After LegalEagle, it's not the turn of Gamer's Nexus to sue Honey and Paypal:

There's actually a strong possibility that both lawsuits will get combined into one

NVIDIA official GeForce RTX 50 vs. RTX 40 benchmarks: 15% to 33% performance uplift without DLSS Multi-Frame Generation

https://videocardz.com/newz/nvidia-official-geforce-rtx-50-vs-rtx-40-benchmarks-15-to-33-performance-uplift-without-dlss-multi-frame-generation

Wow this might be one of the worst gen on gen uplifts there is. Like even if we compare flagship to flagship, only 33% gen on gen? Where as 3090 to 4090 was 60-65% gen on gen with Raster. It reminds me of Turing but least Turing was an intro to Ray Tracing and DLSS. This is just a solid skip generation outside of the 5070 Ti.

If Radeon doesn't take advantage of this, they should uninstall themselves lol.

NVIDIA preparing GeForce Game Ready 570 drivers for RTX 50 launch

https://videocardz.com/pixel/nvidia-preparing-geforce-game-ready-570-drivers-for-rtx-50-launch

NVIDIA explains GeForce RTX 50 “Double Flow Through” Founders Edition cooler design

https://videocardz.com/newz/nvidia-explains-geforce-rtx-50-double-flow-through-founders-edition-cooler-design

Chinese reviewer confirms GeForce RTX 5080 January 29th embargo, shows new power adapter

https://videocardz.com/newz/chinese-reviewer-confirms-geforce-rtx-5080-january-29th-embargo-shows-new-power-adapter

NVIDIA’s Next-Gen Rubin AI Architecture Now Rumored To Launch By H2 2025; Disrupting Market Competition

https://wccftech.com/nvidia-next-gen-rubin-ai-architecture-now-rumored-to-launch-by-h2-2025/

For datacenter that is

Switch dataminer from Famiboards suggests the Switch 2's portable GPU clocks will be 561MHz. He also said 1.8GHz for the CPU is "hopium"

https://www.neogaf.com/threads/switch-dataminer-from-famiboards-suggests-the-switch-2s-portable-gpu-clocks-will-be-561mhz-he-also-said-1-8ghz-for-the-cpu-is-hopium.1679615/

1.72 TFLOPS when in portable

3.1 TFLOPS when in docked

Take it with salt till the fat plumber sings

Let’s go with the news:

SALES/PLAYER COUNTS & DEALS

There’s a new promo from GOG: the Turn-Based Promo will have games of this genre up to 95% off during 7 days: https://www.gog.com/en/promo/20250115_turn_based_promo

Steam has three new deals:

• The Early Access title The Bus will have a 20% discount until the 21st of January: https://store.steampowered.com/app/491540/The_Bus/
• Colony Survival, also in Early Access, is going to be 50% off until the 21st: https://store.steampowered.com/app/366090/Colony_Survival/
• And the game Funko Fusion and its DLCs are on sale in the Funko Fusion Franchise Sale, featuring up to 50% discounts until January 28: https://store.steampowered.com/developer/1010Games/sale/funkofusion2025

Fanatical has two new deals:

• The new Star Deal is Frostpunk: Game of the Year Edition, with a 92% deal during at least 24 hours: https://www.fanatical.com/en/game/frostpunk-game-of-the-year-edition
• And publisher Slitherine Ltd. Games has its games on sale. No word on when the sale will end: https://www.fanatical.com/en/publishers/slitherine-ltd

SOFTWARE & DRIVERS

Black holes, buildings on poles, and a 'sea urchin planet': PUBG creator's world-sized tech demo may be hiding some bizarre machine learning 'hallucinations'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/survival-crafting/black-holes-buildings-on-poles-and-a-sea-urchin-planet-pubg-creators-world-sized-tech-demo-may-be-hiding-some-bizarre-machine-learning-hallucinations/
I've just set foot for the first time on PUBG creator Brendan Greene's new planet, and I've gotta say: it definitely looks like a planet. I see some rocks. I see a few trees. One day I walked around in a forest, the next, a desert. I see gentle hills and scattered boulders and a sun in the sky, but nothing out of the ordinary. At least not yet.
This is Preface: Undiscovered World, a tech demo from PlayerUnknown Productions, that uses Melba, Greene's new game engine, to create an "Earth-scale world" using "machine learning agents." Preface is the first step in what Greene estimates could be a "five or 10 year journey" to create a massively multiplayer sandbox the size of a planet (and perhaps the metaverse, maybe).
While all these rocks and trees and hills appear to be perfectly sensible and normal, this planet-sized planet I'm trudging around on may be hiding a few anomalies, at least according to the team building the game engine that generated this world.

MODS, EMULATORS & FAN PROJECTS

Baldur's Gate 3 modder says the community's been making 'huge strides' towards custom campaigns: 'I think we'll see many of them refined, improved, and released this year'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/baldurs-gate/baldurs-gate-3-modder-says-the-communitys-been-making-huge-strides-towards-custom-campaigns-i-think-well-see-many-of-them-refined-improved-and-released-this-year/
Baldur's Gate 3 mods enjoyed a new set of tools last year as part of its seventh patch, tools which it only took erstwhile modders two days to unlock. These untapped kits allow these expeditionary tinkerers to create whole new campaigns, in the vein of Skyrim's ambitious mods. At least, in theory.
In practice, it's a little more complicated than that. Since Larian has not officially recognised or condoned these unlocked toolkits, modders have been left on their own to muddle through without proper documentation. I talked to one of said modders, SquallyDaBeanz aka Brandon Giles, who is hard at work on two projects—restoring some "cut" content from Act 2, and remaking WoW's Forsaken starting zone.

GAMING NEWS

Assassin’s Creed Origins & Valhalla will now work with Windows 11 24H2
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/assassins-creed-origins-valhalla-will-now-work-with-windows-11-24h2/
When Microsoft launched Update 24H2 for Windows 11, it broke compatibility with a number of Ubisoft games. To be more precise, Assassin’s Creed Origins and Valhalla could not run on the latest version of Win 11. Thankfully, Ubisoft has released patches that address these compatibility issues.

Forest Reigns is a new survival FPS from former STALKER devs
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/forest-reigns-is-a-new-survival-fps-from-former-stalker-devs/
VG Entertainment has announced a new story-driven survival FPS with RPG elements called Forest Reigns. For those who don’t know, VG Entertainment is made up of former STALKER and Survarium developers. So, if you are a fan of these games, you should definitely check this out.

PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS Patch 33.2 Released & Fully Detailed
https://www.dsogaming.com/patches/pubg-battlegrounds-patch-33-2-released-detailed/
KRAFTON has released and detailed the latest update for PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS, Patch 33.2. According to the devs, this new update brings the excitement of Spring Fest 2025, fresh updates to Sanhok, and a brand-new Gunplay Labs feature.

New Tomb Raider IV-VI Remastered Trailer Focuses on Bosses
https://www.dsogaming.com/videotrailer-news/new-tomb-raider-iv-vi-remastered-trailer-focuses-on-bosses/
Aspyr has shared a new trailer for Tomb Raider IV-VI Remastered which focuses on some of the bosses that players will encounter. And while this trailer is a bit short, it features new in-engine footage from this upcoming remastered trilogy. So, if you are a TR fan, I suggest taking a look at it.

The second part of the news:

An incredible $43,690 donation to Awesome Games Done Quick 2025 doubles as the most expensive nerd joke I've seen on the internet
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/an-incredible-usd43-690-donation-to-awesome-games-done-quick-2025-doubles-as-the-most-expensive-nerd-joke-ive-seen-on-the-internet/
Awesome Games Done Quick, as it has most years, has raised an absolutely boggling amount of money for charity—about $2.5 million, all told, in support of the Prevent Cancer Foundation. It's always lovely seeing games being used as an unrepentant force for good, a solid source of laughs and, in this case, both.

League of Legends players are up in arms after an update to get rid of 'unnecessary complexity' makes it a struggle for new players to earn anything
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/moba/league-of-legends-players-are-up-in-arms-after-an-update-to-get-rid-of-unnecessary-complexity-makes-it-a-struggle-for-new-players-to-earn-anything/
League of Legends season 1 saw a bunch of new features and changes made, including a new thematic that revolves around Noxus, a change to ranked resets, and a more streamlined reward system. While the last change may seem like a smart idea, it's wound up causing more harm than good for some players.

'I like to be challenged': Sims boss Lyndsay Pearson is 'excited' to see more developers trying to break into the life sim space
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/the-sims/i-like-to-be-challenged-sims-boss-lyndsay-pearson-is-excited-to-see-more-developers-trying-to-break-into-the-life-sim-space/
The Sims franchise creative VP Lyndsay Pearson isn't worried about other developers trying to stake their claim in EA's long-held life sim monopoly; rather, she welcomes the rivalry. Speaking to PC Gamer about the series' 25th anniversary and the future of The Sims, Pearson dove a little into why she thinks the life sim genre is such a tough formula for others to crack.

The MySims: Cozy Bundle brings the blocky-headed chibi sims over to PC: 'It's still very, very Sims'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/the-sims/the-mysims-cozy-bundle-brings-the-blocky-headed-chibi-sims-over-to-pc-its-still-very-very-sims/
EA's Behind the Sims presentation was stuffed with a variety of news—a new start screen for The Sims 4, new base game items, and a townie home refresh—but some non-Sims 4 news I'm particularly excited about is the fact that the MySims: Cozy Bundle is getting a PC port, heading to our desktops on March 18.

Blade and Soul Neo is a full-on remaster of NCsoft's 2012 wuxia-themed MMO
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/mmo/blade-and-soul-neo-is-a-full-on-remaster-of-ncsofts-2012-wuxia-themed-mmo/
NCsoft is working on a "modern reinterpretation" of its Blade and Soul MMO called Blade and Soul Neo, a remaster that promises a range of visual enhancements, gameplay updates, and a way for fans to "re-live that pure MMO action fantasy experience they once knew."

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League is now officially finished as its final update goes live
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/action/suicide-squad-kill-the-justice-league-is-now-officially-finished-as-its-final-update-goes-live/
It's finally over for Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, as its final update is now live on Steam. Episode 8: Balance, as it's officially known, adds a new Infamy Set based on the super-villain Libra, as well as new Notorious exotic weapons and a new mission for the final battle against Brainiac.

Elden Ring geographer tests rigorous calculation against weed-fueled horse math to determine the exact size of The Lands Between
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/elden-ring-geographer-tests-rigorous-calculation-against-weed-fueled-horse-math-to-determine-the-exact-size-of-the-lands-between/
If you Google the size of Elden Ring's map, chances are you'll see the same figure repeated throughout the results: 79 km2. What those sites won't tell you—and might not even realize themselves—is that the source for that 79 km2 figure is a reddit post from user Lusty-Batch, who on February 27, 2022 said that "my edible hit harder than expected so I calculated the size of the entire map, used the size of my horse and a bridge to estimate lengths."
(...)
While I think we can all admire Lusty-Batch's initiative, it's produced an inadvertent poisoning of the collective knowledge pool. Luckily, thanks to the efforts of YouTuber Addypalooza, we finally have a measurement of Elden Ring's map with a bit more rigor behind it.

Hideo Kojima is 'tired' while crunching on Death Stranding 2 and wonders how long he'll be able to keep making games: 'Every day feels like I'm racing against the clock'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/hideo-kojima-is-tired-while-crunching-on-death-stranding-2-and-wonders-how-long-hell-be-able-to-keep-making-games-every-day-feels-like-im-racing-against-the-clock/
Death Stranding mastermind Hideo Kojima left the office after dark one night last week, tweeting just one word on the way out: "Tired." After a long and influential career in the industry stretching back to the mid-1980s, he's starting to wonder how much time he really has left.

Terraria creator jokes that the 1.4.5 update may not be the last one after all: 'Terraria will never die as long as there is one last final update'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/survival-crafting/terraria-creator-jokes-that-the-1-4-5-update-may-not-be-the-last-one-after-all-terraria-will-never-die-as-long-as-there-is-one-last-final-update/
Terraria's final update, Journey's End, arrived in May 2020—except its actual final update came out several months later, in October 2020. Ah, but then "unfinished business" resulted in the Labor of Love update in 2022, something developer Re-Logic said "we needed to do before we could feel fully comfortable moving on." But then instead of moving on, another "definitely final update" was announced in 2022.
(...)
Ah, but there's another, secret reason Re-Logic won't stop working on Terraria: Life itself. "Terraria will never die as long as there is one last final update," lead developer Andrew 'Redigit' Spinks said on Bluesky (via GamesRadar).

Diablo 4 is getting its first bird pet in Season 7
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/diablo-4-is-getting-its-first-bird-pet-in-season-7/
There's a lot of new stuff in Diablo 4 Season 7, AKA the Season of Witchcraft, like the suite of witch abilities including one that lets you summon poison frogs. But the thing that leaped out at me in Blizzard's blog post about the upcoming season is that there's a new pet, and for once it's not another adorable cat or dog. Instead, it's a gloriously mangy bird that reminds me of the pigeons I saw on my lunch break, pecking at a moist loaf of bread in the gutter.

Yes, today there's also a third news post:

Marvel Rivals game director says it'll be getting a new hero every month and a half, which hopefully isn't a display of classical hubris
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/third-person-shooter/marvel-rivals-game-director-says-itll-be-getting-a-new-hero-every-month-and-a-half-which-hopefully-isnt-a-display-of-classical-hubris/
Marvel Rivals landed with a wide roster, boasting 33 heroes when it launched on December 5. Just over a month later, the hero shooter's received two additions to its lineup, thanks to the arrival of Mister Fantastic and Invisible Woman with the advent of Season 1. NetEase has set an impressive pace—and according to game director Guangyun Chen, the studio has no intention of slowing down.

Marvel Rivals director all but tells players to git gud when going up against Jeff's ultimate, but I have a couple of tips that'll actually help you
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/third-person-shooter/marvel-rivals-director-all-but-tells-players-to-git-gud-when-going-up-against-jeffs-ultimate-but-i-have-a-couple-of-tips-thatll-actually-help-you/
Jeff the Land Shark has probably one of the most infamous ultimates in Marvel Rivals. With the ability to swallow up any hero that gets caught up in the area of effect, friend or foe, and then launch them off the side of the map (or into an ulting Scarlet Witch—dealers choice). It's a handful to counter and even harder to escape, but thankfully, Guangyun Chen, the director of Marvel Rivals, has one helpful tip for players to remember.
"We actually have an interesting tip for how to avoid Jeff’s ultimate," Chens says in an interview with Metro. "Make sure you keep your formation spread out, and as soon as you hear Jeff saying 'Nom, Nom, Nom' before he unleashes the ultimate, you want to scatter away. And don't hesitate to use your Mobility skills if you need to." In other words, players just need to stop panicking, git gud, and flee the scene as quickly as possible.

Game made in consultancy with alien abductees delists itself after claiming it received a bomb threat for making certain information public
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/game-made-in-consultancy-with-alien-abductees-delists-itself-after-claiming-it-received-a-bomb-threat-and-the-authorities-are-part-of-the-problem/
Take a big old sip of coffee. Universal Conquest, a space grand strategy game "based on personal interviews with alien abductees" and allegedly in development for over a decade, has been voluntarily de-listed from Steam by its solo dev, following what they describe as "an offer we couldn't refuse".

Development of Fortune's Run is 'imploding' as its sole remaining developer announces they've been sentenced to 3 years in jail: 'What I did was wrong and that's all you need to know'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/development-of-fortunes-run-is-imploding-as-its-sole-remaining-developer-announces-theyve-been-sentenced-to-3-years-in-jail-what-i-did-was-wrong-and-thats-all-you-need-to-know/
Fortune's Run launched into Steam early access in September 2023, and quickly became a favourite on the PCG team. The game is like an immersive sim on fast-forward, with lightning fast melee combat, deep stealth mechanics, and immaculate dystopian vibes. Unfortunately, as good as it is, development is now "imploding."
The game was a two person project, but has apparently been a one person project for a while now, and solo developer Dizzie has posted an update titled "Extremely Sad Depressing News." The main thrust of which is that they're off to jail.

'We are incredibly sorry': Path of Exile 2 devs apologise for data breach that saw 66 accounts snatched and personal info potentially stolen
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/we-are-incredibly-sorry-path-of-exile-2-devs-apologise-for-data-breach-that-saw-66-accounts-snatched-and-personal-info-potentially-stolen/
During an interview earlier this week, developer Grinding Gear Games revealed that around 66 Path of Exile 1 and 2 accounts were hacked after an act of social engineering exploited an old Steam profile—one that was both linked to an admin account and, crucially, forgotten about and unsecured.
The full extent of the damage has been revealed in a post to the Path of Exile forums, which further explains that the Steam account in question "was a regular Steam account and had no purchases, phone numbers, addresses or other information associated with it," meaning that "the only information that they were required to supply was the email, account name and be using a VPN from the same country."
(...)
It's a huge breach of privacy—and one Grinding Gear Games seems to be taking seriously. "We have taken steps to ensure that there are more security measures around admin accounts so that this can not happen again. No 3rd party accounts are allowed to be linked to any staff accounts and we have added significantly more stringent IP restrictions."
That's no small comfort to those impacted, though, for which GGG says "we are incredibly sorry for this lapse in security. The measures taken to secure the admin website really should have already been in place, and in the future we will be taking even more steps to make sure that this kind of issue never occurs again."

Sims boss Lyndsay Pearson says 'leaks are unavoidable' and 'you're going to end up with crossed wires occasionally' as EA stays clammed-up about Project Rene
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/the-sims/sims-boss-lyndsay-pearson-says-leaks-are-unavoidable-and-youre-going-to-end-up-with-crossed-wires-occasionally-as-ea-stays-clammed-up-about-project-rene/
As of last year, The Sims 4 team committed itself to going back and working on big lists of outstanding issues with the game (which it has been making good on) but an equally big bug in the system is EA's communication to players—or the lack thereof. I don't really think that much is going to change on that front any time soon but the message we got in a recent interview with Sims series VP of franchise creative Lyndsay Pearson is that the team is at least aware it's a pain point for players.

Let's not get ahead of ourselves. Those results come from just two games and Nvidia's own slides. Things may look different in proper reviews and with more games.

To be fair, chances are the average looks worse than the cherry-picked benchmarks for the marketing slides.

Not that this is unexpected, it's the same node, so it makes sense that it's like Pascal > Turing (but even smaller due to the maxed-out thermals).

NVIDIA RTX 4070 To Be Discontinued In January, RTX 4060 & RTX 4060 Ti Going To Reach EOL In Q1 2025

https://wccftech.com/nvidia-rtx-4070-discontinued-in-january-4060-4060-ti-in-q1-2025/

AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT & RX 9070 GPUs Listed On A Danish Retailer, Getting Stocked On 23rd January

https://wccftech.com/amd-radeon-rx-9070-xt-rx-9070-gpus-listed-retailer-23rd-january/

AMD Ryzen Z2 Go Performs 10% Slower Than Z1 Extreme: Lenovo Legion Go S & ASUS ROG Ally X Comparison Reveals Performance Gap

https://wccftech.com/amd-ryzen-z2-go-slower-than-z1-extreme-lenovo-legion-go-asus-rog-ally-x/

NVIDIA reveals die sizes for GB200 Blackwell GPUs: GB202 is 750mm², features 92.2B transistors

https://videocardz.com/newz/nvidia-reveals-die-sizes-for-gb200-blackwell-gpus-gb202-is-750mm%c2%b2-features-92-2b-transistors

Intel Arc B570 “Battlemage” Graphics Cards Review Roundup

https://videocardz.com/194612/intel-arc-b570-battlemage-graphics-cards-review-roundup

Nintendo announces Switch 2, game backwards compatibility confirmed

https://videocardz.com/newz/nintendo-announces-switch-2-backwards-compatibility-confirmed

GOG talks about what has been done this past year for Game preservation, not just on their side, but as a whole: