Digital gaming generated $10.2 billion in May 2020, driven by heavy-hitting monetization from games like GTA Online, League of Legends, and the PUBG China mobile release Peackeeper Elite.

Digital game sales, subscriptions, DLC and microtransactions made $10.2 billion in May 2020, analyst firm SuperData reports. These earnings represent a 14% YoY growth spike on the heels of two massive months of revenue surges: First in March, and then a record-breaking $10.5 billion in April 2020.

Console earnings were down a pretty substantial 27% from April, but year-over-year spending was greater than May 2019. Consoles generated 23% more earnings than last year, mobile was up 14% and PC revenues jumped by 8%.

The ASUS ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 gaming notebook has debuted with an exciting design that features a pair of displays and a very thin form factor. ASUS says that the machine is equipped with an innovative cooling system that optimizes performance and has the portability for gaming, creative work, and productivity on the go.

The key design highlight for the ASUS ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 is a secondary 14.1-inch panel that is the largest second screen ever used in a production gaming laptop. When the user opens the lid of the notebook, the secondary screen, called the ROG ScreenPad Plus, tilts up a 13-degree angle for comfortable viewing and touchscreen interaction.

ASUS uses a custom hinge that staggers the rise of the display to prevent any damage and has curved sliders that delay the deployment of the secondary screen. The IPS panel has a resolution of 3840 x 1100 delivering a smooth 60 Hz refresh rate. ASUS is working with gamers to optimize games to use the secondary display. The screen will eventually be able to do things like move chats to the secondary display or add controls for switching between inventory items and quests.

The unpopular Mixer streaming service is being retired on July 22, 2020, Microsoft today confirmed.

Mixer has always had a problem and now Microsoft has finally given up on the streaming platform. The service aimed to compete with YouTube and Twitch, but ultimately failed to gain mass viewership despite securing the industry's most popular streamer, Ninja.

As of July 22, Mixer will be killed off and the entire community and streaming framework will be moved to Facebook Gaming. Basically Facebook Gaming is eating--or mixing with--the Mixer platform.

WB Montreal's new Batman game is apparently called Gotham Knights, a plural title that strongly corroborates past reports of multiple playable heroes.

A new domain registration for GothamKnightsGame.com has outed the name of WB Montreal's mysterious new Batman game. The website was registered by MarkMonitor Inc, the same company that handled WB's mainsite registration. MarkMonitor also registered Rocksteady's new Suicide Squad game.

The Gotham Knights title actually speaks volumes. Gotham Knights was originally an older 2000s era comic series that specifically focused on the adventures of the Bat Family, including Damien Wayne, Dick Grayson, and Barbara Gordon.

Kingston Technology has announced that it has begun shipping a 7.68TB version of the Data Center 1000M NVMe PCIe SSD. The SSD is known as the DC1000M, and provides additional storage and implement strict QoS. By implementing strict QoS, Kingston can ensure predictable IO and low latency for data centers that are using the DC1000M.

Kingston is slotting the DC1000M into its line along with the recently released DC1000B NVMe boot drive. The new drive uses a hot-pluggable 2.5-inch form factor to allow integration with the latest generation servers and storage arrays currently using the PCIe and U.2 backplanes.

Kingston wrote, "The lightning-fast drive provides enterprise-grade features such as end-to-end data path protection, power-loss protection (PLP) and telemetry monitoring for increased data reliability." The SSD is backed by a five-year limited warranty and includes free technical support. The new SSD is optimized for mixed-use applications. It promises up to 3100 MB/s Read and 2600 MB/s write speeds. Steady-state 4K read/write speeds are 485,000/210,000 IOPS.

Rocksteady Studios, the team behind the fan-favorite Batman Arkham series, is currently developing a live service game centered around the Suicide Squad.

New reports have finally pinpointed Rocksteady's next game, and it's not a Superman or Justice League game. Well not really. Sources tell Eurogamer that Rocksteady's next project focuses on the Suicide Squad's ragtag group of antiheroes, complete with online-based play and live game elements.

Gamers will apparently take control over the villains as they try their best to hunt down the Justice League. Past reports said Rocksteady was working on a Justice League live game but it turns out this is only half-true. It's unknown whether or not the Justice League will be playable and whether or not the game will be a kind of good vs. evil online battler similar to something like DC Universe Online.

Several leaks have surfaced in the last few weeks and months that have to do with Apple's all-digital WWDC 2020 going on today. Past rumors suggested that there would be new hardware unveiled at the show, including the potential for new ARM-based Mac computers and redesigned iMac all-in-ones. New rumors have surfaced from two known leakers that claim no new hardware will be unveiled at the event today.

One of the new leaks comes from Jon Prosser, who claims that plans to launch new hardware were scrapped. Prosser says that he could be wrong, but indications are there will be no new hardware. Another known leaker named Max Weinbach has also stated that there will be no hardware unveiled today.

Weinbach says that two different sources told him there would be no hardware released at WWDC 2020. He says that the sources of the leaks aren't on WWDC related teams. His sources heard through the grapevine that there would be no hardware released today at the event. Both Prosser and Weinbach note that they are taking the rumors with a grain of salt.

Back in 2011, researchers stumbled upon a woolly mammoth that died around 28,000 years ago. Since then, researchers have carried out a series of experiments on the specimen, some of which have seen cells extracted from the mammoth.

Scientists from Kindai University in Japan have successfully extracted remnants of DNA from the extinct animal bones. The idea behind the DNA extraction is to eventually restore the animal back to a living state by extracting the nuclei from the mammoths cells and transplanting them into mouse oocytes. According to the report, scientists were able to do this successfully, and the 28,000-year-old cells started to show "signs of biological activities."

According to study author, Kei Miyamoto from the Department of Genetic Engineering at Kindai University, "This suggests that, despite the years that have passed, cell activity can still happen and parts of it can be recreated." The researchers do acknowledge that recreating the mammoth is still "very far" away, and that is without even going into the ethical side of the debate surrounding genetic engineering. If you are interested in reading more about this, check out this link here.

A new day, a new leak on NVIDIA's next-gen GeForce RTX 3090 graphics card. This time we have a new listing in the 3DMark database that teases a huge performance upgrade over the current flagship GeForce RTX 2080 Ti.

The purported Ampere-based GeForce RTX 3090 scores 18,257 in graphics score for 3DMark Time Spy, which is a huge 26% faster than the current Turing-based GeForce RTX 2080 Ti. It's even 21% faster than the TITAN RTX, which NVIDIA sells for $2499.

We should expect this card to either be the GeForce RTX 3090 or a new Ampere-based TITAN RTX graphics card, but whatever the hell it is, it's a beast. You can read more on what to expect performance-wise from the GeForce RTX 3090 right here.

KIOXIA is ushering in the next generation of SAS technology, with the company being the first in the world to deliver a next-gen 24G SAS SSD to server and storage applications with its new PM6 Series of enterprise SAS SSDs.

The new PM6 series drives make up KIOXIA's 6th-generation SAS SSD family, with fresh new 24G SAS doubling the speeds of its predecessor. The company has also added in a slew of new features and enhancements that help the KIOXIA PM6 series to "reach new application performance levels".

KIOXIA has deployed its in-house 96-layer BiCS FLASH 3D TLC flash memory, which enables the PM6 Series to pump away at 4300MB/sec (4.3GB/sec) sequential reads performance. This is over 2x the level of its predecessor, with KIOXIA offering a huge 30.72TB capacity in 2.5-inch SAS SSD form -- the largest in the industry.

Dragon Age 4 could be a next-gen console exclusive when it releases years from now, allowing BioWare to tap the PS5's and Xbox Series X's raw power.

At EA Play 2020, BioWare finally revealed the first early gameplay snippets for Dragon Age 4. But the footage was included in a segment solely devoted to next-gen console performance. The visuals were impressive and didn't look like something the PS4 and Xbox One generation could deliver, possibly with ray-traced illumination, and immensely dynamic particle and atmospheric effects.

With this kind of specialized focus and experimentation on next-gen hardware, it's likely BioWare is developing Dragon Age 4 exclusively for PS5 and Xbox Series X. The game is still in early phases of development and isn't expected to ship until 2022 or even 2023 when the next-gen console install base has matured.

Like any online game from EA, the new Star Wars: Squadrons starfighting sim has a ton of stuff to unlock to keep you engaged and playing longer.

A big part of any online game is progression. It's a critical aspect of the five-part Engagement Cycle, and EA Motive has baked in lots of grinding into its new Star Wars: Squadrons galactic battle sim. EA confirms the game will have over 50 passive loadouts and components that can drastically affect handling, weapons selection, fire modes, stealth capabilities, and shielding and defense.

These loadouts can be changed on-the-fly between battles and are likely tiered progression unlocks to incentivize continued play, rewarding those who put more investment into the game. We're not sure how the content is unlocked--whether it's randomized or in a set battle pass-style progression tier scheme--but EA does confirm microtransactions won't be included.

EA Motive's new Star Wars: Squadrons game has a ship class for every kind of player and they all play important roles in wide-scale star battles.

After many delays and lootbox controversies, EA is finally on the right track with Star Wars. EA Motive's new Squadrons game looks to be the definitive Star Wars galactic battle simulator, complete with first-person views, a singleplayer campaign, and tight controls right out of the classic Tie Fighter vs X-Wing PC game.

The ship selection goes way, way beyond simple fighters though with up to 8 ships that all afford their own strategic opportunities. There's fighters, bombers, interceptors, and support class ships that will make for frenetic and extremely tactical 5v5 online multiplayer battles and skirmishes. Star Wars: Squardons is a love letter to starfighting sims and the ships are the biggest part of EA Motive's huge dedication to the experience.

Microsoft's Project xCloud game streaming service will initially be powered by spare Xbox One S chips. But in 2021, the servers will get a big upgrade.

The new Project xCloud service is a big deal for Xbox. Gamers can wirelessly stream games to their consoles, PC, laptops, or phones without any downloads, all while keeping their entitlements, friends, and purchased content. But server power and latency is always a big concern. Luckily Microsoft has a plan to help smooth out those rough points.

According to The Verge's Tom Warren, who has a close ear to Microsoft's gaming plans, Project xCloud will get a huge upgrade in 2021. Microsoft will start putting in Xbox Series X motherboards into xCloud's server racks to belt out serious 4K gaming performance, complete with the powerful 7nm SoC with its 12TFLOP Navi RDNA 2 GPU, 8-core 3.8GHz, and 16GB of GDDR6 unified memory.

Netherealm joins the myriad of developers working on next-gen projects, and we could see a new Mortal Kombat or Injustice 3 announced for PS5 and Xbox Series X.

Mortal Kombat 11 Aftermath just released a bit ago, but Netherealm is already pushing forward into next-gen territory. WB Games is currently hiring a principal graphics engineer to help lay the visual framework for Netherealm's next-gen games. Unreal Engine 5 isn't specifically mentioned, but the future games are likely to use UE5's new high-end graphics and efficiency optimizations--both Injustice 2 and Mortal Kombat 11 are running on Unreal Engine 3.

"NetherRealm, a division of WB Games Inc., seeks a Principal Software Engineer - Graphics to drive the next generation console graphics vision for the Mortal Kombat and Injustice franchises," the listing reads.

The game no one asked for is now here, with developer Fancy + Punk releasing Coronavirus Quarantine Simulator on Steam. Fancy + Punk previously released Balconing Simulator, but now check out the trailer to Coronavirus Quarantine Simulator:

What exactly do you have to do in Coronavirus Quarantine Simulator? Well, the game is meant to "help you developer all your pandemic survival day-to-day skills" while enjoying yourself in Coronavirus Quarantine Simulator. How do you enjoy yourself in Coronavirus Quarantine Simulator exactly?

You can find Coronavirus Quarantine Simulator on the Steam store right here.

We have some new specs for NVIDIA's purported GeForce RTX 3090 to share with you this glorious weekend, with some truly monstrous specs coming from the RTX 3000 series.

The new leak is coming from 'KatCorgi' on Twitter, who is predicting the specs of three of NVIDIA's upcoming Ampere-based graphics cards. The first is the new TITAN RTX that would feature 24GB of GDDR6X at 17Gbps, the flagship GeForce RTX 3090 with 12GB of GDDR6X at 21Gbps (!!!) and the GeForce RTX 3080 with 10GB of GDDR6 at 19Gbps.

NVIDIA, at least according to these rumors, would cram a huge 5248 CUDA cores into the GeForce RTX 3090 -- which is not much of a cut down from the 5376 CUDA cores inside of the new Ampere-based TITAN RTX.

Anyone who has bought an Apple Mac computer knows that the machines are very expensive. Often a similar Windows machine will save hundreds of dollars compared to buying a Mac. However, Mac fans don't seem to mind spending the extra money, but everyone's up to save a little cash.

Apple has finally started accepting trade-ins of used Mac computers at Apple Stores and online in the United States. The savings vary depending on which device you are trading in and what version it is. One major caveat to the new trade offer is that Apple gives no firm price on what it would give you for a trade, and you have to send your device in without knowing how much you'll get.

Anyone who takes a Mac into an Apple Store will know what the offer is before they have to trade the device. Those buying online can send their Mac in using a prepaid shipping label or trade kit. Once the Mac is received, Apple will figure out how much it thinks the machine is worth and issue a credit accordingly in the form of a gift card or instant credit to spend in the Apple Store.

Amazon Web Services has launched a new device called the AWS Snowcone that it is billing as the newest and smallest member of the AWS Snow family of physical ads computing, and storage, and data transfer devices. The AWS Snowcone is aimed directly at rugged or disconnected environments.

The Snowcone weighs 4.5 pounds and features 8TB of internal storage. It's compact enough and rugged to make it usable in a variety of environments, including desktops, data centers, messenger bags, vehicles, and in conjunction with drones. Snowcone measures 9-inches long x 6-inches wide x 3-inches tall. The device enclosure is tamper-evident and tamper-resistant and uses a Trusted Platform Module to ensure security and full chain-of-custody for data.

The device encrypts data at rest and in transit using keys managed by the AWS Key Management Service, and the keys are never stored on the device. Snowcone features an E Ink shipping label designed to ensure that the device is sent to the correct address and to aid in tracking. Snowcone uses dual CPUs, 4GB memory, wired or wireless network access, and a USB-C power cord or an optional battery.

Cyberpunk 2077 is getting free next-gen upgrades on both PS5 and Xbox Series X, CD Projekt RED today confirmed.

CDPR just delayed Cyberpunk 2077 to November 19, 2020, the same month both the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X are expected to launch. This was a tactical delay on two fronts: First, it gives the team 3 more months to balance, polish, and overall synergize the game. Secondly, it allows CDPR to ride the huge next-gen console sales wave, which will help boost initial launch surges. This last point is quite important given how much CDPR has invested into Cyberpunk 2077.

So how exactly will this work? When Cyberpunk 2077 launches on November 19, it'll be fully backwards compatible on PS5 and Xbox Series X. The game won't launch with huge next-gen optimizations, though. It should be boosted thanks to both consoles' native performance boost modes which can raise resolution and FPS, but Cyberpunk 2077 won't fully play like a game built from the ground up for next-gen consoles at launch.