Latest News - Page 2395

"Summer Games" loot boxes have launched for Overwatch on the PlayStation Store. Clearly Olympics-inspired, the boxes include at least one Summer Games-themed skin, spray, highlight intro, emote, victory pose, or voice line.

Each of the skins is based on a different Olympic event. For example, there's Track & Field Tracer, Football Lucio, Weightlighting Zarya, and more.

Over 90 items are available to collect. Apart from loot boxes, you can purchase them with in-game credits. Whichever way you choose, the items won't be available to collect anymore after August 22 (after the Olympics are over), so hopefully you've saved up a lot of credits (or have a ton of cash to blow).

Remember when Microsoft said the Xbox One S doesn't have a GPU and CPU boost and that it plays games identically the same as the normal Xbox One? Yeah, they totally lied. The Xbox One S is not only faster, but it can boost in-game frame rates by 11% and beyond.

Microsoft's new $299 Xbox One S has some hidden powers. Not only does it upscale 1080p games to 4K resolution, play 4K UHD Blu-rays and supports High Dynamic Range, the new console is equipped with tweaked hardware that delivers a consistent and noticeable frame rate bump.

According to Digital Foundry's testing, the Xbox One S offers overall improved frame rate and power efficiency performance over the original Xbox One. The S model's performance jump comes from its new internal hardware, which is comprised of a new shrunken 16nm FinFET semi-custom AMD SoC which houses an overclocked GPU (boosted to 914MHz from the vanilla Xbox's 853MHz), improved ESRAM bandwidth (219GB/s versus the vanilla's 204GB/s), and a smidgen of 0.9 extra teraflops performance. Remember that the original Xbox One featured a 28nm AMD APU, so the Xbox One S enjoys a 33% die shrink that translates into some serious power efficiency. The CPU, however, hasn't been boosted and remains at 1.75 GHz.

Even after a full month of toiling bugfixes and testing, Bethesda still hasn't made much progress on bringing Fallout 4 mods to PS4.

At the end of June, Bethesda announced that the beta test for Fallout 4 mod support on PS4 would be delayed indefinitely. Fast-forward to the present, the publisher has more dire news for PS4 owners: "We're working w/ Sony on Fallout 4 Mod support for PS4. The process is still under evaluation. As soon as we learn more, we will share news," Bethesda said on Twitter.

Bear in mind that the beta test for Fallout 4 PS4 mods isn't even working yet, so even when Bethsoft fixes all the "serious technical issues," PS4 owners are going to have to wait an extra period as the platform's mods to through what will likely be an extensive beta test. Bethesda not only has to get the closed beta test up and running, but actually conduct the beta test over several weeks, and only after these conditions are met will mods become available to the general PlayStation public.

Google's next-gen Nexus smartphones are shaping up beautifully, with the Nexus M1 and Nexus S1 to feature Android 7.0 - but now we're hearing new rumors that Google will be shipping the new Nexus smartphones with a new launcher.

Android Police is behind the report, with some screenshots that show "in-progress" evidence of the new software, with a nice new replacement of the Google Search bar widget at the top. There's a new way to open the app drawer, and there's also space for what could turn into revamped navigation buttons.

We will know more next month when Google launches its new Nexus smartphones, but LG will be the first to market with an Android 7.0-powered smartphone with its upcoming dual-screen V20 smartphone.

Eidos Montreal's upcoming Deus Ex: Mankind Divided will feature a staggering amount of content, but console gamers won't need to worry about colossal file sizes.

Since every PS4 and Xbox One game needs to be installed now, storage space is something console gamers are extremely conscious of. As a result we have to constantly juggle our games, deleting old titles we don't play any more and even upgrade our HDDs to bigger sizes. Luckily, one of the biggest games of the year won't have an insane install size to match: the new Deus Ex game takes up just ~39GB on Xbox One, according to an Xbox Store listing.

We still don't know how big Deus Ex: Mankind Divided will be on PC or PS4 just yet (the specs haven't been released on Steam) but we can assume both platforms will be similar to the Xbox One's 38GB size. Frankly I'm surprised at the size; I was expected a good 50GB especially with the huge amount of sidequests and optional content within the cyberthriller alone, not to mention the main quests, lighting effects and high-res textures.

We all know that we're still in the wild west days of VR, right? With that in mind, the future of VR is beyond exciting, and the latest tease from Jason Rubin - the Head of Content for Oculus and the founder of Naughty Dog (the developers behind Uncharted) is even better.

During an interview at GamesBeat 2016, Rubin praised the current Oculus Rift software lineup but said that what excites him most is what is coming in the future. Rubin said: "The most inspirational thing I can say right now is that I have the privy to look forward in the future 6 months to a year in terms of what's being developed in software, and if you think people are excited by what's out right now, the stuff that's coming in 6 months to a year is night and day different and is going to absolutely incredible".

Rubin says there's going to be a gigantic leap in quality with VR games, as developers continue to soak in the experience of developing games in VR. Rubin continued, adding: "Take a studio like Gunfire. They made Herobound, they made Chronos, and they are now making their third generation of game". These "third generation" games are what Rubin says will surprise and excite VR fans more than ever.

AMD has released its new Radeon Software Crimson Edition 16.7.3 drivers, which include the usual bug fixes and performance improvements. You can download them right here.

Rise of the Tomb Raider enjoys another 10% performance on the Radeon RX 480 graphics card, thanks to the new RSCE 16.7.3 drivers. But there's also a bunch of bug fixes for popular games like Overwatch, Hitman, Total War: Warhammer, Dirt Rally, DOOM, and more. More games than ever have been fixed or improved with the RSCE 16.7.3 drivers.

If you want to check out all of the fixed and known issues with the new RSCE 16.7.3 drivers, check out AMD's support page.

DOOM's new update has been released, with id Software's new Update #2 for DOOM including a slew of fixes and optimizations for the single-player side of the game, while it adds two new multiplayer modes, improves matchmaking and multiple SnapMap improvements.

As for the list, here's the DOOM - Update #2 Changelog:

Single Player

Japan has long trailblazed the world with the newest and hottest tech, but while the majority of the western world struggles to broadcast decent quality 1080i TV broadcasts - the nation's leading broadcaster has started 8k TV broadcasting. Yes - 8K.

According to Advanced Television, NHK (the channel that has Domo as their mascot) has begun 8K and 4K tests to streamline the use of the technology ahead of the 2020 Olympic Games. Later this week, the channel will also broadcast the Rio Olympic games opening ceremony.

As good as my new new 4K TV looks, I can't help but feel it's a little out of date already...

Uber has pulled a surprising move in China, merging with its biggest competitor in the country in a mammoth $35 billion deal with Didi Chuxing.

Didi Chuxing is Uber's biggest competitor in China, with Bloomberg and Recode reporting that Didi will scoop up Uber's operations in China with the deal, which will create a combined value of $35 billion. Uber and its investors in the Chinese business will receive a 20% stake in the new entity, which pre-merger was balued at $28 billion. Uber's Chinese operations are valued at around $7 billion, with the US company losing $1 billion per year in China as it couldn't compete against Didi Chuxing.

The new deal will see Didi investing $1 billion into Uber, with Uber valued at $68 billion. Didi also just secured $7.3 billion in a new financing round, which included Apple throwing $1 billion into the hat. Uber CEO Travis Kalanick has said: "As an entrepreneur, I've learned that being successful is about listening to your head as well as following your heart. Uber and Didi Chuxing are investing billions of dollars in China and both companies have yet to turn a profit there. Getting to profitability is the only way to build a sustainable business that can best serve Chinese riders, drivers and cities over the long term".

Pokemon GO continues to hit new milestones, with the app now downloaded over 100 million times, and Niantic pulling in a huge $10 million per day in revenue.

According to a report from App Annie, Pokemon GO has been installed over 100 million times - quite the increase over the 25 million from late July (which was... just last month). The actual download numbers could be a little lower, but I doubt they're far off the mark. TechCrunch has recently reported that Pokemon GO has been downloaded around 50 million times on Android, something that was achieved in just 19 days.

App Annie reports that Niantic is making around $10 million per day from the iOS and Android versions of Pokemon GO, with the report mentioning that other games saw their daily revenue drop for a few days after the launch of Pokemon GO, but they quickly bounced back to normal.

Google is preparing for the launch of its next-gen Nexus M1 and S1 smartphones powered by the new Android 7.0 operating system, but LG will be the first to market with Android 7.0-powered smartphones with its upcoming V20 smartphone.

LG's previous V10 smartphone was a little quirky compared to the rest of the handsets on the market, with a dual-screen, dual-selfie camera and other nice touches. The dual-screen for example would display notifications and quick actions at the top of the screen, while the remainder of the display acts like normal. It was quite the touch, and could be useful for those who get used to it and make the most of the dual-screen.

But LG being out with a smartphone with Android 7.0 is quite the strange occurrence since Google's own next-gen Nexus usually debut with the latest version of Android. Engadget reports that "LG has confirmed the news" with the site. This is a big opportunity for LG to make a large splash with the world's first Android 7.0-powered smartphone, and could see a nice uptick in sales on the V20 smartphone.

NVIDIA is reportedly preparing for the launch of its mobile GeForce GTX 10 GPUs for later this month, with NVIDIA allowing its notebook partners to unveil Pascal-powered gaming notebooks between August 17-21, when Gamescom 2016 takes place.

In terms of specifications, we don't know what to expect with the mobile GeForce GTX 1080, but we should expect it to be nearly identical to its desktop counterpart. Last year, NVIDIA unleashed the desktop GTX 980 for notebooks, providing desktop GTX 980 performance inside of a gaming notebook, and it was beyond impressive.

DigitTimes is behind the report, saying that ASUS, MSI, GIGABYTE and Clevo will have their new gaming notebooks on show with NVIDIA's new Pascal-based GeForce GPUs inside. DigiTimes adds that NVIDIA will remove the 'M' from the mobile GPUs in order to provide a streamlined path to GeForce graphics cards on both the desktop, and mobile side of things.

The release of NVIDIA's next-gen Titan X is right around the corner, with some leaked 3DMark results to whet our appetite before it launches on August 2. There aren't many samples being sent to reviewers, where I personally do not have a card - but I will be trying!

Now we're within a day of the launch, leaked 3DMark results are here to tease the performance of the Pascal-based Titan X graphics card. VideoCardz got its hands-on some 3DMark results, running the Fire Strike Performance and Fire Strike Ultra runs of 3DMark with some bloody impressive results.

The new Titan X scores 26,660 in 1080p run of Fire Strike versus the 21,603 from the GeForce GTX 1080 - an increase of 23%. In the 4K run of Fire Strike, the new Pascal-based Titan X beats the GeForce GTX 1080 by 29% - with the Titan X scoring 6532 against the GTX 1080 with 5043.

Tesla has committed to its plans of being the world leader in electric vehicle and battery technology, and has now increased that power by acquiring Solar City for $2.6 billion.

The new merged business will sell solar panels, Powerwall batteries that store the collected energy from the sun, and the electric cars like the Model S. Elon Musk did promise in his "Master Plan Part Deus" two weeks ago that we would see an "end-to-end clean energy" solution - doing what no other companies are doing right now.

Solar City recently said it will introduce an "integrated solar and storage offering", and a new solar product that is "focused on the 5 million new roofs installed each year in the US". Musk has said that any merger wouldn't cause issues for its plans on the Model 3 EV and Gigafactory, with the latter just opening recently.

With the newly published Special Rehearsal Edition Script for the 'Harry Potter' play 'The Cursed Child' selling millions of copies across the world, creator J.K Rowling has disappointed fans by pouring cold water on the prospect of more Potter adventures in the future.

Speaking to Reuters, Rowling denied that 'The Cursed Child' would kick off a Potter renaissance, saying "He goes on a very big journey during these two plays and then, yeah, I think we're done. This is the next generation, you know. So, I'm thrilled to see it realized so beautifully but, no, Harry is done now."

Last week, Warner Bros. entertainment moved to protect their copyright for a potential feature film adaptation, which Rowling has denied that will happen. But all is not lost - fans have this year's release of 'Fantastic Beasts' to look forward to.

Newegg is a huge force in the e-tailer market across the world, but down in Australia the company has announced that it's celebrating its second anniversary Down Under with a discounted Newegg Premier, with a new eBay.com.au store that will "fuel growth in the country".

Newegg started selling to Australian consumers in Q2 2014, and has continued towards dominance in the country with a 300% growth in Australian revenue since November 2015. Danny Lee, Newegg CEO said: "The strategy to expand Newegg's international presence hinges on successfully reaching customers in key markets such as Australia. In two short years our Australian operation has grown significantly, and we are committed to continuing growth in the months and years ahead".

Even though the company opened up operations in Australia two years ago, product availability was limited, and international shipping costs made products more expensive to deliver to consumers. Newegg has improved the product availability, and in November 2015 the company began local order fulfillment from within Australia. Now, over 7000 product SKUs are sold within Australia, while another 41,000 products are available to Australian consumers through Newegg's North American channel.

Washington state's Attorney General Bob Ferguson (pictured below) has filed a $100 million consumer lawsuit against internet and cable giant Comcast.

The suit cites Comcast's "pattern of deceptive practices" that have seen 500,000 customers unnecessarily pay for what's described as as a misrepresented, limited, and worthless protection plan, and alleges over 1.8 million individual violations of the Washington Consumer Protection Act.

It also says the "Comcast Guarantee" program which affects almost 1.2 million WA residents is in violation of the Act, and that it charged for technical issues that were said to have been covered, and took deposits that were supposed to have been waived for those with high credit scores.

Inside, the highly acclaimed new atmospheric platformer indie from Playdead (Limbo), is jumping to PlayStation 4 in August.

After spending just a week on Xbox One before moving to Steam, Inside is now going full circle with a release on PS4. A trophy list for the game was spotted earlier this morning, and now sources have confirmed to VG247 that Inside will release at the end of August.

I still haven't played the 2D indie puzzle-platformer, but I've seen tons of people talk about it on my Twitter feed and all of the talk has been extremely positive. From what I've seen, the game is incredibly atmospheric and keeps the same dark overtones as Limbo, but this time around the devs at Playdead have adapted a distinct themes of an Orwellian dystopia.

Spoiler Warning: If you want to keep No Man's Sky a surprise, steer clear of this post! Like almost every game that releases these days, No Man's Sky apparently needs a day one patch update to run properly.

Daymeeuhn, the gamer who spent $1,250 on an early copy of No Man's Sky, continues to share key info about his experiences with the game...and his words are eye-opening to say the least. Apparently the unpatched version of No Man's Sky has quite a few bugs and can lead to tons of crashing on PS4. While these errors and bugs could be squashed with patches and a day one update, Daymeeuhn says that No Man's Sky generally feels unfinished in certain areas and Hello Games should've beta tested it before release.

"There are bugs. Quite a few in fact. In some moments I really start to feel as if this game would have benefited from a beta test. PRAY for a Day 1 patch, not only to nerf the sale cost of Atlas Stones but also to address some of this too."