Latest News - Page 1426

Sony has outlined forecasts for the PlayStation 5's second and third year shipments, and estimations show the next-gen console could outpace the PS4 by over 5 million units by FY2022.

After a significant market push and chip allocation, Sony says its FY2022 period (ending March 31, 2023) will sell more PlayStation consoles than any other point in SIE history.

"We're planning next year's PS5 availability to ensure FY2022 will represent the highest number of consoles that we've ever sold in PlayStation history,"SIE President Jim Ryan told investors.

Epic Games has unleashed the next-gen Unreal Engine 5 which looks truly mind-blowing and will usher in the future of next-gen games powered by UE5. NVIDIA and AMD have both got their latest and greatest technologies supported inside of Unreal Engine 5.

A post on the NVIDIA developer website reminds gamers that the company launched its RTX technology with the Star Wars demo called Reflection. Reflection was built on Unreal Engine 4 at the time and looked CG-style good. It "laid out a vision of a new era of computer graphics for video games that featured photorealistic, ray-traced lighting, AI-powered effects and complex worlds with massive amounts of geometry and high-resolution textures".

Well, now Unreal Engine 5 is here and NVIDIA is able to take things to an entirely new level with what Epic Games has built into the UE5 bag of tricks.

We can expect PayPal to announce its own stablecoin soon, with a tease of PayPalCoin sparking at the CoinDesk Consensus 2021 conference.

PayPal's Vice President, General Manager Blockchain, Crypto and Digital Currencies, Joe Fernandez da Ponte responded to rumors of PayPal launching its own stablecoin, where he said: "This is way too early". I guess we're still a few months away from PayPalCoin and its official announcement.

What the company did make clear is that users will be able to transfer cryptocurrency out of their PayPal crypto wallet, and over into third-party wallets in the near future. There was no timeframe provided, but PayPal made it clear that the feature is coming.

PayPal has plans to let users withdraw their cryptocurrency from their PayPal wallet, and send it to third-party wallets coming very soon.

The global payment giant announced the news of letting people move their crypto to another wallet from their PayPal account at CoinDesk's Consensus 2021 conference. PayPal's Vice President, General Manager Blockchain, Crypto and Digital Currencies, Joe Fernandez da Ponte said: "We want to make it as open as possible, and we want to give choice to our consumers, something that will let them pay in any way they want to pay. They want to bring their crypto to us so they can use it in commerce, and we want them to be able to take the crypto they acquired with us and take it to the destination of their choice".

There's not much else on this right now, with no ETA of when PayPal will make the move and let people move their crypto around. We should expect more on this as PayPal starts flipping those crypto switches, with rumors of their own "PayPalCoin" now circulating with the company saying "this is way too early"... yeah but you didn't say no, PayPal... so expect a PayPalCoin announcement sometime this year I'm sure.

Elon Musk is on a tweet rampage again, this time it's not about space -- well, it is a little -- and more about... dinosaurs.

The boss man behind SpaceX and Tesla as well as being The Dogefather, tweeted a meme about dinosaurs and followed it up with "If only they had spaceships, they'd still be around". I get the meme, but even if dinosaurs had spaceships it's not like they'd be thinking "oh nice, there's a spaceship over there... let's get into it, and fly off this planet!"

I'm surprised Musk has the tweet up considering the dominant dinosaur says "I'm fuc*in tryin" while a comment goes for the politically correct "she/he/they has no hair" and gets a reply of "are you afraid to misgender a dinosaur".

Alright, it seems our Russian robotic overlords aren't too far away from total and utter enslavement of the human race... yet... with Russia developing autonomous weapons and AI-powered technologies for the future of war.

In a new report published by CNA nonprofit research and analysis group in Arlington, Virginia -- titled "Artificial Intelligence and Autonomy in Russia" the authors report: "the first major piece of US research that articulates contemporary Russia's main initiatives, achievements, and accomplishments in AI and autonomy efforts and places those initiatives within the broader technological landscape in Russia".

"Russian military strategists have placed a premium on establishing what they refer to as 'information dominance on the battlefield and AI-enhanced technologies promise to take advantage of the data available on the modern battlefield to protect Russia's own forces and deny that advantage to the adversary".

Aaaaaaaaaaand away we go!

NVIDIA has just kicked off its marketing campaign for the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti and GeForce RTX 3070 Ti graphics cards, both of which will be unveiled at the Computex 2021 keynote next week.

It's all started on Twitter, with NVIDIA saying "Get Ready" and dumping a video teasing the new graphics cards. The GeForce RTX 3080 Ti will be based on the Ampere GA102-225 GPU with 10240 CUDA cores, and 12GB of GDDR6X memory -- up from the 10GB of GDDR6X memory on the GeForce RTX 3080.

Sony plans to spend 2 trillion yen ($18.3 billion) on strategic investments in the next three years, and gaming should be a major focus.

In a recent annual corporate strategy meeting, Sony confirms it has allocated 2 trillion yen for major investments across its key segments including gaming, music, streaming, and film. It's likely Sony is eyeing more major gaming acquisitions, but the company will diversify its investments and is careful with studio buyouts.

For example, Sony only made two gaming-related purchases during its third Mid-Year Plan when it had allocated 1.4 trillion yen for investments: Audiokinetic (Wwise) in 2019 and Insomniac Games later in the same year.

Uncharted 4 is the next PlayStation console exclusive to make the jump to PC.

In a recent investors presentation, Sony Interactive Entertainment confirmed that Naughty Dog's Uncharted 4: A Thief's End will be the latest PlayStation game coming to PC. This follows a push to the platform that includes games like Horizon Zero Dawn and Days Gone. More games will follow, Sony says.

There's no word on the next titles coming to PC but it's possible more games could show up on the Epic Games Store at some point. Sony also affirms that PlayStation games arriving on PC has delivered a 250% return on investment, which should incentivize the company to bring many of its old-generation heavy-hitting PlayStation 4 games over to the platform.

Next-gen consoles remove constraints from previous generations, but resource balancing is always an issue. Unreal Engine 5 will reduce these demands with new features aimed at efficiency and flexibility.

With higher-end specs like 7nm+ AMD SoCs with Zen 2 CPUs and Navi 2X GPUs, 16GB unified GDDR6 RAM, PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSDs, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X consoles represent massive leaps over the PS4 and Xbox One. The new machines are much more capable of hitting native 4K 60FPS (and sometimes 4K 120FPS) in specific games. But not all games are made equal, and dynamic resolution scaling is still necessary in many next-gen titles.

Luckily Epic has developers covered. Unreal Engine 5, which is being used on console games from The Coalition and Ninja Theory, will feature upgraded anti-aliasing that's specifically designed to work with its new Nanite virtualized geometry tools.

Alien Isolation developer Creative Assembly has been working on a new online shooter since 2017, and now the devs share the first image of the game.

Creative Assembly's new FPS game is a turning point for the developer and for SEGA. Today the devs dropped a teaser image of the new game and said it would be "radically different" from other shooters. The image clearly hints at major crossovers of SEGA franchises and the shooter could be a metaverse that converges with major wholly-owned SEGA IPs.

We don't know specifics, but SEGA did outline key details about the project's scope: Apparently it's a "Super Game."

Epic shows off Unreal Engine 5 running in real-time on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X hardware.

Unreal Engine 5 made its debut running on PlayStation 5, and Sony since invested $450 million into Epic. Now we get our first look at the engine running on Microsoft's new Xbox Series X hardware. Today Epic showcased more details about Unreal Engine 5 and the big benefits it offers developers. The new engine is incredibly efficient, powerful, and versatile, and while the latest video is more so aimed at developers, it gives gamers a good idea of what to expect from new next-gen exclusives.

Big highlights from the presentation include:

Microsoft confirms its E3 2021 event showcase for Sunday, June 13, 2021 at 10AM PST / 1PM EST.

Today Microsoft officially announced its E3 2021 plans. The company will stream a big 90-minute presentation full of first-party games from Xbox Game Studios and Bethesda, new reveals, third-party titles, and other service/feature updates.

Halo Infinite will be the major headliner and the teaser image shows various skins from beloved Halo generations as well as a glimpse at a new rifle, possibly a Brute carbine. Starfield will also be at the show (look at the lower left corner of the image).

Ubisoft plans to premiere Far Cry 6 gameplay footage during a special pre-E3 event on Friday, May 28 at 9:30AM PST / 12:30PM EST.

Ubisoft hasn't talked much about Far Cry 6 after it was delayed, but that's about to change later this week. The publisher plans to showcase in-game footage of Far Cry 6 possibly running on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X hardware. The game's screenshots look decidedly next-gen, but Ubisoft also confirmed the game is coming to PS4 and Xbox One as well.

We actually know a fair bit about Far Cry 6. The game takes place in the tropical Carribbean island of Yara, which is ruled by a cruel dictator named Castillo. Players start a guerrilla uprising against the presidente and use all kinds of crazy makeshift weapons including the Tostador, a flamethrower made out of old mufflers, as well as a CD-shooting gun. Expect lots of exploration, Ubisoft-style open-world encounters, lots of quests, and engagement-driven activities like crafting, collection, and customization.

Like its major competitors EA, Activision, Take-Two and Ubisoft, Sony is also doubling-down on mobile gaming.

In a recent annual corporate meeting, Sony confirms it will make more mobile games based on PlayStation IP. The company wants to use mobile games to reach more users and grow its influence while also monetizing the smartphone gaming market. Sony has enjoyed big success in the mobile market with Fate/Grand Order, which has generated $4 billion in lifetime revenues.

Sony Group CEO Kenichiro Yoshida confirms more anime-based mobile games are on the way.

Sony Interactive Entertainment boss Jim Ryan will discuss the PlayStation hardware, software, and services ecosystem today at Sony's annual investors event.

At Sony IR Day 2021, all of Sony's top brass are conducting presentations on the current state of Sony Group's segments. SIE President Jim Ryan will deliver a talk on the PlayStation business on May 27, 8:10 am JST, which is May 26 at 7:10pm EST here in the United States. The schedule was just made live on the IR Day website page.

"At the IR Day, which will be held for two days starting tomorrow, the heads of each of our business segments will talk about the direction of their businesses," Sony President Kenichiro Yoshida said in a recent corporate annual report.

Western Digital has unveiled its new WD_BLACK SN750 SE NVMe SSD, built on the kick-ass speeds provided to us by the PCIe 4.0 standard we have new SSDs with 250GB, 500GB, and 1TB capacities.

The new WD_BLACK SN750 SE NVMe SSD offers PCIe 4.0-based speeds of up to 3600MB/sec (3.6GB/sec) which is pretty damn blistering. Western Digital notes that its new WD_BLACK SN750 SE NVMe SSD uses up to 30% less power than its predecessor, and is the perfect upgrade for your desktop gaming PC or laptop.

Western Digital also unveiled some new PlayStation 5-focused and Xbox Series X/S-focused SSDs under its WD_BLACK range, and you can read more about that right here. As for the new WD_BLACK SN750 SE NVMe SSDs, they'll be available in Summer 2021.

After a successful Kickstarter campaign last year, Cybershoes is now ready to sell the Oculus Quest version of its VR shoes on Amazon.com. The company also announced compatibility with a handful of new games.

Cybershoes recently fulfilled its Kickstarter obligations, and the company is now ready to sell the Quest version of the VR shoes to anyone who wants them.

"Launching on Amazon is huge for us because it allows easier access to Cybershoes for Quest gamers who might have been on the fence for our crowdfunding campaigns," said Michael Bieglmayer, CEO of Cybershoes. "Not to mention that fans will have a variety of fantastic games to choose from as soon as our box shows up on their doorstep! We can't wait for a whole new audience of VR gamers to experience what Cybershoes are all about."

Sony installed a pretty shitty amount of albeit super-fast PCIe 4.0-based SSD storage inside of its next-gen PlayStation 5 console, with just 667GB of usable SSD storage once the PS5 is up and running.

Luckily we have Western Digital to the rescue, with the company unveiling its new WD_BLACK D30 Game Drive SSD that is designed to work with next-gen gaming consoles like the Sony PlayStation 5 and Microsoft Xbox Series X/S consoles.

The new WD_BLACK D30 Game Drive SSD comes in 500GB, 1TB, and its largest 2TB capacity. You're looking at up to 900MB/sec on the new WD_BLACK D30 Game Drive SSD on the PlayStation 5 -- not bad, just short of 1GB/sec on the PS5. The company even provides a slick detachable stand for the drive, too.

Sony today confirmed its experimental AI division is currently working alongside first-party PlayStation developers to push new advanced technologies in upcoming PS5 games.

In a recent annual corporate report, Sony Group discussed how its internal divisions are teaming up and synergizing with one another. Many of these branches are partnering with the Sony Interactive Entertainment games segment to push new experiences, whether it be TV and movie adaptations of PlayStation IPs via PlayStation Productions, or big new breakthroughs in games-making technology.

The report announces that first-party SIE game studios will benefit from advancements in the Sony AI division. The R&D branch is currently researching Machine Learning dynamics, more specifically Reinforcement Learning, which could ultimately lead to ultra-realistic NPCs and incredibly immersive environments.