The second part of the news:

Minecraft is gonna let you live life as 'the great white shark, the Arctic wolf, a leopardess, and more' in a BBC team-up to teach you about life on planet Earth
https://www.pcgamer.com/minecraft-is-gonna-let-you-live-life-as-the-great-white-shark-the-arctic-wolf-a-leopardess-and-more-in-a-bbc-team-up-to-teach-you-about-life-on-planet-earth/
The BBC and Minecraft are teaming up again, announcing a new collaboration between Mojang's staggeringly popular sandbox and the Beeb's snappily named BBC Studios Natural History Unit. This time, the partnership is based on Planet Earth 3, the latest in David Attenborough's long, long line of increasingly elegiac nature documentaries that showcase the beauty and complexity of Earth's ecosystems and the threats they face from, well, us.

Button mashers chalk up another win as Eddy Gordo becomes Tekken 8's first DLC fighter
https://www.pcgamer.com/button-mashers-chalk-up-another-win-as-eddy-gordo-becomes-tekken-8s-first-dlc-fighter/
It ain't quite Tekken without capoeira fighter Eddy Gordo, which is why it makes total sense that he's just been announced as the first DLC character for Tekken 8. Prepare to wear your X and O buttons down once more.
>> If it's not Tekken without Eddy Gordo, why isn't he part of the base game?

Diablo 4 season 3 will give everyone the only loot that matters: a little robot friend
https://www.pcgamer.com/diablo-4-season-3-will-give-everyone-the-only-loot-that-matters-a-little-robot-friend/
Everyone has dreamed of taking care of a little robot spider who is scarily good at killing demons, and now Diablo 4 season 3 will finally make it a reality.
The Season of the Construct, starting January 23, will give every Diablo 4 player a spider companion named the "Seneschal", that can be equipped with powerful skills. Like season 2's vampiric powers, you'll be able to tailor the Seneschal to your build as you progress through the seasonal questline. A combination of unique magical stone items lets you tweak how its spells work, like multiplying the amount of lightning bolts it shoots or giving it the ability to keep a protective barrier around you.

Square Enix says its new multiplayer party game contains AI-generated art, but don't sweat it: It's only 'about 0.01% or even less'
https://www.pcgamer.com/square-enix-says-its-new-multiplayer-party-game-contains-ai-generated-art-but-dont-sweat-it-its-only-about-001-or-even-less/
Just a couple weeks after Square Enix president Takashi Kiryu said it intends "to be aggressive in applying AI" to its content creation processes, the company has confirmed with VGC that its new multiplayer party shooter Foamstars does in fact use AI-generated art—but just a teeny little bit.

The Sims 4 is granting my castle build wishes, and goths to live in them, with 2 new DLC kits this week
https://www.pcgamer.com/the-sims-4-is-granting-my-castle-build-wishes-and-goths-to-live-in-them-with-2-new-dlc-kits-this-week/
After some leaked screenshots from the EA app let the cat out of the bag last week, EA has revealed the full details on two new Sims 4 DLC kits coming this week. The Castle Estate Kit and Goth Galore Kit were both born out of themes voted on by players last summer and are launching this Thursday.

Ubisoft director says gamers will get more comfortable 'not owning' games, and he's not wrong
https://www.pcgamer.com/ubisoft-director-says-gamers-will-get-more-comfortable-not-owning-games-and-hes-not-wrong/
A comment from Ubisoft director of subscriptions Philippe Tremblay caused mild upset this week—"pirate everything from Ubisoft," one response demanded—but the hostile reaction might have more to do with general anxiety over the future of game ownership than his actual point, which didn't strike me as surprising or untrue.
In an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Tremblay said that, for videogame subscription plans like Ubisoft+ and Game Pass to expand, gamers will need to become more comfortable with not owning games, and he implied that this is likely to happen.

A dystopian sci-fi MOBA was the last thing I expected from the studio behind Dave the Diver, but it's real and playable soon
https://www.pcgamer.com/a-dystopian-sci-fi-moba-was-the-last-thing-i-expected-from-the-studio-behind-dave-the-diver-but-its-real-and-playable-soon/
Nothing about Wakerunners looks like it came from the same studio as Dave the Diver, but, then again, nothing about Nakwon: Last Paradise did either. Mintrocket has a third game on its way and it's a sci-fi MOBA where characters move around like they're permanently wearing skates.

'You won’t find our games on a subscription service' says the founder of Baldur's Gate 3 developer Larian, after Ubisoft forecasts a future of players 'not owning' games
https://www.pcgamer.com/you-wont-find-our-games-on-a-subscription-service-says-the-founder-of-baldurs-gate-3-developer-larian-after-ubisoft-forecasts-a-future-of-players-not-owning-games/
The CEO and founder of Baldur's Gate 3 developer Larian Studios has weighed in on recent prophecies from Ubisoft's director: gamers will likely grin and bear a subscription-model future. Swen Vincke added to the discussion on Twitter in a thread this morning.
>> By the way, you can make one of the hardest battles in BG3 a lot easier without compromises.

Elden Ring's friendly dog actually wants to rip you to shreds
https://www.pcgamer.com/elden-rings-friendly-dog-actually-wants-to-rip-you-to-shreds/
A minor theme in FromSoftware's peerless Soulsborne games is the occasional appearance of an enemy that, for whatever reason, doesn't aggro on you. My favourite example of this is a mass of crows in Bloodborne's Hemwick Charnel Lane, all of which bar one will attack, while the remaining crow just sits there all dopey-like. In a world where everything's out to eviscerate you, something not attacking almost makes it seem like a friend.
The Elden Ring equivalent of this is a dog in Leyndell, which is found next to another enemy, the Leonine Misbegotten. When the player approaches, the latter enemy will trigger as usual and the fight is on: but the dog doesn't move. It just sits there watching on (unless you attack it, in which case it will defend itself).

Prison Architect 2 goes 3D, promises smarter inmates and the most improbably whimsical carceral state yet
https://www.pcgamer.com/prison-architect-2-goes-3d-promises-smarter-inmates-and-the-most-improbably-whimsical-carceral-state-yet/
After a lot of teasing, Prison Architect 2 has finally made a break for it. The sequel to Introversion's 2015 (or 2012, if you count its first alpha) build-a-prison sim—now handled by Double Eleven—will release on March 26, and everyone's a lot less flat than they used to be.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER is now available: 7168 CUDA cores, 12GB memory and $599 price

https://videocardz.com/newz/nvidia-geforce-rtx-4070-super-is-now-available-7168-cuda-cores-12gb-memory-and-599-price

Beyond3D forums have closed down

https://videocardz.com/newz/beyond3d-forums-have-closed-down

End of an era

Intel Processor 300 dual-core CPU has been tested – the slowest Raptor

https://videocardz.com/newz/intel-processor-300-dual-core-cpu-has-been-tested-the-slowest-raptor

Take it with salt

Ubisoft proving once again why I stopped buying their shit.

2024 and CEO's/Execs are still way out of touch with the public reality. It's almost like NONE of them looked at how SATURATED the streaming side has become over the past decade.

There is no possible future where a corp like MS foots every publishers sub bill in order to round all those subs up into one fits all "cheap" gamepass deal, because it would cost until amounts of cash for each publisher, each studio per game, all year round, for all those subs... yeah that's not happening, so people will just end up ignoring most of the other publisher subs in favour of the few or one they trust the most, thus leading to a ton of fallout.

Larian's CEO put it in the mildest of terms, but I feel like they should have been far more brutal with that sort of future, because it would absolutely cause a lot of damage to multiple sectors of the industry and also cause quicker studio/publisher deaths than what we are seeing right now.

Again, this is another case of CEO's like Ubi's refusing to see what comes after, they only care for the short term, not what comes after, and I know how most of those old geezers operate, if shit hits the fan under their watch, they'll just get their golden parachute and go fuck over some other industry/company. Sometimes some CEO's should just be liquidated on the spot for even uttering such a horrid concept, because I've seen MS hold onto ideals for decades, CEO's do too, and they cannot be forced to learn, but they can sure as hell be fired asap and refused entry to other business.

It's a shame that the Beyond3D forums are closing. But from the last message, it looks like the situation had gone out of control, and without enough recourses, they had no other choice than to close it or see it spiral furthr and further out of control.

Those rumored Steam Deck 2 specs are so low in details that they're almost risible.

And the rise of NAND prices is something that we've been warned about for months now. A shame, no doubt about it, but only those that didn't pay attention would see this as a surprise.

Not sure why they didn't recruit more moderators.

In saying that... Forums are a dying platform, they have all lost popularity over the years as people shift over to platforms like Facebook and Discord.
Only a matter of time before vgchartz follows the same path.

You forgot the actual main culprit... Reddit.

The problem on Beyond3D was just platform wars instead of nazis like WCCF and other sites, so at least they can go out on a relative high in terms of user-content quality.

When (not if) such an event occurs, would y'all be going somewhere else or join a discord channel/group?

I am already part of a large PC forum, I could not care less if all these other sites closed to be honest. More often than not they are just feeding grounds fro toxic bile trolling anyway. You have sites like Gamespot (System wars) and so on allowed to operate when governments should be locking down crap like that, good riddance if they all ceased to exist.

I would probably stop using forums entirely.

I barely pay attention to discord as-is...