Latest News - Page 507

This week on the TT Show, Jak and Kosta dig into the revelation that the highly anticipated first-party Xbox RPG from Obsidian, Avowed, is targeting 30 FPS on Xbox consoles. This comes from one of the game's developers stating precisely that during a recent interview.

Microsoft set the expectation of 60FPS gaming ahead of the Xbox Series X launch, and yet now it seems another gaming like Starfield and Redfall will be launching without a performance mode. There's plenty of gaming news and discussion this week, with Jak giving his impressions of Age of Mythology: Retold and Kosta talking about his time with Ubisoft's open-world Star War Outlaws.

The discussion then leads into the recent launch of the PlayStation AAA multiplayer game Concord, which is proving dead on arrival with abysmal player counts on Steam and reportedly poor sales on PS5. What went wrong? The duo digs into it, as Concord is shaping to be one of the biggest flops in gaming history.

OpenAI is one of biggest companies in the world leading the push into artificial intelligence-powered surfaces, and you could certainly argue the company was the first to popularize the technology that has been used by developers in less sophisticated forms for quite some time.

Artificial intelligence-powered devices, services, and applications are popping up everywhere, and the moniker AI labeling is being slapped on seemingly every piece of technology that it can be applied to - even some that don't deserve it and are simply attempting to ride the hype surrounding AI products.

The popularity of AI can be traced back to the explosion that was the release of OpenAI's ChatGPT, in which it attracted more than 100 million monthly active users in just two months, setting the record for the fastest growing consumer-application in history. ChatGPT was released in November 2022, and according to OpenAI it's active monthly user base has grown substantially since then, attracting an additional 100 million users.

NASA has Boeing have officially announced when the Starliner capsule that transported NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to the International Space Station (ISS) in June for what was meant to be a week-long stay, will leave the ISS for its return journey back to Earth.

The Starliner capsule has a tumultuous existence to say the least as Boeing has endured numerous delays with the initial development, costing the company exorbitant amounts of money, only to now be faced with new problems that will likely amount to even more money in brand damage. In short, Boeing's Starliner spacecraft had a few leaks prior to launch but was cleared by NASA and Boeing.

Upon arrival at the ISS additional leaks were detected and after a lengthy investigation that has spanned several months, NASA has determined along with the guidance of Boeing that Starliner doesn't meet the safety requirements to transport the two NASA astronauts back to Earth. NASA and Boeing have downplayed the way the situation is being described, saying the astronauts aren't technically stranded as there are viable methods of transportation docked at the ISS, and the ISS carries enough resources to support the astronauts' stay.

The popularity of Black Myth: Wukong has been quite impressive with the new single-player title has already moved more than 10 million copies worldwide, and it hasn't even released on Xbox yet.

That last point has been quite the focus as of recent as Xbox gamers are patiently waiting for their version to sink their teeth into but are hearing conflicting rumors from multiple insider sources as to why Black Myth: Wukong has been delayed. The source of the confusion lays between statements from the title's developer, along with statements from Xbox and industry insiders.

Game Science said back in June that it was "currently optimizing the Xbox Series X|S version to meet our quality standards" and that it would "announce the release date as soon as it meets our quality standards". However, shortly after the launch of Black Myth: Wukong an insider claimed they spoke to Xbox insiders at Gamescom that informed them Black Myth: Wukong was affected by a technical issue on Xbox consoles, specifically from a bug known as a "memory leak".

PlayStation 5 Pro hype is reaching what appears to be a boiling point with many rumors now pointing to a reveal slated for the first half of September.

Leading up to the recent leaks and rumors an image was posted to X by Hideo Kojima's assistant Ayako Terashima, which was then re-shared by Kojima, who wrote that he's "building the game these days" and running it through all of the necessary testing methods, covering aspects such as "gameplay, map, enemies, placing things, events, UI, graphics, sound, animation, cut-scenes" and more.

Kojima didn't state what game he was play testing, or what console he was play testing it on. However, fans were quick to notice the cable from Kojima's controller going into a mysteriously covered and presumably, PlayStation console. Notably, Tom Henderson from Insider Gaming stated the PS5 and PS5 Pro developer kits, or the consoles developers receive from Sony to play test their games on to ensure they meet the minimum requirements for a public release, have exactly the same physical design.

After years of exclusivity on the Epic Store, Borderlands 4 is back on Steam...and Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford shares some candid thoughts on the Epic Games Store as a whole.

Back in 2019, Gearbox shocked PC gamers by announcing that Borderlands 3 would be exclusive to the Epic Games Store. The move was a big bet from the Fortnite-maker, who was spending millions to secure exclusive games for its fledgling PC storefront in a bid to attract more users. Years later, Borderlands is back on Steam, with Borderlands 4 planning to launch on both EGS and Valve's store.

So what happened exactly? From a business perspective, it seems a bit straightforward--Steam is much bigger than the Epic Store and can potentially rake in more sales. So it makes sense to release new games onto Steam. But back in 2019, Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford believed in the Epic Store to a greater extent than he does now, so much that he declared Steam may "look like a dying store" in 5-10 years.

NVIDIA is thinking about joining the new funding round for OpenAI, that would value the AI startup at over $100 billion, reports The Wall Street Journal.

According to "people familiar with the matter" the new valuation would peg OpenAI at worth over $100 billion, and would see NVIDIA joining US-based tech giants Apple and Microsoft who are also reportedly in talks to participate in the funding round.

Thrive Capital would be leading the funding round, investing around $1 billion, while two sources of the WSJ said that NVIDIA discussed investing about $100 million into OpenAI. The Wall Street Journal reached out to representatives from NVIDIA, Apple, Microsoft, OpenAI, and Thrive, but all of them declined to comment (no surprise).

OpenAI has announced its ChatGPT chatbot service has over 200 million weekly active users, double the 100 million users that were using ChatGPT this time last year. That's a big upgrade in users, but ChatGPT has taken over the world.

ChatGPT was launched in 2022 capable of generating human-like responses based on user prompts, and had over 100 million weekly active users, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in November. The AI startup said that 92% of Fortune 500 companies are using its AI-powered products, and the use of its automated Application Programming Interface (API) allowing software programs to talk to each other, has double since ChatGPT-4o mini launched in July 2024.

ChatGPT-4o mini is a cost-effective, smaller AI model that is aimed at making its AI-powered technology more affordable, and it uses less power, allowing OpenAI to target a wider range of customers.

AMD's next-gen RDNA 4 GPU architecture has been in the headlines a couple of times this week, now we're hearing that Radeon RX 8000 series cards will feature 48MB to 64MB of next-gen Infinity Cache.

In a new post on X, leaker "Kepler_L2" was asked about IC (Infinity Cache) sizes on AMD's next-gen RDNA 4 GPUs, to which he simply replied "64, 64, 48". The decode on that is that we will see the RDNA 4-powered Radeon RX 8000 series (unless they stupidly insert AI-something into the name) in 3 different configurations.

AMD's first RNDA 4-based card rumored would be the Radeon RX 8800 XT and should have a 256-bit memory bus with 20Gbps GDDR6 memory and 64MB of next-gen Infinity Cache, the second (RX 8700 XT) should have a 256-bit memory bus with 18Gbps GQDDR6 memory and 64MB of Infinity Cache, while the last RDNA 4 card (RX 8600 XT) should have a 192-bit memory bus with 19Gbps GDDR6 memory.

Corsair has just launched its new XENEON 34-inch QD-OLED ultrawide gaming monitor, the new XENEON 34WQHD240-C, featuring a 3440 x 1440 resolution, 240Hz refresh rate, and a price of $1199. Check it out:

The new Corsair XENEON 34WQHD240-C QD-OLED gaming monitor offers vibrant colors, true deep blacks, and boosted brightness for movies, working, and especially gaming. Corsair is using an all-white design on the new QD-OLED gaming monitor, so if you've got a white-themed gaming PC, this is perfect for you.

Corsair is using Samsung's latest 2024 QD-OLED panel, with a 34-inch QD-OLD panel and a native 3440 x 1440 resolution with its 21:9 aspect ratio, and super-smooth 240Hz refresh rate. There's up to 1000 nits of peak brightness and up to 99% DCI-P3 color gamut, DisplayHDR True Black 400 and up to 1,500,000:1 contrast ratio.

If you were about to pull the trigger on the MSI Claw gaming handheld... don't, wait for MSI's beefed-up Claw 8 AI+ gaming handheld which is powered by Intel's next-gen Lunar Lake CPU.

MSI teased its upgraded Claw 8 AI+ at Computex 2024 surprising most people, inside we'll see Intel's upcoming Core Ultra 20V series "Lunar Lake" processor, which has more performance, more gaming performance, and better power efficiency. Great stuff for a gaming handheld, and much better than the Intel Meteor Lake chip inside of the current Claw 7 gaming handheld.

MSI's new Claw 8 AI+ gaming handheld doesn't just have the new Lunar Lake processor, but a bigger 8-inch screen, and a much bigger battery. The original MSI Claw 7 shipped with the Intel Core Ultra 100H series "Meteor Lake" CPUs, LPDDR5-6400 memory, a 7-inch 1080p 120Hz VRR display, a 53WHr battery, and 1 x Thunderbolt 4 port.

Japanese gamers are briefly turning to Xbox as Sony raises the price of its PlayStation 5 consoles and accessories, new sales data from Yodobashi indicates.

Sony is raising the price of the PS5 in Japan for the third time, and it looks like consumers are opting for competitor systems in response to the cost hike--at least temporarily. Sony has announced that the PS5 will now cost 79,980 yen for the disc model, and 72,980 yen for the digital model. Since launch, Sony has raised the cost of both systems by +60% and +83% respectively, driven by fluctuating values of Japan's yen currency.

Now it looks like Japanese consumers are more open to buying Xbox hardware, at least for the time being. According to the best-sellers charts of Japan's popular Yodobashi storefront, the digital-only Xbox Series X took the #13 spot with a 59,970 yen price tag. The Series S, which costs 49,970 yen, was also on the top 50 list, clocking in at a much lower #48 spot on the Yodobashi top-sellers chart.

UPDATE: Sources have told insider Shpeshal Nick that Black Myth: Wukong did not have timed exclusivity on PlayStation.

"I heard there was a misunderstanding around this stuff. I heard Sony only paid to help get the port done. No exclusivity," he said on Twitter.

It's possible that Sony indeed helped accelerate the game's development on PS5 without an exclusivity deal, however these are usually things that come with said deals--Final Fantasy XVI, for example, benefitted from close access to Sony's tech teams as part of the game's exclusivity deal on PS5.

Could Grand Theft Auto 6 push game prices past $70 and introduce a new MSRP to the Gen 9 console market? It seems unlikely, considering a major hike just happened 4 years ago.

The phrase "survive till 25" has become somewhat of a mantra for the games industry right now. The market is wracked with layoffs and fraught with inflation, and publishers are responding to rising costs by cutting jobs, cancelling projects, and closing studios (for example, the Embracer Group has laid off thousands, cancelled dozens of games, and shut down dozens of studios).

There's one thing that hasn't changed, though: Game prices. Publishers already helped push the new $69.99 pricing norm just 4 years ago in 2020, leading to a mega-boom in revenues during intra-COVID-19 periods, but that growth wasn't sustainable. Coupled with rising costs of living and inflation throughout 2023, publishers were hit on both the top and bottom; growth wasn't happening, and they now had to pay their workers more than before.

The Google Pixel 9 series hasn't been out for very long at all and users are already reporting battery problems and "odd behavior".

Outlets such as Android Central and 9to5Google are reporting users experiencing charging problems with the Google Pixel 9 XL's wireless charging capabilities. According to reports the new smartphones are experiencing "odd behavior" when placed in wireless charging, with one user reporting they attached a MagSafe puck with a Mous MagSafe case on their device and the smartphone failed to charge. Moreover, the MagSafe Qi charge resulted in sporadic charging and the device generating an uncomfortable amount of heat.

Notably, one user tried their device with five different wireless chargers, and all produced the same results with the Pixel 9 Pro XL, which was compared to the Pixel 8. This isn't the first time a new generation of smartphone from Google has been hit with problems immediately after launch, as the Pixel 8 Pro owners suffered from strange charging port issues related to the USB-C port in their device. These problems lasted a few months after launch.

AMD Ryzen Zen 5 processors have just received a performance boost on AM5 MSI motherboards as the company has rolled out a fresh BIOS update that implements a new overclocking mode.

The BIOS update was originally spotted by WCCFTech and is the BIOS version AGESA 1.2.0.1, which includes the new performance mode "105W TDP". As you can probably already expect, the new mode increases the total amount of power available to the CPU, which in this case are AMD's mid-range Ryzen 9000 processors - the Ryzen 9700X and Ryzen 9600X. Typically these processors run at 65W, which means this mode increases power usage by 60%, but how much performance does that gain?

The new mode was benchmarked in Cinebench R23, and on the Ryzen 9700X the mult-core score was 23,153, which is quite a step up from the 20,409 score on the 65W mode. The discrepacy between the two scores indicates a performance increase of 13%, but that isn't indicative of every task, or particularly gaming.

An infamous leaker has suggested Samsung is currently working on its biggest foldable smartphone yet, and it's reportedly called the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold Special Edition.

The leak comes from Even Blass, who is known as an industry insider that has accurately called previous rumors. Blass wrote in an X post that the previous rumored names of "Galaxy Z Fold Slim" and "Galaxy Z Fold Ultra" are incorrect and the correct name for the upcoming Samsung device is "Galaxy Z Fold Special Edition" and it will be an improvement of the company's current flagship Z Fold 6.

The rumored device is expected to come with a bigger screen and will take the crown as Samsung's biggest display on Galaxy Z device, with the screen size increasing from 6.2 inches to 6.5 inches. As for the inner screen, it will increase from 7.6 inches to 8 inches. Thickness is on the Special Edition is reportedly decreasing from 6.1 mm to 5.6mm. To achieve this level of thickness Samsung has decided to remove the S Pen port.

It appears the first design leak for Sony's upcoming PlayStation 5 Pro have leaked online, with the rumor suggesting this is the final design of the PS5 Pro and what buyers can expect when it finally releases.

The rumors come from DeaLabs and insider Billbil-kun, who is a known industry insider that has previously correctly predicted coming free PS Plus games. The leak states the final design of the PS5 Pro has been locked in and it will be announced in the first half of September 2024, which would put it in line for a possible hands-on experience by attendees of the Tokyo Games Show.

As for the PS5 Pro design, the leak is a sketched image of the final shell of the new console, which is very similar to the PS5 Slim variant. The upcoming console features two USB-C ports on the front along with a power button, with the inclusion of three black stripes in the middle of the system (versus one on the PS5 Slim). Additionally, Billbil-kun believes the PS5 Pro will come with a removable cover that for customization purposes.

Age of Empires and Age of Mythology were a few of the very first games I ever played as a child, and for that reason are part of the foundation that spawned my love for gaming. Now, 20 years later, Age of Mythology is getting a re-release but with a fresh coat of paint, modern real-time-strategy (RTS) features, fresh animations, and new civilizations. Introducing, Age of Mythology: Retold.

Hopping straight into Age of Mythology: Retold we are hit with that incredible nostalgia-triggering soundtrack, but our eyes are blessed with a completely redesigned menu screen. Moving over to play a quick match, the god selection screen has been completely redesigned with a much more cleaner layout that has split each of the gods up into separate pantheons, clearly outlined different game settings and maps, while also showcasing the addition of the new god Freyr.

In this match I played Zeus with the following settings: Standard Game Type, Standard Victory Condition, Standard Starting Resources, Medium Game Speed, Titans on, and Difficulty set to Standard. The match was played on Nile Shallows and was captured with OBS with the following recording settings: 4K at a bitrate of 30 Mbps with the NVIDIA NVENC H.264 encoder through OBS. I pushed all of the graphics to maximum, including Ray Tracing features, and was able to achieve a solid 120 FPS at 4K with my NVIDIA RTX 4090. However, with the inbuilt benchmark tool I scored 1600.

Intel will be revealing its next-gen Core Ultra 200V series "Lunar Lake" laptop CPUs next week, while cooking its next-gen Core Ultra 200 series "Arrow Lake" desktop CPUs later this year... and now rumors of "Arrow Lake Halo" are emerging.

First, AMD has just pushed out its new Ryzen AI 300 series "Strix Point" APUs while rumor has it we're going to see "Strix Halo" later this year offering heavy, heavy upgrades in CPU and GPU power (over double the GPU performance) as well as much higher TDPs. Strix Halo, will be battling against the newly-rumored "Arrow Lake Halo" processor.

In a new shipping manifest spotted by NBD.LTD, an early sample of Intel's new Arrow Lake Halo CPU has been teased for an enthusiast mobile workstation system. The chip in question was tested on the "CEDARLHX5SO1DPC1" which is an RVP (Reference Evaluation Platform) which is used to test the chip internally before it's sent out. The CPU was recently sent, and produced on the 34th week of 2023, meaning it's close to a year old now.