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With over 100 all-you-can-play downloadable games including some of the best titles in the industry, Xbox Game Pass is such a good deal that people feel bad about it. Is this model actually sustainable? Yes, and it has been for some time.

Microsoft's wildly popular Game Pass subscription has transformed gaming. Major publishers like Ubisoft are trying to get in on it, and Sony even added offline downloads to PlayStation Now as a result. It's a viable solution that's pushing two forms of valuable earnings: Recurring digital subscriptions and full game purchases.

Game Pass is the ultimate value in gaming right now, giving access to a bunch of classics and every new first-party Xbox game as they release. So how does it make money? Why would anyone want to kind of give their game away for free? The service does something I call the Game Pass Effect: Game Pass subscribers are actually buying more games after having used the service.

Xbox boss Phil Spencer confirms that older-generation Xbox games will harness the power of the Xbox Series X's new Zen 2 CPU and Navi GPU hardware in creative ways, leading to boosted performance on the new console.

Microsoft's Phil Spencer says the Xbox SX will play four generations' worth of Xbox games: OG Xbox games, Xbox 360 titles, current-gen Xbox One games, and new projects designed specifically for the higher-end hardware.

The goal, Spencer says, is to make any game that's playable on Xbox One play better on Xbox Series X than they would on any other console, hinting that the Xbox SX could offer an even greater level of performance enhancement patches and granular hardware fine-tuning than the Xbox One X. We could see a new era of enhancement patches that essentially remaster games by baking in new features like ray tracing and variable rate shading to massively transform the experience.

A new report from Anandtech suggests Macronix's upcoming 3D NAND chips could be used to finally make Nintendo Switch 64GB game cartridges. But this isn't likely simply because the carts don't use flash memory.

Macronix plans to ship its new 3D NAND chips in 2020, but contrary to recent coverage, they won't be used for Switch cartridges. The handheld-console hybrid's GameCards actually use Macronix's XtraROM technology instead of flash, a long-lasting customized read-only memory that doesn't compromise speed. The carts don't use flash storage, which requires a cache, controller, and performs both read/writes with increased degradation, and they certainly don't use the more expensive 3D NAND flash memory.

It's true that Nintendo is buying up tons of Macronix chips--in fact Macronix calls Nintendo's demand for the Taipei-manufactured chips is "highly unusual."

A new hack exposes new outside town of Silent Hills as it appeared (or as it didn't appear) in the terrifying P.T. demo.

Gamers have spent the past five years obsessed with P.T., a macabre demo for Hideo Kojima's cancelled Silent Hills game. It's utterly fascinating thanks to its cryptic secrets that provide various outcomes to how you solve its mysteries. But one thing always remains the same: It only takes place inside a kind of haunted house stuck in a purgatorial hell. You don't actually get to explore the ghost town of Silent Hill.

Until now, that is. YouTuber Lance McDonald created a floating camera hack that let him break outside of the house and take a stroll in the town as it appears in the cinematic ending scene. The result is ultra-creepy and sets the stage for what could've been one of the most cerebral horror games ever made.

I can't think of a Rick and Morty episode where everything just goes smoothly, in fact, I don't think there's even one. So when everything does go smoothly, it feels really strange and weird.

Above we have an example of just that. Created by Paul Robertson and Tom Walker for Adult Swim, we have Mr. Poopybutthole's Beautiful Day. The title of the one minute video spoils the clip, as the creators aren't lying when they tell you that Mr. Poopybutthole does have a beautiful day.

We see Mr. Poopybutthole and his family taking a nice road trip to a secluded ranch near a lake. They walk on in and start enjoying themselves by playing some cards and sitting by the fire. Mr. Poopybutthole puts his kid to sleep over a nice bedtime story and then goes and sits with his wife. Hearts start to race when Rick pokes his head out of a portal, but he doesn't do anything to mess with Mr. Poopybutthole. Instead, he watches and nods in approval as if he is checking on him to make sure he's alright.

Imagine if Marty McFly never actually had to drive the DeLorean in Back to the Future, imagine if the DeLorean just drove itself at 88mph.

Standford Unversity engineers perhaps thought of the same thing and decided to make a 1981 DMC DeLorean be independent of its human driver. In the above video released onto the Stanford YouTube Channel, engineers took the new and improved DeLorean to "Martykhana", an autocross speed test track that includes many obstacles.

The DeLorean had no driver but did have two passengers. One behind the wheel enjoying the ride and another person in the passenger seat holding onto the laptop that set the DeLorean on the programmed route. The car drifted, twisted, and fish-tailed it around corners with what seems to be like extreme ease. I wonder if Marty McFly and Doc would be impressed? Maybe not, as it's not going fast enough to travel Back to the Future.

The showrunner for the hit Witcher TV show, Lauren S. Hissrich, has slapped down critics who are comparing her show to David Benioff and D.B. Weiss's Game of Thrones.

If you haven't been jumped into Netflix's Witcher TV show and are wondering if its worth a watch, maybe this article will help you out. I'm going to give you a solid picture of what the reviews are currently looking like at the time of writing this. The Witcher TV show has a 57% critics (44 reviews) on Rotten Tomatoes. While that doesn't sound too exciting, it has a public score of 92% (6,850 reviews).

Hissrich also drew this very same comparison (while not mentioning the numbers), and said in the above Tweet, "Who do I care about? "Professional" critics who watched one episode and skipped ahead? Or REAL fans who watched all eight in one day, and are starting their rewatch?".

Just last week, Netflix released its highly-anticipated Witcher TV show, and with its extreme popularity, viewers of the show have been guided into playing CD Projekt Red's immaculate title.

People have really flocked to Netflix's Witcher TV show, and now that viewers can peer into the Witcher world, some people didn't want to stop there and decided to pick up the Witcher games. In this sense, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt from CD Projekt Red has been the go-to Witcher game, and according to the Steam Stats page that reflects this, the title has got some new traffic.

At the time of writing this article, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt has peaked out at 50,701 players, and current players are sitting at 32,942. To draw a comparison to a title of the same caliber, Red Dead Redemption 2 peaked out at 46,390, and its current player count is at 21,165. Keep in mind that The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is five years old, compared to Red Dead Redemption 2, that released last year. Personally, after diving into The Witcher TV show, I felt an urge to jump back into the incredible world that CD Projekt Red created, and from these player-count increases, I can tell I wasn't alone in this feeling.

Tesla Motors shareholders will be cheering during the Christmas period, with Tesla stock breaching $420 per share on Monday -- and in perfect faction, Tesla and SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk made a weed joke.

Musk is no stranger to blazing up controversy after he smoked weed live on the Joe Rogan show and landed in trouble with the Securities and Exchange Commission. But now that Tesla stock was smoking hot at $420, Musk tweeted out: "Whoa ... the stock is so high lol".

Back in August 2018, Musk found himself stuck in residue over a tweet that saw the Tesla CEO joking that he was "considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured". An obvious weed joke, but something the SEC didn't take lightly -- accusing him of misleading Tesla investors.

Halo Wars took a serious toll on developer Ensemble Studios, leading to lots of overtime, crunch, and sleepless nights.

Crunch is all-too common in the games industry. The market's biggest games often require crazy 100-hour work weeks and significantly affect the physical and mental health of game devs (BioWare devs, for example, had mental breakdowns while developing Anthem). This problem has existed for time immemorial--as long as people made games, they crunched to get them shipped.

Ensemble Studios was yet another team of developers who crunched hard to get games made, in particular with Halo Wars. The ambitious Halo RTS was demoed in 2007 and shipped in 2009, the same year Ensemble closed. It would be their last project.

Cyberpunk 2077's iconic cast of renegade cyborg mercenaries are getting their own figures, and Johnny Silverhand will be one of them.

McFarlane Toys, who makes some of the best collectibles in the industry, is making action figures based on Cyberpunk 2077. We'll see both 12-inch and 7-inch figures based around the main characters like Keanu Reeves' Johnny Silverhand, male and female versions of the protagonist V., and possibly even Jackie too. We don't know all who the first wave of figures will include...but Cyberpunk 2077 has a huge colorful cast that spans multiple gangs and factions.

Cyberpunk 2077's action figures will release into stores in March 2020, shortly before the game's release in April. Pricing is pretty steep at $24.99 for the 7-inch figures, and $39.99 for the 12-inch Johnny Silverhand figure.

Jedi: Fallen Order sold better than Battlefront II where it counts most, showing gamers are still avid for singleplayer-only experiences.

A bit ago EA announced Jedi: Fallen Order was the fastest-selling Star Wars game ever released on digital platforms. Now analyst firm SuperData adds more color, confirming Respawn's Jedi power fantasy sold 2.14 million copies digitally in November and hit 1/3rd of EA's internal sales target for the game at launch.

SuperData says Jedi: Fallen Order's digital copies on console outsold Battlefront II by more than 2 to 1 at launch. This is EA's most valuable metric; digital is most important because digital games cost less to distribute and typically make more money, and consoles pull in the lion's share of EA's yearly revenues thanks to the PS4's 100 million-strong installed base.

Microsoft's Mixer platform is just a small sliver of 2019's streaming numbers, accounting for just 3% of total hours watched.

Even with the millions-strong streaming might of Ninja, King Gothalion, and Shroud, Mixer is still being utterly dominated by Twitch and YouTube Gaming.

The latest numbers from Stream Elements shows Twitch is still the undisputed king of streaming with 9.3 billion hours watched in 2019, accounting for 77% of total views. Twitch is followed up by YouTube Gaming with 2.68 billion, or 21%. Both Mixer and Facebook Gaming rival at each other 3% of total hourly views.

Final Fantasy XV has sold-in more than 8.9 million copies worldwide on all platforms since its release in 2016, 4Gamer confirms.

After 10 years of development, Square Enix's massive investment into Final Fantasy XV is paying off. The game has managed to push nearly 9 million copies shipped and sold digitally, putting it behind series greats like Final Fantasy VII, the current long-running online MMORPG, and Yuna's colorful PS2 adventure.

Here's how FFXV fits into the mainline series sales charts:

The Nanica Smitch is a real thing, and it's being sold as a knock-off Switch in South America.

Introducing the Nanica Smitch, a hilariously-named Switch rip off handheld that runs on batteries like an old-school Game Boy. The handheld is being sold in Colombia for $50 and comes with 500 retro games pre-loaded onto it across NES and SNES.

And yes, the controllers detach from the sides for arcade-style on-the-go play for two players, or Tabletop Mode for one player. It can even hook up to a TV via RCA cables. The Smitch is kind of like those cheap plug-and-play consoles you see on clearance shelves at Walmart. It seems to work well enough but we can't imagine Nintendo is happy about this one bit.

Blizzard is getting right into the holiday season by bringing some awesome discounts to basically their entire library of games. Merry Blizzmas everyone?

Blizzard is here to celebrate the holiday season with its player base, bringing discounts to a range of different Blizzard products. These deals include heavy discounts on some of their best titles, such as Overwatch, World of Warcraft: Battle For Azeroth, the Call of Duty franchise, and more.

In the entirety of this article, I have listed out the best deals the store has on offer, and how much the current products are versus their original prices. Jump into the Blizzard action while these deals last, and make sure you have a happy holidays! A link to the Blizzard Store can be found here.

This comes as no surprise. China has released a new set of internet laws that will dictate what content companies are allowed to publish online.

According to these new laws, internet companies will have to manage whatever content is published online within a strict set of guidelines. These guidelines include a big push for algorithms to be manipulated to show "positive" ideas and not "bad" material. The new rules also prohibit any form of content that "endangers national security, leaks state secrets, subverts state power [and] undermines national unity."

The Chinese government will be implementing these rules as of March 1st, while at the same time begin cracking down on the management of accounts and online "rumors". Essentially, these new algorithm changes are targeted as removing as much freedom of information from the public's grasp. With algorithms in place that stop the public from finding any information contrary to government opinion, the people will be living within an echo chamber of moderated government information.

Epic paid for a nice head start for Red Dead Redemption 2, but the game didn't even break 500,000 copies sold in its first month.

Apparently Red Dead Redemption 2 didn't sell all that great on the Epic Store. Rockstar's heavily-lauded outlaw adventure only sold 408,000 copies on the Epic Games Store in its first month, analyst firm SuperData reports. The numbers are far lower than Borderlands 3's massive 1.78 million sales at launch.

Of course some context is needed here: Borderlands 3 is a six-month EGS exclusive and Rockstar was clear from the start RDR2 was coming to Steam a month after its EGS release. Also remember Rockstar released the game on their own first-party Rockstar Games Launcher, meaning RDR2 effectively saw three different digital releases.

Both the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 use mysterious custom SSD tech that allows developers unprecedented access to storage data. This kind of freedom might be possible thanks to a derivative of new software-defined flash (SDF) technology.

One thing we need to make clear: Software-defined flash was made specifically for enterprise-level cloud services with huge server farms. We're talking about gigantic scale-out applications like datacenters, telecommunication infrastructures, and financial institutions that require thousands of petabytes of data. It was not made for consumer storage. It's a new datacenter standard aimed at boosting efficiency with thousands of storage drives.

But a lot of the things that both Microsoft and Sony are saying (the crazy I/O speeds that're faster than anything available in PCs today, the granular access to data) somewhat matches up with the tenants of software-defined flash.

TikTok is without a doubt spreading like wildfire, but if you are a member of the US Navy and want to enjoy some short, quirky videos, don't hold your breath.

Reuters has reported that the United States Navy has banned the use of TikTok on any government-issued mobile devices. Why have they done this? Allegedly, the app's software created by ByteDance poses a "cybersecurity threat" to personal information.

Pentagon spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Uriah Orland didn't specify what this "cybersecurity threat" was, but he did warn all Navy troops to be very mindful of the app, and asked everyone to "safeguard their personal information." Orland also said that this ban was an effort to "address existing and emerging threats". Due to TikTok being owned by Chinese company ByteDance, the US military could be safeguarding their hardware from potential information scraping software that could be in TikTok.