Latest News - Page 1585

Gaming titans Sony and Microsoft are temporarily suspending advertising on the world's biggest social media platform to protest misinformation and hate speech.

Facebook isn't just a social media platform. It's a giant megaphone that broadcasts millions of messages a day, and many more advertisements that affect buying habits of consumers. It's also so powerful it can sway the United States' presidential elections with informative--or mis-informative--ads and posts. Facebook is also a breeding grounds for hate speech.

In a bid to hold the platform accountable and force change, major companies are pulling their advertisements from Facebook. As part of the new #StopHateForProfit campaign, brands like Sony, Microsoft, Coca-Cola, Unilever, LEGO, Starbucks, Verizon, Hershey, Honda, KIND, and Target have all stopped advertising on the platform.The idea is to hit Facebook where it hurts most: its wallet.

Due to tremendous demand, Mortal Shell's beta test is now completely open to the public on the Epic Store.

Dark fantasy action RPG Mortal Shell has a limited beta test on the Epic Store that anybody with the launcher can access and play. The game aims to recreate the macabre mythos of the Dark Souls series with its own in-depth lore, brutal and unforgiving combat, and unique RPG mechanics and systems.

The main draw of Mortal Shell is the combat, which is based around skill-based dodge-and-slash timing right out of Dark Souls, but also incorporates the unique shell feature. The characters/classes are just shells, kind of like empty suits of armor, which are inhabited by your spirit. Once you die you have an opportunity to retrieve your shell and get back into your body.

Sony's Japan-based manufacturing facility will be a tremendous asset when it starts producing next-gen PS5 consoles alongside the current PS4 lineup.

A recent report from Nikkei Asian Review shines a light on one of Sony's little-known home field advantages: an ultra-efficient assembly line that can belt out two PlayStation 4 consoles every minute. The Kisarazu-based plant is wholly-owned by Sony, and owes its speedy productivity to a team of 32 specialized Mitsubishi robots who run a 100-foot assembly line. The plant has helped produce all generations of PlayStation hardware since the PS1 shipped in 1994.

The facility is almost completely automated, and apparently there's only four people on the line at any given time. Robots do most of the assembly, including twisting wires and threading them through small recesses, while the workers simply feed the unfinished consoles onto the belts and then package the finished products.

If you love Focus Home Interactive's smaller AA RPGs like Greedfall, then you're in luck: Spiders' next big game will be announced soon.

Spiders, the team behind the excellent BioWare-esque fantasy RPG Greedfall, The Technomancer, and Bound By Flame, will reveal their next RPG at Nacon's new live stream show on July 7, 2020 at 7PM CEST/1PM EST. We don't have any concrete info on the game but we did get a glimpse from the recent Nacon Connect teaser footage, and surprise, it looks like a fantasy role-playing game.

Remember that Nacon (formerly known as BigBen Interactive) fully owns Spiders studios, so their next game will be a frontline marquee reveal for the upcoming event. Nacon Connect also includes a ton of racing and sports games and the new Werewolf: The Apocalypse game.

The Super Nintendo World theme park is making tremendous progress,and literally looks like a real-life Mario game.

Universal Japan's Super Nintendo World theme park looks unbelievably good. A new bit of recorded amateur footage from Theme Park Shark shows just how much detail is being packed into the attraction. The entire setup is extremely authentic and looks like something right out of the Super Mario World 3D Wii U era, complete with spinning coins, koopas, piranha plants, goombas, power-up blocks--the works.

The layout isn't just simulating a game level, though: It's an actual video game environment. Super Nintendo World will have interactive snap-on wristbands that link up to a Switch game. Attendees can unlock rewards and other content as they play real-life mini-games at the park.

Corsair and Ubisoft let you create your own video game lightshow that'd make Daft Punk proud.

Corsair's RGB iCUE dynamic lighting software just got an update to support Ubisoft's new Hyper Scape battle royale game. With the latest software version, gamers can sync up their iCUE RGB devices with Hyper Scape to create some scintillating radiance that matches gameplay in real-time. The result is an immersive and chaotic experience that just adds to the thrill.

Hyper Scape is already pretty stylish and colorful so the iCUE integration is definitely welcome. The free-to-play battle royale hasn't released yet, but Ubisoft is holding technical beta tests and you can get in by watching an approve Twitch stream (check Dr. Lupo for a quick invite).

UPDATE: According to a new Walmart listing, the Atari VCS is set to launch on November 27, 2020.

After many delays, redesigns, and interruptions from COVID-19, Atari's PC-console hybrid finally has a Fall 2020 shipping date.

The new Atari VCS PC-console hybrid is set to start shipping to Indiegogo backers this Fall, the company said in a recent press release. The news comes alongside an announcement of Missile Command: Recharged, the latest remaster-style re-release of an old-school classic on the VCS system. The fleet of newly redesigned classics serve as the major draw to the VCS insofar as software, but it's the system's unique Linux-based design that stands out.

Julian Bass caught the attention of not just the world with his slick VFX reel on Twitter, but he caught the all-seeing-eye of ex-Disney CEO and fresh TikTok CEO Bob Iger. Check out his work:

Bass is a 20-year-old Georgia State University theater major, who now has over 1 million likes on his shared, self-produced video. He morphs into 3 of his favorite characters from some gigantic franchises: Star Wars, Ben 10, and Spider-Man.

All it took for Bass to go viral overnight were the following words: "If y'all can retweet enough times that Disney calls, that'd be greatly appreciated".

HyperX has teamed with Champion on a brand new line up of gamer-focused clothes, which wouldn't be something headline worthy if it weren't for the RGB goodness.

Yeah, we've reached peak RGB with a new limited edition collaboration between HyperX and Champion, where they've revealed the first reflective clothing launch that will be sold in 100 countries. We have unisex sizes that range between S through to XXL while the slides for men range between S through to XL.

This isn't the first time the companies have collaborated on gaming clothes, with their first gamer-wear reportedly a "runaway success". The new tweak on the clothes adds some RGB goodness, with HyperX Strategic Alliances Manager, Jessany Van't Hoff explaining: "This concept pairs especially well with the Cloud Alpha S headset and HyperX RGB peripherals while maintaining a tasteful and timeless style that is synonymous with Champion Athleticwear's aesthetic".

Horizon Zero Dawn Complete Edition is launching on Steam and the Epic Games Store on August 7, 2020, complete with PC-specific features not available on PS4.

This August, Sony is officially breaking PS4 exclusivity with its debut first-party PC port. Guerrilla Games' excellent sci-fi action RPG will look and play better on PC than it ever did on PS4 thanks to platform-specific optimizations like uncapped FPS, 4K resolution textures, 21:9 support, FoV sliders, and even an HDR toggle. The result culminates in one of the best-looking games Sony has released to date...and it's a PC re-release of a 2017 game.

Gamers can also play with a controller and Guerrilla has baked in full button remapping on both M&KB and controller options. There's also a built-in benchmarking tool that will automatically set in-game performance based on your rig's hardware capabilities.

Bloober Team says the Xbox Series X's raw CPU and GPU power lets them get "a little crazy" while developing The Medium.

The Medium, the new Beksinski-esque horror game from Layers of Fear dev Bloober Team, was built from the ground up to utilize the Xbox Series X's high-end power. The Medium will be a next-gen spectacle that pushes new features like ray traced visuals and audio, ultra-fast loading times for completely seamless transitions, high-end resolutions, tight frame rates, and new atmospheric effects that redefine the genre.

The Xbox Series X's revolutionary PCIe 4.0 SSD will dramatically boost every game played on the system, but cinematic games will benefit even more thanks to interruption-free gaming.

Cyberpunk 2077's wall-running feature has been nuked from the final game. Why? It was a design decision and the mechanic just didn't fit the overall gameplay flow.

First-person wall-running is weird and doesn't always fit. Case in point: Wall-running in Mirror's Edge felt disorienting and was a big reason why I didn't continue playing the game. Now it looks like CD Projekt RED feels the same because they've removed that specific parkour maneuver from Cyberpunk 2077.

"Ah, the wall running! That is something that we removed due to design reasons, but there's still going to be a lot of flexibility in how you move, that's for sure," level designer Max Pears told GameReactor.

Cyberpunk 2077 is looking better with each day that passes, with two new screenshots being revealed in a recent exclusive by GameStar. Here's the first one:

We have a gorgeous shot of the Arasaka building and its logo, with a slick futuristic car and probably the best puddles we've ever seen in a game. The second new screenshot of Cyberpunk 2077 is a battle against multiple enemies.

In this screenshot we see a revolver being used for some old school feels in a fictional future world, with some beautiful fire effects and reflections on display.

SK Hynix has just announced it has begun mass production of HBM2E memory, which boasts higher transfer speeds of 3.6Gbps/pin, and can handle capacities of up to 16GB per stack.

HBM2E is an upgrade over HBM2, with twice the capacities over its predecessor we're looking at 8-Hi, 16GB stacks. The new HBM2E memory standard can be clocked at up to 3.6Gbps/pin, which is faster than the 3.2Gbps/pin that the official HBM2E spec has at its maximum.

What does this mean? Companies can use HBM2E memory controllers that handle the higher 3.6Gbps/pin speeds, which is out of spec -- a nice 'free' upgrade. A single 1024-pin stack provides 460GB/sec, while a 2048-pin stack provides 960GB/sec, a 6-stack configuration would offer a simply mind blowing 2.76TB/sec of memory bandwidth.

If you want 5.1GHz all-day long on the Intel Core i9-10900K, then Silicon Lottery has your back -- with its pre-binned chips coming back into supply and offering some breakneck speeds.

Silicon Lottery is offering 3 different pre-binned Intel Core i9-10900K processors, each with a different (but guaranteed) boost frequency. The first of which is the Core i9-10900K at $590, which will give you a pre-binned 10-core CPU at 4.9GHz for all cores, 5.0GHz for 6 cores, and 5.1GHz for 3 cores. This is over the stock 4.8GHz boost out of the box and a short lived 4.9GHz "Thermal Velocity Boost".

The second Core i9-10900K that Silicon Lottery is $90 more at $680, offering guaranteed 5.0GHz all-day long on all 10 cores, while 6 cores reach 5.1GHz, and 3 cores hit 5.2GHz. Voltage is stuck at 1.350V on this offering, with PL1/PL2 states set to a (rather high) 230W.

Fortnite is celebrating July 4 in style this year, with developer Epic Games adding Captain America to the game as a comic-themed skin for you to buy.

Captain America will cost gamers 2000 V-bucks, which equates to $20 in the real-world. For $20 you're going to get the slick Captain America skin, his iconic shield -- which by the way isn't just cosmetic, you wear it on your back in the game and use it as a pickaxe -- awesome!

Not only that, but there's a cool Captain America-themed fireworks emote for sale... perfect if you wanted to celebrate July 4 with a bang this weekend. If you want to celebrate Independence Day with a bang, that'll cost you 300 V-bucks on top of the 2000 V-bucks for the Captain America skin.

In the last 24 hours we've had our first look at the purported GeForce RTX 3080 Ti in the form of the custom ASUS GeForce RTX 3080 Ti ROG STRIX graphics card... and now we're hearing Ampere GeForce GPUs will be made on Samsung's 8nm node and not the 7nm node by TSMC.

It's an interesting rumor, coming from kopite7kimi on Twitter who has been pretty solid before, who claims NVIDIA will tap the 8LPP silicon fabrication node by South Korean giant Samsung, or Taiwanese giant TSMC. Samsung's new 8LPP node is an extension of Samsung's 10LPP (10nm) node.

Both of them have the same fin pitch, but improvements have been made with gate pitch (6% lower) that results in a transistor density of over 61 million/mm².

TeamGroup has just the latest member of its storage family, with the introduction of the T-FORCE CARDEA Ceramic C440 M.2 PCIe 4.0 SSD.

What do we have here? The CARDEA Ceramic C440 SSD is powered by the NVMe 1.3 specification and PCIe 4.0 x4 interface, driving crazy speeds of up to 5000MB/sec (5GB/sec) reads and up to 4400MB/sec (4.4GB/sec) writes. TeamGroup has gone with a unique style here with its CARDEA Ceramic C440 SSD, featuring gold lettering and a white ceramic background. It'll probably be covered by a heat sink unfortunately, but it looks nice on its own.

The company is using 3D NAND on the CARDEA Ceramic C440 SSD, which is why we're able to have it in the higher-end 2TB capacity. TeamGroup says it's using "aerospace ceramic material" which means the drive has better heat dissipation.

One of TV's most fearsome villains could show up in one of gaming's most popular franchises.

In a recent interview with Collider, Giancarlo Esposito, who played Gustavo Fring in Breaking Bad, said he's working on a big new video game project.

"It's been my year, so to speak. It started with The Mandalorian, and then a video game I did which is going to be huge, that I can't really mention," Esposito said in the interview (around the 11:06 mark).

Ubisoft's new free-to-play sci-fi battle royale shooter Hyper Scape could help revolutionize engagement by marrying streaming and viewers in a brand new way.

Hyper Scape isn't just an average battle royale game. Not only is it fast-paced, stylish, and quite fluid, it has the makings of an extremely powerful driver for long-term engagement (and, by extension, monetization). Ubisoft isexperimenting with features that could shake up the games industry as we know it, especially for big-name companies that focus strongly on live games.

The real secret sauce to Hyper Scape is the game's Twitch integration features. Viewers can see real-time data on streamers as they play, including loadouts and game stats, giving them instant info on-the-fly. With these tools, users can more easily emulate their favorite streamers' plays and strategies to become more skilled at the game, which will keep them playing for longer periods of time.