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Although Fallout 76 is a hazardous waste zone right now, Bethesda isn't giving up on it and will continue to mop up the radioactive spillover.

Fallout 76 has a lot of problems. Some of these, like the addition of new events and engagement opportunities, can be fixed easier than others--some, like no NPCs or meaningful quests, are the result of big design flaws. Despite these shortcomings the devs at Bethesda won't abandon the live service game. Sure it may never flourish like it should as Bethesda has to constantly play catch-up to fix major launch problems that continue to escalate, but that doesn't mean it can't get better.

In a recent blog post, Bethesda confirmed that 2019 will be a big year for Fallout 76. The game will morph and change with new additions, including more quests, a brand new PVP mode, and even the ability to sell items to other players via vending machines.

The talented team at Beyond Skyrim are re-creating the entirety of Tamriel's huge continent-spanning cultures with the Skyrim games engine, and now we get a look at their next province: Morrowind.

The new Beyond Skyrim: Morrowind trailer shows just a snippet of the region itself, focusing on the northern areas of Sheogorad and northwest isle of Bleakrock. As such the footage is filled with icy and snowy areas reminiscent of the Nordic homeland, all with the familiar and bizarre architectural designs of the Dunmer ash-people. The content looks very much like the Dragonborn DLC for Elder Scrolls V, which saw Vvardenfell's climates radically shifted after Red Mountain's eruption.

As a huge Morrowind fan I'm eager to see how this plays out, but I'm much more interested in venturing into the heart of the region itself and pushing beyond Vvardenfell, the island that served as the mainland for Elder Scrolls III. I want to see other capital cities and strongholds like Necrom in the Heartlands and Telvannis in the Telvanni Isles. So many possibilities!

In a strange twist of fate, Slightly Mad Studios is making a games console aimed at the 4K gaming market.

Project Cars devs at Slightly Mad Studios are planning The Mad Box, a next-gen console that's touted to deliver enthusiast gaming performance. Exact details and specs haven't been published but studio founder Ian Bell says The Mad Box will be equivalent to a higher-end PC from 2021. It'll hit 4K gaming and VR in 120 FPS, and support today's latest VR headsets, hinting it'll be more of a PC-like Steambox console than a consolidated ecosystem like PlayStation or Xbox. This really sounds like a bad idea.

"What is the Mad Box? It's the most powerful console ever built... It's literally 'Mad'... You want 4K, you want VR at 60FPS? You want a full engine for free to develop your games on it? You have it," the founder wrote on Twitter, then clarifying the Mad Box hits 60FPS per eye.

AMD is heading into CES 2019 with some pretty big rumors of the upcoming Zen 2-based processors, a family of CPUs that will be led by the flagship Ryzen 9 3800X as a huge 16C/32T beast of a processor.

The new rumors are coming from a leak by a Russian retailer that suggests the Ryzen 9 3800X rocks 16 cores and 32 threads of CPU performance with a base clock of 3.9GHz and turbo clock of 4.7GHz, all achieved at just 125W. There will be two 12C/24T processors on the new 3000-series processors with the Ryzen 7 3700X and Ryzen 7 3700, with the Ryzen 7 3700X rocking 5GHz turbo clocks for 105W.

I think the Ryzen 7 3700X is going to be one of the more important CPUs in the Zen 2 processor line up, with 12C/24T rollout out at 5GHz we should see some good overclocks at up to 5.2GHz and 5.3GHz, or even more with better cooling. All of this for 105W is going to be great, while dragging the base clocks down 400MHz to 3.8GHz and the turbo clocks down 400MHz to 4.6GHz from 5GHz, the TDP savings are 10W down to 95W from 105W on the 3700X.

Although key analysts predict Nintendo could launch a handheld-only Switch variant in 2019, we make some predictions that the upgrade path will go the other way instead.

History tells us that Nintendo does best when it simultaneously operates two main hardware platforms: handhelds and consoles. But the Switch, which combines both handheld and console gaming into a single hybridized device, kicks off a new age for the Japanese titan. By joining home console gaming with on-the-go handheld portability, the Switch redefines Nintendo, and so we should redefine our expectations from the company. Although many predict a cheaper, kid-friendly Switch will be offered sometime soon, I think these predictions are on the wrong side of the spectrum (the handheld side versus the home gaming side).

The more I think about Nintendo's business moves and the Switch's potential, I think the Switch's future major hardware iterations will be focused more around docked gaming. There's many reasons for this, including Nintendo joining its handheld and console dev teams together, its partnership with NVIDIA and using the Tegra X1 chip, and a more synergized future-proof roadmap. But it comes down to this main point: instead of getting more handheld iterations, the Switch could get Expansion Pak-style add-ons that plug right into the dock and boost power.

Nintendo may launch a handheld-only version of its Switch hardware in 2019 to eventually replace the 3DS, analysts predict.

We've reported on the possibility of a Switch Mini or Switch Lite for a while now, and this isn't the first time key analysts have made these calls. Back in 2017, Citigroup analysts said the Japanese games titan could release a cheaper kid-friendly version of the Switch to help the 3DS' end-of-life transition. While nothing's been confirmed, Nintendo appears to be doing something with the Switch. Back in October, sources told The Wall Street Journal that a newer Switch refresh would roll out in 2019, possibly with an enhanced screen.

Now more analysts are echoing previous forecasts of a handheld-only Switch. The Switch Mini or Switch Lite wouldn't feature a dock and would effectively break the main selling point of the Switch, all in favor of re-capturing the potential lucrative handheld market. In a recent interview with GamesIndustry.biz, two prominent figures both support the possibility: Dr. Serkan Toto, whose Japan-centered Kantan Games keeps a close watch on Japanese gaming, and Wedbush Securities' Michael Pachter.

Jason Momoa has been riding one of the biggest waves he's ever ridden in his life, first making a small but brief appearance as Aquaman in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and then a more filled-out role in Justice League which bombed at the box office.

Aquaman was released in the US on December 21 and made hundreds of millions of dollars at the Chinese box office before its stateside release, with the domestic total about to hit $190 million. The total box office haul of Aquaman so far sits at just over $750 million, well on its way towards $800 million and with its eyes on the prize at $1 billion.

Aquaman has already made more money than the entire run of Justice League, but the US domestic box office numbers for Aquaman aren't as strong as Man of Steel, Justice League, Batman v Superman, or Wonder Woman. We have to give Aquaman it's full run before we have numbers locked in, but global box office sales have been a tsunami for WB and the still-in-trouble DCEU.

Hideaki Itsuno, the creator behind Devil May Cry, has been working on his new game for a while now but has been very secretive about it. Well, he has said that once Devil May Cry 5 is released on March 8, he will be ramping up into his 'next title'.

During a chat with 4Gamer, Itsuno said that he is excited to release "the first numbered title in the series in 11 years" and that he is "putting everything [he] has into it". After the release of Devil May Cry 5, Itsuno said there will be no rest as he and his team ramp into their new game. He added: "After its release on March 8, and after checking the free update coming in April, I'm going to refresh and prepare for my next title. I hope to work hard so that my next title meets everyone's expectations, and so that I can announce it as soon as possible".

We have E3 2019 to look forward to six months from now, where the new game could be teased. It would've been three months since the release of Devil May Cry 5 at that time, so Itsuno and his team might be ready to show off their new game since it has been in development for a few years now. We'll have to wait and see.

Cliff 'CliffyB' Bleszinski left Epic Games back in 2012 and then announced his new game studio Boss Key Productions, and then shortly after their first game LawBreakers, which didn't do well at all and saw the studio closed for good.

CliffyB announced during the Christmas break he has stepped on-board with the Broadway run of Hadestown, where he is an investor at an undisclosed amount and a co-producer in the process. Why did Bleszinski leave the gaming world? Well, CliffyB said that gaming culture can be "toxic AF" at times and while he's not wrong, I love gaming and tech so much I will never leave the industry. Even if I was a millionaire like CliffyB, I'd still be involved in the industries in some form... even more so because I'd have the funds to do things others haven't or can't.

As for Hadestown, it's a musical that handles two intertwining love stories ripped out of Greek Mythology: Orpheus and Eurydice and Hades and Persephone. The official website explains: "HADESTOWN is the acclaimed new musical by celebrated singer-songwriter Anaïs Mitchell and visionary director Rachel Chavkin (Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812) that reimagines a sweeping ancient tale as a timeless allegory for our world".

Sony has had the most successful time this console generation with the PlayStation 4 selling over 90 million units according to a new report from Paul Hunter, who is the Senior Gaming, Tech, and Media Editor of Walmart Canada.

The last time we heard about Sony's sales of the PlayStation 4 they were at 88 million and that was a week before Christmas, so the company is on target to hit 100 million PS4 sales this year for sure. Nintendo on the other hand has sold over 25 million units, which is a huge achievement for Nintendo as that is close to twice the sales of the previous-gen Wii U console sales.

These numbers aren't official by any means, so we'll wait for Sony and Nintendo to chime in once we're over the New Years break. I'm sure they're both going to be shouting these achievements from the roof tops, especially Sony as it gets closer to the 100 million PS4s sold milestone. The perfect marketing leading into the next-gen PlayStation 5 console.

Jack Black has only released two videos onto his new gaming channel on YouTube, with Jablinski Games rocking 2.4 million subscribers at the time of writing, with both videos having 7.2 million and 6.2 million views, respectively. I reported on the channel within hours of its creation and it had racked up 500,000 subscribers, but it's just an unstoppable train at this point.

This video is just an update from Jables, and it has amassed 6.2 million views which most YouTubers would beg for. It's a great achievement for the rock star, who launched his Jablinski Games channel with his son the only one producing everything behind the camera. At the time, Black said: "I am proud to announce the launch of my new channel, Jablinksi. This channel will have games, food, and life".

SocialBlade tracks YouTube accounts and has predictions that Jablinski Games will have over 100 million subscribers (at this rate) by the end of the year and 128 million by January 1, 2020. The site predicts Jables will rack up a huge 24 billion views (that's with a 'b') by the New Year, which if it happens, I'm sure would set records for YouTube without a problem.

ZOTAC is preparing its new GeForce RTX 2060 family of graphics cards with two members showing up to the party ahead of time, with the new ZOTAC GeForce RTX 2060 AMP and GeForce RTX 2060 Twin Fan graphics cards turning up on the internet.

The new ZOTAC GeForce RTX 2060 graphics cards were discovered by HD Tecnologia, with both models looking pretty much identical. The main difference will come down to the GPU and GDDR6 clock speeds between the cards, with the AMP series usually reserved for factory overclocked while the Twin Fan will most likely be better-than-Founders clocks and temperatures because of the improved thermal design over what the Founders Edition is expected to be like.

Some of the promotional shots see it as ZOTAC marketing the new cards for Mini-ITX gaming rigs, offering real-time ray tracing in a lower price bracket than the GeForce RTX 2070. A single 8-pin PCIe power connector is all that's needed.

With a lot of patience and a little tech know-how, hardware modder Shank Mods transforms a Nintendo Wii into a handheld.

YouTuber Shank Mods's latest creation is a little less crazy than his previous portable Wii made out of an Altoid's tin. The PiiWii is still small, but it's a lot more functional and ergonomic than the mad scientist Altoid monstrosity...and it still borrows parts from other consoles, Frankenstein's monster-style. The PiiWii sports Gamecube face buttons alongside 3DS circlepads, and houses a fully-functioning Wii console inside a plastic base.

What's great about the PiiWii is that it can do everything a Wii can do: it plays Wii and Gamecube games as well as Virtual Console and WiiWare content. You can even sync Wiimotes to it or hook them up directly via a Gamecube USB adapter. It's about the size of a Gameboy Advanced handheld, and took 3 years to design and create, Shank Mods said.

With major games like Anthem, Metro Exodus, and maybe even The Last of Us II and Death Stranding on the way, 2019 is an exciting year for gaming. The action masters at PlatinumGames will add to that list with some big new games and announcements.

PlatinumGames is pretty busy these days. The NieR: Automata developers announced their big new IP Babylon's Fall at E3 2018, an action RPG being co-developed with Square Enix for release in 2019. There's also marquee titles like Bayonetta 3 for the Nintendo Switch on the way, as well as an action RPG version of Granblue Fantasy. Plus Hideki Kamiya and his team are working on something secret. There's even talks of self-publishing its own games to help keep the studio independent.

So it's no surprise when PlatinumGames' executive producer Atsushi Inaba says 2019 is going to be intense. But that's to be expected when a company is A) independent and must take on multiple projects, and B) makes high-quality games that shine above the competition. Inaba says 2019 will bring multiple announcements...maybe even a Bayonetta 3 release window.

Just in case you've ever wanted to enhance your gaming experiences by smelling those in-game worlds you frequent, FeelReal has you covered with its new VR headset attachment.

Smell-o-vision isn't real for a very good reason, as the Nosulus Rift taught us. But that hasn't stopped FeelReal from creating a new device that lets your olfactory senses get a whiff of Skyrim's musty tombs. The Feelreal Sensory Mask clips onto VR headsets like the PSVR, HTC Vive, and Oculus Rift and essentially blasts scents into your nose based on real-time gaming feedback. "Have you ever wondered what a dragon smells like? It's your chance to experience Skyrim like never before by downloading a free mod that will add Feelreal support."

But the FeelReal mask isn't just about smelling your games. It also injects tactile sensations like vibrations, cooling breezes, heat, and even light mists. This admittedly sounds pretty cool and could be used in conjunction with specific games to deliver truly immersive arcade-style VR experiences. Right now the FeelReal is compatible with VR games like Beat Saber, Skyrim VR, and even YouTube's VR app.

Activision's Chief Financial Officer will soon move over to Netflix, sources tell Reuters.

In an SEC filing put out last night, Activision confirmed it plans to terminate its CFO Spencer Neumann for then unspecified reasons. Speculation despite Activision's assurances that the situation wasn't financial- or business-related. Now key sources tell Reuters that Neumann is being poached by Netflix to serve as the media titan's new Chief Financial Officer in 2019.

In this role, Neumann will oversee company finances as Netflix pushes farther into producing original TV shows, films and series, including this year's The Witcher.

It was both 2017 and 2018 that were massive rides for the entire cryptocurrency market reaching both new highs and dangerous lows, creating ripples in other industries like the graphics card market where NVIDIA, AMD and soon Intel reside.

Well, NVIDIA in the midst of all of this has been slapped with a bunch of class action lawsuits over statements made over the last 18 months. When cryptocurrency pricing and the mining market was in a very strong position, NVIDIA had statements that the company were "masters at managing" the cryptocurrency market and that it was prepared for any instability in the market and that both gamers and investors alike, didn't need to be worried.

Yeah and then an oversupplied market, and juicin' second hand card market and no competition from AMD, NVIDIA stock then tumbled 50% recently and is still dropping. It hasn't been a good couple of months since the launch of the GeForce RTX series of graphics cards, and now some have lawyered up and hit NVIDIA with some class action lawsuits.

Project CARS 3 is in development right now, following the success of Project CARS 2 in September 2017 with developer Slightly Mad Studios teasing that Project CARS 3 will be a "spiritual successor" to Need for Speed Shift.

Need for Speed Shift came out in 2009 and was developed by Slightly Mad Studios alongside EA, and then went to work on the Project CARS series on their own with publisher Bandai Namco. SMS seems to be fanning the faint flames of hype for Project CARS 3 with studio boss Ian Bell telling GTPlanet: "We've learned a lesson here and although we have no intention of reducing content, we know what we need to fix, where we made design decisions that were, let's call it, 'sub-optimal'. pCARS3 will be more of a spiritual successor to Shift, but with all of the sim goodness everyone appreciates".

This is the first news for Project CARS 3 that I've seen, and I'm sure we will see it announced and detailed this year with a possible re lease this year, or in 2020. I can see a next-gen game like this with constantly improved graphics on the PC being a huge release on next-gen consoles in 2020 like the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Scarlett consoles due in 2020 and beyond.

343 Industries ignites the beacon of hope by looking back at the magic of previous Halo games.

Halo is and always has been a story of hope. The series was always built around the hope for survival against an indomitable foe from the stars, a merciless alien force that burns galaxies and reaps souls like a space-faring tide of death. The games chronicle a brutal, bloody war where humanity is on the brink of extinction and forced to fight up against a wall. Even amid these impossible odds one thing gave humankind hope: the Spartans. Born to kill and inspire, these warriors served as a breakwater against a bloody tide, and the games took players along for a fiery crusade of chaos as John-117. Now with its next big Halo: Infinite game (aka Halo 6), 343i wants to bring back that old feeling of hope and triumph.

I've long thought Halo was dead. Halo 5 was a weird and jarring experience that just didn't feel like Halo, didn't bring back those old themes and feelings. But 343i's Dan Chosich has made me believe in Halo again, and it's all thanks to a recent Halo 6 Mixer stream. In the stream the dev discusses the main principles behind Halo: Infinite's premiere trailer, which include hope and connecting to Halo's old-school legacy. Infinite's premiere trailer was inspired largely in part from Halo: Combat Evolved and other themes found in previous games, making it a callback that longtime fans can answer.

Humbled by tons of issues and instability, Grapeshot Games affirms that Atlas is far from finished.

In a recent Steam update post, the devs behind the hotly contested Sea of Thieves competitor Atlas promise the game will be continually tweaked over time. It's no secret that Atlas is badly optimized on PC, and the devs acknowledge the game's dearth of connectivity, stability, and functionality issues. But like any service game (especially one that's in early access), Atlas will continually evolve over time with tons of updates, patches, and new content aimed at fixing and buffering the storm-battered ship.

"We're going to continue to iterate at a very rapid rate, you can generally expect daily deployments and updates to both servers and clients, and sometimes even multiple if we feel like a change is significant enough to warrant it," the devs said in the post.