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In a bid to save money and maximize profits, Konami plans to outsource development of new games in key franchises like Castlevania, Metal Gear Solid, and Silent Hill to third party studios.

Since it fired Hideo Kojima years ago, Konami's pace of game releases has slowed down. Right now Konami earns the lion's share of its earnings from annualized Pro Evolution Soccer and YuGiOh releases, mobile titles, and pachinko. The company is still very profitable without big mainline releases (Q3'20 profits were up 65%, for example), and the restricted slate means Konami has sunk less money into games to maintain certain revenue targets.

Now it looks like Konami is continuing this trend and plans on licensing out franchise rights to other games companies. Sources tell Video Game Chronicle that Konami's first-party studios won't develop new Castlevania, Silent Hill, or even Metal Gear Solid games, and will instead outsource them to unnamed third-party studios.

Hideo Kojima could be involved with a new Silent Hill game, lining up with previous reports of a horror title from the Metal Gear creator.

New reports suggest Konami is licensing out two new Silent Hill games: A reboot and an unconventional title. One could be made from Polish developer Bloober Team, who's responsible for Layers of Fear, Blair Witch, and the new Medium game. The other could be helmed by Kojima Productions despite the bad blood between the studio and Konami.

The speculation comes from new reports from Video Game Chronicle, who sources told that another Silent Hill game was being created by a "prominent Japanese developer." This doesn't confirm Kojima is involved, of course--SEGA or even Capcom could do it, for example, or even Sony Japan Studio--but Hideo Kojima has been teasing a horror game for a long time now.

It seems as though AMD could be offering not just a single SKU of the Radeon RX 6700 XT graphics card, but two of them -- each with different TGPs.

The news is coming from Coreteks' sources, who says the variants are referred to as ASIC A and ASIC B, with ASIC A offering up to 230W while ASIC B will offer up to 189W. This would most likely be the difference between stock/reference Radeon RX 6700 XT graphics cards, and tweaked custom Radeon RX 6700 XT graphics cards from AIB partners.

We are to expect a decent 20-25% or higher uplift in performance over the previous-gen RDNA-based Radeon RX 5700 XT graphics card. The new AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT has 12GB of GDDR6 memory at a faster 16Gbps, which I'm sure is going to prime for crypto miners.

We're seeing fully custom Radeon RX 6900 XT graphics cards hit the market now -- well, released maybe not hit the market -- with my recent review on SAPPHIRE's new custom TOXIC Radeon RX 6900 XT Limited Edition blowing me away. Up next we have PowerColor and its new Radeon RX 6900 XT Liquid Devil teased... check it out:

PowerColor will be launching its fully custom water-cooled Liquid Devil branded graphics cards in both Radeon RX 6900 XT and Radeon RX 6800 XT form. VideoCardz reports that the company is using a custom EKWB Quantum Vector RX 6800/6900 water block with a custom backplate.

We should expect the company to launch its new Radeon RX 6900 XT Liquid Devil, and the Radeon RX 6800 XT Liquid Devil sometime next week. We will have full pictures by then, and a better look at the wider PCB that PowerColor seems to be using here on its new custom Big Navi graphics cards.

AMD is reportedly gearing up for its new Instinct MI200 compute accelerator -- note the lack of the Radeon brand here -- with its new CDNA-based accelerator reportedly rocking an MCM (multi-chip module) design according to the latest leaks.

The new CDNA-based AMD Instinct MI200 will be making its first appearance inside of the US Department of Energy's upcoming Frontier supercomputer, which will also rock AMD Trento EPYC processors. The new AMD Instinct MI200 accelerators will reportedly feature MCM (multi-chip module) design that would see a doubling in cores over the Arcturus-based MI100 accelerator.

AMD's new Instinct MI200 accelerator will reportedly be using the OAM form factor (open-source accelerator infrastructure) while it would also be available for the HPE Cray EX supercomputer, too.

Intel has the largest CPU architectural upgrade in over 5 years with its new Core i9-11900K processor... as up until now all Intel CPUs have been using the same architecture on the 14nm node -- we now have a new architecture -- and that same old dusty 14nm node that Intel continues to actually impress with.

Well, we now have a look at retail packaging for the new Intel Core i9-11900K flagship CPU and it looks fantastic. It's very different to the already great retail packaging of the Core i9-10900K processor, but with a radically tweaked retail box that I don't think I've seen a CPU ship in before.

Intel is also debuting their new 11th Gen Core desktop CPUs with the updated Core logos, but the flagship Core i9-11900K processor is the only one with the super-fancy retail packaging. The rest of the line up has some new design work and logo updates on the packaging, but they're just regular square boxes.

We know the GeForce RTX 3060 is coming, and it's officially coming on February 25 -- but that hasn't stopped it from hitting the headlines over crypto mining, and now it's on sale for $1080 on second hand markets overseas... yeah.

Belarusian second-hand market Onliner already has listings for the GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 3060 EAGLE graphics card, offering the Ampere GPU mixed with 12GB of GDDR6 memory for $329... selling for $1080 second hand. Yes, $1080 for the single GeForce RTX 3060 -- that is not for all 3, but for a single RTX 3060.

We've reached peak GPU pricing insanity here folks.

NVIDIA is about to launch its mid-range GeForce RTX 3060 graphics card and with it, is cryptocurrency mining drama -- NVIDIA announced its new GeForce drivers will limit mining performance by 50% and now we have clarification on how exactly that is happening:

NVIDIA's Director of Global PR, GeForce, Bryan Del Rizzo, tweeted a reply to AnandTech's Ryan Smith who was talking about NVIDIA's driver-line crypto mining block and that he doubts "they're telling us everything" and that "one way or another we'll find out soon enough".

BDR replied with: "Hi Ryan. It's not just a driver thing. There is a secure handshake between the driver, the RTX 3060 silicon, and the BIOS (firmware) that prevents removal of the hash rate limiter".

Blizzard's new Diablo II Resurrected game is a remaster, not a remake, and contains old-school graphics alongside enhanced visuals.

Unlike the disastrous WC3 remaster, Blizzard isn't playing around with new Diablo 2 remaster, Diablo II Resurrected. The re-release is basically a re-skinned Diablo II Lord of Destruction, complete with the 100% same gear, items, armor and weapons as the original game, and the exact same game mechanics, including classes, skills, bugs and other features.

Diablo II Resurrected features some hefty upgrades to 4K 60FPS on consoles and 144Hz on PC, but anyone who wants to jump back into the old-school pixellated experience from 2001 can do so with a click of a button. The remaster will let you swap between the new upgrades and classic visuals at any point during gameplay, similar to Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary. The only exception is cutscenes, which will run the remastered versions by default.

The new Diablo 2 remaster will have the exact same weapons, armor, items, and gear as the original D2 Lord of Destruction, but we don't know what patch update the game will mimick.

After months of rumors, Diablo II Resurrected was finally announced at Blizzcon 2021. Thankfully, Vicarious Visions has entirely preserved the legacy of Diablo II with a fully-fledged remaster, not a remake. That includes gear and items, which are 100% the same as they were in Lord of Destruction.

Read Also: Diablo 2 remaster coming to consoles, Blizzard makes dreams come true

It's official: Diablo II is getting remastered, but the core gameplay remains exactly the same.

Diablo II Resurrected is fulfilling something I've always wanted: Diablo II on consoles. The remaster was announced during Blizzcon 2021 and is coming to current- and next-gen consoles, including the Nintendo Switch. Cross-progression is also a thing, but that was always implied if you play online anyway and connect to the Battle.net servers. The great thing is you can transfer your saves to another platform and then play that platform offline.

We don't know much about the console port, however. A recent Diablo II Resurrected deep dive with Blizzard revealed some details on controller interactions. The skills can be mapped to face buttons, similar to Diablo 3, but we don't know how item selection will work on consoles.

Layers of Fear developer Bloober Team could be leading a new Silent Hill reboot, neatly tying up months of rumors and reports.

Rumors of a new Silent Hill game (or games) have been flying around for a while, but now we may have some actual concrete evidence.

It looks like Polish dev Bloober Team, who's responsible for the ultra-creepy Layers of Fear, Blair Witch, and The Medium, might be developing the reboot for Konami. Bloober CEO Piotr Babieno recent teased the news to GamesIndustry.biz:

Blizzard should reveal Diablo II Resurrected during today's Blizzcon 2021 stream, but new info suggests it could be coming to console as well as PC.

Today Blizzard may make one of my dreams come true by bringing Diablo II to consoles for the first time ever. The rumor comes by way of Redditor PracticalBrush12, a reliable source with an established track record with leaks. The report says Diablo II Resurrected is coming to consoles as well as the Switch.

This is speculation, of course, but it fits with Blizzard's business model, which emphasizes multi-platform releases and long-term monetization. I don't expect to see in-game purchases in Diablo II, and admittedly a console port seems iffy. But if Blizzard can pull it off they will achieve strong sales across the entire spectrum.

Bungie is transforming, and has plans to bring its wholly-owned Destiny franchise to "other media," possibly including films, books, and TV shows.

Today Bungie made some big announcements: It's nearly tripling the size of its HQ in Bellevue, Washington to prepare for big new games, and it has also opened a new publishing and marketing division in the Netherlands. Soon Bungie will morph into a developer-publisher and not only create its own games, but publish/distribute them too.

That's not it, though. Bungie also wants to make Destiny into a transmedia franchise, possibly similar to what Microsoft did with the Halo franchise. We could see Destiny books, films, TV shows, animated shorts, and a new fleet of action figures. This massive investment solidifies Destiny as a long-lasting franchise for Bungie, and also sees Bungie following a business model similar to The Embracer Group, who has their own publishing and film publication branches.

Bitcoin has been on an unprecedented run recently, with new all-time highs every few days so far in 2021. The excitement will surely wane eventually, but the rocket ship hasn't run out of gas yet on its way to the moon.

Bitcoin is on the precipice of surpassing $55,000 per coin. At the time of writing this, the price is sitting at $54,600, after a $3000 spike overnight from just shut of $52,000. On February 6, Bitcoin topped $40,000 for the first time in history, mainly in reaction to Tesla's announcement of a $1.5 billion investment in the cryptocurrency.

The coin's price is reaching incredible heights, but Bitcoin hit an entirely different and probably more meaningful milestone today. For the first time, the market capitalization (market cap) of Bitcoin has surpassed the $1 trillion mark. Suppose you compare that to the market cap of the biggest companies in the world. In that case, the Bitcoin network is worth more than Johnson & Johnson, Visa, Berkshire Hathaway, Tencent, Facebook and Alibaba. Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet and Petro China are the only companies in the world that compare.

We all know how Tesla and SpaceX boss Elon Musk feels about cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Dogecoin, with the engineer himself tweeting many times over the last few weeks about both cryptocurrencies on his Twitter.

But now, he's taking a swing at fiat money -- but first off, if you didn't know what 'fiat' was:

"The term is derived from the Latin word fiat, which means a determination by authority-in this case, it's the government that decrees the value of the currency and isn't representative of another asset or financial instrument such as gold or a check".

We've heard that AMD would be launching its mid-range killer Radeon RX 6700 XT graphics card in March 2021, but now Cowcotland has reportedly confirmed the release of the Radeon RX 6700 XT for March 18.

The card was teased back in November 2020 but confirmed by AMD in January 2021 for a release in March 2021 -- it seems March 18 could be the day. The same day the Zack Snyder's Justice League debuts on HBO Max, what a day. The new Radeon RX 6700 XT will be the first use of the Navi 22 GPU, and it'll pack 12GB of GDDR6 memory.

AMD's upcoming Navi 22 GPU will feature 40 Compute Units, so 2560 Stream Processors -- leaving room for a lower-end Radeon RX 6700 graphics card in non-XT form.

The wait is finally over. You can now have more than one user account on your Oculus Quest, and games can be shared between those accounts.

It's now much easier to share your Oculus Quest 2 with family members and close friends. Oculus just rolled out an early version of the Multi-User feature for the Quest platform. With the latest Quest 2 update, you can find the new option in the headset settings' Experimental Features section.

Quest's Multi-User feature allows up to three accounts in addition to the admin account to log into Quest 2 headsets. The admin user retains ownership of the hardware, while the extra users can access the content installed on the headset with a new App Sharing feature. Admin account holders can share content with additional users, but other users can't share their content on a headset they don't own.

Activision is about to unleash a huge update for Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, but also for battle royale mode Warzone with Season 2 on the way.

The company goes into great detail about what's coming in an official blog post, with changes coming to Warzone including new points of interest on Verdansk. There could be some more underground changes for the map, with rumblings around certain parts of the map that could lead to more clues.

Activision explains: "Operators within the vicinity are recommended to exercise extreme caution, as the ship is carrying unknown cargo, and its crew are not able to be contacted. Meanwhile, within Verdansk, something major is beginning to rumble deep underground. Although other reports on these new locales are still classified, we'd advise to explore these areas at your own risk".

NASA has successfully landed its Perseverance rover on Mars, with ground controllers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California celebrating the news just hours ago.

The Perseverance rover took just over 11 minutes to land on the Red Planet, with NASA reaching the tip of Mars' atmosphere at 3:48PM EST (8:48PM GMT). It was at this point that NASA refers to as the "seven minutes of terror" which is the time between the entry, descend, and landing of the Perseverance rover.

Once the rover had landed on the surface of Mars, it took 11 minutes and 22 seconds for the signal of its confirmed landing to transmit between Mars and back here to Earth. That journey is pretty long though, at close to 300 million miles... a journey that NASA started back on July 31, 2020.