Consoles Hub

Those who own current-gen Xbox consoles have reportedly been sent a survey by Microsoft about their experiences with the devices to date. It also contains some pointed questions about how they would like to see it go in the future, hinting at the possible prospect of a new controller with up-to-date features from that for the new PlayStation.

An incredibly exciting but almost certainly fake itinerary for an upcoming Nintendo Direct event has been supposedly leaked. Featuring on the fantasy wishlist are details of a Nintendo Switch Pro console at US$399 and a huge list of games, including Mario Kart 9, Grand Theft Auto V: Premium Edition, and The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of the Past.

Lenovo and NEC have teamed up to introduce new Tiger Lake devices in the Lavie range. The Lavie Mini is an 8-inch handheld gaming PC that comes with optional gaming controller and gaming dock accessories. The Lavie Pro Mobile is a 13.3-inch ultrabook that combines form and functionality without much compromise on the connectivity front.

For those worried about whether their TV stands or living room furniture can accommodate the arguably large PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X console, Ikea has come up with sizing guides that help clear all confusion. That being said, speculation is also rife about the possibility of a PS5 Slim hitting the market earlier than the norm to make up for some of the PS5's supply deficiencies and improve certain aspects of the hardware.

GTA VI (6) is currently in development at Rockstar, according to an insider leak. So far, the only clues to GTA 6 have been this particular leak and a previous teaser of GTA Online Cayo Perico surveil.exe. Also being speculated is that GTA V could arrive on the upcoming PlayStation VR 2, which could not only boost sales but also make VR a successful platform in upcoming PlayStation generations.

Sony's original plan was to launch the PlayStation 5 on November 19, 2020; however, they fell through with no sign of the console in the country since. It has now at least released details on its re-scheduled launch, as well as the start of pre-orders with channels such as Flipkart.

After a fascinating showing at CES 2020, the conceptual product will probably not make an appearance at CES 2021 next week. We're not crossing our fingers on any official news at all about the UFO either, at least in the short term.

Modder Romelsalwi's optimized settings for Cyberpunk 2077 could enable greater performance when ray-tracing is on. As we wait for CD Projekt Red's performance and stability optimizations to role in, the mod could enable better framerates for RTX graphics card owners.

The PlayStation 5 (or PS5) has not been on the market long, and is not even available everywhere on Earth yet. Nevertheless, a new report claims that it has sold 3.4 million units already, more than any of its predecessors to date. The PS5 is also now projected to sell much more in 2021.

Word on the street is that 2021 could be huge for Xbox with UPlay rumored to be coming to Xbox Game Pass next year. Several big ticket titles such as non-MMO Bethesda games, Forza Horizon 5, Starfield, Wolfenstein 3, and other AAA games are expected to come to Xbox in 2021. Microsoft's plans of acquiring Sega may also finally bear fruition next year.

Several players have reported on ResetEra and Reddit about faulty adaptive triggers on their PlayStation 5 DualSense controllers. The cause, which is being attributed to a dislodged or broken spring in the mechanism, can be temporarily fixed, but the best resort is to opt for a warranty claim.

A useful list has been posted on Reddit featuring games that can be played on the PlayStation 5 at 60 FPS and above. While titles such as Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War and NBA 2K21 are expected to be on such a PS5-related list, it also features games such as The Witcher 3, Ghost of Tsushima, and The Last of Us Remastered.

Cyberpunk 2077 has appeared in a fan-made video as “cancelled footage” from the PS1 version, bringing some light relief to those who have worked their way through the buggy PS4 and Xbox One versions. It’s not all gray clouds for CD Projekt as a silver lining has come in the form of 13 million sales, which factors in returns.

The latest free update for this year's Microsoft Flight Simulator brings a whole new level of realism and authenticity to the game by adding full support for virtual reality headsets. The list of supported devices includes those made by Oculus, Valve, and HTC, as well as the HP Reverb G2 and most other Windows Mixed Reality headsets.

KFC Gaming in collaboration with Cooler Master is introducing a new KFConsole based on the Intel NUC 9 Extreme Kit and a probable Asus Dual GeForce RTX 2070 GPU. The KFConsole aims to satiate both your hunger for games and also real hunger by including a built-in chicken warmer that uses system heat to warm food.

Microsoft has stated that it is in the process of reimbursing customers unhappy with the performance of their digital Cyberpunk 2077 copies on its consoles. Meanwhile, investors are reportedly mulling a class-action lawsuit against the game's maker, CD Projekt Red, for misrepresenting the success of the game on relevant platforms.

The PS5 vs. Xbox Series X|S vs. Switch launch sales contest has been definitively won by Sony’s console according to recently published estimates. Global sales for the PlayStation 5 have topped 3.3 million units within its first four weeks of launch. Microsoft’s consoles have also sold well in the US and Europe but flatlined in Japan.

War Thunder 2.3 "Hot Tracks" comes with multiple graphics enhancements, 3 Italian helicopters, 9 ground vehicles, 7 new ships, over a dozen new aircraft, as well as the usual minor tweaks, optimizations, and bug fixes. The new vehicle tracks and effects are not available yet and should become available after "some time," according to Gaijin.

Released back in mid-August on Windows and expected to hit Xbox consoles next year, this year's Microsoft Flight Simulator was highly praised by both the press and the public for its graphical accuracy. Although it also has some issues, this title is the fastest-growing in the series so far, with more than 2 million players already.

Described as "the largest and most ambitious Grand Theft Auto Online adventure to date," The Cayo Perico Heist is also the first of its kind that can be played without any companions from start to finish, although the player can also choose to team up with one or two companions.

PlayStation 5 scalpers have made over US$34 million in sales via eBay resulting in profits of over US$19 million according to research carried out by a data engineer. The Digital Edition of the PS5 has been particularly exploited in regard to scalping, with the console being sold at over 350% of its MSRP at various points during the research period.

2020's consoles have been linked to chronically low stock since their launch. This might cause some concern among buyers wishing to have one ordered prior to the winter holidays. However, Best Buy has announced that it should have stock of the PlayStation 5 and new Xboxes available to buy online from December 15.

CDPR has apologized for Cyberpunk 2077's lackluster performance on last-gen consoles such as the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 and said that new patches are forthcoming to fix a majority of reported issues. The company is also offering to refund these players via PSN and the Xbox Store.

AndaSeat is a company that lays claim of a history of making racing seats for car-marques such as Mercedes and BMW. Now, it has applied this experience to a new gaming chair called the Kaiser 2. It is described as made using robust cold-cured foam and convincingly leather-like material. It is avaiilable in the US, UK and Australia.

The hotfix labeled 1.04 that has been around for two days already on all platforms fixes multiple quest bugs, improves stability, takes out a few crashes, but also includes changes to the flashing effect in Braindance sequences that eliminate the chance for these episodes to induce epileptic seizures.

Coming as a relief for AMD Ryzen gamers who've been plagued by frequent frame rate drops and low minimums, an unofficial patch for the Cyberpunk 2077 executable file enables proper multithreading support, delivering a smoother experience on PC.

Studio Wildcard recently announced a sequel to ARK: Survival Evolved, Ark 2, set to release on PC and next-generation consoles, at The Game Awards. While the dinosaur-hunting survival game was a surprising candidate for the sequel treatment, Vin Diesel's starring role in the trailer was even more unexpected.

The PlayStation 4 can only manage up to 900p in Cyberpunk 2077, Digital Foundry has discovered. The last-generation console mainly slums it in 720p though, and often at below 20 FPS. Expectedly, people have been leaving negative reviews in their droves.

The Last of Us Part II won seven categories at The Game Awards 2020, including the Game of the Year and Best Narrative titles. Although the title has been beset with criticism from some gamers angry at playing as Abby, the actress who voiced the character, Laura Bailey, won a Best Performance Game Award for her role.

Nintendo has yet to officially drop the original MSRP of its Switch console even after all these years. As outdated as its Tegra X1 chip has become, sales have been so strong that the Switch may not even need any price cuts at all until at least the impending launch of a proper successor.

Microsoft has confirmed that Flight Simulator 2020 will be coming to the Xbox Series X and Series S consoles in Summer 2021 making it the company's first next-gen exclusive title. Support for the Xbox One generation is not indicated. Microsoft has said that the console version of the game will have feature parity with the PC version including support for new world updates, themed DLCs, and more.

Despite an overall strong launch of the highly anticipated Cyberpunk 2077, CD Projekt Red has lost almost a third of its stock price over the past week. While Cyberpunk 2077 has largely been a financial and critical success, concerns about the game's bugs and glitches have contributed to a 29% erosion of the company's market value.

Ghosts 'n Goblins Resurrection is a remake of the Capcom arcade classic. The title, which has a nice graphical overhaul and some new features, maintains the original's infamous difficulty. The title will release for the Nintendo Switch in February 2021.

Elven apostate hedge mage Solas returns in the new Dragon Age 4 trailer, which has been unveiled two years since the last teaser. Unfortunately, the video does not contain any details regarding the release date of this title that was supposed to launch last year, but reveals that the hero will not be a "chosen one" as before.

A short teaser is enough to bring back a lot of pleasant memories to fans of the Mass Effect franchise and, despite BioWare's recent troubles, the company is now on the path to a new chapter of the game's universe. Sadly, the game is still "in the early stages," and there is no launch date to talk about yet.

Consoles and COVID-19 have dominated the “where to buy…” Google search terms for 2020 in the United States. The PlayStation 5 was the most-hunted for product, beating out toilet paper. The Xbox Series X and the Nintendo Switch also made it into the top 10. Unfortunately, the PS5 is very much out of stock.

Eight years of hard work developing Cyberpunk 2077 seems to have paid off for the Polish video-game company CD Projekt. Apparently the action RPG clocked up more than eight million preorders, amounting to over US$500 million in revenue. The incredible Cyberpunk 2077: Collector’s Edition features a statue of V in action and a map of Night City.

Estimated console hardware sales in Japan for the week Nov 30-Dec 6 have revealed how stock shortages for both the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S have greatly impacted sales in that country. Nintendo has been reaping the rewards, with over 200,000 Switch units sold. While the PS5 has generally sold well when available, the Microsoft consoles have floundered.

Although we are talking about a DRM-free title, Cyberpunk 2077 is already available for download from various shady sources in repacked versions. Even more, a GOG version of the game (which has roughly 110 GB, about twice the size of the compressed versions) has leaked online as well.

The company behind the AYA NEO Founder handheld gaming console has uploaded a video showing the mobile device reaching a peak of 39 FPS while running Cyberpunk 2077 and maintaining a playable rate throughout the test. The AYA NEO Founder handheld sports an AMD Ryzen 5 4500U that features a Radeon RX Vega 6 iGPU part.

The PlayStation Blog recently featured an update on how Hitman 3 will take advantage of Haptic technology on the PlayStation 5's DualSense triggers. With customized trigger recoil and more, Hitman 3 should offer the most immersive Hitman experience, though PSVR could be a compelling reason to purchase the game on the PlayStation 4 instead.

Spider-Man: Miles Morales and Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War have proved themselves to be the must-have titles for the PlayStation 5 by topping PlayStation Store download charts. Additionally, Insomniac Games has pushed out an update for Miles Morales that brings a 60 fps ray-tracing performance mode to the PS5 game.

Halo: Infinite developers 343 Industries has posted a blog following the postponement of the vaunted Xbox Series X/S would-be launch title following a poorly received tech demo. The company has announced that the new launch window for the title will be sometime in the fall of 2021, nearly 12 months after it was to have launched.

While reviewing Cyberpunk 2077, a Game Informer editor faced a major seizure and felt close to another one a few times. The list of triggers includes Braindance sequences, a part of the game that happens to be similar to the experience provided by a device used in real life by neurologists to trigger seizures.

A future PS5 Pro console with a dual-CPU, dual-GPU implementation and with more RAM and storage could be in the works, if recent patent findings are to be considered. The patent envisages several dual CPU/GPU designs with the aim of distributing independent workloads to each cluster. Reports are also coming in that Sony may launch a PS5 Lite some time in H2 2021 to overcome availability issues of the current PS5 console.

An interesting Slug text-rendering test comparison has demonstrated how well the PlayStation 5 can deal with heavy processing workloads. The PS5 managed to produce a complex Royal font pixel fillrate of 4.5 gigapixels/s (GeForce RTX 2080: 3.1 gigapixels/s) and took just 0.33 ms to render all the pixels on a 4K screen with a “typical font”.

The game can be already preloaded by those who purchased it, but when trying to load Cyberpunk 2077 via GOG GALAXY, those in a rush to enjoy this title end up facing an Easter egg in the shape of a message from Johnny Silverhand that says "Go back to sleep, Samurai! It's not December 10th yet." and nothing more.

The trailer that has been released earlier today and has been watched by over 280,000 people already shows the entire plethora of features available for Cyberpunk 2077 players who will be using the Photo Mode. The categories of settings available are: camera, depth of field, pose, effects, and stickers.

The latest iteration of the Gx1 Pro portable console that doubles as a mini laptop is the first to include an FHD touchscreen. It also gets a CPU upgrade with the Tiger Lake i7-1160G7 quad-core that integrates a 96 EU Xe iGPU, plus it comes with two detachable controllers and two Thunderbolt 4 connectors.

The Nintendo Switch has received one of its biggest updates yet thanks to V11.0.0. Not only does the update improve the stability of the console, but it adds several new features, including the ability to transfer screenshots to a smartphone and a new Switch Online app.