New reports say Chinese juggernaut Tencent is eyeing a billion-dollar acquisition of a U.S.-based gaming company. Who could it be?

Sources tell TMT Finance that Tencent is raising billions to buy out a new game company. Insiders believe Tencent could force a hostile takeover of Grand Theft Auto parent company Take-Two Interactive, or possibly make a deal to buy out EA.

The more likely scenario sees Tencent buying a South Korean developer, sources say. Targets include NetMarble, South Korea's biggest mobile game maker, and Nexon, the developer behind Dungeon Fighter. Tencent is already the third biggest shareholder in NetMarble with a 17.6% stake and could force a hostile takeover by acquiring more stake in the company. Tencent also has exclusive rights to publish Nexon's Dungeon Fighter in China, showing the giant has existing connections with both firms.

GTA Online's in-game microtransactions once again break the bank, cementing GTA V as one of the best-earning games of all time.

GTA Online's new Cayo Perico heist helped GTA V make more money in December than any other period in the game's 7-year history. The news is from analyst firm SuperData, who says December 2020 delivered record digital revenues for GTA Online that were higher than any other month since the mode's release.

The Skyblivion total conversion mod is making tremendous progress and looks absolutely enchanting in this new dev diary video.

Oblivion, arguably the best-looking Elder Scrolls game ever made, is getting rebuilt in Skyrim's game engine. A team of 50+ talented volunteers are breathing new life into these two beloved fantasy games as part of the hugely ambitious TES Renewal passion project. The Skyblivion mod aims to completely recreate The Elder Scrolls IV using Skyrim Special Edition mod toolsets, complete with custom assets as well as the original questlines intact.

The new dev diary video highlights environments, 3D objects, interiors, and quests, showing marked improvements and big strides in every way. The mod still isn't finished, though, and has some issues with the quests themselves. But according to the team, the end is in sight...yet there's no actual release date for the mod.

Yesterday Microsoft made a big mistake. The company tried to raise Xbox LIVE Gold prices by 50% and removed the 12-month option entirely, bringing Xbox LIVE Gold subscriptions to $120 a year. It failed spectacularly, and now Microsoft has pulled a 180.

Xbox LIVE Gold isn't getting a price hike after all. After severe backlash from an alienated fan base, Microsoft has cancelled its plans to raise Xbox LIVE Gold to $10 a month. Prices will stay the same at $9.99 for 1 month, $24.99 for 3 months, and $39.99 for 6 months. 12-month memberships are only available at retailers.

As an added apology to fans, billion-dollar free-to-play games like Fortnite and Warzone no longer require Xbox LIVE Gold in order to play. It's simultaneously an end of an era and the beginning of a new dawn for the subscription.

As promised, CD Projekt RED released the first major patch for Cyberpunk 2077 that fixes a ton of bugs and major glitches.

Cyberpunk 2077's new Patch 1.1 update is out now and it brings some big changes. The most substantial change is more streamlined memory allocation for consoles, which improves in-game performance on every level. It turns out 8GB of GDDR5 unified memory hamstrings developers in console games.

The update also eliminates any possibility of the save corruption glitch on consoles and PC. The saves will no longer get big enough to become corrupted and CDPR even "trimmed the excess size from already-existing saves." Sadly the saves that are already corrupted can't be fixed and will remain corrupted.

Vicarious Visions used to be an Activision studio, but now it's been absorbed by Blizzard. This actually makes sense; Vicarious Visions has been helping Blizzard with various projects for a while now.

Vicarious Visions, the developer behind Skylanders, the new Crash Bandicoot games, Tony Hawk 1+2 remasters, has been moved over to Blizzard. The studio had been an Activision subsidiary since 2005, but is now a part of Blizzard Entertainment and has been relegated as a support team for Blizzard's projects. This is somewhat likened to Sledgehammer's change from a fully-fledged Call of Duty studio to assisting Treyarch and Infinity Ward on the franchise.

The truth is Vicarious Visions has been working with Blizzard"for some time" and is now "fully dedicated" to future Blizzard projects. Vicarious Visions has been developing a Diablo II remake for some time, having taken over development from Blizzard's own main internal teams. Rumblings of a Diablo II remake/remaster have been heard for years now.

Cyberpunk 2077 was the biggest launch of all time in digital revenues and sales, analyst firm SuperData reports.

Cyberpunk 2077 has sold a whopping 10.2 million units digitally on PS4, Xbox One, and PC after refunds, becoming the biggest digital game launch in history. That's according to SuperData, whose latest report highlights monumental figures for CD Projekt.

"Cyberpunk 2077 had the biggest game launch of all time based on digital revenue and digital units sold (10.2M)," the firm writes. PC Gaming accounted for a whopping 80% of these game sales and revenues, which is to be expected as PC games are primarily sold through digital distribution.

Xbox LIVE Gold pricing is going up by 50%, and will now cost $10 a month regardless of what option you buy.

Today Microsoft announced a substantial price hike for Xbox LIVE Gold. 6 months of Xbox LIVE Gold now costs $59.99, the old cost of the 12-month membership. This is a 50% price jump that doesn't include Xbox's most popular Game Pass service--only multiplayer and an allotment of free monthly games are included.

Here are the new pricing tiers for Xbox LIVE Gold:

Alright... someone has modded NVIDIA's last-gen Turing-based GeForce RTX 2070 graphics card, which ships with 8GB of GDDR6 memory -- and modded it with an upgraded 16GB of GDDR6. VIK-on explains in the video below:

YouTuber VIK-on got his mits on NVIDIA PCB diagrams for the GeForce RTX 2080 graphics card, which packs 8GB of GDDR6 memory. VIK-on secured himself Samsung 16Gb GDDR6 from Aliexpress for around $200 and used it on his PG160 board which is the RTX 2070 non-SUPER graphics card.

He removed the Micron 8Gb modules from the card, modding it and switching them over with the Samsung 16Gb on the GeForce RTX 2070. The modding was easy it seems, but the card was only able to run through 3DMark TimeSpy with a score of 6176 points in TimeSpy Graphics, where an RTX 2070 scores 9107 points average. It would crash in anything else.

HTC today announced that it made several improvements to the software that powers the Vive Cosmos headset. The company said the recent updates free up CPU cycles and unlock more performance from your GPU.

HTC didn't have any new hardware announcements last week at CES, but the company has recently dropped some software updates for the Vive Cosmos headset that should improve your VR experience.

The Vive Cosmos is now compatible with DirectX 12 on NVIDIA GPUs. The change won't impact graphics performance, but HTC said that the shift lowers the CPU load by 15-20%. HTC also made some changes that reduce frame latency by as much as 10%.

SenseGlove recently announced SenseGlove Nova, a haptic force-feedback glove targeted for enterprise-level virtual reality simulations. These gloves let you grab virtual objects and feel them as if they were physical objects to give you a more profound sense of realism in training simulations.

The SenseGlove Nova features vibration motors to give you a tactile feeling when you touch something, kind of like what you get in a typical gamepad or VR controller. The Novo gloves also include a mechanical system that gives you physical resistance when you try to hold onto something virtual, like a doorknob or a tool.

This type of technology is hugely important in the enterprise simulation world, where the level of realism has a meaningful effect on the value of the user's training. When you're trying to learn how to complete a dangerous task, such as maintenance on a gas pipeline, working with explosives in a mine, or trying to perfect a surgical procedure, the more accurate you need the experience to be.

Apple is reportedly working on a standalone virtual reality headset that it could launch as early as next year. The upcoming device could also offer passthrough AR capabilities.

According to a report from Bloomberg citing anonymous sources with knowledge of the projects, Apple is currently working on two different types of immersive headset. It's no secret that Apple has been tinkering with augmented reality behind closed doors, with rumours of Apple AR glasses circulative for several years now. Tim Cook has also gone on record with his belief that augmented reality has great potential.

Apple has never been bullish on virtual reality, but this new report suggests that's where the company will start. The reported headset would be a standalone device with internal computing powers. Bloomberg's source said that Apple is testing hardware that is more powerful than the new M1 processor powers it's new Macbook computers.

Capcom finally reveals Resident Evil VIII's release date, and it's a ways away.

Today Capcom confirmed a bunch of Resident Evil Village details that fans will appreciate. The game will release on May 7, 2021 on PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X, Xbox One, and PC, complete with next-gen upgrades. Anyone who buys a PS4 copy will also get a free PS5 copy, and the game will feature Smart Delivery on the Xbox One/Series platforms. This is well after Capcom's FY2020 period ends in March.

Resident Evil 8 will also be the first mainline RE game to utilize Capcom's new next-gen RE Engine upgrades. The game will be optimized to harness the power of the PS5 and Xbox SeriesX/S systems, complete with ray-traced visuals, ultra-fast loading, 3D audio support, smoother frame rates, and "hyper-detailed" graphics. Expect the game to hit native 4K on both machines.

With the new REVIII Maiden demo, gamers will finally get to see Capcom's new RE Engine technology shine in the Resident Evil series.

Capcom just surprise released a playable gameplay demo for Resident Evil VIIlage on the PlayStation 5. It's called Maiden, and it's a standalone experience with it's own story that doesn't follow Ethan's arc in the main game. Maiden takes place in the gothic nightmarish halls of Dimitrescu Castle (named after the tall vampire woman, Lady Dimitrescu) and was originally made as a visual demo. Capcom then tweaked it to be a playable puzzler with story elements.

Sadly the demo is exclusive to the PS5 and can't be played on the PS4, but it does give a sampling of the developer's next-gen games engine, complete with ray-traced lighting, 3D audio, and ultra-fast loading on the PS5's SSD. Think of Maiden as a playable tech demo of sorts.

Western Digital hard drives are a vital component for anyone who needs to deal with extensive data storage requirements. It helps in keeping all the files safe while also not overloading your devices with them. But despite being a reliable brand, you may still suffer from data loss with your hard drive. This can happen due to several reasons. In all cases, you will need to learn more about WD My Passport data recovery.

We will explore here the most secure method to perform hard drive data recovery. Therefore, you won't have to stress about any loss and its consequences.

Before moving on to data recovery, you should first understand everything about your WD hard drive. Let's begin with some of its features:

Gabe Newell really likes New Zealand--and why not? There's a lot to like. New Zealand was one of the most successful countries in curbing coronavirus spread and no longer has to practice social distancing. Life has returned to some state of normalcy in the country, and now GabeN plans to stay there for good. Some Valve employees could follow him.

In a recent interview with New Zealand network TVNZ, Newell said that Valve developers want to join their boss and help develop games overseas. That doesn't mean the entire company will uproot from its Kirkland, Washington HQ and move to New Zealand, though.

"There's a lot of interest at a grassroots level inside of the company to have some people move," Newell said.

While some games-makers like SEGA and Square Enix are on shaky grounds, Capcom has massive confidence in its 2020-2021 earnings and just upwardly revised its forecast to new heights.

Capcom today announced it has raised its Fiscal Year 2020 earnings forecast by as much as 17%. Below is a quick breakdown of the revision, and the yen to USD conversions are based on the going rate for December 31, 2020, which represent Capcom's Q3 period. Note that these conversions do not reflect the actual future exchange rates:

Revised FY2020 forecast:

Valve's Gabe Newell says new games are in development, but how many of them will actually release?

We've known since 2018 that Valve has numerous unannounced games in development. One of these projects was Half-Life Alyx, the preeminent VR experience. Before Alyx, though, Valve had a handful of projects that fizzled out, including a Half-Life 3 prototype with procedural generation and even Left 4 Dead 3. These projects were cancelled because Source 2 wasn't ready yet.

"Valve has many projects in various stages of production at all times," read a job listing from 2018.

Samsung's new ultra-flagship Galaxy S21 Ultra flagship smartphone is nearly here, with some people getting their hands-on the phone and tearing them down already. Check it out, and nerd out like I did:

The new Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra that has been received its new teardown treatment is the international version, with Samsung's new Exynos 2100 processor. A previous teardown was done on the Galaxy S21 but it was the US version which packs Qualcomm's new Snapdragon 888.

That video with the Snapdragon 888 packed the third-gen QTM535 mmWave antenna modules, but none were inside of the Galaxy S21 Ultra flagship smartphone.

NVIDIA will be launching its new mid-range Ampere-based GeForce RTX 3060 graphics card next month, but the company will be reintroducing its Turing-based GeForce RTX 2060 and RTX 2060 SUPER graphics cards.

The news is coming from Overclocking.com that reports multiple sources that NVIDIA will be reintroducing the GeForce RTX 2060 and RTX 2060 SUPER graphics cards before the launch of the GeForce RTX 3060 in February. Overclocking.com reports that NVIDIA has already distributed the new cards to AIBs and system integrators.

But what price will the new GeForce RTX 2060 and GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER cards be introduced at? NVIDIA will be reintroducing the RTX 2060 for 300 EUR (around $360) and RTX 2060 SUPER for 400 EUR (around $485) or so. The new GeForce RTX 3060 slots right between that, where it will debut at $329.