Latest News - Page 2413

What better way to celebrate AMD's launch of the Radeon RX 480 than give 14 of them away? That's what AMD are doing over at Reddit, with the giveaway kicking off on 6/29 at 11AM Eastern Time. The company will host a Radeon Technologies Group AMA and the giveaway on the /r/PCMasterRace subreddit.

AMD's Technical Marketing boss Robert Hallock will be handling questions, but the post on Reddit says "Zen and Vega are off the table for this one, but pretty much everything else related to AMD's GPU division is fair game". AMD says there are limits of one RX 480 per winner, with the giveaway locked to just a few countries: the US, Canada, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. The AMA is obviously open to all, with the giveaway being the RX 480 8GB variant, versus the 4GB model.

Fallout 4's DLC packs are rather wacky: the now $50 season pass gives players access to only two pieces of meaningful story-based DLC content, with the rest being crafting chicanery. Given the state of the game's DLC packs, haven't you always wondered how Bethesda designs these "expansions"? Todd Howard finally reveals how its done, and the answer won't surprise you.

I love Fallout 4, and personally enjoy the DLC packs--on the surface, at least. But there's something rather...soulless and uncaring about the content, especially with Fallout 4's first $25 Far Harbor DLC pack, and it just feels like Bethesda isn't really investing itself anymore. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that the studio just flings anything and everything against a wall to see what sticks. It turns out that's exactly what they do.

"We actually do a thing at the end of each project called a game jam. We let everyone on the team do whatever they want and they have to add it into the game. Alot of the folks on the team are very very creative and come up with great ideas, and we all look at it together and say 'okay, what are the best ideas in this game jam that we want to make DLC out of?' Survival Mode, for example, was a game jam idea that a few of the guys did. And that's how the ideas come across--really the entire team helps out," Bethesda exec Todd Howard said at an E3 2016 interview.

Blizzard's new massively-popular hero shooter Overwatch has hit a rich vein, conquering May's video game releases like Uncharted 4 and Gearbox's direct FPS competitor Battleborn.

According to analyst firm SuperData, Overwatch generated an incredible $269 million in total digital sales (including full game downloads and microtransactions) across all platforms in the month of May, utterly annihilating Battleborn's estimated $11 million digital sales. "Newcomer this month Overwatch tops May's revenue rankings with $269 million in earnings across PC and console. The new shooter game is proving to be a hit among online spectators and is currently the fifth most commonly streamed title across livestreaming channels," said SuperData analyst Joost van Dreunen.

Overwatch's influence is so potent that it actually boosted May's total digital video games sales by 11% year-over-year, totaling to a staggering $6 billion in-game sales across all gaming platforms. Overwatch outshined Uncharted 4, which hit $56 million in digital PS4 sales. Apart from being an excellent shooter, SuperData attributes Overwatch's impressive success to its creative "long-term monetization strategy" made up of skins and loot boxes.

Apple has just discontinued its Thunderbolt Display, after being on the market for nearly 5 years now. Apple didn't provide a reason for discontinuing its 27-inch Thunderbolt Display, but it did say it has a "number of great third-party options" is you need a new monitor.

TechCrunch had the following statement from an Apple spokesperson, who said: "We're discontinuing the Apple Thunderbolt Display. It will be available through Apple.com, Apple's retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers while supplies last. There are a number of great third-party options available for Mac users".

Apple was selling its 27-inch Thunderbolt Display for $999, and considering you can buy competing - and sometimes, better monitors for less than $999 with Thunderbolt built-in, Apple is finally seeing the light.

LG Electronics have today announced the latest generation OLED displays have started hitting Australian retailers, with displays that have been hailed as some of the best ever created.

Headlined by the G6T Signature Series which Grant Vandenberg, Marketing Manager for LG Home Entertainment dubs as "truly the best TV LG has ever produced", the G6 and E6 models come with the latest video standards including HDR and Dolby Vision, as well as further refinements in OLED technology which results in brighter images and higher contrast. Overseas reviewers and video fanatics have fawned over the G6 range, but they don't come cheap - topping out at an eye-watering $10,999 AUD for the 65 inch G6 model. As always, you get what you pay for.

We're hoping to take a look at the step down 65" E6 model in the coming months, which will also serve as the display of choice for our upcoming 4K UHD Blu-ray reviews. We simply can't wait to take a look when we can get our hands on it and we'll have those to you as soon as we can.

Microsoft blew everyone away with the huge reveal of the Xbox Scorpio during E3 2016, but we still know that Nintendo has its NVIDIA-powered NX console baking in the oven, while Sony prepares its PS4 Neo console.

Wedbush Securities Analyst Michael Pachter was featured in the recent episode of the GamerTag Radio podcast, where he talked about E3 2016. Pachter praised Microsoft on announcing Xbox Scorpio a year and a half away from its release, adding: "The hardware reveals were great. The Xbox One S really does look great and obviously the big reveal of Scorpio at the end was a big deal. I think Microsoft confirming the leaks was a big move, a bold move".

Patcher continued: "I think the Xbox One S will be welcome at that right price, $299. The conspiracy theorist in me says, since Andrew House acknowledged the PlayStation 4 Neo to the Financial Times a few days before, Microsoft just said: "Screw it, we're not going to let Sony be ahead of us, we're just going to let people know we have something big coming too. You don't have a company in the gaming space that's better equipped to launch hardware than Sony. They've been making consumer electronics for 70 years. I think the fact that we didn't see Neo here means that it probably isn't coming out this Holiday".

Yesterday it came out that Battlefield 1 would feature a new interface for forming squads, finding maps and modes, and so on. Details were vague though and it was left unclear as to whether the web-based Battlelog would be receiving an update or something else.

Today the picture gets more clear: YouTuber Westie says on Twitter the game will feature a "new launcher", which DICE engineer Julian Manolov later clarifies will not utilize a web browser at all. So for those of you that hated having to boot a browser to get into matches before, that's no longer the case. Of course, it seems you'll have to boot a launcher instead, but SgtDangerCow (another YouTuber) claims it's "much better" than Battlelog, so maybe it will be an easier pill to swallow.

"New launcher" could mean a lot of things, but I'm going to go with something Battle.net-esque.

Modder Doug Keener has spliced two unlikely icons of pop culture: Doom and Seinfeld. His Seinfeld.wad mod sees Doomguy inside Jerry's apartment building, complete with the main cast (and Newman), all of which can be killed (when shot, they spout famous lines like, "Serenity now!").

Keener assures the mod is in no way hateful and that he loves the show.

"I am a massive fan of Seinfeld. The characters were put into the replica as a bonus to add to the tribute. The only reason they are killable is because I wanted to keep it in traditional Doom fashion, because what is doom without violence and death? This is in no way a hate video."

SyFy's Halycon, a futuristic police procedural that follows the events surrounding the world's first virtual crime, launches on September 22 on across the network's broadcast channels, websites, and VR systems like Oculus Rift. In fact, 5 of Halycon's episodes are exclusive to virtual reality platforms.

Emmy-winning studio Secret Location is producing the short-form series for SyFy, and in Halcyon's world virtual reality is so common that a police unit is now dedicated to monitor for crimes in VR. The premise sounds a bit silly, but then again so did Ready Player One...

I'm guessing certain elements of the story will actually take place in virtual reality, and that's where viewing the show in 360-video would really nail the intended immersion. Don't worry gang, I'm sure it will look nothing like Lawnmower Man. Thankfully fans who don't have any type of VR system will be able to watch episode recaps on SyFy's websites.

If you're a Windows Insider, starting with yesterday's Build 14371 you can link your Windows 10 license with your Microsoft account (MSA). The feature is already activated if you use your MSA to login to Windows 10. If you don't, simply do so and you should be on your way.

The change solves two issues: needing to keep your license key stored somewhere and being unable to activate Windows if you've lost your key. It also pushes the operating system even further into the digital realm for the better.

The bad news is licenses are still limited (how much exactly we don't know yet), but it's an understandable necessity given how easy it would be to share a license infinitely with your login details.

Riding on the news of the Radeon RX 480, we now have some pricing information from TechPowerUp, who are reporting that the Radeon RX 470 will be priced at $149 - $50 cheaper than the RX 480 at $199.

The $149 version of the Radeon RX 470 will feature 4GB of RAM while the 8GB variant will cost $179, with the card featuring 2048 stream processors over 32 CUs, down from the 2304 stream processors on the RX 480. The Radeon RX 470 will have its 4GB or 8GB of RAM clocked at 7Gbps, with a reported 110W TDP, according to VideoCardz.

With AMD pricing the Radeon RX 480 4GB at $199, and this pricing on the Radeon RX 470, things could change in a big way for AMD. At just $149, there are going to be countless gamers that can afford a next-gen card that should be perfect for 1080p 60FPS gaming.

Peter Chou was the CEO of HTC until last year, when he was replaced with Cher Wang, after the negative early reviews of HTC's One M9 smartphone. Wang replaced Chou as CEO, with Chou moving into the lead role of the HTC Future Development Lab.

According to the latest reports, Chou left his position at HTC in September, when he became the chairman of visual effects company co-founded with Avatar director James Cameron, Digital Domain. It's now owned by Hong Kong's Sun Innovation, with HTC confirming in a statement: "HTC can confirm that Peter Chou retired from the Company after assuming the chairmanship of Digital Domain in September 2015, although he was retained as an Advisor to enable HTC to leverage his extensive experience. We thank Peter for his long-term commitment to the business and wish him well in his retirement".

With the position and change of job titles after being dethroned at HTC, it looks like Chou could've been in firing limbo, bouncing around HTC. HTC could've ended it quickly, but he was provided with time to find a new position, and leave the company without a big fuss in the media.

I still remember the first day that I played Quake, all the way back in 1996, I was just 13 at the time. Shortly after, I purchased a 3dfx Voodoo 1 video card, and grabbed GLQuake, which had better graphics and smoother performance.

id Software is celebrating the 20th anniversary of Quake, which was one of the first games you could play online, as well as rocking a soundtrack from Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor. There are a lot of gamers out there that don't realize that Team Fortress was born from Quake, as it was a very popular mod for Quake at the time, something I pumped countless hours into. QuakeWorld was also rather large, as it was a version of Quake that was optimized for slow internet connections.

At the time, Quake drove video card sales for 3dfx, NVIDIA and ATI - and without Quake, the first-person shooter revolution might have been very different. AMD and NVIDIA even now can be thankful to Quake and its sequels, as most of the PC master race would be filled with people who loved Quake.

Nintendo didn't tease its next-gen NX console at E3 2016, but it did tease gamers with a reveal of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and its official trailer.

People who have had hands-on time with Breath of the Wild have said that the game world is absolutely gigantic, and that the game mechanics and controls are top notch. Nintendo has huge hopes pinned on its next-gen Zelda game, which will hit both the current-gen Wii U and the next-gen NX console.

Nintendo believes that Zelda will be a system seller, especially for the new Nintendo NX console. Nintendo of America VP of Sales, Scott Moffitt, talked with The Financial Post about Nintendo NX and the new Legend of Zelda game recently. Moffitt said that Nintendo decided on focusing on Zelda at E3 this year, since that game deserved it. Moffitt said: "The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is a game that deserves this level of focus. You're right, it is our primary game we're showing this year, and it's just spectacular. For a game that immense and exciting we thought it deserved this sort of stage, and, frankly, this level of focus".

Following the release of 'Return of the Jedi' in 1983, 'Star Wars' fans waited for nearly 30 years until 'Revenge of the Sith' for nother glimpse at Darth Vader, only to find a whiny bitch who screams "Nooooooooo!". This year's spin-off 'Rogue One' will hopefully clear that little mess up.

According to a spread in this week's Entertainment Weekly (via Collider) which teases more details on the much anticipated 'Star Wars' era spin-off, the Dark Lord of the Sith himself will make an appearance in 'Rogue One', although it's not entirely clear how big that will be. It's long been rumoured that voice artist James Earl Jones will reprise his role, just as he has done for the 'Star Wars Rebels' cartoon series, but this official confirmation is pretty exciting news.

'Rogue One' hits 2D, 3D and IMAX screens worldwide on December 16th.

YouTube launched its ad-free subscription service YouTube Red back in February. If you were wondering how it's doing, the company says it's still "early days" but that it's "happy" and "encouraged" by numbers so far. That said, it was never really about numbers, as VP of content partnerships Kelly Merryman explains.

"YouTube Red just launched in the US and really for us it's all about consumer choice," she says. "Ads continue to be our core business and we are really thrilled about the business of reaching over a billion users a month and with momentum continuing behind that business, so there's no shift in where our business focuses. But we believe in consumer choice. One of the nice things about YouTube Red is we have created a subscription product that allows consumers to have an offline experience or ad-free experience, but we've also chosen that's another way we can invest in our creators to allow for our creators to actually bring a different cost structure to the platform."

That last bit is referring to YouTube's plans for introducing 15 to 20 original shows to the service this year, adding further value. Said shows will come from popular YouTubers like PewDiePie as well as more traditional creators.

Samsung is launching a new program to encourage storytellers, game developers, and filmmakers of all types to explore the medium of virtual reality and 360 video. Dubbed the "Samsung Creators" program, it's an initiative that will reward 10 winners in as many different categories with $10,000 cash and an invitation only "masterclass" with professionals in the VR filmmaking space.

It sounds like a great opportunity to shine a light on aspiring content creators, and to bring VR that much closer to the mainstream spotlight. Wait, is 360 video actually VR though? We'll save that debate for another time...

Of course, this is also a clever way to promote Samsung's end-to-end ecosystem, which encompasses the newest Samsung Galaxy S7 phones, its Gear VR headset created in partnership with Oculus, and new Gear 360 camera which Samsung has announced as "launching" today in the US. We're eager to get our hands-on it, but it's a reach to call it a launch -- it's only available to purchase in person at VidCon in Anaheim, California, with further release plans TBA.

E3 2016 - Ubisoft has an obsession with towers. The studio uses tall, sky-piercing towers as a means to unlock new portions of in-game maps--if you've played any (god forbid all) Far Cry or Assassin's Creed game, you're all-too-familiar with this mechanic. Luckily our tower-climbing days are over--in Watch Dogs 2, at least.

Watch Dogs 2 is Ubisoft's big-hitter for 2016, so it can't afford to make the same mistakes. The game has to not only look and feel new, it has to be new, and that means a fresh approach. So far the devs are done everything in their power to distance Watch Dogs 2 as far as possible from the original--other than the name, open-world setting, and the basic hacktvist premise, the two share almost nothing in common. Apart from all of its other massive improvements, Watch Dogs 2 won't be bound to the traditional stale "climb a tower and unlock areas" mechanic.

"There are no towers. You just explore the world. It's not a game where you open your map and everything's there," Watch Dogs creative Director Jonathan Morin told Eurogamer at E3. But if the entire world isn't unlocked all at once, and there's no towers, how does the map progression work? Ubisoft actually has a rather ingenious plan for this.

E3 2016 - Sony is keen on making one thing clear about its new PlayStation 4K console: it isn't going to replace existing PS4s, and is meant to co-exist with the current consoles. But what about the future? Is the PS4's lifespan on a countdown timer now that the PlayStation 4K aka PS4 Neo is on its way?

In a recent interview with Gameswelt, President of Sony Worldwide Studios Shuhei Yoshida was asked this very question. Is the generation gap of consoles shrinking? According to Yoshida, Sony will keep its iterative consoles in the same umbrella family--at least when it comes to the PS4 era. "No...PS4 is PS4. The new high-end PS4 is still PS4, so the life-cycle is not going to be shorter," Yoshida said.

This is an interesting answer that has a few implications. Yoshida's answer might hint that Sony has foresight planning with how they're going to proceed with the new console cycle roadmap. Sony's new PS4K and the Xbox One S (and, to a lesser extent due to its overwhelming power, Microsoft's Project Scorpio) signals a shift from the traditional 5-6 year console upgrade cycle to iterative, mid-cycle hardware upgrades/refreshes. So it stands to reason that Sony has laid out a timeline for its future consoles, and that the PS5 may follow a similar path by being an entire generational family of console hardware instead of being a single console.

Best Buy's Gamers Club Unlocked program can now be purchased and activated digitally, no longer requiring gamers to visit physical Best Buy stores.

Up until now if you wanted Gamers Club Unlocked, you had to visit brick and mortar Best Buy stores to get it. Now you can just purchase a one-time use code and apply it to your account, saving you a trip to the store--and for some that don't have local Best Buys, this is a pretty big deal. So no more having to drop into the store, or wait for your subscription card to come in the mail. Best Buy has likely expedited GCU to counter Amazon Prime's new 20% off games pre-order offering.

If you're a dedicated deal-hunter like myself and absolutely hate paying $64 retail prices for your games, then you know all about Cheap Ass Gamer and Best Buy's Gamers Club Unlocked program. Both Cheapy D's efforts and Best Buy's money-saving plan are absolute godsends to hardcore gamers; with GCU you get 20% off on all new game purchases, 10% bonus trade-in credit, 10% off used games, extra points earned when buying games (these stack up surprisingly fast), and more.