Latest News - Page 1447

Apple's new iPad Pro is a tour-de-force of technology, powered by Apple's new M1 processor, 5G connectivity, and a beautiful Liquid XDR mini-LED display to boot... but don't you dare drop or damage your new 12.9-inch iPad Pro.

Why? Cos it'll cost you $699 to repair it -- where for $100 more you could just buy yourself a new 11-inch iPad Pro. That $699 cost is ballooned out that high for the sole reason that if you don't have AppleCare+ warranty, then you'll be paying an arm and a leg to get your 12.9-inch iPad Pro repaired.

The mini-LED display is the reason Apple is charging a wallet-busting $699 to repair the 12.9-inch 2021 iPad Pro without AppleCare+ but if you do have AppleCare+ then that $699 repair cost drops to just $49. You'll also find yourself with 2 x accidental damage repairs every 12 months, too. You can also split up the AppleCare+ payment with a subscription service at $7.99 per month, which works out to $149 over the course of two years.

If you were lucky enough to nab one of Sony's next-gen PlayStation 5 consoles you will be happy enough enjoying whatever games you've been playing with it -- as well as PS5 exclusives -- but one of those games will not be STALKER 2... at least not for the first 3 months of its release.

During a recent interview with STALKER 2 developer GSC GameWorld, which said that there are no plans for STALKER 2 on any other platform other than Xbox and PC "for now". We might get a PS5 release of STALKER 2, but it won't be happening for many months after its initial release.

The news is coming from a court filing over the on-going Epic v Apple case, where Microsoft has some exclusivity deals for some games and one of those is STALKER 2. The documents reveal that the plan for now at least, is that STALKER 2 is due to be an exclusive to Xbox Series X/S consoles and the PC with a release scheduled for Q4 2021 (October-December).

Battlefield leaker Tom Henderson is a busy man between leaking out what should be EA's biggest game of 2021, and sketching his life away drawing out snippets from EA DICE's upcoming teaser trailer for Battlefield.

Henderson started out with a GIF of him today, sketching away -- replied to someone else asking if there were more drawings on the way -- and more specifically "some soldier sketches". Henderson replied saying "I got you" and then dumped down two sketches he had been working on. The first of which is above, but then the talented (and very quick) folks at All Things Gaming replied with this magic:

How good is that!

Capcom has significantly restricted Resident Evil Village's play time on consoles and PC...but Steam gamers have figured out a work around.

The RE Village demo will lock you out after one hour of play regardless of which area you play--the castle or the village, either way it's only 1 hour. PC gamers can break the demo's restriction, however, by using Steam Achievement Manager and deleting a few files.

According to the Steam community, the method is pretty simple.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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".

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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".