We are on the eve of both the next-gen PlayStation 5 and Microsoft Xbox Series X, and Xbox Series S consoles with EA using this time to tease how it's next-gen Battlefield game is going.

During its recent investors call, EA said: "DICE is creating our next Battlefield game with never-before-seen scale. The technical advancements of the new consoles are allowing the team to deliver a truly next-gen vision for the franchise. We have hands-on playtesting underway internally".

As for its release, EA teases that the next-gen Battlefield game "is set to launch in holiday 2021".

AMD is close to the launch of its new RDNA 2-powered Radeon RX 6800 and Radeon RX 6800 XT graphics cards, and now we're learning about the custom ASUS ROG STRIX model.

Thanks to our friends at Igor's Lab, we know the temperature limits and clock profiles for what will most likely be one of the fastest Radeon RX 6800 XT graphics cards. The new BIOS for the ASUS ROG STRIX Radeon RX 6800 XT teases the 80C Rage Mode and 95C Turbo Mode OC profiles.

Igor has discovered the ASUS ROG STRIX Radeon RX 6800 XT has 4 modes: Quiet, Balanced, Turbo, and Rage Mode. The Quite, Balanced and Rage Mode modes have 80C temperature limits, while the Turbo mode cranks that up to 95C.

Kioxia has just unveiled its new XD6 SSDs, an industry-first family of SSDs on the EDSSF E1.S 'ruler' form factor on the PCIe 4.0 x4 interface allowing it to have seriously high brute speeds.

The new Kioxia XD6 SSDs have been made to address the specific requirements of hyperscale applications, something Kioxia notes including performance, power, and thermal requirements of the Open Compute Platform (OCP) NVMe Cloud SSD Specification.

Sequential read and write performance of up to 6500MB/sec (6.5GB/sec) and 2400MB (2.4GB/sec), respectively. Kioxia is packing in its 3D TLC NAND flash memory, and a new controller that has everything it needs from an NVMe 1.3c-compliant hyperscale-optimized chip.

Nintendo Switch sales swell to 68.3 million worldwide on the back of strong Q2 purchases.

Today Nintendo announced its FYQ2'21 earnings, and the results are stellar. Switch hardware sales in particular showed a strong uptick by 43% year-over-year, pushing Q2'21's Switch sales to the highest levels of any second quarter since the system debuted in 2017.

Nintendo sold a record-breaking 6.86 million Switch units from July - September 30, 2020, bringing total FY2021 console sales to 12.53 million. This performance period also represents another milestone for Nintendo. FY 1H'21's Switch sales (Q1 + Q2) far exceed any other like-for-like period, beating first-half FY2020 earnings by more than 80%.

The wait for HP's Reverb G2 VR headset is over for some people. HP started shipping headsets to supplierslast week, and those suppliers have already begun shipping headsets to customers. The first review surfaced on Discordon Wednesday.

A member of the HP Reverb G2 Discord community that goes by Oaf_Tobark reported on Wednesday that they had received their pre-order. Unbeknownst to Oaf_Tobark, it appears they were the first customer to report receiving the headset. Luckily for us, Oaf_Tobark is a good sport and gave us a mini-review of the headset: Despite it being their first VR headset.

If you're one of the lucky ones who managed to secure a PlayStation 5 pre-order ahead of next week's release date, here's how to prepare to move your existing PlayStation 4 library across and save data. If you've got a brutally-fast internet connection, you might not be too worried about re-downloading your current library. For the rest of you, there's plenty of other options.

Sony offers a Data Transfer feature to transfer your data via Wi-Fi or Ethernet.

You will be able to continue using your PS5 while the Data Transfer runs in the background.

The next-gen PlayStation 5 console won't be compatible with expandable M.2 SSDs at launch, Sony re-confirms.

A while back, PS5 architect Mark Cerny confirmed Sony's next-gen system wouldn't support M.2 expansion drives right at launch. The PS5 is compatible with third-party PC-grade PCIe 4.0 SSDs, but there's lots of compatibility testing involved, especially considering the PS5's SSD features a custom 12-channel memory controller. Cerny also confirms the expansion SSD has to be at least as fast as the PS5's 5.5GB/sec, which is absolutely feasible--there's SSDs that now hit up to 7GB/sec transfers.

"The NVMe scheme is pretty nice, but it only has two true priority levels. Our SSD has six. We can hook up a drive with only two priority levels but our custom I/O unit has to arbitrate the extra priorities rather than the M.2 drive's flash controller. And so the M.2 drive needs a little extra speed to take care of issues arising from the different approach," Cerny said in an early March presentation.

VR Cover today introduced two different accessories for the Oculus Quest 2 standalone VR headset, including washable face cushions and lens protectors.

VR Cover is famous for fits hygienic solutions for VR headsets. The company has existed for longer than consumer VR has been available, and it offers solutions for almost every headset on the market. The new Oculus Quest 2 is the latest device that VR Cover supports. It partnered with Facebook to make these official Quest 2 accessories.

VR Cover usually sells PU leather cushions, which are moisture-resistant and easy to wipe down with an anti-bacterial wipe. VR Cover will have that style of cover available later this month, but the first product for Quest 2 offers a higher level of cleanliness. You can now get medical-grade hypoallergenic silicone covers that are moisture-proof and washable. These will be great for situations where you're sharing headsets with the public.

Sony's next-gen PlayStation 5 won't be available to buy in-store at launch, and will be sold exclusively online.

Today Sony revealed an interesting tactic to help counter COVID-19 exposure: restricting all PS5 sales to online-only purchases. The PlayStation 5 won't be sold at any physical store or retailer on November 12. There will be no PS5 consoles on store shelves at launch (although there's plenty of DualSense controllers out and about) and Sony warns consumers not to line up outside of retailers in hopes of securing a system. Anyone who pre-ordered (or ordered) a system will still be able to pick it up at the store, though.

"In the interest of keeping our gamers, retailers, and staff safe amidst COVID-19, today we are confirming that all day-of launch sales will be conducted through the online stores of our retail partners," Sony's Sid Shuman said on the PlayStation Blog.

The latest PS5 innovation proves these next-gen consoles are more like PCs than ever.

The PS5's OS has a nifty little addition that gamers will appreciate: A global preset toggle that favors higher resolution or higher performance in boosted PS4 and PS5 games. The option is in the PS5's settings pane and can be changed at any time.

Basically this will let PS5 owners select one setting and the console will automatically prioritize either mode. The global preset will make it so players don't have to change the perf/resolution settings on a game-by-game basis. Feel like playing Spider-Man Miles Morales in 4K 60FPS? Turn on Performance Mode. Want to enjoy eye-popping visuals? Change the console to Resolution Mode to hit 4K 30FPS with ray tracing enabled.

The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind was an experience forged out of fearlessness and a rare devil may care attitude, and it paid off big time.

Morrowind saved Bethesda. Before Morrowind, Bethesda was teetering on the edge of ruin. While creating Morrowind, the developers at Bethesda Game Studios were convinced the company would go under.

So why not create something new, unique, and tailor-made for fans? Why not make something that's unconstrained by certain marketing limits and go all out? That was Bethesda's rationale at the time, and it helped create one of the best RPGs in existence.

AMD has its next-gen Zen 3 processors in the hands of reviewers right now, with some early results on the new mid-range Ryzen 5 5600X that costs just $299 and seems like an overclocking monster.

The new AMD Ryzen 5 5600X processor was installed into an ASUS ROG Crosshair VIII Hero motherboard, coupled with 16GB of Patriot Viper DDR4-3800 (CL14) memory and a simple air cooler. Out of the box the Ryzen 5 5600X boosts up to 4.6GHz, but with some tweaking it can hit 4.85GHz on all CPU cores.

Once the Ryzen 5 5600X was overclocked, it beats out the Ryzen 7 3700X (8C/16T) in Cinebench R15's multi-threaded benchmark -- and also the Intel Core i7-10700K which is mighty impressive. In Cinebench R20, the resutls are a bit tighter -- the overclocked Ryzen 5 5600X still reigns supreme against the Intel Core i7-10700K and AMD Ryzen 7 3700X processors.

Games are getting bigger and bigger, with the likes of Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War requiring 133GB of storage space on the PlayStation 5 -- knowing that you'll only have around 667GB usable space kinda sucks.

We heard the rumor weeks ago, but now PlayStation 5 review units are going out and reviewers are reporting that the PS5 has just 667GB of usable space out of the box. Sure it's more than the 500GB storage inside of the PS4 at launch, but that was many years ago now and games are way, way bigger.

But if we're looking at 130-150GB per big AAA next-gen game... then you're only going to be able to install 4-5 games before running out of space. We'll have to see how things go when the PlayStation 5 launches on November 12.

SEGA no longer wants to operate amusement arcades and plans to shift away from its once-lucrative pachinko, pachislot, and arcade business.

Today SEGA announced the end of an era. Amid disastrous losses due to COVID-19, SEGA will sell off the majority voting rights in its SEGA Entertainment amusement games division to GENDA, a private Japanese arcade operator, for an undisclosed sum.

SEGA will sell off 21,000 (roughly 85%) of its arcade operations shares to GENDA Inc, a company that has 3x as much capital stock value as SEGA. The Japanese games-maker will retain ~15% of its shares and surrender voting rights to GENDA. SEGA currently plans to keep making games for arcades, but it will no longer operate the Amusement Center Operations division as part of its Entertainment Contents branch.

Polyphony Digital's next-gen Gran Turismo 7 will be a spectacle on the PlayStation 5, and a new ad hints at a mid-2021 release date.

Gran Turismo 7 missed the PS5's launch, but according to a new Canadian advertisement, the game should release in the first half of 2021 as a next-gen exclusive. It's worth noting we can't verify whether or not the ad is true so take the window with a grain of salt. It does make sense to follow up the PS5's launch titles with a heavy-hitter like GT7 though.

Sony hasn't talked in length about Gran Turismo 7, but we do know the game will push the PS5 to its limits and stand as one of the exemplars of next-gen performance. The racing game looks absolutely incredible thanks to ray-traced 4K visuals and buttery-smooth 60FPS. There's also talk of pushing in-game frame rates to 120FPS and even beyond.

Bethesda's Todd Howard confirms the massive engine overhaul is the main reason Starfield and Elder Scrolls 6 are taking so long to develop.

Starfield and The Elder Scrolls 6 are still a long ways from release. Both games are currently in development for next-generation hardware, including the Xbox Series X, and will both be powered by Bethesda's new revamped proprietary games engine. Right now Bethesda Game Studios is performing the biggest engine re-do in its entire history to ensure its internal first-party titles are fully optimized on the more powerful hardware.

"The overhaul on our engine is probably the largest we've ever had, maybe even larger than Morrowind to Oblivion," Howard told GamesIndustry.biz.

Treyarch just revealed install sizes for Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War on consoles and PC, and they're pretty big.

Like Warzone and Modern Warfare before it, Black Ops Cold War will take up lots of storage space. The game's install sizes look like this on PC and consoles:

The great thing is console players can now choose what portions of the game they want to install. Campaign, multiplayer, and zombies are all separated. If you just want to play multiplayer, you can just install that portion and significantly reduce the storage size.

Valve's Gabe Newell is teaming up with New Zealand aerospace manufacturer Rocket Lab to

To thank New Zealand for its tremendous hospitality during his stay, Gabe Newell is donating a very special payload for a new rocket launch: A real-life Gnome Chompski. The infamous gnome cemented one of the most memorable achievements in gaming history (look it up if you're not sure what we're talking about), and now GabeN wants to bring that classic in-game moment to the real-world.

According to a press release announcement from Rocket Lab, Chompski will be the "mass simulator" on Flight 16. The 6-inch gnome will be attached to the Electron rocket's Kick Stage, or the last stage before the delivery vehicle falls and burns up in the atmosphere. Basically, Chompski is coming along for the ride and will actually see space before he sizzles.

The Xbox Series S won't actually have the advertised 512GB of free SSD space available to consumers. Instead, the storage availability will shrink quite a bit and only fit a handful of AAA games.

At $299, the Series S seems great on paper. But adding up all the disadvantages makes it a tougher sell--it's digital only, a tremendously weaker GPU aimed at 1440p 60FPS, and now limited SSD space. According to a consumer who got their Xbox Series S console early, the system only has 364GB available for games, apps, and data.

This is par for the course for hard drives and SSDs. No storage device has the advertised value because the drives have to be formatted. After formatting, the Series S' 512GB SSD turns into a 467GB SSD. Then the operating system, APIs, and other features reserve space and take a further bite out of available storage. The Series X's SSD is actually shrunken even more, and only has 800GB of free space on a formatted 931GB SSD.

EK water blocks have not announced that it's building a thermoelectric Peltier cooler (TEC), but Linus Sebastien used one in his latest LTT video, so the company must be at least experimenting with the idea.

The Linus Tech Tips YouTube channel released a video called "The Fastest Gaming PC in the World!...For Now!," which features a cherry-picked Core-i9 10900K with a hefty 5.4GHz overlock on it. To achieve that level of performance, Linus used a cooler from EK Water Blocks that he said he isn't allowed to talk about, but he did show it off.

The cooler in question is a huge CPU block with an EK logo in the center. Linus said it's one of the heaviest coolers he's held in a while. He also pointed out a few leads that come out of the block, hinting at what is unique about it.