PlayStation division operating income has been nearly cut in half due to unfavorable market conditions and increased game development spending.
VIEW GALLERY – 10 PICTURES
Sony’s recent Fiscal Year Q1’22 results show sharp declines in its billion-dollar gaming segment and highlight the tumultuous market that could inhibit consistent growth. Games & Network Services, which includes the mighty PlayStation brand, saw substantial drops in both total sales revenues when converted from yen to USD based on foreign exchange market rates provided by the company.
According to the data, PlayStation net sales revenues dropped to $4.67 billion in Q1’22, a decline of $890 million or 17% year-over-year.
Operating income in Q1’22 was $408 million, representing a year-over-year drop of $52 million or 46%.
There’s multiple causes for these drops. Tough competition from the previous year is a big one. as we explained with Capcom’s results, which also dropped by 50%, Sony had set a high water mark in FY20 and FY21 due to coronavirus spending boons as consumers sheltered in place, alongside more favorable conversion rates. Consumers are also being hit with inflation and are apparently spending less money on–and in–video games.
Sony says that first-party and third-party game sales declined in Q1’22, as reflected by the hard data provided by the company. First-party games were down 4.1 million units, and third-party games were down 12.4 million units.
Microtransaction spending in PlayStation’s Add-Ons segment was also down by nearly half a billion dollars year-over-year. Add-Ons make the lion’s share of PlayStation revenues every quarter/year due to the sheer volume of microtransaction spending opportunities in heavy-hitting, mega-popular F2P games like Fortnite, Apex Legends, and Warzone.
Revenue from video game sales and add-on content has also dropped 27% to $2.33 billion, but hardware sales are up 13% year-over-year to $1.04 billion, reflecting the strong adoption rate of the PlayStation 5 as well as Sony’s improved profit margins on each console sold.
Unfavorable exchange rates have primarily affected PlayStation’s USD conversions. Yen to USD exchange rates went from 109.5 in Q1’21 to a whopping 129.4 in Q1’22, representing 18% increase in USD value when compared to yen. The US dollar has more buying power in Japan during the comparative period.
Sony is also spending more money on games development and acquisitions. The company is readying a bunch of live games and wants to release 12 live service titles by 2025. It also recently purchased Haven, a new studio led by Assassin’s Creed vet Jade Raymond, and Bungie, the developer of Destiny and legacy Halo games.
Below we also have data on Sony’s growing Other segment, which includes PC game revenues, and Network Services, which includes PlayStation Plus.
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Good morning, you wonderful specimens of humanity! It’s Friday, and I’m writing this from the hammock in my sunny North Oakland garden, so life ain’t all that bad. (I can only assume that WFH stands for Work From Hammock).
This weekend, earmark a bit of time to apply to our Startup Battlefield 200. It gives you the chance to exhibit your startup for free at TechCrunch Disrupt in October and win the $100,000 prize. Applications close August 5, so get cracking!
It’s all go, go, go in the world of insurance. Mary Ann reports that Lemonade acquired Metromile and promptly laid off about 20% of its staff. Makes sense, of course, in a world where there’s probably a fair amount of administrative and operational overlap between the two companies, but it’s always sad to say goodbye to beloved colleagues.
And don’t miss Aria‘s piece about how the Exploration Company is developing a brand-new reusable orbital spacecraft. “The [space] exploration ecosystem is going to change dramatically in the probably next 10 to 15 years,” co-founder and CEO Hélène Huby explained. “If you make it happen, you have a huge advantage of being one of the first in the market.”
A few more nuggets to take you into the weekend:
Taking the fun out of everything: A startup is charging $1.99 to write strings to feed into platforms like DALL-E, and I despair for humanity. Come on, that’s half the fun! No thanks at all to Kyle for making me see the confused anger this afternoon. jerk.
Making it rain down in Africa: Zedcrest Capital, a firm known for its debt and equity capital markets investments but who recently started dabbling in venture investments, has launched a $10 million “emergency fund” for African startups, aimed at pre-Series A stage companies, Tag reports.
Driving lessons for industrial vehicles: Polymath Robotics launches to bring plug-and-play software autonomy to any industrial vehicle, Kirsten reports.
The more you learn: You know what, I’ve never read one of Devin’s articles that didn’t make me go, “Huh! I didn’t know that!” Today, Shinkei Systems’ AI-guided fish harvesting robot gave me that moment of delight.
All my apes gone: Legal disputes at the intersection of IP and NFTs
Image Credits: Bryce Durbin/TechCrunch
When Andy Warhol appropriated images of Campbell’s Soup in 1962, he was lucky: For a host of reasons, the company decided not to sue him for infringing its trademark.
One wonders how the situation would have played out 60 years later if Warhol had minted a series of NFTs with the iconic soup labels, however.
In her latest TC+ post, CORPlaw founder Kristen Corpion examined “the most interesting and important IP legal issues that are currently impacting the creation, transfer and use of NFTs,” including trademark infringement, the first sale doctrine and why Seth Green ended up paying a $100,000 premium to buy back his stolen Bored Ape.
(TechCrunch+ is our membership program, which helps founders and startup teams get ahead. You can sign up here.)
Big Tech Inc.
It’s never gonna give you up. It’ll make an effort to never let you down. It probably won’t run around and desert you. But TikTok may be considering a music service, report Aisha and Ivan in an article that unfortunately falls short of the mandatory quota of musical puns. Don’t worry folks, I’ll talk to her about it.
Meanwhile, annie reports that Kenya is contemplating giving Facebook a smack with the ban-hammer, after the country’s National Cohesion and Integration Commission finds that the social media platform isn’t doing enough to clear out hate speech.
Is media coming to Twitter?: Looks like the social media platform is testing letting you post images, videos, and GIFs all in the same tweet, Ivan reports.
We don’t want your steenking ads: Roku misses the mark on its quarterly results, and blames advertising slowdown for coming up short, Lauren reports.
Bank balance goes down, shares go up: Amazon reported its earnings and ran at a $2 billion loss. Seems like stonks love that sort of thing, because the share price went up, reports Lauren.
For you, special price. For you, it’s double: Twitter Blue gets a price hike from $2.99 to $4.99 per month, reports Ivan.
Where do you take someone after a “peekaboo” accident? To ICU: Instagram pretty much copied BeReal for its Dual camera feature, but kinda missed the point along the way, Amanda explains.
Is there anything they can’t do?: Video memes, maybe music soon (see above) and now TikTok begins testing HTML5 minigames with a handful of partners, sarah reports.
Nerfs to Chamber’s Tour De Force, Headhunter, Trademark and more are now live on the VALORANT public beta environment.
Players have been calling for Chamber nerfs since he was released in November of last year, and some of those nerfs will be coming to the main client sometime soon. Recent changes to Chamber’s kit tweaked his abilities from him and removed one of his two Trademarks, but these changes were not enough to bring his value from him down to the level of other agents. The upcoming nerf will change the way Chamber is played and force players into different situations than what they are used to.
Chamber’s teleport ability, Rendezvous, will have an increased cooldown time on both the base and recall. Originally, the Rendezvous had a 20 second cooldown, but that has now been increased to 30 seconds, leaving a longer gap between when the teleport is placed and when it is available to be placed again. The radius size of Chamber’s teleport has also been shrunk from 21 meters to 15, making the distance he can teleport much shorter.
Chamber’s Trademark is a great way to catch enemies on the flank or when they are entering onto a site. When activated, the Trademark shoots out a slow, but the nerfs have also made this ability a bit less dominant. The slow duration for Chamber’s Trademark has been decreased from 9.5 seconds to just six.
Chamber PBE only!:
Rendezvous (E) 🥖Base Cooldown increased 20s >>> 30s 🥖Recall Cooldown increased 20s >>> 30s 🥖Cooldown set to 45s whenever a Rendezvous anchor is destroyed 🥖Radius Size decreased 21m >>> 15m Trademark (C) 🥖Slow Duration decreased 9.5 >>> 6s
Additionally, Chamber’s ultimate, Tour De Force, will be receiving some adjustments as well. Instead of reducing the number of bullets the ultimate has, Chamber’s ultimate will now require eight points instead of seven. Like his Trademark from him, Chamber’s Tour De Force slows will also be receiving the same duration decrease from 9.5 to six seconds. Finally, Chamber’s Headhunter bullets will now cost 150 credits instead of the original 100, making it slightly more expensive per bullet than a Sheriff.
Players can test out these Chamber nerfs on the PBE now before they hit the main servers in the near future.
BMW has been expanding its SUV stable of late, thanks to the addition of cars like the iX. However, there’s still a place in the hearts of many drivers for the X3, long hailed as an excellent SUV option for those who want a mix of luxury and sportiness. For 2022, BMW has given the X3 a few modest tweaks, including the addition of a hybrid system to make the ride even smoother.
But BMW isn’t the only manufacturer to expand on its SUV efforts. In the last year or so, we’ve seen a number of electric SUVs and crossovers — and many of them make a seriously compelling case for themselves. Does the 2022 BMW X3 M40i do enough to retain its place as a top competitor in the SUV space? I’ve been driving it for a while now to find out.
2022 BMW X3 M40i
Rating: 4 Stars
The BMW X3 M40i is a stylish and comfortable midsize SUV with a powerful engine and plenty of room.
BGR may receive a commission
BGR may receive a commission
pros
Stylish outside
Comfortable inside
powerful engine
good handling
Cons
Interior design is aging a little
2022 BMW X3 M40i exterior design
The exterior look of the BMW X3 M40i will be familiar to those that have seen any other modern BMW — but that’s not a bad thing. It looks sleek and stylish, with slim headlights and a near timeless look. The car has avoided the completely oversized grilles, however, they are still larger than previous generations. As I’ve said before, I don’t mind the huge grilles anymore regardless.
Image source: Christian de Looper for BGR
The side-profile of the X3 definitely shows the fact that it’s a mid-size SUV, with a slightly sloped roofline that curves down into the back of the car. There’s a small upper spoiler for style points, and the taillights are sculpted in a way that looks modern and interesting.
The X3 is available in a few different colors, and our review model is the Blue Metallic, which looks great. The wheels on our model are the 20-inch M double-spoke wheels, which I also love.
2022 BMW X3 M40i interior design
The BMW familiarity extends to the inside of the car. Like all other modern BMWs, the X3 boasts a high-quality tan-colored stitched leather throughout, and generally, it looks and feels great.
One of the best things about this particular BMW, however, is how spacious it is on the inside. The higher roof helps ensure plenty of headroom in both the front and the back, and the oversized windows give plenty of visibility no matter the height of the driver.
Image source: Christian de Looper for BGR
The space extends to the trunk too. I happened to be reviewing this car when my parents and brother flew into town, and I was easily able to fit three large suitcases in the trunk. The trunk boasts 28.7 cu-ft of space with the rear seats up, and an impressive 62.6 cu-ft of space with them down.
At the front there’s a good selection of physical buttons for climate controls, and the car, in general, has three climate zones, so the rear passengers can have their own controls. There are also USB-C ports dotted throughout the car, which is handy.
2022 BMW X3 M40i infotainment
The BMW X3 M40i features BMW’s iDrive 7 infotainment system, which I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with. The design of it is fine, though it still looks a little dated and cluttered. It’s centered around a customizable home screen, followed by a few screens of “apps” that you can dive into. Again, it works fine, and it’s better than some others. It’s also relatively responsive, which is always helpful.
Image source: Christian de Looper for BGR
Of course, you don’t have to use iDrive 7 much if you don’t want to. The car comes with Android Auto and CarPlay through a wireless connection. Unlike some other BMWs, I never really experienced any connectivity issues with CarPlay Wireless, but maybe I just got lucky.
2022 BMW X3 M40i Performance
The 2022 BMW X3 M40i comes equipped with a 3.0-liter i6 engine, but perhaps even more interesting is that BMW has also included a mild-hybrid 48-volt starter-generator. The result is that the car gets 382-hp, and 369 lb-ft of torque. It can get from 0-60 in 4.2 seconds. Yeah, it’s pretty quick.
Image source: Christian de Looper for BGR
Fast acceleration is only part of the picture though. The car is responsive and smooth. It handles easily around corners, with little lean despite its taller stature. It’s really a joy to drive, regardless of the drive mode that you’re in.
2022 BMW X3 M40i driver assist
As you would expect, the BMW X3 M40i comes with a few driver-assist features that can help make it easier to drive and park. You’ll get basics, like a backup camera and blind-spot monitoring. You’ll also get the 360-degree camera view, which has fast become one of my favorite features on modern cars.
BMW in general is lagging a little behind some of the competition when it comes to autonomous driving tech, but depending on the options you get, you’ll still get adaptive cruise control, which can be helpful in stop-and-go traffic. And, you’ll get a lane assistant.
conclusions
The BMW X3 M40i is a luxurious SUV that’s easy to handle and quick off the mark. It’s not cheap, but if what you’re looking for is luxury and spaciousness, then the BMW X3 M40i is an excellent option.
The competition
The BMW X3 M40i is a great option, but it’s not without competition. Most notably, the car goes up against the likes of the Genesis GV70, which is perhaps a slightly better option thanks to its stunning design and excellent performance. That said, you really can’t go wrong with the X3 M40i.
Should I buy the 2022 BMW X3 M40i?
And it is. If you’re not into the Genesis GV70, the BMW X3 M40i is an excellent option.
After the announcement of Playstation VR2, the hype surrounding it has been crazy, and fans can’t wait to get their hands on it. According to what we have heard so far, Sony appears to be doing pretty well with the PlayStation VR2 due to the abundance of features being unveiled. Compared to the PlayStation VR, features like Eye tracking make a difference.
Every day, more information comes out, which heightens the excitement surrounding the PlayStation VR2. Previously, a patent from Sony indicated that PlayStation VR2 controllers would support straps. A new patent from Sony, published on July 28, suggests that Sony may be developing a light gun for the PlayStation VR2.
PSVR2 Light Gun Patent
the PlayStation VR Aim Gun, a comparable peripheral, was also created for the PlayStation VR and performed admirably. We can only anticipate even greater success with something similar for the new Virtual Reality setup.
This might be a significant game-changer for the PlayStation VR2 because using an accessory that simulates a gun instead of feeling immersed in the game while wearing the virtual reality headset could be the icing on the cake.
If all goes as planned, the PlayStation VR2 is scheduled to debut in 2023 and could significantly alter the Virtual Reality market.
The PlayStation VR2’s outcome is unknown, but we hope everything goes as planned for the best. This is all the information we currently have, but we’ll keep an eye out for more details on the PSVR2.
On that note, what do you think about Sony developing a light gun for the PlayStation VR2? Will you be buying the PlayStation VR2? Let us know in the comments section.
Read Next: PlayStation 5 Supply Shortages Finally Getting Better According To CFO
Nier Automata’s secret church isn’t a secret anymore, and the mysterious Reddit account sadfutago has been unmasked. The past few days of frantic theorycrafting, fact-checking, and data mining were all sparked by just three inventive modders. This small team quietly redefined what Nier Automata mods can be and, less quietly, teased their work with cryptic breadcrumbs that the internet couldn’t resist.
At the end of it all, the people behind sadfutago and these revolutionary mod tools say they’re feeling a touch overwhelmed.
This memorable performance was put on by Woeful_Wolf, DevolasRevenge, and RaiderB of the Nier Modding Discord (opens in new tab). (And it is, sad eats from wowand futago, or twins in Japanese, comes from Devola of Nier’s twins sisters.) I first spoke to Woeful_Wolf on July 28, just hours before the Twitch stream that revealed the truth of the secret church. At the time, the mod team was still hiding their involvement but also actively participating in the Discord, with Woeful_Wolf going so far as to help other Nier modders try and recreate the secret church while remaining incognito. The weight of the hindsight from that conversation threatens to crush me into dust even now, so I simply had to track the team down for the whole story.
Responses edited for clarity and length.
The brilliance of sadfutago
(Image credit: Square Enix)
“I wanted sadfutago to appear innocent so that people wouldn’t assume he’s capable of making a map,” Devolas tells me over Discord. He also had to seem ignorant “so that he can avoid suspicion.” Devolas was responsible for posting, but Wolf and Raider also occasionally helped check and workshop the contents. For example, Wolf, who describes Devolas as “the mastermind behind the character,” once caught an errant mouse cursor in one video that would’ve ruined the claim of sadfutago playing on PS4.
That turned the sentiment in our favor… The new question was: is this a PR stunt?
RaiderB
The allure and persona of the account was also aided by its audience. Nier fans love a good rabbit hole, and sadfutago took on a mind of his own as people swapped traces of the imagined person behind the posts. The prevailing theory was that sadfutago is a French Canadian minor with imperfect English language skills and limited technical understanding – a reasonable profile given the clues, but one that surprised even Devolas.
“I just had a Canadian version of the game, I’m not sure why they thought he was French,” he jokes. “I’m glad it was convincing.”
Sadfutago was even helped by the creators of Nier Automata. Creative director and renowned prankster Yoko Taro answered (opens in new tab) with his usual aloofness when asked if sadfutago had discovered some cut content. Producer Yosuke Saito event joked (opens in new tab) that this seemed like something Taro himself would do. And when I reached out to Square Enix, a representative said: “Unfortunately we won’t be able to provide a comment.” Because they didn’t shut down the wild theories floating around, responses like these ended up accelerating sadfutago’s rise, not to mention hopes that this could all be leading to an official announcement.
“That turned the sentiment in our favor,” Raider says. “Before the question was: real or mod? Then the new question was: is this a PR stunt?”
Oh wow, this is blowing up
(Image credit: Square Enix)
“The tease was imagined as being one to two days, maybe a week, until one of the data miners or someone knowledgeable in general shoots us down saying it doesn’t exist,” Devolas says.
As soon as I’d post as sadfutago, I’d listen to the voice channel. They instantly knew he posted.
DevolasRevenge
Instead, someone knowledgeable excitedly shared (opens in new tab) sadfutago’s early posts and put countless eyes on them: reputable modder Lance McDonald. McDonald rightfully criticized the tone and content of the posts as more evidence emerged, but his early tweets of him poured kerosene on the fire.
“Soon after that it exploded,” Raider says of Lance’s tweet. “The modding server before was a chill place with some occasional conversations over the day. Then suddenly there were multiple people joining the server every minute and the chat was going faster than I could read.”
“I never expected things to get this big,” Wolf explains. “Our first target audience was simply the modding server and maybe a hundred people from Reddit. But this literally went viral overnight. I also thought it was insane that we got any response at all from Saito, Taro, and other Drakengard and Nier icons. ”
“The server would be so full that people would make extra voice channels,” Devolas says. “And as soon as I’d post as sadfutago, I’d listen to the voice channel. They instantly knew he posted.”
(Image credit: Square Enix, Platinum Games)
As the Nier community’s excitement reached critical mass, Devolas started to worry that some people would be let down by the truth. The response was “definitely a bit more than what we were aiming for” and “kind of scary,” he says. “It makes me want to take a break and let things chill out. The reaction is a bit overwhelming.”
“Some people really thought it was a Drakengard teaser,” Devolas continues. “A bit unfortunate, so there are some mad people. Discord is pretty positive about it, and Twitter too, but there are some not so happy people on Twitter as well.”
If he could do it all again, Devolas says he’d make it clearer earlier on that this was about a mod. There were some clues in sadfutago’s final posts – Japanese text stressing that this isn’t an ARG or even official – but just as Twitter’s bound to have some not so happy people, folks on the internet are bound to miss some important details. But overall, the ending went about as well as it could have.
“I love all the positive responses from most people,” Wolf says. “I love secret hunts and I hope ours was good enough and entertaining for all of you!”
This cannot continue
(Image credit: Square Enix)
More often than not, the modded content Devolas posted had literally just been finished. The team was flying by the seat of their pants right up to the climactic reveal stream. Like game developers preparing a trailer for a trade show, the mod team props up the best-looking stuff they had while scrambling in its shadow.
“I used it as an excuse to buy myself more time,” Devolas says of sadfutago, referring to the gap between the account’s June posts and the July videos that truly lit the fuse. “The church wasn’t presentable then – even when I felt the first pics, we didn’t even have the iconic first door.”
“Whenever we posted, that was mostly all we had at that point,” Raider agrees. “That’s why things in the very first screenshots looked different from the final videos.”
“In that quiet month, we were rushing to develop the scripting tools and figuring out all the game logic and how we could create our own,” Wolf adds. “We literally were making everything as we were going along!”
Wolf is a veteran of mod tool design and Devolas worked more on art and modeling while acting as a de facto creative director and managing sadfutago. They were already collaborating on the mod in early 2022, but in terms of assets, the secret church was just some pews and walls as of early March. Wolf delayed the public release of some updated mod tools specifically to follow Devolas’ idea of using them to create an Easter egg for the Nier community – something he “honestly feels slight guilt for” even now. Likewise, Raider says he will usually share updates right away but “this was the exception.”
(Image credit: Square Enix)
Raider didn’t join the team as a key programmer bringing “major discoveries” until April, says Wolf. The mod never grew beyond these three, though Wolf says a few people in the Discord worked out the secret early on and were asked not to spoil it, and Raider notes that “a bunch of people have contributed many other important things to the community.”
Preparing the reveal stream was especially difficult. Devolas intentionally broken character (opens in new tab) after more people worked out that this had to be a mod, and the rush was on for a fitting finale.
I got absolutely, unequivocally juiced
grojdg
“I didn’t want to end it super abruptly, so I quickly made the final scene with 9S in that giant dark room with the hands,” Devolas says. “I made the final live stream as well as the video. It was so late because [Woeful_Wolf] wanted to watch it but he had to sleep. So I told him I’d stream it as soon as he woke up. It had 13,000 people and I’m surprised it went smooth-ish because I kind of did it without testing anything.”
“The whole finale was quite rushed,” Raider admits. “I worked late into the night to make some things work. Then in the morning I was quite surprised by what Devolas did – not in a bad way. I actually didn’t see the final video until it was streamed. The voice chat reactions we were great to hear.”
Members of Nier Modding were among the most surprised viewers. Meowsandstuff and Grojdg, who’d just started working with Wolf to recreate the secret church using normal mod tools, were utterly flabbergasted.
“This is the first time I’ve seen anything this big,” Meowsandstuff says. “Never have I had a mod tug me from both sides thinking it was real then fake and back… it was so well done yet so weird sometimes. A lot of it was probably the absolutely masterful way that the sadfutago character was played.”
“I got absolutely, unequivocally juiced,” Grojdg tells me. “The sheer embarrassment of seeing my name pop up in the thanks at the end is something I’ve never experienced. I’m breaking with jealousy that I wasn’t one of the people behind this. Their talent is giving me so much drive to jump back into Nier modding properly and show them up.”
Become as mods
(Image credit: Square Enix)
With the dust settling, we can finally see this mod for what it is: an unforgettable story, and a massive leap forward for fan-made Nier Automata content. As McDonald pointed out in his viral tweet from him, a critical reason this ruse worked at all is that this kind of mod was considered impossible. But Wolf and Raider – Devolas clarified that he didn’t make any tools or scripts himself – have unlocked a sea of possibilities. Custom battle arenas and boss fights, intense speedrun gauntlets, original quests with cutscenes. Raider himself is already preparing a mod that’s “very big in scale” and separate from the secret church, and it ought to be out soon.
We got the entire community excited and together, if only for a few days … I’d definitely call this a win for me
Woeful_Wolf
Woeful_Wolf, DevolasRevenge, and RaiderB will release all of these mod tools via GitHub and the Nier Modding server in the days ahead. Everything will be open source, so anyone interested will be able to use and modify the tools. Wolf says that existing Nier Automata mods should work fine with the new tools once they’re reimported, and they’ve done “some small backwards compatibility things for any edge cases.”
“Well, the initial goal was to troll the internet,” Raider jokes. “I’d say we accomplished more than that. I’m interested to see what all the new people will bring to the table. That’s a nice side effect of this whole thing. I’m not very good with these kinds of words, I’m just excited to see where things go from here.”
“We got the entire community excited and together, if only for a few days, and we got a few new people interested in modding in general, even if only temporarily,” Wolf adds. “I’d definitely call this a win for me. I have been doing this for so long with so little attention coming to the modding community. Really, this completely blew all sense of scale out of the water!”
To cap off this strange chapter, I asked Devolas if he has a final message to share as sadfutago.
“We love the Nier series, and it’s because we love the Nier and Drakengard series that we went out of our way to make this mod.”
The dark patch in the middle is the so-called “Pillars of Creation”. You can see the comparison with the famous Hubble picture (shot in infra red). The longer pillar is about 4 light years in length. ‘
Saturn
A very rushed shot of Saturn earlier this week. Hopefully I’ll have more opportunity next week if the skies stay clear.
LeMon3
‘For the Italophiles on the list, this was my favorite Alfa, a ’74 Spider 2000’
‘I had that one for 15 years or so, until I rolled it :-(
The missus had a little BMW M series at the time.’
‘M series engine with auto gearbox – an absolute slug around town. Over 80km/h it went harder than the spider…
When I rolled the Spider, I got this Gulia instead’
‘It was a cracker – like brand new in the panels (it spent 1970-2006 in the desert). 3 months later, whacked by a taxi and written off…
I still have this little beauty.’
boomengineering
‘Gavin’s economic indicator, worthless unregistered car dumped. No bumps or scratches, just a bird deposit.’
Geoff McVeigh
Sunrise at North Broulee
Ermington Plumbing
‘I almost hit the 32mm gas pipe to the pool heater with the bar yesterday digging down to make a new drainage connection for an outdoor bbq area.
An example of how other restoration tools compare to GFP-GAN. Wang, Li, Zhang, Shan
We’ve reached a point where AI photo restoration tools are relatively common. But if you want to fix a family photo for free, you’re almost guaranteed to end up with terrible results. That’s why Tencent’s AI researchers launched GFP-GAN, a free and open-source restoration tool that takes just seconds to fix an old photo.
The GFP-GAN (Generative Facial Prior-Generative Adversarial Network) is quite unique. Unlike most AI restoration tools, it aims to fix old photos without obscuring the identity of their subject. That means clearing noise, patching creases, bringing out detail, and enhancing color with just a bit of guesswork.
As you can see in the above images, GFP-GAN doesn’t add much to photos. It simply cleans things up and, when necessary, fills in some gaps. Subjects aren’t losing their facial hair or mutating into a stranger. This is partially thanks to NVIDIA’s StyleGAN-2, which Tencent researchers use alongside their own GFP-GAN model. (NVIDIA’s model made waves in 2020 when it recreated Pac Man, the arcade game, from scratch. It’s good at making safe, educated guesses.)
Now, AI restoration tools are never perfect, and GFP-GAN does its fair share of guesswork. Tencent researchers warn that restored photos may not be a satisfactory resolution, and that in some cases, family members may look a bit off. If you’re unlucky, they could even transform into another person.
You can try GFP-GAN now in your browser or download the source code at Github. In theory, anyone can take GFP-GAN and tweak it to fulfill different tasks or integrate it with new software.
This just in: Sony has officially “killed” the PlayStation 4.
The PS4 couldn’t quite sell a few million more units to reach the 120 million mark.
QUICK-TAKE:View the short-form version of this news or swipe up to keep reading.
This is one of the biggest takeaways from Sony’s latest gaming earnings report. Make no mistake, the focus is still on the slight hit that video game unit sales took in the last quarter. But, as TweakTown points out, it also served as the “death certification” of the PlayStation 4.
According to TweakTown, all the Sony earnings reports from 2014 until the quarter before its latest one had a section specifically for PS4 console shipments. The Q122 report did not have such a section. Instead, Sony replaced it with a section for PS5 sales. This is the signal for the end of the PS4. Then again, this was a long time coming. Sony first launched the PS4 in 2013. With this “confirmation”, it appears that Sony’s earlier statement that it will make a million more PS4 units for the year was for the last batch.
Now that Sony will stop producing more PS4 units, PS4 sales will top out at 117.2 million. It’s not quite enough to topple the PlayStation 2’s record at 155 million but it should secure a top 5 finish of all time as the Nintendo Switch is expected to eclipse its sales in the next few years after already outselling the PS4 in the United States.
The PS4’s place as the fourth best-selling console in history is probably safe for a couple of years.
At the end of the day, this is good news for PlayStation fans. Sony eventually had to stop supporting the eighth-generation console. With this revelation, God of War: Ragnarok is the last big exclusive to be playable on the PS4. Although this would mean that PS4 owners will have to upgrade to the PS5 to enjoy future exclusives, Sony is making sure that more of its flagship console will become available. In the same report, Sony confirmed that it will start to ship more PS5 consoles this fiscal year than ever before.
If Sony succeeds with its plans, it will ship 18 million PS5 systems through the current fiscal year. This is a new PlayStation sales record.
In the meantime, PS4 and PS5 owners can enjoy the PS Plus free games lineup for next month starting on August 2. A boatload of Yakuza games is also headed to the PS Plus Extra and Premium lineup in the next few months.
Quick-thinking users have spotted a strange list on AMD’s resource page (since removed) that shed light on the names of its 7000 series CPUs. As first noticed by Videocardz on Wednesday, AMD’s list contained SKUs for its upcoming 7000 series processors, including the Ryzen 9 7950X, Ryzen 9 7900x, Ryzen 7 7700X, and Ryzen 5 7600X. Despite the bounty of 7s there, the sharpest among you will notice they are missing a Ryzen 7 7800X or any sort of Ryzen 3 7000 series CPU. That’s a bit of a shame for budget and mid-range gamers. The 7800X had also previously been hinted at by consistent leaker Greymon over on Twitter.
So there’s not much else to go on here except for the names of these CPUs as well as apparent timing for release, right? Well, based on what’s AMD’s previously demoed, the leaked names do hint that the Ryzen 9 7950X could top out at 16 cores and 32-thread connections, while the next lowest in the series could do 12 cores, then 8, then 6. last we heard about these CPUs, the word on the street was they would contain up to 16 cores, helping them sprint above 5GHz speeds. During an AMD presentation, a 16-core Zen 4 chip clocked in at 5.5GHz while playing Ghostwire: Tokyo. Of course, that was a controlled environment, but it gives us a basis to guess about core distribution across the Zen 4 line.
As many “7s” as there are in these names, there’s also a lot of 5s going around, with PCIe Gen 5 controllers and DDR5 memory support being key features for the Raphael line. The new CPU generation will also need an AM5 motherboard socket, which will require a 1718-pin LGA motherboard.
Those motherboards include the B650, X670, and X670 Extreme chipsets. The latter two will contain the hardware needed for the PCIe Gen 5 graphics tech.
We still don’t know many specifics about pricing, and with the state of the current chip production market, it would be foolish to start making guesses. There have been rumors of a mid-September release, according to Tom’s Hardware, though of course mileage may vary significantly for unannounced release dates.
Regardless, AMD is clearly setting up its top-end CPUs to compete against the likes of Intel and its upcoming Core i9-13900 CPU. That processor’s rumored to rock 24 cores (32 threads) that are apparently split between one third performance and two thirds efficiency cores. It’s also rumored to support up to DDR5-5600 memory and support a max clock speed of 3.7Ghz, better than a comparable Ryzen 9 5900X.
