Latest News - Page 1846

THQ Nordic's parent company will soon be called...get ready...The Embracer Group.

THQ Nordic today announced it's changing its name to avoid conflict issues with its publishing arm. Right now there's two THQ Nordics--the publisher THQ Nordic GmbH and the parent company THQ Nordic AB--and it wants to avoid confusion.

It's new name will be The Embracer Group, and it pretty much reflects what the company does. I mean, the huge multi-faceted games-maker is known for embracing games, and it's constantly buying up developers (it just acquired three new ones today), whole branches like Koch Media (Deep Silver), and countless IPs. The company currently has a whopping 81 projects in development, of which only 34 have been revealed, including a new Saints Row game. It's legitimately one of the most interesting industry players right now simply because of its wide content portfolio.

According to THQ Nordic's new financials, Dead Island 2 could be out by 2021 on next-gen consoles.

After years of radio silence, THQ Nordic finally revealed new details about Dead Island 2. The game has been in development hell for the last five years, and has changed hands. First it went from Yager Interactive to Sumo Digital in 2017, and now the project's been handed off to Homefront: The Revolution developer Dambuster Studios. We have evidence Dambuster has been working on Dead Island since at least 2018, where THQ Nordic confirmed it was working on a "top-secret AAA project."

Not only that, but we have a potential release timeframe. In its latest earnings report, THQ Nordic says it'll release two major AAA games in its next fiscal year from April 1, 2020 through March 31, 2021. One of these games will be the next Saints Row game. The other is likely Dead Island 2. In fact, we had reason to believe Dead Island could release as soon as 2019.

Volition is officially working on a new mainline Saints Row game, and it should release by 2021, THQ Nordic confirms.

We've long-suspected Saints Row V was in development. Volition Entertainment has been pretty quiet since its Agents of Mayhem game failed, and a bit ago THQ Nordic said the studio was working on a "top-secret AAA project." Now the publisher outright says that yes, Volition's new game is a Saints Row sequel. "Volition is deep in development of a brand-new Saints Row game, the first full entry in this much loved series since Saints Row IV was released in 2013," THQ Nordic's Lars Wingefors said in a recent earnings report.

No exact details were revealed, but we did get a nebulous timeframe. THQ Nordic expects to ship two major AAA games in the fiscal year from April 1, 2020 through March 31, 2021, and Saints Row V is assuredly one of them. So that puts Saints Row V firmly in next-gen console territory and we should see a reveal at E3 2020 or thereabouts, probably on Microsoft's press conference (since Sony has dipped out of the show).

GTA 6 should harness the raw power of next-gen console hardware to push insane visuals and graphics, Take-Two Interactive teases.

Speaking with Mad Money's Jim Cramer, Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick says next-gen consoles have explosive potential to deliver amazing new gameplay experiences--especially with huge marquee blockbusters like Grand Theft Auto. Immersion will be a huge part of this, and GTA 6 could look so photorealistic that gamers can't distinguish it from reality.

"We have a new console generation coming, and that's going to allow us to do some things we haven't been able to do creatively. That's exciting," Mr. Zelnick said during the show. "But as I've said before, we're going to reach a point where you won't be able to tell the difference between what's created in the computer and what's real. That doesn't mean we'll do it for all our games. Borderlands, for example, is an animated universe--it's always going to be an animated universe. But this promise of taking certain titles, like basketball, and making it truly look like live-action--it's pretty close now, squint a little bit, it looks like live-action--that's really exciting. That gives our creative folks a new canvas on which to paint."

Twitter is currently in the midst of testing a bunch of new features for users to enjoy, one of these features is a search option for direct-messages.

According to Engadget, Twitter is currently right in the middle of testing new features that will allow for a more utility across the app. One of these features is a search option for users' direct-messages, which will allow for Twitter users to simply search their direct-messages instead of tediously scrolling.

Other things that Twitter are reportedly working on are Live Photo support which is extremely similar to that of GIF's, and the ability to reorder photos from inside the app. According to Mashable's Karissa Bell, "Twitter says it is "re-energizing" investment in DMs". It is unclear when these features will roll out to widespread users, but when they do I'm sure that Twitter will have a full list of the newly added features and changes. If you didn't know, Twitter is also working on a snooze notification option, more on that here.

NASA has said that they will discussing their agency's plans for how astronauts will be landing on the Moon by 2024 on August 16th.

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine accompanied by U.S. Representatives Mo Brooks, Robert Aderholt, Scott DesJarlais and Brian Babin will be revealing the agency's plans for getting humans back on the Moon by 2024 through their Artemis program. The discussion will revolve around how NASA plans to safely land on the lunar surface, and questions and answers will be provided after the initial announcements.

NASA plan on getting the first women and the next man on the Moon in just five years time, this will be done through the Artemis program which is detailed here. Tune into the discussion on Friday, August 16th for more space information. If you didn't know, NASA just completed the final and most complex part of their Orion spacecraft, check that out here.

Scientists have observed a recent neutron star phenomenon and have deemed it a 'glitch'. It seems that computers and technology aren't the only things that can freak out for no apparent reason.

Researchers who published a paper in the Nature Astronomy journal observed a neutron star called Vela glitching out for a short period of time. For those that don't know, neutron stars a fast-spinning corpses of once giant stars, they harbor about 1.5 times the mass of the sun and are much smaller in diameter. These stars are known to "glitch" out every now and again, this 'glitching' causes the star to slow down its rotation speed, then speed it up and then return back to normal speed.

According to the paper, Vela's normal spin speed is 11 times per second but in 2016 it was caught speeding up. Researchers discovered that Vela's spin has three phases, the first being the slowing down of the spin speed, then the speeding up phase and then a return to its normal speed. Researchers have also tried to determine the components that cause these three phases to occur and ultimately the "glitch" to happen. The components are: a crust of ions connected in a lattice pattern, a roiling "soup" of neutrons inside the stars inner crust and a extremely dense core consisting of protons, neutrons and more particles.

For those that don't know, at the center of our Milky Way galaxy lies a black hole which we have named Sagittarius A. That black hole just had a strange anomaly that caused its brightness to spike 75 times more than normal.

The infrared flaring seen by astronomers is nothing like they have seen before, and astronomers have been observing Sagittarius A for about 20 years now. Astronomers used the Keck Telescope to observe the flaring and according to the scientists this flaring occurred for about 2.5 hours. At first, astronomers thought the flaring was caused by the neighboring star SO-2 which has an elliptical orbit close to the black hole, but that hasn't been confirmed.

An interview was held with ScienceAlert with astronomer Tuan Do, he said "The black hole was so bright I at first mistook it for the star S0-2, because I had never seen Sgr A* that bright. Over the next few frames, though, it was clear the source was variable and had to be the black hole. I knew almost right away there was probably something interesting going on with the black hole." At the moment scientists cannot pinpoint what has caused Sagittarius A to flare like this, further research will have to be conducted before a definitive answer can be provided. For more information and theories as to why the flaring occurred, visit this article here.

If you are a fan of open-world action-RPG games, then keep your eyes peeled on Experiment 101's Biomutant title. If you like what you see, you might want to check out the games Collector Editions.

Firstly, we have the most expensive edition the 'Atomic Edition' which includes the following: a mid-battle diorama that measures 23″ by 10″ by 12″, SteelBook case, oversize mousepad, t-shirt in L/XL, official game, artwork on fabric and a premium box. The Collectors Edition is the cheaper version, coming it at $109 and including: 7.8″ stature of the main character, the previously mentioned artwork, official game soundtrack, the game and a smaller premium box.

Biomutant is truly shaping up to be quite the adventure for open-world action-RPG fans, but if this is the first time you have heard of the title check out some kick ass gameplay here. While there is some great action scenes seen in that trailer, check out some awesome environments in this one here. At the moment neither THQ Nordic or Experiment 101 has revealed the release date for Biomutant, but the title is still expected to arrive in gamers hands sometime in 2019.

One of the best society-simulator and city-builder games is now planned to release on consoles, but will consoles gamers be able to survive the cold?

Developers of Frostpunk, 11 Bit Studios have announced that their critically acclaimed title will now be heading over to consoles this October. Players will assume the role of a ruler that is governing the last city on Earth, as the rest of the planets cities have been frozen over. Players will have to make difficult and well thought out decisions to ensure the survival of the remaining citizens, these decisions range in the forms of laws, health, work routines and your cities overall approval of your efforts.

Above is a trailer for the title and its just a mere taste of what Frostpunk can offer players. Frostpunk will be heading over to consoles on October 11th, for more information about the title check out the official website here.

Respawn Entertainment has just blessed Apex Legends players with a brand new update that adds some things that we didn't ask for, but are more than happy to have.

Respawn Entertainment has officially kicked off their Iron Crown Collection event where players will be able to jump into a limited-time solos mode, enjoy the Octane Town Takeover that has a skate park, double XP for top 5 and wins over the weekend and numerous cosmetic additions.

This update dropped out of nowhere and judging by players' reactions in the comment section of the above video, it has been more than welcomed. There is so many new skins for both weapons and legends, and they honestly look fantastic so props to Respawn for their efforts. Moving into the map change, Octane has "taken over part of Kings Canyon and done a bit of remodeling to better suit his adrenaline-seeking tendencies".

PC Building Simulator has made its way over to consoles, so now console gamers can enjoy building their balls to the wall PC with no costs whatsoever.

Consoles gamers can now run their own PC workshop and have fun building all different kind of PC's. Users can customize their PC to their hearts desire, you can change case, GPU, CPU, cooling, RAM, storage, monitors and even overclock your whole rig if you want.

PC Building Simulator isn't just a program to mess around in either, users can legitimately use this program to build the PC they are looking at buying and acquire a great visualization of how it will look and run. PC Building Simulator is now available on the Xbox One, PS4 and Nintendo Switch.

Secretlab has just secured a huge injection of funding from Temasek subsidiary Heliconia Capital Management, with the gaming chair company saying this is the first external investor for Secretlab.

Heliconia has invested in other tech companies including Razer, with its new stake in Secretlab described as a "small minority stake" that sees Secretlab valued at between S$200-$300 million, which works out to $144-$216 million -- not a small sum at all, for a gaming chair company that is very significant.

It goes to show that all of the hard work Secretlab has put into its gaming c hairs over the years is paying off, not just from its consumers and fans, but from investment firms seeing the future being bright for Secretlab.

We knew it was coming and we should have the official reveal today, but it looks like the new Need for Speed has been leaked and it will be called Need for Speed: Heat.

Need for Speed: Heat will reportedly be a new open-world game with a darker tone, and a serious story. It actually sounds kinda cool, with an +18 game showing the serious tone, while the "arcade gameplay as always, just brake to drift" shows that it'll take driving in the easier arcade-style mode.

The graphics will be "similar to NFS 2015" which doesn't inspire much, there will be no off-road gameplay, but one of the cool features in Need for Speed: Heat sounds like the Police Escape game mode. Police Escape mode is meant to be 'classic Need for Speed' mode with "cops will be back in the open world" with "helicopters and everything".

Samsung's new PM1733 is a thing of beauty, and will be the first to use the company's in-house PCIe 4.0 SSD controller and fifth-generation 512Gb TLC V-NAND chips.

The upcoming Samsung PM1733 rocks up to huge 8GB/sec in random read speeds, and up to 1,500,000 IOPS. It will come in two form factors with the first being the U.2 drive that will use four PCIe 4.0 lanes and come with up to 30.72TB of storage. Samsung's other PM1733 SSD will come in a HHHL model (half height, half length) that will use eight PCIe 4.0 lanes, and up to 15.36TB of storage.

Samsung's new PM1733 SSD will work in existing PCIe 3.0 slots but you'll be restricted by the maximum PCIe 3.0 bandwidth and not receive all what the new PCIe 4.0-capable SSDs push out with up to 8GB/sec on the new PM1733.

It looks like we're to expect L.A. Noire: The VR Case Files to release on the PlayStation VR headset soon, with a new listing on the European games rating board, PEGI. L.A. Noire: The VR Case Files received an 18 rating.

With this news we should expect an announcement soon, and with Gamescom right around the corner that announcement might come sooner rather than later.

A refresher on what L.A. Noire: The VR Case Files is: "Featuring seven cases rebuilt specifically for virtual reality, L.A. Noire: The VR Case Files adds new layers of immersion and realism to Rockstar Games' atmospheric crime thriller as you solve select cases from the blockbuster original game, spanning mysteries from the Detective desks of Traffic, Arson, Homicide, and more".

Nate Mitchell has announced he's leaving Facebook in a post on Reddit, with the co-founder of Oculus saying: "Hey everyone - I have some bittersweet news to share with this community. After 7 incredible years, I've decided to move on from Oculus / Facebook".

I first met Nate back at PAX Australia 2013 when Oculus was a small start-up, and he was one of the most humble guys I'd ever met. He remembered me again at CES 2015, and again was a humble human being even with Oculus going through its meteroic rise with Palmer Luckey and creating a VR market out of nothing really.

Facebook is looking internally and externally to find a replacement for Mitchell, according to someone who spoke with WIRED. Facebook CTO Mike Schroepfer said in a reply to Mitchell's post on Facebook: "Nate thank you for all you've done for VR and FB. Was and is an amazing ride and blast working with you. THANK YOU! Hope you get some well-deserved rest and I can't wait to see what you do next!"

Facebook has been paying contractors to listen to users audio clips and transcribe them, according to anonymous sources who spoke with The Associated Press.

The sources state that the social networking giant has hired outside contractors to go over the audio clips, with every single word (good and bad, secret and explicit conversations) being transcribed. Worse yet, the contractors do not know why Facebook needs the voice clips transcribed.

But don't worry, because Facebook confirmed it had been transcribing users' audio calls but it wouldn't do it anymore. On Tuesday, Facebook said: "Much like Apple and Google, we paused human review of audio more than a week ago". Pegging them into the first week of August 2019 where they stopped transcribing voice chats.

Google is in for a world of hurt tomorrow with Project Veritas set to put another crack into Pandora's Box with another exclusive -- a Google insider who has provided 950 pages of documents, and a laptop, to the Department of Justice's Antitrust division on Friday.

Download the 1000+ pieces of insider info from Google right here, and have your own sift through all of the information leaked.

This proof highlights the fact Google "created algorithms to hide its political bias within artificial intelligence platforms - in effect targeting particular words, phrases and contexts to promote, alter, reference or manipulate perceptions of Internet content" reports Sara A. Carter.

The US Federal Aviation Administration (or FAA) has banned certain Apple MacBook Pro laptops on US flights after Apple began recalling 15-inch MacBook Pro models over batteries that can overheat, and create a fire safety risk.

Apple said back in June that it had "determined that, in a limited number of older generation 15-inch MacBook Pro units, the battery may overheat and pose a fire safety risk". Now the FAA has chimed in saying that it was "aware of the recalled batteries that are used in some Apple MacBook Pro laptops" and has since communicated with all major US airlines about the ban.

The FAA put its foot down with US airlines reminding them about 2016 safety rules for products with recalled batteries. These laws means that the affected Apple laptops, MacBook Pro models sold between September 2015 and February 2017 (that is a lot) cannot go on a flight on domestic or international flights into, and out of the US.