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In recent years I’ve come to accept that I just don’t love open-world games. It’s partially because my life has only gotten busier and I have less free time to spend on games, so I gravitate towards shorter experiences. But it’s also because open-world game design tends to be boring and repetitive in my opinion. This… Read more... View the full article

If you thought you were getting through Elden Ring’s Shadow of the Erdtree DLC unscathed because you have a 200-hour file and an NG+ character, Hidetaka Miyazaki has recently assured you’ve got another thing coming. Speaking to Famitsu, whose interview was translated via Reddit and reported by GamesRadar, Miyazaki… Read more... View the full article

I’ve seen thousands of Pokémon cards in my time, and I had become so desensitized to an error on nearly every card in the United States that I’d forgotten about it. If you’ve ever seen an American Pokémon card, you’ll know that the back of each features art of a Poké Ball opening up. These devices are used in video… Read more... View the full article

This year has carried over two significant trends for the video game industry from 2023 into 2024: a lot of excellent games are coming out, and, unfortunately, the people who make them are suffering. It’s still early, but we’ve gotten some fantastic new games like Final Fantasy VII Rebirth and the surprise hit Balatro… Read more... View the full article

Police were called to the scene of “Willy’s Chocolate Experience” in Glasgow, Scotland, as children burst into tears when the “immersive experience” promised in AI advertisements turned out to be a sparsely decorated warehouse. Read more... View the full article

These days, just about everyone is a content creator. But can generative AI help make people create high-quality films and other content affordably? Find out from Pinar Seyhan Demirdag, cofounder and CEO of Cuebric, during his conversation with NVIDIA AI Podcast host Noah Kravitz. Cuebric is on a mission to offer new solutions in filmmaking and content creation through immersive, two-and-a-half-dimensional cinematic environments. Its AI-powered application aims to help creators quickly bring their ideas to life, making high-quality production more accessible. Demirdag discusses how Cuebric uses generative AI to enable the creation of engaging environments affordably. Listen in to find out about the current landscape of content creation, the role of AI in simplifying the creative process, and Cuebric’s participation in NVIDIA’s GTC technology conference. The AI Podcast · Exploring Filmmaking with Cuebric’s AI: Insights from Pinar Seyhan Demirdag – Ep. 314 Time Stamps: 1:15: Getting to know Pinar Seyhan Demirdag and Cuebric 2:30: The beginnings and goals of Cuebric 4:45: How Cuebric’s AI application works for filmmakers 9:00: Advantages of AI in content creation 13:20: Making high-quality production budget-friendly 17:35: The future of AI in creative endeavors 22:00: Cuebric at NVIDIA GTC You Might Also Like… MIT’s Anant Agarwal on AI in Education – Ep. 197 AI could help students work smarter, not harder. Anant Agarwal, founder of edX and chief platform officer at 2U, shares his vision for the future of online education and the impact of AI in revolutionizing the learning experience. UF Provost Joe Glover on Building a Leading AI University – Ep. 186 Joe Glover, provost and senior vice president of academic affairs at the University of Florida, discusses the university’s efforts to implement AI across all aspects of higher education, including a public-private partnership with NVIDIA that has helped transform UF into one of the leading AI universities in the country. NVIDIA’s Marc Hamilton on Building the Cambridge-1 Supercomputer During a Pandemic – Ep. 137 Cambridge-1, the U.K.’s most powerful supercomputer, ranks among the world’s top 3 most energy-efficient supercomputers and was built to help healthcare researchers make new discoveries. Marc Hamilton, vice president of solutions architecture and engineering at NVIDIA, speaks on how he remotely oversaw its construction. Subscribe to the AI Podcast Get the AI Podcast through iTunes, Google Podcasts, Google Play, Amazon Music, Castbox, DoggCatcher, Overcast, PlayerFM, Pocket Casts, Podbay, PodBean, PodCruncher, PodKicker, Soundcloud, Spotify, Stitcher and TuneIn. Make the AI Podcast better: Have a few minutes to spare? Fill out this listener survey. View the full article

Editor’s note: This post is part of our weekly In the NVIDIA Studio series, which celebrates featured artists, offers creative tips and tricks, and demonstrates how NVIDIA Studio technology improves creative workflows. We’re also deep diving on new GeForce RTX 40 Series GPU features, technologies and resources, and how they dramatically accelerate content creation. YouTube content creator Ralph Panebianco really, really loves video games. Since getting an original Nintendo Entertainment System at the age of four, Panebianco, this week’s featured In the NVIDIA Studio creator, has spent much of his free time playing video games. He pursued a career in gaming in his native country of Australia before pivoting to content creation, opening a YouTube channel called Skill Up, where he reviews the latest video games. “When I wasn’t playing video games, I was reading about them, and now I get to talk about them for a living,” he said. And calling all art fans: the latest Studio Standouts video features film noir-themed artwork brought to life with dramatic, monochromatic flair. Video Editing Skillz Panebianco works with his partner to create in-depth, insightful reviews of the latest video games on his Skill Up YouTube channel, which has garnered nearly 1 million subscribers. Below is a recent video reviewing Pacific Drive, a title available on the NVIDIA GeForce NOW cloud gaming service, powered by GeForce RTX GPUs. “Creatively, we don’t view game reviews as functional buying guides with a list of pros and cons,” said Panebianco. “We view reviews as a chance to crack a game open and really show the audience what makes it tick. They’re sort of mini-essays on game design, delving deep into why specific game mechanics do or don’t work.” The content creation process begins with booting up the game on his PC, powered by the recently launched GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER graphics card. This allows the Skill Up team to tap RTX ray tracing and NVIDIA DLSS — breakthrough technologies that use AI to create additional frames and improve image quality. He records video footage primarily using GeForce Experience, a companion to NVIDIA GeForce GPUs that enables users to capture assets, optimize game settings and keep drivers up to date, among other features. When footage requires high-dynamic range, the team uses the OBS Studio open-source software with AV1 hardware encoding to achieve 40% more efficient encoding on average than H.264 and deliver higher quality than competing GPUs. “The AV1 encoder is ridiculously efficient in terms of file size,” he said. NVIDIA GPUs and OBS Studio software work in synergy. Once the footage is ready, Panebianco writes a video script in Microsoft Word and then records himself, using Audacity. He uses the AI-powered NVIDIA Broadcast app, free for RTX GPU owners, to eliminate background noise and achieve professional studio quality. Panebianco then hands off the files to his editor for production in Adobe Premiere Pro, where a number of GPU-accelerated, AI-powered features such as Enhance Speech, Auto Reframe and Unsharp Mask help speed the video editing process. NVIDIA’s GPU-accelerated video decoder (NVDEC) enables smooth playback and scrubbing of high-resolution videos. Next, Panebianco exports the final files twice as fast thanks to the dual AV1 encoders in his RTX GPU. Lastly, his editor creates a YouTube thumbnail in Adobe Photoshop, and then the video is ready for publishing. Adobe Photoshop has over 30 GPU-accelerated features that help modify and adjust images smoothly and quickly. “Almost my entire workflow was enhanced by NVIDIA’s hardware,” Panebianco shared. “It’s not just about the hardware making for efficient encoding or lightning-fast, hardware-enabled rendering — it’s about the end-to-end toolset.” Panebianco has words of wisdom for aspiring content creators. “Worry less about the numbers and more about the quality,” he said. “The metrics grind pays little in the way of dividends, but putting out truly excellent content is an almost failure-proof path to growth.” Video game content creator Ralph Panebianco. Catch Panebianco’s video game reviews on the Skill Up YouTube channel. Access tutorials on the Studio YouTube channel and get updates directly in your inbox by subscribing to the Studio newsletter. View the full article

Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth launched earlier this year to critical acclaim and sales records the series hasn’t seen before, so suffice to say, it’s kind of a big deal. The Like A Dragon games have become a renowned series over the years for a number of things: an incredible attention to detail, great… Read more... View the full article

New data from Norway examines how video games influence children, their social behaviors, and their spending habits. It turns out, younger players are being bullied over their lack of cosmetic skins, are using in-game items to become more popular, and are struggling to avoid all the ads and user-made scams connected… Read more... View the full article

Wendy’s will start experimenting with surge pricing, much like Uber and Lyft, as the company rolls out digital menus to all its United States restaurants by 2025, according to the company’s February earnings call. Under the test, burgers, Frosties, and other menu items will have “dynamic prices,” costing more during… Read more... View the full article

Don’t you just hate it when a glitch you exploit in your fave video game gets fixed? I do, too, and apparently, so do Palworld players. Developer Pocketpair recently patched up a popular bug-turned-feature in the Pokémon clone that let players do something they weren’t actually supposed to: capture tower bosses. After… Read more... View the full article

The latest episode of Fox’s long-running animated comedy, The Simpsons, featured an homage to an iconic video game series: Mario Kart. During the scene, we see Lisa as Mario, Homer as Wario, and other characters dressed up as Nintendo characters in a Mario Kart spoof. For all you sickos out there who have longed to… Read more... View the full article

Moon Knight, the Marvel miniseries on Disney+ starring Oscar Isaac, debuted back in 2022, but Hideo Kojima is just getting around to watching it. A known cinephile, it’s no surprise Kojima would have the show on his backlog, and we have now been treated to a signature lengthy X (formerly Twitter) post detailing his… Read more... View the full article

During today’s Pokémon Presents, Game Freak announced that Pokémon Legends: Arceus wasn’t a one-off. The Legends subseries will continue with Pokémon Legends: Z-A, set in the Kalos region featured in X and Y. Folks, I was hooting and hollering, both because Legends: Arceus is the best thing Game Freak has done in… Read more... View the full article

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, Square Enix’s upcoming RPG that continues the saga of 2020’s Final Fantasy VII Remake, is out in a matter of days. Hopefully you’ve requested time off from work, school, friends, and partners in order to indulge your FF7 desires. You’ll also need to free around 150 GB of storage space as… Read more... View the full article

I was ready to be excited when I heard we were getting a new Jaws game. Past video games based on the classic ‘70s shark attack film have been great. Even that short-lived mobile Jaws game. Even if this new game is just in Roblox—a free-to-play online game built out of user-created maps and minigames—I was interested.… Read more... View the full article

Third-person co-op shooter Helldivers 2 not only wants you to spread democracy across the galaxy, it also wants you to protect it. And having the right armor is necessary to protect yourself, so you’re not just saving yourself by equipping the right armor for your needs, you’re saving Super Earth. Read more... View the full article

Video game worlds are expansive places with lots of sights and sounds. With the advent of virtual reality, you can almost touch the environments you’re inhabiting. But scent has been one of the senses that gaming technology could never quite get right. (I mean, who wants to smell Ganondorf or Link when they probably… Read more... View the full article

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, the second title from developer Insomniac Games about the beloved web-slinger, doubled the fun by letting players control Peter Parker as well as Miles Morales. In addition to expanding the NYC-based game world to include Brooklyn and Queens, and offering two different playstyles to master, Spide… Read more... View the full article

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The Pokémon Company announced quite a few things during its short but sweet Pokémon Presents broadcast on February 27. One of those announcements was for a brand-new digital version of the popular Pokémon trading card game coming to mobile devices later this year that’ll let you explore the card’s art in a more… Read more... View the full article

The spirit of Grace Hopper will live on at NVIDIA GTC. Accelerated systems using powerful processors — named in honor of the pioneer of software programming — will be on display at the global AI conference running March 18-21, ready to take computing to the next level. System makers will show more than 500 servers in multiple configurations across 18 racks, all packing NVIDIA GH200 Grace Hopper Superchips. They’ll form the largest display at NVIDIA’s booth in the San Jose Convention Center, filling the MGX Pavilion. MGX Speeds Time to Market NVIDIA MGX is a blueprint for building accelerated servers with any combination of GPUs, CPUs and data processing units (DPUs) for a wide range of AI, high performance computing and NVIDIA Omniverse applications. It’s a modular reference architecture for use across multiple product generations and workloads. GTC attendees can get an up-close look at MGX models tailored for enterprise, cloud and telco-edge uses, such as generative AI inference, recommenders and data analytics. The pavilion will showcase accelerated systems packing single and dual GH200 Superchips in 1U and 2U chassis, linked via NVIDIA BlueField-3 DPUs and NVIDIA Quantum-2 400Gb/s InfiniBand networks over LinkX cables and transceivers. The systems support industry standards for 19- and 21-inch rack enclosures, and many provide E1.S bays for nonvolatile storage. Grace Hopper in the Spotlight Here’s a sampler of MGX systems now available: ASRock RACK’s MECAI, measuring 450 x 445 x 87mm, accelerates AI and 5G services in constrained spaces at the edge of telco networks. ASUS’s MGX server, the ESC NM2N-E1, slides into a rack that holds up to 32 GH200 processors and supports air- and water-cooled nodes. Foxconn provides a suite of MGX systems, including a 4U model that accommodates up to eight NVIDIA H100 NVL PCIe Tensor Core GPUs. GIGABYTE’s XH23-VG0-MGX can accommodate plenty of storage in its six 2.5-inch Gen5 NVMe hot-swappable bays and two M.2 slots. Inventec’s systems can slot into 19- and 21-inch racks and use three different implementations of liquid cooling. Lenovo supplies a range of 1U, 2U and 4U MGX servers, including models that support direct liquid cooling. Pegatron’s air-cooled AS201-1N0 server packs a BlueField-3 DPU for software-defined, hardware-accelerated networking. QCT can stack 16 of its QuantaGrid D74S-IU systems, each with two GH200 Superchips, into a single QCT QoolRack. Supermicro’s ARS-111GL-NHR with nine hot-swappable fans is part of a portfolio of air- and liquid-cooled GH200 and NVIDIA Grace CPU systems. Wiwynn’s SV7200H, a 1U dual GH200 system, supports a BlueField-3 DPU and a liquid-cooling subsystem that can be remotely managed. Wistron’s MGX servers are 4U GPU systems for AI inference and mixed workloads, supporting up to eight accelerators in one system. The new servers are in addition to three accelerated systems using MGX announced at COMPUTEX last May — Supermicro’s ARS-221GL-NR using the Grace CPU and QCT’s QuantaGrid S74G-2U and S74GM-2U powered by the GH200. Grace Hopper Packs Two in One System builders are adopting the hybrid processor because it packs a punch. GH200 Superchips combine a high-performance, power-efficient Grace CPU with a muscular NVIDIA H100 GPU. They share hundreds of gigabytes of memory over a fast NVIDIA NVLink-C2C interconnect. The result is a processor and memory complex well-suited to take on today’s most demanding jobs, such as running large language models. They have the memory and speed needed to link generative AI models to data sources that can improve their accuracy using retrieval-augmented generation, aka RAG. Recommenders Run 4x Faster In addition, the GH200 Superchip delivers greater efficiency and up to 4x more performance than using the H100 GPU with traditional CPUs for tasks like making recommendations for online shopping or media streaming. In its debut on the MLPerf industry benchmarks last November, GH200 systems ran all data center inference tests, extending the already leading performance of H100 GPUs. In all these ways, GH200 systems are taking to new heights a computing revolution their namesake helped start on the first mainframe computers more than seven decades ago. Register for NVIDIA GTC, the conference for the era of AI, running March 18-21 at the San Jose Convention Center and virtually. And get the 30,000-foot view from NVIDIA CEO and founder Jensen Huang in his GTC keynote. View the full article

Editor’s note: This post is a part of our Meet the Omnivore series, which features individual creators and developers who use OpenUSD to build tools, applications and services for 3D workflows and physically accurate virtual worlds. A failed furniture-shopping trip turned into a business idea for Steven Gay, cofounder and CEO of company Mode Maison. Gay grew up in Houston and studied at the University of Texas before working in New York as one of the youngest concept designers at Ralph Lauren. He was inspired to start his own company after a long day of trying — and failing — to pick out a sofa. The experience illuminated how the luxury home-goods industry has traditionally lagged in adopting digital technologies, especially those for creating immersive, interactive experiences for consumers. Gay founded Mode Maison in 2018 with the goal of solving this challenge and paving the way for scalability, creativity and a generative future in retail. Using the Universal Scene Description framework, aka OpenUSD, and the NVIDIA Omniverse platform, Gay, along with Mode Maison Chief Technology Officer Jakub Cech and the Mode Maison team, are helping enhance and digitalize entire product lifecycle processes — from design and manufacturing to consumer experiences. Register for NVIDIA GTC, which takes place March 17-21, to hear how leading companies are using the latest innovations in AI and graphics. And join us for OpenUSD Day to learn how to build generative AI-enabled 3D pipelines and tools using Universal Scene Description. They developed a photometric scanning system, called Total Material Appearance Capture, which offers an unbiased, physically based approach to digitizing the material world that’s enabled by real-world embedded sensors. TMAC captures proprietary data and the composition of any material, then turns it into input that serves as a single source of truth, which can be used for creating a fully digitized retail model. Using the system, along with OpenUSD and NVIDIA Omniverse, Mode Maison customers can create highly accurate digital twins of any material or product. “By enabling this, we’re effectively collapsing and fostering a complete integration across the entire product lifecycle process — from design and production to manufacturing to consumer experiences and beyond,” said Gay. Mode Maison developed a photometric scanning system called Total Material Appearance Capture. Streamlining Workflows and Enhancing Productivity With Digital Twins Previously, Mode Maison faced significant challenges in creating physically based, highly flexible and scalable digital materials. The limitations were particularly noticeable when rendering complex materials and textures, or integrating digital models into cohesive, multilayered environments. Using Omniverse helped Gay and his team overcome these challenges by offering advanced rendering capabilities, physics simulations and extensibility for AI training that unlock new possibilities in digital retail. Before using Omniverse and OpenUSD, Mode Maison used disjointed processes for digital material capture, modeling and rendering, often leading to inconsistencies, the inability to scale and minimal interoperability. After integrating Omniverse, the company experienced a streamlined, coherent workflow where high-fidelity digital twins can be created with greater efficiency and interoperability. The team primarily uses Autodesk 3ds Max for design, and they import the 3D data using Omniverse Connectors. Gay says OpenUSD is playing an increasingly critical role in its workflows, especially when developing composable, flexible, interoperable capabilities across asset creation. This enhanced pipeline starts with capturing high-fidelity material data using TMAC. The data is then processed and formatted into OpenUSD for the creation of physically based, scientifically accurate, high-fidelity digital twins. “OpenUSD allows for an unprecedented level of collaboration and interoperability in creating complex, multi-layered capabilities and advanced digital materials,” Gay said. “Its ability to seamlessly integrate diverse digital assets and maintain their fidelity across various applications is instrumental in creating realistic, interactive digital twins for retail.” OpenUSD and Omniverse have sped Mode Maison and their clients’ ability to bring products to market, reduced costs associated with building and modifying digital twins, and enhanced productivity through streamlined creation. “Our work represents a major step toward a future where digital and physical realities will be seamlessly integrated,” said Gay. “This shift enhances consumer engagement and paves the way for more sustainable business practices by reducing the need for physical prototyping while enabling more precise manufacturing.” As for emerging technological advancements in digital retail, Gay says AI will play a central role in creating hyper-personalized design, production, sourcing and front-end consumer experiences — all while reducing carbon footprints and paving the way for a more sustainable future in retail. Join In on the Creation Anyone can build their own Omniverse extension or Connector to enhance 3D workflows and tools. Learn more about how OpenUSD and NVIDIA Omniverse are transforming industries at NVIDIA GTC, a global AI conference running March 18-21, online and at the San Jose Convention Center. Join OpenUSD Day at GTC on Tuesday, March 19, to learn more about building generative AI-enabled 3D pipelines and tools using USD. Get started with NVIDIA Omniverse by downloading the standard license free, access OpenUSD resources, and learn how Omniverse Enterprise can connect your team. Stay up to date on Instagram, Medium and X. For more, join the Omniverse community on the forums, Discord server, Twitch and YouTube channels. View the full article

This morning’s Pokémon Presents event gave a look at a number of updates across its portfolio, including the announcement that the next Pokémon game will skip 2024 altogether. Releasing worldwide in 2025, the curiously titled Pokémon Legends: Z-A also seems to quietly confirm what we’ve been hearing for weeks now:… Read more... View the full article

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, part two of the trilogy remaking one of the greatest RPGs of all time, arrives on PS5 on February 28, 2024. As is customary these days when it comes to large games, you can all but count on needing to make some space on that SSD of yours. Read on to find out just how big Cloud and co.’s… Read more... View the full article