Gamescom 2016 kicks off next week, but Microsoft has confirmed it won't be holding an official press conference at the European event.

At its massive E3 2016 press briefing Microsoft revealed the full extent of its hand: a new 40% slimmer $299 Xbox One S console that plays 4K games and video, its enthusiast "monster" native 4K gaming Project Scorpio console, a slew of new first-party games, the new Xbox-and-PC Play Anywhere initiative, and a galaxy of new features, content, and accessories. Redmond won't be keeping up this momentum with Germany's Gamescom event--instead of a huge briefing, or even a smaller showcase with new announcements, it'll be hosting a bunch of booths that let gamers digest all the E3 reveals.

Microsoft's absence on the stage floor gives Sony a much-needed opportunity to reveal its anticipated new PlayStation Neo console, which supports upscaled 4K gaming and 4K video playback. Sony could steal the show with a PS4 Neo reveal, but then again, Nintendo could also shock the world by revealing its mysterious new NX console at Gamescom. Sony and Nintendo won't go at the same time, so if Sony reveals the PS4K at Gamescom, Nintendo will pick September's Tokyo Game Show for the NX.

The Federal Trade Commission has officially confirmed that Warner Bros. Interactive paid up to "tens of thousands of dollars" to bribe key YouTube personalities like PewDiePie for favorable coverage of Middle-Earth Shadow of Mordor.

According to reports published by the FTC, Warner Bros. Interactive has now settled its charges pertaining to its deceptive marketing campaign with Shadow of Mordor. The publisher caused quite a row when YouTuber Total Biscuit revealed the shady early access deal, but the deception went much farther: Warner Bros. paid anywhere from hundreds to tens of thousands of dollars to well-known YouTubers (including PewDiePie) for positive game videos. The FTC notes that the publisher "failed to require the paid influencers to adequately disclose [the sponsorship]," meaning everyday gamers thought the videos were genuine instead of paid ads. However PewDiePie made it explicitly clear on his original video that the content was sponsored by Warner Bros.

"Warner Bros. Home Entertainment, Inc. has settled Federal Trade Commission charges that it deceived consumers during a marketing campaign for the video game Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor, by failing to adequately disclose that it paid online 'influencers,' including the wildly popular 'PewDiePie,' thousands of dollars to post positive gameplay videos on YouTube and social media. Over the course of the campaign, the sponsored videos were viewed more than 5.5 million times," reads the FTC press release.

There's magic in old-school sci-fi book covers. Even if you didn't grow up in the '70s and '80s you can still appreciate the wonder and splendor that artists like John Berkey and Ralph McQuarrie unfolded before our eyes: the covers spoke of fanciful treks across exotic universes, of strange and exciting tales of derring-do, aliens, advanced tech, and infinite possibilities. In this respect, No Man's Sky--Hello Games' ambitious indie about exploring an infinitesimal universe--is a lot like like a sci-fi book cover, and it's only fitting that the game gets its own series of mock covers.

This artwork actually links to an interesting thing that the devs said about the game: Sean Murray told IGN that he wants gamers to "feel as if they've stepped into an old sci-fi book cover" every time they play No Man's Sky. So these mock-ups actually resonate quite strongly with the developer's own goals for the in-game experience.

"I've said it before, but No Man's Sky is the hardest thing I've ever worked on. It's even bigger than you can imagine. This is a type of game that hasn't been attempted before, by a smaller team than anyone would expect, under an intense amount of expectation,"Hello Games head Sean Murray said in a recent blog post.

In order to hit "true" 4K gaming with 6TFLOPs of performance with its new "monster" Project Scorpio console, Microsoft apparently won't use existing silicon that's currently on the market. Instead the new 4K Xbox will be built around its own custom graphics solution that will likely sit between AMD's mid-grade Polaris and enthusiast Vega families.

In a recent interview with The Guardian, Xbox boss Phil Spencer has pretty much confirmed that Project Scorpio won't use outdated hardware to enable native 4K gaming. "We had the ability to look at doing an interim console this year if we wanted to. We thought about that. But we didn't think we could deliver, with the silicon that's out there, a true 4K gaming six teraflop machine this year. So we decided to wait until we hit the real spec that people were asking for."

We've already speculated that the Scorpio's new custom AMD SoC would be made up of 14nm Polaris GPU alongside a Zen CPU, and Spencer seems to have confirmed our findings. But what if both Scorpio's GPU and CPU tech are 2017 hardware? This means that the Scorpio's graphics hardware might not be based on Polaris or AMD's new Vega GPU, but a new scaled custom GPU that sits in the middle between the two.

Google is reportedly working on two new smartwatches that will be branded as Google, which is a big difference to the Mountain View-based search giant relying on third-party manufacturers to make Android Wear-based smartwatches.

Android Police is reporting that the above image is a "recreated image" of the primary source material, as they want to keep their source anonymous. The site also adds that the smartwatches are still under development, and may differ to what we see above. As they stand, I think they look slick.

The larger smartwatch is based on the 43.5mm "Angelfish", which will reportedly feature a heart rate monitor, GPS, and LTE connectivity so it doesn't rely on your smartphone. It has three buttons, compared to third-party Android Wear smartwatches that usually have one. We should see Google Assistant integration with contextual alerts, thanks to the additional buttons.

We all know Pokemon GO has absolutely exploded into the world, in a way that I've never seen before - it is the first game that I've seen that has people of all ages going out into the world, and playing a game.

Deadline is reporting that Pokemon GO's runaway success has "all Hollywood has renewed the chase for a deal to turn Pokémon into a feature film". Rumbles of a live-action Pokemon movie have been around for a while, but now things have been amplified after Pokemon GO became oxygen to gamers, with Deadline saying Legendary pictures "is moving toward a deal".

The report adds that there is a "scenario" where Max Landis, who directed Chronicle, could write the Pokemon movie, while Legendary made the film. The report adds that "everything went silent" a few months ago, but now that Pokemon GO has exploded in popularity, "it's come back around".

ZOTAC is a company that never ceases to impress me, as I've just reviewed their GeForce GTX 1080 AMP! Extreme, which is the fastest GTX 1080 yet. But something more impressive has just appeared; ZOTAC's unannounced GeForce GTX 1060 Mini.

ZOTAC will be utilizing the smaller PCB of the GeForce GTX 1060 to their advantage, with the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1060 Mini set to arrive in 3GB and 6GB variants, with both cards arriving with reference GPU clocks of 1506/1708MHz for base/boost, respectively.

The company will be using their own custom PCB for the GeForce GTX 1060 Mini, with a slick-looking, but not over-the-top cooler on board. We should expect the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1060 Mini to be officially revealed in the coming weeks, and I hope ZOTAC has a sample on its way to me.

Last year we reported that the Fox network was planning an 'X-Men' TV show and while a show is still being developed, it looks like the network has gone back to the drawing board with the project.

According to Dark Horizons, Fox has dumped plans for proposed spin-off series 'Hellfire', and will instead develop a project focussing on two parents who discover their children are mutants. FOX president David Madden said "Developing a Marvel property has been a top priority for the network-and we are so pleased with how Matt Nix has led us into this thrilling universe. There's comic book adventure, emotional and complicated relationships, and a rich, existing mythology from which to draw. With the brilliant production crew behind this project, it has all the makings of a big, fun and exciting new series."

This summer's 'X-Men Apocalypse' was a financial disappointment for Twentieth Century Fox, grossing just $535 million worldwide on a $178 million budget, which pales in comparison to the $781 million 'Deadpool' haul.

AMD has been pushing Polaris for the last 6 months or so, leading up to the launch of the Polaris 10-based Radeon RX 480, but that doesn't mean the company is shying away from its next architecture; Vega.

AMD's next-gen Vega architecture is due in 2017, and during the Radeon RX series launch in Australia, the company showed off the same GPU roadmap we've seen at previous events - but also said something interesting. AMD said that the next-gen Vega architecture is a "high-end architecture for high-end gamers".

Remember that Vega will be using HBM2 technology, so we should expect a rather large leap over the Polaris architecture when it comes to specs, speeds, and technology. Vega will continue its rampage into the 14nm FinFET process, while the architecture to succeed Vega, 'Navi', is due in 2018. We don't know much about Navi just yet, but AMD teases that it will feature 'next-gen memory' - which is something I really need to know about. What is 'next-gen memory' when HBM2 is already incredible with 1TB/sec+ bandwidth?

NVIDIA announced its GeForce GTX 1060 not long ago, but with prices ranging between $249 and $299 - it won't directly compete against AMD's Radeon RX 480 which is priced at $199 to $239 and beyond, depending on whether you want the reference 4GB/8GB model ($199/$239, respectively) or a partner card with a custom PCB and improved cooling.

Well, NVIDIA could hit a lower price point with the 3GB variant of its GeForce GTX 1060, as the company has only unveiled the 6GB version thus far. NVIDIA is reported to hit a $149 price on the partner cards, while the GTX 1060 3GB Founders Edition could be priced at $199.

This means NVIDIA would be competing against the Radeon RX 470, which is priced at $149, and is a cut down variant of the Polaris 10 with 4GB of GDDR5. But what will NVIDIA cull from the 3GB variant of the GeForce GTX 1060 to get the price down? The GTX 1060 6GB features GPU clocks of 1506/1708 for base/boost, respectively - while it has a 192-bit memory bus for its 6GB of GDDR5 RAM.