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The first digital developer conference dedicated to all things Oculus is set to kick off on September 16 at 10 am PT. Here is what to expect and which presentations you do not want to miss.

Every year, Facebook makes its most significant XR announcements at Connect, and this year should be no different. There have already been many leaks, including details about the next standalone VR headset, Quest 2, its performance specifications, and a possible price. Facebook's leaky faucet also spit out a few game titles ahead of time, but we are willing to bet Facebook Reality Labs has more to share.

Facebook Connect is largely a developer conference, so the big announcements will come from the few customer-centric presentations. The event starts with the opening keynote presentation. That is the one you do not want to miss.

NVIDIA opened up a can of whoop ass over a decade ago, and it looks like that can of whoop ass just got much, much bigger.

The company acquired Arm just a couple of days ago in a record-breaking $40 billion deal, with NVIDIA's latest acquisition opening up some serious doors for the company. It now owns a world-class networking arm, world-class CPU arm, world-class GPU arm... so what next?

In an interview with Timothy Prickett Morgan of The Next Platform, NVIDIA CEO and founder Jensen Huang was asked: "Will you actually take an implementation of something like Neoverse first and make an Nvidia-branded CPU to drive it into the data center? Will you actually make the reference chip for those who just want it and actually help them run it?"

AMD thought it would be cool to unveil their new Big Navi-based RDNA 2-powered Radeon RX 6000 series reference graphics card on Fortnite barely 48 hours ago... but now we have a much better look at the flagship Big Navi.

The new leaks are from YouTuber 'JayzTwoCents' who showed off an actual photo of what should turn out to be the Radeon RX 6900 XT. We can see the triple-fan cooler at the front, a chucnky 2.5-slot cooler, and dual 8-pin PCIe power connectors.

The 'RADEON' logo on top will glow red of course, while he also leaked out two other models which should eventuate into the Radeon RX 6800 and Radeon RX 6700 series graphics cards. The Radeon RX 6700 series reference card looks to be a dual-fan affair.

Facebook recently announced that it would force users to merge their Oculus accounts with a Facebook account. Starting in October, new Oculus users and people who purchase a new headset *cough-Quest 2-cough* will be required to use a Facebook account to sign up. Existing user accounts will have two years to make the switch.

Naturally, this new change has garnered some backlash. People are understandably concerned about merging accounts for different services. It may even be illegal in Germany, which spurred Facebook to halt sales of Oculus hardware in the country, at least for now.

The change also got people wondering what will happen if you get banned from one of Facebook's many services, and you probably aren't going to like what Facebook had to say about it. RoadToVR recently spoke with a representative at Facebook Reality Labs to clarify the situation, and what they learned will alarm many people. If you get banned from Facebook's services, you could also lose access to the content you purchase on the Oculus platform. What's more, it doesn't seem like you will be able to create a new account either, because accounts that use fake names and dates of birth violate Facebook's Community Standards.

Facebook cannot seem to shut off its leaky faucet. A day after Facebook itself outed the details of Quest 2. someone shared some pictures of the box, which give us even more information about the unreleased VR headset and the games that will launch with it.

The first Facebook Connect event is scheduled for September 16, which is undoubtedly when the company planned to reveal the Oculus Quest 2 standalone headset. Yesterday, Facebook mistakenly published a series of tutorial videos for the new headset, which outed many details, the hardware specifications, form factor, and color. Today, we got pictures of what is presumably the retail box, which in turn outed what comes in the package. The packaging also shows images of two games that we have never seen before.

Earlier today, Reddit user u/charliefrench2oo8, who moderates the r/OculusQuest subreddit, shared images of what they claim is the box from a Quest 2 he found for sale on Craigslist. The headset was reportedly sold before they reached out to the seller, so they could not purchase it or get additional pictures. The two photographs that do exist give us some interesting information, though.

Today Hangar 13 and 2K Games revealed PC spec requirements for Mafia Definitive Edition, and they're not too demanding.

The PC hardware reqs for Mafia Definitive Edition are pretty similar to Mafia III, which makes sense as it uses the same engine and assets. Hangar 13's new remake uses DirectX 11 and calls for at least 6GB of RAM, runs on older 2012 GPUs like the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660/AMD Radeon HD 7870, and second-gen Intel Core i5-2550K or AMD FX8120 CPUs. We're not sure what kind of performance you'll get here, but expect 720p or thereabouts.

Recommended specs are a bit steeper, but aren't all that bad. The devs ideally want you to have a rig with 16GB of RAM, a GeForce GTX 1080 or AMD Radeon RX 5700 GPU, and an Intel Core i7-3770 or AMD FX-8350 CPU. This should deliver 1080p 60FPS at the very least.

Since the Xbox One's disastrous launch in 2013, Microsoft has pivoted away from traditional hardware sales and transformed its gaming business into a service. First, it used Windows 10 to unify PC and Xbox consoles on an OS. Then Xbox LIVE solidified this connection and laid the critical online foundation. Now the transformation is nearly complete thanks to Game Pass, a subscription service duo that is so powerful it's now the heart of the Xbox brand.

In a recent interview with Barron's, Xbox CFO Tim Stuart delivered a statement that boils down the Xbox business to its purest form: "I like to talk about how engagement equals currency. If customers are playing, they're buying more things from our partners, they're buying more things from us, and their enjoyment goes up."

Stuart also says the dual Xbox Series S/X SKU launch bundled with Xbox All Access is a means to ramp up earnings growth. The Xbox All Access credit lease agreement locks consumers to the ecosystem by virtue of continued month-by-month recurring investments, which has become the hallmark of the Xbox business as a whole.

PlayStation 5 production numbers haven't been cut by 4 million units, Sony says.

Sony officially confirms that PlayStation 5 production hasn't been reduced. The PS5's numbers remain unchanged since the console manufacturing began in July 2020. The company assures investors that console production is going smoothly.

"While we do not release details related to manufacturing, the information provided by Bloomberg is false," Sony told GamesIndustry.biz. "We have not changed the production number for PlayStation 5 since the start of mass production."

Microsoft just released finalized next-gen Xbox specs, and we've updated our Series S vs Series X list for a side-by-side look at what's to come.

Microsoft's next-gen Xbox Series S and Series X duo are an exciting evolution for the brand. The consoles feature widespread compatibility and will play games across four generations of hardware--Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Xbox Series. Any game you put into either console will be boosted natively and enjoy increased performance. The Outer Worlds, for example, has a 77% reduction in load times on Series S/X without optimizations.

For the first time ever games consoles are being built from the ground up with parts that synergize. There's no mixing and matching here like with previous gens. The Xbox Series S/X's custom 7nm+ SoC was created specifically to complement the 16GB GDDR6 RAM pool and ultra-fast PCIe 4.0 SSD.

UPDATE: Sony has confirmed the PS5 production cut reports are inaccurate. Read more here.

Sony will only be able to manufacture 11 million PS5s until March 2021, down 26% from its original 15 million projection. If the PS5 enjoys the same production-to-shipment conversion rate as the PS4, Sony could have 8.25 million next-gen PS5s available through the Q3-Q4 period.

Sources tell Bloomberg that PS5 production has been reduced 26% from Sony's internal targets. As of December 31, 2019, Sony had originally planned to produce 10 million PS5s. By the end of FY2019 in March 2020, Sony revised this target to 15 million. Now that number has been reduced again to 11 million to reflect low chip yields.

Scientists and researchers have constantly been searching for life outside of Earth since the venture was possible, and now researchers believe life could be closer than previously anticipated.

According to a recent article by Axios, scientists have found traces of a gas in Venus' clouds that may indicate the planet could harbor some form of life. According to a study recently published in the journal Nature Astronomy, scientists detected phosphine gas in Venus' atmosphere, which is a possible signature of life.

The reason researchers believe phosphine could be an indicator of life being on Venus is because researchers have found the gas is produced by some microbes that live in animal intestines. It should be noted that scientists don't believe the detection of this gas is 100% proof of life, but they are yet to find a better explanation as to why there is such an abundance in Venus' atmosphere.

Researchers from the Arizona State University and the University of Chicago have proven through experimentation that it's possible there are planets that could mostly be made out of diamonds.

There are several factors to the recipe of space creating a diamond exoplanet, and one of those is if the planet is orbiting a star that is rich in carbon - a necessary ingredient in a diamond's composition. Another component is water, followed by pressure and heat. Gravity could have caused the necessary pressure, which has left scientists thinking that there could possibly be many planets out there already in this correct kind of environment.

The researchers decided to put the theory to the test, and took a silicon carbide and placed it in a very high-pressure situation. Adding water, compression with diamond "anvils", and heat from a laser to try and replicate the conditions of a cabron-rich planet, they were able to successfully create diamonds and silica. If you are interested in reading more about this story, check out this link here for more information.

Acer has just unveiled its latest XV282K KV gaming monitor, which is part of the NITRO XV2 series and is the first gaming monitor that is HDMI 2.1-capable.

Why is HDMI 2.1 important? Because HDMI 2.1 supports 4K 120Hz over a single cable, something that is required here for high-res monitors over HDMI. The new Acer XV282K KV is a 28-inch IPS-based 4K monitor with a native 144Hz refresh rate.

Acer is providing 1 x DisplayPort 1.4 (with DSC support to drive 4K 144Hz) as well as 2 x HDMI 2.1 connectors which will be perfect for NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 30 series (which has HDMI 2.1 connectivity), AMD's upcoming Big Navi graphics cards, and the next-gen PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X consoles.

UPDATE: Sony has confirmed the PS5 production cut reports are inaccurate. Read more here.

Oops... it seems Sony has just hit a major snag with its PlayStation 5 plans over the next 6 months, with new reports suggesting the company has slashed its PlayStation 5 production numbers.

Bloomberg is reporting that Sony has cut its PlayStation 5 production numbers from 15 million units to be made available globally by March 31, 2021 -- down to just 11 million, a cut of 4 million units. The reason? There is reportedly production yield issues with its system-on-a-chip, or SoC.

EA is going through some big changes, where it will be re-branding Origin into just the EA desktop app moving forward.

The shift from EA is because they want to make things more streamlined, with EA SVP, strategic growth Mike Blank explaining: "The EA Desktop app is being designed to deliver a frictionless and socially connected experience that is faster for players to get into their games".

He added: "This move aligns to the strategy, which is to help players play our games more effectively. We had these different names. The reality is that they all align to the same objective, which is to help our players play. If you're delivering a similar game experience across multiple different devices, it's important to be able to let those players play together".

We are so very close to the NDA embargo lift on NVIDIA's next-gen GeForce RTX 3080 Founders Edition review -- our GeForce RTX 3080 Founders Edition unboxing article is here -- but now we have some new thermal images to check out:

The new thermal images are courtesy of a reviewer 'accidentally' uploading footage of their FLIR thermal image testing on NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 3080 Founders Edition graphics card. The reviewer heated the card up for 8 minutes, going from its idle 34C temperature through to 65C.

The video has been removed since, but some still images were captured thankfully -- I cannot confirm or deny how hot or how not-hot (haha) that the GeForce RTX 3080 Founders Edition gets -- but we're not far away from those results.

AMD is still a while away from delivering its next-gen RDNA 2-based Big Navi graphics cards in gamers hands, but now we have yet another tease: this time, of the reference cooler.

We are looking at what should eventuate into the Radeon RX 6700 XT -- or even the Radeon RX 6900 XT -- with a dual-slot reference design and hefty triple-fan cooler. We have dual 8-pin PCIe power connectors, which looks so bulky against NVIDIA's new 12-pin PCIe connector on the GeForce RTX 30 series Founders Edition.

The new RADEON logo is right up top, looking very GeForce-y right there -- while AMD has 2 x DisplayPort, 1 x HDMI (this should be HDMI 2.1 which is 8K60/4K120 compatible) and a USB Type-C (this could be VirtualLink, but we'll have to wait and see).

Microsoft's Project xCloud streaming service launches tomorrow on Android and aims to revolutionize Xbox gaming with unfettered access.

Starting tomorrow, all Game Pass Ultimate subscribers can stream 172 Xbox games to their Android devices. Project xCloud goes live tomorrow and takes aim at Google Stadia by delivering a true cross-platform experience with mobile-to-console cross-saves and full cloud integration.

Gamers can start a playthrough of a Game Pass game on console and seamlessly pick up right where they left off while on-the-go. It's kind of like the Switch but only with some intense wireless data crunching. As always, bandwidth and latency are issues with game streaming, so keep that in mind.

Sony plans to ship PlayStation 5 consoles to U.S. retailers by air freight to ensure prompt availability at launch, Niko Partners analyst Daniel Ahmad notes.

Sony is spending extra to prepare U.S. retailers for the PlayStation 5's holiday launch. Instead of shipping new PS5 consoles to U.S. retailers by sea, Sony opted to ship supply by air freight, a much faster, but more expensive, shipping method.

According to Chinese media group Caixin (spotted by analyst Daniel Ahmad), PS5 shipments to the United States will begin in October via Delta Air Cargo. A fleet of Delta 747 planes will make the shipments.

10 years ago today, Bungie said goodbye to the Halo franchise with one of the best PVE shooters ever made.

Halo: Reach released 10 years ago today on the Xbox 360 and changed my life forever. I had been looking forward to it since the classic Reach ViDoc, the one where Marcus Lehto said "every neuron in my head is firing Reach, Reach, Reach." Terms like "Move up the beach, Noble" were permanently etched into my memory. I remember standing in line at Gamestop for the midnight release, and blasting out round after round of Reach Firefight. I was hopelessly addicted: To this day I haven't played a single game of Reach PVP on the original Xbox 360.

Reach is an immortal game for me because of its PVE and campaign. 4-player Firefight survival is my favorite mode ever, and the armor abilities were just made specifically for this gametype. Add in an emotionally-driven campaign full of somber, sobering moments, over the top chaos, and, for the first time ever for Halo, a spaceflight mission, and you have a recipe for one of the most epic Halos ever made.