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Sony will introduce the PlayStation 5 to mainland China in Q2 2021, possibly coinciding with a new console stock refresh.

Today Sony Interactive Entertainment China announced it will launch the PS5 in the region sometime in the second quarter. No exact launch date was outlined, but Sony has been planning this rollout since December 2020.

Just like the Nintendo Switch, which launched in partnership with Tencent, the Chinese PS5 will be a special model made just for overseas consumers. As Niko Partners analyst Daniel Ahmad notes, the China-based PS5 should be region-locked with restrictions set in place that reflect the country's strict gaming laws. No information on launch games or services was made available by SIE China.

The ESA has cancelled its plans to hold a physical E3 2021, and will instead stream the showcase online.

Rather than cancelling E3 like it did in 2020, the ESA is pivoting and making E3 2021 an all-digital show. Exact plans haven't been confirmed, but sources say the ESA is currently pitching ideas to major publishers and developers to help fill out the event.

E3 2021 is still planned from June 15 - 17, 2021, and it should culminate in a number of special reveals and streams. However, Geoff Keighley won't be involved this time either. Keighley will instead focus on the Summer Game Fest, an event that started in 2020 to help celebrate a myriad of games. That means we won't get the excellent E3 Coliseum events where developers talk candidly about their upcoming games.

Animal Crossing New Horizons has now sold more than 30 million copies in less than 40 weeks on the market. It could soon become the top-selling game on the Switch.

Ever since we started charting Nintendo's top 10 game sales since Q4'20, we've seen multiple Switch games slowly taper off. Everything changed when Animal Crossing New Horizons exploded onto the platform in 2020. Since then, Animal Crossing has sold nearly 1 million copies every week since launch, and has slightly slowed down throughout the year.

Right now, Animal Crossing is the second best-selling game on the Switch, second only to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. Within just 40 weeks on the market, Animal Crossing has amassed a staggering 31.18 million copies sold on the Switch. A quick bit of math shows that nearly 40% of all Switch owners have purchased Animal Crossing. For comparison's sake, it's taken Mario Kart 8 Deluxe 190 weeks to claim the Switch's software throne with 33.41 million copies.

Tesla has announced that it has purchased $1.5 billion of Bitcoin, with the information coming from Tesla Motors' filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

The news sent the price of Bitcoin off on a trip to the moon, skyrocketing from $39,500 or so right through $40,000 and right into $43,000 at the time of writing -- a rise of over 13% so far. Dogecoin is also rising by around the same amount, a coin that Tesla Motors and SpaceX founder Elon Musk has been tweeting lots about lately.

Musk recently added #Bitcoin to his Twitter profile, but the news of Tesla actually accepting Bitcoin as a payment method is the huge news here. This is a gigantic step for the company, for Bitcoin, possibly for Dogecoin with Musk continuing to pump it on his Twitter, and for cryptocurrency in general.

Antarctica is one of the few places on Earth that is yet to be spoiled by humans, which is why many scientists and researchers are using it to study Earth's history.

Researchers and scientists have been planning for some time to drill through the overlying ice sheet. The main goal the researchers have is to drill through the ice and sample the untouched waters of a hidden lake that is located beneath the Antarctic ice sheet. According to Dr. John Priscu, "We joined up with NASA, and using satellite images, we could see flat spots all over the continent, and this is where the ice sheet floats over these lakes."

The researchers began their drilling, and as the drilling commenced, NASA snapped "something rising above the ice". According to Dr. Priscu, "We got to the bottom, and there was a lake there. 30 years of ideas, thinking this isn't a dead place, over 12 years of suggesting about the presence of lakes and rivers and there they were." Dr. Priscu also said that the researchers have gathered both indirect and direct evidence of "beautiful river systems like you would see coming out of the Rocky Mountains."

PNY has just unveiled its new custom, and super-small GeForce RTX 3060 graphics card which I'm sure has one of the longest names for a graphics card that I've ever seen.

This is the PNY GeForce RTX 3060 12GB XLR8 Gaming REVEL EPIC-X RGB Single Fan Edition graphics card -- yeah, the PNY GeForce RTX 3060 12GB XLR8 Gaming REVEL EPIC-X RGB Single Fan Edition. What a mouthful of a name, huh?!

We have a Mini-ITX card here, the first Mini-ITX GeForce RTX 3060 from PNY but the third RTX 3060 the company has released so far. PNY has a base GPU clock of 1627MHz and a boost GPU clock of 1852MHz -- there's also 12GB of GDDR6 memory here on a 192-bit memory interface that provides up to 336GB/sec of memory bandwidth.

Samsung is continuously reaching for the stars with its Galaxy smartphones, with the new Galaxy S21 here and the flagship Galaxy S21 Ultra topping out at 8K 24FPS video shooting abilities... but the new Galaxy S22 is rumored for beyond-cinema 8K 60FPS video shooting abilities.

In a new tweet, tipster Mauri QHD reports that the new Galaxy S22 will be able to shoot 8K 60FPS video -- but for only 5 minutes. The reason? It "gets too hot to the touch" so even if we do see 8K 60FPS video shooting on Samsung's next-gen Galaxy S22 family of smartphones, it's going to be a journey to get there.

We might have to wait it out until the Galaxy S23 series in 2023 for full 8K 60FPS video shooting without 5-minute limits. The other issue is that even shooting 8K 24FPS video on the Galaxy S21 will take up 600MB per minute of footage, which means 3GB per 5-minute video. 8K 60FPS is going to be bigger again, so hopefully the new Galaxy S22/S23 also have 1TB+ storage by then.

EMTEK has just revealed a very interesting graphics card, with the South Korean AIB unveiling its new GeForce RTX 3090 Blower Edition graphics card, check it out:

The card has an old-school blower-style cooler with all that grunt underneath the GeForce RTX 3090 still there with its huge 24GB GDDR6X framebuffer. The card has a semi-custom design, with EMTEK using the NVIDIA reference RTX 3090 board with dual 8-pin PCIe power connectors.

Where EMTEK has done things differently with its GeForce RTX 3090 Blower Edition graphics card is that it used a daughterboard to have the dual 8-pin PCIe power connectors. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Founders Edition uses the single 12-pin PCIe power connector, but EMTEK went with the daughterboard at the end of the card.

LG revealed its new 27GP950 UltraGear gaming monitor at CES 2021 just a few weeks ago, with its 27-inch Nano IPS panel rocking a native 4K resolution and huge 160Hz refresh rate -- now we know when it launches: April 2021.

The upcoming LG 27GP950 UltraGear has a 27-inch 4K Nano IPS panel with 1ms response, and a 144Hz refresh rate out of the box that can be overclocked up to 160Hz. It has HDMI 2.1 connectivity, so you can connect your next-gen PS5 or Xbox Series X/S console into it.

You're going to need some serious GPU horsepower to drive 4K @ 160FPS... even a flagship GeForce RTX 3090 or Radeon RX 6900 XT isn't going to handle that in most games. You'll find esports games like Overwatch, League of Legends or CS:GO might be alright -- but you won't be playing Cyberpunk 2077 at 4K and at 160FPS on any graphics card on the planet -- from this year, probably next year, and probably into 2023.

We know that EA DICE is hard at work on Battlefield 6, which is dropping in Spring 2021 and has been designed for over 128 players with 32v32 being standard in previous leaks. Well, check out this latest leak:

Battlefield 6 will reportedly have full unscripted skyscraper destruction for the first time ever, with industry leaker Tom Henderson teasing it in a couple of tweets. You can see that the tweet has a picture of some buildings with some snipers on top of them, and then the buildings are destroyed.

The sniper is then just standing there... with no more cover -- this would be the point behind the full unscripted skyscraper destruction. I still remember hearing the first rumors of Battlefield 6 in June 2020 and said that the thing I was most excited to see in Battlefield 6 was the "return, and market domination of a next-gen Levolution technology that DICE made famous in Battlefield 4 back in 2013. The video above makes it feel like so long ago now, but it would be great to see a truly next-gen upgrade to destruction in Battlefield 6".

I think these plans are changing far too much, but another day -- another rumor for the purported, indefinitely postponed GeForce RTX 3080 Ti graphics card. New rumors suggest it's coming in April 2021 with 12GB of GDDR6X memory.

Leaker kopite7kimi posted on Twitter saying back in December 2020 that the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti specs he'd been hearing from his sources said the card would rock 10496 CUDA cores and 20GB of GDDR6X memory. But he has said that "things have changed" and the new "current spec" if 10240 CUDA cores and 12GB of GDDR6X memory.

The changes there see 256 CUDA cores cut down from the previously rumored GeForce RTX 3080 Ti specifications, and a big drop from the 20GB of GDDR6X on the previous specs from late 2020, to just 12GB of GDDR6X with the new specs. This is 2GB more than the RTX 3080 (10GB GDDR6X) and 12GB less than the RTX 3090 (24GB GDDR6X).

Chinese mining firms have been moving their crypto mining farms over to Iran because electricity prices are so cheap in Iran (1.8 to 2.2c per kWh) but now Iran is hosting some major farms, they're experiencing blackouts.

Iran is now home to 14 massive crypto mining farms that consume 300 megawatts of power, which if you compare to a city with 100,000 residents -- it's about the same power consumption. The University of Cambridge says that Iran is included in the 6 most popular places in the world to mine cryptocurrency.

If you can't find NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 graphics cards cards right now, these pictures are going to make you cringe so bad it's not funny. It seems that NVIDIA and its AIB partners have zero issues pumping cards out for crypto miners, while gamers cower in the dark waiting for Ampere cards that they ordered many months ago at launch.

The very thought of accidentally swallowing an Apple AirPod makes me feel queasy, but that's exactly what Bradford Gauthier from Massachusetts did -- he swallowed one of his Apple AirPods in his sleep.

Gauthier woke up in the morning and noticed that he had trouble swallowing, he thought he had a sore throat and had a glass of water and noticed he couldn't swallow properly. It was then that he realized he had swallowed one of his Apple AirPods in his sleep, as one of them were missing -- obviously lodged in his throat.

His family members joked around with him and laughed that he might have swallowed it overnight, so he went to the hospital and doctors discovered the Apple AirPod. Gauthier explained: "By that point, my son and wife had gotten the idea that I may have swallowed it. They brought it up jokingly at first, but it seemed too coincidental that I would be missing it when I knew I went to bed with it, while I felt a distinct blockage in the center of my chest".

Uh, so if you thought using 78 x GeForce RTX 3080 graphics cards to mine cryptocurrency was nuts -- now crypto miners are scooping up GeForce RTX 30 series gaming laptops and mining crypto with them. 20 x of these RTX 3060 gaming laptops are making $74,000 per year...

We all know how impossible it is to buy graphics cards right now, so some Chinese crypto miners are buying NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 series gaming laptops and using them to mine crypto., Weibo blogger called 神鱼BTCe has shared images to their social media, showing off the GeForce RTX 30 series gaming laptops all stacked up.

You can see in the images both above and below, all of the new GeForce RTX 30 series gaming laptops with GeForce RTX 3060 graphics cards -- from Chinese OEM company Hasee.

I still remember my parents entering a competition for me back in the 90s where I won a Game Boy on one of those live TV shows in the morning before school, and I got to school and everyone was like "whoa, Anthony you won a Game Boy today!!!" and I had no clue.

Nintendo launched its Game Boy in 1989 but it has been modded and turned into an Apple TV remote. The case that Italian YouTuber Otto Climan used was made by Retro Modding specifically for this project, and infuses the 90s look of Nintendo and Apple products.

The display is slightly better than a regular Game Boy, while the modder added in an IR blaster and custom software so that he could tweak and map the buttons of the Game Boy to the IR controls. He loaded up his custom software onto a custom ROM, programmed with IR codes and button mappings ready for Apple TV -- and thus it was born: the modded Nintendo Game Boy turned into an Apple TV remote.

The Nintendo Switch is on a roll. Not only did it break hardware sales records in the holiday Q3 period, but it shattered game purchases as well.

2020 was the best year in history for the Nintendo Switch. Hardware sales hit 24.1 million in 2020, bringing total unit sales to 79.87 million, which solidifies the Switch as the 5th best-selling Nintendo hardware of all time.

Software broke new grounds, too. In holiday 2020, the Switch sold an astronomical 75.85 million games--more than it's ever sold before in a single quarter. Total Switch game sales are now at 532.34 million since the system's launch in 2017. The Switch is now #3 in game sales, and sits behind the Wii's massive 920 million and the DS' huge 948.64 million software sales.

Call of Duty's free-to-play Warzone mode is the glue that will hold the franchise together in 2021 and beyond.

Warzone is the biggest thing Activision has ever done. The F2P game's ecosystem is so transformative that all of Activision-Blizzard's franchises will adapt its model in some form. Warzone is the connective tissue that binds mainline premium games in a monetized, accessible, and synergistic package. Activision's emphasis on cross-progression, cross-play, and cross-SKU has unlocked the full spectrum of money-making potential.

Activision knows how important Warzone is. 2020 was just the beginning. The mode isn't going anywhere, and will continue integrating all future mainline CoD games moving forward. In 2021, Warzone will tie three games together: Modern Warfare, Black Ops Cold War, and COD 2021.

Activision confirms Diablo IV and Overwatch 2 are still a ways off, but doesn't give any exact release dates for either.

Both Diablo IV and Overwatch 2 started development as early as 2016, and have seen many iterations and changes since that time. Fans will be waiting a bit longer for both games. In a recent earnings report, company CFO Dennis Durkin says that Blizzard won't have any new mainline premium releases for 2021. Blizzard will instead focus on digital content updates (and probably a Diablo II remaster).

"We expect Blizzard's net bookings to grow given the momentum in World of Warcraft and the other growth initiatives we have in the business," Durkin said.

The Nintendo Switch has now sold 79.87 million units worldwide, beating the 3DS and soon the Game Boy Advance.

2020 has been a monumental year for Nintendo. Switch sales broke records for the third straight quarter in a row, and profits and net sales have seen huge gains to $2.97 billion and $5.9 billion respectively. Gauging the Switch's current standings against other Nintendo hardware really underlines the system's remarkable performance.

According to Nintendo's sales data, the Switch is now the fifth best-selling system of all time, beating out predecessors like the 3DS and legacy hardware including the NES and SNES. In fact, the system is closing in on Game Boy Advance's 81.51 million sales mark. Nintendo expects the Switch to sell 26.5 million units throughout FY2021. It has currently sold 24.1 million consoles, leaving 2.4 million units left, which would total 82.27 million.

Diablo 2 could be revealed this month at Blizzcon 2021, and released this year alongside Diablo Immortal.

Activision-Blizzard may have teased a Diablo 2 remaster during its recent Q4 earnings report. While the game wasn't outright mentioned, we did get some clues from company executive Dennis Durkin:

"So across our three biggest franchises (Candy Crush, Call of Duty, World of Warcraft), we have great momentum. And then we have a few other things up our sleeve in terms of remastered content that will unveil in due course which should provide further opportunities for us this year."