Latest News - Page 2106

Valve is working on totally new games according to founder and PCMR figure Gabe Newell, with GabeN saying that Valve is getting back into making new games after its current fleet of multiplayer games.

Valve has been heavily focused on Steam and hardware over the last few years, stretching as far as getting knee deep in one of the best VR headsets on the market with the HTC Vive, but Gabe explained this as "an investment in the future". Newell added: "Artifact is the first of several games that are going to be coming from us. So that's sort of good news. Hooray! Valve's going to start shipping games again".

Artifact is a new Dota 2-themed card game that Valve has been working on, but it isn't the only new game the company has been developing. During the Reddit AMA back in January 2017, Newell said that Valve is working on at least one other fully-fledged singleplayer game.

Last year when I first started getting into crypto mining, my 40+ graphics cards were an amazing thing during the Australian winter (June-August), warming my entire house even on 2C mornings.

But now French startup Qarnot has unveiled their new QC-1, a crypto heater that generates heat while mining cryptocurrency. Qarnot's upcoming QC-1 will be powered by two of AMD's Radeon RX 580s - specifically, SAPPHIRE's Nitro RX 580.

QC-1 will consume up to 500W of power, and has been designed for 20m2. Qarnot says that the QC-1 will make around $120 per month at the current price of Ethereum.

In Win has announced its new 2018 Mod in Taiwan 2.0 event, something that is now open to case modders and will see the winning case mod mass produced by In Win.

The company has a total prize pool worth $12,000 as well as the notoriety of having In Win mass produce the best case mod, which is pretty awesome.

As for the prize pool, you definitely can't complain about this: In Win are giving away some pretty decked out custom gaming machines packing either an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Ti or GTX 1070. The #1 prize winner also takes home $3000, while second place scores a cool $1000.

We're getting lots of rumors and leaked decks on AMD's future processors in the last few days, but now we have some more concrete details (I guess???) on AMD's next-gen Threadripper CPUs.

Interestingly, AMD refers to Threadripper as "the monster truck of computing". Onto the slide, where in 2018 we're to expect the second-gen Threadripper CPU which will be made on the new 12nm node and feature Zen+ CPU cores, higher CPU clocks, and Precision Boost 2.0 technology.

Fast forward to 2019 where AMD will unleash the Castle Peak CPU architecture, which AMD says will see them with "dominant leadership in the HEDT market", much more performance and efficiency, and "new platform features" that will "take TR4 to the next level".

Qualcomm first teased its revolutionary Snapdragon on Windows deal with Microsoft just before Computex 2017, I knew it would be a game changer that wouldn't happen overnight, but it would start with a bang and really ramp up as new products were released.

HP has had its Envy x2 on the market for weeks, and it's already sold out. HP's ultra-portable Envy x2 packs Qualcomm's Snapdragon 835 processor (8-core CPU at up to 2.6GHz), 4GB of RAM, 128GB of UFS storage, and a 12.3-inch 1080p touch display - all with 4G LTE for always-connected PC greatness.

But with it selling out so quickly, it seems that there are thousands of people who have been wanting the always-connected side of things backed up by a huge 22 hours of battery life. This isn't possible on traditional Intel/AMD-based notebooks, something that Qualcomm is changing the game with.

Bloober team, the devs behind Layers of Fear, will have their mysterious new game published by Friday the 13th's Gun Media.

In terms of official details, next to nothing is known about Project Melies, which is Bloober Team's new game. But IGN made an apt connection to renowned 19th French movie-maker George Melies, who helped pioneer the art with thousands of short films during the era (you may remember Voyage dans la Lune, or A Trip to the Moon, Melies' most well-known film). After all the codename has Melies' name in it.

"We are thrilled to be working with Gun Media," added Piotr Babieno, CEO of Bloober Team. "The Gun team have seen the potential of our game from the very beginning. Based on their level of passion, knowledge and philosophy, we believe that together we can create a game that will be remembered years after its release."

As soon as I hit my desk this morning I read "unconfirmed takeover rumors" that AMD was to be acquired, with rumors hitting Wall Street, according to Bloomberg.

AMD shares are up 5% from the takeover news, which is the largest single-day climb of AMD stock since January 3. There's nothing more to this rumor, but AMD is losing against NVIDIA in the gaming market - and at least keeping up in the cryptocurrency mining market. On the CPU side of things AMD has been banging some heads together, something that has sent Intel into a flurry.

I reached out to some of my usual contacts and asked if they had heard anything, with both of them not hearing much, or anything at all. I'm just reporting the news as usual, and right now I think an AMD acquisition makes sense for a few companies... but we'll have to wait and see.

Nintendo has just finished their Nintendo Direct livestream on YouTube, closing out the stream Nintendo teased that Super Smash Bros. is coming Nintendo Switch fans in 2018.

The teaser began with Splatoon characters duking it out against eachother, only for one of them to realize what was happening behind them. The area began to fade black and the Super Smash Bros. logo appears behind them, showing a group of characters at the base.

The video quickly pans up to Marios face and then quickly switches to Link, only to end with "Super Smash Bros. 2018." It could also be speculated that because the Splatoon characters are within the trailer that they are to be added into this new Super Smash Bros. Check out the screenshots below, or watch the above video to check out the teaser.

Black Ops 4 is indeed happening (go figure!) and Activision has secured a Fall release date for its big new Call of Duty shooter.

In a recent press release, Activision shows it's extremely confident in Treyarch's new Black Ops game. The publisher says Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 (or Black Ops ]II[) will "revolutionize the top-selling Call of Duty series in history" with a "game-changing experience."

Treyarch will reveal full details about the game on Thursday, May 17 in a special showcase ahead of E3 2018, and Black Ops 4 will release Friday, October 12, 2018 on PS4, Xbox One and PC. This will secure Black Ops 4 ahead of the critical holiday sales period and coincide with Activision-Blizzard's fourth quarter earnings.

Today The Division devs at Massive Entertainment and Ubisoft have confirmed a sequel to the gritty third-person shooter.

Ever-chasing live services, Ubisoft has had The Division 2 in the works for a bit now, and it may be the mystery AAA game it was supposed to launch this fiscal year (but most likely it isn't). Details about the sequel are sparse, but the team at Massive affirms it has learned tremendously from the last two years of upkeeping, updating, and engaging The Division players across the globe.

The Division 2 will be the culmination of a huge joint effort of Ubisoft studios, the company confirms. Six studios including Ubisoft Reflections, Red Storm Entertainment, Ubisoft Annecy, Ubisoft Shanghai and Ubisoft Bucharest will work alongside Massive to make the game. This makes a lot of sense considering Massive Entertainment is also working on a huge sprawling multi-year series of games for the new Avatar movies.

After an anonymous source that tipped off that Bandai was to bringing Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm Trilogy to the Nintendo Switch, we now have confirmation.

The Trilogy is made up of games Ultimate Ninja Storm, Ultimate Ninja Storm 2, and Ultimate Ninja Storm 3: Full Burst.

Bandai Namco commented on bringing Naruto: Ultimate Storm Triology to the Nintendo Switch, here is what they said: "Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm Trilogy drops players into the Ninja World and gives them the chance to actively experience major battles and fan-favorite scenes with larger than life bosses, adrenaline-pumping quick time event sequences, fast-paced battles, and visuals that rival the anime series it is based on."

At the start of the year Nintendo announced that My Nintendo users will be able to use their Gold Points to purchase titles across the Wii U, 3DS and Switch eShop. This feature is now available!

Users that are interested in using their My Nintendo Gold Points will should know that 100 gold points is equivalent to $1. Players that decide to make purchases through the eShop will be rewarded back with 5% of their purchase value in Gold Points. Physical purchases will sadly only be rewarded with 1% of the value.

It should be noted that while games with DLC's on the Switch will grant players Gold Points, DLC's on the Wii U or 3DS will not. Additionally and probably most importantly, Gold Points have a one year expiration date on them, counting from the last day in the month from which they were earned.

State of Decay 2, the zombie-survival RPG from Undead Labs has been announced for a release on the 22nd of May, to go with the release date is also the set price point for the game.

According to the games head of marking Aaron Greenberg, Microsoft has decided to stick to long-term goal with the State of Decay community. This would mean widening the audience of the game by lowering the initial cost to only $30.

Here is what Greenberg had to say: "Our goal is to build a long-term relationship with the State of Decay community and to foster deeper experiences with the franchise. We believe State of Decay 2 accomplishes this goal by immersing fans in the ultimate zombie survival fantasy, and we want to give more players the opportunity to join in and experience this unique game."

To celebrate the 1-year anniversary of the Nintendo Switch, Nintendo have decided to release a 5-disc box set of the soundtrack used in the Zelda: Breath Of The Wild.

Nintendo have gathered all of original songs found in Zelda: Breath of the Wild which also include songs from both of the games DLC packs, Champions' Ballad and The Master Trails.

The limited edition collection is unfortunately not available worldwide as of yet and is only available to those in Japan. The news originally being broken by GameSpot, they explain what will be featured with the 5-discs: "Play Button music player pre-loaded with 15 "field" tracks from the Legend of Zelda series, and special packaging with a clear file for Ã,Â¥7,000. Songs on the Play Button player cannot be added or removed. The standard edition will only include the five CDs for Ã,Â¥5,000."

The developers that are behind this incredible Skyrim mod have released their very first trailer for their upcoming Beyond Skyrim: Morrowind mod.

This mod is exactly what the title suggests, it will be bringing Morrowind into the world of Skyrim which has been all created from a hard working team of dedicated modders and hours upon hours of code fiddling.

Unfortunately there is no scheduled time for release of this mod as the team is currently looking for volunteers to speed up the process. There is a similar idea currently happening with Fallout 3 being built into Fallout 4, check that out here.

Microsoft has said that their new update for Windows 10 will have baked-in AI that will "operate complex machine learning applications locally that normally run in the cloud", reports The Next Web.

The new AI-focused update to Windows 10 will need more processing power to give the artificial intelligence some brainpower, so your GPU will be used. Yay. In a world where GPUs are being targetted by crypto jacking, where your CPU or GPU are used to mine cryptocurrency, now Microsoft wants to take a bit of your GPU to power their AI.

Microsoft even teamed with NVIDIA and AMD for the new AI powers in Windows 10, but the company also worked with Intel where they will give Windows developers access to hardware alternatives. Intel is enabling developers to build "engaging and magical AI-powered experiences using Windows ML and the Intel Movidius VPU", says Microsoft's corporate vice president for the Windows Developer Platform Kevin Gallo.

Today is AMD day, with news of the Ryzen 7 2700X offering 8C/16T of CPU power at up to 4.35GHz for $369, as well as ASRock rumored to be entering the graphics card market as an AIB partner making AMD Radeon cards.

Now we have a leaked roadmap of AMD processors through to 2020, which covers this year and the releases of the next-gen Threadripper, upcoming Pinnacle Ridge, and the just-released Raven Ridge APUs.

Next year we can expect AMD's new Castle Peak CPU architecture, a new Ryzen range of processors built on the Matisse codename and exciting new Zen 2, while Picasso succeeds Raven Ridge on the APU side of things. But I think it is 2020 where the real excitement begins with a third-generation Threadripper, and new Vermeer CPU architecture that will succeed Matisse, and Renoir that will succeed Picasso.

Broadcom has the hots for Qualcomm in all the wrong ways, and even with nearly $120 billion on the table, the San Diego-based company behind the Snapdragon family of products has pushed away this acquisition.

The US government stepped in and stopped the deal over major concerns regarding national security, and now Broadcom is sweetening the deal with a $1.5 billion fund that would train new American engineers. Broadcom said in a statement: "With its proven track record of investing in and growing core franchises, Broadcom is committed to making the US the global leader in 5G. Broadcom is in every important respect an American company".

But why the $1.5 billion pledge for American workers? That's what the national security concerns were by the Commitee on Foreign Investment in the US (Cfuis) were over, as they said that Broadcom is trying to inject new directors into Qualcomm through this acquisition that "could pose a risk to the national security of the US".

A new patent hints that Sony's new PlayStation console--presumably the PlayStation 5--could indeed be a full next-generation jump instead of another console refresh.

According to a Sony patent that's recently been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Japanese games-maker is working on backward compatibility features for a new system. This heavily implies that the PS5 will be able to play PS4 games, which is something I said is 100% essential for the PlayStation brand's future. This also strongly suggests the PS5 is a hardware push above the current PS4 family of systems, and unlike the PS4 Pro or Microsoft's approach with the Xbox One X. However, the patent also suggests the PS5 won't be dramatically more powerful than the PS4 or PS4 Pro.

The patent is fairly involved but speaks mostly in plain language, explaining why certain tech is so important to ensure smooth backward compatibility. Essentially what it comes down to is CPU and GPU power and timing discrepancies; for instance, if the PS5's CPU is slower than the PS4's (won't happen), the games will have lots of issues and vice-versa. And yes, PS4 architect Mark Cerny helped invent the patent.

As is usually the case with ports crossing over late, a ratings board potential spoils Ninja Theory's surprise.

Months after launching on PlayStation 4, Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice is coming to the Xbox One, at least that's according to a listing on the Taiwanese Entertainment Software Registration website. A quick search shows that Hellblade is within the registry as an unlisted title, but anyone who visits the site can pull it up.

What's more interesting is the TESR says European video game ratings board PEGI has already certified Senua's Sacrifice on Xbox One, but no listing showed up on PEGI's website.