Industry
Oculus CEO to Australians: Go Ahead and File a Complaint
By Steve Burke
Oculus Rift CEO Palmer Luckey took fire all throughout last week's CES, a show we covered extensively, thanks to his company's near-doubled Oculus Rift pricing over the initial $350 estimate. The company claims it's selling the Rift at “almost cost” with its $600 price-point, and has definitely tempered its financial hit with the inclusion of a free Xbox controller.
For Australians, the pricing is significantly worse. Residents of Australia are currently paying $130 just to ship the $600 Rift, which sees what appears to be a US tax add that raises price to $685; after this, Australians are paying an additional GST (Goods & Services Tax) of ~10%. The price exceeds 1000AUD thanks to the massive shipping charge, which is triggering additional consumer taxes for the import.
Valve's Official Response to Recent DDOS Attacks
By Keegan Gallick
The Steam store was shut down on Christmas day following a series of DDOS attacks. Valve released a statement and apology following the event, clarifying that 34,000 people have been affected and that the released information “did not include full credit card numbers, user passwords, or enough data to allow logging in as or completing a transaction as another user.” Further, those who did not input any personal information to Steam on Christmas will not have been affected by the caching error.
UPDATE: Cooler Master Responds to AMD Fury X Infringement Claims (Report)
By Steve Burke
On December 5, we broke news on Asetek's Cease & Desist order sent to AMD, pursuant to the sale of its liquid-cooled R9 Fury X video card. Asetek previously won a suit against Cooler Master USA for its closed-loop liquid cooler products (CLCs), to include the Seidon, Nepton, and Glacer (Swiftech-supplied) lines. The patents primarily discussed are 8,240,362 and 8,245,764.
By judge and jury, CMI USA (Cooler Master USA) was found guilty of patent infringement of the pump-on-coldplate design and ordered to pay 14.5% royalties. Inability to pay-out on its ruled dues ultimately saw a royalties percentage increase to 25.375%, followed by banishment of all affected Cooler Master CLCs from US markets.
This article fully details the relevant legal history of liquid cooling companies, including the rise of Asetek & CoolIT, their patent lawsuits against one another, the recent lawsuit against Cooler Master, and the C&D against AMD's R9 Fury X.
AMD Responds to Asetek C&D on R9 Fury X
By Steve Burke
Friday saw the publication of our report on Asetek’s newly-issued Cease & Desist orders, targeting AMD for its R9 Fury X and Gigabyte for its GTX 980 Waterforce. Asetek, a CLC OEM known best for its provision of Corsair and NZXT CLCs, alleges that the R9 Fury X infringes upon Asetek’s patent for its inclusion of a Cooler Master CLC. The patent, boiled down to its most basic elements, primarily governs Asetek’s ownership of the IP pertaining to pump-on-coldplate configurations.
Asetek Demands AMD Cease Sales of Fury X on Infringement Claims
By Steve Burke
Liquid cooler supplier Asetek revealed to GamersNexus that the cooling manufacturer has expanded its legal pursuit of products allegedly infringing upon patents. The company has now issued Cease & Desist orders to AMD over the sale of its liquid-cooled R9 Fury X. This news coincides with additional Asetek-dispatched C&Ds that AIB partner Gigabyte halt sales of its WaterForce video cards, a development we predicted would happen in a previous write-up.
JPR: NVidia Grows GPU Shipments 21% in 3Q15, AMD 16%
By Steve BurkeJon Peddie Research today released its independent GPU shipment analysis, its highlights including an averaged 9% growth in GPU shipping volume, despite a year-over-year desktop GPU shipment decline of 13%.
JPR has released these reports before. The research firm includes Intel's IGPs and AMD's APUs whenever mentioning “GPU shipments” or “GPU sales,” unless otherwise noted in their documentation. This fact is important to understand why some of the metrics appear the way they do.
Week's Hardware News: AMD Moves to 14nm, nVidia Booms, & CLCs
By Steve BurkeLast week, we decided to start running weekly news round-ups on Saturdays that are more video-centered, giving us some more time to continue working on heavier article content for the week. This also helps us continue creating high-quality video content, something we've done a lot of lately.
Steam's New 'Item Stores' Allow Developers to Create & Sell Digital Items
By Keegan GallickValve has just launched “item stores” on Steam that will allow developers to sell digital items for their games through the Steam platform. Rust is the first game to do so, launching its store with a plethora of cosmetic items ranging from $2.50 to $5.00 a pop.
Interestingly, this change means that developers can now set values for items and possibly compete with users selling items. Developers will also be able to sell user-made items in their stores with portions of the sale going toward the creator of the item, effectively a revenue share model as is possible through other marketplaces, like the Unreal Engine marketplace.
Ubisoft Sales Revenue Faces Sharp 60% Decline in 1H15, Looks Toward AC for Boon
By Patrick LathanUbisoft's sales revenue for the first half of 2015 has dropped 60% as compared to the first half of last year. Actual profits have not yet been reported. In its official report, Ubisoft does hasten to add that they still exceeded their sales target, and that the company intends to make the majority of its sales during 2H15 with the release of Assassin's Creed Syndicate, Rainbow Six Siege, Just Dance 2016, and Rayman Adventures.
Pillars of Eternity Exceeds 500,000 Worldwide Sales
By Keegan GallickOld-school styled cRPG Pillars of Eternity has now sold over 500,000 copies worldwide.
Pillars of Eternity was developed by Obsidian Entertainment, the company that brought us Fallout: New Vegas, South Park: The Stick of Truth, and, if your memory’s really good, Alpha Protocol. Obsidian was joined by publishers Paradox Interactive for this project, announcing their collaboration at last year’s GDC event.
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