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UPDATE: Netherealm's Ed Boon confirms that the "vast majority" of Mortal Kombat 11 skins aren't sold on the shop. This means instead of paying money, gamers will instead need to pay time to unlock content. The grind is still immensely tedious, however, and the RNG-fueled grind remains.

Don't have time to unlock all of Mortal Kombat 11's skins? WB Games is counting on that, and is all too eager to serve up microtransaction shortcuts.

A redditor has done some math to expose just how awful Mortal Kombat 11's greedy monetization tactics are. According to some simple calculations, it'd take $6,440 worth of Time Crystals to unlock every skin for every default character (not including Shao Kahn and Frost, which are paywalled). Even then it's not a guaranteed bet as chests in the Krypt are re-randomized in a 6-8 hour window.

Nintendo plans to release a budget-friendly Switch handheld-console model this June, sources tell Bloomberg.

The Switch has always been Nintendo's future. The wildly successful handheld-console hybrid is an evolution of Nintendo's hardware history--the Wii, Wii U, and 3DS handheld all led up to the Switch. Now with a new cheaper Switch on the way aimed at replacing the 3DS, the Switch is set to fulfill its destiny as the core center of the company's gaming presence.

Sources tell Bloomberg that the long-rumored Switch Mini or Switch Lite is on the way, and could launch as soon as June of this year to slowly replace the 8 year-old 3DS handheld. No official details on the new system have been confirmed. Analysts predict the system will have certain features shaved off to save money, which could drop the cost to $199, down from the current Switch's $299.

A handful of football stars got to try out Infinity Ward's new Call of Duty game at a recent private event, hyping up the shooter before its official announcement.

If a recent closed-doors event is any indication, Activision should unveil Call of Duty 2019 soon. A number of high-profile athletes have playtested this year's big Call of Duty, and all of them say it's absolute fire. The athletes dropped hype-building teases on Instagram with the #CallOfDutyPartner hashtag. Of course no one dropped any actual info about the shooter, but reports say it'll be Modern Warfare 4.

Activision has confirmed a few details about the next Call of Duty. Unlike Black Ops 4, Infinity Ward's new CoD will have a more grounded story-driven campaign mode complete with co-op action.

Reports now say Nintendo isn't making a more powerful Switch handheld-console hybrid, and will instead update existing SKUs with almost negligible upgrades.

Earlier this month, key sources told Eurogamer and The Wall Street Journal that two new Switch models would release in 2019: a higher-end next-gen model with beefier specs and performance (dubbed the Switch Pro or Switch+) and a cheaper version aimed at replacing the flagging 3DS (dubbed the Switch Mini, or Switch Lite). Further info gleaned from Nikkei said the next-gen Switch had been put off because Nintendo hadn't outlined its plans yet. Now sources tell Bloomberg that this isn't the case.

A next-gen Switch isn't in development, new sources close to the matter told Bloomberg. Instead Nintendo will provide smaller upgrades to the existing Switch model. This matches up with previous WSJ reports that Nintendo would spruce up the Switch's 6.2-inch 720p LCD screen to an OLED panel and possibly amp the base model's 4310mAh battery size and add quick charging options.

A new firmware update has been released for the Nintendo Switch and it brings the system up to version 8.0.1.

Last week Nintendo released a massive firmware update for the Nintendo Switch. The update brought the system to version 8.0.0 and added several new functionality features such as a sorting software option, 'view all news option' 15 new avatars, a transfer save data feature, a zoom feature, sleep mode and much more.

The new update that was recently released hasn't added as much as version 8.0.0, in fact no new features have been released at all. This new firmware update is purely for "General system stability improvements to enhance the user's experience." If you are interested in checking out the other updates for the Nintendo Switch that Nintendo has released, visit the official Nintendo website here.

Its not everyday that you hear about an airborne crab almost connecting with a pro gamer while the gamer is mid match, but today is that day and what better game for it to happen then Super Smash Bros?

One of the most well known Super Smash Bros. players of all time is Super Smash Bros. Melee pro player Juan "Hungrybox" DeBiedma. During the Pound 2019 grand final against Cloud9's Joseph "Mango" Marquez, Hungrybox was subjected to a slight bit of hate from one of the fans in the crowd after he took home the competition.

A fan decided to launch a dead crab at Hungrybox as the player was packing up his controller. Not surprisingly after the shock subsided, Hungrybox stood up and began shouting at the crowd in anger. Hungrybox later then took to Twitter to apologize for his behavior with the crab saying "Sorry for losing my temper. Someone threw a fucking raw crab at me. After a 5 set losers run. Barely missed my head." The officials of Pound have come out and said that they intend to permanently ban the crab thrower but will not be releasing his name out to the public.

Square Enix have decided to release the final DLC for their recently released title Shadow of the Tomb Raider. The final DLC is called "The Path Home" and the soundtrack has been showcased in the below trailer.

The new DLC has dropped today and surprisingly enough Square Enix has decided to not show a gameplay or cinematic trailer for this DLC. Instead all we have to off of is the above soundtrack and the official description that Square Enix has provided. According to the description, the DLC will follow Lara and her journey to ancient tunnels through a "brand-new challenge tomb, which contains a secret that's been hidden for ages."

The brand new tomb for Shadow of the Tomb Raider players to enjoy is not the only thing included within this DLC. Players will also receive "The new Midnight Sentinel outfit, which enables longer focus and perception durations, and the Silver Strike bow, which causes arrows to penetrate enemy body armor or even pierce multiple unarmored enemies. In addition, the new Magic Touch skill allows Lara to consume fewer resources when crafting on the go." Shadow of the Tomb Raider is currently available on Xbox One, PS4 and PC. The Path Home DLC is currently available for purchase and download.

GIGABYTE has refreshed its gaming laptop line up with new 9th-gen Intel Core processors and NVIDIA GeForce RTX graphics with its new AORUS 15 notebooks, but there were also refreshes of the AERO 15 range which are thinner and lighter than the AORUS family laptops.

The refreshed AERO 15 Classic gaming laptop comes in two forms with the option of a Core i7-9750H that clocks up to 4.5GHz or the Core i9-9980HK which clocks up to 5GHz. Both systems can be configured with up to 64GB of RAM and have 2 x M.2 slots for a huge amount of super-fast NVMe storage. The flagship AERO 15 Classic-YA comes with NVIDIA's flagship GeForce RTX 2080 Max-Q graphics with 8GB of GDDR6.

The company is offering the world's first 3mm thin bezel, which is an impressive feat.

World War Z has finally hit the market and has received quite the level of criticism, regardless of that though the title has managed to hit a new milestone in sales.

According to an official announcement on the Epic Games Twitter page, Saber Interactive's title World War Z has managed to make 250,000 sales on the Epic Games Store. Many fans of the game have commented on the announcement from Epic with their concerns for the titles sales and how they would compare if the game launched on Steam instead of the Epic Games Store.

Recent reports have now said that World War Z has managed a total 1 million sales across all platforms, which is quite an achievement for both developer Saber Interactive and publisher MadDog Games and Focus Home Interactive. World War Z is currently available for purchase on the Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC. For more information, head on over to the official World War Z website here.

The latest refresh of the AORUS 15 gaming laptop has been unveiled, with some pretty damn good internals that are worth a look with some industry-leading stuff going into the AORUS 15.

Inside, the new AORUS 15 gaming laptop comes in three variants with changes between the LCD and GPU.

First off we have the flagship AORUS 15-XA with a 15.6-inch 1080p 240Hz IGZO LCD from Sharp, while the AORUS 15-WA model comes with the same 15.6-inch sized display but is made by LG, is an IPS display and falls down to 144Hz. The lower-end AORUS 15-SA rolls out with the same 15.6-inch 1080p 144Hz LCD from LG.

Snoop Dogg has continued his legacy of being an avid video game fan by hosting his very Mortal Kombat 11 tournament. Enter the "Snoop Dogg's Gangsta Gaming League" for the 'King of the Kompound'.

Snoop Dogg has taken to his personal Twitter to reveal that he is hosted his own Mortal Kombat 11 competition showdown with some of his close friends. Some of Snoops friends included rapper 21 Savage, Rachel Ako, Kamil McFadden, Rachel Swindler, Dashae Frost and Dan Rue. The stream was featured on mixer as well as Twitch.tv and also directed viewers to the website Merry Jane.

This isn't the first time we have seen Snoop embrace his gaming side, we last saw him receiving his very own copy of Spyro Reignited Trilogy as he is a massive fan of the original Spyro games, check that story out here. In other news about Mortal Kombat 11, check out the Nintendo Switch gameplay trailer here, or you can watch the brutal trailer of the recently revealed Frost fighter here. Mortal Kombat 11 has officially launched and is available on the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC and Nintendo Switch.

Razer has just unveiled its refreshed Blade gaming laptops with a new Blade 15 and Blade Pro 17 with various configurations that include Intel's fresh new 9th generation Core processors and NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX series graphics cards.

Starting with the high-end and larger Blade Pro 17, we have Razer using a large 17.3-inch 1080p panel with super-slim 6mm bezels that give you a compact, but beautifully large gaming laptop. Inside, you can get a beasty Intel Core i7-9750H processor, and options of between the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060, or the RTX 2070 Max-Q or RTX 2080 Max-Q.

Razer has provided 16GB of DDR4-2667 by default, with the option of 32GB or 64GB if you are RAM hungry and want to run a bunch of browser tabs at once. There's plenty of storage options with the refreshed Razer Blade Pro 17 gaming notebook with 512GB of NVMe storage by default, something t hat can be upgraded up to 2TB if you need it, as well as another M.2 slot for an additional NVMe SSD.

Samsung officially delaying the global launch of its Galaxy Fold smartphone might not be a good look for the foldable smartphone world, but competitor Huawei isn't stopping and has announced it will be debuting the Mate X in July 2019.

Huawei teased its foldable smartphone not too long ago now and it seemed to have a better design than Samsung's own Galaxy Fold, but Huawei were hush-hush with a release window until now. Now being the right time to strike, the Chinese manufacturing giant said at its own global analyst conference that the Mate X will be launching in July 2019, within 48 hours of Samsung delaying the Galaxy Fold release.

I would be very weary of the July window release as all eyes are on Huawei to launch the Mate X without any issues, because if it launches with any issues with its foldable screen at all, it will be blasted into the ground. On the other hand, if Huawei gets the Mate X out the door and into consumers' hands before Samsung can re-work its Galaxy Fold, then Huawei might be onto a winner with the first foldable smartphone hitting the market.

Apex Legends came out of nowhere and became the hottest game of the moment, but it seems its time in the sun is shading if you look at Twitch viewer ship numbers.

According to the latest data, Twitch viewership of Apex Legends has dropped 75% from its launch high of 40 million viewers per week down to 10 million viewers per week in late-March. Seeking Alpha financial analysts said that the huge buzz and instant success of Apex Legends was "acquired" and not organic.

This is true as EA paid big money to some of the biggest Twitch and game streamers on the planet, but now there are other games taking gamers' time away from Apex Legends and it's showing instantly. Even myself, I pumped 50 hours or so into the game in the weeks after it launched but then moved off to The Division 2 when it launched and have been addicted to that ever since.

Amid financial dips, Square Enix needs a win right now and E3 2019 is the perfect opportunity to stoke the fires of hype.

Today Square Enix announced its E3 2019 plans, confirming a showcase in Sony's old time slot. Fans everywhere have high hopes for the event, and for good reason: the publisher is working on a multitude of exciting projects including the insanely hyped Final Fantasy VII: Remake. The company has been relatively quiet as it develops these games, including transforming FF7 from a turn-based RPG into an action game like Final Fantasy XV, but that silence could be broken in a few months' time.

One project we should hear more about is Square Enix's ambitious Avengers game. Square Enix signed a big multi-year partnership with Marvel to make games based on the comic universe, and the Avengers will be the first of many games. We don't know much about the Avengers game other than it's a completely original story and that it's meant to be played for years to come, indicating live service elements.

AMD is turning 50 this year and in order to celebrate it will be reportedly releasing new special edition products with both the Radeon VII graphics card and Ryzen 7 2700X processor both receiving 50th anniversary special edition releases.

A few glimpses of the Ryzen 7 2700X special edition CPU have been spotted in the last few days, but the 50th anniversary Radeon VII hasn't been seen until now. We should expect an April 29 announcement and release, but I'm sure that the numbers made available will be extremely low. It'll be a great collectors product for the future, and it isn't the last of AMD's massive launches this year.

AMD is ramping into the next generation Zen 2 CPU architecture on the new 7nm node with a plethora of new processors in its Ryzen, Threadripper and EPYC families of CPUs. On top of that we'll have the associated X570 chipset released with its PCIe 4.0 connectivity, and who can forget about Navi? The new Navi GPU architecture will also be unveiled and released into a next-gen Radeon graphics card, something that will be unveiled at E3 2019 just days after Computex 2019.

Showtime's upcoming Halo TV series will unfold a dramatic story with lots of character development, and could fill in large chunks of John 117's backstory.

What makes icons like The Master Chief so legendary? Their exploits on the battlefield, of course, and Sierra 117 has no shortage of death-defying feats (Covies don't call him "Demon" for nothing). Now that we know 343i is focusing largely on character development, and that Master Chief will be a big part of the show, there's lots of potential ground to cover. The Halo TV show could tap Master Chief's chaotic missions and excursions with Blue Team across the Human-Covenant War, marrying explosive action with a uniquely dramatic story arc. There's so many possibilities.

In a recent interview with ShackNews, 343 Industries executive producer Kiki Wolfkill affirmed the Halo TV series will have strong emphasis on characters, creating a more human experience like Forward Unto Dawn.

NVIDIA has released new GeForce 430.39 drivers that have just dropped, ready for the just-released GeForce GTX 1650 in various graphics card and gaming laptop forms.

The new GeForce 430.39 drivers don't just boast support for the new TU117-based graphics cards but also provide optimizations for Mortal Kombat 11 which was just released, as well as optimizations for Anthem and Strange Brigade. The new drivers also see NVIDIA adding support for 7 new G-Sync compatible monitors, and support for the new Windows 10 May 2019 update, which includes Variable Rate Shading.

Get the new drivers right here, with NVIDIA reducing the usual 500MB+ file size down to 356MB for the GeForce 430.39 drivers.

Digital Storm has just announced its next-gen Avon gaming laptop that packs both Intel's new Core i7-9750H processor, and NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 2070 Max-P graphics.

The new Intel Core i7-9750H packs 8C/8T of performance on the 14nm node at up to 4.5GHz, with the Avon gaming laptop starting at $1999 with 16GB of DDR4-2400 RAM and the RTX 2070 Max-P with 8GB of GDDR6. It rolls out with a equivalent of a 17.3-inch screen in a traditional 15-inch laptop footprint thanks to Digital Storm using a slim 6mm bezel.

The upgraded $2349 model packs double the RAM (32GB versus 16GB) and 1TB of NVMe SSD storage (1TB versus 500GB). The models have identical Intel Wi-Fi 9560 + Bluetooth, Windows 10 Home, and lifetime support in the US alongside 3-year warranty.

NVIDIA has just announced its latest Turing-based GeForce GTX 16 series graphics card with the new GeForce GTX 1650, which is based on the TU117 GPU and starts from just $149. The new GTX 1650 joins the GeForce GTX 1660 Ti and GTX 1660 graphics cards in the non-RTX series Turing-based GeForce line up.

The new GeForce GTX 1650 launches today and while I do have a sample in-hand, for the first time that I can remember (if not, ever) the drivers were not pre-supplied to reviewers and go live today, April 23. The new TU117-based GeForce GTX 1650 offers everything from the Turing Shader innovations, including improved performance and power efficiency, and so much more.

NVIDIA is aiming the GeForce GTX 1650 at 1080p gamers with 2x the performance of the GTX 950 and 70% more performance than the GTX 1050 at 1920x1080. Best of all, the new GTX 1650 is able to do this at just 75W meaning it doesn't use an external PCIe power connector, which should really change things for small form factor gaming PCs.