Gaming - Page 176

Marvel Snap is currently down (at the time of writing), with the game seemingly being an unexpected casualty of the TikTok ban over in the US.

Developer Second Dinner took to X (and other platforms) to announce that Marvel Snap can't be played right now, and that the game can't be found in US app stores either.

However, the dev said that Marvel Snap is only "temporarily unavailable" and that it's working to get the game going again as soon as possible. That was 10 hours ago, as we write this, and we haven't heard anything further yet.

EA has finally pulled the plug (for good) on its Origin games store and launcher, although this isn't a shock, given that the application has been on life support for a long time now, since its replacement by the EA app.

Anyone still running Origin (which first debuted way back in 2011) will have to shift over to the EA app before the April 2025 deadline now set for Origin's demise.

As flagged by Neowin, EA has just confirmed: "On April 17, 2025, Origin will shut down, as Microsoft has stopped supporting 32-bit software. If you use Origin, you need to upgrade to the EA app, which requires a 64-bit version of Windows."

Sony's next-generation PlayStation 6 console is "design complete" according to the latest leaks, meaning the next-gen console is more into the development stage than most think.

In a post on the NeoGAF forums, leaker Kepler_L2 made some fresh comments on the next-gen PS6 console saying that the SoC is "design complete" and in the pre-silicon validation stage with the A0 tapeout scheduled for later this year. The leaker teased: "PS6 is design complete and in pre-si validation already, with A0 tapeout scheduled for late this year".

The leaker also provided some details of the GPU inside of the PlayStation 6 as a fork of "gfx13" which was formerly known as RDNA 5, but it's now known as UDNA. We've been hearing more and more about the UDNA GPU architecture, while more recently we've heard leaks that the PS6 would be featuring X3D cache with its new Zen 5 CPU.

Nintendo finally officially unveiled the successor to the Nintendo Switch, and while the trailer did showcase the physical design of the console, we didn't get any performance details.

However, a data miner has now revealed what appears to be the hardware clock speeds for the Nintendo Switch 2, which gives us an insight into how the console will perform with games. Notably, these speeds are "leaked" and should be taken with a grain of salt. We won't actually know what the Nintendo Switch 2 is capable of until it is officially released. With that being said, let's take a look at what has been discovered.

According to the tech experts at Digital Foundry, which cite the purported leaked speeds, the Nintendo Switch 2 is powered by an 8nm chip, with a GPU clock speed of 561 MHz in handheld mode and 10007.25 MHz docked. As for the CPU, the leak states in handheld mode, the Nintendo Switch 2 will run at 1100.8 MHz, and in docked, it will drop down to 998.4 MHz.

Nintendo just officially unveiled the Nintendo Switch 2, and what was seen by many but likely not observed was a new feature of what appears to be a new Mario Kart game.

The Nintendo Switch 2 reveal trailer finally arrived, and while many of the features of the new console, such as size and overall physical design, weren't surprising to anyone who has been keeping up with the tsunami of leaks, there were a few unexpected details. One of which was the sight of what appears to be a brand new Mario Kart game, which makes sense considering Mario Kart 8 is now more than 10 years old, and given the title is one of Nintendo's best-selling games, it makes sense to debut a new iteration with the next-generation console.

Nintendo didn't reveal any specifics about the new console, such as specifications, performance, confirmed titles, etc. But what fans managed to spot in the few seconds of Mario Kart footage that was displayed during the trailer was an updated Donkey Kong design, giving more credence to the notion this is a new Mario Kart game and support for 24 players. Support for 24 players comes from a quick screen grab of the trailer where it shows a starting line with 24 spots available. If true, this would easily be the most players in a single Mario Kart game out of the entire franchise.

Sony has canceled two live-service games that were being developed by Bend Studio and Bluepoint Games. God of War fans will be saddened to know that one of the live-service games that was in development was reportedly based in the incredible world of God of War.

The news comes from Bloomberg, which reports Sony has confirmed the cancelation of the two live-service games in a statement to the publication. Notably, Sony informed Bloomberg that the studios behind each of the titles aren't being disbanded or shutdown, and that both are working with Sony on what will be their next projects moving forward.

As for the studios specifically, Bend Studio confirmed last year it started working on a new IP, but it remains unclear if that new IP was the one that Sony canned. Additionally, Bend Studio reportedly assisted in the development of God of War Ragnarok between 2020 and 2022, which was before the cancelation of its project.

AMD is reportedly preparing a Zen 5-based CPU with X3D cache for Sony's next-generation PlayStation 6 console.

The GPU inside of Sony's next-gen PS6 console will reportedly be the new UDNA GPU architecture that AMD is cooking behind the scenes, with the last of the RDNA architectures -- RDNA 4 -- powering the company's upcoming Radeon RX 9000 series GPUs on the desktop. The new flagship RDNA 4-based Radeon RX 9070 XT is the last flagship GPU we get under the RDNA architecture, and the PS5 + PS5 Pro are the last Sony consoles that'll use an RDNA-based GPU.

Sony's next-gen PlayStation 6 console will run a next-gen APU from AMD that will combine Zen 5 CPU cores + X3D cache with new rumors + UDNA GPU architecture. In a new post on Chiphell, a leaker has teased that "Sony will also stack 3D on the console" presumably the PlayStation 6, after saying that AMD's next-gen Halo APU will "stack 3D to improve the performance of both CPU and GPU".

It was only last year that Nintendo fired off a barrage of lawsuits against Nintendo Switch emulators such as Yuzu, as the company claimed the emulator was "facilitating piracy at a colossal scale."

Despite Nintendo's actions against popular emulators, the company's patent attorney and deputy general manager of Nintendo's intellectual property department, Koji Nishiura, said at the Tokyo eSports Festa earlier this week that emulators are technically legal. Nishiura gave the statements alongside property leaders from Capcom, Koei, Sega, Konami and others.

While Nintendo's top IP lawyer agrees emulation is technically legal, there are ways for emulators to cross over into illegal territories, such as the circumvention of the Switch's "technical restriction measures," which prevents the console from playing pirated games. Another example of an emulator going too far is when it includes specific programs that are subject to copyright protection. An example of this would be Nintendo's home screen or menus.

Elon Musk has leaked direct messages with YouTuber and streamer Zack Hoyt, who is known as Asmongold after the streamer called Musk out for boosting a Path of Exile 2 (POE 2) character to almost its maximum level.

The leaked messages came after Asmongold posted a 32-minute video reacting to the purported "Elon Musk fraud gamer scandal," in which the SpaceX CEO is accused of having either purchased a high-level Path of Exile 2 character or had someone play his account to reach the, at the current time of the video, level 97. Notably, the accusation video outlines many good points for Elon Musk purchasing a character or having someone else play it up until its high level, or what is called "boosting" in the video game community. One of the most prominent points is the amount of time it takes to reach level 97 in Path of Exile 2.

According to the accusation video by Quin69TV, players attempting to reach the maximum level first will play POE 2 for sometimes 40+ hours in a single sitting, and these players are at the same level as Elon Musk's character, which begs the question as to how Musk was able to hit level 97 in POE 2 and fulfill his multiple duties at SpaceX, Tesla, and X.

Gone are the days of artificial scarcity: Nintendo intends to sell as many Switch 2 consoles as possible, and one analyst believes the Japanese toy-maker could sell 20 million systems in the debut year.

Nintendo could ship up to 20 million Switch 2 consoles in the system's first year of availability. The estimate was provided by AB Bernstein analyst Robin Zhu, who tells Bloomberg that Nintendo has created a substantially robust production/manufacturing and shipment infrastructure specifically for the Switch 2. While not mentioned in the coverage, Nintendo's supply line network could further point towards the Switch 2 using an 8nm Orin Tegra SoC produced at Samsung Foundry.

If accurate, Nintendo could ship up to 7.87 million more Switch 2 consoles than its predecessor in the same time period. This big cache of hardware is good news for consumers, especially if other analysts are correct in their Switch 2 predictions.

Microsoft has responded to recent reports from The Information regarding the Xbox business.

Days ago, The Information posted up a paywalled article discussing the state of the Xbox business. The picture seems dire. Janus Henderson Investors portfolio manager Denny Fish says that Activision "has been disappointing" revenue-wise, and another analysts believes that the majority of the video games market "isn't interested" in an Game Pass-like subscription model.

The reports have since been clarified by Microsoft, and our own data sets based on publicly-released financial info also reinforce some of these findings. The clarifications, which include info from both Microsoft and Activision, were given to Insider Gaming as a response to The Information's article.

Nintendo has finally announced the Switch 2 console, and the upgraded hardware comes with some interesting new upgrades.

The Switch 2 is coming in 2025, Nintendo today revealed. The 2-minute teaser trailer basically confirmed all of the Switch 2 leaks to be accurate, from the secondary top USB-C port right down to the new capabilities and functionalities of the Switch 2's JoyCons.

Luckily, Nintendo still has some surprises in store for us. No one knows what this mysterious new button does on the Switch 2's right JoyCon. This was the C-Button in the Switch 2 leaks, but the button itself remains unlabeled in the official console reveal footage.

Nintendo has finally announced its next-gen Switch 2 handheld, with its first confirmed game being Mario Kart 9... which looks to sport far more than the 12-player limit from the franchise, with a possible 24-player (or even more) on the way.

In the official Nintendo Switch 2 trailer posted to YouTube, the company shows off next-gen Mario Kart 9 gameplay with what appears to be 24 starting positions on the track. In previous Mario Kart games there have been just 12 starting tracks, leading us to believe Nintendo is pumping up to 24 players in Mario Kart 9.

Not only that, but the karts appear to be smaller and the track is rather wide... with rumors swirling that we could expect Mario Kart 9 to have monster battles with 24 players, it has Mario Kart fans very, very excited. The actual footage of Mario Kart 9 on the Nintendo Switch 2 isn't promising, where it appears there's no anti-aliasing being used... with rumors that we'd get NVIDIA DLSS upscaling, this is disappointing to say the least.

Nintendo has officially announced its new Switch 2 console...and the leaks had basically spoiled the surprise weeks before the reveal.

The Switch 2 is no longer a badly-kept secret. The cat is finally out of the bag as Nintendo today revealed a first look at the Switch 2 hardware. At first glance, the new handheld is a lot like the older model with a few obvious upgrades including a larger screen, bigger controllers, and other features such as a secondary USB-C charging port at the top.

Leaked renders had previously shown these designs quite some time before Nintendo's announcement, including the new snap-on magnetic JoyCon controllers and the peek-over design of the Switch 2's dock.

Windows 11 24H2 has been causing an unfortunate number of problems for PC gamers since it was pushed out, including crashing certain Ubisoft games - but a fix has now been implemented for some of the affected Assassin's Creed titles.

If you recall, the games in the franchise which were hit by the bug in Windows 11 24H2 - which caused them to either freeze up, or suffer a black screen crash, during gameplay, or sometimes loading - were Assassin's Creed Valhalla, Origins, and Odyssey.

Thankfully, as flagged up by IGN, Ubisoft has announced that both Assassin's Creed Valhalla and Origins are now cured of this rather nasty problem - but Odyssey still remains beset by the bug.

With a full 6 years having passed since the Elder Scrolls 6 announcement trailer, fans of the famous fantasy RPG series are currently teething to get their hands on any new entrant to the franchise.

These prayers may have been answered, given that rumors of an Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remake have officially reached a fever pitch. As reported by MP1st, details on the unannounced project stem from a 'mistake' made by a former Virtuos employee. For those unfamiliar, Virtuous is a game development studio-for-hire headquartered in Singapore, which has assisted with delivering titles including Cyberpunk 2077, Hogwarts Legacy, and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III.

The details provided ranged from the transition to a new engine, the scope of the remake, and the planned reworks of different gameplay systems. A reputable leaker, "Nate the Hate", has also stated on his latest podcast that the release is expected to come in June of this year.

With leaks about the Switch 2 circulating non-stop, it's about time we received official information about a Nintendo product launch. We've got something straight from the horse's mouth: but it's, well... a little alarming?

Alarmo is a tiny motion-tracking, interactive alarm clock designed to allow you to wake up to game-inspired themes. It's equipped with a 2.8-inch LCD screen and a 24GHz mmWave presence sensor - providing Alarmo with the capability of detecting movement as you sleep and wake up. In addition, you'll find 35 pre-installed alarms inspired by The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Splatoon, Pikmin, and your favorite Italian plumber.

The Sound Clock: Alarmo is slated for a March release and will retail at $99 USD from all your favorite retailers. Many will be asking themselves: why? Evidently, Nintendo's answer to this is, why not? If you know anyone who lives and breathes Nintendo fanfare, undoubtedly, this is the perfect gift to pick up. The clock is admittedly cute. It also doesn't require the use of a Nintendo Online subscription, the absence of which is now... a selling point in 2025?

DLSS has come a long way since NVIDIA introduced the technology alongside the GeForce RTX 20 Series in 2018. Powered by AI, DLSS Super Resolution was designed primarily to boost the performance of the brand-new real-time ray-tracing without impacting visual fidelity. After some growing pains for both DLSS and RT, DLSS Super Resolution technology quickly advanced to the point where it became a go-to tool for boosting performance when gaming in high resolutions.

Fast-forward to today, DLSS has evolved to include a suite of technologies, including Ray Reconstruction, which dramatically improves ray-tracing image quality compared to native or traditional rasterized rendering. As it's exclusive to the GeForce RTX line-up, DLSS has seen the rise of competing tools and offerings - from AMD's FSR to Intel XeSS and even Sony's AI-powered PSSR technology for the PlayStation 5 Pro.

It's safe to say that upscaling and Super Resolution are here to stay and that NVIDIA DLSS is still the clear leader regarding image quality. As part of its deep dive into the GeForce RTX 50 Series and new Blackwell architecture, which significantly increases GeForce's AI capabilities, the company confirmed that most GeForce RTX gamers play with DLSS enabled.

With the Steam Deck, ROG Ally, Legion Go, and several other PC gaming handhelds looking to turn PC gaming into a portable experience, the new ATARI Gamestation Go is different. With a price point of $149.99 USD and a Q3 2025c release window, this relatively affordable gaming handheld provides an authentic and retro gaming experience that covers Atari's console and arcade history.

The ATARI Gamestation Go emulates consoles like the iconic Atari 2600, 5200, 7800, and several classic Atari arcade machines. The unit includes a range of controls you won't find on PC gaming handhelds. In addition to the usual analog stick, D-pad, shoulder, and face button setup, there's also a little trackpad and even a Numpad.

Yes, certain games used a numpad and trackball to control the on-screen action back in the day, so it's very cool to see the ATARI Gamestation Go remain faithful to the brand's decades-long gaming history.

The Nintendo Switch 2's physical design was revealed through dummy units being leaked online by Chinese accessory manufacturers, and through the multiple leaks it was quickly noticed the upcoming console has an additional button on the right Joy-Con controller under the Home button.

As with everything about Nintendo's unannounced new console, speculation began flying about what this mysterious "C" button could do, and now we might know as data miners have discovered in the latest version of the Nintendo Switch OS, along with System Developer Kit (SDK) leaks, the new button will introduce a feature called "Campus". According to reports Campus will enable users to engage in group and voice chat with support of up to twelve Nintendo Switch Online users simultaneously.

If true, the Campus feature would require a paid subscription to the Nintendo Switch Online service, and according to the data miners there will also be support for screen sharing. For those wondering if Campus will be similar to Miiverse, it won't be, and for those wondering about Miiverse, it was Nintendo's short-lived attempt at creating a social media network that occurred between the Nintendo 3DS and Wii U.