Latest Technology Content

Valve has changed in the last few months with management reportedly making staff publish content quicker, rather than no communication or months of no updates on internal projects... enter codename Citadel.

Citadel turned up in a low-level engine update to Dota 2 which is based on the Source 2 engine. Citadel is the latest to join the list of Source 2 projects with Dota 2, Half-Life VR, and Left 4 Dead 3. In the video above, Tyler McVicker from Valve News Network said that Citadel is the work of Valve pushing employees to ship content more often, and now we're seeing the effects of those internal changes.

MSI is gearing up for the release of its custom Navi graphics cards with its upcoming Radeon RX 5700 XT MECH and Radeon RX 5700 MECH graphics cards.

The company has confirmed they will be launching in August, with the MECH series just one of 8 custom models that MSI is reportedly preparing for release. This list includes the kick ass GAMING series, as well as the MECH, AIR, Boost, and a new EVOKE series card. A total of 8 different graphics cards will be released, 4 of them RX 5700 XT and 4 of them RX 5700 XT.

MSI's custom Radeon RX 5700 GAMING won't be available until September according to VideoCardz, which notes that the rest of the custom Navi cards from MSI will launch in late August.

So... Hollywood did a thing. The Broadway musical is now a new CGI-heavy movie with the first trailer to Cats released wiht some top-shelf names in the mix including Taylor Swift, James Corden, Ian McKellen, and Judi Dench. Just... check out the trailer:

It looks so beyond horrible it's not funny, mainly from the "cats" looking like weird cat-like humans because it is not fur, the actors aren't wearing suits. The eats, whiskers, fur, and tail are all added digitally. The cats are not proportioned to real cats or small humans, where in some scenes of the trailer the cat is unnaturally small on the bed, and even more so on a plate.

The CGI looks horrendous and makes the botch job the VFX team did on Superman's lip in Justice League look amazing, and that's saying something. Hell, it makes the movie version of Sonic the Hedgehog look incredible, something the team quickly understood from the reaction of the internet, and are now fixing.

ASRock has just unveiled its first custom Radeon RX 5700 series graphics cards, with the new factory overclocked Challenger series that comes in both flagship Radeon RX 5700 XT and Radeon RX 5700.

The new Radeon RX 5700 Challenger series takes ASRock's graphics cards business 'into full swing' with factory overclocked Radeon RX 5700 XT Challenger seeing a 1650/1905/1795MHz base, boost, and game clocks on the GPU respectively. This is up 45MHz on the base and 40MHz on the game clocks, but there's more to it than just pure GPU clocks.

ASRock's big win here will be with the cooling, since we see the RX 5700 Challenger models including a dual-fan cooler which should be much better than the blower-style cooling on the Radeon RX 5700 XT and RX 5700 reference models.

The more that CD PROJEKT RED talks about the world of Cyberpunk 2077, the more I want to be dunked into it -- especially the latest about its dynamic weather system.

Cyberpunk 2077 will have a dynamic weather system similar to The Witcher 3, with CDPR to surely build on it and make it even more immersive than ever. In an interview with WCCFTech, CD PROJEKT RED's Alvin Liu said: "Yeah, we've got acid rain as well. Night City is a very polluted city and we're also exploring that kind of stuff, pollution and global warming and everything".

Despite Bethesda promising otherwise, Fallout 76's microtransactions aren't completely cosmetic and haven't been for some time. Now the studio has added a second convenience item that allows gamers to pay for in-game shortcuts.

Fallout 76's microtransactions were never totally cosmetic--you could buy generators in the Atomic Shop to power your bases' turrets for use in PVP and PVE--but most gamers didn't notice until Bethesda rolled out convenience items. These new items are called utilities and have an actual tangible effect on gameplay (mostly reducing the intense stress and tedium Fallout 76 brings).

First there were repair kits, which instantly repairs an item to full 100% condition, and now there's scrap kits, new items that cut frustration quite a bit. Scrapping is a big part of Fallout 76, and you're constantly picking up junk to break down at workbenches. It gets old very, very fast. But now Bethesda is selling you a shortcut that removes that tedium and lets you scrap everything at once! All for the low cost of $0.50 a pop!

After 24 years of ripping, tearing, and smashing FPS boundaries, Tim Willits is departing id Software.

Tim Willits is ready to hang up his BFG 9000 and today announced he plans to leave id Software: "After 24 years, I've decided to leave id Software after QuakeCon. I've been extremely lucky to work with the best people in the industry on truly amazing games," Willits said on Twitter.

Willits has had a transformative impact on id Software, Doom, Quake, and the games industry as a whole. His legacy runs deep in demon's blood: since 1995 he helped design levels in various games like Doom 3, Quakes II-4, Doom 2016, RAGE, RAGE 2, and this year's monstrous Doom Eternal. Willits got his start making levels for the original Doom on MS-DOS, and impressed id so much they actually hired him.

Google likens its premium Stadia Pro subscription to PlayStation Plus or Xbox LIVE Gold, and plans to give out free games every month.

Google's new cloud-streaming Stadia service could change gaming forever, but only if it's done right. Now we have more clarification on what it offers. The service, which beams games wirelessly over the internet directly to Chrome browsers, Chromecasts, and Pixel smartphones, has two options: a free version which requires gamers pay full price for games and buy them separately, and Stadia Pro, a $10 a month option that gives you free games, discounts, and access to Google's high-powered servers for 4K 60FPS gaming.

But Stadia isn't like Xbox Game Pass or PlayStation Now. You don't get access to a buffet of games all at once. No, it's more like a premium add-on than a dedicated all-you-can-play subscription.Stadia Pro will give users a free game every month starting with Destiny 2. The pool of games will grow over time similar to PS Plus or Xbox LIVE Gold, but Pro subscribers still have to buy other games one-by-one.

"To be clear, Stadia Pro is not Netflix for Games like some people have mentioned, a closer comparison would be like Xbox Live Gold or PlayStation Plus," said Stadia Director of Product Andrey Doronichev in a recent Reddit AmA. "The Pro subscribers get 4K/HDR streaming, 5.1 sound, exclusive discounts and access to some free games. Roughly one free game per month give or take. Starting with Destiny 2 (yay!)."

Ubisoft kicks off its first quarter with massive digital sales and microtransaction revenues, proving its shift towards online gaming is working extremely well.

Today Ubisoft announced its first quarter earnings for Fiscal Year 2020, and the results are stellar. The figures firmly cement digital as the publisher's leading breadwinner and Ubisoft couldn't be happier (digital means avoiding retail costs, shipping, etc.).

Thanks to its lucrative engagement-driven live service games like The Division 2, Rainbow Six: Siege, Ghost Recon: Wildlands and even Assassin's Creed: Odyssey, the company managed to pull in 363.4 million Euros ($412.82 million) in total sales revenues the three-month period ending June 30, 2019. This is actually a decrease; both net sales and net bookings are down, but high microtransaction earnings and engagement offset these drops.

Microtransaction, season pass, and subscription revenues are up nearly 20% year-over-year to 150.4 million Euros ($170.85 million). PRI, or what Ubisoft calls Player Recurring Investment, made up nearly half of total net bookings during the quarter. Digital reigned supreme for Ubisoft's Q1. Digital game sales, microtransactions, and subscriptions accounted for an astronomical 93% of total net bookings, raking in a hefty 292.4 million Euros ($332.16 million).

Thanks to games like Anno 1800, The Division 2, and Assassin's Creed: Odyssey, the PC platform now leads as Ubisoft's top-seller.

Thanks to a wider install base and a more closed-off ecosystem with comparatively more expensive games, consoles typically lead the sales charts for major publishers. But in Ubisoft's latest financials, PC gaming usurped PS4 and Xbox One to earn the lion's share of revenues. For Fiscal Year Q1'2020's three-month period from April 1 through June 30, PC made 34% of Ubisoft's total quarterly net bookings, or about 106.82 million Euros ($121.34 million). This represents a 10% increase from last year.

Ubisoft attributes this rise to Anno 1800, a PC-only game exclusive to the Epic Games Store and uPlay, and other games like Rainbow Six: Siege and The Division 2 helped generate revenues. In fact, Ubisoft says The Division 2 is the best-selling game of 2019 so far on all platforms. What's more interesting is that sales are not only up, but microtransaction revenues are climbing too; Ubi made $170.85 million from player recurring investment in the quarter.