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We are experiencing the worst GPU shortage in history, HDD and SSD prices are expected to rise because of storage-related crypto mining, next-gen consoles are still impossible to find -- and now RAM prices are expected to jump by 18-23% in Q2 2021.

TrendForce is predicting that DRAM prices will increase 18-23% quarter-over-quarter in Q2 2021, with global chip shortages hurting DRAM supply, and now TrendForce is attributing further RAM price increases to a 7.9% boost in laptop manufacturing which is affecting DRAM demand.

TrendForce explains: "On the other hand, prices are likewise rising across various DRAM product categories in 2Q21, including DDR3/4 specialty DRAM, mobile DRAM, graphics DRAM, and in particular server DRAM, which is highly related to PC DRAM and is therefore also undergoing a higher price hike than previously expected".

Activision is celebrating weed on its special day -- 4/20 -- with the release of its new Stoner's Delight DLC bundle for Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War and Warzone.

The new Tracer Pack: Stoner's Delight DLC includes a Kushwacked operator skin, as well as some new weapon blueprints with Homegrown and Big Smoke. Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War and Warzone also have a new Rolling Leaf charm, and a Kush Keeper watch. Nice work there, Activision.

There's also a Blown Away emblem, In The Weeds calling card and Mother Nature sticker -- with the Stoner's Delight pack having floral green-purple Tracer Fire which is such a nice touch for Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War and Warzone's new Stoner's Delight bundle.

Newegg has just announced that it now accepts Dogecoin as a payment method, joining cryptocurrency Bitcoin as a payment method with Newegg -- but now, it welcomes DOGE.

It's the perfect day for it to happen as today is 4/20 -- aka Dogeday, aka Elon Musk Day, aka National Weed Day. The DOGE community has celebrated April 20 for a while now, with many hundreds of thousands if not millions of DOGE holders wanting to see the cryptocurrency smashing into, and through the $1 barrier.

Newegg now accepting DOGE is a big deal, with Andrew Choi, Sr. Brand Manager of Newegg explaining: "The excitement and momentum around cryptocurrency are undeniable, and the recent surge in Dogecoin value underscores the need to make it easier for customers to make purchases with this popular cryptocurrency".

Call of Duty Warzone has hit 100 million players a little over a year after launch, Activision today announced.

Warzone is a juggernaut for Activision, and is the most important thing the company has ever done. The free-to-play behemoth has amassed a staggering 100 million players in 406 days, and has had a transformative effect on Activision's core business. Warzone is so powerful that it helped drive Call of Duty earnings to a record $3 billion in 2020.

For reference, it took Fortnite 10 months to hit 125 million players, and EA's BR titan Apex Legends just hit 100 million players in 2 years' time.

EA just announced its Q4 FY2021 earnings results will go live on May 11, 2021, and its likely the Battlefield 6 reveal trailer will go live ahead of time.

EA should reveal the next Battlefield game in the coming weeks. The publisher recently promised the rumored futuristic Battlefield would be revealed during Spring 2021, and the company has a trend of showcasing new Battlefield titles ahead of its Q4 earnings reports in order to wow gamers and investors. EA likes to comment on these big new games and tease new features to gamers while making new promises to stakeholders.

Read Also: Battlefield 6 last-gen reports clarified by leaker

Discord no longer has plans to sell the company to Microsoft or anyone else as it instead focuses on an initial public offering.

Weeks ago, reports indicated Microsoft made an offer to buy out social giant Discord. The acquisition may have cost up to $10 billion, and would've solidified the Xbox ecosystem with a unified cross-platform social network with Discord's unique chat infrastructure. Now those plans have changed.

According to reports from The Wall Street Journal, Discord is now doubling-down on its original IPO plans.

Beloved Overwatch director Jeff Kaplan is leaving the studio, the company today announced.

Jeff Kaplan is departing Blizzard after nearly 20 years with the company. This major departure comes two years after Blizzard co-founder Mike Morhaime left in 2019 to form Dreamhaven, a new game development publishing label with a number of ex-Blizzard developers. There have been rumblings of core Blizzard creatives clashing with directives from Activision-Blizzard, namely the new four-part plan that emphasizes mobile ports, monetization, engagement models, and new games.

Kaplan gave the following statement on his departure: "It was truly the honor of a lifetime to have the opportunity to create worlds and heroes for such a passionate audience. I want to express my deep appreciation to everyone at Blizzard who supported our games, our game teams and our players. But I want to say a special thanks to the wonderful game developers that shared in the journey of creation with me."

New videos have surfaced on two websites showing an unidentified flying objects that appear to be a "sphere", or a "metallic blimp".

The videos have surfaced on Mystery Wire and Extraordinary Beliefs, which are websites that are built to document sightings of UFO's. Department of Defense spokeswoman Sue Gough told CBS News, "I can confirm that the referenced photos and videos were taken by Navy personnel".

But then went onto say, "As we have said before, to maintain operations security and to avoid disclosing information that may be useful to potential adversaries, DOD does not discuss publicly the details of either the observations or the examinations of reported incursions into our training ranges or designated airspace, including those incursions initially designated as [Unidentified Aerial Phenomena.]"

ASUS is preparing its new TUF Dash F15 gaming laptop release -- which right now seems imminent -- with NVIDIA's unannounced GeForce RTX 3050 GPU.

The new ASUS TUF Dash F15 gaming laptop has now been listed on Amazon with its 15.6-inch 1080p 144Hz display, and GeForce RTX 3050 GPU with 4GB of GDDR6 memory. We are expecting the GeForce RTX 3050 Laptop GPU to pack 2048 CUDA cores and GA107 GPU.

4GB of VRAM will be more than enough for 1080p gaming, with 4GB of GDDR6 on a 128-bit memory bus more than capable of driving 60FPS in most games especially esports titles like Apex Legends, Overwatch, League of Legends, CS:GO and many others.

If you have managed to find 1 of the 10 (it's a joke) ASUS TUF variant of the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT or Radeon RX 6800 series graphics cards -- EK has some water cooling that might be of interest to you.

EK has just introduced its new EK-Quantum Vector TUF water blocks made specifically for the custom ASUS TUF versions of the Radeon RX 6900 and Radeon RX 6800 series GPUs. We have an Open Split-Flow cooling engine design which should provide some of the best cooling for your Big Navi GPU.

There's low hydraulic flow restriction which means you can use weaker water pumps or use low-speed settings and still keep your RDNA 2-powered GPU nice and cool. EK is using a block that was CNC-machined out of nickel-plated electrolytic copper, with a CNC-machined glass-like cast, or durable black POM acetal.

Call of Duty: Warzone is set to get a big injection of performance through NVIDIA DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling) support coming into the battle royale extravaganza on April 22.

NVIDIA sent out a newsletters teasing DLSS support dropping into Call of Duty: Warzone, after teasing that DLSS would be coming to Warzone sometime this year all the way back in January 2021. NVIDIA was silent about DLSS in Warzone between then and now, but it seems we're now on the precipice.

April 22 is when Call of Duty: Warzone's new Season 3 update is meant to drop, which would be the perfect time for NVIDIA to provide DLSS support to the game. If you've forgotten about how much performance DLSS can provide in a game -- and more specifically Call of Duty -- we're looking at up to 85% performance uplift at 4K in COD: Black Ops at 4K (article below, video above).

We've been hearing a fair amount of news about next-gen PC gaming displays with DislpayHDR 2000 certification -- except, well, now the standards body behind DisplayHDR (VESA) has come out clarifying WTF is going on.

VESA said in a statement that the two new super-ultrawide 5K monitors from Acer and Samsung do not have DisplayHDR 2000 certification -- and that's because the standard itself doesn't exist (yet). Samsung's new 2021 Odyssey G9 monitor and Acer's new confusingly-named EI491CRG9 both have "DisplayHDR 2000 certification" except they don't, says VESA.

VESA clarifies that these monitors simply cannot offer DisplayHDR 2000 because it doesn't exist, and that the highest tier of DisplayHDR certification right now is DisplayHDR 1400. VESA says, with a real stern Dad Voice: "Until the displayhdr.org website displays DisplayHDR 2000, any such logo usage should be assumed to be unapproved and deceptive".

F1 2021 isn't too far away now with Codemasters and EA announcing the game and dropping an announce trailer just days ago -- but now we know F1 2021 will have ray tracing support.

We don't know how the ray tracing implementation will work, but we should expect shadows and/or reflections -- with Codemasters adding NVIDIA's DLSS technology to F1 2020 last year. The new game will have a bunch of new features including a new story mode called "Braking Point".

Braking Point "immerses players into the glamorous world of F1" with an off-track lifestyle and even role playing parts included in F1 2021 -- an interesting path for a driving game. There are 3 new circuits: Portimao, Imola, and the all-new Jeddah Street Circuit.

EA reveals new info on Apex Legends' mobile version, but it won't be available in Western markets any time soon.

Apex Legends is coming to mobile in 2021 with testing kicking off first in APAC regions like India and the Philippines. Respawn plans to roll out multiple testing phases across the globe throughout the year, first on Android and then on iOS.

EA says the mobile version will be optimized for touchscreen controls, and will also feature its own battle passes and separate unique unlockables that aren't available on PC or consoles. Apex Legends mobile will be free-to-play with cosmetic microtransactions, and EA expects the game to deliver significant results out of the gate and help drive over $1 billion in yearly revenues for Apex.

Konami has renewed its trademark for Metal Gear Rising and the Castlevania franchise, Gematsu reports.

Konami's recent trademark renewals don't necessarily mean new games are on the way. Companies like Konami renew trademarks for existing games all the time, especially if they're still collecting royalties on said projects. Metal Gear Rising released a long time ago but is still active on various storefronts like Steam and the Microsoft Store. Re-securing the trademark is important for Konami's business.

The Castlevania renewal is a no-brainer. Netflix is busy on Castlevania season 3, and Konami recently released a collection of classic Castlevania retro games.

Microsoft makes a big breakthrough that will help game streaming push towards mainstream adoption.

Xbox cloud game streaming is coming soon to browsers across PC and mobile, Microsoft today announced. Invites to Game Pass Ultimate subscribers will start rolling out tomorrow, and users can test out 100 Xbox games across Edge, Chrome, or Safari browsers.

This new feature will technically allow Project xCloud game streaming on iOS devices via the Safari browser and avoid Apple's stringent App Store policies. Users can hook up Bluetooth controllers to their phones and jump in, or wired USB controllers on their PC. Microsoft says more than 50 games have been re-tooled with touch controls for mobiles.

After tons of pushback from fans, Sony has reversed its initial decision and will now keep the PS3 and PS Vita storefronts open for an indefinite amount of time.

Vita means life, and the handheld's legacy will live on. PlayStation boss Jim Ryan today confirmed that the PS3 and PS Vita stores won't be taken offline as planned.

Instead, both online stores will remain open and operational for "the foreseeable future," allowing gamers to purchase games, DLC, and other content directly from each console-based interface.

Hitman dev IO Interactive is making a new interesting IP that will be different from anything else it's ever worked on, and is a passion project for its oldest developers.

After going indie, IO Interactive has hit the ground running and is tackling some ambitious plans. It just opened a third studio, it's self-publishing its own games, and developing multiple projects like a new game based on the 007 franchise and a new IP. Now we actually know a fair bit about this new wholly-owned intellectual property.

We first heard about IO's new IP in 2017, and recent job listings confirm it'll be a multiplayer game with a "new concept" built in the studio's proprietary Glacier Engine. Now IO CEO Hakan Abrak teases more details about the IP, saying it's something that the studio's core veterans have always wanted to make.

Twitter user Jan Kaiser shows us a glimpse of the future with Doom running on a nifty holographic display.

Doom runs on a lot of things; fridges, toasters, smartwatches, pregnancy tests--you name it, if it has a screen it can probably run Doom. The same is true for holographic displays like the Looking Glass Portrait, which runs the 3D version of Doom. This the kind of thing that gamers 40 years from now will be playing on.

Digital security expert Jan Kaiser hooked up a Looking Class Portrait display, booted up Doom, and proceeded to blow our minds. Not only does Doom have more depth, but gamers can turn the screen or move slightly to the left and right to peek around corners. This kind of tech has massive implications for the future of gaming, but it's not exactly cheap or readily available; the screen itself costs $249 for the smaller 7.9-inch portrait model.

Megadodo Games just hit a significant milestone in the development of its DecaGear lineup of VR hardware. The company is still working on perfecting theDecaGear 1 headset, but it's preparing to take orders for the first run of DecaMove locomotion controllers.

Last year, Megadodo Games came out of nowhere and announced an advanced VR headset and locomotion controller. The company quickly started taking pre-orders for the hardware that it planned to ship early this year. Development of the hardware is taking a bit longer than expected, but the DecaMove controller is almost ready to go.

The DecaMove clips to your hips and gives you an additional level of movement fidelity in first-person games. The DecaMove tracks your hip orientation and separates your head and hands from your movement direction for a more natural feeling experience. Megadodo sent out Blogger Editions of the DecaMove last month, and the response has been overwhelmingly positive.