News / Features: Gaming & Technology Insights - PC Play

Mycroft AI: Mark II Enhanced Dev Kit Arrives! News and Features After months of waiting the Mycroft Mark II Enchanced Dev Kit has finally arrived!! Mycroft Mark II: Enhanced Dev Kit Mycroft announced last year the next stage of their open source Voice Assistant & the timing couldn't have been better. With privacy concerns stepping up a gear, despite Alexa & whoever else flying off the 'shelves', there was a demand for something that didn't exploit your privacy or combine all your innocent questions into something sinister (although law enforcement agencies were happy... Continue Reading Top 6 Sheds for Gamers or Even Just an Alternative Office Space News and Features Got £20K? Then this is right up your street (or garden) There's a severe lack of space in PC Play towers, not just for the physical objects but also somewhere quieter, where you can think, do your job and not be asked 'what's for dinner?', 'have you put the washing out?', 'should we bring the washing in?' etc. So, as lockdown is easing slightly but the office is still a way off we thought about daydreaming for some solutions to find... Continue Reading DDR5 - Release Date, Specs & Where to Get one News and Features,Uncategorised It's been over 3 years since the computing industry stated that the DDR5 would be released; SK hynix announced the world's first 16 Gigabit DDR5 DRAM in November 2018. With the tantalising promise to reduce power consumption and doubling memory speed, the long awaited DDR5 release date is set to make an appearance in Q3 2021 at the earliest. This is according to SK hynix press release from 6th October. DDR5 Versus DDR4 The DDR5, or to give it its proper name -... Continue Reading Crypto Mining & the Slavery of GPUs News and Features Table of Contents Remember back in September when the upcoming releases of Nvidia's latest GPUs (3080, 3090 & followed by 3070) almost brought the world to a standstill in anticipation? Remember the crushing disappointment, followed by anger & then bargaining that went on when it turned out nobody could get there hands on them? Turns out that, even as little as a few days ago, the metaphorical black hole where quite a few of them had gone is actually something equally as literal (almost).... Continue Reading UK Games Industry Market Revenue in 2020 News and Features Table of Contents UK Gaming Revenue increase by 29.9% to £7bn in 2020 The latest report from UKIE confirms what we all thought would happen during lockdown; that more people would increase their gaming hours to either seek solace, keep their brain active of just get started with a new project in their life. The UK gaming industry broke the £7bn barrier in 2020 on revenue spent by consumers, up 30% YoY (£1.6bn), according to latest stats from UKIE. Gaming Software holds... Continue Reading Can the Gaming Industry Help Save the UK Economy? News and Features Table of Contents Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter Share on linkedin LinkedIn Global Gaming in Numbers There are, according to NewZoo, approximately 2.7 billion gamers worldwide at the last count and with Covid 19 running rampant through every country in the world, I'd wager that this figure is going to increase substantially over the next few years. With lockdown still in place everywhere for god knows how long societies are turning more to online goods and services at record numbers. The entertainment industry is also struggling... Continue Reading Mass Effect Legendary Edition Release Date News and Features Well, it's been the worst kept secret in the gaming industry for almost two years now but the remaster of Bioware's classic Mass Effect trilogy finally has a release date - May 14th 2021. Surprisingly the studio didn't confirm this back on N7 day (November 7th) as is typical of the studio to do when it comes to Mass Effect news but considering it's been almost a decade since Mass Effect 3's release, perhaps Bioware are looking to mix things up.... Continue Reading Blizzcon 2021: Overwatch 2 News News and Features One of the surprising areas of Blizzards yearly conference/festival/gamingcon extravaganza, Blizzcon 2021 was the lack of info regarding Overwatch 2. The sequel title was originally confirmed back in 2019 and is set to "replace" the current 2016 title, introducing PvE modes, character progression and new maps. We were expecting to see a little more justification around having those additions make up an entire sequel title rather than simply releasing them as patches and updates, as most other games in the shooter/competitive multiplayer... Continue Reading Work Out & Fitness: Spring / Summer 2021 Tech & Gadgets News and Features It's not going to be too much longer before the doors of lockdown oppression are flung wide and society takes its first steps back. However, it's likely that those steps are going to be heavier than when they went in, so we've put together a selection of the latest tech & gadgets to get you & your heart rate moving. We've even though of the cat. Fitness / Smart Watches Most fitness & smart watches will at least monitor your steps, distance... Continue Reading Destiny Season of the Chosen Roadmap News and Features It's that time again Destiny fans, the latest season is kicking off with Season of the Chosen. Following the largely "meh" Season of the Hunt that kicked off the latest expansion 'Beyond Light', Season of the Chosen is expected to really show off what Bungie have in store for their looter shooter addicts in 2021. https://youtu.be/_XlFBp_ZmyE Here's it all in a fancy image but we'll dig a little deeper below: At launch (February 9th): New social space H.E.L.M., where you can use the... Continue Reading Cyberpunk 2077 Tips and Tricks News and Features Table of Contents So CD Projekt Red's most anticipated AAA title of the year is now out in the wild (glitches, crashes and all!) and despite some of the game's shortcomings we're loving our time in Night City. Having hit the street rep level cap as well as finished off the story, we think we're in a pretty good position to give you some tips and tricks for making your playthrough the best it can possibly be, so without further ado... Continue Reading Cyberpunk 2077 DLC News and Features Now that the most anticipated game of 2020 has finally been released, there's one question on everyone's minds - when will we be seeing the first DLC for CD Projekt Red's Cyberpunk 2077. Representatives have actually confirmed a rough time frame but you won't be blamed for missing it, having slipped it into the games launch trailer last week. A single frame placed at the end of the trailer had the Polish developer reflect on starting this new franchise after years of... Continue Reading Microsoft Slashes Xbox SSD Prices Deals,News and Features Unsurprisingly Microsoft have made the move to shed some of their remaining Seagate SSD stock, likely to make way for the next gen SSD's designed to work alongside their next-gen Xbox S and X consoles. What it does mean is that if you're in the market for either an SSD to expand your storage space on your Xbox or PC you're in for a bargain. We've pulled together the best of their current discounted SSD's below but we'd recommend going for one... Continue Reading