Latest News - Page 2090

MAINGEAR Is making some truly gigantic moves in the last few months, with their latest news probably the biggest - the boutique PC maker has teamed with Joel Zimmerman, otherwise known as deadmau5 as an "advisor and investor" to the company.

He joins MAINGEAR in a time before vertical take off, with deadmau5 himself explaining: "I first found MAINGEAR when looking for a high-end PC for my studio, and started as a customer first. I became a huge fan. Since then MAINGEAR has powered all of my projects including, my recently released "where's the drop?". As a gamer at heart I'm a big believer that the future of PC gaming and eSports has amazing potential for growth. It was obvious to pick MAINGEAR as my first investment in the space and with MAINGEAR's crowd raise you can invest as well".

What will deadmau5 bring to the table? Well, he hopes to help guide the future of PC gaming with MAINGEAR by advising the company on future products and projects.

AMD is currently in the process of launching their new flagship X470 chipset with the Pinnacle Ridge-based Ryzen 2000 series processors, but now a mysterious Z490 chipset has been teased.

VideoCardz reports on a slide that was allegedly posted on the PCEva forums, where it shows a presentation of GIGABYTE's AORUS X470 motherboards, showing the differences between some of the chipsets and then the mysterious Z490 (not X490, but Z490) chipset.

The purported Z490 chipset is identical to the X470 chipset except that it rocks 4 additional PCIe 3.0 lanes, something that would be great for multi-GPU users who want PCIe lanes for precious graphics cards, and multiple super-fast NVMe M.2 SSDs that need PCIe lanes to drive their insane speeds.

EA is a titan when it comes to monetizing its games, but not every microtransaction strategy works for every game--a lesson that the publisher learned over months of grueling lootbox controversy with Battlefront II. Now EA says it can't afford to mess things up again--and that they won't.

EA's newly appointed Chief Design Officer Patrick Soderlund recognizes that Battlefront II's lootboxes were handled poorly, and flat out asserts that the company won't follow the same path with 2018's big new Battlefield game nor with BioWare's massively ambitious new IP, Anthem. But why did EA even try to monetize Battlefront II the way it did? In a word: returns.

"We had the intent that was designed for us to have more people play it over a longer period of time. And like a lot of other games on the market, to be able to afford to do that we had an idea of getting returns from that. But at the same time, we got it wrong," Soderlund told The Verge in a recent interview.

Anthem, BioWare's new 'genre-melded' IP represents a huge investment for EA and a big new step for the Mass Effect devs, and is hyped up to be something brand new and unique.

Everything we know about Anthem makes it out to be a third-person-style Destiny-esque game that blends BioWare's worldbuilding, stories, and quests with online-based live services and multiplayer. And it's even possible the game will have microtransactions of some sort to fuel tons of new updates and engagement-driving content. But apparently there's more to Anthem that meets the eye and BioWare affirms the game will be totally new and unique.

In a recent post, returning BioWare General Manager Casey Hudson said that the studio has learned a lot from Mass Effect: Andromeda (especially the let down surrounding the Quarian Ark DLC) and promised that everything from characters, stories, and worldbuilding must be aligned with dev innovations. On other words, if the graphics are snazzy and fancy but the story falters, things are imbalanced and BioWare wants to avoid this.

On the Microsoft Store the system requirements for the upcoming title State of Decay 2 has been revealed. The title will be requiring a an approximate 20.31 GB of free space.

State of Decay 2 will be requiring quite a hefty chunk of free space and that number is only estimated to go up for players that are playing on the Xbox One X with enhancements. 4K Ultra HD and HDR support are planned for the title so it would be advised to make sure to keep some HDD space freed up.

State of Decay 2 will also be featured in Microsoft initiative to add all of their first-party titles that they publish to the Microsoft Store for free if the player has a Game Pass.

The voice actor behind the God of War Kratos has explained what it is like to voice and God and the responsibilities and feeling he had to endure while brining Kratos to life.

Sony Interactive Entertainment posted a video onto their YouTube channel and it details the Brazilian voice actor for Kratos, Ricardo Juarez. Juarez discusses the emotions Kratos has gone throuigh in his previous games, he also explains the changes Kratos has featured which tie into how the voice acting had to be adaptive and balanced.

Juarez says that Kratos' past rage and fury tone has been balanced in this game, this is mostly due to the fatherly relationship he now has with his son Atreus. Juarez says that learning to keep Kratos' anger tone but mixing it with a now more subtle and understanding tonality was his main goal when voicing the God.

Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition is on its way to the Nintendo Switch and to celebrate the re-release being on the way Nintendo has released a character highlights trailer.

From the above trailer we get introduced to Link, Zelda, Impa, Linkle, Lana, Cia and Volga. We also get to see each of these characters in action, battling armies of foes with what seems like ease.

The re-release of Hyrule Warriors on the Nintendo Switch will be coming with specific optimizations for the hand-held console, while also improving the graphics, mechanics and adding more characters. The Wii U version of the game wasn't the most popular title on the console, some even saying it was a failure of a release, but with the recent mass popularity for the Nintendo Switch we could see a rebirth of Hyrule Warriors that could spark into quite an impressive launch.

In a recent post found on the /r/NintendoSwitch subreddit photographs of a Mexican Nintendo magazine has surfaced, the images showcase Nintendo commenting on the upcoming Pokemon game for the Nintendo Switch.

The post by Kratomlol links to a Twitter post from Ahnabella, who has taken some images of the official Mexican Nintendo magazine, the images can be found below. Translating the Pokemon featured text we get this in English: "‏After a lifetime associated with portable consoles, the canonical pokemon will take the leap to a table with its eighth generation. game freak and the pokemon company are rethinking the saga to surprise with new mechanics, either in 2018 or later."

This is quite interesting as according to the magazine Nintendo's next Pokemon title for the Switch will have some new mechanics, this raises the question at what classic mechanics will be changed and what will be added in replacement. Pokemon fans on the Reddit thread seem to be debating over whether its time for the Pokemon series to debut to an open-world genre, or just stick to the same classic turn-based combat system. This decision of choosing between the two could divide the Pokemon community quite quickly, hopefully in the coming months we get some confirmation from Nintendo as the rumors are abundant right now.

Pete Hines could have just dropped a cryptic message that suggests at this years E3 we could see a DOOM II announcement.

In a recent interview with DualShockers, Hines was questioned about what Bethesda has in store for its fans for the rest of 2018, Hines said he "couldn't give you any guesses as to what we're going to announce and when those games will be out" but there is "a lot of new stuff to talk about at E3."

More importantly though and this is where the speculation of a DOOM II announcement at this years E3 stems from. In the follow up question, Hines replied with this statement "Whether or not folks realize it, this is the hell on Earth [emphasis added] time for us with E3. We are in the midst of so much planning and work for all of that content but I'm really excited."

There must be some serious mind control devices over at EA, with the publisher reintroducing microtransactions in Star Wars Battlefront II, because why the hell not.

Star Wars Battlefront II will receive a new update next week that will see Crystals return, the in-game currency that you can buy with real-world money. The upcoming Night on Endor update will include Crystals, with developer DICE introducing some big changes to microtransactions so that they can only adjust your in-game appearance, because that makes it so much better.

The developer removed microtransactions from the company after the force strike of backlash they received not so long ago. One of the more positive parts of the Battlefront II update is that you'll be able to play as Ewoks in the new limited-time Ewok Hunt game mod that throws you into a team of Ewoks against Stormtroopers in asymmetric mode.

Kotaku has reported that a new BioShock title is currently under development, there was no additional information given on the title as it is said to be highly secretive.

Jason Schreier, a reporter for Kotaku has said on his post that the next game for the BioShock series is at the moment under development in secret. The title is in-fact so secretive that and anonymous source said: "If anyone from Hangar 13 tried to strike up a conversation with them, they'd say, 'Oh, we can't really talk about it."

Officially nothing has been confirmed as of yet for a new BioShock title to be in development but for those that want to read the full post breakdown from Schreier and see what else is pieced together, check out his post here.

For those of you old enough you might remember the iconic 8086 processor from Intel, well we're getting close to the 40th anniversary of the 8086 and it looks like Intel could celebrate it in the best way possible: releasing a new CPU in the Core i7-8086K.

Intel's purported Core i7-8086K is an Anniversary Edition SKU, just like the Pentium G3258 which was a 20th anniversary celebration of the Pentium CPU. The Core i7-8086K would be very similar to the Core i7-8700K, being a 6C/12T processor with 12MB of L3 cache and same 95W TDP.

But under the hood the purported Core i7-8086K would rock a higher base clock of 4GHz and boost clock of up to 5.1GHz or more, compared to the 3.7/4.7GHz base and boost clocks respectively on the 8700K. If this processor is indeed real, it would be the best 6C/12T processor available, with a launch window of June - perfect timing for Computex.

Epic Games has been having a few teething problems with Fortnite, with the servers going into "emergency maintenance" in the last 24 hours, and now the developer has delayed their upcoming 50 vs 50 mode until next week.

The developer announced the news in a post on Reddit, where they said that there's no problem with the mode exactly but there are other issues in Fortnite that are stopping Epic right now. The company has been experiencing many account issues, driving into the emergency maintenance last night, and so much more in the last few weeks.

Fortnite will soon enjoy its 50 vs 50 mode in the next week, if there aren't any more problems, that is.

Bethesda has announced that their classic The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim Special Edition is going to be going free-to-play this weekend on Steam, currently the game is available to download and if you are one of the few gamers that haven't played Skyrim definitely give it a download.

Skyrim Special Edition comes with a graphical upgrade that includes better textures, volumetric god rays, dynamic depth of field, screen-space reflection and more. There is also mod support for the title so don't forget to check that out if you are interested in amping the Skyrim experience up.

To go with the free weekend Bethesda is also discounting the title by 50%, check out the above video if you are interested in picking up the Special Edition of Skyrim while its cheap.

Ubisoft are celebrating their title Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege reaching a massive 30 million registered players across all platforms. Ubisoft has released a short video to celebrate the new milestone.

It appears that Rainbow Six Siege is growing at an amazing rate of about 5 million players every 4 or so months, as the tactical shooter hit a milestone of 25 million players in December.

Ubisoft commented on the recent achievement, thanking the players for their support to their game. Here is what they had to say: "On behalf of the entire team, we wanted to thank every member of our diverse, global community for their support of our game. Our players are the most valuable element to our game. Over the last three years we have endeavored to create a solid community built on transparency as we grow and evolve the ever-expanding world of Rainbow Six Siege. We are so tremendously honored to achieve this milestone, and we will continue to do everything we can to earn each and every new person that decides to play."

In a recent sales data release from Famitsu, it has been reported that the Nintendo Switch sales in Japan have reached just over 4 million, marking a very significant milestone for the handheld console.

According to Famitsu, a video game hardware tracking website, the Nintendo Switch has reached the 4 million sales mark in Japan in just over a year. This number is quite impressive considering that Sony's PlayStation 4 took a massive 38 months or three years to reach this same spot.

Currently PlayStation 4 sales are just over 6 million units, at the rate that the Nintendo Switch is going we could see the handheld console surpass the PS4 by the end of the year, that isn't even counting the games staple releases. Think about the sales increase when Nintendo drops a Pokemon game for the Switch, then think about the new guaranteed Super Smash Bros. game, PlayStation 4 sales will be blown out of the water with just these two titles dropping. Currently we are seeing a massive influx of indie games on the Switch, the triple A titles are yet to start flowing in, this makes me question how far can the Nintendo Switch sales really go.

Soulcalibur VI has been getting quite the attention lately, as Geralt makes his debut to the upcoming title so does the classic Nightmare. Now, we have Nightmares other half, Siegfried, Bandai has released a reveal trailer for the disturbed character.

Players that aren't already familiar with Siegfried and how he became Nightmare will have to know that Siegfried isn't the fastest of characters, but more so relies on his brute strength. Using his massive sword to defend himself as well as cause mayham for the opponent, Siegfrieds expected appearance slots perfectly into the Soulcalibur roster.

Bandai Namco has given a short description on Siegfried, so for those do not know the tragedy of this character it is recommend that you do, here is Bandai's description: "After losing to Kilik and his comrades in the form of Nightmare, Siegfried awoke in an unfamiliar place and he is now unable to free himself from the unforgiving memories of his time spent as the cursed sword's puppet. The memory of having killed his own father is haunting him. His true nightmare has only just begun. Full of regrets, he is looking for redemption and he desperately wants to free himself from the cursed sword's grasp!"

Let's take a look at a hard fork first, according to Investopedia it is: "a radical change to the protocol that makes previously invalid blocks/transactions valid (or vice-versa)".

Investopedia continued: "This requires all nodes or users to upgrade to the latest version of the protocol software. Put differently, a hard fork is a permanent divergence from the previous version of the blockchain, and nodes running previous versions will no longer be accepted by the newest version."

That possibly makes things as clear as mud, in its most basic form, a hard fork is a software upgrade that is not backwards compatible with the old software. In other words, everyone has to upgrade to the new system in order to participate. There are currently two basic hard forks people talk about, 'planned' hard forks and 'contentious' hard forks.

The Division has received a new update for the Xbox One family of consoles, with Ubisoft releasing the new v1.8.1 update that includes two new Global Events on all platforms.

Blackout is the first Global Event, which will roll out towards the end of the month and then Onslaught is penciled in for the end of May. The new update will see The Division running at up to 4K on the Xbox One X, thanks to the additional horsepower inside of the refreshed console.

The new v1.8.1 patch for The Division will give the Xbox One X version the following visual changes:

We should expect Sony to release their new PS5 in the coming years, with an exclusive source of TweakTown telling us during Computex last year that the PlayStation 5 will rock a discrete GPU, and not a super-weak APU like all consoles now with very under-performing CPUs.

Speaking with Polygon during the recent GamesBeat conference, former Sony Interactive Entertainment boss Andrew House said: "I'm very bullish on longer life cycles for consoles. Consoles are so under-represented and under-penetrated in so many markets around the globe. There's so much potential. Let's not forget that China is still largely (untapped)".

Sony needs to make the PS5 a truly next-gen console, where I expect 4K 60FPS as a minimum. By then, PC gamers will be enjoying NVIDIA's surely-a-smash-hit BFGDs, which will arrive as huge 65-inch 4K 120Hz HDR gaming TVs. 4K 120FPS gaming on the PC, should hopefully mean next-gen consoles offer bare minimums of 4K 60FPS with HDR, but I'm hoping 4K 120FPS that would allow next-gen PSVR experiences, too.