Chrome, Firefox extension plays random TV show episodes

Sean Ridgeley | Internet & Websites | Aug 3, 2016 3:04 PM CDT

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Final Fantasy XV's $25 season pass includes 6 DLC packs

Derek Strickland | Gaming | Aug 3, 2016 2:28 PM CDT

Final Fantasy XV will have a season pass that unlocks access to six pieces of DLC content, three of which will be story-based.

Final Fantasy XV's $25 season pass includes 6 DLC packs

According to Gematsu, who spotted a listing on the JP PlayStation Store, Final Fantasy XV's illustrious season pass will cost $25 includes three story-based episodes that possibly explore the backstory of the game's party members: Ignis, Prompto, and Gladiolus. Considering FF15 already tells the story of Noctis, the player character, it stands to reason Square Enix would love an opportunity to flesh out the other party members. Sony has since taken down the listing.

So far the season pass isn't available for purchase on its own; you have to buy the $84.99 Digital Premium Edition (DLC + main game) or grab the Season Pass Upgrade, which is only available to those who have already pre-ordered the game on PSN. The six DLC packs are as follows:

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Leading CS:GO skin trade site applies for gambling license

Derek Strickland | Gaming | Aug 3, 2016 12:05 PM CDT

Rather than shutting down and ceasing all gambling activity as per Valve's orders, a major CS:GO gambling site is applying for a legal gambling license.

Leading CS:GO skin trade site applies for gambling license

CSGO Lounge, one of the biggest players in the Counter-Strike GO skin trade, plans to apply for a legal gambling license so it can keep its lucrative business afloat. The site has put up an age gate to restrict betting to users 18 years or older, and you won't be able to bet unless eSports gambling is legal in your country.

"We have decided to acquire a license to legally operate in most of the countries and be able to accept the esports bets by our community, as if it would be real money," reads an update on CSGO Lounge's site.

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Xbox One S teardown reveals SATA III hard drive, 802.11ac, 6-pin PSU

Derek Strickland | Gaming | Aug 3, 2016 11:05 AM CDT

iFixit cleaves open the Xbox One S's small skin to reveal its inner guts, showing some decent hardware jumps over the original Xbox One.

Xbox One S teardown reveals SATA III hard drive, 802.11ac, 6-pin PSU

We already know that Microsoft's new $299 Xbox One S packs the same GPU/CPU hardware as the original Xbox One, only better: the S model's GPU has been overclocked to 914MHz (from XO's 853MHz) and is now housed on a new ultra-efficient 16nm FinFET SoC chip. But a new Xbox One S teardown from iFixit reveals some other interesting component upgrades that the Xbox slim offers, namely a SATA III 6.0 Gbps hard drive, a 802.11ac wireless chip, and HDMI 2.0a connectivity. Plus it's quite easy to repair!

Here are the particulars:

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Xbox One S supports native 4K gaming with unlocked 4K frame buffer

Derek Strickland | Gaming | Aug 3, 2016 10:14 AM CDT

Microsoft's new $299 Xbox One S technically supports native 4K gaming, but don't expect to see the console run blockbusters like Battlefield 1 in 4K.

Xbox One S supports native 4K gaming with unlocked 4K frame buffer

Yesterday we reported that the new Xbox One S rocks tweaked hardware to deliver noticeable performance gains across the board, including in-game FPS and power efficiency. Now Xbox exec Albert Penello has confirmed to Eurogamer that the new 40% smaller Xbox One S has an unlocked 4K frame buffer that developers can access to technically enable native 4K gaming--but only for limited games like indies.

Digital Foundry: "Can developers address a 4K framebuffer? Obviously we can't expect native 4K triple-A gaming, but simpler titles and 2D games could potentially work well - plus existing Xbox One owners would get 2x super-sampling."

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Xbox One S uses 16nm APU from AMD, overclocked 61MHz over Xbox One

Anthony Garreffa | Gaming | Aug 3, 2016 9:12 AM CDT

Microsoft has released its tweaked and refined Xbox One S console, but now that it's here, we know that the GPU inside of the new Xbox One S console is actually faster than the one in the current Xbox One unit.

The new Xbox One S not only features its GPU clocked at 914MHz, compared to the 853MHz on the Xbox One. On a more technical side of things, Microsoft has used a new APU from AMD that is made on the 16nm FinFET process in the Xbox One S, down from the 28nm APU found in the Xbox One.

The new 16nm APU is clocked 7% faster than the 28nm APU inside of the Xbox One, improving the maximum compute performance and with the increased ESRAM bandwidth, we have a slightly faster console. The additional performance from the 7% overclock on the GPU will result in games that feature an unlocked framerate, or GPU-limited games where performance suffers on the Xbox One, the new Xbox One S will have less FPS drops, and a smoother gaming experience.

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No Man's Sky day one update to render leaked footage completely moot

Derek Strickland | Gaming | Aug 3, 2016 8:09 AM CDT

Hello Games is readying a patch update to fix No Man's Sky's most notorious glitches and wipe away all those pesky bugs outed by the leaked footage.

No Man's Sky day one update to render leaked footage completely moot

We've been keeping a close eye on all the leaked No Man's Sky footage that's been trickling onto the web, critiquing our worries and making note of bugs, glitches, and rather worrisome mechanics. The information shown in the leaks has fractured the No Man's Sky fanbase, and for good reason--using Atlas Stones, a gamer was able to reach the center of the universe in less than two days time. There's also some other pretty serious in-game bugs that hint No Man's Sky wasn't entirely finished when it went gold.

As I suspected, these leakers are playing the unfinished, unpatched version of No Man's Sky, and it won't be the version we get on August 9. Sean Murray has just confirmed that Hello Games is finalizing the game's first update which will likely be deployed as the coveted day one update, wiping the slate clean and making all the leaked content particularly moot.

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HTC posts $133 million loss for Q2 2016, even with strong Vive sales

Anthony Garreffa | Business, Financial & Legal | Aug 3, 2016 4:31 AM CDT

HTC has just posted its Q2 2016 financials, with the Taiwanese giant bleeding another $133 million for the quarter, even with strong Vive and HTC 10 smartphone sales.

Compared to the same quarter of 2015, HTC's sales are down 42.7%, but not as bad as the quarter that just passed, where HTC sales plummeted by 64%. This is the fifth quarter in a row that HTC has had troubles financially, but when the company saw that it was going to have a hit with the Vive headset, it creates its own subsidiary company known as HTC Vive Tech Corporation in order to manage it.

The company received a $100 million fund to expand the Vive ecosystem, and sales from this division count towards HTC's overall earnings. HTC has been shy on revealing the amount of Vive headsets that it has shipped, which would be nice to know right about now.

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Samsung's new Gear VR is backwards compatible with older Galaxy phones

Samsung unveiled its next-gen Galaxy Note 7 smartphone, impressing people with the upgraded hardware, new S Pen abilities and iris scanner - but there was a new Gear VR announced at the same time, too.

The new Gear VR headset has a dedicated Home button, a revamped touchpad on the right side, and a blue/black finish that looks awesome. The new Gear VR has a wider field of view, offering 101-degree FOV versus 96-degree FOV on the previous-gen Gear VR headset. We also have USB Type-C connectivity, ready for the Galaxy Note 7 smartphone.

Samsung includes a dongle in the box that lets you use the new Gear VR with older Galaxy and Galaxy Note smartphones, so you're not forced into plonking down close to $1000 for the new Galaxy Note 7 (for as awesome as it is, however).

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NVIDIA's new Titan X is 50% faster than GTX 1080 at 11,520 x 2160

Anthony Garreffa | Video Cards & GPUs | Aug 3, 2016 12:43 AM CDT

My review of NVIDIA's new Titan X graphics card will be up in the next couple of hours, and it's completely glowing - due to the fact that the Pascal-based $1200 graphics card has amazing performance.

NVIDIA's new Titan X is 50% faster than GTX 1080 at 11,520 x 2160

But, I like the push the boundaries of everything that I test, so I set up my triple 4K monitor rig and cranked the resolution up to 11,520 x 2160 and tested out the new Titan X to see if it would have the same ~20% or so performance benefit over the GP104-based GeForce GTX 1080. Well, I was wrong - it's faster than that, with a huge 51.4% lead in Heaven so far.

I'm currently testing a few other games at 11,520 x 2160 and will write a full article up once it's done - but for now, a 51.4% increase in Heaven at this mammoth resolution is making me weak at the knees.

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