Nintendo recently announced it is shutting down Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp's current iteration as a F2P mobile game, but it'll be coming back as a pay-to-play title on iOS and Android. Nintendo's historical earnings data might give some clues as to why this is happening.

Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp is Nintendo's 3rd most-popular mobile title with over 10 million downloads, so why is the company shutting it down, and re-launching it as a pay-to-play game? There's a few possible reasons for this.

The first is that NDCube, the development studio responsible for Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, may be too busy to actually upkeep the live game over time with new content and in-app purchases--especially via Pocket Camp's own subscription service. After all, NDCube has been pretty busy over the past 6 years, having developed 5x Switch games including two Mario Party titles.

AMD's new Zen 5-based Ryzen 9000 series CPUs are now out in the wild, but new high-end X870E motherboards aren't quite yet... but they will be soon: on September 30.

The news of a September 30 release for the high-end X870E and X870 motherboards is coming from Kenny on the Bilibili forums, who received the new ASUS ROG STRIX X870E-E GAMING WIFI motherboard, where he said that he can share his experience on September 30.

Kenny explained: "The newly launched X870 series motherboards for AMD Ryzen 9000 series processors are finally available. According to the official time specified by AMD, the motherboard can only be unboxed and basic specifications introduced without lighting on August 20, 2024. The official user experience sharing will be released on September 30, 2024".

Amazon will apparently publish games on Nintendo's new Switch 2 console, despite having never released any games for the current-gen model.

In a recent interview with IGN, Amazon Games CEO Christoph Hartmann expresses interest in Nintendo's new DLSS-powered, 4K-ready Switch successor. Dubbed the Switch 2, the system is expected to leverage a more powerful NVIDIA Orin Tegra chip to deliver upscaled 4K resolution gaming, likely within the confines of the Switch OLED's dock (which itself is indeed capable of 4K output).

This extra horsepower is apparently enough to attract publishers like Amazon Games, who has yet to release any games onto the existing Tegra X1-powered Switch system.

Microsoft's new Windows 11 24H2 update is ushering in boosts in performance for both Zen 4 and Zen 5 processors from AMD.

The new Windows 11 24H2 update has been tested briefly so far, with fellow Aussie outlet HardwareUnboxed testing the new Windows 11 update with the Zen 4-based Ryzen 7 7700X and Zen 5-based Ryzen 7 9700X processors between 24H2 and 23H2 updates on Windows 11.

AMD's previous-gen Ryzen 7 7700X saw a 10% average performance boost at 1080p across a multitude of games, while the new Zen 5-based Ryzen 7 9700X was 11% faster on average at 1080p with the new Windows 11 24H2 update installed.

SK hynix is aiming to have its HBM4 memory tape-out in Q4 2024, ready for NVIDIA's next-gen Rubin R100 AI GPU coming in 2025.

In a new report from ZDnet, we're learning that SK hynix is nearing the final stage of commercializing its next-generation HBM4 memory, with the design drawings to be transferred to the manufacturing process, or "tape out". According to ZDnet's industry sources, SK hynix plans to complete the tape out of its HBM4 for NVIDIA in October, so we're just weeks away.

HBM4 offers a huge 40% increase in bandwidth, and a reduced power consumption of a rather incredible 70% to HBM3E, the fastest memory in the world. HBM4 density will be 1.3x higher, with all of these advancements combined, the leap in performance and efficiency is a key driver in NVIDIA's continued AI GPU dominance.

We all know it's coming, we all know it'll be here later this year... but Sony hasn't officially announced the PlayStation 5 Pro console, yet. This could happen during a State of Play presentation rumored for late September, says an insider.

During the recent Game Mess Mornings episode, Jeff Grubb said that last he heard the PlayStation 5 Pro was coming out this year, and that an insider had heard that Sony would probably host a State of Play presentation for the end of September.

Sony's new PlayStation 5 Pro console was an "open secret" at Gamescom 2024 last week in Cologne, Germany, and with the Tokyo Game Show 2024 right around the corner, a possible State of Play presentation, and the holidays looming... Sony is going to make quite the splash with the PS5 Pro.

Sony's new PlayStation 5 Pro could cost around $600 or $700 at the higher range, Giant Bomb reporter Jeff Grubb estimates.

How much will Sony's new PS5 Pro be at launch? Given the PS5 Pro's specs, it could be pricey.

The PS5 Pro's GPU will have 60 RDNA 3.0 Compute Units (CUs) and can boost to a whopping 2.35GHz, which indicates a max 36 TFLOPs of compute power (that's a 5.4% increase over the PS5's 2.23GHz max GPU speeds). Sony also developed a proprietary DLSS-like upscaler called PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR).

Nintendo has taken to its social media channels to announce its hosting a Nintendo Direct tomorrow with the an Indie World Showcase. The company also touched on a Switch successor.

Nintendo took to its "Nintendo of America" X account to announce an Indie World Showcase will be hosted tomorrow, August 27 at 7am PT, and following that will be a Nintendo Direct that will last for approximately 40 minutes in total. Nintendo finished off its announcement by mentioning the highly anticipated successor to the Nintendo Switch, which the company said wasn't going to be mentioned at all during the Direct. "Please note, there will be no mention of the Nintendo Switch successor during either of these presentations."

The highly anticipated console is only rumored at the moment with no officially announced information being available. However, rumors do suggest the presumably Nintendo Switch 2 will have similar performance to the Xbox One and focus on a combination of 1080p and 1440p gaming. 1440p during docked mode, which will redesigned to increase the performance of the console when its plugged in. Other rumors have suggested the successor console will fall short of the Valve Steam Deck in performance.

Apple has sent out invitations to press for an event its holding on September 9, 2024 at 10:00 a.m PT. The event will be livestreamed and will be hosted at the Steve Jobs Theater in Apple Park.

Known Apple insider and Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman shared an image of the Apple invitation on his personal X account, writing that this invitation is for Apple's anticipated iPhone event where it will unveil the iPhone 16 line-up. Gurman writes the announcement has come a day earlier than anticipated, which references his previous prediction of a September 10 announcement event.

Apple Intelligence will be a key part of the overall sales pitch in Apple stores to customers, as the new AI-powered software is a main selling point of this next-generation of devices. The Bloomberg reporter wrote on August 25 employees at Apple retail stores have already started receiving training on the Apple Intelligence features. Apple Intelligence will debut with the release of iOS 18, and we can expect some further examples of Apple Intelligence being used on the iPhone 16 line-up.

Boeing's Starliner spacecraft transported two NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to the International Space Station (ISS) on June 5 with the goal of returning them a week later. However, that didn't go to plan.

Prior to launch and upon arrival NASA and Boeing detected helium leaks on the Starliner spacecraft. Some leaks were detected before launch but were cleared by both NASA and Boeing, while additional leaks were detected throughout the journey and confirmed upon arrival. Since then NASA and Boeing have been gathering data on the Starliner situation and determining an attack plan to return Wilmore and Williams back to Earth.

After a lengthy analysis period NASA has determined there isn't enough concrete evidence to give the agency enough confidence to sign off on Starliner meeting all of the agency's rigorous safety and performance requirements that are designed to make astronauts as safe as possible during flight. Essentially, Starliner is too broken to fly and isn't a safe transportation method for the NASA astronauts.