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Rather than take on Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo with its own dedicated video games hardware, Google is trying to upend the market with a potent service.

If it can deliver on its promises, Google's new Stadia game streaming service is a dangerous threat to console gaming. The ambitious platform has the potential to put the current console gaming landscape through some tremendous growing pains, and force its competitors to adapt or die (luckily Microsoft has planned for this scenario, but Sony and Nintendo haven't). With the convenience of high-def AAA gaming on any device and an open cross-platform community ecosystem, Stadia will break down the walled garden approach that consoles typically thrive off of.

With Stadia, Google aims to bring a new era of accessibility to gaming. Subscribers won't have to buy extra hardware or download anything to play games at up to 4K 60FPS (but a high-end internet connection is required). Ultra-powerful server networks wirelessly beam games from the cloud to devices. One example sees users simply turning on their TV, clicking on a YouTube link, and jumping right into a game. Start game on your desktop and want to continue on the go? Easy. Stadia brings all your saves, progress, and content to any device so you can pick right back up where you left off.

Today Google completely changed the face of gaming forever by announcing Stadia, a new ambitious game streaming platform.

Stadia is Google's new streaming platform, but it's much more than just another service: it's a new evolution that brings an era of accessibility, convenience, and ease-of-use to gaming. Gone are the days of needing high-end consoles and PCs, Google says: using Google's powerful datacenter network, Stadia will stream high-fidelity gaming up to 4K 60FPS to devices like laptops, desktops, tablets, TVs via Chromecast, and mobile phones via cloud technology.

Google promises Stadia will give instant access to its games, all within Chrome or YouTube. Users can launch games directly from YouTube trailers, bringing a new native connectivity to gaming. Trailers on YouTube can have a play now button, which brings the player right into the game in as "quick as five seconds with no download," Google's Phil Harrison said.

Atari is getting more serious about its new Atari VCS console hardware, and has packed in a beefier processor to back up its promises.

The Atari VCS will now be powered by an AMD Ryzen APU with two Zen CPU cores and Vega graphics, the company today announced. This is a nice jump from the Atari VCS' previous Bristol Ridge A10 CPU and Radeon R7 graphics, and the new 14nm Ryzen APU will offer power reduction, cooler temperatures, and greater gaming performance. Exact specs weren't revealed, however. Since Atari is taking a big bet with the VCS, it's important for the company to select a chip that's flexible and future-proof to withstand today's demanding gaming and 4K multimedia experiences.

"The Atari VCS will now be powered by a 14nm AMD processor featuring high-performance Radeon Vega graphics architecture and two Zen CPU cores," reads the announcement. "This new processor replaces the model from the Bristol Ridge family that had been in the plan since originally selected for the Atari VCS back in 2017. AMD's all-new Ryzen embedded chip will be faster, cooler, and more efficient, allowing the VCS to benefit from a simpler and more effective power architecture and thermal solution."

SEGA is gathering some feedback from its community through a brand new survey that will help determine "the next steps" for some of the companies most popular titles.

The survey consists of many practical questions that SEGA will be taking into account to determine which franchise should have the most time thrown into for future development. An example of the one of the questions is; "Which games do you want to see more new content for?". SEGA then proceeds to give selectable options for franchises such as; Sonic the Hedgehog, Yakuza, Super Monkey Ball, Bayonetta, Virtua Fighter, Total War and many more.

Follow-up questions that are included within the survey regard which titles fans would want to downloadable content made for, and which franchise could do with a remaster or a sequel. Other questions include what format (downloadable or physical) do gamers usually purchase their games in, and how often collectors editions are bought. SEGA will be taking the data from this survey on-board and it will certainly influence what the Japanese developer will be spending their time on in the future. If you are interested in giving some answers to SEGA, you can give some answers to SEGA here.

One of the most sought after releases in the gaming community is the third installment into the legendary Half-Life series. Now, Valve's CEO has just teased when that might happen.

Valve's CEO, Gabe Newell has decided to answer some fans questions through his email. Surprisingly enough Newell answered quite a few questions from fans, some examples include; What is your favorite toothbrush? what is your favorite pokemon? how was the process of working with 343 and Microsoft to get Halo on Steam? Answers in respective order are; Black, Snorlax and "The credit for this goes to Phil Spencer and his team at MS. They made it happen, so, yes, it was simple for us."

Included within one of Newell's emails was a question regarding the existence of Half-Life 3 and whether or not the person asking would see one before their life ends. The email read; "Was just wondering, will I be able to play a new chapter of half life before my life ends? Im 32 now." Newell answered quite simply, saying "Just don't die in the next 5 years or so ;)". Now that is quite the tease, could this be a next-gen Half-Life 3 that everyone has been patiently waiting for? Or a rebooted Half-Life VR game? Who knows, but we are sure to find out within the next 5 years.

The release of Mortal Kombat 11 is just around the corner and to prepare the game for launch NetherRealm Studios is holding a closed beta. Here is what is required for you to enter.

Firstly, Ed Boon, NetherRealm Studios' Director has posted to his Twitter detailing the closed beta and also a recently completed stress test. According to Boon, the Mortal Kombat 11's closed beta will be beginning on March 28th and will be running for 3 days. The beta will be following a recently completed stress test which has provided feedback for NetherRealm that is going to make Mortal Kombat 11 much "better".

The post from Boon also details the upcoming closed beta. We can see from the image released in the Twitter post that only certain regions will be able to enjoy the beta. The details for what is included within the closed beta have not be disclosed but according to the FAQ for what the closed beta is players will experience "an early sample of Mortal Kombat 11 before the game launches." A requirement to access to the closed beta will be the full purchasing of one of three variants of Mortal Kombat 11. The Mortal Kombat 11 beta is planned for March 28th and March 31st, it will also only be available on PS4 and Xbox One. PC players have been left out and will have to wait until the release of Mortal Kombat 11 on April 23rd.

While Facebook is currently on a full frontal assault against hate speech, explicit content and fake accounts, there is another category that it will be taking responsibility for removing. Revenge porn.

According to an announcement from Facebook 's Global Head of Safety, Antigone Davis, Facebook will soon be implementing a new form of AI. This new AI will be targeting "non-consensual intimate images" or "revenge porn" of people to protect them against public shame and online abuse.

The move from Facebook to stop "revenge porn" is to minimilze the amount of online abuse its userbase is currently experiencing. A survey that consisted of a sample size of 1606 people had "61% of respondents said they had taken a nude photos/videos of themselves and shared it with someone else" and that "23% of respondents were victims of revenge porn." The survey also details that "93%" of the victims suffered "significant emotional distress" and "42% sought out psychological services." Facebook has created a new hub called "Not without my consent" for victims to report their images/video, a link to that can be found here.

The official gameplay trailer for Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice has been released onto the PlayStation YouTube Channel and showcases what it is going to be like to step into the shoes of a Shenobi.

Just last week FromSoftware and Activision released the launch trailer for Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice and now just a couple of days out from launch we have the official gameplay trailer. The gameplay trailer gives us a great synopsis of what players can expect from the main protagonist 'Wolf' and the story that surrounds him. The trailer is broken up into three separate parts; story, the shinobi prosthetic and combat.

Starting off, the trailer explains that players will be sworn to protect a character named the 'Divine Heir' at any cost, even his life. Just touching on what the story contains we jump straight into the prosthetic arm and the capabilities that surround it. We learn that players will be able to customize their arm to suit their play-style. Options include; grappling hook for versatility, heavy axe to break shields, spear to drag enemies closer, shurikens to stagger enemies, firecrackers to confuse enemies, and the ability to be able to deflect attacks with the shield umbrella.

Google's new game streaming platform could change the world of gaming forever with one feature.

Google plans to reveal its new gaming platform at GCD 2019 tomorrow, but sources have revealed some new info ahead of the event. Key sources tell Kotaku's Jason Schreier that Google's service, which is centered around its cloud-powered Project Stream subscription, may let viewers interact with their favorite live streamers in a way that's quite revolutionary.

The service could essentially let streamers share their save files and in-game progress with viewers, letting fans pick up right where influencers leave off or jump right into the segment that the streamer is playing in real-time. This feature would effectively let viewers play along with streamers on their own consoles, laptops, desktops or phones, and could even match them up with influencers in online multiplayer games.

Qualcomm will reportedly be showing off new standalone wireless VR headsets at GDC 2019 according to the latest rumors, and they will also be able to connect to your PC.

The new reference design VR headsets from Qualcomm are reportedly called Boundless XR, which is a new reference design headset that will not only offer 6DoF (six degrees of freedom) but they'll also work with your PC through a super-fast 60GHz connection, and will be powered by Qualcomm's own Snapdragon 845 processor.

Qualcomm claims that latency will be low at 16ms, and should take some of the processing heavy lifting from your PC thanks to the on-board Snapdragon 845, but we don't know how much it will offload. The PC or console that you're connecting the Qualcomm VR headset will need to support 802.11ad Wi-Fi, and run Qualcomm's own software.