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Capcom's experiments with cloud streaming tech could pave the way for big things in the Switch's future.

Ever since Capcom announced that it'd stream Resident Evil 7 (and more recently Assassin's Creed: Odyssey) to the Nintendo Switch via the cloud, I got excited. Yes, the business model is rather ridiculous, and yes, the connectivity might not be that good. But we have to look at the bigger picture: Nintendo's online infrastructure could one day tap the power of cloud-based GPUs to deliver higher-end gaming on the Switch. Developers may not have to skip the Switch because it's not powerful enough, and simply beam the game to the handheld-console hybrid from the cloud. This is something I predicted way back in 2016 that could manifest with Nintendo's patented Supplemental Computing Device add-on.

Now Capcom says these research-based tests may continue with more games in the future (possibly even Devil May Cry 5). When asked about future cloud gaming plans, Capcom execs said the move was not business-oriented but experimental, and that they could push forward.

Fire Emblem Heroes continues its success as Nintendo's strongest mobile game title of 2018.

Despite a rocky launch with Super Mario Go, Nintendo's relatively new mobile gaming segment is doing quite well. The company owes this reversal to the free-to-play Fire Emblem Heroes game that uses gacha-style microtransactions to generate revenue. And generate revenue it has: analyst firm Sensor Tower notes that the RPG now accounts for 72% of Nintendo's mobile earnings in 2018.

Fire Emblem Heroes has amassed almost $200 million in 2018 alone, and raked in $12.2 million from in-game purchases in October, the firm says. But Nintendo might have another hit on its hands with its new Dragalia Lost RPG, which was built from the ground up specifically for mobiles. Earnings from Dragalia Lost are tracking well on iOS and Android.

Following its recent acquisition by Microsoft, Obsidian Entertainment is hopeful and energized for the future.

Armed with Microsoft's billions, the veteran RPG makers at Obsidian now have the freedom to make big-budget projects. The acquisition brings tremendous relief to management and developers at Obsidian, who have jumped from project to project on the backs of fund-raiser platforms like Kickstarter and Fig. Despite making some great RPGs like Pillars of Eternity and PoE 2: Deadfire, it seems Obsidian was always on the brink of financial ruin and constantly searched for publisher backing. Those days are over and now the studiocan do what it does best: make unique RPG experiences.

With any acquisition comes change. Microsoft says Obsidian will be "fully autonomous" but we all know the company puts engagement (microtransactions, online services, etc) at the core of its business. This could bleed over into Obsidian's future games. The developer is confident and optimistic about the future, though, and sees services like Game Pass as a big conduit for growth and exposure.

Unlike video with the radio star, streaming isn't about to kill traditional console gaming habits any time soon, says Xbox's Phil Spencer.

Microsoft has already been quite vocal that services like Game Pass are just additive and won't become the core of its business. The same will be true about xCloud, the company's new game streaming service that'll beam titles to phones, laptops, consoles and PCs via the cloud. These services are ancillary and act as fluid, organic gateways that ultimately compliment the engagement strategy implemented by Microsoft. Now Xbox executive Phil Spencer reiterates that consoles will always be a fundamental part of the brand itself, and that streaming isn't the end-all future for Xbox gaming.

In a recent interview with LevelUp, Spencer outlined how streaming varies from platform to platform and basically says downloads are the best way to game for specific use cases. Mobile can leverage the power of cloud GPUs to stream games and play high-def games, whereas consoles and PC should just stick with downloads.

PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds is making its way to gaming's most widespread console by holiday 2018.

PUBG will arrive on Sony's PS4 on December 7, the company today announced on the PlayStation Blog. The PS4 flavor will have a physical (and digital) edition that's sold for $30, which could be a major roadblock for competition against the free-to-play Fortnite, as well as tiered versions that range all the way to $90.

The major advantage of launching PUBG on PS4 is two-fold. PUBG Corp will sell their game on the PS4's massive 85 million strong install base, and developers have had ample time to prepare a stable PS4-ready port of the game. PUBG originally launched on Xbox One in beta format--a feat that only happened because Microsoft injected lots of resources to make it happen--and was kind of rocky. The battle royale sensation has matured over time, and it's this maturity that should carry over to the PS4 version.

Activision has done one of the best viral marketing schemes I have seen for a game in a long time. The company has decided to fly a Spyro themed dragon across country to deliver the first copy of the Spyro Reignited Trilogy to Snoop Dogg.

The journey for Spyro lasted 2 weeks and begun in New York City and ended up in Snoop Dogg's crib in California. The trip has been posted in bits and pieces all over the Spyro The Dragon Twitter account from the perspective of Spyro himself. Once Spyro arrived the rapper was greeted by the flying Spyro Drone that can also breathe fire and came baring the "first copy of the new game."

After receiving the very first copy of the Spyro Reignited Trilogy, Snoop Dogg repays the dragon by placing a massive gold chain around his neck and proceeds to call Spyro his "nephew" before exiting the scene "to go play this game." If you want to watch Spyro's journey across country, check out the official Twitter page for Spyro here and scroll down to begin the journey with him. The Spyro Reignited Trilogy will be released onto the Xbox One, PS4 and PC on November 13th.

The first trailer for the Pokemon Detective Pikachu movie has been released onto the Warner Bros. YouTube Channel and from it can see star, Ryan Reynolds hanging up the Deadpool costume to step into the shoes of furry cheeky detective.

The trailer showcases to fans what a world would be like if Pokemon were real and lived in harmony with humans. We are introduced to 21-year old Tim who is looking for his missing dad when he encounters a Pikachu, the catch is that Tim is the only one who can hear Pikachu talk.

Pokemon Detective Pikachu is based off the Nintendo 3DS game that has the exact same title, the game featured a world where Pokemon solved crimes instead of traditionally battling eachother with humans. It truly is quite strange to see Pokemon in the realworld, I personally forgot that if Pokemon were real they would definitely be as hairy as what we see in the above trailer. It should be noted that Pikachu is played by none other than Ryan Reynolds and is accompanied by Justice Smith (Tim) from Jurassic Kingdom: Fallen World. Detective Pikachu will be arriving in theaters May 9th, 2019.

The refreshed Nintendo Entertainment System controllers have now been made available to pre-order by Nintendo America. Nintendo Switch Online members that desire to go fully retro now have the option to.

Back in September, Nintendo revealed to us the Nintendo Switch Online service and the benefits that come with subscribing. One of the benefits was being able to purchase for $59.99 wireless NES style controllers to play the NES Classic games that come freely with the service, the way "they're meant to be played." For players that were wondering if the would be able to use these controllers for anything other than the NES games, you won't be able to. The NES Classic controllers are specifically designed for the NES Classic games and also will not be able to be used while the Nintendo Switch is in portable mode.

Many members of the Nintendo Switch Online service are very unhappy with what Nintendo are providing its subscribers game wise. It seems that Nintendo are concentrating on the revival of just the Nintendo Entertainment System, while may subscribers to Nintendo Switch Online are crying out for a bigger and more diverse variety of games to be added from different Nintendo Classic systems. Nintendo Switch Online members will get Metroid + 2 more titles November 14th, visit that story here. If you would like a breakdown of Nintendo Switch Online, visit my story on that here.

Sony has revealed the prices of their coming Black Friday sales headed for PlayStation. The sales will be lasting a week and will include big deals for consoles, controllers and PSVR.

Sony has released a new trailer for their coming Black Friday sales headed for PlayStation. The trailer concentrates on Sony giving everyone a reason to not go outside this Winter and instead stay inside and enjoy their opportunity to play some great games on Sony's platform.

Sony has also taken to their PlayStation blog to give details about each of the deals that will be coming. Firstly, over the course of November 18th to November 26th, consumers can pick up a 1TB PS4 system that includes a physical copy of Marvel's Spider-Man and a DualShock 4 wireless controller for just $199. DualShock 4 controllers by themselves will be going for $39.99 and also PSVR systems will be priced at just $199. For gamers, there will be massive discounts across popular game titles and also a discounts on the PlayStation Plus 12 month subscription. For more details, visit the official Sony blogpost here.

Bandai have stepped up their power level and have revealed to fans of JUMP FORCE some very big additions. We now have transformations of the highest caliber for Goku, Vegeta and Frieza.

The above trailer which has been released onto the Bandai Namco YouTube Channel has showcased Goku and Vegeta going head to head with Frieza's final form, Golden Frieza. Both Goku and Vegeta are spotted in their super saiyan god super saiyan forms as we can clearly see the blue hair and outer glow of blue energy.

From all three characters we can see several different attacks in the forms of close combat chain combo attacks, Ki blasts and of course the classic Kamehameha wave. JUMP FORCE will be released on February 15, 2019 for the Xbox One, PS4 and PC. If you have happened to miss some previously released JUMP FORCE trailers, check out an older trailer here. If you are interested in pre-ordering JUMP FORCE, check out the Collectors Edition here.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 has been a huge hit for Activision and Treyarch so far, but gamers have been wanting to sink their teeth into the iconic Nuketown map, something that returns to the PS4 this week.

Sony secures Nuketown for COD: Black Ops 4 first with Xbox and PC gamers to receive it in the near future. Nuketown is one of the most popular multiplayer maps in the Call of Duty franchise, and has been remade in every single Black Ops with a new look and style, but the same layout. In the latest Black Ops 4, Nuketown will look like a Russian city in the middle of winter, which is an interesting turn for the infamous map.

PlayStation 4 gamers get to enjoy Nuketown on November 13, with no date released for the Xbox and PC releases of the map. We should expect a 7-day exclusive for Nuketown on the PS4 before Xbox and PC gamers receive it, but this hasn't been made official by Treyarch or Activision just yet.

NVIDIA might have three graphics cards on the market that handle real-time ray tracing with their GeForce RTX 2080 Ti, RTX 2080, and RTX 2070... but there are no games on the market that support RTX right now. Everyone has asked 'where is AMD in all of this' and we might finally have an answer.

AMD's freshly minted Senior VP of Engineering for Radeon Technologies Group, David Wang, has said that the company will not be using DXR (DirectX ray tracing) until all of its Radeon graphics cards are capable of driving it. Wang told 4Gamer: "For the time being, AMD will definitely respond to Direct Raytracing, for the moment we will focus on promoting the speed-up of offline CG production environments centered on AMD's Radeon ProRender, which is offered free of charge ..... utilization of ray tracing games will not proceed unless we can offer ray tracing in all product ranges from low-end to high-end".

We're still waiting for games to have their RTX abilities turned on for some real-time ray tracing on GeForce RTX graphics cards, but that day hasn't come. We're days away from the official launch of Battlefield V which was one of the shining stars of NVIDIA's GeForce Gaming Celebration event where it unveiled the RTX series cards in Germany in August.

Most of us have woken to the news, gotten home from school or work, or saw it in real-time through notifications that Stan Lee has died at the age of 95.

The Hollywood Reporter confirmed the news after Lee's daughter told TMZ, with Lee starting out in the business in 1939 and created or co-created some of the biggest names in the comic book, and now cinema world. We're talking about Spider-Man, the X-Men, Iron Man, Fantastic Four, the Incredible Hulk, Daredevil, Ant-Man, and many more.

Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige has said: "No one has had more of an impact on my career and everything we do at Marvel Studios than Stan Lee. Stan leaves an extraordinary legacy that will outlive us all. Our thoughts are with his daughter, his family and the millions of fans who have been forever touched by Stan's genius, charisma and heart".

It was barely 24 hours ago that I wrote that Fortnite had reached a new record 8.3 million concurrent players across all platforms, so I began digging into the playerbase of PUBG and discovered it's low and losing double-digit percentages every month.

PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds reached its peak of 3.2 million players back in January 2018, and has since lost close to 100,000 players per month since. In June it dipped below 2 million concurrent players on Steam to just 1.75 million players, and dipped to 1 million last month. In the last 30 days, PUBG has only hit a peak of 965,507 players... seeing Fortnite with 7.4 million more concurrent players.

Microsoft has big plans for Sea of Thieves in 2019, with the company announcing the first content update for the game for 2019, something that will include some new PvP arena action.

The company has announced "The Arena" will launch in early 2019 for Sea of Thieves, with the new PvP mode pitting players into a race to find treasure. The update will let you queue on demand, provide a new tavern area for players interested in Arena battles, and a new trading company. The Sea Dogs will join the fray alongside the other four existing factions, with PvP-based achievements thrown in alongside rewards that will help boost people towards being a Pirate Legend.

We don't know much more about The Arena update, but the two modes (PvP and normal mode) will be separate. You can fight the mighty seas on your own, or decide to take down everyone in your sights. Sea of Thieves Executive Producer Joe Neate said that The Arena will be a "condensed, shorter season" of the game that will be focusing on treasure hunting, something the community has wanted.

It feels like Gigabit Ethernet has been around for decades, because the uptake on 10GbE connectivity hasn't been as fast as the switch between 100Mbps and 1GbE. There are motherboards with 10GbE connectivity, but they're few and far between... and now QNAP has a solution for that.

QNAP has just unveiled their new QNA series Thunderbolt 3 to 10GbE adapter which lets people with Thunderbolt 3 Type-C connectivity to easily step up to 10GbE. Dan Lin, Product Manager of QNAP explains: "With the handy QNA series adapter, a 10GbE network can be created between your Thunderbolt 3 computer and another 10GbE-capable device without needing a complicate setup. 10GbE networks can facilitate high-speed data transfer and greatly benefit applications that are bandwidth or file-size intensive".

QNAP has your back when it comes to networking standards with the Thunderbolt 3 to 10GbE adapter, of which there are two models. The first is the QNA-T310G1T which rocks a Thunderbolt 3 to 10GbE Multi-Gigabit (10G/5G/2.5G/1G/100M) port while the QNA-T310G1S has one 10GbE SFP+ port. The adapters will work on both Windows and Mac PCs, as long as you have the appropriate drivers installed.

Alibaba has just hosted its annual Global Shopping Festival, which last year sold $30.8 billion of products through 230 countries in just 24 hours, representing a huge 27% increase over the $25.3 billion in sales from the 2017 sales.

But now, Alibaba has a huge milestone for its 2018 annual Global Shopping Festival with a huge $1 billion sold in 85 seconds and $10 billion sold in the first hour. Considering how big the US market is and how popular Black Friday sales are, Black Friday 2017 saw $5 billion in online sales... a number that doesn't begin to come close to the first HOUR of Alibaba's annual sale this year.

Some of the biggest brands in the world are involved in Alibaba's annual Global Shopping Festival (AKA Singles Day), including Apple, Dyson, Nike, and many others.

Fallout 76's launch this week is just the beginning of a long, winding journey into irradiated West Virginia.

We've known for a while that Fallout 76 is a live service game, meaning that it'll evolve and change tremendously over time. Bethesda will continually update the game with new tweaks, modes, guns, quests, and content for players to chew on for many years after launch. Case in point: Fallout 76's day one patch is literally bigger than the full game, which means lots of things have probably changed.

Although exact details on how and when these updates will occur remain scarce, Bethesda today confirmed some basic info on the new features. "This is just the beginning. We have an incredible list of updates we've begun work on - from C.A.M.P. building improvements, new quests and events, new Vaults opening, character respecing, a faction-based PvP system, and much more," the studio wrote on a Bethesda.net post.

An updated patent may hint at Sony's plans with the DualShock 5 controller.

Sony is making a next-gen PlayStation 5 console, and no new PlayStation is complete without an updated DualShock controller. Based on the current DualShock 4 it's hard to imagine what Sony could add to the device outside of basic improvements (the hanging triggers are annoying, the touchpad is kind of obsolete, etc). But a freshly updated patent gives some clues on changes including a more interactive touchscreen panel.

"A controller for interfacing wirelessly with a computing device is provided, including the following: a touchscreen defined along the top surface of the main body between the first and second extension," reads the patent. But before we get too excited, the patent is an extension of previously filed patents for other controllers (like the DualShock 3) and explicitly describes the current DualShock 4 controller to a tee.

Bungie approves of Destiny 2's evolution so far, even if Activision isn't so happy with the game's results.

Activision's expectations are quite high, and for good reason. The company routinely earns billions from its games every quarter, all of which are monetized with live service hooks. This trend has taught shareholders and execs to expect certain results from live games. But Destiny 2's Forsaken expansion hasn't managed to meet the publisher's revenue targets (which are probably quite steep), likely due to the game's bizarre and often frustrating business model. Despite Activision's disappointment, Bungie remains hopeful and optimistic about Destiny 2 and the franchise as a whole.

"We are not disappointed with Forsaken. We set out to build a game that Destiny players would love, and at Bungie, we love it too," Destiny 2 director Luke Smith said on Twitter.