This week on the TT Show, Lord of the Rings superfan (and also superfan) Jak and Kosta discuss Peter Jackson returning to The Lord of the Rings franchise with the new movie 'The Hunt for Gollum.' They discuss the potential story, timeline, and their hopes for a return to the magic of the original trilogy. And not, you know, The Hobbit.

Another big story this week is Apple's apologizing for its seemingly tone-deaf iPad Pro advertisement that quickly caused a massive wave of negative backlash. Is it as bad as some of the comments? As a fan of retro hardware who doesn't like seeing it get destroyed, Kosta thinks so, while Jak is more on the fence and 'meh.'

And it wouldn't be an episode of The TT Show without GPU news, with all of the latest GeForce RTX 50 Series, Radeon, and Intel graphics talk bundled into a new section of the podcast called 'GPU Corner.' Speaking of new sections, Jak and Kosta play a round of Guess the Headline for some fun.

Microsoft will soon have AI upscaling technology available at the operating system level with Automatic Super Resolution (Auto SR) technology... which will debut with new Copilot+ PC laptops powered by Qualcomm's new Snapdragon X Elite processor.

Microsoft has officially announced that Automatic Super Resolution technology will be integrated into Windows, and will "automatically enhance the framerate of games in real-time". The only issue here is that it won't work on regular gaming systems, rather it's exclusive to Copilot+ PCs running Qualcomm's new Snapdragon Elite X processor... for now.

There's no support for x86 CPUs or even the Snapdragon X Plus processor, only the Snapdragon X Elite. There's also another limitation in that there are only particular games that will work with AutoSR + Snapdragon X Elite, something Microsoft calls a "curated set" of games.

Just as the PC market is pushing heavily into DDR5 memory, we're hearing more about both DDR6 and LPDDR6 memory.

In a new JEDEC presentation, we're hearing about DDR6, LPDDR6, and new CAMM standards for memory. LPDDR5 for example is already 5 years old, and while we've seen mid-product update refreshes including LPDDR5X and LPDDR5T, they won't be good enough for the years to come.

DDR6 memory will reportedly start off at 8800MT/s of bandwidth, up to a huge 17,600MT/s of bandwidth with a "possible extension" to an incredible 21,000MT/s of bandwidth. Keep in mind that DDR5 ranges from between 4000MT/s and 8400MT/s, while DDR4 was stuck down at 1600MT/s through to 3200MT/s.

HP has just announced its killing off its Spectre, Envy, and Pavilion brands with the start of its new Copilot+ PCs launching today, introducing the new OmniBook X and EliteBook Ultra G1q laptops.

The new 14-inch HP OmniBook X is available for pre-order right now starting from $1199, packing the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite processor, with an on-board NPU (Neural Processing Unit) for AI workloads, with up to 45 TOPS of AI performance.

There's up to 32GB of LPDDR5X-8448 memory, up to 2TB of Gen4 SSD storage, while the 14-inch 2.2K display features a 2240 x 1440 resolution, with an IPS panel and up to 300 nits of brightness. HP is claiming its new OmniBook X Copilot+ laptop features a "record-breaking 26 hours of battery life".

Grand Theft Auto V has now sold-in more than 200 million copies worldwide, Take-Two Interactive has announced.

Over a decade later, GTA V is still selling incredibly well on all platforms. The game has now shipped 200 million copies worldwide as of March 2024, up 5 million units since the previous quarter. This is quite the eponymous trend for GTA V: The game has shipped 5 million copies in 11 of the last 16 quarters.

Total Grand Theft Auto franchise sales are now at 425 million, and GTA V makes up nearly half of those sales, or about 47%.

AMD's next-gen "Strix Halo" Zen 5-based APU has been pictured on Chiphell, showing off its chiplet-based deisgn, using 256-bit LPDDR5X memory.

The new Strix Halo APU will feature a chiplet-based design, with one or two Zen 5 CCDs and a huge SoC die that features an oversized integrated RDNA 3+ GPU, and 256-bit LPDDR5X memory controllers not found on the cIOD. AMD is aiming at CPU and GPU performance that competes with Apple's M3 Pro and M3 Max SoCs, at comparable PCB and power consumption.

AMD is using an integrated RDNA 3+ GPU in its next-gen Strix Halo APU, with a huge 40 Compute Units that works out to 2560 Stream Processors, 80 AI accelerators, 40 Ray accelerators, 160 TMUs, and an unknown amount of ROPs, with GPU clock speeds of up to 3.0GHz.

Microsoft isn't the only one working on a mobile games platform--Sony is also developing its own PlayStation mobile experience.

Earlier this month, Xbox president Sarah Bond confirmed Microsoft's mobile games store would launch in July. But Xbox isn't the only one interested in leveraging the $90 billion market; Sony also has big dreams of releasing its own free-to-play mobile titles.

There's just one problem: Outside of Fate/Grand Order, Sony doesn't actually have any mobile games. That's about to change, though, as Sony ramps up investments in the space, including acquisitions of studios like Firesprite and Valkyrie. Now a new Sony job listing for a mobile platform architect gives clues on what's next for Sony's mobile ambitions.

Microsoft has grand ambitions to capture some of the $90 billion mobile games market with an Xbox mobile store, but the digital shop won't actually sell games when it launches.

Microsoft plans to launch an Xbox mobile store experience in July, but what will it look like? According to Game File's Stephen Totilo, the store will only sell microtransactions at launch. The store has been a long time coming but Microsoft didn't take the plunge until now due not having enough mobile titles to justify an entire competing store.

Emboldened by the Activision Blizzard King acquisition, which armed Microsoft with three heavy-hitting mobile powerhouses (Candy Crush, Call of Duty Mobile, and Diablo Immortal), and European Union's new Digital Markets Act, the company has now decided to flip the switch and greenlight its mobile plans.

Microsoft could raise the price of Xbox Game Pass once again in an effort to combat rising costs of games development.

Game Pass subscribers might be in for another price increase as Xbox chases more growth. Sources tell The Verge's Tom Warren that Microsoft is mulling over a subscription price hike for Game Pass.

This price hike is likely being timed in conjunction with the arrival of Call of Duty on Game Pass--the added value from the series could give Microsoft a reason to raise subscription prices again.

IGN Entertainment has purchased Gamer Network, and it now owns UK sites like Eurogamer/Digital Foundry, GamesIndustry.biz, VG247, and Rock, Paper, Shotgun.

After today's deal, IGN now owns a considerable portion of the video games media sector. The Ziff Davis-owned media company has acquired Gamer Network for an undisclosed sum.

Gamer Network was founded in 1999, and over its multi-decade run has grown to operate a ring of six popular UK-based websites including Eurogamer, Rock, Paper, Shotgun, VG247, Digital Foundry, Dicebreaker, and GamesIndustry.biz, which has become an important resource for video game developers to connect and find work.

Apple and Île-de-France Mobilités have today announced that Parisians can finally add the Navigo card to the Apple Wallet on their iPhone and Apple Watch, allowing them to ride the transit options around the pairs region.

Apple said via a press release that people can buy passes from the Île-de-France Mobilités iOS app or directly from Apple Wallet and then use them to "tap and ride." The announcement also noted that beginning this week, real-time transit information for Apple Maps is now available in pairs to make it easier for people to navigate their way around one of the most famous cities in the world.

Navigo cards can be used to quickly and easily access transit by double-pressing the iPhone's side button just as iPhone owners already do when making Apple Pay payments. Alternatively, those who have Express Mode enabled simply need to hold their iPhone or Apple Watch near a compatible reader without having to first unlock or authenticate the device. What's more, the iPhone will continue to work in this way even when it needs to be charged thanks to a reserve power mode.