Latest News - Page 2146

Ghost Recon Wildlands players will be happy to hear news that the Predator will be joining the ranks in a special event that runs between December 14 and early January.

Ubisoft Senior Producer Nouredine Abboud explained the news in a statement: "At Ubisoft Paris, we have been fans of the Predator for a long time and are thrilled to bring such an iconic character to our game. The challenge is full of references to the original Predator movie, and we cannot wait to see the reaction of our players!".

The upcoming release of Predator content will include both solo and co-op options, where you'll have to defeat the warrior in order to unlock exclusive items like a mask with Predator vision. There's also the Predator Pack available, with 15 new customized items that include movie-inspired weapons and a close combat mode.

Back when Star Citizen was first announced and became a Kickstarter star, the game was powered by CryEngine, with developer Cloud Imperium Games moving over to Amazon's Lumberyard engine in 2015.

Crytek has recently filed a complaint against CIG, with the company stating they agreed to a below-market rate of their license to use CryEngine in Star Citizen, with Cloud Imperium Games agreeing to prominently display the CryEngine logo in their game. Crytek alleges that the use of their CryEngine branding in Star Citizen was a "critical component" of the agreement between the two companies.

Crytek goes as far as saying Chris Roberts himself "publicly sought to minimize Crytek's contribution to Star Citizen".

Now that Battlegrounds is released onto the Xbox One and Xbox One X consoles after months of teases, we know how much of an absolute mess it is on Microsoft's two consoles. The Xbox One X version of PUBG is definitely the superior one out of the two, with the Xbox One version of the game slipping down to just 4FPS at times.

PUBG is heavily CPU-bound which sees the Xbox One X running at 4K on Medium settings, while the slower Xbox One runs at 1080p, both versions with 100% screen scale and 90-degree field-of-view. You can find these settings by plugging a keyboard into the Xbox One X and pressing 'o'.

Driving around in a vehicle will see the Xbox One X with 26FPS average or so, while the Xbox One is much choppier with an average of 20FPS or so. In the cities, PUBG runs much smoother on the Xbox One X at 30FPS, while the Xbox One varies between 24-30FPS, but varies city to city thanks to the lack of full-map optimization at a game engine level.

If you've been using your Galaxy S8 or Galaxy S8+ for the last few weeks and wondered when the new Android 8.0 'Oreo' operating system will hit your device, the answer is you won't be waiting too much longer.

Samsung will be pushing out Android 8.0 updates to both the Galaxy S8 and S8+ in late January, meaning we have just six more weeks to wait. The news is coming directly from a Samsung Beta community admin in the UK, who said the official Oreo update will hit the Galaxy S8/S8+ "end of Jan or maybe early Feb if we have more issues".

We should expect a late-January release considering Mobile World Congress 2018 kicks off in late-February, where we should be introduced to the new Galaxy S9 which is meant to rock Qualcomm's new Snapdragon 845 (at least in some markets). Not only that, but it will possibly be the fastest-charging smartphone in the world courtesy of Quick Charge 4 technology found inside Snapdragon 845.

NVIDIA's new TITAN V graphics card is meant to be the flagship AI/deep learning card, but the $2999 product is being used as a mining card in more articles I've seen than anything else.

Any YouTuber or GPU reviewer getting these cards are jumping into mining first with our friends at HotHardware putting the TITAN V through its paces. We have the TITAN V pushing a huge 69MH/s of Ethereum mining performance using Claymore v10.2, an impressive result considering AMD's flagship Radeon RX Vega 64 is only capable of 37MH/s.

But when the new TITAN V is overclocked (thanks to NVIDIA's use of HBM2 on a super-wide memory bus providing masses of memory bandwidth) it cranks out an incredible 82MH/s, beating out even two Radeon RX Vega 64s mining in the same system.

In less than two months of availability, Nintendo's latest smartphone game Animal Crossing Pocket Camp has raked in $17 million in revenues, analyst firm Apptopia reports.

Despite racking up 25 million downloads, Apptopia isn't particularly impressed with the game's total revenues of $17 million. In fact the firm notes that Animal Crossing Pocket Camp may not come close to Nintendo's other smartphone games, Super Mario Run, which started off slow out of the gate but apparently delivered consistent earnings, and Fire Emblem Heroes, a landmark successful game that taps the "gacha" business model. Apptopia cites Animal Crossing will be third in place because it doesn't have a competitive online mode of play.

"Even though the revenue is not impressive, Animal Crossing had a much stronger launch than Fire Emblem did in terms of downloads," Apptopia told GamesBeat. "It has a much stronger worldwide brand and player base, whereas Fire Emblem is more popular in Japan."

Following the big success of the Nintendo Switch handheld-console hybrid, which has sold through 10 million units in less than a year, the Japanese games-maker is now taking aim at bolstering its mobile gaming lineup.

In order to build up a strong smartphone gaming business, Nintendo is looking to build new partnerships outside of the one it currently holds with DeNA, sources tell The Wall Street Journal. Nintendo's push into smartphone gaming is rather fledgling and the company has made a few mistakes along the way, namely with the improper handling of its Super Mario Run mobile game, which uses the company's most instantly recognizable and high-profile character in a pay-to-play runner.

Nintendo's plans with the smartphone gaming business have traditionally been to bring awareness to its console and handheld hardware and software rather than make money directly. However this plan seems to have shifted with the likes of the newly successful Animal Crossing Pocket Camp and older Fire Emblem Heroes, which both offer in-game purchases. According to analyst firm Newzoo the global games market will breach $108 billion in 2017, and mobile gaming will make up the lion's share of 42%, or $46.1 billion this year.

Capcom is celebrating the 30th anniversary of one of its best-selling franchise with a massive 12-game collection.

The newly announced Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection combines 12 classic fighting games (half of them include all the infamous variations of of Street Fighter II) into one huge, affordable package. I can't help but wondering why this wasn't tried out earlier in the year when Capcom released the rather lackluster Ultra Street Fighter II on Switch. Now Capcom has doubled down on Switch support, and plans to help kick off their new fiscal year with a bevy of releases including Monster Hunter World and the new Street Fighter Collection.

The collection will have full online multiplayer and a host of extras including a music gallery, concept art, and much more. The packed release is slated for a May 2018 launch for $40 on Xbox One, PS4, PC and Nintendo Switch.

Beloved 2006 ARPG Titan Quest is making a big jump to consoles in 2018, THQ Nordic today announced.

Titan Quest's console port is actually coming to all modern consoles including the PS4, Xbox One, and even the Nintendo Switch. The latter is a very welcome surprise and I'm wondering if it'll have some form of couch or on-the-go co-op action, especially given the Switch's transforming nature. The publisher notes that the Switch version doesn't yet have a release date and will likely miss the March 2018 timeline for the other versions.

THQ Nordic is also offering two editions of the game: the standard edition, which comes with the base game and the Immortal Throne expansion, for $30; and a collector's edition (PS4, Xbox One, PC) for $120 that includes a Greek helmet replica, a special box, and a notepad.

Last month Lyft announced that their company was taking their service international, marking their very first expansion to another country other than the United States. Lyft is expanding their service to Canada, more specifically the capital city of the country Toronto.

Lyft will be brining their full service to Canada which includes Lyft Plus, Lyft Premiere, Lyft Lux and Lyft Lux SUV. Users of this service will be able to hail rides to and from Toronto's Pearson Airport which in turn will directly compete with the already taxi service there as well as Uber. Lyft might just be able to squeeze into the market though, as the company has racked up a whopping 100 million rides within three months, compared to taking four years to get to that figure the first time.

It will be no surprise if Lyft decide to lower ride fares and surcharge fees for the first couple of months that they are getting set up in Toronto, this would encourage the immediate use of the Lyft service rather than users turning to their typical Uber or legacy taxi.

Nintendo has said in a press release that the Nintendo Switch since the release of the console on the third of March this year has finally surpassed 10 million units. That number is quite an achievement as the time frame from those sales is not a large one, in comparison Sony's PlayStation 4 which needed around 10 months to reach that milestone back in 2014.

Not to long ago Nintendo said that it expected Switch sales to surpass the sales of the Wii U and now the company has said that this December they are planning to release more consoles to consumers for them to enjoy over the Christmas holidays. What contributes to the sales of the Nintendo Switch is their win at the Games Awards with The Legend of Zelda: Breath of The Wild and also the success of Super Mario Odyssey.

With this success it can be assumed that the Switch sales are not going to be slowing down over the festive season, what will be interesting though is if the sale percentage will stay strong heading into next year.

Google is upgrading Google Maps, where in the near future Google roll out an update that will give users of Google Maps live guidance to your destination as well as interactive real-time notifications.

The goal of this update is to provide real-time updates to the user making for a more informative and user friendly trip. Google will make these updates for the trip appear within the Google Maps application as well as on the Android lock screen.

If real-time updates are what Google is aiming for, then the understanding of the update would be that Google desires to be able to let the user know throughout their journey that they need to get off at the next stop, depending on their form of transportation.

According to a report fron CNET which cited an email from Atari that they sent out today to consumers, the home console will be available to pre-order this Thursday. Since its official reveal in July, the Ataribox has been spotted in two variants, a wood-like appeal or a black and red modern finish.

The Ataribox will be featuring Linux and a custom AMD processor, making it usable for both mid-range PC titles as well as classic Atari games. It has been reported by the Verge that Atari plans on selling the console at a price range between $250 and $300 making it quite an affordable pick up for any fan of the old Atari games.

The concrete release date for the Ataribox is currently unknown, but as we come closer to Thursday we are more likely to acquire some information regarding the early next year release.

The transportation market has been overrun by Uber in Australia as cabs are beginning to slowly phase out of peoples first choice for a ride home. This of course is due to the convenience of Uber, but now Uber might have a challenge on their hands, Taxify is attempting to crack into the market by launching in Sydney, Australia with 4,000 drivers signed up already.

Markus Villig, the founder and CEO of Taxify has said in a statement"Sydney is a huge and vibrant city, and we are eixcited to launch in the Australian market. We are confident that locals are looking for an alternative ride hailing option, and Taxify is committed to providing both riders and drivers with what they want"

He continued by saying "We have based our business model on fairness and transparency, and it is because of this that we have had so many drivers sign up to Taxify in such a short space of time."

Over a year after the release of the Xbox One S and Xbox One X, YouTube has finally updated to allow streaming of the selling point of these consoles, 4K streaming.

Microsoft released their Xbox One S console as a step-up from the original Xbox One, the selling point being not only the ability to get close to playing games in native 4K but also to be able to stream video in 4K. Following the release of the Xbox One S was the Xbox One X, it was released this year and came with hardware upgrades but not until this update was rolled out to the two consoles couldn't stream 4K video.

It is quite surprising that it took until now for Microsoft to roll out this update to their consoles, considering 4K video streaming has been available on YouTube since 2015. More importantly, the option of having 4K video streaming as a service was a massive consumer draw point for the console which has been returned by Microsoft as a late update feature.

We all remember those 'Intel Inside' stickers on our PCs and the massive marketing campaign that chipzilla pushed behind it, but now reports are surfacing that say Intel will be cutting the budget to its "co-operative marketing program".

According to CRN, Intel will be reducing the funding that the Intel Inside marketing program receives, in the vicinity of 40-60%. CRN cites unidentified sources, saying that the cuts are being made so that the company can increase budgets to "other groups within Intel that aren't channel-specific or PC-centric".

Intel would reportedly use the freed up funds to dominating the datacenter market, but have reportedly not added anything else to that list. With the growing list of competitors at Intel's doorstep with AMD in various markets with Ryzen, Threadripper, EPYC, and Radeon Instinct... while Qualcomm just put their marker down with the new Always-On, Always-Connected PC world with Snapdragon and Windows... I don't see how Intel is making a good move here.

Inno3D is jumping right into the cryptocurrency mining product game with the announcement of their new P104-100 Crypto-Mining Accelerator, a new card that is powered by NVIDIA's GP104 GPU and packs 4GB of GDDR5X at 11Gbps.

The new P104-100 Crypto-Mining Accelerator will be available in Inno3D's TWIN X2 edition, and offers 40% more mining power than its predecessor for mining ETH, ZEC, and many other cryptocurrencies. The reason it is so powerful, is that Inno3D have kicked down the VRAM to just 4GB, but amped it up by using GDDR5X with 11Gbps of bandwidth on a 256-bit memory bus that provides 320GB/sec of memory bandwidth.

This means Inno3D's new P104-100 Crypto-Mining Accelerator rocks 35MH/s or more of ETH mining power, 470 Sol/sec of ZEC mining power, and 660H/sec of XMR mining power.

NVIDIA has officially unveiled its monstrous new TITAN V graphics card, a new Volta-based graphics card that packs a huge 5120 CUDA cores and 12GB of HBM2 for a massive $2999.

Our friends at GamersNexus have performed an awesome teardown of the card, both on video (embedded above) and in written form. I won't cover the teardown itself as you really should spend the time watching Steve's video on it (his hair is glorious, I know) or alternatively read the full teardown article that covers everything under a microscope in terms of detail.

GN did point out that the card "follows the same screw pattern as all previous NVIDIA Founders Edition cards, including the Titan Xp and GTX 1080, primarily isolating its cooler and shroud into a single, separable unit". As for the build materials of the TITAN V, GamersNexus point out that they "are all the same, assembly is the same, but the underlying GPU, HBM2, VRM, and heat sink are different".

Bitcoin has reached new peaks of $17,000 while Ethereum is enjoying the lofty heights of over $600 but it is the surprise cryptocurrency Litecoin that absolutely exploded over the last 48 hours.

The price of Litecoin has gone through the roof from $100 earlier this month to $317 at the time of writing, boosting its market cap to a massive $16 billion. Right now it seems the price of LTC isn't stopping, but BTC is also on the rise as is ETH. It seems healthy to have any of these in your crypto wallet.

What do you hold right now?

It's not just Bitcoin that is exploding in price, as most of the major cryptocurrencies are seeing massive journeys to the moon right now, with Ethereum reaching a new all-time high.

Overnight, the price of Ethereum peaked at $637 after starting the day at $504, a level it has been at for months now. At the time of writing, ETH had dropped slightly to $603, giving it a market cap of $57.4 billion.

Some of the talk about Ethereum on various sites and subreddits tease that it could be priced as high as $1800 by this time next year, which would be a 300% increase from its $603 price now. If you aren't already invested somehow into cryptocurrency, we are still at the ground floor.