Latest News - Page 1559

Today Chinese juggernaut Tencent announced its Q2'20 earnings, and the results see strong spikes in game earnings in the period.

COVID-19 is spiking games industry revenues, and Tencent is no expception. The company revealed its Q2'20 performance for the quarter ending June 30, revealing strong 29% spikes in total revenues to $16.2 billion. Operating profit was up 38% to $5.3 billion, driven by surges in games revenues, and net profit reached $5.2 billion, up a strong 31% over Q2'19.

Games made up 35% of total revenues, or $5.68 billion. Smartphone games predictably made the lion's share of these earnings with $5.08 billion, driven mostly by heavily-monetized free-to-play games.

4A Games was just purchased by THQ Nordic, and now confirms their next-gen Metro game will have online multiplayer.

Today 4A Games was folded into THQ Nordic's massive stable of developers. The Metro dev will still technically remain independent, but it'll now serve under World War Z developer Saber Interactive. Both 4A Games and Saber are co-developing the next Metro game, which will have online multiplayer that utilizes the same live framework that powers World War Z.

4A Games CEO Dean Sharpe confirms the next-gen Metro game on PS5 and Xbox Series X will have multiplayer. 4A Games is also working on a new IP, but will still continue working with Dmitry Glukhovsky on new Metro games.

4A Games and its associated IPs, including the Metro franchise, are now wholly-owned by THQ Nordic, joining its ever-growing stable of developers.

The Embracer Group (formerly THQ Nordic) has acquired Metro game series developer 4A Games for $45 million, the company today announced. The purchase equates to $36 million after debts and taxes, of which is made up of $25 million in upfront cash and the remainder made with 1.23 million in B shares.

4A Games will remain independent, but it will serve under Saber Interactive and still be associated with Deep Silver, the wholly-owned publishing arm responsible for games like the Metro and Dead island series.

Intel hosted its virtual Architecture Day to the media across the world, with a gigantic debriefing on what Intel has been up to across virtually its entire company -- but the most exciting thing (at least to me) was the introduction of the new Xe-HPG gaming-optimized architecture.

Intel's new Xe-HPG is for enthusiast gamers packing hardware ray tracing support, packing GDDR6 memory. To compare against the datacenter-focused Xe, with the Xe-HP -- which is powered by HBM memory. Intel stepping into the ray tracing ring with NVIDIA, and soon AMD with its RDNA 2 architecture is a big move.

The new Intel Xe-HPG is expected to ship in 2021, where I'm sure we'll hear more details on it early in the New Year. Raja Koduri, the chief architect and senior vice president of Intel's discrete graphics division, explained: "our enthusiast and gamer friends, we heard your requests for Xe for enthusiast gaming. We added a fourth microarchitecture to the Xe family: Xe-HPG optimized for gaming, with many new graphics features including ray tracing support. We expect to ship this microarchitecture in 2021 and I can't wait to get my hands-on this GPU!"

Turtle Beach has been a big name in the gaming audio market for quite some time, and now the company is adding to its large range of gaming headsets by announcing a second generation for two of its most popular products.

Turtle Beach has announced a the Stealth 600 Gen 2, and it features a refurbished design that ironed out any of issues on the first-gen Stealth 600. As described by Turtle Beach, the new design is a much sleeker look, and the build quality feels much more premium. The Stealth 600 will replace the current Stealth 600 at its price point of $99.95.

So, what makes the Stealth 600 Gen 2 better than the Gen 1? Well, the Gen 2 is sporting a USB-C charging port, which is a direct upgrade from the micro-USB found on the Gen 1. Turtle Beach has also revised the microphone design on the Stealth 600 Gen 2, combined with an upgrade in the audio quality, and Turtle Beach's Superhuman Hearing. Additionally, Turtle Beach has whacked some similar upgrades on the Stealth 700 Gen 2 in its respective aspects.

NASA has had its eyes on Mars for quite some time, and as a result the space agency has put satellites around the planet to observe its beauty.

One of the satellites is the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), and its equipped its with incredible cameras that capture the true nature of the Red Planet. Since NASA's missions are funded with public money, the results of the missions are available for the public to view and download. Today, we have a bunch of gorgeous photos of the surface of Mars, and each are full resolution for you to download.

NASA announced on August 12th it was celebrating the Mars Reconnaise Orbiter's 15th anniversary by publishing the below selection of images. The images include impact craters from meteors, sand, smoke, and more. If you are interested in reading more about this topic, check out this link here.

With millions of parents home right now over COVID-19 lockdowns and social distancing across the world, keeping your kids safe online has never been more important -- and that's where FamiSafe steps in.

FamiSafe and its Parental Control App offers you the ultimate in keeping your children safe online, available on both iOS and Android. The FamiSafe Parent Control App features including kids' location tracking, screen time limiting, website filtering, game & porn blocking, suspicious photos detecting and suspicious text detecting on social media app like YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and more. Link family devices, keep your family safe.

As a parent, you cannot be behind your child watching every conversation they have with someone online, every website they visit, which videos they're watching, what games they're playing or what apps they're using. FamiSafe Parental Control gives you control over all of that, ensuring they're not doing something you don't want them to when they're online.

David Blaine is returning, but not in the way you'd expect -- the magician has announced his first major live event in over 10 years that will broadcast exclusively on his YouTube channel.

The magician is calling his new stunt 'Ascension' which will see Blaine attach himself to a bunch of helium balloons -- which would look like the Pixar movie Up. Blaine will hold onto the helium balloons, he will float across the Hudson River between New Jersey and New York.

Blaine tweeted out: "This stunt has been 10 years in the making. Let's turn worry into wonder and take magic to new heights". YouTube gets in on the Ascension hype, adding: "Watch in disbelief as David Blaine magically ascends above Earth, in his biggest live performance yet".

We all know what that iconic 3-second Netflix intro sounds like, with its kinda-tired "ta dum" sound looking to be replaced by something much more epic by composer Hans Zimmer.

Hans Zimmer's new intro for Netflix can be heard on the above tweet, and it seems like it is coming directly to Netflix original movies coming to cinema -- although right now, cinema is shut down because of the COVID-19 pandemic and social distancing.

I'm a huge Hans Zimmer fan, and saw him with a live orchestra a few years ago and it quickly became one of the best experiences of my life. My favorite soundtrack of all time would have to be Man of Steel (my review on the movie here), followed by Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (my review on the soundtrack here) -- and this new Netflix theme by Hans Zimmer has major Man of Steel vibes.

Microsoft has released another trailer for Flight Simulator, which is about to take off for gamers on August 18 -- just days away. The new 'Planes and Airports Trailer' details some of the planes and airports we will see in Flight Simulator:

The new trailer has Microsoft taking us through some of the absolutely beautiful airports you'll be visiting, and the planes you'll be flying in Flight Simulator. There will be over 37,000 airports in total in Flight Simulator, 2 million cities, live weather -- with storms and all, and so much more.

There will be 3 different versions of Flight Simulator released, these will include:

We have some new details on Cyberpunk 2077 through a recent interview between VG247 and senior gameplay designer on Cyberpunk 2077 at CD PROJEKT RED, Pawel Kapala.

The interview had a bunch of great tidbits, but one part that stood out was the discussion on destructible environments. I'm a huge fan of realistic environmental destruction in games, from Red Faction through to Battlefield games.

But with Cyberpunk 2077, it seems like the team at CD PROJEKT RED are taking destructible environments to the next level. Kapala teased: "We put a lot of emphasis on having destructible environments overall in our game".

GDC 2020 was officially postponed because of COVID-19 earlier this year, meant to kick off in March it was postponed over the coronavirus pandemic.

Well, GDC organizers Informa Tech have announced that the Game Developers Conference 2021 will take place between July 19 and July 23, 2021 in a hybrid physical and digital show. This is a few months later than the mid-March that GDC normally takes place.

The physical side of GDC 2021 will take place like it normally has at the Moscone Center in San Francisco -- while the digital show will be online.

NVIDIA is putting a big spotlight on its GeForce NOW game streaming service ahead of the Ultimate Countdown and its impending "special event" on September 1 for its next-gen GeForce RTX graphics card launch.

The company took to Twitter, offering up a new $25 bundle that gives you the premium subscription level of GeForce NOW for 6 months -- but more importantly, a huge deal with Ubisoft's battle royale shooter Hyper Scape bundle that packs the Season 1 Battle Pass and even exclusive Adi Volta Champion Skin, Volta Drop Pod, Citric Dragonfly Weapon, and Boxer Shuffle Emote.

NVIDIA explains: "Do you hear that? It's the sound of all our dreams coming true. For a limited time, upgrade to a Founders membership and get a Hyper Scape Season One battle pass token + exclusive GeForce NOW Hyper Scape in-game content pack".

The new Marvel Avengers live game will have lots of PC-specific optimizations, including unlocked frame rates, ultrawide 21:9 support, and more.

Today Crystal Dynamics revealed the PC spec requirements for the game, and they're rather modest. Minimum specs call for a lower-end Core i3-4160 CPU, 8GB of RAM, and an NVIDIA GTX 950 GPU with at least 2GB of VRAM. Recommended specs are likewise as lenient, advising gamers to have at least a Core i7-4770K, a GTX 1060 GPU, and 16GB of system memory.

PC-level optimizations include unlocked FPS and support for 144Hz refresh displays, 21:9 ultrawide monitors, and a huge 30GB ultra-HD texture pack that adds lots more definition to the game.

AT&T currently owes over $150 billion in debt, but sub-2% bond interest rates and lucrative broadband business give the company extreme confidence in managing these colossal numbers.

Photo credit: Roberto Machado Noa (Getty Images)

At the recent 23rd Annual Oppenheimer Conference, AT&T Chief Financial Officer John Stephens discussed the company's strategies and current position to handle its $152 billion in debt, and gives slight inference on whether or not WarnerMedia's WB Games division will be sold. Reports say Warner Bros., who is wholly-owned by AT&T, will sell of its gaming division in a $4 billion deal that includes all major game studio subsidiaries like Netherealm, Monolith, WB Montreal, and Rocksteady.

Good news: You shouldn't have to worry about charging the PS5's new DualSense controller as often as the DualShock 4. Sony's new PlayStation 5 DualSense controller will have a dramatically larger battery than the DualShock 4, hinting at boosted lifespan for play sessions.

The PS5's DualSense controller will have an 1560mAh rechargable battery that could translate to extended battery life, new leaked tests have confirmed. This capacity is a 56% increase over the DualShock 4's current 1000mAh battery, and 20% larger than the Switch Pro controller. This is smaller than the average 2100 mAh capacity of a single rechargeable AA battery. So technically an Xbox One controller with two rechargable AA batteries is 4200mAh.

The DualSense is also complemented with USB-C for charging, which could include quick charge over USB 3.1.

Secretlab has just unveiled their latest line up of gaming chairs, teaming with Riot Games for the world's first official League of Legends Champions gaming chair collection.

It's a big deal as Riot Games is soon celebrating -- if you can even believe it -- the 10th anniversary of League of Legends. Riot Games already uses Secretlab gaming chairs at their premier global tournamnets as well as top-tier pro circuits (including the World Championship and the LCS and LEC).

The new Secretlab Champions range is the first of its kind in the 10-year history of League of Legends, something that saw Riot Games and Secretlab bring to life fan-favorite Ionian champions Akali, Ahri, and Yasuo. Not only that, but a beautiful special edition purple-and-gold K/DA Edition.

Control's "free" next-gen PS5, Xbox Series upgrades are now locked behind a new paywall.

Today 505 Games, the publisher of Remedy's new game Control that has 20 years publishing exclusivity on the franchise, confirmed that existing PS4, Xbox One owners aren't eligible for the promised free next-gen upgrade.

The enhanced next-gen versions are now exclusively available as part of the new Ultimate Edition, a GOTY SKU that packs all expansions with the game. So if you already own Control on current-gen systems and want the enhanced PS5, Xbox Series X version, you have to re-buy the game completely.

Unlike 2K Games, who plans to charge $69.99 for next-gen versions of NBA 2K21, other publishers like Capcom are unsure about raising the price for their PS5, Xbox Series X games.

Capcom joins the likes of Ubisoft in holding back on charging extra for next-gen games. Right now the company has two next-gen games in development: its new IP Pragmata, and Resident Evil VIIIage, which is due out in 2021. Both of those games could be priced at a $59.99 MSRP.

In a recent Q&A session at its Q1'20 earnings report, Capcom confirmed it hasn't set a strict pricing policy for its next-gen games:

Microsoft has just announced that its Surface Duo smartphone is now available for pre-order, with the dual-screen smartphone shipping on September 10 for $1399.

Microsoft announced the dual-screen Surface Pro nearly a year ago, with the Surface Duo rocking dual 5.6-inch screens but when it is unfolded, you'll get a huge 8.1-inch PixelSense display to gander at. Microsoft uses a 360-degree hinge system that sees the dual 5.6-inch displays either being used on their own, or together.

Inside, we have Qualcomm's Snapdragon 855 chip, 6GB of RAM, and 128GB/256GB storage options.