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Cyberpunk 2077 developers need patience from fans
Mike Pondsmith, the original creator of Cyberpunk has spoken out about CD Projekt RED's iteration of the game, he has told fans that patience will be their strongest virtue leading up to its release.
Back during E3, we reported on Mike Pondsmith discussing Cyberpunk 2077 with YongYea. It was revealed throughout this interview that Cyberpunk 2077 could be "a few years away." Now, Pondsmith, the lead designer for the project has sat down with IGN and talked about the progress the developers have under way. "We have an awful lot of stuff that we want to do, and it's going to take time to do it. And I'm hoping the fans are going to give us the time to do it."
Pondsmith continues and says that what he asks from the fans is time, space and privacy. As the developers and himself need time to go over the game and make sure it is as perfect as they dreamed. "The game we have right now is pretty damn close to what I would have built if I built it alone myself in a broom closet. I look at things in there and I just go, 'Oh my God, that's perfect. That's just downright perfect." Pondsmith seems quite happy with the current efforts the developer and himself have already made, but more importantly, coming at a game this size with the mentality of a perfectionist certainly should be respected. "But to get that kind of perfection does take time. It takes iteration."
Continue reading: Cyberpunk 2077 developers need patience from fans (full post)
Galaxy Note 9 could be priced as high as $1159 at launch
Samsung is set to unleash its new Galaxy Note 9 flagship smartphone on August 9, but what will the new handset be priced at?
According to the latest reports we could be looking at up to $1159 for the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 when it launches. The new price tease is coming from a Polish employee at a retail store which said the Galaxy Note 9 would retail for PLN 4299 in Poland, which translates to $1158. This price could be wrong, but it's definitely in the ballpark of what to recommend.
I'm sure we'll see it reach $1000 or more, especially as this is Samsung's biggest and best smartphone to-date. But as a Galaxy Note 8 user, I'm going to find it hard to upgrade if Samsung don't dial everything to 11.
Continue reading: Galaxy Note 9 could be priced as high as $1159 at launch (full post)
OTOY takes rendering to the cloud, blockchain, and crypto
The future of rendering special effects and CG animation is about to change, with OTOY unveiling RNDR which looks to the cloud, blockchain, and cryptocurrency technologies to use PCs and graphics cards that are otherwise unused, to render CG images for content creators.
OTOY CEO Jules Urbach believes in the future of blockchain being used for collective rendering, opening up an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) last year with Render Token, and driving it home with the just-announced RNDR. Render Token lets people invest in it, as it uses a distributed GPU rendering network to entice users to invest, so that content creators can tap into users' unused computing power to get their jobs complete.
Venture Beat reports that OTOY has "created an ability to render graphics in the cloud, and it is using blockchain technology to enable people to make use of it. The goal is to create a decentralized economy for 3D assets, which could be rendered via the shared hardware, hosted in the cloud, and then sold and traded in a decentralized fashion".
Continue reading: OTOY takes rendering to the cloud, blockchain, and crypto (full post)
Epic now gives Unreal Engine developers 88% of game profits
Up until now, Epic Games has taken a huge chunk of developers' profits because of the agreement that developers have when making games using Unreal Engine. Except now, that changes in benefit of game developers.
Epic has previously divided profits 70/30 with Epic taking 30% of revenue from Unreal Engine usage, but have decreased this significantly down to 88/12, with Epic now taking just 12% of developers' money. Better yet, Epic's changes are retroactive, meaning that Unreal Engine Marketplace creators will receive back pay on all sales since 2014... huge!
Tim Sweeney, Epic Games founder and CEO explains: "Thanks to both the Marketplace's growth and the success of Fortnite, Epic now conducts a huge volume of digital commerce. The resulting economies of scale enable us to pass the savings along to the Unreal Engine Marketplace community, while also making a healthy profit for Epic".
Continue reading: Epic now gives Unreal Engine developers 88% of game profits (full post)
Mega Deals: Windows 10 Pro: $12.41, Office 2016 Pro: $28.10
Windows 10 doesn't need to be as expensive, with GVGMall offering Windows 10 Pro OEM CD-KEY GLOBAL for just $15.32 before our exclusive 18% off dropping the price to just $12.41 after using discount code: software18%.
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Windows 10 is a personal computer operating system developed and released by Microsoft as part of the Windows NT family of operating systems. It was released on July 29, 2015. It is the first version of Windows that receives ongoing feature updates.
Continue reading: Mega Deals: Windows 10 Pro: $12.41, Office 2016 Pro: $28.10 (full post)
Magic Leap One powered by NVIDIA Tegra X2, ships in summer
Magic Leap has finally announced some of the specifications that'll be inside of its upcoming Magic Leap One mixed reality headset.
During a presentation in the last 24 hours, Magic Leap announced that Magic Leap One will be powered with an NVIDIA Tegra TX2 chip with a Pascal-based GPU. NVIDIA's original Tegra TX2 featured two Denver 2.0 cores and four ARM Cortex-A57 cores, but Magic Leap One will feature just a single Denver core, and two 64-bit A57 cores.
Inside, MLO will also pack an NVIDIA Pascal-based GPU with 256 CUDA cores. Magic Leap has said that the GPU in question is capable of pumping out 200,000 to 400,000 polygons on-screen, with the company expecting this number to increase as developers get used to the hardware.
Continue reading: Magic Leap One powered by NVIDIA Tegra X2, ships in summer (full post)
AMD Vega 20: 7nm, 32GB HBM2, up to 20 TFLOPs, and 400W TDP
AMD will be unleashing its refreshed Vega 20 GPU in the coming weeks, made on the industry-leading 7nm node and it'll feature some great improvements over the current Vega 10 GPU made on 14nm.
Vega 20 isn't being aimed at gamers and rather the HPC/automotive/AI markets with its huge 32GB of HBM2 and PCIe 4.0 standard. AMD is looking to aim Vega 20 at NVIDIA's current flagship Tesla V100 solution, which was recently bumped up to 32GB of HBM2 at GTC 2018 earlier this year.
The new details on Vega 20 see it coming in at just 360mm2 compared to Vega 10 at 510mm2, a huge 70% reduction in total die size thanks to the fresh 7nm node. This is where a fork in the road happens: AMD can choose power savings with the die size savings, or they can ramp clock speeds up.
Continue reading: AMD Vega 20: 7nm, 32GB HBM2, up to 20 TFLOPs, and 400W TDP (full post)
Vampyr sells 450k units just within first month of release
Focus Home Interactive, the publisher behind the recently released Vampyr title have come forward and announced that they are pushing the 500k unit sales mark, with the title currently sitting at 450k unit sales in just one month.
The publisher sent out a press release that details the games achievements so far. According to the press release, the week that Vampyr was released it topped the weekly game sales in countries such as France, the United Kingdom and Germany. Oskar Guilbert, the CEO of DONTNOD Entertainment, the independent French developer who created Vampyr has spoken out about the titles success, saying "We are very proud, because since its launch, our last original creation meets a great craze among players. Thanks to our new role as co-producer, we will greatly benefit from this commercial success."
Focus Home Interactive said back in November that Vampyr cost them between 10 - 15 million euro to develop, this works out to be around $11.5 - $17.5 million USD. They also said that for Vampyr to be a profitable in anyway they would have to sell upwards of 500k units, and for the title to be deemed a success they would have to push the 1 million unit mark. If you are interested in our thoughts about Vampyr visit our review here, or for more news about the title visit the official website here.
Continue reading: Vampyr sells 450k units just within first month of release (full post)
12 gorgeous minutes of Spyro Reignited gameplay footage
As we move closer to the Spyro Reignited Trilogy releasing, PlayStation Underground have gone ahead and showcased a beautiful 12 minutes of gameplay footage from the second game, Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage!
The 12 minutes of gameplay footage also features an interview with the developers of the Reignited Trilogy, Toys for Bob. Toys for Bob discusses the lengths they needed to take to get Spyro to exactly where they wanted, they also took the thoughts of die-hard fans in heavy consideration while going about this process. The Spyro Trilogy has had a fine-toothed comb scrapped through it, with the developers creating their own "Spyro Scout" development tool that allowed them to extract and build on the previous games' code.
According to Toys for Bob, every single aspect seen in the Spyro Reignited Trilogy has been added onto and "modernized" by the developers. Toys for Bob also tried to keep the same animation movement, in hopes of bringing that nostalgic feel to returning players. Spyro Reignited Trilogy will be released on the PS4 and Xbox One on September 21st, 2018. For further information regarding the title visit the official Spyro website here.
Continue reading: 12 gorgeous minutes of Spyro Reignited gameplay footage (full post)
Fortnite's 'Summer Skirmish' prize pool is a HUGE $8 million
Epic Games has stepped up big time with Fortnite's Summer Skirmish series, players will be glad to know that there will be a massive prize pool for the winners, $8 million dollars worth of massive.
Not to long ago, Epic Games announced that they would be setting aside $100 million worth of prize pool money, which would then be used for future Fortnite tournaments throughout 2018/2019. To kick off the festivities, Epic has taken to their Fortnite blog to announce the 'Summer Skirmish' series, a eight-week round robin tournament that will leave the winner possibly $8 million dollars richer.
The Summer Skirmish series will begin this weekend, the first tournament will start off with duos and a prize pool of $250,000. Unfortunately, the required credentials for the players that are interested in joining in are not 100% clear, as The Fortnite Team stated "Participants will be made up of community creators and Fortnite players who have demonstrated their competitive prowess. The format and competitors may change from week-to-week, so stay on your toes!"
Continue reading: Fortnite's 'Summer Skirmish' prize pool is a HUGE $8 million (full post)
EA executes 'Kill Switch' for Emperor Palpatine in SWB2
EA has released the patch notes for the latest update coming to Star Wars Battlefront II, the developer has posted on the Battlefront forums showcasing the route they will be taking with the patch priorities.
EA DICE discusses on the forum post the severity of the problems they are facing and which options they are going to be taking in terms of either hotfixes or client side fixes. The post says that developer has performed hotfixes to their side of the game, these will only be a small amount of data to download or will require no download at all. This will only be happening for problems with "high priority", the hard stutter issue that players have been facing has been classified as "high priority" as well as the notification spam from challenges menu. Both of these issues have now been fixed and rolled out into the live game.
Furthermore, EA has decided to remove Emperor Palatine, they have pressed the "Kill Switch" button for him and he will be removed from the game until a hotfix can be deployed. EA has said "We don't take this decision lightly, but we feel it is in the best interest for everyone until a fix can be deployed." EA doesn't discuss why they have removed the Emperor but do say that once a hotfix has passed Origins certification process it will be rolled out to 1st party platforms (PC and Sony). If you are interested in the official forum post visit it here.
Continue reading: EA executes 'Kill Switch' for Emperor Palpatine in SWB2 (full post)
Rare updates the seabed in Sea of Thieves: The Sunken Curse
Rare has decided to give players a reason to venture down to the seabed they have been so effortlessly cruising over since the release of Sea of Thieves. The update titled 'Bilge Rat Adventures: The Sunken Curse' will now reward players for their scuba-diving skills.
The Sunken Curse will be adding cursed 'Mermaid Statues' at the bottom of the sea floor that radiate ancient magic and will have to be destroyed by players. The Bilge Rats will challenge players to go and destroy the statues, all of them will slowly regenerate health overtime but some more than others. The more powerful statues will require some more fire-power to bring down, a crew of up to four players might be needed to fully tackle it but no more than that.
The patch also comes with cosmetics for players to dress up, 'The Wailing Barnacle Cosmetics' have been added as a purchasable to the Bilge Rat shop. The Wailing Barnacle Cosmetics features a hat, dress and jacket. They will only be available to players for a limited time only so you want to get in on some limited edition garments, bring your Bilge Rat Doubloons to the Bilge Rat shop before the 25th of July. The Sunken Curse patch is live right now and comes in at 1.64GB download on the Xbox One and 1.30GB on Windows. To read the official patch notes visit the official Sea of Thieves website here.
Continue reading: Rare updates the seabed in Sea of Thieves: The Sunken Curse (full post)
Roof Rage hits Steam, a fighter similar to Super Smash Bros.
A new fighting game has come to Steam Early Access, introducing Roof Rage, a fighting game quite similar to Super Smash Bros. Roof Rage takes martial arts to the next level with a very unique combat style.
Roof Rage will be bringing players a competitive fighting experience in the form of the platformer. With up to eight different fighters, players will be able to produce a flurry of different combo's in attempts to push the capabilities of the titles gameplay. Fighters will also be able to pick up roof tiles and use them as projectiles against their enemies, enemies on the receiving end of the tiles will have the ability to deflect them if timed correctly.
Local matches will be able to support up to eight different players, with gamemodes consisting of the following: stock match, team match, score match and practice. Online gameplay wise, players can jump straight into a 1v1 or invite friends to join a private match. For players that want to practice before they get into online play, there is ""really" challenging CPUs, 9 different levels". Looking to the future of Roof Rage, the developer Early Melon has said they are planning on releasing new game modes including online ranked matches, new characters, new stages, tutorials and even a potential storyline. For more information about Roof Rage, visit the official Steam Store page here.
Continue reading: Roof Rage hits Steam, a fighter similar to Super Smash Bros. (full post)
Minecraft's Aquatic Phase Two released today, all platforms
Microsoft has released the Aquatic Phase Two patch for Minecraft, adding a bunch of sea-life in all different forms. The update has already been rolled out to all platforms.
The new update will feature brand new dangerous dungeons, underwater zombies that arise at night, sea turtles, bubble columns that will damage players, new achievements and much more.
Microsoft have also not forgotten about Minecraft players that are using the Java version, Microsoft has said "the incredibly hard-working Java team are almost done putting together the Update Aquatic for your version" so hopefully it isn't to much longer before it is rolled out. Minecraft's Aquatic Phase Two has released on Windows 10, VR, mobile devices, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch. Currently there is no known information regarding a release on PlayStation 4 but we can expect that it will be released sometime after the update hits the other platforms. For further information regarding the new Aquatic update visit the official Minecraft website here.
Continue reading: Minecraft's Aquatic Phase Two released today, all platforms (full post)
Balrog showcased in Battle for Middle-earth Unreal Engine 4
A fan remake of DICE's The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-Earth is in the works, it is titled The Battle for Middle-Earth: Reforged and has the goal of recreating the game in Unreal Engine 4.
The developers behind this fan-made project will have to rewrite all of the code back into Unreal Engine 4 to have a stable game. This could influence the titles performance/gameplay heavily and will give a very different feel compared the original title. From the video, we can see the player placing a location for the Balrog to spwan, when it does spawn the demon from the shadow emerges in all its glory, showcasing its fiery exterior.
Because The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-Earth is owned by EA and Warner Bros. there could be a very big possibility that this project will be shut down due to copyright claims. The developers that are bringing the title to Unreal Engine 4 have said that "This is a non commercial project" and that "all rights belong to their respective owners." Hopefully this is enough for EA and Warner Bros. to let this project continue as I would really like to see the world of The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-Earth re-created in the Unreal Engine 4. For further information about the fan-remake, visit the official Battle for Middle-Earth here.
Continue reading: Balrog showcased in Battle for Middle-earth Unreal Engine 4 (full post)
PUBG bans Shroud after teaming-up with hacker in-game
The most popular streamer on Twitch for PlayerUnknown's Battleground is no doubt Michael Grzesiek, better known as Shroud. Well, Shroud won't be at the top of Twitch streams for PUBG for at least a while, as he has sadly been banned from the game for an entire month.
Shroud was streaming with a fellow known streamer Wadu, both the players while working their way through a normal round of PUBG encountered a hacker. Both streamers decided to team-up with him, the hacker had the ability to make cars fly, wall-hack and cheats to allow him to see through structures.
Shroud later found out while half-way through a match that PUBG decided to ban him for an entire month. In response to this Shroud commented the following: "It really goes to show that [developer] PUBG [Corp.]-full offense to you guys-don't give a s-, because that guy should have been banned immediately" Shroud also said that he encountered the very same hacker three separate times and wondered how the player was not banned yet.
Continue reading: PUBG bans Shroud after teaming-up with hacker in-game (full post)
Microsoft unveil new 'Sports' themed Xbox One controller
Microsoft has just unveiled a brand new controller for their Xbox One, this controller is specifically designed for all those sports games fans out there and comes with a bonus 14-day trail for Xbox Live Gold.
Microsoft has deemed this new controller as the 'Sport White Special Edition' and has been inspired by athletics and sports lifestyle gamers. The Sports White is just one of the first controllers of the upcoming 'Sport series' that Microsoft plan to roll out. According to Major Nelson, the controller features "mint accents, and grey and silver patterns", the "rubberized diamond grip on the back" is designed for comfort so players can stay attuned throughout long period gaming sessions.
Microsoft are also releasing a premium 'Sport White Special Edition Xbox Pro Charing Stand.' It is aimed to keep the controllers fully charged with the luxury and simplicity of seamlessly removing the controller from the stand when desired. Each of the charging stands comes with a battery cover, rechargeable battery and a 6-foot power cord. The controller itself comes in at $69.99 and will be available starting July 31st, shipping will begin on August 7th. The charging stand will cost $49.99 and will be available for retail on August 7th. If you are interested in any of Microsoft's new products visit the official Microsoft Store here.
Continue reading: Microsoft unveil new 'Sports' themed Xbox One controller (full post)
NVIDIA powers Daimler and Bosch upcoming self-driving taxis
NVIDIA will be putting its Drive Pegasus self-driving AI platform to good use with a new announcement from Daimler and Bosch that teamed up for self-driving taxis that will be powered by NVIDIA's technology.
Remember that Daimler is the parent company of Mercedez-Benz, so we're not messing around here. NVIDIA's impressive self-driving technology is capable of a huge 320 trillion operations per second, with the self-driving AI technology to be used to power level 4 and 5 vehicles that will be used as self-driving taxis.
The companies will be putting the self-driving taxis onto the roads of Silicon Valley for testing in 2019, with NVIDIA set to work with Daimler and Bosch to build the system required for the self-driving ride-hailing service... think next-gen Uber, where there's no human driver in your vehicle... but do you leave a 5-star rating? Heh.
Continue reading: NVIDIA powers Daimler and Bosch upcoming self-driving taxis (full post)
AMD's new 32C/64T Ryzen Threadripper launching August 13
AMD will be launching their new Ryzen Threadripper 2 processors on August 13 according to the latest information provided by WCCFTech, with the Ryzen Threadripper 2990X and 2950X chips to be launched alongside the new X399 chipset.
The second that AMD launches the new Ryzen Threadripper 2990X, it will have totally left Intel in its dust. Intel's flagship CPU has reached just 28C/56T, which will be dwarfed by AMD on August 13 with the Threadripper 2990X. We're to expect a base CPU clock of 3.4GHz and boost of 4GHz, while overclocking should get us to around 4.2GHz for single-threaded workloads.
Inside, the Ryzen Threadripper 2990X includes 16MB of L2 cache, 64MB of L3 cache for a total of 80MB of cache which is incredible. AMD is expected to keep the TDP of the 32C/64T behemoth at 250W, with a bunch of fancy coolers teased during Computex 2018. But what about price?
Continue reading: AMD's new 32C/64T Ryzen Threadripper launching August 13 (full post)
PayPal says woman who died of cancer breached their rules
In a story that is beyond sad, PayPal issued a letter to a woman who had died of cancer to tell her that her death was a breach of their rules, and that the company would look at legal action against her.
PayPal has since said that the letter was "insensitive", apologised to her husband, and is now working out how it was sent. Lindsay Durdle died on May 31 at just 37 years old, after an 18-month battle with breast cancer that had eventually spread to her lungs and brain.
After receiving the heartless letter, her husband contacted the BBC about the story. PayPal was informed of Lindsay's death three weeks ago now, sending the company copies of her death certificate, her will, and his ID. PayPal then sent him a letter in return that was headlined with "Important: You should read this notice carefully".
Continue reading: PayPal says woman who died of cancer breached their rules (full post)






















