Latest News - Page 1608

Microsoft might've just delivered the killing blow to Google Stadia by bundling its new game streaming service with an existing sub at no extra cost.

Today Microsoft confirmed that its new Project xCloud game streaming platform will be included free in its all-in-one Game Pass Ultimate subscription bundle. Starting in September, the $14.99 a month Game Pass Ultimate will now include Game Pass, Xbox LIVE, and Project xCloud in a neat and affordable package.

"Finally, today we're announcing that this September, in supported countries, we're bringing Xbox Game Pass and Project xCloud together at no additional cost for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate members. With cloud gaming in Game Pass Ultimate, you will be able to play over 100 Xbox Game Pass titles on your phone or tablet.

Activision might be disguising this year's Cold War-themed Call of Duty Black Ops 5 game inside of a dummy game on the PlayStation Network and Microsoft Store.

A listing for a mysterious Activision game called The Red Door has just popped up on the Microsoft Store. There's evidence this "game" is actually an alpha test for Call of Duty 2020.

The Red Door has actually been on the PlayStation Network since June. The SerialStation listing clearly states the Red Door is for a CoD 2020 alpha test: the extracted serial string reads UP0002-CUSA20046_00-COD2020INTALPHA1. The alpha also clocks in at a monstrous 81GB on Xbox One.

UPDATE:Dr. Disrespect released the following video teasing his big return to streaming:

Guy Beahm aka Dr. Disrespect finally opens up about the Twitch ban with his first public interview with the press.

In a recent interview with PC Gamer, Dr. Disrespect discussed his controversial Twitch ban and what's next for the celebrity streamer. The doc says he still doesn't know why Twitch banned him, and the platform has broken off all communication. Twitch didn't even warn the doc of inappropriate behavior and there were no actual warnings or reprimands filed, according to his publicist. Beahm says he is currently considering legal action against Twitch.

Acer has just debuted its new Nitro XZ2 series gaming monitors, that the company is aiming to deliver on quality visuals -- but not break gamers' banks.

We have 3 different models with different sizes on offer: 31.5-inch, 27-inch, and 23.6-inch all curved monitors that strt from $199. The stock 23.6-inch monitor has a 1080p resolution, while the larger 27-inch and 31.5-inch panels have a native 1440p resolution.

Acer America boss Ronald Lau explains the new monitors: "Our newest Nitro series monitors combine speed, FreeSync and curved panels to offer fun and exciting gaming at a great value. The fast performance and affordable pricing make the Nitro series ideal for a wide range of gamers, particularly for first-person shooter and racing games where fluid visuals are key".

Amazon has just extended its corporate work-from-home policy, which has now been extended through to January 8, 2021.

Amazon explained in a statement: "We continue to prioritize the health of our employees and follow local government guidance. Employees who work in a role that can effectively be done from home are welcome to do so until January 8th".

The company added: "We have invested significant funds and resources to keep those who choose to come to the office safe through physical distancing, deep cleaning, temperature checks, and by providing face coverings and hand sanitizer".

If you didn't already know, Death Stranding has just hit the PC on both Steam and the Epic Games Store -- but now fellow developer CD PROJEKT RED -- the creators of The Witcher, and the upcoming Cyberpunk 2077 -- have just honored Kojima. Check this out:

The team at CD PROJEKT RED congratulated Hideo Kojima and his team at Kojima Productions on their recent release of Death Stranding on the PC. The developer posted a render of Kojima sitting on a radical-style futuristic bike that I'm hoping we see inside of Cyberpunk 2077 when it launches later this year.

This tweet from CD PROJEKT RED doesn't mean we're going to see Hideo Kojima in Cyberpunk 2077, but with Matrix and John Wick franchise star Keanu Reeves featured in the game -- it would be undeniably freaking awesome to have Hideo Kojima play a role of some sort in Cyberpunk 2077.

Xiaomi has just unleashed its new 34-inch 21:9 UltraWide gaming monitor, in the new Mi Curved Gaming Monitor.

Xiaomi's new Mi Curved Gaming Monitor features a 34-inch panel with a native 3440 x 1440 resolution, and super-slick 144Hz refresh rate. We have a 4ms response time for gamers, and a 1500R curvature for the 34-inch 21:9 aspect ratio panel.

The company is going with a barely-there bezel design, which also looks really nice as well. We have 121% coverage of the sRGB color space, 300 nits of brightness, and a 3000:1 contrast ratio.

AMD has just released its new Radeon Software Adrenalin drivers, with the new 20.7.2 beta providing optimizations for Hideo Kojima's masterpiece Death Stranding, which just dropped on the PC.

There's an additional 8% performance using a Navi-based Radeon RX 5700 XT graphics card with these new Radeon Software Adrenalin 20.7.2 beta drivers in Death Stranding. F1 2020 also gets some optimizations on the Ultra High preset with the Radeon RX 5700 XT with 5% more performance.

Ubisoft just launched its new battle royale game Hyper Scape, with the new Hyper Scape beta recdeiving support from AMD inside of the new Radeon Software Adrenalin 20.7.2 beta drivers.

Twitter has been hacked in a major way, with the accounts of prominent figures throughout the world including Bill Gates, Joe Biden, President Obama, Kanye West, Mike Bloomberg and others hit.

Well, now Twitter has reacted by disabling all "Blue Tick" accounts from tweeting after the crypto hack storms through their network. Now verified Twitter accounts can't tweet right now, but they can retweet and like other tweets -- they just can't tweet, for now.

As for the attack, someone has hacked into Twitter and hit some of the largest accounts in the world including Bill Gates, SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk, his BFF Kanye, Kanye's wife Kim Kardashian West, President Barack Obama, his ex-VP Joe Biden, Amazon owner Jeff Bezos, Michael Bloomberg, and many others.

Twitter has been hacked, with some of the largest public figures in the world hit -- including President Barack Obama, ex-VP and Democratic front-runner for the 2020 elections Joe Biden, and more.

Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk was hit, so too was Amazon owner Jeff Bezos -- and even Apple were compromised by hackers. Their accounts all sent out a bunch of tweets like a traditional cryptocurrency scam: asking users to transfer Bitcoin to a particular Bitcoin wallet, and that they would have their money doubled.

Kanye West, his wife Kim Kardashian West, Michael Bloomberg, Apple, Uber, and a bunch of other accounts were also hacked. As the scam continued to spread, the Bitcoin wallet posted had over 11 BTC sent to it -- racking up over $100,000 very quickly.

Far Cry 6 is all about guerrilla uprisings, and that means creating your own makeshift weapons just like Dead Island. New screens tease some of these weapons, and might even show a jetpack of sorts (or maybe it's a rocket-shooting backpack?).

Ubisoft's latest Far Cry 6 announcement is teeming with chaos and an undercurrent of wackiness. On one side there's the brutally serious El Presidente Anton Castillo, a ruthless dictator played by Breaking Bad's Giancarlo Esposito who's trying to quell a fiery revolution of the Jewel of the Caribbean called Yara. Then there's the fiery guerrilla uprising, which has the main protagonist Dani Rojas leading a charge with unique thrown-together weapons and whatever's lying around. Some of these weapons are pretty striking.

Read Also: Far Cry 6 won't be sold on Steam, only on Epic Store, uPlay, Stadia

Oculus' new virtual reality headset is entering mass production, and Facebook plans to ship 50% more HMDs this fiscal year, sources tell Nikkei Asian Review.

Oculus is making big moves to further dominate the still-fledgling virtual reality market. Facebook is currently raising its production orders for new VR tech, and plans to make as many as 2 million headsets. A new HMD is set to enter manufacturing in late July, a source told the website. Oculus has yet to reveal official details of the headset, but it's fair to assume it should deliver inside-out tracking and may be a more powerful version of an all-in-one/PC-powered hybrid similar to the new Oculus Quest.

The move comes shortly after Facebook discontinued its mobile-powered Oculus Go headset to focus exclusively on the hybrid Quest and PC-powered Rift.

Xbox One games don't exist any more. Now they're just Xbox games.

Microsoft is changing how it labels its console games. In a bid to solidify Xbox as an ecosystem and not any particular console, Microsoft is converging of its generations together in a single banner. From now on there won't be Xbox One games. There's just Xbox games, or one game that's playable across multiple hardware gens. This new change-up is prompted by the Xbox Series X's hard pivot away from next-gen exclusives.

There won't be any first-party Xbox Series X exclusives. Games like Halo: Infinite and Hellblade II won't be locked to next-gen. Instead, Microsoft has made performance exclusive to Xbox Series X, not the game. First-party games will hit new thresholds like ray traced visuals, native 4K, up to 120FPS gaming, and all sorts of graphical wizardry and ultra-fast loading. Microsoft is also mandating all games must be playable on the current Xbox One family, PC, and next-gen Xbox Series X consoles (and possibly the rumored Xbox Series S, aka Lockhart).

The seminal BR PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds has now sold over 70 million copies, cementing it as the top premium battle royale experience on the market.

PUBG has now broken 70 million copies sold on consoles and PC, and PUBG Corp celebrates the huge sales milestone by releasing a Sanhok map remaster. The new Sanhok map has been rebuilt from the ground up and original areas have been recreated alongside new locations. The Sanhok remaster will be part of Season 8, which goes live on July 22 on Steam and July 30 on consoles (and Stadia).

"The once familiar jungle destination is now an overgrown abandoned paradise that has been remastered to be leaner, meaner, and more deadly than ever before!"

Over 90% of video converter and editing software apps can combine video files together. You are spoiled for many choices.

But there are several things you should take into consideration before editing multiple videos together. For example, are the added files encoded in the same way? What to do if the audio and video go out of sync? What if I want to cut and merge videos at one go? Can I customize the video to fit the requirement of YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, etc.?

Your choice depends on the real situation of your footages. We have screened out two best and easiest ways for you to meet different demands:

Florida reported a large 12,600 new coronavirus cases today, with KFC announcing shortly after that it would be closing its dining rooms down in the state because of the COVID-19 outbreak.

Reuters reports that KFC would be closing its dining rooms in corporate-owned stories throughout Florida "because of the escalation in coronavirus cases in the state, according to a letter seen by Reuters". The letter that Reuters says that it has seen was from KFC U.S. Chief Operating Officer Monica Rothgery to franchisees.

Rothgery said in the letter that its restaurants in Florida would be drive-thru only for now, suggesting that owner-operators do the same thing in "hot spots" where COVID-19 outbreaks are happening. Rothgery suggested that states like Arizona, California, Florida and Texas do the same to their KFC restaurants -- close dining rooms.

Sony has doubled its PlayStation 5 production orders and now plans to ship 10 million units this fiscal year, sources tell Bloomberg.

PS5 console hardware shortages shouldn't be a problem on and shortly after the console's launch. Sources tell both Bloomberg and Japanese website Nikkei Asian Review that Sony has revised its original plans to restrict PlayStation 5 console stock due higher MSRP prices.

Now Sony has put in production orders to exceed the PS4's 7.5 million launch period sales, and sources say Sony is planning on making, shipping, and selling as many as 10 million PS5s in the same period. This would eclipse PS4 sales by 2.5 million units on a 33% volume increase.

Old school enthusiasts like me will remember Halo started out as an exclusive for the Mac, as Bungie was an Apple developer -- but then Microsoft acquired Bungie and turned Halo into a system seller for a new console at the time... called Xbox.

Well, it has been almost 20 years since the original Xbox launched and while Microsoft is months away from releasing the next-gen Xbox Series X console, it's time for some Apple console hype.

According to the latest rumors, Apple is reportedly working on its own ARM-based console according to MaruiQHD on Twitter. Right now Apple has its successful Apple TV 6 powered with its in-house A12X Bionic chip and its own dedicated cooling... so the company isn't too far away from having a console if it was to tap an ARM-based solution.

Apple is coughing up a hefty $500 million to settle a class action lawsuit over Batterygate, which if you didn't know about already, saw the company throttling performance on previous-gen iPhones to improve battery health.

Where it all started: Back in late 2017, the company began intentionally slowing down their iPhones and explained it was about not degrading the battery inside of consumers' iPhones. Apple then offered cheap $29 battery replacements, and then added in a feature to let users check their battery health in real-time with iOS 11.3.

Back then the apology was pathetic, but then earlier this year Apple agreed to settle the class action lawsuit for $500 million. Affected customers would get $25 per iPhone, and now there's a website that lets all affected iPhone users submit a claim to get their $25 payment from Apple.

NVIDIA is expected to have many large design changes over previous-gen graphics cards, and not just design changes over previous-gen GeForce graphics cards -- but an entire new power connector.

A new rumor has surfaced from Chinese tech site FCPOWERUP, which claims NVIDIA will be using a new power connector on its next-gen Ampere GeForce RTX 3000 series graphics cards. I have heard something similar from sources, but thought it would come down to something different than this.

It looks like we're expected to see a strange new 12-pin PCIe power connector on the reference GeForce RTX 3000 series graphics cards. Not just that, but power will exceed 300W -- so with a 12-pin PCIe power connector and radically new design cooling (fans on the front, and back according to previous reports) big changes are coming with Ampere.