Starfield: all aboard the sinking ship!
Look, we knew PlayStation was winning this console cold war from the moment God of War Ragnarök was as damn gorgeous and excellent as it was. It didn’t help when Microsoft began discounting the Series X across Europe and hunting down big-name acquisitions worth more than some countries’ GDPs. But if the reports of Xbox losing hold of the few exclusives it has are true, we’ve got front-row seats to its obliteration.
When we heard the news of Hi-Fi Rush’s possible departure to the Nintendo Switch of all places, we thought nothing of it. A somewhat reputable title getting some more love than it initially deserved? Fine by us. But Starfield and Sea of Thieves (and possibly even Indiana Jones) breaking away from the Xbox? Even we didn’t think things were that rough over there.
According to XboxEra’s unnamed Microsoft sources, the company intends to bring Starfield to the PS5 sometime after the game’s Shattered Space DLC lands sometime in 2024. That’s next to all the other rumours of a potential Sea of Thieves PS5 port. The same sources noted that Xbox had made additional investments into PS5 devkits, so interpret that how you will.
Microsoft has apparently weighed the decision internally for some time, with most rejecting the idea. Money talks, though, and the idea that the company had left some “on the table” was enough to convince Xbox to make the massive change. We won’t have to wait much longer for official confirmation either, with Hi-Fi Rush’s announcement for the Switch taking place later this month.
Bard could be called Gemini real soon
Google’s Bard is undergoing some changes. No, it’s still twelve years or so from sprouting hair in weird places, but when it does, it’ll be serving under a new name. According to an early changelog, Google could be rebranding Bard to “Gemini” — named after the large language model (LLM) that supplies all of its smarts. And it could be happening sooner than we thought — before Bard gets too comfy in the zeitgeist.
“Bard is now Gemini” was the headline of the new changelog, spotted by Dylan Roussel over on X.com — and a couple of other changes — all of which point to a 7 February change-up.
“We’re committed to giving everyone direct access to Google AI and, as of this week, every Gemini user across our supported countries and languages has access to Google’s best family of AI models. To better reflect this commitment, we’ve renamed Bard to Gemini.”
The changelog paved the path for something called ‘Gemini Advanced’, also scheduled for a 7 February rollout. It appears to be a paid-for plan that’ll trump the free Gemini’s abilities — such as improved coding support, “expanded multi-modal capabilities,” and a deeper analysis of uploaded files. You know, in exchange for money.
Pricing hasn’t been mentioned as of yet, though the changelog notes that it’ll be available in over 150 countries at the time of launch.
You might not need R1,500 to try Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
Xbox may be aboard a sinking ship, but PlayStation is flying high. Not like that — Sony is very much alive and kicking — evidenced by the confidence surrounding one of its larger titles of the year: Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. Not only is it awarding the game its 40-minute State of Play on Wednesday morning (8 February 01:30 SAST), but there’s a good chance it’ll bring a demo with it, too.
That’s coming from the PlayStation Game Size X.com account, which has reportedly learned of the demo’s existence, and that it would be launching alongside or directly after the State of Play. He also said that the demo would give those who play it before the game’s 29 February release date access to in-game items for free.
The account and tweet don’t offer much in the way of reputable sources, but considering Square Enix’s history of game demos and the hype swirling around Rebirth, a demo feels like the most logical conclusion. Especially when the game you’re trying to shill costs R1,500 a pop.
Dell’s on the lookout for South Africa’s next big tech innovators
Do you have an oddly specific talent that confers the ability to build small-scale, high-performance computing clusters? You’re in luck. Dell Technologies and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) have teamed up to launch a Student Cluster Competition that’ll pit university students against each other to do exactly that.
More specifically, the competition will see ten teams comprised of undergraduate students currently enrolled in STEM fields come together in teams of four (plus a mentor) to build “small-scale (3 – 4 compute nodes) high-performance computing clusters with hardware sponsored by Dell and supported by various NICIS partners.”
It’ll need to be functional — obviously — before the teams attempt to run several application benchmarks to determine the real winner. At this point, the team with the best-performing cluster will be awarded the opportunity to further enhance their studies at the Texas Advanced Computing Centre at the University of Texas, and at Dell Labs in Austin, Texas. The accompanying trip to Hamburg to participate in the International Super Computing Student Cluster Competition doesn’t seem all too bad, either.
There’s no word on where and how to sign up for the competition, though we’d recommend keeping an eye on the scc.chpc.ac.za website, which has information about the current winners of the competition, pictured above. Or you could try speaking directly with your university’s STEM-based members of faculty for more information.