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To celebrate the upcoming home video release of 'Baby Driver,' we have fifteen Blu-ray copies to give away thanks to our friends at Universal Sony Home Entertainment!

All you need is one killer track. A talented, young getaway driver (Ansel Elgort) relies on the beat of his personal soundtrack to be the best in the game. When he meets the girl of his dreams (Lily James), Baby sees a chance to ditch his criminal life and make a clean getaway. But after being coerced into working for a crime boss (Kevin Spacey), he must face the music when a doomed heist threatens his life, love, and freedom. Directed by Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz).

To go into the running to win a prize, post this article to your social media profiles and send your correct answer to the following question (along with your postal address), to ben at TweakTown dot com before the competition closes on November 3rd.

G.SKILL doesn't ride in the slow lane, with the company announcing their new Ripjaws series DDR4-3800 RAM kit in SO-DIMM form, the fastest SO-DIMM RAM on the planet.

The new Ripjaws SO-DIMM memory is aimed at mini-ITX gaming PCs, with ASRock's latest X299-E ITX/ac being one of the motherboards that will work with the 32GB kit of SO-DIMM. If you were to mix this with Intel's new flagship Core i9-7980XE, you'll have one of the smallest, and one of the most powerful rigs money can buy.

As for specifications, G.SKILL has their new Ripjaws DDR4 SO-DIMM kits in three different speeds: 3200MHz, 3600MHz, and 3800MHz. They all come with different timings, with the 3200MHz and 3600MHz kits coming in at 16-16-16-36 while the 3800MHz kit is slightly higher with 18-18-18-38. Something to take note of, the 3200MHz kit can be purchased in a huge 64GB kit if you need it.

Battlegrounds is set to receive one of its biggest changes since it was launched into Steam Early Access in March, where it has since sold 17 million copies and broken Steam concurrent gamer records.

The new update will provide vaulting and climbing to the game, which is needed in a big way. Bluehole announced that there will be test servers going live in the next few days with the new climbing and vaulting features, but there are some huge hours that need to be pumped into testing before the servers can go live.

Bluehole explained: "Crossing and scaling obstacles may intermittently create many new tactical options available to the players. The standard jump feature can be used in standard situations, but there are many areas where it does not suffice. After all, PUBG features a play area of considerable proportions. In addition, objects located on the map differ greatly in shape and size. Such complexity can cause many problems for the players who need to rely on fast and effective means of jumping over (or on top of) boxes, containers, fences etc. For that reason we have decided to implement dynamic vaulting and climbing mechanics".

PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds just won't quit breaking records...and the game's playerbase is dominated by Chinese gamers.

According to the latest metrics from SteamSpy, PUBG has now has over 17.1 million owners--in fact, the game broke the 17 million mark 5 days ago. Where things get really interesting is the game's geographical playerbase makeup, which shows most of PUBG's owners and active players are in China. For reference, PUBG has now sold more copies than the entire Devil May Cry franchise.

Figures show that China represents roughly 37% of PUBG's owners and a huge 44% of its playerbase, dwarfing the numbers in the U.S. that hold 14.5% owners and about 11% of game players. As key service games command billions in earnings from China, Bluehole stands to reap tremendous revenues if they can properly monetize this playerbase.

Microsoft engages and potentially monetizes over a massive 53 million user playerbase thanks to successful games and services strategies.

Microsoft just announced its quarterly earnings for the new 2018 fiscal year and the results are strong, especially in the Xbox gaming segment. According to the results Xbox games and services earned $1.8 billion in revenues, up 20% year-over-year and accounting for roughly 20% of total revenues from the More Personal Computing segment. Now that Microsoft has anchored itself into a serviced-based business model that monetizes its audience with microtransactions, ads, and services like Mixer, one of the most vital and valuable metrics is how many gamers are using Xbox LIVE on Xbox consoles, PC and mobiles. In terms of MAUs those numbers are good.

"Our engaged user base grew 13 percent to 53 million monthly active users across Xbox One, Windows 10 and mobile platforms," Microsoft Chief Financial Officer Amy Hood said in the earnings call. "Additionally, new services like GamePass and Mixer, which create more opportunities for engagement and monetization, showed encouraging early results."

Analyst firm SuperData has revealed some interesting figures: Destiny 2 is a monumental success in terms of digital sales--figures that have utterly demolished its predecessor's digital sales in 2014.

Just yesterday we reported that, according to the NPD Group, Destiny 2 is the best-selling game of 2017 in the U.S. so far, driving software spending for the month of September. Now analyst firm SuperData is echoing Destiny 2's landmark success on consoles with its own findings.

"Destiny 2 has the largest digital launch ever on console and has become the fastest-selling digital console game in a launch month," SuperData reports on its monthly numbers roll.

PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds is coming to the Xbox family of consoles sometime soon, and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella confirms the shooter will run on Azure.

Azure, Microsoft's cloud service, has a number of potential benefits for video games. The Xbox One exclusive Titanfall used Azure to host backend servers, and PUBG will do the same, while dramatically reducing the bandwidth load from game developer Bluehole who's currently managing servers for millions of PC players everyday. According to Microsoft's Satya Nadella, PUBG will use Azure on the Xbox One. I'm curious how this will affect PC and Xbox One cross-play with Steam and Azure servers.

"We also see opportunity to empower developers who work on console, PC and mobile games to use our cloud infrastructure and services to enhance their game-play and community. Gaming pushes the boundaries of hardware and software innovation with some of the most CPU and GPU-intensive applications and content, giving us a huge opportunity in the cloud," Nadella said in Microsoft's Q1'18 earnings call. "As one example, Pub-G Corp with the hit game Player Unknown's Battlegrounds, is not only partnering to make Xbox the exclusive console at launch but is also running on Azure."

Microsoft just announced its results for its first quarter of Fiscal Year 2018, showing strong growth in key segments--including gaming.

Microsoft's Xbox gaming division has changed monumentally over the years; in the past, the platform-holder created a retinue of first-party singleplayer content and fostered a massive platform that hosted tons of games. Now in the wake of monetized online engagement, Xbox has transformed from a console into a service that bridges Windows 10 PCs and Xbox One machines while following the games-as-a-service model for its games. Microsoft is a big adopter of GaaS, and all of its first-party games typically have microtransactions and online hooks to enable consistent revenue streams to flow in.

In Q1 FY18, Microsoft's More Personal and Computing segment, which includes Xbox gaming, pulled in $9.378 billion in revenue during the quarter. Gaming made up about 20% of its parent segment's earnings, and about 7.7% of Microsoft's total revenues of $24.5 billion in the three-month period. Xbox software and services revenues are up 21% year-over-year.

Today Intel is launching their first retail 3D XPoint based SSD - the Intel Optane SSD 900P Series. Unlike Optane Memory, which is a cache SSD, the Intel Optane 900P Series are full blown SSDs and will function as such. Initially, the 900P series will be offered in two capacities and two form factors - U.2 and Add-In-Card (AIC).

At this time, the U.2 form factor is only available at 280GB. The AIC form factor is available at both 280GB and 480GB capacity points. It is important to note that unlike flash based SSDs, Optane SSDs don't rely on capacity for higher performance. The 280GB 900P is just as fast as the 480GB 900P.

3D XPoint (Intel Optane) memory media has many advantages over NAND flash memory media. Random performance at low queue depths can be as much as 7X better than the fastest flash-based NVMe SSDs. What this means in the real-world is very well illustrated by the following:

PCI-SIG, the organization behind the PCIe standard has released the finalized specs on PCIe 4.0, with some highlights that impress. We have up to 16GT/s of bandwidth with PCIe 4.0, up from the 8GT/s of bandwidth offered on PCIe 3.0 - but it's PCIe 5.0 that has my mouth watering with a huge 32GT/s of bandwidth, and will arrive in 2019.

As for the PCIe 4.0 highlights, this is what Chairman and President of PCI-SIG, Al Yanes, had to say:

What will PCIe 4.0 provide us, other than just ridiculous amounts of bandwidth? As Tom's Hardware points out, PCIe 4.0 will provide the bandwidth to make cheaper NVMe SSDs possible, as they'll need just half the PCIe lanes, while 10GbE connections over a single PCIe lane would be made possible. That kind of speed is impossible right now with limited PCIe lanes.

Amazon has made the decision to put its 4v4 PVP brawler Breakaway into "indefinite hiatus," sources have told Kotaku.

Amazon Game Studios first announced Breakaway in 2016, and has since ran the game through numerous beta tests. The game, which features team-on-team action, obviously had lofty esports aspirations and the retail titan assuredly hoped Breakaway would align perfectly with its game streaming platform Twitch. "Breakaway is a 4v4 mythological sport brawler built for fast action, teamwork, and live-streaming," reads the game's description.

Now key sources close to the matter have told Kotaku that Breakaway has been put to sleep, joining the likes of the Mass Effect and Deus Ex franchises. The sources didn't reveal exactly why Brekaway was put on hiatus, but the current state of the video games industry paints a clear picture: it's very likely that Amazon saw Breakaway wasn't heating up and attracting gamers, and 2K Games' ill-fated Battleborn is a warning sign to all games-makers everywhere.

I'm confident in saying at one stage or another, we all owned a Microsoft Intellimouse growing up. The Microsoft Intellimouse was symbolic for innovation since it was introduced in 1996 and eventually made extinct in 2012. Microsoft have announced that after 5 years, the Microsoft Intellimouse series will resurface with the Microsoft Classic Intellimouse.

"Inspired by the Microsoft Intellimouse 3.0, the new Microsoft Classic Intellimouse has made modern improvements to a fan favorite. The features that fans loved about the original are still here - customizable buttons, the classic ergonomic look and feel, and the wired USB connection" Microsoft says.

The Microsoft Intellimouse was a pioneer for the PC mouse, with introducing the world to everyday features we take for granted such as a scroll wheel, optical sensor and auxiliary buttons- All this began with the Intellimouse. The Classic Intellimouse will feature a respectable 3,200 DPI sensor, three customizable buttons, Microsoft BlueTrack technology and that elegant, stylish yet simple design associated with a classic Microsoft mouse.

Steam offer various methods to help friends and family purchase games, with the ability to gift games and purchase physical gift cards from retailers. Steam have introduced another method to help top up your friends and family's Steam Wallets, with the introduction of Steam Digital Gift Cards.

As you could imagine, it's pretty straight forward and works much in the way of physical Steam Gift Cards... except you don't have to leave your house! Users sign into their Steam account, select the amount you wish to gift and the recipient and then the funds will then be transferred straight to the recipients Steam Wallet. These funds can then be spent as they desire- hardware, software, games or in-game items.

If you're feeling generous, head over to Steam's website for more details.

UPDATE: We're still not sure what kinds of safeguards Ubisoft has put in place to limit certain transactions, ie limiting how many ability points players can buy in a given day or time period. We'll be sure to update this post if we get more information.

Assassin's Creed: Origins embraces microtransactions in a familiar way, and Helix credits are back. the game's monetization strategies align with our original predictions in a number of ways.

In the months leading up to Assassin's creed: Origins' launch, I predicted that the game's RPG mechanics and randomized gear hooks would be heavily monetized. Lo and behold, Ubisoft is offering a number of optional time-saving microtransactions that can dramatically speed up your efficacy. In a very real sense, you can theoretically pay enough money to become extremely powerful the first day you buy the game. I say theoretically because the Ubisoft Store where you buy the premium Helix currency isn't online yet, so I can't report prices.

B.J. Blazkowicz is back with Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, and publisher Bethesda have revealed the PC system requirements ahead of its October 27 release date. The system requirements are quite a step up from 2014's Wolfenstein The New Order, with mid-range systems likely to require some tweaking.

Minimum:

CPU: Intel Core i7-3770/AMD FX-8350 or better

Microsoft introduced their Kinect sensor for the Xbox, if you can believe it... 7 years ago, selling 35 million units in a time when Nintendo was killing it with their super-popular Wii console.

After a few years, Kinect 2.0 was introduced as a central part of the Xbox One, until gamers completely rejected it. Back in 2014, Microsoft stopped bundling Kinect with the Xbox One, and then it slowly died, and is now officially over.

Microsoft's head of Xbox Devices Marketing, Matthew Lapsen, said: "When we introduced Xbox One, we designed it to have the best experience with the Kinect. That was our goal with the Xbox One launch, but like all product launches, you monitor over time, you learn and adjust".

AMD is hitting Intel where it hurts with a huge price drop on their flagship Ryzen Threadripper 1950X processor from its introductory price of $999, with $120 slashed from the price bringing it down to $879.

Intel's current-gen Core i9-7960X costs a magnitude more at $1739 on Amazon at the time of writing, nearly double the price of the Ryzen Threadripper 1950X. For the megataskers and enthusiasts, the X399 chipset rocks 64 PCIe 3.0 lanes which is plenty for massive amounts of super-fast storage, as well as allowing multi-GPU users to ramp up to x16/x16/x16/x16 configurations for the ultimate in performance.

This price drop is pretty significant, at $120 it will hurt Intel in the long run even more than they are now. Intel will have to react to this yet again, and with their track record we can expect another CPU series announced next week.

According to NPD Group analyst Mat Piscatella, who wades in the vast sea of video game sales data, there's no evidence that loot boxes are having adverse effects on game sales.

Following the big controversy surrounding Shadow of War's optional war chest microtransactions, enthusiast gamers have pushed back en masse against "exploitative anti-consumer practices" of loot boxes, which typically power gaming's biggest billion dollar titles, calling for boycotts of games that use them. But there appears to be a disconnect between enthusiast gamers and everyday consumers: there's no evidence that the inclusion of lootboxes are causing game sales to dive--but the reverse is also true.

In a recent interview with Games Industry.biz, NPD Group analyst Mat Piscatella said that controversy hasn't affected sales potential of games with loot boxes. "I would not say that the presence of loot boxes causes games to sell at higher levels than games without loot boxes. What [this week's] release does suggest is that the loot box or microtransactions controversy has not yet resulted in clear noticeable limitations of the sales potential of the games with [those mechanics]."

Despite being embroiled in a huge lootbox controversy that kicked off tons of frustration in the gaming sphere, Middle-earth: Shadow of War is quite popular among consumers.

Shadow of War's online service-based hook appears to be working quite well: the game has over 1.5 million active users worldwide across all platforms. In an era where player count is extremely important for engagement monetization, this is a boon for WB Games and Monolith Productions. The developer also shared some other metrics, confirming that 3.46 million player forts have been sieged, which pretty much proves the huge online multiplayer mode was actually a good idea.

We're not sure how many copies Shadow of War has sold just yet, but I'm betting it's an extremely popular game that will accrue WB Games a nice bundle. While the game has been review bombed on Steam because of the lootbox issue, there's a big disconnect between enthusiast gamers and everyday consumers who buy video games--the latter of which are far more likely to buy a game simply because they're interested rather than boycotting it to take a stand.

Psyonix has teamed up with WB Interactive Entertainment to bring its huge breadwinner Rocket League to retail brick and mortar stores.

Rocket League is one of the most successful indie games ever made, and has become an engagement juggernaut for eSports while rocketing developer Psyonix to the big leagues (puns!). Now the game is coming to retail markets on PS4 and Xbox One thanks to a joint partnership with Warner Bros.

"The game is already available digitally on the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC, and the updated retail version will be available for purchase in stores on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One," reads the official press release.