Latest News - Page 2451

Hello Games, the developer behind the ambitious No Man's Sky, has just announced it has been involved in a large legal battle with British telecom company, Sky, over the name of its game. But, now the two parties have resolved their differences, and the issues are over.

Hello Games' founder Sean Murray took to Twitter with glee, saying: "Yay! We finally settled with Sky (they own the word 'Sky'). We can call our game No Man's Sky. 3 years of secret stupid legal nonsense over". Murray added that the legal situation "was pretty serious", adding: "On the plus side perhaps this is the real reason Skynet never happened".

With No Man's Sky being delayed recently, from its June release to an August release, Murray addressed the delay saying: "some key moments needed extra polish to bring them up to our standards".

Bluetooth is everywhere... absolutely everywhere, but it's about to get a heck load faster. The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (Bluetooth SIG) have announced the latest in Bluetooth technology, with Bluetooth 5.0 having twice the speed, 4x the range, and 800% more capacity.

The updated Bluetooth 5.0 standard won't hit until late 2016 or early 2017, but it does promise some huge leaps in bandwidth, speed and range. Bluetooth 5.0 will allow many more devices to have better communication indoors, outdoors, through walls, and more - taking in more connections, and having improved efficiency, with less wait times.

What does this mean for you? Well, Bluetooth 5.0 will allow you to connect to your devices more reliably, with them disconnecting less, and you'll be able to enjoy higher speeds, and a much higher range (4x).

An interesting tidbit has hit the internet, with Hardware.fr's Damien Triolet claiming that ASUS and MSI are sending GTX 1080s to the press with modified BIOSes. The modified BIOS is enabling more power on the review samples, which are provided boosted performance - and thus, better reviews.

The report claims that the optimized BIOSes are common in the industry, with manufacturers encouraging GPU reviewers to enable special overclocking presets before reviewing the cards, reports VideoCardz. Now, I've been reviewing GPUs for nearly two years with TweakTown, and I've never been approached once by a company asking to do this - so I don't know where that part of the claim is coming from.

Hardware.fr's Damien Triolet adds that he asks manufacturers to provide retail BIOSes for his testing, with manufacturers not being too happy about having to provide the software. The two cards on the table in the middle of this debacle are the new MSI GeForce GTX 1080 Gaming X 8G (with our review on that card here) and the ASUS GTX 1070 Strix. We tested the MSI card and our sample was being overclocked past a certain speed, but I underclocked it to its advertised Boost clocks for my testing. I presumed it was the EVGA Precision X software playing around with the clocks, but maybe MSI has sent an overclocked card - so I thought I'd do some digging on my own.

We've had a few of the custom GeForce GTX 1080 cards come through our labs so far, with our first review being the MSI GeForce GTX 1080 Gaming X 8G, and it being a totally silent GTX 1080 experience. Well, GIGABYTE is now teasing their upcoming GTX 1080 Xtreme Gaming video card, which will be one of the fastest GTX 1080s released yet. GIGABYTE's new beast is teasing a huge GPU overclock, right up to 2.3GHz on the GPU... which is simply amazing.

GIGABYTE has used a totally custom PCB with Titan X style chokes and capacitors, with a dust/moisture/corrosion resistant PCB coating. The company has also used a 12+2 phase VRM that makes great use of GIGABYTE's Ultra Durable class components so that the card doesn't buckle under the pressure of the extreme overclocking. But we're not even at the best part yet.

GIGABYTE's new GeForce GTX 1080 Xtreme Gaming has an AIO liquid cooler, which allows the GP104-powered GPU and its 2560 CUDA cores to be cranked all the way up to 1936MHz on Boost, out of the box. The 8GB of GDDR5X is cranked up from 10GHz to 10.4GHz, providing 333.4GB/sec of memory bandwidth over the GTX 1080 Founders Edition memory bandwidth of 320GB/sec.

In the latest Overwatch developer update, game director Jeff Kaplan details the rewards for the upcoming Competitive Play mode. Among what you can expect: golden weapons.

"Not only will there be some sprays and player icons that you can only get by playing each season, there is a very cool customized golden gun system," he says. "Once you see things like Reinhardt's golden hammer, you're going to be pretty blown away."

Kaplan goes on to explain such rewards are unlocked much faster if you're much more skilled. As well, if you're toward the top end of the competition, you can unlock some as of yet unspecified cosmetic items (we'll guess skins and maybe more).

E3 2016 -- During an interview with TweakTown at E3, HTC's VP of VR Content, Joel Breton, talked to us at length about the state of the Vive and virtual reality. While we're busy transcribing that awesome conversation, we wanted to highlight something that jumped out at us and got us more than a little excited: the suggestion that playing games like Grand Theft Auto in VR is less a pipe dream and much closer to reality.

One of virtual reality's big challenges is locomotion. Right now we can't move through an open virtual world without physically moving ourselves. If we do, a large amount of the population is prone to "VR sickness" or discomfort caused by a mismatch between your inner ear system and what your eyes are relaying to your brain. That's why so many VR games right now invoke the "blink" system that allows us to teleport around. That's understandably not as immersive.

During my interview with HTC's Joel Breton, I asked him if he's seen anything in development that gets us closer to being able to play something like a Grand Theft Auto realistically, or any sprawling open world title in VR. A mechanic that lets us move through the environment fluidly. His response was encouraging.

From the beginning, Valve has insisted on building SteamVR with openness in mind, with the goal of supporting any virtual reality hardware and not just the HTC Vive. To that end, they've already updated SteamVR with support for the Oculus Touch controllers which launch before the end of 2016.

The news comes via Swedish game developer Daniel Nyberg, who included a screenshot of SteamVR's Status window, showing two Oculus Touch controllers and two Oculus sensors (the second one will release alongside the Touch controllers to provide 360 tracking and negate occlusion). Replies to the tweet from other VR developers indicate that they can do roomscale with Oculus motion controller hardware right out of the box, even for games designed with the HTC Vive in mind.

Things are definitely heating up in this space. As fantastic as Oculus Touch is (I played several new experiences at E3 and look forward to writing about them ASAP), the VR community is quickly sending a message to the company that their closed ecosystem is unwanted.

E3 2016 -- I'm kind of old school. When someone drops the phrase "music visualizer" I'm reminded of pulling up Winamp on my Windows XP machine, firing up some Crystal Method, and unleashing those full screen trippy visuals. Well, VR is going to change the game for people who like to trip out or just relax with their music, and Harmonix seems a good choice for the company to execute it.

The motivation for Harmonix Music VR was the company's desire to help people better appreciate music through virtual reality. Some of what's waiting for you is passive, and some is interactive.

I had about 30 minutes with Harmonix Music VR during E3 this week, and here are my quick impressions of 4 of the experiences on offer when it releases alongside PlayStation VR on October 13th.

Steam Beta Client users can now grab a special update for Steam Controllers that allows you to bind different types of button presses to different functions, which Valve is calling Activators.

For example, you can bind jump to long press A and grenade to double press X, or even bind both to the same button but different types of presses, as there's no limit on how many functions you can bind to a given button beyond the amount of press types available. You can also do things like set a single press to single fire and a long press to Turbo fire, enable the Start button to switch between button customization profiles on-the-fly, and more.

Boot Steam now to grab the update. If you're not in the beta, navigate to Settings > Account > Beta participation.

E3 2016 - Sony really ramped up its PlayStation VR push at E3 2016 this year, with PSVR launching on October 13, will there be shortages? According to Sony, it looks like there could be.

According to President and Group CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment, Andrew House, who told CNBC: "We have growing confidence that we'll be supply constrained with this product, but we'll do our very best to meet demand. Virtual reality is a medium that's in its infancy. With such a nascent, very new form of storytelling, it's difficult to predict what user uptake is going to be".

It looks like we could expect stock shortages on the PlayStation VR, but that's to be expected. Both Oculus and HTC didn't have the best roll outs, but HTC has since recovered, promising that it will ship Vive headsets within 72 hours of ordering.

In the midst of NVIDIA experiencing stock shortages of the GeForce GTX 1070 and GTX 1080 in our exclusive story, news has just broken that AMD's upcoming Radeon RX 480 can hit 1.5GHz, and higher. The Radeon RX 480 is expected to fight directly against the HBM1-based Radeon R9 Nano, and the GTX 980 which just had a $25 price drop.

If we think about AMD hitting the $199 price point with the RX 480, and it being able to be toe-and-toe with the R9 Nano and GTX 980, we're looking at one of the best price/performance video cards ever released. Additionally, with some huge OC headroom included, it could be an even better card - especially if gamers can hit 1.5GHz+. The new Radeon RX 480 will supposedly reach 1.4GHz on its GPU easily, with 1.5GHz not far away and only a little additional tweaking required.

The RX 480 "Beast Mode" cards will include 6+8-pin PCIe power connectors for additional juice and overclocking headroom, and will be able to hit 1.5GHz right out of the box. We should expect the likes of SAPPHIRE, ASUS, MSI and the rest of the AIB partners to really hit these speeds. Considering the Radeon RX 480 only consumes 100W of power under gaming loads, and only hits 60C, we should be in for quite the surprise from AMD in a few weeks time.

NVIDIA is going on the offensive with its Maxwell-powered video cards, cutting the price of the GeForce GTX 970, GTX 980 and GTX 980 Ti. Now that the GeForce 10 series is here, it only makes sense for NVIDIA to clear out the inventory of 900 series cards, and that's a big benefit to gamers, too. NVIDIA has dropped the price of the GTX 980 Ti by $125, the GTX 980 by $75 an the GTX 970 by $25 - all priced in USD.

I wrote an exclusive story yesterday that GTX 1070 and GTX 1080 stock will not improve until late-July or even early-August, and now that NVIDIA has dropped the price on the enthusiast level GTX 900 series cards, it begins to make even more sense. The GTX 1070 and GTX 1080 cards are also way above the $699 price of NVIDIA's own GeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition, with the EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 FTW ACX 3.0 listed on Amazon for a wallet-busting $1999.

With these price drops, AMD aren't in trouble with their unreleased Radeon RX 480 just yet - as they're pricing that at a very lucrative $199... but it does put the pressure on slightly. AMD need to ensure their stock levels of the RX 480 are far higher than the GTX 1070 and GTX 1080, but these new nodes aren't easy. AMD is using the 14nm FinFET process for its new Polaris-based Radeon RX series, while NVIDIA is tapping some of that 16nm FinFET for its Pascal-based GeForce 10 series. These recent price drops on the GTX 900 series however, are going to really spur some sales up, and hopefully keep consumers and gamers happy until the stock levels of the GTX 1070 and GTX 1080 improve late next month.

The soft projections of the 'Warcraft' U.S. opening have come to pass, with the film making barely $30 million - basically a disaster for a summer blockbuster. But thanks to strong international interest, the film is barely keeping its head above water.

According to BoxOfficeMojo, the feature film adaptation has grossed $280 million at the international box office - the vast bulk in China - which represents 90% of the film's $310 million worldwide gross. 'Warcraft's failure in the U.S. market is a huge disappointment for Universal Studios and Legendary Pictures, especially considering its $160 million budget and extensive marketing campaign.

'Warcraft' continues to roll out in the international market, hitting screens in Australia today.

E3 2016 - After dropping a metric ton of new Final Fantasy 15 gameplay footage and content, Square Enix delivers a closer look at the game's "airship"--the flying Regalia car.

What Final Fantasy game would be complete without an airship? Final Fantasy 15 is taking a more unconventional approach with its in-game airship--in fact, it's not really an airship, but a car that converts into a streamlined jetliner to soar the heavens. We got our first look at the Regalia's flying mode a few months ago, but Square Enix has blown the lid off of the svelte transforming speedster in a new clip.

The Regalia is the ancestral royal "ship" of the Lucian kings, and belonged to Noctis' father Cor Leonis--and his father before him. The car-airship is more than just a vehicle--it ties Noctis to his heritage, his bloodline, and serves as the main locomotion for the game's party members--Noctis, Prompto, Ignis and Gladiolus. The Regalia's flying mode only unlocks "pretty far into the game," and can be customized--the clip we saw is the Type F version. The ship will also transform depending on the altitude, and yes, you can control the ship freely just like in other games.

E3 2016 Hideo Kojima has opened up about his enigmatically grim new game Death Stranding, revealing key details about what we can expect with the PS4 exclusive. Technically an action game, Kojima promises that Death Stranding will be unlike anything we've ever seen before.

Quite some time ago, Hideo Kojima helped give birth to the "stealth action" genre with the immortal Metal Gear Solid series--but MGS wasn't just stealth action, it was so much more. Kojima is confident that his new PS4 game, Death Stranding, will do the same. Although it's technically an "action" game, Death Stranding will turn everything we know on its head--and it all starts with using "ropes" instead of "sticks". Kojima explains in a very thought-provoking manner:

"A strand in psychology is often used to refer to ties or chains. So how all the crabs [in the trailer] have this weird umbilical chord and how the baby is tied to Norman [Reedus' character] is a representation of this. There's a Japanese author I am a huge fan of called Kobo Abe. He has a short novel called 'Rope' in which he makes a definition, a statement: the first tool mankind made was a stick. It was made to keep away bad things. It's a weapon. The next tool created by mankind was rope. The rope is not to keep away bad things. On the contrary, it's a tool used to keep good things close to you, to tie good things close to you. Sticks and ropes are some of the tools most used by mankind even these days."

E3 2016 - Nintendo America President Reggie Fils-Aime may have confirmed the new Nintendo NX won't rock over-the-top specs in a recent interview with Bloomberg.

When asked how the NX will stack up against Microsoft's new powerful Xbox Scorpio and Sony's new PlayStation 4K, Reggie Fils-Aime said: "You know for us, it's not about specs, it's not about teraflops, it's not about the horsepower of a particular system; for us, it's about the content. Nintendo is a content-focused company. We create entertainment that makes people smile. So for us, we're focused on bringing our best entertainment to both the Wii U as well as the NX in the future," Nintendo exec Reggie Fils-Aime said in an interview with Bloomberg West.

Fils-Aime's responses are particularly interesting because we have it on good authority that the Nintendo NX will be powered by NVIDIA's new powerful Pascal-based Tegra chip rather than an AMD APU. This would open up the doors for some impressive performance boosts across the board. But on the other hand, we've also heard the NX's power is comparable to an Xbox One and won't "blow away current consoles."

E3 2016 - Bethesda has confirmed that old Skyrim mods will "basically" work in the new remastered 64-bit special edition version, opening up a new door for new and old mods alike. Pete Hines also confirms Skyrim is being remastered on PC, too, and chimes in to give us some clues about older mods being playable on consoles.

Not everything will be compatible right from the start, though. Renowned Skywind modder MicahGhost also says that any mod using the Skyrim Script Extender (SKSE) won't work until the tool is updated to support the new 64-bit framework. "I do not believe it will take long at all," the modder said, "because the same team has already done a script extender for fallout 4(FOSE) which uses a 64 bit engine most likely almost identical to the new engine Skyrim Special edition most likely uses."

But what about console mods? One of the biggest selling points for the new remaster is allowing console gamers to experience the massive galaxy of Skyrim mods. Given all of the details Pete Hines has revealed so far, we can speculate that console owners will get to experience older Skyrim mods, too. As long as they can be converted using the new Skyrim: SE Creation Kit, they can be uploaded to Bethesda.net for console players to enjoy.

E3 2016 - Up until now we thought all old Xbox One games will run at 1080p 60FPS on Microsoft's new Project Scorpio powerhouse console. Xbox division Phil Spencer confirms not all original Xbox One games will benefit from Project Scorpio--only newer Xbox games and older games with dynamic resolution like Halo 5 will tap the console's new hardware.

"Scorpio's 6TFLOPs will impact the games and the way they play. ['Upcoming games,' Giant Bomb's Jeff Gertsmann broke in, 'you're not necessarily going to get better performance out of any disc you put in the system.'] You know, that's a great question. If you look at a game like Halo 5 that implements dynamic scaling--as scenes get more complex, in order to maintain 60FPS, it will actually change the resolution. So if you run [Halo 5] on Scorpio, you're actually going to be at that max frame-rate more often," Spencer said during Giant Bomb's E3 2016 broadcast.

Microsoft has affirmed that its Polaris-and-Zen powered Xbox Scorpio won't have exclusive games, but only newer, specially-made games specific older Xbox One games will harness the console's beefy 6TFLOPs GPU processing power. "Some of the existing games will actually run a little better, if they're using dynamic scaling. But I wouldn't buy Scorpio to run your existing library of Xbox One games."

SpaceX has been on a roll lately with three consecutive successful rocket launches and landings. It all came to an end yesterday though when its Falcon 9 rocket failed to land on a floating drone ship at sea and promptly exploded (or suffered a "rapid unscheduled disassembly" as founder Elon Musk puts it), but not before it successfully launched two satellites into orbit.

Musk says the explosion was caused by low thrust in one of the rocket's three primary engines, and that the company is now working on upgrades to the rocket in order to handle the same situation in the future.

SpaceX has a carg resupply mission for the International Space Station next month, followed closely by a Falcon 9 ground landing in Cape Canaveral, Florida and a satellite launch in August.

E3 2016 - Anyone who purchases Ensemble's upcoming Halo Wars 2: Ultimate Edition ($79.99) on Xbox One or PC will be treated to a remastered version of the original Halo Wars.

Halo Wars: Definitive Edition will feature improved visuals over its original incarnation, as well as new achievements, and all previously released DLC.

And of course, this means the debut of the game on PC. Halo Wars did pretty well as far as RTS on console goes, but there was that nagging feeling it would've played better on PC, so we're curious to see how the controls have been optimized for the old keyboard and mouse.