Latest News - Page 1484

High-profile PlayStation 5 exclusive Gran Turismo 7 has been delayed to an undisclosed date in 2022, Sony has announced.

Delay season continues: Gran Turismo 7 has been pushed back from its original 2021 release date to an undetermined launch in 2022. The reason? COVID-19, of course. Polyphony Digital has transitioned to a work-from-home environment, which places new stressors on communication, iteration, and overall development.

"GT7 has been impacted by COVID-related production challenges and therefore will shift from 2021 to 2022," a Sony PR rep told GQ Magazine.

Today Sony announced a PS5-powered PSVR headset is in the works, complete with boosted resolution and a new and improved controller.

Sony officially confirms a next-gen PlayStation VR headset is coming to the PS5, but a finalized HMD hasn't been revealed just yet. The headset will connect directly to the PlayStation 5 with a single cord and circumvent the current PSVR's rat's nest of connections and break out boxes.

"We're taking what we've learned since launching PS VR on PS4 to develop a next-gen VR system that enhances everything from resolution and field of view to tracking and input. It will connect to PS5 with a single cord to simplify setup and improve ease-of-use, while enabling a high-fidelity visual experience."

GPU-Z is an invaluable tool for any PC gamer or enthusiast, with GPU-Z now including support for AMD's upcoming Radeon RX 6700 and Radeon RX 6600 series graphics cards.

AMD hasn't officially made some of these cards a reality just yet, while we know the Radeon RX 6700 XT might be coming in two flavors with a March/April 2021 release we don't know much outside of that. The Radeon RX 6600 is the newer out of the two, with not much know about it so far outside of its leaks earlier this month.

The latest version of GPU-Z also has support built-in for NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 30 mobile GPUs, and all of their new GeForce RTX 30-series powered gaming laptops from various partners. The new GeForce RTX 3060 is also supported, which officially launches on February 25 with an MSRP of $329... well, I guess because it's available early for $500.

AMD has its CPU and GPU technology inside of the AYA Neo console, an upcoming handheld console that has been in development for many years now. It's getting closer, and yeah -- it can run Crysis. Check out the specs:

As you can see it has some pretty beefy specs inside of it for a handheld console, with the AYA Neo powered by an AMD Ryzen 5 4500U processor offering 6 cores and 6 threads -- no SMT here -- with a base clock of 2.3GHz and boost clock of up to 4.0GHz.

The AYA Neo console also features 16GB of LPDDR4X @ 4266MHz RAM, 512GB of NVMe SSD storage, a 7-inch 1280 x 800 IPS LCD display, Wi-Fi 6, BT 5.0, and a 47 Whr battery with 65W fast charging technology. The battery is said to be good for around 6 hours of normal use, or around 2 hours of gaming use.

We are just days away from NVIDIA releasing the GeForce RTX 3060, where at the time of writing I'm knee-deep in benchmarking graphics cards at 7 o'clock in the morning -- but US retailers are listing the GeForce RTX 3060 early and it ain't pretty.

Now we have some leaked photos from US retailers courtesy of Coreteks, where the $329 MSRP that NVIDIA has stamped onto its GeForce RTX 3060 not even making it to launch. NVIDIA will not be making a GeForce RTX 3060 Founders Edition graphics card so it is all left to the AIB partners, and boy is it going to get messy.

$329 MSRP but a shelf price brand new of $485 for the MSI GeForce RTX 3060 Ventus X2 graphics card, while the flagship MSI GeForce RTX 3060 GAMING X TRIO costs $515 -- $180+ over the MSRP that NVIDIA itself has set for the GeForce RTX 3060.

The GALAX GeForce RTX 3090 HOF family of graphics cards is now up for pre-order worldwide, depending on the market that is, with the GALAX Malaysia pre-order page stating 1 card will be distributed to each of the 11 participating stores in that particular country.

Just quickly, the HOF display does look pretty awesome -- if not a bit wanky, but still awesome.

But what price are you looking for? Well, the cheapest model out of all of the new GALAX GeForce RTX 3090 HOF cards is the regular RTX 3090 HOF which will cost at least $2600 -- while the higher-end GALAX GeForce RTX 3090 HOF Limited Edition will cost $3100 or so.

It was back in May 2016 when I exclusively revealed to the world that NVIDIA secured the chip supplying contract from Nintendo for their at-the-time 'NX console' which turned out to be the phenomenally successful Nintendo Switch.

Yeah, well, what's next? The next-gen Nintendo Super Switch -- that's what I've been referring to it as -- is in the headlines where it will reportedly feature a next-gen SoC with NVIDIA DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling) technology support.

ResetEra insider NateDrake explained: "Won't really talk more about the tech specs than I have. It has DLSS & it has 4K functionality. No reason to go deeper than that right now. That's enough to illustrate the device is a meaningful upgrade. First party support with span the new hardware and current Switch for at least a couple of years".

Tencent has raised over $8 billion across twelve worldwide banks, and this massive horde of cash could be used to buy new gaming studios (and publishers).

Previous reports said Tencent might be eyeing huge acquisitions like EA or even Grand Theft Auto-maker Take-Two Interactive, and now it has the money to back up a buyout of this caliber. The Chinese juggernaut recently raised a staggering $8.3 billion for "general corporate purposes," Bloomberg reports.

While Tencent could shake up the games industry with a high-profile buyout, it's more likely the company will focus on Asian developers like Nexon and NetMarble. Tencent may shy away from stake buyouts or full-on games acquisitions and put its new funds into other markets--Tencent invests its money far beyond just gaming and has put cash into e-commerce, medical, and even has its own credit score system.

The new Diablo II Resurrected remaster may look like a new game, but it's really not. The old-school classic Diablo II experience is still running underneath, complete with bugs, quirks, and frame timings. That means breakpoints are still in the game, and players can still stack faster cast rate or increased attack speed and technically break past animation limitations.

Diablo II's breakpoints can be pretty fun to manipulate. The game runs at 25 FPS, and the new Resurrected remaster will also be sourced on the 25FPS timings of the original despite running at higher frame rates on consoles and PC (it can hit uncapped FPS at 8K resolution on PC). The underpinning core logic remains the same, though, allowing breakpoint builds.

Although the game ran at 25FPS, gamers could stack boosted upgrades like IAS (increased attack speed), FBR (faster block rate), FCR (faster cast rate), and others like FHR (faster hit recovery) to "break" the animation barrier; the characters animations could technically go past their limitations. This lead to some pretty godly builds, and breakpoints are kind of a science for high-level D2 play.

Back in the day, Diablo II ran at 800x600 resolution, but the new remaster will push things up to 8K.

For D2 fans like myself, the new Diablo II Resurrected remaster is something out of a dream. The original game has basically been untouched outside of QoL improvements like a shared stash and upgraded visuals, which are driven by a brand new 3D engine. And if you happen to have a powerful PC, the Diablo II remaster can hit insane spec targets like 8K with uncapped frame rates.

"We'll be running at 4320p on PC, 2160p on next-gen consoles at 60 frames per second. On PC you can run uncapped," lead designer Rob Gallerani said in a recent Q&A stream.

Diablo 2 Resurrected preserves everything gamers knew and loved about the classic ARPG and gives it a new skin. But this also means modernized features like cross-play and same-system co-op will be left out.

Unlike Diablo III, which was designed for consoles as a co-operative experience, Diablo II won't have couch co-op. This is because Diablo II never had this kind of same-screen co-op functionality, and the developers at Vicarious Visions are trying to keep things as authentic as possible.

Sadly, cross-play won't be available either. The game supports cross-progression, meaning you can swap between PC and consoles at any time and pick up right where you left off, but you still have to buy a copy of the game for each platform. Blizzard lead designer Rob Gallerani hints cross-platform play may come at some point...but it won't be available at launch.

Backwards compatibility is the biggest advantage the Xbox has over Sony's next-gen PlayStation 5, and it's about to get a whole lot better.

The reports were right. Microsoft is using more technical sorcery to significantly boost in-game frame rates in backwards compatible games. The new feature can double (and sometimes even quadruple) FPS in select titles. Right now, only a handful of games support this new feature:

The optimizations aren't native, though, and require developers to work alongside Microsoft to roll out the new updates. That means devs have to be involved in the process and the Xbox Series X/S consoles won't just automatically boost frame rates (although the Series X can natively upgrade in-game performance without any dev input).

Diablo II is getting remastered, but Vicarious Visions is doing their best to only enhance the game, not fundamentally change it. Here's what to expect from the remaster and everything we know so far.

Diablo II Resurrected is basically a re-skinning of the classic game with some major QoL improvements. The core game remains the same, and the remaster comes with the beloved Lord of Destruction expansion (although we don't know what version they're running off of, likely the last v1.14 update). Runewords are included, every item remains exactly the same, and no balancing has taken place insofar as stats and unique attributes.

The big changes come in the way of graphical and in-game improvements. D2 can now run at 4K 60FPS on consoles, and supports higher resolutions on PC, complete with a new graphics engine overhaul with hefty visual upgrades. But gamers can instantly switch between the new and old-school graphics at any time by pressing F11. The cinematics have also been 100% remastered, and QoL improvements like a shared stash (YES!), quick gold pick-up (awesome for speed runs), item comparison tooltips by pressing shift, and even a quick-add function that easily adds items to your stash are all included.

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.