Latest News - Page 1569

STALKER 2 will be dropping in 2021 exclusive to the PC and next-gen Xbox Series X, and now we're hearing reports it might offer an 120FPS option on the Xbox Series X version.

On the Xbox store page for STALKER 2, it says that it was designed to take advantage of the powerful hardware inside of Microsoft's new Xbox Seires X console and it means "frame rates up to 120FPS".

The store page reads: "Games built using the Xbox Series X development kit are designed to take advantage of the unique capabilities of the Xbox Series X. They will showcase unparalleled load-times, visuals, responsiveness, and frame rates up to 120 FPS".

Roblox Corporation has said that its game has over 150 million monthly players, with the company expecting to pull in $250 million this year.

During the COVID-19 pandemic there have been more and more players in Roblox, with the developer announcing the news during its annual developer conference -- held virtually because of the on-going coronavirus pandemic.

David Baszucki, founder and CEO of Roblox Corporation explained: "The accomplishments of our developer community have eclipsed even our loftiest expectations. Our focus is to give developers the tools and resources they need to pursue their vision and create larger, more complex, more realistic experiences and collectively build the Metaverse".

Sony still hasn't given us much details on the inner workings of its next-gen PlayStation 5 console, but a new patent Sony filed in 2019 is interesting.

The new patent was filed in 2019 but only published a few days ago on July 23, and discuses image reconstructing technology that uses reference images through machine learning. You know, kinda like how NVIDIA's own Deep Learning Super Sampling -- or DLSS, works.

This is exciting as NVIDIA DLSS 2.0 provides double the performance in games that support it, while not looking any worse -- and in some cases they look better.

Philips has just announced their new 498P9 Brilliance 32:9 SuperWide Curved monitor, with a native resolution of 5120 x 1440 thanks to its 32:9 aspect ratio.

We have an 1800R curvature on the Philips 498P9 Brilliance 32:9 SuperWide Curved monitor, which will make looking at that huge 5120 x 1440 resolution nice and easy on your eyes. The 5120 x 1440 resolution is pumping away at 70Hz, so this isn't a gaming monitor and more aimed at professionals.

Philips also has 498P9 Brilliance 32:9 SuperWide Curved monitor with support for Adaptive-Sync technology, which will help out if you want to get your game on at 70FPS.

Sony will launch its next-gen PlayStation 5 console in November, but between its launch and the first 5 years on the market the console is expected to sell at least 120 million units.

The news is coming from DigiTimes, which reports it from sources in the "backend supply chain in Taiwan", which explains: "The life cycle for household game consoles may be shortened to five years from 6-7 years, and PS5 shipments may challenge 120-170 million units when its 5-year cycle expires, compared to 110 million units registered to date for PS4 launched in November 2013".

It added: "Sony has recently boosted its PS5 shipment estimate for 2020 to near 10 million units".

Analogue's new $199 Pocket handheld aims to be the king of all retro pocket-consoles by playing tons of old-school cartridges better than ever before.

If you love playing retro handheld games, then the new Analogue Pocket was made just for you. Analogue revealed a bunch of surprising new details around the Pocket, including pre-orders that go live on August 3.

The Pocket's specs are also pretty nice. The display is a 3.6-inch, Gorilla Glass-covered LCD panel with 1600x1440p resolution and 615ppi, which is roughly 10x the resolution of an original Game Boy. It has a 4300mAh battery that allows for 6-10 hours of play, and fully remappable buttons. Here's a quick breakdown of some of the most interesting features:

Atari's new VCS console will be accompanied by a storefront, but the digital marketplace won't copy Steam's catalog of AAA games.

The Atari VCS is a kind of jack-of-all-trades. It's a console-PC hybrid that supports Linux and Windows 10. It's also a console with its own first-party storefront, controllers, and online ecosystem. But unlike Steam or the PlayStation Store, the Atari VCS store won't sell $59.99 AAA games--at least not at launch. Instead, the Atari VCS games will be capped at $25 a pop and will be more like GOG than Steam.

Atari is taking a smaller approach with its store and will exclusively sell remasters, classic version of its old games, and indie games at launch, complete with its vault of 100 Atari classics, Anstream on-demand retro game streaming, and remasters of older games like Missile Command.

Introducing the Aya-Eve, a new gaming PC in a Switch-like handheld form factor.

Handheld PCs are on the way to merge portability with actual PC-quality gaming. First we had the GPD Win 2, then the GPD Win Max, and Alienware's impressive Project UFO handheld with its detachable controllers. Now there's another competitor called the Aya-Eve.

The Aya-Eve has some decent specs including an AMD 4500U notebook APU with 6 cores and 6 threads, 16GB of DDR4-4266 RAM, and 512GB of onboard NVMe flash memory. Other specs are tentative and could change, but right now the team is targeting a 7-inch 1280 x 800 IPS display, which is akin to the Switch's 6.2-inch 1280 x 720 screen.

According to a new survey from analyst firm Experience12, thousands of UK gamers are overwhelming more interested in the PS5 than the Xbox Series X.

Data firm Experience12 surveyed 3,000 gamers in the UK to see which next-gen console they're more interested in. Turns out the PS5 is at the top, which isn't surprising given the console's massive install base. 84% of respondents, or roughly 2,520 people, said they were more excited about the PS5. 16% of them, or just 480 of respondents, preferred the Xbox Series X.

To properly understand this data we need some perspective. The PlayStation 4 has a staggering lead over the Xbox One in global sales, and is handily beating Microsoft's console by over 60 million units. As Ampere Analysis shows, the PS4 is currently at 108 million sales (sell-through, not the 110.4 million sell-in Sony reports) compared to the 49 million Xbox Ones sold worldwide. The PS4 has outsold the Xbox One by 59 million units, or more than the total Xbox One sales across the globe.

Konami, ever the curious company, is joining the likes of Alienware, MSI, and Corsair with custom pre-built gaming PCs.

On the heels of making the Turbo Grafx 16 Mini, Konami has wider hardware ambitions. This time it's making gaming PCs for Japanese consumers. The new Arespear gaming desktops are made for esports and were originally announced in February 2020.

The three-SKU line features somewhat beefy specs and LED lighting, but are dramatically overpriced for the hardware. Konami has just now opened pre-orders for the PCs, which are scheduled to start shipping in September.

Duke Nukem dev 3D Realms is back on the map, and now they're teasing a brand new game.

3D Realms has made a resurgence and released their latest game, Ion Fury, on the original Duke Nukem BUILD Engine. Now they're coming back with a new all-original IP and it looks like a fantasy-based experience. We're not exactly sure what the team is cooking up--fantasy is kind of a weird focus for a FPS-driven studio--but it could feature magic-blasting instead of guns.

Apart from this new IP, 3D Realms is also working on Wrath: Aeon of Fury, a bloody FPS built in the original Quake engine that's due out on 2021. Other 3D Realms published games include Ghostrunner and Kingpin Reloaded.

Games get cancelled all the game in the industry. Some are extremely groundbreaking. Others devolve into chaos. Some, like the new RPG from Mike Laidlaw, get cancelled on a whim by people who have too much power.

Back in 2017, lots of executives left BioWare. The studio was endemic with overwork, ruthless crunch, and had a severe morale problem. Ian Frazier kicked off the exodus in 2017, followed by general manager Aaryn Flynn in July, and then Dragon Age alum Mike Laidlaw in October. Laidlaw had been with BioWare for 14 years and helped shape pivotal RPGs like Mass Effect and Dragon Age.

After leaving BioWare, Laidlaw joined up with Ubisoft on a mysterious new game. The announcement was made in December 2018, but Laidlaw had been working as a creative consultant at Ubisoft Quebec for nine months before the reveal. It was clear Ubisoft was gearing up for something big, a unique new IP to help stand apart from established numerical franchises like Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, and Watch Dogs.

The commercialization of space is fantastic news for everyone, and with space travel being opened up, many companies are stepping forward with designs for new spacecraft.

One of the companies that have been in the race for quite some time is Boeing, but unfortunately, the company has proven somewhat disappointing with their Starliner program. Back in December, Boeing had to abort its unmanned test flight due to a glitch in the system that really threw things up into the air. NASA has since decided to do an independent analysis of the Starliner program and returned with numerous "recommendations" NASA wants to see before Starliner attempts another launch.

SpaceFlightNow is reporting that NASA is still skeptical, and even concerned about how Boeing is going to address these issues and if they will be able to conquer them fast and efficiently. Donald McErlean, a member of NASA's Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel, recently said, "However, despite this progress, which is definite and in fact measurable, the panel continues to be concerned about quality control problems that seemingly have plagued the Boeing commercial crew program."

One of my favorite headsets I have ever reviewed is Logitech's Pro X, and now the gaming brand of Logitech has announced and released a wireless variant.

According to a new press release found on the Logitech website, Logitech is debuting the Pro X Wireless, which is basically the exact same as the Pro X wired, but comes with a wireless dongle and Logitech's LIGHTSPEED wireless technology. The new headset incorporates everything that was great about the Pro X wired but adds the convenience of being wireless. Due to the designs being identical, the wireless version will no doubt come with all the issues that the wired version comes with.

So what does the Pro X wireless sport? According to the press release, the Pro X wireless sports the same 50mm drivers, Blue VO!CE support, DTS 7.1 surround sound, lightweight design, and comfortable memory foam padding. I'm yet to receive my review sample of the Pro X wireless, but that will no doubt be arriving in the mail within the coming weeks. You can expect a review on TweakTown in the weeks after I have received my sample, for the time being though, you can check out my review on the wired variant here.

CES 2021 was never going to be an in-person event (even though CTA said it would still happen) with COVID-19 wrecking havoc across the US and the world, with organizers Consumer Technology Association (CTA) announcing CES 2021 will be an all-digital event.

The CTA is obviously concerned over COVID-19 globally, and having people from every corner and country in the world descending on Las Vegas, USA. The all-digital CES 2021 will be very different from previous shows where everything will be online versus on the show floor and hotel suites in Vegas.

"The CTA said in their press release: "Technology has helped us all work, learn and connect during the coronavirus pandemic, and it has presented real solutions to help solve complex global challenges. We recognize that, particularly in these uncertain times, it is the partnerships of some of the most creative minds that bring the best solutions to life".

Hitman 3 is coming to PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and current-gen consoles in January 2021, and the PS5's new SSD was a big reason for the sequel's next-gen optimizations.

We've heard lots of developers praise the PlayStation 5's custom high-end 5.5GB/sec PCIe 4.0 SSD for its massive efficiency, data pipeline throughput and streaming capabilities. Coupled with the NVMe M.2 flash over PCIe 4.0 lanes, the 12-channel memory controller and hardware-based decompression block allows for high data flows (up to 8K textures) and incredible compressed data transfer rates of up to 20GB. The result is games loading faster that ever before with instantaneous open-world gaming as data rockets through the GDDR6 RAM, Zen 2 CPU, and 10.1 TFLOP Navi 2 GPU and then rendered on the screen.

This kind of performance will revolutionize console gaming, and early adopters like IO Interactive are eager to jump in. According to the developer, Hitman 3 was designed with the PlayStation 5's SSD in mind. Simply put, faster loading and data streaming means more access and play availability. IO loves this I/O potential and says it meshes perfectly with Hitman's overall goals: Wide experimentation in a sandbox.

Every part of the PlayStation 5 will take advantage of the console's new ultra-fast 5.5GB/sec PCIe 4.0 SSD, especially the UI and operating system.

Sony's next-gen PlayStation 5 will feature a new quick-launch feature that instantly launches a specific gameplay sequence, level, or event directly from the main menu. This functionality will be nestled into the PlayStation 5's new and improved Activities section. Think of it as a shortcut that quickly loads up a specific portion of a game, whether it be a specific race, a certain level (or boss fight), or maybe even a challenging platformer jump.

Developers can tailor-make instant-access events that will shave off minutes of waiting or redundant gaming to reach a certain part of the game.

Valve boss and PC gaming overlord Gabe Newell prefers the Xbox Series X over the PlayStation 5. Why? "Because it's better."

In a recent interview with New Zealand-based TV show The Project, Gabe Newell made some interesting comments on his recent life. It turns out Gabe Newell has been in Aotearoa, New Zealand since March.

Newell was actually on the show to promote a new festival he's throwing called We Love Aotearoa on August 15, which features a number of musical artists, VR demos, and will be free to everyone. It's Gabe's way of saying thank you to his local kiwis.

Although Obisdian's new RPG Avowed is shrouded in mystery, info on modding, next-gen worldbuilding, enemies, and overall scope has leaked out behind the scenes.

Just as the developer promised, Obsidian is making a huge new RPG. It's called Avowed, and it's a next-gen Xbox Series X console exclusive that's set in Eora, the mythical land of the studio's original Pillars of Eternity IP. The trailer also showed first-person Skyrim-esque exploration and combat. But that's really all that's been confirmed so far, and rightly so because the game is years away. Luckily some insiders are spilling the beans on what's next for Avowed.

According to ResetERA's Klobrille, who has inside knowledge of the goings-on of multiple studios and has rightly predicted parts of the recent Xbox stream, Avowed aims to wow gamers.

On the heels of Sony's accidental leak, Cuphead is indeed coming to PlayStation 4 today.

Cuphead, the hard-as-nails platformer/shoot-em-up that's tormented many a gamer's soul, is blasting onto PlayStation 4 today. The game is now up on the PlayStation Store for $19.99, and is compatible with Remote Play on the PS Vita or mobile phones complete with local co-op.

The news was announced in an endearing stop-motion video with clay figures befit of the old vintage 1930s era. The footage was created by the team at Stop Motion Department in Toronto and is complemented by a nice jazz track.