Microsoft's Project xCloud game streaming service will crush Stadia and other competitors for one simple reason: It won't make you re-buy games.

Project xCloud just keeps getting better and better. Not only will the service let you stream Xbox One console games you already own to other devices like mobile phones and laptops, but it'll do the same with PC games.

Sources tell Thurrot.com's Brad Sams that Project xCloud will let you stream PC titles over the cloud service, basically like GeForce Now. This is tremendously powerful and creates a unified link to your cross-platform Xbox games library and allows access wherever you go. There's probably some limitations here, and we don't know if Steam games will be included or if it's exclusive to Windows 10 games bought on the Microsoft Store.

Doom Eternal goes beyond even the craziest frame rate ambitions and can hit up to 1000 FPS of bloody, demon-slaying carnage.

The new id Tech 7 engine is absolutely mind-blowing and can run Doom games 300% faster than id Tech 6. The studio says Doom Eternal maxes out at 1000 frames-per-second thanks to the new engine optimizations--but only if you have the hardware might to throw at the game.

And that's only the theoretical limit; id is careful to say the game is future-proofed so that next-gen PC hardware can push the bar even higher.

"On id Tech 6, we maxed it out to 250FPS. In Doom Eternal we've maxed out at 1,000 FPS. You can hit that if you have the hardware. There's really no upper limit," id Software lead engine programmer Billy Khan told IGN.

UPDATE: GDC 2020 has been postponed, as per an official announcement:

After close consultation with our partners in the game development industry and community around the world, we've made the difficult decision to postpone the Game Developers Conference this March.

Having spent the past year preparing for the show with our advisory boards, speakers, exhibitors, and event partners, we're genuinely upset and disappointed not to be able to host you at this time.

This year's annual Game Developers Conference is likely to be cancelled as the biggest names in the industry skip the show.

The coronavirus outbreak is disrupting the tech and gaming industry, interrupting big events like PAX East, GDC 2020, and even Counter-Strike's biggest esports tournament. Now more companies are avoiding GDC to safeguard against coronavirus risks.

Following Sony and EA's decision to skip GDC, other major players like Microsoft, Unity, Epic Games, and Gearbox Software are likewise staying home and won't attend the show. GDC is a valuable opportunity for developers to reach platform-holders and connect with other teams, all while learning more techniques and being exposed to unique engine methodologies.

Konami could be resurrecting Silent Hills from the dead and letting Hideo Kojima run the macabre show.

Kojima Productions might've just teased something Silent Hill-related on Twitter. Fans have scrutinized the Tweet and found some ties to Konami's stagnant franchise, and admittedly there's some reaching going on. The Tweet shows Kojima Productions' head of communications Aki Saito and says "sorry I've been so silent" (as in Silent Hills, of course) and the pencil has Pyramid stamped on it. Coincidence? Maybe. Or maybe it's a hint that Silent Hills is coming back. There's even mention of a reveal coming next week.

Konami might be firing up the Silent Hill franchise again and Kojima could help lead the charge. Recent reports say Konami is working on two new Silent Hill projects, but nothing has been confirmed. Konami has been noticably absent in the AAA space, but promised in September 2019 that it's not giving up on new sequels.

The Xbox Series X could upgrade and enhance games from legacy generations including the Xbox 360 and even original Xbox era.

Microsoft has high aspirations for the Xbox Series X's extensive backward compatibility. The next-gen Xbox will play four generations' worth of Xbox games. If it's playable on Xbox One, it's playable on the Xbox SX, the company says. And the new console will play all of these games even better thanks to an on-console boost mode that natively upscales resolution, frame rate, and performance of older games. But Microsoft could take this even further and bring higher-end upgrades like ray tracing to older-gen games (look at Quake II RTX, for example).

In a recent Major Nelson podcast, Xbox exec Jason Ronald says the backward compatibility team wants to push the bar higher than ever before and enhance games beyond their current state.

"Our back compat team is one of the best in the industry, and we're really looking at new opportunities the Xbox Series X gives us to enhance titles even further than you've seen them before.

Two pieces of seemingly new artwork have been spotted on Rockstar Games' mainsite, prompting lots of speculation on new games like Grand Theft Auto 6 and Bully 2. But it's probably not what you think.

Rockstar's website shows two interesting images that have fans buzzing. The art can be seen in the background when clicking ondrop-down menu on the upper left hand side of the site, and randomly rotates across three separate pieces--two of which fans are trying to somehow tie to rumored games like GTA 6, Bully 2, or even Agent, the cancelled stealth game for PS3.

The visuals in question are quite captivating and thought provoking. One shows a futuristic 1980's-style gynoid robot from renown artist Hajime Sorayama, who did the cover art for Aerosmith's Just Press Play album. The robot is hugging the Rockstar logo and there's a bottle of champagne from 1998, the year the studio was founded.

Riot Games' new Overwatch-meets-Counter-Strike first-person shooter is called Valorant, and features at least three major heroes including Viper, Brimstone, and Sage.

Fans and Twitter sleuths have uncovered the name of Riot's new competitive shooter, Valorant, along with key details on the game's new Sage character. A few days ago, users uncovered the PlayValorant.com domain was registered by Riot Games. Now a screenshot from an early pre-release build of Project A has leaked out to give eager fans an idea of what to expect with the game's pretty robust hero abilities.

The screenshot--which was likely leaked from a recent Valorant demo shown to influencers earlier this month--reveals Sage, the game's essential Mercy class. Sage's character, resurrection, and barrier orb ability have been confirmed for some time, and were originally revealed in the first Project A teaser that Riot released in October 2019. Sage belongs to the Sentinel class and has four major abilities including a heal-over-time power as well as resurrection. There's also a nifty wall barrier that can protect allies and a slowing orb trap that drastically disrupts enemy movement speeds.

Polish officials prohibit audience attendance at IEM Katowice 2020, the ESL has announced.

The coronavirus outbreak continues disrupting some of gaming's biggest events, this time with the ESL's annual $500,000 international CS:GO tournament held in Poland. IEM Katowice, Counter-Strike's biggest global tournament held in Poland, won't have an audience due to coronavirus health risks. Polish officials have pulled the ESL's license just hours before the event launched, and attendees will no longer be able to watch the playoffs on-site, nor can they roam around the expo hall.

"It breaks our heart that, today at 19:45 CET we were informed that, due to the dynamic changes in the global health situation, the Masters Championship at IEM Katowice 2020 has been closed to the public by the Polish Gouverneur of Silesia hours before its door opening," the ESL said.

In a bid to diversify its revenues and prop itself up for long-term earnings potential, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance and NieR: Automata developer PlatinumGames will open a new Tokyo-based studio to work on live service games.

The third announcement in PlatinumGame's Platinum 4 reveals is a big one, albeit not as exciting as Kamiya's new Project GG game. The studio will open a new branch in Tokyo, Japan in April 2020 that's centered on sustainability rather than new and catalog game sales.

PlatinumGames plans to use online-driven live games as a consistent source of income via monetization to better diversify its earnings. This is a natural evolution for any developer-publisher in today's gaming landscape and will offer an opportunity to tap Japan's rich vein of live gaming revenues, which will be re-invested in new wholly-owned IPs. Tencent's major investment helped spark this evolution of PlatinumGames.

Since it's recent explosion into the app world, TikTok has been a subject of controversy as many people have claimed the app is spyware. Now, Reddit's CEO has spoken out about what he thinks about the app.

Reddit CEO, Steve Huffman was sitting down with some former Facebook executives at a conference in San Francisco. Huffman was then asked if small Silicon Valley startup companies could learn something from the recent explosion in popularity surrounding TikTok. Huffman's response was rather bleak, and straight to the point, "Maybe I'm going to regret this, but I can't even get to that level of thinking with them."

He continued, "Because I look at that app as so fundamentally parasitic, that it's always listening, the fingerprinting technology they use is truly terrifying, and I could not bring myself to install an app like that on my phone. I actively tell people, 'Don't install that spyware on your phone". This isn't the first time TikTok has been linked to spyware, as the United States government banned the use of the app on any government-issued phone under "security threat".