Latest News - Page 58

Nintendo fans may soon have a full slate of new games to sink their teeth into, as a leaker has said that new Metroid, Zelda, and Smash Bros. titles/content are currently in development.

The claims, which suggest 2027 - 2028 will bring new entries or updates to these iconic franchises, have reignited excitement around Nintendo's next-gen hardware and IP roadmap. To maintain the pace of Nintendo Switch 2 sales, Nintendo needs to keep releasing new titles to give gamers a strong reason to upgrade.

According to KiwiTalkz, a prominent video games journalist who regularly interviews developers, Nintendo is currently working on something new in the three aforementioned franchises for the Nintendo Switch 2. Kiwi Talkz hinted at a potential wave of first-party games slated to launch in a "year or two".

Unbox Therapy has released the most detailed video yet of Apple's rumored foldable iPhone Ultra, offering a tangible look at the device's form factor and ergonomics.

The 10-minute video from Unbox Therapy showcases a dummy unit that aligns with recent leaks, featuring a passport-like shape when folded and a more tablet-like form when opened. Measurements provided in the video show the device to be 117 mm high, 84.27 mm wide, and 11.02 mm thick when closed, with a 5.2 mm thickness when unfolded. The unit also demonstrates the hinge mechanism and how the device wobbles when placed on a surface.

This foldable device is part of Apple's long-rumored strategy to enter the foldable market with a foldable iPhone, a space currently dominated by Samsung, Huawei, and Xiaomi. The dummy unit suggests Apple is moving toward a more compact, multi-form factor design that could appeal to users looking for both portability and a larger-screen experience. The device's ergonomics and button placement are also highlighted, showing how Apple is refining the user experience for a foldable form factor.

Forza Horizon 6 has officially gone gold two weeks ahead of its May 19 release, giving players and developers a healthy buffer ahead of launch.

Playground Games confirmed the final build is locked and ready for distribution, with preloads now live on Xbox and PC. This early gold status only signals that Playground Games is extremely happy with the condition of Forza Horizon 6, which has now set the stage, even more than previous marketing material, for a polished next-gen racing experience.

The game features an expanded soundtrack with 9 radio stations spanning electronic, rock, and synthwave, marking the largest music library in the series to date. Accessibility features like AutoDrive, Proximity Radar, and high-contrast mode have also been highlighted, with post-launch support for ASL and BSL sign language in cinematics.

Whether you're looking to create an engaging product showcase to engage with an audience or looking to enhance and breathe new life into an existing video, look no further than the Vmake AI Agent and the Free AI Video Enhancer tool.

Built for the modern era of short-form marketing and talking-head videos, the Vmake AI Agent-powered UGC (User-Generated Content) video generator is a powerful new way for creators, individuals, and small businesses to create impressive videos and grow their audience. The Vmake Agent offers a complete video creation solution that covers ideation, video generation, editing, packaging, and publishing.

The powerful Vmake AI Agent offers an intuitive interface and a personalized way to generate videos that go above and beyond. For example, if you're a boutique lifestyle brand that designs fashion for trendy consumers, Vmake will guide you through creating an energetic short-form marketing video with a young presenter who highlights product features while showcasing real-world scenarios.

SteelSeries is currently celebrating its 25th anniversary, and the gaming hardware brand has just announced a pair of new wireless gaming headsets: the SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro Omni and Arctis Nova 7 Gen 2. Both are second-generation versions of existing headsets, with the Arctis Nova Pro Omni's Hi-Res Wireless audiophile sound and broadcast-quality microphone making it the company's latest flagship.

The new Arctis Nova Pro Omni is Hi-Res Wireless Certified by the Japanese Audio Society (JAS) and supports 96kHz/24-bit wireless audio over 2.4GHz and Bluetooth, with an expanded frequency range of 10Hz to 40kHz. It also features premium Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) that SteelSeries says "blocks up to 40% more background noise versus the competition," with AI Noise Rejection on the ClearCast Pro microphone, which reduces background noise by up to 96% during chats.

The Arctis Nova Pro Omni also includes the company's GameHub for connecting and switching between multiple audio sources, as well as a dual-battery system for long-term use. The SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro Omni is available today, with an MSRP of $399.99 USD.

Star Wars: Galactic Racer is on track for release this October on PC and consoles, bringing high-speed racing back to the world of Star Wars video games. For fans who grew up playing Star Wars Episode I: Racer on the Nintendo 64, Sega Dreamcast, or PC, this looks and feels like a spiritual successor of sorts, albeit one that expands the vehicles beyond just pod racers.

And as we're talking about the return of a style of Star Wars gaming that has been missing in action for decades, the visuals are getting a major glow-up thanks to Unreal Engine 5, ray tracing, and, on PC, native support for DLSS 4.5 on day one. This includes DLSS Super Resolution with the impressive second-generation Transformer model for all GeForce RTX gamers and the new Dynamic Multi Frame Generation mode for GeForce RTX 50 Series owners.

A game that's a little closer on the horizon, 007 First Light, is also set to get native DLSS 4.5 support when it launches on May 27. From Hitman studio IO Interactive, this new third-person action-adventure looks to present a cinematic James Bond film in-game. On PC, the game will feature an exclusive path-tracing mode developed in collaboration with NVIDIA, enhancing visuals with more realistic, immersive lighting.

AMD has announced its financial results for the first quarter of 2026, and, naturally, Data Center revenue of $5.8 billion accounts for the bulk of the $10.3 billion in total revenue, driven by AMD EPYC processors and AMD Instinct GPU shipments. That said, Client and Gaming segment revenue was right up there with its $3.6 billion, representing a 23% year-over-year increase.

Breaking this down, AMD's Ryzen CPUs generated $2.9 billion in revenue for the Client segment, a solid 26% year-over-year increase, with the Gaming segment's 11% growth to $720 million "driven by solid demand for AMD Radeon GPUs." In fact, it sounds like Radeon GPUs carried the segment, as AMD notes lower semi-custom revenue for the quarter compared to last year, which covers consoles like the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S.

With Radeon driving Gaming growth for AMD, this is attributed to the well-received Radeon RX 9000 Series of desktop GPUs for PC gaming and local AI, as well as the company's commitment to expanding its neural rendering suite with the arrival of FSR 4.1 upscaling and Ray Regeneration 1.1 for enhancing ray-traced lighting detail.

Based on the work of researcher Andy Nguyen, aka TheFlow, you can turn a PlayStation 5 into a Steam Machine-like device that runs Linux as its operating system. However, it's not an easy mod, and there are several caveats to getting Linux up and running on a PS5. According to a new deep dive into Linux on PlayStation 5 by Digital Foundry, it only works on a launch-era PlayStation 5 running system software (firmware) up to version 4.5.

As that firmware dates back to December 2021, finding a Linux-ready PlayStation 5 console to play Steam games could be quite difficult. From there, PS5 Linux leverages an exploit to boot the operating system from a USB stick, which can also be installed in the console's M.2 SSD expansion slot to boost speeds.

With access to the Ubuntu 26.04 LTS distribution, PS5 Linux offers 15GB of memory, all eight cores of the Zen 2 processor boosted to 3.5 GHz, and all 36 CUs of the RDNA 2 GPU clocked at 2.23 GHz. The tool also provides access to cooling, with the option to boost fan speeds to compensate for overclocking. And with that, although the output resolution was locked to 1080p, Digital Foundry was able to test gaming performance and compare that to the same games running natively on the console.

In the modern era of PC builds with panoramic views and tempered glass panels as standard, choosing the right memory requires more than a glance at a spec sheet. For those who care about aesthetics, choosing the right DDR5 memory kit now also means taking stock of the physical design. And when it comes to looks, XPG's new NOVAKEY RGB DDR5 memory presents something we haven't seen before.

According to the company, the NOVAKEY RGB DDR5 series includes the world's first patented 'Infinity Mirror' design. The infinity mirror look has been growing in popularity in recent years, as it blends reflective glass with RGB lighting to create an impressive 3D effect. So, in a way, it was only a matter of time before it hit the DDR5 market for PC gamers and enthusiasts. And it's compatible with all major lighting software, covering ASUS, ASRock, GIGABYTE, MSI, and more.

Spec-wise, you're also looking at solid performance and options for gamers, creators, and enthusiasts, with speeds of up to 6,400 MT/s and capacities up to 32GB per module. XPG notes that NOVAKEY RGB DDR5 memory kits will also be available with ultra-low latencies and CL30 timings, with Power Management IC (PMIC) and On-die ECC (Error Correction Code) for reliability.

We have heard rumblings about DDR6 in the past, mostly centered around early design plans and targets. However, it now seems the next generation of Double Data Rate (DDR) memory is moving closer to production. Apparently, major memory manufacturers have already begun initial development of DDR6 memory, and the launch window could be around two years away.

According to a report from South Korean media outlet TheElec, the memory makers have asked substrate suppliers to prepare designs for DDR6. The report states that memory manufacturers and substrate makers typically engage in this kind of joint development about 2 years before the product is supposed to launch. It is also important to note that the JEDEC DDR6 standard has not yet been finalized.

Electronic Arts soars past $8 billion net bookings for the first time ever, supercharged by nearly half a billion dollars in deferred revenue that had been set aside during previous quarters.

Today, Electronic Arts made history by achieving $8 billion in net bookings throughout FY26, a feat that was achieved thanks to how EA's earnings can overlap on a quarterly basis. For EA, the definition of net bookings is simple--you just subtract deferred revenue from net revenue. This classification allows EA to track how it records microtransaction spending from consumers, and every quarter, the company will set aside a portion of live service earnings to defer to another period in accordance with the game and the content.

That's how EA managed to hit $8 billion in net bookings. The company recognized a substantial stockpile of $495 million in deferred net revenue throughout FY26 that had been set aside through prior quarters. This tacked onto the $7.531 billion that EA earned in the yearly period.

The demand for DRAM and NAND from AI has expanded exponentially, and the memory supply crunch we're currently facing is unlikely to ease anytime soon. At least that's what Sanjay Mehrotra, CEO of memory and storage maker Micron, believes, and in his view, the demand isn't going away and will only get stronger.

In an interview with CNBC, Mehrotra described the current phase of AI-driven demand as just the "first innings," suggesting that we are still early in the cycle. As AI companies scale up compute, faster and higher-density memory will become essential to keep up with growing workloads.

He added that as inference and token demand rise, so will the need for both higher-capacity and higher-performance memory. AI GPUs rely heavily on HBM, while AI CPUs use DRAM, and both are currently in short supply. Mehrotra emphasized that the issue goes beyond pricing, as memory production cannot be ramped up quickly enough to meet demand.

Microsoft is officially retiring Gaming Copilot on Xbox consoles and shifting gears to focus on optimization, efficiency, and growth.

Xbox is changing. The division today announced a big corporate shake-up that saw two Xbox veterans leaving the group, and five new hires joining the team, including multiple people from Microsoft's OpenAI teams. Also, a former Instacart exec now leads Xbox's subscription and cloud business. This realignment also sees Microsoft scrapping plans that no longer fit its vision, like Copilot AI integration on Xbox consoles.

Xbox CEO Asha Sharma today confirmed that the program is being shut down: "As part of this shift, you'll see us begin to retire features that don't align with where we're headed. We will begin winding down Copilot on mobile and will stop development of Copilot on console."

Intel and AMD have agreed to standardize the Advanced Performance Extensions (APX) for x86 CPUs, a move that could improve efficiency and reduce long-standing instruction-set fragmentation.

Intel originally announced APX in July 2023. Historically, the x86-64 standard has mandated 16 General Purpose Registers (GPRs). In a CPU, registers are small, fast storage locations within the processor that hold data temporarily during processing. Data is ultimately brought from memory and caches into these registers for execution.

By doubling the General-Purpose Registers (GPRs) from 16 to 32, the CPU keeps more data in flight. Intel claims this leads to 10% fewer loads and 20% fewer stores. APX also introduces three-operand instructions, allowing the CPU to perform calculations without overwriting the original data. Intel says this doubling improves performance without significantly increasing the die size or power consumption.

Microsoft recently launched several new updates for the ROG Xbox Ally X, including the enablement of its Auto SR AI upscaling technology. YouTube ETA Prime tested the upscaler on the handheld and found noticeably improved image quality at the cost of performance. Performance-wise, activating Auto SR at 720p yielded better performance than native 1080p, but was still slower than native 720p by a noticeable amount.

To recap, Auto SR is Microsoft's competitor to DLSS, FSR, and XeSS and uses an AI algorithm to upscale images from a lower resolution to a higher resolution. The tech differs from NVIDIA, AMD, and Intel's implementations in that it can be activated on all games through the game bar or Windows 11 settings app on supported hardware. Auto SR initially launched in laptops using Microsoft's Copilot+ branding in 2024, but has slowly filtered out to other devices. Currently, it is supported on Intel, Qualcomm, and AMD SoCs as long as the SoCs have an NPU.

The ROG Xbox Ally X is the first handheld to gain Auto SR compatibility. Microsoft specifically designed the tech to be used on external monitors or TVs, as the tech can't be turned on when using the built-in screen. That said, ETA Prime noted a workaround where plugging in the handheld into a charger will allow users to turn Auto SR on using the built-in screen.

JEDEC's JC-40 and JC-45 committees have announced a major new step for the DDR5 MRDIMM ecosystem, a memory standard introduced a few years ago to support bandwidth-intensive data workloads. The MRDIMM Gen2 module standard is nearing completion and targets up to 12,800 MT/s. JEDEC has also published a new DDR5 multiplexed-rank data buffer standard and is preparing a matching clock driver standard.

The headline performance number is the 12,800 MT/s target for Gen2 DDR5 MRDIMM raw card designs. First-generation DDR5 MRDIMM platforms currently top out at 8,800 MT/s, which means the new spec is roughly 45% faster. Standard consumer DDR5 tops out at a considerably lower frequency under JEDEC specs, even with CUDIMMs.

The standards progress behind that number is equally important. The newly published JESD82-552 DDR5MDB02 Multiplexed Rank Data Buffer standard defines next-generation data-buffer capabilities and improved scalability for MRDIMM architectures. JEDEC is also preparing specifications for the DDR5 Multiplexed Rank Registering Clock Driver, which will improve signal integrity and timing control in MRDIMM module designs. Together, these two standards are expected to finalize the MRDIMM Gen2 specification.

Xbox's new CEO Asha Sharma has shaken up the gaming leadership team, appointing five new leads that previously worked at Instacart and Microsoft's CoreAI teams.

New developments at team Xbox today, as CNBC reports big changes at the gaming group's upper management. Xbox CEO Asha Sharma has hired five new people to help lead transformational change and deliver better profits and future-oriented growth.

Three of these new hires had positions at Microsoft's OpenAI division, one worked at Instacart--the former head of growth for ChatGPT is now the head of growth for Xbox, and Instacart's synonymous exec is now leading the general Xbox subscription and cloud business. The memo also confirmed that two long-time Xbox veterans, Kevin Gammill and Roanne Sones, will also be leaving after 24 years at Microsoft.

New leaks surrounding the Ryzen AI 400 desktop APUs are starting to surface. The AI 400 is AMD's upcoming APU series for the AM5 socket, built on the Zen 5 CPU architecture. Recently, the AMD Ryzen AI 5 435G APU was spotted on Geekbench, giving us an idea of its core configuration and expected performance. These numbers are not usually 100% accurate, so take these rumors with a grain of salt.

According to the Geekbench entry, the Ryzen AI 5 435G is a 6-core, 12-thread AM5 APU built on the Zen 5 architecture, featuring an RDNA 3.5 GPU. It is important to note that this is the non-PRO version of the chip; AMD also has a Ryzen AI 5 PRO 435G with the same specifications, but the Geekbench entry clearly distinguishes between the two.

The leaked APU has a base clock of 2 GHz and a boost clock of up to 4.5 GHz, along with 14MB of total cache. The GPU is a basic Radeon 840M with 4 CUs, built on the RDNA 3.5 design. The standard TDP for this APU is 65W, and it also has a 50 AI TOPS NPU. The chip was benchmarked on a JGINYUE B850M Snow Dream WiFi motherboard. The entry also confirms a hybrid core setup, with one core cluster having 2 cores while the other hosts 4 cores.

With the current AI and data center boom, which is dramatically increasing demand for storage solutions spanning SSDs and traditional HDDs, the biggest players in the space are now signing long-term supply agreements with customers that span up to five years.

Per Sandisk's latest earnings call with investors (via Tom's Hardware), Luis Visoso, the company's chief financial officer, confirmed that one of its longest-standing customer contracts is for 5 years. Apparently, this includes quarterly commitments and a combination of fixed and variable pricing "tailored to meet the needs" of its customers.

Other storage players in the HDD space, which include Seagate and Western Digital, are also making multi-year deals with customers. According to the latest information, Seagate's long-term supply agreements now include 2028, while Western Digital's have been extended through calendar year 2029.

Intel's long-awaited 'Big Battlemage' GPU finally got released this year, albeit in workstation form, with the new Intel Arc Pro B70 32GB graphics card. It's powered by the BMG-G31 silicon that was on track to power a potential Intel Arc B770 desktop PC gaming graphics card, which is no longer coming. As for what the gaming performance of this GPU might have looked like, we now have a more detailed look thanks to a new deep dive from Expreview.

The outlet tested the Intel Arc Pro B70's gaming performance at 1440p, with and without ray tracing, comparing it to the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB and Intel Arc B580 12GB cards, testing five games in each category. Looking at the overall results, the Intel Arc Pro B70's gaming performance falls short of beating the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB in both categories, with NVIDIA's GPU being around 5% faster on average when it comes to non-ray tracing or rasterized performance, and around 2% faster when it comes to ray-tracing performance.

That said, the two cards do trade blows, with the Intel Arc Pro B70 delivering faster performance in Cyberpunk 2077 in both scenarios, and faster ray-tracing performance on the Intel card in F1 25 and Kingdom Come: Deliverance II. Here's a closer look at the results.