Not surprising. At least one brings some improvements to the table while the 16GB are barely noticeable and not worth the extra money the cards cost.

That's one hell of a mistake, and one that will cost them a fair amount of sales, even more so if MSI can't convince sites that reviewed their cards to retest them and update their reviews.

And of those 11, how many have been this month? Three or four? Looks like AMD's checks are finally arriving to devs .

By the way, your personal dta may have been leaked. Again:

'The mother of all breaches' – 26 billion records leaked including stolen user logins, so may we suggest you finally change that old password?
https://www.pcgamer.com/the-mother-of-all-breaches-26-billion-records-leaked-including-stolen-user-logins-so-may-we-suggest-you-finally-change-that-old-password/
If you're still hanging on to that old password, here's some news that should change your mind: Cybersecurity researcher Bob Dyachenko and the team over at Cybernews have discovered an open instance containing a gigantic 12TB of user data, in what they're referring to as the "mother of all breaches", and it seems like it might be the biggest user information leak yet.

While the bulk of the data seems to be made up of information already known to be leaked, in a sort of greatest hits package of stolen info (via PC World), the assumption is that new data is likely to be included too. 

There's no need to answer if you don't want to, but how many games do you have?

Between 10 and 15 probably. I literally just play old games and I was smart enough to realise the RTX 4090 was a dumb purchase and sent it back. I have more games on GOG and have recently acquired a CECHB01 PS3 to play loads of PS2 games.

Thanks for answering. Those games you got must have been fairly new when you bought them to come up with that $250 mark... unless it's more like $50.

For old games GOG is the best place to go, no doubts about it, and yeah, a 4090 is a tad overkill for that.

That PS3 still works? Wow. Whoever had it must have taken good care of it.

Let's go with the Friday news!

SALES /PLAYER COUNT & DEALS

-Empty-

SOFTWARE & DRIVERS

-Also empty-

MODS, EMULATORS & FAN PROJECTS

-Yep. Empty as well.-

GAMING NEWS

Skull and Bones Open Beta begins this February
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/skull-and-bones-open-beta-february/
Ubisoft has announced that the Open Beta phase for Skull and Bones will begin this February. From February 8th to February 11th, PC gamers will be able to play alongside their console friends. Yes, the Open Beta will have full cross-play support.

Tekken 8 launches with major crashing issues on all platforms
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/tekken-8-launches-with-major-crashing-issues-on-all-platforms/
Bandai Namco has just launched Tekken 8 on PC and consoles, and unfortunately, the game suffers from major crashing issues. Right now, the game’s Online Ranked Mode is completely unplayable due to numerous Fatal Error crashes on both consoles and PC.

Modder who accused Palworld of using 3D models from Pokemon games admits that he has faked everything
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/modder-who-accussed-palworld-of-using-3d-models-from-pokemon-games-admits-that-he-has-faked-everything/
Palworld has become one of the most popular games recently, but it seems to have upset a lot of Pokemon fans. A few days ago, a modder said they had proof that Palworld copied 3D models from previous Pokemon games. And now, the modder has confessed that they made it all up.
>> And why did that dumbass do it? Notoriety. What a simpleton..

The news, the sequel:

AdventureQuest 8-bit Dungeons & Doomknights is a heavy dose of mid-2000s internet meme nostalgia that released on the NES first, for some reason
https://www.pcgamer.com/adventurequest-8-bit-dungeons-and-doomknights-is-a-heavy-dose-of-mid-2000s-internet-meme-nostalgia-that-released-on-the-nes-first-for-some-reason/
I played Adventure Quest back when it came out in—2002? God, that can't be right. Give me a second, I need to lean on something and take some deep breaths.
(...)
This meant that, yes—you could play Adventure Quest on school PCs, which was basically the only requirement for a game to become a fad back then. It was also charming in a ramshackle, cobbled-together-with-tape-and-glue sort of way. Its developer Artix Entertainment has still been making games for the past 21 years (deep breaths, Harvey), to mixed success: DragonFable, Adventure Quest 3D—and, apparently, a game for the NES.
Dungeons & Doomknights came out for the NES—the actual Nintendo Entertainment System—a year ago. As of 2024 it's now on Steam. This might be the first instance where a modern game has taken that particular route to publication, but who am I to judge?

The demo for poker-based roguelike Balatro returns today with nearly 40 new jokers—plus a full release date in February
https://www.pcgamer.com/the-demo-for-poker-based-roguelike-balatro-returns-today-with-nearly-40-new-jokersplus-a-full-release-date-in-february/
I had some big gaming plans for the holiday break this year: I was finally going to start a second playthrough of Red Dead Redemption 2, build a new city in Farthest Frontier, and grab some friends to dive into Lethal Company.
I didn't do any of that. Instead, I just played poker-inspired deckbuilder Balatro. Every single day I sat on the couch with my Steam Deck and played it for at least a couple hours. And it wasn't even the full game, just the demo, which I still managed to sink 30 hours into. That meant I was pretty bummed when that awesome demo got pulled off Steam by its developer, LocalThunk, on January 1.
Today I'm firing my Steam Deck up again because that deckbuilder demo is suddenly back, and it's got a ton of new cards for you to try out—including nearly 40 brand new jokers. Even better, along with the return of the demo, LocalThunk's poker roguelike also has a launch date: Balatro will release on February 20.

This co-op survival game looks like a mad scientist's mashup of Lethal Company and Half-Life—and there's a demo out now
https://www.pcgamer.com/this-co-op-survival-game-looks-like-a-mad-scientists-mashup-of-lethal-company-and-half-lifeand-theres-a-demo-out-now/
Yeah, I know, there have already been a couple big co-op survival games released in just the past week, the record-smashing monster-managing Palworld and sprawling fantasy RPG Enshrouded.
But there's always room for one more, isn't there?
This one isn't taking its cues from Pokémon or using Valheim and Zelda as an inspiration: co-op survival game Abiotic Factor is more like a mad science mash-up of the original Half-Life and Lethal Company. It looks delightful, and ahead of its May 2 release date there's a new demo on Steam you can play right now.

Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader players have one week to snag some free DLC cosmetics before they're gone for good
https://www.pcgamer.com/warhammer-40k-rogue-trader-players-have-one-week-to-snag-some-free-dlc-cosmetics-before-theyre-gone-for-good/
Owlcat Games has revealed a pair of cosmetic items that are free for all Rogue Trader players until February 1. The "Exclusive Rogue Trader Mask" and "Magnificent Rogue Trader Cloak" will presumably be locked in the Disney Vault (or the Games Workshop Vault, I guess) following this brief window.

Just four months after launching into early access, Nexon's 'full contact sword action' game Warhaven is shutting down
https://www.pcgamer.com/just-four-months-after-launching-into-early-access-nexons-full-contact-sword-action-game-warhaven-is-shutting-down/
The team-based swords-and-sorcery brawler Warhaven launched into early access on Steam on September 20, 2023. Today, just four months later, Nexon has announced that it will be closing down for good in April.

Blizzard's canceled survival game had been in development for over 6 years, was highly praised by employees
https://www.pcgamer.com/blizzard-survival-game-cancellation-news/
Blizzard's unnamed survival game had already been in development for over four years when it was announced in early 2022. Its team doubled in size that year with plans to grow even more in 2023. Now, after over six years of total development time and positive responses to the project from current and former Blizzard employees, the game has been canceled by Microsoft and its developers are out of jobs.

Pizza Tower, 2023's best platformer, is getting a free update where you play as one of the villains with his own music and moveset: 'Think of it as a sort of New Game+'
https://www.pcgamer.com/pizza-tower-2023s-best-platformer-is-getting-a-free-update-where-you-play-as-one-of-the-villains-with-his-own-music-and-moveset-think-of-it-as-a-sort-of-new-game/
Pizza Tower might be the best 2D platformer I've played since Hollow Knight, and if you want to restrict that to non-metroidvanias, I gotta go back to 2014's Shovel Knight for anything this good. A year after launch, developer Tour de Pizza now seems close to adding a long-promised mode where you play as one of the game's main bosses.

We regret to inform you that Palworld has a smutty lizard 'seeking a night of love' with humans, which raids bases in hordes of 'rampaging fangirls'
https://www.pcgamer.com/we-regret-to-inform-you-that-palworld-has-a-smutty-lizard-seeking-a-night-of-love-with-humans-which-raids-bases-in-hordes-of-rampaging-fangirls/
Palworld is an edgy game—more in implication than reality. While it's grown a reputation for a Happy Tree Friends-style subversiveness, everything in its world is pretty sanitised. For instance: Pals eat human cadavers, but they just peck at them until they vanish.
The whole game feels like a send-up of Pokémon's simmering 'it's messed up if you think about it' worldbuilding and Pokédex entries, just more overt. As is the case with Lovander, a pal that explicitly wants to bone down with humans. Lovander is number 69 in the Paldeck, naturally, and its entry reads as follows:

Dwarf Fortress' missing best mode is tantalisingly close to release, just as soon as they nail down how to 'target toes with your crab pincers'
https://www.pcgamer.com/dwarf-fortress-missing-best-mode-is-tantalisingly-close-to-release-just-as-soon-as-they-nail-down-how-to-target-toes-with-your-crab-pincers/
In the cavernous recesses of my heart I nurture the belief that Dwarf Fortress is the greatest game ever made. And ever since it got its shiny Kitfox-branded new version in 2022—now with graphics!—I've been convinced that's the best way to play it.
But that version isn't quite feature complete. It's still missing original Dwarf Fortress' Adventure Mode, a kind of roguelike approach to the game where you control a single character or party as they venture through one of your procgen worlds. That's in stark contrast to Dwarf Fortress' main mode, which sees you play god, admin and overseer for a whole colony of miners. It's due out in April, but the devs still have a fair bit of work to do.

Stunned devs left scrambling for livelihoods in wake of yesterday's layoff bloodbath: 'In the end the contributions didn't matter'
https://www.pcgamer.com/stunned-devs-left-scrambling-for-livelihoods-in-wake-of-yesterdays-layoff-bloodbath-in-the-end-the-contributions-didnt-matter/
The entire game industry is still reeling from yesterday's bombshell announcement that Microsoft—hot on the heels of its $69 billion acquisition of Activision—would be laying off 1,900 employees across Activision-Blizzard and Xbox. Inevitably, Twitter is awash with reactions highlighting the human cost, both from dazed devs waking up in a world in which they no longer have jobs, and from others wondering what this all means for the months and years ahead.

And now, the GOG and Steam deals for the weekend:

+GOG

• Only one, the New Year Sale: https://www.gog.com/en/promo/2024_new_year_sale

+Steam

• Galactic Civilizations IV is going to be 20% off until Monday: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1357210/Galactic_Civilizations_IV/
• Green Hell gets a 50% discount until the 30th: https://store.steampowered.com/app/815370/Green_Hell/
• Terraformers will be 40% off until the 1st of February: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1244800/Terraformers/
• Deliver Us The Moon features a 72% discount until February 1st: https://store.steampowered.com/app/428660/Deliver_Us_The_Moon/
• Publisher Kepler Interactive puts its games up to 80% off until the 1st: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/keplerpublishersale2024
• This War of Mine will be free to try during the weekend and 85% off until the same February 1st: https://store.steampowered.com/app/282070/This_War_of_Mine/
• Publisher Plaion puts its games on sale with up to 90% discounts. Most deals will end the 1st of February, but others will last more: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/PlaionPublisherSale2024
• Blasphemous 2 gets a 33% discount until the 5th of February: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2114740/Blasphemous_2/
• And the last one is shapez, with a 70% deal that will last until February, 8th: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1318690/shapez/

That's all the news for this week. Until next time, I wish you a happy and gaming weekend.

Intel Panther Lake CPUs To Double The AI Performance Over Lunar Lake, Clearwater Already In Fabs

https://wccftech.com/intel-panther-lake-cpus-double-ai-performance-over-lunar-lake-clearwater-forest-in-fabs/

ASUS ROG Ally successor most likely to launch this year, claims ASUS India VP

https://videocardz.com/newz/asus-rog-ally-successor-most-likely-to-launch-this-year-claims-asus-india-vp

Khronos presents Vulkan roadmap 2024 milestone

https://videocardz.com/press-release/khronos-presents-vulkan-roadmap-2024-milestone

AMD “Kraken Point” APU reportedly features four Zen5 and four Zen5c cores

https://videocardz.com/newz/amd-kraken-point-apu-reportedly-features-four-zen5-and-four-zen5c-cores

NVIDIA’s Global AI Chip Market Share Reaches a Whopping 90%, Analysts Says Competitors Years From Catching Up

https://wccftech.com/nvidia-global-ai-chip-market-share-whopping-90-percent-competitors-years-catching/

Redditor Takes Passive Cooling To a New Level, Mounting Ten Tower Heatsinks Onto NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 3080 GPU

https://wccftech.com/redditor-passive-cooling-new-level-ten-tower-heatsinks-nvidia-geforce-rtx-3080-gpu/

This may be interesting (and time saver for the future...):

STEAM DECEMBER 2023 BEST NEW RELEASES

Against the Storm link	Arizona Sunshine® 2 link	CUSTOM MECH WARS link
Disney Dreamlight Valley link	Five Nights at Freddy's: Help Wanted 2 link	(the) Gnorp Apologue link
Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising link	House Flipper 2 link	Mind Over Magic (Early Access) link
Pioneers of Pagonia (Early Access) link	Railroader (Early Access) link	Ready or Not link
Sledders (Early Access) link	SteamWorld Build link	THE FINALS link
Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader link		WITCH ON THE HOLY NIGHT link

I get that this is just another business for ASUS (and also MSI) and getting new models every year is the way to go, but I think that this handheld PC market is closer to the console one than they think, and that may cause them troubles.

In my opinion, most users will stick to their current device until it either breaks or no longer can play newer games, and givem how recent are these machines, that means that the second gen may not sell as well as they hope, giving them the wrong message.

Steam's approach, launching a revision almost two years later that, to the end user, only changed the display and storage, while saying nothing of the successor, may work better because it does feel like a console cycle, with a successor launching maybe three or four years later bringing noticeable improvements that everyone will be able to see and feel.

This made me think of this article I read this morning:

AMD Instinct MI300X Released at Opportune Moment. NVIDIA AI GPUs in Short Supply
https://www.techpowerup.com/318351/amd-instinct-mi300x-released-at-opportune-moment-nvidia-ai-gpus-in-short-supply
LaminiAI appeared to be one of the first customers to receive an initial shipment of AMD's Instinct MI300X accelerators, as disclosed by their CEO posting about functioning hardware on social media late last week. A recent Taiwan Economic Daily article states that the "MI300X is rumored to have begun supply"—we are not sure about why they have adopted a semi-secretive tone in their news piece, but a couple of anonymous sources are cited. A person familiar with supply chains in Taiwan divulged that: "(they have) been receiving AMD MI300X chips one after another...due to the huge shortage of NVIDIA AI chips, the arrival of new AMD products is really a timely rainfall." Favorable industry analysis (from earlier this month) has placed Team Red in a position of strength, due to growing interest in their very performant flagship AI accelerator.

Of course, those that are getting those monsters now had already preordered them a long time ago, but Nvidia's dominance also brings supply problems that may help AMD enter this market a bit faster than they had hoped. Also, AMD's chips are fast, and that's also a plus.