Latest News - Page 1605

Yoshi-P isn't directing Final Fantasy 16, and is really busy with expanding Square Enix's big Final Fantasy 14 MMORPG with new updates.

Back in 2019, Square Enix posted up a recruitment page for a new project led by Naoki Yoshida, aka Yoshi-P. Everyone thought this meant the beloved director who saved Final Fantasy 14 was moving on to the next singleplayer-driven mainline game and leaving the MMO behind. This isn't true at all. Yoshi P remains committed to Final Fantasy 14 for many years to come, and expresses exasperation with the "fake news".

"Ah, looks like some kind of big fake news came out. I'll say it clearly - it's annoying," Yoshida wrote in a YouTube live stream text response.

We imagine most computer enthusiasts know about woot.com and the deals the website has at times on very nice hardware at huge discounts. The latest discounted product is a mid-2019 Apple MacBook Pro with Touch Bar. The machine is a 15.4-inch notebook with a 220ppi Retina Display and an Intel Core processor under the hood.

As of writing, the notebooks are significantly discounted at $1579.99 to $1849.99, depending on the processor and storage chosen. To be clear, all of these machines are listed as refurbished. While there's nothing wrong with them, some of these machines might not look like new. There is no mention of scratches or blemishes in the woot listing.

As of writing, there are three models available to purchase for the next 19 hours, or until the machines sellout. There are two silver options, with one featuring 256GB of SSD storage and an Intel Core i7-9750H processor. The other silver version has a 512GB SSD for storage and an Intel Core i9-9880H processor under the hood.

According to Digital Foundry, the Switch port of The Outer Worlds is quite a blurry, pixellated port that can drop as low as 384p in handheld mode. And it even pauses the game to load assets as you play.

You may want to hold off on buying The Outer Worlds on Switch. The devs at Virtuous had to significantly cut corners to even get the game running on the lower-end Tegra SoC, leading to massively reduced in-game resolution and visuals. Wide expanses are extremely blurry thanks to TAA implementation and the game's larger landscapes, all of which are marred by the lower resolution. The planets and environments are some of the most majestic parts of The Outer Worlds...and on Switch, they look pretty bad.

The biggest issue with the port is the game will literally pause itself to load assets, similar to watching YouTube on a slow connection. The game is literally buffering textures and data and pops up a little wheel just like on YouTube.

Biostar has announced the launch of a new motherboard that is explicitly designed to run the latest and future AMD Ryzen processors. The board is called the Biostar Racing B450GT, and it's a Micro-ATX form factor motherboard. The manufacturer says that it's ideal for gaming or HTPC builds where a smaller footprint is desired along with the ability to use up to a 16-core AMD Ryzen 3000 series processor.

The motherboard uses the signature Racing style along with the premium build and features the line of motherboards is known for. Features include LED Rock RGB Lighting System with Support for Both 5V ARGB LED and 12V RGB LED. The lighting can be controlled by the VIVID LED DJ software.

The Biostar Racing B450GT is based on the AMD B450 single chip architecture and can support up to 128GB of DDR4 memory over 4 DIMMs. The board also supports overclocking with speeds adjusted using a new BIOS interface that has a new EZ Mode. Other features include PCIe M.2 able to deliver stable 32 Gb/s bandwidth under lower latency and faster than SATA III 6 Gb/s hardware.

Two years after buying the IP, THQ Nordic plans to re-release Kingdoms of Amalur: The Reckoning as a beefed up remaster for current-gen platforms.

A Microsoft Store listing just outed Kingdoms of Amalur: The Re-Reckoning, a complete GOTY-style remaster of the beloved Xbox 360 classic. The game is slated for release in August, and is being developed by German studio Kaiko. The re-release includes higher-end visuals and effects befit of the PS4 and Xbox One, and comes packed with all previously released DLC.

THQ Nordic has yet to announce the game, but the company did confirm it currently has 52 unannounced titles in development across its massive continent-spanning teams.

Intel has announced that it is discontinuing its eighth-generation Coffee Lake CPU lineup. That includes the discontinuation of the flagship Core i7-8700K processor. In all, Intel has dropped the ax on 31 desktop parts and a trio of mobile CPUs.

Intel's eighth-generation parts launched in 2017 and are falling by the wayside as the 10th generation Comet Lake processor family has debuted. When Intel launched its eighth-generation line, the processors were its response to the AMD Ryzen processors.

Intel hadn't been particularly innovative with its processor line until AMD launched the Ryzen parts. The Core i7-8700K processor had six cores and 12 threads marking the first major core increase in nearly a decade. The discontinuation program for the eighth generation line started on June 1.

EPOS audio will be bringing its state-of-the-art audio to the Ocean Pro League in a newly announced partnership.

According to a new press release sent out, EPOS Audio and Riot Games have shaken hands in a new partnership agreement that will bring high-end audio solutions from EPOS Audio to the Ocean Pro League. The Oceanic Pro League is the leading eSports league in the region, and EPOS Audio will be powering all the participating pro-gamers with its state-of-the-art audio.

Maja Frolunde Sand-Grimnitz, the Head of Global Marketing, Gaming for EPOS, commented on the newly signed partnership, saying "EPOS strive to unleash human potential and give gaming another dimension through powerful audio solutions and we are very excited to be working with Riot Games. As a business, we bring 115 years of audio expertise to the OPL partnership, and we want to enhance the league by delivering our state-of-the-art audio equipment to ensure a high-end audio experience for all involved."

Now that some of the super-awesome custom Cyberpunk 2077 Xbox One X consoles are in the hands of some very lucky gamers, we're seeing real-world photos of the custom-made console.

A few lucky people who have gotten their hands-on it have shared photos on social media, with Reddit users Arasaka sharing some photos of their new Cyberpunk 2077 Xbox One X console. The photos go over everything from the retail packaging to close ups of the console, on every single angle of it.

We first heard that Project CARS 3 was in "very early pre-production" back in January 2019, with developer Slightly Mad Studios acquiring new talent to fuel the latest game in the Project CARS franchise. Well, now we have the Project CARS 3 announcement trailer, check it out:

Before I comment about the trailer, in July 2019 I reported that Slightly Mad Studios CEO Ian Bell said that Project CARS 3 would be a "revolution" and a "game changer" for the franchise. Well, it's definitely a game changer as the developer has moved away from what made Project CARS... well... Project CARS.

But then, the comments... the comments on the YouTube video are really torn. Check them out:

We know that AMD is coming later this year, and that the company wants its next-gen Big Navi GPU to disrupt 4K gaming with NVIDIA like it did with Ryzen CPUs to Intel -- but with coronavirus, and now the George Floyd protests across the US -- how is Big Navi looking?

During the recent Bank of America Securities Global Technology Conferece, AMD CFO Devinder Kumar confirmed that Big Navi is indeed AMD's first RDNA 2 product. There were some that thought the next-gen Microsoft Xbox Series X and Sony PlayStation 5 consoles would be the first to drop with RDNA 2-based hardware, but that's not the case: PC will be first.

Kumar said: "there's a lot of excitement for Navi 2, or what our fans have dubbed as the Big Navi". He added that "Big Navi is a halo product" and that "enthusiasts love to buy the best, and we are certainly working on giving them the best".

Epic Games has future-proofed its high-end Unreal Engine 5 technology specifically for next-gen storage tech like the PlayStation 5's blazing-fast SSD.

The PlayStation 5's SSD is true next-gen tech. The PS5's SSD is built on PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 storage that sports a 12-channel memory controller, which enables up to 5.5GB/sec raw data transfers, and 9GB/sec compressed streaming. This kind of speed is 100x faster than the PS4, and will allow instantaneous open-world gaming with no loading screens.

But the games-making software and tools to push the hardware to its limits are still in its infancy, and Epic is laying the seeds to ensure Unreal Engine 5 enables the full might of the console's storage.

Ready for a Diablo 2 weekend marathon? Blizzard is resetting the realm ladder servers on Friday, June 5, 2020 at 5PM PST (8PM EST) for some old-school action.

Diablo 2 ladder resets are special occasions that happen every six months. Every reset completely wipes out the economy and basically starts everything anew. This was the original seasonal structure before battle passes, season passes, etc. Diablo 2's realm ladders are a mad dash to the top of the charts to see who can level up the fastest and dominate the rankings, and usually culminate in days-long game jams with a few buddies.

Back in the day, ladder resets were an exciting time. Now realm resets have lost their flair thanks to tons of bots...but it's still a reason to fire up Diablo 2 and give it a whirl. So get ready to break out your 8-man dream team and get those Tristram runs rolling! If you don't have Diablo II, you can grab it here.

The reports are false, and Tencent didn't buy Arma developer Bohemia Interactive. The studio is still completely independent and in control over its own destiny.

Billion-dollar Chinese titan Tencent has more hands in the games industry than any other company, but its grasp hasn't extended to Bohemia Interactive. Today Bohemia marketing exec Petr Polacek squashed rumors of a Tencent buyout:

"It's not true. Tencent didn't buy us. Bohemia Interactive remains an independent studio. We don't know where this information came from," Polacek told Czech newspaper Hospodarske Noviny.

The new Elite Dangerous Odyssey expansion basically morphs the game into a first-person RPG with exploration, combat, and story-driven missions.

Today Frontier Developments announced Odyssey, the most ambitious Elite Dangerous expansion ever made. Odyssey fundamentally revolutionizes gameplay by finally letting gamers explore planets in first-person. Users will be able to touch down on "countless new planets" and roam around on foot to uncover secrets--and enemies--throughout the cosmos.

Odyssey also brings near-infinite missions to cycle through, complete with NPCs and unique locales. The sim aims at creating the ultimate live game with constantly-evolving playable content through emergent systems.

Lamptron has rolled out a new, and very cool fan controller called the CU135. Not only will it control up to six fans inside your gaming rig, but it will also control the RGB lighting of the fans as well. It comes in a model called the CU135 RGB for six-channel RGB lightning, and a CU135 ARGB for six channels of ARGB LED.

The coolest part of the system is the touchscreen that mounts to the front of the chassis and has a 7.85-inch LCD. Fans speeds and different features can be controlled using the touch of a finger. Each LED light of the fan can be programmed. The screen is also able to monitor voltage, RPM, and current temperature.

Those wanting to get complex with the lighting can enable a single breath strobe, rainbow, or fade aesthetics in addition to controlling each LED of the fan individually. A wireless remote allows the user to control the light change from across the room.

Konami pulls another strange move by publishing a smaller-scale platformer called Skelattack on consoles and PC.

Konami is pretty much done making new AAA games. Instead of developing and releasing big hits like Metal Gear Solid, Konami is leaning hard on mobile, pachinko, and annualized PES Soccer games. This plan is actually working quite well and Konami is far from the red; the company earned $2.4 billion in revenue last year, and $188 million in profit.

Now Konami is leaning into the diverse indie games market in an effort to "pursue and build a catalog of Western and domestic market titles." In a surprise announcement, Konami confirmed it's publishing Skelattack, a new cartoonish indie platformer from Ukuza.

The Razer Ornata V2 has been officially announced as the second generation of the Ornata gaming keyboard that launched way back in 2016. The Razer Ornata V2's main feature is a new hybrid switch design that merges the benefits of membrane keys and mechanical switches into one switch. Razer says that the switch blends the cushioned feel of conventional keyboard keys with the clicky feel of mechanical switches.

The keyboard also features a multi-functional digital wheel and media keys. The controls can be configured to pause, play, skip, and control all manner of computer settings from brightness to volume. The keyboard is RGB backlit and has 16.8 million colors that can be controlled by Razer Chroma RGB.

Users can map for keys to the desired function using Synapse 3, allowing the keyboard to be tweaked to their playing style. Keys can also be bound to macros and saved to different profiles. To improve comfort, the keyboard comes with a plush leatherette wrist rest that magnetically snapped to the keyboard. Another interesting feature of the Razer Ornata V2 is cable routing options.

SEGA is making a new Game Gear handheld...but it's tiny. Really tiny. Small enough to be a novelty you buy at a thrift store, but for Japan, it's a premium product.

SEGA's new Game Gear Micro is a weird proposition for the West. You can fit the entire thing in one palm, and it's something Adam Ant would play for fun. It's really a tiny contraption you'd give to, say, a kid to keep them entertained, not adults.

The micro handheld has a tiny 1.15-inch display, but you can magnify it with a new SEGA Big Window re-release (yes, really). The catch? You have to buy all 4 consoles in a special $250 pack to get it.

SEGA's huge game-changing announcement isn't a new console, but a forward-thinking business plan that will transform its arcade machines into remote streaming servers for game streaming.

Remember that massively-hyped SEGA scoop from Famitsu? It turns out the announcement will transform the Japanese games industry, but it's not what you'd expect.

SEGA has an innovative plan to use fog computing to turn its arcade cabinets into access points (or edge devices) for wireless game streaming. SEGA will use an arcade machine's CPU and GPU power to access a network infrastructure, essentially streaming the cabinet's games across a low-latency network.

HP has unveiled a new Omen 15 laptop that uses a chassis that has a smaller footprint compared to the previous generation. The machine is designed with a minimalist aesthetic that's not too over the top featuring a new Omen diamond logo in a blue to green gradient. Gamers can opt for the laptop in Mica Silver or Shadow Black.

Buyers can choose an optional full RGB per-key backlit keyboard. Like most gaming laptops, the Omen 15 can be fitted with very high-end components. Up to an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 Super with Max-Q design is available along with several 10th generation Intel Core i7 H-series processors. AMD fans can also get the Omen with up to an AMD Ryzen 7 4800H-series processor.

Up to 32GB of DDR4 RAM is supported along with up to 1TB of PCIe SSD storage with the option of dual PCIe SSD storage in RAID 0. The display is a 15.6-inch unit with a 180-degree flat hinge for increased stability. There are multiple screen options, including an OLED, UHD 120 Hz, or FHD 300 Hz display. Some configurations support NVIDIA G-SYNC technology and have Thunderbolt 3 ports.