Gaming

Diablo Immortal, the latest title in the storied Diablo franchise, has hit a wall of criticism. Many gamers are upset over the mobile-only release, claiming that the game is a cheap cash-in and a re-skin of another mobile game that developer NetEase released a while ago. Whether or not these claims are true, the game has drawn the ire of Diablo fans around the world.

Citing industry sources, GamersNexus's Steve Burke reports that Nvidia's last generation flagship GPU, the 1080Ti, has now exited production. Expect brand new 1080Ti prices to go up and supply to shrink.

Since some think that an Intel Core i5 processor would be enough for their new gaming notebook, it seems that Alienware's latest machine will soon get new hardware options. Frank Azor has just confirmed that an i5+ GeForce GTX 1060 configuration for the Alienware m15 should arrive in about two months.

A bug in the Fallout 76 beta launcher would cause the game to delete itself. After instructing gamers to "not click any buttons," Bethesda admitted the bug and instructed affected players to re-download the 50 GB title. In an effort to make good with its playerbase, Bethesda extended the beta to include this Thursday, November 1, from 2 PM to 11 PM.

Alienware might have not been able to hit the jackpot with its gaming mice yet, but that can change anytime. Although most gamers would rather use a wired mouse, Frank Azor has confirmed that Alienware is currently developing a wireless one which is supposed to hit the market next year.

Even though AMD may look like it has lost focus of the GPU market, CEO Lisa Su reassures everyone that the red team is not giving up on the high-end gaming GPU market that easily. AMD is currently in the process of developing high-performing quality products, and the first cards are expected to hit the market in 2020.

Some users who managed to get the Nvidia RTX 2080 Ti Founders' Edition claim that the GPUs have critical instability issues that lead to black screens, BSoDs, and artifacting. There are instances where the cards were dead on arrival, and the replacement cards sent by Nvidia were still affected. Nvidia stats that this is normal, the number of affected users is limited, and they are dealing with each customer.

Red Dead Redemption 2 has been the talk of the town since it was released last week. All of that talk translated into hard cash for Rockstar Games, though, as the game sold over US$725 million in retail over its first three days.

In a discussion about the latest Alienware laptop that unfolded on Twitter less than a day ago, Frank Azor highlighted the amazingly low weight of this portable — a detail that many forget about and focus on the notebook's thin design instead — and confirmed that an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 configuration is on its way.

The world's biggest name in retail wants a piece of the gaming pie. The 15-inch OP Laptop 15 will carry narrow bezels, an i7-8750U CPU, GTX 1060 GPU, 144 Hz 1080p display, 256 GB SSD, and 16 GB RAM for $1400 USD when it launches on November 13. The series consists of Walmart-branded Tongfang barebone laptops.

A Eurogamer analyst has reported that Red Dead Redemption 2, a fresh release from RockStar Games, seems to have failed his test for high dynamic range (HDR) support while running on the XBox One. If these results are valid, the game only offers an upscaled form of standard DR (SDR).

Although Microsoft has killed off its smartphone line, the company is still interested in tapping into the handheld gaming space. One of its latest research projects is focused on customer reaction to bringing physical controllers to smartphones and tablets. hinting at possible plans for the near future.

GOG and Steam are both getting into the Halloween spirit with sales going on this week. Steam's sale is centered around spooky/horror games, while GOG's is more of a general catch-all. There are some decent discounts to be had, so head over to Steam before November 1 and GOG before November 5 to catch the sales.

ProtonDB has announced that over 2,600 Windows games are now playable on Linux via Steam Play. These include games such as The Witcher 3, Dark Souls 3, Dishonored, and more. This increase in game compatibility ever since Steam Play launched with Proton last month is an indication of Valve's commitment to making Windows games easily accessible to Linux users.

The mid-range Radeon RX 500-series from AMD was preferred by crypto-miners, while gamers stuck to the GTX 1050/1060 solutions from Nvidia. Now that AMD took a serious hit with the crypto market decline, the red team is trying to regain some market shares in the mid-range gaming sector with the Radeon RX 590 solution that looks to be slightly faster than Nvidia's GTX 1060 (6 GB).

The full games list for Sony's upcoming PlayStation Classic has been released. While several classics like Resident Evil, Final Fantasy VII, and Metal Gear Solid will be available, there are a few curious omissions. The full games list is enumerated below.

Narrow bezel gaming laptops are finally starting to drop in price. The new Asus TUF FX505 is smaller than the outgoing thick-bezel FX504 but otherwise very similar in weight and thickness. The system is now shipping with GTX 1050 Ti graphics and a 1 TB primary HDD for $1100 USD.

Corsair has introduced new low profile RGB mechanical keyboards in the K70 MK.2 lineup. The K70 MK.2 Low Profile and the K70 MK.2 Low Profile Rapidfire offer Cherry MX Low Profile RGB and Low Profile RGB Speed respectively. As with other Corsair keyboards, the new K70 MK.2 Low Profile keyboards are fully customizable using the iCUE software.

Razer has managed to make its higher-end configurations look way overpriced by upping their baseline specifications. Users can get the entry-level Base Model Blade 15 and still have the same Core i7-8750H CPU and GTX 1060 Max-Q GPU as the higher-end model plus a few extras to boot.

According to Bethesda's VP of Marketing and Communications Pete Hines, The Elder Scrolls VI isn't likely to be released within the next few years. Clarifying the company's projected workflow, Hines said that just because the game has been announced doesn't mean that development has ramped up.

Snap Camera is a freshly-launched desktop app that adds Snapchat Lenses to webcam feeds for vlogging or Twitch streams. Like all similar things Snap, it relies on facial mapping to super-impose a range of effects on a video's subject. Snap Camera is available for download now

After 7 years of development, Fallout: New California has finally been released. A major overhaul mod for Fallout: New Vegas, New California features a completely original storyline, new voiceover, and about 20-30 hours worth of content. The mod is free and available for download over at ModDB.

A press release from Epic Games has announced that the company has managed to raise US$1.25 billion from a group of investors. Undoubtedly, the massive global impact of Fortnite will have contributed to the success Epic has had in securing such a large investment amount. A separate report has valued the creators of the Unreal Engine at nearly US$15 billion.

The creators of Grand Theft Auto V, Rockstar Games, are back with the second game in the Red Dead Redemption series. Red Dead Redemption 2 comes with access to Red Dead Online, and those who download it from the Microsoft Store by October 29 will get pre-order bonuses such as The War Horse, The Outlaw Survival Kit, and more.

The Santa Clara giant reported the best quarter in its entire 50-year history, even though the company was not able to meet the outstanding market demand. The 14 nm shortages will continue throughout the rest of the year and Intel expects this situation to worsen, as it is slowly shifting focus to the 10 nm node.

As online streaming becomes more popular, the need for specific hardware is also rising. Twitch partner Streamlabs and Intel have joined forces with mini PC OEMs like Shuttle, SimplyNUC, Zotac and Acer to bring streaming-ready systems for aspiring influencers and pro gamers. First streaming-ready concept system will be showcased by Acer at TwitchCon this weekend.

The Core XE variants of this year's Intel chipset lineup have been announced, but are not available yet. The top flight of this series, the i9-9980XE, is the subject of an apparent leak. It consists of a 3DMark Time Spy score for the processor.

Bethesda has announced the minimum and recommended PC specifications for the upcoming title Fallout 76. PC gamers are advised to have at least the equivalent of an i7-4790 or Ryzen 3 1300X CPU, and when it comes to the GPU an Nvidia GTX 780, AMD Radeon R9 285, or equivalent should be present. 8 GB of RAM and 60 GB of storage are also required.

Inside sources claim that AMD's Navi GPUs are performing better than expected and could be launched in the first half of 2019 rather than the second. Previously rumored to be slower than the GTX 1080 from Nvidia, it looks like the red team managed to tune a few things and boost the overall performance. MSRPs are rumored to be in the US$250 zone.

Rockstar Games has announced the Companion App for its upcoming release, Red Dead Redemption 2. This app connects an Android or iOS device to the console in question, and allows the player to view maps, stats and progress on their phone or tablet while gaming.

War Thunder 1.83 "Masters of the Sea" introduces the British Royal Navy tech tree (in Closed Beta), but also brings in new German, Soviet, and American vessels. The naval forces of these three nations can now be played by everyone, but there is even more to this update, such as German helicopters, new planes, and new ground vehicles.

Talk about a short life cycle. While Kaby Lake-G is nowhere to be found, the chassis has been updated with even narrower bezels (5.55 mm vs. 6.3 mm) and a visually unique 45-degree USB Type-C port. A new configuration with an Intel Coffee Lake-H CPU and GTX 1050 Ti Max-Q graphics will supplant the experimental Core i7-8705G CPU and Radeon RX Vega M GL GPU configuration released earlier this year.

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 is still competitive at the sub-US$400 price bracket. It was originally released with 6GB of GDDR5 memory. A change to its product page on its maker's website now suggests that there are GDDR5X versions of the card.

The second installment of Red Dead Redemption has been announced as launching soon. However, this news is not great for PC gamers, as the game is thought to be only available for consoles. A recent listing by an e-tailer appears to have given some hopes that this may be wrong, then snatched it away again.

Although the technical details are shady at this stage, it seems that Samsung is working on an in-house GPU for its upcoming gaming handset. Sadly, there is no release date to talk about yet, but given the increasing popularity of this segment of the market, there is no doubt that Samsung will join the gaming phone sector as soon as possible.

Even available for old-school coin-operated machines, Soulcalibur VI is now out for Windows PCs, as well as Xbox One and PlayStation 4 consoles. With a roster of returning fighters and newcomers, this title is set in the 16th century and aims to "uncover hidden truths" about the events of the first Soulcalibur game.

With a lighter and thinner design than the Alienware 13, the new Alienware m15 is the brand's most compact gaming notebook so far. Frank Azor has just confirmed that this new machine for gamers on the go will hit the market on October 25, just as expected. The starting price will be US$1,300, but high-end SKUs are expected to hit US$2,000.

In a first-ever move, Frank Azor has just disclosed data related to the Dell and Alienware's gaming business and it is more than good. According to him, the gaming business that involves these two iconic brands is worth US$3 billion, which makes them the leaders of the market by a very large margin.

The Ryzen 2000 series still delivered decent performance gains over the original Ryzen models, even if the shrinking process was minimal. With the jump from 12 nm to 7 nm, the IPC boost is expected to be almost 5 times greater, at least in "scientific tasks." If multimedia and gaming loads get the same boost, this could be huge for AMD.