Gaming - Page 302

Cooler Master has revealed a new driving and flight simulator that is designed specifically for enthusiasts who want to take their gaming to the next level.

Introducing Cooler Master's Dyn X, a driving and flight cockpit that is constructed out of high-quality materials and features 14 adjustable sitting positions for every type of racing preference. The above video released on the Cooler Master YouTube channel showcases each of the sitting positions that can be changed quickly with a single adjustment. The video demonstrates sitting positions such as Formula, GT, NASCAR, Rally, or Trophy Truck.

As for build quality, the Dyn X is constructed of fiberglass, features premium synthetic suede leather, an adjustable headrest, and interchangeable cushion covers. Additionally, Cooler Master has outfitted the Dyn X with multiple attachment points for monitors, shifters, motion systems, and more. The Dyn X is expected to launch sometime in September 2023 and will be priced at $1,999 for just the cockpit. Those who want the racing seat to go with the Dyn X will need to pay an additional $499.

Bethesda's announcement of Starfield really shook up the gaming industry as many excited gamers were told that they would be able to explore thousands of planets. However, that doesn't necessarily seem to be the case.

Leading up to the release of Starfield next week, there has been plenty of footage from early releases uploaded to various social media platforms. This footage has given us clues about the validity of Bethesda's statements about the title's exploration capabilities. Bethesda's head of publishing, Pete Hines, was asked on August 22 if players will be able to explore an entire planet, to which he responded, "Yup if you want. Walk on, brave explorer".

That statement, conjoined with countless marketing of the raw exploration of Starfield's planets, has left gamers slightly suspicious. Is this hype from the developer, or will they actually be able to roam the entirety of each of the planets? Here's how it seems to work. When a player selects a new planet to land on, they create a landing area/site. This landing area generates a 1km explorable area, which equates to about 10 to 15 minutes of running in a single direction. When the border of that area is reached, the player will get a pop-up message informing them they cannot go any further.

The first patch for Baldur's Gate 3 landed towards the end of last week, and the developer is now building up hype for the second patch.

We're told that patch #2 is just around the corner, and that it's going to make some big changes to the RPG.

Specifically, that includes major boosts on the performance front, a whole bunch of tweaks - likely in the same vein to the ones we saw in patch #1 - and it also "begins our journey incorporating [player] feedback into Origin Character epilogues."

Ubisoft's Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is a new open-world action-adventure set in the universe created by legendary filmmaker James Cameron, created by the studio behind the hit third-person action series The Division. Pre-release gameplay looks impressive, with a style that feels like Far Cry in how the world will change and the environment will react to your actions.

With a release date of December 7, 2023, on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC, we've got some info specific to the game's PC version. Fidelity-wise, you're looking at both ray-traced reflections and shadows alongside being able to fine-tune and tweak several graphics settings beyond what's possible on PS5 or Xbox Series X|S.

Like all major Ubisoft releases, it's set to launch with a benchmark tool that will offer a detailed look at performance while serving as a great way to optimize settings. It gets interesting that as an AMD-sponsored title, you're getting AMD's FSR 2 support for upscaling, FSR 3 Fluid Motion Frames for frame generation, and NVIDIA DLSS on day one.

With Lenovo set to unveil its dedicated portable gaming handheld, the Lenovo Legion Go, in the coming days at IFA 2023, we've now got more details on what to expect thanks to new information courtesy of Windows Report covering hardware specifications, pricing, and even availability. It's on track for an October release.

As a dedicated Windows 11 PC gaming handheld, the Lenovo Legion Go is positioned as a direct competitor to the ASUS ROG Ally and Steam Deck, albeit more premium regarding its make-up. Specs-wise, Lenovo looks to be going all out with the Legion Go, especially when put up against the formidable ROG Ally, with the handheld featuring a larger screen with a higher resolution and frame rate (QHD+ 2560 x 1600), the Ryzen Z1 Extreme from AMD, and super-fast 16GB LPDDR5X-7500 memory.

Storage-wise, the Legion Go will use PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 2242 with 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB capacities. Pricing will start at USD 799, with the handheld also set to debut with three months of Xbox Game Pass.

The gamer who leaked 45 minutes of Starfield footage has been arrested on felony theft charges and released on bail.

Days ago, 29 year-old Darin Harris was arrested in Shelby County, Tennessee on charges of Class D felony theft. According to police reports obtained by Polygon and the Memphis Commercial Appeal, Harris had allegedly stolen dozens of copies of the game and potentially intended to sell or distribute the stolen copies through FedEx shipments.

Shelby County police searched Harris' home, finding multiple copies of the unreleased game. The copies of Starfield in Harris' possession had been stolen from a Memphis-based Vantiva warehouse where the game discs are stored and distributed. Authorities also found copies of Starfield that were packaged in FedEx envelopes, presumably to be sold to users online.

Diablo IV was one of the most hyped games of this year, and following its release, there has been a mixed bag of opinions by people who really enjoy the game, and people who really enjoy pointing out Blizzard's shortcomings.

One of the latter players decided to compile a list of all of Blizzard's grammatical errors found in-game, and there aren't just a few - there are quite a lot. This user goes by the name Aeretes and posted a slew of screenshots to Reddit in a post that has since gained a lot of traction within the Diablo subreddit. The screenshots revealed many basic grammatical errors as well as punctuation errors - some as simple as unnecessary apostrophes in the word "it's".

Other errors included blatant misspellings of characters and creature names. An example of this would be the two separate objective descriptions in the quest Bad Blood, which points players to a potion that is said to have the ability to turn people in Nangiri. Notably, there isn't a race of Nangiri within the Diablo universe, but there is a race of serpentine people called the Nagari. While these errors are small, and some gamers may not even care, others believe it represents sloppy development.

Elon Musk made a surprise appearance at a Valorant tournament, and when he was put on screen for all of about 4 seconds, the crowd began to boo.

Musk appeared at a Valorant champs tournament on Saturday, and the event showcased the owner of X for all of about 4 seconds. The moment was captured and posted on X, and it shows the crowd immediately beginning to boo Musk, sparking a response from one of the commentators that said, "Where is that from? That can't be from in here, surely". The camera controllers quickly pulled away from Musk, who appeared to be clapping for the in-game performance, which was followed by the crowd beginning to chant, "bring back Twitter".

Notably, Musk was attending the event that was located at the KIA Forum in Los Angeles with his son, as the X owner was posting pictures with his son prior to entering the arena. While Musk's appearance at the tournament was brief, it still gained a lot of traction online as many X users rushed to express their pleasure in Musk being booed by Valorant fans. The above video was posted on August 27 and has already gained nearly 10 million views.

Will Starfield feature NVIDIA DLSS support to boost performance on day one? The answer to that, at least officially, is no. Bethesda is partnering with AMD to optimize performance for PC and Xbox Series X|S consoles with CPU and GPU features. The upscaling method of choice will be AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution or FSR 2.

FSR 2 is a platform-agnostic upscaling technology that works on AMD Radeon, NVIDIA GeForce, and Intel Arc graphics cards. The controversy about Starfield and DLSS comes down to NVIDIA's AI-based upscaling delivering better overall results than AMD's FSR and word that AMD forces developers not to adopt competing technologies as part of its developer partnership program. FSR 2 in Starfield makes perfect sense as the technology is fully supported on Xbox Series X|S consoles.

In a new interview with The Verge, AMD gaming chief Fran Azor states (more or less) that no clauses like this exist and that if Bethesda wants to add DLSS as an option in Starfield on PC, "they have AMD's full support."

With over 400 games on PC and console, Xbox Game Pass looks like the best deal in gaming for consumers, but publishers use the subscription to meet different needs.

While most publishers are open to Xbox Game Pass, some of the largest games-makers very much disagree on the service's day-and-date selling point. For gamers, this is great--being able to play titles day one without buying them outright saves a lot of money. But for publishers trying to selling millions of copies of a game to not only break even but make a profit, day-and-date launches on Game Pass could cripple their plans.

The FTC v Microsoft federal case has proven that Xbox Game Pass has an undesirable "cannibalistic effect" wherein users will simply subscribe to the service instead of buying the games outright (the reverse has also been proven, too).

The wait for a new Dragon Age game continues onward as BioWare lays off key pivotal developers in the fantasy franchise.

Just days ago, BioWare general manager Gary McKay made a somber announcement. The studio is to lay off 50 people as part of Electronic Arts' new lean restructuring and cost-savings plan. That's about 10% of BioWare's total workforce. Many of the affected developers have already been laid off, including 17-year Dragon Age veteran Mary Kirby, who not only created the wisecracking dwarf Varric but also helped shape the storylines of all of the Dragon Age games.

Laying off so many people while Dreadwolf is in development will assuredly affect the game's progress. According to Giant Bomb's Jeff Grubb, BioWare has set a tentative Summer 2024 release window for Dragon Age 4.

Following a spree of departures and three years without releasing a new original game, BioWare has announced plans to lay off 50 people.

BioWare isn't in the best shape right now. The storied RPG developer has been losing a number of high-profile people for years now, including some renowned veterans in the role-playing space. While no real information as to why devs were leaving BioWare has surfaced, it's not entirely difficult to put the pieces together.

BioWare hasn't released a new game since 2019's Anthem, which followed 2017's unpopular Mass Effect Andromeda (BioWare did however release the Mass Effect trilogy remaster on last-gen hardware in 2021). That's two consecutive critical failures back-to-back. Then Dragon Age Dreadwolf, the next big game in the series, has been rebooted a few times while in development.

Xbox gaming CEO Phil Spencer comments on rumblings that the Series S is holding back gaming, says that he doesn't believe there is a "fatal flaw" in the Xbox Series S hardware.

It's no secret that the Xbox Series S is a technically inferior machine to the Series X. One quick look at the Series S' tech specs say it all. The system has 40% less RAM, which is a big blow to developers that rely on unified console memory to feed the CPU and GPU. It also has a marginally weaker GPU that has less than half of the RDNA 2.0 architecture compute units as the Series X, which reduces the overall amount of shader hardware.

These limitations have been well-known for some time and has fragmented the console generation in the eyes of fans and possibly even developers: The Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 are on one part of the divide, and on the other is the Series S. The weaker console simply adds to the work that developers must target in order to release games on the Xbox platform, as Microsoft requires compatibility on both the Series X and S. If you want to release a game on Xbox, then it must be playable on both systems despite their varying tech specs.

Hello Games confirmed it is using AMD's FSR 2.0 tech to boost the visual quality of No Man's Sky on the Nintendo Switch.

Today Hello Games announced Echoes, the latest free expansion for their mega-successful space sim No Man's Sky. The new Echoes expansion packs in a ton of content, including a new alien language, pirate frigates, fresh settlements, new expeditions, and even a ceremonial staff you can use while exploring planets.

There's also some tech upgrades including foveated rendering on PlayStation VR2 to "boost resolution and detail at the center of your vision." Hello Games has also confirmed they are using AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution 2.0 to enhance visuals on the lower-end Tegra X1-powered Nintendo Switch.

UK regulators at the Competition and Markets Authority have opened a separate new investigation into Microsoft's updated Activision merger proposal.

Days ago, the CMA officially blocked the original Microsoft-Activision merger under the existing terms. Microsoft's 10-year deals with NVIDIA and Boosteroid were not convincing enough, neither was the Cloud Remedy proposal nor the Call of Duty deal that Sony signed. The CMA still believes the original merger would have resulted in lessened competition in the cloud gaming market.

Microsoft anticipated this play and has now submitted a new restructured merger deal that makes some pretty big changes. UK regulators at the CMA have opened a separate investigation into the revised merger proposal--it's a new deal that has warranted its own Phase 1 investigation, which can take over a month.

Xbox's Phil Spencer tells gamers that Activision-Blizzard PC and console titles won't show up on Game Pass overnight.

Microsoft's desire to buy Activision Blizzard King centers around three main goals: Having a presence in mobile gaming, bolstering PC and consoles, and adding value to Xbox Game Pass. The inclusion of Call of Duty alone on Xbox Game Pass could tip the scales in Microsoft's favor when it comes to subscription services, not to mention other heavy hitters like Overwatch and Diablo IV.

If the merger goes through, Microsoft indeed plans to add a lot of Activision-Blizzard's PC and console games to Xbox Game Pass. After all, the subscription service is meant to transform and usher in a new digital-based future of the Xbox business, as Microsoft plans to make Xbox a $32 billion business by 2030 using models like Xbox Game Pass.

Baldur's Gate 3 will officially launch on Xbox in 2023, the boss of game developer Larian has re-confirmed.

Working closely with Xbox gaming CEO Phil Spencer, Larian has now found a way to ensure Baldur's Gate 3 meets its target and releases on Xbox platforms in 2023. The news was confirmed today by Larian Studios head Swen Vincke, who said:

"I'm super happy to confirm that after meeting Phil Spencer yesterday, we've found a solution that allows us to bring Baldur's Gate 3 to Xbox players this year still, something we've been working towards for quite some time," Vincke said on Twitter.

Microsoft plans to team up with unlikely ally Ubisoft in a bid to seek approval from UK regulators for its $68.7 billion merger with Activision.

Microsoft has taken creative and preemptive strategies to get the Activision merger approved. We've seen Microsoft make 10-year Call of Duty deals with Nintendo and Sony, and also sign deals with multiple cloud gaming providers in an effort to reduce concerns about content exclusivity. But Microsoft's latest gambit for merge approval is by far its largest yet.

Following multiple reports from unnamed sources, the tech giant is indeed planning to divest a significant portion of its cloud gaming business. Microsoft's divestiture doesn't involve an entire studio or business unit but instead distribution.

We now know the system requirements for Forza Motorsport, and it's another PC game to join an increasing trend these days, calling for an SSD as a compulsory component.

The other minimum requirements are not particularly taxing, but ruling out gamers with PCs that still run a hard disk may be painful for some folks.

As mentioned, there are more than a few games which have taken this SSD-only route in recent times, including Starfield which is now imminent.

Sony just announced a new PSP, but it's not the one you expected. Sony's new gaming handheld is called the PlayStation Portal and it's a very targeted product with a limited feature set.

With its $199 price tag and reduced functionality, the new PlayStation Portal might be a tough sell. The device has steep competition with the Nintendo Switch Lite matching the same price tag, but what sets the Portal apart isn't necessarily what it can do, but what it can't.

The PlayStation Portal is exclusively a Remote Play device, meaning it can't play games on its own and does not have game-ready internal hardware (and if it does, the functionality is being limited by proprietary software/firmware). We've known this for a while, but there was some fuzziness about the Portal supporting cloud game streaming. That's not the case.