Gaming - Page 274

As part of the latest AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 23.40.01.10 Preview Driver for AMD Fluid Motion Frames Release, the company has added Radeon 700M graphics to the GPUs supported by driver-based frame generation. AMD Fluid Motion Frames, or AFMF, allows PC gamers to enable frame-gen at the driver level for any DirectX 11 or 12 game.

AFMF differs from AMD's FSR Frame Generation and NVIDIA's DLSS 3 Frame Generation because it doesn't use motion vectors or game-specific data acquired when DLSS or FSR is integrated into a title. This means there's a noticeable trade-off in visual quality and additional latency (mitigated somewhat by Anti-Lag). So it's recommended for games where you're already getting close to 60fps in performance.

Okay, with that out of the way, the additional support for Radeon 700M graphics is exciting because this applies to the integrated graphics found in mobile Ryzen 7040 and 8040 APUs, the brand-new desktop Ryzen 8000G Series announced at CES 2024, and the Ryzen Z1 chips found in PC gaming handhelds like the ROG Ally from ASUS and Legion GO from Lenovo.

Hyperkin takes us back to the early 2000s with its new Xbox controller.

I've long thought that Xbox has the best controllers in gaming. From the get-go in 2001, Microsoft broke onto the gaming market with innovative and stylish game controllers, including the massive and unwieldy OG Duke controller with its uniquely-designed joysticks and hulking frame. It turns out that the most popular Xbox controller wasn't even meant for the U.S.

If you grew up with the OG Xbox, odds are that you fell into two camps: Either you handled the oversized Duke, or you opted for the S controller with its uniform joysticks and more comfortable user-friendly casing (there was probably a Mad Catz controller or two in there but no one really wanted to use those all that much). Having already resurrected the Duke, peripheral-maker Hyperkin is now bringing back the S controller.

Sony has set a new record for monthly active users (MAUs) that beats any other period in PlayStation history.

A bit ago, Sony Interactive Entertainment management said that 2023 would deliver record-breaking success. Whether it be in revenues and/or PlayStation 5 console sales, SIE expects big things from its Q3 FY23 period. While Sony has yet to publish official Q3 earnings, the company is still setting new gaming milestones.

During Sony's CES 2024 showcase, Sony Group Corp. President Kenichiro Yoshida announced that the PlayStation Network surpassed 123 million monthly active users throughout December 2023. Comparing this with previous quarterly periods, we see that this is an astronomically high number. Not only is this a new high water mark for PlayStation MAUs, but the data suggests that Holiday 2023 could be the most prolific period in PlayStation's 30 years on the market.

More popular first-party Xbox games could launch on competing platforms like the Nintendo Switch and Sony PlayStation. This move is consistent with the core Xbox business model and makes a lot of sense.

Unlike PlayStation and Nintendo, Xbox has marched to the beat of a different drum. Since unifying PCs and Xbox consoles in 2015 via the Windows OS, Microsoft has broken the chains of content exclusivity and released its games on both platforms. This strategy was accelerated greatly with the introduction of Xbox Game Pass in 2017, which brought hundreds of games to both Xbox and Windows PCs.

Microsoft's game plan has done nothing but evolve over time. The company still emphasizes exclusive content--Starfield, for instance, was kept off PlayStation--but the core of the Xbox brand is a wide ecosystem of products, content, and services that bridges all consoles and gaming platforms. Xbox wants to deliver spending opportunities to all consumer endpoints, whether it's Xbox consoles, competing systems like the Nintendo Switch and Sony PlayStation, the cloud, mobile devices, and PC.

The first day of CES 2024 has kicked off with some fantastic new and interesting technology in various forms, but that is not all.

Sony Pictures CEO Kenichiro Yoshida has hit the stage to deliver some surprising news to fans about an upcoming video game adaptation that's set to hit the big screen. Strangely enough, this update was on Nintendo's "The Legend of Zelda" film.

President of Sony Pictures Television Studio, Katherine Pope, had also announced earlier in the conference that Sony also has a God of War series in the works with Amazon. In addition to this, streaming giant Netflix will be picking up the adaptation for another popular Sony title, Horizon Zero Dawn.

Technology designed in enhance your gaming experience through haptic sensations has made its way from the headphones all the way down the cushion you are sitting on.

Razer has announced at CES 2024 the world's first HD haptics gaming cushion, dubbed Project Esther, which is powered by Razer Sensa HD Haptics, providing gamers with "lifelike tactile sensations that envelop your whole body." This latest release by Razer is another step forward in giving gamers as much immersion as possible, and as pointed out by Engadget, would be particularly effective at increasing immersion levels when paired with virtual reality headset.

Project Esther includes 16 haptic actuators, comes with multiple device integration, multi-actuator experiences, manual control over the haptic directionality, and physical compatibility with most office chairs, per Razer. Notably, Razer's journey down the haptics road began to gain some traction in 2018 when the company unveiled HyperSense haptics within its Nari Ultimate headphones.

Blizzard's Diablo IV launched on PC with DLSS 3 Frame Generation support, boosting performance for all GeForce RTX 40 Series owners. At the time, both NVIDIA and Blizzard mentioned that ray-tracing was coming to the game at some point, and at CES 2024, we finally got confirmation that ray-tracing is headed to Diablo 4 this March.

Hot off the heels of a well-received Season of Blood that fixed many of the game's launch and end-game criticisms, 2024 for Diablo 4 will see the arrival of new seasons, an itemization and loot overhaul, new end-game ladder activities, and the first story-based expansion called Vessel of Hatred coming later in the year.

As for going RTX On, Diablo 4's real-time ray-tracing effects cover ray-traced reflections, ray-traced transparent reflections, and enhanced ray-traced shadows.

At CES 2024, NVIDIA has announced that DLSS and RTX technologies are coming to a whole bunch of PC games set to launch in the coming months. One of the biggest is Horizon Forbidden West Complete Edition from Sony, PlayStation Studios, and Guerilla Games. The PC version includes the Burning Shores story expansion, improved visuals, and more.

What's more is DLSS 3 Frame Generation, NVIDIA Reflex, and DLAA. At its CES 2024 presentation, NVIDIA mentioned that Horizon Forbidden West Complete Edition is coming to PC early this year, which puts a tighter release window on the previous '2024' one. And with that, we've got a new trailer for the game running on a GeForce RTX-powered PC with DLSS 3 - and it looks stunning.

Horizon Forbidden West looks incredible on PS5, so we can only imagine what it will look like on one of the GeForce RTX 40 SUPER Series GPUs launching this month. The DLSS and RTX gaming news from CES 2024 doesn't stop there, as more titles like Pax Dei and Dragon's Dogma 2 are also going RTX On.

Half-Life 2 RTX: An RTX Remix Project is a community-developed remaster of one of the most celebrated PC games of all time, with the global development team of modders at Orbifold Studios using the powerful RTX Remix platform to present a fully path traced and rar traced version of the game.

The latest trailer, which debuted during NVIDIA's CES 2024 presentation, showcases the memorable survival horror and zombie-inspired location of Ravenholm with full ray-traced lighting, DLSS 3.5 Ray Reconstruction, RTX IO, Reflex, and remastered assets, models, and in-game materials. It looks incredible, like a full-blown remake.

Orbifold Studios is a team of 65 modders, so this is a pretty big project (the team is hand-building enhanced assets), but thanks to RTX Remix, the speed of progress has been remarkable. With RTX Remix, anyone can "remix" a classic game with the power of ray-tracing and generative AI - and the NVIDIA RTX Remix Open Beta begins January 22.

ASUS has made its new ROG NUC official, with its first Mini-PC packing up to an Intel Core Ultra 9 185H "Meteor Lake" CPU and up to an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 graphics card inside. Check it out:

The new ASUS ROG NUC system finds itself inside of a tool-less 2.5-liter chassis, where it can be configured with up to an Intel Core Ultra 9 185H "Meteor Lake" processor that offers up 16 cores and 22 threads of CPU power boosting up to 5.1GHz. The Core Ultra 9 processor features an Arc Xe-LPG-based GPU with Xe-Cores, but it can be configured with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 or GeForce RTX 4070 Laptop GPU for more gaming power.

Both of these GPU designs have a TGP (Total Graphics Power) of 115W, with Dynamic Boost supporting up to 140W of power flowing through the RTX 4060 or RTX 4070 Laptop GPU. The Intel Core Ultra "Meteor Lake" CPU inside has a TDP of up to 65W.

Xbox gamers can play Final Fantasy XIV starting this February.

At the Final Fantasy XIV Fan Fest in Tokyo, Japan, director Yoshi-P confirmed launch timing for the MMORPG's available on Xbox platforms. Square Enix's strategy is to release an open beta test for FF14 on Xbox in February, possibly around February 21st or thereabouts.

"As far as Xbox goes, we will be beginning the open beta test in February. Our current plan is to begin the open beta around the 21st, plans could change for a few days in any direction, but that's our current plan," Naoki Yoshi-P Yoshida said during the event.

Mobile revenues dipped in 2023, but the $100 billion segment is expected to bounce back in 2024.

Much to the dismay of publishers like Take-Two Interactive, who recently purchased Zynga for $12.7 billion, mobile gaming saw a decline throughout 2023. Analyst firm Newzoo estimates that mobile gaming dropped 16% year-over-year to $90.4 billion, excluding advertising.

These trends are set to change in 2024. Analyst firm Data.ai forecasts that mobile gaming will boost some 4% in 2024 to $111.4 billion revenues. The group also predicts that the United States will be the largest driver for spending growth throughout 2024. This seems to be consistent with Newzoo's data which trends towards North America as having the largest spend-to-population ratio in the world.

PC gaming is off to a big start in 2024 as Valve sets a new all-time record for Steam gamers online at the same time.

Yesterday on January 7, Steam has set a new concurrent user record of 33.67 million gamers simultaneously active and connected to the service. The previous record had been set in March 2023 and saw some 33.59 million Steam concurrent users--the exact numbers are 33,675,229 and 33,598,520 for 2024 and 2023, respectively.

Alongside the concurrent user milestone, Valve also set a new record for the number of in-game Steam users. There were over 10.83 million users playing games when the new concurrent record was set.

Netflix could be the first to bring advertisements to premium games within a subscription service.

In 2021, Netflix announced that it would start offering free mobile games for subscribers to enjoy. All active Netflix users could play a growing lineup of mobile games for no extra charge--a carefully strategized value-add that's aimed at subscriber retention. From the get-go, the company has proudly boasted that its games don't feature ads or optional in-game purchases.

The lineup of games typically included smaller-scale titles at first, but has since ramped up to include some heavy-hitters like Rockstar Games' mega-popular Grand Theft Auto series. Now the service features more than 80 games, with mobile hits like Too Hot to Handle, Football Manager 2024 and GTA: San Andreas among the most-played titles. In fact, Netflix briefly took the #1 top gaming spot on both the Google Play Store and the App Store with its version of GTA: San Andreas.

Final Fantasy XIV Online has broken 30 million registered users, making it one of the most-played MMORPGs in gaming.

10 years after the launch of A Realm Reborn, Final Fantasy XIV is still going strong. The landmark high fantasy MMO has gained tremendous momentum over the years by achieving 30 million players worldwide on PC and PlayStation platforms.

The news was confirmed by the game's official Twitter account, and the online player count is likely to jump by many millions of players once Final Fantasy XIV rolls out on Xbox platforms in 2024. Square Enix has planned an open beta test for next month in February.

NVIDIA's GeForce NOW cloud gaming service continues to grow from strength to strength. At CES 2024, the company is announcing a whole suite of new goodies coming to the service - from games to membership options and even VRR technology in the form of G-Sync.

First up, some games. As 2023 drew to a close, the first Activision title joined the service - the juggernaut that is Call of Duty. The next two Activision Blizzard games set to join GeForce NOW are Diablo 4 and Overwatch 2 (support for the Steam versions is coming first), which are "coming soon" thanks to the 10-year NVIDIA and Microsoft partnership.

Also coming soon are Capcom's Exoprimal, HoYoverse's Honkai: Star Rail, and the highly anticipated everything medieval sim Pax Dei. Coming in February is a cool initiative for those looking to check out Ultimate and Priority memberships that take advantage of GeForce RTX 4080 hardware for 4K, DLSS, and RT-powered gaming. Day Passes will offer full benefits 'one day at a time.'

NVIDIA first showcased its new NVIDIA Avatar Cloud Engine (ACE) technology created in partnership with Convai back at Computex 2023, with a Cyberpunk-style diner showcasing a fully realized AI character you can interact with (via voice) who will then dynamically respond and react depending on what's happening in the game world.

At CES 2024, NVIDIA is presenting an updated version of the diner demo with an additional character in the scene and confirmation that a broad list of developers are now using the technology for game development. Charisma.AI, Convai, Inworld, miHoYo, NetEase, Games, Ourpalm, Tencent, Ubisoft and UneeQ.

Tencent calls NVIDIA ACE a "milestone moment for AI in games" and will use the tech in upcoming projects. NVIDIA notes that the latest version gives AI NPCs awareness of objects so they can pick them up and drop them off. In addition, NPCs can lead players.

The total installed base for Sony's PlayStation 5 console could break 80 million+ by March 2025, analysts have predicted.

Sony Interactive Entertainment expects to ship 25 million PlayStation 5 consoles throughout Fiscal Year 2023, which is the current period that ends on March 31, 2024. This target is the largest and most ambitious hardware shipment in PlayStation history, and results from the first half of the year (Q1-Q2 FY23) show that Sony is still 16 million consoles away from this goal.

This might not be the only big shipment fusillade that Sony is planning. According to a Games Industry.biz article, Japanese analyst firm Toyo Securities believes that Sony will ship 18.5 million PlayStation 5 consoles in the next Fiscal Year 2024 timeline.

Rumors are pointing to an Xbox exclusive making its way over to the Nintendo Switch sometime this year, and according to insiders, the Switch port will be met with lots of praise by gamers.

According to the host of the NateTheHate podcast, which reportedly has a good track record with gaming industry insider information, the rhythm-based Hi-Fi Rush developed by Tango Gameworks and published by Bethesda will be making its way over to the Nintendo Switch. These rumors were then backed up by other insiders or known leakers, such as lolilolailo, suggesting the game was going to be released on the Nintendo Switch in 2024.

Notably, Hi-Fi Rush was a hidden gem of 2023, and despite it being announced and shadowdropped during the Xbox developer direct, gamers who discovered the title praised it highly. On its Steam listing, Hi-Rush has received an "Overwhelmingly Positive" review score, with 97% of user reviews out of the 19,000 total reviewed it positively.

Retro cool, the AYANEO FLIP KB and FLIP DS are powered by the AMD Ryzen 7 7840U APU (up to 28W) and a 'brand-new flagship processor' that we assume will be announced at CES 2024. AYANEO's latest high-end Windows gaming handheld might be its most stylish, with one version with a full keyboard and one with a second display - like the iconic Nintendo DS.

Although the keyboard is small on the AYANEO FLIP KB, the key spacing is nice, and there's even a fingertip mouse. Throw in RGB backlighting, and it's a portable PC with game controller buttons, hall sensing sticks, triggers, and a d-pad.

The main display for the AYANEO FLIP KB and FLIP DS sounds impressive: 7-inch Full HD with a 120 Hz refresh rate, 100% sRGB coverage, and a 400-nit overall peak brightness. It's AYANEO's first gaming handheld to feature a 120 Hz IPS display. The AYANEO FLIP DS includes an additional 3.5-inch touch display - detected by Windows as a second display.