Latest News - Page 2430

Samsung has been pushing the marketing for its Gear VR headset much more in the last 6-12 months, and selling them alongside - and even bundled sometimes for free, Samsung has been getting Gear VR headsets into more houses than ever.

There are now over 1 million monthly active users on the Gear VR, according to Mark Zuckerberg during Facebook's recent earnings call. During the earnings call, Zuckerberg said: "1 million people a month are now using Oculus on mobile phones through our Gear VR partnership with Samsung".

The exact sales numbers on the Gear VR isn't clear, but Samsung did say back in June that it had sold 300,000 units in Europe alone. If we take into consideration the push in Europe and the massive push in the US and many other markets giving the Gear VR for free with Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge smartphones, which have been so successful for Samsung that they reported profits that have hit a two-year high.

The Metal Gear Solid franchise is one of the most iconic game series, with creator Hideo Kojima becoming a household name thanks to the series - but according to Konami's financial report, the MGS franchise has sold over 49 million copies to date.

In Konami's recent financial report, we now know that the Metal Gear Solid franchise has sold 49.2 million copies as of March 31, 2016. During the first quarter of this year, Konami reported $481 million in revenue - a 3.5% decline year-over-year. Konami's profits were $89 million, a decent 40% increase in the same amount of time.

Digital sales have become the cornerstone of most publishers, with $246 million in revenue for the quarter - up 5.6% year-over-year. Profits made from digital sales generated $85 million in profits for Konami over Q1 2016, up 34% year-over-year.

Disney has made some changes to its release schedule, something I like to think is in retaliation to the teases of Justice League - even while Zack Snyder might not have the same grip on Justice League as Patty Jenkins does with Wonder Woman, which looks phenomenal, by the way.

The changes to Disney's revised schedule sees Avengers: Infinity War as a single movie, instead of the planned two-part series that would've been Infinity War - Part 1, and Infinity War - Part 2. The Wrap reports that there's now a new movie known as "Untitled Avengers", but now it makes the new Marvel movies much more interesting to think about.

The Russo Brothers are behind Avengers: Infinity War, the same directors who handled Captain America: Civil War - but the now scrapped second Infinity War movie will be rolled into something else. Avengers: Infinity War is scheduled for May 4, 2018 while the new Untitled Avengers movie will be released on May 3, 2019.

While Apple iPhone sales aren't as strong as people think, Apple revenues were stable during a tumulus time for the company where Jon Rettinger of TechnoBuffalo says Apple is boring, and stopped innovating years ago.

Well, Samsung has posted its Q2 2016 earnings report - and while we're late to the party on the news, I've been on planes and airports for over 36 hours and I'm currently enjoying the effects of jetlag, and so much international travel. Continuing to Samsung's Q2 2016 financial results, the company posted a 18% increase in revenue, with $45.2 billion in revenue over the three-month period, while profits were up 5% to $7.22 billion.

Samsung's success with the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 have been noticed, after the last two smartphones failed to gain this type of traction. The company is now actually competing and beating Apple in many areas, bringing back missed features they took away from the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 edge like the microSD card slot. The company has added that its Q3 2016 results should be impressive, teasing that "the release of a new large-screen flagship smartphone will help to maintain solid sales of high-end smartphones led by the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge".

Samsung's new Galaxy Note 7 is nearly here, where it will rock a 5.7-inch QHD Super AMOLED display, 4GB of RAM, some impressive cameras, and more.

The Galaxy Note 7 should rock a 12-megapixel rear-facing camera with an f/1.7 aperture that will also include OIS (optical image stabilization - making your videos appear smoother, and not so shakey cam) and 4K video support. The Galaxy Note 7 should also include a rather large 3500mAh battery, 64GB of onboard storage which is expandable through an included microSD card slot (thanks, Samsung - now don't take it away again), and a USB Type-C port.

We're expecting the appearance of an iris scanner, while Samsung's upcoming Galaxy Note 7 will measure in at 153.5mm x 73.9mm x 7.9mm, with a weight of 168 grams, reports 9to5Google.

The first gameplay trailer for Farming Simulator 2017 is here, with Focus Home Entertainment ready to let you learn the basics of farming new crops, sunflowers and using the latest farming vehicles.

The game is detailed as: "Farming Simulator's unique and all-encompassing farming experience is loved by players around the world. While the game is an accurate simulator at heart with deep management options, it is also a very accessible sandbox, with two huge maps and countless vehicles & equipment to use and play with. All the big farming manufacturers are here, and Farming Simulator 17 boasts the franchise's largest roster yet with over 200 unique vehicles and equipment spanning 70 different brands".

Farming Simulator 2017 will be released on October 25, do you think you'll be picking it up? Will there be Twitch streamers playing Farming Simulator 2017? Maybe it could become a thing.

We knew that EA was working on a new user interface for Battlefield 1, but now the company has detailed its new Battlefield UI that will "improve the experience for past Battlefield games".

There are big changes coming to Battlefield in the way that Battlefield 4, Battlefield Hardline and Battlefield 1 gamers are united through a new Battlefield user interface. This new UI is "designed to improve the experience of playing with friends and to bring relevant content to your attention", so it sounds like Battlelog - but hopefully greatly improved.

EA continues explaining its new Battlefield UI: "Now, you're able to create a Squad before you actually enter into a game. Being able to join up with your friends and join into a game together makes it a much smoother experience, and helps make sure you're able to spawn on your buddies as soon as you're in the game".

When AMD launched the Radeon RX 480 earlier this month, we saw the company focus on the $100-$300 market. Starting with a bang, AMD's first Polaris-based graphics card started at just $199 and now the cheaper, but still VR-ready graphics cards are here.

The new Radeon RX 470 and RX 460 have been detailed by the company, and will be released on August 4 and August 2, respectively. The Radeon RX 470 is a small graphics card, packing the Polaris architecture and promising to deliver 60FPS+ with AA enabled in nearly all of the best-looking games on the market at 1080p.

AMD's new Radeon RX 470 packs up to 4.9TFLOPS of performance with the GPU clocks at 926/1206MHz base and boost clocks, respectively. There's 4GB of GDDR5 RAM clocked at 6.6GHz on a 256-bit memory bus that is capable of 211GB/sec, and it all comes within a 120W TDP. This card is going to be immensely popular with gamers where NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 1060 which starts at $249, and with gamers who don't want to spend over $199 but want 1080p 60FPS performance.

Spoiler Warning: If you don't want to potentially ruin your first run of No Man's Sky and keep everything fresh, steer clear of this post! Remember that guy who spent $1,250 on an early copy of No Man's Sky? Well he's just posted up a proof video, and now he's uploading freshly leaked gameplay footage to show us exactly what Hello Games' massively anticipate space sim has to offer.

No Man's Sky leaker Daymeeuhn is simultaneously loved and hated in the gaming world right now: he's loved for sharing an unbiased and unfiltered look at Hello Games' infinite procedural space sim, but he's also hated for spoiling things. To be fair, though, Daymeeuhn is just showing us an approximate look at the first 26 minutes of the game, and honestly the footage is a lot of stuff we've already seen.

The footage shows us that No Man's Sky will be a very grindy type of game. Gamers apparently start off on foot and have to explore, grind, and survive in harsh environments. The clip really shows a new dimension of No Man's Sky that isn't necessarily depicted in the other play sessions--the raw, grind-oriented face of the game that blends survival, crafting, ingenuity and exploration.

Today is your absolute last chance to upgrade to Windows 10 free of charge. Starting tomorrow, you'll have to shell out $119 for a copy.

The occasion marks not just the end of an offer, but also the end of Microsoft nagging you to upgrade, and the imminent launch of the Windows 10 Anniversary update (set for Tuesday, August 2).

Windows 10 has received a lot of criticism over Microsoft aggressive tactics surrounding the upgrade process as well as the Windows Store. Conversely, it's garnered a lot of praise for being more desktop friendly than Windows 8, as well as its performance benefits (particularly in games), among other perks.

Arkane Studios' new Prey game isn't a sequel, a reboot or a remake. So what is it exactly? The devs have some answers.

Ever since the new Prey game was announced at Bethesda's E3 2016 showcase, fans of the original Prey game had a lot of questions. Everyone thought that Arkane's Prey was the long-cancelled Prey 2 sequel, whereas others thought it was a reboot. As it turns out, the new Prey is more like a loose adaptation set in the IP's universe.

"Prey is not a sequel, it's not a remake, it has no tie with the original. You have to look at it as a re-imagining of the IP," says Raphael Colantonio, president of Arkane Studios and creative director of Prey.

Sony has just revealed how much space you'll need to make before playing its PlayStation VR headset, and the results are pretty surprising.

Although Sony wants you to remain seated while playing most PlayStation VR games, some games track movements. According to a new PSVR product pamphlet, the Sony's VR headset requires almost as much free space as the HTC Vive--even though the console-powered PSVR doesn't have full 360-degree room-scale tracking.

The PSVR's required play area dimensions call for 1.9m (6.2ft) of width and 3.0m (9.8ft) length, with the height being determined how high up you set the required PlayStation Camera. The HTC Vive's minimum room-scale play area calls for at least 2 m x 1.5 m (6 ft 6 in x 5 ft) of free space, with some games requiring even more room. The biggest difference is one of these VR headsets does room-scale VR and the other doesn't.

SPOILER WARNING: If you want to keep No Man's Sky a total surprise you may want to look away from this post. A gamer who apparently purchased an early copy of No Man's Sky has allegedly sold the game to an impatient space explorer for the insane sum of $1,250.

Interestingly enough, the tale is spun on a sports forum called Operation Sports, where user CampBlackMamba24 claims he's acquired pre-release copy of No Man's Sky and decided to share some info. The gamer claims he bought the copy of No Man's Sky for $150 off of Craigslist, likely a pre-release review copy, and proceeded to sell it on eBay for $1,250. This is actually the same user that made the $2,000 No Man's Sky eBay listing, but he accepted the $1,250 counter offer instead.

If you do manage to somehow get an early copy, No Man's Sky's servers are already live (presumably for press copies). Here's a quick list of the gamer's general impressions and a bunch of screenshots from the forum posts for your perusal.

It was over 18 months ago now that NVIDIA found itself in quite the predicament, with its GeForce GTX 970 advertised with 4GB of VRAM, but only had access to 3.5GB of it at high speeds, while the remaining 512MB was performance-limited.

NVIDIA agreed to settle 15 class-action lawsuits for undisclosed terms, but now the company has confirmed it will be paying each person who has a GeForce GTX 970, giving them $30 and covering $1.3 million in legal fees.

Right now this is only a preliminary settlement, so a court will still need to approve the terms before consumers can start claiming their $30. NVIDIA has said it will not be capping the total amount it will pay to consumers, which is actually surprising. Good guy NVIDIA, after all of the crap that happened 18 months ago.

Facebook has somehow continued its growth into 2016, with the company reporting its second quarter earnings, where we now know just how many people use Facebook daily, and monthly.

Facebook is now home to over 1.7 billion monthly active users (MAUs), which is a nice increase of 15% year-over-year, while we have 1.57 billion monthly active users on mobile. Facebook has also hit another milestone, where the social network is now home to over 1 billion mobile daily active users (DAUs).

The company defines MAUs as "Mobile-only MAUs are defined as users who accessed Facebook solely through mobile apps or mobile versions of our website, or used our Messenger app, in the last 30 days of the given quarter. The number of mobile-only MAUs do not include Instagram users unless they would otherwise qualify as such users based on their other activities on Facebook".

Pokemon GO is next to unstoppable at this point, but we've reached an interesting new peak: some parents are naming their babies after Pokemon GO characters.

BabyCenter says that the names of some of the Pokemon GO characters have spiked in popularity, with names like Evee, Onyx and Roselia jumping 1,394 spots, 2,191 spots and 5,896 spots compared to a year ago, respectively. BabyCenter says that in a recent survey, close to 50% of the moms in the community are active Pokemon GO players.

Pokemon GO isn't new in the way that it has influenced parents by naming their kids after characters they know and love, with shows and movies like Breaking Bad, Frozen, Game of Thrones and countless other shows and movies inspiring parents.

Despite originally flopping on release, Disney's adaptation of the indie comic 'The Rockeeter' is set to get a sequel over 25 years after the first.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the sequel/ reboot is in very early development, with a script currently being written by Max Winkler and Matt Spicer. The film is said to retain the 1930's timeline, which is said to occur six years after the original film and feature "a young African-American female pilot, who takes up the mantle of Rocketeer"

The 1991 release, which starred Billy Campbell, Jennifer Connelly and Timothy Dalton generated $46 million off a $35 million budget which was considered a huge disappointment at the time, but has gone on to enjoy a cult following in the intervening years. Disney will no doubt be hoping the next fares somewhat better.

Doom its receiving its second free content update tomorrow, July 29, just in time for the weekend. Aimed at multiplayer fans and content creators, it provides yet more reasons to jump back into the action, or to get into it for the first time if you haven't picked the game up yet (and we recommend you do).

First is up is the introduction of the Exodus game mode, which is described as a "one-flag capture-the-flag mode with an added twist of constantly moving bases and flags." As well, you get to try out Sector, which is effectively King of the Hill but with multiple hills. In it, you capture and attempt to hold multiple points.

Modding suite SnapMap receives some love too in the form of customizable weapon wheel functionality, jump pads, 30 Hell-themed modules, more weapons, a new playable demon known as The Mancubus, and various improvements to the Community HUB, editor, and logic.

Nintendo has successfully patented an external hardware accessory that boosts a console's processing power, meaning Nintendo could be the first to kick off external hardware upgrades for mainstream consoles.

Nintendo's new NX hardware is believed to be a mobile-based handheld hybrid that's lacking in power, but recent patents hint the NX could leverage external hardware to boost performance. The external box is called a Supplemental Computing Device, and hooks up to Nintendo games consoles to provide various improvements like "increased processing and/or storage resources to games consoles to assist in executing a game."

Based on the deluge of information in the patent filings, Nintendo's Supplemental Computing Device (SCD) is a huge game-changer. There's a ton of applications apart from the obvious hardware processing boost, but don't think of this a console version of Razer's external Core GPU enclosure. The SCD likely won't be that dramatic, and apparently won't affect graphics at all, just processing speed, network latency, and storage. It does, however, keep with Nintendo's penchant for uniqueness and incorporates some very interesting applications.

Since reports indicate Nintendo's new NX console is a transforming, mobile-based handheld-console hybrid, it only makes sense that mobile games like Pokemon Go will be compatible.

Nintendo's new 'unique and different' NX games system might not be a console after all--sources say that the NX is entirely mobile-based and won't have a dedicated console element. But what does this mean for its games? While the NX will have its own "full software lineup", Nintendo's mobile games may be supported as well. The NX being a mobile system folds neatly in with Nintendo's new push for mobile games, and it looks like all of them--including the wildly successful Pokemon Go game--will be supported on the NX.

"A person familiar with the matter said NX would be a handheld-console hybrid that would be compatible with its own smartphone games," reports Wall Street Journal's Takashi Mochizuki.