Latest News - Page 1598

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.

Square Enix president Yousuke Matsuda makes bold claims about the PlayStation 5's capabilities, and promises big things for the publisher's next-gen Project Athia game.

According to Square Enix's president, the PlayStation 5 can deliver visuals and graphics that are similar to today's PC tech. Well, not really similar, but nearly identical. Matsuda says the PS5 is capable of delivering ray-traced lighting effects that're essentially the same as those found in PC games.

In a recent interview with Toyo Keizai Plus, company president Yousuke Matsuda says the PlayStation 5 has the best console technology and discusses how his team is using the tech to build Project Athia, the publisher's only announced PS5 game.

If you didn't know who Tricare was before this article, they are the insurance company that handles the US military and its health care systems.

Tricare recently sent out an email to over 600,000 beneficiaries informing them that they had tested positive to coronavirus, requesting blood plasma donations from these 600,000 survivors of COVID-19. Military.com reported about the email, saying that it went out to 600,000 members of the US military across 31 US states in Tricare's East Region.

At the time of writing, roughly 31,000 people throughout the Department of Defense -- this includes service members, family members, civilian employees and contractors, have been tested positive for COVID-19. So another 600,000 would be over 20 times that number, and is a gigantic mistake on Tricare's behalf.

It's common practice to send telescopes to space via rockets, but maybe that won't be the future of space travel, or at least when it comes to putting new telescopes in Earth's orbit.

NASA is trying out something a little different this time around, as the space agency has come up with a new plan for getting its new ASTHROS observatory in Earth's orbit. Firstly, 'ASTHROS' stands for Astrophysics Stratospheric Telescope for High Spectral Resolution Observations at Submillimeter wavelengths, and this new telescope is equipped with some of the best bleeding-edge technology for observing the vastness of space.

So, how is NASA going to get the new telescope out into Earth's orbit if they aren't using a rocket? Well, that can be simply answered, the space agency will be using a very, very, very large balloon. The balloon measures in at about 400 feet wide, which is roughly the size of a standard football stadium. The strategy is that the balloon will carry the new observatory to an altitude of nearly 25 miles (130,000 feet), which as NASA describes, is right where it needs to be to "observe light wavelengths blocked by Earth's atmosphere."

Intel has been in trouble for a few years now, but barely 72 hours after the company announced it was delaying its 7nm processors until the end of 2021 at the earliest and more like 2022 or even 2023 -- Intel has announced chief engineering officer Dr. Venkata (Murthy) Renduchintala is leaving.

Murthy will be leaving Intel on August 3, and has until now been in charge of most of Intel's hardware business. After year of issues with 10nm processors, the recent next-gen 7nm chips being pushed back even further, the perfect storm for Intel is happening right now.

AMD has been stomping all over Intel in more ways than one over the last few years, so this announcement is starting to show us something much bigger is happening at Intel. We might see a 3-5 year period where AMD comes in and just gobbles up a bunch of market share, while Intel bleeds out for a while until it can get back on its feet after so many fires burning within Team Blue's walls.

In the middle of all of the next generation console hype between the soon-to-be-launched PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X consoles, Blizzard has come out and confirmed that even with next-gen consoles coming, World of Warcraft is still not coming to consoles.

There have been rumors for a while and then new data miners found controller support inside of the code for World of Warcraft's new Shadowlands expansion. This led to rumors that World of Warcraft was coming to consoles, but it's just to help people with limited mobility play the game.

A Blizzard representative told Polygon: "We currently have no plans to bring World of Warcraft or Shadowlands to Xbox Series X. The platform was listed on the Brazil Ministry of Justice rating website in error, and the entry has since been updated to reflect that the game is coming only to PC".

Bugatti has just released something I'm sure you didn't expect: the Baby II, which is a 75% scale electric replica of its Type 35 car. Check out the video:

The company will have a 1.3HP Novice mode and 1.4kWh battery, which should provide enough juice to let children or an adult to drive around in for a while. There are higher-end versions of the Baby II if you have more money, want more status, or just don't care.

Bugatti's base version of the car is made with a composite body, while the Vitesse models receive a nicer carbon fiber battery and 2.8kWh battery upgrade -- as well as a special "Speed Key" liek the higher-end Chiron. There's also the Pur Sang edition which has been crafted for collectors.

We are expecting Activision to have a gigantic announcement for its new Call of Duty 2020 game, which we've reported on before that would eventually turn into Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War.

A fresh post on Twitter teasing that Dorito's is releasing out some promotional chips with Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, which hasn't been announced yet. There's no details on COD: Black Ops Cold War (COD:BOCW, I guess?) other than Dorito's seemingly confirming the unannounced game.

TheGamingRevolution tweeted: "These are the two Doritos Double XP promotional images that I was DM'd earlier from an anonymous source for Call of Duty 2020 Black Ops Cold War. I was too worried about copyright issues to post them earlier but since CharlieIntel shared them I (assume?) they're safe".

NVIDIA has just released a new hotfix driver, something that fixes some of the issues that were found in the recent GeForce 451.67 WHQL Game Ready drivers.

The new GeForce 451.85 drivers solve some problems in Hideo Kojima's masterpiece Death Stranding, something that I checked out in 8K with DLSS 2.0 on with some mind-blowing results.

Not just that, but the new hotfix drivers provide stability to Shadow of the Tomb Raider when you're running it in DX12 with hardware-accelerated GPU scheduled enabled. Death Stranding gets some texure corruption problems fixed on GeForce RTX 20 series and GeForce GTX 16 series graphics cards.

ASUS unleashed its new ROG Phone 3 gaming phone a few days ago, but before it's even in the hands of gamers across the world, an exciting hidden super-high-end 160Hz refresh option has been discovered.

The hidden 160Hz screen option can be used by anyone that purchases an ASUS ROG Phone 3 gaming phone, where you can activate it with a single ADB command. The 160Hz screen option was discovered by XDA when searching through the settings app.

A debug command was found that enabled 160Hz refresh, with the 'adb shell setprop debug.vendor.asus.fps.eng 1' command. Once this is entered, there's a new 160Hz refresh option in the Settings > Display > Refresh Rate.

The Medium is coming from Microsoft and developer Bloober Team, where we've found out some more information on the game as well as the first gameplay footage in a recently released Dual-Reality gameplay trailer. Check it out:

What we found out from this video is that developer Bloober Team said that The Medium runs at 4K 30FPS on the Xbox Series X, which is strange considering it was just earlier this month the developer said Microsoft's new Xbox Series X console had so much raw power it made them feel like mad scientists that could go "a little crazy".

Except... The Medium on that Xbox Series X that lets them go "crazy" runs at 4K 30FPS. Not 4K 60FPS which would be going a "little crazy" and would truly show the raw power inside of the Xbox Series X. 4K 30FPS is what we have with current-gen consoles, and even on mid-range graphics cards in a gaming PC.

New leaked PlayStation 5 photos show what appears to be replacable shell covers, strongly hinting the console will let consumers swap out and customize their consoles.

Despite Sony's extreme secrecy and rigorous controls, someone took a few snaps of a PlayStation 5's case from an overseas assembly line. The pictures showed up on Chinese social forum A9VG and don't show any interesting bits like the SSD, SoC, or motherboard. But there might be more evidence the PS5's shell plates can be popped off and replaced with custom ones with improved designs.

The pictures show more detail on the console's plastic side-plates, which appear to be held in by a series of fin-like hooks. They look a lot easier to remove than the PS4, for example, and this could be by design.

The PS5 is expected to sell 120 million consoles across its first five-year period, eclipsing the PS4's current sales by nearly 10 million units.

Sony has lofty ambitions for its next-gen PlayStation 5. The console is expected to sell 120 million units in 5 years' time, which beats the PlayStation 4's staggering 110.4 million sell-in figure by nearly 10 million. For perspective, it took the PS4 nearly 7 years to accrue these numbers.

Sources close to the PS5's manufacturing plans tell DigiTimes that PS5 sales estimates sit between 120 million - 170 million from now until 2025, which is monumental to say the least.

Ghost of Tsushima is the pre-eminent new PlayStation IP that's amassed tremendous sales and acclaim with its visuals and combat, and now the daring swordplay is getting fine-tuned even more.

Photo Credit: Ira Owens

Sucker Punch is rolling out a new Ghost of Tsushima update that will relent on gamers who want a break, and pour ruthless chaos down on those who want a challenge. The new Patch 1.05 update will add two different modes: The ultra-tough Lethal difficulty amps enemy damage, alertness, and aggression up to 11, aiming to test your mettle and finesse in battle with faster reaction times.

A new dynamic lighting system is to blame for Halo: Infinite's controversial graphics, but the fix may not come until sometime after the game launches in November.

Halo: Infinite was supposed to be the Xbox Series X's golden ticket to sales. The recent gameplay demo was hyped to no end, and everyone expected a next-gen spectacle. What viewers got instead was something that looked like a current-gen game, complete with unfinished-looking textures bereft of high-end detail. The reality is that the textures are indeed finished and rather high quality, but they were hidden in shadow and we couldn't really see them.

Infinite's dynamic lighting system, a new global illumination system built into the game's specially-designed Slipspace Engine, is the culprit. Dynamic lighting is great for reducing iteration time and reflecting/absorbing light in real-time, but it also creates environments where shadows can obscure models. That's what happened in the trailer, and why everything looked so wonky.