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Elden Ring may be delayed further, FromSoftware parent company warns
Elden Ring could be subject to more delays, FromSoftware parent company Kadokawa Corp warns in its latest earnings report.
Kadokawa Corp's latest FY2021 earnings give some clues on what's on the horizon. Kadokawa owns Japanese game developer FromSoftware, the team behind Dark Souls, Sekiro, and the hotly anticipated Elden Ring. In a presentation to investors, the group indicates Elden Ring may not release by March 2022 as part of its FY2022 period. This isn't a big surprise, however, considering the silence surrounding the title.
Kadokawa's game segment earnings are projected to slide by as much as 15% in FY2022, and operating profit could drop as much as 52%. This clearly illustrates the absence of a heavy-hitting release from one of the industry's most renowned studios. It's also interesting to note that gaming isn't a huge part of Kadokawa's business; gaming accounted for 14 billion yen in FY2021, representing 7% of yearly earnings.
Continue reading: Elden Ring may be delayed further, FromSoftware parent company warns (full post)
Mass Effect trilogy remaster comes with a 11GB day one patch
BioWare's new Mass Effect trilogy remaster is getting a 4K facelift, but it also comes a moderately-sized day one patch.
Day one patches are pretty common these days. Some games need them in order to run and take up obnoxious amounts of space. Others, like the Mass Effect Legendary Edition's day one patch, are decently sized. According to Orbis Patches, a website that tracks patch updates for PS4 games, the Mass Effect trilogy will have an 11.8GB day one patch on PlayStation.
The changelog reveals the patch will improve overall performance/stability and make visual adjustments to ambient occlusion, lighting, and other small tweaks. The day one patch on PC and Xbox platforms might be bigger or smaller.
Continue reading: Mass Effect trilogy remaster comes with a 11GB day one patch (full post)
Microsoft may reduce Xbox game store cut from 30% to just 12%
UPDATE: Microsoft reiterates that it has no plans to adjust the Xbox console revenue split, and the store will remain at 70-30 for now.
Microsoft will apparently make history and become the first console platform to offer a 88-12 revenue split in favor of developers.
New documents say Microsoft will reduce the revenue split of both its PC and Xbox console storefronts from 70-30 down to 88-12. Developers and publishers would effectively get to keep 88% of revenues versus the 70% from previous years. The news comes days after Microsoft announced it would only charge PC developers 12% of all sales on the Windows Microsoft Store. Epic Games was the first to offer such a revenue split back in 2018.
Continue reading: Microsoft may reduce Xbox game store cut from 30% to just 12% (full post)
Nintendo to solve Switch shortage in 2021 with 30 million unit influx
Nintendo wants to produce 30 million Switch consoles throughout FY2022 to meet growing worldwide demand, sources tell Nikkei Asia.
Nintendo plans to manufacture up to 30 million Switch consoles from now until March 31, 2022 to satisfy growing demand for the system. This is up roughly 5 million units from the previous 25 million unit production order in FY2021. This time Nintendo will be producing three Switch models: The base handheld-console hybrid, the handheld-only Switch Lite, and the new 4K-ready Switch model set to release this year.
Even in its fifth year on sale, the Switch shows no signs of stopping. 2020's numbers surged as consumers turned to video games to stay entertained during quarantines. Nintendo has sold a staggering 24.1 million Switch models from Q1-Q3, a new all-time record high, beating out last year's full sales in just three quarters.
Continue reading: Nintendo to solve Switch shortage in 2021 with 30 million unit influx (full post)
ASUS ROG Zephryus S17 high-end gaming laptop to be revealed on May 11
ASUS is about to reveal their next-gen ROG Zephryus S17 laptop, which will rock Intel's also-next-gen Tiger Lake-H processor. The new ASUS ROG Zephryus S17 gaming laptops will be revealed on May 11.
The special May 11 reveal event will see ASUS unveil its latest ultra-premium design inside of the next-gen ROG Zephryus S17 gaming laptop, which packs special cooling enhancing technology that raises the laptop up and off your desk in a way that increases airflow under the laptop -- thus, keeping it cooler.
The current-gen ASUS ROG Zephryus S17 does this, so we should only expect the same if not better with the next version of the ROG Zephryus S17 gaming laptop. ASUS has put the keyboard higher than the previous-gen ROG Zephryus S17 laptops, but man do I want to see that hinge working IRL right now, please.
Continue reading: ASUS ROG Zephryus S17 high-end gaming laptop to be revealed on May 11 (full post)
NASA + SpaceX $2.9B moon lander deal paused, competitors file protests
Damn... and just like that NASA and SpaceX have had their $2.9 billion Starship-based lunar landing system deal torn up and thrown into space -- I guess where no one can hear (everyone who wants to see this happen) scream.
The reason? Blue Origins Federation and Dynetics have submitted protests with the US Government Accountability Office, stopping the NASA and SpaceX deal far, far before liftoff. The space industry expected the historic $2.9 billion contract would go to two companies, but it went to one -- SpaceX -- and now its competitors are pissed.
Dynetics filed a protest with the US Government Accountability Office, arguing that NASA chose "the most anti-competitive and high risk option available" when it tasked SpaceX with using its Starship to build a Human Landing System for its mission to the moon.
Continue reading: NASA + SpaceX $2.9B moon lander deal paused, competitors file protests (full post)
Tesla Powerwall+ teased: upgraded battery for improved off-grid living
It looks like Tesla has silently launched its upgraded Powerwall+ system, not long after Elon Musk updated the world through Twitter on the power upgrades to Powerwall.
The new Tesla Powerwall+ system has a much upgraded max power output, with 9.6kW max power output up from 7kW on the regular Powerwall. The new Powerwall+ system also has a new inverter with an integrated breaker that sits above the Powerwall+ which will provide Powerwall+ owners with a new unique look over the regular Powerwall installation.
Tesla explains its new Powerwall+ battery pack: "Powerwall+ is an integrated solar battery system to store energy from solar production. Its integrated design and streamlined installation allow for a simple connection to any home, and improved surge power capability brings whole home backup in a smaller package. System smart controls enable owners to customize system behavior to suit their renewable energy needs".
Continue reading: Tesla Powerwall+ teased: upgraded battery for improved off-grid living (full post)
NVIDIA teases custom Overwatch-themed GeForce RTX 3080 graphics card
NVIDIA is getting into the spirit of Overwatch... at least in China, with NVIDIA GeForce China approving a slick custom GeForce RTX 3080 Founders Edition graphics card inspired by Overwatch.
This isn't the first time NVIDIA has customized a GeForce RTX Founders Edition graphics card, with the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Cyberpunk 2077 graphics card looking just as dapper -- but now we have the GeForce RTX 3080 Founders Edition themed with Overwatch and it looks pretty damn good, if you could find it that is.
NVIDIA has painted the card in gold and black, with Tracer's face on the back of the card and an Overwatch logo sticker on the fan. I doubt there will be many of these Overwatch-themed GeForce RTX 3080 graphics card made or available, but if you can get it you're probably desperate enough at this point you don't care whatever the hell artwork is on your graphics card.
Continue reading: NVIDIA teases custom Overwatch-themed GeForce RTX 3080 graphics card (full post)
Intel Core i9-11950H: high-end laptop CPU with 8C/16T @ 4.9GHz
We are very close to the reveal of Intel's next-gen Tiger Lake-H processors, with the new Core i9-11950H turning up to the party a little early.
Intel's new Core i9-11950H processor is an 8-core, 16-thread offering that will have boost clocks of up to 4.9GHz according to the new leaks. The new CPU was spotted inside of the HP ZBook Studio 15.6 G8 Mobile workstation PC which normally features an NVIDIA Quadro RTX mobile GPU.
We might see this particular Intel Core i9-11950H processor being exclusive to HP for the time being, with some Geekbench 5 benchmarks run on it and throwing out a single-core score of 1365 while we have a multi-core score of 6266. Intel will be fully unveiling and detailing its new Tiger Lake-H series on May 11, which is just over a week away now.
Continue reading: Intel Core i9-11950H: high-end laptop CPU with 8C/16T @ 4.9GHz (full post)
Check out the first leaked screenshots from the new Battlefield
There have been two new Battlefield images leaked onto the internet in the past hour, with Battlefield leaker Tom Henderson confirming the validity of the screenshots.
The two new screenshots from Battlefield show off the island with the flying vehicles and storm brewing off the coast, with a rocket about to take off -- while the second screenshot is from inside one of the helicopters, with the ability of blasting the rocket and its structure into dust.
Henderson confirms the Battlefield screenshots, which means he is also a damn talented artist with a pencil as his Battlefield sketches were pretty damn spot on.
Continue reading: Check out the first leaked screenshots from the new Battlefield (full post)
Chia Coin now using over 1 exabyte of storage, HDD/SSD shortage feared
Chia Coin is looking to do some damage to the HDD and SSD market now that it has pushed past using 1 exabyte of storage capacity -- a gigantic 5.7x increase since just the beginning of April.
Chia Coin will kick off its official launching into the crypto trading world next week, with the team at Chia reporting that storage capacity for Chia Coin has reached a peak of 1.14 exabytes -- or a huge 1143 petabytes, enough to install Call of Duty: Warzone a couple of times at least.
At the beginning of April, we saw Chia Coin consuming around 120 petabytes of storage -- but now that has flown up to 1143 petabytes and has people concerned. Chia Coin Mining requires gigantic amounts of free storage space as well as lots of reading and writing to your HDD or SSD, so consumer-focused SSDs aren't the best thing for Chia Coin Mining.
Continue reading: Chia Coin now using over 1 exabyte of storage, HDD/SSD shortage feared (full post)
Epic Games buys creative powerhouse ArtStation, all tutorials now free
First Epic Games acquired Oodle, and now it's acquired creative powerhouse ArtStation.
The ArtStation platform is now owned by Epic Games, and developers are mostly pretty happy about the situation. ArtStation serves millions of artists and creatives across the interactive entertainment industry, offering a way to share and connect across a dazzling smorgasboard of fantastic creations. From a layman's perspective, ArtStation offers a unique look at the inner workings of the games industry, but to an artist it's an invaluable lifeline to jobs, portfolio building, and growth. ArtStation is basically the LinkedIn for graphic artists and also lets users sell their brushes and expertise to learning students.
As part of the acquisition, all of ArtStation Learning's tutorials are now 100% free and the platform will remain autonomous outside of Epic. Another huge win for creators is more profits from marketplace sales. Creators now get to keep 88% of revenues from content and products sold on the marketplace (down from 30%), matching the Epic Games Store's favorable 88-12 revenue split for developers. Pro members get a bigger slice with the fee dropping to a meager 8%, leaving 92% of earnings to creators.
Continue reading: Epic Games buys creative powerhouse ArtStation, all tutorials now free (full post)
Hitman dev's new IP may be a medieval fantasy online game with dragons
IO Interactive's new IP might be a massive departure from its World of Assassination, trading Agent 47's guns and garottes for spells and swords.
Hitman developer IO Interactive is apparently working on medieval fantasy game with dragons, spells, and an all-original lore. The game is AAA in production quality and is being crafted for Xbox, sources tell Eurogamer. Recent job listings hint this will be a large online multiplayer game with a "new concept".
The new IP won't release any time soon, though; right now IO is strongly focused on its big new James Bond game, Project 007, which is the most ambitious title the studio has ever worked on. IO has expanded to a new studio in Barcelona, Spain to gear up for Project 007 and its new unannounced IP.
Continue reading: Hitman dev's new IP may be a medieval fantasy online game with dragons (full post)
Here's a look at guns in Halo PC's third-person shooter prototype
A long time ago, in a galaxy not so far away, Halo was a third-person shooter with a shaky reticle and some interesting weapons. Here's what classic iconic guns like the Halo CE magnum, sniper rifle, plasma rifle, shotgun and rocket launcher looked like in those old days.
Ex-Halo dev and series co-creator Marcus Lehto recently shared some prototype footage of Halo's early days. During that time, Halo was a third-person shooter--if it had stayed that way gaming would be very different today--and the weapons are familiar. Some, like the Pattern-2 Composite Sword, are not (yes, the UNSC originally game Master Chief a sword).
In the video, Lehto shows a bunch of these weapons in action. A lot of these weapons were obviously cut from the final game. Some of the guns were split up between Halos 1-3. There's the aforementioned sword, a flamethrower that made it into Halo CE on PC, and even highly-accurate assault rifle, an SMG from Halo 2. We may never get to play this build of Halo, but it's still an interesting little time capsule that captures the formative years of gaming's most influential shooter.
Continue reading: Here's a look at guns in Halo PC's third-person shooter prototype (full post)
Konami is in 'deep development' on new games, maybe Silent Hill?
Konami is gearing up for big new projects and teases updates coming in the next few months...but it won't be at E3 2021.
Konami is making new games again...but it's latest, a remake of an obscure Japanese Famicom game, was kind of confusing and mystifying. Now the company says it's "deep in development on key games," possibly hinting at a new Silent Hill or even Metal Gear.
"We want to reassure our fans that we are in deep development on a number of key projects, so please stay turned for some updates in the coming months," Konami said in a Tweet.
Continue reading: Konami is in 'deep development' on new games, maybe Silent Hill? (full post)
Metro Exodus developer confirms it hasn't tested AMD's DLSS competitor
There has been some confusion about Metro Exodus and it not receiving AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution support, with 4A Games issuing a statement to clarify things.
4A Games is about to release the new PC-focused Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition, which has DLSS 2.1 support and is the first RT-only AAA game released. Well, that game won't support AMD's own DLSS competitor -- FSR or FidelityFX Super Resolution -- because FSR isn't out yet. Not only that, but 4A Games works with NVIDIA so they're not going to be testing the competitors' technology while baking in NVIDIA's next-gen DLSS 2.1 technology into Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition.
The developer reached out to VideoCardz, explaining: "4A Games has not evaluated the AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution feature for Metro Exodus at this time. In our FAQ, we were referring to the AMD FidelityFX open source image quality toolkit which targets traditional rendering techniques that our new RT only render does not use, and noting that we have our own Temporal Reconstruction tech implemented natively which provides great quality benefits for all hardware, so do not currently plan to utilize any other toolkits".
Continue reading: Metro Exodus developer confirms it hasn't tested AMD's DLSS competitor (full post)
SNL cast so triggered by Elon Musk hosting, they can sit away from him
Elon Musk will be hosting Saturday Night Live on May 8 and with it is a storm of controversy brewing just off the coast, with Musk's appearance on SNL triggering some cast members.
SNL cast members won't be forced to appear alongside Musk on May 8 when he hosts the show, which Musk has teased that he wanted to see "just how live Saturday Night Live really is". I guess this has broken the programming of the SNL cast members brains, with a source telling Page Six: "Speaking historically, if a cast member has been that unhappy, they don't have to do it. ['SNL' boss Lorne Michaels] won't ever make them do anything they don't want to do".
Musk followed him his tweet announcing he'd be hosting SNL with another tweet on April 28 which simply read "The Dogefather SNL May 8" which sent the price of Dogecoin pumping upwards.
Continue reading: SNL cast so triggered by Elon Musk hosting, they can sit away from him (full post)
Facebook purchased the developer that created Onward
Facebook today announced that it acquired Downpour Interactive, the independent game studio that created the popular VR war simulator Onward. Facebook said this move would give Downpour the resources to improve the game even further.
Onward is one of the most popular VR games. Downpour Interactive originally released the game on PC VR platforms, where it saw great success on both the Oculus and SteamVR ecosystems. Recently, the developer ported the game over to the Oculus Quest platform, which exposed a much wider audience to the game.
Facebook recognized the Downpour Interactive is one of the pioneers behind social VR experiences. Under the Oculus Studios umbrella, Downpour will have the resources to take Onward to greater heights. Facebook also said the move would give Downpour the ability to pursue future projects.
Continue reading: Facebook purchased the developer that created Onward (full post)
Crysis Remastered PC update gets experimental 'ray tracing boost mode'
Crytek has just pushed out its new PC Update 2.1.2 for Crysis Remastered, which adds in a new "experimental Ray Tracing Boost" mode into the game.
The developer took to Reddit to detail the new Crysis Remastered patch, with the new experimental Ray Tracing Boost mode enabling RT reflections on "nearly all surfaces in game" with "Ray randomization has enabled for proper support of rough surfaces" and "about 5% of specular reflectance has been added by default to all surfaces".
Crytek explains: "During the development of Crysis Remastered, the team came up with the concept of adding a boost to RayTracing. This boost mode is more of a fun/experimental feature that we wanted to bring to all the RayTracing enthusiasts out there, to give more effects with minimal impact on performance. This option has been added to the in-game Graphic settings menu and can only be activated when Global Raytracing option is enabled".
Continue reading: Crysis Remastered PC update gets experimental 'ray tracing boost mode' (full post)
Intel Sapphire Rapids Xeon CPU spotted: MCM design with 80 cores
Intel's next-gen Sapphire Rapids Xeon CPU has been spotted with an MCM (multi-chip module) design packing an insane 80 cores in a new shot of an engineering sample of the CPU.
The new photo turned up on Bilibili with the 4th Gen Sapphire Rapids Xeon CPU featuring an MCM design with 5x4 configuration -- which works out that each die has up to 80 cores, but we probably won't see the full 80-core silicon ever being released due to the mesh layout.
Wccftech reports that theoretically, the new Intel Sapphire Rapids-SP Xeon CPUs "could feature" a maximum of 72 cores and 144 threads, but we could see them tap out at 56 cores and 112 threads. Another leak pointed to the fact of an engineering sample with 60 cores (15 cores per die, with a 5x3 layout) while the CPU itself had just 56 cores and 112 threads enabled (14 cores per die).
Continue reading: Intel Sapphire Rapids Xeon CPU spotted: MCM design with 80 cores (full post)






















