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New reports make a shocking suggestion: Sony has prohibited consumers from selling their physical PlayStation games to stores, digital e-commerce sites, and other people. This isn't the case.

Sony's overseas Software Usage Terms are once again under the crosshair for alarming language around game resales. The gaming sphere has picked up on a specific passage in Sony's software EU terms that seemingly forbids consumers from selling their purchased PlayStation titles. This isn't the first time this particular passage has kicked off a controversy, and the actual terms haven't changed in the past 9 years.

The reality is that the Software Usage Terms were controversial even before the PS4 launched. Eurogamer reported on this very subject two days before the PS4 released in 2013, which prompted Sony's Shuhei Yoshida to clarify that yes, users could indeed sell and share their PS4 games.

MSI and ASRock have announced that their motherboards can now support 64GB DDR5 memory modules across Intel 700 and AMD AM5 Series products, with Fury Renegade 64GB DDR5 modules from Kingston utilized to showcase a whopping 256GB of memory capacity.

With the new update, PCs with 4 DIMMs motherboards can support up to 256GB of memory, and PCs with 2 DIMMS motherboards will support up to 128GB.

ASRock's announcement includes a screenshot showcasing the new update on its Intel Z790 Noba Wi-Fi motherboard, with MSI's showcasing 256GB on its AMD PRO X670-P WIFI board. ASRock's announcement also includes information that these new Kingston Fury Renegade kits support EXPO and XMP 3.0 profiles with 36-38-38 latency at 1.350V and up to 6,000 MT/s.

European retailer Proshop has listed 24 different NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 SUPER graphics cards on its website, with each of the cards pictured using the RTX 4090, and most likely a mistake in the end.

RTX 4090 SUPER listings (source: ProShop)

Proshop has NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 SUPER graphics cards listed from the likes of ASUS, MSI, Inno3D, and other AIB partners from across the planet. Proshop itself operates business in multiple European countries, so we should expect these RTX 4090 SUPER listings to be a mistake... but I'm sure most gamers wish the RTX 4090 SUPER were real.

It's a blast from the past as MSI is bringing back one of its most visually interesting GPU designs from over a decade ago - the Cyclone. In our review of the MSI GeForce GTX 550 Ti 1GB Cyclone II from 2011, a mid-range under-$200 GPU, the single large fan and surrounding 'cyclone' delivered excellent results that matched the card's unique design.

As spotted by @harukaze5719 over on X/Twitter, the new MSI GeForce RTX 4060 CYCLONE 8G OC brings this classic design back with a modern spin. "The whirlwind is back," proclaims the GPU product listing - albeit this time in ultra-efficient Ada Lovelace form.

You can probably chalk up the main reason for the Cyclone's return to Ada's excellent efficiency - where the 115W TDP of the GeForce RTX 4060 means companies can look toward releasing smaller form-factor cards. Or, dip into the past to bring back a cool design that focuses on efficient cooling.

A single customer sent 19 flagship NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 graphics cards to repair professional and YouTuber "NorthridgeFix" because most of them had cracked PCBs close to the retention finger on the end of the PCIe card. Check it out:

We don't know what the source of this damage is exactly, but we do know that the RTX 4090 -- in any form, from any AIB -- is pretty heavy, with hefty cooling solutions for NVIDIA's flagship gaming GPU. NorthridgeFix says that he's seen this issue before, but getting so many in a single round is strange.

He had 19 different RTX 4090 cards sent to him in both ASUS and GIGABYTE custom cards, where the cracks were only found on the ASUS RTX 4090 cards. This doesn't just happen out of nowhere, but it could be because system builders were shipping pre-built gaming systems with the RTX 4090 pre-installed, and it went through some not-so-great transport.

AMD's next-gen EPYC "Turin" processor has been teased in new pictures, leaked by "YuuKi_AnS" on Twitter, teasing up to 128 cores (Zen 5) or up to an astonishing 192 cores (Zen 5c).

The new pictures show us the next-gen EPYC "Turin" processors in multiple different angles, where we can see the color of the bracket used for transportation and socket installation is in a new blue hue color, with an OPN code of 100-00001245-07 and its 2023 production date are displayed. There are not many changes here over the current EPYC processors, but with it still using the SP5 socket, that's no surprise.

Alongside the new photos of the EPYC "Turin" processors are some diagrams that the leaker shared, which show that Moore's Law is Dead was right on the money with his Turin diagrams. We can see the regular EPYC design with an IOD in the middle and 16 CCDs (8 above and 8 below). Each of the compute chiplets has 32MB of L3 cache, which means there are 512MB of L3 cache in total per EPYC "Turin" processor.

AMD launched its new flagship AI GPU and accelerator, the Instinct MI300X, earlier this month. During the launch event, AMD provided charts and data indicating that the MI300X outperformed NVIDIA's powerful H100 GPU in several tests.

It was up to 60% faster in a direct 8 to 8 server comparison; however, NVIDIA followed up with its own data. NVDIA's report shows (with data) that AMD did not use the latest NVIDIA TensorRT-LLM kernel optimizations for NVIDIA Hopper, nor did it show real-world MLPerf server scenarios where DGX H100 hardware delivers impressive "inferences per second" results.

Long story short, NVIDIA's response claims that if AMD benchmarked the H100 GPU properly, it would show that Team Green's flagship was 2X faster. So, where does that bring us to? AMD has reached out with an update showing that the MI300X's performance advantage has increased thanks to its own optimizations. And it's now accounting for latency.

We can safely say this is something we haven't seen before: a workstation laptop with an AMD EPYC processor and desktop NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 graphics card.

Welcome the new REV-9 workstation laptop, a custom laptop that packs a data center-level processor and desktop graphics that's designed for advanced compute rendering, scientific research, and the film industry for a portable, on-the-go solution for 3D artists and more.

The considerably chunky laptop is made by a Chinese company, with a 17.3-inch display with an option for 4K 120Hz or 2.5K 240Hz and a 3.5-inch display that provides diagnostic data for both the CPU and the GPU. The CPU inside of the REV-9 comes in two varieties: an EPYC 7713 or EPYC 9554 processor, the difference is the former is a Zen 3 chip, while the latter is a Zen 4 chip. We have up to 225W TDPs supported here, with an average Cinebench R23 score of 49,000 points.

Well, we're seeing some interesting use of the PlayStation 5 APU... in the form of the AMD BC-250 crypto mining card that has just hit eBay. Check them out:

ASRock has a crazy mining system that cost $15,000 when it was released, packing 12 x AMD BC-250 crypto mining cards in a kitted-out mining chassis. Each of the BC-250 crypto mining cards features the Ariel/Oberon processors that have Zen 2 CPUs and RDNA 2 GPUs, which make up the APU or SoC inside of Sony's current-gen PlayStation 5 console.

However, these BC-250 chips are not fully functioning, as they have partially disabled graphics that were also retro-fitted into the AMD 4700S desktop kit. At the time, the ASRock 12 x GPU mining system was pumping away at 610MH/s on both ETHASH and ETC. That wasn't bad at the time, with $2 per day per GPU.

Netflix's gaming ambitions have taken over both Google Play and the App Store, with free Netflix games topping the charts on both stores.

Two years ago, Netflix announced it would start adding games to its subscription. Netflix now has 86 games available to download and play on mobile, and the streamer has even conquered both the Google Play and App Store digital marketplaces with its latest release. With the help of Rockstar Games' mega-popular Grand Theft Auto franchise, of course.

In a surprising move, Netflix teamed up with Take-Two Interactive and Rockstar Games to launch the GTA Trilogy Definitive Edition mobile port on the service. Actually, launch is a bit of a misnomer; Netflix subscribers can download a special version of the GTA games on both mobile stores. These versions are separate from the base games in the newly-released GTA mobile trilogy, which are sold at $19.99 a piece.

Newzoo's 2023 games market report illustrates just how important North America is for the interactive entertainment industry.

A bit ago, Sony raised the price of its PlayStation 5 console in basically all worldwide regions except for the U.S. There's a good reason for that: North America, including the U.S., is among the top-spending geographies on the planet.

Analyst firm Newzoo recently published its video games industry market report for 2023, and the data is particularly interesting given the current economic climate. Gaming is set to make $184 billion revenues in 2023, excluding games hardware and betting segments. Elsewhere in the report, Newzoo compares the amount of gamers per region, and cross-referencing this data with regional spending delivers eye-opening results.

Microsoft wants to expand its Xbox gaming business to all global regions, but the company faces an uphill battle in countries like Japan.

Microsoft aspires to reach games industry leadership by 2030, with an implied $32 billion of revenue generated from its widening ecosystem of products and services. To get there, Xbox needs to expand. The recent Activision Blizzard King acquisition will accelerate these plans with an enviable content war chest worth many billions of dollars, including Call of Duty, World of Warcraft and Candy Crush.

Xbox's strategy goes well beyond first-party content, and to achieve its goals, Microsoft needs to build its business in certain markets like Asia, including both Japan and China. Progress is well underway--Xbox has made deals with Square Enix to bring more games to the platform, starting with Final Fantasy XIV in 2024. To streamline this expansion process in Japan, Microsoft recently hired former PlayStation business director Mena Sato Kato to help spark partnerships and relationships between Xbox and Japanese publishers.

Elden Ring's anticipated DLC expansion could launch in February 2024, and FromSoftware may be working on a second expansion set for 2025, new marketing materials indicate.

New accidental leaks at retailer Data Blitz give updates on Elden Ring's new story content. The site erroneously updated marketing materials for a special edition Elden Ring-themed Thrustmaster controller that's specifically designed to make the action RPG more player friendly. The Thrustmaster eSwap X2 Pro Xbox controller touts swappable joysticks, mechanical buttons with better actuation, and extra programmable buttons.

The document makes it pretty clear that the public wasn't meant to see the info--it wasn't necessarily a product page, but more of a guide for retailers to use for their shop descriptions. The leaked materials mention that the controller will "sync" with the Shadow of the Erdtree expansion's launch, and the eSwap X2 Pro would release during Elden Ring's anniversary, which is listed as February 2024.

3D Realms is the latest video game studio to get hit with layoffs as a result of Embracer Group's aggressive cost-cutting plan.

Despite making an estimated $184 billion throughout the year, 2023 has been a terrible year for some of the people who make games. The games industry has suffered over 7,000 layoffs across all disciplines as more publishers, developers, and parent companies aim to reduce spending budgets. Higher costs are eroding year-over-year profit numbers and margins, and now billion-dollar publishers and smaller-scale devs alike are pulling the layoff lever.

Decentralized, entrepreneur-funded Embracer Group has been hit particularly hard by layoffs. The company laid off 904 workers as of September 2023, of which 700+ were game devs, and Embracer said more layoffs were likely. Now that's happened: Layoffs have come for Danish games publisher 3D Realms, who released the original Duke Nukem on PC.

Larian Studios boss Swen Vincke confirms the game dev was given full creative control over Baldur's Gate 3, including free reign on which era the game takes place in.

Baldur's Gate 3 is known for its incredibly vast player freedom. Gamers can choose a multitude of outcomes throughout the RPG, whether it be something integral like character creation/skills/classes or the myriad ways you can win in battle. Whatever the parameter is, you can bet that Larian lets you fiddle and experiment with it.

It turns out that the Belgian RPG masters were given similar freedoms. In a recent awards acceptance letter penned by Swen Vincke, the founder says that Larian was given "carte blanche" (a Latin term that essentially means blank check, in this case denoting full artistic liberty) on how they wanted to use the Dungeons & Dragons franchise. Vincke further comments about the disastrous layoffs that saw Hasbro eliminating 1,100 employees, many of which were at its Wizards of the Coast division.

Microsoft plans to release a next-gen Xbox console by 2026, new unverified rumors and reports claim.

Accidental document leaks from the FTC v Microsoft trial put a next-gen Xbox release in November 2028, however new rumors say that a new Xbox console is coming in 2026. This is a substantially reduced window and would cut the current Gen9 Xbox family to about 6 years, two of which were mostly constrained by chip shortages. It's worth mentioning that this document was published in May 2022 and a lot has likely changed since then.

The trial leaks also show that Microsoft was mulling over a potential mid-cycle Xbox Series X refresh set to launch sometime in late October of 2024. This console was codenamed "Brooklin" and would be a cylindrical, digital-only Series X. The documents also say that the mid-gen consoles (Ellewood, which is the 1TB Xbox Series S, and Brooklin, the aforementioned Series X refresh) have been funded.

Only a few days after making its announcement, Twitch has officially walked back its content policy changes that permitted sexual content on the platform.

Twitch has issued an update to its controversial content policy that expanded the possibilities of what type of content is allowed on the livestreaming platform. According to the update, which has since been revoked, Twitch permitted sexual content if it was appropriately categorized under the new "Sexual Themes" label.

Additionally, the revoked policy allowed for "fully exposed female-presenting breasts and/or genitals or buttocks regardless of gender," and content that "deliberately highlight[s] breasts, buttocks or pelvic region" as well as "body writing". Moreover the rules allowed for dances such as "twerking, grinding and pole dancing." These changes were very divisive for the livestreaming community, with one group of people raising the question - how will this now-permitted sexualized content impact the younger audience on Twitch?

The rumored PlayStation 5 Pro will reportedly use custom dedicated raytracing technology developed by Sony.

New reports indicate that Sony is developing custom, proprietary DLSS-like technology for its new PS5 Pro console. Sources have told Giant Bomb's Jeff Grubb that the mid-gen PS5 upgrade will leverage Sony's own dedicated, hardware-accelerated RT technology that's based on significant iteration over the PS5's existing machine learning (ML) capabilities.

The PS5 Pro's custom RT tech would target higher frame rates and resolution across demanding current-gen games.

Kojima Productions enters its 8th year of independence as the Metal Gear Solid creator confirms the next phase of expansion is underway.

Hideo Kojima's independent studio is growing. Since establishment in 2015, Kojima Productions has teamed up with Sony Interactive Entertainment and 505 Games to release Death Stranding on PS4, PS5, and PC, reaching 16 million players on all platforms (Game Pass included). This is part of KojiPro's Phase 1 development.

The studio is now in Phase 2, which sees major expansion points into new territories. On the more traditional front, KojiPro is making Death Stranding 2 for PlayStation 5. Kojima is very interested in exploring uncharted waters, though, and opened a new Los Angeles-based subsidiary focused on film, music, and TV. This branch is working alongside movie production company A24 on a new Death Stranding film adaptation.

It's official: Hideo Kojima is finally working on a film based on his games.

Hideo Kojima has a voracious appetite for art, film, and music. Looking at his games, this comes with the territory; Kojima's work is filled with pop culture references, highly artistic influences, and complex stories interwoven with relatable human themes. This combination delivers a cinematic interactive experience.

Now Kojima is officially making a movie (although some could argue Death Stranding is just that). The auteur announced that Kojima Productions is working alongside independent film production company A24 on Death Stranding movie. A24 seems like the perfect fit for Kojima's style--it's known for an eclectic range of art-house films like Everything Everywhere All At Once, Midsommar, Hereditary, and The Whale.