▎ Realize the landing of Chinese on the moon by 2030
At 9 a.m. on April 24, at the press conference of the Shenzhou 18 manned mission held at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, the spokesman said that the manned lunar exploration project in 2023 was approved by the central government to start implementation, and the overall goal is to achieve the landing of Chinese on the moon by 2030, and the development and construction of various systems are currently being carried out as planned. The Long March 10 carrier rocket, the "Mengzhou" manned spacecraft, the "Lanyue" lunar lander, the lunar landing suit and other major flight products have completed the development of the program, and the production of sample products and various tests are being carried out in an all-round way.
▎In 2023, the number of digital reading users in mainland China will reach 570 million
At the 3rd National Reading Conference held in Kunming, Yunnan Province, the 2023 China Digital Reading Report was released. In 2023, the scale of digital reading users in mainland China will be 570 million, and the overall revenue scale of the market will be 56.702 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 22.33%, becoming the highest growth rate in the past five years. In 2023, the total number of digital reading works in mainland China will be 59.3313 million, a year-on-year increase of 12.54%.
▎IAA Mini Game Monthly Activity Reaches 500 Million WeChat Open Class IAA Mini Game Special Session was held in Han
On April 24th, the WeChat Open Class IAA Mini Game Special Session was held in Wuhan. The WeChat Mini Games team said that in the first quarter of 2024, the daily activity of WeChat Mini Games will increase by 20% year-on-year, and the IAA (In App Advertisement) Mini Games monthly active games will be 500 million. As IAA Mini Games continue to grow, it is expected that the total commercial volume of IAA Mini Games will exceed 10 billion in 2024.
In this WeChat open class, the WeChat team announced that the number of mini game developers has accumulated more than 400,000, an increase of 10w compared with last year, of which more than 8 percent are small teams with less than 30 people, and most of them are IAA mini game developers.
▎ Free school uniforms for all "Sword Network 3" Foggy Sea Dragon Hunting Expansion Pack is in open beta today
The new expansion pack "Seeking the Dragon in the Sea of Fog" of "Sword Network 3" shocked the public beta today, the second test of technical co-research was officially launched, and many other blockbuster content such as the new team secret realm "Cold Dragon Peak" was launched simultaneously, and the extreme speed end of the notebook opened unlimited grayscale tests. Chivalry can directly download the notebook to log in to the official server, and run the full content normally for grayscale testing, during the grayscale test:
1. The 25-player hero Leng Longfeng will be postponed to the speed end, and the tentative opening time is next Monday.
2. The speed end is not open to recharge for the time being, due to data exchange, the Tongbao recharged by knights on the official website can be used on the speed side.
3. There are also compatibility and differentiation issues on the extreme side, such as translucency, inconsistency between the special effect particles and the PC flagship side, etc., which will continue to improve depending on the optimization pressure.
▎ miHoYo Launcher will be launched soon, integrating PC games such as Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Dome Railway
miHoYo's official recently posted on Miyou that the PC launchers of its games "Genshin Impact", "Honkai Impact 3" and "Honkai: Star Dome Railway" will be updated in the near future, and players can choose to download and install the "miHoYo Launcher" after receiving the update. "miHoYo Launcher" is an integrated launcher that integrates miHoYo's PC games. After updating to the "miHoYo Launcher", players can use the launcher to download and launch a number of miHoYo games. Previously, the third test of miHoYo's game "Jeopardy Zero", "Noise Test", has used miHoYo Launcher.
▎Countdown to the opening of the 2024 Oriental Game Culture Week on April 26: domestic games march to the world
The theme of the 2024 Oriental Game Culture Week is "Games Bloom and Appreciate with the World", and we sincerely invite game connoisseurs from all over the world to appreciate the oriental game culture and win global recognition and affirmation for domestic games. The online game show will be held on April 26 (Friday) at 1:00 a.m., and the event will be presented on the domestic Steam platform and the overseas Steam platform.
From 1 a.m. on April 26, 2024 to 1 a.m. on May 4, 2024, the "2024 Oriental Game Culture Week", an online exhibition hosted by the Steam platform and with the participation of a number of domestic and foreign game manufacturers, will be held as scheduled.
▎ Station B 2024 high-energy video game festival high-energy is coming!
Bilibili's "High Energy Game Festival 2024" will be held from April 26 to May 5, and 26 manufacturers including Sega, Ubisoft, and Marvelous will participate in the exhibition. The event aims to vigorously promote high-quality indie games, encourage developers, and present more diverse and interesting live content through many well-known UP main demos and interactions.
▎ "Don't Starve" developer's new work "Crucible Jungle" opens early access on Steam, 36 yuan in China
On April 25th, it was reported that the new work "Crucible Jungle (Rotwood)" by Kore Entertainment, the developer of the "Don't Starve" series, has now opened early access on the Steam store, with a limited-time discount price of 36 yuan in the country. Currently, Crucible is only available on Steam PC. With the early access progress, other platforms may be gradually launched; the game supports official Chinese, and the vast majority of the game's content has been sinicized. According to the developers, the game will continue to be developed and updated during the Early Access phase from 2024 to 2025.
▎KFC became the first fast food brand to complete the development of the beta version of HarmonyOS native app
On April 24, Yum China and Huawei jointly held a beta release ceremony for the HarmonyOS native app in Shanghai, officially announcing that Yum China's KFC Super App has completed the beta version of the HarmonyOS native app, making KFC the first fast food brand to complete the beta version development.
▎ The job posting shows that Blizzard Entertainment is advancing new game projects
Blizzard announced layoffs of 1,900 employees in January, in addition to news that the studio had canceled a game that was in development and had not yet been named. According to Blizzard's official job posting, the studio is moving forward with another new game project. Blizzard is currently hiring for 12 positions, including senior positions such as game creative director, with 15 years of development experience in the game industry and at least one AAA game as a creative director.
▎Microsoft and Coca-Cola have reached a five-year partnership agreement on cloud and generative AI initiatives
Microsoft and Coca-Cola said in a statement on April 23 that they will establish a five-year strategic partnership to align Coca-Cola's core technology strategy system-wide, promote the adoption of cutting-edge technologies, and drive innovation and productivity on a global scale. As part of the partnership, Coca-Cola has committed $1.1 billion to the Microsoft Cloud and its generative AI capabilities. Through the partnership, the two companies will work together to try new technologies such as Azure OpenAI Service to develop innovative generative AI use cases across a variety of business functions, including testing how Microsoft 365 Copilot can help improve productivity.
▎ "Assassin's Creed: Codename Witch" game details revealed
Tom Henderson recently revealed that he shared information about the game Assassin's Creed: Codename Witch. Assassin's Creed: Codename Witch is currently in very early stages of development and is expected to be released in 2026. The game's main character is named Elsa, the only female character in the game, a dark witch set in 16th-century Germany.
Players need to play as Elsa in the game, and one of the magical skills is that they can turn themselves into cats to distract the soldiers. It is reported that in order to match the witch setting in the game "Assassin's Creed: Codename Witch", a new fear system has also been introduced, which allows players to instill fear in their opponents and make them escape.
▎Google will invest 600 million euros in a new data center in Groningen, the Netherlands
Google said on April 23 that it would invest 600 million euros in a new data center in Groningen, the Netherlands, to create 125 direct jobs. Since 2014, Google has invested more than 3.8 billion euros in data centers and related digital infrastructure in the Netherlands.