Consoles Hub

Valve is not quite ready to begin shipping the Steam Deck, but it has finalised the console's packaging. The box contains quite a few jokes too, but not many accessories inside.

Valve's official FAQ section for developers states that no games will be exclusive to the Steam Deck. The company considers it to be a handheld PC and wants to treat it likewise.

Razer is said to be developing a new handheld gaming console. It has partnered with Qualcomm to develop a Snapdragon G3x Handheld Developer Kit and could be targeted at the Valve Steam Deck or even the Nintendo Switch.

Nintendo is yet to release a Switch XL, as it did with the DS family. However, the UpSwitch Orion serves as an unofficial alternative, with its 11.6-inch display and built-in speakers effectively creating a gigantic Switch console.

AYN Technologies has postponed the release of the AYN Odin by a month, an Android-based handheld games console. The Odin is available in three configurations and supports an optional Super Dock.

PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X availability may still be poor globally, but Microsoft has produced an abundance of Xbox Series S consoles. As a result, the budget and compact console has outsold all its contemporaries, including the Nintendo Switch.

Sony has reportedly patented its own take on the type of controller that also snaps onto a smartphone to double as a grip for the device. This version of the accessory has PlayStation-esque buttons, joysticks and triggers, as one might hope. All in all, the alleged new IP looks very like a DualShock made just for smartphones.

Sony is not expected to bring a PS5 Slim or PlayStation 5 Pro to market any time soon, with the current versions of the console little over a year old. Nonetheless, LetsGoDigital and ConceptCreator have imagined how a slimmer version would look, along with a presumed Pro model.

Developer Melhem Sfeir, who previously released a tech demo showcasing the capabilities of Unreal 5's Nanite geometry system, outed a new demo running on the GeForce RTX 3070, showing off Unreal 5's Lumen lighting system, next-gen materials, and high-fidelity Quixel scan objects.

Polymega is an innovative 'all-in-one retro console' that converts to support various types of classic cartridges via a modular system. Now, its maker Playmaji has announced that the fifth and latest version of these allows the user to play N64 games with the device. The OEM asserts that there are few other options on the market to do so at present.

Nominees for the Best Gaming Hardware Of All Time included PS 1/2/4, Nintendo SNES / N64 / Wii, PC, Atari 2600, ZX Spectrum, Amiga 500 and Commodore 64, while the Ultimate Game Of All Time list presented nominees like Tetris, Pac-Man, Doom ‘93, Super Mario 64, Pokemon Go, GTA V, Halo and the original Sim City.

Several Reddit and Twitter users have stumbled upon cheaters in Halo Infinite's multiplayer mode using an aimbot, wallhacks and other software that gives them a competitive advantage. It is frustrating console players as there's no way for them to opt out of playing with PC players.

A new tech review video analyzes the blatant performance issues of the remastered versions of GTA San Andreas and Vice City on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series consoles. On Nintendo Switch, the GTA Trilogy Definitive Edition even appears to perform catastrophically bad.

The price will drop another $5 USD from November 26 to 27 which is when the Thanksgiving sale will kick off. The SN750 SE series is home to some of the slowest PCIe4 NVMe SSDs that are still compatible with the PS5.

The United States Patent and Trademark Office has approved Sony's patent for PS5 faceplates. The patent became active almost a year after Sony filed it, which allowed Dbrand to produce the original Darkplates in the interim.

Thanks to Alder Lake's massive IPC improvements, Red Dead Redemption, long the bane of emulators like RPCS3 and Xenia, is finally running at close to 4K/60 FPS on an Alder Lake i9-12900K paired with a GeForce RTX 3080 Ti.

Microsoft recently rolled out Xbox Cloud Gaming on the Xbox One and Xbox One S in over 25 regions. This feature allows gamers on previous-gen hardware to stream next-gen exclusive titles like The Medium via xCloud, opening a door to new cross-gen possibilities.

Microsoft unveiled the release of Halo Infinite multiplayer on November 15. The free-to-play multiplayer crossed 200,000 concurrent players on Steam, which is a Steam launch record for Microsoft. However, Season 1 has been extended by three extra months to allow for healthy game development.

After adding in a kernel-level anti-cheat solution to Call of Duty: Vanguard, Activision revised its enforcement policy, highlighting that severe infractions could result in players getting banned in past, present, and future Call of Duty titles.

A YouTuber has showcased the performance of the ONEXPLAYER with a Ryzen 7 5700U APU. The ONEXPLAYER will also be available with a Ryzen 7 4800U, both with a 1 TB SSD and 16 GB of RAM.

In addition to the rubberized grips and metallic finishes that are returning to Xbox Design Lab, the list of customization options available for Xbox controllers and their parts also includes a few new color options and designs inspired by Skyrim, Battlefield 2042, Forza Horizon 5, and Riders Republic.

Microsoft has quietly brought GTA San Andreas - The Definitive Edition to Xbox Game Pass subscribers on the same day as the US$59.99 trilogy goes on sale. While the game is not free on PlayStation, GTA III will be from early next month.

Due to issues with the supply chain network, Valve has announced that the Steam Deck will be postponed until February 2022. The Steam Deck is Valve's newest device to entice gamers who desire PC gaming in a handheld form factor. However, lucky gamers who reserved the device will have to wait longer as the company grapples with logistic challenges due to the pandemic.

Modder Digital Dreams recently posted a YouTube video showcasing Forza Horizon 5 running with ray-tracing enabled in gameplay sections, via a Cheat Engine tweak. While system specs weren't given, it appears that Digital Dreams is running the gain at a fairly locked 60 FPS.

A new report from Bloomberg suggests that it will be harder to get your hands on a PS5 in 2022. Sony has reportedly lowered its sales targets due to component shortages. It hopes to sell about 15 million consoles by March 2022 instead of the originally planned 16 million.

The new exclusive open world racing game for Microsoft's platforms looks amazingly realistic on the Xbox Series X, and with the right settings it can even look a tad better on PC, arguably making it one of the most beautiful video games of all times.

An industry insider (RalphsValve) has heard that Rockstar is planning to remaster Grand Theft Auto 4. The game will be launched for all major platforms sometime in 2023. It will be single-player only and include content from the 'Episodes from Liberty City' DLC pack.

The PlayStation 5 console has come under some close scrutiny lately with two hacking incidents offering interesting results. A Google security engineer claims to have accessed the debug settings while a known hacking group has apparently obtained all of the PS5 root keys. These kinds of hacks could lead to an eventual PS5 jailbreak.

With a release date set for November 11th, GTA: The Trilogy Definitive Edition is now ready to hit the Nintendo Switch as well. Rockstar confirmed this via six new screenshots from this ported edition of the upcoming title which promises to be one of the most popular releases of the year.

Bandai Namco Entertainment has published the official game specs and compatibility details for Elden Ring. PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X owners and PC users with powerful rigs should get to enjoy the potential of up to 4K resolution or 60 FPS gaming. However, ray-tracing support has not made it to the Xbox Series S console.

Scheduled to launch across multiple platforms on February 25, 2022, Elden Ring is now up for pre-order in five editions, including a numbered and limited edition of 6,000 units worldwide. Unsurprisingly, it looks like the Premium Collector's Edition sold out in a matter of minutes after showing up in the Bandai Namco Store.

A year on and the PlayStation 5 remains just as difficult as ever to get a hold of. In an attempt to improve the situation, Sony has chartered three Boeing 747 jumbo jets, which will deliver 50 pallets of consoles each to Europe.

Available for Game Pass on Xbox for a while, Minecraft is now also included in Game Pass for PC. Subscribers can play both editions, namely Bedrock and Java Edition, on machines loaded with Windows 10 and 11. Thankfully, PC players are also able to cross-play with those on other platforms as well.

Valve has announced a Steamworks Virtual Conference set for next week. It will give developers a closer look at the company’s eagerly awaited Steam Deck handheld console and how to leverage the AMD Van Gogh APU powering it.

The highest capacity 2 TB option will set you back $350 USD. In return, owners would be getting one of the fastest PCIe4 drives available with sequential read and write speeds approaching 7400 MB/s and 6700 MB/s, respectively.

With only one year left until the anniversary of its first decade, War Thunder celebrates by offering 50 percent discounts on premium accounts, in-game vehicles, as well as on modifications, backup vehicles, and talismans. Obviously, all these only stand as a part of the entire collection of anniversary offerings available.

Founded less than a decade ago, Two Hat has been working with Microsoft's Xbox team for several years, and the time has already come for the next big step. By joining Microsoft, Two Hat will enable the Redmond giant to provide healthy, safe, and inclusive online spaces to its various online communities.

Industry insider Christopher Dring has heard that Microsoft plans on making more Xbox Series X consoles available to the public this holiday season. The restock comes right before Forza Horizon 5 and Halo Infinite will be launched on the platform.

Dubbed "Ground Breaking" and released earlier today, War Thunder 2.11 brings a new tech tree into the game, although Israel only got two premium aircraft for now and no regular military hardware. However, the highlight of this update is terramorphing, alongside new maps, missions, visual effects, and quite a few new vehicles.

The free games coming to PlayStation Plus service subscribers in November have been leaked. Among them, there is a well-received PlayStation VR game, a remaster of a PlayStation 3 action RPG, a social deduction party title, and a Rocket Arena-type game from Electronic Arts. It’s expected the games will become available for free from November 2.

A new video on Xbox's official YouTube channel imagines the state of gaming consoles in 2042. Among other things, it would use Quantum-powered hardware capable of 1 quintillion floating-point operations per second (FLOPS), a holographic UI and a personal AI. Games would be playable at a resolution of 32K, 480 FPS.

Steam games are now playable on Xbox consoles thanks to GeForce NOW support for the Microsoft Edge browser. Compatability remains in beta, so do not expect the smoothest of experiences for the time being.

With Halo Infinite set to arrive in just two months, Microsoft finally decided to take the wraps off the campaign: the new campaign will show the first single-player footage we've seen in over a year since Craig the Brute's infamous debut.

Yuzu's resolution scaling feature recently received a massive update. Alongside a more effective texture scaling solution, Yuzu developers added in support for AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution upscaling feature, making 4K Breath of The Wild more accessible than before.

Youtuber @Cycu1 put together a comparison video of gameplay footage for God of War’s PC port with the existing PS5 enhanced version. The video highlights broad parity between the two, but with minor improvements on PC to shadowing and ambient occlusion.

RPCS3, one of the most popular PlayStation 3 emulators, can now boot every single PlayStation 3 title ever made. This does not mean that every PS3 game is playable on the emulator, but it is a major accomplishment and a significant step toward complete compatibility.

Microsoft has unveiled two new Seagate expansion cards for the Xbox Series S|X. The 512GB variant will cost US$140, and it is available for pre-order in the United States. On the other hand, the 2TB version costs US$399 and will be available for pre-order sometime in November 2021.

Sony has taken issue with Dbrand selling Darkplates side plates for the PlayStation 5. In response, Dbrand has released Darkplates 2.0 in three colours.

Microsoft has come through on its commitment to release the Xbox Series X Mini Fridge in time for Christmas. Officially called the Xbox Series X Replica Mini Fridge Thermoelectric Cooler, the mini fridge will be available to pre-order in Europe, the US and UK from next week for two-figure sums.

The surprisingly high specifications, with a GeForce GTX 970 as the recommended GPU, raise questions about optimisation and how significant Rockstar’s remastering efforts are.