HP's long-awaited Reverb G2 Windows Mixed Reality headsetsare finallymaking their way to customers' doors. And some people have reported breaking part of their headsets right after getting them.

The part in question is a plastic clip that guides the tether cable to the headset's rear. There aren't many people who have yet received their Reverb G2 pre-order, but already a handful of them have snapped the cable guide clip in half.

HP chose to ship the Reverb G2 without pre-installing the tether cable, which means that customers must install the cable before using the headset. To do so, you must remove a small plastic clip from the back of the head strap and then snap it back into place around the cable. It seems some people are breaking the clips during this procedure, and enough people have done it that a 3D printable replacement has already been shared with the community.

Phison is having a huge, huge year -- driven by supplying SSD controllers to Microsoft for its next-gen Xbox Series X/S consoles as well as shipping more and more SSD controllers for various PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSDs.

It was just a few days ago that Phison teased its second-gen E18 SSD controller, which is capable of a gigantic 7.4GB/sec. It is the fastest PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD solution in the world, with capacities of up to 8TB which is just incredible.

DigiTimes reports: "Phison Electronics has disclosed shipments of its PCIe SSD controllers surged nearly 94% on year in the first 10 months of 2020, with shipments for October alone rising 55% to a monthly high".

Magic Leap and PTC announced that the Vuforia AR Enterprise Suite is coming to Magic Leap 1 next year, giving industrial enterprises access to productivity-boosting AR tools.

PTC's Vuforia is one of the most widely used augmented reality platforms, especially in industrial business sectors. Magic Leap already supports the Vuforia Engine, enabling businesses to author custom AR software using Vuforia technology. In 2021, PTC plans to bring its entire Vuforia AR Enterprise Suite to Magic Leap's spatial computing platform.

Vuforia's AR Enterprise Suite includes five AR tools for businesses, including Vuforia Chalk, a collaborative remote assistance tool. Vuforia Expert Capture for recording work instruction tutorials. Vuforia Studio, which enables you to create 3D training and work instructions. And Vuforia Spatial Toolbox for prototyping spatial computing projects.

Update: So this is a troll post, someone blew vape smoke into the Xbox Series X -- and these videos have been circulating since. The physical hardware issues with the Xbox Series X/S aren't a surprise, but be careful as people are capitalizing on this right now.

Microsoft's next-gen Xbox Series X console is now appearing in the wild as gamers receive their units, but there are some major day one issues. This particular console caught fire inside, and sent out massive plumes of smoke out of the Xbox Series X console, check it out:

The video you're seeing there isn't just a single Xbox Series X catching fire and puffing out smoke, and a hell of a lot of it. It's like the Xbox Series X console is chain smoking the Zen 2 + RDNA 2 + PCIe 4.0 SSD all at the same time, and puffing it out of the top in what is an expensive paper weight.

Disney+ is swinging with the big punches in 2020 which I'm sure is very thankful to the COVID-19 lockdowns worldwide, with a new subscriber milestone reached: 73 million.

The new streaming giant is behind Netflix which, as of April 2020, had 183 million subscribers. Disney CEO Bob Chapek said during the Q4 2020 earnings call: "I'm pleased to report that as of the end of the fourth quarter Disney plus had more than 73 million paid subscribers, far surpassing our expectations in just its first year".

"We're continuing to see positive trends. The growth of Disney plus speaks volumes about the strength of our IP, our unparalleled franchises and amazing content creators, all part of the Disney difference that sets us apart from everyone else. When you look across our full suite of streaming service, we have exceeded 120 million paid subscriptions worldwide".

Ubisoft's latest Viking-themed Assassin's Creed game is doing pretty well right now.

Assassin's Creed Valhalla has amassed 2x the day one players as AC Odyssey, cementing it as a big success at Ubisoft. We don't know how many players actually jumped into 832 A.D. Anglo Saxon England, and Ubisoft hasn't given hard figures on actual sales. "The number of active players on launch day for Assassin's Creed Valhalla doubled that of Assassin's Creed Odyssey, a trend that is expected to continue as sales of the new generation of consoles increase," reads a press release sent out by Ubisoft.

Right now we're reviewing AC Valhalla and I can honestly say it's one of the most captivating RPGs in recent memory. It's a lot like Skyrim mixed with The Witcher mixed with AC Origins and Odyssey. There's even splashes of Diablo thrown in there too with the armor sets--but more on that in our review. It's also one of the premiere next-gen games on PS5 and Xbox Series X, and while it doesn't have a next-gen port right now, it still plays pretty damn good on both systems (and of course on PC, where it shines bright with an RTX 3090).

New console games are getting more expensive. A number companies are pushing $69.99 as the new MSRP for PS5 and Xbox Series X titles, but some publishers like Bethesda aren't jumping on board just yet.

Another major games-maker has refused to raise prices on their next-gen games. Bethesda joins Capcom, Ubisoft, and Electronic Arts in maintaining a $59.99 price for new titles. Today Bethesda confirmed its first next-gen PS5 game, Deathloop, will cost the same as a current-gen game when it launches on May 21, 2021.

The 1v1 online shooter currently has two versions available for pre-order: the $59.99 standard version, which comes with a special skin, weapon, and trinket. The deluxe edition will cost $79.99 and comes with more stylish content like a PS5-exclusive Transtar weapon right out of Prey alongside two other unique weapons, two character skins, a soundtrack, and two character-buffing trinkets.

Sony recently said the PS5 doesn't have a web browser. That's not entirely true. There is a web browser...but you can't access it whenever you want.

Unlike the PS4, the PS5 doesn't have a web browser app built into the system's UI. Gamers can't start up a web app and surf the internet like they can on the PS4. The reasons for this are two-fold: Sony doesn't really think people need a web browser, but more importantly, it reduces the opportunities for hacks and exploits. The PS4's web browser led to a kernel access exploit on v1.76. Sony doesn't want to repeat the same mistake.

On the other hand, the PS5 does technically have a web browser, but it's only available when you first set up the console. The browser is restricted though and you can't actually change the URL. The browser comes up when you click on the ratings and health and safety sections on console setup.

UPDATE: Forcibly syncing data on PS Plus will also help with cross-gen games that're missing saves. For example, if you've upgraded to AC Valhalla on PS5 but your PS4 saves still aren't there, do this:

Settings -> Application Saved Data Management ->Saved Data in System Storage -> Upload to Online Storage

Settings -> Saved Data and Game/App Settings -> Saved Data (PS45) ->Sync Saved Data-> View Sync Status

Welcome to TweakTown on our brand new web server. If you're reading this, you are reading from our beasty new web server!

Given the enormous increase in readers hitting up TweakTown this year due in part to COVID lockdowns, we decided it was time to upgrade our old web server. Our old server was not terrible, but it started to show its age, especially at times of high traffic. We have put in an incredible amount of time and resources to making sure TweakTown not only looks great and works well on any devices, but it also always fast.

We have invested considerable developer resources into deploying all sorts of new web tech, such as advanced caching techniques, to ensure a great experience. Besides our content itself, these are the key factors we look to nail for you, our readers.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd (TSMC) has announced that its board has approved a large investment to establish a wholly-owned subsidiary in Arizona with $3.5 billion in capital.

The new plant will be co-financed between TSMC, the state of Arizona, and the US federal government. TSMC explained in a statement: "Approved an investment to establish a wholly-owned subsidiary in Arizona, United States of America, with a paid-in capital of US$3.5 billion (approximately NT$99.75 billion)".

TSMC announced plans in May 2020 of building a $12 billion new factory in Arizona, which was a positive sign for the USA thanks to President Trump. The Trump administration is trying to get global tech supply chains out of the grips of China, and onto US soil. This is a solid move for TSMC and the United States going forward, as well as the state of Arizona.

Sony unleashed the next-gen PlayStation 5 console in Australia a few hours ago, selling out almost instantly, and pissing a lot of gamers Down Under.

The new PlayStation 5 console sold out virtually instantly, crashing retailer websites and then seeing scalpers grab their new PS5 consoles and throw them on eBay for immense profit. The console sells on its own for $749 AUD (around $500 take out the 10% GST in Australia) with PlayStation 5 consoles hitting eBay for as much as $1325 AUD ($900 or so).

There's even a Buy It Now listing for a PlayStation 5 console for $1500 AUD, which is a whopping $1000+.

Fresh off the closure of its Hanford, California warehouse, Fry's Electronics announced this week the immediate closure of its Campbell, California store. Campbell is located in Santa Clara County, California, and part of Silicon Valley. We first covered the issues Fry's Electronics was having last year.

Over the last three years, we have observed significant gaps in its product stock, and over the two years, entire product lines have been missing for extended periods. Most of the chain's departments have had empty shelves and a lack of consistent stock for products that are carried. One thing we are continuing to hear from employees is that sales, as well as store traffic, have been struggling. Our ongoing visits to the stores in the western region have shown entire isles which used to be well-stocked, completely devoid of any products.

The Campbell store, when open, maintained an Egyptian theme. Like many of Fry's Electronics locations, many of the store's features inside and out were in disrepair over the last six months. It was only earlier this year that Fry's Electronics closed their Palo Alto and Anaheim locations.

It's not only Cinebench R23 that was released today, but the V-Ray 5 CPU and GPU benchmark suite was released by Chaos Group, too. It's free to download -- which you can download right here.

The new V-Ray 5 GPU benchmark has support for RTX technology, so if you have a GeForce RTX 20 or GeForce RTX 30 series graphics card then you can stress test your machine with a new GPU benchmark. There's also a super-intensive CPU benchmark included, too.

"Today, Chaos Group released V-Ray 5 Benchmark, a free standalone application that lets users quickly test their rendering speeds on any combination of CPUs and GPUs. The Benchmark launches with three complex test scenes designed to assess V-Ray performance on CPU, GPU CUDA and GPU RTX cards".

Microsoft revealed that as part of its partnership with HP to develop the HP Reverb G2 Windows Mixed Reality headset, the company spent time improving the Windows Mixed Reality platform's overall visual quality.

Microsoft added two specific image correction features to the latest Windows Mixed Reality; Chromatic Aberration Correction and Light Leak Correction.

Microsoft's engineers improved Windows MR's method for reducing chromatic aberration (the refraction effect caused by white light hitting a Fresnel lens). Microsoft's Chromatic Aberration Correction pre-warps the image such that a single white pixel would appear as a single white pixel in the lens, not a white pixel with red, green, and blue refractions.

It looks like Sony might not be giving up on PSVR as quickly as we thought. Sony just confirmed that the PS Camera adapter for PlayStation 5 would soon come packaged in the PSVR Marvel's Iron Man VR bundle.

Sony's PlayStation 5 drops on November 12, and gamers will be able to enjoy next-gen games as well as their PS4 games, some with enhancements and better loading times. PSVR games are also playable on PS5, but the new PlayStation camera doesn't work with the headset.

Sony's solution is the offer afree adapter to anyone who has a PSVR headset and wants to use it on a new PS5. PS5 PSVR games don't yet exist, and we're not sure that they ever will, but Sony's not abandoning the headset. The company just revealed that the adapter you need would soon come with PSVR kits, which should encourage newcomers to consider a PSVR headset.

XFX has just teased its new Big Navi-based graphics cards in a big way, with a video teaser posted on Twitter showing them crashing into the Earth in what seems like an ELE, check it out:

But instead of seeing the Radeon RX 6800 XT or Radeon RX 6800 graphics cards from XFX, I can't not see that XFX has branded the card "Radeon RX 6800 XL". It oculd be a mistake, but I don't see how the marketing peeps at XFX could not see this and pump the video out -- the one and only about custom Big Navi cards from XFX.

We do have a triple-fan cooler, a smaller PCB (interesting) and should have it released in the coming weeks. I hope to have my hands-on samples as soon as humanly possible.

Deca released more information about its upcoming DecaGear 1 VR headset today. To convince people the headset is real, Deca released the Bill of Materials for the headset, including model numbers and rough pricing.

Deca stirred up a lot of buzz in late October when it revealed the existence of its upcoming VR headset, DecaGear 1. The new headset boasts a wild array of specifications, including inside-out tracking, facial expression tracking, eye tracking, and dual 2160 x 2160 RGB LCDs. This headset's specifications are scarcely believable, but the $450 price tag puts the DecaGear 1 into "something seems fishy" territory.

Facing a lot of skepticism, Deca's founders are trying to be as transparent about the product as possible. Today, they revealed the DecaGear 1's Bill of Materials, a complete breakdown of the components needed to build the headset and their associated costs. Deca said the prices listed are an approximate range because of NDA obligations with some companies and because the prices depend on purchase volume.

If you've got a new CPU and want to stress test it, then Maxon has your back with the latest release of Cinebench R23 which you can download right here.

Cinebench R23 has been designed to work with current-gen CPUs including AMD's just-released and powerhouse Intel ass kicking Zen 3-based Ryzen 5000 series processors, as well as Apple's not-even-here-yet M1 CPU for its new Mac products.

I've run my new AMD Ryzen 9 5900X processor (12 cores, 24 threads) so you can see the performance between some of the other chips that Maxon includes in the rankings for Cinebench R23 so far. The download itself weighs in at 225MB.

MSI just let us know that it plans to #ChangeTheGame on November 20. MSI says to mark our calendars for the new MSI Game Changer in a little over eight days and five hours from now.

In the teaser image supplied to us by MSI, it's impossible to make out exactly what will be released. But we can obviously see that we are dealing with a graphics card - specifically a graphics card with what is likely going to include three 80mm cooling fans. Beyond that, we can't figure out much else.

We will likely be dealing with a high-end graphics card, but which one? Could it be the GeForce RTX 3090 Lightning or RTX 3080 Lightning? Or could it be something completely new and different? Maybe an entirely new line with mega insane overclocks out of the box? We really don't know. We're just going to have to wait and see what MSI has cooked up for us gamers.