A new report from Bloomberg outlines what exactly went wrong with Stadia, painting a grim picture of overreaching, overspending, and mismanagement.

Just a year after release, Google has pulled the plug on Stadia and closed all first-party studios. The service is now a storefront platform rather than the innovative new ecosystem that Google promised would go up against PlayStation, Xbox, and the Nintendo Switch. That plan failed for many reasons.

Sources tell Bloomberg's Jason Schreier that Stadia was rife with mismanagement. Google shelled out millions acquiring studios and setting up first-party games (which were later cancelled, with the studios defunded and closed) in a whirlwind of spending. Rather than starting small, Google rushed the market with a pocket full of cash, overpromises, content, and innovative features.

Eager to break farther into mobile gaming, Square Enix is making a Final Fantasy 7 battle royale game for iOS and Android. Yes, really.

With Final Fantasy 7 The First Soldier, Square Enix hopes to tap the billion-dollar market that PUBG Mobile (and soon, Apex Legends) has been enjoying. The game is a mix of first-person and third-person shooter, complete with action-based combat straight out of games like Final Fantasy XV and FF7 Remake.

Classic magical spells like firaga, thundaga, blizzaga, and barrier also show in combat, offering a unique mix of unorthodox gunplay and wizadry. There looks to be both PVP chaos and PVE boss battles lifted straight out of the most recent Final Fantasy releases.

Final Fantasy 7 Remake is coming to the PlayStation 5 as a next-gen re-release, but it won't be cheap.

Square Enix is bringing Final Fantasy 7 Remake over to the PS5 with high-end features like a 4K graphics mode, a 60FPS mode, overhauled texture, lighting, and weather effects, and ultra-fast loading via the system's 5.5GB/sec PCIe 4.0 SSD. Sadly, the publisher is also embracing the new $69.99 standard for next-gen games.

The company's storefront confirms the new $69.99 price tag, and we should expect new mainline Square Enix titles to adopt this pricing on next-gen hardware (although Outriders, the new game from People Can Fly, is $59.99 on PS5).

March 2021's free PlayStation Plus lineup was just revealed, and it's one of the best in the service's history with Square Enix's blockbuster Final Fantasy 7 Remake headlining the collection. There's just one small catch.

Starting Tuesday, March 2, PlayStation Plus owners can grab the massively popular Final Fantasy 7 Remake for free. This is the PS4 version, though, and won't include any upgrades. In fact, the free PS Plus version isn't eligible for FF7 Remake's free PS5 upgrade when it releases on June 10, 2021.

If you download FF7R on PS Plus, the only way you can play it on PS5 is if you re-buy the new next-gen Final Fantasy 7 Integrade re-release. It's a bit of a bummer but the upside is your PS4 saves can cross over to the PS5 version.

The popular Virtual Desktop app just got a surprise update today. After more than a year of refusing to allow wireless streaming of PC VR games on the Oculus Quest through Virtual Desktop, Facebook has approved the feature and enabled it on the official Oculus store.

Guy Godin's Virtual Desktop is one of the most popular VR applications. The software has been around since the earliest days of consumer VR and its had many iterations over the years. Virtual Desktop enables you to access your Windows desktop and all its features and applications in a virtual window within a virtual environment, including PC games and other applications.

When Oculus launched the Quest back in May 2019, Virtual Desktop launched on the standalone VR platform, and with it came a unique feature that Facebook was not fond of. The Quest version of Virtual Desktop would enable you to access SteamVR content and stream it wirelessly to your Quest headset, giving you a full untethered PC VR experience. Facebook allowed Virtual Desktop to remain on the Oculus Store, but it forced the developer to remove the streaming feature.+

Valve released a significant update to the SteamVR platform on Wednesday. Steam VR version 1.16.8 now supports the OpenXR 1.0 API, giving developers an easy path for cross-platform game releases.

Khronos Group revealed the OpenXR 1.0 specifications more than a year and a half ago. It has taken a while, but VR companies are finally getting around to embracing Khronos Group's plans. The idea behind OpenXR is to remove barriers that prevent developers from supporting all VR platforms. With OpenXR, theoretically, you can build a game once and play it with any hardware through any platform.

OpenXR is an application interface layer that interprets instructions from any game engine or XR platforms, such as Unity or WebXR. The OpenXR layer translates the instructions to work with any hardware, including Oculus Quest, HTC Vive, Magic Leap, or HoloLens 2.

Lenovo has just unveiled its new ThinkVision P40w monitor, which is the world's first Thunderbolt 4 professional display that supports Intel Active Management Technology for Intel vPro clients, too.

The new Lenovo ThinkVision P40w monitor has a large 39.7-inch panel with a 21:9 UltraWide aspect ratio, native 5120 x 2160 (5K UltraWide) resolution and smoother 75Hz refresh rate. Sitting in front of a monitor all day is a little better with the ThinkVision P40w as it has Natural Low Blue Light technology with TÖV Rheinland Eyesafe® Display Certification to reduce eye fatigue caused by high-energy blue rays, while maintaining color accuracy and performance.

We also have next-gen Thunderbolt 4 technology of which there are 2 x Thunderbolt 4 ports on the Lenovo ThinkVision P40w monitor, 1 x DisplayPort 1.4, 1 x HDMI 2.0, 3.5mm audio out, GbE, 4 x USB 3.2 Type-A ports, 1 x USB 3.2 Type-B port, and 1 x USB 3.2 Type-C port.

PUBG is still one of the most-played games in the world, with KRAFTON, Inc. announcing the "next evolution of Battle Royale on mobile" with the introduction of PUBG: NEW STATE. Check out the pre-order trailer:

PUBG: NEW STATE wipes the slate clean with some of the mechanics and feels stronger after a nice hot chicken for dinner and a Red Bull to perk you up, with new "dynamic gunplay that is easy to learn, but hard to master". The developer teases that there are new features that "evolve the battle royale experience like never before".

We can expect "ultra-realistic graphics that push the limits of mobile gaming", making more sense of the continued push into gaming smartphones from the likes of ASUS and Razer. PUBG: NEW STATE has been completely built and optimized for mobile play, which is unfortunate because a large portion of PUBG players are on PC.

NVIDIA announced its surprise new crypto mining processors last week, with the new CMP models using unknown GPUs at the time -- but now we have the bigger picture.

Inside of the new GeForce 461.72 drivers it has been confirmed that NVIDIA is re-using the Turing GPU architecture for the two lower-end CMP designs, with the CMP 30HX and CMP 40HX Crypto Mining Processors both using a Turing GPU. NVIDIA's new CMP 30HX is reportedly using the Turing TU116 GPU while the CMP 40HX is using a custom TU106 chip.

The higher-end NVIDIA CMP 50HX and CMP 90HX both have 10GB of VRAM, so it's presumed these will use Ampere GPUs and most likely the GA102 GPU. We should hopefully have the bigger picture once these new Crypto Mining Processors start floating out and into the wild.

If you were hoping that the GPU shortage situation would improve this year, I've got some bad news for you -- it's probably not going to happen. You're probably going to be waiting until 2022 to get your hands-on a new graphics card.

Between a lack of GPUs, supply chain issues caused by COVID, scalpers, new consoles, crypto miners and the entire semiconductor industry buckling under the pressure... graphics cards are nigh impossible to find. According to JP Morgan analyst Harlan Sur, the demand for GPUs is 10-30% greater than the output -- as in, how many cards are being made.

It's going to take foundries like TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.) to make millions more GPUs so that millions of graphics cards can be sold. It would take 3-6 months to fill distribution channels according to Sur, getting chips into the hands of AMD, Intel, and NVIDIA -- so that gamers, months after, can buy them -- finally.

It's official: Final Fantasy 7 Remake is coming to the PlayStation 5, and PS4 owners get a free next-gen upgrade.

A next-gen version of Final Fantasy 7 Remake is coming June 10, 2021 for PlayStation 5, complete with high-end optimizations. The game will have two modes: a 4K mode that prioritizes graphics and visuals, and a 60FPS mode that boosts frame rates--which is a big deal for an action game like FF7R. Other tweaks include ultra-fast loading via the PS5's SSD (the game will load in just seconds), new atmospheric fog and lighting effects, and improved textures.

Square Enix is offering a free next-gen upgrade to anyone who bought the PS4 version, and your saves will transfer over. There's also a normal difficulty for classic mode and a photo mode to boot.

Dragon Age 4 has shifted development twice now, and like most games, the process hasn't been straightforward. Here's a closer look at what's happened since the game entered development in 2015.

The next Dragon Age is in full swing at BioWare, and will be the next game the developer releases. But like Anthem, Mass Effect Andromeda, and Dragon Age Inquisition before it, the game has changed and morphed over the last 6 or so years--so much that key BioWare executives have left the company after decades' long tenures.

After today's news that Dragon Age is now a singleplayer-only game, I thought it important to outline and chronicle all the major changes and updates with the game and BioWare's development environment in the last few years.

EA has relented: Dragon Age 4 will now be a fully singleplayer-only game, sources tell Bloomberg's Jason Schreier.

The next Dragon Age game will see BioWare return to its classic singleplayer RPG roots. Reports say BioWare has received EA's blessing to make Dragon Age 4 an offline singleplayer game, which is a big departure from the publisher's previous plans.

The new Dragon Age has been rebooted twice now. The first iteration, codenamed Joplin, entered development in 2015 as a smaller-scale project focused on Tevinter spies. Then in 2017, EA pushed a reboot to a new online-driven live service game with heavy monetization. This was known as Morrison, and would've featured globally-reactive worlds with "live storytelling."

After the recent source code hack, CD Projekt RED has locked employees out of its internal network. This has caused significant delay in Cyberpunk 2077's updates, and is the main reason the big Patch 1.2 update has been pushed back to late March.

CD Projekt RED developers are no longer able to access the company's internal network, halting development on Cyberpunk 2077's anticipated patches and next-gen upgrades. Sources tell Bloomberg that most of CDPR's employees are unable to work on the updates because they've been locked out, with the majority of developers out of the office in work-from-home environments.

Worse still, personal information was compromised in the hack. The company has told workers to report identity theft, freeze their bank accounts, and change key information as soon as possible.

The wait is finally over, Hulu has released the new trailer for the coming season of its hit show Solar Opposites.

If you are a fan of Rick and Morty and haven't check out Solar Opposites, you are missing out. Solar Opposites is basically like Rick and Morty but a little tamer when it comes to jokes and references. However, the creator of Solar Opposites is Justin Roiland, who also created Rick and Morty, and if you know anything about Roilands kind of humor, you can expect some pretty interesting jokes.

Above you will find the new trailer for season two, and you can see that the family of aliens gets up to quite a lot of mischief while trying to fit into society on Earth. According to the announcement, season two of Solar Opposites will be released exclusively on Hulu on March 26th. For more information on Solar Opposites, check out this link here.

GIGABYTE has just unveiled another card you'll probably never see, but it still looks great -- with the new AORUS GeForce RTX 3060 ELITE graphics card teased with a "Neonpunk" design. Check it out:

The new AORUS GeForce RTX 3060 ELITE graphics card is cooled with by its huge WINDFORCE 3X cooling system, which feels super overkill for the RTX 3060 -- with 3 x 80mm fans, 5 composite copper heat pipes direct touch GPU, 3D active fan and more under the hood.

As for the GPU itself, the GeForce RTX 3060 is powered by the GA106-300 GPU with 3584 CUDA cores and 12GB of GDDR6 on a 192-bit memory bus with 15Gbps of bandwidth. GPU clocks are unknown at this point, but I'm sure they'll be confirmed very soon.

AMD has announced its new event for March 3 where it will be unveiling the Radeon RX 6700 XT graphics card, the latest member of the RDNA 2 family of cards that... well... you can't buy.

The new mid-range AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT graphics card has the same design style as the current Radeon RX 6800, Radeon RX 6800 XT, and Radeon RX 6900 XT reference graphics cards with its dual-fan design. Inside, the new Navi 22 GPU will power the Radeon RX 6700 XT -- the first outing of the Navi 22 GPU.

Navi 22 has 2560 Stream Processors, while the Radeon RX 6700 XT should pack 12GB of GDDR6 memory -- equal to NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 3060 graphics card. AMD's teaser video on Twitter shows that there is no USB Type-C connector on the Radeon RX 6700 XT, unlike the RX 6800, RX 6800 XT, and RX 6900 XT graphics cards.

The upcoming Halo TV show will be streamed on Paramount Plus in Q1 2022, the new service from Viacom CBS

The Halo TV series has hopped from Showtime over to Paramount Plus, and will go live on the small screen a few months after Halo: Infinite's launch. Paramount Plus includes CBS All Access and a plethora of content produced from other labels like Showtime.

Pablo Scrheier (Orange is the New Black) stars as Master Chief in the show, and the series will chronicle the adventures of Blue Team, a group of elite Spartan warriors in the Human-Covenant War. Showtime promises the show will be character driven and spin a dramatic and personal story

Anthem's anticipated reboot has been cancelled, and BioWare has moved on to Mass Effect and Dragon Age, the developer today announced.

BioWare has officially scrapped its plans for Anthem NEXT and the game will now remain as-is without any future updates, similar to Battlefront II. EA is now pushing BioWare towards less risky franchises like Dragon Age and Mass Effect, both of which have new games in development.

The news comes after months of concept development for Anthem NEXT from a small crew or designers. EA ultimately made the call to jettison the risky IP despite sinking valuable R&D costs over the last four years (not unlike how it jettisoned many Star Wars games including multiple EA Vancouver titles).

HP will soon own HyperX, the maker of PC peripherals like mice, mousepads, keyboards, and headsets in a sweeping deal worth over $400 million.

Kingston has agreed to sell its HyperX peripherals division to HP for $425 million, the company today announced. Kingston will still own its DRAM and memory business, and HP will add the HyperX brand to its billion-dollar Personal Systems business, which pulled in $10.4 billion in revenue last quarter. HP expects the deal to close in the second quarter of 2021.

"HyperX is a leader in peripherals whose technology is trusted by gamers around the world and we're thrilled to welcome their outstanding team to the HP family," said Enrique Lores, President and CEO, HP Inc.