Scope out a few of the game industry news stories from the last week below, hand-picked from across the world of games. This week, we’ve got news of another PAX event getting canceled, new product reveals from AMD and Razer, a game developer-focused event that covers mental health awareness, and more! Scan the index to pick the news you want and need to know!
Index:
- PAX Unplugged Canceled for 2020
- AMD Unveils Their Next-Gen Hardcore Gamer-Ready GPUs
- Razer Showcases New Gaming Hardware and Accessories
- TIGS Event Addresses Mental Health Issues and Game Development
- Amazon Cancels Crucible
- Dreamcast Mini Console a Possibility from Sega
PAX Unplugged Canceled for 2020
Source: Bleeding Cool News
As we approach the end of the year, events in the last quarter of the year are still being canceled and adjusted as event planners adjust to what the COVID-19 pandemic will allow. One of the latest events to bow out this year is PAX Unplugged. Bleeding Cool News posted this story:
“Penny Arcade revealed today that due to the current circumstances surrounding COVID-19, PAX Unplugged 2020 has been canceled. Rumors had been going around on social media that the event was getting nixed after PAX West and PAX Aus moved online and became PAX Online for 2020. Because the format primarily centered around video games and digital gaming, people became concerned as to how a tabletop convention would play out online. Sadly, it really can’t, as there’s a strong in-person element you can’t duplicate online. So the company posted this notice today letting fans know it was not happening in 2020, but it would be coming back in 2021.”
AMD Unevils Their Next-Gen Hardcore Gamer-Ready GPUs
Source: Ars Technica
Even though NVIDIA has made headlines often in the last month, from news about acquiring silicon and technology giant, Arm, unveiling and launching their in-high-demand RTX 3xxx series of GPUs, it hasn’t stopped AMD from keeping up the pressure from revealing their line of much-anticipated GPUs (during the week of NVIDIA’s GTC 2020 digital conference, no less). Ars Technica gets into some details from the AMD reveal event:
(At last week’s) “AMD Gaming Event 2020, Team Red announced its next big thing in desktop CPUs—the Zen 3 powered Ryzen 5xxx series. The event was brief—only a half hour from start to finish—with AMD announcing record-breaking internal benchmark results.
AMD CEO Lisa Su, CTO Mark Papermaster, and Director of Technical Marketing Robert Hallock took turns extolling the new gear’s features. The trio paints a picture of more unrelenting pressure being laid on competitor Intel. According to AMD testing, raw performance, power efficiency, IPC, and single-threaded performance all increased markedly compared to current leading desktop processors from both AMD and Intel.”
Razer Showcases New Gaming Hardware and Accessories
Source: IGN
If you’ve played PC games long enough, there’s a good chance you’ve tried or owned a Razer product, like a mouse or headset and so on. As we approach the gift-giving holiday season, the Irvine, California-based gaming hardware and accessories company brought a large bag of goodies that may interest a lot of PC gamers.
“The inaugural RazerCon 2020 featured some big announcements for PC gamers, including a new laptop, desktop mic, gaming chassis, Razer’s first gaming chair, and much more.” Check out the IGN post, which comprehensively covers the spectrum of products Razer brought to the table.
TIGS Event Addresses Mental Health Issues and Game Development
Source: VentureBeat
VentureBeat covers the keynote address of a sensitive but important topic at the International Games Summit on Mental Health Awareness:
“Amazon Game Studios head John Smedley opened the International Games Summit on Mental Health Awareness with a keynote talk about working with depression.
Smedley’s chat at TIGS opened the door for other speakers to talk about their struggles and how to get help. This is the second annual TIGS, and its hosts are founder Mark Chandler and Eve Crevoshay, the executive director at mental health in games nonprofit Take This.”
Amazon Cancels Crucible
Source: The Verge
In an on-fire year for games, one of the more surprising cancellations in 2020 might have to be this game which never quite got off the ground. The Verge discusses the story:
“Amazon has officially canceled Crucible, its free-to-play multiplayer shooter. It’s the end of a rocky journey for the game, which was first launched in May after years in development before being put back into closed beta in July.
“We very much appreciate the way that our fans have rallied around our efforts, and we’ve loved seeing your responses to the changes we’ve made over the last few months, but ultimately we didn’t see a healthy, sustainable future ahead [for] Crucible,” the Crucible team said in a blog post.”
Dreamcast Mini Console a Possibility from Sega
Source: Screen Rant
Classic gaming has experienced a renaissance in part due to the emergence of retro consoles in the last few years, but there’s still consoles out there many gamers might want to hook up to their displays. One of these is the Sega Dreamcast from two decades ago, which Screen Rant covers in this teaser news from Sega.
“Sega is considering more retro consoles, one of which would be the Dreamcast Mini. Retro consoles are essentially emulation machines that are designed to look like older systems. Of course, they’re also loaded with games from the recreated system’s era, making them a true nostalgic trip for fans.
Nintendo started a retro console boom at the end of 2016, with the release of the NES Classic Edition, which sold millions of units around the world. This was followed by the SNES Classic Edition in 2017. The success of Nintendo’s retro systems led to other companies releasing similar consoles, including the Atari Flashback, the NEOGEO Mini, the TurboGrafx-16 Mini, the Capcom Arcade Stick, and the PlayStation Classic.”
