WD, a Western Digital company, and world leader in storage solutions, today introduced the My Passport X portable hard drive for gamers. When connected to Xbox One or a PC, the sleek 2 TB My Passport X drive provides much-needed storage capacity for gamers to store up to 50 extra game titles, eliminating the need to delete previously purchased games from their Xbox One or PC hard drives and removing those "storage full" warning messages while allowing players to get back to their games. In addition to added storage, gamers can use My Passport X to take saved games to use on friends' systems2 without having to download.

"Game file sizes are expanding to 36 GB per game and upwards, and are projected to continue growing," said Tony Tate, vice president and general manager of WD's Content Solutions unit. "Console gamers are able to store on average only 10 games on the 365 GB out of 500 GB that is available on the onboard hard drive. The My Passport X portable drive delivers a fast and easy way to expand capacity and enables an expanded library of games on the go."

A fusion between PC hardware giant ASUS' Republic of Gamers (ROG) brand, and Valve's Steam Machines, was bound to happen. With the new ROG GR8S, ASUS has taken a plunge into the exciting new gaming platform that bridges living room gaming consoles, and full-blown gaming PCs, backed by Steam. The ROG GR8S is roughly as big as a modern console such as Xbox One, but features ASUS' signature red and black ROG product design.

The ROG GR8S is peppered with a lot more wired connectivity than a console, offering two USB 2.0 (for controllers, keyboards, mice), four USB 3.0 SuperSpeed ports, DisplayPort 1.2, HDMI 2.0 - both of support 4K Ultra HD at 60 Hz; gigabit Ethernet (Intel controller), digital and analog multi-channel audio connectivity. Under the hood, ASUS offers Intel Core i5 or Core i7 processors (options), GeForce GTX 900 "Maxwell" graphics (options), between 4 GB and 16 GB of DDR3 system RAM (options), either 500 GB to 1 TB HDD or 128 GB to 512 GB SSD storage, and an 802.11 ac WLAN controller with Miracast receiver.

Turtle Beach, the leading audio brand in the video games industry, today announced an exclusive partnership with 2K and Turtle Rock Studios as the official headset for the highly anticipated next-gen video game, Evolve. Beginning this month, fans that purchase Turtle Beach gaming headsets at select retailers will receive a free set of Evolve speaker plates to customize their new gear as they jump into this all-new 4v1 experience. A wide selection of Turtle Beach products will be available as part of this promotion, including the Ear Force XO SEVEN Pro headset for the Xbox One.

The MLG Pro Circuit licensed XO SEVEN Pro has the tournament-grade durability, sound quality and features competitive players need to win. The XO SEVEN Pro's features include microphone monitoring, mic mute, chat and volume control, and mic and game presets. The XO SEVEN Pro also provides one-touch access to Superhuman Hearing, which provides a competitive advantage in multiplayer gaming by making soft sounds that are typically hard to hear louder, allowing players to pinpoint quiet audio cues like enemy footsteps and weapon reloads.

HyperX, a division of Kingston Technology Company, Inc., the independent world leader in memory products, today announced the launch of HyperX Cloud II headset. Shipping now, HyperX Cloud II features a newly designed USB sound card audio control box featuring 7.1 virtual surround sound, in addition to the great features and benefits of the previous award-winning HyperX Cloud headset.

Fully designed by HyperX sound engineers, the LED backlit audio control box delivers hardware-based (no drivers needed) 7.1 virtual surround sound with independent audio and microphone volume control. Gamers can easily toggle on 7.1 virtual Surround Sound with a push of a button to emulate having seven positional speakers for enhanced gaming. HyperX Cloud II is USB-powered for PC and Mac to amplify audio and voice, as well as 3.5 mm stereo compatible for PS4 and Xbox One.

Turtle Beach, the leading audio brand in the video games industry, today announced new gaming products and partnerships at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. The company will showcase new gaming headsets, including the Elite 800X, XO SEVEN Pro, and XO FOUR Stealth; partnerships with exciting new titles like Call of Duty Online; and a new line of PC gaming accessories, including keyboards, mice and mousepads. Turtle Beach will also be showcasing Turtle Beach Corporation's HyperSound virtual reality audio solutions at CES from January 6 to 9 in the South Hall, Booth 21030. Turtle Beach is the gaming audio brand of Turtle Beach Corporation.

Nintendo is working on a next-generation gaming console to succeed even the fairly recent Wii U. The company is reacting to the plummeting competitiveness of its current console to the likes of PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One. Reports suggest that Nintendo would make a course-correction on the direction in which it took its game console business with the Wii, and could come up with a system that's focused on serious gaming, as much as it retains its original "fun" quotient. In that manner, the console could be more NES-like, than Wii-like.

Nintendo could ring up AMD for the chip that will drive its next console. It's not clear if AMD will supply a fully-integrated SoC that combines its own x86 CPU cores with its GCN graphics processor; or simply supply the GPU component for an SoC that combines components from various other manufacturers. The Wii U uses IBM's CPU cores, with AMD's GPU, combined onto a single chip. There's no word on when Nintendo plans to announce the new console, but one can expect a lot more news in 2015-16.

AMD has the unique distinction of supplying SoCs to all three leading game console vendors simultaneously - Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo. The company, like NVIDIA, is looking forward with perched eyes for manufacturing partner TSMC to get its 20 nanometer silicon fabrication node running full-cylinders. Unlike NVIDIA, which may use the new process to shrink its GPUs, or launch bigger chips based on its "Maxwell" architecture, AMD will treat its console SoCs with optical-shrinks to the new nodes first, so the company could immediately eke out better margins, as console gamers upgrade to Xbox One or the PlayStation 4.

AMD's SoC for the Xbox One, could be the first in line for this optical shrink to 20 nm. This chip features a transistor count of 5 billion, and houses eight 64-bit x86 CPU cores, and a 768 SP GPU based on the Graphics CoreNext architecture; 48 MB of on-die cache, and a quad-channel DDR3 IMC. The chip also features an integrated core logic. AMD's chip for the PlayStation 4 features design inputs from Sony. The chip features the same CPU component, but a 1152 SP GPU, and a 256-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface, wired to 8 GB of memory that's virtualized for both system- and graphics-memory. The 20 nm shrinks of both chips are expected to lower not just manufacturing costs, but also step up energy-efficiency, which could then let Microsoft and Sony save additional costs on other components, such as power and cooling.

Turtle Beach, the leading audio brand in the video games industry, today announced that the XO ONE gaming headset designed for the Xbox One console is now available in stores and at online retailers. The XO ONE, which has an MSRP of $79.95, includes a new proprietary Xbox One audio controller that features mic monitoring and other chat features that multiplayer gamers rely on. Turtle Beach is the gaming audio brand of Turtle Beach Corporation (NASDAQ: HEAR).

"The XO ONE is the first Xbox One compatible headset to include variable mic monitoring for chat," said Bob Picunko, chief marketing officer of Turtle Beach. "Mic monitoring is one of the most frequently requested features in a headset, and now Xbox One players can finally hear their own voice through the headset and stop shouting into the mic."

Mad Catz Interactive, Inc. (NYSE MKT/TSX: MCZ), today announced financial results for the fiscal 2015 first quarter ended June 30, 2014. Fiscal 2015 first quarter net sales declined 10% to $16.7 million, driven by a 17% decline in net sales in both EMEA and the Americas, offset partially by a 49% increase in net sales in APAC. Gross margin for the fiscal 2015 first quarter improved to 30.2%, compared to 28.7% in the prior year quarter. Total operating expenses in the fiscal 2015 first quarter decreased 17% from the prior year period to $6.2 million.

Diluted loss per share was ($0.02) for the fiscal 2015 first quarter, compared to a diluted loss per share of ($0.03) in the prior year quarter. Net position of bank loan, less cash, of $5.3 million at June 30, 2014, compared to $4.1 million at March 31, 2014 and $8.4 million at June 30, 2013. Highlights also include shipping of the new range of Tritton Xbox One licensed headsets, the S.T.R.I.K.E.M Mobile Keyboard for iOS, Android and Windows; the Saitek X-55 RHINO H.O.T.A.S. System for Windows PC; the R.A.T.TE (Tournament Edition) Gaming Mouse for Windows PC and Mac, and the Mad Catz C.T.R.L.R Wireless Gamepad for Amazon Fire TV, PC, Mac, and Android Smart Devices. The company announced participation in Needham Interconnect Conference on August 6, 2014.

Mad Catz Interactive, Inc. announced today the shipping of the first products in its range of licensed audio headsets for Xbox One under the TRITTON gaming audio brand. Previously announced at E3 2014, the range of headsets has been specifically tuned to the needs of the gamer. Headsets now available include:

• TRITTON Kama Stereo Gaming Headset: A fully featured stereo headset featuring audio controls and precision-balanced 40mm speakers. Kama is also compatible with MP3 players and a wide variety of audio devices.
• TRITTON Kunai Stereo Gaming Headset: Designed for extreme comfort and extended gaming sessions, the Kunai comes to Xbox One with superior stereo audio, high-quality build and an eye-catching design. Kunai is also compatible with MP3 players and a wide variety of audio devices.

Rockstar Games bit the PC bullet, by announcing Grand Theft Auto V (GTA V) for the PC platform, which debuted on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 platforms, last September. Rockstar made this announcement on the sidelines of E3 2014. Alongside the game's Xbox One and PlayStation 4 variants, GTA V for PC, is expected to release in Fall 2014. The studio threw the game up for pre-order. It also showed off a gameplay trailer, which was captured on the PlayStation 4, which reveals more accurate shadows, higher-resolution textures, and lighting effects not seen on the Xbox 360 / PS3 variant.The trailer video follows.

Mad Catz Interactive, Inc. ("Mad Catz") (NYSE MKT/ TSX: MCZ) announced today a new range of licensed audio headsets for Xbox One under the TRITTON gaming audio brand. Each headset in the range has been designed to deliver exceptional audio quality specifically tuned to the needs of the gamer. Headsets launching include:

• TRITTON Kunai Stereo Gaming Headset: Designed for extreme comfort and extended gaming sessions, Kunai comes to Xbox One with superior stereo audio, high-quality build and an eye-catching design. Kunai is also compatible with MP3 players and a wide variety of audio devices.
• TRITTON Kama Stereo Gaming Headset: A fully featured stereo headset featuring in-line audio controls and precision-balanced 40mm speakers. Kama is also compatible with MP3 players and a wide variety of audio devices.
• TRITTON Kaiken Mono Chat Headset: An ideal upgrade to the communicator found in pack, Kaiken can be worn on the left or right ear and features in-line controls for volume and chat.

AMD Senior Vice President and General Manager, Global Business Units, Lisa Su has been named a winner in the EE Times and EDN 2014 UBM Tech ACE Awards in the Executive of the Year category. The awards program honors the people and companies behind the technologies and products that are changing the world of electronics.

The winners were announced at an awards ceremony Tuesday, April 1, at The Fairmont San Jose, during EE Live! "I am flattered and honored to be selected for the UBM 'Executive of the Year' award. When I look at the list of this year's nominees and past winners, it is a who's who of the industry's leaders," said Su. "AMD is in the middle of an important and comprehensive transformation, but it is very much a team effort. On behalf of the entire AMD team, we very much appreciate the recognition for the work."

Mad Catz Interactive, Inc. announced today a new range of licensed audio headsets for Xbox One under the TRITTON gaming audio brand, expected to start shipping summer 2014. "We're excited to announce our upcoming range of headsets for the Xbox One platform," said Darren Richardson, the President and Chief Executive Officer of Mad Catz Interactive, Inc. "Over 45% of our sales are derived from gaming headsets, and we believe the addition of Xbox One headsets will make a significant contribution to our return to growth and profitability in fiscal 2015."

Turtle Beach, the leading brand in gaming audio, today announced that the company¹s highly anticipated line of Xbox One compatible headsets will be available at retail on March 7 worldwide. The XO Series headsets -- including the XO FOUR and XO SEVEN -- were first announced in the summer of 2013. Turtle Beach remains one of only two brands to-date that has announced it will make officially-licensed for the Xbox One console. Turtle Beach is the gaming audio brand of Parametric Sound Corporation.

The Ear Force XO SEVEN (U.S. MSRP $159.95) gaming headset is built on the foundation of the tournament-grade SEVEN Series, with premium finishes including a padded headband and noise isolating ear cups with memory foam cushions. It also features interchangeable speaker plates so users can customize the look of their headset. The XO SEVEN is compatible with mobile devices and comes with a detachable boom mic and a breakaway mobile cable with an in-line mic for phone calls and audio chat. The Ear Force XO FOUR (U.S. MSRP $99.95) has a 3.5mm cable for use with mobile devices and a detachable boom mic.

AMD announced its 2014 A-Series APU for the desktop platform, code-named "Kaveri," after the southern-Indian river. Built in the new FM2+ package, the APUs run only on socket FM2+ motherboards based on the AMD A88X, A78, and A55 chipsets; while the socket itself can seat older FM2 APU families, "Trinity" and "Richland." In many ways, the socket transition is similar to that of socket AM3+. "Kaveri" sees AMD integrate two of its newest CPU and GPU micro-architectures, "Steamroller" for CPU, and Graphics CoreNext 2.0 for the GPU. "Kaveri" is also built on newer generation 28 nm silicon fab process.

"Steamroller" is an evolution of the same modular CPU core design as its predecessors, "Piledriver" and "Bulldozer." AMD promises a 10 percent improvement in performance clock-by-clock, per core, which falls in line with AMD's normal scheme of annual incremental performance updates on its CPU micro-architectures. A "Steamroller" module is a combination of two 64-bit x86 cores, which feature dedicated and shared components. "Kaveri" has two such modules, and so physically, it features a quad-core CPU.

Microsoft stated in its recent company blog that the Xbox One console won't support third-party 3D APIs such as OpenGL and AMD Mantle (specifically mentioning the two), and that the console will be built to take advantage of the latest DirectX 11.2 API. AMD jumped in with a quick statement on the matter, so developers don't take Microsoft the wrong way, stating that AMD Mantle was never intended to be a 3D API for consoles, but rather PCs. The API would be compatible with DirectX HLSL (shading language), to simplify porting games from DirectX over to Mantle. Says AMD;

What Mantle creates for the PC is a development environment that's _similar_ to the consoles, which already offer low-level APIs, close-to-metal programming, easier development and more (vs. the complicated PC environment). By creating a more console-like developer environment, Mantle: improves time to market; reduces development costs; and allows for considerably more efficient rendering, improving performance for gamers. The console connection is made because next-gen uses Radeon, so much of the programming they're doing for the consoles are already well-suited to a modern Radeon architecture on the desktop; that continuum is what allows Mantle to exist.

As proponents of the DirectX API, which single-handedly shaped consumer 3D graphics market for the past decade and a half, it shouldn't come as a shocker, that Microsoft's next-generation entertainment platform, the Xbox One, will not support AMD's ambitious Mantle project, a 3D API that's tailor-made for the company's Graphics CoreNext GPU micro-architecture, on which the GPU driving the Xbox One is based. The company released a statement to that effect mentioning that "other APIs" such as OpenGL and AMD Mantle won't be supported on Xbox One. Says Microsoft;

We are very excited that with the launch of Xbox One, we can now bring the latest generation of Direct3D 11 to console. The Xbox One graphics API is "Direct3D 11.x" and the Xbox One hardware provides a superset of Direct3D 11.2 functionality. Other graphics APIs such as OpenGL and AMD's Mantle are not available on Xbox One.

The Xbox One will support DirectX 11.2, an evolution over DirectX 11, which adds support for a new feature called "Tiled resources," which lets 3D apps more efficiently manage available hardware resources, by streaming portions of single large textures as a 3D scene being rendered demands it. It heralds a kind of virtual memory system for the GPU, and Microsoft could encourage game developers to take advantage of it, for their Xbox One titles. Such a feature already exists with OpenGL.

People looking forward to the big "Steambox" announcement were met by an anticlimax. Valve announced its own operating system for PC gamers, which turns any PC into a "Steambox." Simply named Steam OS, the operating system is a highly modified Debian Linux stripped to bare, with all its non-essentials tossed out, and proprietary multimedia CODECs added, along with fonts, runtime environments, and in-built drivers for popular GPU, sound card, and gaming-peripheral brands. In essence, there's everything in the operating system for PC gamers, and then some.

Steam diversified from distributing PC games to non-gaming PC software, and Valve plans to take that further by doing groundwork for its very own living room content-delivery platform to compete with the likes of Xbox One. Since Steam OS can be deployed onto x86-based PCs as tiny as an Intel NUC, it stands more than a half chance. Its baby-steps are taken with In-home Streaming, a feature that lets you stream content off a PC or Mac in your house. You can share games in your account with others in your family, and close friends, using the recently-announced Family Sharing feature. You get content-blocking features and restricted-accounts. You also get media-player software that lets you organize and play back music and videos in most open- and proprietary formats. You should be able to install popular web-browsers like Google Chrome. Steam OS is competitively priced against Windows 8.1 and OS X 10.9, at $0. Did we tell you that some of its icons look like companion cubes? Just kidding.

Graphics processors based on first-generation Graphics CoreNext micro-architecture, slotted inside the "Southern Islands" and "Sea Islands" families, and branded under Radeon HD 7000 and Radeon HD 8000 (OEM) series, don't fully support Microsoft DirectX 11.2 API. Exclusive with the upcoming Windows 8.1 operating system, the Direct3D component of DirectX 11.2 introduces a handful of revolutionary consumer 3D features, such as "D3D tiled resources," which is analogous to OpenGL mega-textures; HLSL shader linking, frame-buffer scaling, etc.

In an interview with German publication c't Magazin, AMD engineer Laylah Mah pointed out that a feedback routine Microsoft deployed in the final specification of DirectX 11.2 turned out different from the one AMD anticipated. Mah stressed that the incompatibility is not at the level of the hardware, but the driver. The GPUs inside next-generation consoles like Microsoft Xbox One and Sony PlayStation 4 aren't fundamentally different from current AMD GPU micro-architecture, and at least one of the two, Xbox One, will leverage the latest DirectX.

Mad Catz Interactive, Inc.(NYSE MKT/TSX: MCZ), today announced financial results for the fiscal 2014 first quarter ended June 30, 2013. Commenting on the results, Darren Richardson, President and Chief Executive Officer of Mad Catz, said, "We entered fiscal 2014 with several key objectives, including furthering the transition of our business toward higher-value products, positioning the Company to take full advantage of the shift towards mobile gaming, and strategically leveraging our resources to best benefit from the launch of the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 gaming consoles during the upcoming holiday season.

"As expected, we saw a decline in our console-related product sales during the first quarter due to the consumer anticipation around the upcoming console transition. However, this decline was partially offset by continuing strong sales growth in our PC and Mac products. We continued to grow our presence and market share across emerging markets, and were especially pleased with the on-going growth in Europe where we grew market share in the face of considerable headwinds."

With its focus on on-demand entertainment at the expense of gaming prowess, Xbox One didn't impress gamers at E3, who instead flocked to Amazon to pre-order their PlayStation 4, which not only features faster hardware, that could translate to better visuals in gaming, but is also a whole 20 percent cheaper ($499 vs. $399). At E3, Microsoft tried to pull a fast one. It set up several gaming stations allegedly powered by Xbox One, where gamers could play unreleased Xbox One games using the new Xbox One controller, just to get a feel of how rich and smooth the graphics really are. Some of them fell for it, others didn't. When these peeping toms didn't find the screens wired to an Xbox One main unit, they yanked open the cupboards below, only to find a full-fledged Windows 7 gaming PC.

How full-fledged you ask? Keen observers across the forumscape made out a rig powered by an Intel LGA2011 processor, which could at least be a Core i7-3820, and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 700 series reference design graphics card, which could at least be a GeForce GTX 770. Such a system would obviously give you a rich and smooth gaming experience.

AMD today announced its 2013 Elite A-Series Accelerated Processing Unit (APU) for desktops, codenamed "Richland", which delivers a superior PC solution with increased computational performance, discrete-level graphics and an easy upgrade infrastructure. At COMPUTEX TAIPEI 2013, AMD showcased the complete breadth of its 2013 APU portfolio with the launch of the new Elite A-Series APU for desktops which power a diverse range of OEM systems and feature new generations of software and applications that harness the unrivaled compute power of the 2013 AMD APU product lineup: the fastest AMD APUs ever.

"The new AMD A-Series APU is ideal for desktop PC builders and mainstream gamers wanting outstanding performance for their money, and today AMD delivers an excellent new follow-on to the recently announced mobile lineup," said Bernd Lienhard, corporate vice president and general manager, Client Products Division at AMD. "The combination of high-performance, third-generation desktop APUs with our existing portfolio of low-power, mobile APUs gives us our strongest-ever lineup of products for our customers and our technology partners."

After bagging chip supply deals for all three new-generation consoles -- Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Wii U, things are looking up for AMD. While Wii U uses older-generation hardware technologies, Xbox One and PlayStation 4 use the very latest AMD has to offer -- "Jaguar" 64-bit x86 CPU micro-architecture, and Graphics CoreNext GPU architecture. Chips that run the two consoles have a lot in common, but also a few less-than-subtle differences.

PlayStation 4 chip, which came to light this February, is truly an engineer's fantasy. It combines eight "Jaguar" 64-bit x86 cores clocked at 1.60 GHz, with a fairly well spec'd Radeon GPU, which features 1,156 stream processors, 32 ROPs; and a 256-bit wide unified GDDR5 memory interface, clocked at 5.50 GHz. At these speeds, the system gets a memory bandwidth of 176 GB/s. Memory isn't handled like UMA (unified memory architecture), there's no partition between system- and graphics-memory. The two are treated as items on the same 8 GB of memory, and either can use up a majority of it.