Consoles Hub

A message posted on the Twitter account for PlayStation Latest has made quite a confident claim in regard to the performance power of the PlayStation 5. According to the post, the next-gen console from Sony will outrun its future Xbox rival by 10 to 15%. Unsurprisingly, this kind of comparison has been questioned by genuine industry insiders.

Nvidia has narrowed the scope of its Tegra X1 SoC to so few products that the processor has almost no competition to speak of anymore. Nvidia can afford to hold out on a proper successor for longer since the Shield TV console and Nintendo Switch are essentially tied to the Tegra family.

A new rumour about the launch titles for the PlayStation 5 has been circulating online. The list looks similar to one posted on Pastebin a few months ago but with one triple-A addition and one notable absentee. Still, Gran Turismo 7 in 8K would be epic, right?

Trump initially postponed the second wave of tariffs in hopes for an eventual agreement with the Chinese government, then snapped back with 15% increased tariffs and the Huawei ban shortly after, yet China does not seem to be moved. The increased tariffs are now estimated to impact U.S. laptop and tablet sales with 19% raised prices.

Several developers have been working to port Android to the Nintendo Switch since at least February 2019. Now, it appears that this work has paid off and the conversion is nearly fully-functional. The latest build for this console reportedly exhibits working WiFi, important apps, games and audio.

The NVIDIA SHIELD TV box may be among the best-known of all Android TV boxes. Now, there is evidence that it is finally seeing a refresh. However, it seems that the only difference between it and the existing model is a slightly updated SoC and the ability to run Android 9.0 out of the box.

The escalating trade war between China and the United States has claimed a further victim as Nintendo allegedly begins production of new products in Southeast Asia. The Trump administration has hinted at extending new tariffs to Chinese-made smartphones, consoles and computers. However, this hasn't stopped Nintendo ensuring that two new models are ready for launch.

The PlayStation 5 and Xbox Project Scarlett seem destined to be fierce competitors by the end of next year, and it appears to be rather tricky to divine which next-generation console is most likely to have the edge. We have compiled a comparison table populated by confirmed and rumored details about each console, just in time to report about new speculated launch prices that will make gamers giddy if they come true.

It appears GPD has gone into marketing overdrive in preparation for its crowdfunding campaign for the GPD P2 Max pocket-sized laptop. The Chinese manufacturer is now calling the P2 Max the “world’s smallest Ultrabook” and is comparing it favorably with some of the industry’s major players. The company has also announced there will be a third variant that will come with a 1 TB SSD.

Sony and Microsoft are both working with AMD to provide 7 nm graphics for their next-gen consoles, but the results of which may not be equal. According to multiple reports and perhaps even AMD itself, the next PlayStation and Xbox will be a generation of graphics performance apart.

Huntkey is known as a maker of power bricks and other similar accessories. However, it also makes other devices, monitors included. Its latest model is the X2471C, which is a 1080p, 144-hertz (Hz) 23.6-inch 1800R-curved panel. This model has a white housing, 2 HDMI ports and 1 Display Port.

Smach has been showing off its much anticipated and delayed handheld games console at E3 2019, with promises that it will ship at the end of the year. 17 FPS in titles like Monster Hunter World for a starting price of US$699 though? No thanks.

Xbox Chief Phil Spencer clarified that the next generation Xbox Project Scarlett will continue to feature an optical disc drive so as to cater to collectors and those who prefer buying physical media. Spencer also said that Microsoft would make sure there is enough clarity while marketing digital-only consoles like the Xbox One S All-Digital Edition.

Nintendo announced a ton of games coming to the Switch this year and early 2020. Breath of the Wild will be getting a sequel soon, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Complete Edition will finally land on the Switch in the fall, and a few new titles in storied franchises will be coming out later on in the year. It's a good time to be a Nintendo fan.

Amazon and Walmart are currently offering the Sony PlayStation Classic micro-console for US $30, its lowest price ever. The console is pre-loaded with 20 original PlayStation titles but can be easily modded to load several other retro emulators. Sony has also cut prices on controllers and several games.

Atari's VCS game console is now available for pre-order from Atari, Walmart, and GameStop. The console starts at US $249 and comes in a two models with three different designs (depending on retailer). Walmart and GameStop are expected to ship pre-orders in March 2020.

Microsoft announced a new Xbox Game Pass for PC at its E3 2019 keynote that offers curated games for PC gamers for just US$10 a month. The company also announced a new Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription that brings together Game Pass for console, Xbox Live Gold, and Game Pass for PC for a combined price of just US$15.

Microsoft has announced that its xCloud-based game streaming service will be arriving in October. The platform will allow Xbox One gamers to play the games they own anywhere, whether on PC, TV, tablet or smartphone in or out of the house.

Microsoft has launched its all-new Xbox Elite gaming controller at E3. The new Series 2 model offers 30 new features and improvements including introducing adjustable thumbstick tensioning for precision movement and control.

A few details about Project Scarlett were revealed at the Xbox E3 2019 briefing, but it seems in the end it was the next episode in a very famous game franchise that did most of the talking for the next-generation console. A teaser video offered some familiar glimpses at what is expected from future Xbox consoles, but it was the game engine footage of Halo Infinite that stole the show.

Microsoft has been busy wowing the audience with its E3 2019 Xbox briefing. A lot of people will be very interested in what the company has got planned and will share in regard to the Xbox Scarlett console family. However, it seems some Xbox Scarlett devkit specifications have already been leaked, and they are not going to disappoint expectant fans.

The CBS-owned tech outlet has a beef with how YouTube gamers and influencers are "riling up the crowd" with their rants and negativity toward game publishers.

Microsoft has embedded Easter eggs in its Xbox E3 countdown videos that combine to form the RGB code for Scarlett, the codename for the next generation of Xbox consoles. Microsoft is expected to talk about Scarlett and also reveal 14 first-party games for the Xbox along with new developments on Windows 10 gaming and Project xCloud.

Sega released the full list of games that will be on the Sega Genesis Mini console, which is set to release in September. The list includes 42 classic 16-bit Sega games, exactly twice as many games as the SNES Classic Edition. There is a good mix of recognizable classics and hidden gems.

Since Sony is not going to present anything at E3 2019, PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan went ahead and revealed a few more PlayStation 5 features to hype up the fans until the official announcement scheduled later this summer. The rumored custom SSD is now confirmed to be the default storage option, while the 7 nm AMD hardware will offer support for 4K @120 Hz, and there will also be a "cross-generational play" feature.

The video-game industry could accrue as much as US$179.1 billion by 2024. This is in line with a new market-research report on the subject. This valuation may be driven by conventional platforms such as mobile devices, PCs and consoles; however, VR and AR are also likely to have an increasingly large influence on the space.

The creator and executive director of the famed Yakuza series of games has been singing the praises of the PlayStation 5 and its performance capabilities. While discussing the latest entry to the action-adventure franchise, Toshihiro Nagoshi offered up some interesting comments about Sony’s next-generation console.

War Thunder 1.89 "Imperial Navy" comes with a full naval tech tree for Japan, a first — premium, as usual — helicopter for the same nation, a few new ground vehicles — the long-awaited French Leclerc tank is one of them — and planes for most nations, two new locations, reworked clouds, and more.

Some revealing patents have been unearthed that give the impression Sony has overhauled the SSD units that will eventually be integrated into the upcoming PlayStation 5 console. It seems “basic” SSDs had too many limitations that would prevent the next-generation console from reaching peak performance levels.

GPD has posted a video of one of its upcoming P2 MAX devices being put through its paces. An intense fight sequence from Devil May Cry 4: Special Edition is shown and the console/mini laptop hybrid seems to take the high demands on its hardware in its stride. The gameplay looks seamless, which will please those considering a purchase.

Intel used to be the biggest semiconductor maker up until 2017, when Samsung began ramping up the DRAM and NAND memory chip production. Now that memory chip demand is bottoming out and Intel is almost out of the woods with the CPU shortages, Samsung drops to second position again, but things could change by Q4 2019 when the DDR5 memory standard is expected to hit the market.

Sony has finally shown the PlayStation 5 in action, although unfortunately you don’t get a glimpse of the console itself. A short video clip shared by Wall Street Journal writer Takashi Mochizuki shows the loading times for Marvel’s Spider-Man on both the PlayStation 4 Pro and the next-generation console. The difference is astonishing.

The trailer of F1 2019 — the official videogame of the 2019 FIA Formula One World Championship — is now live. The trailer shows a "stunning visual uplift" and features the official F1 theme music written by Brian Tyler. The list of cars present in the game starts with the 1972 Lotus 72D and goes all the way to the 2010 Red Bull RB6, McLaren MP4-25, and Ferrari F10.

The recently unveiled Minecraft Earth is a free-to-play, augmented reality Minecraft title to be added to the Minecraft universe. However, those interested can only sign up for a chance to play the limited beta — which is scheduled to arrive this summer — for now. Signing up will also get them a free Earth skin for Minecraft Bedrock.

Khronos Group, the consortium behind the development of the Vulkan API, has listed the Google Games Platform Gen 1 aka Stadia as being powered by a custom AMD datacenter GPU based on the GCN 1.5 architecture in its Vulkan Conformant Products page. Google Stadia's GPU is said to be a custom Vega 56 with 56 CUs and a memory bandwidth of 484 GBps. The platform is based on Google's customized Debian Linux and SDK, and uses Vulkan as the graphics API of choice.

It’s been reported that some of the executives at BioWare, the EA-owned game developer, have been blaming Anthem’s issues on the gamers that play it. Great things were expected from the title, but within days of its release in February it was already facing a lukewarm response from critics and complaints about hardware crashes from players.

As if the Playstation 5 and XBox rumors haven't been rampant enough, we can expect even more speculation pieces once AMD gives the deep technical dive into both Zen 2 and Navi during the private Hot Chips 2019 conference.

An interesting new custom kit has been discovered that can turn a simple-looking Raspberry Pi board into a handheld gaming console with keyboard and game controls. The Hyper Keyboard Pi is currently being sold for ¥6,980 (~US$64), although users will have to purchase the rest of the key components separately.

According to a new report, the virtual reality (VR) gaming market will grow from its most recent US$10.3 billion valuation to one of $40.2 billion in 2024. This is likely to be driven by advancements in VR equipment design and function. However, the cost of the same is also thought to be what is holding this market back at present.

Today (May 16, 2019), the corporations Microsoft and Sony unveiled plans to collaborate on the development of new technology. This partnership will see the 2 electronics giants team up on new image sensors and cloud computing applications. This may enhance platforms such as PlayStation and Azure AI in the future.

A modder known as Madmorda has created an amazing fully functional miniature version of Nintendo’s immensely popular GameCube. Nintendo has had great success with the NES and SNES Classic Edition mini consoles, but there has been no sign that the Japanese company would turn its sights onto the GameCube.

An analyst for the Ace Research Institute has compiled a financial results report about Sony’s PlayStation business. Among the big numbers and forecasts, the researcher has detailed some information about the upcoming PlayStation 5 console, which includes an expected launch date of November 2020. There are also predictions for price and sales.

Lisa Su will kickoff Computex 2019 in less than two weeks and then tease even more gaming technologies two weeks later at the Next Horizon Gaming conference in E3 2019. Expect a cluster of hopefully exciting AMD announcements in the coming month.

Earphones and headphone sales drive a healthy market in the United States. The market analysis firm ReportBuyer estimates that it will grow at a compound rate of over 12% until it is worth approximately US$9 billion in 2024. The products in question are mostly used in fitness, entertainment and gaming pursuits.

EA's latest quarterly earnings report shows a slight growth slowdown for Apex Legends in the last month, so the company is now planning to release a version for the mobile platforms and expand the Origin marketplace in the SEA region. A switch version could also be released at some point, but the port is said to be problematic.

An advert from One-Netbook Technology seems to show that the company is preparing to enter the handheld gaming PC market. Depending on the development time involved, any product could end up being a rival to the upcoming GPD Win Max and the Smach Z. The new brand name (and possibly the name of the console) is OneGx.

Walmart is offering some great deals on popular consoles at the moment. One of the current picks of the bunch is for the Microsoft Xbox One X that comes bundled with a copy of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds. The list price is US$499.99, but it can be picked up for US$349.99 and will help banish those boring rainy weekends.

Following up on a promise to combat cheating in Apex Legends more than ever, developer Respawn announced in a blot post today that the company has banned over 770,000 players for cheating so far. The company also banned over 4,000 spam accounts in the past 20 days alone.

A new investor presentation from AMD has been published online and there are numerous interesting additions and omissions from the previous presentation. In comes mention of Zen 3, Zen 4, Milan and cloud gaming connected to Navi, and no doubt to the dismay of HEDT processor fans, out goes the 3rd Gen Ryzen Threadripper CPU.

An executive for Slightly Mad Studios has admitted that the future development of the Mad Box console is looking “questionable”. Slightly Mad, which is the company behind the Project CARS series of games, revealed it was planning on producing a console that could offer incredible VR support amounting to 60 FPS per eye, or 120 FPS in total.