Latest News - Page 387

Obsidian's new high fantasy roleplaying game Avowed may reach nearly 6 million players in its first month on the market, new estimates from data group MindGame Data indicate.

Avowed may be a popular game that will be played by 5.9 million people across Xbox and PC in its first month, with full game sales and Xbox Game Pass subscribers combined. The figure comes from a quick newsletter from MindGame Data, a firm that collects what's called "mindshare" data and uses that to estimate the potential playerbase of that game for a given period of time. These aren't confirmed or verified figures, and it's important to know that mindshare sources data from searches on Google as well as highlight data from YouTube and Twitch.

Apple is slated to unveil the next generation of iPhone later this year, and according to a recent leak, we can expect some major design changes.

It has been rumored for quite some time the iPhone 17 generation will introduce some major design changes, which will be a breathe of fresh air for Apple fans that have been enduring the same aesthetics for many generations with incremental upgrades in performance. According to new iPhone 17 CAD renders that have been leaked from Sonny Dickson, the iPhone 17 standard won't look much different compared to the iPhone 16, but the Pro models, the iPhone 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max, will look different.

Reports indicate the standard iPhone 17 will get the Always-On display and ProMotion features, instead of the design update. As for the Pro Models, the CAD renders show a camera bar but with the lenses being in the same orientation as what we are used to on previous generations. However, the flash, microphone, and LiDAR scanner have been moved to the opposite side of the device instead of being placed above and below the innermost camera lens, as we have seen in previous generations.

Microsoft will soon let Copilot Labs testers try out its new gaming AI technology.

Days ago, Microsoft made waves by announcing its first generative AI toolset for video games. It's called Muse, and it can generate actual gameplay sequences from user input (albeit at very low frame rates, around 10FPS or thereabouts). Theoretically, you can just hook up a controller and start pressing buttons and moving the joysticks, and Muse will generate, on-the-fly, video sequence footage based on your commands.

Soon the tech will be available for experimental runs on Copilot Labs, which is Microsoft's digital testing bed for new AI-oriented software and features. There's not an exact timeline on when you'll be able to try out Muse for yourself, and the games are meant to be short and smaller-scale slivers of experiences, potentially akin to mini-games, maybe like something you'd find in Fusion Frenzy.

New details about Sony's cancelled live service Twisted Metal game have emerged thanks to an programmer's portfolio page.

Just a few years ago, Sony announced plans to launch 12 live service games by 2026. A new Twisted Metal project was among these games. The next-gen Twisted Metal would be made for PS5 with online multiplayer, and it'd be developed by Firesprite. The Twisted Metal game was believed to be cancelled in February of last year.

Now there's some updated information about the project. A programmer has uploaded a brief description of Project Copper, which had been in development at Firesprite, and sounds suspiciously like a Twisted Metal game.

After years of exclusivity deals with PlayStation, Square Enix is now ready to sell its games on all platforms. This sentiment is found at both the executive and creative level, especially with the leads of the newer Final Fantasy VII remake trilogy.

It sounds like everyone is shrugging off exclusivity these days. After buying Activision, Microsoft starting selling its first-party games on PlayStation and Nintendo Switch. Then there's Square Enix, who had finally brought Final Fantasy XIV over to Xbox last year and pledged to launch more games on all systems--PC and Xbox included. That plan will continue, and the third chapter of the FF7 remake trilogy could be a multi-platform release.

Sony recently profiled FF7 Rebirth game director Naoki Hamaguchi on the topic of hardware and compatibility, and Hamaguchi's answers fall in line with those spoken by Square Enix's CEO:

Nintendo has confirmed that it will remove its first game from the Switch Online subscription service, showing the catalog is not permanent or static.

Later this month, Nintendo will delist a retro Super Nintendo classic from its subscription-only retro vault. The game in question, Super Soccer from 1992, isn't all that exciting, but it's still an ill omen to game preservationists and classic gaming nerds everywhere. It's unknown exactly why Super Soccer is being removed but it could have something to do with licensing rights--in this case, the rights holder is Japanese games firm Spike Chunsoft.

"Super Formation Soccer (Spike Chunsoft), a title included on Super Famicom Nintendo Switch Online, will cease distribution at 10:00 a.m. on Friday, March 28, 2025. Once distribution ends, even those who have already downloaded Super Famicom Nintendo Switch Online will no longer be able to use it," reads a post from Nintendo's Japanese account.

SpaceX's quest to achieve full reusability of Starship is expected to come to a close next year, according to company CEO Elon Musk.

Musk recently appeared on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, where he explained SpaceX's goals with rocket development and how the company is aiming to first achieve full reusability and then rapid reusability. Musk explains that the Falcon 9 rocket, while technically reusable due to its booster being able to land, SpaceX still loses the upper stage, which costs $10 million and a few days of time to build before another launch can take place. The goal is to achieve full rapid reusability of both the upper and lower stage, the booster, and the ship (cargo part of the rocket).

It should be noted that full rapid reusability can be compared to an aircraft, which can take off and land without any damage at all. Full reusability would be defined as both the upper and lower stages of the rocket landing but sustaining some damage that requires repair time.

Musk says the orbital heat shield is currently SpaceX's biggest problem with making the Ship fully reusable, which is necessary to make Starship a fully reusable rocket.

Upon reentry into Earth's atmosphere, the rocket travels at extreme speeds through Earth's dense atmosphere. This resistance with the atmosphere causes friction, and just like a meteor, the increase in temperature eventually causes flames. This is where the orbital heat shield comes in.

SpaceX has equipped its rockets with a shield designed to disperse the heat generated by reentry, but unfortunately, no one has made a fully reusable heat shield. Musk briefly discussed what the orbital heat shield is made of, saying it needs to be constructed of extremely fine strands of glass and aluminum oxide (sapphire) fibers organized in a very specific geometry for the highest efficiency.

AMD has just announced its new Radeon RX 9070 series "RDNA 4" graphics cards, and while we know the horrors of trying to find one of NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 50 series "Blackwell" GPUs... it seems RDNA 4 will have significantly higher stock levels.

In a new video posted by leaker Moore's Law is Dead, we're hearing that "supply is going to be significantly higher for RDNA 4 than it is what from what we've seen with Blackwell expect 3-10x the shipments of RDNA 4 cards compared to something like an RTX 5080"

"Now, to be clear about that though: it's more or less a standard launch maybe slightly above average overall I would say it's just that when I say 3 -10x more cards than the 5080 at launch... Blackwell was just that low volume of a launch it was basically entirely fake. I would roughly summarize the quantity for the 9070 series actually as around what the 7800 XT at launch which was a lot a lot of people were able to get one on launch day for an hour or so online".

NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Barry "Butch" Wilmore were left "stranded" aboard the International Space Station (ISS) after Boeing's Starliner limped its way to the floating laboratory on June 5. The plan was to stay aboard the ISS for a week, but Williams and Butch are still yet to return to Earth - eight months later.

Boeing's first astronaut mission to the ISS ended in failure when the Starliner capsule returned to Earth without the astronauts in September last year. The capsule that transported the two NASA astronauts to the ISS for an intended week-long stay endured helium leaks on its way to the ISS, and after an evaluation by NASA it was determined the capsule didn't meet safety standards for the return journey, resulting in both NASA astronauts having to stay aboard the ISS.

NASA doesn't officially consider the astronauts "stranded" but instead has extended the mission duration for a return sometime in March 2025 aboard SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule. However, new information has come to light from SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, who recently appeared on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, where he said that SpaceX offered to return both astronauts "early," but the Biden administration rejected this offer for "political reasons."

Activision could launch this year's Call of Duty game on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One consoles to squeeze out another year's worth of spending from gen 8 gamers.

Call of Duty 2025 is currently in development for last-gen consoles, sources tell Insider Gaming and Charlie Intel. The move is consistent with Microsoft's latest aggressive push into maximizing game sales, microtransactions, and services across as many platforms as possible--an ethos that has manifested in Xbox's current anti-exclusive business model.

Neither Activision nor Microsoft have confirmed the news, and sources appear to be unsure whether or not the game will actually launch on last-gen platforms. The current reports just say that COD '25 is in development for those systems.

WB Discovery has commented on the commercial failures of its video games unit, telling investors that what happened in 2024 probably won't happen again.

WBD just posted up its Q4 2024 results, and included in the report is an update on the WB Games division. Recent reports from Bloomberg indicates that WB has shut down 3 studios (which was later confirmed) in a restructuring move that management says will help created growth in 2025.

In the prepared remarks to investors, the company indicates that WB Games currently is not profitable. The games segment recorded a total impairment charge of $384 million for the entire year; basically, WB dramatically reduced the worth of its gaming assets in 2024. The significant losses from Suicide Squad Kill the Justice League and Multiversus are the main culprits.

Miss the heady days of Windows Vista? Well, some people must, as the ancient operating system from Microsoft has been recreated in a modern take, as a theme for Windows 11.

To be precise, this is a DIY patchwork theme for the utility Windhawk that goes by the name of the 'Windows Vista 2025 Edition.'

Windows Central spotted this, and explains that the setup process is rather convoluted (not to mention that it comes with something of an oddity).

Microsoft has made the Copilot app available on macOS, so those curious to try out the AI on an Apple computer can now grab it from the Mac App Store.

It's not available to all those with a Mac, though, and there are some notable system and regional requirements to be aware of.

You'll need to be running macOS 14.0 or better, and Apple M-series silicon is also necessary to run the Copilot software (M1 or better, in other words).

AMD has finally announced the pricing for its new RDNA 4 GPUs - the Radeon RX 9070 and Radeon RX 9070 XT. We posted many stories on RDNA 4 earlier today, which you can read below, but during our pre-brief with AMD, the company wasn't quite ready to confirm pricing. Based on the number of leaks from the event, we can understand why.

AMD confirmed that the new flagship Radeon RX 9070 XT will launch for $599 USD during its RDNA 4 live stream event that just wrapped up (that you can watch above). AMD also confirmed that 4K performance will be roughly 2% slower than the $749 GeForce RTX 5070 Ti. 2% means performance, on average, should be on par, with AMD's new Radeon RX 9070 XT GPU costing 20% less than NVIDIA's card.

AMD notes that partner OC models, pushing the power draw from 304W to 340W, will turn that into a 2% lead over the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti. However, as the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti also has OC models, we assume this is compared to the reference MSRP spec. Confusingly, the baseline Radeon RX 9070 will launch for $549 USD, 8% lower than the Radeon RX 9070 XT's price. However, based on AMD's benchmark data, the Radeon RX 9070 will be 20% slower than the Radeon RX 9070 XT - which does bring its value into question. Why not spend a few more dollars and get a noticeably better GPU.

AMD Software: Adrenaline Edition is the driver and software platform for AMD Radeon GPUs. With the arrival of RDNA and the Radeon RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT combo, it's getting a massive AI overhaul. One of the brand-new opt-in features is AMD Image Inspector, a driver-based AI convolutional neural network (CNN) model that will run live on the Radeon RX 9070 and Radeon RX 9070 XT and watch you game.

"Shortly after launching your game," AMD explains. "AMD Image Inspector starts sampling on-screen content at a fixed interval." Translation, it will take screenshots. The reason? It's designed to look for artefacts and issues by assigning the screenshot a score to see if it requires further investigation.

You can review all captures before sending them off to AMD, as "nothing is sent until you give the go-ahead." This will then be passed on to AMD's team as part of the AMD User Experience Program to identify and rectify issues internally. Yes, it's an AI tool that runs and takes screenshots of the games you're playing to streamline driver and Adrenaline Edition software improvements.

Cyberpunk 2077's impressive RT Overdrive Path Tracing Mode running on a Radeon RX 9070 XT with a playable frame-rate? Yes, it sounds like it's on the cards.

Path Tracing or Full Ray Tracing is the future of lighting in games; it takes the promise of ray-tracing and applies the concept of tracing light rays and bounces around a scene to calculate and render realistic shadows, reflections, indirect lighting, global illumination, and more. If a single real-time ray-tracing effect like reflections is hardware intensive, then Path Tracing is like jumping ahead a decade.

Path Tracing in games like Cyberpunk 2077, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, and Alan Wake 2 is like seeing remastered versions of these games from 2030. They're playable on modern hardware only due to AI - specifically DLSS Super Resolution, Ray Reconstruction, and Frame Generation. NVIDIA's DLSS-powered Ray Reconstruction is a key reason why these titles look incredible, as the AI-powered denoiser can restore or render noticeably more detail in everything from reflections to texture detail and lighting.

RDNA 4 is the latest gaming GPU architecture, powering the new Radeon RX 9070 and Radeon RX 9070 XT. It paves the way for Neural Rendering to become significant for gaming in the coming years.

RDNA 4 doubles the AI performance compared to RDNA 3, with 2nd Generation AI Accelerators supporting FP8, which powers AMD's new custom Super Resolution model for FSR 4. Unlike previous versions of FSR, FSR 4 is exclusive to RDNA 4 as it leverages the latest AI hardware to deliver a massive improvement to image quality when compared to the non-AI FSR 3.1 - a big step to leveling the playing field with NVIDIA DLSS.

The other big update arrives with RDNA 4's 3rd Generation Raytracing Accelerators, which doubles the ray-tracing throughput per Compute Unit with dual ray intersection calculations and more optimizations like compressing BVH sizes and new technology like 'Oriented Bounding Boxes' that improves performance at the hardware level.

AMD delayed the RDNA 4 reveal and launch to ensure that the software side of the equation was where it needed to be. Raw performance and efficiency gains and other hardware improvements are always great. However, if the software support is lacking - not just on the driver front - then the experience can feel incomplete. This was an issue with RDNA 3, where AMD teased Frame Generation capabilities and other FSR improvements without them being ready on day one.

All of that is changing on March 6, when the company launches its new Radeon RX 9070 and Radeon RX 9070 XT GPUs in collaboration with partners such as ASRock, ASUS, GIGABYTE, Sapphire, PowerColor, and more. Early adopters will enjoy the benefits of the new AI-powered FSR 4 in 30+ games on day one, with over 75 more titles adding support throughout 2025.

During an RDNA 4 pre-brief, AMD discussed all of FSR 4's advancements, from the new model being trained on cutting-edge AMD Instinct hardware to how its hybrid FP8 model was explicitly designed to take a lower-resolution image and recreate that at a much higher resolution with image clarity on par with native rendering.

With FSR 4, AMD's answer to NVIDIA DLSS, the company embraces AI and machine learning to enhance image quality and performance. It builds on the upgradable API of FSR 3.1, so like DLSS 4, there will be a driver-level option to enable FSR 4 in games that feature FSR 3.1 via a simple .dll file swap. Exclusive to RDNA 4 and the new Radeon RX 9070 and Radeon RX 9070 XT, launching on March 6, 2025, FSR 4 will be available in over 30 games on day one.

AMD notes that games will also feature native support for FSR 4 on day one, with over 75 more games set to adopt the new AI-powered Super Resolution upscaling in 2025. Compared to DLSS, this still leaves a big gap between the number of games you can enable NVIDIA's new DLSS 4 in and those with native or driver-level FSR 4 support. The good news is that the upgradable nature of FSR 4 means that updates can be applied to all games with existing support.

However, games with FSR 2 or FSR 3 will not be compatible with the driver-level FSR 4 override, as only FSR 3.1 has this capability.