Latest News - Page 1828

Even Kojima himself isn't sure what Death Stranding actually is. We're right there with you, HK.

Death Stranding is a weird game. We've been told it's an action-based game with open-world exploration, and that its singular aim is to connect and bind people together. It'll have online multiplayer with a kind of unique shared world that you can interact with and change for others. It's a tale of a broken reality where two dimensions layer on top of one another like oil on water--the tainted Death Stranding limbo on top, and the real-world below. Death Stranding uses babies as batteries, lets you pee on the ground for magical outcomes, has a character that dies every 21 minutes, and the world is stalked by shadowy monstrosities. But this info only brings more questions...and even Kojima himself doesn't have all the answers.

In a recent interview with the Financial Times, Hideo Kojima said Death Stranding's overall scope, themes, and feel are still perplexing, as demonstrated in the Lynchian-Kubrick cinematic presentation mingled with interactive gaming.

SNES games are now on the Switch, and Nintendo is selling a special $30 wireless SNES controller with some additions.

Nintendo's plan with retro games is unique. First it sold games a la carte on its Virtual Console service for $5, $8, and $10 a pop, then it sold impossibly hard-to-get mini consoles for $60 and $80, now it's packing classic games into its cheap $5 a month Switch Online service.

The gameplan moving is clearly set around giving options. Don't own a Switch? Buy a mini console. Own a Switch? Buy into the cheap Switch Online and get NES and SNES games. It's a win-win method of monetizing nostalgia, especially when you also re-sell wireless retro controllers.

EA made it into the Guinness Book of World Records 2020 for all the wrong reasons.

In 2017, the big Battlefront II lootbox kerfuffle was etched into the annals of gaming history. The controversy, which saw Battlefront II as an egregious pay-to-win scheme full of grinding and tedium, changed the industry. It sent a shockwave through the billion-dollar lootbox market, causing many publishers to switch to cosmetic-only monetization, and even triggered massive scrutiny from worldwide regulators. In a way EA kind of changed everything for the better...but that doesn't make the most recent world record sting any less.

EA's infamous "pride and accomplishments" Reddit is now part of the Guinness Book of World Records as the most-downvoted Reddit comment of all time. The comment currently has 683,000 downvotes. It's not the kind of thing you want to be known for in any industry...let alone an entertainment one. The record was found in the 2020 edition and gamers passed around the news across Reddit, message boards, and various social media outlets for a good reminder of how oblivious some devs can be.

A newly published Nintendo patent shows foldable and even bending Switch JoyCon controllers.

Nintendo could be experimenting with all kinds of JoyCon permutations, including foldable and more ergonomic Switch controllers. The patent, which was recently made public, highlights what could be a new evolution to the JoyCons.

The documents show a myriad of configurations, but the most interesting show the top analog stick portion angled forward for better positioning, somewhat akin to the original Wii Nunchuk or Valve's Knuckles. Right now the controllers are stiff and unyielding, but the patents show JoyCons that fold slightly or even outright bend on a set curve.

Although it was teased at last year's The Game Awards, the next Dragon Age game is only in pre-production phases of development.

Today BioWare confirmed two major things: It's working on multiple new projects at once, and that Dragon Age 4 is far from ready. In fact, the next big RPG is not even close to being ready. It's only in pre-production right now.

In a recent update, BioWare general manager Casey Hudson confirmed the game is a long ways away. "I can say however that one of our projects has a large and growing team in Edmonton working through pre-production, and based on the progress I'm seeing, I can confirm that indeed the Dread Wolf rises," Hudson said.

BioWare confirms it's working on multiple big projects at once, which is what got the developer into deep trouble in the first place.

BioWare's team has a big morale problem that's led to a lot of internal suffering. Developers are submitted to intense crunch to get projects like Dragon Age: Inquisition, Mass Effect: Andromeda, and Anthem finished. The latter two suffered immensely from this hard push and were lampooned by gamers and critics alike. BioWare devs say depression, anxiety, and mental and physical fatigue are all endemic to the studio, with poor planning, communication, and execution the major culprits. BioWare is simply doing too much too fast. Now they're adrift in the same turbulent waters in the same boat.

Although BioWare General Manager Casey Hudson pledges to help fix these issues, today he confirmed the studio is working on numerous big AAA games at once. These projects include Dragon Age 4 and unspecific unannounced games, one of which is likely set in the Mass Effect franchise.

Following the inclusion of SNES games, Nintendo confirms it will no longer release three new classic games a month.

SNES games on Switch are finally here, they're free for Switch Online subscribers, and the games are damn good. But there's a catch. Nintendo has no plans to just rapidly give away old-school games in its cheap $5 a month Switch Online subscription. The old three SNES/NES games a month cadence is over. Instead of the agonizing drip-feed of games, Nintendo delivered a fusillade of classics all at once (Netflix binging vs weekly episodes).

New games are coming to both platforms, Nintendo says, but gamers won't ever known when. They'll now be added sporadically with no set timeline. "New games will be added after launch, but those releases will not adhere to a regular schedule," a Nintendo rep told Vooks.net.

Divinity: Original Sin 2 is coming to Switch, but PC players can import their saves.

As Nintendo embraces the Switch's destiny as a re-release machine, a ton of existing and yesteryear games are coming to the platform. Some surprises like beloved RPG Divinity: Original Sin 2 are making the jump, complete with an interesting feature that should be bog standard for all cross-plat ports: cross-saves. The wizards at Larian let PC and Switch players freely import and export their saves at will, and Switch saves are compatible with PC and vice-versa.

"For players who wish to continue their adventures on the go, Divinity: Original Sin 2 - Definitive Edition features first-of-its-kind cross-saves between Nintendo Switch systems and Steam on PC, which means players can upload and download their save files to continue playing on the go," reads a press release announcement.

Dell has refreshed its XPS 13 laptop with Intel's latest 10th-gen CPU offerings, as well as the latest in Wi-Fi 6 connectivity that is 3x faster than the previous generation.

The new Dell XPS 13 has the same look as the refreshed XPS 13 earlier this year, but internally it is a new beast. Starting with the use of Intel's new 10th-gen Comet Lake-U processors, with the Core i3-10110U and Core i5-10210U processors starting at $999, while the higher-end Core i7-10710U will be available in October.

We have the usual up to 16GB of RAM and up to 256GB SSD storage, while inside the new XPS 13 laptops all feature Wi-Fi 6 connectivity, thanks to the Killer AX1650 (2x2) which is based on Intel's own Wi-Fi 6 Chipset.

Amazon has been pushing for its living room takeover for years now, but has just made another big stride towards that by unveiling its new OLED TV in a new partnership with Grundig.

There will be two models -- one without microphones, and another that will have far-field voice microphones built into the TV for some hands-free Alexa action. The model without the microphones will include a normal Alexa voice remote control.

Grundig will be using "last-generation" LG OLED panels in the new Amazon OLED Fire TV Edition, which will have support for both HDR10 and Dolby Vision.

Lenovo had a big show this year at IFA 2019 unveiling not one or two new Yoga laptops, but four new models that spread into 3 new models in their C-series and a new model in its S-series family.

The new Yoga models are familiar, roling out with the same flexibility as previous-gen Yoga products but have new features and internals to keep us impressed. We're looking at USB-C, Dolby Vision, and even Intel's new 10th-gen CPUs.

Starting with the new flagship Lenovo Yoga C940, we have a 4K VESA DisplayHDR 400 screen with super-slim bezels, Dolby Vision, and 500 nits of brightness. Lenovo will be offering the Yoga C940 in two sizes: 14- and 15.6-inch, with the displays starting off at a 1080p resolution but making their way up to 4K.

LG had two world-first acheivements at IFA 2019 this year, with the world's first 8K OLED TV and world's first 8K NanoCell TV.

These new TVs both offer the insane native resolution that 8K provides at 7680 x 4320 -- 4x the pixels of 4K, and 16x the pixel count of 1080p. LG stands out from the growing crowd of 8K TVs, with the South Korean giant stating that its new 8K TVs push past the picture quality required of the Information Display Measurements Standard to "real 8K".

It gets a bit detailed, but the standard requires that resolution isn't just bound by pixel count -- but rather the neighboring pixels need to be indistinguishable from one another. This is something called the Contrast Modulation measurement, and it needs to be higher than 25% for images and 50% for text.

Acer unveiled its new Predator Triton 500 gaming laptop at IFA 2019, a new laptop rocking a 300Hz display -- just like the new ASUS Zephyrus S GX701.

The new Acer Triton 500 has a 15.6-inch 1080p 300Hz display that will be shipping in December for $2800, where inside it is powered by an Intel Core i7-8750H processor, and offer either 16GB or 32GB of DDR4.

It'll be powered by NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 2060 or RTX 2080 with Max-Q, up to 2 x 512GB PCIe 3.0 x4 SSDs in RAID 0 for the speed freaks out there. I would definitely be going with the RTX 2080 Max-Q if it were up to me, because you're going to need as much graphics grunt as you can to hit 300FPS.

Netflix has just secured Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins for a multi-year overall deal that will see Jenkins get behind the camera to create original TV shows exclusive to Netflix.

Variety reports that the deal between Netflix and Jenkins is worth $10 million over 3 years, and pales in comparison to the huge 9-figure ($100M+) deals with the Game of Thrones writers and Netflix recently.

Netflix VP for Original Sales, Channing Dungey, said in a statement: "Her trailblazing work has pushed boundaries and she confidently tells stories that leave an unforgettable mark. We look forward to fostering her many ideas and helping them come to life".

Gears 5 is right around the corner (my 8K benchmarks have just finished, expect that over the weekend) but now it has been revealed that Gears 5 is the latest AAA game to have in-game inclusivity for LGBTQPIA+ gamers.

The game has a playable female protagonist, which is a first for the Gears franchise, but it also packs a bunch of Pride flags that represents the various LGBTQPIA+ identities in the gaming community.

Twitter user @ashiinu spotted the 19 Pride flags in Gears 5, with the Pride flags being in-game banners that can be styled to your multiplayer character load out.

We are getting very close to the official reveal of Google's new Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL smartphones, with another leak in video form below:

The new video has the larger Pixel 4 XL being shown off in the quick hands-on, showing that the Pixel loses its notch replacing it with a large bezel at the top for the front-facing camera and sensors.

Google will ship its new Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL smartphones with its just-released Android 10 operating system, and be powered by Qualcomm's super-fast Snapdragon 855 processor, 6GB of RAM, and faster 90Hz refresh displays.

AMD has released its new Radeon Software Adrenalin 2019 Edition 19.9.1 drivers, which are optimized for -- and including more performance in Gears 5.

Gears 5 will receive up to 8% more performance when in DX12 mode with the new Radeon 19.9.1 drivers, as well as other improvements and support in other areas. One of those is Vulkan, which receives improvements with the new 19.9.1 drivers.

Some other improvmeents include Radeon FreeSync being enabled on 240Hz displays on the Radeon RX 5700 series cards, and higher VRAM clocks at idle or on the desktop on the Radeon VII.

I'm going to do what no one in the press has yet: ask President Trump right here, "who is Q?" There, I said it. Now back to some not-so-regular programming: 8chan was taken down shortly after the recent mass shooting in El Paso, with site owner Jim Watkins releasing a video addressing the issue:

At the time, 8chan's host Cloudfare, terminated service of the site. 8chan quickly moved over to BitMitigate but then they were quickly shutdown and 8chan disappeared. Watkins was then subpoenaed to testify over the manifesto hitting 8chan first, except it didn't -- it was on Instagram first, but you won't read that in most stories.

Watkins took 8chan down after BitMitigate was shutdown, and would keep it offline until after his testimony to Congress. Anyone who is into "conspiracy theories" and hell, just reading the countless hit pieces on Qanon online, would know that there has been no new Q drops since 8chan was taken down.

Foxconn's first job once its factory in Wisconsin is built and operational will be an automated coffee robot for mall kiosks, airports (probably the best place) and office spaces of the future.

The Chinese giant teamed with Texas-based company Briggo to manufacture the new automated coffee machines. Foxconn will use its upcoming LCD factory in Wisconsin, which will make the coffee machines for Briggo, while seeking other contracts to build products for other companies.

Foxconn has been in hot water over its facility, which seems to be spiralling in mismanagement. The company is saying it'll have its factory complete in 2020, but it'll be smaller, and employ less Americans than the original plans.

Samsung is expanding its Galaxy Note 10 family as it launches the handset into different markets, and now there's a blockchain-focused Galaxy Note 10 "KlaytnPhone" exclusive to South Korea.

There is still the normal Galaxy Note 10, Galaxy Note 10+ and 5G-capable versions of Samsung's new Note, but South Korea gets the exclusive "KlaytnPhone" version. KlaytnPhone is the name of a blockchain platform made by Kako, a South Korean messaging company.

Samsung's SK-exclusive Galaxy Note 10 KlaytnPhone will have a crypto wallet built-in, as well as blockchain apps pre-installed. Kako will even be providing a "certain amount" of Klay, its own cryptocurrency, with each KlaytnPhone handset sold.