Latest News - Page 1561

The upcoming three-game Mass Effect remastered trilogy has been delayed to 2021, sources tell VentureBeat's Jeff Grubb.

EA and BioWare plan to re-release the entire original Mass Effect trilogy as a remastered collection for current-gen systems, complete with all DLC (a rare move). While EA has yet to reveal the trilogy, sources have been rumbling about it throughout 2020, hinting at a release sometime this year to help commemorate BioWare's 25th anniversary. Apparently that won't happen.

Sources now say both the reveal and release of the Mass Effect trilogy has been delayed to 2021. Earlier reports said BioWare was to originally announce the three-game collection on November 7 during N7 Day.

UPDATE: Microsoft has finally announced the Funimation promo:

Sony owns Funimation, but apparently that hasn't stopped a big digital deal with its main competitor.

Xbox Game Pass is so powerful that even Sony wants to ride the wave. According to reports from Comic Book, Sony-owned Funimation is offering two months of its Premium Plus all-you-can-play anime streaming service free for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers. The promotion is to be part of the Xbox Game Pass Perks rewards system, which has included promos like free Spotify premium subscriptions in the past.

Microsoft gets around Apple's clandestine anti-game streaming policies by enabling remote play in the Xbox iOS app.

Back in 2019, Microsoft said Xbox owners would be able to turn their consoles into game streaming servers. The new Xbox mobile app made that promise a reality. Gamers can now use their Xbox One consoles to stream games to their phones across wireless networks. This includes iPhones, a platform that's been notoriously cut off from Microsoft's ambitious Project xCloud streaming service.

Sony has implemented remote play for years now and this is technically nothing new for the industry or for console gaming. It's still a clever little trick that allows Xbox gamers access to titles on-the-go, but you still have to own an Xbox console (and games) in order to play Xbox games on your iOS devices.

EA reveals the full scope of its new Star Wars Squadrons starfighter, confirming it's a live service game with rotating seasonal rankings, level ups, and in-game unlockables with multiple currencies.

Star Wars Squadrons is one of EA's most interesting new games. It's a live game that's not monetized. Let that sink in for a minute: EA, a company who makes billions every year from live service monetization, is making a live service game with online elements without any microtransactions. This is somewhat transformative for EA and could be a stepping stone for future games.

So what makes Squadrons unique? It has online PVP and PVE play, it's sold for $40, and has a massive webwork of unlockables, customizations, and a rotating seasonal ranking system. It even has daily challenges. Again, it's not monetized. The game is specifically designed to be massively replayable and has tons of unlocks, cosmetic customizations, and a myriad of earned currencies and XP. These things typically are made to promote engagement monetization; engagement grows as more people play, which spins the flywheel of mTX earnings.

Microsoft's Phil Spencer confirms Xbox hardware isn't going anywhere, and that Xbox Series X|S won't be the last lineup of Xbox consoles.

Xbox has been a service-first business for some time. Microsoft has spent billions to establish Game Pass and its new cloud streaming Project xCloud as a multi-platform, versatile service that links all devices together. Xbox is about delivering content and services to devices you already own, but that doesn't mean Xbox hardware will be phased out. Quite the contrary.

In a recent interview with Yahoo Finance, VP of gaming Phil Spencer confirms that streaming and service innovation will continue to shape consoles. Hardware is an important access point to the ecosystem and will remain a part of the business for some time.

A patent uncovered by Dutch tech publication LetsGoDigital reveals that Sony is experimenting with inside out tracking and new controllers for a future iteration of its PlayStation VR HMD.

Sony is gearing up for the launch of the next PlayStation console, which is due to launch in less than two months. The new console is supposed to support the company's PSVR headset, but there have long been rumors of a new PlayStation headset coming down the pipeline. The newly published patent gives even more fuel to that rumor.

Sony filed for patent WO2020189691 - Input Device with the World Intelectual Property Organization (WIPO) in April 2020 and WIPO published it on September 24. The translated patent document describes a method of tracking controllers with "a plurality of light-emitting portions" with a headset-mounted camera.

A mysterious company called Photon Lens recently started dropping hints about its upcoming augmented reality smart glasses for the fitness industry. We've only a few details about the device, but what we know so far has us very intrigued.

Photon Lens appears to be a very new company or, at the very least, a secretive company. Photon Lens doesn't seem to have a website, and the company's LinkedIn and Twitter pages are just a few weeks old. During that time, Photon Lens has dropped several hints about the specifications of the device.

According to Photon Lens' social media posts, the new smart glasses will be the first "true augmented reality" device designed for the fitness industry. The headset offers a 50-degree field of view, which is comparable to HoloLens and Magic Leap. And the image should be crisp, thanks to 2 million pixels of resolution per eye. All in a package that weighs just 85 grams.

NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 3090 graphics card is finally here (our review on the RTX 3090 FE, and MSI's custom RTX 3090 GAMING X TRIO) but Maingear's new SFF gaming PC is something you need to check out.

Maingear's new Turbo line of gaming PCs is a small form factor family (SFF) of rigs that have the company's hand-crafted APEX liquid cooling. This means it can keep the CPU (both Intel and AMD's latest chips) as well as NVIDIA's new 8K monster GeForce RTX 3090 nice and chilled under water cooling.

CEO of Maingear, Wallas Santos, explained: "Paired with our hand-crafted revolutionary APEX liquid cooling and custom desktop designs, our new line of gaming PCs deliver the most performance that we have ever offered. When equipped with the incredible RTX 3090, our Turbo desktop in particular truly transforms into an unbeatable small-form-factor beast unlike any other pre-built on the market".

HP is gearing up to release the Reverb G2 VR headset finally. Today, the company announced that it would begin shipping Reverb G2 VR headsets to pre-order customers this coming November. Demand is high so new orders will see a delay.

HP's highly-anticipated Reverb G2 VR headset is just around the corner. The new device takes the dual 2160x2160 per eye displays from the original Reverb headset and combines them with technology derived from Valve's Index VR headset. Valve contributed the lenses, head strap, and the speakers that come equipped on the Reverb 2.

Along with the shipping windows announcement, HP revealed that the final version of the Reverb 2 would come with a few changes from the pre-production versions that some influencers have reviewed. HP said the retail Reverb G2 would include updated lenses that "reduce the Fresnel ring reflections and improve clarity." In other words, you should see fewer "godrays" through the new lenses compared to other headsets.

Microsoft clarifies how external hard drives will work on its next-gen Xbox Series X and Series S consoles.

The next-gen Xbox duo will support existing USB 3.1 external hard drives, but there's some caveats. Today Microsoft confirmed a bunch of new details on what to expect from cross-gen storage and next-gen performance, and how the new $219 expandable SSD memory card fits into the mix:

Read Also: Xbox Series X SSD is revolutionary, changes Xbox gaming forever

Doom Eternal, one of the best shooters of the entire generation, is coming to Game Pass on October 1. Sadly, PC gamers have to wait.

Now that Microsoft owns Bethesda, it's time all the publisher's first-party games start dropping on Game Pass. id plans to bring Doom Eternal over to gaming's most transofmative subscription service starting on October 1, but it'll come first to Xbox consoles. PC gamers will have to wait until "later in 2020". The new Ancient Gods Part I expansion won't be included.

This is pretty confusing since Doom Eternal was made to completely flex PC horsepower. Our latest RTX 3090 review shows just how optimized id Tech 7 is, with Doom Eternal capable of hitting a mind-bending 48FPS at 8K with Nightmare presets.

Amazon's new game streaming service is called Luna, and it's a game-changer that rivals Stadia and Microsoft's Project xCloud.

Amazon's new Luna (formerly Project Tempo) cloud service streams games directly from the cloud to devices like Fire TV set-top boxes, iOS mobiles, PCs and laptops, and soon Android devices. Luna will start out at $5.99 a month for two simultaneous streams at 1080p 60FPS (4K is only available for select games). The $5.99 subscription offers access to a variety of games across the Luna Plus channel.

The service has a unique business model. Instead of buying games separately like you do with Stadia, Amazon is going a recurring subscription route. Publishers will have their own "channels" that users can subscribe to, likely for a nominal fee similar to premium Twitch subscriptions. Channel subscriptions gives access to the full list of games available on that channel in an on-demand, all-you-can-play aspect similar to Project xCloud.

Sony is restricting access to Spider-Man's PS5 remaster to help justify purchase of the new Miles Morales spin-off game.

As many publishers like Ubisoft, EA, and CD Projekt RED offer free next-gen game upgrades, Sony is under fire for how it's handling the Spider-Man transitions to next-gen. In a statement to Kotaku, Sony clarified its somewhat confusing plan for the web crawler.

Sony is about to release two new Spider-Man games: Spider Man Miles Morales, which is coming to both PS4 and PS5, and a remaster of the original 2018 Spider-Man game on PS4. Turns out Sony isn't selling the remaster by itself. You have to buy Spider-Man Miles Morales in order to access the next-gen remaster of the first game. It doesn't matter if you bought the 2018 Spider-Man on PS4; you won't get a free upgrade to the remastered version, and you don't even get the option to buy the game.

Bethesda's top brass delves into the ethos that drives the company's success: Exposure, sales, and sustainability.

In a recent interview with Major Nelson, Bethesda's Pete Hines and Todd Howard gave key insight on what makes the company tick. It turns out Bethesda is after the same things as any publisher, including mass-market exposure, increased access, wide availability. These goals are a big reason why ZeniMax sold to Microsoft.

Turns out that Game Pass was a big motivator for the sale. The service checks all the right boxes that ZeniMax and Bethesda were chasing, like live service frameworks, successful monetization, widespread access and availability, huge organic exposure across an online ecosystem, and full game sales across multiple platforms.

Konami finally plans to unleash some of its IP treasure trove onto the PC platform...but hopefully they aren't just basic ports.

A handful of new Konami listings have popped up on the Taiwanese games rating board. There's four games in all for PC, one of which is a Castelvania + Contra retro collection that includes the first three Castlevania games (sadly no Super Castlevania IV or Dracula X) plus Contra and the excellent SNES shooter Super C.

Konami hasn't revealed any info on the games just yet, but expect them to drop on Steam sometime soon. Konami's latest financials saw profits drop by over 40% thanks to coronavirus closing its resorts and pachinko arcades. Digital gaming is still going strong and helped buoy this loss with stronger revenue spikes. Konami should lean into more re-releases and game launches to help offset COVID-19 interruptions, and this strategic PC bundle will help.

The expandable Xbox Series X/S SSD memory cards will cost $220, which is just more than half of an Xbox Series S console.

Best Buy listings confirm pricing for expandable 1TB SSD memory card storage will retail for $219 a piece, which isn't a terrible price for flash memory of this caliber (bear in mind Samsung's blistering-fast 980 Pro SSDs are $229 for 1TB capacities). It's also 73% of the Xbox Series S' $299 price tag, which is something to consider if you go the all-digital Series S route.

The listing confirms Xbox Series X and S consoles use PCie 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSDs on x2 lanes, which makes sense given the 4.8GB/sec compressed transfer speed caps. Remember that this memory is proprietary and specially-designed to run DirectX 12 APIs like DirectStorage, Xbox OS tech, and the new Velocity Architecture. Also remember the cards use a CFExpress cartridge with a smaller M.2 drive packed within. CFExpress is typically reserved for high-end digital photography and enthusiast-grade cameras.

Nuvia is currently in the process of creatring an ARM-based CPU core and server SoC, codenamed Orion and Phoenix -- and now the company has just secured more funds to make that happen.

In a new Series B funding round, Nuvia raised $240 million in the fresh funding round from Mithril Capital in partnership with Sehat Sutardja and Weili Dai (who are the founders of Marvell Technology Group), funds and accounted managed by BlackRock, Fidelity Management & Research Company LLC., and Temasek, with additional participation from Atlantic Bridge, Redline Capital, Capricorn Investment Group, Dell Technologies Capital, Mayfield, Nepenthe LLC and WRVI Capital.

Back in November 2019, Nuvia held its Series A funding round where it raised $53 million. This new injection of funds will help the new company, that was founded in February 2019 by John Bruno, Manu Gulati, and Gerard Williams with the vision of creating the world's leading server processor.

Tom Cruise and director Doug Liman are scheduled to leave Earth next year aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft.

SpaceX is no stranger to the idea of doing private tourist missions for the extremely wealthy, and I suppose that is why this mission has been dubbed a "tourist mission". According to Space Shuttle Almanac, Tom Cruise, director Doug Liman, and most likely one other as one seat has yet to be filled, will be leaving Earth in October 2021 to arrive at the International Space Station.

At the moment, the purpose of the mission is officially unknown, but we can assume that actor Tom Cruise and director Dough Liman are either discussing filming possibilities or are doing some kind of filming for a future movie. One thing is certain; the launch is more than a year away, which means there is plenty of time for plans to change, such as cancellation or the other passenger's announcement.

Oculus founder Palmer Luckey reportedly invested some of his money in SideQuest. This marketplace sells Oculus Quest apps that aren't approved for sale on Facebook's official Oculus Store.

Facebook treats the Oculus Quest as somewhat of a gaming console. It's a self-contained gaming device that's tethered to a platform-specific marketplace, just like an Xbox or PlayStation console. Facebook would prefer that Quest owners buy all their content through the Oculus Store, and the company goes through great lengths to ensure that every title on its store offers a high-quality experience.

Not every app meets Facebook's requirements, and when that happens, developers don't have much recourse. That happened to the founder of SideQuest, Shane Harris, when he submitted his title to the Oculus Store. The rejection inspired Harris to create the SideQuest marketplace as an alternative distribution solution for content that Facebook doesn't want to sell.

AMD is set to rock our world -- as well as Intel's world -- with its next-gen Rembrandt Ryzen APU family of processors, with the new 2022 APU family of chips being teased with some new specs.

According to @MebiuW on Twitter, we are being told to expect the new Rembrandt Ryzen APU processors to feature next-gen Zen 3 CPU cores and next-gen RDNA 2 GPU cores. Not just that, but the new APUs will be made on the new 6nm process node, and have support for DDR5-5200 memory.

We're being told to expect 20% higher density, with better power consumption numbers compared to 7nm. With AMD utilizing both of its next-gen Zen 3 CPU and RDNA 2 GPU architectures in this new Ryzen APU, we should expect some pretty stellar performance out of the chips when they drop in 2022.