Publisher THQ has just announced that the sequel to the well-received This is the Police, This is the Police 2, has now been released - for early parole! The previous August 2nd release date has been superseded by a sudden influx of criminality in Sharpwood - and gamers will now have the privilege of partaking in the crime-fighting brigade and become the new Sheriff in town.

This is the Police 2 improves on its 2016 predecessor in every which way, and it seems it's off to a good start, as reviews have already come out praisingly. A mixture of adventure and management, This is the Police II puts you in the boots of a Sheriff in Sharpwood, and you'll have to manage your retinue of police enforcers, their personal needs, their weakneses and their strenghts... much like in the real world. This editor enjoyed the easy-going nature of the first game, but it hits a little too close to home. The revamped This is the Police 2 now is saddled with much better code, deeper mechanics, and difficult moral choices as in the first game, and is now available on Steam, with Autumn availability for the PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and Xbox One family of devices including Xbox One X. Head on after the break for the game trailer.

With the 2018 F1 Season going on in full swing (with some unexpected troubles for Mercedes' leadership this past weekend), gamers are about to get another taste of what it feels to drive some of the most advanced cars in the world. Codemasters are at it again, with some improved visuals over the previous iteration of the game, and my god - would you look at those beautiful Alfa Romeo Saubers?

The game has been announced for release on August 24th - so if nothing else for this summer, you'll be able to race at breakneck speeds. Follow the break for the full press release, where an expanded career mode and more classic cars are mentioned - but only after you've gorged your eyes on the screenshots below.

Seagate Technology plc, a world leader in data storage solutions, today announced the new Game Drive for Xbox SSD - a flash-speed SSD storage drive designed exclusively for Xbox One - delivering fast gaming performance and convenient portability. Available in 2TB, 1TB, and 500GB capacities, the pro-level flash SSD upgrade delivers fast game loading performance to get you into the game. The officially licensed Xbox drive offers branding elements that match the Xbox One X consoles and increases the console's storage capacity to make room for all of your games and downloadable add-ons.

"The quality of production and in-game environment for today's game titles is off the charts," said Jeff Fochtman, vice president of marketing for Seagate Technology. "Seagate's Game Drive for Xbox SSD offers gamers the extra capacity for their entire library and flash-speed performance so they can jump into their games without waiting on slow menus and load times."

Pengo, a new power-player on the video capture market is proud to announce the availability of the Pengo 4K HDMI Grabber. The Pengo 4K HDMI Grabber works with all latest 4K enabled gaming consoles such as the Xbox One, Xbox One S, Xbox One X, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 4 Pro. It gives you the freedom to use any UVC enabled application to capture and stream with software you like, such as OBS, XSplit, and Bandicam. With lag-free passthrough of the HDMI signal and instant display of the captured video, you can game and stream with any performance impact. Unlike other options the lightning-fast video processor can grab your video stream without needing a powerful PC. Setting up the 4K HDMI Grabber is quick and easy with only HDMI and USB cables required, while you can additionally connect a headset and/or microphone to record your voice and team chat to the stream.

LAG-FREE 4K HDMI PASS-THROUGH: YUV12 4:4:4 OUTPUT
The Pengo 4K HDMI Grabber is powerful for its compact size, with incomparable pass-through capability at 4096x2160 @ 60 Hz and UYV12 4:4:4. Being lag-free is essential for gamers that want the highest visual fidelity. The Pengo 4K HDMI Grabber performs at its best no matter your PC's hardware. It delivers lag-free, uncompressed 1080p 60Hz over USB 3.0. Older PCs with only USB 2.0 available will receive 1080p content with light color space compression.

AMD monetizes its GPU IP not just with discrete graphics cards and integrated graphics in its PC processors, but also by selling semi-custom SoCs for most modern game consoles, such as the Xbox One and PlayStation 4, with some of the newer 4K UHD-capable models such as the PlayStation 4 Pro and Xbox One X even leveraging newer graphics architectures by the company, such as "Polaris." 2020 could see the roll out of next-generation gaming consoles, which are more purpose-built for 4K UHD gaming, with visual fidelity matching gaming PCs, and so console manufacturers are looking for a lean and powerful new GPU IP. Sony seems to have made up its mind of sticking with AMD.

AMD will supply a semi-custom SoC to Sony for its next major console, "PlayStation 5." This chip will feature a graphics processor based on the "Navi" architecture, which succeeds "Vega." 2020 could also be the year when the 7 nm silicon fabrication process achieves some maturity and makes up most of the bulk ASIC production nodes. According to Tweaktown, Sony is closely working with AMD for the development of the "Navi" architecture itself, so versions of it are efficient enough to be deployed in console SoCs that are built to a cost. The design goal will be to enable 4K @ 60 Hz gaming, as 4K televisions will have proliferated a lot by 2020.

Today, at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), Ubisoft announced a new installment of the Assassin's Creed franchise, Assassin's Creed Odyssey. The game will be released worldwide on October 5, 2018, on the Xbox One family of devices including the Xbox One X, PlayStation 4 computer entertainment system and Windows PC. In addition, Assassin's Creed Odyssey has been enhanced with additional features for Xbox One X and PS4 Pro systems.

For the last three years, the team at Ubisoft Quebec has been creating an exciting new chapter for the Assassin's Creed franchise. In Assassin's Creed Odyssey, the action takes place in Ancient Greece, a world rich with myths and legend, in fifth century BC during the Peloponnesian War between Sparta and Athens. Playing as Alexios or Kassandra, a mercenary of Spartan blood sentenced to death by their family, players will embark on an epic journey from a young outcast to a legendary hero and uncover the truth about their mysterious First Civilization lineage.

AMD and Samsung today announced support for Radeon FreeSync technology in the new Samsung QLED 55" to 82" TV range, bringing the ultimate, ultrawide 4K gaming experience to an entirely new format - big screen TVs. Samsung is the first company to utilize industry-leading Radeon FreeSync adaptive refresh technology for stutter-free gaming inside a consumer television set. With High Dynamic Range (HDR) support up to 1000nits and stunning picture quality, Samsung's QLED displays allow gamers to experience strikingly high refresh rates and low latency on TVs at a variety of price points and screen sizes ranging from 55" to 82" creating a single display for all their home entertainment needs.

Over the past three years, Radeon FreeSync technology has driven widespread adoption and become the industry's most selected solution for smooth gaming. Earlier this year, AMD expanded the ecosystem by propelling tear-free gameplay beyond the PC with the launch of support for FreeSync technology in Microsoft's Xbox One S and Xbox One X consoles in early March. With more than 250 compatible displays offered by more than 20 partners, this is more than double the availability of competing technology.

No Man's Sky was one of the most promising games in recent times, with its exquisite concept and graphics technology, which looked to allow for a seamless, truly universal, space-exploration experience. However, No Man's Sky was its own worst enemy, as promised features never made it to the retail version of the game, and its universe, while absolutely expansive, didn't offer much more to do than the joy of being what was sometimes called a "screenshot simulator". These concepts will always be divisive, but one thing stands: No Man's Sky didn't quite fulfill its potential, and that left most players disappointed.

Queue multiple updates (the Foundation, Pathfinder and Atlas Rises updates), which have always brought the game a number of steps closer to the original vision that was presented to audiences, and now, the announced NEXT update, coming to all platforms (including the new Xbox One release, with specific 4K and HDR improvements for the Xbox One X) this summer. This update will introduce a true multiplayer implementation to No Man's Sky, which should bring interactivity levels in the game up. A number of other improvements are being kept under wraps. If Sean Murray's words are anything to go by (and he has been making an effort of not getting too excited about what he has to share), this might be the update - the game - to enroll users again through the long, and hopefully lazy, days of summer. Snippets of Sean Murray's post on Xbox follow, after the break.

Codemasters and Koch Media today announced that F1 2018, the official videogame of the 2018 FIA FORMULA ONE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP, will immerse players into the world of Formula 1 more than ever before. F1 2018 will release onto PlayStation 4 computer entertainment system, the Xbox One family of devices including the Xbox One X and Windows PC (DVD and via Steam) worldwide on Friday 24th August 2018, the weekend of the FORMULA 1 2018 BELGIAN GRAND PRIX at the iconic Spa-Francorchamps Circuit.

"We were delighted by the reception that the highly-acclaimed F1 2017 game received, and are extremely excited to be able to further build on such a strong starting point with F1 2018" said Paul Jeal, F1 Franchise Director at Codemasters. "Over the past few years we have engaged heavily with our fan-base to understand what is important to them and we cannot wait to unveil more details on features we know our fans will love. Career mode has been further expanded to immerse players even deeper into the world of F1 than before, with the return of a highly requested feature back into the franchise. We are also adding more classic cars, again listening to our fans as to which of the historical F1 cars they would most like to virtually drive next. Outside of those headline additions there are many other great enhancements to be revealed before the game launches."

When Reuters reported Turing as NVIDIA's next gaming graphics card, we knew something was off about it. Something like that would break many of NVIDIA's naming conventions. It now turns out that Turing, named after British scientist Alan Turing, who is credited with leading a team of mathematicians that broke the Nazi "Enigma" cryptography, is a crypto-mining and blockchain compute accelerator. It is being designed to be compact, efficient, and ready for large-scale deployment by amateur miners and crypto-mining firms alike, in a quasi-industrial scale.

NVIDIA Turing could be manufactured at a low-enough cost against GeForce-branded products, and in high-enough scales, to help bring down their prices, and save the PC gaming ecosystem. It could have an ASIC-like disruptive impact on the graphics card market, which could make mining with graphics cards less viable, in turn, lowering graphics card prices. With performance-segment and high-end graphics cards seeing 200-400% price inflation in the wake of crypto-currency mining wave, PC gaming is threatened as gamers are lured to the still-affordable new-generation console ecosystems, led by premium consoles such as the PlayStation 4 Pro and Xbox One X. There's no word on which GPU architecture Turing will be based on ("Pascal" or "Volta"). NVIDIA is expected to launch its entire family of next-generation GeForce GTX 2000-series "Volta" graphics cards in 2018.

Microsoft Corp. today announced the following results for the quarter ended December 31, 2017:

• Revenue was $28.9 billion and increased 12%
• Operating income was $8.7 billion and increased 10%
• GAAP net loss was $(6.3) billion and non-GAAP net income was $7.5 billion
• GAAP diluted loss per share was $(0.82) and non-GAAP diluted earnings per share was $0.96
• GAAP results include a $13.8 billion net charge related to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA)

"This quarter's results speak to the differentiated value we are delivering to customers across our productivity solutions and as the hybrid cloud provider of choice," said Satya Nadella, chief executive officer of Microsoft. "Our investments in IoT, data, and AI services across cloud and the edge position us to further accelerate growth."

BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment Europe invites players back to the treacherous land of Lordran with DARK SOULS: REMASTERED, available on 25th May, 2018 for the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 computer entertainment system, Xbox One, and PC. Re-experience the genre-defining title that kicked off a worldwide gaming phenomena in stunning high-definition detail. DARK SOULS: REMASTERED marks the DARK SOULS series debut on a Nintendo platform, and for the first time ever can be played on the go with the unique capabilities of the Nintendo Switch console.

Developed by FromSoftware Inc., DARK SOULS: REMASTERED allows players to explore the twisted ancient land of Lordran in the first title of the critically acclaimed action role-playing series like never before. Experience the rich world of DARK SOULS in upscaled 4K resolution with 60FPS when playing on a PlayStation 4 Pro system, Xbox One X, and PC. Also, 1080p resolution with 30FPS is available when playing the game on Nintendo Switch with its TV mode. From their first timid steps to absolute mastery, players will build their characters by strategically adapting to daunting foes, exploring haunting locations, and amassing a large collection of weapons, armor and magic spells to utilize for a truly unique playstyle.

Cracking Japan's console market has always been a tough - read: almost impossible - feat for Microsoft. For generations now, Microsoft has failed to achieve any kind of market penetration in that country. To put things in perspective, Xbox One's sales in japan have been so low that retailers in Japan started marketing and selling the consoles as Blu-ray and 4K Blu-ray readers, not as gaming consoles. For Microsoft, that would have been fine - a sale is a sale is a sale, and the Xbox One never was sold at a loss like previous hardware generations - but it just goes to show that the Japanese market doesn't really care much for the typical games Microsoft offers with its console. The relative abundance of JRPGs and other typical games for which the Japanese crowds usually lean towards the most are relatively absent from Microsoft's staples of exclusives, which probably justifies this cold stance towards Microsoft's console. But to be fair, japan is one of the foremost mobile gaming countries in the world, so that definitely has something to do with it as well.

According to Japanese Famitsu, the Xbox One X managed to move... 1,639 units at launch. This means that the Xbox One X was outsold by virtually all consoles - The PS4 (23,613 units), PS4 Pro (6,028 units), Nintendo Switch (84,593 units), and was even outsold by the PS Vita, 3DS, and 2DS XL. It only snagged wins against previous-generation hardware (like the PS3 and Wii U) or Microsoft's own other console - The Xbox One S. A bittersweet victory, to say the least. The fact that the Xbox One X did get sold-out in Japan is telling - but that did happen because of the low orders Japanese retailers put in for the new console. Some 4 consoles later, they know that barring a black swan, Microsoft isn't setting a foothold in Japanese gamers' living rooms.

Activision's Call of Duty: WWII has surpassed more than $500 million in sell-through worldwide in its first three days of release, topping popular theatrical box office openings Thor: Ragnarok and Wonder Woman combined, according to company estimates. On PlayStation4, Call of Duty: WWII set a record as the best-selling digital full game by units sold on its first day of availability. Overall unit sales at launch doubled year-over-year globally.

The gripping, personal narrative, boots-on-the-ground multiplayer and terrifying Nazi Zombies mode attracted players worldwide resulting in the highest total connected users on current generation consoles and PC in Call of Duty history. "We challenged our players to get their squads back together and they answered the call, with the highest number of players we've ever seen on current gen consoles and PC," said Eric Hirshberg, CEO of Activision.

LucidSound, one of the fastest growing brands in gaming audio, announced today the LS25 eSports Gaming Headset is shipping to retail. The LS25 has been developed to appeal to the eSports and competitive PC gaming community, concentrating on the features essential to provide superior performance during tournament play.

"eSports players need the best equipment to compete at tournament level. That's why we have been working with eSports teams to deliver the best possible product in the LS25," said Chris Von Huben, CEO of LucidSound. "The LS25 is engineered to win with an uncompromising commitment to quality and a focus on the core features players are looking for in an eSports headset."

Microsoft has said that demand for its upcoming Xbox One X games console is meeting expectations, and then some. Panos Panay, corporate vice president of devices, told CNBC that he wouldn't be able to talk about specific numbers, but that demand was, quote, "super high". He added that "I won't compare it to other consoles. What I'll say is the demand for Xbox One X right now is exactly where we anticipated, even more so when you see that excitement for the product... this is something that resonates with gamers."

The demand is so high, in fact, that there have been numerous reports of shortages, which means supply isn't even being able to sustain demand for the new Xbox, 4K-enabled console that launches on November 7th. Whether this stems from the fact that demand really is "super high", or limited production, or a mix of those two, is always up for debate. However, one only has to consider the amount of hardware that's being crammed in such a tiny box to glimpse the massive effort in engineering that was needed for this console - it's a mass of custom hardware, 60% smaller than the Original Xbox One, while delivering almost 5x the performance. It's likely this demand is fueled by the total of 130 games (and counting) that have already been confirmed to receive Xbox One X compatibility patches. The presence of a UHD Blu-Ray solution also doesn't hurt its media pedigree either, though the $499 cost of entry is somewhat steep by console standards. Here though, it's definitely well deserved - at least when one takes into account the hardware.

Turtle Beach Corporation announced another "first" in the company's long history of driving innovation in the gaming headset market with the availability of the all-new Stealth 600 wireless surround sound headset for the Xbox One family of devices (Xbox One, Xbox One S, and Xbox One X). Today's launch makes the Stealth 600 for Xbox One the first-ever gaming headset available at retail that uses Microsoft's Xbox Wireless technology to connect directly to the console, just like your wireless controller does.

No wires, no base station, and no adapter needed. With the Stealth 600 paired directly to Xbox One, gamers simply need to turn on their headset and start playing. Beyond the ease of Xbox Wireless connectivity, the Stealth 600 is optimized to deliver immersive Windows Sonic surround sound and crystal clear chat through large, powerful 50mm speakers and a new flip-up version of Turtle Beach's renowned high-sensitivity mic. The Stealth 600 for Xbox One also features everything from Turtle Beach's unique ProSpecs Glasses Friendly and comfort-driven design to its exclusive Superhuman Hearing sound setting that gives players a competitive advantage to help them win more.

The lid was taken from Microsoft's Project Scorpio console last weekend. Commercially named the Xbox One X, the new Xbox console will join the "Xbox family of devices" with much higher power envelope than any other console currently in the market, at 6 TFLOPs of computing power. At that rate, Microsoft says (and has demonstrated) that its new console will be able to power premium, true 4K experiences. However, some analysts say that the $499 price point will be too high for consumers, which usually look to purchase consoles in the $249, $349 price band.

That said, the question could be put to Microsoft whether or not the company could have decreased their new console's pricing even further, by taking a cut from the hardware selling profits. When asked whether Microsoft was making any profit at all from the Xbox One X's retail pricing, Phil Spencer answered with a pretty frontal "No". So Microsoft really isn't profiting from the sale of any Xbox One X console, which may look somewhat unbelievable considering its steep price point (relatively; we have to keep in mind this console Can actually power 4K experiences.) However, this is nothing new: in fact, most gaming consoles ever released barely made any amount of money on hardware sales at the moment of their introduction to market. Manufacturers such as Microsoft and Sony instead usually choose to subsidize console purchases by bringing their profit margin to zero (and sometimes even below zero, as in, the consoles cost more to manufacture than their selling point) so as to allow a greater number of customers to purchase the hardware. Software, and more recently DLC, is where the money is to be made in consoles.

Microsoft Sunday dropped its mic with the most powerful game console on paper, the Xbox One X, formerly codenamed "Project Scorpio." The bottom-line of this console is that it enables 4K Ultra HD gaming at 60 Hz. Something like this requires you to spend at least $1,200 on a gaming desktop right now. Unlike a Windows 10 PC that's been put together by various pieces of hardware, the Xbox One X is built on a closed ecosystem that's tightly controlled by Microsoft, with heavily optimized software, and a lot of secret sauce the company won't talk about. The console still puts up some mighty impressive hardware specs on paper.

To begin with, at the heart of the Xbox One X is a semi-custom SoC Microsoft co-developed with AMD, built on TSMC's 16 nm FinFET node (the same one NVIDIA builds its "Pascal" GPUs on). This chip features a GPU with almost quadruple the single-precision floating point compute power as the one which drives the Xbox One. It features 40 Graphics CoreNext (GCN) compute units (2,560 stream processors) based on one of the later versions of GCN (likely "Polaris"). The GPU is clocked at 1172 MHz. The other big component of the SoC is an eight-core CPU based on an unnamed micro-architecture evolved from "Jaguar" rather than "Bulldozer" or even "Zen." The eight cores are arranged in two quad-core units of four cores, each; with 4 MB of L2 cache. The CPU is clocked at 2.30 GHz.

Sunday marked a milestone Xbox E3 Briefing as Microsoft Corp. unveiled the world's most powerful console, Xbox One X (formerly code-named "Project Scorpio") and its largest and most diverse games lineup in E3 history. Broadcast for the first time in 4K UHD on Mixer, Xbox showcased a record 42 games in its briefing including 22 with console exclusivity from creators large and small. Coming to all Xbox One markets starting Nov. 7, Xbox One X will retail for $499, 449 pounds, 499 euros, CA$599 and AU$649.

Xbox One X was designed to be the best console to create and play games on, putting the greatest graphic fidelity in the hands of the world's best game creators to create true 4K games. Head of Xbox Phil Spencer underscored that every game will play great across the Xbox One family, and Xbox One X also makes your existing library even better, with better textures, smoother frame rates and faster load times.