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Take-Two Interactive's Q1'21 earnings show tremendous digital growth thanks to NBA 2K20, Grand Theft Auto, and catalog sales and earnings.

Take-Two's Q1'21 results continue to reflect how COVID-19 is boosting video games earnings. The Grand Theft Auto parent company broke multiple earningsrecords during the quarter ending June 30, driven by substantial jumps in monetization, sales, and engagement.

The company reported net income of $88.5 million (+91%) on net revenues of $831.31 million (+54%). Net operational cashflow, one of the most telling metrics, skyrocketed by 310% to $445.3 million, clearly showing the efficiency of Take-Two's streamlined business.

Given Take-Two's emphasis on premium next-gen game pricing, expect GTA V to cost $70 on PS5 and Xbox Series X.

Take-Two Interactive thinks the $10 price bump for next-gen games is justified by the 'extraordinary quality' that the games offer. NBA 2K21 is the first next-gen game to cost $70, but it won't be the last, especially from Take-Two. The publisher should charge extra for all its next-gen enhanced games. This includes GTA V.

"There hasn't been a price increase for frontline titles for a really long time, despite the fact that it costs a great deal more to make those titles," Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick told GamesIndustry.biz. "And we think with the value we offer consumers...and the kind of experience you can really only have on these next-generation consoles, that the price is justified. But it's easy to say that when you're delivering extraordinary quality, and that's what our company prides itself on doing."

Ubisoft wants to make a big splash in game streaming, and is now one step closer to creating a viable infrastructure to making it happen.

Today Ubisoft signed a multi-year deal with Parsec, a platform that uses the cloud to access data remotely from your home PC. Ubisoft recently used Parsec for press previews of Assassin's Creed Valhalla; Ubisoft had the demo's source files on their server PC, which was then accessibly streamed to press using cloud networks. This is just one use-case for the Parsec service.

Parsec is an actual platform, not just a service. Parsec lets you share your screen to any device anywhere you are, kind of like Sony's Remote Play. It's also a Google Drive-like cloud server that grants access to data and experiences to other users. There's also features like guided matchmaking that lets you connect and play with other Parsec users.

Microsoft has removed the rather obnoxious Optimized for Xbox Series X badge from the front covers of Xbox games, sources tell industry figures Daniel Ahmad and Tom Warren.

Cross-gen marketing can be confusing, especially when your new console can play every game from the previous generation. Microsoft wants to clearly mark all the games that play better on next-gen. The solution was the rather massive rupee-shaped Optimized for Xbox Series X badge on specific Xbox games (remember, there are no more Xbox One or Xbox Series X games, just Xbox games).

Now Microsoft is backpedaling on this idea, or at least where the badge is positioned. Instead of taking up prime real estate on the game's cover as originally planned, the badge will be included on the backside of game cases. This is a big deal for games-makers and publishers.

Spider-Man is coming to Square Enix's big new Avengers live game, but he's exclusive to PlayStation platforms and won't be playable on Xbox, PC, or Stadia versions of the game.

Today Sony continued its exclusivity strategy that gates off specific in-game content in third-party games. This time we're seeing Spider-Man being locked to PlayStation consoles. The webslinger is coming to Marvel's new Avengers online game in 2021, but only for PS4 and PS5 players. Spidey will be free DLC for all PlayStation gamers and he won't be included on any other platforms (which makes sense considering Sony has rights to Spider-Man films and properties).

"We can't wait for you to add Spider-Man to your Marvel's Avengers roster in early 2021, and as we've promised before, he will be available at no additional cost to owners of the base game, exclusively on PlayStation," Crystal Dynamics associate art director Jeff Adams wrote on the PlayStation Blog.

Sony confirms the DualShock 4 won't work with next-gen PlayStation 5 games. But it will work with next-gen Xbox games.

As it gears up for a big PS5 price reveal and console teardown, Sony today announced the DualShock 4 won't be compatible with PS5 games. The DualShock 4 can still be used on PS5, but only to play PS4 games. Some peripherals like headsets, the PSVR HMD, cameras, and legacy controllers can be used on PS5, but not all are compatible with next-gen games.

Oddly enough, Microsoft will carry the DualShock 4's legacy forward into its next-gen games. Not on consoles, of course, but with Game Pass and Project xCloud streaming. The PS4's DualShock 4 is one of the controllers supported by Project xCloud, Microsoft's new game streaming service. It's also compatible with PC games via Game Pass.

The PlayStation 5 is the start of a new generation, and that includes accessories too. Today Sony confirmed a few accessories that will and won't be compatible on the PS4 and PS5 and vice-versa.

Sony is allowing cross-gen support for a number of games and accessories--the PS5 will play thousands of PS4 games at launch, for example--and some peripherals are both backward and forward compatible.

Sony confirms that official products like headsets, racing wheels, arcade sticks, and flight sticks are all usable on both PS4 and PS5. The PS4 Platinum and Gold audio headsets will work on PS5, as well as a bunch of third-party headsets that use USB/audio jacks (remember, the DualSense has an audio jack).

Antec has just unveiled its new DF600 FLUX case, the latest member of its "FLOW LUXURY" brand of cases that have unique case designs and kick ass airflow.

Inside of Antec's new DF600 FLUX we have 5 x pre-installed 120mm fans that have been designed to improve GPU core temperature. How does it do this? It pulls additional cool air in through the intake that's found in the lower right-hand side of the case.

This is through the power supply (PSU) shroud and through into the main chamber, where all of your critical components (CPU, GPU, SSD, RAM, etc) are found. There's 3 x 120mm ARGB fans behind the front fascia of the Antec DF600 FLUX, a 1 x 120mm exhaust fan on the back of the case, and a 120mm reverse fan on top of the PSU shroud that grabs cool air into the system through the right-hand side panel vent.

Elon Musk is undoubtedly jumping up and down in excitement as SpaceX has marked its first successful astronaut mission for NASA.

Back at the start of June, SpaceX launched the Crew Dragon capsule that had aboard NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley. The destination was the International Space Station (ISS), and both astronauts, along with the Crew Dragon capsule, arrived there safely. Now, the end part of SpaceX's historic Demo-2 mission has come to fruition - landing both astronauts back on Earth safely.

Crew Dragon departed from the ISS and began its descent back down to planet Earth, and at precisely 2:48 p.m. EDT on August 2nd, SpaceX's capsule splashed down off the coast of Pensacola, Florida. SpaceX's Crew Dragon splashing down marked the first commercially built and operated spacecraft to carry humans to and from orbit, and also marked the first splashdown by U.S astronauts in 45 years.

American Gaming Network had planned to host a Call of Duty: Modern Warfare LAN event in the US, but ended up cancelling the event. If it had gone through with it, it would've been the first American organizer to host a LAN during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The LAN event would've had 40 teams of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare players, each with 5 people per team. AGN would've made it mandatory for the 200+ gamers to wear face masks, with the esports tournament organizer also providing hand sanitizer.

The organizer would've reportedly completed temperature checks at the door, limited the amount of people being there at once, required everyone in attendance to be over 18 years or more, and required the competitors to sign a liability waiver.

MSI has just released its new Optix MAG272C gaming monitor, with it being a new 27-inch display using a VA panel and native 1920 x 1080 (1080p) resolution with a super-fast 165Hz refersh rate.

The new Optix MAG272C monitor has a 1500R curvature, with MSI designing the new monitor with gamer and content creators as their key market. MSI has used very thin bezels that will allow gamers and content creators to use the Optix MAG272C in a triple-monitor setup, without chunky bezels in between.

That's where the 1500R curvature comes into play, as you would have a near-perfect 180-degree triple-monitor rig surrounding you. The addition of the super-smooth 165Hz refresh rate is a big help for gamers, and once again for triple-screen use flowing your mouse across 3 monitors.

Obsidian launched its new game Grounded into the world of Xbox Game Preview and Steam Early Access just a few days ago, with the game seeing success quickly.

The official Xbox blog has a new article that thanks Xbox and PC gamers for their support in the early release of Grounded, which racked up over 1 million players in its first 48 hours of release. Quite the achievement.

The post reads: "We want to thank the community for showing support for the recent release of Grounded on Xbox Game Preview and Steam Early Access. In its first two days of availability, we've had over one million players explore the mysterious backyard, battle giant spiders, and gather tons of useful materials -- which has absolutely blown away our small team of 13 here at Obsidian!"

This has been a super hot bit of news for a week or so now, but it's being reported that NVIDIA is in "advanced talks" to acquire ARM in a deal worth over $32 billion, reports Bloomberg.

NVIDIA is reportedly the one and only company that is in discussions with ARM owner SoftBank, with a deal that could be inked "in the next few weeks". If the deal does get stamped, it would be one of the largest in the tech industry and would have regulators looking into it, and its competitors beginning to sweat.

SoftBank acquired ARM for $31 billion back in 2016, and have only continued to expand since then. ARM-based designs are in hundreds of millions of Android and iOS smartphones and tablets, Apple recently said it would be switching over to ARM-based chipsets moving forward -- and plenty of NVIDIA's own products pack ARM-based chips.

ASRock has just unveiled a new custom Radeon RX 5700 XT graphics card, with the introduction of the new Radeon RX 5700 XT Challenger Pro 8G OC.

What is new with ASRock's Radeon RX 5700 XT Challenger Pro 8G OC? The triple-fan cooler, where ASRock is using 3 x 80mm fans that have 0dB silent cooling tech. It's a larger 2.7-slot card that should stay a few degrees cooler than the dual-fan Challenger.

It's a strange move, for ASRock to unveil a new custom Radeon RX 5700 XT right before AMD is about to unleash its next-gen RDNA 2 architecture... but it's also good to see ASRock continue to push into the custom Radeon RX graphics card business.

Intel has been hurting for many years now, and in that time AMD has been shining brighter than the brightest star in the sky.

AMD stock has been enjoying a healthy ride towards the moon, with Intel's recent stumbles seeing AMD stock reaching record highs of nearly $80. At the time of writing, AMD stock was at $77 with a market cap of $90.9 billion.

Intel in comparison has their stock at $47 while they enjoy a larger $201 billion market cap.

In its game of cat and mouse with Microsoft, Sony seems to be prepping for the big PlayStation 5 pricing and pre-order event... which could happen real soon.

According to PS5 leaker 'IronManPS5' on Twitter, we have some new teases that Sony will be revealing more details on the PlayStation 5 during a State of Play event on August 6. After the first tweet, he shared some more screenshots from 4chan where someone said the event would happen on August 10.

At this event, it's expected that Sony will unleash pretty much an avalanche of stuff on gamers that will include a "console overview trailer", a "backwards compatibility trailer", "reveal trailer", and then a "PlayStation 5 trailer".

Microsoft has been doing better on the PC over the last couple of years, but we can definitely have the company doing more for PC gamers. This is something that is coming, and Xbox boss Phil Spencer is now re-confirming their stance.

Spencer tweeted: "I wanted to thank the community for the support on PC. We made statements like this a few times over the years and the skeptical responses were earned".

He added that he knows the team has "more work to do", but said that the success they're seeing from Xbox Game Pass and the Steam teams are "really great, thanks".

TikTok has been in the headlines for all the wrong reasons for months, leading into the Trump administration talking about banning TikTok from operating in the US.

But over the weekend, news popped up that Microsoft would buy the US portion of TikTok with US Fox Business Network's Charles Gasparino tweeting that he confirmed that his sources told him Microsoft were in talks to buy TikTok.

Gasparino added that Microsoft is "probably the only big US tech co that can do the deal since the others are probably prohibited from getting bigger by regulators" he said, according to "bankers with knowledge of the matter".

In an effort to maximize sales, exposure, and access, EA just brought a ton of its games onto Steam. Now those games are at the top of Steam's charts.

EA is hitting it big in the PC market right now. According to Valve, EA games hold 8 of the top 20 best-selling game slots for Steam's June sales right now. This follows EA's big jump back to PC gaming's biggest sales platform.

EA also noted a huge spike in its quarterly PC gaming revenues. Total game sales are up an astronomical 202% year-over-year to $1.39 billion, and PC game earnings are up a massive 74% to $340 million. It turns out putting your games on Steam is big for business.

Amazon doubles its Q2 profits to $5.2 billion thanks to huge spending during COVID-19 lockdowns.

Amazon just reported its Q2'20 profits for the quarter ended June 30, 2020, and the results are astronomical. The retail titan generated $5.2 billion in Q2 profits on $88.9 billion in net sales revenues due to exceptionally high demand in deliveries and shipments from April onwards. North America made up 62% of total net revenues during the period, generating $55 billion in revenues. That's more than double the international sales, which raked in $22.6 billion.

Amazon spends almost as much as it makes, though. The company reported only $2.1 billion of operating income on $55 billion in North American geographical revenues. Altogether, Amazon spent over $83 billion on operating expenses including facilities management and more.