Elder Scrolls Online will last beyond 2020 with tons of new content

Derek Strickland | Gaming | Oct 12, 2019 9:00 PM CDT

As Bethesda readies The Elder Scrolls VI, ZeniMax will keep the franchise alive with continued Elder Scrolls Online expansions and content updates.

Elder Scrolls Online will last beyond 2020 with tons of new content

At PAX Australia, ESO creative director Rich Lambert said the MMO shows no signs of stopping. The plan is to make ESO last well into the next-gen console age of 2020 and in the years after, but of course no exact details were outlined. This makes sense considering The Elder Scrolls VI is a long, long ways away (it'll ship after Bethesda's new ambitious Starfield IP) and ZeniMax isn't going to let the huge RPG series go dormant.

So far ZeniMax has made tremendous efforts with ESO. Since its release in 2014, the game has received three major expansions that massively expand the game world (Morrowind, Summerset, and the latest dragon-fueled Elsweyr) and further the story. There's been 11 major DLC drops that also add new dungeons and content to compliment the expansions.

Continue reading: Elder Scrolls Online will last beyond 2020 with tons of new content (full post)

Blitzchung responds to Blizzard's Hong Kong statement

Derek Strickland | Gaming | Oct 12, 2019 6:17 PM CDT

Blizzard finally spoke out about the tumultuous Hong Kong controversy, reversing its original punishments. Now Blitzchung responds with a statement of his own that praises Blizzard's move.

Blitzchung responds to Blizzard's Hong Kong statement

Blizzard kicked the hornet's nest by banning Chinese player Blitzchung for calling for Hong Kong's liberation, leading to nearly a week of roiling PR chaos as fans boycotted the company, politicians lambasted Blizzard, and gamers expressed outrage. Now Blizzard is backpedaling on their original decision and plans to give Blitzchung his winnings back and reduce his ban.

In a recent statement, Hearthstone pro player Blitzchung expressed gratitude to Blizzard for their change of face. The player is happy to hear his winnings will be returned, and his one-year ban has been reduced to six months. He isn't sure if he'll compete in pro Hearthstone tournaments, though.

Continue reading: Blitzchung responds to Blizzard's Hong Kong statement (full post)

Enter our 'Yesterday' Blu-ray giveaway today!

Ben Gourlay | Contests & Giveaways | Oct 12, 2019 6:06 PM CDT

Thanks to our friends at Universal Home Entertainment, we have ten Blu-ray copies of the new release comedy drama 'Yesterday' to give away!

Enter our 'Yesterday' Blu-ray giveaway today!

Yesterday, everyone knew The Beatles. Today, only Jack remembers their songs. He's about to become a very big deal. From Academy Award-winning director Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire, Trainspotting, 28 Days Later) and Richard Curtis, the Oscar-nominated screenwriter of Four Weddings and a Funeral, Love Actually and Notting Hill, comes a rock-n-roll comedy about music, dreams, friendship, and the long and winding road that leads to the love of your life.

Jack Malik (Himesh Patel, BBC's Eastenders) is a struggling singer-songwriter in a tiny English seaside town whose dreams of fame are rapidly fading, despite the fierce devotion and support of his childhood best friend, Ellie (Lily James, Mama Mia! Here We Go Again). Then, after a freak bus accident during a mysterious global blackout, Jack wakes up to discover that The Beatles have never existed ... and he finds himself with a very complicated problem, indeed. Performing songs by the greatest band in history to a world that has never heard them, and with a little help from his steel-hearted American agent, Debra (Emmy winner Kate McKinnon), Jack's fame explodes. But as his star rises, he risks losing Ellie - the one person who always believed in him. With the door between his old life and his new closing, Jack will need to get back to where he once belonged and prove that all you need is love.

Continue reading: Enter our 'Yesterday' Blu-ray giveaway today! (full post)

Overwatch on Switch is digital-only, ships in empty box without cart

Derek Strickland | Gaming | Oct 12, 2019 4:42 PM CDT

Overwatch retail copies on Switch don't actually include a cartridge, and ship in an empty box.

Overwatch on Switch is digital-only, ships in empty box without cart

Overwatch is coming to Switch, but it's basically a digital-only game even if you buy it in stores. Retailers and Nintendo themselves say versions sold on store shelves will be empty and instead include a code to download the game from Nintendo's eShop.

Luckily the game won't be ridiculously huge: Overwatch clocks in at roughly 12GB on Switch. It's not too bad unless you don't have an SD card for extra storage...then Overwatch will take a chunk out of the Switch's 25.9GB of available memory.

Continue reading: Overwatch on Switch is digital-only, ships in empty box without cart (full post)

Payday 3 coming in 2022 for PS5, Project Scarlett

Derek Strickland | Gaming | Oct 12, 2019 3:45 PM CDT

Payday 3 should release in the next few years between 2022 and 2023, Starbreeze Studios today announced.

Payday 3 coming in 2022 for PS5, Project Scarlett

Despite its crushing financial woes, Starbreeze expects to bounce back with Payday 3. In a recent investor's announcement, Starbreeze revealed a roadmap to stable revenues that hinges on a publishing contract for the release of Payday 3.

The games-maker says it'll procure a publishing deal next year, and Payday 3 will release in 2022-2023, well into the lifecycle of next-gen consoles like the PlayStation 5 and Project Scarlett. Both systems will feature high-end AMD Zen 2 CPUs and Navi GPUs to push 4K gaming and beyond with high FPS and latency, so Payday 3 should be the best-looking and best-playing game to date.

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Olympian runs in a bubble FULL of hydrogen car EMISSIONS

Anthony Garreffa | Electric Vehicles & Cars | Oct 12, 2019 3:31 AM CDT

Hyundai has quite the marketing video for its Nexo: a hydrogen fuel cell-powered SUV that emits just water and oxygen, getting an Olympian to run inside of a bubble in its emissions.

Olympian runs in a bubble FULL of hydrogen car EMISSIONS

It's hard to convey just how clean a hydrogen fuel cell-powered SUV is, so getting a super-fit Olympian (in this case, Olympic swimmer and brand ambassador Mireia Belmonte) to run on a treadmill inside of a bubble that is sucking in the emissions from Hyundai's Nexo is a neat-o idea.

Hyundai makes it clear that the vehicle only emits water and 99.9% filtrered oxygen, with the South Korean car giant teaming with the Spanish National Centre on Hydrogen and a sports medical center to make sure the entire test was safe -- and in the end, we get an awesome display at how efficient and green the Nexo hydrogen fuel cell-powered SUV is.

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ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER appears with dual-fan cooler

Anthony Garreffa | Video Cards & GPUs | Oct 12, 2019 2:29 AM CDT

ZOTAC's new GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER is smiling for the camera, with the world's first pictures of the GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER being a big scoop for VideoCardz.

ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER appears with dual-fan cooler

The site has all of the images you need to see, of both ZOTAC's new GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER graphics cards in both non-AMP and AMP editions. We have now been able to confirm that the GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER definitely has GDDR6 memory, but we don't know what the non-SUPER variant will use just yet.

Both of ZOTAC's new GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER graphics cards use dual-fan coolers and have 3 x DP and 1 x HDMI output for display connectivity. The GTX 1660 SUPER AMP is definitely a slightly larger card, but by slightly -- I truly do mean, slightly.

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Apple's first TV show: new Band of Brothers series with $200M+ budget

Anthony Garreffa | TV, Movies & Home Theatre | Oct 12, 2019 1:48 AM CDT

Apple has just announced its first TV series that it will be producing in-house, securing a new entry in the successful Band of Brothers franchise. Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks, and Gary Goetzman (and their respective companies) are all continuing their involvement with the new series over at Apple.

Apple's first TV show: new Band of Brothers series with $200M+ budget

The new Band of Brothers TV series will go for over 8 hours and have a budget of over $200 million. It will be based on Donald L. Miller's book 'Masters of the Air: America's Bomber Boys Who Fought The Air War Against Nazi Germany'. The new Band of Brothers TV series will be centered around members of the Air Force during World War II.

Until now, HBO had been making the Band of Brothers and The Pacific TV shows securing a huge swath of Emmy awards during the series' run between 2002 and 2010. In total, Band of Brothers and The Pacific were nominated for 43 Emmy's and took home 14 of them.

Continue reading: Apple's first TV show: new Band of Brothers series with $200M+ budget (full post)

AMD's next-gen Arcturus GPU teased, could be here in 1H 2020

Anthony Garreffa | Video Cards & GPUs | Oct 12, 2019 12:29 AM CDT

Now that AMD has had a super-successful launch of its Navi GPU architecture inside of the Radeon RX 5700 series and soon-to-be-released Radeon RX 5500 series, all eyes are on the next-gen Arcturus GPU.

AMD's next-gen Arcturus GPU teased, could be here in 1H 2020

AMD's next-gen Arcturus GPU should find a new home inside of the next wave of Radeon Instinct accelerators, in which AMD is using Vega GPUs right now, adn even in the first half of 2020. But AMD needs to spice up the HPC market with a new GPU and now we're hearing proper whispers of the Arcturus GPU.

The news is coming from HWiNFO in its new beta build v6.13-3945) that "added preliminary support for AMD Arcturus". Komachi also posted on Twitter in what looks to be a new Arcturus-powered AMD Radeon Instinct M100 accelerator, replacing the current flagship Vega 20-powered Radeon Instinct M60 accelerator.

Continue reading: AMD's next-gen Arcturus GPU teased, could be here in 1H 2020 (full post)

AMD Navi GPUs rumored to get ray tracing support in December

Anthony Garreffa | Video Cards & GPUs | Oct 11, 2019 11:50 PM CDT

The big buzzword with graphics cards and gaming right now is definitely ray tracing, but it has been (mostly) exclusive to NVIDIA graphics cards... but it looks like Team Red might be joining Team Green (and even Team Blue) with ray tracing support sooner rather than later.

AMD Navi GPUs rumored to get ray tracing support in December

The latest rumor is that AMD's new Navi GPUs will receive a new driver update that will add ray tracing support for Radeon RX 5000 series graphics cards (Radeon RX 5500 series and the flagship Radeon RX 5700 series) which has been spotted in AMD's latest Radeon drivers that support Gears 5.

AMD doesn't have full hardware ray tracing on its current first-gen Navi GPUs, but the second-gen Navi GPUs coming in 2020 as well as the custom Navi GPU that the company is making for Microsoft's next-gen Xbox Scarlett console and Sony's next-gen PlayStation 5 console will have proper ray tracing support, and they'll both handle ray tracing differently.

Continue reading: AMD Navi GPUs rumored to get ray tracing support in December (full post)