Epic Games today announced that it's been selected to join the Disney Accelerator program, which arms developers and entertainment companies with more resources and tools to bring their dreams alive.

Leading games developer Epic Games, who's responsible for acclaimed games like Unreal Tournament, Gears of War, and Paragon and the Unreal Engine 4 that powers countless games, joins 10 other diverse companies in Disney's acceleration program. The Disney Acceleration program gives partnered companies access to the "range of creative expertise and resources of The Walt Disney Company to help them develop their innovative new entertainment experiences and products," and includes a variety of companies from analytical firms to learning tool developers and the unique VR startup VOID.

"The Disney Accelerator has provided The Walt Disney Company incredible opportunities to connect with and be inspired by many talented entrepreneurs from all over the world," said Michael Abrams, Senior Vice President, Innovation, The Walt Disney Company. "This year, more than ever, we are working with companies with the potential to help define the future of media and entertainment together with Disney."

SuperData Research predicts that Destiny 2's digital version on PC will significantly outsell the console flavor by as much as 200%.

According to the latest prediction from SuperData Research, Activision's latest FPS juggernaut Destiny 2 will sell between 4 and 5 million digital units on PC and consoles in its first three months of availability. Activision has already predicted big sales for Destiny 2 throughout the remainder of its fiscal year, and industry expects reflect that the sequel will be in the top five biggest games released this year.

The forecast notes that Destiny 2 has a 33% chance to sell 1.5 million digital units on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One family of systems in its first three months, but PC has a 29% likelihood to sell 3 million digital units, or 200% more than the consoles, in that same period. While these numbers might sound impressive, Destiny 2 on PC will only be available on Blizzard's Battle.net digital distribution framework and not on Steam. Physical versions of Destiny 2 on PC sold in stores will contain a code for a digital download, and it's unclear whether or not SuperData Research includes these sales as digital or physical.

Console-makers like Sony and Microsoft tend to buffer sales of their respective hardware with first-party exclusives, but the market has changed very much over the years, and console gamers gravitate more towards third-party blockbusters from the Big Four (Activision, EA, Ubisoft and Take-Two) .

Microsoft has a problem with exclusives, but Sony has a problem with strong monetization of its platform and the future-proofing of the PlayStation brand beyond consoles. Both console-makers have their respective shortcomings and issues. According to Webdush Securities analyst Michael Pachter, who's outspoken comments have earned him a following, exclusives don't matter nearly as much as they used to: despite the outcry from so-called "fanboys" only 1/5th or 20% of actual gamers buy into PlayStation 4 or Xbox One with exclusives in mind.

"That said, I think exclusives only make a difference to about a fifth of the market or 20%," Mr. Pachter said in a recent interview with GamingBolt.

Ubisoft has made good on its promise to bring loot boxes to Rainbow Six: Siege.

Rainbow Six: Siege's loot crate-like Alpha Packs are gradually being introduced with new live updates. These Alpha Packs only contain cosmetic rewards and can't actually be purchased with the game's R6 premium currency, so you can't actually spend real money to directly unlock them, as we revealed last month. However, you can spend R6 currency to get more Renown, so there is an indirect path.

Alpha Packs can only be unlocked with Renown, which is the game's experience-like currency doled out at the end of every match. Gamers can earn these packs in two ways: the game may reward them randomly to players at the end of matches, or players can spend their Renown to directly unlock packs. Alpha Packs contain skins and other cosmetics to add more flair to player Operators. To get an idea of what's included in the Alpha Packs, YouTuber Jytus opens up 200 packs in the video above.

Toyota has just announced its new Toyota AI Ventures initiative, which is a new venture capital subsidiary that will eye down tech companies that are working on AI. The new fund has already received a $100 million injection of funds from the Toyota Research Institute (TRI), which is an AI/robotics/autonomous car-focused initiative the Japanese carmaker started in 2015.

Toyota AI Ventures will focus its investments directly into AI, robotics, autonomous vehicles, as well as data and cloud technology. It w ill also offer companies that it invests in both mentorship, and support at its HQ in Silicon Valley. TRI VP Jim Adler said in a statement: "One of the biggest challenges entrepreneurs face is knowing if they're building the right product for the right market. We can help them navigate that uncertainty, and we're committed to doing so in a founder-friendly way because their success is our success".

This new venture will be a little different, with TRI not just waiting for pitches from investors, but it will look for, and support companies that are on the path towards solving something Toyota is interested in. TRI has already funded 3 startups, with Silicon Valley-based Nauto, a company that designs systems for companies that monitors their driver and road environments to stop accidents or bad driving.

Samsung is enjoying great sales on its new flagship Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ smartphones, but the new Galaxy Note 8 smartphone isn't too far away from release, and it too will rock a gorgeous Infinity Display.

The latest tease of the upcoming Galaxy Note 8 shows off the massive Infinity Display, which should arrive at a large 6.3 inches. This will make it a little bigger thgan the Galaxy S8+ but the Note 8 will rock a stylus, larger battery, and I'm sure more pro-oriented tweaks like the Note 7 did over the Galaxy S7.

We should see Samsung bump up to 6GB of RAM in the Galaxy Note 8 over the 4GB inside of the Galaxy S8, and the same Exynos 8895/Snapdragon 835 options found inside of the S8. Samsung will reportedly use a dual-camera on the Note 8, while keeping the fingerprint sensor next to the rear-facing camera which would be a gigantic mistake. I hate the positioning of the fingerprint sensor on my S8, it's far too high to use... and the Note 8 will lose out if Samsung does this.

Logitech has just announced it is buying gaming headset maker Astro in a deal worth $85 million, with the two making it official next month.

Ujesh Desai, VP and GM of Logitech G brand said that Astro's console-oriented gaming headsets will be a "perfect compliment to Logitech G's focus on PC gaming". Logitech has released a press release talking about the Astro acquisition, where they said: "With the addition of Astro, we're investing in an adjacent gaming market - the console gaming market - to help accelerate the long-term growth of our gaming business. In FY 2018, we expect the acquisition of Astro to add approximately two points of growth to the to p line, and to be slightly dilutive to the bottom line in the first year, as we integrate the business and invest to expand Astro internationally".

Astro co-founder and president Jordan Reiss has talked about the acquisition of his company by Logitech, where he said: "The whole team at Astro has always held Logitech and Logitech G products in the highest regard, so I'm ecstatic we are joining forces. Astro's brand strength combined with Logitech G's unrivaled technology and global distribution network is going to bring our products to even more gamers around the world".

Colorful has just announced their latest graphics card family, the new Neptune series of card will be led by the flagship liquid-cooled iGame GTX 1080 Ti Neptune W.

The new Colorful iGame GTX 1080 Ti Neptune W is a beast, offering everything the GTX 1080 Ti has to offer with its GP102 GPU, 11GB of GDDR5X @ 11Gbps, but changes the game offering a liquid-cooler with a huge 240mm radiator. Colorful's new iGame GTX 1080 Ti Neptune W sports the company's Vultune Shield, which offers up RGB lights that can be controlled through Colorful's own iGame-Zone II software.

Cooling wise, the new iGame GTX 1080 Ti Neptune W rocks a waterblock base and copper pipes that are built with red copper that has "extreme thermal conductivity" that will push teh heat into the liquid cooler, and out through to the radiator. Colorful uses an integrated die cast aluminum plate on the card, while the two 120mm fans on the radiator will keep the card nice and cool - and virtually silent while running.

Oculus might have lit the VR world on fire with its recent Rift and Touch bundle price drop to $399 for the next 6 weeks, but Amazon is joining in on the bundle price bonanza with their new Xbox One S Halo Wars 2 bundle.

Amazon's new Xbox One S bundle is part of their Prime Day sales, which is for Prime members only - at just $289.99 for the 1TB Xbox One S Halo Wars 2 bundle that comes with a Play & Charge kit. It also arrives with an additional white wireless controller, and digital versions of Forza Motorsport 6, Halo 5: Guardians, and ReCore - representing a huge 31% discount, saving $127.91.

If you don't want the Halo Wars 2 bundle, there's the 500GB Xbox One S console with the same digital games for just $239, which is an even better deal if you didn't want HW2. This is a larger savingsf of 35%, or $128.93. Not bad at all. This deal runs out tomorrow, so jump in now.

If you are old enough, you'll remember the days of the Pentium brand being the strongest CPU in the consumer world - but now, it's been pushed into the budget world while even the Core i3 is considered a budget CPU. Intel shifts into the mid-range with its Core i5 and even slower Core i7 processors, while we have higher-end Core i7 and even the new Core i9 in the enthusiast market.

According to the latest report from DigiWorthy, Intel is effectively killing the Pentium G4560 after great reception from consumers by scaling production down that will make it harder to find in the market. This method is something I'm sure Intel is hoping will push people into the arms of the more expensive Core i3-7100 processor, which is nearly double the price of the Pentium G4560.

The only difference between the Pentium G4560 and the Core i3-7100 is 400MHz in the favor of the Core i3, but it costs twice as much... doesn't make sense, really.