Month: April 2021

A report from hardware outlet VideoCardz states that Nvidia’s upcoming reissue of its RTX 30-series cards will include chips that will limit their ability to mine cryptocurrency. According to the report, Nvidia’s GAxx2 chips will ship in the middle of May, and they will feature “LHR” chips, which stands for “Lite Hash Rate.”

The report notes that Lite Hash Rate is not a marketing term, but a term used internally to describe GPUs to company partners. While these sellers will know which cards include the LHR chips, it will be invisible to the customers buying the chips, hence the “quiet launch” mentioned in the piece. It also claims that these new chips will offer the same performance as cards that are already on the market.

In fact, performance might actually increase thanks to the on-board “ResizableBAR” feature, which allows the GPU to transfer data to the CPU more effectively than normal. According to Nvidia, existing 30-series GPUs require a VBIOS update to take advantage of that feature, which also requires compatible hardware.

This isn’t the first time that Nvidia has tried to use a limiter to prevent crypto miners from snapping up its supply. The company’s RTX 3060 card included a measure designed to prevent Ethereum mining, which was subsequently removed by a beta driver issued by Nvidia. Based on this report, it would seem that Nvidia is investing much more effort into stymying would-be miners as it attempts to deal with the ongoing GPU shortages caused in part by crypto bubbles. However, a source told VideoCardz that the RTX 3090 may not include the crypto limiter due to the card’s high price tanking its perceived profitability to miners.

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Nearly 15 years after their original release, The Pokemon Company is polishing up Pokemon Diamond and Pearl and bringing them to Nintendo Switch as Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl. The pair will release on Nintendo’s hybrid console later this year, and like other Pokemon remakes before them, they update the classic DS games with some modern features. However, Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl also stay much more faithful to the originals than previous remakes, even sporting a similar visual style and the series’ traditional top-down viewpoint.

We got our first glimpse at Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl during the Pokemon Presents event back in February. While we’ve heard little about the titles since then, The Pokemon Company has already revealed some notable details about the upcoming remakes, with more news likely on the horizon as we approach their launch. In the meantime, here’s a look at everything we know so far about Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl.

When Do Pokemon Brilliant Diamond / Shining Pearl Launch?

Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl don’t yet have a firm release date, but the games are slated to launch exclusively on Nintendo Switch in “late 2021.”

Who Is Developing Pokemon Brilliant Diamond / Shining Pearl?

While series creator Game Freak developed every previous Pokemon remake to date, Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl are instead being handled by Ilca, the studio behind the Pokemon Home storage service. Game Freak itself is currently at work on a new Pokemon game titled Pokemon Legends: Arceus, which likely explains why Ilca was enlisted to develop Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl. However, Game Freak will still have a hand in the remakes. Longtime series producer and original Diamond / Pearl director Junichi Masuda is serving as co-director on Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl alongside Ilca’s Yuichi Ueda.

What’s Different In The Remakes?

Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl are taking a different approach from other Pokemon remakes. Rather than completely modernizing the classic DS games, Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl are staying very faithful to them, featuring the same top-down perspective and chibi art style as the originals. According to The Pokemon Company, “the sense of scale of the original games’ towns and routes has been carefully preserved” in the remakes, and players “will encounter the Pokemon that appeared in those nostalgic titles.”

Despite these similarities, Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl will feature some updates over the DS games. The Pokemon Company says that the remakes boast “easy-to-understand, player-friendly conveniences of the modern Pokemon video game series,” although no specifics were shared beyond that. Battle sequences also feature more detailed Pokemon and character models like those in Pokemon Sword and Shield.

Trailer

The Pokemon Company has only shared one trailer for Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl thus far, which came during its Pokemon Presents anniversary stream back in February. The video offers a quick look at the upcoming remakes, showing off their faithful visuals as well as a few of the Sinnoh-native Pokemon that you’ll encounter on your adventure.

Setting And Story Details

Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl are set in Sinnoh, a rural region divided down the middle by Mt. Coronet. As in other Pokemon adventures, your goal is to travel across the region, defeating Gym Leaders and collecting badges to qualify to challenge the Pokemon League. En route, you’ll cross paths with Team Galactic, a villainous organization that’s trying to summon the Legendary Pokemon Dialga (in Brilliant Diamond) and Palkia (in Shining Pearl).

Like other games in the series, you begin your adventure by selecting a starter Pokemon from the local Pokemon expert, Professor Rowan. Your three choices in these titles are the Grass-type turtle Turtwig, the Fire-type monkey Chimchar, and the Water-type penguin Piplup.

Any Connection With Pokemon Legends: Arceus?

Although they are separate games, Pokemon Brilliant Diamond / Shining Pearl and Pokemon Legends: Arceus share one commonality: their setting, the Sinnoh region. Unlike the remakes, however, Pokemon Legends is set in the distant past, before Sinnoh was fully developed, and it charts the player’s journey to create the region’s first Pokedex. It’s still unclear if there will be any actual connection between the games beyond their setting, such as some kind of bonus for players who play both, but it appears Pokemon Legends will delve further into the lore behind the region and its titular Mythical Pokemon, Arceus, which is said to have created the world.

Preorder Details

Despite not having a release date yet, Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl are already up for preorder at various retailers. No preorder bonuses have been announced thus far, but that may change as we get closer to the games’ release.

Actor, writer, director, comedian, and musician Bo Burnham has filmed a new special that will come to Netflix later this year. The special is called “Inside.”

“Hi. I made a new special. It was filmed by me, alone, without a crew or an audience, over the course of the past year. It is almost finished. I hope you like it,” Burnham said on Twitter.

A teaser video for the special shows a clean-shaven Burnham playing piano in a dark room before cutting to a tighter shot of Burnham with a quarantine beard and longer hair.

Inside is Burnham’s third major comedy special, following Make Happy and What. Each was critically well-received, so expectations will be high for Inside.

Burnham recently starred in Promising Young Woman opposite Carey Mulligan. He’s also lined up to play Larry Bird in an upcoming HBO series.

Burnham made his directorial debut with 2018’s Eighth Grade, which was a critical sensation and earn a Golden Globe nomination. Unlike some of his earlier work, Eighth Grade was essentially a drama.

A release date for Inside has not been announced. In other Netflix news, the streaming giant just released a sizzle reel showing all of its major summer movies.

It’s no secret that the PS5 and Xbox Series X|S have been nearly impossible to find over the last six months, and many of those looking to jump into the next generation haven’t been able to do so. The consoles are almost never available in retail stores, and online supply has been limited–and often quickly snagged by those who plan to sell it later for a higher price. But just why does the problem seem to be this bad compared to other console launches? Is it the pandemic, massive demand, or something else entirely? We spoke to the experts to get a clearer picture of the problem and when it might be resolved.

The world doesn’t just provide you with chips

According to IDC’s gaming research director, Lewis Ward, low inventory of microprocessors and Intel’s slower transition to the 10nm process for semiconductors (though both new consoles use AMD chips, which were also affected) played a role in supply issues more generally in the tech industry. And for Microsoft and Sony, the targets they set in place for console production were thrown into a “semi-chaotic state” by the pandemic.

“As a general rule, it’s pretty tough to radically change production schedules and related contract terms,” Ward told GameSpot.

Speaking to GameSpot, NPD’s Mat Piscatella echoed Ward regarding the inventory issues related to semiconductors, adding that during normal conditions, increased demand for these components could be met by ramping up production, but this is much more difficult during a pandemic.

Semiconductors have been in such short supply that the Biden administration announced it would be looking into the situation. The components are used in a wide variety of industries, including video games as well as automobiles. Electric vehicles were hit particularly hard by the shortage, and the 100-day review of the problem is ongoing. Since 2020, the problem has gotten worse, with major automotive manufacturers decreasing profit projections as a result.

In the past, Microsoft has said it’s trying to ramp up Xbox Series X|S production to better meet demand, talking to production partners like AMD to see what can be done about the situation. Only Nintendo uses Nvidia for its chips, and though Nvidia isn’t immune to the same sort of problems facing AMD, the Switch’s technology is also older. For now, Nintendo has enough supplies to keep making the system, though that could change later this year. Neither Nvidia nor AMD see a clear end to their GPU supply shortage, with Nvidia predicting it will last until the end of 2021 at a minimum. Even PC GPU cards are currently hard to find, with older models being offered to help keep up with customers’ demand.

A loss on every console sold

A failure to make enough supply to meet demand is not exactly the end of the world for Microsoft or Sony. With early profit margins often very small–and the PS5 confirmed to be selling at a loss right now–neither company has much to gain by overextending itself to acquire the components it needs to supercharge production. Making more consoles will obviously let more players buy them, but that also means losing another small amount of cash every time it sells a unit (though it also opens the door to earning revenue on games and services). And with demand still so high, it may make more sense for the companies to stay conservative until component costs have dropped enough for each sale to be profitable.

“Both companies, I believe, think that those buyers will still be there in late 2021 and 2022, at which point their profit margins on hardware bundles made will be more favorable,” Ward said.

Bots and re-sellers ruining everyone’s fun

Should demand still be high by the time supply does start to increase, it could finally spell doom for the re-sellers who have made use of bots to scoop up limited supplies and mark up the prices during the system’s first six months on sale. They’ve shown little sign of slowing down, with the console still listed for hundreds of dollars above their MSRP and retailers like GameStop offering them in expensive bundles with accessories and games you probably don’t want. Those who can find one at the standard price are generally refreshing listing pages to purchase them as soon as they’re in stock again.

In the past, re-sellers have even taken advantage of loopholes in certain retailers’ systems to let them buy consoles before they went on sale to everyone else, such as at the UK-based Argos. By the time they were scheduled to go on sale, they were already gone.

Were the systems being sold widely in retail stores, this would be less of an issue. The pandemic has limited this, and for 2020, several stores pledged not to sell the Xbox Series X|S or PS5 in brick-and-mortar locations at all. As long as COVID limits in-person shopping, re-sellers will continue to have an easier time getting the consoles first.

An unpredictable future

Neither analyst is certain when the situation will start to resolve itself, but the consensus seems to be that it won’t be soon. For the remainder of 2021, both could be scarce, though Piscatella views the more flexible company as the one that will fare the best here.

“Things continue to change quickly. Those companies that can best adapt to these incredible challenges will have the most success,” he said.

That success could take many forms. As of now, despite the pandemic, the PS5 has sold more units in its first five months than any system in US history, with about 7.8 million sold so far.

Microsoft, meanwhile, has a more multifaceted strategy, selling multiple systems and pushing its Xbox Game Pass service, and though one analyst has suggested only one Xbox system is being sold for every two PS5 systems, gaming revenue is way up for Microsoft. Even for those without a console, they can still play games via xCloud streaming. That feature just so happened to start a beta period for iOS users this past week, keeping them up to date on new Xbox games before they’re able to play them locally on a console.

Though the consoles are still hard to come by for many, one piece of solace for interested players could be the game lineup. Problems brought on by the pandemic and work-from-home setups have caused many games to get delayed. By the time you get a console, there might actually be a more steady stream of games to play on it.

GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers.

GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers.

GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers.

GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers.