Archive for September, 2016

James Arthur scores second Official UK Number 1 with Say You Won’t Let Go

Friday, September 30th, 2016

James Arthur makes a triumphant return to the top of the Official Singles Chart as his comeback track Say You Won’t Let Go claims this week’s Number 1.

The song notched up 85,000 combined sales (made up of 41,000 downloads and 4.4 million streams) to knock The Chainsmokers’ Closer (2) from the summit after a four week stint at the top.

James told OfficialCharts.com: “This is incredible… I wasn’t in any way expecting it. I knew it was a good song and I thought some people might like it, but if you’d said to me it would be this well received, I would have thought you were pulling my leg.”

James is the second British act to land at Number 1 on the Official Singles Chart this year. Back in February, Zayn debuted at the top with his first solo single Pillowtalk.

Say You Won’t Let Go is James’ second Number 1 on the singles chart, following his X Factor winner’s single Impossible in 2012.

Meanwhile, Canadian singer-songwriter The Weeknd makes an impressive debut with his new single Starboy ft. Daft Punk at Number 3, and Calvin Harris’ latest track My Way lifts a spot to 4.

Outside the Top 10, Ellie Goulding’s track Still Falling For You from the new Bridget Jones film reaches a new peak at 11, and Matoma & Becky Hill’s False Alarm jumps five places to 28.

Finally, two songs climbs into the Top 40 this week; Dua Lipa’s Blow Your Mind (Mwah) at 38 (up eight places) and Craig David & Sigala’s Ain’t Giving Up climbs three spots to Number 39.

Check out this week’s Top 100 Official Singles Chart in full

Bioshock: The Collection stays top of the UK charts

Monday, September 26th, 2016

It’s a relatively static GfK Chart-Track top ten this week, with the only changes of note being the debut of Destiny: The Collection in fourth (which includes Destiny and all of its expansions including the newly released Rise of Iron), and the rise of Fallout 4 which reenters this week’s top ten. That means that Bioshock: The Collection remains at the pinnacle of an unchanged top three that also includes Pro Evolution Soccer 2017 (the PS4 version of which was last week’s best selling game on a single platform) and NBA 2K17.

Here’s the top ten in full:

1. Bioshock: The Collection / 2K / Take 2
2. Pro Evolution Soccer 2017 / Konami / Konami
3. NBA 2K17 / 2K / Take 2
4. Destiny: The Collection / Bungie / Activision
5. Overwatch / Blizzard / Activision
6. Rocket League / Psyonix / 505 Games
7. Fallout 4 / Bethesda / Bethesda
8. Grand Theft Auto V / Rockstar / Take 2
9. Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens / TT / Warner Bros.
10. Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End / Naughty Dog / Sony

This gaming news can be discussed here

Chainsmokers and Halsey secure No.1 for a fourth week

Saturday, September 24th, 2016

James Arthur’s been set for an almighty comeback all week, towering over Lady Gaga in the singles chart and heading for his first No.1 since his X Factor win.

So did he pull it off? Not quite.

James’s new single ‘Say You Won’t Let Go’ has ended the week at number two, just missing out on the top spot.

Chainsmokers and Halsey’s reigning chart topper ‘Closer’ secures No.1 for a fourth week with combined sales of 82,500, also scooping the title of most streamed track.

James Arthur surged from 25 to two and scored the most downloaded single of the week, claiming combined sales of 60,000.

Elsewhere, DJ Snake and Justin Bieber’s ‘Let Me Love You’ drops a place to three while Major Lazer’s ‘Cold Water’ similarly slips a place to four and Calvin Harris’s ‘My Way’ rounds off the Top 5.

At 6, Ariana Grande and Nicki Minaj’s ‘Side To Side’ becomes Ariana’s third highest-charting single, behind her number ones ‘Problem’ and ‘Bang Bang’, while Emeli Sande’s comeback track ‘Hurts’ debuts at 22.

See this week’s Top 100 Official Singles Chart in full

Bioshock soars to the top of the UK charts ahead of PES 2017

Monday, September 19th, 2016

It has clearly been too long since we last visited Bioshock hotspots Rapture and Columbia, and a starved audience demonstrated this by buying enough copies of Bioshock: The Collection to send it straight into first place in the UK retail charts. It’s worth noting that all three games included in this collection also once debuted as number one back in the day.

As an individual game for a specific format, no game sold better than Pro Evolution Soccer 2017 on PS4 (which also debuted in second in the multi-platform chart). Physical sales where down 3% for the series, but we imagine it was more than compensated for by digital downloads. Elsewhere NBA 2K17 scored three points after its launch, and Xbox One / Windows 10 exclusive Recore debuted inside the top five. Here’s the GfK Chart-Track top ten in full:

All formats:
1. Bioshock: The Collection / Take-Two
2. Pro Evolution Soccer 2017 / Konami
3. NBA 2K17 / Take-Two
4. Overwatch / Activision Blizzard
5. Recore / Microsoft
6. Rocket Leaguge / 505 Games
7. Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End / Sony
8. Grand Theft Auto V / Take-Two
9. No Man’s Sky / Sony
10. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided / Square Enix

Individual formats:
1. Pro Evolution Soccer 2017 / PS4
2. Bioshock: The Collection / PS4
3. NBA 2K17 / PS4
4. Bioshock: The Collection / Xbox One
5. NBA 2K17 / Xbox One
6. Recore / Xbox One
7. Pro Evolution Soccer 2017 / Xbox One
8. Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End / PS4
9. No Man’s Sky / PS4
10. Overwatch / Xbox One

This gaming news can be discussed here

The Chainsmokers’ Closer extends its reign over the Official Singles Chart

Friday, September 16th, 2016

The Chainsmokers extend their reign over the Official Singles Chart this week, as Closer keeps the Number 1 spot.

The US duo’s collaboration with Halsey notched up 89,000 combined sales to lead the Top 40 for a third week, made up of 31,000 downloads and 5.8 million streams.

Closer finishes a sizable 31,000 ahead of its closest rival, DJ Snake and Justin Bieber’s Let Me Love You (2), while Major Lazer’s former Number 1 Cold Water holds at 3.

Calum Scott’s Dancing On My Own is a non-mover at 4, and Sia’s The Greatest zooms 44 places to Number 5 – the biggest climber in this week’s Top 40.

New entries and high climbers

Ariana Grande celebrates her fourth Top 10 single today with Side To Side ft. Nicki Minaj, which leaps from 24 to Number 8. The song is now the highest charting from her Number 1 album Dangerous Woman, following the title track (Number 17 peak) and Into You (Number 14).

This week’s highest new entry comes from Lady Gaga and her comeback track Perfect Illusion, which lands at Number 12. The song serves as the lead single from her new album Joanne, which is out on October 21.

Bastille’s Good Grief rebounds seven spots to Number 20 following the release of their new album Wild World this week, and former X Factor champion James Arthur debuts at Number 25 with Say You Won’t Let Go – his first single in three years.

See this week’s Top 100 Official Singles Chart in full

Pokémon Go has stopped working on jailbroken phones

Thursday, September 15th, 2016

A group of Pokémon Go players  have found themselves entirely unable to play after the 0.37.0 update (1.7.0 on iOS) which disables the game on rooted or jailbroken devices.

If a player has meddled with their phone’s operating system, the game now displays a message upon loading which says “This device, OS, or software is not compatible with Pokémon Go.”

The sudden block has caused quite a stir among those with modified smartphones. These players are angry that Niantic allowed them to play for months, and spend cash in-game, only to then force them out.

Reddit user t0ppings was vented their anger in a post on the game’s subreddit.

The Pokémon Go accounts of said users will remain untouched, but many have been keen to point out that actively blocking use on a person’s primary smartphone is equivalent to a hard ban.

Game updates aren’t immediately mandatory, though like most other apps, there comes a point where players must switch to the new version to keep playing. The latest update was released on September 13, and once it’s been installed, it’s near-impossible to get the old version back.

There are many benefits to rooting a phone such as removing unwanted bloatware and improving battery life, but Niantic’s move is probably an attempt to lock out cheaters who use custom software to manipulate the game.

Unless the change is reverted, some players will simply have to wait until they change handset to keep on catching pokémon.

This gaming news can be discussed here

Overwatch tops gaming charts in post-summer lull

Monday, September 12th, 2016

Overwatch has claimed the top spot in the UK gaming charts once again, having beaten off far more recent releases to take the crown.

This is the second week that Blizzard’s team-based shooter has held pole position against more recent titles. Overwatch was released back in May, but its sales have consistently placed it toward the top of the charts since launch.

It finds itself ahead of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided which is only two weeks old, and F1 2016, which was released at around the same time.

It’s also impressive to see GTA 5 still loitering toward the top of the the charts. The release of the Cunning Stunts DLC and enduring popularity of GTA Online have kept its sales healthy.

(Rumours that on the back of its performance Rockstar has installed a toilet in its HQ which flushes using £50 notes in lieu of water are unconfirmed.)

Of course, this list won’t look this way (below) for long. The next three months sees the release of Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, Dishonored 2, PES 2017, FIFA 17, Titanfall 2, and Battlefield 1, to name but a few.

These will all be thrown into the fast-spin washing machine of the autumn and winter charts, where titles are on top one second and down below the next.

The top-ten all-formats games:

1. Overwatch / Blizzard / Activision
2. F1 2016 / Codemasters Birmingham / Codemasters
3. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided / Eidos Montreal / Square Enix
4. Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens / TT Games / Warner Bros.
5. Grand Theft Auto / Rockstar / Take Two
6. Rocket League / Psyonix / 505
7. Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End / Naughty Dog / Sony
8. No Man’s Sky / Hello Games / Sony
9. Doom / id Software / Bethesda
10. Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 / Treyarch / Activision

This gaming news can discussed here

The Chainsmokers stay put at No.1 on the UK singles chart

Friday, September 9th, 2016

The Chainsmokers have extended their reign at the top of the UK singles chart, clocking up a second week at No.1 with their latest hit.

The duo’s new collaboration ‘Closer’ with Halsey took pole position with combined sales of 92,000 copies. That’s 12,000 more than last week.

It means DJ Snake and Justin Bieber have to settle for two once again with ‘Let Me Love You’, while Major Lazer’s hit ‘Cold Water’ (which is also a Biebs collab) rounds off the Top 3.

Calum Scott is at four with ‘Dancing On My Own’ in the completely unchanged Top 5, meaning Twenty One Pilots are still at five with ‘Heathens’.

However, Martin Garrix climbs into the Top 10 with ‘In The Name Of Love’, while Olly Murs has reached a new peak of 15 with ‘You Don’t Know Love’.

Elsewhere, Ellie Goulding’s Bridget Jones’s Baby single ‘Still Falling For You’ climbs to No.19, Ariana Grande and Nicki Minaj jump to 24 with ‘Side To Side’, and Zara Larsson starts at 30 with ‘Ain’t My Fault’.

Further down, Offaiah’s ‘Trouble’ starts to scale the chart, climbing to 31, while Matoma & Becky Hill’s ‘False Alarm’ is up to 35.

See this week’s Top 100 Official Singles Chart in full

Former Sky Blues player and conspiracy researcher David Icke is interviewed by Brooklyn science-fiction author Mark A. Rivera

Thursday, September 8th, 2016

David Icke is the world’s most famous conspiracy researcher. He is the author of numerous books and some controversial theories too. Please note that I do not agree with everything David Icke has said or written, but within guidelines that I stipulated to his publicist when I requested the opportunity to interview him after hearing him on talk radio, I found Mr. Icke to be very forthcoming and gracious. In fact I found him to be a gentleman regardless of the content we did discuss and I am very grateful for the time he gave me out of his “World Wide Wakeup Tour, “ which has been selling out in multiple countries. Mr. Icke is now on the USA leg of this tour with a seminar in New York and then moves on to Los Angeles and SanFrancisco. There will be a link at the end of this interview where those interested in attending can purchase tickets. In addition he has a new book entitled Phantom Self, which can be purchased at booksellers on and offline globally. Below is a transcript of our conversation.

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Blizzard tops the UK retail charts with Overwatch

Monday, September 5th, 2016

World of Warcraft: Legion launched this week, and Blizzard are top of the UK retail charts. You’d be forgiven for thinking that these two events were related, but actually it’s Overwatch that takes top spot this week’s chart, a return to first place on the leaderboard that makes it the Blizzard game that has enjoyed the most weeks at number one in the UK.

Legion, the new expansion for World of Warcraft, might have done better if digital sales were taken into account, but they’re not, and as such it ended up in third place. Interestingly the retail sales for Legion don’t measure up to those enjoyed by previous release Warlords of Draenor, even if the expansion is the highest charting debut of the past week.

There was also a couple of debuts outside of the top ten that you can see below. God Eater 2: Rage Burst landed in 21, while the GOTY edition of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt ended up in 17.

1. Overwatch – Blizzard / Activision
2. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided – Eidos Montreal / Square Enix
3. World of Warcraft: Legion – Blizzard / Activision
4. F1 2016 – Codemasters / Codemasters
5. Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End – Naughty Dog / Sony
6. Grand Theft Auto V – Rockstar / Take 2
7. No Man’s Sky – Hello Games / Sony
8. Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens – TT Games / Warner Bros.
9. Rocket League – Psynoix / 505 Games
10. Madden NFL 17 – EA Tiburon / EA

This gaming news can be discussed here