Latest News - Page 2137

Just a bit ago the World Health Organization published a listing in the eleventh edition of the International Classification of Disease that video games can be addictive and lead to what's called a 'gaming disorder,' but the U.S.-based games regulator ESA denies these findings.

"The World Health Organization knows that common sense and objective research prove video games are not addictive," the Entertainment Software Association wrote in a recent statement rebuking the WHO's report. "And, putting that official label on them recklessly trivializes real mental health issues like depression and social anxiety disorder, which deserve treatment and the full attention of the medical community. We strongly encourage the WHO to reverse direction on its proposed action."

"Just like avid sports fans and consumers of all forms of engaging entertainment, gamers are passionate and dedicated with their time. Having captivated gamers for more than four decades, more than 2 billion people around the world enjoy video games."

Rumor has it that Capcom is developing Devil May Cry 5, and it could launch during Capcom's FY2020 slate.

We've known for a while now that Devil May Cry director Hideaki Itsuno is making a brand new game, but Japanese publisher Capcom has kept details under wraps. After all, Capcom is releasing one of its most ambitious and biggest games ever with Monster Hunter: World, and announcing Devil May Cry 5 prematurely could be a bit too much. It's best to save those punches, and that's likely why nothing was revealed at E3 2017.

Now Itsuno says that development on the new project is wrapping up, and the game will be fantastic so players should look out for it. "I am sorry that I can not present a new project last year," he wrote on Twitter. "The development of the project is now under climax. I am making a great game so please expect it."

Sales of Battlefront II should rebound in the December holiday month, at least according to the latest prediction from Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter.

Instead of being the big new service game EA had geared it up to be, Battlefront II ended up kicking off a big microtransaction controversy that's since spread to other online service games, such as Destiny 2. The shooter's progression system was so highly infused with the engagement monetization model that players found it to be less of a game in that sense and more of a grindfest--shooter and galactic battle combat notwithstanding. But this won't be enough to deter consumers from buying the game and driving up sales figures for the holiday season, according to an industry analyst.

"Although Star Wars Battlefront II had a weaker-than-expected debut in terms of its domestic physical sell-through, we believe that the loyalty of the Star Wars fan base, the game's appeal as a holiday gift, and the release of Star Wars: The Last Jedi on December 15 will result in sales of the game bouncing back in the December retail month," Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter told clients earlier this week.

Microsoft's new $499 high-end Xbox One X brings power to the console gaming market, but how do developers see its "monster" performance in comparison to a PC? Crytek has some interesting answers.

With 6TFLOPs of GPU power, 12GB of GDDR5 RAM, and a highly customized AMD Jaguar-based chipset, the Xbox One X is undeniably the most powerful console on the market right now. But of course it pales in comparison with higher-end GPU power found in today's PCs...but what about a standard gaming PC, the kind that most people actually have? According to Crytek Product Manager Collin Bishop, the Xbox One X is about the equivalent of a "standard" PC setup, but only on the GPU end. CPU-wise a basic standard PC will dominate the console.

"The Xbox One X is very comparable to the standard gaming PC on the GPU end. It will be on the CPU end that you will find the PC to still be outshining the console. This will always be the scenario given you can trade out and customize the hardware," Bishop said in a recent interview with GamingBolt.

Lawbreakers, the gravity-defying shooter made by ex-Epic Games director Cliff Bleszinski, has bombed pretty hard...and Nexon isn't so happy about it.

By now you've probably heard about the disappointment that is Lawbreakers' game sales. Shortly after launch the title had very low players on Steam and was likened as just another Overwatch-style FPS. Then PUBG hit and everyone gravitated towards the last-man-standing shooter, leaving games like Lawbreakers in the dust. Now Nexon, the publisher behind Cliffy B's new game, has acknowledged its poor sales and says it's pretty much done acquiring impairment loss because of Lawbreakers.

"We had higher-than-planned expenses due to impairment losses on prepaid royalties related to LawBreakers and incentive bonus expenses related to strong business performance," Nexon wrote in its Q3'17 earnings report filed in November.

Following up the recent announcement of a new champion for Heroes of the Storm, Blizzard have released a Hero Spotlight for Blaze, the upcoming new hero who is burning his way through the Public Test Realm until January 8th.

Blaze will be joining Heroes of the Storm as ranged warrior tank, his abilities range from slowing down enemies with an oil spill, calling in a defensive bunker for himself and allies and of course burning his opponents to an absolute crisp with his double flamethrowers.

Blaze has strengths in area effect control, where he will be able to zone off enemies using his flame stream and passive damage. Another strength is his sustain, when fighting Blaze opponents will have to be mindful of the healing Blaze gets when he is standing in his flaming oil spill, not only is he tank character with crowd control and armor but he also heals quite rapidly if left in his healing zone long enough.

CES is just around the corner and what a better way to get around Las Vegas than to be sitting in one of the first "fully automated point-to-point ride-hailing experiences." Lyft and Aptiv now partnered together will be demonstrating the full experience of the self-driving car during this years CES by allowing for passengers to request a self-driving ride.

Recently, Aptiv a global automotive parts technology company focused on future mobility, announced a partnership with Lyft to demonstrate a full scale experience for self-driving cars. Both companies are offering rides to 20 pre-determined destinations throughout Las Vegas from January 9th until January 12th. Passengers will be able to request these self-driving rides from the gold lot of the Las Vegas Convention Center making this for a CES attendee only experience.

For those wondering if this is completely safe throughout the massively busy time of CES, stress not, as the demonstration of the self-driving car experience will be accompanied by a human "safety driver" located behind the wheel in-case anything does go wrong.

Mario games have classically been one of the main choices of game for speed-running, so it's no surprise that Super Mario Odyssey has now taken first place for speedrun submissions, clocking just over a 1,000 recorded times just within 2 months.

On the Speedrun website Super Mario Odyssey leads the pack of games that people are speed-running, Super Metroid, Monster Hunter: World (Beta), Cuphead and of course Super Mario 64 are also within the top 5. Super Mario 64, according to the Speedrun website has been speedrun a massive 6,741 times at the time of writing this article, Super Mario Odyssey lacks behind first place for total run count but keep in mind that the game was only released in October and has already gotten over a 1,000 submissions.

Super Mario Odyssey does take first place in active player count by a long shot coming in with a massive 573 active players, second place being of course the classic Super Mario 64 with 141 active players. These numbers will fluctuate as different parts of the world wake up/go to sleep but what is very interesting here is the percentage difference between that of first place and second.

Blizzard has released a new video on their Overwatch channel covering the updates that were released in 2017, and the expectations for the game for 2018. Jeff Kaplan, vice president of Blizzard Entertainment this time instead of staring blankly into the camera for hours on end, discusses in detail the direction of Overwatch and what players should be excited for coming into the new season.

Kaplan explains that there is many new maps in the works and also indicates that the anticipated Blizzard World Map will be released "very soon." He explains further that the map will be containing "tons of great Easter eggs" from other Blizzard franchises and will also be one of the best Overwatch maps to date.

Not only are many maps in the works but Kaplan explains that new heroes are also in the pipeline for release. Kaplan mentions a new character called Hero 27 and continues by saying the hero is already within internal testing, sadly there was no information given regarding a release date but Kaplan did say that this new hero is "very needed." Overwatch, and more specifically Blizzard are concentrating on getting this new hero correct and balanced before announcing any dates for its release as well as already thinking and brainstorming new ideas for future characters.

Epic Games has updated their Battle Royale shooter Fortnite with a new strategic game mode called Sneaky Silencers. As you can guess from the title of the game mode, players will be running around only being able to use silenced weapons, forcing a more strategic style of gameplay rather than brute force tactics to secure the win.

The new game mode will be rolled out on January 5 and will be available to play until January 8. Epic Games has said that players will not have to update their clients as there will be no downtime when this game mode hits the live severs.

To go with this new limited time game mode, Epic Games has released a new silenced pistol which will be found in chests as an Epic or Legendary gun drop. The pistol is arriving a little bit earlier than the game mode as we can assume that this is a strategy from Epic Games to create hype for Fortnite's new game mode.

CES 2018 - Samsung will have a lot to unveil at CES 2018, with one of the ones that hits the PC community will be the new CJ791, a 34-inch 3440x1440 curved UltraWide with a QLED panel and Thunderbolt 3 connectivity.

On top of its 3440x1440 resolution, we have a 60Hz refresh rate and 4ms response time, 1500R curvature, and 178-degree viewing angle. The 34-inch QLED panel will have 125% sRGB spectrum for "deeper blacks and whiter shades", with Samsung aiming the CJ791 at business/workstation users that crave the 3440x1440 native resolution, and gamers.

The inclusion of Thunderbolt 3 will have connectivity freaks and Apple PC users with laptops like the MacBook nice and happy, as you can power the new Samsung CJ791 with just the Thunderbolt 3 cable, which is awesome. Thunderbolt 3 provides 40Gbps of bandwidth, which is enough for charging your laptop with its 85W of power on-tap.

We all know Samsung will be launching a few new flagship smartphones in 2018 with the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+ both appearing in the next few months.

Later in the year Samsung will launch their new Galaxy Note 9 which will sell like hotcakes, as usual, but the South Korean giant has lofty sales goals for 2018 according to industry sources. Here's what Samsung is aiming for:

This isn't bad considering Apple should sell around 200 million iPhones this year, and Huawei with 150 million sales a year.

Right before CES 2018 kicks off, one of the biggest stories of the year for Intel will be the fact that a massive design flaw and security vulnerability has been found in Intel CPUs. Affected processors require an update to the OS, as this affects both Windows and Linux.

The affected Intel processors will not just face a security vulnerability, but a huge performance drop of between 5-30% once the OS has been fixed. Intel processors have a bug that can't be fixed with a microcode update, meaning Microsoft has to issue a fix at a Windows level, or you'll be forced into the arms of an AMD processor, which aren't affected.

How bad is the security issue? Well, an affected processor could have the contents of its kernel memory accessed, which is where super-secure things like passwords, log-ins, and more can be found.

Spotify is ringing in the New Year with a gigantic $1.6 billion lawsuit over alleged copyright infringement, with Wixen Music Publishing representing artists like Tom Petty, Missy Elliot, Stevie Nicks, and Neil Young.

The lawsuit was filed on December 29 and alleges that Spotify has infringed on copyright by using thousands of their songs without a proper license, with WMP seeking at least $1.6 billion in damages and injunctive relief. The lawsuit states that Spotify failed to "obtain the equivalent rights for the compositions".

The lawsuit continues, saying: "As a result, Spotify has built a billion dollar business on the backs of songwriters and publishers whose music Spotify is using, in many cases without obtaining and paying for the necessary licenses".

We all know a gamer that plays way too many games, with countless people addicted to gaming in all forms: PC/console gaming, mobile gaming, and other forms of gaming.

But now, the World Health Organization (WHO) has updated their list of classified diseases, and included a "gaming disorder" in this revised list. WHO's new draft of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) describes the "gaming disorder" as a "pattern of persistent or recurrent gaming behaviour" whether it's online, or offline.

The description continues, saying:

Amazon has an absolutely huge business that has tentacles in virtually everything these days, with the company announcing that Prime members shipped over 5 billion items in 2017.

Amazon announced the news amongst other statistics that showed their own Fire TV Stick and Echo Dot were the best-selling products purchased by Prime members in the US. Instant Pot was the most gifted item with Amazon's Wedding Registry, while the Instant Pot Cookbook was the book that Prime members gifted throughout 2017.

Throughout 2017, Amazon worked on Prime's non-shipping features like reserving early film screenings for Prime members, added new content to their video service, and more. Speaking about their video service, Amazon took home three Golden Globe nominations, too.

We all know everything cryptocurrency and blockchain technology is the next big thing, but now Hooters is joining in on the fun - yes, 'that' Hooters.

CNBC reports that Hooters announced it would be moving its customer loyalty program onto blockchain, and then pushing out a cryptocurrency called Mobivity Merit, seeing Hooters shares leap by 50%.

Michael Pruitt, Chairman, President, and CEO of Chanticleer Holdings (the parent company of Hooters) explained: "We wanted to expand our existing loyalty program with something that really changes the way our customers can leverage their rewards; Mobivity Merit is real cryptocurrency, leveraging the same infrastructure and principles of Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Litecoin, and more, and will enable our customers to make use of their rewards in entirely new ways".

We've had a few sneak peaks at Samsung's next-gen flagship smartphone over the last few weeks, but this new leaked photo of the Galaxy S9 sitting next to the Galaxy S9+ is our best look yet.

The latest leak is from China (of course) with a post on social networking site Weibo, with an Indian blog (hub.91) posting the story. As we can see from the shot, the Galaxy S9 is on the left with a repositioned rear fingerprint sensor and dual LED flash.

The Galaxy S9+ on the right has a repositioned dual-camera rig (instead of them being side-by-side), with both handsets featuring a gorgeous glass back.

Secretlab is the best gaming chair company in the world, but they've promised a stellar 2018 and have started this early with the tease of their upcoming NAPA series of gaming chairs.

Secretlab's new NAPA chairs succeed the already-amazing OMEGA ELITE chair which featured top-grain leather, with Ian Ang, the Managing Director and co-founder of Secretlab explaining: "We wanted to round off our existing catalogue by creating the most luxurious gaming chair in the market, one which combines the elegance and durability of a premium leather armchair with the functionality and support that have become the hallmark of the Secretlab brand".

The new NAPA line of chairs will be made available in super limited quantities at first, as Secretlab has to go through a "lengthy manufacturing process" and has "strict selection criteria used to handpick the chair's raw materials".

Final Fantasy dev Square Enix is pushing into the new year with lots of ambitious plans, and wants to embrace emerging and disruptive technologies.

Typically we get a good idea of what big publishers and devs will do from their fiscal year results, especially regarding release slates and earnings, but Square Enix CEO Yosuke Matsuda recently highlighted some of the future paths for the company in a jovial new year's message.

The letter--which we've included below--is quite lengthy but worth a read if you're interested in Square Enix and its games. While 100% specifics aren't really touched upon, the CEO's message does highlight the future path of the company and aligns with some of our predictions, including a unified online digital storefront similar to uPlay.