Technology

Image by Computerworld / Apple

Sony wanted its E3 2018 press conference to be an event. Not the &we have 50 new titles to show you& event Microsoft just put on, so much as the get up and walk around kind.

It was kind of like one of those trendy experiential restaurants. The portions are small and you&re still hungry after the final course, but itkind of fun, I guess.

The Last of Us Part II

A trailer bookended with a passionate kiss showed up some extremely refined gameplay for the post-apocalyptic survival game. It was…gory. But, then, thatkind of what we&ve come to expect from the series, and the crowd went predictably wild with each close up hack and slash on the big screen.

Ghost of Tsushima

Another stunning — and amazing gory — one on the giant display. This samurai story is set during a Mongol invasion, featuring a whole lot of sword to torso action and got its gameplay debut at the show.

Control

Not a lot to go on here, but the trailer has a real first-person shooter crossed with Inception, which is perfectly okay with us.

Resident Evil 2

A remake for the popular zombie murdering series got what may well have been the most excited crowded reaction from the bunch. Lot of reveals here, but man was that face eating shot nice and close. Itup for preorder today and will hit retail January of next year,

Trover Saves the Universe

From one of the co-creators of Rick and Morty, the trailer was fishing for laughs, but came up short, even in a crowd full of Playstation fans. Looks colorful, though.

Death Stranding

Norman Reedus ripping off his toenail was somehow more unsettling than all of the zombie murders of the past half-hour put together. Definitely one of the most innovative trailers we&ve seen so far — beautiful landscapes, close up child birth and hey, neat future umbrella.

MarvelSpider-Man Game

Due out in September, we knew this one was going to get some solid face time at the event. Sony showed off a good deal of gameplay, featuring your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man battle some familiar supervillians inside the Raft super prison.

Naspers, the South Africa-based firm that famously backed Chinese giant Tencent in its infancy, is in talks to invest in Singapore-based startup Carousell, according to two sources with knowledge of discussions.

Carousell offers a mobile app that combines listings with peer-to-peer selling across Southeast Asia, Taiwan and Hong Kong. That makesit well-aligned with Naspers& portfolio, which features some of the worldlargest classifieds services including OLX, which covers 45 countries, Letgo in the U.S. and Avito in Russia.

TechCrunch understands that Naspers is pursuing a deal with Carousell with a view to making it the firmkey play in Southeast Asia and other parts of the APAC region.

Discussions are at a relatively early stage so it isn&t clear what percentage of the company that Naspers is seeking to acquire, although it would be a minority investment that values the Carousell business at over $500 million. The deal could be a first step towards Naspers acquiring a controlling interest in the business further down the line, one source said.

Carousell declined to respond when asked for comment.

&It is our companypolicy to neither acknowledge nor deny our involvement in any merger, acquisition or divestiture activity, nor to comment on market rumors,& Naspers told TechCrunch in a statement.

Timing of the discussions is notable since Carousellannounced a $85 million investment roundin May. (TechCrunch broke news of the round the previous October.)That deal — the startupSeries C — took it to $126 million from investors to date and added big names to theCarousell cap table.EDBI, the corporate investment arm of SingaporeEconomic Development Board, and SingaporeDBS, Southeast Asialargest bank, took part in the Series C, which also included existing backers Rakuten Ventures, the VC linked to Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten, Golden Gate Ventures, Sequoia India and 500 Startups.

Earlier this month,Carousell CEO and co-founder Siu Rui Quek told Bloombergthat the company had turned down acquisition offers in the past.

Carousell is highly-regarded in Singapore for being one of the first home-grown startups to show promise — its three founding members each graduated the National University of Singapore, NUS.

Aside from raising significant investor capital, it has scaled regionally it is battle against larger and better-funded e-commerce rivals Alibaba -owned Lazada and Shopee, a business from NYSE-listed Sea. In May, Quek told TechCrunch that Carousell has helped sell over 50 million items between users and it currently has over 144 million listings.

Naspers, meanwhile, has upped its focus on Southeast Asia in recent times, although its sole deal isa $5 million investment in crypto startup Coins.ph.

The firm remains best known for its Tencent deal, which is legendary in investment circles.Back in 2001, it bought 46.5 percent of Tencent for $32 million. Over time that was diluted to 33 percent, but it grew significantly in size as Tencentbusiness took off, going on to become Asiafirst $500 billion company last November. Naspers resisted the urge to sell until March 2018 when it parted with two percent of the firm in exchange for around $9.8 billion.

Another of Nasperbig wins this year wasFlipkartsale to Walmart which earned it $2.2 billionin returns.