Accessibility is the next forefront of gaming that will help spark growth in the 2020s era, NPD Group analyst Mat Piscatella predicts.

Games-makers like Microsoft and Sony are breaking down barriers for a reason. There's lots of growth potential in unifying consoles, PCs, and mobile with services by virtue of instant accessibility by anyone, anywhere. Games and service ecosystems are transcending console hardware to tap a wider audience using subscription services like Project xCloud and Google Stadia as an avenue (not to mention the upcoming Amazon and Verizon game streaming services). Cross-saves and cross-play are huge forces of this new era that tie directly into this "play anywhere, with anyone" focus, and will continue being implemented by gaming's biggest multiplayer-driven publishers.

A recent report from the NPD Group's Mat Piscatella breaks down why accessibility is so important.

Massively anticipated games like Cyberpunk 2077, Final Fantasy 7 Remake, and even Animal Crossing: New Horizons will propel 2020's premium gaming spend to record levels.

Next-gen consoles like the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and a slew of big games will drive 2020's gaming revenues to new heights, especially in the AAA games segment. Analyst firm SuperData predicts premium titles will deliver a record-breaking $19.8 billion in 2020, accounting for roughly 15.8% of the total estimated yearly earnings forecast.

"Premium games will have their biggest year ever with $19.8 billion in revenue thanks to major releases in the first half of the year. Highly anticipated games like Cyberpunk 2077, The Last of Us Part II and Animal Crossing: New Horizons will launch before focus shifts to next-generation consoles from Microsoft and Sony," SuperData writes in its latest yearly report.

The Olympics are coming to Japan in 2020 and Japanese game devs like PlatinumGames plan to take full advantage of the spotlight with a plethora of big announcements.

Bayonetta, NieR: Automata and Astral Chain developer PlatinumGames has ambitions plans for 2020. In a recent interview with Inside Games, Platinum CEO Kenichi Sato wants the studio running full steam ahead on new projects.

"This is the year of the Tokyo Olympics. I think the world will focus on Japan. Platinum Games, as Japan's leading game studio, will run at full speed again this year in pursuit of the user's smile so that it can be noticed by users all over the world," Sato said.

Dell has unveiled its new XPS 13 laptop ahead of CES 2020, with the long-time fan-favorite XPS 13 receiving some upgrades for the new decade including a larger display, and new design.

The company has refreshed its famous XPS 13 laptop with a larger 13.4-inch display, with Dell moving towards a wider 16:10 aspect ratio. This means that Dell has a taller display on its new XPS 13, with the company squeezing out the bezel at the bottom of the display for a gorgeous-looking laptop in a small frame.

Dell's new XPS 13 is 2% smaller overall versus its predecessor, giving the company room to pack the 2020 model with a larger keyboard and trackpad. Inside, Dell is tapping some of the latest hardware with Intel's new Ice Lake CPUs in Core i3, Core i5, and Core i7 configurations. You can also configure Dell's new XPS 13 laptop with 4GB, 8GB, 16GB or 32GB of RAM while storage options span between 256GB, 512GB, 1TB, and 2TB of SSD storage.

Dell has just unveiled its new enterprise-focused Latitude 9510 laptop, the first 5G-capable laptop that Dell has made, and also packs some powerhouse internals and stellar battery life starting at $1799. Check it out:

The new Dell Latitude 9510 is a 2-in-1 laptop that packs a 15-inch 1080p display, up to Intel's new 10th-gen Comet Lake CPUs, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD, and Intel UHD graphics. Dell also includes a fingerprint sensor, smart card slot, an IR camera, and a TPM 2.0 security chip -- making its new Latitude 9510 super secure, and super-fast with on-the-go 5G connectivity.

Dell is wanting new Latitude 9510 laptop owners to enjoy truly all-day battery life, with up to 17 hours of charge from the stock 52-watt battery. But for those who want all the battery life possible, Dell can option out the Smart Card for an 87-watt battery that the company promises up to 30 hours of battery life.

AMD has just had its stock reach records highs to kick 2020 off in a big way, and while the company has already officially teased it will push the high-performance computing world at CES 2020 -- the company could unveil its next-gen Zen 3 architecture.

New rumors are surfacing after a Taiwanese newspaper published a report that AMD CEO Lisa Su would "disclose details about Zen 3 architecture at a press conference during CES". We reported back in October 2019 that AMD's new Zen 3 architecture could bring up to and over 8% IPC gains, and another 200MHz as well.

AMD's new Zen 3 architecture will power the next wave of CPUs from AMD in 2020 and 2012, with the new EPYC, Ryzen Threadripper 4000 family, and new Ryzen 4000 series family. The new EPYC is codenamed Milan, while Ryzen Threadripper 4000 goes by Genesis Peak and Ryzen 4000 series with Vermeer. AMD will be making the new Zen 3-based EPYC, Ryzen Threadripper 4000 series and Ryzen 4000 series CPUs on the 7nm+ node.

There's a new report going around that the next-gen PlayStation 5 will play PS1, PS2, and PS3 era games with noticable upgrades and enhancements. This seems unlikely outside of slight native perf boosts, and PS4 games may get more dramatic optimizations including various wizardy like variable rate shading, ray tracing, and a new era of upscaling tech.

According to HipHopGamer, Sony's PS5 has a "remastering engine" that will upgrade legacy PS1, PS2, and PS3 games with new features like supersampled graphics, improved anti-aliasing, and more. There's also mention of ray tracing being injected into old-school PlayStation games to revitalize visuals, similar to how NVIDIA optimized Quake and Minecraft with RTX. This dramatic level of enhancing probably won't extend that far, though.

What HipHopGamer is describing is basically the Xbox One X's Boost Mode functionality, a built-in feature that natively refines performance of specific games, namely with smoothing frame rates, improving texture filtering, reducing screen tearing.

Hideo Kojima's next project could be something unique. It might not be just a game, but a kind of interactive film experience not unlike Black Mirror's experimental choose-your-own-adventure Bandersnatch.

Kojima has been teasing a weird new project for a while now, and we actually have lots of clues of what it could be. Back in April, I predicted the auteur would make an innovative show-like interactive game for Sony's new PlayStation Productions entertainment branch. Death Stranding already has the production values of a movie, complete with a star-studded cast, an eerie and original storyline, and bizarre visuals.

Since then Kojima has been laying on more evidence that a movie-game hybrid could be in the works. Based on what's been said we've put together a good idea of what's next: A horror-based interactive experience with multiple outcomes (similar to P.T.) with AI-controlled sequences, all using streaming as the delivery mechanism. Which could indicate it'll be part of a PlayStation Productions subscription service of some sort and fold directly into Sony's PS5 services revamp.

Final Fantasy 7 Remake will require over 70GB of free space on PlayStation 4, leaked info suggests.

New details from the leaked Final Fantasy 7 Remake demo point to a rather sizable install size. Reports say it could take up to 73.7GB of space on the PlayStation 4, making it bigger than other games like Final Fantasy XV. Remember this is just the first chapter of the game and the full Final Fantasy 7 Remake will release in multiple volumes spread out across years.

Here's how FF7 Remake compares to some of the biggest PlayStation 4 games available today:

As if Xbox Game Pass couldn't get any better for $10 a month, Rockstar brings the biggest game of all time to the service: GTA V.

Grand Theft Auto V is now playable free as part of Game Pass, a move that will bring tons of ripple-down effects for Take-Two Interactive. Given GTA V's colossal sales, this is a tremendous win for everyone involved and should boost Game Pass subscriptions across the board. The service is one of the most accessible ways to sample a wide berth of games in the entire industry, making it a potent and transformative force for publishers.

The motivations here are crystal clear. Take-Two simply wants to make more money from a game that's already made billions. Game Pass is a proven avenue to spark full game sales, and it's no surprise that GTA V is also on sale for 50% off. This is clearly a tactical move to push more GTA V sales past the current 115 million lifetime peak.