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Concord is a new first-person competitive hero shooter from Firewalk Studios and the latest first-party PlayStation game to launch simultaneously on PC and PlayStation 5. Earlier this year, Sony found immediate and incredible success in releasing the multiplayer-focused Helldivers 2 on PC and PS5.

Was it hoping to replicate that success with Concord? Most likely. However, the opposite has happened - Concord has had one of the worst game launches in recent memory, hitting a maximum of 697 concurrent players on its first weekend on Steam. And it's dropping fast.

This is a dramatically lower player count than even 2024's most notorious flop, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, and a death sentence for a competitive shooter. By all accounts, the gameplay of Concord isn't the issue, nor is the overall performance and polish of the game - the game isn't resonating with gamers for a few key reasons. Let's break them down.

Popular action-adventure game Stellar Blade has generated roughly $19.5 million in revenue for developer Shift Up, but it has apparently sold more than 1 million copies on the PlayStation 5.

New earnings reports from Korean games company Shift Up give a clear look at the impact of Stellar Blade's sales. According to publicly-released data, Shift Up made 65.2 million Korean won (KRW), which amounts to roughly $48 million, in Q2'24, which coincides with the April - June 2024 period in which Stellar Blade had launched.

The company enjoyed an impressive operating profit margin of nearly 69% with 45.1 million KRW ($33.1 million) earned during the quarter. According to the results, Stellar Blade made about $19.5 million in royalties, which is an interesting figure.

Steam has increased its concurrent player count by over 500,000 users in the last month, new data from SteamDB reveals.

Valve's PC platform has now achieved a new all-time concurrent player record. According to updated figures from SteamDB, the distribution client has amassed a whopping 37.26 million users all logged into the service at the same time. All-time peak players reached a total of 37,266,324, up +657,292 users since July 2024.

Black Myth: Wukong, which has sold a total of 10 million copies across all platforms, may be a big driver for some of this growth. The game has proven to be wildly successful in China, and has been #1 on Steam's top-selling charts for days since Wukong's launch on August 19.

Concord is #511 on Steam's top sellers list, official sales data from Valve indicates.

It's no shock that Concord isn't doing too well on Steam right now. Sony Interactive Entertainment's new first-party live service shooter has achieved less than 700 peak concurrent players since launch on Valve's PC platform--at the time of writing, there are 340 players, with 437 peak players in the last 24-hour period.

Valve publishes its top-selling games on Steam in a 1-100 list, but there's also an extended list that includes all of the platform's games listed from best- to worst-selling. Out of curiosity, I decided to take this list and throw it into Excel just to see where Concord sat.

US federal judge Pamela Chan has ordered Martin Shkreli "Pharma Bro" to turn over any and all copies he possesses of an ultra-rare Wu-Tang Clan album "Once Upon A Time in Shaolin" from 2015.

Not only that, but Shkreli is also forbidden from streaming or disseminating copies of the record, which is not just ultra-rate, but only a single copy exists on the planet, and Pharma Bro owns it. Why is this happening? The album's current owner, digital collective "PleasrDAO", claims that Shkreli has unauthorized copies of the album, and distributed it without permission.

Steven Cooper, one of the attorneys representing PleasrDAO provided an oral argument in the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York with Judge Pamela Chan, with Cooper releasing a statement saying: "Today's ruling by the court is an important victory for our client PleasrDAO, who owns the exclusive rights to the one-of-a-kind-Wu-Tang Clan album".

The news of two new Half-Life games in development has been rumored for a while now, but more and more information is coming out about the two new Half-Life gamers from leaker Tyler McVicker. Check out his latest video below:

The 20th anniversary of Half-Life 2 is fast approaching us, so Valve teasing a next-generation Half-Life game would be quite the way to celebrate Gordon Freeman's 20th birthday. McVicker reminds us about Valve's next-gen in-house Deckard VR headset, connecting the dots between the new VR headset and the new Half-Life games.

Valve's two new Half-Life games would include a version you can play with your mouse and keyboard on the PC, playing as Gordon Freeman, while the other game is in VR -- probably tailor-made for Valve's new Deckard VR headset -- as Alyx Vance. You play TOGETHER in the new game, which would be incredibly cool to see happen.

MSI will feed your next-gen GeForce RTX 50 series GPU with its high-end X870E motherboards featuring dedicated 8-pin PCIe power connectors to pump more power into the motherboard, and then into the graphics card.

The company showed off its new MPG X870E Carbon Wi-Fi motherboard with a ton of features and upgrades, with one of the most interesting parts of MSI's new high-end X870E motherboard is its dedicated 8-pin power connector that supplements the power needs of the Gen5 lanes on the motherboard.

Wccftech scored some more details on this new feature, and the reason why MSI is packing on an 8-pin power connector on its high-end X870E motherboards is for NVIDIA's next-generation GeForce RTX 50 series graphics cards coming out later this year, and into 2025.

Telegram CEO Pavel Durov was arrested at the Le Bourget airport outside of France over the weekend, where he was arrested as part of a police investigation into a wide range of alleged crimes including money laundering, drug trafficking, and human trafficking.

Durov is a dual citizen of both France and Russia, taken into custody after landing from a private jet at the Paris-Le Bourget Airport on Saturday night. Investigators from the National Anti-Fraud Office, attached to the French customs department notified Durov that he was being placed into police custody.

French media is reporting that the warrant for the Telegram CEO's arrest was issued by France at the request of the special unit at the country's interior ministry in charge of investigating crimes against minors. These charges include online sexual exploitation, including possession and distribution of child sexual abuse (CSA) content and grooming for sexual purposes.

It has been referred to as the last piece of the puzzle for OLED display technology, making the most impressive display technology on the market even better - with brightness to match and even surpass Quantum Dot or QD technology. According to a new report, it all comes down to blue phosphorescence or PHOLED, and LG claims that it's cracked this elusive 'Dream OLED' technology.

Here is a quick primer on what makes blue phosphorescence a potential game-changer for OLED displays. It all comes down to the fact that when it comes to subpixel technology across RGB, blue OLED tech is far less efficient and more complex to achieve a high brightness than it is with red and green.

So, blue light for a traditional OLED panel is not as bright and produces more heat. LG's new technology will stack phosphorescence and fluorescent blue OLED technologies for better efficiency, brightness, and longevity. Yes, it solves all issues and shortcomings with current OLED panels.

Valve has finally announced the existence of one of the worst-kept secrets in the PC gaming world: its new multiplayer game, Deadlock. Tens of thousands of players have jumped into the game in recent weeks and months, so the company is finally ready for people to start talking about it and sharing impressions.

With Gamescom, you might have expected Valve to appear at the event and drop a Deadlock announcement trailer. Well, that's not the case. All that's happened is that the Deadlock Store Page on Steam has gone live with a little teaser video that doesn't show much, if anything, and a simple description that reads, "Deadlock is a multiplayer game in early development."

With more and more players jumping into Deadlock, we can confirm that it's a team or hero-based third-person shooter that incorporates mechanics that made Valve's DOTA 2 a hit. Lane-based action, upgrades, fighting creeps, and mini-bosses present a different flavor than Overwatch or Team Fortress 2.

ASUS has partnered with AMD and Focus Home Interactive to create a custom GPU to celebrate the PC launch of Warhammer 40:000: Space Marine 2. It's a very tasty-looking AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX. The 7900 XTX is AMD's current flagship gaming GPU and a powerful card capable of delivering triple-digit 4K performance in several titles.

This limited-edition GPU, which only has 20 units, is a custom version of the company's TUF Gaming design. With Space Marine blue and other little Warhammer 40,000 touches, it's a fantastic-looking card. With ASUS confirming at Gamescom over the weekend that it won't be available to purchase, all 20 units will be given away via this Warhammer promotion website.

Warhammer 40:000: Space Marine 2 is out on September 9, 2024. It will support AMD's updated FSR 3.1 for upscaling and frame generation on PC. FSR 3.1 brings improvements to both FSR's upscaling and frame generation image quality, with support for all modern graphics cards

Intel's next-generation Core Ultra 7 268V "Lunar Lake" CPU has been putting in some hours on Geekbench, with a new chip pushing even higher results than the last time we saw the Core Ultra 7 268V on Geekbench.

In the new results, the Core Ultra 7 268V "Lunar Lake" CPU scores 2915 points in the single-core run of Geekbench 6, and 11448 points in the multi-core run. This is compared to 2739 points and 9907 points for single- and multi-core, respectively, with the previous leak on the Core Ultra 7 268V processor being benched on Geekbench.

That's a decent 7.4% improvement in single-core performance, and a 14% increase in multi-core performance between the new, and older Core Ultra 7 268V processor. We should expect slightly better performance as we get closer to the retail Lunar Lake processors, and their launch in early September.

Chinese companies have imported around $26 billion worth of semiconductor manufacturing equipment, according to new trade data released by China's General Administration of Customs this week.

In a new report from Bloomberg, we're finding out that Chinese imports of semiconductor equipment hit a new record for the first 7 months of 2024, as Chinese companies are racing to increase pricing in case the United States and its allies continue to block them from purchasing semiconductor-related equipment.

ASML makes the world's leading-edge High-NA EUV lithography machines, used by semiconductor giants TSMC, Samsung, and Intel has been a recent -- and big-paying -- customer of ASML's machines. ASML is based in the Netherlands, and wouldn't you know, shipments from ASML to China surged 21% in Q2 2024 to almost half of ASML's total revenue.

KIOXIA plans to IPO in October driven by the insatiable AI demand, and the soaring demand of semiconductors to fuel the AI demand.

The Japanese NAND flash memory chip maker is looking at an anticipated valuation of 1.5 trillion yen (around $10.3 billion USD or so) reports Nikkei. The outlet reports that KIOXIA would use the future funds raised from its IPO to increasing the production of cutting-edge memory as well as development of next-generation chips.

Nikkei talked with a "KIOXIA insider" who hoped the IPO would diversity its funding channels, and said: "We've been tight on cash so far, which has left us lagging behind in our ability to invest". Another insider said "even though memory demand is strong now, we don't know what might happen right up to the last minute, like in 2020, so we can't let our guard down".

We all know that Sony is working on a PlayStation 5 Pro console through rumors, but the company hasn't been official about the PS5 Pro at all... meanwhile, at Gamescom 2024 last week, it was an "open secret" that the PS5 Pro is coming.

Gamescom 2024 is held each year in Cologne, Germany, where this year Sony could've, but ultimately didn't unveil the PlayStation 5 Pro.

But, this didn't stop the developers at Gamescom talking about the PS5 Pro, where in a recent livestream by Italian website Multiplayer, said they had heard from a developer that they delayed their game because of the upcoming launch of the PS5 Pro.

Researchers have used data acquired by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory to detail a supermassive black hole's last meal, and how many times it will snack on it before its completely consumed.

The supermassive black hole was originally discovered in 2018 and is called AT2018fyk, and it has a mass approximately 50 million times more than the Sun. When the supermassive black hole was first discovered researchers noticed a brief spike in the brightness of the system, which when observing black holes typically means the celestial vacuum cleaner has consumed material. The scientists calculated if it was an object orbiting the black hole it would pass by again in August 2023.

The waiting was worth it, as researchers detected the object again on August 13. Researchers determined the object was a star that is orbiting the black hole at a distance that only causes chunks of its material to be torn off and sucked into the black hole. The orbit of the star has put it a bit of a pickle as its too far away to be completely consumed by the black hole (yet), but is still close enough for the extreme gravitational pull of the black hole to tear material off its surface.

Black Myth Wukong has quickly become one of the most-played single-player games in the world after it released on PC and PlayStation.

The title from Chinese developer Game Science has already sold more than 10 million copies across the globe as of August 23, which is only three days after its release. The new single-player RPG has also shattered records on Steam as it became the most-played single-player game in the platforms history with more than 2.4 million concurrent players, and still remains the #1 top-selling game. With all this popularity around Black Myth Wukong it begs the question - where is the Xbox release?

A recent Forbes article dives into this question and states that Black Myth Wukong is suffering from the same fate as Baldur's Gate 3, which was development issues related to Microsoft's low-end console, the Xbox Series S. Game Science actually addressed this back in June when fans noticed the Xbox logo was removed from Black Myth Wukong's marketing material.

Scams come in all different shapes and sizes, but one technique is particularly frightening and that's called "pig butchering," which involves an individual spending a long time developing a relationship with their victim only to eventually present them with a "business" opportunity that ruins them financially.

It's perhaps one of the cruellest forms of scamming someone as it involves developing trust with a person through a perceived genuine relationship. Unbeknownst to the victim, that trust is then shattered after the scammer runs away with their money. 53-year-old Shan Hanes, former CEO of Heartland Tri-State Bank in Elkhart, Kanas fell for this type of scam and has been sentenced to 24 years in prison for illegally wiring $47.1 million that led to the collapse of the bank.

The eleven transactions that Hanes made between May and July 2023 resulted in investors of the bank losing $9 million, which forced the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) to absorb the $47 million loss and seize the bank. Some customers of the bank lost nearly all of their retirement funds, which funnily enough was also Hanes, who lost all of his embezzlement money.

Vintage gaming equipment can be quite hard to come by, and when you are looking for something that is truly unique it comes with an equally heavy price tag.

But what price tag do you put on a gold-plated Nintendo Wii console intended for Queen Elizabeth II? It seems it can be anywhere between $40,000 and $14,000. The one-of-one console was conceived by THQ as a marketing stunt for the release of Big Family Games, but has now appeared for the first time at Gamescom 2024 in Cologne, Germany for public viewing.

The 24K gold-plated console was sent to Queen Elizabeth by THQ, but since the Crown doesn't accept "unsolicited gifts" the console made its way into the hands of a collector before it was passed on to ConsoleVariations, the ultimate console database. ConsoleVariations held a booth at Gamescom 2024 where it had on display the extremely rare Golden Wii. Additionally, it was also ConsoleVariations that shared a high-definition photograph of the extremely rare GameCube prototype codenamed "Dolphin".

NVIDIA will be hosting a Hot Chips Talk next week, deep diving into its new Blackwell GPU architecture while reminding the world that its Blackwell GPU has the highest AI compute, memory bandwidth, and interconnect bandwidth ever in a single GPU.

At Hot Chips 2024 next week, NVIDIA will go into more detail about the Blackwell GPU architecture while also reminding us that it features not one, but two reticle-limited GPUs merged into one. One of the limitations of lithographic chipmaking tools is that they've been designed to make ICs (integrated circuits) that are no bigger than around 800 square millimeters, which is referred to as the "reticle limit".

NVIDIA has two reticle-limited AI GPUs together (104 billion transistors per chip, 208 billion transistors in total). NVIDIA will discuss building to the reticle limit, and how it delivers on the highest communication density, lowest latency, and optimal energy efficiency during its Hot Chips Talk.