political views

It took a woman with "super" skills to finally beat the first stage of "American Ninja Warrior."

Jessie Graff, a stuntwoman for The CW's "Supergirl," made history on Monday night in Las Vegas when she became the first woman to beat the show's first stage during the show's national finals.

In true superhero spirit, Graff wore a glittered, green skirt and top to make her record run through the NBC competition's course. She not only conquered the course, but did so with 12 seconds to spare.

At 32, Graff was looking to fix a past mistake. She attempted the same feat last year, but couldn't get past the curved wall called the Warped Wall. This time, she didn't let it stop her and seemingly scaled it with no problem. But Graff would disagree.

"The Warped Wall — that's one of the things I wanna go back and work on," she told USA Today. "I didn't do it efficiently. I caught the wall by one hand, but it was close... I need to go to skate parks and practice running down the ramps. Skateboarders tend to do well on the Warped Wall."

Graff's preparation for the history-making "American Ninja Warrior" run goes back to her childhood. She told the newspaper that she started out with circus classes at 6, then she began catching others on the trapeze at 12. She also pursued gymnastics and high-school and college pole vault, and earned black belts in tae kwon do and kung fu.

She'll now move on to the show's stage-two course.

As a testament to the show's difficulty, last year — after seven seasons on the air — "American Ninja Warrior" named its first person to complete the show's four-stage obstacle course.

Watch Graff's winning stage-one course run below:

SEE ALSO: NBC names the first champion of its physically grueling 'American Ninja Warrior' competition

DON'T MISS: Here are the 10 rising Hollywood stars who are taking over TV in the fall

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Now that "No Man's Sky" has been out for a few weeks, you might have already run your course with Hello Games's procedurally-generated spacefaring adventure. Maybe you're bored of mining planets for minerals or running out of starship fuel.

Maybe you also just happen to love Mario, Nintendo's Italian plumber mascot who's starred in every kind of game under the sun.

Luckily, there's now a game just for you! "No Mario's Sky" is a fan creation from ASMB Games that blends the bleak infinity of space with the platforming action of "Super Mario Bros." Created in just 72 hours, it's actually pretty cool!

You can download the game for free here, which you might want to do quickly before Nintendo shuts it down. Here's how my journey with the game went:

First, before I get into the game itself, I'd like to give it props for this amazing title screen. Solid work all around.

After a brief tutorial sequence where I forgot to take screenshots, I decided to start over. I started on this planet that looked innocent enough, until I saw the Goombas. They're terrifying. I need to get out of here.

After running to the right for a little bit, I come to a gap too wide to jump across. What to do?

"Madden NFL 17" is being praised as one of the best games in the recent history of the acclaimed series, but it's not without its problems.

In the week since its release, some players across multiple platforms are having their experiences ruined by a malicious glitch.

The bug, which is coming up in several YouTube videos and forum threads, makes it impossible to run play-action pass plays. For the uninitiated, those are the plays when the quarterback fakes a handoff to a running back before throwing the ball.

Specifically, after the player fakes the handoff, the passing icons over the receivers' heads don't appear and it becomes impossible to throw the ball. Here's footage of the glitch in action, from YouTube user John Smith:

Players have reported the glitch happening in multiple modes across the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions of the game. It was brought to my attention by Business Insider markets editor Jonathan Garber, who reported the glitch ruining his experience playing multiplayer in the Xbox version of the game.

This is a big deal because play-action passing is a huge component of a modern NFL offense. If the defense isn't sure whether you're going to run or pass, you've already won. That logic applies both in real and virtual football.

It's also not especially surprising, given that there are several physics calculations happening on any given play in a "Madden" game. For as realistic as the games are most of the time, there are always weird glitches here and there.

The description on the above YouTube video suggests clearing your Blu-Ray persistent storage to fix the bug on Xbox One, while other users have reported that hard resetting the console will fix it. We've reached out to EA to see if they're aware of the bug and are working on a fix, but have not received a response at this time.

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We're in one of the most densely packed windows of the year for new video game releases, and it can be hard to keep up with what's out there.

We've got you covered, from the latest Pokémon game to "Call of Duty."

Here are the 31 biggest games of the holiday season.

SEE ALSO: These are the 20 best games for less than $20

"Bioshock: The Collection"

"Bioshock," which first debuted in 2007, is a critically-acclaimed first-person action series that uses allegorical representations of famous philosophers as its main villains.

Strange as that may seem, the "Bioshock" series is so well-loved that a remastered version of the entire trilogy is coming out in September.

Release date: September 13

Platforms: Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC

"ReCore"

Expectations around "ReCore" are high, and not just because it's being made by some of the minds behind "Metroid Prime" and "Mega Man." 

When the first trailer for "ReCore" came out in June 2015, people were taken by its inventive character design, including the main character's cute robot dog. Though the trailer made some people think "ReCore" would be an epic role-playing game, it looks like it will be more of a standard third-person action/puzzle game. Even still, it still looks like "ReCore" will be fun enough to be worth your attention.

It helps that it will only cost $40, a significant chunk less than the $60 price tag associated with modern game releases.

Release date: September 13

Platforms: Xbox One, PC

"Pac-Man Championship Edition 2"

The first "Pac-Man Championship Edition" was a surprisingly well-made update to one of the most iconic games of all time, and it looks like its sequel will deliver more of the same. 

In a wonderful press release sent out when the game was announced, publisher Bandai Namco said it will "build upon Pac-Man Championship Edition DX’s ‘Chain Eating’ mechanics by enabling fans to build up to four ghost trains before chowing down for maximum chompage points."

You heard it here, folks. Maximum chompage points.

More importantly, the soundtrack of "Pac-Man Championship Edition 2" is going to deliver some serious jams. Just check out the music from the game's announcement trailer.

Release date: September 13

Platforms: Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC

Matthew McConaughey shed close to 50 pounds for his Oscar-winning role in "Dallas Buyers Club," but now the actor has gained 40 pounds for his new movie, "Gold."

McConaughey stars as a Nevada man whose life changes when he makes the largest gold find in history in the jungles of Borneo.

The film is the first feature from director Stephen Gaghan since 2005's "Syriana."

Gaghan told Vulture in a new interview that McConaughey's overweight look, which also includes a receding hairline, for the film is his own and not aided by a prosthetic belly. Though a prosthetic was considered in preproduction, Gaghan ultimately threw the idea out.

"I was looking at him, and I was just like, 'I bet you could put on weight pretty quickly,'" said Gaghan, who apparently thought of devising "some kind of beer-and-milkshake diet" for McConaughey.

So the former Sexiest Man Alive added the 40 pounds to achieve the belly for the film.

"Gold" is not the first time Gaghan has had an A-list star bulk up for a role. For "Syriana," George Clooney gained 35 pounds, and he won an Oscar win for best supporting actor.

"You know, I sent my mother a still photo of [McConaughey] from the set on our last day of shooting," Gaghan said, "and she called me and said, 'Oh, honey. What have you done to that poor man?'"

We have a feeling that if it leads to another Oscar win for McConaughey, he won't mind the transformation.

SEE ALSO: The 12 best Matthew McConaughey performances ever, ranked

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Forbes named Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson as the highest-paid actor in the world with $64.5 million earned in the past year.

 Follow BI Video: On Twitter 

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Google's secretive skunkworks lab is trying to create the multiplayer game of the future. 

The Advanced Technology and Projects (ATAP) division is hiring a bunch of gaming experts to work on a new social smartphone game, according to recent job postings. 

The process appears to be in the early stages as ATAP is looking for a creative director as well as lead backend and mobile games engineers to "propose, design, and implement services to help manage large amounts of user data for multiplayer gaming."

Google doesn't specify the game's title or premise, but says in one listing that it needs a creative director, familiar with the Unity3D game development tool, who will be "responsible for all aspect's of the game's design," including generating "concepts, storyboards, sketches, design documents, and other artifacts as needed to communicate the design vision" and working with the product manager to design all game mechanics.

The ATAP division prides itself on moving quickly (and killing projects liberally), so no there's no guarantee that this game will see the light of day. But for now, ATAP is billing the endeavor to hopefuls as creating "the future of mobile entertainment" and wants developers with 8+ years of experience to build a "cross-platform, shared server development framework" to support "large social engagement through shared gameplay." 

ATAP itself saw a big change earlier this year when Facebook poached its leader, Regina Dugan. Dan Kaufman, who, like Dugan, worked at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency before coming to Google, took over in her wake. 

'Game dev at Google?'

Gaming isn't an area Google has generally cared about in the past, but it may be smarting from the spin-off of Niantic Labs, which created the hugely popular mobile game Pokémon Go. Niantic launched within Google back in 2010 and created a game based on Google mapping data called Ingress, but Niantic split off in late 2015 after the company's Alphabet reorganization. Less than a year later, Niantic's first non-Google affiliated game, Pokémon Go, went ballistic. 

Interestingly, job postings for ATAP's new game don't mention augmented reality (Pokémon Go is considered one of the first widely popular AR games) or working with Tango, Google's 3D mapping tool meant to give any phone AR capabilities, which originally launched in ATAP.

Outside of Ingress, Google hasn't otherwise created any break-out standalone games, and has instead focused on making platforms like Android, Chrome, and more recently, the Daydream virtual reality OS, for other developers to create their own games on.

As one ATAP software engineer puts it on his LinkedIn page:

"Game dev at Google? Who would have thought this existed? It does, and that's what I'm doing."

Meanwhile, ATAP's other known projects include Jacquard, which makes smart fabric, Soli, which uses radar for touchless gesture control, and Spotlight Stories, which creates short VR films. Ara, its modular phone concept, and the aforementioned Tango recently "graduated" from the lab. 

Google declined to comment.

SEE ALSO: The end of Nest as we know it is a sign of a new beginning for Android

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Nintendo's in a bad place.

It's last console, the Wii U, tanked. As such, the company is rocketing away from it on the way towards its next console. 

But even though Nintendo is down-and-out, the Japanese video game giant remains beloved. Millions of the fans the world over are anxiously awaiting Nintendo's next console. We've got good news: it's almost here. Here's everything we know!

SEE ALSO: The 'GoldenEye 007' remake almost happened before it fell apart — here's what it looked like

Thus far, the console only has a codename: "NX".

Nintendo hasn't offered an official name, nor a description, nor really any other major details. Late Nintendo president Satoru Iwata first mentioned the console during an investor presentation in March 2015:

"As proof that Nintendo maintains strong enthusiasm for the dedicated game system business, let me confirm that Nintendo is currently developing a dedicated game platform with a brand-new concept under the development codename 'NX.' It is too early to elaborate on the details of this project, but we hope to share more information with you next year."

It will be a "brand new concept."

From the beginning, Nintendo has insisted that the NX will be a "brand new concept" in the world of gaming. But what does that mean?

Late Nintendo president Satoru Iwata said the console is not intended to simply replace the Wii U or handheld 3DS console.

Iwata also commented on the different ways that "dedicated game systems" are played in Japan and elsewhere, with handheld devices being much more popular than home consoles nowadays in Nintendo's native country. With that in mind, Nintendo wants to "create a new platform that will be accepted by as many people around the world as possible."

Based on those statements and reports from industry insiders, the popular thinking for a while has been that the NX will do something to bridge the gap between home consoles and handheld systems.

According to one report, it's a console you can play at home on a TV and take it on-the-go.

With Nintendo remaining tight-lipped about the Nintendo NX, it was only a matter of time before someone leaked information. That came via an extensive report from Eurogamer in July, which pegs the system as a home/handheld console hybrid — small enough to take with you, perhaps in your pocket, but powerful enough to power TV-based gaming.