Latest News - Page 1598

We've been hearing rumors thick and fast about NVIDIA's next-gen GeForce RTX 30 series cards, which seems to be led by the flagship GeForce RTX 3090. I'm hoping this isn't the RTX 3090 Ti, and rather NVIDIA bring back the ULTRA nomenclature -- it would be great to see the GeForce RTX 3090 ULTRA.

Anyway, we have some new information to share from Igor -- with a breakdown of the TGP of the purported GeForce RTX 3090. Igor has worked out that the GeForce RTX 3090 (which I'll be calling it for now) should have a rather large 350W TDP (Total Graphics Power) that breaks down into 230W for the GA102 and 60W for the 24GB GDDR6X memory.

The breakdown is much more detailed:

Warner Bros. has delayed a bunch of their tent pole movies for this year, with Christopher Nolan's Tenet and The Matrix 4 both delayed -- and now Wonder Woman 1984, for the third time.

Wonder Woman 1984 along with Tenet and The Matrix 4, along with other big movies from competing movie studios, were delayed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Wonder Woman 1984 was already delayed from June 5 to August 14 over COVID-19, and now it has been delayed from August 14, to October 2, 2020.

Let's hope that Wonder Woman 1984 doesn't go through another delay, and I hope that we see absolutely beyond the best CGI effects ever. Normally these movies are rushing to get to the finish line and visual effects are the hardest to finish on time -- well, they've had months and months of time in post now, so we shouldn't get some of the cheap and nasty VFX that we saw in the original Wonder Woman (hopefully).

I think I've read everything I need to about COVID-19 coronavirus now, as a spiritual healer who helped people with coronavirus in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh has died of COVID-19.

The spiritual healer kissed peoples hands to cure them of coronavirus, has died of coronavirus. Vice.com reports that the "Baba" or "self-styled holy man was apparently a black magic healer from the Ratlam district". He cured people by kissing their hands.

Ratlam's District Magistrate Ruchika Chauhan told VICE on a phone call: "He got himself tested for coronavirus after he began having severe symptoms, and passed away immediately. From the contact tracing we have done so far, seven of his family members and thirteen followers have tested positive. We are investigating the transmission and trying to contain it".

Sony will release two PlayStation 5 consoles in 2020: a standard model that plays 4K UHD Blu-ray XL discs, and a digital-only disc-less model. This latter model could be up to $50 cheaper.

In an effort to reduce prices and give players more options, Sony will kick off its new PS5 generation with a digital-only version. The idea here is two-fold: the disc-less PS5 would be more attractive because it'd be cheaper (Sony will shave off the console's Blu-ray drive, which has been upgraded to support the 4K format BDXL discs that hold up to 100GGB), and Sony wants to lock people to its digital ecosystem where the real money is made.

So how much cheaper could the digital PS5 sell for? Possibly up to $50. Based on manufacturing estimates and historical market data, the PS5 could cost around $500 when it releases, possibly $550. This could put the digital-only PlayStation 5 in the $450-$500 range.

UPDATE: Play Asia's PS5 listing has been updated. Price has been removed, and you can no longer pre-order the console.

A $699 PS5 is very, very unlikely for many reasons, but the biggest one is the system's estimated manufacturing costs.

A new Play Asia pre-order listing prices the PS5 at $699. This is obviously a placeholder, and the console won't cost this much. It's simply too high of a price tag considering the console's estimated $450 manufacturing costs. Back in February 2020, production supply sources told Bloomberg's Takashi Mochizuki the PS5 would cost $450 to manufacture. The expensive GDDR6 RAM and PCIe 4.0 SSD flash memory make up $250 of that cost, or more than half. Given the margin of error and other costs, the PS5 is expected to sell at $500.

Christopher Nolan's mysterious new movie 'Tenet' had a release date of July 17, 2020 -- but thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, it has been delayed -- but thankfully, only by two weeks.

Warner Bros. delayed a bunch of their new tent pole movies in a huge delay spree, with the studio delaying Tenet, Wonder Woman 1984, and even The Matrix 4. Tenet was meant to open on July 17, 2020 which would've been the 10 year anniversary of Inception.

Instead, theaters will now re-release Inception in "honor" of its 10th anniversary. Recently, a new trailer for Tenet was debuted inside of Fortnite in the Party Royale space, which you can read more about here.

The Matrix 4 was originally meant to hit cinemas on the same day as John Wick 4 -- May 21, 2021, but thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic it has been pushed back by close to an entire year.

Warner Bros. have announced at The Matrix 4 will now be released on April 1, 2022 and I'm hoping it is not going to be the greatest April Fools Day joke ever told. We only just heard barely 48 hours ago that The Matrix 4 star Carrie-Anne Moss, who plays Trinity, talking about The Matrix 4 script with Empire magazine.

Moss said: "I never thought that it would happen. It was never on my radar at all. When it was brought to me in the way that it was brought to me, with incredible depth and all of the integrity and artistry that you could imagine, I was like, 'This is a gift.' It was just very exciting".

If you believed all the marketing and hype you'd think every single PlayStation 5 game was going to be blasting away at 4K 60FPS, 4K 120FPS, or 8K... yeah -- you might want to adjust your hype meters.

The good folks at Digital Foundry have done what they do best: deep dive on the resolution and operating frame rates of the games Sony showed off during its PlayStation event. Digital Foundry provides a kick ass, in-depth commentary on PS5 games including Spider-Man: Miles Morales, and Gran Turismo 7.

The team has a list of what they think the expected frame rates are for some of the games on the PS5. It seems as though there are many more games at 30FPS, which is ultra disappointing given all the hype around the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X consoles.

Capcom has just announced that the Resident Evil franchise is its first to sell over 100 million copies worldwide, with the original Resident Evil launching on the original PlayStation all the way back in 1996.

Interestingly, over 80% of the sales of Resident Evil games have been outside of Japan. This means over 80 million copies were sold overseas, and less than 20 million inside of Japan.

Thanks to the flex Capcom did with Resident Evil 7 and pushing it back in to its survival horror origins, but this time with a first-person perspective -- sprinkled with the awesome Resident Evil 2 and 3 remakes, and the franchise has never been stronger. Now that Resident Evil has topped 100 million sales globally, we're headed into Resident Evil 8: Village.

Sony might have unveiled a few small details about its next-gen PlayStation 5 console, but the most important thing is still a mystery: the price. One particular retailer is teasing a $699 launch price for the PlayStation 5.

A new listing on Play-Asia has been uploaded, listing Sony's new PlayStation 5 console for $699 -- this is $100 more than the PS3 launch price even with its smaller 60GB HDD at the time.

Personally, $699 isn't much for something that will offer 8K video support, 4K 60FPS and 4K 120FPS gaming, and capable of driving the next-gen exclusives that will be powered by the custom AMD chips inside of the PlayStation 5. $599 at the time for the PS3 was too rich for most gamers, as there weren't enough games at launch to jump into a new expensive console over the PlayStation 2 at the time.

Sony unveiled their next-gen PlayStation 5 design and a bunch of games today, and along with it developer IO Interactive unveiled Hitman 3 calling it the "most intimate and professional contract in his entire career". Check out the trailer:

IO Interactive senior community manager Travis Barbour explains: "As long-time Hitman fans will know, our games and locations are always built with unparalleled player choice and replayability in mind. Hitman 3 is no different. In fact, our next game encourages players to explore and interact with the game world in new ways that will reward them in future playthroughs".

He continued: "We want the game to be tactile and we want players to feel that their actions have an impact on what is going on around them and their future playthroughs".

Demon's Souls on the PlayStation 5 will include nifty enhancements like a big graphical upgrade, ray traced visuals, and a new frame rate priority mode.

The new Demon's Souls remake on PS5 will take cues from NiOh by offering two different performance modes: One that maximizes resolution, and another that delivers smooth FPS. Gamers will be able to adjust the setting on-the-fly, and we don't know exact resolution or frame rate targets, but we could see some dazzling new perf like native 4K 60FPS and maybe even 1080p 120FPS or 1440p 60FPS.

Sony also confirms Demon's Souls will use the PlayStation 5's hardware-based ray-tracing effects made possible by the Zen 2 CPU and Navi RDNA 2 GPU. There's mention of next-gen lighting effects thrown in too, complete the amazing global illumination, shadows, and incredible atmospheric effects shown in the trailer.

Move over, Sony. Make way, Microsoft. KFC is coming for your next-gen console audience.

Today KFC announced its own surprising jump into the console market. Introducing the KFConsole, an innovative new system that satisfies both your hunger for high-end enthusiast gaming and your actual hunger.

The real secret sauce to the KFConsole is its patented Chicken Bucket Chamber technology, which keeps your tasty drumsticks warm as you game. Instead of simply whisking away all the heat with a powerful cooling solution, the KFC Console makes good use of the 7nm SoC's toasty thermals to actually cook your food. The Chicken Bucket Chamber also acts as a combo space heater for those cold wintry nights.

Insomniac Games officially confirms the new Spider-Man Miles Morales game on PS5 isn't a sequel, but it's not a re-release either. It will be it's own standalone game, similar to Uncharted: Lost Legacy.

Yesterday's new Spider-Man PS5 announcement confused a lot of people. Was it a sequel? Is it coming to PS4? Sony's misleading words in a Telegraph interview didn't help. "I guess you could call it an expansion and an enhancement to the previous game," SIE Europe exec Simon Rutter said in the interview.

This led everyone to believe the new PS5 Spider-Man would include the base game enhanced on PS5, and Miles Morales' story would be a side expansion. That's not the case. Spider-Man Miles Morales is just a smaller-scale standalone experience that'll leverage the PlayStation 5's higher-end power.

AT&T wants to sell its WB Games division in a massive deal that could be worth $4 billion, sources tell CNBC.

AT&T's management may no longer be wiling to fund huge multi-million dollar games projects, and is trying to find a buyer for its massive Warner Bros. Games division. It's not that WB Games aren't profitable--Mortal Kombat 11 was the best-selling game in April 2019 in the US, and has been on the top 10 list. The WB Games sell off may happen due to a divestiture (when a company sells a subsidiary). A bit ago, Elliott Management laid a huge $2.3 billion stake in AT&T and called for the company to sell off non-vital assets like DirectTV. WB Games may also be seen as a non-vital asset.

Some gaming's biggest publishers want to buy WB Games. Activision-Blizzard, Take-Two Interactive, and EA are all interested in grabbing the division, and for good reason: WB Games has ownership of some of the biggest IPs in the industry. WB Games owns Batman (and all DC games for that matter), Harry Potter, including the lucrative Wizard's Unite mobile game, and of course Mortal Kombat, a titanic franchise that's stood the test of time.

G.Skill has announced the launch of new extreme-speed DDR4 memory kits that push 16GB and 8GB modules up to DDR4-4400 with low latency. Latencies for the memory are CL17-18-18-38 across-the-board under the Trident Z Royal family. G.Skill says that the memory modules are designed specifically for the latest Intel Z490 platform to achieve higher performance for gaming and content creation.

G.Skill says that as 32GB memory capacity becomes the standard for gaming and performance PC builds, it is rising to the challenge. The 32GB memory kit was stress-tested on an MSI MPG Z490 Gaming Plus motherboard using an Intel Core i5-10600K processor. The same memory was also tested on the ASRock Z490 Aqua motherboard using an Intel Core i9-10900K processor.

The high-speed, low-latency Trident Z Royal memory kits will be available via G.Skill worldwide distribution partners starting in Q3 2020. The memory modules are made using Samsung B-die ICs. The company has also announced some improved latencies for its 8GB x 2 DDR4-4400 kits.

EA today stealth dropped all of its modern Battlefield games on Steam, as well as Mass Effect and both Battlefront games.

EA is doubling down on catalog game sales, and they really want to maximize earnings on old games. Valve in return wants Apex Legends, so expect that to show up on Steam eventually as well. But for now we have some of the best shooters dropping on Steam, including four different Battlefield games, Battlefronts I & II, and a Mass Effect duo that allows Steam gamers to own the full ME series.

All of these games are on sale, too. Prices have been slashed in half because the real money is in monetization. All of these games have online-based microtransaction hooks and push live services.

Viper Gaming by Patriot has announced the addition of 32GB modules into its Viper Steel DDR4 UDIMM and SO-DIMM performance memory line. The frequencies available for the UDIMM modules are from 3000 MHz to 3600 MHz. SO-DIMM modules are available in 32GB, ranging from 2400 MHz to 3000 MHz.

All of the modules are built from rigorously tested memory chips and components placed on a 10-layer PCB for optimal performance inside gaming desktops and laptops. The Viper Steel memory provides extra gaming performance and stability for the most demanding desktop and laptop environments on both Intel and AMD platforms.

The memory modules support Intel XMP 2.0 performance. The kits are available as single or dual UDIMM. "The VIPER STEEL has been awarded by many PC hardware sites in 2019. The feedback from PC gaming communities around the world has demanded that we expand the VIPER STEEL to create larger 64GB memory kits," said Roger Shinmoto, the Vice President of VIPER GAMING by PATRIOT. "These new kits are not just for desktop gamers but apply to gaming laptop users and even mini-ITX builders as they benefit most from the 32GB modules."

UPDATE: EA has officially announced Star Wars: Squadrons, and a new trailer will go live on June 15 at 11AM EST.

The Microsoft Store just leaked the next Star Wars game, and it looks like a spiritual successor to the Rogue Squadron series.

According to the leak, the new game is called Star Wars: Squardons, and is likely closely related to the Project Maverick listings we saw a while back. This should be EA Motive's next game. Unlike Rogue Squardon, gamers will be able to play as either the Galactic Empire or the Rebellion in starship battles.

ASUS has announced that overclock or using its latest ROG Maximus XII Apex motherboard have been able to break a number of world records and land multiple first place scores. The first of the benchmark records that ASUS is bragging about involves the overclocking of an Intel Core i9-10900K processor up to 7.7 GHz on all 10 scores.

ASUS wrote, "Because of the ongoing global situation, ASUS was unable to host its traditional overclocking gathering this year, so instead a smaller session took place at the ASUS headquarters in Taiwan, with local overclockers Jon 'Elmore' Sandstrom and Pieter 'Massman' Plaisier working alongside internal ASUS experts. Using a liquid-helium setup, the group managed to shatter the Intel Core architecture frequency record, the single-core Geekbench 4 record, and took global first-place positions in 10-core categories for Geekbench 3, Cinebench R15, and wPrime 32M."

Another of the records set using the ASUS motherboard also used G.Skill memory to hit a new DDR4-memory-overclocking-frequency record of 6666 MHz. 3DMark records are also broken using a system running the ASUS motherboard, and a number of other benchmark records fell as well. The full list of benchmark records set using ASUS hardware can be seen in the chart below.