Most people don't know but publisher THQ created an actual 24K gold-laden Nintendo Wii console that was delivered to Her Majesty the Queen at Buckingham Palace -- all as an elaborate marketing stunt that didn't go so well.

The marketing stunt for THQ was meant to be a big promotion for its game BIG Family Games, but now the 24K gold Nintendo Wii console is on eBay for a price of $300,000 -- and some experts have said it could fetch up to $1 million with the right buyer and trigger finger.

Collector Donny Fillerup has the console, with the 24K gold Nintendo Wii costing $300,000 -- but hey, you will have to chip in for the shipping at that price. You'll get the 24-karat-gold Nintendo Wii console, a golden Wii remote controller, and a copy of BIG Family Games as well.

ZOTAC has just revealed its latest flagship GeForce RTX 3090 ArcticStorm graphics card, with a custom full-cover factory waterblock on the fastest GPU you can buy.

You have a full coverage waterblock that keeps the Ampere GPU and 24GB of ultra-fast GDDR6X memory and VRMs as cool as possible. ZOTAC promises "supercharged heat transfer" through its optimized copper base and waterblock combined with liquid, "supercharge" the heat transfer.

The new ZOTAC GeForce RTX 3090 ArcticStorm graphics card uses a slim profile waterblock that is just 25.9mm thick, with the largest part of the card being the dual-slot I/O shield.

COLORFUL has just announced its new iGame M600 Mirage Gaming PC range, powered by Intel's new 11th Gen Core CPUs and NVIDIA's latest GeForce RTX 30 series GPUs.

The new COLORFUL iGame M600 Mirage PC packs a unique-looking case with RGB lighting throughout (on the front, back, top, inside) with a unique Magnetic Power Key -- the only way to turn on the PC, keeping it personal.

Only you can turn the PC on with your spiffy detachable, and magnetic Power Key.

PowerColor has been going from custom Radeon GPU release to custom Radeon GPU release, but now we have something really new from the company: a full white PCB for a new HELLHOUND-branded graphics card.

The new all-white GPU was teased on PowerColor Japan's official Twitter with the company simply teasing: "This is... HELLHOUND's new camouflage! The color is... pure white!" The tweet was teased alongside a single picture of the PCB itself which sports a beautiful all-white design.

PowerColor Japan showed off what looks to be an identical board to the already-announced Radeon RX 6700 XT HELLHOUND graphics card which has a dark PCB, while the new Radeon RX 6700 XT HELLHOUND Spectral White PCB has a white PCB and room for 6GB or 12GB of GDDR6 memory.

Samsung has just teased its new gaming-focused Galaxy Book Odyssey, which is powered by Intel's new 11th Gen Core processor based on the Tiger Lake-H series as well as NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 3050 Ti GPU.

Funnily enough both the Intel Tiger Lake-H series and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti GPU have not been announced, although we do know that Intel's new Tiger Lake-S series will be available in 6-core and 8-core models but Samsung hasn't been clear on which exact CPU, the core count or frequency just yet.

Samsung's new Galaxy Book Odyssey is powered by NVIDIA's unannounced GeForce RTX 3050 Ti GPU will have 2560 CUDA cores and 4GB of GDDR6 memory, so you won't be running Cyberpunk 2077 at 4K 60FPS but you'll be able to play many games without an issue on that GPU -- which I'll want to test myself, of course.

AMD has confirmed that it is "on track" on launching its new mobile RDNA 2 architecture, with the new laptop GPUs dropping before the end of Q2 2021.

In AMD's recent Q1 2021 earnings call AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su explained that the company was on track to launching its next-gen laptop GPUs -- we are to expect RDNA 2 laptop GPUs that start from the Radeon RX 6300M which should feature 4GB of GDDR6 through to the flagship Radeon RX 6800M which will feature 12GB of GDDR6 memory.

Lisa Su explained during the Q1 2021 earnings call: "In graphics, revenue increased by a strong double-digit percentage year-over-year and sequentially, led by channel sales growth as revenue from our high-end Radeon 6000 GPUs more than doubled from the prior quarter."

We had already heard rumors that NVIDIA was preparing to launch an entire new line of Ampere GPUs with crypto mining limitations -- and now more fuel is being thrown onto that fire.

According to sources of VideoCardz, NVIDIA is expecting their new GAxx2 GPUs to begin shipping in May -- perfect for the first shipments to hit in June. The new crypto mining limiter will be at play inside of the new NVIDIA GPUs, alongside Resizable BAR support without needing to update your vBIOS.

At first you're not going to be able to tell the difference between the older (current) GPUs without crypto mining limiters, and the new (upcoming) GPUs with crypto mining limiters. It shouldn't be too far into the future that software monitoring tools will be updated, and will be able to detect which GPU is inside of your GeForce RTX graphics card and whether it is the new crypto mining limited one, or not.

Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition is nearly here, with the first PC game to ever require a ray tracing capable GPU (GeForce RTX or AMD Radeon RX 6000 series) right around the corner.

The folks over at Digital Foundry have had some hands-on time with the new Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition, putting it through its paces with high-end graphics cards. 4A Games recommends some serious GPU power for the game, where the entry cost GPU wise is the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060.

If you want to game away at 1440p 60FPS with ray tracing on High then the developer recommends either the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 or AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT. Bumping things up to 4K 30FPS and ray tracing on High the GeForce RTX 3080 or Radeon RX 6900 XT is recommended while if you want to play at 4K 60FPS with everything maxed out the GeForce RTX 3090 is recommended.

It seems that Chia Coin cryptocurrency mining is taking off faster than we thought, with GALAX now warning its customers that if they use one of their GALAX-branded SSDs for Chia Coin mining that they might not have warranty.

GALAX China has officially warned its customers that if they are mining Chia Coin on their SSDs that the writes onto the SSD are much higher than typical use and can slow down, or even permanently damage the SSD. GALAX China explained on their website, with the post translated from Chinese to English.

The company explains: "If users use our SSD products for mining/farming and other abnormal operations, the data write volume is much higher than the daily use standard, and the SSD will slow down or be damaged due to excessive data write volume".

EA and DICE are days away from the reveal teaser trailer for the next-gen Battlefield game, with leaker Tom Henderson not stopping his tweets about the game. Now we're talking about graphics:

Henderson tweeted out that covering his tweets is breaking the NDA on the game for some YouTubers and journalists who have had hands-on time with the game, or been pre-briefed on it -- but I haven't, and I have no NDA and can write whatever the hell I want to.

With that, "CharlesVFX2" asked Henderson if we would be "blown away" by the in-game graphics of Battlefield to which Henderson simply replied: "It looks like a movie" which is good enough for me. If Henderson is right, then Battlefield should well and truly blow us away in the graphical department -- as well as the environmental destruction and physics side of things.

Microsoft takes a play from Epic Games by adjusting its PC games revenue split in favor of developers.

Under Microsoft's new revenue split, developers will get to keep 88% of all earnings from PC games sold on the Microsoft Store. The previous split used to be 70-30, and the new one will be 88-12 in favor of gam devs.

This follows the history-making 88-12 revenue split offered on the Epic Games Store. Microsoft hopes to invigorate developer interest and pull more focus away from Steam, PC gaming's biggest storefront, and onto Microsoft's online shop.

EA is giving out Battlefield V in an attempt to soak up hype revenues and engagement ahead of the big new Battlefield 6 reveal.

DICE and EA are about to reveal Battlefield 6, and we suspect the announcement will happen before EA's yearly earnings report on May 11. There's a big period between reveal and launch, though, and Battlefield fans can't jump into the new game right away. EA hopes to capitalize on the new hype by offering Battlefield V to the 47.6 million PS Plus gamers. EA has long stopped caring about BFV sales; for them it's all about the in-game microtransactions. In short, EA wants to spark new engagement levels in a 2+ year old game with free access.

The new Battlefield reveal will be a big deal for EA. The game has been in development for years and will be an explosive next-gen spectacle that shows what DICE's Frostbite engine can do on new PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC hardware. Expect crazy weather effects, ray-traced visuals, high frame rates, ultra-fast loading times, new AI features, and high-end fidelity using 4K visuals and realistic environment photogrammetry. All of this will create what DICE calls a "jaw-dropping experience."

Sony is ramping up investment into its first-party game studios to help propel PlayStation 5 ecosystem to new heights.

Sony just had an incredible year. The company's games division earned over $25 billion in revenues and over $3 billion in profit, more than any firm in the entire industry. FY2020 shattered software sales records and saw the PS4 crest 116 million shipments worldwide. Sony wants to keep this momentum going throughout FY2021 and the long-term future, and that's why they're investing big into their wholly-owned studios.

The tech giant will invest $184 million more this year into its game studios. "In terms of costs, we plan to increase development, personnel and other costs in our in-house studios by approximately 20 billion yen year-on-year as we further strengthen our in-house produced software," Sony CFO Hiroki Totoki said in a recent FY2020 earnings report.

Sony's PlayStation 4 console has sold over 1.5 billion games across its lifetime, beating any other previous platform in history--including the mighty PlayStation 2.

At 116.1 million units shipped to date, the PS4 won't beat the PS2's titanic 155 million sales. That isn't the case with software. The PS4 has sold an eye-popping 1.562 billion+ games in its lifetime, which is more than the PS2's 1.53 billion, according to figures provided by ResetERA's resident PlayStatician ArmGunar. This data isn't conclusive and only covers FY15 - FY20 so actual PlayStation 4 software sales are even higher.

Q4'20 was a record quarter for game sales with over 338 million software purchases made digitally and physically across PS4 and PS5. 17% of these games were Sony-published titles, underlining the importance of first-party games. 65% of game sales were digital, which is great for Sony who gets to keep 100% of revenues from first-party games sales and 30% of revenues from third-party sales.

If you didn't know, China is excluded from the International Space Station. So, the country is planning on building its own.

The first key module of a new permanent space station called the Tianhe module, which is the living quarters for astronauts, has been launched from the Wenchang Space Launch Center. The Tianhe module was launched on the back of a Long March-5B rocket. Beijing has very ambitious space plans and expects that the Tiangong space station, which is Chinese for heavenly place, will be completed by 2022.

China expects to launch ten more modules within the next year. Each module would be another step towards completing the construction of the Tiangong space station. The Tiangong space station will sit in Earth's orbit at an altitude of 210-280 miles and is expected to last for at least ten years. For more information on this story, check out this link here.

Elon Musk, the CEO of both SpaceX and Tesla, will be making an appearance on the decades-long TV show Saturday Night Live.

Elon will be hosting Saturday Night Live (SNL) on May 8, and to get that hype train rolling for that episode, Musk has tweeted out "The Dogefather SNL May 8". Since Musk has referenced cryptocurrency, and in particular Dogecoin, there's a high probability that Musk will be mentioning cryptocurrency in one way or another. Most likely Dogecoin, which he has been a big player in its increasing value.

Musk mentioning Dogecoin, or the big daddy Bitcoin, will bring attention to these coins from the millions of people that are watching SNL. If even a small portion of these people begin to invest in cryptocurrencies, the market could see an increase, purely based on the 50-years of audience building SNL has done. Time will tell. Musk will be hosting SNL on May 8. For more information on this story, check out this link here.

In 1969, NASA astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins launched off Earth towards the Moon.

While Armstrong and Aldrin became the first humans to ever walk on the surface of the Moon, Collins stayed back and piloted the Command Module Columbia that would later take all the astronauts back down to Earth. Collins said to Armstrong and Aldrin as they descended down to the lunar surface, "you cats take it easy".

Collins traveled the farthest any human has traveled before as the command module he was piloting passed behind the Moon, cutting off any communication with Mission Control. Collins joked back in 2014, "I was the most lonesome person in the whole universe, at least according to the newspapers. Actually, I was so glad to get behind the Moon, so Mission Control would shut up."

People from around the Mar del Plata beach, which is located 250 miles south of Buenos Aires, Argentina, have come to inspect these mysterious white orbs.

On April 25, thousands of these white orbs were found littered all over the Mar del Plata beach. Onlookers inspected the orbs and weren't able to identify what they were or where they came from. According to marine biologist Alejandro Saubidet, who said, "We normally see these on the coast, but we don't see them at the density that we can see right now".

The white orbs are actually from a carnivorous sea creature known as Adelomelon brasiliana, which is a snail that lives near the coast of southern Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina. Saubidet said, "In general, they are found in the deep sea; however, certain movements that have to do with the tides or the wind cause these structures to rise and become deposited on the coast." For more information on this story, check out this link here.

Earth's magnetosphere is a layer around the globe that protects us from solar particles that are emitted from the Sun.

Last Sunday, the Sun emitted a coronal mass ejection (CME) that is plasma flown into the solar wind. This CME from the Sun is on track to hit Earth, and even though we have our magnetosphere, the CME has a chance of causing some disruptions across the planet. The CME may cause "widespread voltage control problems", and depending on how long it lasts, may cause transformer damage.

On a positive note, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), who issued the warning, said, "The transient solar wind feature is expected to cause auroral enhancements that may be visible at night in the higher latitudes under favorable sky conditions." The NOAA also noted that the solar storm can also affect navigation systems such as the Global Navigation Satellite System and "create harmful geomagnetic induced currents (GICs) in the power grid and pipelines."

Hubble has been in Earth's orbit for more than 30 years, and throughout its time being in space, it snaps some of the best images of the Milky Way.

Astronomers have released one of the best images that Hubble has ever taken to celebrate its 31st birthday, and it's of one of the brightest stars that is in our Milky Way galaxy. The star is called AG Carinae, and is about 70 times more massive than our Sun and is 1 million times brighter.

However, due to the AG Carinae's massive size, the star burns fuel very quickly, which causes it to expand in size, much like a hot air balloon. In the above image, you can see a large halo surrounding the star. This halo is glowing gas that was created by an eruption from the star about 10,000 years ago. NASA has said that stars such as AG Carniae are quite rare, and only around 50 of these types of stars are located in our local group of galaxies.