Game Tech News

Gamers are about to get some of their valuable time back.
Microsoft confirmed on Saturday that its Xbox Series X and Series S consoles will now boot faster thanks to a speedier startup animation. The changes improve boot times by five seconds.
Xbox's director of integrated marketing Josh Munsee tweeted about the improvement over the weekend.

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Google could be the next major tech company to throw its hat into the foldable ring. There have been rumors fluttering for a while that a bendy handset might see the light of day, especially given the company's recent focus on hardware. Google announced six new gadgets at its annual developer event, including its first smartwatch, as well as July's launch of the Pixel 6A.

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Minecraft developer Mojang announced earlier this week that it was banning blockchain and NFT technology from the popular block-based game. The general response from the community has been positive, but the purveyors of NFTs are feeling the sting. NFT Worlds, which has made a business of selling crypto-infused Minecraft content, is in search of a new path forward and may have to pivot by creating its own NFT-based version of the game.

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Intel’s PR rep for its Arc discrete graphics has sat down for another “Between Two Monitors” tech chat. The company has promised to continually offer information about Arc prior to its upcoming launch. The rationale is it will allow gamers to have all the info they need prior to purchase. To do that it will be releasing short videos tackling questions from gamers. This week it released a new briefing discussing how Arc would handle Variable Refresh Rates (VRR) and HDR, and there’s talk of support for HDMI 2.1.

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The world’s oldest video game is now available on a sought-after handheld game machine.

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An upcoming Steam update will prohibit developers from adding award and major review scores to their games’ primary visual assets.
According to Valve, developers have gradually prioritized their titles’ various accolades in Steam banner images (officially referred to as capsule images). This has resulted in cluttered visual assets that confuse potential customers when shopping for their next favorite game. Rather than allowing the eye to take in a game’s name and general design, these jam-packed capsule images often contain multiple review scores, impressive review quotes, and award information.

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Just a few short years ago, you needed expensive gaming hardware to play AAA titles, but cloud gaming is changing that. By offloading all the rendering to a server, these services can turn almost any screen into a portal for your gaming obsession, and Logitech wants in on the action. No, it’s not launching yet another gaming service. Logitech has partnered with Chinese megafirm Tencent to develop a “handheld cloud gaming” device.

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The final Pokemon Go Fest of the year will take place Aug. 27, game developer Niantic has announced. Players will have a chance to catch a variety of special Pokemon during the event, including three new Ultra Beasts, several new shiny Pokemon and Sky Forme Shaymin. Here's everything you need to know about the upcoming event.

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Back in 2021, Intel ran a marketing campaign for its upcoming Arc graphics cards. It involved a scavenger hunt, and the prize was that you’d get an Arc GPU before they officially launched. Intel offered 300 of the GPUs, and winners were eventually selected. Of the 300 winners, 100 would receive the grand prize, and 200 would get the first-place prize. The company had stated the grand prize was worth $900, and the first prize was valued at $700. Now in late 2022, Intel is seemingly not able to cough up the GPUs. Instead, it’s offering winners an Alder Lake CPU instead. This gives us some visibility into Intel’s launch timeline, as well as expected prices for Arc GPUs.

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Shakespeare himself posed the age-old question: to buy, or not to buy? That’s the question gamers the world over are wrestling with. GPU prices are plummeting, and the market is now a bargain basement free-for-all. EVGA is offering anywhere from $600 to $800 off its stock of RTX 3090 Tis. Newegg is selling Radeon RX 6900 XTs for just $699. It’s enough to make an FPS-starved gamer shed a single tear thinking of prices from just a few months ago.However, as a savvy follower of the news, you’re aware of the impending arrival of next-gen GPUs from AMD and Nvidia (and um…Intel). When will prices reach their absolute, rock-bottom lowest? That time may be just around the corner. If you’re in the market for an RDNA 2 or RTX 30-series GPU, just be patient.

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