Latest News - Page 1802

Corsair has just announced the latest members of its VOID gaming headset family, with the new VOID ELITE and HS PRO series of gaming headsets.

First up we have Corsair's new VOID ELITE gaming headset which has all of the bells and whistles, with Corsair cramming in improved audio, a redesigned Discord-certified omnidirectional microphone, dynamic RGB lighting, low-latency wireless technology (ELITE WIRELESS), and custom-tuned 50mm neodymium audio drives with an expanded frequency range that sits between 20Hz and 30,000Hz.

Corsair has designed the new VOID ELITE gaming headset from the ground up to provide the best audio quality it can, as well as immersive 7.1 surround sound that will throw you into the middle of the battle field... and hopefully get you some of those delicious wins in your favorite game.

The amount of spending consumers do on mobile apps and games is increasing in a big way, with mobile app research firm Sensor Tower releasing some new data that is quite surprising, to say the least.

Sensor Tower estimates that consumers spent a huge $21.9 billion on mobile apps across the Google Play Store and Apple App Store in Q3 2019 alone, which is up from $17.9 billion in the same quarter of 2018 -- representing an increase of 22.9%.

Apple did the biggest business with $14.2 billion or so in gross app revenue in Q3 2019, up from the $11.6 billion in Q3 2018 while Google made $7.7 billion in revenue in Q3 2019 versus $6.2 billion from Q3 2018.

I've been a big fan of the radical design change in LetsGoDigital's 3D renders of Sony's next-gen PlayStation 5 console, with its unique V-shaped design. But now, the site has put its work into a video and it looks even better. Check it out:

The video is identical to the latest 3D renders by LetsGoDigital, which feature the latest information in the form of what buttons will be on front -- for now, we have a stand-by button, reset/record button, and an eject button. The eject button will let you eject those gigantic 100GB Blu-ray BDXL discs that will house PlayStation 5 games.

Sony's PlayStation 5 -- at least in its current 3D rendered state, will have a slick V-shaped design (V for 5, thus PS5) and should help with cooling the system down. AMD will be powering the innards of the PS5 with a Zen 2-based 8C/16T processor and Radeon RDNA-powered Navi-based GPU... both on 7nm

EA has announces that there are now over 10 million people playing FIFA 20, with it on the PC, Xbox One, PS4, and Nintendo Switch.

FIFA 20 launched on September 27 for all four platforms, and while EA says the game has 10 million players that does not mean the game has sold 10 million copies. FIFA 20 is available through EA Access and Origin Access, giving certain subscribers access to the game, meaning they didn't purchase it.

The 10 million FIFA 20 players have duked it out in over 450 million matches, and kicked 1.2 billion goals so far. One of the new features introduced with FIFA 20 is the new Volta mode which is a street soccer version of the game, shifting away from the stadium-based game we've come to know and love since its debut back in 1993.

Fortnite's star burns a little less bright today, with a new analysis from Edison Trends showing that Fortnite sales have dropped from Q2 2018 to now by a whopping 52%.

Edison Trends refers to its sample of "anonymized and aggregated e-receipts from millions of consumers in the United States" for its data, comparing Fortnite's big 52% sales drop against PUBG which has only dropped by just 2% in comparison, while Apex Legends remains calm, for now.

Another set of data from Edison Trends shows what percentage of players who made a purchase in Apex Legends, Fortnite, Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 and PUBG in June 2019, did so again in July 2019. These numbers show that Apex Legends is by far the most popular with 62% of gamers continuing to spend real money on the game, while 49% of Fortnite players and just 38% of PUBG players did.

Some of Ubisoft's most violent games are being turned into kid-friendly animated shows, with The Hollywood Reporter and its exclusive story that Ubisoft's film and TV division is using existing IP and turning them into animated shows.

The first of which will be a Mars-based Rabbids Invasion special, while a Rayman-based show is in the works, and a new show based on the mobile game Hungry Shark. But some of the more violent games including Watch Dogs and Far Cry: Blood Dragon will also receive their own kid-friendly animated TV shows, in a surprise move by Ubisoft.

Captain Laserhawk: A Blood Dragon Vibe is, yep... you guessed it, inspired by Far Cry: Blood Dragon. I think this could be kinda cool for kids, with Captain Laserhawk being produced by Adi Shankar, who is helmed the successful Castlevania series for Netflix, as well as the upcoming Devil May Cry series.

It seems like modding and reselling PlayStation 3 consoles is serious business in Japan, with one man from Kagawa, Japan arrested for modding PS3 consoles and reselling them.

NHK reports that Tadaaki Abe, a 44-year-old man from Kagawa, Japan was arrested and charged after he modded a PlayStation 3 console, and sold it to someone in Tokyo. It wasn't his first one, as authorities found 40 modded PS3 consoles in his home, and are currently investigating to see if they were also modded (which I'm sure they were, what else would you need 40 PlayStation 3 consoles for).

Abe was modding PlayStation 3 consoles so that they could play games from the HDD without needing the disc, which according to Japanese trademark law, is illegal. This move also violates Japan's Unfair Competition Prevention Act (UCPA) which protects a company (in this case, Sony) and their rights to sell its products.

I'm sure by now you've heard about the massive issues going on in China, which have been going on for a very, very long time now - but we're at a point where it's hard to ignore, even for gamers.

Activision Blizzard is in the crosshairs of Chinese censorship, with the Overwatch, Diablo, and World of Warcraft creator bowing to Chinese pressure. Activision Blizzard recently suspended one of its pro Hearthstone players after the player support pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong.

But the list is growing, wtih Apple taking a knee to Chinese censorship and even the likes of American Airlines, Gap, Mercedes-Benz, Ray-Ban, Nike, TikTok, and many others pressured by the country and its strict stance on criticism. Mashable has compiled a big list of these companies that include (so far, as I'm sure there are more):

Elon Musk is probably the most passionate man on this planet when it comes to traversing the stars, with the SpaceX and Tesla Motors founder having some interesting words to say during a recent event at the SpaceX HQ.

Musk was joined by NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine at the SpaceX HQ in Hawthrone today, with Musk updating the world on the commercial crew launch program that SpaceX is collaborating with NASA on. During the chat, Musk talked about the state of the program, and what is coming next.

There was a Q&A session after the event, where Musk said that what the SpaceX team learned from the Crew Dragon parachute development program is open to the world -- making it available to anyone who wants it. Musk said that literally any of SpaceX's own IP is open to NASA and can feed it out as they want.

NASCAR is getting into the hybrid and electric vehicle movement (they can't ignore it anymore, I guess) with NASCAR senior VP of Racing Development John Probst announcing during an interview with TechCrunch that they're preparing for hybrid vehicles entering NASCAR races as soon as 2022.

Probst says it will start with hybrid vehicles and eventually extend to electric vehicles, but it won't be an instant overnight switch being flicked. NASCAR says it will be waiting for "Next-Gen gas race car" guidelines that will arrive in 2021, after which we can expect the full push into the world of hybrid and EVs entering NASCAR races.

NASCAR says that hybrids and electric vehicles aren't a perfect match for its current tracks, so the organization will have to investigate the possibility of making shorter tracks for hybrids and EVs. In these modified, shorter tracks drivers can take advantage of regenerative braking on hybrids and EVs in order to battle other racers.

The release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is right around the corner and while it will require an insane 175GB of HDD space, the game has even loftier requirements if you want to turn on those gorgeous ray tracing effects.

NVIDIA has detailed the PC requirements to enable ray tracing in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, with 1080p 60FPS (no ray tracing enabled) requiring a GeForce GTX 970 or GeForce GTX 1660, while ray tracing at 1080p 60FPS is going to need a GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER at a bare minimum.

If you want to bump things up to 120-144FPS on those high refresh rate gaming displays, NVIDIA recommends a GeForce GTX 1080 or newer GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER -- but if you want to step into the Big Boys Club and enabled 4K 60FPS with ray tracing enabled, NVIDIA recommends its new GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER graphics card.

IO Interactive finds a publisher and distributor for its new unannounced franchise.

Warner Bros. has teamed up with IO Interactive to publish a new console and PC game, the company today announced. The duo previously worked together to publish Hitman 2 on all platforms so this move is a no-brainer. No details were revealed on the new AAA game, but based on the studios involved and IO's past development structure, we're betting its a new IP and not another Hitman game.

The Hitman dev has actually been working on a new IP for a while now. It's new studio in Malmo, Sweden was opened specifically to help its Denmark branch develop the fresh IP.

A new listing has been spotted on a gaming retailer website that indicates that Metro Redux is coming to the Nintendo Switch.

For those that don't know, Metro Redux is a definitive edition collection of two Metro titles and was originally released back in 2014 for the PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4. The two Metro titles are Metro 2033 and Metro: Last Light, the collection also came with all the attached DLC content as well as some graphical improvements.

The website that has listed the title is GamingReplay, and according to their listing Metro Redux will be coming to the Nintendo Switch for 44.99 pounds, or $55. There has been no official announcement for Metro coming over to the handheld console, but the listing contains the box art for the title which suggests that it could certainly happen.

A character from all the back from 1991 will be making his way to Nintendo's legendary representative fighter, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

Originally launched for the Neo Geo System back in 1991, Terry Bogard from Fatal Fury will be making his way to the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate roster as a paid DLC fighter. Nintendo confirmed that Terry Bogard would be coming to Ultimate through their last Nintendo Direct presentation.

The official Nintendo Versus Twitter account has posted a tweet to remind fans his release is on-track for November. Once Terry Bogard is released, this will be the fourth DLC fighter to come to the Fighters Pass, meaning there is still one more character to follow to complete the set. Nintendo also teased that after the set is complete that they will continue to add an undisclosed amount of characters.

This week has been huge for mobile users who have been wanting to get dark mode on the rest of their most-used apps. Instagram has already made the jump and now Google has teased that some other big apps will be soon joining the dark side.

On the official Android Instagram account, Google posted a quick two-frame animated gif that shows off a slew of apps and system settings going from their original white color to dark. We see the likes of Google Maps which is prominently centered in the middle of the image, blackened out message notifications, Digital Wellbeing, Google Photos, Google Search and Drive.

It seems from this image that when Google decide to roll out Dark Mode for all of their apps that they aren't going to be doing it one app at a time, instead they will release the new mode for all apps at once. The gif also suggests that users will be able to enable and disable dark mode across all apps with a single press of a button, or perhaps even be able to choose what apps are using dark mode and which aren't.

Instagram has been all over the news as of late, mostly due to the app being updated with a bunch of new features (dark mode) and some features even removed. Now the PC version is getting some love, not a lot of love, just a little bit.

Obviously Instagram is predominately aimed towards mobile and its extremely popular app, meaning that the PC version falls behind in features and updates. Most Instagram users are on mobile, but there is still a small portion of users who enjoy browsing the website version. Today is PC users' lucky day as it has been discovered that Instagrams Direct messaging, or DM's for short, is working on PC.

Jane Manchun Wong, who also found out that Instagram is testing a new 'Group Story' feature, managed to get Instagram Direct for desktop to show up through digging around in the source code.

EA and DICE are looking to get some more Battlefield V (BF5) players by letting any PC gamer jump onto BFV completely free of charge for the next three weekends.

Each of the free weekends will feature different multiplayer game modes for a variety of different gamers. Also, throughout the trial periods Squad Contest mode, War Stories and the untold and single-player stories inspired by real WW2 events are available. If you decide to participate in any of the free weekends, all progression throughout the trail periods will be carried over to your account if you decide to purchase the game.

EA has planned for players to try out the Rush game mode for the first week on the trial, second week will be legendary Conquest mode and finally the third week will be the Grand Operations mode. If you are interested in jumping into the action, you can pre-load the game through the Origin Store, a link to that can be found here.

Rocket League have kicked off the teaser trailer for this years upcoming Halloween event, and this time round drivers will be pitted against Stranger Things' Upside Down.

Above we have the official teaser trailer for what Psyonix has titled as the Haunted Hallows. According to the blog post found on the Rocket League website, all roads will lead to Farmstead where Stranger Things' Mind Flayer has invaded and is looking down on the matches occurring below. Its unclear if the Mind Flayer will be able to influence the matches below, but Psyonix does say "make sure to look after your teammates."

Of course cosmetics will also be added to support the Halloween event and according to the post players will earn "Candy-Corn" after matches that can be used in the Hallows Event Store. Some of the wares in the Hallows Event Store are developed by the Hawkins National Laboratory and sneak peaks for them have been provided in the entirety of this article. Haunted Hallows featuring Stranger Things will be going live on through the October Update scheduled to release on October 14th. The event will run until November 11th. Good-luck in the Upside Down drivers!

NASA are moving along quite nicely with their Mars 2020 rover mission as the space exploration company has announced a new milestone achievement.

NASA has recently completed testing the Mars 2020 spacecraft separation test at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. In the above image, we see can see engineers and technicians working on the assembly of the rover and according to Ryan van Schilifgaarde, a support engineer for Mars 2020 assembly at JPL, "Firing the pyrotechnic devices that held the rover and descent stage together and then doing the post-test inspection of the two vehicles was an all-day affair".

He continued and said "With this test behind us, the rover and descent stage go their separate ways for a while. Next time they are attached will be at the Cape next spring during final assembly." Since this test has been a success, the descent stage and the rover will be moved off to Cape Canaveral, Florida, this winter. Before both parts are shipped, engineers and technicians will also test the batteries for the rover, while also evaluating the computer and mechanical systems in simulated Mars-like conditions.

Back in March, NASA were planning on doing the first all-female spacewalk but unfortunately had to cancel due to a lack of correct spacesuits aboard the flying lab. Now, NASA and both astronauts have announced a spacewalk will commence on October 21st.

The first planned spacewalk was cancelled due to the spacesuits not correctly fitting rookie astronaut Anne McClain. Since the astronauts are in micro-gravity their bodies slightly stretch, and even though the suits were fitted in a pool before take-off, the measurements can be a little bit off once they get out to the lab.

Since the fitting issue of the suits has now been resolved and the safety of the astronauts has been upheld to the highest extent, both Christina Koch and Jessica Meir have announced via Twitter that they will participate in replacing the solar batteries aboard the lab. Koch and Meir say that they have five spacewalks planned for the future and that any combination of astronauts aboard the station will be participating. The astronauts will be replacing old nickel-hydrogen batteries with brand new next-gen lithium-ion batteries that are expected to last the remainder of the International Space Stations life.