Yesterday, AMD gave us our first glimpse of what their upcoming RX 6000 [cms-block] graphics cards will be able achieve at 4K. While the bulk of their Zen 3 event was centred around their Ryzen 5000 CPUs, we also got a first look at their first Big Navi GPU in action, running Borderlands 3 on its top Badass quality settings at an average of 61fps. AMD also shared some figures for Gears 5 and Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare, but how do these benchmark figures actually stack up against Nvidia’s new [cms-block]? Let’s find out.

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One of the omnipresent conversations hanging over the next generation of consoles is what exact tech improvements can we expect. Everyone has come to terms with the fact that this isn't going to be mindblowing stuff like moving from SNES to N64 back in 1996. We may never see that kind of jump ever again.

As we inch closer to the launch of PS5 and Xbox Series X -- and we're almost exactly a month away at this point -- we're starting to see some hard data about what new consoles are able to achieve. This morning, The Falconeer's developer, Tomas Sala, shared exact performance comparisons for how his game runs on Xbox One, Xbox Series S, and Xbox Series X:

Owners with a collection of physical discs, take note

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Frictional Games have published another trailer for upcoming horror adventure Amnesia: Rebirth. It lets on a bit about the story and showcases quite a lot of the game’s environments as well. One thing does jump out: the latter are all quite different. Unlike the horror romps Frictional have done before, they explain, Rebirth will put an emphasis on touring you through locations that are quite different from one another.

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Players will have to solve puzzles involving statues in order to complete the quest

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Almost exactly one year after its original debut, The Outer Worlds will finally be available on Steam.

The post The Outer Worlds Steam Debut Set for October 2020 appeared first on Siliconera.

The customer service experience is set to change at GameStop as the company enters a multi-year partnership with Microsoft. The deal enables the retailer to provide a "differentiated and personalized in-store customer experience" centered around more advanced tools through Microsoft assets like Dynamics 365, Surface notebooks, and Teams.

These changes will make GameStop feel more like an Apple store or Best Buy, with store associates walking around with Surface devices in hand and gaining access to customer information through Microsoft's cloud-based platforms. Both Dynamics 365 and Teams aim to enhance GameStop's productivity and collaboration tools to smooth out back-end and in-store experiences. These platforms give associates more detailed information on product availability, customer preferences and purchase history, subscriptions and prices, and upcoming or ongoing promotions.

This collaboration comes as GameStop announced payment plans for Microsoft's upcoming next-gen consoles, the Xbox Series S and Series X, earlier this week. The plans come in three different offerings--Installment, Layaway, and Rent-to-Own--and give customers plenty of time to pay the systems off. These payment plans are also available for the PlayStation 5.

Xbox Game Pass Ultimate has only improved over time. In addition to Xbox Live Gold and access to hundreds of Xbox One games, Game Pass Ultimate subscribers now have xCloud streaming bundled in and soon will have EA Play rolled into their membership. With the Xbox Series X and digital-only Series S releasing next month, Game Pass Ultimate will continue to be a huge part of Microsoft's business model. It's already a bargain at $15 per month, but Prime Day 2020 will likely bring deals on the service to make it even more enticing.

Previous Prime Day Game Pass Ultimate deals

Last year, 3-month subscriptions to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate were discounted to $30, down from $45. While that was a pretty good deal, we actually think you'll find better deals this Prime Day.

Throughout 2020, we've seen 3-month subscriptions discounted to $25 at major retailers multiple times. On another occasion, 6-month subscriptions were down to $40--a whopping $50 savings.

The PS5 launches around the world next month, and although there are still many lingering questions about how the system works, Sony has now shared more details about PS5's backwards compatibility. As with Xbox Series X, it appears some previous-gen games will get a performance boost when played on PS5 thanks to the console's Game Boost feature.

As detailed on the PlayStation support website, Game Boost allows certain PS4 titles to "run with a higher or smoother frame rate" when played on a PS5. However, Sony notes that this will only apply to "select" games; it appears the performance boost won't be applied across the board, as Xbox Series X does with Xbox One games. Sony also did not yet specify what games are able to take advantage of Game Boost.

That said, Sony clarifies that the "vast majority" of the PS4 library will be playable on PS5, although there are a few titles that won't be compatible with the new system. Sony has also explained how to upgrade some PS4 games to their PS5 versions, and the process sounds fairly straightforward.

This week's episode of New Releases revolves around early access: Baldur's Gate III is debuting as a work-in-progress, while Foregone is getting its full release. The indie crowd can also check out I Am Dead, while the sports and racing fans can dig into FIFA 21 and Ride 4, respectively. Here are some of the hottest games launching this week!

Foregone -- October 5

Available on: PC

It might look like Dead Cells, but this action game features hand-crafted levels, not randomly generated ones. As you explore, you'll get better and better loot, helping you take down the game's many enemies and big bosses. Foregone is leaving early access this week for a full release on PC, with console versions arriving on the 13th.

Certain PS4 games will be PS4 only games not supported by the PS5. According to Sony's support page, only 10 games are on that list.

The post Sony Lists PS4 Only Games the PS5 Can’t Play appeared first on Siliconera.

Look, we've been through this before, so I'm setting the expectation that there is no new confirmation of another Skies of Arcadia game in the slightest. Even though we all want it to be so.

But no one is quite as much of a champion for this classic RPG than Kenji Hiruta, one of the lead designers of the game. For many, many years now he's been tweeting about it on occasion, like earlier this year when he noted that he "really, really" wanted to develop the sequel. The fervor over this particular push was so great that Hiruta said that he was even sending all of the outpouring of cries for a sequel to Sega directly: which hopefully will pay off one day.

For now, Hiruta is turning his gaze to something much more attainable: an HD remaster. Tweeting on the 20th anniversary of Skies of Arcadia, he once again notes that all of this "depends on Sega," and that he is "working on something related to Sega of America." He says that whatever this development is it "may be a small change, but not zero. WE are changing something."

Vague! But of course Hiruta is bound by NDAs and can't share what it is just yet. My guess? Merch. That would be a "small" change, but something that brings Skies of Arcadia back in the public eye again in some capacity. Perhaps Hiruta can use monetary gains to prove to Sega that people still care about this series.

It's a longshot! But I'll take it. You know what? I probably should make a Skies of Arcadia news tag at some point. Why not now?

Kenji Hiruta [Twitter]

Yesterday, Microsoft posted a list of their “10 app store principles”, in what reads like one big passive aggressive jab at Apple. They say these principles are designed to “promote choice and ensure fairness” on their Windows Stores (both mobile and desktop), and they include rules about just generally treating app developers fairly.

These are nice and good principles to stick to, yes. But the entire post doesn’t seem as though it’s really to assure devs, so much as it is to make very clear whose side they’re on in the whole Apple vs Epic debacle.

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Square Enix announced today that Final Fantasy XIV will get patch 5.4, called Futures Rewritten, in early December. And the publisher said the massively multiplayer online game will be backwards compatible on PS5, with faster load times as a result of the next-gen hardware’s faster SSD.

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Pathfinder mains have had a bit of a rough year so far: ever since the patch in May increased his grapple ability cooldown from 15 to 35 seconds, the days of flying through Apex Legends battles with ease have become rather distant. So when the recent Aftermarket update patch notes mentioned a change to how the cooldown worked, many Pathfinder players thought their luck was in - until they saw the reality in practice.

The recent change altered Pathfinder's grapple cooldown so it would be measured based on distance travelled, with a longer grapple resulting in a longer cooldown. With the game measuring the grapple "from the moment you leave the ground to when you're on the ground again and not sliding at crazy high speeds", this means you're now less likely to be punished for accidentally shooting your grapple too early (which happens to us all). But should you want to use your grapple to slingshot and slide out of trouble, the seconds can really stack up.

Just take a look at the evidence below, in which a player effectively racks up a 42 second cooldown just for sliding on his bum after a grapple. This is because the cooldown timer only begins when Pathfinder has reached "sprint speed", and anything above that speed will not trigger the cooldown. For many players, this feels a little different to the 35 second "maximum cooldown" for long distances they were expecting from the recent patch notes, even if that's technically still true.

The Medium is the upcoming horror title from Bloober Team – the studio behind other tense first-person games like Observer, Layers of Fear, and Blair Witch. Since The Medium's reveal earlier this year, it has had a vague "holiday 2020" release date, but today Bloober Team put a finer point on it: You can dive into this unique horror landscape on December 10. 

Click image thumbnails to view larger version

Sackboy: A Big Adventure received… a not so big, but still entertaining new trailer today giving interested fans a taste of what’s to come in a new trailer clocking in at just under two minutes.

It’s pretty much exactly what you would expect from a trailer in the LittleBigPlanet franchise. It’s charming, cute, and features someone with a British accent narrating and breaking character. See it for yourself below.

What’s notable about Sackboy: A Big Adventure, aside from being a new game featuring Sony’s lovable… sack creature, is that this new trailer highlights more of the game’s new 3D platforming which can be played cooperatively by up to four players. You can also, of course, choose to play through the story as a single-player as well too.

Bloober Team, the developer behind the likes of Layers of Fear and Observer, will be bringing its dual-survival reality horror The Medium to Xbox Series X/S and PC on 10th December.

The Medium (which was initially announced for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Wii U back in 2012 before dramatically changing course), casts players as the psychically gifted Marianne - a woman who's been haunted by visions of a child's murder for years - who travels to an abandoned hotel resort in a bid to find answers.

Notably, it's Bloober's first stab at third-person horror (as it discussed in more detail when we spoke earlier this year) and its semi-fixed camera, combined with a soundtrack created by legendary composer Akira Yamaoka, gives the experience something of a Silent Hill vibe.

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Sony has at last said a little more about the PlayStation 5's backwards compatibility, and provided a very short list of PS4 games that won't be supported.

But the PlayStation manufacturer has also cautioned that some supported games may lack functionality and "exhibit errors or unexpected behaviour".

In a blog post today on PlayStation's support website, Sony warned you should "try to boot and play your PS4 games on your PS5 console to see if you are happy with the play performance" before purchasing any add-ons.

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The PS5 supports backwards compatibility with the PS4, and Sony says the vast majority of PS4 games will be playable on the new system. However, there are a select few games that will not be compatible, and we now know exactly what they are.

A support page on the official PlayStation website lists 10 games that will not be playable on PS5. The list includes some VR content, and it doesn't feature any enormous titles. The games you'll likely want to keep playing when you get your PS5 will still work. Joe's Diner fans are in for a rude awakening, though. We hate to be the ones to break this news, but you will have to keep your PS4 available in order to keep playing it.

PS5-Incompatible PS4 Games

• DWVR
• Afro Samurai 2: Revenge of Kuma - Volume One
• TT Isle of Man – Ride on the Edge 2
• Just Deal With It!
• Shadow Complex Remastered
• Robinson: The Journey
• We Sing
• Hitman Go: Definitive Edition
• Shadwen
• Joe's Diner

All you need to do to play the game on the PS5 is put it into the disc drive and potentially download an update. If it's a digital game, Sony says you'll be able to use WiFi data transfer, but it didn't specify how this will work. Should there be a PS5 upgrade available, Sony also detailed that process. Even some PS4 games will see better performance via Game Boost without a PS5 upgrade.

Today Sony Interactive Entertainment opened a support page with plenty of details about PS4 backward compatibility on PS5.

We learn that the “overwhelming majority” of PS4 games will work on PS5 and we also get details how how exactly this will happen.

We also get a list of “PS4 Only” games that won’t work on the new console, and we learn that they’ll be clearly marked as such on the PlayStation Store.

PS4 only games:

• DWVR
• Afro Samurai 2 Revenge of Kuma Volume One
• TT Isle of Man – Ride on the Edge 2
• Just Deal With It!
• Shadow Complex Remastered
• Robinson: The Journey
• We Sing
• Hitman Go: Definitive Edition
• Shadwen
• Joe’s Diner

Below you can read all the details shared today.

PS4 games playable on PS5 consoles
The overwhelming majority of the 4,000+ PS4 games are playable on PS5 consoles. 

Geez, why does Sean Murray let you have TWO planets?

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This release will come with a full-color booklet and commentary from Yuki Hayashi.

The post The Pokemon Anime OST Will Be Available to Purchase For the First Time in 10 Years appeared first on Siliconera.

I'm not about to argue that any of us should prioritize getting Sackboy: A Big Adventure over other PlayStation 5 launch games like Demon's Souls or Spider-Man: Miles Morales, but you know what? It looks better every time I see it. This latest trailer – a story spotlight – fills me with feel-good vibes.

Squaring everything away for local multiplayer on PS5 will be a pricey proposition – you would need a ($70) DualSense for everyone since DualShock 4 controllers won't support PS5 games – but there is a silver lining. Sackboy: A Big Adventure is also playable on PS4 as a $60 cross-gen release.

Unlike Horizon Forbidden West or even Miles Morales, I'm not too worried about any potential performance concessions with the PS4 version of Sackboy. (I hope I don't regret that optimism.) For those of us with way too many DualShock 4s, it just makes sense to go that route for couch co-op.

Save data for Sackboy will transfer from PS4 to PS5 once an update rolls out "shortly after the release of the game," according to Sony. This process "will vary title by title for cross-generational games."

A unknown number of GameSpot employees have been laid off following its acquisition by Red Ventures. ...

Sony and some third-party developers are offering free upgrades from the PS4 to PS5 versions of games, but without a snazzy branded feature like Xbox's Smart Delivery. It hasn't been entirely clear how players will be able to claim these upgrades, but Sony addressed it with detailed instructions in advance of the console launch next month.

The instructions, part of a PS5 support page, come in two varieties based on whether you're upgrading a disc or digital game. To upgrade a disc game you'll need the higher-priced PS5 that includes a disc drive, for obvious reasons. Digital games can be upgraded on either version of PS5.

The instructions look fairly straightforward. For a disc version, just make sure you're signed in on your PS5 console, insert the game disc, and then select to upgrade on the game hub. That will download the PS5 version, which will be associated with that game disc. From then on you can play the PS5 version as long as the PS4 disc is in the drive. For a digital game, just find the game in the PlayStation Store or game hub and select upgrade.

Tis the season for online games to get all haunted for a few weeks. Borderlands 3‘s Bloody Harvest is back with more skins to earn and spooks to shoot. It’s on from now until November 5th, so you’ve got some time to check it out alongside all the other in-game events on your schedule.

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Super Mario Bros. 35 is out now for all Switch Online subscribers, and I highly recommend you give it a try.

It's a perfect random weekend game, given that the stakes are generally low round-to-round and if you don't like it, you can move on to something else. There's definitely room for improvement, but for now, Nintendo is working on fixing some bugs with its first patch (1.0.1).

The patch notes are extremely simple: three issues have been fixed, one of which essentially equates to the good old "stability" patches Nintendo is known for. The other two specifically address problems like enemies flooding the screen without Mario having to move forward, as well as bugs with player icons not showing up.

However, there is no mention of fixing players who have potentially hacked the game, who have been sporting 99,999 coins in matches (allowing them to stand still and spam the item roulette to tackle any situation). Hopefully Nintendo is able to address that issue soon enough.

Version 1.0.1 [Nintendo]

Though we've heard early Xbox Series X previewers say the console was giving off a tremendous amount of heat through its top vents--and making the expansion card on the back hot to the touch--Microsoft has denied it runs any warmer than the Xbox One X.

Responding to a question on Twitter, Xbox games marketing GM Aaron Greenberg said that the temperature isn't "significantly different" for the Xbox Series X's exhaust compared to the Xbox One X. He added that he hasn't experienced significant heat with the console he has at home, either.

Though Jeff Bakalar of GameSpot's sister site CNET said on the Giant Beastcast that it was "toasty," he clarified that he did not actually burn himself touching it.

Yoshi-P and Toshio Murouchi announced a Final Fantasy XIV event for February 2021 "to announce new information."

The post February 2021 Final Fantasy XIV Event Announced appeared first on Siliconera.

Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and an infrared thermometer lead Friday’s best deals.

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Well, I give up. As much as I want to play something else this weekend because I feel like I should, I’m going to play more Fallout 76. It’s time to stop fighting it and just embrace it.

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Final Fantasy 14 will be playable on PlayStation 5 via backwards compatibility, Square Enix has confirmed.

While Sony has suggested most PS4 games will work on PS5 via back compat (the new console is "99 per cent" backward compatible with the thousands of PS4 games Sony has tested on it, PlayStation boss Jim Ryan said in an interview with The Washington Post last month), it's good to get confirmation of FF14's status from Square Enix.

Producer and director Naoki Yoshida said when you play the PlayStation 4 version of the MMO on PS5, you'll be able to use the in-game PS4 Pro display settings (FF14 on PS4 Pro lets you choose between a 4K mode and a performance mode), and the PS5 will "ensure quick load times". The hope is FF14 on PS5 will run in 4K at 60 frames per second.

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IGN UK Podcast #560: A Crispy Slice of Heaven

• IGN UK Podcast #559: The Manic Marsupial and Jesse's Voice Changer
• IGN UK Podcast #558: Hades and Ham Sandwiches
• IGN UK Podcast #557: PS5's Banquet of Delights
• IGN UK Podcast #556: Judging Tony Hawk's Tallywacker
• IGN UK Podcast #555: Super Mario Bros. Assemble!

CESA is planning to hold Tokyo Game Show 2021 physically at Makuhari Messe. It also published statistics from the digital TGS 2020.

The post Tokyo Game Show 2021 Will Be Held from September 30 to October 3, 2021 appeared first on Siliconera.

Xbox has channeled its inner Epic and is bringing that Fuck You energy to its battle with Apple. Everyone has a problem with the draconian way Apple runs its App Store. Currently, Microsoft is jammed up because it can't bring Xbox Game Pass game streaming to iOS devices without passing a review for each and every individual game on the service. Amazon's Luna and Google's Stadia are in the exact same situation.

"Nah, that's not how this is going down," Xbox says (probably). According to a report from Bloomberg, Xbox head Phil Spencer called a meeting with all employees to declare that Xbox game streaming will be on iOS devices in 2021. So, what changed? Microsoft found a workaround.

Next year, Xbox Game Pass will be offered on iPhones and iPads via a "direct browser-based solution." Because Xbox Game Pass won't be an app, it won't be subject to the usual App Store policies. Now Microsoft's challenge is building out a browser version that's functional in ways that offer a smooth app-like experience. Nevertheless, Spencer is quoted as saying "We absolutely will end up on iOS with Game Pass."

There’s a lot of music out there. To help you cut through all the noise, every week The A.V. Club is rounding up A-Sides, five recent releases we think are worth your time. You can listen to these and more on our Spotify playlist, and if you like what you hear, we encourage you to purchase featured artists’ music…

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