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Portable N64 modded into GameBoy SP case
Modder GmanModz jams an entire Nintendo 64 console into a portable Game Boy Advance SP-style case, complete with full cartridge support.
Introducing the N64 SP, a new Frankenstein fusion that packs Nintendo's old-school 3D console into a portable form factor. The N64 SP has a fully-fledged Nintendo 64 motherboard with a 5-inch LCD screen with VGA input in a custom 3D-printed clamshell chassis. The system features a 4,250 mAh battery for roughly 2 hours of play, and even supports USB-C PowerDelivery for play-as-you-charge gaming and faster recharge rates.
The N64 SP's small form factor was made possible by clever rewiring of a stubborn Nintendo 64 circuit. Up until now, modders weren't sure if they could rewire the PIF chip--the chip that interfaces with controllers--to another part of the mobo or not. GManModz found a way to move the chip and significantly reduce motherboard surface area enough to fit into a custom-designed portable case. There's even a means to bypass the analog audio for digital, which improves the sound tremendously.
Continue reading: Portable N64 modded into GameBoy SP case (full post)
Konami: New Silent Hill game rumors are false
Konami squashes recent rumors that two new Silent Hill game projects are in the works.
Rumor has Sony Interactive Entertainment is funding two new Silent Hill games with Konami's blessing: A soft reboot of the franchise with upgraded next-gen visuals, and a revamp of Hideo Kojima's cancelled Silent Hills project. The info comes from multiple sources close to Konami's plans. But now Konami counters and says these reports are false.
"We're aware of all the rumors and reports but can confirm that they are not true. I know it's not the answer your fans may want to hear," the Konami spokesperson told Rely on Horror, the very same website that broke the original Silent Hill news.
Continue reading: Konami: New Silent Hill game rumors are false (full post)
Computex 2020 officially rescheduled until September 28-30, 2020
Monitoring the coronavirus COVID-19 spread, TAITRA has been under pressure for several weeks to make a judgment call on Computex Taipei 2020, Asia's largest IT trade show. The popular yearly event is routinely attended by TweakTown and many technology exhibitors, buyers, analysts, and media from all over the world.
Last night in Taipei, TAITRA finally made its call. Computex 2020 will be postponed from its planned date of June 2 till June 6, 2020, until September 28 till September 30, 2020 - six months out from now and around four months out from its original date. That means the event is getting cut down from its usual five days to just three days. Computex is usually spaced out over the greater Taipei area with halls in Xinyi and Nangang, as well as hotels in the Xinyi area.
Computex 2020 will be scaled down and held in just one hall - Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center Hall 2 (TaiNEX 2). It is unclear at this stage if exhibitors will be allowed to exhibit their goods from hotel suites, as is usually the case.
Continue reading: Computex 2020 officially rescheduled until September 28-30, 2020 (full post)
Coronavirus slowing down PSN game downloads in Europe
PlayStation Network downloads are about to get slower in Europe, but Sony promises the drop will be negligible.
Amid the worldwide coronavirus pandemic, Sony is lowering game download speeds in Europe to help offset the enormous strain on internet bandwidth. Sony joins other major service titans like Google, Netflix, and Disney+ who are all lowering bitrates and streaming visual quality to lessen bandwidth usage.
As millions of consumers are work from home in self-isolated quarantine, digital entertainment like gaming and streaming is helping everyone stay sane. Everyone is using these services around the clock, and with no end to the COVID-19 spread in sight, ISPs are planning bandwidth-saving countermeasures for the long haul.
Continue reading: Coronavirus slowing down PSN game downloads in Europe (full post)
Folding@Home is now the world's largest supercomputer at 470 petaFLOPS
In early March, the team behind the Folding@Home project dedicated the public's power to uncover the mysteries of the coronavirus COVID-19.
If you aren't sure what Folding@Home is, it's a computing project run by a team at Stanford University. The premise of Folding@Home is that PC users around the world can dedicate spare CPU/GPU computational resources to the project, which will then fuel its purpose, and in this case, its purpose is to explore the mystery behind the coronavirus COVID-19. The donated computational power the project receives goes toward researchers who are looking at the molecular structures, and who are attempting to understand its properties.
Greg Bowman, the Director of Folding@home, has taken to his personal Twitter account to announce that Folding@Home "has over 470 petaFLOPS of compute power. To put that in perspective, that's more than 2x the peak performance of the Summit super computer!". Bowman then followed up by saying, "I think that makes @foldingathome the largest super computer in the world, and we're trying to bring the whole thing to bear on #Covid_19. We can't guarantee what the results will be but man is this a cool opportunity!"
Continue reading: Folding@Home is now the world's largest supercomputer at 470 petaFLOPS (full post)
Windows has two security flaws that could give attackers remote access
Microsoft has announced that Windows currently has two critical security flaws that could open PC's up to being remote-controlled by attackers.
The news was announced on Microsoft's website under their 'security advisory' section. The post explains that these two critical vulnerabilities are at the moment only being used in "limited targeted attacks", and that these vulnerabilities could be present across all supported Windows operating systems. So, where are the vulnerabilities located? According to the announcement, the flaws are in the Windows Adobe Type Manager Library.
Windows Adobe Type Manager Library gives applications access to control and manage fonts for Adobe Systems. The security advisory post says that hackers could get targets to open documents that contain files that are malicious. The exploit could occur when Adobe Type Manager Library incorrectly "handles a specially-crafted multi-master font - Adobe Type 1 PostScript format," which could then result in the users' PC being hijacked remotely.
Continue reading: Windows has two security flaws that could give attackers remote access (full post)
Valve: Half-Life games are technical achievements, not just games
Why hasn't Valve released Half-Life 2: Episode 3 yet? Why did it take 12 years for a new Half-Life game? The secretive company gives two answers: One, Half-Life games are meant to illustrate tech advancements, and two, the planned episodes basically turned into sequels.
Half-Life: Alyx just released today. It's the first new Half-Life game in the last 12 years, and it's a VR-exclusive game. Although Valve says Alyx is just the beginning and more Half-Life games are on the way, it could still be a while before Half-Life 3 happens. Before we jump the gun and talk about Half-Life's future, let's talk about its somewhat troubled past.
In a recent interview with IGN, Valve today revealed a ton of info about its game development practices. Valve talked about Half-Life 2: Episode 3, about why there hasn't been a new Half-Life game for so long, and what we can expect from future games. That first part, though, is the most interesting, and it shows Valve's billion-dollar Steam platform doesn't make it immune to the issues that plague game developers everywhere.
Continue reading: Valve: Half-Life games are technical achievements, not just games (full post)
Gears 5, Halo dev making new exclusive Stadia game
Splash Damage, the team behind Brink. Gears of War 5's multiplayer, and Halo: The Master Chief Collection on PC, is making a new exclusive game for Stadia.
Google today announced another marquee exclusive for its fledgling game streaming service. Splash Damage will helm development of new mystery game but there's no actual info on what it could be. The studio has worked on a number of high-profile IPs ranging from Batman to Halo, but a lot of these have been shooters, so the new title could be an engagement-driven FPS that taps into Stadia's novel features like screen mirroring.
"We're thrilled to finally announce that we're working on an exclusive title in partnership with Google Stadia," Splash Team said on its website.
Continue reading: Gears 5, Halo dev making new exclusive Stadia game (full post)
Animal Crossing: New Horizons conquers UK sales charts
Don't let it's cute and demure nature fool you: Animal Crossing: New Horizons is a beast that's already dominating sales charts.
Nintendo's new enamoring Animal Crossing Switch game has come swinging out of the gate. Tom Nook's island adventure has conquered the UK physical game sales charts with megaton numbers that dwarf all previous games in the franchise. According to the Gfk Top Ten charts, Animal Crossing: New Horizons is the best-selling physical game in the UK for the week ending March 21. In just one day of availability, Animal Crossing stole the lead.
We don't have exact sales figures for color or contrast, but Gfk says New Horizons outsold New Leaf by more than 300%. It's the best- and fastest-selling Animal Crossing game in the UK to date. Bear in mind this only includes physical sales and it's only for the UK region. Total combined sales could be far higher as the entire world battens down the hatches amid COVID-19 and needs something bright and sunny to distract it.
Continue reading: Animal Crossing: New Horizons conquers UK sales charts (full post)
HP's next-gen VR headset promises 'no compromises' PC VR gaming
HP just confirmed its new higher-end PC-powered VR headset is in the works, but exact specs remain unknown.
With Half-Life: Alyx's release today, all eyes are on VR right now. It's the perfect opportunity to stealthily tease a new next-gen VR headset, and that's exactly what HP has done. The company is teasing a new next-gen VR headset that delivers 'no compromises' PC-driven virtual reality gaming. HP is making the headset in tandem with Valve and Microsoft to ensure optimum compatibility with Steam VR and Windows, bringing to mind a new level of the somewhat-abandaoned Windows Mixed Reality platform.
"The next generation HP Virtual Reality HMD-developed in collaboration with Valve and Microsoft-delivers an immersive, comfortable and compatible VR experience. It's the new standard in VR," reads the Steam page.
Continue reading: HP's next-gen VR headset promises 'no compromises' PC VR gaming (full post)
Digital gaming earned $9.2 billion in February 2020, up 4% YoY
Worldwide digital games market revenues hit $9.2 billion in February 2020 driven by strong mobile games earnings, analyst firm SuperData reports.
February 2020 was an interesting time for the digital games market. Mobile took the lead with a substantial 16% spike in earnings, contributing the lion's share of the total $9.2 billion earned in the month. PC and console spending was down quite a bit due to the absence of heavy-hitters like Anthem and Apex Legends. PC spending was down 6% YoY and console dropped a staggering 22% year-over-year, the firm reports.
The top 10 charts for each segment are predictable enough. We see a number of F2P games dominate the PC charts, with games like Dungeon Fighter Online and CrossFire being popular in Asia. League of Legends secured the top spot for digital earnings in the month.
Continue reading: Digital gaming earned $9.2 billion in February 2020, up 4% YoY (full post)
Counter-Strike had 24 million monthly active users in February 2020
Counter-Strike: GO accelerated quite a bit in February 2020, a month before the coronavirus hit--and a month before Warzone stepped in with its massive playerbase.
Counter-Strike won't ever die. After eight years on the market, it's going stronger than ever. According to the latest report from SuperData, Counter-Strike had an incredible 24 million monthly active users (MAUs) in February 2020. Those are record breaking numbers, and the shooter went on to break even more records in March thanks to the coronavirus quarantines.
With 24 million MAUs, that means Counter-Strike accounted for roughly 27% of Steam's total monthly active users. Valve's last-reported MAUs for Steam sit at 90 million.
Continue reading: Counter-Strike had 24 million monthly active users in February 2020 (full post)
Apple has a big donation headed toward healthcare workers in EU and US
Apple is on the move to save struggling healthcare workers who are lacking essential medical supplies. A significant donation from the tech giant is inbound.
According to a Twitter post from CEO of Apple, Tim Cook, Apple has currently been working hard at trying to source medical supplies for healthcare professionals that are at war with coronavirus COVID-19. Cook says that due to the medical supply shortages, Apple will be donating a "millions" of facemasks to health professionals across the United States and Europe.
Cook then goes on to thank all medical professionals that are currently on the front line battling the virus, calling all of them "heroes". Cook didn't state how many facemasks would be going to the United States and Europe, but according to what Vice President Mike Pence said in a briefing, the United States will receive 2 million N95 masks. I'd assume Europe will be receiving a similar amount.
Continue reading: Apple has a big donation headed toward healthcare workers in EU and US (full post)
Poland makes country-wide Minecraft servers for kids that are at home
Now that there are millions of kids at home with forced stay-at-home orders by some governments over coronavirus COVID-19, the Polish government is doing something really interesting, and really awesome.
The Polish government has created a public Minecraft server, and is encouraging kids across the country to jump into their server. Poland has shut down schools, museums, cinemas, and other places as of March 11 -- but with millions of bored kids at home, the country is wanting to keep them occupied, and educated.
They've since launched Grarantanna, a new learning hub inside of Minecraft that isn't just for young kids -- but also high schoolers, and college kids that want to jump in and collaborate. Each player has their own 60x60 plot to do whatever they want with, and better yet the best creations in Grarantanna will be showcased, and a reward given on March 30.
Continue reading: Poland makes country-wide Minecraft servers for kids that are at home (full post)
DOOM Slayer uses an Alienware-like desktop gaming PC in DOOM Eternal
DOOM Eternal has been for the last few days now, but I had an early key from my friends at Bethesda that allowed me to get many hours of slaying demons in glorious 4K -- and 8K, with some 8K benchmarks coming in the next 24 hours.
On my mission of slaying as many demons as I could, you get a little downtime in the Fortress of Doom -- where the DOOM Slayer himself is a PC gamer. I spotted an Alienware-like gaming PC in the Fortress of Doom and decided to take some screenshots of the system itself, and compare it to the Alienware Area 51 desktop gaming PC.
That's not the only PC that the DOOM Slayer has operational in his Fortress of Doom, with an older PC that would be capable of playing the original Doom, if anything.
Continue reading: DOOM Slayer uses an Alienware-like desktop gaming PC in DOOM Eternal (full post)
Half-Life: Alyx unlock time zone details: what you need to know
Half-Life: Alyx pre-loads have started on Steam, and if you haven't read it already -- I have an extensive Half-Life: Alyx Buyers Guide that goes over the PC hardware and VR headsets that I recommend using to play what should be the best VR game of all time.
But when exactly does Half-Life: Alyx unlock in your particular time zone? Let's find that out. We know that the game will unlock for US gamers on Monday, March 23 at precisely 10AM PDT / 1PM EDT, which equates to:
We know that Half-Life: Alyx is a 48GB download, while the game requires 67.3GB of storage space. If we compare that to Half-Life 2 which used up just 6.4GB of storage, Half-Life: Alyx is a gigantic upgrade of over 10x in storage space required.
Continue reading: Half-Life: Alyx unlock time zone details: what you need to know (full post)
Here's a list of the best Apocalyptic/End of the World movies
I'm a huge fan of disaster and end of the world movies, so while the world is on quarantine and country-by-country receiving stay-at-home orders I thought I would compile a list of apocalyptic / end of the world movies.
There are countless movies in these categories, so I've compiled a list of the ones that I've watched over the years but there are so, so many more. I thought I would turn this into a list that will be growing as people comment on this story, so throw in your suggestions in the comments below or on our Facebook page or better yet, my personal Twitter account -- as I'd love to chat about these movies, too!
Contagion and Outbreak are probably the two 'big' ones from this list, but there are plenty of other shows virtually made for these times. Preppers and Doomsdayers will love these movies, but I've also included disaster movies like Armageddon, Independence Day, and Deep Impact to the list.
Continue reading: Here's a list of the best Apocalyptic/End of the World movies (full post)
GOG offers 27 free games in its new Stay at Home game bundle
If you're stuck at home here's a list of disaster / end of the world movies you should watch, and if you have a VR headset then you really need to grab Half-Life: Alyx which unlocks on March 23 -- but GOG is stepping up with a new Stay at Home game bundle, too.
GOG has announced its new Stay at Home game bundle that includes a huge 27 free games, with GOG.com explaining: "Even if the sun is shining and the flowers have already started to bloom where you live, health and safety are on everybody's mind right now. Closing the shades and playing video games can be one of the good ways to relax and pass the time when you stay at home. We're here to help you choose your next great adventure with this selection of free games from our catalogue and a massive Spring Sale running until March 30th".
Not only does GOG have 27 games for free with its Stay at Home game bungle, but they also have their huge Spring sale on right now which has some great games on the cheap. These games include XCOM 2, Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice, Dragon Age: Origins, Stardew Valley, and more.
Continue reading: GOG offers 27 free games in its new Stay at Home game bundle (full post)
F1 cancelled, drivers will instead play on the PC and stream online
We all know the effects that coronavirus COVID-19 is having on virtually everything on Earth right now, with the F1 season being cancelled over the outbreak.
But never fear -- as the organizers of Formula 1 have announced the new F1 Esports Virtual Grand Prix series, which will see a "number of current F1 drivers" playing Codemasters official F1 2019 game. The drivers will play it on the PC, and have the games streamed across the world on the internet.
It all starts this weekend with the Virtual Bahrain Grand Prix on March 22, with the organizers explaining that every "subsequent race weekend will see the postponed real-world Formula 1 race replaced with a Virtual Grand Prix, with the initiative currently scheduled to run until May".
Continue reading: F1 cancelled, drivers will instead play on the PC and stream online (full post)
Half-Life: Alyx pre-load begins, requires 67GB of storage
We are just hours away from Half-Life: Alyx releasing, with Valve unleashing the first new game in the Half-Life universe in 13 years on March 23 -- in VR only.
Valve has now opened up the pre-loading floodgates on the game, with Half-Life: Alyx pre-loading right now on Steam with a download that weighs in at 48GB. The game itself once it is unpacked and installed onto your PC is 67.3GB, which is bloody huge in comparison to the 6.4GB that Half-Life 2 required.
I've written an extensive Half-Life: Alyx Buyers Guide article that covers what PC hardware I recommend, as well as the required VR headsets to run the game since Half-Life: Alyx is a VR-only game.
Continue reading: Half-Life: Alyx pre-load begins, requires 67GB of storage (full post)






















