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We've seen generations of hand-operated PlayStation controllers, but what about a peripheral designed for your feet? Sony's latest patent is just that.

Sony's latest VR patent (US20230398438) is a little unconventional. It's a controller that gamers can operate with their feet, kind of like some sort of inverse Roll & Rocker from an alternate universe. The device is essentially a big trackball with a housing outfitted by bearings, complete with "inertial measurement units" like an accelerometer or gyroscope.

The document describes the device as a "controller apparatus includes two or more balls having a size sufficient for a human to manipulate with a single foot."

Sony Interactive Entertainment management expects 2023 to be a record year, potentially even topping last year's $26.9 billion revenue.

Thanks to a lucrative billion-dollar digital ecosystem of games, services, and content, alongside profitable consumer-grade electronics that sell tens of millions of units, Sony PlayStation has remained at the top of gaming's Big 3 for years. That could change now that Microsoft owns Activision Blizzard King.

Even still, Sony still forecasts this year to break new records. The PS5 did just reach 50 million consoles sold through to consumers, moving 14 million systems in a 9-month period--a new PlayStation record.

The first Nintendo Switch flashcart may be ready to launch sometime in 2024.

Nintendo's current Switch handheld-console hybrid has been uniquely resilient to flashcarts due to tightened security. The Switch's GameCards are built with Nintendo's proprietary tech and have been tough to crack. The Switch actually features a dedicated ASIC that communicates directly with the GameCards through a custom protocol designed by Nintendo.

If recent reports are accurate, then big progress has been made. It appears that the first Switch flashcart is here, and it may be ready to release in January 2024. In a NickMoses05 stream, a guest from the modding scene speculates that the flashcart could be running via an exploit, potentially a GameCard-based exploit that no one currently knows about. It's also possible the flashcart requires a modchipped Switch in order to function.

Star Citizen's new Legatus bundle is out, and this time it costs more than 3x annual minimum wage salaries.

Star Citizen is famous for its wide monetization purchase structure. Roberts Space Industries offers a multitude of buy options for players including whole spaceships that can command thousands of dollars. There's also a big shortcut for gamers who want to sidestep a lot of that grinding.

The space sim sells whole ship packages in order to make money for development and maintenance of the game itself. The most notorious package is the Legatus bundle, a somewhat-annual collection that packs in 100+ ships and pieces of content for the game. RSI describes Legatus as the "definitive armada," so you're basically buying a fleet of ships for a set price.

A massive loop of plasma has been caught on video by astrophotographer author and science communicator Miguel Claro, showcasing the Sun in incredible detail.

The loop of plasma occurred between February 6 and February 7, 2022, and according to Claro, who explained on his website, the solar prominence resulted in coronal mass ejection (CME) to take place, which is a cloud of solar erupting from the surface of the Sun and being shot out into space. The astrophotographer captured numerous images over the course of two days, and the plasma loop was visible. Once the images were saved, they were then stitched together, producing a 4K high-resolution solar movie.

As for the loop of the plasma itself, Claro details its size and estimates based on his measurements made using pixels; the solar prominence is approximately 10 times the size of Earth but stretches around the Sun's limb for "thousands of kilometers." Notably, the above image of the plasma loop was given the "Highly Commended" distinction in the Royal Observatory of Greenwich's Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2022 competition within the category "Our Sun".

Following its decision to ditch Apple CarPlay in favor of a new, in-house infotainment software system powered by Google, GM has found things to be hard going of late. The company's new Chevrolet Blazer EV has been released to mixed reviews, with some saying that the infotainment system often finds itself in a bootloop and otherwise simply refuses to work properly. Now, it seems that GM is aware that something isn't behaving as it should - and it's gotten so bad that it has decided to stop selling the electric vehicle while it tries to figure out what to do next.

A new TechCrunch report notes that the company says it is now working quickly to try and roll out a fix and that those who already took delivery should hang fire and wait for a schedule on their update. There's been no timescale given for when the software update will be ready or when the SUV will go back on sale, although GM did say that the problem only affects a limited number of its vehicles.

This is of course a bad look for Chevrolet after only making the EV available for sale a couple of weeks ago. Early reviews by various online publications have not been kind, especially when discussing the new infotainment system.

With the release of the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro lineups in 2024, Apple might be about to completely change the way it names its chips. That's according to a new report that cites code found in an early iOS 18 build that hints at all four models using the same base chip at their core.

Apple isn't expected to announce the new iPhones until September, but we're already starting to learn new things about them ahead of time. At the top of the list is the belief that while we will see iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Plus, iPhone 16 Pro, and iPhone 16 Pro Max models released, they will all use some version of a new A18 chip. That differs from previous years where the Pro models would get new chips and then the non-Pro ones would get the chips used by the Pro models the year prior.

In this case, MacRumors says that it has learned that Apple is currently testing devices that all run a chip codenamed t8140, with the 't' thought to reference Tahiti, the internal name that Apple sues for the A18. It's expected that Apple will ship the chips under the A18 and A18 Pro monikers, however, with the latter sporting more active cores to allow for faster performance - most likely on the GPU side of things for improved gaming.

Planetary scientists have many names for the variety of planets found in the cosmos, with descriptions such as super-Earth's, hot Jupiter's, and, strangely enough, Eyeball Planets.

These planets are unique in their own way and, oddly enough, may be abundant throughout the cosmos. So, how does an exoplanet become an Eyeball Planet? These types of planets are created through a process called tidal locking, which is a phenomenon that takes place between a pair of co-orbiting astronomical bodies when one of the bodies reaches a state where there is no net change in its rotation rate throughout a complete orbit. For example, the Moon is tidally locked to Earth, which is why we only ever see one side of the Moon.

In the same way, the Moon is tidally locked to Earth, so are exoplanets to their host stars, and some of these exoplanets can be quite close to their host stars, resulting in one side of the exoplanet being scorched and the other remaining in perpetual darkness.

If you own an Apple Watch that's out of warranty in the United States you might want to start being extra careful with it. That's after it was confirmed that Apple will no longer be able to repair Apple Watches outside of warranty claims as of December 25, 2023.

That's the date on which the United States ban on Apple Store sales of the Apple Watch kicks in, with all models that are capable of measuring blood oxygen levels affected. In a memo sent to retail employees last week and seen by MacRumors, Apple confirmed that it will not be able to replace broken Apple Watches. It would normally replace broken Apple Watches with new units rather than try and fix individual components, but the ban will prevent that from happening.

Apple has already stopped selling the Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra via its online store and it will stop selling them in its physical stores after December 24. As for the replacements for broken models, that will affect the Apple Watch Series 6 or alter as well as all Apple Watch Ultra models.

The ongoing cat-and-mouse game between Apple and Beeper, the company whose Beeper Mini app it blocked from accessing iMessage servers, continues to cause a stir. While there is an ongoing discussion surrounding whether Apple should be allowed to prevent Beeper from piggybacking off its iMessage service, it now appears that two groups of U.S. lawmakers are starting to take an interest in what's going on.

According to a report, both the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission are starting to take notice, with there being concerns over Apple's motives for the move to block Beeper Mini. The company says that Beeper Mini poses a security threat, potentially affecting the privacy of people who use the iMessage service. But others aren't so sure.

According to a report by The New York Times, the DOJ is already looking into the matter and has held meetings with Eric Migicovsky, a co-founder of Beeper, to get to the bottom of things. Migicovsky has so far refused to comment on the meetings, but it's clear they were about Beeper Mini and its ability to bring iMessage support to Android devices - something Apple has steadfastly refused to do to date.

The director of the upcoming sequel to the Planet of the Apes series has confirmed the possibility of further movies in the franchise.

Speaking with Empire, director Wes Ball and producer Joe Hartwick Jr. have confirmed that the upcoming film Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes was always intended to be the next chapter in a brand new trilogy of monkey mayhem. While Ball is unsure if he will be involved with further installments of the series, he confirmed that he was in talks with the studio "about the next story."

He also suggested that while the former trilogy was about "the end of humanity," this new trilogy will be "very much about the beginning of something." This new film will be set 300 years after the ending of the rebooted Apes continuity that began with 2011's Rise of the Planet of the Apes, which saw Andy Serkis' Caesar lead his kind toward becoming the more predominant species on Earth.

According to multiple sources, Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount Global are reportedly in talks for a potential merger of the two entertainment giants that could have wide-ranging consequences for the industry. Both companies themselves are products of mergers as recently as 2022 with Warner Bros.

Discovery formed from a deal between WarnerMeida and Discovery, Inc. and Paramount Global in 2019, previously known as ViacomCBS Inc. until 2022, forming from a merger of CBS Corporation and Viacom. Sources report that Paramount Global's Bob Bakish and Warner Bros. Discovery's David Zaslav met with one another on Tuesday this week.

The CEO pair were reportedly in talks to discuss a possible merger of the two companies, though it does appear the companies would not be equal parties due to Warner Bros. Discovery being worth a whopping $29 billion and Paramount Global worth adding up to only $10 billion, just over one-third of that total.

NASA has published a new photograph snapped by the iconic 30-year-running Hubble Space Telescope, and it reveals a mysterious phenomenon occurring in Saturn's rings.

NASA has taken to its blog to detail the new image, which was snapped when Saturn was approximately 850 million miles from Earth. The space agency writes that Hubble's ultra-sharp vision has revealed a phenomenon called "ring spokes," which NASA describes as having a "ghostly appearance" that only occurs for two or three rotations around Saturn.

The rarity of these ring spokes makes them difficult to capture, but Saturn has been observed for quite some time by Hubble and other telescopes, with the first ring spoke being discovered in 1981 by Voyager 2, then again during the Cassini mission and continuously by Hubble.

The developers behind the beloved Dark Souls series announced the servers supporting online play for Dark Souls 2 would shut down in March next year on two old consoles - PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

FromSoftware took to its official X account to announce the news that has seemingly smacked dozens of gamers right in their digital hearts, with the company writing Dark Souls 2 servers on the PS3 and Xbox 360 will be shut down on March 31, 2024, which will result in online play being disabled and message popping up on-screen if a player attempts to connect informing them of such.

FromSoftware reminded gamers that servers being disabled won't affect offline gameplay, and PC, PS4, and Xbox One servers for Dark Souls 2 "will not be affected". FromSoftware didn't forget to thank the players of Dark Souls 2, as the now incredibly popular series began on the PS3 and Xbox 360 generation of consoles, and judging by the replies to FromSoftware's X post, many gamers have very fond memories of those servers and are sad to see them go. As I am.

Bethesda Game Studios has celebrated the success of Starfield by taking to the company's official blog to share some interesting stats about the recently released title.

The launch of Starfield was met with mixed emotions by the gaming community, with some players thoroughly enjoying the sheer scale and possibilities of the space exploration title and others who expressed the lack of open-world RPG feeling through hollow, disjointed world-building plagued with loading screens.

Despite the divisive launch, Starfield is still being enjoyed by millions of gamers around the world, and according to Bethesda, the average Starfield player spent 40 hours exploring the universe, which is likely a number much higher than you would expect considering the title's rocky start. Bethesda revealed in an infographic that 13 million players had enjoyed Starfield and the future updates it has planned for the title.

Digital dominates 2023's annual spending in the video games market.

GamesIndustry.biz's annual Year in Numbers datasheet has been published, revealing a dearth of information about the interactive entertainment's overall performance in 2023. The infograph, which includes a multitude of key metrics from the world's top analyst firms, underlines a trend that has been growing for some time: Digital gaming is taking over.

According to Newzoo, digital made up about 95% of 2023's video games revenues, or about $174.5 billion. This value includes both full game purchases made on storefronts like the PlayStation Store, Nintendo eShop, Steam, and the Xbox store, as well as in-game purchases and microtransaction spending across all platforms.

Embark Studios scores big with its debut game, The Finals.

The Finals has amassed 10 million players in just 15 days' time, a milestone that makes it one of the most popular FPS games of the year. The squad-based shooter throws players in a twisted game show arena and pits them in a battle of survival and objective-based chaos. The irreverent style mixes with Overwatch-like classes and abilities, fast-paced FPS carnage, and dynamic environment destruction to deliver a fresh take on the current FPS market.

"To all you 10 million contestants (!) who have entered the arena since launch - a huge THANK YOU!" Embark said on Twitter.

Researchers from a technology research firm have warned that Microsoft's announcement of Windows 10's scheduled end-of-life (EOL) may result in up to 240 million PCs becoming obsolete.

It was only earlier this month that Microsoft announced it was ending support for its most popular operating system, Windows 10. The company announced it will be severing support for Windows 10 on October 14, 2025, and its recent announcement is undoubtedly a push to move Windows 10 users over to Windows 11. Notably, Windows 10 remains the dominant Operating System with a massive 71.64% market share, according to data from StatCounter.

Now, technology firm Canalys has warned that when Microsoft moves to stop support for Windows 10 in 2025, it could result in up to 240 million PCs being sent to landfill sites due to Windows 11's strict hardware requirements. PCs that are unable to meet the Operating System's hardware requirements will become obsolete, which would create the equivalent of about 320,000 automobiles of e-waste.

New draft rules from Chinese regulators has startled investors, leading to a $80 billion selloff of gaming stock.

China's National Press and Publication Administrations recently published new rules that, if implemented, could disrupt the global gaming market. Concerned about the social effects of gaming, including gaming addiction, Chinese regulators passed laws to limit playtime. Now the government agency has drafted new mandates aimed at reducing the amount of money that consumers spend in digital games.

The rules, which have only been drafted and not instituted, would bite into the multi-billion dollar revenues made by Chinese companies like Tencent and NetEase. The new regulation would require Chinese companies to set a maximum cap on how much money players can spend while playing a game.

Insomniac Games delivers an official response to the recent ransomware cybercrime responsible for leaking confidential materials.

Ransomware group Rhysida recently infiltrated Insomniac Games' internal database and leaked more than 1.7 TB of confidential and highly sensitive data onto the internet. The files included plans on Insomniac's new games, content assets, earnings figures, employee data and info, and a playable build of the upcoming studio's Marvel Wolverine game.

Revealed in the attack was Spider-Man 2's heavy-hitting $300 million budget alongside a multi-year exclusivity agreement between PlayStation and Marvel for the X-Men IP. Now Insomniac has shared their thoughts on the attack with a public statement, saying that despite the leaks, Marvel's Wolverine won't be cancelled and the studio is unwavering in their determination.