Latest News - Page 101

Turtle Beach has unveiled its latest premium wireless gaming audio solution, the Stealth Pro II headset. A successor to the original Stealth Pro, the Stealth Pro II supports hi-res 24-bit, 96kHz audio via low-latency wireless that is Japan Audio Society-certified. Although that might sound a little strange for a gaming headset, the Japan Audio Society has been around since the 1950s, and is an organization committed to the pursuit of "High-Fidelity Sound." So, yeah, this certification is a great sign that the Stealth Pro II's hi-res audio will sound fantastic.

And on the sound front, Turtle Beach's latest premium offering delivers audio via large, custom-tuned 60mm Eclipse dual drivers with dedicated woofers and tweeters for more immersive listening. The drivers are also tuned for Dolby Atmos Spatial Audio for those wanting that surround-sound experience. The Stealth Pro II is also versatile with wireless support for Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and Bluetooth devices. And the CrossPlay 2.0 system allows for seamless connection and switching between four devices.

The Stealth Pro II is also a closed-back headset that can be taken on the go thanks to integrated Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) and two swappable 40-hour battery packs. In addition to the detachable 9mm floating microphone that Turtle Beach claims delivers broadcast-quality voice with AI-powered noise reduction, the headset includes beamforming microphones.

NVIDIA has released GeForce Game Ready Driver 596.21, with the big new addition being day one support for a few games, including Capcom's Pragmata, a new sci-fi action-adventure out today. Built with the studio's RE Engine, like the recent launch of Resident Evil Requiem, Pragmata arrives with support for the full DLSS suite of technologies, including Super Resolution, Multi Frame Generation, and Ray Reconstruction.

And like Resident Evil, Pragmata on PC supports a stunning real-time path-tracing mode for realistic cinematic lighting that elevates in-game visuals and immersion to a new level. And based on early reviews from games critics, it sounds like Capcom is also two for two with its big 2026 releases. Alongside driver support, NVIDIA has announced the new Pragmata GeForce RTX 50 Series Bundle, which offers GeForce RTX 50 Series GPUs and laptop owners a copy of the game on Steam.

GeForce Game Ready Driver 596.21 also adds game support for the Early Access debut of the indie survival, co-op, and PvE game set in the 'Age of Piracy' called Windrose.

25 years after the first Xbox console released, Microsoft might be poised to invest more manpower and financial backing into the gaming brand than it ever has before.

Xbox's new CEO Asha Sharma might have big plans for the flagging games division. The fresh-faced CEO began her tenure by reigniting hype around Xbox, revealing the ambitious Project Helix console-PC hybrid, scrapping the unpopular "this is an Xbox" marketing campaign, and making changes driven by fan feedback.

In a newly-leaked memo acquired by The Verge, Sharma seems to indicate that Microsoft is ready to "deeply invest" into Xbox beyond the current status quo. This could manifest in a more unified framework for developers and gamers alike, offering better access to content and potentially even facilitating faster product releases.

Sony's first-party PlayStation teams are said to be chasing the extraction shooter genre, with Bungie's latest Marathon entering the arena...and it may not be the only new live game that does so.

As it did with Fortnite battle royale, Sony Interactive Entertainment undoubtedly sees the wild success of the extraction shooter market. Arc Raiders has become a highly profitable mega-hit, capturing hundreds of thousands of users on Steam alone during its peak. Bungie jumped head-first into extraction shooters with Marathon, yet that game hasn't exactly taken off the same way that Embark's sci-fi game did.

Now there are reports that another one of Sony's upcoming live games will have extraction shooter elements, likely in a bid to experiment to see what works. Sources tell Insider Gaming's Tom Henderson that first-party live shooter Fairgames will have a mode called Cargo Heist, which is a take on extraction shooters.

Google recently launched an AI tool for creating designs from descriptions. Now, Canva is going down a similar route. The company has announced Canva AI 2.0, a more powerful version of its AI assistant that it claims will fundamentally change how people think about design work.

Canva AI 2.0 leans into the "vibe coding" idea but applies it to graphic design, letting users create fully editable designs from text prompts. Instead of starting with a blank canvas and building everything manually in a linear fashion, you just describe what you want, and the assistant calls the required tools and generates a few options to choose from.

Whatever it generates is a layered, editable output that can be refined with manual tools or by continuing to chat with the assistant. Every visual element it generates sits on its own layer, giving you the flexibility to tweak anything individually. You can also generate content across multiple formats in one go, perfect for anyone running multi-channel campaigns.

Original Bungie concept artist Eddie Smith shares his thoughts on the new Halo Campaign Evolved, saying that the game could look much more photorealistic than it does.

Halo Campaign Evolved is set to launch sometime this summer, capping 25 years of the iconic franchise with the series' first-ever release on PlayStation. A lot has changed over the years, and hype for Halo has died down as big competitors establish sometimes-fleeting footholds in gaming. But grizzled franchise veterans still find some old magic in Campaign Evolved trailer, stirring the bones of once-mighty shooter series.

With Microsoft's business model being somewhat contentious, it's always interesting to hear what the OG Bungie forerunners think about Halo, especially with the new remake. One old-school Halo dev, concept artist Eddie Smith, tells Halo community pro Mint Blitz that he essentially expected more from the Campaign Evolved trailer.

Meta announced that it will soon increase prices for the Quest 3 and Quest 3S headsets, including new and refurbished units. With this, the VR company joins a growing list of products getting pricier due to the global memory shortage, which has already swept up game consoles, handhelds, laptops, and basically any device that uses RAM.

Starting April 19th, US-based consumers will see both Quest 3S variants (128 GB and 256 GB) increase by $50, while the 512GB Quest 3 flagship will jump by $100. Here is what they will cost after the increase:

Meta cites the ongoing memory crisis as the main factor, saying in its blog post, "The global surge in the price of critical components-specifically memory chips-is impacting almost every category of consumer electronics, including VR. To keep delivering the quality of hardware, software, and support you expect from the Quest platform, we need to adjust our pricing."

Sony's next State of Play might be closer than expected, as a new leak has pointed to a specific date that is just around the corner.

According to a post from Detective Seeds, a known gaming industry insider, Sony is rumored to be hosting its next State of Play event on May 15, potentially setting up a major PlayStation showcase in just a few weeks. While Sony has yet to officially confirm the presentation, the timing lines up with previous reports and ongoing industry chatter pointing to a mid-May broadcast. If accurate, this would mark Sony's next big opportunity to outline what's coming next for PS5.

The rumored timing also connects with several recent developments across Sony's lineup. Insomniac has already teased that more Wolverine news is coming soon, and a State of Play would be the perfect venue for a gameplay reveal ahead of launch. There's also growing momentum around a God of War spinoff centered on Faye, following recent leaks detailing a new narrative direction.

Ubisoft might be getting ready to reveal its long-rumored Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag remake, and a sudden launcher listing may have just jumped the gun.

A now-removed listing for Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced briefly appeared on Ubisoft's launcher, giving fans their clearest look yet at the project. The listing, quickly captured and shared online, included promotional art featuring Edward Kenway in a brand-new black and gold outfit, alongside a description teasing players to "(Re)play this classic swashbuckling adventure on Day 1 with Ubisoft+ Premium."

While Ubisoft has yet to officially confirm the title, the appearance and rapid removal of the listing strongly suggest a reveal is imminent. The timing also lines up with earlier reporting from Insider Gaming, which claimed Ubisoft had been targeting a mid-April announcement, with April 16 specifically mentioned. That date has come and gone without an official reveal, but this sudden leak may indicate plans have simply shifted rather than been scrapped.

A new PlayStation 6 leak is pointing to one of Sony's most consumer-friendly moves yet, and it could redefine how the next-gen ecosystem works.

According to a leak shared by Moore's Law Is Dead, both the PlayStation 6 and its rumored handheld companion will support full backward compatibility with PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 titles. The information reportedly comes from an internal AMD presentation slide outlining Sony's next-gen plans built on the RDNA 5 architecture.

If accurate, this would give players access to a massive library of existing games at launch, something that has increasingly become a key expectation for modern consoles. Digging into the details, the leak highlights several technical pillars behind the PS6 platform. These include AI-driven upscaling features like Super Resolution, improved ray tracing with backward compatibility for PS5 titles, and dedicated engineering workstreams focused on ensuring seamless compatibility across generations.

Fresh allegations surrounding Halo Studios are painting a troubling picture behind the scenes, with former developers now speaking out in greater detail.

Following initial claims from former art director Glenn Israel, who recently departed the studio after more than 17 years working across the Halo franchise, a new investigative report has expanded on those concerns. Israel previously described issues including favoritism and questionable internal practices, while Microsoft responded only briefly, stating it does not publicly comment on individual employee matters. Now, additional reporting and corroboration from other former staff are adding weight to those claims.

One of the key issues highlighted in the Rebs Gaming report, linked above, is alleged cronyism in hiring. Israel claims that between June 2024 and June 2025, only three art leadership roles were posted externally, and all three were filled by former associates of leadership, with a potential fourth following the same pattern.

New estimates from Alinea Analytics put Starfield's total gross sales revenues at around $300 million on all platforms, including the first week on PS5 sales. Bethesda's most successful game of all time, Skyrim, managed to make double that in its first month.

Starfield launched right into Xbox Game Pass, so it's not a surprise that the game sold many fewer copies than previous Bethesda RPGs. Microsoft's subscription can impact full product sales as consumers can pay $30 once--or even twice--and still pay less than a full-priced game, an effect referred to as "cannibalization" in the industry. The effect was widely discussed in the 2023 FTC v Microsoft trial, and the UK's competitions authority also found that Game Pass is expected to reduce game sales by specific percentages.

While specifics remain unclear, some analysts have attempted to estimate Starfield's revenue, with Alinea Analytics reporting that the game could have made around $300 million in sales on Xbox, PS5, and PC. That's...not an earth-shattering figure, especially for Bethesda, who is used to selling tens of millions of copies of its games. A quick comparison shows that Skyrim made double that of Starfield in just 30 days, compared to Starfield's ~2.5 years.

PVE pirate survival game Windrose has beckoned to players, calling tens of thousands of PC gamers to the high seas--and pushing the game to the top spot on Steam's best-sellers charts.

In an age where AAA games are sinking left and right, Windrose looks to be the next indie early access hit to help the games industry stay afloat. The 18th century pirate sim goes right up against the likes of Ubisoft's Skull & Bones, offering exploration, ship-to-ship naval combat, co-op, MMO-style resource gathering, and direct third-person land combat complete with dodges and rolls.

So far the game is doing incredibly well in early access, where it has taken Steam's top #1 best-seller spot, beating out Valve's seemingly-immortal Counter-Strike 2. At the time of writing, Windrose has accumulated 97,981 concurrent players in 24 hours. The dev team behind the game says that over 500K people actually played the game in the last 48 hours. The demand for these kinds of games is clearly here, as expressed with long-running live games like Rare's Sea of Thieves.

YouTube is quietly giving users a way to completely eliminate Shorts from the app, and it might be the most impactful update yet for anyone tired of endless scrolling.

The platform has rolled out an update to its time management settings that allows users to set a zero-minute limit on Shorts, effectively removing the feature from view on both Android and iOS. Previously, the lowest limit available was 15 minutes, but this new option takes things a step further by letting users opt out entirely. Initially designed with parental controls in mind, the feature is now expanding to all users, meaning anyone can now cut Shorts out of their YouTube experience.

The way it works is simple but surprisingly effective. Once the timer is enabled and set to zero, the Shorts feed disappears, meaning no videos, no autoplay, just a notification stating that the limit has been reached. In testing, the change goes even further, with Shorts also being removed from the Home feed, significantly reducing temptation to engage with short-form content. YouTube says the feature is already live for parents and is currently rolling out to standard accounts, positioning it as a broader digital wellbeing tool rather than just a parental safeguard.

Grok, the AI app from Elon Musk's xAI, reportedly came dangerously close to being pulled from Apple's App Store over a growing deepfake controversy.

According to a new report, Apple warned xAI earlier this year that Grok could be removed entirely if it failed to address the spread of sexualized AI-generated images circulating on X. The warning came amid mounting pressure from US lawmakers, who had raised concerns about Grok's ability to generate explicit, non-consensual deepfakes of real people. Apple confirmed in a letter to senators that it had rejected earlier versions of the app, forcing xAI to make changes before it would allow updates to go live.

The situation, however, appears far from resolved. A recent investigation has found that despite xAI implementing safeguards, such as prompt filters, monitoring systems, and model updates, problematic content is still being generated and shared online. That includes AI-generated images depicting real individuals in revealing or suggestive scenarios.

Just days after Bethesda's massive sci-fi RPG landed on PlayStation 5, a new rating has surfaced that's reigniting speculation around a potential Switch 2 port.

The listing, spotted on Taiwan's Entertainment Software Rating Information database, includes Starfield alongside its existing Xbox Series X|S, PC, and PS5 versions, but notably adds Nintendo Switch 2 to the mix. While the rating curiously lists April 15, 2026 as a release date, this appears to be an error, as the PS5 version shares the same date despite already being available.

The bigger story here is what the rating suggests behind the scenes. Rumors of a Switch 2 version have been circulating for months, though development hasn't sounded smooth. Industry insiders have previously claimed the port has faced delays, with some even suggesting it could be canceled entirely. Others maintain it's still in development, albeit with challenges.

Insomniac Games is teasing that a fresh look at Wolverine is right around the corner, and with launch looming later this year, the timing couldn't be more interesting.

With less than six months until its planned September release on PlayStation 5, Insomniac has reassured fans that more news on Wolverine is coming "later this Spring." The studio took to social media to remind players to wishlist the title, pairing the message with a short but notable tease that suggests a new reveal isn't far off. Given how quiet things have been since its initial announcement, this latest update is enough to ramp up anticipation again.

What that reveal actually looks like remains unclear, but expectations are starting to solidify. Insomniac has previously indicated it wants to showcase more gameplay before opening up pre-orders, which strongly hints that the next update could be our first substantial look at how Wolverine plays. Whether that arrives as a standalone deep dive or as part of a broader PlayStation showcase is still up in the air. There were rumors of a State of Play presentation circulating for mid-April, but Sony has yet to confirm anything official.

Fans of the original Star Wars trilogy will want to take note of this new limited edition Custom Keycap and Mousepad collection from Team Liquid and Alienware. The large mousepads, in particular, are noteworthy for featuring stunning concept art by Ralph McQuarrie, who helped create the lived-in look and feel of the original Star Wars movies.

Priced at $40.00 on Team Liquid's official store, the four designs include the epic closing space battle from Return of the Jedi, Luke's arrival on the planet Dagobah, C-3PO being carried by Ewoks on the forest moon of Endor, and a shot of the water planet Kamino from Attack of the Clones. For fans of the original trilogy, the first three designs listed above look stunning as mousepads.

As for the keycaps, they're compatible with Alienware Pro Series Keyboards, including the impressive Alienware Pro Wireless Gaming Keyboard we reviewed last year. Still, they're compatible with multiple keyboards because they have 108 keys. Here you've also got four main designs, with two depicting Ralph McQuarrie concept art and two offering colorways with Star Wars branding.

The latest update to the system monitoring tool HWiNFO is notable, as it paves the way for new CPU and GPU hardware, most notably AMD's upcoming Zen 6-generation of processors. According to the release notes for HWiNFO 8.46, it has "improved support of next-generation AMD CPUs and APUs."

Although there's no mention of specific models, the assumption is that this includes AMD's new Zen 6 desktop and laptop processors with the codenames 'Olympic Ridge' and 'Medusa Point.' The "improved support" points to multiple SKUs currently being evaluated or tested, including next-gen APUs.

On the GPU side, the latest update adds support for the recently released Intel Arc Pro B65 and Arc Pro B70 GPUs, with the latter being the workstation version of Intel's long-awaited 'Big Battlemage' graphics card. The release notes also include an interesting addition to the GeForce RTX 5060 lineup: support for a new RTX 5060 variant based on the GB205 chip.

During a recent event with Lexar, a brand known for creating DRAM, SSDs, and memory cards, the company told Digital Foundry an interesting statistic about the current memory crisis and PC gamers. As we've been reporting for a while now, the AI-boom's insatiable appetite for all things memory and storage has led to an unprecedented situation in the consumer technology space. Basically, RAM and SSD prices have exponentially increased.

What this means for gamers looking to build their first gaming PC or upgrade is that they're essentially forced to opt for lower-capacity memory and storage options to keep overall costs from spiraling out of control. Case in point: just the other day, we reported that a 128GB DDR5 kit reached $4,200, whereas the same memory in a 32GB capacity costs $399.99. Still, that $400 price is much higher than it used to be, but it's the sort of "lesser of two evils" choice gamers and enthusiasts are having to make in today's climate.

And with that, Lexar told Digital Foundry that, when it comes to this sort of compromise, PC builders and gamers are more willing to choose smaller-capacity RAM or memory kits than smaller-capacity SSDs.