Latest News - Page 2203

Quake Champions has been in its closed beta stage for a while now, but Bethesda has just announced that Quake Champions will be pushed into Steam Early Access, and through the Bethesda.net launcher on August 22.

id Software will be baking in a bunch of new content into Quake Champions once it reaches Early Access, with new maps, features, a new special champion, and more. id Software boss Tim Willits explains: "With a fast, skill-based game like Quake Champions, nothing is more important than continual testing and refining, based on player feedback, to ensure the game is balanced, optimized, and fun for all levels of players, from pro to new".

He continued: "The Early Access version of Quake Champions is, obviously, a work-in-progress, but represents a solid and robust version of the game, with four modes, 11 Champions, a variety of maps, and a thriving community of fans. Early Access will allow us to work closely with players to improve the game and add additional features before the official launch of Quake Champions in the coming months".

PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds has sold over 7 million copies and has 617,000 concurrent gamers playing it at once, but now developer Bluehole has said that the updates for PUBG will be slowing down as we get closer to the release.

The developer writes: "Until the official release of the game, we will not have our scheduled weekly or monthly patches rolling out as often as before. We've found internally that being rushed to finish certain features, and having shorter QA test time between pushing updates caused more issues than it solved in regards to maintaining a high standard of quality. We want to put our best content out, and ensure that everything we do is making the game more enjoyable with every update".

This is great to see, as PUBG updates have been one of the best in recent gaming history. The developer takes in what the public has problems with, and they remove/tweak/add it to PUBG with steady patches. Bluehole continued: "Although we may not release a weekly patch, we will utilize the test servers for significantly longer periods of time and deploy patches and hotfixes when necessary".

NVIDIA has been spending money on AI, deep learning, and self-driving car technologies and investments into startups for a while now, but they've just splashed down $20 million into a funding round for TuSimple.

TuSimple is a Chinese autonomous trucking startup, with Sina leading a new funding round that will include NVIDIA Drive PX 2 autonomous computers, Jetson TX2, and other NVIDIA products. TuSimple has already completed a SAE Level 4 (true self-driving) test ride between San Diego, California and Yuma, Arizona.

TuSimple completed the self-driving truck test in June, with a 200-mile journey that used cameras to navigate along the highways. The company has R&D facilities in both Beijing and San Diego, along with over 100 staff.

AMD's new Radeon RX Vega graphics cards run a little on the hot side, which is going to open up a huge market for companies to make, and provide new cooling solutions... just like Alphacool.

Alphacool has announced their new Eiswolf 120 GPX-Pro ATI RX Vega all-in-one cooler, and their new Nexxxos GPX ATI RX Vega waterblocks - yeah, that's not a typo, I did mean to say ATI.

Starting with the Eiswolf GPX-Pro ATI RX Vega, we have an all-in-one liquid cooler that features a copper waterblock and pump assembly, teamed with the copper-based Nexxxos radiator. The normal version rocks a 120mm radiator, but there's the option for a bigger 240mm radiator. The kit includes Alphacool's Eisbaer expandable CPU AIO liquid cooler kit, which features spill-minimizing quick release fittings.

PS4 gamers can now rent and host their own private slide of open-world prehistoric dino-hunting chaos.

Private rentable servers are now available in ARK: Survival Evolved's PlayStation 4 version, Studio Wildcard today announced. "These servers offer ARK survivors the opportunity to host private, player-run worlds for themselves and their console friends with up to 100 players per server, setting their own in-depth parameters and custom rules for games on their server," the developers said in an official statement.

The first server provider, Nitrado, has a variety of server tiers and plans with four main hubs in Miami, Los Angeles, London and Instanbul. ARK server prices on Nitrado range from $13 a month for 10 player slots to $87.70 a month for 100 players.

Contrary to popular belief, Sony won't be publishing Shenmue III, and Ys Net has partnered with Deep Silver to release the game across the globe in 2018.

Following a massively successful Kickstarter campaign, Shenmue III developer Ys Net has secured Deep Silver as publisher for their upcoming RPG Shenmue III for a digital and physical release on PS4 and PC worldwide. A subsidiary of German company Koch Media, Deep Silver is known for publishing acclaimed video games and franchises as Dead Island, Saint's Row, and the Metro series. "We are proud to have gained a wonderfully reliable partner to make sure Shenmue III reaches all its fans all over the planet," said Shenmue III developer Ys Net.

"Shenmue is one of a few game franchises that have historical value whilst continuing to ignite passion across gamers. We are delighted to have signed this publishing partnership and look forward to utilizing our global publishing network to maximize the potential of this highly anticipated game," said Dr. Klemens Kundratitz, CEO of Koch Media/Deep Silver.

UK developer Frontier Developments today revealed sales milestones for its key franchises, including the popular space sim Elite: Dangerous.

Elite: Dangerous has sold more than 2.75 million copies cumulatively worldwide on all platforms, including Xbox One, PS4, PC and the virtual reality ports, since its initial release in 2014, Frontier Developments today announced. The game, which currently sits at a Metacritic score of 80 out of 100, has been well-received by gamers and critics alike for its vibrant interstellar exploration, survival, and trading aspects. Elite: Dangerous is also playable in VR on both PC and PS4, the latter of which is powered by Sony's PlayStation VR headset.

The UK-based developer also confirmed that its Planet Coaster simulation game has reached 1 million copies sold since it's release in 2016. Both games will receive a swath of new content updates to fuel unique adventures, the studio says.

As a die-hard Elder Scrolls fan, I hate writing articles like this. Like everyone else I want Elder Scrolls VI to release in the near future...but it's not going to happen. Here's why Bethesda's new hiring spree probably doesn't mean development of The Elder Scrolls VI is under way.

I've seen a few reports that Bethesda's new hiring spree could be connected to TESVI's development. It's true that Zenimax Media is currently hiring 20 people for its in-house Rockville, MD-based Bethesda Game Studios that's responsible for franchises like Fallout and The Elder Scrolls. Remember that Bethesda Game Studios (BGS) isn't to be confused with Bethesda Softworks; the form is a dev team, the ladder is a publisher, however BGS is under the Bethesda Softworks umbrella. ZeniMax is the parent company, and ZeniMax Online runs Elder Scrolls Online with the help of key TES devs.

Now that we've got that out of the way, let's take a closer look at the job openings and the reasons they're probably not for The Elder Scrolls VI. The listings show some interesting openings for key positions at Bethesda Game Studios, including Quest Designer, Character/Concept Artist, Level Designer, Graphics Programmer, and Senior Core Tech Engineer. Nine out of the twenty listings are for the Programming division, hinting the studio is aiming at shoring up its core infrastructure. Some of these jobs call for experience with the company's own powerful modding toolsets, the Fallout GECK and The Elder Scrolls Creation Kit, further hinting that the devs are to work on either a new Fallout or Elder Scrolls game. However Bethesda's leadership has repeatedly said that a new Elder Scrolls is at the end of their current dev pipeline, behind two "big and crazy projects" that are "totally different" than anything the studio has worked on before.

Just a week before the Galaxy Note8 launch, Samsung's faulty batteries are once again making headlines. And once again, it's the Note line in question.

US Consumer Product Safety Commission has declared that around 10,200 Note 4 batteries are being recalled due to fire risk. As you are probably aware of, Samsung had issues with Note7's faulty batteries and had to recall the smartphones. Twice.

According to the release, FedEx and Samsung have determined that some of the recalled batteries are counterfeit and show anomalies that can lead the batteries to overheat. They also state that the batteries are non-OEM, which means they were not supplied as original equipment by the phone's manufacturer, Samsung and were likely used in the refurbishing of old phones.

Microsoft's new high-end 4K-ready Xbox One X will go up for pre-order this Sunday, reports indicate.

The new Xbox One X console, which features a highly optimized and tweaked Polaris-grade GPU with 6TFLOPs of power and 40 CUs alongside a dramatically overhauled 8-core Jaguar CPU to enable native 4K console graphics, will be available for pre-order for $499 this Sunday following Microsoft's Gamescom press event, according to The Verge's senior editor Tom Warren. The console was revealed during Microsoft's E3 2017 Xbox press conference, and has since been unavailable for pre-order because it hadn't yet cleared FCC approval.

If this window is correct Microsoft will have little over two months to prepare shipments of the new machine, which is able to maintain native 4K 60FPS in first-party games such as Forza Motorsport 7 with GPU power to spare. Microsoft has confirmed that not every game will run at native 4K 60FPS, or even native 4K for that matter, and refuses to mandate strict performance guidelines for the system in a bid to give developers free reign on the system's power. The Xbox One X will indeed play all existing Xbox One games better than its predecessors (Xbox One and Xbox One S), but 1080p 60FPS performance isn't guaranteed either.

Apple is already a force in apps and music. However, they're still a nobody in the world of video. It seems that Apple wishes to change this and to change it pretty soon.

The rumors coming from Hollywood are saying that Apple is prepared to spend up to $1 billion of their own money to buy and create original video content.

Apple's move into the original content video space is mostly a reaction to Netflix's success with original content. Companies like Disney and others are already looking at creating their own streaming services, which will make it increasingly more difficult to fill a large library like Apple is used to having. One way of doing this is through creating original content that people want to watch, which can even be content that already exists and is very popular with viewers.

AMD might have just launched their next-gen Radeon RX Vega graphics cards with HBM2 in tow, but it looks like SK Hynix and Samsung might be ruining the high-end/enthusiast graphics card market with increases in VRAM pricing.

DigiTimes is reporting that the market prices for graphics memory from both Samsung and SK Hynix rose by over 30% in August, with the blame being placed on both DRAM manufacturers "repurposing part of their VRAM production capacities for server and smartphone memories instead", reports AnandTech.

We should expect VRAM pricing to continue to increase according to DigiTimes' sources, with PC DRAM chips to continue getting more expensive through to 2018. Both Micron and SK Hynix have announced GDDR6 recently, with NVIDIA set to use the new standard on their Volta-based GeForce graphics cards in early 2018.

Netflix is unstoppable right now, with the streaming giant eyes wide open with thirst to dominate the digital content world in 2018 with a planned $7 billion on the table.

This year, Netflix coughed up a huge $100 million to secure comedian Jerry Seinfeld for two brand new stand up specials, and a bunch of scripted content. Netflix has also scooped up Grey's Anatomy, Scandal, and How To Get Away With Murder creator, Shonda Rhimes. Rhimes was working with Disney, so Netflix must be mad about that - oh, no matter - Disney are making their own digital streaming network.

Netflix has smashed home run after home run in 2017, with nearly 1000 hours of original content. Doubling down on this with a huge, ever-expanding library of movies and other TV shows, the 104 million users on Netflix will never get bored.

Intel can't say they aren't reacting to AMD's next-gen Ryzen CPUs when they've announced and released, what feels like, more processors and families of CPU architectures than ever before. Now... we're hearing about Ice Lake.

Ice Lake will be Intel's next-gen 10nm CPUs, compared to the current-gen Kaby Lake processors on the second-gen 14nm (14nm+) process. The new Coffee Lake architecture will be Intel's 8th generation Core processors, and will see the company plonk down the new Core processors onto their first-gen 10nm process.

The surprise knee jerk reaction to AMD's continued threat on the CPU market with Ryzen, Ryzen Threadripper and EPYC has Intel scurrying around to catch up. This is yet another move to confuse consumers, as Intel announced Ice Lake as a "successor to the 8th generation Intel Core processor family".

Bungie is ramping up to the big release of Destiny 2, with the sequel being made available to the PC for the first time, after the original Destiny was locked to being a console exclusive. The new trailer is available below, in 4K 60FPS.

NVIDIA is backing Destiny 2 as one of the biggest PC releases of the year, with Bungie and Activision offering 4K resolution support (which should be a default by now, and not a bragging point), as well as uncapped framerates (so should this).

Destiny 2 will be available to play through the PC Open Beta between August 29-31, and you can also pre-purchase Destiny 2 exclusively through Blizzard Battle.net, where you'll get 24 hour early access into the beta that will begin on August 28.

AMD might not be enjoying much positivity with the first waves of Radeon RX Vega reviews, but the company is looking after miners (who they called out and blamed for global GPU shortages in LA two weeks ago) with a new beta driver that provides improved cryptocurrency mining performance.

The new beta driver increases block chain compute performance, with AMD naming the driver "Radeon Software Crimson ReLive Edition Beta for Blockchain Compute". What does this new driver have on offer?

I'm going to install these drivers soon and run our Radeon RX Vega 56, Radeon RX Vega 64 air-cooled, and Radeon RX Vega 64 Liquid Cooled Edition through their paces.

A recent patent discovered online indicates that Samsung is exploring the possibility of using a breathalyzer connected to your smartphone. Specifically, using the stylus of a phone like the Note9 where the stylus also operates as a breathalyzer that can then check your blood alcohol content.

This feature may not seem like a big deal, but it could serve as a way to prevent people from drunk dialing exes or calling their bosses while drunk.

Since Note devices tend to be more business-focused, it could be very interesting to see the various applications of such a technology, no matter how silly it sounds.

We recently reported that Samsung plans to introduce a new color option with the Galaxy Note8, Deep Sea Blue.

Evan Blass, a trust-worthy leaker, has now revealed the Note8 in this new color. Unfortunately, the image shows only the front of the phone, but it's still enough to get an impression of what to expect. Samsung's S pen will also come in the matching color.

The image doesn't reveal much else, but it does confirm that the previous leaks were spot on when it comes to the design of the phone.

Mario Kart and VR are a match made in heaven--we think so, and so do the lucky Japanese gamers that have actually tried it out.

Bandai Namco's VR Zone Arcade in Tokyo is bringing eight year old me's dream to life: Mario Kart virtual reality madness. We've already reported about Mario Kart GP VR in the past, but now we see just how much unbridled joy Nintendo's go-kart racer can bring to gamers with the new dimension of VR.

The game is officially licensed by Nintendo, and players wear the HTC Vive VR headset while sitting in a special go-kart that reacts and rumbles with feedback, making the experience more like an amusement park ride than a traditional arcade experience. If you're ever in Shinjuku, Tokyo be sure to check out the VRcade and have a blast in this interactive wonder!

IBM has made another breakthrough in magnetic tape storage by creating a new method for areal density that could potentially hold over a whopping 300TB of data.

IBM Research scientists have packed in a record areal density of 201 Gb/in2 (gigabits per square inch) onto a new prototype of sputtered magnetic tape made by Sony. Researchers affirm the tape, which has a density of 201 billion bits per square inch, is more than 20 times the density used in today's high-end tape drives, can potentially hold up to 330TB of uncompressed data on a single tape cartridge that would fit in the palm of your hand.

"Tape has traditionally been used for video archives, back-up files, replicas for disaster recovery and retention of information on premise, but the industry is also expanding to off-premise applications in the cloud," said IBM Fellow Evangelos Eleftheriou. "While sputtered tape is expected to cost a little more to manufacture than current commercial tape that uses Barium ferrite (BaFe), the potential for very high capacity will make the cost per TB very attractive, making this technology practical for cold storage in the cloud."