If enough gamers want it, Final Fantasy XIV MMO game director Naoki Yoshida says the game could go free-to-play one day--or at the very least he'll consider it.

Final Fantasy XIV is one of the best MMOs I've ever played because it adds tremendous value to your experience. The amount of effort Square Enix puts into this game is staggering, and you feel that your money is well-spent. The game is one of the last bastions of subscription-based gaming out there, and throughout its triumphant relaunch as A Realm Reborn, the team has opened the experience up with an expansive free trial and some microtransaction additions. But it never lost its high-quality focus for active subscribers. So far lots of gamers agree with my asessment: Final Fantasy XIV broke subscriber milestones this year and saw 10 million cumulative players.

But Yoshida-san is so ardent in his cause to serve the community that if enough Final Fantasy XIV players demanded the game to F2P to make it more accessible, he'd consider the possibility.

Forza 7 has gotten lots of flak recently for its "pay to earn" scheme that sees gamers optionally paying real-world money not to directly buy in-game rewards, but to boost the possible outcome of said rewards. But this isn't a new trend in gaming--far from it.

Pay to earn is actually an old staple of freemium microtransactions, but it's used in new AAA games too. Take Destiny 2, for example. Destiny 2's microtransactions are creatively tied with the base game to essentially whet the appetite of players who become locked into the game's addictive ecosystem--addictive because of the loot grind cycle that's freely available to all players, but mTX offers yet another calculated layer to the addiction. Destiny 2, a paid $60 AAA game, contains a pay-to-earn tick...although it's more indirect than Forza 7. In Destiny 2 players can buy Silver to exchange for Bright Engrams, which contain mods, cosmetics, emblems, and most importantly, shaders. But if you don't like what you get, you can dismantle the loot box gear for Bright Dust, which is used as a second currency to buy other items, including EXP and loot boosts. So essentially you can convert real-world money into loot boosts--or you can simply level up an get Bright Engrams for free.

The second and third examples are free-to-play games. Blizzard's Heroes of the Storm lets you exchange Gems, which are bought with real-world money, for stimpacks, which boost the XP outcome for a period of time. Star Wars: The Old Republic, another free-to-play game, lets players buy Experience Boosts to increase their EXP gain and level up faster. While the trend may not exactly be new, the inclusion of these schemes in full-priced AAA games kind of is.

With Dota 2's new competitive season about to commence, much of the discussion has been about Valve's new Minor-Major system that begins with StarLadder October 11. In somewhat of a slight novelty, MoonduckTV has announced a new concept entitled "Midas Mode", with the tournament commencing November 18. Midas Mode pits eight teams (4 North America and 4 European) against each other in somewhat of a Fantasy Football meets Dota 2.

Each team is given a set amount of virtual currency, or "Moonbucks", this currency is then used to purchase actions in every aspect of the game. This includes picking and banning heroes, playing as Radiant or Dire and pausing in game will all cost you Moonbucks. This adds an extra level of strategy to the game as popular heroes will cost more, in fact hero prices will fluctuate depending on their win-rate and popularity. Do you spend Moonbucks picking popular heroes? Or do you spend your Moonbucks banning opposition comfort picks? It is up to the team's captain, he just has to make sure there's enough Moonbucks to pause for toilet breaks!

What happens when the bank runs dry? When a team is out of Moonbucks, penalties will occur. They will be forced to pick from a hero-pool of the worst performing heroes, they won't be able to ban, choose sides or even pause. Teams do have a chance to make their Moonbucks back via the Bounty System. The Bounty System is where the viewers can suggest challenges for the pros to attempt so they can earn Moonbucks. Simple right? The harder the challenge, the more Moonbucks to be earnt. A challenge may consist of something simple like winning a game as Techies, or a little more challenging like drafting a lineup consisting entirely of flying heroes, it's up to viewers to set the bounty.

MSI have introduced an all-new series of gaming controllers specifically designed for multiple platforms. MSI's new Force range introduces the Force GC20 and Force GC30.

Compatible with Windows, Android and consoles, both the GC20 and GC30 controllers feature an 8-way D-pad with a replaceable metal cover kept in place by a premium magnetic design that allows the user to adapt their controller to the genre of game they're playing. These controllers feature rubber side grips on both handles that assists grip during those long gaming sessions and also feature haptic feedback that is able to enhance gaming experience.

The difference between the two controllers is due to the GC20 being a wired model, while the GC30 supports both wired and wireless modes. Set for Q4 2017 release with pricing not yet announced.

Microsoft has surprised with the announcement of Halo Recruit, a new Halo experience that uses mixed reality technology inside of the Windows Mixed Reality platform.

Microsoft's Mixed Reality boss Alex Kipman explains Halo Recruit as "It's a fun, brief introduction into the world of Halo. You'll see a variety of iconic characters in mixed reality for the first time". 343 Industries worked on Halo Recruit, but other than that we have no idea what to expect from Halo Recruit just yet.

Halo Recruit will be available on October 17, with Microsoft explaining on their own Windows blog that Halo Recruit is a "fun, brief introduction into the world of Halo - where you'll see several iconic characters in mixed reality for the very first time".

Western Digital have announced the world's first 14TB harddrive, the HGST-branded Ultrastar Hs14. Perfect for cloud-storage and hyperscale data centers, the HGST Ultrastar Hs14 combines HelioSeal and host-managed shingled magnetic recording (SMR) technology to offers 40 percent more capacity and more than twice the sequential write performance of its SMR predecessor and features a 2.5million hours MTBF rating.

This 3.5-inch HDD helps address Big Data challenges and the emerging sequential write workload segment in data centers by focusing on total cost of ownership (TCO). Prioritizing key factors including capacity per rack, power consumption, cooling, maintenance, and acquisition cost, the combination of SMR and HelioSeal Technology is able to deliver impressive watt/TB power efficiency, resulting in a low TCO. These mature, field-proven technologies provide the foundation for delivering efficient, quality and reliable performance required by cloud-storage and hyperscale environments.

"Over 70 percent of the exabytes Western Digital ships into the capacity enterprise segment are on helium-based high-capacity drives and continue to support customers with outstanding reliability, performance and value Quality of Service (QoS)," said Mark Grace, senior vice president of devices at Western Digital. "The TCO and reliability benefits of our HelioSeal platform are the foundation of our leadership in high-capacity enterprise storage."

Patriot have today added a new mouse to its Viper V570 gaming mouse range, introducing the Viper V570 RGB Blackout Edition Laser Gaming Mouse. Featuring an innovative MMO+FPS hybrid design, this high-performance mouse accounts for gamers who demand versatility and customization across a vast array of games.

"We are excited to announce the launch of the new addition to our innovative and bestselling Viper V570 RGB laser gaming mouse series."said Roger Shinmoto, Patriot's Vice President of Product Development. "The unique FPS and MMO hybrid design allows gamers to dominate a wide array of games."

The Viper V570 RGB Blackout Edition is equipped with an Xtreme precision laser sensor and Omron switches for reliability and speed, the Blackout Edition also includes a dedicated sniper button for those FPS gamers. The Viper Software allows the user to program four sensitivity levels up to 12,000DPI that can be changed on-the-fly during gaming and to also set custom RGB lighting profiles. The customization doesn't end there, users can add up to 34.2 grams of weights that allow the user to fine-tune every aspect of their mouse.

ASUS hasn't yet announced the purported ROG STRIX B350-I-Gaming motherboard, but Swedish online retailer Inet has, with plenty of details and photos to look at.

The new ROG STRIX B350-I-Gaming motherboard uses the B350 chipset, with support for up to 32GB of DDR4-3200 RAM, and any Ryzen 3/5/7 processor. ASUS will be including a single PCIe 3.0 x16 port with 2 x USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports, and 4 x USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports.

Storage wise, we have 2 x M.2 slots and 4 x SATA 6Gbps ports, and considering this is a mini-ATX there is an awesome amount of storage capabilities provided by ASUS. There's also GbE and built-in Wi-Fi as well as SupremeFX 8-channel High Definition Audio on-board.

Microsoft will have the fastest console in the world when it launches its new Xbox One X next month, but just how many consoles will Microsoft ship in 2018?

According to Lewis Ward, IDC Research Director for Gaming and VR/AR: "No, the XB1X won't be enough for Microsoft to catch up. It should give PlayStation 4 Pro a run for its money in 2018 in the United States and the United Kingdom, however. I'm projecting about four million XB1X consoles shipped from Q4 2017 through the end of 2018, and about five million PlayStation 4 Pro consoles shipped in the same timeframe".

Ward continued: "The way shipments break down globally, however, that implies a very tight race in the United States and the United Kingdom".

The massive breach of Yahoo looks like it was worse than the original stories, which were already bad, but now Yahoo has said that all 3 billion users had their accounts breached.

Yahoo first reported 1.5 billion accounts had been breached in 2013, something that was announced just days before Verizon acquired the search giant. Verizon, which now owns Yahoo, has said that the attack had breached every Yahoo account... which means 3 billion accounts were attacked.

Verizon disclosed the new findings after an internal investigation into the 3 billion account breach, working with the SEC. The filing reads: "Subsequent to Yahoo's acquisition by Verizon, and during integration, the company recently obtained new intelligence and now believes, following an investigation with the assistance of outside forensic experts, that all Yahoo user accounts were affected by the August 2013 theft".