When we think about PC gaming platforms, the most recognizable and talked about is Steam. The last time we got word from Valve about monthly active users (MAU) was in 2021 when it reported that Steam had 132 million monthly active players.

Although it's been a couple of years since we've gotten an update from Valve relating to MAU numbers, Epic Games has just released its 'Epic Games Store 2023 Year in Review' which saw its monthly active users count hit 75 million in December 2023, a 10% increase from 2022.

The Epic Games Store is the home of Fortnite on PC, Rocket League, and other popular online titles like Valorant and League of Legends. It's also a Steam-like storefront with games from various publishers, with free games given away weekly. In fact, throughout 2023, users claimed 'nearly 586 million' free games.

The days of consoles getting substantially cheaper to produce the further into the lifecycle we get are over. As part of a new PlayStation financial presentation, PlayStation chairman Hiroki Totoki noted that compared to previous generations, it's increasingly more challenging to grow profits for the PlayStation 5 - one of the reasons being the price of components.

As summarized by insiders @Genki_JPN and @Kepler_L2 on X, costs relating to die shrinks and production of the complex chips and hardware found in consoles like the PlayStation 5 have remained flat - in that there's no way to create a more efficient and cost-effective console.

Usually, in the second half of a console's lifecycle, cheaper parts and more efficient nodes lead to more affordable consoles and increased hardware sales and profits. This is no longer the case and will most likely be the new norm in the lead-up to the PlayStation 6.

Tomb Raider developer Crystal Dynamics is currently working on a new entry in the long-running franchise, and the new look of Lara Croft combines the different eras of the character. These are the original games for the PlayStation and PC in the 1990s from Core Design and the recent reboot trilogy from Crystal Dynamics.

Lara's iconic blue tank top is back alongside dual pistols with their dual thigh holders. From the recent modern reboot era, Lara's jade necklace references her beginnings as an archeologist. The artwork depicts the 'unified design' of the new game, built with Unreal Engine 5 technology, and comes via the recently relaunched Tomb Raider website.

It's been a while since we got 2018's Shadow of the Tomb Raider, but that's changing - starting this month with the release of the Tomb Raider 1-3 Remastered for PC and consoles.

Released around this time last year, the Dead Space Remake from EA and Motive Studio presented a faithful built-from-the-ground-up remake of the iconic 2008 sci-fi horror game. With revamped visuals, audio, and various other improvements and updates, it was one of the best games from a stacked 2022 that also saw another iconic horror game get its remake dues with Capcom's Resident Evil 4.

Running on a high-end PC, the Dead Space Remake looks incredible, so it is no surprise that a ray tracing mod for the game also looks great. The video above shows that this uses Complete RT, a Reshade Ray Tracing Mod that adds ray-traced global illumination and ambient occlusion with volumetric fog and different color grading.

The change to color grading is immediately noticeable, giving the game a cooler blue-toned look, with the ray tracing being a more subtle change you notice during the gameplay sections. Look closely, and you'll see more detail across lighting and shadows, adding to the immersion.

AOOSTAR has just unveiled its new GEM10 Mini-PC, inside packing the AMD Ryzen 7 7840HS APU and rocking the fast OCulink connector for external graphics cards. Check it out:

The new AOOSTAR GEM10 Mini-PC features an AMD Ryzen 7 7840HS APU with 8 cores and 16 threads of CPU power based on the Zen 4 architecture, with a base CPU clock of 3.8GHz and boost clock of up to 5.1GHz. It features 16MB of L3 cache and a 35-54W TDP, depending on your use. On the GPU side of things, we've got a Radeon 780M integrated GPU with 12 compute units with GPU frequencies of up to 2700MHz.

AOOSTAR is using its Glacier 2.5 newly-designed and upgraded cooling system, with a default BIOS of 35W TDP, adjustable to 28W, 35W, or 45W, depending on what you need. There are dual 2.5GbE enthusiast-grade ethernet ports, 3 x NVMe 4.0 Gen4 SSD slots for huge amounts of super-fast storage, and it all fits into a 0.6L aluminum chassis which is CNC machined. The cooling system will operate at under 40dBA, meaning it'll be fast -- and most of all -- quiet, during operation.

Intel's next-gen Lunar Lake CPU has been leaked, showing off an 8-core, 8-thread configuration with cache sizes, and we now have a CPU boost number to scope out. Check it out:

The next-gen Intel Lunar Lake CPUs will be for ultra-low mobile power systems, which will succeed the current-gen Core Ultra 100U "Meteor Lake" CPUs that we've seen deployed since CES 2024 earlier this year. Intel will have its Arrow Lake CPUs hitting the desktop processor market later this year, succeeding the Raptor Lake Refresh CPUs that make up the 14th Gen Core CPU family, while Lunar Lake will enter the low-power laptop market.

The new leak on Intel's upcoming Lunar Lake CPUs sees it in A1 stepping form, with 8 cores and 8 threads (lacking Hyper-Threading), which is something that the Arrow Lake CPU family will also reportedly see (a lack of HT). We see CPU cache sizes here, with 836KB of L1 cache (112KB per P-Core, 96KB per E-Core), 14MB of L2 cache (2.5MB per P-Core, 4MB per four E-Cores), and 12MB of L3 cache in total.

NVIDIA's next-gen GeForce RTX 50 series graphics cards will reportedly feature new PCIe 6.0 16-pin power connectors, according to the latest rumors.

In a new video, Tom from Moore's Law is Dead explains that his sources have said that NVIDIA will be shifting towards their next-gen GPUs using a next-gen PCIe 6.0 16-pin connector. This move could filter all the way down to the mid-range GeForce RTX 5060, not just the higher-end GeForce RTX 5080 and GeForce RTX 5090 graphics cards.

NVIDIA making this move makes sense, as it fully simplifies the supply chain... the company will require a single PCIe 6.0 16-pin power connector for every single GeForce RTX 50 series graphics card it makes. All of the future GeForce RTX 50 series Founders Edition cards would roll out with the new PCIe 6.0 connector, as well as the company mandating the new PCIe 6.0 16-pin power connector to custom AIB models of upcoming RTX 50 series GPUs.

It has been a wild couple of weeks in the world of Xbox, where the heads of the company convened to hold a special 'business update' to ease concerns and rumors that got to the point where some were reporting that Xbox was going third-party and would stop making hardware.

That's not the case, with Xbox reaffirming its hardware position by stating that its next-gen console will present the 'largest technical leap' in console history and that, for now, games like Starfield and the upcoming Indiana Jones title from Machine Games will remain exclusive to Xbox consoles, cloud, and PC. That said, four older and established games will be coming to PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch, with new releases still coming day and date to Xbox Game Pass.

As part of the presentation with Xbox heads Phil Spencer, Sarah Bond, and Matt Booty, we did get confirmation of the very first Blizzard game coming to Xbox Game Pass - and that's Diablo IV, which will launch on the subscription service on March 28, 2024.

ASUS originally announced the ROG Swift PG32UCDM back in August 2023 with a second-gen Samsung QD-OLED panel, but has updated it with a third-gen QD-OLED panel and now it's available for $1299. Check it out:

The new ASUS ROG Swift PG32UCDM gaming monitor features a 32-inch QD-OLED panel, offering its beautiful blacks and insane-fast response time of 0.03ms (GTG). The 32-inch QD-OLED panel features a native 4K resolution (3840 x 2160) with a blistering-fast 240Hz refresh rate. It oozes class, style, and performance and needs to be matched with a high-end GPU to feed 4K at 240FPS.

ASUS has designed its new gaming monitor for blur-free action, even during the most intense gaming sessions -- 240FPS is glorious, as too is 4K, and on a QD-OLED panel -- it's the trifecta of awesome sauce -- with AMD FreeSync Premium Pro technology and NVIDIA G-SYNC compatibility thrown into the mix.

The delivery speed of NVIDIA AI GPU shipment has been "greatly accelerated," according to USB analysts; previously, it was taking 8-11 months for deliveries, but now that's been reduced to just 3-4 months.

NVIDIA and TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company) have greatly increased production capacities, solving the bottleneck issue of advanced CoWoS packaging technology. NVIDIA can now not only clear out its H100 AI GPU inventories, but it can begin pushing more of its beefed-up H200 AI GPU shipments, and upcoming next-gen B100 "Blackwell" AI GPUs that are coming this year.

Another factor in AI GPU shipments increasing from NVIDIA is that recent US export restrictions into China have freed up production capacity for other orders. USB analysts also believe that the decreased delivery cycle implies that short-term growth of NVIDIA AI GPUs is "close to its peak," so continued growth may be weak... but NVIDIA is expecting its AI GPU shipments to increase 150% year-over-year. CEO Jensen Huang also said that the AI market could be worth $2 trillion over the next 5 years recently at the World Government Summit in Dubai.