Latest News - Page 1608

EA Motive just made its debut on Twitter, hinting that it's big new Star Wars game could be revealed soon.

EA Motive has been working on a new Star Wars project for years now. The Montreal-based studio first started out by assisting DICE with Battlefront II. Then it moved on to help Visceral Games on its cancelled Project Ragtag game, then it did the same with EA Vancouver's cancelled Project Orca. Since then, EA Motive has moved onto its own Star Wars game, one that's described as 'very unique.'

Read Also: EA Motive's new Star Wars game could be a monetized live game

At the time of writing this, the SpaceX launch spacecraft recently launched will reach the International Space Station.

Above, you can find a link to the Crew Demo-2 livestream on the official SpaceX YouTube Channel. The video showcases a direct link to inside the Dragon spacecraft where we can see both astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley, who will be landing docking with the International Space Station in about an hour from now.

Throughout the livestream, it was mentioned by the commentators that the astronauts were traveling at 17,500 miles per hour. As the Dragon capsule closes in on the ISS, the astronauts will perform a test on the directional controls and will then approach extremely slowly, slowing down to a tenth of a meter per second. The provided image showcases the waypoints the capsule will go through when it enters its docking process. It's estimated that the docking complete call will be at 7:30 AM PT.

SpaceX has just recently made its mark on space history forever, as now the United States will have continued access to the International Space Station without having to rely on the Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

Not only has this launch marked history in this way, but it is also the first successful launch to the ISS for SpaceX. The two astronauts aboard the Falcon 9 rocket are Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley, and are now the first NASA astronauts from Florida to journey to the ISS since 2011. At the time of writing this, the astronauts are about 1 hour out from docking with the ISS, so if you want to watch this historic moment via a livestream video, you can do so above.

It has previously been reported that seats aboard the Russian Soyuz spacecraft comes in at a cost of $90 million per seat, and SpaceX has now provided an alternative that is cheaper to launch at $60 million. On top of that, SpaceX has changed commercial space forever as it has already partnered with a private company called Space Adventures, and this company is responsible for passenger trips to space. This move by SpaceX somewhat assists in tourism coming to space, and truly is a mark on space history as we know it.

The PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X might have similar specs and both use 7nm SoCs from AMD, but their next-gen business models are very different. We thought it prudent to discuss how Microsoft and Sony are approaching the new generation of console gaming.

Microsoft and Sony handle gaming very differently. To really understand the big differences between the PlayStation 5's and Xbox Series X's game plans, we have to take a quick look at each of the two company's business segments.

Sony cares a lot more about gaming than Microsoft does. Sony made $17 billion from PlayStation in FY2019 versus Microsoft's $10 billion from Xbox. The Japanese titan is locked to the PlayStation hardware and services ecosystem, and as a result, it's more laser-targeted on system-selling exclusives that've helped the PS4 move 110.4 million units worldwide.

Sony's cross-gen plans have leaked out, confirming newer PS4 games will also need to be compatible with the PS5 as well.

Unlike the Xbox Series X, the PS5 will have exclusives at launch. Sony is clearly delineating the PS4 and PS5 hardware generations right out of the gate. This means we'll see two versions of third-party games releasing in 2020 and beyond: a PS4 SKU, and a separate PS5 SKU with enhanced performance like faster loading times, ray tracing, enhanced frame rates and resolution.

Sony has established a mandate to ensure the cross-gen dual game release strategy rolls out as smooth as possible. PS4 games submitted to Sony for certification on or after July 13 must also run on the next-gen PS5. The info comes from internal development slides provided to Eurogamer, and confirms its forward-compatibility plans.

Making games for and porting games onto Sony's next-gen PS5 might end up being easier than any other console ever released.

Although the PS5 is a huge leap in power over the PS4, complete with next-gen exclusives that aren't held back by the PS4, Sony isn't over-complicating things for developers. Game devs are pretty happy with the PS5's new streamlined x86 architectural design and toolsets. We still don't know what kind of new features the PS5 OS and software stack offers devs, but that hasn't stop games-makers from praising the system behind the scenes.

The positive reactions started back in 2019 under Sony's PR megaphone. SIE president Jim Ryan said devs are getting code up on the PS5 with tremendous speed and ease. Then Sony's Shuhei Yoshida echoed the same thing a month later.

You might remember the trailer to Scorn from earlier this month, where it is an exclusive to the Microsoft Xbox Series X console and to the PC. It's from developer Ebb Software and as Derek explains it, it's an "ultra-bizarre horror fest" that is like "stepping into an HR Giger painting".

Well, that 4K 60FPS goodness we all thought was an Xbox Series X console? Yeah nah -- that was a PC. In a recent interview with Wccftech, Ebb Software's Game Director Ljubomir Peklar talked about the game -- you can read the full interview here -- but more importantly what hardware the team used to show us that "in-engine footage representative of expected Xbox Series X visual quality".

Peklar explained: "Now, this is a tricky question as for some reason a lot of people feel that it should be quite easy to get 4K 60FPS on the PC even with this graphical fidelity, and that really isn't the case. For the showcase we used 2080Ti and a Ryzen processor just because there was no reason not to use it, but a 2070 Super with a mixture of settings is adequate to run the game at 4K 60FPS".

It seems now is the time for maximum AMD next-gen CPU hype, with new rumors teasing the next-gen Ryzen 5000 series CPU family based on Zen 3 being codenamed "Warhol".

We know that "Raphael" will be associated with AMD's next-gen Zen 4 architecture, and it seems Raphael might have a built-in Navi-based GPU. This would be a gigantic deal if it happens, but Warhol would come before Raphael and all we know is that it'll be based on the Zen 3 architecture, the current 7nm node from TSMC, and feature PCIe 4.0 connectivity.

Warhol is the codename to what we will see AMD unveil as the Ryzen 5000 series of CPUs, where right now we're on the current Zen 2-based Ryzen 3000 series CPUs codenamed Matisse. After this we have the Ryzen 4000 series for desktop codenamed Vermeer, after that Ryzen 5000 series for desktop codenamed Warhol, and after that, we have Ryzen 6000 series desktop CPUs codenamed Raphael.

I can't believe I'm typing this news seriously, but here we go: a gang of monkeys have attacked a medical official in India -- and stolen blood samples of people who had tested positive for COVID-19 coronavirus.

The attack happened when the laboratory technician was taking a walk through the campus in Meerut, which is around 285 miles (460 km) north of Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh state. Those monkeys sure were lucky... get it? Anyway, A top official at the college, Dr. S. K. Garg, explained: "Monkeys grabbed and fled with the blood samples of four COVID-19 patients who are undergoing treatment ... we had to take their blood samples again".

We don't know of the monkeys had spilled the blood, or if they took it into areas where there are people -- spreading fear that the virus could be out in the open. Garg told Reuters: "No evidence has been found that monkeys can contract the infection".

SpaceX was due to launch the first NASA astronauts into space from American soil in 9 years just a couple of days ago, and will do in the next 24 hours -- but work doesn't stop for the US space agency.

In some new testing, SpaceX was working on its Starship project -- successfully completing a static fire test on its new SN4 prototype. Except, it all went wrong and it exploded right there on the test stand. The Starship SN4 prototype exploded at around 1:49PM CDT (2:49PM EDT, or 6:49PM GMT) at SpaceX's own test facility near Boca Chica, Texas.

Space.com reports that SpaceX's Starship SN4 vehicle is the "latest in a series of stainless steel prototypes SpaceX has built to test technologies required for a truly massive space launch system: the 165-foot-tall (50 meters) Starship rocket and its Super Heavy megabooster. That vehicle is the one SpaceX hopes will carry up to 100 people at a time to space and, eventually, on to Mars".

President Trump has just bought the gauntlet down on the World Health Organization, where in a press conference hours ago at the White House, he announced the US government is "terminating our relationship" with the WHO.

President Trump said that the WHO is completely controlled by China, explaining: "China has total control over the World Health Organization despite only paying $40 million per year, compared to what the United States has been paying, which is approximately $450 million a year".

It was only a month ago that Trump stopped funding the WHO, sending the organization a more threatening letter on May 18 that said: "If the World Health Organisation does not commit to major substantive improvements within the next 30 days, I will make my temporary freeze of United States funding to the World Health Organisation permanent and reconsider our membership in the organisation".

The PS4 will live on for years after the PS5 launches in Holiday 2020, complete with games, hardware updates, and more.

When the PS5 arrives in 2020, Sony will have two consoles running in parallel that also intersect in the same ecosystem. We already know the PS4 and PS5 generations will overlap for multiple years as Sony builds up the next-gen install base and eventually hands off the torch to the newer hardware.

That being said, the PS5 is a reset button for the PlayStation brand. Today Sony's Jim Ryan confirmed the PS5 will have next-gen exclusives not available on the PS4. But that doesn't mean Sony is ready to shut the door in the current-gen's massive 110.4 million install base and the billions of revenue that hardware platform generates.

The global games market will make $159.3 billion in 2020, analyst firm Newzoo predicts.

Newzoo has recently released their forecast for 2020's games earnings, and the growth is pretty substantial. The total games industry is expected to make over $159 billion this year across all segments--digital, physical, hardware and accessories--up 9.3% YoY and driven primarily by mobile gaming microtransactions revenue.

According to the report, this approximately 2.7 billion gamers will generate these revenues throughout 2020. Mobile will rake in $77.8 billion, or 48% of the total, dominated by smartphone games like Honor of Kings, Fortnite, and PUBG Mobile.

Sony confirms it won't force developers to make PS5 games run on older last-gen PS4 hardware.

Unlike Microsoft, who has mandated first-party studios can't make next-gen exclusives, Sony says some PS5 games won't be available on the PS4. Microsoft plans to merge the Xbox One and Xbox Series X generations together for a few years, but Sony wants to jump headlong into the new gen and make firm separations between the PS4 and PS5.

Sony will allow no-compromise next-gen performance. Devs can make PS5 exclusives that're built from the ground up for the higher-end 2.23GHz 10.3TFLOP Navi RDNA 2 GPU, 3.5GHz 8-core Zen 2 CPU, ultra-fast 5.5GB/sec PCIe 4.0 SSD, and 16GB of GDDR6 unified RAM.

Razer has unveiled the all-new Blade 15 Studio Edition laptop. The notebook is a mobile-workstation designed to meet the needs of content creators ranging from audio engineers to VFX artists. The computer is equipped with the latest eight-core 10th generation Intel processors. The GPU is an NVIDIA Quadro RTX 5000 powering a custom calibrated 4K OLED touch display.

The specific processor under the hood is the Intel Core i7-10875H that runs at up to 5.1 GHz using Intel Thermal Velocity Boost technology. The Quadro RTX 5000 GPU has 16GB of GDDR6 memory for multi-app creative workflows and 48 RT cores for improved real-time ray tracing performance.

"If I was to ask myself a few years ago, if I could pull off a high concept CG animated project like Battlesuit on a laptop remotely - I would probably think I was insane," said Hasraf 'HaZ' Dulull, Director and Producer of Battlesuit. "Today, tools like Unreal Engine powered by NVIDIA GPU rendering on a Blade laptop are empowering filmmakers like myself to push the boundaries of sci-fi storytelling without restrictions, thus enabling me to realize my vision regardless of how wild my imagination is".

This is it, folks. Sony today announced a new PS5 showcase centered around next-gen games, and it's coming next week.

The new digital-only PlayStation 5 stream is dedicated to the next generation of games across first- and third-party studios that push the hardware to its limits with ultra-fast loading, 4K and even 8K gaming, high frame rates, and ray traced visuals.

The selection will focus on PS5 launch games that're releasing alongside the console in Holiday 2020. Don't expect to see titles like Battlefield 6 or Dragon Age 4 running on the machine.

Typically when we talk about B&H and the discounts it gives out on products, it's usually a notebook that's on sale. B&H has a wide range of products, including computer hardware. Currently, it's offering a significant discount on the HGST 8TB Ultrastar He10 SATA HDD is a 3.5-inch internal NAS storage device.

The normal price for the hard drive is $229.99. It's on sale for the next 13 hours as of writing for $179.99, making a 22% discount. That is a significant amount of storage space for such a low price. The drive uses the SATA III 6 Gb/s interface and has a 256MB cache.

HGST designed the 8TB Ultrastar He10 SATA HDD for capacity density and power efficiency. It's ideal for high-density data centers and centralized surveillance, cloud, or hyperscale storage applications. The drive was intended for 24/7 availability without sacrificing reliability with a mean time between failure of 2.5 million hours.

Bloomberg writer Takashi Mochizuki just brought up a good point: Sony is likely to reveal the PS5 so it can curb any leaked pictures that surface from production plants.

Sony's next-gen PS5 has just entered mass production. Both Sony and Microsoft are ordering huge quantities of 7nm SoCs from AMD to ensure their next-gen consoles are ready for Holiday 2020. We already know what the Xbox Series X looks like, but Sony has been secretive about the PlayStation 5's final console design. That should change quite soon.

The idea is that Sony wants to be the one that reveals the PS5, not an overseas plant worker who leaks fuzzy picture or makes a drawing of a production line console. The company has put in lots of investment in the next-gen console, and rightly so as it's the future of the billion-dollar PlayStation brand. This time it's different, though. The PS5 represents a true generational leap beyond anything we've seen before thanks to its highly-customized SoC, RAM memory, and PCIe 4.0 SSD synergy.

Square Enix will reveal Final Fantasy 16 this summer, a new rumor claims. This seems unlikely, but the company's financials do indicate a ramp-up for new projects.

Right now Square Enix has a lot on its plate. There's Outriders, the new game from People Can Fly, Babylon's Fall, the mysterious RPG from Platinum Games, and its main bread-and-butter franchises like Dragon's Quest and Final Fantasy. The company is currently developing major titles like Final Fantasy 7 Remake chapter 2 and Crystal Dynamics' Avengers, the first game in its big multi-year deal with Marvel.

So where does Final Fantasy 16 fit in? In 2019, Square Enix confirmed Final Fantasy 14 game director Yoshi-P was taking the helm of a new project. The new unannounced game is a next-gen title, and has been in full production since April 2019. Many speculate Yoshi-P is working on the next mainline Final Fantasy game while Tetsuya Nomura and Yoshinori Kitase work on Final Fantasy 7 Remake.

PlayStation 5 news is finally coming and Sony has prepared its PS Blog with a special section for the next-gen system.

Sony has added a dedicated PS5 section to the PS Blog's categories list, allowing users to isolate stories and news on the upcoming 10TFLOP system. Right now the section is somewhat sparse and contains three games--Dirt 5, Outriders, and Godfall--alongside the handful of PS5 announcements Sony has made.

This comes days after Sony adjusted the PlayStation 5's official website with simplified buzzword descriptors like "lightning speed," "stunning games," and "breathtaking immersion."