A new report from French website Gameblog alleges Konami fired Kojima because he was secretly funneling money from Metal Gear Solid V to help fund Silent Hills, but Kojima Productions has squashed the report.

Back in 2015, Konami fired Hideo Kojima and scrubbed his name from Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. Konami also cancelled Silent Hills, a horror sequel Kojima was making alongside Guillermo Del Toro and Norman Reedus.

Ever since then Konami hasn't released a big AAA hit and has mostly focused on mobile, pachinko, and annualized sports games.

New MP and campaign details for Black Ops Cold War, this year's Call of Duty game, have leaked out ahead of the game's big reveal.

Activision has yet to reveal Black Ops Cold War yet, but that hasn't stopped multiple leaks from confirming key details. A recent pre-alpha gameplay clip confirmed the game's Cold War era setting along with various weapons and tanks used in the 80's. Now sources are coming forth with more info.

YouTuber xClusiveAce has some fresh tidbits concerning both multiplayer and campaign. The video has since been made private for obvious reasons, but Charlie Intel made a handy list.

Death Stranding might transform into a brand new IP and Kojima could already be working on a sequel.

Hideo Kojima is currently working with Yohi Shinkawa on early concepts for his next game...and it could be related to Death Stranding. Just yesterday Kojima shared some cryptic and strange sketches on Twitter of a Bridge Baby and a whale/dolphin-shaped ship, igniting speculation on Death Stranding 2.

Closer inspection reveals the Giger-esque craft to be a Landing Ship issued out by BRIDGES, the fictional inter-dimensional government from the ruinous world of Death Stranding. It's possible this ship floats in space or maybe even traverses the inky black oceans of the death stranding.

Microsoft's brick and mortar stores are becoming largely extinct as the company pivots even further into digital.

In a recent press release entitled "Microsoft Store announces new approach to retail," the service titan confirms it'll be closing all stores worldwide and those in in New York City, New York, Redmond, Washington, Sydney, Australia, and London, England will all evolve into Microsoft Experience Centers.

Interestingly enough, Microsoft says it won't fire anyone. MS Store staff will continue on and focus on digital sales, training, and tech support. This can also be done remotely, the company says.

New reports further solidify info on Microsoft's unannounced budget-friendly next-gen Xbox Series S console.

Microsoft may release two next-gen Xbox consoles in 2020: The higher-end and more expensive Xbox Series X (codenamed Anaconda) with a 12TFLOP GPU that targets 4K 120FPS max perf, and a cheaper digital-only Xbox Series S (codenamed Lockhart) that targets 1440p 60FPS perf.

Now we have more info to corroborate these reports. Sources tell The Verge's Tom Warren that the Xbox Series S will have roughly 1/3rd of the Series X's GPU power. Lockhart is expected to ship with a 4TFLOP Navi GPU complemented by 10GB of GDDR6 RAM, of which 7.5GB will be usable for games.

Bill & Ted Face the Music was originally due for August 13, 2020 -- but the time travel movie has had some experiences with time it seems, with MGM delaying Bill & Ted Face the Music two weeks until August 28, 2020 -- and it's because of Tenet.

Warner Bros. delayed the release of Christopher Nolan's new movie (again) by two weeks, with a new opening of August 12, 2020 -- the day before Bill & Ted Face the Music was meant to debut. This forced MGM to push their movie back two weeks until August 28, 2020.

Bill & Ted Face the Music will have the original stars of the two first cult classic movies, with Bill & Ted themselves in Keanu Reeves (star of The Matrix and John Wick franchies -- each with new movies coming out, both with Reeves in them once again) and Alex Winter.

Tenet has been pushed back yet again, with the epic new movie from Inception, Dark Knight, Interstellar director Christopher Nolan delayed until August 12, 2020.

Warner Bros. announced the news in the last 24 hours, which marks the second delay for Tenet. It was first meant to arrive on July 17, 2020 but then Tenet was pushed back two weeks until July 31. But now it has been delayed again, from July 31 to August 12 -- another 12 days.

A Warner Bros. spokesperson said in a statement: "Warner Bros. is committed to bringing 'Tenet' to audiences in theaters, on the big screen, when exhibitors are ready and public health officials say it's time. In this moment what we need to be is flexible, and we are not treating this as a traditional movie release. We are choosing to open the movie mid-week to allow audiences to discover the film in their own time, and we plan to play longer, over an extended play period far beyond the norm, to develop a very different yet successful release strategy".

Well, things just got serious with the Coca-Cola Company pulling the plug -- at least temporarily -- on all digital advertising across all social media platforms globally for at least 30 days.

The global soda giant announced the news late Friday night, saying it would pause digital advertising on social platforms for 30 days beginning July 1, 2020. What's the reason? A boycott of Facebook and Instagram that has been organized by the Anti-Defamation League, the NAACP, and other organizations that have morphed into the "Stop Hate for Profit" campaign.

The Coca-Cola Company only talked about removing advertising on Facebook and Instagram, but we should see the boycotts affecting Twitter, YouTube, and other social media platforms.

The Boys was one of the best surprise TV shows of 2019, debuting on Amazon Prime Video and being the kinda anti-superhero and Bizarro versions of the Justice League and Avengers. Well, the first season was a huge hit (I loved it) and now season two is getting close to debuting.

Amazon has now confirmed that the second season of The Boys will debut on September 4, 2020 -- on this day they'll unload 3 new episodes to get you hooked. After that, episodes of the second season of The Boys will drop each Friday through to the season finale on October 9, 2020.

The company teased a blood-soaked trailer for season two in December 2020, but now the first clip from The Boys Season 2 is here and it looks great. We're being introduced to Stormfront, a new hero that will be an interesting foe (and friend) to the superbly played Homelander by Antony Starr.

Infinity Ward might have said it wants to shrink the gigantic install sizes of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, especially now that its new battle royale mode Warzone has launched, but it's still a gigantic download -- and now even more so, on the PC.

I've just setup a bunch of new PCs here in my new house and I've gone to install Call of Duty: Modern Warfare on my gaming PC and noticed the install size was 212GB. I remembered it was 199GB last week, but now the game requires over 200GB to install on the PC weighing in at an absolutely gigantic 212GB.

The developer is well aware of the gigantic strain on your internet connection, and the internet connections of the tens of millions of gamers who play Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and its new Warzone mode.

NVIDIA announced back in 2019 that it would have ray tracing technology inside of Cyberpunk 2077 -- but now that CD PROJEKT RED has outed 16 minutes of gorgeous gameplay footage from Cyberpunk 2077 -- NVIDIA has detailed exactly what ray traced effects Cyberpunk 2077 would have.

All of the ray traced visual effects in Cyberpunk 2077 will be powered by DirectX 12 Ultimate and its DXR Raytracing API, which are optimized for GeForce RTX graphics cards and their built-in ray tracing cores. NVIDIA just dropped their new GeForce 451.48 drivers that include support for DirectX 12 Ultimate (and more, you can read about that here). If it looks and runs good right now on the GeForce RTX 20 series cards, imagine what it's going to be like on next-gen Ampere-based GeForce RTX 30 series cards.

As for the ray tracing and DLSS 2.0 technologies being deployed in Cyberpunk 2077, this is what NVIDIA GeForce RTX 20 and next-gen Ampere-based GeForce RTX 30 series cards will be able to enjoy on November 19, 2020:

Ubisoft apparently has a problem with sexual misconduct, and the company is taking disciplinary actions against alleged perpetrators.

Multiple Ubisoft employees have been accused of sexual abuse, misconduct, and infidelity. Victims are speaking up and sharing evidence on Twitter (a quick cursory search of Escoblades, for example, unearths multiple instances). First Assassin's Creed Origins game director Ashraf Ismail was caught cheating on his wife, then rape allegations were made against Ubisoft brand manager Andrien Gbinigie.

Now similar reports of manipulation and abuse are being made against high-ranking Ubisoft executives Maxime Beland and Tommy Francois, who serve as vice presidents in Ubisoft's editorial team, a games development creative roundtable that essentially controls the future of its biggest franchises.

It looks like Doc just performed his last operation: Multiple reports are saying Dr. Disrespect has been perma-banned from Twitch.tv.

Two separate sources say Guy Beahm, aka Dr. Disrespect, has been kicked off of Twitch. Sources tell esports consultant and streaming expert Rod Breslau that Doc has been permanently banned from Twitch, and it's not related to DMCA claims. This followed StreamerBans' live update that Dr. Disrespect had been banned two hours ago.

This marks the Doc's second major infraction following the infamous bathroom E3 stunt that got him temp-banned from Twitch. No one knows exactly why Beahm has been removed and his official Twitter account has yet to make any sort of comments. It's possible his latest stream, which went live today at 1PM EST, was to blame.

When it comes to stepping into the Apple Mac ecosystem, the cheapest way to do it is with the desktop system called the Mac mini. Apple fans looking for a new desktop computer can save $120 off the late 2018 version of the Mac mini at B&H. The regular retail price for that computer is $799, and after the discount is applied, the computer is available for $679.

For the money, what buyers are getting is the entry-level version of the Mac mini fitted with a 3.6 GHz Intel Core i3 quad-core processor. The machine also has 8GB of RAM and 128GB of SSD storage. This machine uses eighth-generation Intel Core processors meaning the hardware is significantly outdated compared to newer computers on the market from other manufacturers.

Graphics are handled via Intel UHD Graphics 630, and the machine has Thunderbolt 3 ports featuring native DisplayPort outputs. It also has an integrated HDMI 2.0 port, allowing up to three 4K displays to be supported. The machine can also support one 5K display and one 4K display at the same time.

The Last of Us 2 is now the fastest-selling first-party PlayStation 4 exclusive of all time, Sony today announced.

Naughty Dog's brutal and dramatic survival-fest has broken sales records right out of the gate, moving more than 4 million copies in three days. This puts The Last of Us 2 above heavy-hitters like Final Fantasy 7 Remake, Spider-Man, and God of War.

The first Last of Us game was likewise as immensely popular on PlayStation 3, moving 8 million copies as of 2014, and sold tremendously well on PlayStation 4 as a remastered port. As of 2018, both games had sold a combined 17 million across both systems.

When it comes to custom gaming PCs, one of the many companies out there building them is called Origin PC. Origin PC has some specials for the coming July 4 holiday in the United States that offer hundreds of dollars off select laptop gaming computers. One of the offerings is the EVO16-S or NT-16 featuring an Intel Core i7-8750H processor for $200 off.

Those machines also include free ground shipping in the United States. Gamers can also save $100 and get free US ground shipping on the EON15-X AMD or the NS-15 AMD laptops. All Origin PC laptop computers get free ground shipping in the US during the sale.

Gamers wanting a desktop system can also get some nice discounts on Ryzen-powered desktops with a $50 Visa reward card and free US ground shipping. Gamers who prefer Intel can get free shipping, but no discounts. Anyone who purchases one of the smaller M-Class RTX Studio desktops gets three months of Adobe Creative Cloud and free shipping.

Microsoft has finally explained exactly what Optimized for Xbox Series X actually means, and it aligns with our older predictions on next-gen enhancements.

Just as we predicted, developers have two ways to approach optimizations on next-gen consoles: Release a next-gen only version of the game that's built from the ground up to leverage the higher-end specs, or roll out enhancement patches that push existing current-gen games past their current perf targets.

The Xbox Series X approach combines both iterative and next-gen strategies together. The upgrades to existing games is similar in practice to the Xbox One X Enhanced program which boosted FPS, resolution, and added HDR. The other half is the pure next-gen exclusive optimizations, which is the kind of thing you'd see in a true hard generational reset.

Despite a tumultuous history making Star Wars games, EA says it will now "double down" on creating new titles in the billion-dollar IP.

Making Star Wars games is hard. Every little decision has to be run through Lucasfilm for approval (like every Star Wars game, the most recent, Jedi: Fallen Order, was built on compromise). And if you're EA, you've already cancelled three big Star Wars games--one from Visceral and two from EA Vancouver.

Now it looks like these cancellations are over. Thanks to Jedi: Fallen Order's success as a singleplayer-only game, EA might finally start embracing Star Wars titles that aren't online experiences. EA is also shifting away from over-monetization. Case in point: the newest Star Wars Squadrons game combines both online and offline play, but it's not monetized.

The global games market is expected to rake in $159 billion in 2020, but 77% of that will be from microtransactions and in-game spending, analyst firm Newzoo reports.

Digital game sales are on the rise, but even those full game purchases are eclipsed by in-game revenues like microtransactions. According to Newzoo, mTX and other digital in-game purchases will make up 74% of 2020's total earnings, or over $117 billion. Free-to-play mobile gaming will predictably make up the lion's share of revenues.

Newzoo predicts the global games market will generate $159.3 billion in 2020, and monetization is expected to grow incrementally over the years. By 2023, mTX is expected to make up 77% of all yearly revenues, or a massive $154 billion. This will ultimately change how games are developed and monetized, whether it be through direct piecemeal microtransaction purchases on a store via cosmetics or convenience items, or through battle pass-style seasonal purchases.

Apple wants to continue the design trend of thinner laptops in the coming years. The challenge is as hardware gains performance, it also starts to make more heat requiring more robust cooling systems. The desire for comfortable typing also requires better keyboards. The result is the need for thicker machines.

Apple has a new method that it is reportedly working on that will make future MacBooks thinner. It's not a new cooling system; it's said to be a new retractable keyboard. The retractable keyboard is an attempt by Apple to balance the customer's need for something they can type on with the need for thinness.

The keyboard will reportedly retract into the MacBook Pro enclosure. The tip of the retractable keyboard comes from a patent for "Retractable Keyboards" that was filed by Apple. Apple isn't first in looking to build retractable keyboards. IBM had a retractable keyboard in the past that would expand out of the sides of the laptop when the lid was opened.