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Electronic Arts is applying a new four-part concept model to its biggest franchises that is focused on embedding games as new social networks.

EA CEO Andrew Wilson has a vision: Games will eventually be used as the new social network to bind players, communities, and families together using online frameworks and interactivity models. The plan will be (and has been) made possible by EA's emphasis on four major pillars: Watch, play, create, and connect. Each of these aspects will find their way into all of EA's most powerful IPs and franchises, including Battlefield, Apex Legends, FIFA, Madden, and The Sims.

"What I do think we'll see more is the creation. The Sims has been built on creation since it launched in 2001, and we've seen hours of creation in our Battlefield franchise with all those Battlefield moments, and we've seen FIFA expanding with team creation and collection and ultimate team. We're going to do more of that. We're going to open this up and offer a more interactive component and part of what you see with us in Skate is that we're going to be able to build this overall global universe with skateboarding as a cultural catalyst--skateboarding leans into fashion and into music and building and brand, we think that franchise can do that as well.

The new Saints Row reboot has been poorly received by critics and may have bombed on the sales charts, but the Embracer Group is still confident they will make money from the game.

The latest Saints Row game has its fair share of problems. It's being lambasted by YouTubers and streamers for cutting out popular franchise characters and completely rebooting the main story, location, and overall culture. The biggest issues are performance hiccups and glitches, which remain prevalent throughout the game. As a result, it looks like Saints Row is a sales dud.

In a recent shareholders broadcast, Embracer Group CEO Lars Wingefors attested the game has a "polarized" image and that Saints Row won't make as much money as other popular franchises--or even games in the Saints Row series--like Metro, which remains one of Deep Silver's most potent IPs.

Embracer Group reminds gamers, shareholders, and the games industry at large that it has the largest treasure trove of IP rights in the entire market.

The Embracer Group is fast becoming a megaton force in creative power. The company currently has access to a whopping 816 intellectual properties with rights stretching across media like film, games, TV shows, and various tabletop/board games. This is an absolutely massive amount of properties to choose from, including heavy-hitters like The Lord of the Rings, Tomb Raider, Deus Ex, Borderlands, Saints Row...and some surprising IPs like Hellboy, Timecop, and The Umbrella Academy.

In a recent shareholders presentation, Embracer Group CEO Lars Wingefors showed an interesting slide with a bunch of IPs listed on it. Wingefors was mentioning transmedia content, which is also interesting because some of this content hasn't ever been adapted into games.

What do you think about robots taking your order, cooking your food, and delivering food to you while you dine at a restaurant? There are some roles that are easily replaced with robots, while other positions should remain safe for human workers... for now.

Currently, chef robots are extremely limited in their capable tasks, such as mixing beverages or operating deep fryers, so certain roles are likely safe. For example, chefs, managers, and waitstaff might be irreplaceable, but there definitely is room for automation and robotics to augment human staff in restaurants.

However, front-of-house jobs might be most likely to be disrupted by automation, with cashiers, drive-through operators, baristas, and hosts might be under pressure. Humans currently employed in these roles may one day have to expand their work skillset in the restaurant to avoid being replaced by their robot counterparts.

Analyst firm Newzoo estimates the global video games industry will generate $196.8 billion in total revenues throughout 2022, including platforms like consoles, PC, and mobile devices.

Driven by strong software sales, billion-dollar monetization across all platforms, and new continuing subscription adoption, gaming is getting even closer to the $200 billion revenues mark. According to Newzoo's latest global games market report, the industry is set to make $196.8 billion throughout the year, up 2.1% year-over-year from 2021.

Mobile is on track to make up 52% of total worldwide earnings with $103.5 billion. Console gaming is down 2.2% from 2021 due to supply chain issues, however Sony is preparing to ship 18 million PlayStation 5 consoles from March 2022 - March 2023.

E3 2023 is coming back as an in-person event, but the entire show won't be accessible for everyone.

Today the Entertainment Software Association announced that iconic trade show E3 is making its triumphant return as an in-person event, and will be held at the Los Angeles Convention Center as per tradition.

E3 2023 will be held from June 13 - 15, but will be split between two different types of access and one of them will be closed to the public. The industry hall, which includes developers, publishers, games media, and distributors, will be closed to the general public. The gamers section, which will be open to the public from June 15-16, is a free-for-all of game demos, promotions, and exhibitors.

The Elia Group's re.alto and Volkswagen subsidiary Elli recently signed a partnership to integrate electric vehicles into the electricity power grid across Europe.

The companies will focus on price signals and incentives, market design, trusted data within the power system, and safe connectivity with proper data security. Elli has experience with mobility services, charging infrastructure, and serving as a flexible energy provider - and re.alto brings experience related to energy data connections and APIs.

Electricity demand is expected to increase almost 70% by 2050, and operators must work now to ensure they're able to keep up with demand as best as they can moving forward. Hopefully, relying on electric vehicle battery as a mobile power bank helps move forward towards climate neutrality - the renewable energy is stored and used more efficiently, and the power grid can be easily stabilized.

Over half of automotive sales in the United States will be electric vehicles in 2030, according to a recent Bloomberg New Energy Finance report. In the current timeframe, EV sales in 2022 are reaching new levels this year, as there is a continued effort to move away from internal combustion engines that rely on fossil fuels.

During 2021, EV sales doubled throughout the year, and should reach more than 13 percent of total auto sales by the end of the year, according to the International Energy Agency. Consumer incentives to purchase EVs, including a point-of-sale tax credit up to $7,500, has boosted the 2030 market share estimate from 43% up to 52%. Of note, the credit is only applicable to vehicles assembled in North America, along with batteries that are also assembled within North America.

Throughout all of 2021, almost 7 million EVs were sold - but 2 million were sold in just Q1 of 2022, a whopping 75 percent year-over-year increase. This growth is expected to continue, but the tax credit will also certainly help drive up adoption moving forward - as long as automakers are able to maintain inventory of car models. Tesla, General Motors, and Ford will likely be the companies able to support domestic battery production the most, though they must also adapt to mineral importation and battery manufacturing rules.

We are only weeks away from AMD's big next-gen Radeon RX 7000 series "RDNA 3" graphics cards reveal on November 3, but ahead of that there's Radeon Monster Profile.

Radeon Monster Profile (RMP) is made by developer Yuri "1usmus" Bubliy, who is the creator of Hydra, and last teased Hydra 1.2 and its new OC tool that would auto-tune your RDNA 2 GPU, as well as including Ryzen 7000 series "Zen 4" CPU support.

But the new Radeon Monster Profile is something exciting: it combines the unique settings and a new volt-frequency curve for AMD's current-gen RDNA 2 GPUs, which will let the graphics card you own "reveal its maximum potential". Yuri explains that he paid particular attention to the memory subsystem, where the operating voltage was reduced by 6% which reduced the heat of the GDDR6 memory modules.

TEAMGROUP has some wicked-fast new DDR5 memory available on Newegg right now, with the new T-Force Delta RGB 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR5-7200 memory. Yeah, DDR5-7200 memory.

The company itself actually doesn't even list the new DDR5-7200 speeds on their own website, with TEAMGROUP officially listing DDR5-6600, 6400, 6200, 6000, 5600, and 5200 memory speed kits. The new TEAMGROUP T-Force Delta RGB 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR5-7200 kit is listed on Newegg for $350 right now, ready for your new Zen 4 or Raptor Lake PC.

VideoCardz suspects this could be one of the first memory kits with the new Hynix A-die memory, as we saw M-die memory being pushed up to DDR5-7000, but now DDR5-7200 is here. The specific model number for TEAMGROUP's new T-Force Delta RGB 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR5-7200 memory is "FF3D532G7200HC34ADC01", because you'll remember that.

PNY has outed their new custom GeForce RTX 4090 that will drop into their XLR8 Gaming family of GPUs, with the introduction of the VERTO GeForce RTX 4090, GeForce RTX 4080 16GB, and GeForce RTX 4080 12GB graphics cards.

The new PNY VERTO GeForce RTX 4090 features a base vapor chamber, 8 heat pipes, a triple-fan cooler, and durable twin ball bearing fan hubs, with it all build into a sleek aluminum backplate that protects the important (and very sensitive) components on the card, as well as act as additional cooling.

PNY's new VERTO GeForce RTX 4080 16GB graphics card has the same 8 heat pipes but drops the base vapor chamber, but retains the rest: triple-fan cooler, and more. PNY does kick things down a notch or two with the VERTO GeForce RTX 4080 12GB graphics card, with 7 heat pipes compared to 8 heat pipes on the RTX 4090 and RTX 4080 16GB.

NVIDIA's next-gen GeForce RTX 40 series GPUs do not support NVLink, and have no NVLink physical connector on the cards whatsoever... disappointing, but expected.

The news is coming directly from NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang, who on a call with the tech press he said that Ada Lovelace drops the NVLink connector so that the I/O room for "something else". We do know that NVIDIA has crammed a helluva lot more into Ada Lovelace GPUs, with transistors, CUDA core, and ROP counts going through the roof.

Jensen said that NVIDIA engineers wanted to use as much of the silicon area they had their hands-on to "cram in as much AI processing as we could". We also now know: Ada Lovelace does NOT support PCIe 5.0, but NVIDIA included the Gen5 power connector.

NASA postponed the launch of Artemis 1, scheduled for September 27, because of Tropical Storm Ian's path off Florida's Atlantic coast.

The National Hurricane Center expects Ian to be upgraded to a hurricane on Monday, with it reaching normal hurricane strength the day after - when Artemis 1 was expected to launch from the Kennedy Space Center.

As of Sunday evening, NASA still hasn't ordered a rollback of the Orion spacecraft or Artemis uncrewed space launch system rocket back to the Vehicle Assembly Building. Engineers will monitor the weather situation overnight, then make a final decision tomorrow - but are hesitant to put the Artemis or Orion in danger.

I really thought we'd see NVIDIA unveil its next-gen GeForce RTX 40 series graphics cards, and the new Ada Lovelace GPU architecture sporting an also next-gen display connectivity: DisplayPort 2.0 aka DP2.0, but nope.

NVIDIA's huge GeForce RTX 40 series GPU reveal came and went, and after it all happened one of the biggest disappointments was the lack of DisplayPort 2.0 connectivity. We've had DisplayPort 1.4 connectors forever now, and while HDMI 2.1 has joined the party that's really for big, high refresh rate TVs (HDMI 2.1 is capable of 4K120).

But, DisplayPort 2.0 is the future... people using GeForce RTX 4090s and GeForce RTX 4080s, and other GeForce RTX 40 series graphics cards in 2023, 2024, and 2025... all without DP2.0 connectivity. So DP2.0 starts taking off in 2023, more prevalent in 2024 and 2025, yet the biggest quantum leap in GPUs doesn't have the very latest display standard in the tail end of 2022, which sucks.

NVIDIA has provided more details on its next-gen GeForce RTX 40 series GPUs and their die sizes, transistor counts, and more for the upcoming AD102, AD103, and AD104 GPUs.

The company provided some more details on its flagship AD102 GPU, but some of the pieces of the AD103 and AD104 GPU puzzles weren't there. AnandTech's Ryan Smith reported the detailed specifications of the GPUs, where we now know that NVIDIA's next-gen AD102 GPU has a 608 mm² die, 76.3B transistors, AD103 has a 378.6 mm² die, 45.9B transistors, while AD104 has a 294.5 mm² die, 35.8B transistors.

We also know that the ROP count on Ada Lovelace is significantly higher, with AD102 rolling out with a huge 192 ROPs, AD103 with 112 ROPs, and AD104 with 80 ROPs. For comparison's sake, the current-gen GA102 "Ampere" GPU has 112 ROPs (so the same as AD103). Increased ROP count = higher rasterization performance in games.

ADATA has just announced a monster new ATX 3.0-compatible power supply under its high-end and gaming brand: XPG. The new XPG CYBERCORE II series PSUs have been announced, ready for just about everything you can throw at it.

The new XPG CYBERCORE II series PSUs come in 1000W and 1300W models, they're fully modular 80 PLUS Platinum certified and are the most compact high-wattage PSU form factor that XPG has made so far. Inside, the new XPG CYBERCORE II series PSUs are cooled by the XPG VENTO PRO 120 PWM fan by Nidec.

Now, the business end of this PSU: ADATA's new XPG CYBERCORE II series PSUs are ATX 3.0 compatible, ready for the future wave of devices, and they're PCIe 5.0 ready. There's a native 16-pin (12+4) PCIe 5.0 "12VHPWR" connector, which is something you're going to want if you buy one of NVIDIA's next-gen GeForce RTX 4080, but more so the GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card.

MSI has just unleashed its next-gen SPATIUM M570 PCIe 5.0 NVMe M.2 HS, a next-gen SSD that pushes read speeds up to a huge 12GB/sec with the latest PCIe Gen5 connectivity.

The new MSI SPATIUM M570 PCIe 5.0 NVMe M.2 HS SSD slots into the next-gen PCIe 5.0 standard, but is backward compatible with PCIe 4.0 and PCIe 3.0 systems, while inside MSI is using high-quality 3D NAND flash and "advanced cooling". The new MSI SPATIUM M570 PCIe 5.0 NVMe M.2 HS will be available in 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB capacities with varying prices (that we don't know just yet).

Inside, MSI is tapping the new Phison E26 SSD controller that features up to 12.3GB/sec (12,300MB/sec) sequential reads in CrystalDiskMark benchmarks, while writes are up to a huge 10.1GB/sec (10,100MB/sec).

AMD's new Ryzen 9 7950X processor is doing the benchmark rounds, with 4 x HWBOT records smashed and there was no exotic LN2 cooling used: just AIO cooling for the beasty new Zen 4 flagship CPU.

The new AMD Ryzen 9 7950X was installed into a few different motherboards depending on the overclocker, with the following motherboards used to smash the HWBOT records: GIGABYTE X670E AORUS MASTER, ASUS ROG Crosshair X670E Extreme, ASRock X670 Taichi, and MSI's new X670E MEG ACE motherboards. Cooling-wise, the overclockers were using a Corsair H115i AIO liquid cooler.

Cinebench R15, Cinebench R20, Cinebench R23, and 7-zip records were achieved with the overclocked Ryzen 9 7950X processor, with the CPUs running at between 5.4GHz and 5.5GHz across all of the Zen 4 cores, with temperatures between 87C and a rather toasty 108C according to the BenchMate data.

AMD's new Ryzen 9 7950X "Zen 4" processor has been pushed to new limits just days before its official retail launch, with the new Zen 4 flagship CPU being pumped up to an incredible 7.2GHz on a single-core, and 6.5GHz all-core OC.

We know to use a high-end 360mm AIO cooler with AMD's new flagship Ryzen 9 7950X processor if you want to hit 5.7GHz but if you wanted to reach 5.8GHz and above on the Ryzen 9 7950X then you need to use some serious cooling. TUM_APISAK posted some CPU-Z validation screenshots of the new Ryzen 9 7950X hitting 7.2GHz and 6.GHz, check them out below.

A single Zen 4 core was overclocked to 7247MHz (7.2GHz) with 1.506V and chilled with LN2 cooling, while 6.5GHz all-core was reached with a little less voltage -- 1.465V -- but the same LN2 cooling. Not too shabby at all... 16 cores and 32 threads of next-gen Zen 4 CPU power at 6.5GHz, but not everyone has LN2 cooling.

Uh, so you're going to want to be real, real careful with the new 12VHPWR power connector... with ZOTAC warning users that the new GeForce RTX 4090 power cable has a limited service life of 30 connects and disconnects. Yeah, just thirty times. This isn't something super new, as current connectors can't just be connected and disconnected hundreds of times without damage.

NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card uses the new 16-pin PCIe Gen5 "12VHPWR" power connector, but if you don't have a new PSU ready with a native 16-pin connector... then you'll need the 4 x 8-pin to 12VHPWR cable which is limited to 30 connect/disconnects.

As for NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card, power consumption will be 450W while we're expecting up to 600W and above with custom RTX 4090 models, like the upcoming ZOTAC GAMING GeForce RTX 4090 AMP Extreme AIRO graphics card. You wouldn't want 450W to 600W or above flowing through a cable that could be damaged, so... be careful with your RTX 490 and PSU purchases.