Latest News - Page 1495

Discord has shut down the /r/WallStreetBets server, with World's #1 esports and gaming consultant, insider and competitive gaming leader Rod Breslau tweeting:

Discord said that the /r/WallStreetBets server was shut down for "hate speech, glorifying violence, and spreading misinformation" according to a Discord spokesperson to Breslau. The spokesperson added: "To be clear, we did not ban this server due to financial fraud related to GameStop or other stocks".

The company said in full: "The server has been on our Trust & Safety team's radar for some time due to occasional content that violates our Community Guidelines, including hate speech, glorifying violence, and spreading misinformation. Over the past few months, we have issued multiple warnings to the server admin".

AMD had a phenomenal 2020 with the unleashing of the next-gen Zen 3 and RDNA 2 architectures for the PC in Ryzen 5000 series CPUs and Radeon RX 6000 series GPUs -- but that wasn't all.

The company powered the next-gen Sony PlayStation 5 and Microsoft Xbox Series X/S consoles with semi-custom designs made by AMD, packed servers and supercomputers with Zen-powered EPYC processors, and so much more. It should come as no surprise that AMD has posted a new all-time high revenue for FY 2020.

AMD commands 23% of the discrete GPU market against NVIDIA, while record yearly revenues were posted of $9.76 billion, which is up 45% from 2019. AMD has an operating cash flow of $1.07 billion, which is up 117% year-over-year while Team Red also has record free cash flow of $777 million, which is up an astonishing 182% year-over-year.

It comes as a big -- and I guess not-so-big surprise -- that GameStop Corp ($GME) was the most traded equity on the planet today with over $20 billion in volume.

The news is coming directly from Senior ETF Analyst for Bloomberg Intelligence, Eric Balchunas, who tweeted the news sand said it was "surreal". GameStop beat out giants like Tesla (just, with Tesla seeing $19.7 billion of trades today) while Apple trails behind with $13.4 billion.

Microsoft is behind even more with $10.9 billion, and Amazon with $9.5 billion. AMD is up there with $5.3 billion traded today, as is Facebook with $5.3 billion and Alphabet with $2.9 billion. GameStop is unstoppable right now.

A few days ago Intel launched its Xe DG1 discrete graphics card on its 10nm SuperFin technology, with partners in ASUS and COLORFUL -- yeah, well COLORFUL just clarified this isn't the case.

The Chinese graphics card manufacturer posted on social media to say: "Recently, there have been rumors circulating on media platforms, making false reports about 'Colorful launch Iris Xe Desktop Graphics Card to OEMs'. Colorful would like to clarify that these rumors are not true, and the information and content derived therefrom are unfounded".

COLORFUL continues: "Colorful would like to take this opportunity to thank all customers and media for their attention. For Colorful lineup please refer to Colorful official website and press release".

With all of the madness happening over on the r/wallstreetbets subreddit on Reddit, the site is having issues. I thought it was just me when I was trying to get some more information for some stories, but then the issues got worse.

I was logged in, but the site was saying I wasn't logged in. Clearly I wasn't as I wasn't able to comment, and then I checked Twitter and voila -- Reddit is having issues. The official Reddit Status website states that there are "elevated error rates" and that they are "currently investigating the issue".

This is 8 minutes ago, at the time of writing -- I'll update when there's more news.

Microsoft is poised to make more money from Xbox than it ever has before, and FY2021 is already a record year for its gaming segment.

The current market is perfect for the video game business, especially Xbox. Microsoft's diversified cross-platform webwork of services, hardware, monetization, and game sales is being supercharged by COVID-19 lockdowns, which have pushed more consumers indoors with controllers in hand.

Thanks to this landscape, Xbox is breaking new ground. In Q2'21, which coincides with the 2020 holiday period, Xbox earned an astronomical $5.027 billion in combined revenues. This is the first time the Xbox division made more than $5 billion in a single quarter.

It looks like Tesla cars will soon be able to play Geralt's legendary adventures--the future is here.

According to new promo images, The Witcher 3 is playable in Tesla's new Model S refresh. The game was spotted on the new horizontal touchpad in the Model S update, but neither Tesla nor CD Projekt have revealed specifics. Back in January 2020, Elon Musk asked gamers if they'd like to see The Witcher as a playable game in Tesla vehicles. Hundreds of thousands of people said yes.

The Model S has up to 10TFLOPs of processing power and has two displays--one in the center console, and one in the backseat. Gamers can also hook up a wireless controller for seamless gaming.

It's incredible, this GameStop stuff feels ripped right out of the story line of Mr Robot -- which I'm two episodes away from finishing. If you need to play catch up on WTF is happening -- read this.

But what is absolutely mind blowing about this all is that normal people are getting stinking rich from this entire thing, with Reddit poster u/DeepFuckingValue putting in $754,991 and making -- at least according to the last post -- a no-one-in-your-lineage-has-to-work-again $48 million.

See?!

AMD and Microsoft warn consumers that console supply will remain scarce for the first half of 2021.

Recent earnings calls underline frustrating news for consumers: It won't be any easier to find a next-gen Xbox Series X or Series S console until the second half of the year. Both AMD and Microsoft say they expect supply to be constrained throughout the first six months of 2021. AMD, who makes the custom 7nm SoCs that power the next-gen Xbox and PlayStation 5 consoles, asserts that SoC demand in 2020 went beyond the company's initial expectations, and that fabrication plants need to boost production to meet the demand. AMD expects to see "tightness" in 1H 2021, but capacity will fill out in 2H 2021 as production ramps up.

As a result, Microsoft forecasts tighter availability as demand continues to outpace console supply. Without the SoCs from AMD, Microsoft can't produce its new Xbox Series hardware.

In the last week, GameStop's stock has spiked by 671% and is now trading at $301.95 due to stock market fluctuations from short-sellers. Now the United States government is stepping in and is scrutinizing things very closely.

GameStop stock is under a tremendous short squeeze, a phenomenon that occurs frequently in the stock market. Here's how it works: Buyers borrow a stock (in this case, GameStop) they don't yet own in a deal called a short sale. These traders borrow the stock at a set price and sell it, ideally at a higher price than they bought it. but they must also buy it back and return it at a later date (unless, of course, the company goes bankrupt). These kinds of traders are called short-sellers. The thinking here is the traders expect the stock to fall in price, so they will potentially pocket the difference between the initial borrowing price and the lower future price at which they buy it back.

It can be a risky bet. If the stock goes up, you lose money as a short-seller.

Sony injects huge value in PlayStation Plus with February's free games, which includes our favorite game of 2019.

The controversial Control Ultimate Edition will be free on PlayStation Plus' February lineup, Sony today confirmed. This includes both the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 versions, the latter of which gets optimizations like faster loading, ray-traced visuals, native 4K performance, and tighter frame rates. The Ultimate Edition also features both the AWE and Foundation expansions.

The Control Ultimate Edition drew significant controversy because existing Control owners have to re-buy the newer edition to get PS5 upgrades. Various publishers like EA, Ubisoft, and Capcom are giving away free PS5 versions of their games--but not 505 Games or Remedy. Now instead they're giving out the game for free on PS Plus.

NVIDIA has released its latest GeForce Game Ready 461.40 WHQL drivers, which offer Day One support for GeForce graphics card owners for The Medium.

The Medium has support for both ray tracing and DLSS technologies, so if you are a GeForce RTX series graphics card owner you'll want to grab the new drivers. The new GeForce Game Ready 461.40 WHQL drivers also offer support for GeForce RTX 30 series laptop GPUs -- the RTX 3080, RTX 3070, and RTX 3060.

So, here's the story -- some trolls on Reddit and more specifically r/wallstreetbets had a mission: destroy GameStop short sellers and to screw them in the assistance of retail investors.

The popular r/wallstreetbets subreddit was spun into motion, with the group described as "like 4chan found a Bloomberg terminal" and oh boy, they went to town this time. The r/wallstreetbets posters have achieved something pretty insane, with GameStop stock hitting $2 in March 2020 and $17 by December 2020 -- at the time of writing it was at $147.98.

The subreddit was founded by Jaime Rogozinski but he stepped away from it in 2020, Rogozinski said that r/wallstreetbets treats stock trading like a video game. He said: "Level up with options trading ... Choose your own venture".

Sony has just announced its flagship Alpha 1 camera, which the company proudly says is "the most technologically advanced, innovative camera".

Sony's new Alpha 1 camera rocks a new 50.1-megapixel full-frame sensor, and can shoot 8K 30FPS and even 4K 120FPS videos all day long. If you want to shoot fast-moving objects like sports and action photographers, the 50.1-megapixel sensor lets Alpha 1 owners shoot "up to 155 full-frame compressed RAW images or 165 full-frame JPEG images at up to 30 frames per second with the electronic shutter while maintaining full AF and AE tracking performance".

The new Sony Alpha 1 camera features a high-resolution OLED electronic viewfinder with a refresh rate of 240Hz, pretty baller for a mirrorless camera. Sony claims this is a world first, and it is a big one. There's some next level Eye AF that focuses perfectly on people, pets and birds. The company says that it has "optimized algorithms ensure that tracking is maintained even if a sitting bird suddenly takes flight, or the framing suddenly changes".

Update: Intel said in a statement to me over email -- "Intel launched the Intel® Iris® Xe discrete desktop graphics card on January 26th with an article on newsroom linking to the product page where a product image was inadvertently attributed to the Colorful brand. The product page was quickly corrected".

"Intel works closely with Shenzhen Colorful Technology Development Co Ltd and their subsidiaries as an engineering partner for a range of Intel products. We apologize for the confusion this has caused. We will provide details of the second OEM partner and brand name when they are available".

Intel has finally launched its Xe DG1 discrete graphics card, which won't come anywhere near even the entry-level and mainstream GPU offerings from AMD and NVIDIA -- but it's here.

Micron is starting 2021 in a big way with the announcement that has volume shipment of its next-gen 1α (1-alpha) node DRAM products using the "world's most advanced DRAM process technology and offering major improvements in bit density, power and performance".

Scott DeBoer, executive vice president of technology and products at Micron said: "This 1α node achievement confirms Micron's excellence in DRAM and is a direct result of Micron's relentless commitment to cutting-edge design and technology. With a 40% improvement in memory density over our previous 1z DRAM node, this advancement will create a solid foundation for future product and memory innovation".

The company explained that it will use the 1α node throughout its DRAM product portfolio, which spans between mobile devices through to GPUs and right into autonomous cars and everything in between.

Intel's SVP, Chief Architecture, GM of Architecture, Graphics and Software, Raja Koduri has teased the first official photo of its new Xe HPC which is "ready for power on". Check it out in all its nerdy glory:

What you're looking at is the tile-based Xe-HPC which uses Foveros CO-EMIB packaging technology, with Intel manufacturing the new tile-based GPUs on their in-house 10nm SuperFin architecture. Koduri notes that there are "7 advanced silicon technologies in a single package" on Xe-HPC and that it is a "silicon engineers dream".

Koduri teases that the new Intel Xe-HPC is ready for power on, meaning that the GPU has been turned on at the Intel labs and it's being tested and I'm sure -- hoping -- that it's putting a smile on Raja's face.

CD Projekt has released the mod support files required for users to make their own modding tools to tweak Cyberpunk 2077, but don't expect major overhauls.

As promised, CD Projekt has made available various files and utilities that are needed to mod Cyberpunk 2077. These aren't major advanced toolsets like Bethesda's Creation Kit or GECK, but are the basic files needed to make actual mod systems. Expect to see creations like The Witcher 3's smaller-scale QoL adjustments. These files can be used to significantly improve various systems including quality-of-life improvements across UI, HUD, inventory management, and more to make the overall experience more streamlined.

Despite CDPR's move, a modding toolset for Cyberpunk 2077 already exists. Gamers have been using the Cyber Engine Tweaks tools to make pretty big changes in everything from AMD SMT game performance to changing appearances and even romancing Johnny Silverhand.

IO Interactive's big new 007 game could show a more suave video game adaptation James Bond, complete with emphasis on character development as well as action.

A recent interview with the Danish Broadcasting Corporation suggests that James Bond rights-holders aren't so happy with modern 007 video games. Reports say EON Productions' Barbara Broccoli, who controls the franchise, thinks Bond games are too violent. IO Interactive's vision will change all of that.

Hitman dev IO Interactive has spent the last two years making a demo reel to win over EON Productions. The gambit worked. After years of 007's absence in the game world, IO has been given the rights to make a James Bond game. We don't know what IO showed off to win over Broccoli and the other execs at MGM, but it's possible the experience will be more meaningful, cerebral, and have greater emphasis on stealth, subterfuge, and charm rather than the wanton FPS violence of previous game adaptations.

With its Hitman games, IO Interactive has arguably been preparing for a 007 game for a long time. But it's still not ready. That's why the team is doubling its numbers for the ambitious project.

IO Interactive has big plans for its upcoming Project 007 spy game. The studio plans to make an original Bond not seen before in movies--just like how 007's actor and likeness changes in the films, so too will it change in the game--set in a prequel timeline. The project is being built in a next-gen version of IO's proprietary Glacier engine, and luckily the team will have a few years to prepare.

The developer plans to make the most of that preparation. IO Interactive CEO Hakan Abrak says the team will double its numbers to help with the game. This is a vital move considering IO is fully independent now and doesn't have the backing of Square Enix any longer. Project 007 may be the start of a brand new trilogy of titles if partners MGM and EON Productions are confident in a long-lasting future. IO has a lot to prove, and they're currently gearing up for massive expansion.