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GameStop will stay open amid the worsening coronavirus pandemic because corporate thinks the store is "essential retail," sources tell Kotaku's Jason Schreier.

As countless businesses close down to curb COVID-19 spread, GameStop will remain open and put employees at further risk. Workers at the games retail chain are forbidden to close stores across the United States. A memo sent out by GameStop's leadership marks the store as "essential retail," putting it alongside critical businesses like grocery stores and gas stations.

"Due to the products we carry that enable and enhance our customers' experience in working from home, we believe GameStop is classified as essential retail and therefore is able to remain open during this time," GameStop said in the memo.

Amidst all the doom and gloom recently, fresh data was released earlier today from the European Space Agency (ESA), showing increased nitrogen dioxide emissions over China, as monitored by its Copernicus Sentinel-5 Precursor observation satellite.

In a recent tweet by ESA, embedded above, a 10-day moving average graphic shows levels of NO2 from December 20, 2019 till March 16, 2020 from the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS). In December and January, we saw a high measured amount of nitrogen dioxide, which starts to reduce over time. By the end of January, the levels of nitrogen dioxide reduced significantly till around the start of March, which shows a build-up again, particularly in the northern regions of China.

The PlayStation 5's built-in boost mode is much, much more powerful than the PlayStation 4 Pro's. Sony says the boost is so dramatic that some older PS4 games simply can't handle it.

The PS5's backward compatibility is pretty lackluster in terms of supported games. Unlike the Xbox Series X, which can play OG Xbox, Xbox 360, and all Xbox One games at launch, the PlayStation 5 will only support 100 of the most popular PS4 games. But why? The PS5's native boost mode is the culprit. Here's how it works.

Like the Xbox Series X, the PlayStation 5 will natively boost any PS4 game you put into it. For example, Xbox Series X will auto-upgrade 2015's Gears of War 4 to native 4K resolution. Sony's PS5 will also boost PS4 games, but Sony hasn't detailed specifics. We could see all sorts of perf boosts like 120FPS, ray tracing, and more--imagine playing Bloodborne at 1080p 120FPs.

The PlayStation 5's backward compatibility will be quite limited at launch. Sony confirms that roughly 100 of the most popular PS4 games will be backward compatible on the PS5 when it releases in Holiday 2020.

The PS5's backwards compatibility is a lot less expansive than we thought. Console architect Mark Cerny confirms the PS5 can only play PS4 games, and old PS1, PS2, and PS3 generation titles won't be supported natively via discs. Only ~100 of the most popular PS4 games will be playable on the PS5 on release, Cerny says, which is less than 1/40th of the system's overall library of games.

All backward compatible games on the PlayStation 5 must be added on a title-to-title basis, meaning developers and publishers will have to work closely with Sony to bring their games forward. Given the stakes involved in displacing the gaming libraries of 108 million PS4 owners, expect Sony and developers to take backwards compatibility seriously and grow the library over time.

Gamestop gets the greenlight from Bethesda to sell Doom Eternal one day early to curb customer volume. Yes, that means the next Doom game is now available at Gamestop.

With Animal Crossing and Doom Eternal set to release the same day, lots of people are expected to show up at Gamestop to pick up their pre-orders and/or buy the game. And where there's lots of people, there's lots of COVID-19 exposure risk. So Gamestop is separating the two massively-anticipated games into two separate launch days in an effort to sequence out the customer volume.

"To ensure we adhere to CDC-recommended social distancing guidelines, we will be selling DOOM Eternal a day early on Thursday, 3/19 as a safety precaution for our customers and associates. Animal Crossing will release on Friday 3/20 to further help separate the crowds," Gamestop wrote on Twitter.

Supermarket shelves in Australia are virtually bare of essentials, where it first started with toilet paper -- and quickly saw things like bottled water, frozen goods, pasta, and more ripped from shelves over coronavirus panic.

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton said the Australian government will be prosecuting those who stripped supermarket shelves of essential items, with the Australian Federal Police (AFP) also says these people could be linked to criminal enterprises. Mr Dutton told 2GB in Australia: "We will come down on them like a ton of bricks... I believe they are the ones who have created this pattern of hoarding".

Dutton continued: "They (Australians) are following the behaviour of people who aren't purchasing for themselves - they're doing it for profit, and reasons that are unacceptable. If you have photos, or registration numbers, or if you have instances ... photos, intelligence or information, I want you to call Crime Stoppers".

We are very close to the demo release for Resident Evil 3: Raccoon City, and now Capcom has made the pre-load available to download.

Both Xbox One and PS4 players can download the demo from their respective stores. The PS4 version is weighing in at 8.01 GB, and the Xbox One version is 7.47 GB. Unfortunately, the PC version, which is located on the Steam Store, isn't available to download just yet, but I'd imagine that it will soon become available since the console version is available.

In other Resident Evil news, the upcoming Resident Evil Resistance Open Beta has also been made available for download. The Resistance Open Beta is a 1v4 scenario where four players face off against one other player who is the "Mastermind." The Resistance Open Beta is the biggest out of the lot, weighing in at 10.63 GB. The Resistance Open Beta can't be played until March 27th when servers go online. Resident Evil 3 Remake will be officially launched on PC, PS4, and Xbox One on April 3rd.

When the term 'brain-computer interfaces' is mentioned, one of the first things that spring to mind is The Matrix. But just how close are we to bringing that movie into reality?

According to Valve CEO, Gabe Newell, we are closer than one might think. In a recent interview with IGN, Newell discussed designing Valve's new title, Half-Life: Alyx. At the same time as discussing the titles development, Newell touched on the future of computing and how eventually the human race will be able to link computers to brains for the ultimate interface. Here's what Newell said when talking about the future, "The area that I'm spending a lot of time on has been growing out of a bunch of research that occurred a while ago on brain-computer interfaces."

He continued and said, "I think that that's kind of long lead stuff, so that's kind of the background thread that I get pulled back into when other things aren't demanding my attention." At the moment, human brains can communicate with computers, but in mostly sending and receiving signals. Overall the communication can only happen in extremely limited ways. Even though that might be the case now, Newell believes that "We're way closer to The Matrix than people realize."

I was pretty damn hyped for the Friends reunion special on HBO Max, but now according to The Hollywood Reporter, it has been delayed because of the current coronavirus COVID-19 outbreak.

According to sources of The Hollywood Reporter, the "unscripted special was set to be filmed next Monday and Tuesday on the show's iconic and former home at Stage 24 of the Warner Bros. Studio lot in Burbank. Given the current state of the global coronavirus pandemic, production has been delayed until at least May. A formal filming date has not been determined as it's unclear when any programming will be able to resume production".

The CDC has recently reduced its recommendations of large gatherings to less than 50 people, so when you account the hundreds of people involved in a production like a Friends reunion special, it makes sense. Although, it's a major disappointment. It wasn't the first Hollywood-related delay, and it surely won't be the last -- The Matrix 4 production was also recently halted by Warner Bros (which owns HBO Max).

Congress is not immune to coronavirus COVID-19, with Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (a 9th-term Florida Republican) and Rep. Ben McAdams (a new Democrat from Utah) announcing they've tested positive for coronavirus.

The two members of Congress are now the first US lawmakers to be struck down with coronavirus, with Diaz-Balart feeling the symptoms on Saturday -- hours before he left the House floor for a vote on a coronavirus response bill. He explained: "I want everyone to know that I am feeling much better".

Diaz-Balart added: "However, it is important that everyone take this extremely seriously and follow CDC guidelines in order to avoid getting sick and mitigate the spread of this virus. We must continue to work together to emerge stronger as a country during these trying times".

HTC has just announced that it is including a free copy of Valve's upcoming Half-Life: Alyx with each of its new flagship Vive Cosmos Elite VR headsets.

The new announcement is pretty hot, and totally out of the blue -- a free copy of what should be the flagship VR game to lead them all, now free with the newly-released Vive Cosmos Elite headset. Half-Life: Alyx itself launches on the PC exclusively on Steam and exclusively in VR on March 23.

If you need a Buyers Guide on the PC hardware and VR headsets recommended by TweakTown, then check out that article right here. For now, you'll need to splash down $899 for the HTC Vive Cosmos Elite VR headset to get that free copy of Half-Life: Alyx, which just sweetens that deal a little bit more against the flagship Valve Index headset.

President Trump has just invoked emergency powers, something that will marshal medical supplies as the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic continues to wreck havok on the US and the world.

The 70-year-old Defense Production Act gives President Trump the power to push production by privately-owned companies, in order to manufacture and supply the United States with masks, ventilators, and other medical supplies. President Trump tweeted: "I only signed the Defense Production Act to combat the Chinese Virus should we need to invoke it in a worst case scenario in the future. Hopefully there will be no need, but we are all in this TOGETHER!"

President Trump also recently closed the US-Canada border, with just essential travel allowed. The Trump administration will also be sending relief cheques to millions of struggling Americans, too.

I can only imagine the type of load that digital infrastructure is under right now, with hundreds of millions of people forced to stay at home over the current coronavirus COVID-19 outbreak -- but especially Facebook.

During a conference call on Wednesday to address Facebook's response to coronavirus COVID-19, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg that the number of voice calls on both Messenger and WhatsApp in Italy have skyrocketed, as well as many other countries around the world as people keep in contact with their loved ones.

Now that more and more people are at home using social media, it has seen a gigantic surge in activity on Facebook's servers. The social media giant has increased its infrastructure and server capacity, with Facebook noting it has doubled the server capacity for WhatsApp.

The New York Stock Exchange has announced that it will be temporarily closing its trading floor, shifting to a world of fully electronic trading after 2 people have tested positive for coronavirus.

NYSE will start its all-electronic trading on March 23, with the NYSE equities trading floor, NYSE American Operations trading floor in New York, and the NYSE Arca Options trading floor in San Francisco to have all humans removed. The NYSE had screenings at its Big Board, with 2 people testing positive for coronavirus, ushering in the all-electronic trading push from the NYSE.

This is the first time in the history of the New York Stock Exchange that the physical trading floor of the Big Board has been shut down independently, while electronic trading flows. The NYSE has shut down a couple of times in history, the last of which was 9/11 and before that during World War II.

The PlayStation 5's new solid state drive isn't your run of the mill PCIe 4.0 SSD. It's heavily customized on a number of levels, including its revamped 12-channel memory controller. While on the surface it has similar specs to a PC-level SSD like PCIe 4.0 interface with 4x lanes on an M.2 card using the NVMe protocol, it's been built from the ground up specifically for the system's custom 7nm AMD SoC and 16GB of GDDR6 system memory. And in many ways, the SSD is the most important part of the PlayStation 5.

The SSD can deliver uncompressed data to other system components at up to 5.5GB/sec via its new proprietary hardware, which is over twice that of an Xbox Series X. And like the Xbox Series X, the PS5 also has dedicated hardware-based decompression to reduce CPU overhead. The new custom-designed I/O unit is the heart of making all this happen.

In this article we'll be combing through Mark Cerny's latest technical dissection of the PlayStation 5 hardware and putting everything into perspective along the way. This will be a long ride, but if you have even a passing interest in next-gen console storage, it'll be worth checking out.

Unlike the Xbox Series X, which uses proprietary CFExpress memory cards to expand SSD storage, the PlayStation 5 will let gamers slot in third-party PCIe 4.0 drives into the console.

Sony has learned a lot from the PS Vita memory fiasco. The PS5 won't have high-priced restrictive memory cards. Instead, Sony allows gamers to expand memory by slotting in third-party PC-grade M.2 PCIe 4.0 SSDs into the PS5. This is pretty important considering the system only has a 825GB SSD.

"We will be supporting certain M.2 SSDs. These are internal drives you can get on the open market and install in a bay on the PlayStation 5. They connect to the custom I/O unit just like our SSD does so they can take full advantage of the decompression, I/O co-processors, and all the other features," PlayStation 5 architect Mark Cerny today confirmed.

UPDATE: Major Nelson confirms the Thanksgiving 2020 release date was a mistake. The console is still coming 'Holiday 2020.'

The Xbox Series X will release on November 26, 2020 on Thanksgiving, the console's website says.

On the eve of the PlayStation 5's big spec reveal, Microsoft trades blows with Sony by announcing the Xbox Series X's launch date. The console was previously set for Holiday 2020, but according to the console's official website, the Xbox Series X is now coming on Thanksgiving day. Thanks makes it a hot item for the Black Friday shopping season.

Sony's next-gen PlayStation 5 can deliver up to 9GB/sec speeds on its powerful new PCIe 4.0 SSD, making it roughly 100x faster than the PS4's current hard drives.

If the Xbox Series X is a lion, then the PS5 is a cheetah--this console's SSD tech is lightning-fast. Sony's next-gen console has a custom PCIe 4.0 SSD that can push compressed data at up to 9GB/sec, or almost twice as fast as the Xbox Series X's max compressed data throughput of 4.8GB/sec. This means the system will be able to access compressed data that's downloaded or from a disc much, much faster. Blu-ray disc game installs will be blindingly fast.

Once the data is decompressed, the system can process it at 5.5GB/sec, which also roughly twice as fast as the Xbox Series X's 2.4GB/sec decompressed data I/O throughput. PS5 architect Mark Cerny confirms the PS5 can load 2GBs of data in just 0.27 seconds. The system will utilize decompressed data for real-time processing and loading, like assets that're fed into 10.3TFLOP 2.23GHz Navi GPU for rendering. This puts the PS5 on par with today's most demanding enthusiast-grade consumer PC storage.

Sony today announced the PS5's specs, and confirmed the console is less powerful than the Xbox Series X in some regards, but it's GPU is faster.

Despite being quite close to its competitor, the PlayStation 5 is technically less powerful than the Xbox Series X. The PS5 uses a RDNA 2 Navi 2x GPU clocked in at 2.23GHz with 36CUs with 10.3TFLOPs of power, complete with ray tracing support, and its 8-core 16 thread Zen 2 CPU is clocked at 3.5GHz. The next-gen PS5 sports 16GB of GDDR6 unified system RAM on a 256 bit bus (less than Microsoft's custom 320 bit bus) with 448GB/sec memory bandwidth.

The SSD is blazing fast, but it's only 825GB to keep costs down. The PlayStation 5's internal PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD can hit up to 9GB/sec transfer rates with compressed files, and 5GB/sec rates with uncompressed files. Sony developed a new compression methodology based on RAD Game Labs' potent Kraken compression system that massively reduces data sizes. There's also a new architecture that reduces CPU usage overhead to free up system resources. It's also designed to give developers much more granular control over how their data is processed by the console.

A Warner Music account accidentally uploaded the OST for L.A. Noire Part Two, hinting a sequel is in development at Rockstar Games.

Internet detectives might've solved the case of Rockstar's next game. The studio could be working on a sequel to 2011's ultra-stylish crime story for next-gen consoles, complete with immaculate animations and a storyline that'd impress hardcases like Humphrey Bogart.

According to screenshots, Warner Chappell Music, the global publishing company of the Warner Media Group, uploaded a song from L.A. Noire Part Two. The song in question is Break My Stride from Matthew Wilder, and is probably for the big reveal trailer that's set to accompany either Sony's or Microsoft's big livestream E3-timed events. The account and the music was deleted shortly after.