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Anthem, which launches at the tail-end of EA's fiscal year, could still affect the company's live services earnings...and that means it could launch with microtransactions.

As a service game it's no surprise BioWare's new action-based RPG Anthem will have microtransactions (something I predicted before Anthem was even revealed). The game was tailor-made to be an expansive online-driven PVE co-op experience that continually evolves over time, which is incidentally prime territory for live services. I originally questioned whether Anthem's cosmetic-only monetization would appear at launch, and now comments from EA may add new insight.

In EA's recent Fiscal Year Q2'19 earnings call, company COO and CFO Blake Jorgensen said something that makes me believe Anthem will have microtransactions when it launches in February. EA's current fiscal guidance shows 5% upticks in live services, which is conservative given two major service games, Battlefield V and Anthem, will release during 2H'19.

EA should continue delving deeper into live services and bundling them into its slate of upcoming games.

We've known for a while now that EA is all about live services, and the company's second quarter earnings highlight this trend even further. EA's recent Fiscal Year Q2'19 earnings show the company generated $328 million from live services (which includes microtransactions, subscriptions, DLC, add-ons, etc), or about 25% of total its total $1.268 billion net bookings for the quarter. Live services are up 6% year-over-year and represents the lion's share of 51% of total digital net bookings for the quarter, which means EA makes most of its digital revenues from online-based streams. It's worth noting mobile earnings are not included in this metric.

Digital full game sales are up a strong 37% year-over-year to $157 million, but are still eclipsed more than two-fold by live services. EA still makes most of its digital revenue from consoles--thanks to FIFA and wider hardware install bases--and $358 million was earned from the platform, up 27% year-over-year and representing a mighty 56% slice of the total digital earnings pie. The newly launched Origin Access Premiere subscription service boosted these numbers, but the primary driven is of course from microtransactions from Madden/FIFA Ultimate Team.

Electronic Arts strengthens its foothold as a titan of the industry and rakes in more than $1 billion in its second quarter.

In its recently announced Fiscal Year Q2'19 earnings, EA saw strong growth in key segments. The company generated $1.286 billion in total net revenues in the 3 month period ended September 30, 2018, up a strong 34% year-over-year and $16 million above EA's Q2'19 guidance. Operating income, which is gross profit minus operating expenses, sits at $258 million for the quarter, down 14% year-over-year.

"EA's net revenue was $1.286 billion, above our guidance by $16 million. Operating expenses were $610 million, $64 million lower than our guidance driven by compensation and related expenses and some phasing of marketing expenses," said EA CFO Blake Jorgensen in the earnings call.

Fallout 76 might be an online-only service game but modders have found a way to add their creations into irradiated Appalachia. Apparently Fallout 76 is much closer to Fallout 4 than we originally thought.

I've played a lot of Fallout 4 on PC, and have spent a good amount of time wrangling and tweaking mods. So when I saw Fallout 76 for the first time I recognized lots and lots of things found in the previous game (assets, textures, lighting mechanics, and pipe guns...ugh). In a very real sense, Fallout 76 is just an online version of Fallout 4, and can even be manipulated via modding programs to plant special user-created additions into the world.

In a recent interview with Eurogamer, two modders share how they were able to paste their creations into Fallout 76's beta. "The core of Fallout 76 is basically identical to Fallout 4...the game assets are packaged exactly the same way too," said Fallout 76 modder Neeher, who's made multiple Fallout 76 beta mods including custom colored suits and map reskins. He even has a tutorial how to install Archive2 to edit files.

Diablo IV is in development and an official confirmation was supposed to happen at BlizzCon 2018, sources tell Kotaku's Jason Schreier.

We've known Diablo IV has been in development for a while now. The evidence has accumulated since 2016, four years after Diablo III's release on PC, and Blizzard danced around a confirmation by telling us several new Diablo projects are in the works--including the one fans "really want." Everyone expected Diablo IV to be revealed or at the very least announced at BlizzCon 2018...but instead Blizzard showed off Diablo Immortal, the mobile game no one really asked for.

Now key sources familiar with the matter give more insight on this strange decision. Apparently Immortal wasn't to be the only big Diablo news and was simply meant to compliment the announcement everyone came to see. Anonymous sources tell Kotaku that Blizzard had originally planned to end the BlizzCon 2018 keynote by confirming Diablo IV's existence, but this was scrapped at the eleventh hour for unknown reasons.

AMD has been kicking some serious ass in the CPU world in the last couple of years leaving Intel lagging behind, until now. Intel has just announced its new Cascade Lake-powered Xeon CPUs with up to 48 cores of performance.

Intel is launching the new Xeon E-2100 processor and it comes with up to 48 cores and can be used in dual CPU configurations for 96 cores of huge performance for HPC/AI workloads. Intel is including 12 DDR4 channels for mass amounts of RAM, with 24 DIMMs on dual CPU motherboards supporting up to 3TB of RAM.

You can even configure the new Xeon CPUs with Intel Optane memory, filling 24 DIMMs of this would allow for 12TB of system memory which is just ridiculous. 96 threads of CPU power with 12TB of RAM is just... incredible. Intel is still using its 14nm process for the new Cascade Lake-based Xeon processors, while AMD is about to hit 7nm with its upcoming EPYC 'Rome' CPUs.

BioWare developers have taken to Twitch to reveal 45 minutes of new gameplay footage for the highly anticipated upcoming game Anthem.

BioWare's lead producers Ben Irving and Mike Gamble have taken to Twitch.tv to showcase to fans some brand new gameplay footage of Anthem. We can see from the footage a great vision of combat in both the air and on ground, as well as the use of some very cool looking abilities on a range of some unfriendly enemies.

Anthem is powered by the Frostbite Engine and from the livestream there still appears to be many bugs that the developers will need it iron out before release. An Anthem demo that will be closest representation to the completed game will be released to fans on February 1st and is titled "VIP Demo." This demo will be available to those users who have taken a step ahead and pre-ordered Anthem. EA Access members will also have the demo available to them. If you are interested in checking out the Anthem gameplay footage, visit the official Anthem Twitch account here.

During the Lucca Comics & Games Convention that has been held in Italy, Square Enix, the publisher for the upcoming Kingdom Hearts III has released a new trailer for the title. Introducing a 'Tangled' based world.

The above trailer gives us a quick look at the magical Kingdom of Corona as we can see Rapunzel leaving her castle tower with the assistance of the bandit Flynn Rider. Eventually Sora, Donald and Goofy rock up to both Rapunzel and Flynn and assist them on their journey.

Kingdom Hearts III is planned for release on January 25th, 2019. It will be arriving on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, at the moment there has been no statements regarding a port for PC or the Nintendo Switch. If you happened to miss the Big Hero 6 themed trailer that was released, check that out here. There is also a bunch of screenshots that have been released revealing the Olympus Worlds and Twilight Town, check those out here.

Being a Nintendo Switch owner and not having the ability to browse through YouTube videos on my touchscreen handheld device is truly mind blowing. That could all change very soon though, as a recent rumor has suggested that Google will release YouTube onto the Nintendo Switch on November 8th.

The Nintendo Switch was released back in March of 2017, since then owners of the Switch have been waiting for the release of YouTube on their handheld systems. According to users searching the Nintendo website, people have been given suggestions for a YouTube Switch application that is planned for release on November 8th. This is not a strange occurrence, as Nintendo and Google have previously worked together to bring YouTube to some of Nintendo's previous consoles, examples include the Wii U and Nintendo 3DS.

The decision to bring YouTube to the Nintendo Switch could usher in many more Switch users staying on their consoles for longer periods of time, thus increasing the likely-hood of users going back to Switch games after taking a break to browse their YouTube. At the moment there has been no official announcement from either Nintendo or Google, so we hope to hear something within the coming days if this rumor is true.

A fan of the upcoming Super Smash Bros. Ultimate has taken some time out their day to create an epic mash up of the Avengers: Infinity War trailer soundtrack and the released cinematics for Smash Ultimate.

Late into last week, Nintendo held their Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Direct and throughout the 40 minute livestream the Smash Bros. Director, Masahiro Sakurai revealed to fans a new adventure mode titled World of Light. World of Light was showcased on the livestream through a cinematic trailer that has relatable qualities to that of Avengers: Infinity War. The relatable qualities are even more apparent now that a fan has made a trailer combing the Infinity War trailer soundtrack with that of the Smash Ultimate cinematics.

The creator "PushingButtons" has edited together a bunch of the cinematic trailers that Nintendo has released for Smash Ultimate throughout the year. The combination of the Infinity War soundtrack and the cinematics truly does bring a single tear to the eye if you are big fans of both of these franchises. It should be noted, this epic masterpiece by PushingButtons was released only 5 hours after the Direct livestream was completed. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate will release on December 7th exclusively for the Nintendo Switch.

ResetEra users have dissected Super Smash Bros. Ultimate content and are now divided to whether one of Mr. Game & Watch's attacks is inherently racist or not.

Some members of the Super Smash Bros. community have called out Nintendo for including an allegedly racist reference to Native American Indians. The reference comes from the the original Game & Watch console that was released back in 1982, more accurately Fire Attack. Above you will find a video on Fire Attack, the video showcases a battle between Native American chiefs and a cowboy Game & Watch defending a fort.

The division begun on the forum ResetEra, many users have called for Nintendo to remove the head-dress reference from Game & Watch's fire torch attack. The users have claimed that this reference despite it being a direct reference to Fire Attack, is inherently a "racist stereotype." Quite a big claim to make towards Nintendo, as dealing with this subject is always a very touchy matter for companies, as most of the time not everyone will be happy with the final outcome that is decided. Nintendo has yet to comment on these claims, but I will be sure to update you if any changes are made to Mr. Game & Watch.

Qualcomm is ready to burst out of the gate with 5G early next year, where we should see Samsung being one of the first smartphone manufacturers in the world tapping the next generation of communication technology.

But what about Apple? The most revolutionary, forward-thinking company on the planet? Yeah, they won't have 5G inside of the iPhone until 2020 according to "a source with knowledge of Apple's plans" according to Fast Company.

Apple is reportedly going to use Intel's 8161 5G modem inside of the 2020 iPhone, where Intel will hopefully be tapping their 10nm node to get the 5G modem made. Intel will reportedly be the sole provider of iPhone modems, and has been working on the 8060 for testing and prototyping of the next-gen 5G iPhone.

I have been pretty much offline from work for the last two weeks over a death in the family, and haven't been able to function at 100%. So some of the news has passed me by, but there was one story I wanted to cover in more detail and that's the reports of GeForce RTX graphics cards DYING.

There have been posts on NVIDIA's own forum as well as Reddit, Facebook, Twitter, and various other places of GeForce RTX 2080 Ti graphics cards dying within a few weeks. Gamers have experienced crashes, black screens, BSODs, artifacts, you name it. Some of them are outright dying, and it seems to be the RTX 2080 Ti more so than the RTX 2080.

NVIDIA is reportedly handling RMAs for customers by sending them a new card, but then that card has failed and some have had to return the RMA'd card. There are doomsday posts saying it's an "architectural defect" but I think that is way too Alex Jones for me, next thing we'll hear is that NVIDIA's logo is green and we all know what Jones thinks about frogs.

NVIDIA silently launched its refreshed GeForce GTX 1060 with GDDR5X memory not too long ago now, and now Palit has become the second AIB partner to unveil a GDDR5X-based GTX 1060.

Palit's new GeForce GTX 1060 GamingPro OC+ graphics card, with its 6GB of GDDR5X clocked at 8.8Gbps, which is 800MHz more than the GDDR5-based GTX 1060, and 200MHz slower than the GTX 1060 with GDDR5 at 9Gbps (there was at least one model like this, but it wasn't super popular).

The GPU itself is slightly overclocked, with 1531/1746MHz for base and boost GPU clocks, respectively. All you'll need is a single 6-pin PCIe power connector for the Palit GeForce GTX 1060 GamingPro OC+ graphics card, but we don't have a price or ETA as of yet.

Respawn Entertainment is working on three big projects right now, and some of them will be released in 2019.

Right now Respawn is developing three games, and here they are in likeliest order of release: a new VR shooter in association with Oculus, a new Star Wars game called Jedi: Fallen Order, and Titanfall 3. In its Fiscal Year Q2'19 earnings EA confirmed that multiple Respawn games will release by holiday 2019, but given the timeline of progress we probably shouldn't expect all of these projects to launch next year.

"Across multiple studios, we have new projects underway, including games from Respawn that are slated to launch by next holiday season," EA CEO Andrew Wilson said in the call.

We're already starting to see early fruits of EA's new SEED experimental tech division.

EA recently announced Project Atlas, a new platform that will arm developers with powerful next-gen tech to build games with. Essentially Project Atlas will be a foundation for multiple fledgling technologies like AI and cloud computing combined with the scalable and versatile Frostbite engine--all of which will help usher in a new era of games development. Project Atlas will be a kind of service (EA loves subscription services) that allows devs to iterate and innovate while building their projects.

Project Atlas is a massive endeavor that aims to cover all of the industry's latest tech advancements, from AI, cloud, AR/VR, and live service content to 5G and everything in between. At it's heart, though, is the cloud pipeline that will be the main conduit for the games-creating Frostbite engine, which will have capabilities that tie into current and next-gen tech. EA is essentially creating a framework to host, power, make, and curate live service games made by other developers.

Bethesda today revealed the Atomic Shop microtransaction storefront that will fuel Fallout 76's free updates.

Like any service game that aims for sustainability, Fallout 76 must monetize its engagement in some way to build recurring earnings and fund future content drops. Thankfully Fallout 76's microtransactions are cosmetic-only and not pay-to-win or pay-for-the-chance-to-win via lootboxes. The game should be littered with customizable cosmetics all of which can be earned by playing the game (although exact rates remain unknown). Now Bethesda has showcased the online Fallout's Atomic Shop storefront that sells in-game items like costumes, weapon/power armor skins, emotes, poses, and decorations for your camps and player-created homes.

There's three ways to earn cosmetics in Fallout 76: find them littered across irradiated West Virgina, unlock them by completing objectives and challenges, or buy them outright. The game combines sweat and premium currency together into a spending currency called Atoms which can be purchased with real money. As the name implies, the Atom Shop is where you'll go to spend your Atoms on in-game goods.

Destiny 2's base game is currently available for free on PC...but be prepared to be locked out of content.

Now that Black Ops 4 and Red Dead Redemption 2 are both out, I'm sure Destiny 2's player count is shrinking, and that spells potential losses for any service game. Activision aims to counter this by offering the game for free on multiple platforms--first we saw it free on Sony's PlayStation Plus, and now it's up for free with no strings or subscription paygates attached on the Battle.net PC client.

Destiny 2 will be free to download and keep until November 18, 2018 as per an announcement at Blizzcon. But remember this is just the base game that's limited insofar as multiplayer content and events, and is more of a sampling to whet your appetite and buy into the new $40 Forsaken expansion. Destiny base games are typically locked out of expansion-only rotating missions, events, and strikes, so you may not be able to join your friends in the fray.

Today Blizzard disappointed millions of Diablo fans across the globe by announcing the one thing we didn't want: a Diablo mobile game.

Instead of announcing Diablo IV or a remaster of Diablo II, Blizzard revealed a smartphone game that aims at two objectives: making lots of money, and making the franchise as accessible as possible. Diablo Immortal is basically Diablo III for mobile phones. Although it's a prequel that's set between D2 and D3, the game manages to look like a carbon-copy clone of Diablo III that uses the same classes (Barb, Wizard, Necro, Crusader, Demon Hunter, and Monk--Witch Doctor is oddly absent), mechanics, visual style, enemies and locations.

Sure there's new skills and zones, Blizzard says, but the game ultimately looks like one of those free-to-play cashgrabs that will be infused with microtransactions (which is exactly Blizzard's current monetization strategy). Diablo Immortal has been "built from the ground up" for mobiles and offers "intuitive controls," but it's obviously built from Diablo III's assets.

Blizzard's classic games division today announced Warcraft III: Reforged, a remastered and updated flavor of the old-school RTS.

The main selling point of Warcraft III: Reforged is playing the classic strategy game with refreshed graphics and tapping into nostalgia. But what you remember may not be fully represented in Warcraft III's remaster. While Blizzard is updating the visuals quite a bit--they've been built "from the ground up" for modern PCs--most of the other basic elements will be preserved while finer details are re-tooled.

The devs are re-balancing a ton of heroes, units and more to ensure it plays like a "modern game", and multiplayer will be hosted via the modern Battle.net client. Heroes and main RTS-level features look to be the same but I'm curious how the updates will change the classic experience. Custom games are in and the remaster will launch with an updated World Editor.