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New PS4 Slim may launch on September 14
UPDATE: Eurogamer has confirmed that the leaked PS4 Slim console is indeed genuine.
Sony's new cheaper PS4 Slim variant launches globally on September 14, according to purported early owners of the console.
Some UK gamers have apparently gotten a hold of Sony's new PlayStation 4 Slim, revealing the console's aesthetics and basic features to the gaming world via GumTree listings.
Continue reading: New PS4 Slim may launch on September 14 (full post)
Sony's new PS4 Slim smiles for the camera
UPDATE: Eurogamer has confirmed that the leaked PS4 Slim console is indeed genuine. Sony will unveil the new slimmer, thinner model on September 7.
It's looking pretty official: Sony might be making a PS4 Slim model alongside the new 4K ready PS4 Neo, and the alleged slim variant been spotted in the wild.
Sony's new cheaper PS4 Slim has been shipped out to some lucky owner, who posted a listing on eBay-like site GumTree for 295 Pounds, and the pictures soon arrived on NeoGAF and Shop.to.
Continue reading: Sony's new PS4 Slim smiles for the camera (full post)
A rare Apple 1 on auction, current bid of $270,000
There might not be many that remember the Apple 1 computer, but it was one of Apple's first machines and now one has appeared for auction on Charitybuzz with bids of $270,000.
Apple expert Corey Cohen told Recode: "It's the rookie card, for lack of a better word". The rare Apple 1 computer on auction includes the original manuals, a cassette tape with BASIC programming language, and other accessories and docs. Cohen added that the early machines were hand finished by Dan Kottke or the late Steve Jobs and that there is a great chance that this particular Apple 1 had been assembled by Jobs.
Cohen says he talked with Kottke, adding that "Dan doesn't remember assembling this one". Kottke did make the BASIC cassette and has the words "Good Luck" written in his handwriting, on it. Cohen said that the original Apple 1 owner isn't known, but the current owner purchased it for $18,000 back in 2000. Other Apple 1 computers have been purchased for as much as $900,000 - so there's no guessing where the ceiling is on this one, especially if Steve Jobs really did assemble it by hand.
Continue reading: A rare Apple 1 on auction, current bid of $270,000 (full post)
Rise of the Tomb Raider locked at 30FPS on the PS4
Rise of the Tomb Raider was a big deal for the Xbox One last year, as it was a timed exclusive for Microsoft but now the PS4 is about to experience the latest Lara Croft outing. Before its release in October, Digital Foundry has played with the game, stating that it's locked at 30FPS. The game renders at 1080p on the PS4, too.
The input latency had "significant input lag" that was "very noticeable" when aiming precise weapons in Rise of the Tomb Raider on the Xbox One, but the Xbox 360 and PC versions of the game didn't experience this issue. The PS4 version is free of the input lag, which is a great thing to see from Crystal Dynamics and Nixxes, who is helping the former developer on the PS4 version of Rise of the Tomb Raider.
Rise of the Tomb Raider: 20 Year Celebration - yeah, that's what the PS4 version is called, will include all of the available DLC. This means you'll get Blood Ties as well, which is a mission that takes place exclusively in Croft Manor. Blood Ties can even be played in the first-person perspective, and on the upcoming PlayStation VR, which is exciting. There's also a zombie mode that will be unleashed with the PS4 version.
Continue reading: Rise of the Tomb Raider locked at 30FPS on the PS4 (full post)
Smartphones with 100% more battery life arrive in 2017
Let's face it: we all hate the battery life on our connected devices, and this includes everything from smartphones, tablets and laptops. Well, it looks like SolidEnergy might have a fix for that.
SolidEnergy is a company that was formed by MIT researchers, which are teasing a new battery breakthrough that will increase the battery life of your smartphone, and they will have production of these new batteries in 2017. Whoa. SolidEnergy formed in 2012, while another MIT spinoff company - A123 Systems - went bankrupt, after working on lithium batteries.
SolidEnergy was working on a very tight budget, and as Android Police reports: "still operating on a tight budget in a market suddenly skeptical of battery technology improvements, snatched up A123's production facility. Initially a challenge, SolidEnergy had to make do with equipment designed to make battery components for consumer electronics". SmartEnergy knows how to make battery components with the same equipment that is needed to get their batteries to mass market.
Continue reading: Smartphones with 100% more battery life arrive in 2017 (full post)
Xbox exec says the PC won't kill Xbox, we say duh
Microsoft has been experiencing unprecedented demand for its new Xbox One S console, so riding the Gamescom 2016 wave is a good idea, especially when you need to get rid of the taste of Quantum Break out of gamers' mouths.
During an appearance on the latest Inner Circle podcast, Xbox executive Albert Penello said that PC gaming doesn't take anything away from the console market, and instead of provides gamers with more ways to play the games they love. Penello talked about the idea that someone wouldn't buy a game because it was on another platform, where he said: "There's a debate or a discussion that you can have with a certain type of people online and you want to argue details and argue nuance, but the reality is that most people don't make that kind of choice".
Penello continued: "Today, if you play games, you're playing games on just about everything you own. You're playing games on your phone, you're playing games on your console when you want to lay back in front of that big TV, and you're playing PC games when you want that keyboard and mouse, up-close, highly customized kind of experience. Even guys that are diehard console gamers, we know they play on their phone and PC". He's right, you know?
Continue reading: Xbox exec says the PC won't kill Xbox, we say duh (full post)
AMD stock in a Zen like state, up 330% this year alone
You've got to hand it to AMD, they have been having a great past 12 months or so, riding the success of their new Polaris architecture, and the tease of Zen has investors pleased. So much so, that AMD stock has increased by a massive 330% in the last year, rising another 8% today on the back of the positive news of Zen from IDF 2016.
AMD has had a few years of financial grief, but it looks like the company is getting past this, returning to profitability in Q2 and should hopefully continue that with the sales of the Radeon RX 480, RX 470 and RX 460 throughout the rest of 2016, and into 2017. But the last week has been all about Zen, AMD's next-gen CPU architecture, which has been impressing us for quite a while now. AMD's new Zen architecture looks to have the company on an even playing field with Intel once again, who has had a monopoly on the market for what feels like forever.
Zen won't see the light of day for consumers and gamers until early 2017, but it will be delivering a 40% improvement of IPC (Instructions Per Clock), which is beyond impressive for something that has probably only reached testing phases now. AMD will continue to improve its Zen craft, with next-gen motherboards also featuring new connectivity like M.2 SSD support, USB Type-C and support for the likes of DDR4 RAM, and more.
Continue reading: AMD stock in a Zen like state, up 330% this year alone (full post)
No Man's Sky experiences 78% decline in playerbase
No Man's Sky has some truly massive hype and so far, it hasn't really lived up to it at all and yet somehow, it has been the biggest release on Steam this year.
The game launched last week hitting an average of 212,000 players at its peak, quickly becoming the largest launch of 2016. But, the game has been losing players since its launch, with a massive 78% decrease from its peak 7 days ago of 212,000 players to hit its new peak of just 47,000 players.
The developer has patches being deployed as we speak, but I don't see it being able to help the not just stagnated, but plummeting growth of No Man's Sky. Check out what we thought about the game in our official No Man's Sky review.
Continue reading: No Man's Sky experiences 78% decline in playerbase (full post)
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided's $30 season pass has story DLC
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided will have a $30 season pass that includes two story-based DLC missions, extra weapons and gear, and more.
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided drops this Tuesday, continuing Adam Jensen's journey through the warring world of augs. Like pretty much every game released in this current generation, the sequel will have a $30 season pass that grants access to two new singleplayer missions called System Rift and A Criminal Past. You also get a bunch of extra filler items like Firaxis skill points, 5,000 credits (that's really not a lot), some item and weapon packs, and some boosters and chips for the new Breach mini-game.
For $30, this season pass looks extremely underwhelming. I'm hoping that those story missions are more than your typical linear quests, especially since you're basically paying $15 each for them. Honestly I think the whole "story mission" description is a misnomer because it implies that you're not getting very much, almost something like a little bonus quest that can be beaten in under an hour. And maybe it isn't a misnomer and the missions are pretty short, I'm not sure. But for $30 I'd hope that Square Enix would give us more bang for our buck.
Continue reading: Deus Ex: Mankind Divided's $30 season pass has story DLC (full post)
Check out 30 minutes of Forza Horizon 3 gameplay
Gamescom 2016 - Microsoft showcases a nice chunk of gameplay for Forza Horizon 3, the beautiful upcoming racer set in the heart of the outback.
The Forza series is known for its eye-poppingly enchanting visuals, and Forza Horizon 3 is no different: the game really captures the arid golden beauty of Australia quite well, and even has photorealistic locations that are found in the real-world. Interestingly enough, Forza Horizon 3's outback setting was way outside of the team's comfort zone, but they were happy to recreate the continent in game form:
"We never reuse anything in our games, we always rebuild everything from scratch in each new Horizon game," said Forza Horizon 3's creative director Ralph Fulton. "We call these areas playgrounds, because they're build specifically so you can get in your cars and go out and have fun."
Continue reading: Check out 30 minutes of Forza Horizon 3 gameplay (full post)
Star Citizen's planet exploration eclipses No Man's Sky
Gamescom 2016 - Star Citizen shows us what real planetary exploration is like, making No Man's Sky look like child's play.
After playing No Man's Sky for the past week or so, I find myself wanting a real sci-fi experience. Star Citizen's new planetary exploration demo shown at Gamescom 2016 completely smashes the indie in nearly every way, showing us what real co-op interstellar planet-side should be like.
Star Citizen's new 3.0 update adds in worlds that have actual civilizations and cities and living, breathing NPCs, all of which can be explored with a friend: there's dirty steampunk-style worlds that resemble Blade Runner, and the planets are absolutely huge and varied.
Continue reading: Star Citizen's planet exploration eclipses No Man's Sky (full post)
No Man's Sky is built on two key emotions, says devs
No Man's Sky creator and lead developer Sean Murray reveals exactly why Hello Games made their procedurally generated space sim, and the two emotions that he wants to pass across to gamers.
Hello Games didn't want to make a perfect game with No Man's Sky. They didn't want everyone to like it, and they wanted it to be different and unlike anything we've really played before.
Speaking at the European Space Agency in Darmstadt, Germany, Sean Murray says he made the game specifically to make gamers feel two things: as if they've stepped into a sci-fi book cover to make the awe-inspiring excitement of planet discovery feel real, if only for a small while, and using the game's massive scope to trigger an understanding of how big our universe actually is.
Continue reading: No Man's Sky is built on two key emotions, says devs (full post)
Windows 10 update has millions of webcams not working
Microsoft's recent Windows 10 Anniversary Update has been causing problems with USB webcams, where the update prevents them from using MJPEG and H.264 encoding processes, in favor of the NV12 and YUY2 formats that are causing issues for many more people than Microsoft had anticipated. Millions of webcams have been affected.
Windows insider Paul Thurrott said that the Anniversary Update allows new situations where multiple applications can access the webcam, and the banned processed would duplicate the encoding stream, slowing it down. Only allowing a certain few compressions formats would stop multiple simultaneous processes, but now Microsoft has just made millions of webcams across the world not work in a click of their fingers.
Many users have taken to a developer forum where "Mike M" from the Windows Camera team at Microsoft explained why they removed the formatting, with the developer saying there's a fix for the MJPEG issue that will arrive in the September update, but the H.264 fix is a while away yet. You've got 10 days to roll back the Anniversary Update, which will have this problem solved, but if you pass that then you're going to have to wait until the fixes are delivered through Windows 10 updates.
Continue reading: Windows 10 update has millions of webcams not working (full post)
Android 7.0 Nougat to roll out on Nexus 6P, 5X on Monday
Google's latest Android 7.0 (Android N) "Nougat" operating system will roll out to certain devices on Monday, August 22.
Huawei's Nexus 6P and Nexus 5X handsets will likely be updated to Android 7.0 Nougat in just three days time, if reports are correct. Canadian operator Telus posted an interesting timeline that clearly lists both Nexus phones for a "Android N Update" on August 22. Australian carrier Optus further corroborates the claims with its own listing that plots the Nexus 6P for a "new version Android 7.0 Nougat" at the "end of August."
But wait, there's more: August 22 is the exact date when Korean LG G5 owners get to preview Android 7.0. So this pretty much tells us that Android Nougat is coming soon, and if all goes according to plan, we'll likely see Google make an official announcement on Monday.
Continue reading: Android 7.0 Nougat to roll out on Nexus 6P, 5X on Monday (full post)
Gears of War 4 has tons of PC graphics settings
Gamescom 2016 - Just as the developers promised, the Windows 10 PC version of Gears of War 4 has a staggering amount of video options
Microsoft is keen on pulling in more gamers over to Windows 10 PC gaming, and to do that Redmond will have to cater to enthusiast gamers' expectations. This means unlocked frame rates, 4K support, FreeSync and G-Sync compatibility, CrossFire and SLI support, and tons of tweakable video settings. So far Gears of War 4 has ticked all these boxes, and PC gamers will be able to tweak and adjust nearly every aspect of the game to their personal specifications.
Gears of War 4 rocks a pretty huge array of graphics options that are separated into two main tiers: Video Basic and Video Advanced settings.
Continue reading: Gears of War 4 has tons of PC graphics settings (full post)
DirectX 12, Vulkan support on the way for CryEngine
Crytek's newly published roadmap for CryEngine reveals big features are not far off at all.
First is DirectX 12 multi-GPU support, a complete DirectX 12 renderer, the possibility of support for NVIDIA's PhysX, and more. All of these are labeled for version 5.2, due out any day now.
Version 5.3, meanwhile, will introduce the increasingly popular Vulkan API. Developed as a spin-off of AMD's Mantle, it serves as another low-overhead solution that's been shown to majorly increase performance in games. 5.3 is planned for mid-October.
Continue reading: DirectX 12, Vulkan support on the way for CryEngine (full post)
Suicide Squad passes $500 million mark in just 13 days
Suicide Squad has been hit with a slew of negative reviews, and personally, I just didn't like the movie - that hasn't had any effect on box office numbers, with Suicide Squad passing over $500 million worldwide.
As of August 18, the movie has pulled in $509 million - just 13 days after its debut. Deadpool took around the same amount of time to hit the $500 million mark, but I don't think Suicide Squad will have the same legs as Deadpool. Suicide Squad is the highest-grossing August film in US history, taking the previous record-holder down - Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy.
Suicide Squad is doing well overseas, pulling in $271 million overseas while in the US it has made $238 million. Check out our review on Suicide Squad right here.
Continue reading: Suicide Squad passes $500 million mark in just 13 days (full post)
Super Mario Bros. themed watch costs $27,000
Super Mario Bros. fans might want to look away at this news, or your credit card might hurt in the morning. Swiss watchmaker Romain Jerome has teased its new Super Mario Bros. themed watch, something that will cost a huge $27,000.
Jerome's new Super Mario Bros. themed watch will be available at Nihonbashi Mitsukoshi for the department store's 19th World Watch Fair. I don't know if I'd spend $27,000 on a Super Mario Bros. themed watch, even if I was ridiculously rich, but there are some rather large Super Mario Bros. fans out there.
Prepare your credit card, or handing over your soul, at the 19th World Watch Fair.
Continue reading: Super Mario Bros. themed watch costs $27,000 (full post)
Titanfall 2 isn't just a sequel, it's like a 'new IP'
Gamescom 2016 - Now that Titanfall 2 is launching on PS4 for the first time, Respawn is keen on making a lasting impression on its new audience--almost to the point where the game becomes a brand new IP within itself.
"Titanfall 2 is really a new IP at launch if you think about it. The Xbox One install base is two or three times what it was when Titanfall launched, the PC audience continues to grow. Then there's the PS4 install base, which is enormous. It has a '2' next to its name, but that signifies the dual elements of Titan and Pilot, and the single player and multiplayer," Respawn's art director Joel Emslie told MCV at Gamescom 2016.
"We have to consider that there's a whole community that haven't played Titanfall before. That was a challenge for us - how do we make sure that Titanfall 2 is something that anyone could pick up and you don't need to have a played the original? For fans of the first game, we've added a lot of story elements and secrets that they'll appreciate. But it's a game that stands alone. It can reach out to that new community and they can enjoy it for the first time."
Continue reading: Titanfall 2 isn't just a sequel, it's like a 'new IP' (full post)
Ubisoft will launch its three major VR titles this year
Ubisoft has three major VR games coming out this year, with the company hitting all three major VR headsets: the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and PlayStation VR. At least it's not unleashing its fart shooting headset, which is actually real.
Eagle Flight will be released on the Oculus Rift and PSVR headsets on November 8, and a few weeks later on December 20 for the HTC Vive. Star Trek: Bridge Crew will debut on November 29 on all three VR headsets, while Werewolves Within will also hit all three VR headsets on December 6.
Out of all of the games, I have my eyes planted on Eagle Flight, which I played at the Game Developers Conference earlier this year. It has an unbelievable amount of immersion, where you actually feel like you're flying through the environment... as an eagle, of course. Star Trek: Bridge Crew looks great, but I'm not a Trekkie - although, for Star Trek fans it should be a super-immersive experience in the Star Trek universe.
Continue reading: Ubisoft will launch its three major VR titles this year (full post)











