Latest News - Page 1586

Sony is making a bid to buy Chinese games company Leyou Technologies, who currently owns a majority stake in Warframe developer Digital Extremes.

Sony wants to acquire Leyou Technologies, an overseas holdings company with a number of high profile IPs and developers attached to it, sources tell Bloomberg. The buyout would arm Sony with a plethora of major free-to-play breadwinners like Warframe, as well as other projects like the upcoming Lord of the Rings MMO.

Leyou is currently valued at over $1 billion, but Sony has deep pockets when it comes to gaming investments. The Japanese games giant earned over $18 billion from PlayStation gaming in 2019. Leyou's arsenal of licensed and F2P games would contribute greatly to these earnings and give Sony a more established foothold in the Chinese and global markets.

2K Games is monetizing cross-gen access by charging $100 for something that EA and CD Projekt RED give away for free.

Today 2K Games formally announced NBA 2K21 and confirmed the game will be $69.99 on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X consoles. In a bid to test the limits of the new generation and kick off an industry-wide price hike, the publisher is pricing next-gen optimizations at a premium while also clearly delineating current- and next-gen SKUs of the game.

The publisher is also charging extra for cross-generation access. Gamers who want to play NBA 2K21 on both current-gen and next-gen consoles have two options: buy each game separately, or purchase the $100 Mamba Forever Edition, which gives you a copy of the game on both platforms.

Bethesda is teasing a new TV series based around its popular post-apocalyptic Fallout game series.

A Fallout TV show is officially happening. Today the official Fallout Twitter account put out a video teaser for the upcoming series, and confirmed Amazon Studios will be backing the project. The Fallout series is coming to Amazon Prime Video.

Independent film production company Kilter Films is leading the charge and producers Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy are attached. We don't know how many episodes will be made, and we don't exactly know when the series will go live.

UPDATE:Games industry analytics firm IDG Consulting says other publishers are likely to raise next-gen game prices to $69.99 to offset game development costs, which have risen by as much as 300%.

Next-gen PS5 and Xbox Series X titles will retail for $69.99, representing a sizable $10 or 17% price increase from current-gen.

NBA 2K21 is the first next-gen game to raise its price tag from $59.99 to $69.99, and other publishers are expected to follow suit. The PS5 and Xbox Series X versions of the game are currently available for pre-order on the 2K Store for $69.99 which would bring the total cost to roughly $74.88 for states with 7% tax. Conversely, games cost roughly $64.18 with the same tax.

We have been hearing an awful lot about NVIDIA's next-gen GeForce RTX 3000 series graphics cards, but now we have a juicy new leak: the ASUS GeForce RTX 3080 Ti ROG STRIX. Check it out:

Our friends at VideoCardz has the scoop, reporting that they think the picture is from an "internal meeting discussing new designs for the upcoming Ampere-based graphics cards from NVIDIA" by ASUS. You can see from the image that it has a definite sleek new style, and is a big departure from the current-gen Turing-based GeForce RTX 2080 Ti ROG STRIX.

This new leak does put a bucket of water on the hot rumors of NVIDIA changing up its nomenclature for the Ampere-based GeForce RTX 3000 series, with teases of the purported GeForce RTX 3090. If this new leak for the ASUS GeForce RTX 3080 Ti ROG STRIX is real, we might not see the RTX 3090 at all -- or if I have any influence in this world, the RTX 3090 ULTRA... please, NVIDIA?!

Vizio has just unveiled its new 2021 family of TVs, with a bunch of new 4K sets with HDR support, 120Hz refresh support, and the required HDMI 2.1 ports for it.

The new Vizio 4K TVs are perfect for the next-gen PS5 and Xbox Series X consoles, and even better for PC gamers as it supports 4K 120Hz. While next-gen consoles will offer 120FPS, you can't do that right now on the PC because there's no card with HDMI 2.1 that supports it.

We also have support for Dolby Vision, HDR10+, HDR10 and HLG. The P-Series Quantum X panels are the flagship LED TVs that Vizio has, with up to 800 nits of full-screen brightness and 792 local dimming zones. The HDMI 2.1 ports support things like VRR (Variable Refresh Rate), eARC, and 4K at the full 120Hz.

I didn't think I'd be writing this story today, but here we go. NASA developed a "space scent" over 10 years ago now, something that the US space agency gave to astronauts in training as a preview of the "unique odor" outside of our atmosphere.

But now, Eau de Space is making a very special cologne now that NASA has "declassified" the fragrance. The company said it took years of cutting through red tape and a "couple of Freedom of Information Act requests" to tweak the smell and have exclusivity rights to sell the scent of space.

But what does space smell like? International Space Station Science Officer Don Pettit explains that the smell of space comes through the airlock after astronauts finish their spacewalk, and stays on their suits and helmets.

We knew it was coming, but now it is official: Worms Rumble has just been announced by Team17 and is a radically new take on the classic franchise.

Worms Rumble handles 32 players in a new twist: it's all done in real-time, versus the old Worms games from the 90s. In the older Worms games (which I loved) it was a much slower-paced game where you would plan your next move... but Worms Rumble is just all-out chaos.

You can dodge, roll, and even wall jump in Worms Rumble... with a bunch of different game modes to play. This includes the regular Deathmatch skirmish, a battle royale style 'Last Worm Standing' mode as well as a Last Squad Standing variant of the battle royale mode for Worms Rumble.

Death Stranding's release on the PC is right around the corner, showcasing the Decima Engine by developers Guerrilla Games. It has some gorgeous graphics, that are improved yet again on the PC and even more so with NVIDIA's DLSS 2.0 technology.

But the most important question is: how does it run?

Well we now have some benchmarks to share for Death Stranding on the PC, where starting on the GeForce RTX 2060 we have a huge 110FPS average at 1080p with everything maxed out. The test systems are an Intel Core i9-9900K, 32GB of DDR4 RAM, Windows 10 64-bit and NVIDIA DLSS 2.0 "Quality Mode" set.

Cyberpunk 2077 is one of the best looking games of 2020 by far, and when it has all of its graphical bells and whistles enabled (thanks, NVIDIA) it truly looks out of this world.

Well, all of those pretty graphics are a DirectX 12 exclusive -- with PC gamers requiring Windows 10 for the most part, but will work with Windows 7 and its implementation of DX12. The reason? Marcin Gollent, Lead Graphics Programmer at CD PROJEKT RED says it's because of ray tracing.

During a recent interview with PC Games Hardware, Gollent said: "Thanks to the introduction of DX12 support for Windows 7 SP1 that Microsoft introduced last year, the game will run on this system. We do, and will continue to, test Cyberpunk 2077 on Windows 7 in an attempt to iron out any edge-cases that might arise. Unfortunately, Windows 8 didn't receive its variant of DX12 libraries".

Fujifilm has teased its storage drives of the future, saying that it has goals to build a gigantic 400TB cartridge using Strontium Ferrite (SrFe) technology.

The new storage tapes use Linear Tape-Open (LTO) technology, which is an open standard that was developed by IBM. The reason LTO was formed was to see that all tape-based storage devices were made using the same format, instead of their own proprietary magnetic formats -- a nice good guy move by IBM.

Here in 2020 we are at the LTO-8 version of this technology -- with LTO-8 released in 2017 and is capable of 12TB in a single cartridge. Well, LTO-9 will have support for 24TB while LTO-10 will have 48TB. Once we get to LTO-11 we're talking about 96TB, while LTO-12 delivers 192TB. But then the real fun begins with LTO-13 with 384TB, and then the grand daddy of them all: LTO-14 with an insane 768TB.

Sony's Dreams game is getting full and native PlayStation VR support, allowing gamers to create and play unique levels and designs.

Dreams is a transformative game that basically lets you make your own personal games and experiences with a potent and flexible level editor. Think of it like the GECK that's used to make Fallout mods. But Sony is kicking things up a notch by adding full VR support for the game, complete with VR-specific creation tools

"When it comes to Create Mode in VR, sculpting is truly unique, allowing you to bring your Dreams to life around you. If you have PlayStation Move Controllers, you'll find sculpting in VR is a very one-to-one experience and lets you fully immerse in the creation process."

Superstar indie game publisher and industry rebel Devolver Digital will bring their signature mayhem to Not-E3 in mid-July.

Today Devolver Digital announced their annual direct showcase for July 12, 2020 at 12PM PST/3PM EST, and promised quite a bit of ridiculous content. These events are basically the Adult Swim version of E3 and offer absolutely hilarious satirical jabs at the games market while also dropping fresh reveals in the process. There's nothing like a Devolver Digital show and this one could be their craziest ever given the pandemic landscape.

Devolver plans to show off new games (of course) and do lots of overpromising and misuse their marketing budget. We'll also get to try out digital demos of games like Carrion and Disc Room. The show will be livestreamed on Twitchand within the Steam launcher.

1990s icons Beavis and Butthead are coming back in a big way for a multi-season run including spin-offs and specials.

What's old is new again, and nothing underlines this more than Comedy Central's new Beavis and Butthead reboot. The ViacomCBS-owned company has ordered two seasons alongside a plethora of other content, and Mike Judge is returning to authentically revamp the idiotic duo for a whole new generation. Judge will write, produce, and of course lend his voice to eponymous high schoolers.

The show will bring Beavis and Butthead to the modern Gen Z world and put them in today's world of technology, which has grown tremendously since the 1990s.

The PS5's backwards compatibility will probably only include PS4 games, and shouldn't natively play PS1, PS2, or PS3 game discs.

Sony wants its next-gen PlayStation 5 to play thousands of PS4 games when it releases this holiday. The PS5's custom SoC, OS, and software architecture environment was built from the ground up with PS4 backward compatibility in mind. That doesn't include PS1, PS2 or PS3 games, though. At least that's what's Sony is hinting.

While Sony strongly indicates the PS5 will only be backwards compatible with PS4 games, the company isn't yet ready to disconfirm speculations. In a recent interview with GameSpark, a Sony rep says PS4 game support is currently the top focus:

Tencent is mostly known for its billion-dollar monetization and buying out devs, but now it wants to make a big splash in the AAA games market.

Tencent today announced Lightspeed Studio, a new development team that'll make big-budget AAA games for next-gen PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X consoles. Lightspeed Studio is headquartered in the U.S. game dev mecca of Los Angeles and is helmed by ex-Rockstar Games San Diego director Steve Martin. Lightspeed has also courted seasoned devs from studios like Respawn, Insomniac, and 2K Games.

Reports say Lightspeed's first game will be a sizable open-world AAA title that's optimized specifically for next-gen hardware, so expect larger-than-life content. Tencent surely has deep enough pockets to make their debut first-party AAA game a dazzling and unforgettable experience. The company made over $16 billion last year from games alone, but most of that is from heavily monetized free-to-play games.

Crytek pulled a really dog move today, with the developer pulling the Crysis Remastered gameplay reveal literally in the last hour -- and then announcing it had delayed the entire game and its launch, too. The leaked images seem to be getting at least some of the blame, you can see those crappy screenshots of Crysis Remastered here.

The above tweet is from the official Crysis Twitter account, which reads: "As you know, Crysis Remastered will be coming into the world this year -- and at the same time the Crysis IP will debut on Nintendo Switch!" It sounds so upbeat, ending that first sentence with an exclamation mark, but it's all disappointment and sadness from here on in.

Crytek continues: "Your passion for the Crysis franchise deserves an undeniably high-quality game, and we are ccommitted to delivering just that. To ensure that we meet that commitment, we will need to delay the launch date (all platforms) and trailer premiere by a few weeks. Because they already started, pre-orders for Switch will stay open, but pre-orders for all other platforms will be delayed as well".

A new announcement from NASA has revealed that the launch for the Mars 2020 rover has been delayed due to a problem with the oxygen sensor line.

If you were planning on watching the launch of the new Mars rover called Perseverance, you will, unfortunately, have to wait a little bit longer. NASA and United Launch Alliance have delayed the blast-off date, due to what has been called "processing delays in preparation for spacecraft mate operations". More specifically, a liquid oxygen sensor line produced "off-nominal data" throughout a practice testing session. The team behind the launch has said that they will need more time to evaluate what happened.

The announcement was made on the official NASA blogs website, which you can check out here. NASA has now said that the new launch window to "no earlier than July 30th." The NASA website also says that the teams have expanded the mission launch opportunities to August 15th, and are further evaluation is needed to see if the launch period needs to be extended later into August.

EA and Crytek are just hours away from unveiling Crysis Remastered in all its glory, but new leaked screenshots aren't really doing the game any favors.

The screenshots are from the Microsoft Store, so maybe they're for the Xbox One version of the game. It actually doesn't look good at all, and has that 'console gloss' as I like to call it, sprayed all over it. I'm expecting a much bigger graphical upgrade from the PC version of Crysis Remastered over the original Crysis.

But just check out these screenshots, they have to be from the Xbox version of the game.

Evidence has been found that there is a new strain of swine flu kicking around in China, and according to health officials, it has the potential of setting off an influenza pandemic.

A paper was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and describes that a team of researchers affiliated with a host of institutions in China and one in the U.S. have managed to find substantial evidence of a new strain of swine flu. Researchers are worried that this new strain of swine flu could set off another influenza pandemic like the one we saw back in 2009. At the moment, the new strain of swine flu called G4 EA H1N1 hasn't shown the ability to jump from human to human, which is clearly a necessity for the virus to become global.

Researchers are currently rapidly testing domestic swine for viruses with the hope of catching the virus before it makes a jump to humans. The researchers also found that the new G4 strain of the virus contains DNA from 2009's H1N1 strain (swine flu). Researchers have located two people who have active infections of the new strain of swine flu, and evidence has suggested that these people have already developed some level of antibodies. The team of researchers believe this discovery is enough to warrant strict precautionary measures, and very close monitoring of the virus.