The Crew Motorfest Season 2 kicked off on December 6, marking the start of the game's partnership with Hoonigan, a brand focused on building custom cars capable of performing difficult and precise driving - and looking cool while doing it. Hoonigan is known for their series of Gymkhana films, which feature rally driver and Hoonigan co-founder Ken Block performing incredible stunts in major cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles, Mexico City, and more. They also created a YouTube series called This vs. That, which pits two customized cars against one another in a best-of-three drag race, and will frequently post new videos highlighting new and upcoming car builds. According to Hoonigan co-founder Brian Scotto, the company's mission statement (other than not to have a mission statement) is to be nimble and have fun, all in service of entertaining their audience (and themselves).

For Season 2, Hoonigan has completely taken over The Crew Motorfest, bringing a new Playlist, Gymkhaha Grid Masters, as well as curated weekly events on the Main Stage, monthly challenges, a car playground just offshore of the main island, and, of course, bespoke Hoonigan cars that can be earned by completing challenges or purchased from the in-game store. Some of the vehicles include Scotto's 1993 Porsche 911 Turbo TWB, Scotto's 1990 Audi Coupé Quattro, the 1965 Ford Hoonicorn Mustang, the 1988 Chevrolet Big Block ZZ632 Camaro, and the Audi S1 E-Tron Quattro Hoonitron 2021, among many others.

Video game events specialist ReedPop is no longer partnering with the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) to co-organize future Electronic Entertainment Expo (aka E3) trade shows. According to GamesIndustry.biz, a venue change is also in the cards—E3's familiar setting of the Los Angeles Convention Center is not on the consideration list for next year. The ESA seems to be sizing up (or down) a suitable new location for E3 2024, despite industry talk indicating that everything had been called off, well in advance. E3 2023 was cancelled around Spring time, with major publishers confirming non-attendance and a downturn in public interest—the latest reports suggest that the ESA is working on a complete format revamp for their 2025 show.

A mutual decision has been reached between the (now former) collaborators—ReedPop's multi-year deal as co-organizer is annulled. ESA president and CEO Stanley Pierre-Louis commented on the split: "We appreciate ReedPop's partnership over the past 14 months and support their ongoing efforts to bring industry and fans together through their various events. While the reach of E3 remains unmatched in our industry, we are continuing to explore how we can evolve it to best serve the video game industry and are evaluating every aspect of the event, from format to location. We are committed to our role as a convenor for the industry and look forward to sharing news about E3 in the coming months."

It's been a little over a month since fans around the world enjoyed the Xbox Games Showcase and Starfield Direct and we're delighted to say that, within seven days of the broadcast, we saw over 92 million views across our first ever double feature, trailers, and segments from the shows - a 38% rise in viewership over last year's show. It's become the highest rated and most-viewed show for Xbox, ever! We can't thank you enough for being a part of that, and we hope you're as excited as we are for Xbox's future.

From our own games - like Starfield, Forza Motorsport, Hellblade II: Senua's Saga, Fable, South of Midnight, Avowed, Clockwork Revolution, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, Towerborne, and more - to those coming to Xbox from our partners around the world - Star Wars Outlaws, Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty, Cities: Skylines 2, 33 Immortals, and more - our show aimed to bring something for every kind of player. Whether you're an RPG obsessive, an indie curio collector, a PC player, a console owner, or even brand-new to gaming, we like to think there was something that piqued your interest.

Renowned HDTVTest YouTube reviewer and presenter, Vincent Teoh, has been exploring the showroom floor at this year's Display Week trade symposium (in Los Angeles, CA). He was intrigued by some cutting-edge screen tech at BOE's booth and announced this discovery on Twitter yesterday evening: "Forget 8K. Here's the world's first 110-inch 16K display unveiled by BOE at Display Week 2023. LCD-based, max 400 nits. The resolution is unreal though, no visible pixels even right up close."

The demo unit appears to be a prototype - BOE Displays has not revealed any type of official product launch. Their giant screen is reported to be almost 2.8 meters wide in terms of diagonal length, and a specification sheet placed nearby lists a maximum 15360x8640 resolution paired with a 60 Hz refresh rate. The 16K display has a contrast ratio of 1200:1 and is capable of reproducing 99% DCI-P3 color coverage. We hope to view further reports from this tradeshow - hopefully a BOE rep will provide details about the required GPU power to run their monster LCD monitor.

Samsung Display today announced it will exhibit a variety of paradigm-shifting, next-generation OLED technologies at the SID Display Week 2023, May 23-25, at the Los Angeles Convention Center in California. At the event, Samsung Display is unveiling Rollable Flex, which aims to revolutionize the portability of tablet PCs or laptops, and Sensor OLED display, which provides new usability by embedding fingerprint and blood pressure sensors in panels without attaching separate modules. With these and other OLED innovations, Samsung is demonstrating its drive to create and lead new market segments.

Now in its 60th year, Display Week by SID (Society for Information Display) is the world's largest professional display event held annually in North America, featuring international exhibits, symposiums and seminars.

Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores launches April 19 on PS5! This expansion sees Aloy pursue a sinister threat in the untamed wilds of Los Angeles, now a treacherous volcanic archipelago. Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores takes Aloy to the ruins of Los Angeles. The past millennia has seen the metropolis wracked by tectonic and volcanic activity. The result: a dangerous archipelago populated by deadly machines. Among these islands, a large settlement of Quen fight to survive.

Aloy's journey continues in Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores - an expansion which sees the fierce Nora hunter pursue a sinister threat in the untamed wilds of a far-future, volcanic Los Angeles which has been wracked by violent tectonic activity. Pre-orders for Burning Shores, which launches on the PlayStation 5 console on April 19, 2023, are available as of today.

Ubisoft has reversed its February decision to be a presence at this year's Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles, instead it will be holding a separate event in the city with coincidental timing. Ubisoft spokesperson Heather Haefner yesterday provided a statement to The Verge: "E3 has fostered unforgettable moments across the industry throughout the years. While we initially intended to have an official E3 presence, we've made the subsequent decision to move in a different direction, and will be holding a Ubisoft Forward Live event on June 12 in Los Angeles. We look forward to sharing more details with our players very soon."

Ubisoft had previously confirmed its attendance in a statement to Games Industry.biz earlier this year: "E3 is a special moment for our industry and we are excited to showcase our strong line-up in Los Angeles in June. We are still finalizing the details of our plans and look forward to sharing more soon." CEO Yves Guillemot has also hinted in the recent past that he wanted the company to attend E3 2023, but this was prior to the whole event being given the go ahead by co-organizers Entertainment Software Association and ReedPOP. E3 2023 is set to be the first in-person Electronic Entertainment Expo event held since 2019.

AMD is on the verge of launching its 3rd generation Ryzen "Matisse" processors that are widely expected to take the performance crown from Intel. At its Computex 2019 reveal, AMD CEO Dr Lisa Su claimed that these processors beat the competition in all areas, including gaming. Motherboard manufacturers threw their weight behind AMD by pulling out their most premium brands for the AMD "Valhalla" desktop platform that consists of these processors, mated with an AMD X570 chipset motherboard. Ahead of its E3 2019 keynote Monday afternoon, Intel has come out with a challenge. Chipzilla dares AMD to beat it in "real-world gaming."

At its "gaming performance for the real world" address in Los Angeles Jon Carvill, VP of marketing, challenged AMD to beat it in real world gaming with its upcoming processors. "So you're going to hear a lot about gaming CPUs this week," he began. "They may or may not come from certain three letter acronyms. That said, here's what I want to challenge you. I want to challenge you to challenge them. If they want this crown come beat us in in real world gaming, real world gaming should be the defining criteria that we use to assess the world's best gaming CPU. I challenge you to challenge anyone that wants to compete for this crown to come meet us in real world gaming. That's the measure that we're going to stand by."

AZIO at Computex 2019 showcased a number of new products, which showcase the company's Los Angeles-based design. AZIO's ALUMINUM line of products includes the Iris ALUMINUM K-Pad (which AZIO says is inspired in retro camera designs), the Iris ALUMINUM N-Pad, the RCM ALUMINUM mouse, and the RCPM mouse pad. The Iris K-Pad in particular has a multi-functional knob on the top right corner allowing as much as three actions per side, and is a complex feat of engineering to say the least. We look forward to checking out the new lineup in detail closer to launch.

Various materials, such as leather, are being used in these AZIO products, but the one star of the show has to be the usage of concrete in computer peripherals. I guess we'd have to actually touch these to see if the texture does work well in a daily environment, but it's interesting that this material has been used in a computer peripheral at all - and the effect does look interesting and pleasing to the eye. The RCM aluminium mouse looks like a very sleek unit, with the cold touch of aluminium greeting your first minutes of usage, and it does feature AZIO's design touches that have become the company's hallmark.

In a bid to increase interest and feed the Radeon rebels with hope for their latest high-performance GPU architecture, AMD is beginning a celebration of sorts, a road trip that will span two continents. Now this community tour won't be a non-stop travel and showcase - it's really only going to stop in two places. Still, AMD will be giving those lucky enough to be in attendance a chance to visit their Radeon RX Vega Experience area, where you'll be able to game on the upcoming graphics card and take in the experience, trade-show-style.

The first stop is in the old continent: the Radeon Experience will be setting up shop in the Akvárium Klub in Budapest, Hungary, from 2 to 7 CET. Then, the Radeon team will travel across the pond towards the USA, more specifically, towards PDXLAN in Portland, from July 21st to July 23rd. Finally, the last stop is one we knew about already: SIGGRAPH in the City of Angels. As we knew, they confirm that "Details on the Radeon RX Vega are coming during SIGGRAPH 2017, so you'll want to pay attention to what's happening during this technology summit taking place in the last week of July." So now you know. Are you going to go out of your way to attend?